The Twisted Cross (19 page)

A cool breeze came by and Frankel once again congratulated himself for the foresight to build this small but comfortable "office" atop of the hill close by the waterway. Better than the quarters originally given him halfway down the hill, from this height, he could see a full ten miles in either direction

-a good vantage point from which to keep an overall eye on his slaves, his troops and the gold panning operations.

It was also very private . . .

The partners had been at it for sometime now and surprisingly enough, they had come up with a fair amount of gold. Not enough to make the whole silly operation worthwhile in Frankel's ' formation, but just enough to keep the smelly little

named Strauberg off his back. \

He leaned back and took a sip of his rum-laced iced tea. It was almost noontime - soon he would eat his lunch. But as he did most days when he was bored, he decided to have a little "appetizer" before eating.

He clapped his hands twice loudly. His sergeant of the guard suddenly appeared.

"How many are down there today?" he asked the man.

"Five or six, sir," was the reply.

Frankel nodded. "Bring them all up here at once," he /. said.

The sergeant saluted and quickly left, running down the road from Frankel's house to a small cabin located next to the compound's guardhouse. By the time Frankel had mixed another rum and ice tea, the sergeant had returned with two privates and five young women, all of whom were tied to each other by the ankle.

"Dismissed!" Frankel growled at the enlisted men, quickly dispersing them.

Then he beheld the females before him. Each one was dressed in the same one piece shirt/skirt and rubber sandals. Not exactly glamorous clothes, but at least they were clean.

He pointed to a petite redhead, the second one in line.

"Your name?"

"Christine . . ." was the answer.

"Have you been here before?" he asked.

The girl meekly shook her head no.

"Come up here," he ordered, taking a long swig of his drink.

The redhead did so, shyly standing before him. He reached out and put his hand under her dress, his fingers quickly finding their way beneath her underwear.

He liked what he felt. Taking his hand out, he pinched her left breast. Once again he liked the touch.

"Go inside," he commanded her. She nervously swept back her long red hair and did as he told her to.

Once again he surveyed the line of females.

"You . . ." he said pointing to a dark, native beauty. "Up here . . ."

The woman was soon in front of him and he put her through the same intimate inspection.

"No," he told her. "Not today . . ."

He singled out a third girl, a svelte brunette, brought her to the porch and felt around her privates.

"And what are you called?" he asked.

"Sandra . . ." came the meek reply.

"You'll do," Frankel pronounced. Then he clapped his hands again, an action that brought his sergeant of the guard running once more.

"Take the rest away," he said to the man. "And don't disturb me for anything for one hour. Understood?"

"Completely sir!" the man said, quickly herding the four remaining girls away.

Frankel went inside the cabin and locked the door. The two girls stood in the center of the room, not quite knowing what to do.

"Take your clothes off," he ordered them, retrieving a can of oil from a nearby cabinet. The two girls had no choice but to do as he told them. Soon both stood naked before him.

He sat on the cabin's large overstuffed couch and undid his uniform's belt buckle, motioning the two girls over to him.

"Take the oil and rub me," he said to them.

The red head, probably the more innocent of the two, asked: "Where?"

He looked at her and laughed. "Where do you think, my dear?" he asked, at the same time forcing her hand down his pants and between his legs.

He soon had his pants completely off. Both girls dipped their fingers into the scented lubricating oil and nervously started smearing it on his privates. The warm slippery oil in the hands of the two young girls had the desired effect.

Frankel leaned back and enjoyed the moment, trying to decide which girl he would screw after lunch, once he had rejuvenated himself.

Suddenly the door to the cabin burst open . . .

Frankel's eyes, nearly closed in climax, were now wide open in surprise and anger. In a split-second he vowed to shoot the sergeant of the guard for disobeying his orders to be left alone.

. Just a moment later he realized the person who had so rudely kicked open the door was none other than the smellmeister himself, the man named Strauberg. He was accompanied by two, well-armed, black-uniformed Party lieutenants.

"So this is how you oversee the panning operations, Frankel?" the disgusting little man squeaked at him.

Frankel was on his feet now, embarrassed that the three men had seen him naked from the waist down and in such a vulnerable position. "I am taking my noon meal time, Herr Strauberg . . ." he offered in a weak defense.

Strauberg whispered something to one of the guards and soon the girls were quickly hustled away.

"This borders on desertion, Colonel Frankel," Strauberg said to him in his ratty little voice. "There are more important things afoot than masturbating with young girls!"

Frankel was absolutely mortified. Strauberg wasn't even an officer of rank in the Twisted Cross or the elite Party. But there was no doubting that the obscene little man carried a lot of power within both organizations.

"We have recovered much gold today," Frankel told him. "The panning operation is going extremely well . . ."

Only one of Strauberg's eyebrows went up in excitement upon hearing the news.

For the first time since Frankel had become associated with the man, it appeared like he had something else on his little mind than gold.

"We have trouble . . ." Strauberg finally told him sternly. "Our whole operation here in the canal may be in jeopardy."

"What has gone wrong?" Frankel asked, legitimately concerned.

Strauberg thumbed the other guard out of the room. Once he was certain they were alone, he wiped his brow and stepped closer to Frankel.

"Do you remember that doctor you and your men supposedly killed up in El Paso?" he said.

Frankel nodded weakly.

"Well, he's alive, you fool . . ." Strauberg said, his face twisting into a grotesque mask of crimson rage.

"That's impossible," Frankel said. "I fired the shots myself!"

"And did you check for a pulse?" Strauberg asked, his voice taking on a very scary inquisitive tone. Suddenly Frankel felt as if he was on trial.

"I didn't have to," Frankel countered. "The man took two bullets in the base of the skull."

"It wasn't good enough!" Strauberg screamed, pounding a nearby table for emphasis. "He's alive and now our spies think he is in the hands of those flag-wavers in Washington, working for them."

Frankel thought it over for a moment, but maybe he was missing the point. "Why is that a disaster?" he asked Strauberg. "We have the mines. They are all nearly planted. What's the crisis?"

"The 'crisis' is that he may be able to give those sickening retroheroes some information that could threaten the integrity of the mines," Strauberg said, his agitated voice going up an octave with every few words.

If Frankel had had a gun at that moment, he would have shot the smelly man. As it was, he had to step back a few paces, so intense was the body odor.

"Herr Strauberg," he said, trying to calm his voice. "Even if the engineer is working for them, what good would he be? We have nearly fifty mines strung out all along the canal. Even if someone tried to sneak in here - saboteurs or whatever - they would never be able to disarm every single one of the mines.

Or even half of them for that matter. And as we both know, two or three of the mines exploding would be sufficient to destroy this canal forever.

"Besides, what do we have to fear from these United Americans? They're nothing but a bunch of movie stars. They belong in the comic books."

"Stop preaching to me, you ass!" Strauberg screamed at him. "Those United Americans were able to destroy the

Circle Army, a force which I'm sure I don't have to remind you had substantial Soviet backing and at one point controlled half the North American continent!"

"You face the facts!" Frankel screamed right back. "Even the United Americans wouldn't risk coming down in here in force. Eventually they will learn the extent that we have mined the canal with nuclear weapons and they'll realize they will have to deal with us. It will only mean more gold in our coffers . .

. We can bleed them dry."

"You paint too rosy a picture," Strauberg said, his right eyebrow once again going up in a salute when he heard that magic word. "And you assume too much.

What's to prevent/ those glory hounds from coming down here and launching a surgical air strike on us?"

"We have hundreds of SAMs for just such a possibility!" Frankel answered.

"And what would happen if they teamed up with those helicopter jockeys who keep harassing us?" Strauberg bellowed, trying to yell louder than Frankel.

"Do you realize those bastards actually shot down one of our Phantoms! And damaged another?"

Frankel held up his hand in motion for Strauberg to stopf "The chances of those chopper thugs and the United Americans even knowing about one another are very remote," he said. "It would take an unbelievable coincidence . . ."

"Don't talk to me about coincidences!" Strauberg shouted back at him. "We've played out a string of coincidences just to get to where we are right now."

Frankel let a sinister smile spread across his face. "Why Herr Strauberg, I'm surprised at you," he said, turning the tables on the man. "Are you actually attributing our successes to mere coincidence? I would have thought that a person like you would believe in Fate as our movement's guiding hand."

Taken aback by Frankel's questioning of his Arayan resolve, Strauberg lowered his tone a notch.

"It would be very unwise for you to question my loyalty to the cause," he said in a stern whisper. "I came here because there are questions the High Commander wants answered.

By you, Colonel. The foremost is: how do we know the United Americans would be so willing to deal with us?"

"Why come to me with such a question?" Frankel asked. "How would I know? I'm just in charge of this nickel-dime panning operation. You can't order me to answer questions I know nothing about . . ."

For a moment Frankel thought Strauberg was ready to reach for his gun and shoot him, so infuriated did the odorous man become when Frankel asked him the question.

"You are an officer of The Twisted Cross!" the little man screamed. "You will do what you are ordered to do! Find the answers or I swear I'll put you on trial for insubordination!"

At that moment Frankel decided it was time to take a different tack. "All right, Herr Strauberg," he said as calmly as possible. "What is it you want me to do?"

Colonel Krupp had spoken not one word to his driver the entire day.

The officer, his head sore and swollen from the gash on his nose, was also suffering with exploding intestines, the aftereffects of the horrible banana brandy.

The uncomfortable silence made the slow, grinding journey across the devastated forest floor even more painstaking. The two heavy-duty troop transport trucks up ahead of Krupp's command vehicle had broken down frequently throughout the day, their plow-like front ends sometimes becoming stuck in a fallen tree or a particularly solid vine that had somehow been missed by the blockbuster bombs.

It was dusk when the convoy slowly passed around the last major obstacle and completed a turn which brought them descending into the hidden valley itself.

Now, for the first time, Krupp could actually see the first few open structures at the Uxmaluna site.

"Splendid," he whispered to himself. He suddenly managed to forget about his embarrassment the night before. He had promoted the sentry who helped bandage him up in the middle of the night. The same man returned the woman back to her holding room in one of the bigger trucks. Still, Krupp was certain that word of some kind had spread around the convoy. Throughout his hangover, he was shaken with paranoid shivers, thinking that everyone was laughing at him behind his back.

But now they had reached this, their most important site in Central America. It was here he hoped to lay to rest forever his image as a mediocre officer of The Twisted Cross. It was a coincidence that he was in charge of the recovery mission. Now here he hoped to find the treasure trove of gold that would vault him right into a high position of The Party.

So he even managed a grin as the first trucks rolled into the partially-uncovered ancient Mayan site.

Maybe tonight I will try again with the woman, he thought.

Her name was Elizabeth ...

She was five-foot-six and a half, deep brunette hair worn long. A magazine model's facial features: wide mouth and lips, a longish, thin nose and oval blue eyes. The photograph revealed unblemished skin, highlighted by a permanent suntan that was an occupational hazard for most archaeologists.

Over and over, Hunter had studied the photo and the brief written description that Sandlake had provided on his missing daughter. Studying her features was important. The Wingman felt that if he concentrated enough -and sent a mental message out over the ethers -then maybe, he would be driven to her location .

. .

The trip from Washington to the very northeastern edge of the Yucatan peninsula had taken 15 hours in all, counting the time spent stopping for fuel in New Orleans and Corpus Christi. Flying 130 mph at 5000 feet, Hunter got to see parts of the continent that he usually sped above at speeds ten to fifteen times faster than his present velocity. He was amazed how peaceful it all looked -the forests of old Virginia, the hills of what used to be called Tennessee, the reddish farmland of Mississippi Free State. It was as if nothing had changed -as if there were no New Order. No treacherous skies filled with air pirates. No Nazis with a stranglehold on America's vital ocean-to-ocean shortcut . . .