by Barry Reese
Not satisfied with any of the landing sites he could see, The Peregrine flipped a switch and activated several devices mounted on the bottom of the plane. These converted the airship into something suitable for use in the water and the new landing gear was set in place by the time he lowered the plane until it skimming the ocean’s surface. The Peregrine stopped the engine and dropped anchor just offshore.
Max waded ashore with no supplies. He planned to return to the plane if he needed to but if pressed, he would have admitted that he didn’t expect to be on the island very long. He would either run into Sun Koh soon and the two would sort things out or he’d find out that the Atlantean was already gone and the boat belonged to someone else. In that case, The Peregrine would be gone in pursuit of Sun Koh as quickly as possible.
The Peregrine paused, reconsidering those plans. He saw three sets of footprints coming from the boat and vanishing up into the jungle. From the depressions that hadn’t yet been washed away by the surf, he guessed that all three sets belonged to women. Even more curious were dozens of prints coming to and from the water itself. These prints were webbed and sank deeper into the wet sand than the women’s did. The Peregrine knelt and examined one of them, coming to the obvious conclusion that something inhuman—had come onto this island recently and then left again.
The Peregrine straightened up, drawing one of his pistols. He could easily spot which direction the women had gone in, for they had hacked a clean path up the incline, apparently heading towards the volcano.
Max set off after them, thinking that even if they didn’t lead him to Sun Koh, they might at least have some answers… or, possibly, be in need of rescuing. For the next twenty minutes, he moved through the jungle, glad that he’d left his heavy coat back in the plane. It didn’t take long for his shirt to become dripping wet with sweat and it clung to his athletic physique like a second skin. He finally came to a halt when he entered a clearing, surrounded by a number of crumbling buildings. A well lay in the center of the clearing but The Peregrine virtually ignored it and all the structures. He was instead interested in the strange corpses that littered the ground. At least one of them appeared to be human, though the flesh had been so torn away that it was difficult to judge. The rest of the bodies, though, were obviously what had made the web-footed prints down on the beach. The strange frog-like creatures weren’t dissimilar to things he’d encountered before. These so-called Deep Ones had underwater colonies all around the world and typically made raids on land to find food or to satisfy the peculiar lusts that afflicted them.
The Peregrine was examining one of them when he felt something nudge against the back of his skull and the all-too familiar sound of a gun being cocked.
“Stay where you are, masked man,” a female voice said in English, though Max thought he detected a slight Italian lilt to the words.
The Peregrine turned his head slightly and saw two more women standing nearby. Each wore slightly sexualized versions of standard military attire: one wore German, the other Japanese. It stood to rights that the Italian behind him was dressed in the same manner. “Did you ladies do this?” he asked, gesturing with his hands towards the corpses of the Deep Ones.
“Yes,” Akemi said, stepping close enough for him to see the length of her blade. “And we should do the same to you.”
“I agree with that,” Imelda said with a laugh. “This American bastard’s done more to damage the OFP than anyone else. We’re laughingstocks before he keeps defeating our best agents.”
“He hasn’t beaten the best yet,” Käthe pointed out. “He’s never faced us.”
The Peregrine smiled at that. He had a suspicion that he’d heard of these women—The Furies they were called. A group of highly trained female agents, representing the various facets of the Axis powers. Supposedly, they were able to best any man on the planet.
The Room spun about with incredible speed, knocking Imelda’s hand aside. The Italian pulled the trigger but the bullet shot straight into the ground. Before she could recover, The Peregrine had driven a punch into her midsection, causing her to double over. He then grabbed hold of her gun hand, pointed it up Akemi and, placing his fingers over Imelda’s and squeezing, fired it twice at the Asian beauty. Akemi dove out of the way but one of the bullets grazed her shoulder, leaving a line of trickling blood.
Imelda yanked her hand free, muttering a string of curses in Italian. Her anger only increased when The Peregrine delivered a blow to her chin, striking her with an upwards thrust of his palm.
The Peregrine suddenly felt something wrap around his neck with painful strength. He saw that Käthe had caught him up with her whip and she gave him a yank, tightening the grip on his neck. He could barely breathe but he tried to stay focused on what needed to be done. His hand fumbled with the hilt of his dagger, sheathed against his waist. Unfortunately, Akemi was back on her feet and had spotted his intention. She moved forward quickly, stabbing with her katana. She slid the blade into his midsection, expertly avoiding anything that would prove fatal. Max cried out in shock, feeling his belly growing warm and wet as his blood spilled from the wound.
Imelda then finished him off by slamming the butt of her pistol against the back of his head. He fell face first to the ground, wondering if he’d ever see his wife and son again.
Käthe was on him quickly, freeing his neck from her whip’s embrace. She rolled him onto his back and examined his wound, giving Akemi a smile. “That’s amazing how you do that.”
Akemi shrugged, pulling out a small white cloth from one of her pockets. She wiped her blade clean. “All it takes is a thorough knowledge of human anatomy… and the confidence that you’re not about to make a mistake.”
“The only mistake being made here is to not kill him,” Imelda said. “I know what the standing orders are: that if anyone captures The Peregrine, they’re to transport him to one of the Axis powers’ capitals… but all three of us know how dangerous he is. We’ve heard the stories. Let’s kill him and just agree to tell everyone there was no way to bring him in alive.”
“I have to admit, I agree with her,” Akemi said. She was rubbing her wounded shoulder.
Imelda seemed surprised but pleased by Akemi’s statement. She turned a hopeful face towards Käthe, thinking that with two votes on her side she might be able to sway the team’s leader.
The lovely German, however, shook her head. “No. We need to find out some information first. What is he doing here? Does he know that Sun Koh has returned? Has he told anyone else, if he has?” She saw the flash of anger that passed through Imelda’s eyes and smiled in a placating manner. “After we question him, we can kill him.”
That brought a grin back to Imelda’s face. “I’ll truss him up.”
Käthe stepped away and took out her long-range radio communicator. She sent a signal to Captain Mueller, whose zeppelin was hiding in the clouds several miles off the island. Given the storms that seemed to cling to the rocky expanse of land, the decision had been made to keep the airship as far from it as their communications would allow.
“Yes?” Mueller sounded relieved to hear from her.
“Is something wrong, Captain?”
“An unidentified craft passed us not long ago. It didn’t seem to spot us so we remained in hiding… but I was concerned that they were looking for the island.”
“They were. We’ve captured them and would like to return to the zeppelin with him in tow. I believe that he might have information that might prove useful to us.”
“Is he a soldier?”
“It’s The Peregrine,” Käthe said, looking back at the unconscious vigilante. He was more handsome than she had expected. Most of the stories she’d been told painted him as a horrible degenerate but as she stared at his wavy hair and olive-tinged complexion, she thought he had a Mediterranean look to him and it was very appealing.
“Fraulein?” Mueller asked.
“Sorry, Captain. My mind was wandering. Could you repeat what you said?�
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“I was telling you to be careful. This could mean a promotion for me and increased respect for your group.”
Käthe knew she shouldn’t be amazed but she was. Here they had a man in their possession who had single-handedly become a major thorn in the collectives backsides of the Axis and all Mueller was concerned about was his promotion. “Of course, Captain,” she said, keeping her tone cold and impersonal. “When will you be ready to receive us?”
“We’re on our way to pick you up now. Good work. You’ve done something that many men have failed to do. Heil Hitler!”
“Heil Hitler,” Käthe repeated emotionlessly. She turned off her communicator and pursed her lips thoughtfully. Akemi was now kneeling at The Peregrine’s side, rummaging through his pockets. When she attempted to free his dagger from its sheath, she jerked her hand away as if she’d touched a hot stove.
“What happened?” Imelda asked, bending down to look at Akemi’s fingertips. They were bright red and obviously painful.
“I don’t know. That knife of his… it’s not natural.”
“It’s the Knife of Elohim,” Käthe muttered, unable to hid her disdain for the fact that the other two Furies didn’t take research as seriously as she did. “It was bathed in the blood of Christ and now it deals more harm to evil creatures than is normal.”
Imelda laughed aloud. “Hear that, Akemi? You’re evil.”
“I think it’s just based off the Judeo-Christian mindset,” Käthe said. “So non-Christians would be ‘evil.’”
“You’re no fun,” Imelda said, with a roll of her eyes. She finished tying The Peregrine’s hands and feet, testing the strength of the bonds. “He’s not getting out of this.”
“Look at these,” Akemi said, holding up one of The Peregrine’s modified handguns. “The barrels filled with miniature rounds, dozens of them.”
Imelda took the gun and lined up the sights, firing it at a nearby tree. The trunk splintered upon impact and Imelda whistled. “They might be small but those bullets pack a punch.” She stuck the pistol into her belt and claimed the other one, as well.
Käthe started back down the path, heading towards the beach. “Mueller will be here for us soon. Can you two drag The Peregrine?”
Imelda wrapped a length of rope around her hand and began moving forward. She grunted a bit but gravity assisted her since they were moving down an incline. “I can manage.”
Akemi knew better than to try and offer her assistance. Imelda liked showing off her physical strength and would take any suggestion otherwise as an insult.
The Furies reached the beach in a short amount of time and Imelda dropped the rope, gasping for air. “He weighs more than he looks,” she explained.
Käthe wasn’t listening. Though she would have been loath to admit it, she was terribly worried. Most of her concern centered on Sun Koh. The man had become an ideal in her mind and that had been cemented by their lovemaking. The notion that The Peregrine might not be the only one to know of the Prince’s return… that other forces might be massing to try and destroy Sun Koh… it filled Käthe with the kind of fear that she’d felt only a few times in her life.
Once more she looked down at The Peregrine. She’d find out everything that the vigilante knew, even if it meant that his suffering would become the stuff of which legends were made.
* * *
Sun Koh was not the pilot his friend Jan Mayen was, but he nonetheless quite adept. He’d managed to convince a loyal German at the airfield to allow him to take one of their long-range flyers, calling upon the youth’s overly impressionable nature. Like so many other Germans he had met since his revival, the young man had been a faithful reader of Sun Koh’s exploits, or at least he had before they had ceased being published. Sun Koh now wondered if the government order to no longer publish “frivolous” adventure novels had actually been an attempt to erase the impact Sun Koh had had on the populace.
Sun Koh’s plane had required refueling once along the way and he’d been forced to take up arms at the small military base at which he’d stopped. It had been belonged to a foreign power but Sun Koh was able to overpower the small squadron of men stationed there.
And now he was angling his plane in for a landing on a smooth patch of ground, deep in the frigid wastes of the Arctic. The plane settled down, kicking up large amounts of snow and ice. It skidded a bit, twisting off-course but Sun Koh was able to bring it under control.
He wore a parka and protective goggles as he jumped to the icy ground. It was possible to blind oneself here in the Arctic, as the sun reflected off the miles of white terrain. Sun Koh remembered that he had brought Alaska-Jim with him on one of his first journeys here, when he had still been scouting out for possible locations. The famed trapper and hunter had impressed upon Koh the need for adequate protection from the elements.
As Koh approached his private sanctum, he felt a momentary pang of regret. He missed his friends, having come to regard them as worthy of a place by his side in the Aryan kingdom that was still to come. Now they were all dead, including his beloved Shani. He respected her wishes and had done nothing to save her. In fact, he had not even checked the news reports to see if her mission had succeeded. In his mind, they had already parted and would not be reunited until the next life, in whatever form that might be.
The sanctum came into view as he stepped over a particularly large bank of snow. The emerald dome seemed to absorb all light, somehow rendering its surroundings so nondescript that you almost overlooked it, despite the fact that it was the only structure in sight for miles.
Upon reaching the sanctum, Sun Koh pulled off the glove covering his right hand. He pressed his open palm against the smooth surface of the sanctum, which appeared to have no windows or doors. A hum answered his touch and a moment later the dome’s surface began to part, revealing a thin entranceway. It was so small that Sun Koh had to turn sideways to slip inside.
As soon as his foot touched the dome’s floor, the interior lights came on. A fireplace flared to life, the crackling of the fire somewhat masked by a melodious tune that was piped through speakers mounted on the corner of each wall. The sanctum was furnished in leather, with a couch and two plush chairs. A polar bear rug lay on the floor and a well-stocked laboratory was arranged along two of the walls. The air was not musty at all, as it was kept recycled by a purification system devised by Sun Koh himself. The faint scent of roses reached the Prince’s nose and he smiled, remembering that he’d added that touch to the air conditioning system in hopes that Shani would like it. Unfortunately, she would never get the chance to visit the sanctum.
Sun Koh approached the lab area, kneeling to look at the storage containers built into the wall. Not a single wasted space existed in the sanctum. Everything, including the walls and the furniture, served multiple purposes. In some places he kept his devices and tools, other things could be opened up to reveal other features that one wouldn’t have assumed they’d serve. The couch doubled as a bed; the chairs could be used as long-range radios, due to the complex wiring set into the bottom of the seats; and the walls contained dozens of storage cabinets.
Sun Koh set aside a number of items that could have made a massive difference in the war effort but which didn’t suit what he had planned. A small glass capsule containing enough purple dust to render most of North America sterile within a month caught his eye and he briefly considered the possibilities before moving on. He wanted something that would instill fear in the enemies of the Aryan people and that would shatter their will to fight. He wanted something big and something flashy, the sort of thing that fathers would fearfully tell to their children in future years.
He wanted the Solar Cannon.
It didn’t look like a doomsday weapon, though that’s what it was. Fourteen inches long and about as thick around as his forearm, the device was sealed on one end and opened in a triangular shape on the other. A crystalline oval on the top of the device served to capture solar energy and amplify it. The So
lar Cannon could be hooked up to a larger device that Sun Koh had invented, allowing him to project the destructive beam hundred of miles. It could literally carve up enemy cities, demoralizing enemies by killing them with virtually no defense possible.
Sun Koh froze in place, the Solar Cannon still held tightly in his hands. Amazingly, he heard movement behind him. The door had closed after he’d entered and no one besides himself should have been able to activate the fingerprint lock system… but there was no doubt about what he was hearing.
Sun Koh slowly set the Cannon down on the floor, pretending to continue sorting through the items in the cabinet. He turned his head slightly and looked behind him, his eyes opening wide as he caught sight of the intruder.
The man standing there looking quite calm and self-assured resembled a poet or orchestral conductor. He had a great mane of black hair, a high forehead and hollow burning eyes that were deep-set in a gaunt face. His body was long and thin but the most noticeable characteristic he possessed was his nose, which was long and slender, ending in a sharp point. It could almost be described as a beak, the shape and design of it was so pronounced. He wore robes of deep blue and upon his feet were fur-lined slippers of the matching color. On his right hand was a ring with a large blue stone set in its face and around his neck was another blue gem, this one glittering in the firelight.
Sun Koh stood up, turning to face this man and he kept his surprise out of his voice. “Identify yourself,” he said in German. He wasn’t sure what nationality this man was, for his features were that of almost any Western nation.
The man clasped his hands behind his back and replied so fluently that Sun Koh wondered if he wasn’t German by birth. “My name Arthur Grin. I watched you approach this place and knew that I had to speak to you. You have no idea how long I’ve waited to meet you.”
