Codex

by Bill Craig

  Jake Fortune led the others back into camp. Mike Rogers approached him, looking anxious. “What’s up, Mike?” Fortune demanded.

  “It looks like Dr. Erskine was your spy. When the bandits attacked, he took off, like he was expecting somebody,” Mike explained.

  “Where is Professor Newkirk?” Fortune asked.

  “She’s in his tent along with the nurse, taking an inventory of the medical supplies.”

  “How?”

  “She was the one that figured it out, Jake. That girl is a sharp one,” Mike told him.

  “Yes, she is. I could tell that when I met her back in New York City.”

  “So, what do we do now?” Rogers asked.

  “Set up perimeter guards, protect the camp for the night. In the morning, we move deeper into the jungle and try to find those lost cities,” Fortune replied.

  “Then, I guess we had better get started,” Rogers nodded.

  Eric Klausen frowned as the night sky became darker. He and his men were being well paid to stop this expedition. Klausen was nearly six feet tall, wide of shoulder and narrow of hip. His head was shaved bald and he had a thick black handlebar mustache on his upper lip. He wore a monocle in his left eye. It served as a magnifier, since his left eye was weaker. He was too vain to wear glasses.

  Hiram King had hired him and his men to put a stop to the American expedition that was making its way into the jungles of the Yucatán. He knew that they were searching for some rumored Lost City of the Maya, but he had no idea which one. History was not one of his strong points. That fool, Erskine had missed his latest radio contact. How was Klausen supposed to raid the camp if he didn’t know where it was?

  That was the problem with working with amateurs! It would have been better if Klausen could have inserted one of his own men into the expedition, rather than having to rely on third parties such as Dr. Erskine. Perhaps the other spy would report soon. Until they did, he had no choice. Klausen called a halt to the small convoy of Warren Trucks. It was getting dark, and he had no wish to alert Dr. Newkirk’s people that they were being followed.

  “Should we send out a search party?” Glory Newkirk looked at Jake Fortune.

  “At night? You’ve got to be kidding me, Professor!” Fortune exploded.

  “Whatever do you mean, Mr. Fortune?”

  “Many of the predators down here are nocturnal, Professor. That means they hunt at night.”

  “I am aware of the definition of nocturnal, Fortune.”

  “Well I’m not going to put my men at risk, hunting for a renegade spy that planned on doing us harm. We don’t know exactly what might be awaiting us out there in the jungle,” Fortune said.

  “But what about Dr. Erskine?” Glory asked, somewhat taken aback.

  “What about him? He was the one that took off, so whatever happens to him, well, he probably deserves it,” Fortune replied.

  ‘You are a hard man, Mr. Fortune.”

  “That is why Mr. Griffin hired me to protect you and the other members of this expedition, Professor Newkirk.”

  New York City, New York. U.S.A.

  Peabody Griffin held his tumbler of Scotch, as he stood looking out over the rail of his balcony at the gleaming lights of the city below. The Big Apple, the City that Never Sleeps. The Isle of Manhattan. To some, it was the richest city in the world. Peabody Griffin was an older man, far closer to seventy than sixty. But he was a life-time member of the Explorers Club.

  Griffin was wearing a pair of dark slacks, a navy smoking jacket, and tan slippers with no socks. He had a cigarette in a holder that he took the occasional puff from. His hair was an iron gray, calling to mind the paint jobs on the old battleships of the Great War.

  He was a wealthy man. He had earned his wealth as a wildcatter in the oilfields; he had even prospected for gold in his day and hit a wealthy vein. He had deferred his holdings in railroads and shipping lines, making sure that if financial woes hit, they would not affect him in too negative a fashion.

  The fact that he was wealthy and hadn’t lost everything when the stock market collapsed had made him more than a few enemies. More than a few people would have been happy to see him jump off a building when the markets collapsed. But Griffin had been smarter than that.

  No, he had been prepared, even had seen the crash coming. So, he hadn’t lost near what many of his peers had. Some of them were envious of that fact.

  He had been a student of history for a long time. He had always been interested in the Mesoamerican cultures. The Aztec and the Maya Indians had always fascinated him. He believed that there were cities in the Yucatán Peninsula the Spanish Conquistadors had missed. Cities that held secrets that had yet to be uncovered.

  Griffin took a drink, as he contemplated the expedition and the team of people that he had assembled to lead it. He had researched the entire team, finding the people he thought would be the most capable of completing the mission that he had laid out for them. Had it really been a month ago when he had first sent Webber out to locate Jake Fortune? It seemed like it had been longer.

  Of course, the whole thing had started when his niece, Glory Newkirk had approached him about funding an expedition into the Yucatán to hunt for a lost Mayan city. One that the conquistadors might well have missed.

  The idea intrigued him. And of course, Glory’s enthusiasm for the project was contagious. Finally, he had agreed to fund it. It was only afterwards that he found out that one of his adversaries, Hiram King was, also, interested in sending a group into the same area.

  Except King was a man who had a reputation for being less than honest and dealt with many shady characters. If King were interested in that area, then there had to be something of immense importance. In that moment, he had decided it was imperative that whatever was there, he needed to find it first.

  “Jake, how did you get mixed up in all of this?” Mike Rogers asked. Some of the Indians that they hired were busy making the evening meal. Mary Beth, the nurse, was sitting and talking to Dr. Alonzo Hicks, a specialist in tropical diseases. With Erskine’s disappearance, he was the only real medical doctor left on the expedition.

  “That’s kind of a funny story, Mike. I was hanging out in Chicago between jobs when a guy named Webber came looking for me in O’Malley’s bar. We got off to a shaky start, but he was a pretty good egg,” Fortune said.

  “So, tell me about it. I know when you got a hold of me and the other guys from our old unit, we were all pretty starved for action. You know as well as I do how hard it is for a soldier once the fighting is over. Fitting in back home is never an easy thing,” Rogers, shrugged.

  “No, it isn’t, Mike. Let’s go grab a plate and I’ll tell you how I got involved,” Fortune said.

  Chapter Three

  Chicago. A month earlier.

  The sky above was dark and threatening, promising heavy rain as lightning flashed inside the dark clouds making an eerie light show accompanied by deep booms of thunder as the electrical energy was released. Floyd Webber looked up at the sky nervously as he made his way from the “L” station to a dive bar called O’Malley’s.

  Webber had come at the behest of his employer, a wealthy businessman named Peabody Griffin. Webber was an average looking sort of Joe, dressed in a brown suit with a matching brown fedora. He had an average looking face with a weak chin and watery blue eyes behind a pair of circular rimmed glasses. A black tie was knotted at his collar, his hands were jammed in his pockets.

  Webber glanced about nervously, as he walked. He had a feeling that he was being followed, though he could spot no sign of it. The threat of the storm had driven most of the windy city’s inhabitants indoors. He spotted the sign for O’Malley’s, relieved to spot the neon ‘Open’ sign in the window.

  The first fat drop of rain splashed off the brim of his hat, as he reached the door. Webber shoved the door open just as thunder cracked loudly above and the sky let loose with a drenching downpour. Once inside, Webber glanced around, looking for the man t
hat he was sent to find.

  There were three or four tough looking guys at the bar, but none of their faces matched the one that he had committed to memory. Then, he noticed some booths in the back and headed that way. He was just passing the last man at the bar when the guy swung around on his seat and knocked into Webber, sending him stumbling into a bored-looking waitress with a cigarette dangling from her mouth. Her cigarette fell to the floor and her empty tray crashed on the wood as well.

  “I’m so sorry, please, excuse me,” Webber told her.

  “Next time, you should watch where you’re going, Buster!” the waitress growled angrily.

  “Yes, yes, I should,” Webber agreed, his cheeks blazing red with embarrassment. Floyd Webber was not a physical man.

  “You hittin’ on my girl?” asked the guy that had knocked him into the waitress. He slid off the stool, his impressive bulk shadowing the smaller man.

  “Leave him alone, Moose,” a new voice spoke. Webber glanced over to get a look at the man who he hoped had just saved him from a beating. His eyes widened when he saw the face of the man he had come seeking.

  “Why are you buying into this, Fortune?” Moose Corrigan asked.

  “Because I’m tired of you bullying customers,” the man called Fortune replied. Jake Fortune stood about six-foot-tall, with deep brown hair and blue eyes. Stubble covered his cheeks and chin. His clothing hinted at a muscular body. He wore brown work pants, and a white shirt. Heavy work boots covered his feet.

  “I don’t much care what you like,” Moose said, throwing a hard punch at Fortune’s head, except Fortune’s head was no longer there. Fortune had stepped aside, driving a hard fist into Corrigan’s solar plexus, pushing all the air from his lungs. Another hard fist came up to meet his falling chin and sent him somersaulting backwards through the air to crash down on a wooden table that splintered under his weight. Corrigan lay still and made no effort to rise.

  “Mr. Fortune? You are the man I came to see,” Webber said.

  “Do I know you, friend?”

  “We’ve never met, no. But my boss is interested in hiring you,” Webber told him.

  “Pete, bring us a couple of beers,” Fortune told the bartender, turning and heading back to one of the booths. Webber stood there for a second and then quickly followed. Once they were seated and Pete had brought the beers, Fortune looked Webber in the eyes. “So, who is your boss and what is the job?” he asked.

  “Uh, perhaps I should start from the beginning,” Floyd Webber said.

  “That, Friend, would be a good idea,” Fortune said, his expression darkening.

  “My boss is Peabody Griffin, the famous millionaire. He wants you to lead an expedition into the jungles of the Yucatán Peninsula. He’s willing to pay you very well, and he asked me to give you this to cover your expenses to New York to meet with him,” Webber said, sliding an envelope across the table.

  Fortune picked up the envelope and tore it open. There was a check inside. He eased it out and looked at the amount and then pursed his lips and let out a low whistle. He slipped the check back into the envelope, folded it and tucked it into his jacket pocket. “Tell your Mr. Griffin that I’ll be in New York in three days.”

  “I will call him, as soon as I get back to my hotel room,” Webber said, extending his hand, as he stood. Fortune shook it. Together they stood and headed for the door. Moose Corrigan was finally starting to stir when they walked past. Fortune tossed a dollar on the bar to pay for their beers and they stepped out into the storm.

  Fortune walked Webber to the elevated train platform and then parted ways, heading back to whatever fleabag motel that he lived in. Webber quickly climbed up the stairs to the platform, and was one of the first to board when the train arrived. Once he was aboard the train, Webber breathed a sigh of relief as he headed back towards the famous Chicago ‘Loop’. He wondered if Mr. Griffin had any idea of the danger that he had been sent into. Webber thought about it for a long moment and decided that he had. Mr. Griffin left little to chance.

  Webber was staying in a room at the Cambria, and when he arrived, he went straight to the bar. A shot of Scotch Whiskey settled his nerves before he made his way upstairs to his room. Once he was safely locked inside he picked up the phone and had the operator dial Mr. Peabody Griffin back in New York city.

  Griffin answered on the first ring. “Hello?” he asked.

  “Mr. Griffin, it is I, Webber. I made contact with Mr. Fortune and he said to tell you that he would meet with you in New York in three days,” Webber explained.

  “Well done, Mr. Webber! There will be a bonus in this for you if he accepts the job!”

  “Well, Sir, he was certainly inclined to meet with you and hear you out,” Webber informed his boss.

  “Excellent news, Floyd!” Griffin congratulated him.

  “Mr. Griffin, I think I am being followed. Not that I have seen anyone, mind you. It’s just a creepy sensation I get where the small hairs on the back of my neck stand up,” Webber admitted.

  “In that case, Floyd, you must be especially circumspect on your mission. I have enemies who would like nothing better than to best me in this particular endeavor. That was why I sent you to recruit Mr. Fortune! He is the best man for the job!”

  “I know, Sir, and that is why I am making this report. Just on the off chance that something should happen to me, you will understand that I feel that I am under observation. I plan on catching the first flight back to New York in the morning,” Webber explained.

  “Very good, Floyd. I will hope to see you back in my office tomorrow afternoon then,” Griffin told him before hanging up. Floyd Webber pulled out a handkerchief and mopped the sweat from his brow. Even though he knew that he was alone in his motel room with the door securely locked, he felt a sense of impending doom looming over him. He stripped off his clothes, pulled on pajamas and climbed into bed, hoping and praying for a good night’s sleep.

  Jake Fortune lurked in the shadows across from the unimposing hotel where he had trailed Floyd Webber after separating from him at the elevated train. Twice on the walk from the bar, Fortune had spotted familiar faces trailing along behind them. Faces that should never have appeared more than once. So, after he had parted ways with the young man, Fortune had slipped behind the watchers and had trailed them to Webber’s hotel.

  Jake had a sense that the two men were up to no good as far as young Mr. Webber was concerned, and he meant to prevent them from doing any harm to the young man. It was possible that they worked for Moose Corrigan and wanted nothing more than to make Webber pay for Corrigan’s humiliation in the bar. However, Fortune didn’t believe that. He felt that they were following the young man with a far more sinister purpose in mind.

  They seemed much more the type to have murder in their hearts, and Jake Fortune could not allow them to take the life of the young man that had come so far to engage his services for a wealthy employer. Jake Fortune was a man of action, yes, but he also had developed the patience of a big game hunter during his wild and varied career.

  Jake watched for nearly an hour, letting the two men become even more wet and uncomfortable before he finally made his move. Fortune slipped through the shadows. He had learned to move silently back during the Great War out in ‘No Man’s Land’.

  It didn’t take him long to reach the first watcher and subdue him. Fortune lowered him to the ground and dug around in his pockets. He found a wallet and pulled it out, checking for identification. The name on the New York driver’s license was Richard Borgia, and it revealed a Queens address. Fortune hit the man again to make sure that he would remain unconscious, and then he went after the other watcher. He learned nothing more from him, before entering the hotel and knocking on Floyd Webber’s door.

  “Yes?” Webber’s voice asked questioningly.

  “It’s me, Jake Fortune,” He revealed.

  “Mr. Fortune, what are you doing here? I expected you to be getting ready for your trip to New York,” Webber excl
aimed, as he opened the door to his room.

  “Normally, I would have been, but I spotted people following you. We need to get you the hell out of Chicago tonight,” Fortune told him.

  “Why?” Webber asked, shocked by Fortune’s sudden appearance at his door.

  “Somebody did not want you to make it back to New York,” Fortune explained.

  “I suspected as much,” Webber nodded.

  “Pack as quickly as you can. I will escort you to the airport and make sure that you are on a plane tonight or tomorrow without any problems. Given that someone is trying so hard to stop you, I am more intrigued by your boss’s offer.”

  “I’m so glad to hear that,” Webber told him.

  “I’m sure,” Fortune replied.

  “Why are you willing to do this?”

  “Frankly, I’m bored,” Fortune said, by way of explanation.

  “I’m afraid I don’t understand, Mr. Fortune. I mean I know of your reputation as both a war hero and as an adventurer. I’m just surprised to hear you say you are bored. I would think that you would have seen enough excitement to last a man a lifetime,” Webber said.

  “It is not actually that simple, Mr. Webber. I’ve always had a bit of wanderlust, even from a young age. I left home shortly after I turned eighteen. I wanted to see the world. I got work on a tramp steamer and sailed the seas until the war in Europe broke out. I had docked in England and so I enlisted in the British Army. I had learned a lot as a sailor, earning extra pay as a bare-knuckle brawler in various ports around the world. A Chinaman taught me how to fight in the ways of the Shaolin Monks of the Far East. The Army taught me tactics and how to shoot and build bombs,” Fortune explained.

  “I’m afraid I still don’t understand,” Webber looked puzzled, his brow wrinkling in a frown.

  “I got a taste of excitement, not the ordinary kind, but the real life or death kind. To me it’s almost like a drug. I need the action to feel alive! So far, this is looking like it will give me plenty of action,” Fortune shrugged.