ron Goulart - Challengers of the Unknown (12 page)

"We can have a perfectly satisfactory conversation with you both on that side of the bars." Escabar walked to a corner of the room, picked up a light aluminum-frame chair. Placing it a safe distance from the bars, he seated himself. "Let me point out, to avoid possible future embarrassment, that you were thoroughly searched while you were sleeping. Quite a fascinating collection of weapons and gadgets turned up."

Rocky slapped at himself. "Hey, you even took my packet of sunflower seeds."

Moving to the bars, taking hold of them, Red said, "What do you want to talk to us about?"

"For One thing, I'm an admirer of yours," answered Escabar. "Here in my relative isolation I've often read of your exploits, and with much interest. I, too, work on the border of the natural and the supernatural. Although I've never gone in for any of the physical bravado you Challengers of the Unknown so frequently display."

"Aw, anybody can do the physical stuff," Rocky put in. "You just got to exercise and eat right."

"No doubt true," said their host. "I've never had the patience for such a program. There are, however, other ways to keep up a youthful and vigorous appearance."

"Fads," said Rocky with scorn. "Nothing pays off like hard work."

Red said, "We've had a very difficult time paying a call on you. Our troubles started when the man who was going to tell us something about you blew up."

"The unfortunate Satara, yes. We were quite good friends at one time," said Escabar. "Drinking got the better of him and then, what is worse, total abstinence. He became, did Satara, very self-righteous. Killing him was the best solution."

"Who was he exactiy?"

Escabar uncrossed and recrossed his legs. "I'll tell you something about myself, as well as the late Satara," he said, smiling carefully. "You realize you'll never be able to use any of the information I impart?"

"We figured," said Red, "you had us penciled in to follow Satara to glory."

"I, myself, don't use such flamboyant means, but your destination will be similar," acknowledged Escabar. "Have either of you heard of Otto Wenzler?"

"Didn't he used to wrestle as the Mad Prussian?" asked Rocky.

Red said, "Wenzler was a research scientist in Nazi Germany. He's been dead thirty years or more."

"Not at all," said Escabar. "I am Otto Wenzler."

"This is where I'm supposed to exclaim, 'Impossible!'" said Red. "Impossible! You can't be more than forty. Wenzler was that age when he was killed three decades ago."

"One of the things I was working on when I decided to leave Germany was a process to retard aging. Once I was settled safely in Ereguay, I perfected that process, along with a good many other processes and mechanisms."

"A regular Renaissance man," commented Rocky.

'Yes, I am gifted in many fields."

"Who uses this process?" Red wanted to know. "Only you?"

"Several hundred of my former colleagues in the fatherland have been enjoying the Wenzler Process these past thirty years. They hope eventually to gain power in the world, political power." He left the chair, circled it. "General Cuerpo, who served the Reich quite admirably under another name, plans to take over this country quite soon." Pacing in widening circles, Escabar continued talking. "I've come to the conclusion a much different, and surer, kind of power could be obtained simply by exploiting the Process on a much larger scale. Oddly enough it was Satara, who'd been an assistant of mine before he was allowed to wander off and sink into the
barrio
life, it was Satara who suggested these possibilities to me originally. Unfortunately, during most of my years of exile here, I maintained a zealous loyalty to my fatherland and the ideas I'd been imbued with there."

"Some ideals," remarked Rocky, "borrowed from
a
jerk like Hitler."

"How," said Red, "does General Cuerpo feel about your change of heart?"

"As yet I've discussed this with no one," replied their host. "Except with the late Satara and now with you two estimable Challengers. I imagine I would go the way of Satara, since I foolishly gave them the formula for the Process many years ago." He resumed his chair. "I have been able to prepare a small surprise for General Cuerpo, which should provide an interesting finale to his takeover attempt."

"What exactly?"

Escabar smiled. "I don't intend to confide everything in you, even though you'll soon be dead."

"You better go easy on this goofy idea of bumping us off," Rocky told him. "If you know about the Challengers of the Unknown, you know there's more than two of us. You do us in and the rest of the gang'll show up and put your butt in a sling."

"My castle is secure," said Escabar. "No one can get in to do ... to do me ... do me harm." He paused, ran lean fingers along his cheek.

Red watched the man closely. "What about the celebrated Monster of Lake Sombra? How do you connect with all that?"

"Connect with ... all ... all that? I . . . don't . . . the Monster . . . it's unfor . . . unfortunate . . . because it draws attention . . ."

"What's wrong with the guy?" whispered Rocky.

Escabar was leaning far forward, resting his hands on his knees. "Our underground . . . underground facility ... built to my specifications ... underground." He raised his head to stare at them. "Forgive me, gentlemen, I seem to be . . ." Escabar fell from his chair, hitting the stone floor, hard, headfirst.

"What the hell?" Rocky rattled the bars. "Is the old boy sick?"

Red said, "I'm pretty sure he's dead."

Hands above his head, Prof said, "Very convincing."

"Don't mug," cautioned Ace.

They were moving along an initial entry corridor into the underground complex. Both the purple-clad Challengers had their hands up; the small Nazi marched behind them with a pistol aimed at Ace's back.

"I must admit," admitted Prof, "that knowing we're being watched by hidden cameras does bring out the ham in me. Should have combed my hair before we came down the rabbit hole into this Nazi playground."

"They can probably pick up what we're saying, too, so hush."

"It's my fondest hope the control bug of yours doesn't fall off the little chap's brain again. Then we really will be in the proverbial bouillabaisse."

Two new corridors intersected with the original. "Go to the left," said the Nazi in his droning voice.

"Tell him he doesn't sound authoritative enough," Prof whispered over his shoulder.

At the next forking of corridors, the little man droned, "Turn to the right."

"Ah, new members being added to the cast," remarked Prof sotto voce.

Standing in front of the metal doors at this corridor's end were two large men in pale-green overalls. Each wore a .45 automatic at his belt.

"You are not supposed to bring prisoners here, Sullivan," one of the guards called to the approaching little Nazi.

"There is no admittance to the Central Control Room," said the other burly guard.

"There's a slipup," said Prof, ticking his head in the direction of the sturdy door. "Printing Central Control Room in German like that. Changing your names to Sullivan and the like doesn't help if you're going—"

"Be silent, swine," said one of the big guards in German.

"Devil is the preferred insult," said Prof, grinning. He was only inches away from the two men now. Unexpectedly he reached out, caught both of them by the ear with his raised hands and forced their heads to bang together with considerable force. "Saw Leo Gorcey do this in a film once; been dying to try it."

As the guards tottered, Ace leaped forward. He gave one a series of incapacitating chops to the neck.

Prof was dealing similarly with the other guard.

Before his man oozed out unconscious on the metal floor, Ace had the door handle gripped. He turned, shoved and dived into the room beyond.

There were four men working in the large, domed-ceiling place. They were scattered at the various control banks, monitoring desks, computers and scanning systems.

"Very slowly," suggested Ace, an odd-looking pistol in his hand, "very slowly take your hands off what you're doing and hoist 'em high."

Prof came in with their thought-controlled Nazi in tow. "Let me second that motion." He also held
a
strange pistol.

"Those are odd-looking and strange guns you have there," observed the nearest control room technician.

"Stylish, too, don't you think?" Prof shut the heavy doors behind them. "Humane as well, since they don't kill you. No, they merely cripple you for about fifteen hours."

Ace, as they'd planned before descending from the jungle, ran across to the address system, picked up a microphone. In fluent German he ordered, "All personnel will report immediately to Auditorium One. All personnel will report at once to Auditorium One. There are no exceptions; this is an extreme emergency!"

Prof, meantime, had located the communications control desk which their little Nazi had described when they'd questioned him earlier. "Ah, yes, there's the toggle I seek." He flipped the yellow one in a bank of twenty multicolored switches. "Now Herr Shuster can't use his own mike to cancel our order." He hopped sideways, located a blue switch on another panel of toggles and tinned it off, too. "Nor can he see anything at all on his own TV screens. Poor lad's going to suffer media withdrawal almost certainly."

"It's working, it's working." Ace was grinning, eyes on the row of television screens on the far wall.

"You sound like a . . . oops! Mustn't do that, old man."

Zizzle!

A technician, noticed out of the corner of Profs eye, had been moving toward the door. Now he was collapsed on the floor, lying in a stiff, folded-up position.

"You other three chaps better huddle over there," Prof told the other technicians, "beneath the TV screens."

"I admire that weapon of yours," said the technician who'd spoken before.

"Why, thank you, it's really only a little thing I happened to—

"Hush up," advised Ace.

The dozen control room screens showed them the various levels of the large underground complex. On the screens, men, some looking fearful and others simply puzzled, were hurrying along corridors.

Prof turned his attention to a different control desk. "Is this the one?" he asked their little Nazi guide.

"Yes, it is."

"Okeydokes." Prof clicked a switch. "Well, isn't that nifty. The June Robbins Show."

A small television screen had come to life before him, showing the room June had been placed in.

Twisting a dial, activating another switch, Prof picked up a hand microphone from the desk. "This is the voice of Christmas Past, June Robbins, and I'd like to complain about the ski sweater you gave me back in 1974. I mean, a pattern of leaping ballerinas, while fetching, isn't exactly—

"Prof?" On the screen the blonde girl's eyes went wide; she was glancing around her cell.

"Currently doing business as the U.S. Cavalry to the rescue," Prof spoke into the mike. "You okay, princess?"

"Yes, but... don't come in here. Are you right outside my cell, or what?"

"In the neighborhood, let us say. Why can't we spring you?"

"It's Denny Yewell; he is one of them," explained

June. "When he tossed me in the prison wing here, he implied there was some kind of booby trap awaiting you if you tried to bail me out."

"No specifics?"

"Nope."

"Fear not, we'll find out. Hang on."

"It's disconcerting trying to talk to you like this, Prof. I don't know where to look."

"Look heavenward, my child, and you can't go wrong. We'll get to you soonest. Bye." He flipped a switch; the pretty girl's image faded away. "What kind of booby trap might they set in those cells?" Prof asked the small Nazi.

"I do not know."

"They're all in the auditorium," announced Ace, "except for a guy who must be Shuster, and Denny Yewell ... he is a double agent."

"So I hear." Frowning, Prof went over to stare up at the multiple images. "Looks like Yewell and Shuster are heading for elsewhere."

"They must have," said Ace, "tumbled to the fact something's wrong."

"Marine Exit Room," Prof read off one of the screens. "They're hurrying into the room. Hey, what's in there?" he called toward their controlled Nazi.

The talkative technician supplied the answer. "We keep several miniature subs there, to be utilized in the event all other escape routes are cut off. The subs can be launched directly into the waters of the lake."

"Ace, can you handle locking the rest of the gang in the auditorium?"

"Doing it now," Ace answered from another of tine control desks.

"I'll tag Yewell and Shuster." Prof ran for the door. "June's cell is booby-trapped, so go easy." "Right."

"You," said the helpful technician, "better be careful yourself, my friend. There's no telling what you may encounter in the deeps of Lake Sombra."