by Ron Goulart
Tongue in cheek, she gathered up her purse with the autographed copy of Prolijos' 1926 book in it. She studied the two sprawled men. "Most likely hired goons," she decided. "Not worth questioning, and I don't have that much time to waste anyhow. Okay, so leave them here for the trash collector."
With a final brush at her hair, she went strolling away from there.
The wall swung open with a creak. "You ought to oil the darn thing," said Denny Yewell. He pushed the bookcase back into place and crossed to a leather armchair. "Not my idea of efficiency."
General Cuerpo was behind his desk, in uniform. He picked up a skinny black cigar from the humidor and placed it between his hps. "Soon you'll be able to visit me by way of the front door," he said as he lit the cigar with his gold lighter.
"Hey, don't go rushing the coup," cautioned the American agent. "Lots of things have to be taken care of yet."
"I fancy I know how to manage an operation of this sort."
"I'm betting you can, too. I've got a stake in this, though, and if you screw it up I could end up in a dungeon someplace."
The general's thin smile was blurred by gray smoke. "We don't intend to fail," he said. "You forget, by the way, that President Chanza has eliminated the dungeons previous regimes in Ereguay found so useful."
"Okay, so much for chitchat. Did you act on my tip?"
"Haven't you heard the news yet? I would have thought your intelligence-gathering resources were better than that."
"You took care of Satara, then?"
"He and his place of residence in the barrio are no more," Cuerpo informed him. "The timing of my agents could have been a bit better; in that case we would have gotten rid of two of your Challenger friends as well."
"They're hard to kill," said Yewell.
Cuerpo watched his cigar smoke go spiraling up toward the beamed ceiling. "We seem to have safely cut off the possibility of their ever finding Escabar," he said. "Yet I feel we'd best make completely sure."
"I'm seeing them tonight again. If they have any idea who or where Escabar is, I'll let you know."
"The simpler plan is to get rid of Escabar; that way no one can talk to him, ever."
The young American raised his eyebrows very slightly. "Kill him, huh?"
"That's the most efficient way of handling this."
"He did a lot for you boys," said Yewell. "From what I gather. Working out the basic—"
"The nature of Escabar's contribution is familiar to me," cut in the general. "Is this a touch of your well-known American sentimentality surfacing?"
Yewell shook his head. "Kill him," he said. "I don't owe the guy anything."
"We'll wait," Cuerpo said, "until you find out if these Challengers are aware of his existence."
"Who's being sentimental now?"
Tapping ashes into a heavy brass ashtray, the general said, "I'd like a bit more background on the Challengers of the Unknown. The awe in which some of you hold them intrigues me."
"They've a pretty impressive record," said the National Espionage agent. "They've put the whammy on some very rough customers. Not only your run-of-the-mill bad guys, but all sorts of supernatural threats, too."
"So their publicity states."
"Look, General, I've long since checked all this out," Yewell said. "The Challengers of the Unknown have earned their reputation. I should think by now you'd have learned it's unwise to underestimate your enemies. Back in World War Two when—"
"You forget I have no association with the Second World War," said Cueipo. "I am much too young to have participated in that encounter, and my native country of Ereguay remained neutral."
"Oh, yeah, that's right. Sorry." Yewell grinned, almost winking. He settled more comfortable into his armchair. "As to the Challengers. Several years back there was a TV show in the United States that honored people who were considered heroes in various fields. A semidocumentary show, which was very popular at the time. Anyway, for one particular broadcast four men were invited to fly out to Hollywood. As things turned out, all four went by the same plane, a jet provided by the network. Those four were Rocky Davis, who was a championship wrestler; Prof Haley, a scientist with a specialty in underwater exploration; Red Ryan, a circus acrobat; and Ace Morgan, a very capable electronics engineer and a jet pilot. He was flying that very jet, matter of fact. Before they ever reached the West Coast, the plane ran into a terrific electrical storm. It crashed. The crash, and I've seen photos of the wreckage, was a bad one. The kind of a smashup where usually nobody walks away. But those four fellows did walk away, not one of them seriously hurt. Something happened to them when they found themselves alive when they should have been dead. In a way it was like being bom all over again. They agreed to start fresh from that moment, forget the various hang-ups and problems which might have been troubling them up till the moment they boarded that jet. They decided that, since they were living on borrowed time, they'd use that time well. So they became the Challengers of the Unknown."
"Truly inspirational," observed Cuerpo with a faint sneer. He ground out his cigar in the heavy ashtray. "There's nothing, however, in your account to indicate any one of them is a superhuman or in any way invulnerable. They were lucky in cheating death once; their luck may not hold."
"People have tried to kill them," said Yewell, "many times."
"Then we can assume their deaths are very much overdue," General Cuerpo said. "Something will be done about that."
Rocky scowled at the menu. "Don't see why this joint got five stars in die travel guide," he said.
"Only four," corrected Red.
"Carne here, carne there. Ain't they never heard of vegetarians down here?"
"Have the salad."
"What kind of lunch is that?" Rocky tossed the menu down beside his place setting.
It was past the traditional lunch hour in San James; the small, dimlit restaurant was nearly empty. The floor was of mosaic tile, the walls a stark white stucco. The door was crusted with wrought-iron designs.
Prof Haley pushed it open, came in from the sunlight and over to the table. "I hear this place gets a five-star rating in the travel guide," he said, taking the final chair at the table.
"Four," grunted Rocky.
Prof glanced from one to the other. "You chaps look as though you were standing too close to an explosion. What happened?"
"We were standing too close to an explosion," replied Red. "I thought we'd gotten ourselves relatively presentable."
"To the untrained eye, perhaps," said Prof. He was studying his menu. "Ah, carne con fango. Haven't had that since our visit to Peru last year."
Rocky snorted. "I don't see how a guy with an IQ like you claim can keep on eating meat."
"It's my one vice. Did this explosion of yours have something to do with your call on Senor Satara?"
"Senor Satara was the explosion," said Red. "Somebody blew up his shack in the barrio. We dug around in the ruins and all we found out is that our mad bombers are into plastic explosives."
"I take it the poor fellow was in his shack at the time," said Prof. "Meaning you reached him too late."
"He was able to tell me a few things before he died."
"Lot of cryptic stuff," said Rocky, "about things like Tierra Seca and Fortaleza."
"Does sound somewhat obscure."
Red said, "When I was with Nordling Brothers International Circus, we played all over Latin America one season. Tierra Seca is what they call the area along the coast of Ereguay. Desert country, even though it touches the Pacific Ocean."
Rocky said, "The dying guy was also talking about somebody named Escabar. You figure Escabar is in that desert somewhere?"
"I'm betting that we'll find the guy who calls himself Escabar somewhere around the Fortaleza," said Red. "That's an old castle in one of the many desolate spots in the Tieita Seca."
Prof nodded. "Escabar must be important. Otherwise no one would have killed Satara to keep him from talking about the chap."
"K
ee-rist. That don't follow, Prof. For all we know Escabar is Satara's laundryman and the guy was babbling nothing but nonsense."
"The Tierra Seca desert is two hundred miles from here," Red told him. "Long way to send your dirty linen."
"Aw, you know what I'm getting at. Sounds like a wild-goose chase."
"I don't agree," asserted Red. "I'm going to suggest to Ace that we split up on this one. Prof, you and Ace and June go ahead into the jungle to track down Zarpa. Rocky and I can—"
"Hold your horses, you road-show Howdy Doody," boomed Rocky. "Who says I'm going to join you on this snipe hunt?"
"Prof and Ace have to go into the wilds, especially Prof since underwater fooling around is his specialty," said Red. "I'd prefer not to go up against Escabar alone; hence you tag along."
"Like a bodyguard." Rocky's forehead was devoted to enormous furrowing. "I tell you, buddy, I ain't about to let little Juney traipse off into the boonies with Prof."
"Rocko, that lass can fell trees with one chop of the hand, tie knots in the tails of jaguars," outlined Prof, "break the bones of—"
"Quit the razz," said Rocky. "I don't—"
"What did you find out while we were dodging the bursting bombs?" Red quickly asked Prof.
"I have a few contacts here in the capital, built up largely through my underwater fooling around."
"We know, we know," said Rocky. "Enough shell, get to the nut inside."
"An apt metaphor," said Prof, "especially coming from one with a brain the size of the aforementioned peanut. Okay, from what I can gather, Chanza has a good rep. So he probably was on the square with what he told us last night; isn't trying to foul us up or lead us into a snare. His view of the political situation in Ereguay is a mite optimistic. There is a strong possibility the military is plotting to drop him. One of the big honchos in the army, and probably the chief plotter against Chanza, is a lad name of General Francisco Cuerpo."
Red stroked his chin. "What about our pal, Zarpa the lake monster? Any information about him?"
Prof said, "My friends inform me he doesn't exist. It's all a lot of superstitious rumor."
"If so," asked Red, "who's clawing those people to death?"
"You've put your finger on the nub of the problem," said Prof.
"May I have your orders?" inquired the waiter who'd arrived beside their table.
Eyes on his folded fists, Rocky said, "I'll have the salad."
They left the Pan American Highway at a few minutes after eleven in the morning. The ambush didn't occur until nearly an hour later.
The farther along the Challenger van rolled on the weaving side road, the greener everything got. Jungle rose up all around, a hundred different kinds of trees and plants, a hundred shades of green. Dotted with intensely red flowers and leaping splashes of gold and orange which turned out to be parrots. Monkeys there were, too, flickering through the high branches.
In the passenger section of the van Prof was slouched in a seat, pouring himself a cup of iced tea from a silver thermos. "I might as well confess, June," he was saying to the pretty blonde beside him.
"We only hear confessions on Saturday afternoons from two to four." Her eyes were on the unfolding Ereguayan jungle outside.
"Nonetheless," continued Prof, "I want you to know I arranged this whole trip, saw to it Red and Rocky got
sent elsewhere, for the express purpose of being alone with you in the wilderness."
"What about Ace?" She nodded toward Morgan, who was driving the vehicle.
"Frankly, I anticipated," said Prof after a sip of tea, "this van being more gadget ridden than it is. Figured Ace had designed it to drive itself, and that he'd stay in San James devoting himself to a series of siestas."
"I'd hate to have to try you for mutiny," said Ace.
"Sorry, chief, didn't know you were awake." Prof rested his cup on his upthrust knee. The three of them were now wearing their familiar Challenger uniforms, royal purple jump suits with the symbolic hourglass emblazoned across the chest. "What I have in mind, June, is something in the way of a tree house for you and me. As a matter of fact, I was optimistic enough to have them go ahead and build one. Had the devil's own time furnishing it. We got the bathtub aloft into the trees with relative ease, but darned if the grand piano didn't snag on—"
"Can we," requested June, turning toward him, "be serious for a brief spell?"
"Ah, how ironic life is," said Prof. "I propose arboreal bliss to the girl of my dreams and she takes it as a joke. I wonder if Henny Youngman has the same—"
"Prof," said the girl, "I've been thinking a lot about what's happened to us so far."
"So have I." He straightened up in his chair.
"Well, it's quite obvious somebody has been able to anticipate most of our moves," she continued. "They knew where we were going to be staying, they knew I'd be calling on Professor Prolijos."
"They probably even know we're on this jaunt to beautiful, picturesque Lake Sombra," added Prof.
"There are only so many people who could have known all this stuff," June said. "Maybe it's too obvir ous, but I can't help speculating about our terribly clean-cut National Espionage agent, Denny Yewell. Could he be the one?"
"It is an awfully obvious possibility," said Prof.
Ace said, "Occam's Razor."
"The one we gave him last Christmas?" said Prof.
"I was referring to the scientific dictum about not overlooking the most obvious answer," Ace said from the driver's seat of the van.
"You think," asked June, "Yewell could be a turncoat, a double agent?"
"Never wise to trust anyone completely," said Ace. "Which is why we're heading for the lake on a different route than the one Yewell suggested."
Prof said, "Beneath that forthright exterior of yours, Ace, resides a very devious soul." He slouched again, tried more tea. "Obviously a chap would have to be essentially crafty and devious to concoct this van. So seemingly innocent, a typical tourist conveyance on the outside, within a veritable puzzle box of gadgetiy, gimmickry, weaponry and several other tricky things ending in y."
June had been following the progress of a slightly orange monkey through the far-up branches. "You're about the most devious thing we have in this van right now, Prof."
"Me? Old, open-faced Prof Haley? Why—"
"Whoa." Ace hit the brakes. "Hadn't expected this."
Completely blocking the narrow roadway some twenty yards ahead were several felled trees, the interlocked trunks forming, an effective blockade.
Prof was out of his seat. "That's no accident of nature."
"Neither," said June, looking back over her shoulder, "is that big black truck which is pulling up behind us."
The man in the rumpled gray suit took yet another look around. Butterflies, large black ones, circled the spot where he stood. The sun made twisty stripes across the mossy ground and the green jungle. The man, he seemed to be about forty, ran his tongue over his lips. He took yet another look around. No one near, nothing unusual anywhere.
Very carefully, tugging at his pant legs, he knelt on the ground. Before he reached into the wrinkled side pocket of his coat, he rubbed a freckled hand over his face, feeling at the comers of his mouth and the edges of his pale blue eyes. Then he brought out the small silver rod, located the spot beneath the familiar twist of vine. He touched rod to spot. Ten seconds passed, then twenty.
With absolutely no sound, a section of the earth swung up. The opening was about as wide as a grave, though not as long. Gonsalves, as he called himself, always thought of a grave when he stepped down into the opening.
A metal ladder took Gonsalves down into darkness. When his feet touched the metallic flooring, the panel shut above him. He was in blackness for nearly a minute, feeling cold and dampness all around him. A light came on, another, and another. The corridor, which slanted down deeper underground, was now illuminated.
Gonsalves descended.
He went, seeing no one, deeper and deeper down.
"Someday soon," he whispered to himself, "they'll put you underground for sure. Bury you, shovel the dirt on you. Jesus, I can't face that, even think about it. Dying, rotting away. It's got to keep working."
"What's that, Gonsalves?"
He gave a start. He hadn't heard the door open, hadn't been aware of Shuster standing there watching him until the man spoke. "What? Oh, nothing," said Gonsalves. "Must have been thinking aloud."
"Come in." Shuster stepped back, beckoning.
"I might as well tell you immediately," said Gonsalves as he crossed the threshold of the office, "that I'm very concerned. I'm worried."
Shuster took his place behind a metal desk, glancing up at the monitor screens which had warned him of the other man's arrival. "I'm worried about this alleged monster myself," he said, inviting Gonsalves to sit in the chair which faced his desk. "You can rest assured the situation will be taken care of. I've just sent, despite the seeming indifference of General Cuerpo, a few very efficient men into the surrounding jungle to track down this Zarpa, whatever it is."
Waving his hand negatively, Gonsalves said, "Old wives' tales aren't any concern of mine," he said. "I'm worried about myself. Look at me."
Shuster obliged. "And so?"
"Don't tell me you can't see it?"
"You do appear a bit seedy, a touch under the weather. There is supposed to be a new strain of influenza bothering Ereguay, perhaps—"
"I'm not ill." Gonsalves pressed the fingertips of his freckled right hand into his cheek. "Don't tell me, Herr Bekker, you—"
"Don't call me that. I am Leon Shuster."
"Yes, yes. I'm sorry. It's only . . . don't you comprehend what I'm telling you? I'm . . . I'm aging!"
Smiling, Shuster shook his head. "Rubbish," he said.
"Yes, but it's true. There are lines in my face, and my body is growing more slack each day." He held up both hands. "You can't deny these spots. Age spots, the kind you see on the hands of the old men who sit in the park and play chess. Not what one expects in a man who is supposed to be forty."
Shuster moved a pen from his blotter to his bare desk, rolled it .a few times beneath his finger. "You are, in point of fact, a very old man," he said at last. "The Process cannot hide every trace of your true age."
