Twisted Cross

by Maloney, Mack;

  He climbed down out of the cockpit and onto the plane’s float, a long rope in hand.

  “I’d appreciate some help,” he called over to the soldiers, men he was certain were the defenders of the mission. A few of them would have to grab hold of the rope and pull the airplane to shore.

  But the Brothers did him one better. As one, fifteen of them leaped into the water, moved to positions around the airplane and literally carried the Kingfisher to the bank. All the while the soldiers were bellowing hurrahs! at the tops of their lungs.

  Brother David, the commander of the religious fighters, was on hand to greet him as he stepped from the float to dry land.

  “Friend, I don’t know who you are, but this day you have caused us to be blessed,” the big, moon-faced monk told him after introducing himself. “I thank you for all of us…”

  Hunter shook his outstretched hand. “Just heard that you were having a little trouble,” he said. “Thought I could help.”

  “Help, you did, sir,” David said. “And the Bible says that good works should be returned in kind. Thus, we must repay you.”

  “No,” Hunter said, holding up his hand. “That’s okay. No payment necessary…”

  Brother David looked legitimately hurt. “But we must,” he said. “It is our way. At least, you will come and eat with us?”

  By this time the rest of the fighters had gathered around them. Their uniforms could only be described as “modern contradiction.” Each man wore a brown sackcloth, right out of Little John’s Sherwood Forest wardrobe. Yet holding the garment to their waists were numerous ammunition belts and bandoleers. Also each man was carrying some kind of weapon, be it an M-16 or a AK-47, and more than a few also carried rocket-propelled grenade launchers. Nearly every weapon had some kind of religious medal or scapula hanging from it. The RPGs he saw had several small crucifixes dangling from their stocks.

  All in all they looked like a tough, but pious bunch of guys.

  “Sure, I’d be glad to eat with you,” Hunter said finally.

  A spontaneous cheer went up from the fighters and the small group moved back toward the partially destroyed, still-burning abbey.

  “Whatever brought you to us, Brother?” David asked him.

  One man, the fighter David introduced as Brother Paul, was carrying a battered Blowpipe SAM launcher.

  “That did,” Hunter told him, pointing to the shoulder-launched weapon. “I picked up your SAM’s targeting signals on my airplane’s computer. I’m glad you decided not to fire that at me.”

  “We definitely had the feeling that we shouldn’t,” Brother Paul said. “After all, one does not fire a missile at the hand of God.”

  Hunter was still rolling that statement over in his mind when they reached the mission. The place was in a kind of controlled chaos. Surviving Brothers were hastily removing the bodies of the bandits killed during the battle, as well as caring for their own dead and wounded. Others were already moving pieces of the smashed west wall back into position. At the same time Hunter watched a slow parade of women and children stream out of the basement of the chapel.

  “Sorry about your church,” he said, eyeing what was left of the still smoldering roof. “I wouldn’t have cut it so close if I’d known your people were hiding inside.”

  “Don’t think another moment about it,” Brother David told him. “We are a small but determined ministry. We have been out in this Godforsaken country for several years and we’ve battled back from worse things than this. A roof we resurrect. Our lives we cannot… Only He could do that.”

  “Besides,” Brother Paul told him, “it is a concrete shelter under the church. None of the dependents was hurt.”

  But Hunter had just barely heard Paul say this. Instead his eyes were glued on some of the women who had just climbed out of the shelter. He had expected them all to be dressed like nuns or something. Instead, most of the young ones were wearing tight jeans or even just bathing suits—very skimpy bathing suits.

  His thoughts were disturbed by a tugging on his pant leg. He looked down to see a small boy, no more than five or so, looking up and pointing at him.

  “I know who you are,” the boy declared. “You’re The Wingman, aren’t you?”

  At last, Hunter thought, someone who knew he was still alive.

  “Yes, I guess I am,” Hunter said, bending down on one knee to shake hands with the boy.

  “Surely, you are not serious?” Brother David asked him. “You are not Hawk Hunter, are you?”

  Hunter straightened up and smiled. “Yes, I am,” he said. “Major Hawk Hunter of the United American Air Force.”

  “I suppose I should have known, the way you handled that airplane,” Brother David said. “But it is truly a work of God that you are here. For you see, there is someone here with us who knows you well. In fact, he speaks about you all the time.”

  Hunter was astounded. He couldn’t imagine who it could be.

  Just then he heard someone call out his name: “Hunter! Paisano!”

  He turned around and thought he was face-to-face with a ghost.

  It was none other than the Commodore Antonio Vanaria.

  “Jesus Christ!” Hunter blurted out, at once hoping he hadn’t offended any of the Brothers. “Commodore! I thought you were dead!”

  They embraced, the short, wiry little man kissing Hunter twice on each cheek in impeccable Italian style.

  “Me? Dead?” he laughed, beating his chest with a boastful motion. “Impossible!”

  The commodore had been part of the flotilla that helped tow the USS Saratoga across the Mediterranean to the Suez in an effort to halt the onslaught of Viktor’s Lucifer armies. The last time Hunter had seen the man, he and his small navy of boats—the Liberte Marina—were sailing off to a climactic mid-canal confrontation against the vanguard of Viktor’s surface fleet. It was a battle everyone assumed had no survivors.

  “How in hell did you get here?” Hunter asked the man, good-naturedly shaking him. “We all thought…”

  “You all thought I was killed,” the commodore finished his sentence for him in broken, heavily-accented English. “I thought I was killed too! My ship—it was blown right out from under me. My crew—all gone! I wake up—it is two days later. Above me, all around me, there is fighting. The Modern Knights against the Lucifer Army. Tanks. Rockets. Big guns. Boom! But I cannot move. My legs are broken. My hand is fractured in thirty places.

  “The Modern Knights, they find me. Their doctors patch me up. They send me back to Italy. But I stay there for only a few months. I get restless. Then I get invitation to sail across Atlantic on nice ship. A luxury ship and I will have the best cabin. I know I want to come to America. I want to find you and my friends again! But there is fighting going on, we hear. The captain decides to go to California as he wants to see the beaches. But before we are to go through Panama, something in my head says: Get off this boat, Antonio. I do. Later I hear, she’s been sunk by Nazis!”

  Hunter listened to the story, shaking his head. The guy was just like old Captain Pegg—they both could spin a damn good yarn. It was just that the commodore’s came with Italian subtitles. Only later did Hunter learn that his paisano had actually stolen away on a ship, one of very dubious character sailing out of Sicily. Having been discovered mid-route, the commodore just barely saved himself from being thrown overboard by promising to cook for all those on board. (Hunter knew from experience that the little guy was an excellent cook.) In no time at all the commodore was able to ingratiate himself with the bulge-over-the-left-side-pocket crew, whipping up gourmet Italian feasts for them on a nightly basis.

  However, once they had made landfall, the commodore was tossed overboard, not too far from Cancun. The Brothers found him washed up on the beach and soon thereafter, the commodore found God.

  The two Fighting Brothers and the commodore led Hunter to one of the mission’s houses and soon the pilot found a large goblet filled with wine sitting in front of him.

&n
bsp; The commodore offered a toast to him, then downed his entire glass of vino in no more than three gulps.

  “I’m really glad to see you alive and well, Commodore,” Hunter told him, taking a healthy swig of the wine himself. “What a coincidence that we should meet again, and here of all places.”

  “Hunter, my friend,” the little man said with a wink, pouring out another glass of wine, “the Lord truly does work in mysterious ways…”

  Hunter then told the commodore as well as Brothers David and Paul about the crisis situation in Panama and his mission to find Sandlake’s daughter.

  “We know all about these Nazis,” Brother David told him. “In fact, they have given air support to the Dos Chicos gang, the people you saved us from today.”

  Hunter was surprised to hear this. In the grand scheme of things, it would seem that a battle between Dos Chicos and the Fighting Brothers would be small potatoes to the Canal Nazis.

  Brother David read his mind. “I know what you’re thinking,” he said. “Why would The Twisted Cross become involved in our little war?

  “The answer is they get involved in every little war they can find. It’s part of their destabilization program. We know they have special units, made up of the worst of their lot. The dregs of their own twisted society. Criminals, perverts, homicidal maniacs, and not all of Aryan origin either. These people are highly trained and conditioned to operate either behind enemy lines or in neutral territories. Their strategy is to create trouble, simple as that. And they are fanatical about it. They help heathens like Dos Chicos, whether it be with an airstrike or a long-range artillery barrage or even a direct infusion of troops. They are utterly ruthless. Their sole purpose is to weasel their way into any disruptive situation and tip the scales to the criminal side. Always using the means of ultra-violence to achieve their aims.”

  Hunter was genuinely surprised. “You mean the Canal Nazis have a third arm in addition to its regular military units and The Party?” he asked.

  Brothers David and Paul nodded glumly. “They’re called the Skinheads,” David said. “And for obvious reasons: each one has a shaved head. It’s a sign of their resolve, if you will…”

  Hunter felt yet another piece of the puzzle drop in, though quite unexpectedly. Now he knew why Pegg’s would-be assassins and the Nazis he and Fitz iced near Sandlake’s ranch all sported bald domes.

  “Before the Big War there were fringe groups in the States and in England that called themselves Skinheads,” Hunter said. “If I recall, they did have a neo-Nazi bent. Are you saying that this third arm of The Twisted Cross is an outgrowth of those movements?”

  Brother David nodded again. “A tremendous outgrowth,” he said, anger creeping into his normally pastoral voice. “A downright cancerous outgrowth. The Skinheads are no longer a fringe group. Now they are a well-equipped, organized army on their own. They are specialists. They have access to everything from Phantoms to sniper rifles. They’re terrorists—car bombs, letter bombs, they even poison water supplies. The last thing they want here or anywhere in this hemisphere is stable, peaceful settlements. The Cross just lets them run wild, spreading destruction, murder, rape and misery everywhere they go.

  “For instance, the Dos Chicos gang was no more than a bunch of drunken petty thieves until the Skinheads made a deal with them. They gave them weapons, radios, logistical support. Now when Dos Chicos goes to work, on us, or on some of the small villages nearby, they know they can count on air support from Skinheads. It’s really an insidious marriage.”

  “How widespread are these Skinhead teams,” Hunter wanted to know.

  “Very widespread,” David said with a sigh. “In fact, they seem to be everywhere but in Panama. I don’t doubt that even The Twisted Cross High Command are nervous dealing with them. So that’s why the Skinheads are entirely self-supporting. We know they are all over South America as well as up here in the Yucatan. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if some of them had made it up to North America as well.”

  “I’m afraid you’re right,” Hunter said grimly. He wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that Skinheads were piloting the Phantoms he fought in the skies near New Orleans that day.

  “They must be good at what they do,” Hunter said.

  “They are damn good at what they do,” Brother Paul said, adding, “Lord excuse the language…”

  “In many ways these Skinhead teams are more dangerous than The Twisted Cross’s regular military units,” Brother David continued. “The Skinheads are like the Gestapo of old, only worse. As I said, they operate on their own, entirely independent of The Twisted Cross High Command. No matter what the outcome in the Canal is, you can be sure that one or two or more of these Skinhead teams will be out there on the loose somewhere.”

  “That’s a sobering thought,” Hunter said. “And this is all good information. Frightening, but useful.

  “However, I am curious: How do you know so much about all this?”

  Both Fighting Brothers suddenly became very nervous. Even the commodore lowered his eyes and tried not to look at Hunter.

  Finally Brother David spoke up. “We know it because we captured one of them,” he said. “He was attached to the Dos Chicos as an advisor and during one of their raids, we wounded him and took him prisoner. And we made him talk, God help us…”

  “Well,” Hunter said. “Where is he now?”

  “He’s gone on to his Judgment,” Brother David said, trying to be matter-of-fact about it.

  “How?” Hunter asked. “Did he bite on a cyanide capsule? Or shoot himself in the head?”

  Once again, both monks avoided his eyes.

  “No,” Brother Paul said finally. “We executed him…”

  Chapter 33

  COLONEL FRANKEL HAD NEVER met the High Commander.

  Few people had. They said even his closest military advisors only talked to the man on the phone or through intermediaries. Now sitting in an antechamber on the top floor of the Panama City skyscraper that served as home to the High Command, Frankel was getting nervous. He suddenly longed for his boring but effortless old job. His hill, with its cool breezes and young women for taking, was heaven compared to this. The stress alone was already killing him. Here, in the High Temple of the Twisted Cross, he was just too damn close to the seat of power.

  Few people knew what the High Commander looked like. Even fewer knew his real name. The high echelon of The Twisted Cross was cloaked in an almost impenetrable shroud of secrecy, attended to by the shadowy figures of The Party. And this, the top floor of the High Command was the Black Hole of that power—so intense not even the slightest ray of light could escape.

  Frankel had no idea why they had picked on him. He was not expert in anything. His own secret past included seven years as a low-level officer in the East German Army, a communist affiliation he dared not breathe to anyone. Now, suddenly, Strauberg was saddling him with questions and problems that required a broad sweep of politics and history, not to mention military intelligence to solve. Why him? he had wondered over and over. Why did they think he had all the answers?

  Suddenly the door to the High Commander’s chamber opened and a black uniformed officer stepped out.

  “Colonel Frankel,” the man said. “The High Commander will see you now.”

  Frankel gulped so loudly, the officer heard him.

  “You know the requirements?” the officer asked him. “You will repeat them to me?”

  Frankel closed his eyes and rattled off the words he had memorized the night before: “I am an officer of The Twisted Cross. All that I do is for the Cause and our Leader. I will fight where I stand. I will never surrender…”

  “Very good, Colonel,” the officer replied without a hint of emotion in his voice. “And you realize that should you speak to any unauthorized individuals about your discussion with the High Commander, the penalty is death.”

  “I understand, sir,” Frankel replied.

  “A long, slow, painful death…” the
officer added for emphasis.

  Frankel gulped again. How he wished for those days of panning for gold…

  The black uniformed officer led Frankel through two inner rooms, finally stopping in the middle of a third. At its far end was a set of large black teak doors.

  “Wait here,” the officer said, before walking the ten paces to the doors and disappearing behind them.

  In the scattering of seconds that followed, a hundred scenarios shot through Frankel’s anxious mind. Normally cool and collected, he found himself uncharacteristically making up wild and disturbing flights of fancy. He imagined that the man sitting behind those black doors—the High Commander himself!—would be wrapped in a dark, fully curtained room. Ornate but in only the murkiest sense. And he would be wearing the blackest uniform of them all, patent leather black. And he would have no compunction at all against shooting Frankel on the spot should he not have the correct answers to his questions.

  Frankel tried to shake away the nightmarish thoughts, but they were coming like rain now. He had heard so many dark rumors about the High Commander, it was impossible to prevent his imagination from working overtime. The man behind the door would be disfigured in some way, Frankel was sure of it. His face was burned to point of disgust, or his limbs were missing, or his torso bent and twisted. Maybe he was blind. Or maybe he drank blood or ate flesh.

  Or maybe, the man behind the doors was Adolph Hitler himself…

  The door squeak echoed several times through the large empty waiting room before Frankel looked up. The officer was beckoning for him to come forward. Oddly, Frankel felt nailed to the spot. He just couldn’t move. Come, the officer beckoned again. But Frankel’s legs wouldn’t respond. It wasn’t a dream—he had already checked. Yet he couldn’t speak, couldn’t make a damn sound. Over and over the man at the door told him to come—he was even smiling, though a bit strangely. But Frankel was frozen. There was terror in his boots. Behind those doors he knew there was weird black-hearted craziness that this human wanted no part of. Yet, he had no choice. He had to go in.