"Indy, I'll— you set me up for this!"
"True," he admitted.
Tarkiz snapped another magazine into the Mauser. "What do we do with this one?" he motioned to Carboni.
"Don't you dare touch him!" Gale hissed. She came out of her seat with catlike speed. She jerked back Carboni's head with a handful of his hair and in another swift move she brought out her .25 automatic and jammed the short barrel as far as it would go into Carboni's left nostril. His eyes rolled like a madman's as he focused on the Beretta. Gale brought back the hammer with an audible click.
"If I cough or sneeze your brains are going to be all over the ceiling," she said quietly. "Any reason why I shouldn't squeeze this trigger?"
Carboni gurgled. "Ease off, Gale," Indy said quietly. "He still has the message to carry, remember?"
For several very long seconds she held her position, then looked Carboni in the eye. "Byebye," she said softly, and her finger curled back on the trigger.
A metallic snap mixed with a gurgling scream from Carboni. Gale stood slowly, wiping the barrel of the gun on Carboni's jacket. She turned to Indy. "Imagine that," she said with a thin smile. "I must have forgotten to put a round in the chamber."
She looked down at Carboni, sprawled unconscious on the floor. "What's with him?" she asked.
Indy laughed. "Our tough boy has fainted. Let's go."
In moments they were in the back seat of the Packard, Tarkiz at the wheel.
"Wonderful!" he shouted. "It is good, good! to do something again!"
Gale turned to Indy. "You set this whole thing up, didn't you?" He nodded.
"But, how did Tarkiz know when to come in? In fact, how did he know to come in?"
"My belt buckle. It's a batterypowered radio transmitter. Tarkiz had an earpiece receiver with the same frequency.
I pressed the buckle, he heard the clicks we'd prearranged as a signal, and he knew to come in loaded for bear."
She studied him carefully. "Indy?"
"Name it."
"You made us targets tonight, didn't you?"
He nodded. "I had to get their attention, somehow." "But . . . why didn't you tell me what was going to happen?"
"What, and let you worry?" Tarkiz guffawed.
8
"I've never seen him quite like this before," Gale said to her group. The four sat together at a corner table in the hangar dining mess. Neither Rene Foulois nor Gale cared to eat at the ungodly hour of six o'clock in the morning. But the clock meant little to either the expansive frame of Tarkiz Belem or the portly figure of Willard Cromwell. The time to eat was whenever something tasty was put before them. Yet they paid full attention to the comments of their two comrades as the four of them studied Indy, seated alone at the opposite corner of the mess.
"He's not eating, you know," Cromwell pointed out as he swallowed a chunk of bacon. "Just sucking up that horrid black muck you people call coffee."
"Fourth cup, the poor fellow," Foulois agreed.
"He certainly seems antsy about something," Cromwell said as he renewed his attack on his meal.
"What is this antsy?" Tarkiz questioned.
"Well, I certainly wouldn't call Indiana Jones nervous," Gale said critically of the others' remarks. "He's well, preoccupied. I'd say something very big was in the air."
"You are all making with the crazy talk," Tarkiz growled through a mouthful of bread soaked in butter and honey.
"You're drooling, old chap," Cromwell noted. "I know. I eat like starving bush hog. My wives tell me this many times,"
Tarkiz smiled. He turned back to Gale. "So you tell me, woman. What means this antsy and what else you say about something falling down on us."
His words brought smiles among them. "Antsy means nervous or upset," Gale said.
"You are not talking about Indy," Tarkiz said angrily. "I have followed many men. All over the world, woman. He is a man sure of himself, what he does. Quick, smart. Many good things. But this antsy?" Tarkiz shook his head angrily, spattering the others with food. "That is dumb." "I'm with you," Gale placated the Kurd glowering at the others.
"And as for what's in the air," Cromwell broke in, "there's the first sign. I knew there'd be trouble about last night."
"No trouble was with last night!" Tarkiz growled, a fist slamming against the table, bouncing dishes and cups and silverware noisily. "You do not understand!
Nothing happened from last night because no one will ever say anything." He sneered at Cromwell and Foulois. "You think that someone would call the police?
That is last thing that will happen!"
"Then what, if I may be so bold, was that fracas about last night? After all, Tarkiz, all we know is what you and Gale have told us," Cromwell said pointedly.
Gale rested her hand on Tarkiz's arm. He started to jerk away his arm, thought better of the move, and sat quietly.
She turned to the two men watching her and Tarkiz. "I'll let Indy tell you himself. But I can tell you this much.
Everything he did was worked out to the nth degree. Don't you understand yet? He set himself up as a target! He might as well have painted a bull'seye on his forehead—"
She stopped in midsentence as a man in a severe gray business suit, wearing a bowler hat and carrying a briefcase, joined Indy at his table. Cromwell leaned closer to Foulois. "Frenchy, I never forget a face. I know that chap."
"Who is he?"
"I don't know his name. But I've seen him before at i Whitehall and—"
Cromwell snapped his fingers. "And at the Air Ministry. By Jove, if my memory serves me, he's top echelon with British Intelligence."
Rene Foulois smiled. "It promises to be an interesting day. And here comes our good Colonel Henshaw."
The army officer moved a chair to their table. "Am I interrupting things?"
Rene smiled. "No, no. Our friend Tarkiz was about to start on his third breakfast, that's all."
"Well, I'm here to tell you that at twelve noon today there will be a special meeting. I imagine you know you're expected to be there," Henshaw explained.
"Where? This meeting is where?" Tarkiz said through another huge mouthful of food.
"If you'd be here no later than eleventhirty, I'll be here to take you to the meeting. Oh, yes, Professor Jones said you're free to do a flight if you'd like."
Foulois showed his surprise. "All the work is completed?"
Henshaw shook his head. "Not yet. But we're held up for a few hours waiting for equipment to arrive. Taking the ship up won't interfere with our program. In fact, we'd appreciate your doing a test flight. Check out the new engines and props, for one."
Cromwell and Foulois looked at one another and both nodded. "Gale, will you be with us?"
"Next time. I have some things to do. Colonel Henshaw, may I have the use of your machine shop until that meeting?"
"Of course. Anything special you need?"
"Grinding machine, polishing lathe, metal forming. Routine."
"You've got it."
"Thank you. Tarkiz, I recommend you go with these two in the Ford. I'd feel better, after last night, if you'd watch their backs."
Tarkiz grinned. "Sure, I do! I am good babysitter, no?"
She patted his hand. "The best, Tarkiz. The best." Back to Henshaw.
"Colonel, I'd like to get right to it."
"Let's go, Miss Parker. I'll take you there myself and make certain you have all the cooperation you need."
That will help, she told herself. Because after what happened last night, I want some invisible tricks up my sleeves.
Henshaw gathered them together at precisely eleventhirty. They had time for a quick coffee and a sandwich each, then Henshaw, clearly on edge and watching the clock, prompted them to board one of the many similar buses on the field. It was half filled with enlisted men in the ubiquitous work coveralls, and they blended in perfectly with the larger group. None of them missed the fact that every man on the bus was carrying a .45 Colt Automatic strapped to his wa
ist. No one spoke to them and they kept their own silence.
They watched with growing interest as the bus went through a guarded gate into an area marked with signs: danger!
fuel farm—explosive! keep out. authorized personnel only, and other dire warnings against unauthorized entry.
Finally Gale couldn't keep back her questions. "Colonel Henshaw, this fuel farm . . . thousands of gallons of aviation fuel all around us. Why are we here, of all places!"
"You'll see in a few moments, miss." He would say no more. Tarkiz, Willard, and Rene answered her looks with don'taskme shrugs. Then they drove into another huge hangar. The bus stopped as the hangar doors closed behind them.
Military police with submachine guns and leashed attack dogs moved along all entrances to the hangar.
They left the bus, following Henshaw to a guarded door. Two MP's checked his identification, then studied the ID
tags of the four people with him and used a telephone to verify names and identification. One MP slid back a heavy steel door. "Go right through here, sir."
They entered a waiting room. Raw concrete, naked light bulbs about them.
The door clanged shut. A buzzer sounded and a section of the wall to their left slid open. Henshaw gestured for them to follow. "This way, please."
They walked behind him onto a sloping, curved corridor, leading to a lower level. Then another guarded portal, with three MP's and dogs. Once again they went through a security check before the door was opened. Inside, they were kept for several moments in another concrete anteroom. A light glowed above a steel door, it slid to the side slowly, and they looked in surprise at a huge room. "It's a bloody war situation room," Cromwell exclaimed softly. "I've been in them before, but I've never seen the likes of this."
"I can explain now," Henshaw started as they walked with him along a yellow line painted on the floor. "This meeting is of a CFA—" "CFA?" Cromwell broke in.
"Sorry. I forget we're overheavy with acronyms. It best works out as Committee For Action."
They passed through a final checkpoint, and guards opened a steel door. It was Cromwell who again grasped the situation. "Listen carefully, my friends," he said in a low tone. "I've only once in my life ever been within what we call an inner sanctum. That's the nerve center of a larger war room, and that is quite where we are at this moment.
Whatever is going on, it is very weighty, or ominous might be a better word, but I'll tell you this. We are in it right up to our bloody armpits."
"You have such quaint expressions," Gale grimaced.
"However, he is certainly correct," Foulois said with the practiced ease of someone who seems casual about his surroundings, but is actually at hairtrigger alertness. It was almost as if these two wartime veterans could smell trouble. Gale had often had the same feeling in the forests and mountains. If Cromwell and Foulois were that touchy, the moment deserved all her attention. She glanced at Tarkiz. He had bunched up his shoulder muscles and was walking with a catlike tread as if any moment he might have to spring away from danger.
"This way." Henshaw's voice broke into her thoughts. "That table to the left and slightly behind Professor Jones.
Please take those seats."
Indy had watched their entrance, had, indeed, studied them carefully as they approached. He offered the slightest nod to acknowledge their presence and then locked his gaze with Gale's. No changing facial expression, but she swore she could read a message in his eyes. And his dress! He's wearing his "working clothes." That leather jacket and that sodden hat of his, and he's carrying the whip by the belt loop.
Why on earth is he wearing that Webley in such an obvious manner?
She took her seat and looked about the round table where Indy sat along with a dozen other men. No women, Gale confirmed. This is strictly business for these people, and by their expressions they are confused, angry, or . . . I don't know. But at least now I know why he's dressed deliberately in his own attire. He's setting himself off from the others. Everybody else dressed to the diplomatic and political hilt, starched shirts and squeezing neckties and suits that cost a hundred dollars or more. Everybody but Indy. A beautiful move on his part. Without saying a word he's told them all that he and they exist and live and work in different worlds.
She felt Tarkiz nudging her elbow. They leaned closer to one another.
"Woman," he whispered in her ear, "be ready for what you call, uh, skyrockets?"
"Fireworks," she helped him.
"Yes, yes. I have come to know our Indy. He is on the edge of telling everybody here to, how is it said? To get out of his way. To go away and don't bother him. He is telling them—"
"I get the idea," she broke in. "You're right. Let's hold this for later. Looks like the players are ready to deal."
"Hokay. Just one more thing. Is important." She motioned for him to go ahead. "You see fellow with glasses? Blue tie, green shirt? Looks like dumb farmer?
Is big act. Very smart, very dangerous. Head of secret police for Romania."
Gale looked at the small table placards, those that she could see, that were being set down before each man. Tarkiz was right. The placard before the "dumb farmer" held the name Pytor Buzau, Romania. She tried to read as many names as she could, then stopped as Colonel Henshaw came by and placed a roster before her. As he passed by he whispered to her, "Read it quickly and then slide it to your lap and put it away." She nodded agreement. At the same time she wondered why Henshaw was acting like something out of a fictional spy book. Good grief; all those people knew who they were, and the
nameplates identified everyone else! Well, perhaps there was a reason. She'd look into it later. For the moment she went down the list.
She already knew what lay behind the name of Buzau. Cromwell had already mentioned a face she recognized; he said the face belonged to someone with British Intelligence. Now she connected the name: Thomas Treadwell. She was surprised when she read Filipo Castilano. She not only had seen him, but had spoken with him several times at the University of London, and once or twice at Oxford, on the subject of ancient artifacts. And here he was with his name linked to the Vatican.
How very interesting. . . . Whatever could have persuaded the Italian government to let themselves be represented by the Church!
She continued down the list. Erick Svensen from Sweden. Sam Chen from China. Sam? Well, he probably went to school in the United States or England and wisely adopted a name everyone could pronounce easily. Besides, it lessened the Asiatic imprint enough to make him seem, well, more acceptable. That wasn't the case with the imperial, rigid figure of Yoshiro Matsuda from Japan, right down to his frozen, erect figure and his silk top hat.
Jacques Nungesser from France; ah, yes, he was a cousin of their great fighter ace from the war. She would ask Rene about that one later. George Sabbath from the United States? But there was Indy, and he was an American. She put aside her questions and continued with the list. Vladimar Mikoyan from Russia; Antonio Morillo from Venezuela; Tandi Raigarh from India; Rashid Quahirah from Egypt.
At the bottom was Professor Henry Jones . . . and beneath that a company name—Global TransAir.
They didn't waste any time. A buzzer sounded and the entire room went quiet. Treadwell leaned forward, scanned documents before him, and went directly to the point.
"Gentlemen, you are here because, above all else, you are trustworthy of judging what is best for your government and your country. We are all here for the same purpose. To identify what appears to be the single greatest threat to world peace, on a truly global scale, that we have ever encountered in our lifetimes. You have sufficient background before this meeting, which is the communications nerve center for all of us, to understand that even if we have yet to identify and define our adversary, we are aware of its growing power and danger to us all. Before we reach what is the most contentious aspect of what we have joined together to identify and defeat— which is how it is possible for us to face certain machinery that, by every st
andard of science and engineering we know, cannot possibly exist—I wish to thank you, one and all, for your support. Not only for financing this operation on an equal per capita basis, but for the magnificent cooperation we have received—"
Filipo Castilano half rose from his seat. Gone was the suave, debonair figure.
"Mister Treadwell, sir, please, do not tell us what we know. I accept on behalf of all of us that we are wonderful people. Get to the heart of the matter!"
Treadwell was unflappable. "Thank you, Signor. I am grateful to dispense with the diplomatic posturing."
"Thank God," someone muttered from the group.
"All right, then." Abruptly, Treadwell was no longer the flawless epitome of diplomacy. The hard professional beneath emerged as suddenly as a light switched on in a dark room. He pushed aside the papers before him.
Indiana Jones & the Sky Pirates Page 12
