by Bill Craig
Here there be monsters....
He had already run into his share of monsters. Somewhere down there were the four that had escaped them in town. Their victory, albeit a small one in the grand scheme, was nevertheless like grit in the gears of his pride. The only way to begin remedying that was to make them pay; he vowed that their debt would be settled through a long and painful accounting.
Nevertheless, the mercenaries helping the Italian were not his foremost concern, not the biggest monster on his horizon. That dubious distinction belonged to someone much closer: the good Doctor Ragnarok.
What concerned him most about Ragnarok was the degree of control the sorcerer had over the mission, and by extension, Wessel's own destiny. To the masked mystic, he and his commandoes, along with the Valkyrie and the Messerschmitt fighter planes of the famed Kondor Legion, were but pawns on a game board. As an officer and a fighting man, Wessel knew that sometimes war was exactly like that, a grand game of chess, but the power to command men to go to their deaths ought to have been given to someone trained in military strategy, not to a superstitious wizard with no battlefield experience whatsoever.
Now two of the pilots were dead and their planes lost, and for what? Some fabled lost city and a treasure that could grant immortality. He shook his head. Fairy tales and valuable resources were being directed into finding them rather than making Germany stronger. The Reich needed men and money, not fairy tales if it were to conquer the world.
*****
The sun was sinking low on the horizon and darkness was already falling within the jungle as Captain Morgan guided the riverboat up the middle of the river channel. They were still a few hours from the thunderous cataract known as Livingstone Falls. Barring any sort of problem, he anticipated reaching the portage sometime early in the morning.
That was the easy part of the journey. The lower Congo region was fairly pacified. It was the upper reaches of the river where trouble seemed to lurk around every bend. The inherent danger of the long river journey was part and parcel of the reason Morgan left that part of his business to younger, more adventurous men.
“What do you hear about the pirates, Padre?”
McKenzie stared into the darkening jungle as if lost in thought. “So far they have left the Mission alone, but even I have no idea how long that will last.”
“Maybe you should consider arming your flock. I know a fellow who could get you a good deal on some Springfield rifles. Old war surplus.”
“I can’t do that, Captain.” McKenzie offered a look of earnest remorse at refusing the offer.
“The Force Publique would never permit native laborers to form a militia. We'd be in more danger from the authorities than the pirates.”
Morgan laid one finger alongside his nose. “What they don't know....”
McKenzie chuckled. “It’s a matter of principle,” he replied softly.
“Guess then you are doin’ what you gotta do, Padre.” Morgan knew he was right, and knew that McKenzie knew it to.
Principle, he thought, taking a pipe and pouch from his back pocket. He dipped the bowl of the pipe into the tobacco, tamped it and lit it with a wooden match. Damned foolishness is what it is.
“Dad!” a voice called out from shore, snatching the captain's attention.
“Bridget?” McKenzie called back.
Morgan squinted his eyes; he still couldn’t make out the source of the female voice, the jungle and the river could certainly make things tricky, but there was no doubt concerning the identity of the speaker.
“Over here,” the voice called again, and this time Morgan saw a flash of light. The small flicker of flame from a cigarette lighter caught his attention. He pointed towards it, letting McKenzie follow his finger.
“Thank God,” McKenzie gasped.
Coming from him, the invocation seemed to carry a lot more weight.
Chapter Ten
Mike Hannigan had a small fire going by the time Morgan and McKenzie reached the shore. The fire had helped guide them in to the bank. McKenzie looked relieved as he stepped ashore and folded Bridget into his arms. Hannigan felt a slight twinge of jealousy as he watched their reunion; he was Bridget’s protector now. But McKenzie was her father and a priest to boot.
A smile crept across his face as he remembered the past couple of hours in the jungle as he and Bridget had become much more intimately acquainted. Not in a biblical sense, but a lot of time spent necking. It had been paradise, the whole world forgotten except for the two of them. Then Bridget had heard the riverboat’s engine approaching. Worried that it might be some of the infamous river pirates that plagued the Congo region, they had slipped to the riverbank to check it out. Then Bridget had recognized the boat that routinely carried supplies to the Mission.
McKenzie’s concerned look snapped Hannigan back to the present. The priest’s eyes were narrowed and appraising. Hannigan rose to his full height to greet the Priest on equal footing.
McKenzie stopped in front of him. “Bridget says you’ve saved her life a couple of times now.”
“She’s saved mine too,” Hannigan answered with a shrug.
McKenzie was unimpressed. “I misjudged you, Mr. Hannigan. I had hoped that given the choice, you would choose the righteous path, leading my daughter away from these dangerous men, instead of drawing her into their company.”
“I saved her from those Nazis.”
“I’m not talking about the Germans. I’m talking about the Italian and your mercenary friend. This ends now. I will not permit Bridget to take you men up river.” McKenzie’s voice was unequivocal.
“Isn’t that her choice to make?” Hannigan asked softly.
“Yes, it is, Dad,” Bridget interrupted from behind the priest.
McKenzie spun around to face her.
“No, it’s not, Bridget. I’m your father. It’s far too dangerous for you to continue this foolishness,” McKenzie said firmly, almost as if he expected Bridget Ellen O’Malley to play the shrinking violet.
“I’m not a kid anymore Dad,” Bridget snapped, her green eyes flashing angrily. “I’m a grown woman and it’s time for me to start making my own decisions about my life. I’m going with Hannigan!”
“Bridget, listen to me.” McKenzie’s tone changed, softening in an attempt to defuse the fire of her temper before it exploded completely and irrevocably. “You have no idea what you are getting yourself into.”
“You sound like you know what we’ll find,” Bridget hissed between clenched teeth, ignoring his efforts. “Maybe you’d like to share?”
Hannigan for once chose the smart course and kept his mouth shut. It hadn’t occurred to him that the priest might know something about their quest, but when McKenzie reflexively glanced over his shoulder at him, Hannigan knew there was a lot more to the story than he had first suspected.
“You can tell me now,” Bridget persisted, “or we can find out for ourselves… the hard way.”
“Saints preserve us.” McKenzie growled. “You are asking me to break a sacred vow, to reveal one of the Church’s greatest and deadliest secrets.”
Hannigan fought to keep his face an expressionless mask. …Deadliest secrets? What the Hell was going on?
“Unless you give me a really good reason not to,” Bridget said firmly, “I’m going with Mike and the others.”
“Where are the others?” McKenzie asked, noticing for the first time that the Russian and the Italian were nowhere to be seen.
“They’re around the bend with the plane,” Hannigan said. At that moment, Captain Morgan came running up.
“We need to get back to the boat. I hear engines coming across the water,” he gasped for breath.
Bridget and McKenzie looked at each other.
“Pirates!” They said in unison. The four of them ran for the small skiff and piled in. Hannigan and Morgan snatched up oars and began rowing away from the shore.
*****
The king of Belgium might have claimed ownership of the Con
go region, but those who resided in the rain forest and river basin knew that a different monarch ruled the river. From the earliest days of European commerce on the Dark Continent there had been bandits and river-highwaymen lurking in the shadows, but for several years now, the brigands had been marshaled into an indomitable armada under the leadership of a single, almost legendary villain.
The authorities could not defeat them; it was easier to simply pay them off for safe passage. Those who did not bargain for the pirates “protection” were liable for a merciless reprisal if they dared to attempt passage.
They were called “the Ninety-Nine” and they ruled the Congo River, the Ninety-Nine and Johannes Krieger.
Hiram Secord was not numbered among the uppermost ten of the Ninety-Nine, but he was ambitious and it looked as though his star was finally rising. Earlier in the week, he had led a small band of renegades to the Lower Congo - an area where the Ninety-Nine had not previously tried to assert their influence - and had captured a riverboat and its cargo. It was a bold move; this far from Krieger’s secret headquarters, he and his men were cut off from any kind of support. The course of wisdom would have been to take the booty and withdraw, but Secord’s aspirations knew no limits. He had led a second attack, and then another; his audacious goal was nothing less than to establish the power of the Ninety-Nine on the Lower Congo, and thereafter to take his place at Krieger’s right hand.
He peered through the near darkness, trying to find a trace of the fire he had seen on shore moments ago. Someone was out there. “Prepare to attack!” he whispered over one shoulder.
He heard a ripple of eager noise behind him as his men locked their rifle bolts or hefted their knives in anticipation of more bloodshed. Secord shared their lust for violence. This was a lot more fun than beating the native laborers on the rubber plantations. He continued scanning the shore and river, gripping the rudder wheel with knuckles white with anticipation, until he saw the shape of a boat looming out of the darkness.
“There!” he hissed, pointing at the squared-off shape gliding across the water in front of them. The men made ready to jump aboard as he guided his boat closer to the target. The cowards had abandoned their boat and taken refuge on shore; this was almost too easy
Suddenly the water exploded into flame! Fire erupted from the surface of the river and it took a moment for Secord and his crew to realize that the source of the flames was petrol floating on the river’s surface.
A face, lit up by the orange glow, appeared on the derelict boat and then another, and then a jet of flame lanced toward the pirate boat. Only after the first few of his men had fallen did Secord realize that they were being fired upon.
“Fire!” he shouted and his men opened up on the craft with their Enfield rifles. An inferno erupted from their target and more of his men flew backward, plunging into the black waters of the Congo.
Secord stared in disbelief at the bleeding wounded on his deck and worse, at the gaps in the ranks. One of his senior men, holding pressure on a gushing wound in his upper arm, met his glance with the look of a man betrayed.
Secord spun the wheel of his boat, hitting the throttle, goosing it up to full, to get away from the unexpected ambush. The men in the water were goners; the crocs would already have smelled the blood and gone after them.
How had this happened? Who was this enemy that had defied him so, and how had they known he was coming? Secord swore he would find out.
This was not over.
*****
Hannigan gripped his .45 and breathed in the smells of burning petroleum, cordite and blood. It was a nauseating odor, but it was also the smell of victory. McKenzie knelt on the aft deck of the riverboat muttering the last rites over one of the pirates that hadn’t been dragged off by the crocodiles. Bridget stood amidships, holding an Enfield rifle loosely in her hands, with her head bowed as if in prayer.
The element of surprise had served them well. With Hannigan and Morgan rowing determinedly, it had taken only a couple of minutes to reach the riverboat. The four of them had hurried aboard and Morgan had passed out rifles to Bridget and McKenzie. He had taken the gun reluctantly, but with a sigh of grim determination accepted it and knelt down behind the gunwale.
“We’re going to be outnumbered,” Hannigan had hissed in the darkness.
“It’s too late to run away,” the boat’s captain had argued.
“That’s not what I mean. We need to do something to tip the balance in our favor.” He glanced around, looking for inspiration, and when he spied the spare fuel cans, he found it.
Working feverishly, Hannigan had rigged one of the cans into a giant Molotov cocktail, and decanted the rest of the petrol into the water. Then armed with both his trusty .45 and his Zippo lighter, he had crouched behind the low gunwale and waited as the sound of the other boat drew closer.
The battle had been over before it was begun. Although the pirates had superior numbers, the defenders had struck first, slashing their strength by half in the first salvo. Hannigan’s field-expedient explosives had taken care of the rest.
Some of the attackers had tumbled off the boat into the black water of the Congo River. Their screams still echoed loudly in Hannigan’s ears as he remembered the sight of big Nile crocodiles, drawn by the scent of fresh blood in the water, literally ripping their victims’ limb from limb in a frothy bloody feeding frenzy. The snuffling grunts of the feeding reptiles and the desperate cries of the dying pirates had sent chills along Hannigan’s spine, but the effect on the surviving pirates had been even more dramatic. They had fled.
Hannigan moved to Bridget, enfolding her into his arms as she let the muzzle of the rifle drop to the deck. He touched her chin and raised it so he could look into her eyes “You okay, Kid?”
Bridget’s eyes were wet with tears, if they were for the men she had killed or the innocence that she had lost, Hannigan didn’t know. He kissed her softly, tasting the tears on her face.
“Yeah, Mike, I, well I just never knew it could be like this,” she sobbed. Hannigan hugged her tightly against him.
“We need to get moving,” Morgan called from the pilothouse. “We may have licked them, but they’ll be back and gunning for revenge.”
Hannigan looked at McKenzie. The priest seemed even paler against the darkness, more ghost than human as he nodded his head and went to aid Captain Morgan.
“We’re safe,” Hannigan whispered as he kissed her forehead. “Things will get better.”
“Promise, Mike?” her voice was so quiet he could barely hear her over the engines.
“I promise, Bridget,” Hannigan told her, meaning it.
*****
Only a few yards away, Niles McKenzie aimed the spotlight out across the black waters of the river, but his eyes were riveted on his daughter and Hannigan.
Though his expression did not show it, he was angry - angrier than he had been in a long time. He had killed men tonight. He knew that it was something that had to be done, but the justifications that good men used to ease their guilt at having to break one of the sacred commandments had long since failed to assuage his conscience. He felt hollow and empty inside, much as he had during the War.
Part of him blamed Mike Hannigan and his friends for forcing his hand and causing him to have to kill, but he knew better. Hannigan hadn’t led the pirates here to imperil his daughter. Rather, it was he that had kept her in this violent barbaric place. His insistence on atoning for his past life had placed her in mortal danger. More than that, he had held her back from having a life, and now the fruit of that misdeed was ripening. She was becoming willful, and her naturally rebellious nature was about to launch her on a fool’s errand with a rogue - a handsome, charismatic rogue, but a rogue nonetheless.
He had to get her out of this place, away from jungles and pirates, back to the States where she could have a good life. But first, he had to persuade her to abandon the idea of traveling upriver and into the lands ruled by Prester John.
****
*
Gregor Shotsky snapped to alert when he heard the sound of distant gunfire echoing through the jungle. …A lot of gunfire. The silence that followed was even more ominous.
Had the Nazis found them? He looked over to where Degiorno lay sleeping near the fire. The Italian was so worn out from their escape that he slept through the noise, drowning it out with his snores.
The plane was their lifeline; he had to protect it at all costs. Gregor moved towards the Grumman, jumping from the bank onto the float closest to the bank. Ripples spread out across the river from the float.
He remembered seeing an equipment locker in the pilot’s well; maybe there would be something there that would prove useful. Clambering up into the cockpit, he began searching. Tucked in with various tools and implements, he found a Very pistol, a type of flare gun, and four flares. It was better than nothing. He loaded one flare into the pistol and stuffed the rest into his pockets, and then scrambled back out of the cockpit. Jumping back to shore, he concealed himself in the shadows and waited, his fist tight around the flare gun’s pistol grip.
For several anxious minutes he waited, aiming the Very pistol in at a place on the opposite bank, as the sound of an approaching engine grew steadily louder, until at last, the riverboat came into view.
A spotlight played across the black surface of the river, searching for obstacles that could stave in the bottom of the boat, but Shotsky’s gaze was drawn to the two people standing at the front of the boat, backlit in its glare.
Gregor breathed a sigh of relief. It was Hannigan and the girl! He lifted the flare gun and fired.
*****
Mike Hannigan laughed as he saw the streak of light from shore followed by the red starburst of the flare. Shotsky was on top of things all right. He turned and waved at Morgan, pointing towards the shore.
