In the Shadow of Falcon's Wings

CHAPTER 8 RUN THROUGH THE JUNGLE

He moved through the woods like wraith.

He had always possessed the uncanny ability to move that way, and given his size, that was nothing short of miraculous. He ducked under low hanging branches, slipped through dense thickets without brushing a single leaf, and hopped lightly over deadfalls without leaving a footprint.

He had come by his skills honestly, growing up on the Cumberland Plateau, hunting game and varmints in the Appalachian forests, or simply cavorting on the sandstone bluffs that defended the highlands from everyone but the coal miners. He had always been a creature of the forest, and it mattered not a bit if those forests were in his own backyard, or on a continent on the other side of the world from his Kentucky home.

He now stalked his enemies on a trail that would have confounded a bloodhound. He had exaggerated it to Dodge and Molly; it was no broad path hewn from the jungle by a machete-wielding expedition. Rather, the captives had been driven single-file, while a rear party had done their best to minimize the impact of their passage and cover their tracks. There was however only so much that could be done to mask the presence of such a large group, and Hurricane knew exactly what to look for.

That he could see anything in the darkness beneath the dense canopy likewise defied comprehension. He had always been possessed of good eyesight, a genetic gift from his mother, but on this night he had taken the added precaution of shielding his gaze from the firelight for nearly an entire hour while waiting for Dodge to drift off to sleep. He knew some other tricks for multiplying the efficiency of his night vision — ways of compressing the muscles in his eyes to focus differently, and a technique for looking with the peripheral vision, which was more effective in darkness that looking straight ahead. He also looked with his ears and nose, smelling areas where the vegetation had been trampled and was decaying, or hearing the sound of insects and small rodents agitated by the recent passage through their demesne.

He was, he estimated, only about six hours behind the party, but they had likely stopped moving before dusk, while he was nearly running to intercept them. He was completely in his element; a wolf on the prowl. The only thing that disturbed his deadly calm was his decision to abandon Dodge and Molly.

There were a dozen reasons why it was a good idea, and from the moment Molly had protested being excluded from the pursuit, he had known that slipping away after nightfall was the only logical answer. Yet, he was troubled, mostly because of leaving Dodge behind.

The young sportswriter was a natural; he had not been guilty of exaggeration on the occasion of telling Dodge that he might someday rival even Zane Falcon. They were cut from the same cloth. Falcon had been a lettered man, answering the call to serve and accepting a position of leadership because of inner convictions regarding right and wrong. Dodge had come up from hard beginnings, but he had educated himself and along the way picked up a similar set of values and an ability to quickly take charge of even the most challenging situations; all he was lacking was the battlefield on which to prove himself. Perhaps that was why this act of well-intentioned betrayal stung so much; he had denied Dodge a chance to truly shine.

But there was no way Hurley was going to take that sweet Irish rose into battle. She might be able to hold her own, but her very presence would be a distraction to the men in her company, men who would very likely make the fatal mistake of looking out for her, when they most needed to look out for themselves. Molly could not go with them and she could not be left to fend for herself, ergo Dodge had to stay behind with her.

The odds didn’t concern him too much. He knew he could pick off the rear guard one at a time, thinning the ranks of the enemy before they knew what was happening. Once he reached the captives, he would have allies in hand, more than eager to avenge themselves for the foul attack, to say nothing of the Padre; Father Hobbs, expert at Oriental fighting techniques, was the equal of any three pirate rogues. Hurley had even seen the otherwise unflappable cleric go toe to toe with Falcon during an unfortunate incident toward the end of their long war; not many men could fight Captain Falcon to a draw. If there was ever a man to have at your side in a fight, it was the Padre, the best part of course being that after the fighting was done, there was no additional fighting for the attention of the ladies at the local watering hole. That thought brought a smile to his otherwise darkened countenance and he kept running.

He smelled the pirate camp before he could see the flicker of their flames, and halted in mid-step. They aren’t making very good time, he thought, dropping onto his belly and inching forward. In fact, it had been less than two hours since his covert departure from the ruins of Father Hobbs’ mission.

He crept closer to the encampment at a snail’s pace, and the instant that their fires were visible, he drew back into the lightless forest and commenced skirting the perimeter until he knew exactly where the guards were posted. Halfway through the circuit, he found the reason for their choice of campsite. A tributary creek, easily twenty yards across, blocked their way. A start had been made of rigging up a bridge, but the work had barely begun. Hurricane took note that the bridge footings were unguarded, and moved on.

Perimeter security was equally poor. The handful of guards scattered around the site were more interested in warming themselves at their respective fires than attending to their duty station.

Of course they’re not on their game, he realized. They aren’t expecting anyone to pay a visit.

He picked the one that seemed furthest from the others and least vigilant to boot, and advanced stealthily on his location. The man was not aware of the danger he was in until one of Hurricane’s beefy hands clamped down over his mouth, and what panic he did evince died when Hurley gave his head a full twist.

Taking out the sentry had not been accomplished without sacrifice, specifically, the loss of his heightened nocturnal abilities. The fire’s acrid fumes and orange brilliance had left him night blind and unable to smell the peculiar scent of human activity in the jungle, but then again, one sometimes had to endure small losses to accomplish greater victories. He continued onward, toward the heart of the camp.

The pirates had erected lean-to huts in a loose ring around the center, but the camp appeared to be completely asleep. Hurley edged close to one of the shelters, grimacing silently as he heard a soft feminine whimper. He couldn’t pierce the veil of darkness, but it was easy enough to deduce that the pirate who occupied this hut had selected one of the captives to keep him company.

I’ll deal with it in a minute, he promised himself. After I find the Padre.

At the center of the semi-circle, bisected by the river, he found a dozen male captives, tied with ropes and tethered to a tree by a single line that encircled each man’s neck. The restraints were probably unnecessary; the men had dropped in their tracks from exhaustion. All were African natives, some in traditional garb, others in tattered trousers; Hobbs was not among their number. Hurley was about to advance on them when he spied the cage.

Situated away from the other captives, in an isolated corner of the camp, the cage was a hasty construct of fresh cut mahogany limbs bound with twine. It depended a few feet above the ground, hanging by a rope thrown over a tree limb. Hurricane could just make out a human shape inside, a form clad in black.

Padre!

He checked for any sign of surveillance then stole forward. When he was only a few yards from the cage, he risked breaking his silence with a sibilant hiss, but there was no movement from the figure inside. Muttering an oath, he continued forward.

Suddenly the ground vanished beneath his feet. He flailed, struggling to arrest his fall, but his hands closed on loose dirt and twigs. Total darkness enveloped him and the odor of decaying vegetation crashed over him in a suffocating wave. An instant later, he found himself lying in a shallow puddle.

A familiar rage began to boil but much of it was focused inward. His fists lashed out at the soft earthen walls of his prison but his almost incoherent curses were self-directed. His epic pursuit through the jungle, following the enemy like a vengeful ghost, had come to the most ignominious of climaxes; he had taken the bait in his mouth and jumped headlong into an amateurish pitfall.

His solitary imprisonment ended quickly as the mouth of the pit, more than ten feet above his head, was filled with torchlight. He drew his pistols in a flash and thrust them skyward, but the first face to come into view was that of a sobbing native female and he immediately checked himself.

“Throw your guns up, or her blood will, quite literally, be on you.”

Hurley’s lips curled in a snarl, but he thumbed the safety catch on his pistols and hurled them up at the opening.

“Very good.” The captive was pulled away from the edge and the silhouette of the man giving the harsh commands came into view; his features remained in shadow. “Hurricane Hurley. You don’t know how long I’ve waited to see you like this.”

“Krieger! This time I’ll make sure to finish the job.”

“How terrible for me,” the pirate chuckled. “Perhaps I should simply leave you here, entombed alive as you left me. I could even put the good priest in with you for company before I fill the grave.”

“Do your worst.”

“Hah. Having caught you so readily, I am reluctant to cede my advantage, but alas, I am driven by motives more pragmatic than revenge.”

Hurricane bit off another retort. Cede his advantage? What did that mean? No answer was forthcoming though, as Krieger continued talking. “There are four more captives here with me — women, if it matters — and I will not hesitate to kill them all if you show the slightest resistance. Do we have an understanding?”

“Yes.” Hurley forced the word through teeth that were grinding together like millstones.

A rope, knotted at two-foot intervals, dropped into the pit and he immediately commenced ascending. As his head reached ground level, he saw that he was surrounded by a group of more than a score of pirates, all completely alert.

It was a setup from the beginning. They knew I would come. But how?

Some of the pirates held torches aloft in their non-dominant hand, while the other gripped their firearm of choice. The remaining villains were armed only with knives, which they held pressed to the throat of the hostage women. In the firelight, he saw that the captive in the cage — the bait that had lured him into the pitfall — was merely an effigy stuffed into priestly vestments. That cage now rested on the ground beside the hole, with one of its sides removed to allow access to the interior.

He didn’t know which of the pirates Krieger was; he had never seen him up close and no photographs of the man had ever emerged during Falcon’s hunt for the Ninety-nine. Had he known, he might have been tempted to risk everything for a chance to decapitate the monster; perhaps in the absence of leadership, the pirate organization would crumble, sparing the imperiled lives. He did however recognize another face — or rather a dragon tattoo on a shaved skull — among the gaggle.

“Marten!”

The treacherous riverboat captain stood among the scoundrels, towering above most, and smiling victoriously. “Bonjour, monsieur. I had not thought to see you again. I am pleased that it is under such favorable circumstances.”

“Get in the cage.”

He whirled, trying to isolate Krieger, but the voice had come from behind him and could have belonged to any of the pirates standing in that quarter. Dismayed, he complied with the command. Two from the enemy number hastened forward to lash the wooden bars in place.

The box was very cramped; from a seated position, his head was bent down by the overhead slats, and rested between his knees, which were mere inches from the top of the cage. Notwithstanding the discomfort, he instantly saw that his prison was a flimsy construct; very little effort would be required to break out. He feigned acceptance of his capture, and sunk his head a little lower.

Litter poles were secured to sides of Hurley’s cage and four male captives were propelled forward and ordered to lift him up. The entire assembly fell in line behind the procession as he was carried toward the river. The rudimentary bridge however was not their destination; instead they skirted the bank for a distance of more than three hundred yards, until they reached a natural harborage where several vessels were moored. Hurricane saw a bi-plane floating amid the armada.

The craft bobbed on pontoons and a central hull that extended out like a mallard’s bill from under the fuselage. Although there were no markings on its reflective metallic skin, Hurley recognized it as a Grumman JF “Duck,” a small amphibious airplane ideal for use in the Congo where the only clear area to land was on the water. He wondered how Krieger had managed to acquire the plane, but then recalled Molly’s statement that the pirates had captured their plane. If the plane belonged to the Padre, then it would be the perfect means for them to make their escape when the time came. He was carried up a ramp and onto the deck of a boat nearest the water’s edge, where another surprise waited.

“Padre!” His joy at seeing his old comrade momentarily superseded all other concerns, but only momentarily. As soon as he got a good look at the friend he had not seen for nearly a decade, his elation turned to agony.

The pirates had beaten him savagely. His eyes were blackened and a long, untended weal marked his chin. His shirt had been removed, revealing a mass of bruises on his naturally gaunt-looking chest. But the recent trials did not account for the most dramatic change: Father Nathan Hobbs’ hair had gone completely white.

Hobbs was also caged, but his prison box was suspended in a manner that would have brought a tear to the collective eye of the Spanish Inquisition. It hung by a single rope from a gallows, which had in turn been erected over the center of a bed of foot long stakes. Hurley could not help but notice that fire-hardened tips of the poniards had been smeared with excrement. If the prisoner did anything to disturb the cage, he would wind up skewered on the stakes, and if by some miracle that did not kill him, the resulting infection would most certainly do so in a protracted agonizing manner. That threat alone would be enough to compel a prisoner to remain docile, and such was no doubt the intention of its architect.

The litter bearers carefully positioned Hurricane’s cage over the spikes alongside Hobbs’, after which one of the pirates moved forward to wrap the anchor rope around the gibbet crosspiece and secured it to one of the uprights. The poles were then removed and Hurricane’s prison swung free above the lethal nest of spikes.

The Padre hung only a few feet away; close enough that Hurricane could look into his old friend’s haunted eyes. Hobbs had the hollow look of a man who had endured the most horrible tragedies, but then he had always kind of looked that way; it was difficult to tell how deep the wounds went. The clergyman stared unblinking at him for a few seconds then, in a perfect deadpan imitation of Oliver Hardy, said: “Well, this is another fine mess you’ve gotten us into.”

Hurricane was so caught off guard that for a few seconds, he appeared to be in the grip of a paroxysm of coughing. The sound gradually resolved into peals of laughter that rolled across the muddy river like thunder. The Padre had made a joke; that didn’t happen very often.

There was a stir from the midst of the pirate ranks, and a figure that Hurley had not seen earlier, strode forward. Although the man’s face was obscured by a mask of dark wood, carved in a demonic visage, Hurricane knew instinctively that this at last was Johannes Krieger.

“What impressive men you are,” Krieger snarled, barely controlling his rage. “Laughing in the face of death. I wish I had possessed your grace when I had to claw my way out of that hole you left me in.”

He thrust his hands at them, and Hurricane saw that instead of fingers, each of Krieger’s deformed hands ended in a prosthetic that resembled the talons of a raptor, with curving metal claws honed to razor sharpness on the inside edge. He laid the blade edges of his right hand on the rope that suspended Hurley’s cage.

“In my dreams,” the pirate leader continued, “there are three of you here. But I will settle my account with your fearless leader in due time.”

Hurley’s mirth had already subsided, but something about Krieger’s declaration struck a chord. The pirate wanted revenge on Falcon; was that what this was all about? Was it conceivable that the attack on the White House and the President’s abduction, and the horrible savagery of the massacre at the mission, were all part of some fiendish revenge plot?

Krieger offered no further insight on the matter. He had only one thing more to say: “Laugh at this.” And then with a wicked slash of his hand, he cut the rope.