The Adventures Of Indiana Jones (62 page)

Indy smiled and shrugged. “No ticket.”

Everyone in the compartment immediately produced his ticket and held it up in Indy’s face.

As he collected them, Indy glanced out the window to see Vogel on his hands and knees, peering up as the zeppelin lifted off. “Next time, you get a ticket first,” Indy yelled at him.

He moved out of the compartment and ducked back into the crew quarters. He wondered what he’d do next. Vogel hadn’t been alone.

A few minutes later the Gestapo agent hurried down the passageway. He stopped a few steps past the crew quarters. He looked worried and disgruntled, and it didn’t take a genius to figure out why. After all, the poor sucker hadn’t been able to find him or his father, and now he couldn’t even find Vogel.

Indy stepped out of the crew quarters and tapped him on the shoulder. He was about to club him with the butt of the Luger when one of the passengers who had seen him toss Vogel out the window emerged from the nearby compartment. Indy asked the Gestapo agent for his ticket.

“I don’t need one,” the man snapped.

The passenger walked by, heading for the bathroom. “You’ll be sorry,” he mumbled to the agent.

“He’s right,” Indy said, and cracked him behind the ear with the Luger. The agent crumpled. Indy dragged him into the crew quarters, took his gun, and opened the storage closet. Inside, the steward was bound and gagged.

“Company.” He lowered the agent into the corner.

The steward was wide awake and yelling into his gag. Indy brandished the gun over his head, and he immediately calmed down.

He noticed a cluster of wires running into a box marked Radio Transmitter and yanked them out. Then he saw a leather jacket hanging from a hook. It looked a lot like his own. He couldn’t resist trying it on.

Another perfect fit.

At the bar in the zeppelin’s lounge, Indy eavesdropped as a World War I German flying ace relived his daring exploits, using a pair of model airplanes as props. Several enthralled onlookers bought him one drink after another, and the stories grew more and more fantastic.

The steward arrived with drinks for Indy and his father, who were seated several tables away from the now drunken flying ace. Both men had settled for non-alcoholic beverages. Neither was now certain their ordeal with the Nazis was finally over. If it was, fine. But if more trouble was ahead, they wanted to remain as alert as possible.

Henry was so absorbed in the Grail diary, he didn’t even know his drink had arrived. He was studying the pages that described the lethal devices defending the Grail. Now and then, he would mutter to himself, and all of it brought back old childhood memories for Indy, of his father in his study, lost in the ancient past. Some things, he thought, would never change.

Indy stared out the window, watching bright wisps of clouds sail past the zeppelin. He wondered what Elsa was doing and if she was thinking of him. Despite the fact that she had been standing up there with Hitler, he believed her primary interest was in the Grail, an obsession he could understand, since it was something she shared with his father. But he couldn’t condone her association with the man who was quite possibly the most heinous human being to walk the face of the earth since Genghis Khan.

He turned away, shutting off his secret longings. He looked down at the Grail diary and focused on his father’s tiny handwriting, which was inscribed in medieval Latin. There were three complex diagrams that made no sense to him. The only thing he understood was their labels. The first was called The Pendulum, the second, The Cobbles, and the third, The Invisible Bridge.

He was about to ask his father to explain the devices, when Henry looked up at him. “Sharing your adventures is an interesting experience.”

“That’s not all we shared,” Indy said, thinking of Elsa again. “By the way, what
did
she say in her sleep?”

“Mein Führer.”

“I guess that’s pretty conclusive.” He thought back to his last moments with Elsa in Berlin. He was sure that she had been sincere and yet . . .

“Disillusioned, are you? She was a beautiful woman, and I’m as human as the next man.”

“Yeah. I was the next man.”

Henry smiled as if he was thinking about his own experience with her. “Ships that pass in the night. Can we drink to that?”

He raised his glass, and Indy did the same. They clinked glasses. “Ships that pass in the night,” Indy repeated. He thought a moment. “Also the afternoon.”

Henry cleared his throat and straightened his shoulders. “Well, back to work.”

He leaned over the diary and began reading. “ ‘The challenges will number three. First, the Breath of God; only the penitent man will pass. Second, the Word of God; only in the footsteps of God will he proceed. Third, the Path of God; only in the leap from the lion’s head will he prove his worth.’ ”

“Meaning what?”

Henry tapped the page. “I think we’ll find that out when we get there.”

Sunlight broke through the clouds, casting a beam through their window and dividing the table into equal parts of light and shadow. As Indy reached for his drink, he noticed that the ray was moving across the table like the hand of a clock. He stared at it, puzzled by the phenomenon. Then suddenly he understood what it meant.

“Dad.”

“What is it?”

“We’re turning around. They’re taking us back to Germany.”

They quickly rose from the table and made their way to the crew quarters. The storage closet door was smashed open, and the Gestapo agent and steward were gone. Indy looked around and saw that the radio wires had been repaired with tape.

“Shit.”

“Ah, Junior. I think we’ve got a problem here.”

“I know. I know. You don’t have to tell me,” he said, as he tried to figure out what they should do.

“No, you don’t understand. I forgot the diary in the lounge.”

“You
what
?”

Henry smiled weakly at him and stammered: “Yeah, I’m afraid so.”

Good going, Dad.
“Okay, stay right here. I’ll be right back.” Indy hustled down the passageway, back toward the lounge. He started to push open the door but heard voices and stopped. He peeked inside and saw the agent and several crewmen standing in the center of the lounge near the table Indy and Henry had just abandoned. The diary was on it, but no one had noticed it.

The agent called for everyone’s attention. “There are spies aboard the airship! Everyone loyal to the Führer, the Reich, and Deutschland come immediately with me.”

Blasé passengers looked up, then returned to their conversations and cocktails, ignoring the agent’s command. The only one who responded was the World War I ace, who struggled to his feet from his bar stool and wobbled forward.

Indy knew he had to act fast. He turned the collar up on the leather jacket and took out a handkerchief. He sneezed into it as he walked into the lounge, keeping his head down. He heard the agent giving orders.

“You,” he pointed at Indy. “You come with us. We’re looking for American spies.”

Indy kept the handkerchief to his nose. “I’ve got a cold,” he said in German. “Sorry.” He reached around behind him and slipped the diary into his back pocket. He recognized the steward he had knocked out standing near the agent. He was wearing an undershirt, and his face was a question mark as he looked over Indy.

“I’ll guard my compartment,” Indy said, and hustled toward the door.

“That’s him,” the steward yelled. “Stop him.” But Indy was already out the door and racing down the passageway.

He ducked back into the crew quarters and looked around for Henry. “Dad, where are you?”

Henry poked his head out of the storage closet. “Did you get it?”

“Yeah, but I think I got a lot more, too.” Indy hurriedly prowled around the quarters, looking for a hiding place. He glanced up at the ceiling.

“Trouble, you mean?”

“No more than usual.”

Quickly he pulled a chair across the floor, stepped on top of it, and hoisted himself up through a hatchway. He reached down to help his father.

“Not another chimney,” Henry complained.

Indy lifted him through the opening, then climbed to the top of the hatchway. They crawled out the top of it and found themselves in the belly of the zeppelin. Its skin was attached to an elaborate metal framework, and narrow catwalks connected the huge helium gasbags that gave the airship its lift.

Henry paused in wonderment and awe. Indy glanced down the hatchway and saw the agent and steward peering up. He grabbed his father by the arm, and they rushed along one of the narrow catwalks.

But they weren’t fast enough.

The agent pulled a small gun from an ankle holster and aimed it at Indy. He was about to fire when the steward knocked his arm aside.

“Nein! Nein!”

Indy looked over his shoulder and saw the steward point to the gasbag, then gesture with his arms. “Kaboom!”

The catwalk ended at a pair of doors framed on the outer skin of the zeppelin. Behind them Indy heard the pounding of feet along the catwalk. He opened one of the doors, and gripped the frame as the wind pounded him. He was staring into the blue sky and white clouds.

Several feet below, he saw the biplanes suspended on hooks that were attached to a steel framework. Indy pointed to the nearest one, which had an emblem on the fuselage of a pelican with its wings spread wide. “Climb down, Dad. We’re going for a ride.”

Henry looked terrified as he peered out the doorway. “I didn’t know you could fly a plane.”

Fly, yes. Land, no. “Let’s go.”

Henry ventured out of the zeppelin, climbing down a metal ladder to the biplane. Indy watched anxiously, then looked away. If his father fell now, he couldn’t help and didn’t want to see it.

He glanced back to Henry and saw he had made it safely to the biplane. He started to follow, when the Gestapo agent grabbed him by the arm and attempted to pull him back. He twisted free and pushed the man away. He was about to resume his descent when the steward scampered down the ladder and dropped on top of Indy, wrapping his arm around his neck.

Indy clung to the ladder and, to his surprise, saw his father climbing up toward him. Henry grabbed the man by the back of the collar and jerked him away. At the same moment Indy bucked as hard as he could.

The steward lost his grip and tumbled into space, arms pin-wheeling, grappling for anything to break his fall. He caught hold of one of the struts just above the hook that attached to the plane. His legs pumped in midair.

Indy stared at his father in amazement. “Look what you did!” he shouted.

Henry climbed down into the rear cockpit, and Indy leaped the last few feet, landing in the front one. He found the starter and switched it on. The propeller sputtered, coughed, then roared to life.

As Indy searched for the lever to release the hook, Henry shouted something. Indy’s head snapped up, and he saw the agent standing in the doorway above him, aiming the gun at him, trying to hold it steady in the wind. He fired, but missed. Indy found the lever and pulled back on it, releasing the biplane.

Suddenly they soared away from the zeppelin, leaving the agent and dangling crewman behind.

Indy circled about and saw the World War I ace walk out onto a catwalk outside the zeppelin and climb down into the second plane. He signaled the Gestapo agent to join him.

The agent, mimicking Indy, walked out on the catwalk, and jumped into the rear cockpit. He struck hard, and his feet burst through the bottom of the fuselage, and the lower half of his body was suspended in midair below the plane.

The World War I ace didn’t realize what had happened, and released the plane from its hooks. He was so drunk that he had forgotten to start the engine first. Instantly it spun straight for the ground. Indy knew there was no way the ace pilot, even with all of his experience, could start the engine and recover from the spin.

Less than a minute later the plane crashed into the side of a mountain, spewing flames and debris.

Indy’s plan was to fly as far away from Germany as the biplane would take them, and as near as they could get to Iskenderun. He wasn’t looking forward to landing. He decided he would take it down in a field rather than an airport, and that way they would avoid any questions. The last thing they wanted to do was attract attention and get the Nazis on their trail again.

He heard his father yell something to him. He turned back to him and saw Henry jerking his thumb up and down. Indy smiled and flashed the thumbs-up sign back to him, and beamed with confidence. But Henry shook his head.

Indy finally understood. His father was pointing up and yelling something he couldn’t hear. What he did hear, though, was a sound that was both a roar and a wail. He couldn’t see anything above them, but the sound was growing louder, eerier. He tilted his head back again.

Two Messerschmidt fighter bombers streaked out of the clouds and raced across the sky. Indy and Henry sank down in their seats as the fighters screamed toward them.

“Fire the machine gun,” Indy yelled.

Henry puzzled over the gun, trying to figure out how it worked.

Indy turned in his seat and pointed at the gun. “Pull back on that lever, then jerk the trigger.”

The plane’s slow speed and small size worked to their advantage. The speeding Messerschmidts overshot them and whizzed by in a blur. Indy knew it would take the fighters miles to turn around. But he also knew the pilots would find them again.

On the second sweep Henry framed one of the fighters in his sight. He pulled back on the trigger and fired at the first one. The gun exploded with such force that he was nearly shaken out of his seat. The Messerschmidt banked to the left, and Henry swung the gun around. He kept firing, missed the fighter, and inadvertently cut his own rear stabilizer.

“Oops.”

“Are we hit?” Indy bellowed.

“More or less,” Henry yelled back.

Indy looked over his shoulder at the missing tail section, then at his father, and his heart plunged to his toes, then zipped up again.
Bad news, Pop. Real bad.

“Son, I’m sorry. They got us.”

Indy struggled to control the plane as it rapidly descended.