The Adventures Of Indiana Jones (18 page)

Abruptly, there was a roaring noise in the sky, and from their position behind the abandoned dig, Marion and Indy saw a Flying Wing make an approach to land.

Gobler was shouting at the mechanic: “Get it gassed up at once! It has to be ready to fly out immediately with an important cargo!”

The Flying Wing came down, bouncing along the strip.

“They’re going to put the Ark on that plane,” Indy said.

“So what do we do then? Wave good-bye?”

“No. When the Ark gets loaded, we’ll already be on the plane.”

She looked at him quizzically. “Another of your schemes?”

“We’ve come this far—let’s keep going.” They moved, scurrying to a place just behind the supply tent. The mechanic was already putting blocks in front of the tires of the Flying Wing. The German attached the fuel hose to the plane. The propellers were spinning, the engine still roaring in a deafening way.

They moved even closer to the strip now, neither of them seeing another German mechanic, a fair-haired young man with tattooed arms, come up behind them. He crept toward them with the wrench upraised, his target the base of Indy’s skull. It was Marion who saw his shadow first, saw it fall in a blur in front of her; she shouted. Indy turned as the wrench started to drop. He sprang to his feet, grabbed the swinging arm and wrestled the man to the ground while Marion skipped away behind some crates, watching, wondering what she could do to help.

Indy and the man rolled out across the strip. The first mechanic moved away from the plane, stood over the two wrestling figures and waited for the chance to launch a kick at Indy—but then Indy was up, agile, turning on the first man and knocking him down with a two-fisted shot. But the man with the tattooed arms was still eager to fight, and they struggled together again, rolling toward the rear of the plane, where the reverse propellers were spinning in a crazy way.

You could be mincemeat any second now, Indy thought.

He could feel the vicious blades carve the air around him as daggers through butter.

He tried to push the young guy back from the props, but the kid was strong. Grunting, Indy caught the kid by the throat and pressed hard, but the German swung away and came back again with a renewed vitality. Marion, watching from the crates, saw the pilot climb out of his cockpit and take a Luger from his tunic, leveling it, looking for a clear shot at Indy. She rushed across the strip, heaved one of the tire blocks from under the wheels and struck the pilot on the side of the skull with it, and he went down, dropping back into the cockpit, settling on the throttle so that the engine revved even harder.

The plane began to roll, rotating as if frustrated around its only set of tires that were still blocked. Marion reached for the edge of the cockpit to keep from slipping into the props, then she bent inside and tried to push the unconscious pilot away from the throttle.

Nothing. He was too heavy. The plane was threatening to go out of control and tilt, probably squashing Indy, or cutting him to thin ribbons into the bargain. The things I do for you, Indy, she thought. And she stepped into the cockpit, striking the plexiglass shield, causing it to slide shut above her. Still the plane was swinging, the wing moving dangerously over the place where Indy was fighting with the German. Panicked, she saw him knock the man down, and then he was up once more only for Indy to punch him backward . . .

Into the propeller.

Marion shut her eyes. But not before she saw the blades carve through the young German, sending up a spray of blood. And still the plane was rolling. She opened her eyes, tried to get out of the cockpit, realized she was stuck. She hammered on the lid, but nothing happened.
First a basket, now a cockpit,
she thought.
Where does it end?

Indy raced toward the plane, watching it tilt, shocked to see Marion hammering against the inside of the cockpit. Now the wing, breaking, tilting, sliced into the fuel truck, breaking it open with the final authority of a surgeon’s knife, spilling fuel across the strip like blood from an anesthetized patient. Indy began to run, skidding over the gasoline. He struggled for balance, slipped, got up and began to run again. He leaped up onto the wing and clambered toward the cockpit.

“Get out! This whole thing’s going to blow!” he shouted at her.

He reached for the clasp that would open the cockpit from the outside. He forced it, struggled with it, assailed by the strong smell of fuel flowing from the truck.

Trapped, Marion watched him imploringly.

The wooden crate, surrounded by three armed German soldiers, stood outside the entrance to Dietrich’s tent. Inside, in a flurry of activity, papers were being packed, maps folded, radio sets dismantled. Belloq, standing inside the tent, watched the preparation for departure in an absent-minded fashion. His mind was concerned entirely with what lay inside the crate, the very thing he could hardly wait to examine. It was hard to restrain his impatience, to keep himself in check. He was remembering now the ritual preparations that had to be observed when opening the Ark. It was strange how, through the years, he had been making himself ready for this time—and strange, too, to realize how familiar he had become with the incantations. The Nazis wouldn’t like it, of course—but they could do what they wanted with the Ark after he’d finished with it. They could pack it off and store it in some godawful museum for all he cared.

Hebraic incantations: they wouldn’t like that at all. And the thought caused him some amusement. But the amusement didn’t last long because the contents of the crate once more drew his attention. If everything he had ever learned about the Ark was true, if all the old stories concerning its power were correct, he would be the first man to make direct communication with that which had its source in a place—an infinite place—beyond human understanding.

He stepped out of the tent.

In the distance, flaring like a column of fire that might have been directed from heaven, there was a vast explosion.

He realized it was coming from the airstrip.

He began to run, driven with anxiety, toward the strip.

Dietrich came up behind him, followed by Gobler, who’d been at the strip only several minutes ago.

The fuel trucks had exploded and the airplane was a fiery wreck.

“Sabotage,” Dietrich said. “But who?”

“Jones,” Belloq said.

“Jones?” Dietrich looked bewildered.

“The man has more lives than the proverbial cat,” Belloq said. “But a time must come when he has used them all up, no?”

They watched the flames in silence.

“We must get the Ark away from here at once,” Belloq said. “We must put it on a truck and go to Cairo. We can fly from there.”

Belloq stared a moment longer at the carnage, wondering at Indiana Jones’s sense of purpose, his lavish gift of survival. One had to admire the man’s tenacious hold on life. And one had to beware of the cunning, the fortitude, that lay behind it. It was always possible, Belloq thought, to underestimate the opposition. And perhaps all along he had underestimated Indiana Jones.

“We must have plenty of protection, Dietrich.”

“Of course. I’ll arrange it.”

Belloq turned. The flight from Cairo was a lie, of course—he had already radioed instructions ahead to the island, without Dietrich’s knowledge. It was a bridge he would cross when he reached it.

The only thing of any consequence now was that he should open the Ark before it was sent to Berlin.

There was wild confusion among the tents now. German soldiers had run to the airstrip and, in disarray, were returning. Another group of armed men, their faces darkened from the smoke of the ruin, had begun to load a canvas-covered truck with the Ark: Dietrich supervised them, shouting orders, his voice raised to a nervous pitch. He would be relieved and happy when this wretched crate was finally safe in Berlin, but meantime he didn’t trust Belloq—he’d noticed some fierce light of purpose, a devious propose, in the Frenchman’s eyes. And behind this purpose something that looked manic, distant, as if the archaeologist had gone deeper into communing with himself. It was a look of madness, he thought, somewhat alarmed to realize he’d seen a similar look on the Führer’s face when he’d been in Bavaria with Belloq. Maybe they were alike, this Frenchman and Adolf Hitler. Maybe their strength, as well as their madness, was what separated them from ordinary men. Dietrich could only guess. He stared at the crate going inside the truck now and he wondered about Jones—but Jones had to be dead, he had to be entombed in that dreadful chamber, surely. Even so, the Frenchman seemed convinced that the American had been behind the sabotage. Maybe this animosity, this rivalry, that existed between those two was yet another aspect of Belloq’s lunacy.

Maybe.

There was no time to ruminate on the Frenchman’s state of mind now. There was the Ark and the road to Cairo and the dread prospect of further sabotage along the way. Sweating, hating this dreary desert, this heat, he shouted once more at the men loading the truck—feeling somewhat sorry for them. Like himself, they were a long way from the Fatherland.

Marion and Indy had found their way behind some barrels, watching the Arabs run back and forth in confusion, watching the Germans load the truck. Their faces were blackened from the convulsions of the explosion and Marion, visibly pale even beneath the soot, had an appearance of extreme fatigue.

“You took your damn time,” she complained.

“I got you out, didn’t I?”

“At the last possible moment,” she said. “How come you always leave things till then?”

He glanced at her, rubbed his fingertips in her face, stared at the soot imbedded in the whorls of his fingerprints, then he turned back to peer at the truck. “They’re taking the Ark somewhere—which is what I’m more interested in right now.”

A bunch of Arabs were running past now. Among them, to his pleasure and surprise, Indy saw Sallah. He stuck out his foot, tripping the Egyptian, who tumbled over and got up again with a look of delight on his face.

“Indy! Marion! I thought I’d lost you.”

“Likewise,” Indy said. “What happened?”

“They barely pay the Arabs any attention, my friend. They assume we are fools, ignorant fools—besides, they can hardly tell one of us from the other. I slipped away and they weren’t paying close attention in any case.”

He slid behind the barrels, breathing hard.

“I assume you caused the explosion?”

“You got it.”

“You don’t know they are now planning to take the Ark in the truck to Cairo?”

“Cairo?”

“Presumably Berlin afterward.”

“I doubt Berlin,” Indy said. “I can’t imagine Belloq allowing the Ark to reach Germany before he’s dabbled with it.”

An open staff car drew up alongside the truck. Belloq and Dietrich got inside with a driver and an armed guard. There was the sound of feet scuffling across the sand; ten or so armed soldiers climbed up into the rear of the truck with the Ark.

“It’s hopeless,” Marion said.

Indy didn’t answer. Watch, he told himself. Watch and concentrate.
Think.
Now there was a second staff car, top open, with a machine-gun mounted in the back; a gunner sat restlessly behind it. In the front of this car Gobler was positioned behind the wheel. Alongside Gobler was Arnold Toht.

Marion drew her breath in sharply when she saw Toht. “He’s a monster.”

“They are all monsters,” Sallah said.

“Monsters or not,” she answered, “it looks more and more hopeless by the moment.”

Machine gun, armed soldiers, Indy thought. Maybe something was possible. Maybe he didn’t have to accept hopelessness as the only answer. He watched this convoy begin to pull out, swaying over the sands.

“I’m going to follow them,” he said.

“How?” Marion asked. “You can run that fast?”

“I have a better idea.” Indy got up. “You two get back to Cairo as fast as you can and arrange some kind of transportation to England—anything, a ship, a plane, I don’t care.”

“Why England?” Marion said.

“There are no language barriers and no Nazis,” Indy said. He looked at Sallah. “Where can we meet in Cairo?”

Sallah looked thoughtful for a moment. “There is Omar’s garage, where he keeps his truck. Do you know the Square of Snakes?”

“Gruesome,” Indy said. “But I couldn’t forget
that
address, could I?”

“In the Old City,” Sallah said.

“I’ll be there.”

Marion stood up. “How do I know you’ll get there in one piece?”

“Trust me.”

He kissed her as she caught his arm. She said, “I wonder if a time will come when you’ll stop leaving me?”

He skipped away, weaving between the barrels.

“We can use my truck,” Sallah said to Marion after he’d gone. “Slow but safe.”

Marion stared into space. What was it about Indy that so affected her, anyhow? He wasn’t exactly a tender lover, if he could be called a lover of any kind. And he leaped in and out of her life in the manner of a jumping-bean. So what the devil was it? Some mysteries you just can’t get to the bottom of, she thought. Some you don’t even want to.

Indy had seen the stallions tethered to poles in a place between the abandoned airstrip and the excavations: two of them, a white Arabian and a black one, shaded from the sun by a strip of green canvas. Now, having left Marion and Sallah, he ran toward the stallions, hoping they’d still be there. They were. My lucky day, he thought.

He approached them cautiously. He hadn’t ridden for years and he wondered if it was true that horseback riding, like bicycle riding, was something you never forgot once you’d learned it. He hoped so. The black stallion, snorting, pounding the sand with its hooves, reared up as he came near; the white horse, on the other hand, regarded him in a docile way. He heaved himself up on its white back, tugged at its mane, and felt it buck mildly, then move in the direction of his tugging. Go, he thought, and he rode the animal out of the canvas shelter, digging its sides with his heels. He galloped the animal, forcing it across the dunes, down gulleys, over ridges. It moved beautifully, responding to his gestures without complaint. He had to cut the convoy off somewhere along the mountainous roads between here and Cairo. After that—what the hell?