The Twisted Cross (36 page)

They resignedly took hold of the two shovels and did as told.

Krupp was already sweating profusely by this time, and the fact that he had to hold the heavy AK-47 on the two pilots didn't help matters any.

She noticed his plight right away.

"That heavy uniform is not the type of clothing for this place," she said to him.

"But, but you have the same clothes on as I do," he said, noting her Twisted Cross uniform.

"That's exactly my point," she said with a smile.

They walked back to the airplane and the relative shade of the cabin. Once inside, she undid her shirt and let her breasts become exposed. Krupp immediately felt his mouth go dry. He couldn't take his eyes off her beautiful chest and she knew it. She laughed at the expression on his face. She was playing him like a violin.

"You like them, don't you?" she asked.

"Oh, yes," he was just barely able to say.

"Do you want to touch them again?"

He was only able to nod his head, his excitement was growing so. "Yes, you know I do," he said.

She put her own hands to them and gave them a seductive squeeze. "Then tell me: what will happen once we get out of here?"

The question took him by surprise. "I ... I don't know," he said. "We'll have a lot of gold, correct?"

"More than you can imagine," she said, looking back out at the two pilots who were digging in the broiling sun. "But where can we possibly go? I know about the Skinheads. I know they won't stop until they catch you and when they do, they'll catch me too."

Krupp felt a long tremor of fear rip through him.

"There will be plenty of places to go," he mumbled. "Just give me some time to think about it."

She squeezed her breasts again and gave out an erotic sigh. Then, to his dismay, she rebuttoned her shirt. "Don't take too long thinking, Colonel," she said. "It might be dangerous . . ."

Meanwhile, 250 miles off the coast of Peru, a remarkable aerial operation was in its final phase.

For the third time in six hours, Hunter moved the AV-8BE two-seat Harrier jumpjet up and under the inflight refueling probe sticking out of the rear of a Texas Air Force KC-135 tanker.

"Contact . . ." he radioed the crew of the tanker. "And lock ..."

"Roger, Harrier," came the reply. "Sit back and drink up ..."

Hunter could use the rest. The past eight hours were a blur and he didn't expect it to get any better any time soon.

As it turned out, getting away from the Guatemala City refueling station had been the easy part. He and Brother David neutralized the Hook chopper pilot via a squirt from Hunter's water gun, and, after scattering the remaining Nazi troops with a few rounds from their AK-47s, carried him aboard one of the waiting Hind gunships and took off. With Hunter at the controls and Brother David at the big 50-caliber side gun, they made short work of disabling the five other Nazi helicopters, along with a good part of the refueling station itself.

At that point they flew barely ten miles, and set down right into the heart of the Guatemala City -the Dodge City of New Order Central America. Amidst running gunfights and non-stop terrorist bombings, Hunter and David dumped the unconscious pilot along the roadside and made their way to the city's one and only police station, which happened to be under attack at the time. Bribing a guard at the back door, they were allowed ten minutes on the station's shortwave radio set.

It took almost eight minutes but they were able to reach a friendly listening post in Louisiana. Speaking faster than he could ever remember doing, Hunter asked the radio operator to patch him through to Washington, DC. Another bribe and some AK-47 ammunition bought them five more minutes on the radio. Hunter spent all of it talking to Fitz.

He told him all he knew. The battle for the Fighting Brothers abbey at Coba.

The ambush by the Skinheads. Meeting the Tiilum at Chichen Itza. Seeing the massive gold find at Uxmaluna. Most important was the information that the woman and an unstable Nazi colonel were on their way to a deserted plain in southern Peru.

In the few seconds they had left, Hunter and Fitz hatched a bold plan. Hunter needed to get to Nazca and he needed to get there fast, before the whacked-out Nazi colonel did her harm. It was ten times the range of the Hind helicopter-they both knew he needed a jet, preferably a two-seat Harrier, as the mission called for a VTOL and he intended on bringing only one passenger back with him.

Fitz told him to sit tight for 90 minutes, an unbearable length of time for the impatient, anxious Wingman. But wait it out he did, he and Brother David managing to get out of the besieged police station and back to the Hind copter, taking time to stop at a street side cafe to pick up a half dozen tacos and a four-pack of beer.

It was a happy and well-fed pair that saw no less than a half dozen Harriers show up 89 minutes later. They were a mix of Texans and Football City pilots flying United American Harriers that had been deployed to Houston earlier.

Only two Harriers landed -both of them two-seater versions. While Hunter helped strap an astounded Brother David into the back of one of the jumpjets, they started taking some fire from some buildings nearby. The four Harriers still aloft broke out of their hovering, four-sided protective cordon and, one by one, delivered a fire-suppressing barrage on the suspected location, courtesy of their powerful Aden cannons.

By the time the fourth Harrier got his plugs in, Brother David's jumpjet was up and gone, and Hunter's was taking off. The six VTOL aircraft didn't fly very far-they came back down again in an old soccer field about 20 miles from the town. There, they proceeded to play a game of musical cockpits.

First of all, Hunter prepared to take over the Harrier that had picked him up.

His pilot took the rear seat in one of the other two-seaters.

At this point, Hunter bid farewell to Brother David. It was hasty -it had to be. Time was of the essence.

"Bless you, Brother Hunter," the monk had said, firmly grasping Hunter's hand.

"I still feel I owe you for saving our mission."

"First of all, it is I that owe you, Brother," Hunter had told him. "I could never have got this far without your help. Secondly, you act as if we'll never see each other again. I promise you, Brother, we will." -

That was all he could say. The Harrier's cockpit snapped closed and the jumpjet took off, straight up, Brother David waving like mad despite the force of the jet's vertical acceleration.

The other Harriers also took off at this point - two would -proceed to the lake near the Uxmaluna site to pick up the commodore, then they would all form up and head for the safety of Texas.

Once Hunter was alone, he took off and headed west at full throttle. Off the coast of the most southern tip of Mexico, he met the first Texan aerial tanker and filled up. After breaking off contact, he headed due south, again at full throttle. Avoiding Panamanian airspace added 250 miles to his trip. About 400

miles off the coast of Big Banana, he met his second Texas tanker, which was actually accompanied by yet another tanker. Once Hunter took on his needed fuel, the tanker itself topped off its tanks from its companion, then turned for home.

Phase three had Hunter taking on his third fuel load at 250 miles off the coast of Peru. Once that was done, the Texas tanker did a U-turn and headed back north, Hunter knowing that the weary crew would have to rendezvous two more times to get enough fuel to make it back.

It had been a complicated operation, but it went off without a hitch.

Now Hunter could turn to the business at hand . . .

The two captured Fokker pilots had dug down five feet when they came to a hand-carved chunk of limestone.

"Amazing," Elizabeth said on seeing the soft rock. "Mexican limestone in the Peruvian highlands."

"Now what?" one of the pilots asked, wiping his brow.

Krupp, standing by the edge of the hole, was wondering the same thing.

Elizabeth looked at the two pilots, then ordered the one who had asked the question out of the hole. Like his partner, he was tall and blond.

"Keep an eye on this one, Colonel," she said to Krupp. "Don't come near the airplane until I call you."

Mystified, Krupp nodded numbly and watched as Elizabeth led the pilot back to the Fokker.

Ten minutes went by. Krupp was sweating buckets in the afternoon heat. The pilot still in the hole was faring no better, trying to whack away at the limestone with the now-dulled blade of his shovel.

Then Krupp heard Elizabeth. "Colonel," she called out somewhat breathlessly.

"Come here . . ."

Krupp half-heartedly told the man to keep on digging and walked to the airplane. Climbing inside, he got the shock of his life.

Elizabeth was naked. So was the pilot. He was lying on his back and she was on top of him, riding him like a young girl rides a horse. Her hair was going wild, her breasts were bouncing crazily. She looked completely caught up in the sex

act - completely out of control.

"Jealous, Colonel?" she called to him, out of breath and laughing wildly. "Oh, but you like to watch, don't you?"

Krupp was absolutely speechless.

Elizabeth turned her attention back to the young stud of a pilot who was exerting himself like a lead role player in a hard-core X-rated movie.

"Give it to me!" she screamed in passion.

Their love-making got even more heated - Elizabeth was lost in her passion, alternating between orgasmic screams and moans and delirious bursts of laughter. Krupp couldn't move a muscle. She would occasionally glance over to him, flash a devious smile, then go back to her frenzied love-making. For his part, he had never seen such a display of obscenity.

When it was certain that both of them were reaching their orgasm, Krupp could take no more. Why was she torturing him so? He turned and quickly left the cabin, leaning on the wing, trying to collect himself.

Seconds later he clearly heard Elizabeth scream in utter delight, the pilot too cried out at his climax.

Then, suddenly, a gunshot cracked through the desert air!

Krupp spun around and ran back to the cabin, thinking that the pilot had somehow gotten hold of her gun.

But when he reached the door and looked in, he realized he had it all wrong.

The pilot was dead -a single bloody gunshot wound in his temple. Elizabeth, gun in hand, was just climbing off his limp body.

She turned and wriggled her own naked body at Krupp and laughed. "I told you I could be dangerous . . ." she said.

Krupp was still shaking when Elizabeth finally emerged from the airplane.

She was brushing back her hair and adjusting her clothes as if she had done nothing more than freshen up.

"Have you broken through yet?" she asked the remaining pilot.

Knowing full well the fate of his partner, the man was suddenly very accommodating.

"I've got a peephole in it," he said.- "There's a tunnel below."

Elizabeth smiled once again and looked at Krupp. "Makes the trip worthwhile, no?" she said.

The pilot had kicked a larger hole in the limestone plate now, and with a few more whacks of the shovel, had an opening big enough to squeeze through.

"There it is, ma'am," he said. "Are we going in?"

"We are," she said, shining the airplane's large battery-operated trouble lantern down into the tunnel.

Krupp hesitated at the edge of the hole. Elizabeth turned and looked at him.

"Colonel?" she asked, "Aren't you com-ing?"

He still hadn't said a word to her since the incident in the airplane.

"Problems, Colonel?"

He shook his head half-heartedly. "No," he finally managed to say.

The pilot was the first to slip through the limestone cover and into the tunnel. He helped Elizabeth down, leaving

Krupp to practically fall the eight feet into the tunnel beneath the limestone cap. Elizabeth got her footing and then played the big flashlight around.

The tunnel was very similar to the one that led to the gold chamber at Uxmaluna, the only difference being that this passageway was musty and oddly damp.

"Do you realize that we are the first people to come in here in fifteen hundred years?" Elizabeth said.

But neither the pilot nor Krupp was in the mood to celebrate the historic event.

They started walking, Elizabeth in the lead, the pilot beside her. Krupp bringing up the rear.

"What's your name?" she suddenly asked the pilot.

"Karlon," he answered.

"And how many people does it take to fly that airplane?"

"Just two," he said, after thinking for a moment. "One behind the controls, one to do a few simple things before take-off and landings."

"Really?" she asked. "Could you teach me how to do those simple things?"

The pilot didn't quite know what she was getting at, but he knew he'd be a fool not to play along.

"Yes, the procedures are very easy to learn," he said.

She instantly turned back to Krupp and held the flashlight under her chin for a moment to give her face an eerie look.

"Getting nervous, Colonel?" she asked.

She laughed and continued walking down the passageway, flashing the lantern from side to side in the neatly squared-off shaft.

Meanwhile, too far up for them to hear it, Hunter's AV-8B Harrier was passing high overhead.

Thirty minutes later, the trio reached a sealed-off entranceway sculpted exactly like the portal to the gold chamber at Uxmaluna.

"This is it," Elizabeth declared. "Look familiar, Colonel?"

Krupp was so jumpy he hardly heard her. Yes, it did look familiar-too familiar. Walking through the dark tunnel -so similar to the one at Uxmaluna-was like revisiting a nightmare. That, and the fact that he was trying to figure out just what she was up to, had him so taut, his muscles cramped when he moved.

Elizabeth turned to the pilot and told him to hammer in the slim piece of limestone. Using the shovel once again, he proceeded to bash at the soft stone.

"Excited, Colonel?" Elizabeth asked.

Krupp somehow got up the gumption to say, "If you are."