On the High Road to Oblivion

Chapter 17—The High Road to Trouble

Dodge came to a dead stop in the mouth of the tunnel. For an instant, he contemplated retreating back inside, but knew that would accomplish nothing.

As if reading his mind, Barron said, “Come out and join your friends, Mr. Dalton.”

Dodge complied with a grimace. One of the gunmen took his flashlight and brusquely motioned for him to join the rest of the group. Vaughn and Hurricane glowered at their captors, while the others simply looked confused. “I wish I could say this comes as a surprise, Von Heissel, but I never really trusted you.”

“And I never believed that you had.” Barron turned away as if he had already grown weary of the banter, and began conversing with Sorensen.

Dodge saw the two autogyros, parked nearby in an open area, and scanned the sky until he found the fat cigar shape of Majestic high above. He edged closer to Hurricane.

“I should’ve tossed him in that river,” the big man growled under his breath.

“I figured he’d turn on us,” Dodge said. “I just didn’t think he’d make his move this soon.”

Vaughn nodded to the men, then spoke loud enough for their captors to hear. “You’ve made a grave mistake, Barron. You were on thin ice with the War Department as it was; now you’re finished.”

Von Heissel glanced back and laughed. “Indeed I am, General. Finished playing games with you, that is. I’ve got what I needed. My arrangement with the War Department no longer serves any useful purpose.”

Dodge saw an opening. “You only think you’ve got it. There’s barely enough adamantine ore in that sack of yours to make a pie tin, and you don’t even know how to use it.”

“Give me some credit, Dalton. I’m not the buffoon you portrayed me as in your stories. That’s what I have Dr. Newcombe for.”

The scientist’s eyes widened. “You don’t actually think I’m still going to help you.”

Von Heissel chuckled. “But you are, my dear doctor. You will do exactly what I want in order to spare Miss Dunn any unnecessary discomfort. Oh yes, I’ve seen the look in your eyes when she walks into the room. You will do as I ask. Who knows? Perhaps when all this is finished, I will permit the two of you to have a life together in the new world I will create.”

Newcombe swallowed nervously, but whether it was because of Von Heissel’s threat, or embarrassment at having his feelings for Fiona discussed so publicly, Dodge could not say.

The baron turned to Sorensen. “Take Miss Dunn and Dr. Newcombe back to Majestic. See that he begins work on the sample straightaway, then return for the rest of us.”

“What about the writer?”

“He still amuses me. And it may be useful to have another hostage if Dr. Newcombe needs an object lesson.”

The pilot took a step forward and motioned with the barrel of his sub-machine gun. “You heard him.”

Fiona dropped her hands to her hips defiantly. “Walter, you traitorous bastard. If you think you can use me to—”

Sorensen silenced her with a slap that sent her reeling backward. Newcombe tried to catch her, but the force of the blow caused both of them to stumble against the hillside. “This will be easier if you’re conscious,” the dark pilot snarled, “but it’s not absolutely necessary. Your choice.”

“Go along with him, Doc,” Dodge said. He wanted to say more, to tell the scientist that the best way to stop Von Heissel was to stay alive, but he didn’t dare say it aloud. “And take care of Fiona. She’s no part of this.”

The baron laughed again, but said nothing more as the two captives were pulled from the group and ushered toward one of the waiting aircraft. As the Sorensen started the engine, Hurricane whispered: “I think the writing’s on the wall for us.”

“If we’re going to get out of this,” Vaughn added, “we need to make our move soon.”

Dodge didn’t doubt that the two former soldiers would act decisively and without hesitation. He could almost picture them charging the three gunmen, braving a storm of .45 caliber rounds and either seizing the day or dying in the attempt. But going out in a blaze of glory wouldn’t stop the baron from achieving whatever it was he intended. And there was someone else to consider. Moving slowly, so as not to arouse the suspicions of their captors, he got closer to Nora. “Be ready.”

She nodded.

As the autogyro hopped into the sky, Dodge grabbed her by the arm and propelled her toward the mouth of the cave.

The gunmen reacted slowly, but as Dodge reached the opening, the bullets started to fly. Hurricane dropped to a crouch and swept up a double-fistful of loose rocks, which he hurled at the three crewmen. He then shoved the general toward the cave and plunged into the darkness after him.

Newcombe caught only a glimpse of the scuffle on the ground before Sorensen banked away, cutting off his line of sight, but it was enough to fill him with hope. As long as Dodge was alive, there was a chance.

He settled back in the cramped cockpit. The space had been designed for a single passenger, but Sorensen had told Fiona to sit on Newcombe’s lap. It was a degree of contact he could only have dreamed about, but given the circumstances, he took little joy from the experience.

But then he she pressed her cheek against his. “Findlay, I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”

She had to shout to be heard over the roar of the engine and the whistle of the wind, but her entreaty was no less meaningful. “It’s not your fault at all,” he answered. “None of us knew who he really was. But if anyone can stop him, it’s Dodge.”

“Findlay, we can’t wait around for the cavalry to charge in and save us.”

Dodge’s parting words still rang in his ears. Go along… take care of Fiona. So also did Von Heissel’s boast about creating a new world.

After learning Barron’s true identity, Dodge had shared his concerns about what Von Heissel’s broader goal might be. Building a bigger version of the wave generator was merely an intermediate step toward that unknown objective. Simply escaping from the baron’s clutches wasn’t going to be good enough. With or without Newcombe’s help, Von Heissel was going to carry out his dark purpose. Newcombe knew that if he cooperated, or at least seemed to, there was a chance he might be able to figure out what the baron was really up to. And just maybe, stop him.

Dodge had wondered if the baron’s men would simply cut their losses and return to the airship, but as he scrambled through the darkness, urging Nora forward, sporadic gunfire behind them indicated otherwise. The bullets ricocheted from the walls, showering them with chips of rock.

It wasn’t until they reached the junction near the river that Dodge was able to ascertain that Hurricane and Vaughn were still alive, and but for a few scrapes, uninjured. As the big man tumbled out of the narrow passage, Dodge saw a flicker of light — their own flashlights, now in the hands of Von Heissel’s goons.

“They’re still coming.” Despite the dire pronouncement, Hurricane’s voice was like a solid rock of hope.

“I hope you’ve got a better plan than to just keep running,” Vaughn said, sourly.

Dodge was about to utter a caustic retort when he heard Nora’s sibilant “Shhh!”

He resisted the urge to question her, and in the silence that followed, he was glad he did. They were not alone. The darkness was filled with the soft sound of breathing and the scrape of claws on stone.

A burst of gunfire erupted from the opening. The bullets cracked harmlessly against the cavern wall on the far side of the acid river, but in the fleeting spark-light, he saw pale forms moving up the tunnel from the direction of the gates.

Before any of them could move however, a flashlight beam stabbed out of the passage and the first of the baron’s men burst into view, gun in one hand, flashlight in the other.

Hurricane acted decisively. He gripped the smoking barrel of the man’s Tommy gun, and wrenched it loose. The gunman stumbled headlong down the terraced slope and splashed into the river.

Dodge caught just a glimpse of the man surfacing again before the flashlight abruptly went out. Then the cave reverberated with his screams.

“Upstream!” Dodge hoped his friends understood what he meant; there wasn’t time to be more explicit, but the creatures were advancing from the direction they had followed earlier, which left only one direction to go. He found Nora’s hand and pulled her along, hugging the cavern wall and staying as far from the river as he could.

More lights shone out from the adjacent tunnel, and in their diffuse glow, Dodge saw Hurricane and Vaughn right behind him, and behind them, dozens of small ghostly white figures. The second gunman emerged at almost exactly that instant, only to find himself surrounded by the fierce creatures. He had the wherewithal to bring his gun to bear, and a storm of lead slugs tore into the pack, but it was not enough. The creatures overwhelmed him.

No one else came out of the tunnel. The third crewman had either not ventured in after them, or had turned back. This was small comfort to the quartet that hastened along the unfamiliar path in total darkness. Dodge drew to a halt after about a hundred tentative steps. “Still there, Hurricane?”

“Right behind you,” the big man whispered. “I think those critters are busy with their fresh kill, but don’t ask me to put money on it.”

“We need to see where we’re going.”

“I’ve got a few matches,” Hurricane said.

“You’ll bring those things right to us with a light,” Vaughn intoned.

“I don’t think they have eyes,” Dodge said. “Or if they do, they’re probably sensitive to light. It might actually keep them at bay. We just need something to make a torch with.”

In an almost sad voice, Nora said: “I’ve got some paper. My notebook.”

Because he was a writer, Dodge understood just how much of a sacrifice it was. She tore off a few sheets, twisted them together, and passed them to Hurricane who struck a match.

Though the flame was tiny, their eyes had become adjusted to the darkness, and for a moment, it was like looking at the sun. Hurricane touched the match to the paper, then held it aloft.

Dodge thought he saw movement at the edge of the illumination cast by the makeshift torch. It might have been just a change in shadow as the yellow flame flickered, but there was no reason not to believe that the creatures were following them.

Their surroundings were almost indistinguishable from the section of tunnel they had passed through on their approach to the gates, but Dodge detected a slight incline on the path ahead. They continued forward, with Nora supplying more pieces of paper to keep their way lit. As they advanced, the ceiling dropped, forcing them down onto the naturally carved river banks and closer to the stream of acid. Even at that, they had to walk in a hunched over position. Then, just when it looked like they might have to start crawling, they reached the end of the tunnel.

The river broadened into a pool. The far wall, at the head of the pool, glistened with moisture seeping out of cracks and dribbling down into the acidic pond that fed the stream.

For a moment, no one spoke. Dodge knew the grim reality that they had hit a dead end was kept at bay only be their refusal to openly acknowledge it, and he was desperately hoping someone would discover some solution that presently eluded him.

For once, his hope wasn’t in vain.

Hurricane’s sharp eyes picked out a horizontal crack large enough to crawl through, just above the seeping rocks. “I reckon water used to flow through there once upon a time. It might lead us back to the lake.”

“Or another dead end,” Vaughn muttered.

“I’m certainly willing to entertain alternatives,” Hurricane drawled. When Vaughn didn’t answer, he continued: “Guess not.”

He passed the torch to Dodge, slung his captured Tommy gun across his back, and then began looking for handholds in the rock face. To everyone’s amazement, the big man seemed to move effortlessly on the nearly vertical surface, like a spider crawling up a wall. He picked out tiny protuberances for steps and insinuated his fingers into near-microscopic cracks, and in just a few minutes, was able to crawl into the seam he had previously identified. He crawled a few feet inside, then stuck his head back out. “Get on up here,” he called. “You’re gonna want to see this.”

After a short journey they emerged from the underworld in the cave Fiona had earlier identified as the grotto of the Sibyl. The fissure had probably served as a source of the mephitic vapors which had facilitated the ancient oracle’s trance states. It had been necessary to dig a little at the end in order to widen the hole enough to get out, but the proximity of daylight was enough to give Hurricane the will move mountains — or at least, very small parts of volcanic hills.

Von Heissel and his remaining crewman had evidently left in the second autogyro. Nevertheless, the group stayed vigilant as they hiked back to the Grotta di Cocceio, where they hired a cab to take them back to the seaport in Naples. Although Majestic was nowhere to be seen, it wasn’t hard to find people who had noticed the airship crossing their skies. The dirigible had last been seen heading west.

“He’s going back to the States,” Vaughn said. “He probably needs the resources of Barron Industries to carry out his scheme.”

“I wonder just what that scheme entails.”

Vaughn’s forehead drew into a crease. “He’s made no secret of his desire to build a larger version of the resonance generator. And it would be a powerful weapon.”

“Von Heissel’s always had delusions of grandeur,” Hurricane offered. “Whatever he’s got planned, you can bet the wave doohickey is just one piece of a much bigger plan.”

“He’s probably got everything he needs to build his new wave resonance device aboard Majestic,” Dodge replied. “If he’s going back to America, it’s because that’s where he plans to launch his attack.”

“I’ll contact Washington. They can intercept him; shoot him down before he ever gets close enough to do any harm.”

“Doc Newton is aboard that thing,” Hurricane said.

Nora added: “Rodney, too. And Miss Dunn. You’d kill them all.”

“To save hundreds of American lives? You’re damn right I would.”

Dodge nodded slowly. “It may come to that. But we need to at least try to save our friends.”

“What have you got in mind?”

“We’ve got to get aboard Majestic again.” Dodge didn’t know exactly how that was going to happen, but he knew it wouldn’t be pleasant.

When his two crewmen did not immediately return from their subterranean pursuit, Von Heissel felt certain they had met with some kind of misfortune. He hoped that whatever had befallen his crewmen had likewise taken care of the escapees — an attack by the pale creatures, perhaps. As much as he hated leaving while the fate of Dalton and the others remained uncertain, he needed to get back aboard Majestic. Nevertheless, he was not about to take the risk of his carefully laid plans unraveling because his foes had slipped through his fingers.

The departure of the Catalina flying boat from the sea port did not go unnoticed. As soon as the plane took off, the baron’s informant sent a short wave transmission that was picked up by the radioman on Majestic, which was in turn passed directly to Von Heissel himself.

If the baron was surprised or disappointed to learn that Dodge Dalton and his companions were still alive, he did not show it. He simply summoned Sorensen and told him what to do.

As the azure waters of the Tyrrhenian Sea fell away beneath the hull of the Catalina, Dodge began scanning the skies for Majestic. Hurricane’s sharp eyes soon picked the airship out, a black speck high above the cloudless horizon. The mere fact of knowing where she was however did little to lighten the mood. At more than ten thousand feet above the earth — or in this case, the sea — and moving at a constant rate of about one hundred miles per hour, their friends and enemies were as inaccessible as if they were on the moon.

Dodge was still pondering how to bridge that gap when Hurricane spied something else. “I think Majestic just launched a couple planes,” he said in a grave voice.

If the airship was a speck, then the two aircraft which took to the sky from her launch platforms were mere motes of dust, but it wasn’t long at all before they grew large enough for Dodge to spot them as well.

Dodge recalled that Sorensen had strafed the attackers at Alamut from the air. Majestic’s complement of biplanes was there for combat, not shuttle duty. He craned his head around, shouting from the cockpit. “General! Tell me about those fighters!”

Vaughn came forward and peered through the front windscreen. “Damn him. All right, those are Curtiss F9C Sparrowhawks. They’ve got a pair of Browning machine guns. They’re fast and very maneuverable.”

“How fast?”

“Around 150 knots… that’s about 175 miles per hour. But they’re meant to be short-range patrol craft. Can’t go more than about 300 miles on a tank of gas.”

Dodge knew the Catalina could max at 196 miles per hour, and its range was measured in thousands of miles. It was start. “Service ceiling?”

Vaughn searched his memory. “Just below 20,000 feet if I remember right.”

“That’s higher than we can go.” Dodge drummed his fingers on the control column. “Okay, we can’t fight back and we can’t outfly them, but maybe we can outrun them.”

“We’re not completely toothless,” Hurricane said. “We’ve got that Tommy gun I took from the baron’s goon back in the cave. It’s not much good at a distance, but maybe it they get close enough we can give them something to think about.”

“I can do that,” Vaughn volunteered. “I’ll set up in one of the waist turrets.”

Dodge saw a flicker of disappointment in Hurricane’s eyes. The big man knew he wasn’t much use in the cockpit, so being able to shoot back would have given him something to do in the crisis, but he simply nodded. “Good hunting, sir.”

As soon as Vaughn called forward to say that he was situated, Dodge banked to the south, but the Sparrowhawks were already close enough to start throwing lead across the sky. Dodge saw streaks of white — tracer rounds — slicing through the air ahead of them. He responded by lifting the nose up, climbing for a few seconds, then angling down before the fighter pilots could adjust their aim. He saw more tracers whiz past, now coming in from behind, and knew that the Sparrowhawks were lining up for the kill. He leveled out and pushed the throttles to their limit.

Suddenly, the interior of the plane was filled an explosive roar, louder even than the drone of the engines; Vaughn was firing his sub-machine gun at the incoming fighters. After firing three short bursts, the general crowed in triumph.

Eclipsed from Dodge’s view, one of the Sparrowhawk pilots had the misfortune to be flying right where Vaughn was shooting. A few rounds had plinked off the cowling of the plane, doing little more than cosmetic damage, but one bullet had grazed the side of the man’s head, knocking him unconscious. As he slumped forward, his hand jerked the control stick, and the plane veered off, corkscrewing aimlessly through the sky as it descended out of control.

Vaughn’s victorious moment was short-lived. A very different sound resonated through the fuselage as 7.62 millimeter rounds from the remaining fighter hammered into the Catalina. Dodge started in his seat as one round passed through the interior of plane and smacked into the instrument panel scant inches from his hand.

The plane suddenly shook with an explosion. Dodge glanced up just in time to see the starboard prop disintegrate. The nacelle continued to vomit black smoke, and after a few seconds, the smell of burning metal intruded into the cockpit.

“I don’t think we’re going to be able to outrun them,” Hurricane said in a grim voice.

Dodge cursed under his breath. Deprived of half its engine power, and now structurally compromised, it was all he could do to maintain control, and with the fire evidently spreading, trying to stay aloft was patently foolhardy. Outrunning the fighter plane was sheer fantasy. He nosed the plane down and headed for sea, silently praying the Catalina would hold together long enough for him set down.

He kept the port engine at full throttle, fighting the plane’s insistent drift to the right, but the aircraft was shedding forward velocity, fast approaching stall speed. He increased the angle of descent, using gravity to increase the airflow across the airfoils, but even as he did, the wing assembly started to groan and shake.

If the wing comes off….

He didn’t let himself finish the thought.

The descent was interminably long, but as the plane finally got below a thousand feet, he started leveling out. The open sea rushed up at him, looking a lot choppier than it had in the sheltered harbor of Naples, but the fates weren’t going to let him be picky.

The plane held together just long enough for the hull to kiss the water. The sudden friction and the jolt of landing caused the damaged wing strut to snap, and the rush of air ripped the entire wing away with a deafening shriek.

Still careening forward at more than a hundred miles an hour, the Catalina suddenly tried to go in several directions at once. The next few seconds were a blur of noise and motion as the fuselage tumbled along the surface. Salt water sprayed in through dozens of tears in the hull, and then poured in as windows and hatches broke apart completely.

Dodge’s next memory was of sitting in waist deep water, with more spraying directly in his face. He reached down and fumbled with the buckle of his seat belt. It was like trying to get dressed while standing under a waterfall, but after several attempts he felt the metal clasp yield to his efforts. Hurricane was groggy, but still alive and mostly conscious. Dodge shook the big man’s shoulder until the latter’s eyes flew open, and he got a reassuring nod.

“I’m going back to check on the others,” Dodge shouted over the sound of inrushing water. “Find us a way out.”

Nora was still buckled into the navigator’s seat, apparently unconscious, with the rising water nearly up to her chin. Dodge tilted her head away from the flood, giving her a few more seconds to breathe, and saw her eyes flutter open. She started involuntarily as her mind caught up with everything that had happened, but Dodge offered an encouraging smile.

“It’s going to be all right,” he told her, reaching down to free her from the safety belt. She spilled forward into the water, but he caught her and pulled her into a one-armed embrace as he went looking for Vaughn.

The general had chosen the starboard waist-turret as the place to mount his defense against the Sparrowhawk attack. The Plexiglas bubble was still above the water line, but Dodge saw that there was very little of it left. Rounds from the enemy Browning machine guns had shattered the turret as easily as they had the starboard engine. They had also struck Vaughn full in the chest.

Dodge heard Nora gasp as she got a look at the general’s lifeless body, and he quickly steered her away. There was nothing he could do for Vaughn now, and if they didn’t get out of the sinking wreck, they would soon be joining him in the hereafter. Nevertheless, he took a moment to close Vaughn’s unseeing eyes. “All is forgiven, sir. Godspeed.”

Hurricane appeared a moment later with a large canister under one arm. “The bow hatch is underwater, but it’s open.” He paused a beat as he spied Vaughn’s motionless form, then shook his head. “Come on. This way.”

Hurricane went through first, and after giving him a moment to get clear, Dodge, still holding Nora’s hand, took a deep breath, plunged into the water and swam for the opening.

The surface looked deceptively close. The front end of the plane had already sunk more than ten feet below, and by the time Dodge broke from the water, his lungs were on fire. He sucked greedily at the fresh air.

Hurricane was nearby, still clinging to the canister. Dodge could make out the words EMERGENCY LIFE RAFT stenciled on its surface, but he knew why the big man hadn’t yet deployed it.

High above them, the surviving Sparrowhawk turned lazy circles in the air, surveying the damage. From such a distance, they would be indistinguishable from the floating debris of the wrecked plane, but inflating the bright yellow raft would be like a firing off a signal flare. Dodge couldn’t help but think about Vaughn’s wounds, still dribbling blood into the water; would sharks come? Were they already circling beneath their feet?

Finally, after nearly five minutes of searching — five minutes in which the fuselage of the broken Catalina slipped quietly beneath the surface — the fighter plane turned away and headed back to Majestic.