The Twisted Cross (28 page)

There is more gold there, can't you understand that, General?"

Udet thought of slapping the man across the face with the back of his leather glove. But even a criminal mind like the general's was able to feel pity -and slapping Krupp would have been nothing less than pathetic.

"Colonel," Udet began, his tone as hard as rock. "It's enough that the High Commander requested that I come out to this hellhole, I have neither the time nor the patience to listen to you. The recovery mission is hereby suspended.

You will be flown to Panama City and report to our hospital there. And that is the end of this discussion."

Krupp wiped another bit of foam from his mouth, and dried his eyes on the sleeve of his uniform jacket. He was hearing voices again: You must go on. The only reasonable thing to do is to continue the mission. You alone know that it's the only avenue that makes sense. Continue the mission. It must go on . .

.

"It must go on!" Krupp screamed at Udet.

The general was so surprised at the rising tone of Krupp's voice, he was speechless. For a moment, he considered calling to the guard. But by the look on Krupp's face, calling for the unit doctor would have made more sense.

"I'm the only one who knows, don't you see?" Krupp said, his voice cracking under the strain. He was crying now. "I alone know that continuing the mission is the only avenue that makes sense. You are a fool to deny that to me, General."

Udet never saw the knife until it had been plunged into his neck. He felt his whole left side go numb. He opened his mouth and tried to scream, but the knife had severed a vocal chord. He felt Krupp pull the blade from his throat and

plunge it back into him, just above his clavicle. Then he was stabbed again below the rib cage, and in his last dying moments, he saw the contents of his stomach spill out on to the floor of the command truck.

"My commander," he whispered, his dying words saved for a man he had never really met. "For you and for our Cause . . ."

Udet closed his eyes and felt his soul start the long plunge down.

The 737 airliner, the largest airplane belonging to The Twisted Cross, entered United American airspace over Louisiana at 0700 hours, barely eight hours after Jones had sent his acceptance to the Nazis' offer of "mutual discussions."

Three hours and twenty minutes later, the all-black aircraft and its five-plane F-4 Phantom escort, were circling the > former National Airport just outside Washington, DC. The airport had been cleared of all unnecessary personnel, and a cordon made up of three reserve battalions of United American soldiers was thrown up around the airfield. The roads leading to the meeting place -the old National Press Club Building in downtown DC -were also blocked off and guarded at every intersection.

Jones had asked Major Frost to meet The Twisted Cross delegation at the airport. No handshakes were exchanged as the Free Canadian Air Force officer introduced himself to Colonel Frankel at the bottom of the airliner's access stairs and led him to a waiting limousine. The rest of Frankel's entourage, including the ten F-4 crewmembers who doubled as his bodyguards, were relegated to a battered Greyhound bus.

There was no one to meet the Cross delegation at the entrance to the Press Club Building; Frost served as guide as the Nazis were stuffed onto elevators and brought up to the top floor meeting room, a space once reserved as the Press Club's well-used bar.

Frankel entered the room first and saw that a long rectan-gular table had been set up, seven chairs on each side. Sitting in the center chair on the opposite side of the table from him was the small, tough-looking man of 60 that Frankel knew was General David Jones, commander in chief of the United American Army. Six other officers, of various uniforms and rank, flanked the general. No one stood up.

The Nazi walked to his seat and reached across the table to shake hands with Jones. But this too was met only with icy stares.

and of The Twisted Cross have met for a second time, and at the end of the two-hour session, both sides expressed optimism in reaching a peaceful solution to the crisis here in Panama.

"As you know, we've been keeping you informed on these very important negotiations by the hour and we will continue to do so ... And now, here's some more Carlos Santana."

O'Gregg hit the turntable control button and the first strains of Spanish-tinged electric guitar filled the small PDC radio studio. He lowered the in-studio volume and poured he and his partner another coffee.

"There you go, boys," Masoni said. "Mission accomplished. By the way, we've got to stay on the Java until we get off the air, but you guys can lift a beer before you go."

Tyler and Baxter looked at each other and shrugged. "Better not," Tyler said.

"We've still got some night flying to do."

Masoni laughed and reached into his cooler. "Well, here," he said, retrieving two cold ones. "Take a couple for the road."

Elizabeth had helped Krupp hide the body.

They tried putting it into a steamer trunk first, but it was already stiffening and refused to fit. Instead they squeezed it into the command truck's Lilliputian lavatory. She left cleaning up the body's leftover mess to Krupp.

Now that this gory detail was attended to, they sat at the truck's small table and their strange plotting session continued once again.

"This is actually a wonderful Tcoincidence," Elizabeth told him. "It eliminates one big problem for us."

Krupp ran his fingers through his hair. "Udet just didn't understand," he said, looking back toward the' now sealed-up bathroom.

"Of course, he didn't," she said. "Now, let us talk it over again. How will we get a helicopter? How will we get someone to fly it?"

"That is not a problem," Krupp said, still not quite believing that they were having this conversation. "You see, by orders of the High Command, at least one helicopter at the recovery site must be ready to take off at a moment's notice."

"But why is that?" she asked, legitimately curious.

Krupp smiled. "It's really ingenious," he said. "We call it the blitz copter, as in lightning quick. It's always ready to go in case we are attacked or whatever. You see, anytime we recovered gold from any site, we immediately loaded it on to a designated chopper. That way, if something went wrong, the gold we recovered would get out safely."

"And that helicopter is ready? Right now?" she asked.

"Yes," he said. "No one has rescinded that order."

She smiled. That was good news.

"And the pilot?" she asked. "Will he be willing?"

Krupp started to answer, then literally bit his lip. Suddenly the expression on his face changed. "I must ask^oa for something," he said.

"Yes?"

"Before . . ." he said meekly. "Before Udet came here, you had ... I mean, your shirt was . . ."

She immediately knew what he was getting at.

"You mean, my shirt was open?" she asked.

He nodded energetically, wiping quickly-formed beads of sweat from his brow.

"Yes ..." he said. "Yes, it was . . ."

"And you want me to open it again?" she asked, feigning innocence.

"Yes, I ... I would like that very much," he answered, another nasty stream of foam appearing in one corner of his mouth.

She laughed a little, then slowly undid her buttons again, watching his spasmatic reaction as each one came undone.

"There," she said when she had finished. "How's that?"

"It's just fine," he said. "Maybe open just a bit more."

She shook her head at him as if she was addressing a misbehaved schoolboy.

"Just a little," she said, flopping the shirt tails slightly, exposing the majority of her lovely bosom.

He was using a white cloth to dab his sweat at this point. Elizabeth imagined that she could see a war going on inside his subconscious. So many confusing signals were being sent to his brain, he looked like he was about to blow a circuit.

"All right," she said. "We must move on. The pilot of the helicopter. Will he be willing?"

Krupp wiped his mouth. "If he's not, I'll simply hold a gun to his head." He pulled up Udet's pistol and showed it to her for emphasis.

"Very good," she said. "And how about fuel? Do we have enough to get where we are going?"

"That may be a slight problem," he said. "I know the chopper is supplied with extra fuel tanks. Just how far they will

carry us, I'm not sure . . ."

"Beyond Panama?" she asked, pulling back her shirt a little more, and re-exposing one of her soft, pink nipples.

"Not quite," he said. "But I don't see it as being a problem. There are many places to buy fuel between here and the Canal and certainly south of it. Our pilots do it all the time."

Once again she nodded her head approvingly. And now for the final question:

"And the ingots recovered already? They will come with us?"

Krupp nodded gleefully. "Except for the two we will get from your truck, the five others have already been loaded onto the blitz copter. Orders, you see

..." f.

"Well, isn't that fine?" she said. "It seems like we have everything covered?

Are you ready?"

"Oh, yes, I am," he said. "More ready than I've ever been in my life."

They both stood up, she glancing out the window to see that the sun was about to rise. Her timing had been perfect.

She purposely backed up against the door and not without flair, opened her shirt wide.

"Come here," she said.

He nearly stumbled as he moved up close to her. She took his hands and placed them on her breasts. His breathing became so labored, she thought he might hyperventilate.

"Kiss them . . ." she whispered in his ear. "Kiss them hard and tell me how much you want to go through with our plans."

He put his mouth to her right breast and began slurping over her nipple.

"That's right," she cooed in a low voice, reaching between his legs to find the area still soft. "That's right, keep doing it just like that . . ."

Hunter sat at -the head of the long table and fingered the finely-woven linen tablecloth.

"What the hell is this all about?" he asked, turning in his seat to look up at the giant Grand Pyramid at Chichen Itza. "A banquet set up, way out here?"

The commodore slid into the chair to his right. "It is like a Fellini movie, is it not?" he asked excitedly. "The clash of sensibilities. Of styles!

There's a surrealistic touch in it all."

"Well, those Nazis sure eat damn well out in the field," Hunter said, shaking his head as he surveyed the still-set, yet dusty table.

"It's been exposed to the elements for awhile," Brother David said, sweeping a quarter inch of dust from the top of the table. "See? It's been rained on and dried out a few times."

As usual, the Nazis had left a half ton of litter behind after evacuating the ruins. They had also left scarring holes in the sides of the precious Mayan architecture, spilled oil everywhere and had generally desecrated the ancient site. And they had left behind this table, set at one time for a king's evening meal, as one last bizarre symbol of their short, but destructive visit.

"Still, I think not long ago, they were here," the commodore said. "I can still smell them."

"A week," Brother David said, surveying the length of the table. "Two at the very most. For some reason, they decided to leave this behind."

"There's a big difference between one week ago and two," Hunter said. "If only we could find out for sure."

He stood and walked slowly through the site. It was much bigger than Coba and much more elaborate. He could feel an electricity in the place, a strange ethereal sensation. What did go on here, not just two weeks ago, but two thousand years ago. Where did the Mayans go?

He walked past the last unexcavated structure and was soon on the banks of the ancient, but still flowing Casa Casa canal, where the Kingfisher was docked.

He retrieved his video camera and turned to go back and take some footage of the site. /

But before he could take one step, he was surprised to see the commodore running at full throttle toward him, Brother David right at his heels.

"Start the plane!" the commodore was yelling. "Start the damn plane!"

It took only an instant to see what his two comrades were running from. Close behind them was a hundred, no two hundred, extremely angry people.

Hunter was in the plane's cockpit inside of three seconds, punching the starter button with one hand, the engine's throttle choke with the other. The propeller suddenly sprang to life, sending a jolt of vibration up and down the fuselage.

By this time, the commodore and Brother David had reached the shoreline, the crowd of angry people not more than 25 feet behind.

"Jump on the wingfloat!" Hunter yelled, even then backing away from the shore.

Both Brother David and the commodore took one giant leap and landed squarely on the left wing's float. Once Hunter was certain they were on and holding tight, he gunned the Kingfisher's engine and started it moving forward, down the canal and away from the Chichen Itza site.

The mob followed, right along the riverbank, hurling rocks and spears as they ran. Hunter was able to catch only quick glimpses of them. They all appeared to be wearing some kind of native costumes - bright red and yellow tunics for body garments, orange feathers on their headdresses. Yet he had the strange feeling that the outfits were more ceremonial than anything. They just didn't look like everyday wear, But the fashion of their pursuers quickly slipped in importance in his mind.

At the top of the list was getting away from the mob.

He gunned the engine to near take-off speed but quickly realized that the jungle wasn't going to cooperate. In this direction, the trees formed a canopy over the old Mayan canal making a take-off for at least the next mile an impossibility.

"That's it," Hunter said, reducing his speed so as not to capsize from the engine's torque. "I've just got to stop dropping in on places unannounced."

He had to slow down to about 25 knots, enough to get away from the oddly-dressed mob. Or so he thought ... j