The Twisted Cross (30 page)

The gathering called for the highly-superstitious Tulum warriors to wear their ceremonial dress and carry their one-and-only ceremonial spear. And it was to be held at the Tulum's second most sacred site, Chichen Itza . . .

But the meeting started later than scheduled as the Tulum warriors found their sacred site had been invaded again - this time by three men and a strange water machine. Bravely, the Tulum caused them to flee. And now, as a mid-morning thunderstorm rolled in from the west, the ceremonial warriors-all 650 of them -sat at the base of the Grand Chichen Itza Pyramid and started a prayer service to purify the ruins.

Not a minute into the service there was a crack of thunder, followed closely by a streak of lightning. This bombast of Nature barely ruffled the Tulum; they were citizens of the jungle, masters at working with the ecology of the place. A little thunder and lightning didn't bother them.

But the man who had suddenly appeared at the top of the excavated pyramid did . . .

Several warriors had seen him at once. "Look!" they screamed in unison in their guttural Tulum language. "On top of the great temple!"

Within seconds the whole congregation saw the figure, his arms raised above his head, another crack of thunder adding the right touch of special effects.

"It is the ghost of Balankanche!"one man yelled, referring to the Mayan king high priest that legend said was buried deep below the Grand Pyramid.

A wave of confusion and panic rippled through the gathering of Tulum. Human threats they could deal with -ones from the underworld were beyond their control. The prayer leaders urged calm. Some of the natives fell prostrate, others jumped up as if to flee. Most were just frozen in their kneeling positions, wondering what to do.

There was another boom of thunder and three quick bolts of lightning split the sky. The winds were swirling around the ancient site at near hurricane speeds

-yet not an eye was taken off the mysterious figure standing atop the Grand Pyramid.

Then, suddenly, the figure moved . . .

"He is coming to reclaim his soul from us!" one of the Tulum cried out.

"He will blame us for the desecration down here!" another screamed.

As those gathered watched in horror, the figure started to slowly descend the steps of the pyramid. The storm seemed to grow in intensity with his every movement.

"Get down!" one of the prayer leaders finally yelled to the ceremonial warriors. "We must not upset him!"

"Pray!" one cried out. "We must pray that he leaves our souls untouched!"

"We must listen!" a third leader declared. "He is here with a message from the gods themselves!"

All the while the figure had dramatically descended the worn steps of the pyramid. Now he stopped and raised his outstretched arms up over his head. A strange silence suddenly enveloped the site. Lightning was still flashing but there was no thunder, no wind or rain . . .

The figure turned to the left and the right, then he lowered his arms as if to take in the entire congregation of Tulum.

Then he opened his mouth to speak.

"Paisa.no!" he cried out in an odd heavily-accented voice. "Paisano . . .

Fung-goola . . . Goombah . . . Goombah!"

"He speaks in a strange tongue!" one of Tulum priests declared.

"He is not one of us!" another cried.

"He is one of them!" a third yelled.

"Kill him!" a dozen warriors screamed in unison.

For the Tulum, this meant nothing more than grabbing the man and staring at him until he died. But before the congregation could move, there was a loud crack! behind them. They turned to see that two other men had managed to walk up behind them while their attention had been drawn to the smaller man who had descended the steps. Now one of the two strangers was firing a weapon into the air that emitted frightening yellow-red bullets.

"Stop!" the man with the gun yelled.

"We are friends!" the other man boomed, he being dressed in a monk's robes with two bandoleers of ammunition crossed over his chest.

The gathering of 650 Tulum were frozen in their places, confused as to just what the hell was going on.

"We are here to help," the man with the gun yelled. "We are here to catch the people who desecrated this place!"

"So are we!" came the reply from the middle of the crowd. In English, no less.

"Then let's talk," the man with the gun called out.

A murmur went through the crowd as this proposal was hastily discussed.

Finally one of the priests called out in English: "All right. Let us talk . .

."

The first few minutes of discussion with the Tulum went badly for Hunter, Brother David, and the ghost of Balankanche, otherwise known as the commodore.

The Tulum were convinced that Hunter and his colleagues were part of a grand scheme cooked up by the "jackals" -that being the name the Tulum had bestowed on the Canal Nazis. They were also hurt that the three would play such a dirty trick on them.

It was Brother David, using his remarkable skills as an orator, who finally began to turn the crowd on to their side. He did this by telling them first that he, like their priests, was a religious leader too, and second, that the blasphemous jackals who had trashed the sacred site had to be caught and punished.

Hunter's already substantial admiration for the Fighting Brother increased as he listened to the man's sermon. Like many great speakers, it wasn't what he was saying as much as how he was saying it.

The soldier monk walked through the crowd, his arms raised, his hands emphasizing certain points, downplaying others. He smiled, he growled, he raised and lowered his voice in a series of crescendos. All the time emphasizing that they, like the Tulum, were upset and angry about the destruction at the Yucatan Mayan sites.

When his 15-minute speech ended, the Tulum gave him an ovation of hoots, their version of whistles and applause.

"Brother David missed his true calling," Hunter whispered to the commodore.

"In the old days, he'd have been elected President."

"Or pope . . ." the commodore added.

The three prayer leaders urged Hunter, David and the commodore to sit with them at the front of the gathering. Together they discussed the whereabouts of the jackals.

One man claimed that the Canal Nazis had moved on to a place 80 miles from Chichen Itza. "The hidden place" was how he described it. He was a representative of a very isolated Tulum village near a valley that was the most sacred of all the Tulum's holy places.

The man told a strange tale -one so odd that Hunter at first thought it was a complete fabrication. The man claimed that starting one night and lasting all the next day, the "silver birds" had come and started eating up the jungle leading into the hidden valley. They used "tongues of flames" to do this.

The smoke from the fires alone choked five people to death in his village and the small streams the man's village depended on for water were poisoned. Many animals were also killed and injured as a result of this. Several badly wounded animals wandered into the village and attacked the people, killing two more.

What convinced Hunter in the end that the storyteller was recounting some variation of the truth was the tears that welled up in the man's eyes as he talked about the destruction the silver birds had caused. The Wingman knew emotions like that couldn't well be faked. The man also claimed that after the fire and explosions had died down, an army or jackals appeared and they rode through the flattened, burned-out forest in order to reach the lost city in the hidden valley. And they were still there.

"And what is this place called?" Hunter asked the man.

"Uxmaluna," was the reply.

The discussion went on for about another hour. The storm had passed by this time, and the Tulum shared their meager supply of corn and honey with Hunter and his friends. Brother David ended the meal by telling the warriors through the translator that a day was coming soon when they could get their revenge on the jackals. He urged them to stay organized and stay ready, that one of his

"white friends" would be back and tell them more news.

It was at this point that Hunter happened to spot the Tulum warrior who was wearing the uniform in the video. He walked over to him, and the rest of the crowd gathered around them.

"How did you get this, friend?" he asked the man. The question went through one of the gathering's two translators. The man replied that he was the first ceremonial warrior to reach Chichen Itza for the prayer meeting. The uniform was hanging from a tree near where the strange banquet table had been set up.

The warrior knew it belonged to one of the jackals, so he had taken to wearing it in an effort to steal the man's soul.

Hunter asked to look at the jacket and the man took it off and handed it to him. Hunter had no idea how or why the

uniform was left behind at the Chichen Itza site, but by examining it thoroughly, he was convinced that it was a standard Twisted Cross issue uniform. The stripes on the jacket's lapels also confirmed that it had belonged to a high officer in the Cross, most likely a general.

"See, the man's name is sewn on it," the commodore pointed out, indicating the ID tag stitched over the left breast pocket.

Hunter ran his finger over the embroidered letters. The name stitched onto the uniform was: Heinke.

"This is absolutely fabulous!" the High Commander said, clicking his heels with glee.

He struggled with the VCR's remote control device again, finally finding the spot on the videotape that he had been watching over and over for the past two hours.

"Tremendous . . ." he whispered again. "Just incredible . . ."

The TV techs at the Uxmaluna site had finally found a satellite in orbit that still had some life to it. With no small effort, they were able to broadcast an 11-minute show back to Panama City. Forewarned the transmission was coming, the High Commander's staff rustled up a pair of VCRs and had them on "Record"

when the feed came over.

Now the High Commander was watching the tape for the fifth time, a number which would have been greater had he been able to master the rather simple Rewind-Play remote control device.

"Super, just super," he exclaimed as he watched the video sweeps back and forth of the large gold chamber. "The stacks!" he cried out. "Look at those stacks!"

The very inner circle of the High Commander's staff collectively rolled their eyes as their boss grappled to get the tape to rewind again for the sixth time.

"Those guys up there in the jungle are just doing a super job!" he said with a hint of wilting enthusiasm. "Promote them all!"

"All?" one of his aides asked. "There are more than two hundred and eighty men in the recovery mission."

The High Commander stopped struggling with the remote control device just long enough to straighten out his handknit mauve tie and adjust his tortoise-shell glasses. "Not the soldiers on the recovery mission," he said, wondering if it was only he who was confused. "The TV guys . . . They did one hell of job here and I think they should be rewarded. Don't you?"

There was an immediate chorus of "Yes, sir," with one "Definitely, sir" thrown in by some brash up-and-comer.

"Darn straight," the High Commander said, returning his attention to the rewind button once again. "When they get back here, make arrangements for them to join me out on the yacht. Chill some shrimp for that trip, too - "

He was interrupted by another aide coming into the room.

"Great news, my commander," the officer, a major said. "We've received word from Colonel Frankel . . ."

After several tries, the High Commander managed to freeze the frame of the gold chamber videotape. "Frankel? How did he get through to us?" was the man's first question.

It was the only problem The Twisted Cross High Command had not been able to figure out in the short amount of time they had been given to plan Frankel's trip to Washington. It was obvious that Frankel couldn't just pick up a phone and call in a report. Nor could non-secure radio links or couriers be used.

Before the man left, he promised that he would work on somehow getting a message back to Panama-possibly through a spy in Washington - on the progress of the negotiations.

"He was able to send a telex message to the old American Embassy here in Panama," the aide reported. "The machine was still operating, and, best of all, so was its scrambler. So he was able to get a secure message in."

For the second time in less than two hours, the High Commander looked as if he was about to overdose on glee.

"Well, read it out!" he yelled to the aide, a wide smile spreading across his thin lips.

The aide cleared his throat and began: "My dear Corn-272

mander. Happy to report that negotiations are going well. I have had a series of meetings with United American staff. I believe they are beginning to come around to our point of view. Several more meetings have been scheduled. I'm confident that a formal sovereignty agreement can be reached soon. Weather is fine. Your humble servant, Frankel."

"Can you believe this?" the High Commander asked those assembled, a look of awe on his face. "Can you believe that we are this lucky? First we find the largest cache of gold in the history of mankind and now it appears as if the United Americans are about to back off.

"This means our plans have just been accelerated by a«f least two, maybe three years. If the United Americans agree to our sovereignty here, then we'll have nothing to fear from them or from anyone else."

The gathering of aides broke into a syncopatic round of applause.

"This"calls for a toast!" the High Commander, once again switching the gold chamber videotape to Play. "Let's try that new Chablis I just got in ..."

The giant Soviet-built Hook helicopter was running low on fuel.

"We have twenty-five minutes," the pilot yelled back to Krupp. "Then, like it or not, we're going down."

He was leaning over the pilot's shoulder, watching as the miles of jungle rolled away beneath them. They had been airborne almost three hours now and so far, the flight had been uneventful. Strauberg was bound and gagged back in the chopper's rear compartment; Elizabeth was back there too, studying the gold ingots.