That was not true of the plane leaving Rome, so Devil joined him in the passenger section after some palaver at the plane’s ramp. The same objections were made as before, but the Phantom won the argument, as he had before. As one of the watching stewardesses, a dark-skinned beauty, observed, “He’s a man it’s hard to say no to.” She out-maneuvered the two other stewardesses and served him both dinner and breakfast, as well as raw hamburger for his dog(?). But she couldn’t get him to remove either-hat or topcoat. A man of mystery. It was with much regret that she watched him get off at the funny little airport at Suda-whatever-it-was ... a place hardly anybody ever went to.
At the customs shed, an officer in a colorful uniform asked for his passport. It was issued to one Kit Walker, a gentleman (no profession) residing in Bangalla. Lamanda Luaga1 had gotten it for him long ago to facilitate his travel. Ordinarily, the Phantom ignored such conventions, slipping across borders like the wind. But the passport didn’t help' here. The officer scowled, and asked his business. The Phantom did not hesitate, but made a bold move. He was here to1 see the Sheik on business. That impressed the officer. He told him to wait while he went to a tiny office to make a phone; call. There was only one other man in sight, a sleepy-eyed soldier with a rifle at the exit. Several other soldiers were on the field, flirting with the stewardesses. It was still an erotic1 experience for them to see a bare-faced woman.
The Phantom moved quickly to the exit. The officer at the* phone saw this and shouted. The sleepy soldier woke up but not fast enough, as a hard fist crashed on his jaw. The officer rushed out, cursing, drawing a pistol from his belt holster and firing. But the Phantom was no longer in the shed. There was a small army vehicle parked outside, an open model patterned after an American jeep. Such cars are not usually locked. This one was no exception. By the time the other soldiers; attracted by the gunfire, had rushed in, he was a mile down the smooth eight-lane highway, headed for the distant minarets and towers that looked like an entire city but were in fact the Sheik’s palace grounds.
Speeding along on the roadway, the Phantom was amused. The highway was equal to the biggest autobahns in Europe) or the American parkways. Not a car in sight. Probably used, only by the military and the Sheik’s retinue of cars. Ha looked back. Several cars were speeding after him. He pressed the gas pedal to the floorboard. Devil stood up on the seat, enjoying the wind. Soon, he passed huge iron gates, with guards inside and out. They glanced at him as he sped by. He followed the wall, which curved for a mile beyond the gate, then stopped.
The wall was about ten feet high, topped with spikes. Standing on the hood of his car, he lifted Devil up carefully,, so that his paws landed between the spikes, then told him to jump. Devil jumped. The Phantom tossed Diana’s suitcase over the wall, then leaped up from the hood, reaching the, spikes and pulling himself up. He had no idea what was on the other side. But as the pursuing vehicles roared up, he vaulted over the wall and landed in thick flowering bushes.
Devil had landed in the same bushes and had worked hisi way out. Ahead were lawns and gardens that seemed endless, presided over by rows of revolving water sprinklers. The sudden view of lush green grass, trees, bushes and flowerbeds after the dry desert was startling. In the distance beyond this greenery were the white walls of buildings, the towers and minarets he had seen. Outside the wall, he heard the roar of the cars and the screech of brakes. Then excited voices and some scratching on the wall, as his pursuers tried to climb up. They quit, the motors revved up and sped off, probably back to those big gates.
He quickly shed his outer clothing, leaving it piled on Diana’s suitcase. He could move easier and faster unencumbered by the hat, coat, trousers. Once more the masked, hooded figure, he crawled through the bushes with Devil following closely. No one was in sight. Evidently no one inside had seen him jump from the wall. But the soldiers would be at the main gate by now, rushing here to find him.
He dashed across open lawn to another clump of bushes, then across another open space to a small building that looked like a toolshed, and was. Not a good hiding place. They’d certainly look there. Near the shed was a high tree bearing heavy foliage. Devil was a problem, the soldiers would doubtless shoot him on sight. There were some old sacks in the shed. On command, Devil curled up in a comer. The Phantom covered him. Devil made a small mound, too small to be a man. To complete the hiding place, he placed two flowerpots on the sacks. In the dark shed, Devil could now be a mound of earth, covered with sacks, topped with flowerpots. The Phantom quickly climbed onto the roof of the shed, leaped up into the tree, and concealed himself among the leafy braches thirty feet in the air. -
Soon soldiers appeared from several directions, headed for the place where he’d come over the wall. There were a dozen men, and they poked with their rifles through the bushes near the wall. One shouted excitedly. He’d found the suitcase and the clothes. He ran toward the buildings with his find. The others continued the search, poking through clumps of bushes. Two of them approached the shed cautiously, rifles poised. The door was open. That made it scarcely worth looking into. First the two carefully circled the shed, meeting at the back. One peered into the shed, shouted to his partner, and they went on. The soldiers spread out farther and farther in this vast garden, their voices becoming fainter as they called to each other.
One wandered back, looked about cautiously, then sat behind the shed and lit a cigarette. From above, the Phantom watched with amusement. The soldier was breaking a rule, smoking on duty. He settled back against the shed, blowing smoke rings, then idly glanced up. The cigarette fell from his mouth. He’d seen the figure above. He jumped to his feet, grabbing his rifle. At the same moment, the Phantom dropped twenty feet to a heavy bough, caught hold of it briefly to break his fall, then dropped the rest of the distance to the ground. Just as the soldier raised his rifle, the Phantom landed on him. The soldier fell to the grass. A strong hand clapped over his mouth. He was dragged into the shed. Devil squirmed out from under the sacks, upsetting the flowerpots. The soldier stared in terror at this beast with its long slavering fangs. Devil was slavering because he was hot and thirsty. Also panting, for the same reason. In the dim light, the soldier could barely make out his captor, a strange masked figure. To say he was terrified would be a mild understatement. He was paralyzed with fear, barely able to hear or answer the questions put to him in his own tongue. The Phantom was fluent in a dozen languages, including the basic speech of the desert people.
“What is this place?”
The strong hand was removed from his mouth so he could answer. He started to shout. The hand gripped his throat. He almost blacked out. The question was repeated.
“The palace,” he replied.
“Of the Sheik.”
“Yes.”
“Is he here now?”
The soldier nodded, still terrified by the hot breath and gleaming fangs of the hairy beast that was only a foot from his face in the narrow confines of the shed.
“Did an American girl come with him?”
The soldier mumbled that he didn’t know. Then in sudden panic, he tried to twist out of the iron grip that held him.
As he was to relate later, that’s all he remembered. When he came to, he had an aching jaw and something else that went with it. Perhaps he’d been hit. He had been—with a quick sharp blow.
The Phantom peered outside. No one in sight. He sped across the lawns, back to the thick bushes near the wall where he had entered the palace grounds. Devil was at his heels. It was unlikely that the soldiers would search here again. He looked toward the palace, far in the background. The sound of tinkling music and feminine laughter floated on the air that was perfumed by thousands of flowering bushes and trees. Water splashed in the many fountains. Like all desert people, they treasured fountains. Under other circumstances, a lovely place to be. Was Diana in the palace? Was she still alive? He had no way of knowing. He would wait until dark to find out. He wondered about the music and laughter—life as usual in th
is fantastic place? How odd, he thought. Hadn’t word reached the palace yet that a stranger, a possible assassin, was hidden inside the wall, on the grounds? Even as he thought about this, the music and laughter stopped suddenly, as if at the wave of a conductor’s baton. They’d gotten the news about the possible assassin-1— about him.
CHAPTER 17
At first, the report circulated slowly, from airport security to the military and the police bureau. A stranger had made an illegal entry, a man with a dog. It was nothing to get excited about. He was obviously mad. Where could a stranger like this, a European type, hide among the desert people of tiny Suda-Kalara? Every row of houses and shanties had its police spy. There were no secrets in this tightly controlled kingdom. Only in the compounds of the foreign technicians could he try to find refuge. But these places were also well supplied with informers. No chance there. But by the time the report reached the palace security office, the stranger had already climbed over the palace wall and disappeared.
In the guards’ cellar barracks, alarms sounded. Armed men rushed through the corridors, doubling the guards already there, both inside and outside the palace. Even the Sheik, surrounded jby laughing harem beauties and singing dancing girls noticed the excitement. His lifted eyebrow sent Taras running out to find what was happening.
Loka watched with dull eyes. The Sheik had him place the image on the floor near him, so that he could gloat over it as he gurgled and bubbled on a waterpipe. He told the girls about this rare treasure. They ohed and ahed over it, and one red-haired beauty almost touched it. The Sheik stopped her, warning that it could jump at her. This amused the beauties, and they swayed and danced about the image, laughing and singing.
Taras returned, his face tense. The laughter and merriment was at its height as he bent over the Sheik and whispered in his ear. The Sheik waved his hand in an angry gesture. The sounds in the large chamber stopped instantly, as though the needle had been lifted off a record. Taras sent the girls out of the room. Without question, or reaction, they obeyed automatically, rushing out on bare feet, the little bells tinkling on their ankles and wrists.
“Loka,” said Taras sternly. “Who is the man with the dog?”
Loka stared stupidly, stirred out of a deep reverie about his homeland, about his hopeless existence here. By now he was resigned to his station in life. Within a short time, slavery had become a way of life. His Western clothes were gone. He was bare to the waist, with baggy pants and sandals, like the other palace slaves. He looked dumbly at Taras. The aide walked to him and shook his shoulder.
“In London, the man with the dog we heard about. Who is he?”
Loka was so sunk in shock and apathy, so depressed, that he barely remembered London or the events of that violent day.
“Man with dog?” he said dully. “Don’t know.”
“You know. Tell us or you will be whipped.”
Loka’s eyes filled with fear. He had been whipped by one of the giant guards that morning, merely because he had refused to finish his breakfast, a coarse gruel. The Sheik wanted his slaves to eat well, to remain strong. It was a mild beating for a first offense, he’d been told. Mild? His body still ached hours afterwards. He didn’t want to be whipped again, even mildly.
“Man with dog. I only heard of him,” he said with difficulty, “from the newspaper. I never saw him.”
“That’s not good enough, Loka. We believe this man has followed us,” said Taras. The Sheik watched intently, gurgling and bubbling on his waterpipe. Loka tried to look interested, but the matter apparently meant nothing to him— unless he was a superb actor, which Taras doubted.
“We believe that man, and the dog, are near—on the palace grounds. We will find him, of course,” continued Taras. Loka nodded, hoping the subject was closed, and with it any reason for the whip.
“Loka, there is something curious here,” continued Taras in a puzzled voice. “This man struck down a soldier at the airport. The man was left with a mark on his jaw, like a skull mark.”
“Skull mark?”
“Death’s -head. Like the head of a skeleton. Does that mean anything to you?”
Loka stared at his masters. The dull look was gone from his eyes. They blazed. Then the strangest thing of all happened. He laughed. No slave had ever laughed before his master in the history of Suda-Kalara. Taras-motioned to the nearby guards to approach. The man was obviously losing his mind, and the words that followed confirmed it.
“He is the Phantom—the Ghost Who Walks—the Man Who Cannot Die,” he shouted, his words coming so fast they were almost incoherent. “Dog? That is no dog. That is his wolf. Devil, the great wolf. You are doomed,” he cried.
If Loka sounded mad, his mind was working with rapid clarity. Suddenly, many things made sense. Something, someone had been trailing him and the image, ever since he left Bangalla. The man who had found Duke, the man who had fled over the rooftops, the man the girl had talked about in the Sheik’s suite. What had she called him—“a law enforcer from Bangalla.”
The guards had grabbed his arms. The Sheik nodded sternly. “Take him out and beat him,” said Taras. “It is a good old-fashioned cure for madness.”
“You will see. You will see,” Loka shouted as they dragged him to the door. “You are doomed ... the Ghost Who Walks.” One of the guards cuffed him hard, and he was silent as they left the chamber. The Sheik looked at Taras inquiringly. He had no fear. A would-be assassin on the grounds? He had a thousand guards inside the walls.
“There is a man on the grounds, sire, with a dog.”
The Sheik shrugged. “Find him. I am bored. Bring the singers and dancers back. Oh, the image. Put it..
Taras bent toward the gleaming image, then paused and looked questioningly at his master.
“Leave it,” said the Sheik.
“Highness, we should not neglect this matter. It may be important,” said Taras.
“What is your suggestion, Taras?”
“The girl, Diana, knew the man with the dog. We should question her.”
“Of course,” said the Sheik impatiently. “That is a police matter. Let them interrogate her, but not before I have seen her,” he added, smiling. “She may dine with me this evening.” The Sheik’s word “may” was a command. Taras bowed and was about to leave, when an officer of the guard entered to report that a soldier had been found in a garden shed, unconscious, with an odd mark on his jaw. Perhaps the work of the stranger.
“What kind of a mark?” said Taras quickly.
“Something like a skull mark, sire.”
“Bring him in here,” said the Sheik.
He gurgled on his waterpipe, annoyed that he was being denied the pleasures of his dancing girls. But the mysterious mark intrigued him. The man was carried in, his uniform covered with fertilizer from the garden shed. He was placed on the floor before the Sheik, near the image. He was breathing, alive, but had been hit hard. The jaw was swollen. On it was the mark. It was clearly what they said it was—a death’s head.
“It won’t wash off,” said the captain of the guard. Normally a stolid man, he seemed unusually upset.
“Well, Captain?” said Taras.
“I sailed for several years, sire. I... I heard of that mark.”
“What did you hear?” said Taras.
The man appeared embarrassed.
“Up and down the Gulf, on the Indian Ocean and the China Seas, as well as the West Coast and the Atlantic, all these places I have sailed,” he said hesitantly.
“Get on with it,” said Taras sharply.
“That mark is well known to all seamen. I heard many tales in my time,” he said, looking fearfully at the Sheik who watched him sharply.
“It is the mark of the Phantom, sire, called by some the Ghost Who Walks,” he said.
“And why do they call him that?” said the Sheik suddenly.
“Highness, I never saw him, but I’ve met those who have. I saw that mark once, on a dock worker in Maracas, said to have been
a pirate in the China Seas.”
“Captain, you haven’t answered his Highness’s question,” said Taras slowly, as though not really wishing to hear the answer.
“He is called what I said because he is the Man Who Cannot Die. He has lived, they say, over four hundred years. He lives today. That is his mark,” said the captain, his voice suddenly frantic.
“Captain, control yourself. You will not repeat this nonsense. If we hear any more of this ridiculous talk, you will be reduced to the ranks. Is that clear?” said Taras. The captain nodded stiffly, coming to attention, his face impassive. “Good. Get him out of here. When he revives, find out who did it, and report to me.”
The guards and captain carried the unconscious soldier out of the chamber. The Sheik looked at Taras with his usual questioning expression—a lifted eyebrow.
“Superstition, obviously,” said Taras.
“And is that also superstition?” said the Sheik, glancing at the sacred image. “Bring the girl here at once. Diana?”
“Palmer,” said Taras.
“Palmer,” said the Sheik, relishing the odd name.
^Seated on cushions, Diana attracted a large audience of the harem girls, who were curious about her and her country. One spoke passable French, another knew some Italian, and one a little English. Since Diana was fluent in all three languages, she was able to talk to them. And they served as interpreters for the others. The girls wanted to know about American men, Hollywood, and skyscrapers. And Diana wanted to know about the girls, where they came from, how they had gotten here. The information was exchanged with much laughter. Nearby, two huge eunuch guards, fat beardless men with squeaky voices, watched without interest, sleepy and bored, thinking only of the next meal.
Lee Falk - [Story of the Phantom 15] Page 14
