The Twisted Cross (24 page)

"We think you're that guy, Frankel."

Frankel was astounded. "Me, sir?" he asked, unconsciously pointing at his own chest for emphasis. "But why me?"

The High Commander allowed himself a legitimate laugh. "Well, because Frankel, I just keep hearing so many damn good things about you, that's why. We liked very much how you handled that duty out on the entrance island. 'Operation Choose It or Lose It' is how we used to describe it back here. But you didn't screw up once, Colonel and that's not something that goes unnoticed around here.

"And let me tell you right now, that gold panning thing was just a smokescreen. We just wanted to get you back over here on the mainland. Close by while the others and I were tossing ideas around. It's an important assignment, Frankel, there's no reason to downplay that. But if you come through and really knock 'em dead, well, I can guarantee, you'll be up to major general in a snap."

Stunned, Frankel wondered if he had it in him to speak more than two sentences at once.

"But why me, sir?" he finally managed to say again. "There must be a thousand other men here who could do the job better than I. Men who are schooled in politics, or debating or foreign affairs. I am not an expert in any of those things."

The High Commander chuckled once again. "Now, Colonel," he said, following in a sing-song voice: "Don't you think that we know that?"

Frankel could only nod.

"Well, of course we do," the Commander went on. "But you see, we want you Frankel, because, well, I don't know any other way of saying it other than you looked so damn/ good, Colonel. You look Aryan, man. Your face could go on a poster. We need someone who looks good, Frankel. Someone who can communicate to those United Americans that we mean business. And I mean Business with a capital 'B' . . . Do you think you can handle it, old boy?"

"I ... I will do whatever you ask," Frankel told him, his voice still a bit shaky.

"Now that's what I really want to hear," the High Commander said with a loud clap of his hands. "Let's drink to it."

He moved over to his substantial liquor supply and poured out two banana brandies. "A toast!" he said. "To our Cause and your mission."

"Will I be briefed, sir?" Frankel asked, holding the drink numbly in hand.

"Given information I can study up on?"

"By the best we have," the High Commander said, giving him a friendly jab to the shoulder. "Now drink up, Colonel. Tomorrow we'll have lunch with some of my people and bounce around something solid . . ."

With that, the High Commander took a long swig of his banana brandy. "Ahh," he said, smacking his lips in delight. "I just can't get enough of this stuff . .

."

"Well, aren't you going to rape me, Colonel?" the woman asked him defiantly.

"Or do you have to get drunk first before you can be with a female?"

"Silence!" Krupp screamed at her. "Or you will be shot in a minute . . ."

"I would prefer that to being here with you one more moment!" she snarled at him.

They were sitting in the entrance way to the fabulous chamber of gold, their two dimming lanterns casting grotesque shadows on the walls and on the rows of gold.

His men had been gone for hours and Krupp had spent much of that time berating himself for giving them such inane orders. He had made several huge mistakes: First of all, he had been blind to the fact that they had been in the tunnels for so long, it was now night outside. This would mean that, assuming the seven troopers found their way out all right, it would take them twice as long to rouse the others, then lead them on the trip back in.

Secondly, he knew it would probably be more than seven hours before anyone reached them again, and he wasn't certain that he could fight off sleep that long. And third, the biggest mistake of all, he had no gun -no weapon with which to hold the woman.

"How long have you been using whips, Colonel?" she asked him in an overtly mocking tone. "Did your mother

use them on you?"

'"Silence!" Krupp screamed so loudly his voice echoed around the cavern for a full ten seconds. "Or I swear I'll execute you right here and now . . ."

"And how would you do that?" she asked with a slightly deranged bravado. "Slap me to death? Beat me up? Do you really like those kinds of things, Colonel Krupp?"

He reached over and grabbed her by the hair. "I'll wring your Goddamn neck,"

he hissed.

"Ha!" she laughed and cried out at the same time. "It takes a man to commit cold-blooded murder, Colonel. You haven't got it in you ..."

He shook her head violently once again. "You must be insane," he said to her.

"How dare you act so defiant?"

Again, she laughed hysterically. "What have I got to lose?" she screamed at him. "Do you really think your goons found their way out of here? As tired as they were, carrying those pieces of gold? How heavy do you think they feel to them now? Maybe one hundred pounds. A hundred and fifty?"

Krupp reached over and slapped her hard across her face. Her months in confinement had obviously altered her mental capacities. "Don't provoke me!"

he screamed, sounding a bit deranged himself. "I'll kill you, I swear . . ."

She spit right in his face. "Go to hell, you fucking Nazi," she snapped.

"You're gutless ..."

Krupp put his hands to his ears and tried to block out her words. Why was she doing this to him? How dare she? He was in command here, but at the same time, he felt something in his mind slipping away. It was her fault -she was hitting every panic button he owned at point blank range.

At that moment, his lantern blinked out.

It was mistake number four. The batteries on his light were now gone.

"Give me your light," he demanded of the woman, grabbing for the lantern that was slung around her shoulder. She had periodically shut it off during the trip into the caves, and therefore, its batteries were fresher.

"No . . ." she said, pulling the lantern away from him.

He reached out and grabbed her hair again and started yanking on it. But in retaliation, the woman threw the lantern against the cavern wall, smashing its bulb and lens.

Suddenly they were plunged into an absolutely terrifying darkness.

"Now Colonel," she said, openly mocking him. "Let's see how brave you are in the dark . . ."

Hunter woke up in the middle of the night with one girl lying across his chest, another nestled under his left arm.

It took him just an instant to remember where he was and who his bunk guests were.

He was in the mission's guest house and the two women were members of the flock. The day before he had gotten a brief glimpse of a couple dozen scantily-clad women emerging from the Fighting Brothers' concrete shelter. At the time there had been no introduction, no explanation as to why 24 bathing beauties would be part of the Brothers' milieu. But after returning from the Coba site and the lightning quick battle with the Skinheads, these oversights were corrected.

The women, actually a company of "entertainers," had fled the island of Cozumel, which was just a stone's throw offshore from Cancun. Just why they were on the resort island in the first place was never really explained to Hunter, but the drift he got was that the women represented a personal harem for a crackpot who had set up his own little kingdom on Cozumel.

In any case, it had all happened about a year before and The Brothers kindly took in the women, on humanitarian grounds, of course. The act of kindness turned out to be an odd arrangement. While the Brothers took no vow of celibacy from the Order, most practiced it anyway. Of the 55 monks, only ten had wives (which explained the fifteen or so children that Hunter saw running around the compound). The others had decided to give up sex for religion before journeying to the wild lands of northeast Yucatan, but the appearance of the

"entertainers" had gradually changed that decision for some. At last count, fourteen of the Brothers had matched up with one of the women and several more romances were reportedly in the works.

That still left a few unattached women and Hunter had met these two-Janine and Lori, he thought their names were -at a rousing banquet the Brothers had thrown together the night before. Hunter hadn't seen a feast quite like it in many a moon. The Brothers bottled their own wine and tasting it was the commodore's daily chore. It was powerful stuff-a half dozen glasses full and Hunter was into the spins.

At some point Brother Paul introduced him to the two women and the rest was history . . .

He reached over and gently moved Janine off his chest. Then he pulled Lori closer to him and began stroking her fine blond hair.

"Are you awake?" Lori asked him.

"Only if you are," he replied.

She laughed and let her hands wander all over his body.

"So you're really this Wingman guy?" she asked.

"I'm beginning to wonder myself," he said. "For some reason people just don't want to believe it these days."

"The world is a crazy place," she sighed. "Lot of people just don't know what to believe anymore."

She snuggled even closer to him, allowing him to place his hand on her well-formed breast. "But I have to admit" she continued, "that in spite of everything, it can be very peaceful here with the Brothers. When those Chicos aren't running around like mad dogs, this place can be like paradise. I never thought I could find such serenity. I mean, I would never consider going back to the States now, or what used to be the States, I should say. I don't know how you can live up there. From what I hear, it's like cowboys and Indians everywhere, night and day. Is that true?"

"That's close," he answered. "But maybe some day it won't be as bad. If the government were able to get a handle on

things, would you go back then?"

She thought it over for a moment, then answered: "I'm not sure. It's my country and everything, but nothing was ever the same after the New Order went down."

He pulled her very close to him. "Well some day, things will be better," he told her, a bit wistfully. "That is, if some day ever comes . . ."

Janine had woken up by this time. She adjusted her pillow and gave him a long series of kisses down his neck to his chest.

"Do you always manage to get two girls in bed with you at once?" Janine asked in her sweet, smart-ass style.

"No, not always," he answered. "I'm just lucky that way, I guess."

"Lucky, is it?" she said. "Well, let me ask you something else Mr. Bigshot Wingman: If you're this super flyboy hero we keep on hearing about, how come you don't have a steady girlfriend?"

Hunter felt as if he'd just been hit with two barrels of buckshot in the ass.

"That's a good question," he answered cheerlessly.

It was so dark, Krupp didn't know if he was asleep or not.

His uniform was soaked through with moisture and the small mites crawling in his hair seemed real enough. Yet he couldn't feel his one hand with the other.

He couldn't hear himself breathing and nor did he have any sensation of a heart beating in his chest.

"Maybe I'm dead," he thought.

He had no idea where the woman was. For all he knew, she had slipped away three hours ago when the lights went out. Since then he had gone through two fits of claustrophobia and at least a half dozen panic attacks. Since then, a strange white foam has been forming in his mouth and in his nostrils.

He had tried to count the seconds, thinking that if he kept it up, he could better judge when his troopers would return. But he gave up this futile, desperate exercise after realizing that even if he counted all the way up to 20,000, the earliest the relief party would arrive would still be four hours

-or 14,400 seconds - away.

"Colonel Krupp?"

He froze. Had he really heard someone call out his name?

"Colonel? Answer me . . ."

It wasn't the girl's voice -it was that of a man, and it was vaguely familiar.

"There's no sense in not answering, Colonel. I know you are out there, somewhere . . ."

Krupp was absolutely paralyzed. The voice was so strange, so unearthly. He knew it didn't belong to anyone in a relief party.

Nor was it coming from any specific direction. At first it sounded as if it was in front of him. Then behind him. Then off to one side, then to the other.

"Colonel, it is time that you face the facts . . ."

Once again, Krupp put his hands to his ears in an attempt to block out what he didn't want to hear. But, if anything, the voice was louder.

"Colonel, you are just denying the inevitable ..."

"Why is this happening?" Krupp cried softly. "Why me?"

He looked up and saw a faint glow no more than two feet from him. As he watched in terror, it grew closer and solidif fied into a man's features.

"Recognize me now, Colonel?"

Krupp stared in absolute horror and disbelief. He felt his stomach do a flip, a gut full of vomit traveling two thirds of the way up his esophagus before he was able to force it back down again. His eyes suddenly watered up in fear.

"Remember me, Colonel?"

At that instant, Krupp knew he had gone insane. The face before him was that of Heinke, the man who had walked into the woods at Chichen Itza and never came back . . .

"Having problems, Colonel?" another voice asked.

Krupp shook himself awake. He stared straight ahead and saw another face glowing in the dark.

"Sorry, I can't help . . ." the woman said, shining a barely-burning lantern up to her face.

Krupp looked at his hands in the faint glow of the dim lamp. They were sticky and streaked with blood. He put a finger up to his eyes and this came down covered with more, fresher blood. The strange white foam was all over his chin.

"How?" he asked the woman weakly.

"The light, you mean?" she asked. "Well, Colonel, your problem is you panic too quickly. This is your light, and sure, the batteries wore down. But after letting them rest for a few hours, they come back a little. See?"

She waved the lantern around the gold-filled room like a child with a sparkler.