Codex

by Bill Craig

  “Providing security for an archeological expedition deep into the Yucatán Peninsula,” Fortune told him.

  “Who else you got?”

  “Most of the old squad. I need people that I can trust on this, Mike.”

  “I’ve got your back, Cap, you know that,” Rogers told him

  “I know you do, Mike. I’ve got a feeling we may be fighting our way to the prize from the word go. There are people out there who don’t want us to succeed,” Fortune told him.

  “I kinda figured that, Cap.”

  “I’m sure that you did, Mike.”

  “Do I know the guys you’ve hired?”

  “You do. They are all from our old unit,” Fortune told him.

  “I prefer working with guys I know,” Rogers said.

  “Me too,” Fortune told him. “I’m not gonna kid you, Mike. This could get pretty rough. Our new boss isn’t coming right out and saying it, but we’re gonna have our work cut out for us on this job.

  “We had our work cut out for us in the trenches of ‘No Man’s Land’ but we did okay, Cap. Except for poor Silky,” Rogers said, almost sadly. Silky Dupree was a French soldier that they had adopted after his unit was wiped out in a mustard gas attack. Silky was a fighter though, and he had hated the bloody Huns with a passion that was unrivaled. Silky had been a hard charger and a go-getter. That was what had gotten him killed.

  Despite Fortune’s orders to stay put, Silky had climbed out of the trench and charged into enemy fire. He had been chopped to pieces. The whole squad had mourned his loss. “To Silky,” Fortune raised his glass and Rogers did the same, as they toasted their fallen comrade.

  “So, how soon do you need me?” Rogers asked, after finishing his drink.

  “How soon can you be available?” Fortune asked, as he spotted a slight disturbance near the door of the club.

  “I can start anytime, Cap,” Rogers informed him.

  “Then, you’re on the clock, as of right now,” Fortune replied, standing. There were four men pushing their way through the crowd coming their way. Although they were wearing suits, Fortune could tell that they weren’t used to it. No, those guys were trouble, and they were heading his way.

  “Sure thing, Cap,” Rogers stood and turned to see what his commanding officer was looking at. “Those bruisers looking for us?”

  “I think so, Mike.”

  “So, what are we gonna do about it?”

  “We let them start it, and then we finish it,” Fortune replied with a deadly smile.

  “Sounds like a plan,” Mike Rogers smiled.

  The four men pushed forward, shoving people aside and garnered dirty looks and more than a few crude remarks. But when they turned to look at those who uttered the remarks, the remarks quickly dried up. They stopped in front of Fortune and Rogers.

  “Can I help you?” Jake Fortune asked, with a smile.

  “You can leave,” the first man said, in a heavy German accent.

  “Now why would I want to do that?”

  “Because ve vant your table,” the man said.

  “Why should I care what a dumb Hun wants?”

  “You vill pay for dat remark!” the man said, lunging forward, attempting to capture Fortune in a bear hug. Jake met his jaw with a rock-hard fist and rocked the big man back. Two of the others jumped towards Mike, and he met them both with hard punches that set them back or dumped them on their butts. The leader lunged at Jake again and Fortune ducked under it and buried his fist in the man’s guts up to his wrist. The big man hit the floor with a groan. Fortune spun and kicked the second man that was charging him in the groin hard enough to lift him into the air. The attacker hit the floor in a fetal position.

  “Let’s get out of here, Cap,” Mike called, after dropping his two opponents.

  “That sounds like a good idea,” Fortune clapped him on the back, as they rushed for the door. Most of the crowd inside the club was still in shock and didn’t even notice their departure.

  It was starting to rain, as they exited the club and hailed a taxi. Schmidt watched them, a feeling of shock washing over him. He had thought that the four men he had sent in to confront them would triumph, leaving the two Americans broken and bruised and unable to join the expedition.

  They had proven to be more difficult than he had been led to believe! He followed them back to Fortune’s hotel. Then, he went in search of a telephone booth so that he could call in his report to Herr Klausen!

  Peabody Griffin frowned, as he considered his options. His team must reach The Lost City of Chichen Itza first! The Eyes of Kukulkan would earn him a place in the annals of history! They would be his legacy to the world. He knew that Hiram P. King was in the race, also. King was a former business partner turned rival, once that Griffin had discovered his underworld connections.

  King was a devious man, and like many others, Griffin had underestimated him. Now, his entire expedition was in danger. That was the reason that he had hired Jake Fortune. Griffin’s contacts in Washington had told him that if anyone could protect his niece on this expedition, it was Captain Jake Fortune, United States Army. Griffin suspected that Fortune might prove every bit as tough and devious as Hiram King. That was what he needed!

  Chapter Nine

  Jungles of the Yucatán.

  “We’ll give them another half an hour before we start pressing on, Professor. The guides and bearers need the rest. Swinging those machetes is punishing work in this heat,” Mike Rogers said, as he took a seat on the rear bumper of the truck beside her.

  “Do you think they were able to rescue Mr. Morris and get away?” Glory asked, her concern evident in her voice. She took a pull on her canteen.

  “If it could be done, Captain Fortune is the man that could do it,” Rogers assured her.

  “Tell me about him, Mister Rogers. I just realized that I know so little of his background.”

  “Cap don’t talk about himself too much. It’s like he never looks back, just forward. He saved all of our butts during the Great War, more than once.”

  “What do you mean by that, exactly?” Glory asked, her green eyes searching his face. Rogers felt himself blush a little under such close scrutiny by such a pretty young woman.

  “All of us guys on the security team, we all fought in the same unit,” Rogers explained.

  “And Fortune was your commander?”

  “Yes, Ma’am. Captain Fortune is a fighter, and he’s got a quick and sharp mind. Sometimes, our orders put us in some bad spots, but Captain Jake, he always brought us out in one piece.”

  “You have a lot of respect for him, don’t you?”

  “We all do, Professor. Uh, I’m trying to be delicate here, but if you or any of the other ladies need to make do, let me know and I’ll make sure you have a proper guard to keep you safe,” Rogers said, blushing furiously.

  “That’s a good idea, Mr. Rogers. I’ll see if I can get the ladies organized while you pick out suitable guards,” Glory told him, blushing a bit herself. She was surprised she hadn’t considered it sooner. Now that she was thinking about it, she suddenly realized that she needed to pee rather badly.

  Mike Rogers wiped more sweat from his brow with his already soaked bandana. He sure wished that Captain Fortune and Sam would get back. That Chac fellow, too. He was getting an uneasy feeling, and he didn’t like that they were undermanned. He figured Don and Shaw would be the best to guard the women while they went to the bathroom. He headed to go tell them about their new duty. Once that was done, he needed to go himself.

  Jake Fortune trotted along the path. Sam was keeping pace as was Chac. They were beyond the campsite from the night before now, following the path that was being cut through the jungle. Jake called a halt, figuring that they couldn’t be more than an hour behind the rest of their expedition. He passed out salt tablets which each of them took and then drank some water. At the moment, dehydration was his biggest worry.

  “Chac, what do we have ahead of us? Professor Newkirk sai
d that you grew up in this region,” Fortune probed. He needed to know what to expect, as least as much as possible.

  “There are scattered tribes in the jungle, but the worst of it will be the swamps and its inhabitants,” Chac replied.

  “What do you mean?”

  “There are many poisonous snakes in the swamps. Also, alligators, and quicksand. Any footing or ground we find will be treacherous and deadly. Once we are through the swamps, which are also hunted by the great cats and wild boars, then we will meet people that have never seen a white man. They will fear you are evil spirits, come to steal their souls. I will do my best to lessen their fears, but I can only do so much. Many of the jungle ruins are sacred to them, places haunted by their ancestors. It will not be easy,” Chac explained.

  “This mission is sounding less and less appealing,” Sam Morris griped.

  “You’re being well paid for it Sam,” Fortune reminded him.

  “Except what good is money if I’m not alive to spend it?”

  “Are you saying you’re having second thoughts, Sam?” Fortune asked him.

  “What if I am?” Morris asked, glaring at Fortune.

  “Then I guess you can head back to the coast now. I won’t have you here endangering the mission. You get captured again, I won’t come after you,” Fortune said, coldly.

  “You are a hard ass bastard, Captain.”

  “I am,” Fortune admitted, never taking his eyes off Morris.

  “What if I don’t want to go back?”

  “I can kill you where you stand, Sam. I won’t bat an eye if I have to.”

  “Yeah, I can see that.”

  “Then, let’s get moving. Sam, you take the lead,” Fortune told him pointedly. Morris frowned at him, but didn’t argue. He started down the trail at a slow jog with Fortune and Chac following behind him.

  Eric Klausen and his men followed the trail cut in the jungle. Such a dismal place! Many times, the trucks had to use their lights because the canopy of trees above was so thick that no sunlight could penetrate it. It was bad enough that the Americans had outwitted him in New York, but they had done the same when they had left the steamer that had brought them south to Mexico.

  It should never have happened. They should have been able to steal the map while the party was still on board the steamer. Klausen shook his head, as he considered how careless his men had been when they had made their attempt. Of course, he hadn’t counted on Fortune having people waiting at the docks either.

  Klausen had managed to radio Berlin before they had started on the trail of the expedition following the steamer docking. Herr Himmler was sending a Zeppelin with reinforcements. Hopefully, they would have caught up to the American group before the German airship arrived. Once they had them, Klausen had no doubt that he could force the young woman that was in charge to surrender the map. If not, he would kill her and take it off her corpse.

  Fortune, Morris, and Chac reached the convoy just as they were starting the truck engines and getting ready to push forward. All three men were weary and soaked with sweat from their long hike through the jungle. “It’s about time you caught up,” Glory Newkirk told him with a wry smirk. Fortune just looked at her, his mouth hanging open.

  “Take a piss if you need it, we’re about to move out,” Mike Rogers clapped him on the back. Fortune looked at the other two men.

  “You heard him. Make it quick if you want to ride instead of walk.”

  Fortune had picked a spot in the back of the truck where he could keep an eye on Sam Morris. The man’s actions after he had been rescued had Fortune worried. It had been a few years since they had served together, and Jake wondered how much Sam Morris had changed.

  Back in the war, Sam had always been a quiet one. Jake had always figured it was because he was a sniper. When he killed, while it was from a distance, it was with a personal connection to his target. He had heard other snipers talk about it. How they felt an almost cosmic connection to their target, alive before they pulled the trigger and then suddenly gone, their souls consigned to the universe at large without ever knowing that they had died. Some men didn’t like it, some started to like the killing. More and more, Fortune was wondering which kind of man Sam Morris had become. Did he enjoy killing? Yes, Sam would certainly bear watching from here on out.

  Glory Newkirk was secretly glad that Fortune had caught up with them. She felt safer with him around. As much as she hated to admit it, she liked Jake Fortune. He gave her a sense of security, and to be honest, he made her feel much safer than she normally would have, given what they had faced so far on this journey.

  She was at the wheel of the lead truck now, slowly guiding it along the path that the native bearers were hacking through the jungle. She was sweating freely, but she didn’t mind it. This was the adventure that she had always dreamed of having.

  “You still think you’re a hero, don’t you, Jake?” Sam Morris asked from the other side of the truck.

  “I never thought of myself as a hero, Sam. I’m just a guy doing what he can to get by,” Fortune replied.

  “Bullshit, Jake. You always had to be the hero. That’s why you took the chances that you did back in the Great War. It wasn’t because you cared about your men,” Morris scoffed.

  “You’re wrong about that, Sam. I always cared about the men under my command. You guys were my family.”

  “Your family? I sincerely doubt that, Jake.”

  “You’d be wrong, Sam. I was orphaned at a young age. I grew up in the streets. I learned the hard way about loyalty to those that stood with me. Apparently, it was a lesson you never learned.”

  “My dad beat me every day until I left home, Jake. I hunted and kept food on the table, but that was never enough for my old man. I had to have a kill for every single bullet to feed my brothers and sisters, or else I got whipped bloody with a leather strap. The last shot I fired with that gun, I put a bullet through my father’s eye at more than a hundred yards. After that, I joined the Army and was sent to fight in the war,” Morris told him.

  “You liked killing, didn’t you?” Fortune asked.

  “I did, Jake. It made me feel alive. Nothing makes you feel more like a god than taking a human life. I was God. I decided who lived and died. The war just gave me an excuse.”

  “Sam, once this is over, if I ever see you again, I’ll kill you myself,” Jake Fortune said.

  “If you get out of this. You know that there are people coming after us, right?”

  “I know.”

  “They will kill you Jake. And I will laugh as they pour dirt in your grave,” Sam Morris smiled at him.

  “That’s assuming you’re still alive, Sam.”

  Somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean.

  Fregattenkapitän Rupert Meijer, lord and master of the Zeppelin die Racheengel or Avenging Angel was listening to the most recent commands from Der Führer in the radio room. They were heading for the Central American jungles, specifically lower Mexico and the area known as the Yucatán Peninsula. Once there, they were to serve as back up for a covert commando operation on the ground led by an SS officer called Eric Klausen.

  Meijer sent his acknowledgement and headed for the bridge. He wanted a best estimate of their time of arrival in Mexico. The Avenging Angel had been furnishing covert support for operations all around the globe, including secretly parachuting spies into allied controlled areas. With its muffled sound profile, and high altitude, it could slip into areas that other airplanes could not.

  Personally, he found all this sneaking around to be an affront to his rank. He felt that he should be at the forefront of the fighting, so that he could die gloriously for the Fatherland! He entered the bridge and his men snapped to attention. “At ease,” he called and they relaxed, as he made his way over to Peter von Gorn, the Navigator. “How long until we reach Mexico?”

  Don Franklin was riding in the back of the truck with Clifford Shaw. They were both keeping an eye behind them since that was where they really exp
ected trouble to come from. “Did the Captain seem a little off when he and the others caught up with us?” Franklin asked.

  “He did. So, did Sam for that matter. I think something went on between them while they were out in the jungle. Something bad,” Shaw sighed.

  “Sam was always a little strange, even back in the war,” Don sighed.

  “Yes, he was. A lot of time snipers are,” Shaw shrugged.

  “Did you ever get the feeling that maybe Sam enjoyed what he did a little too much?”

  “More than once,” Shaw admitted.

  “You think maybe the Captain noticed that too?”

  “The Captain didn’t miss much.”

  “No, he didn’t.”

  “You think maybe Sam said something while that they were out there, something that the Captain couldn’t let go of?”

  “I think it’s possible,” Shaw admitted. They both knew Jake Fortune like he was family. He was loyal, but if he even suspected that somebody wasn’t on the up and up, he would take them out without question. They both had seen him do it during the war. Jake Fortune was not a trusting man at the best of times.

  Chapter Ten

  Felix Grimaldi and Tommy Grover were up front, hacking away at the jungle to open the path into the interior. It was dull and boring work, constantly hacking and slashing at the undergrowth, cutting it away and clearing a path for the trucks.

  “The Captain looked upset when he rejoined the party,” Grimaldi noted. His arm went up and down, the heavy blade of the machete cutting through the undergrowth.

  “Yes, he did,” Tommy agreed. His shirt was soaked with sweat as was the bandana tied around his forehead. His arm continued to rise and fall.

  “I’m thinking it has something to do with Sam.”

  “Sam was always a strange one. Most of the men that acted as snipers were,” Tommy groaned.

  “I think it might be more than that,” Felix shrugged.