The Scorpia Menace (13 page)

The parachute grew larger now, and beneath it the figure of a woman struggling a little as she fought to control the drift in the moderate wind. The sound of the speedboat's engine came across the sea and its bulk grew larger as it chopped through the waves half a mile away. The minute figure of the parachutist waved a greeting. Ten feet from the surface, she released the harness, and went cleanly into the water as the parachute collapsed and sank slowly into the sea.

The girl surfaced, swimming strongly and expertly toward the speed-boat, which was now only a hundred yardsaway. Her dark hair streamed behind her, then it too drifted away in the current. Freed of the wig, the girl's blond hair shone brilliantly in the sunshine. A man with a hard face reached down to grasp her wrists. With his help, she came aboard smoothly over the transom.

At the wheel, Otto Koch beamed, his bland priest's face exultant in the sunlight.

"Bull's eye," he said. "Well done, Vanessa!"

The girl smiled. She shivered suddenly and Cringle put a blanket around her shoulders. He thrust a cigarette between her lips and lit it for her.

"We'd better get out of here before the search planes come looking for Diana Palmer," he said, looking reflectively toward the coast.

"For once you talk sense, Cringle," said Otto calmly. "But just in case we should be spotted, get those lines out and try to look like a fisherman."

He looked at Vanessa again with approval.

"You'll find some whisky in the cabin," he said. "You did a first-class job."

The girl smiled a tight smile. She was obviously feeling the cold now.

"No more of this for me, thank you."

Koch smiled one of his rare sincere smiles.

"There won't be any more," he said.

13

DRUMS FOR THE PHANTOM

Diana Palmer drank the coffee gratefully as the co-pilot poured it. They had been flying steadily toward the east for many hours. She had lost all track of time. From the position of the sun she judged it must be well past noon.

"I suppose it's no use my asking where Center is?" she said.

The big man shook his head.

"You'll know soon enough, Miss Palmer. We're only the hired help."

He grinned, the light of the sun stencilling a dark bar of shadow across his face. He still had the Browning within reach. Diana took one of the sandwiches he offered her. She was hungry. Her mind was full of curiosity about the flight. It was not only her instinct for exploration but her love for flying itself which made the trip more bearable.

She looked curiously at the big co-pilot and asked a question that had been tantalizing her for hours.

"Why do you say I won't be missed?"

The co-pilot shrugged, his coffee halfway to his mouth.

"You just won't, that's all. It's not for me to explain. Hey, Clyde!"

He turned to address his remark to the pilot who had never moved during the entire flight, except when he turned to take food and coffee from the co-pilot.

"What?" he said crisply.

The co-pilot grinned.

"You're too inquisitive!" he said to Diana Palmer.

He turned back to the pilot.

"See if you can get WCRS on the radio. There should be a news bulletin coming on now."

The pilot nodded. He leaned forward and a moment later the whistle of static and then music filled the interior of the cabin. He twisted the dial and
jazz
replaced the first channel. Then he tuned in on WCRS. Bells tolled and an announcer's voice started giving the news of the day. After the usual static news of war and civil rights he got to local news.

Diana listened in temporary shock as she heard the even tones say, "The internationally-known Olympic athlete and explorer Diana Palmer was lost at sea earlier today when her twin-engined aircraft crashed on a pleasure flight. Miss Palmer, who won an Olympic gold medal for high-diving, was alone in the aircraft.

"Officials at McGuffey Airport said they could only attribute the accident to an unknown mechanical failure as the aircraft had been pre-flighted only half an hour before. Miss Palmer was an experienced pilot and had attempted a number of international records, including a Polar Flight three years ago. She had 1500 hours in the air.

"Despite an intensive search of the area by Coast Guard cutters and search planes, no trace of Miss Palmer or the aircraft has been found. Miss Palmer's mother, Mrs. Lily Palmer, refused comment on her daughter's disappearance."

The co-pilot reached over and flipped off the radio as Diana got up, spilling her coffee. The Browning was back in his hand.

"Easy, girlie," he breathed. "We don't want any trouble."

"You have convinced the world I'm dead," shouted Diana. "My mother and uncle must be going through hell right now. I've got to let them know I'm alive."

There was genuine regret in the co-pilot's eyes as he urged Diana back to her seat with an explicit movement of the pistol.

"Sorry, honey," he said. "No can do. I like breathing as well as you. Maybe you'll see your folks again. If you do as you're told."

Diana's fingernails bit into the palms of her hands as the plane droned on towards the coast

The Phantom urged Hero through the jungle as the faint beat of drums came downwind toward them. The white horse whinnied eagerly at the sound and quickened his trot picking his way with delicate precision through outcrops of rock. The noise of the drums receded and then became clcarer as belts of jungle intervened. Steam rose from the ground at their feet and once Hero's hoofs were sucked into swampy terrain, before he turned off in response to the reins.

The big man's face was grim beneath the mask, and perspiration was staining his jerkin around the shoulders. There was something faintly sinister about the drums, something that he couldn't quite place. He was familiar with the rhythm of their messages and could read drum- talk reasonably well, but today, for some reason, the meaning of the hammered symbols eluded him. He was anxious to get to Skull Cave and he felt a sense of foreboding.

He had just passed through the waterfall when Guran met him. One look at the little man's face v?as enough to tell him that all was not well.

Guran's eyes were filled with tears.

"I hardly know how to begin, O Ghost Who Walks," he began.

The Phantom dismounted from Hero and bent to scratch Devil's ears affectionately as the great wolf rubbed his head against his legs.

"Just tell me the news, Guran," said The Phantom softly.

"It's Miss Palmer, O Great One," said the little man, speaking slowly and with great deliberation.

"She is missing!"

"How do you mean, missing?" The Phantom said.

The pygmy chief winced, as the big man's iron hand tightened on his arm.

"I'm sorry, Guran," The Phantom said, releasing him.

"Missing, O Great One, in an aircraft which has crashed into the sea," said the little man, massaging his upper arm gingerly.

"They do not know what happened."

Despite his shock, The Phantom quickly assumed control of himself.

"Missing," he repeated. "Not dead. There's still a chance."

He tinned back to Guran.

"It doesn't sound reasonable. Diana is an experienced pi-

lot. It is hardly feasible that she flew over the sea without checking the airplane carefully."

Guran shook his head.

"I do not know, O Ghost Who Walks," he said. "That is all that the Talking Drums said."

The Phantom was already walking rapidly to the entrance to Skull Cave, his brain working overtime as he made plans and evaluated possibilities. The little chief of the pygmies had! a hard time keeping up.

"I shall be taking a long journey, Guran," The Phantom said as he strode down the tunnel leading to the interior. "I want you to take care of Hero and Devil while I'm gone."

The little brown man bowed.

"They will be treated just as though you were present, O Great One," he said gravely.

The Phantom took European clothes from a great carved chest in a corner. The torchlight flickered on his strong face as he turned to Guran.

"Send a message through to Colonel Weeks of the Jungle Patrol, Guran," he said. "I'd like a helicopter to pick me up. I must get to Mawitaan as soon as possible, from there I can pick up a jet to the United States."

The Bandar chief's eyes were wide with compassion as he replied, "It shall be done within the hour."

As The Phantom changed into a lightweight suit and a collar and tie, only the set of his jaw and the expression of his eyes betrayed the pressure he was under.

"Was there anything else in the bulletins, Guran?" he said. "It would be useful to know."

Guran sat down on a stone ledge at the side of the cave and remained as though carved in stone for several minutes.

"I am trying hard," he said. "But I find your Western ways so difficult."

The Phantom smiled slightly, despite the seriousness of the situation. Devil went to sit opposite him and regarded him with great yellow eyes, as though he knew his master would soon go away.

"There was something," said Guran, eventually. "Miss Diana had evidently been in the news recently. She was studying something called the Scorpia."

"The Scorpia?"

The Phantom's eyes were sharp with interest. He finished knotting his tie and moved forward.

"Think, Guran! What else did you hear?"

The pygmy chief wrinkled his brows in concentration.

"It had something to do with pirates," he said. "That is all I can remember."

"Pirates!"

The Phantom's tone gave the word a wealth of increduli
ty-

"If Diana were studying Scorpia there must be some reason," he said. "She isn't a girl who would do research without hope of reward."

He straightened his jacket and buckled a pistol into a special shoulder harness beneath his armpit which did not disturb the line of his suit.

He led Guran along the corridor to the corner of Skull Cave where the records of four centuries of Phantom justice rested in great hardwood bookcases. Here, each Phantom had written the chronicles of his adventures in huge volumes bound in leather. The Phantom went to the massive carved wood lectern and consulted a register.

"Since we are interested in pirates, we had better start with the fifteenth century."

He turned back to Guran.

"You'd better get that message off or I won't get away today!"

"Certainly, O Great One!" said Guran.

He bowed and then scuttled away along the corridor, leaving The Phantom to the huge bound volumes and to the weight of his own thoughts. He carried the first of the tomes to the lectern and began the difficult task of deciphering the precise handwriting and archaic modes of expression. For the next hour he studied two of the great volumes and then an exclamation of satisfaction escaped his lips as he came across a reference to Scorpia.

His face was alive with interest when Guran came back two hours later.

"I've found some information about Scorpia," The Phantom told the little man. "They were a pirate band organized about four hundred years ago. My ancestors fought them through the years. They were almost destroyed but each lime they returned."

The pygmy leader looked puzzled.

"This is beyond me, O Great One," he said helplessly.