Behind Mt. Baldy (37 page)

Roger licked his lips and stood
up. Nervously he walked around the injured Royal Guard and took the weapon.

Graham held the rifle vertically.
“It is on ‘Safe’, and in the ‘Action’ condition,” he stated. Roger turned the weapon
over and examined it. His mind ticked off the items as he identified them
:-
safety catch, cocking handle, foresight, backsight
and....and. Ah yes! There it was; the magazine release catch. He was satisfied
he could use it- if he had to. The weapon felt heavy and cold; and knowing it
was loaded with live ammunition made Roger tingle with apprehension. He
crouched behind a tree near the other two and looked carefully in all
directions; peering through, not at, the bush.

Somewhere out there was a second
armed man; the one who had fired at him; who had tried to kill him. And, if the
injured Royal Guard was indeed a lieutenant, and a platoon commander, then
there could be the rest of his platoon
:-
20 or 30
soldiers. They would certainly come to rescue their leader as soon as the other
man got back to them. It was only a kilometre or so. ‘A fit soldier could run
that in five or ten minutes,’ Roger thought. ‘He could be there already.’

Roger licked suddenly dry lips
and wished Graham and Stephen would hurry up. “Graham, this blokes’ platoon
could be here at any moment. Can’t we move and finish that later?”

“We shouldn’t leave him,” Graham
replied, gesturing towards the unconscious man. “Ah! That sounds as though
Peter has been picked up.”

They heard the noises of a car
accelerating through its gears out on the highway.

“Towards Atherton,” Stephen said.

“Good,” Graham nodded.
“Now; the Red Eagle fahren- that is travel or is travelling- from
Atherton to Herberton between 190800K and 190900K.”

“That is today. In just over an
hours time,” Stephen said, glancing at his watch.

“Red Eagle?
Who’s he?” Roger asked.

“Don’t know,” Stephen
answered.  “Now; Paragraph Two. ‘
Hinterhalt ihm nach das
Gipfel GR321819’.
What is ‘Hinterhalt’?” he read.

Graham spoke. “That GR could be a
Grid Reference. Roger, have a look on the map for GR321819.”

Roger stood up and pulled out his
map, mumbling the numbers to remember them.

Stephen kept muttering.
“Hinterhalt?
Hinterhalt ihm at the Gipfel.
What the devil is a Gipfel? I wish we had that German Dictionary,” he said.

“Well, halt means stop or halt,”
Graham pointed out.

Roger looked up from the map.
“Hinter means behind doesn’t it? Like in Geography
:-
Hinterland.”

“Behind halt.
Behind stop. Stop behind at the
Gipfel. Stop Red Eagle at the Gipfel,” muttered Graham, trying various
combinations. “Maybe, but I don’t understand it. Where is this Gipfel thing
Roger?”

Roger bent back to where his
thumb had followed a Northing across the map. When his mind registered what his
eyes saw he sucked his breath in sharply. “It’s only about a kilometre away.
No, less.
Only a bit over five hundred metres.
It is
on the highway just near the railway tunnel.”

They all turned to look in that
direction although the trees obscured the view. The rising sun shone full on
their faces.

“That is where the highway
crosses the saddle at the Pass,” Graham observed.

“Gipfel- Pass?”
Stephen suggested.

“Stop behind him, that’s the Red
Eagle, at the Pass?” Graham said in a puzzled tone.

Roger had an idea.
“What about ‘Hinder’, meaning delay or interfere with?
Interfere with the Red Eagle at the Pass,” he suggested.

Graham looked up. “Ambush!” he
said, as though not wishing to think the word. He bent back to the message.
“Look at the next paragraph. ‘Er toten muss.’ He must be killed! It is an
ambush!”

Roger felt a sharp chill.
Ambush.
He must be killed! It had a terrible reality and
finality to it. But this was peaceful old Australia! That sort of thing didn’t
happen here! But then he knew it did. Images of Captain Krapinski’s corpse rose
mockingly into his thoughts.

Stephen scribbled and read aloud.
“Paragraph Four. There will be four autos. Cars they mean. Red Eagle will be in
the second auto.”

“So they know which car to hit,”
Graham said. They were all silent for a moment.

In his imagination Roger saw the
four cars winding up the mountainside. In the first would be bodyguards. It
would drive past, then the men in green uniforms crouching behind rocks and
trees would aim at the second car. A savage rattle of automatic fire...

Graham shook his head, a grim
expression on his face. “What else does the signal say?” he asked.

“’Andern’.
‘Andern’?
That is ‘after’.
After the ambush ‘zuruckziehen nach
Sammelplatz Wolke’.”

“Concentration
Place Cloud!”
Graham cried.

“Up there I’ll bet,” Roger said,
pointing up the slope to the north.

Graham nodded. “After the
ambush go
back to Concentration Place Cloud,” he repeated.

Stephen then queried Paragraph
Six. “What do you make of this? It says ‘Bewachen’- beware or be awake-
‘gegen’- against.”

Graham frowned.
“You sure?”

“Yeah.
The Germans used to sing a song
called ‘Wir fahren gegen England’. ‘We sail against England’. It’s on a video
at home,” Stephen replied.

“OK. Beware or watch out for or
against KOSPUSS oder- that’s ‘or’, or KOSPAR.
Both words all
in Block Letters.
What the hell is a KOSPUSS?” Graham asked.

Stephen pushed his glasses up his
nose. “Some sort of a big cat?” he replied.

“Don’t joke Steve. This is deadly
serious,” Graham chided.

Roger had returned his map to his
pocket and crouched down again. “Is it an Acronym? You know, a word made up of
the Initial letters of other words?”

“Might be.
I’m sure I’ve heard it before,”
Graham said. He chewed the end of his pencil thoughtfully.

Roger was now very curious as
well as anxious. “What else does the message say?” he asked.

“It says ‘Ende’ and is signed by
Stiltz, Adjutant from the Operations Branch; and there is a file number and
date,” Stephen read.

Roger turned to look at them.
“Stiltz, Adjutant. He was in that other signal. He was one of the men in the
grey Mercedes with the White Falcon,” he said.

Graham nodded. “That’s right. So
we have the adjutant of the White Falcon sending an order to the Royal Guard to
ambush and kill the Red Eagle. Who is the Red Eagle?” he asked.

Stephen answered at once. “Red-
Communist. Prince Peter
the whatever
is the White
Falcon. That is his badge. The Red Eagle is a communist leader; his enemy.”

Roger clicked his fingers. “The
Inspector told us the other night. The Kosarian government is Communist. He
said their Embassy
were
very worried about the KSS
because the Kosarian Deputy Premier was on a visit to North Queensland.”

Graham nodded. “Yuri Stinkibitz.”

“Do you
mind!
Keep your vile habits to yourself,” Stephen said.

“Don’t be flippant Steve! That’s
the bloke’s name; Yuri Stinkibitz, Deputy Premier.”

“I know. The Inspector went mad
at me for laughing at it. If it was me I’d change it,” Stephen replied.

Roger was puzzled. “But why does
the White Falcon want to kill him?” he asked.

“Because Communists and Royalty
are natural enemies,” Graham answered.

“More than that,” Stephen said.
“Remember what the Inspector told us? Kosaria has been ruled by the Communists
for more than half a century, by that dictator, Slimy Turdorov or something.
He’s an old codger, nearly ninety. He is sick and ready to kick the bucket.
Stinkibitz is his Number two, so probably next in line for the top job. If he
is bumped off it might precipitate a crisis; a power struggle, in Kosaria.”

“That sounds right,” Graham
agreed.

Roger nodded. “Yes. And I’ll bet
the Royalists have a plot ready to start a revolution to put the king back on
his throne. That’s what ‘Operation Return’ must be all about,” he said.

Graham pointed at the unconscious
lieutenant. “They have formed a secret army overseas, like here in Australia,
and will move it back to Kosaria,” he suggested.

Stephen shook his head. “More
likely most of their supporters are in Kosaria already, in some sort of secret organization.
They couldn’t smuggle an army half way round the world and into the country.
Probably it is only the Prince and his bodyguard who have to do the returning.”

“That sounds likely,” agreed
Roger. “But where do the KSS come into this?”

For a moment the boys were
silent. The thing had too many sides. Stephen spoke first. “Obviously Prince
Paul also wants to be king. Peter is his rival in the family feud. The KSS have
infiltrated the Royal Guard and know their plans.”

“How do you know that?” Roger asked.

Stephen shook his head.
“Oh Roger!
We spent hours translating that other signal.
Dorkoffsky is a KSS man, but he was also the contact man between Captain
Krapinski and the Royal Guard.”

Roger flushed. “I forgot.
Strewth! This neck of the woods must be crawling with the foreigners having a
three-sided civil war!”

The thought made him look around
nervously. Stephen then posed another question. “But why this ‘Flash’
signal
to bump off the Red Eagle now? I mean, if it was part
of the plan it wouldn’t be set up that way.”

Graham nodded his head. “You are
right. I think they are just seizing an opportunity. I don’t think it was part
of their original plan at all.” He returned his notebook to his pocket and
looked at his watch. “It is ten to seven. That ambush is due to be sprung in
about an hour.”

“Maybe it won’t happen now,”
Stephen suggested. He pointed to the injured man who was moving his head slowly
from side to side and moaning. “If he is the platoon commander he was probably
on his recce and hasn’t even made
a plan, much less given
orders
to his troops. His men are probably waiting back in camp for
him.”

Roger agreed, “Yes, and when that
other man gets back and reports he was captured by soldiers they will know
their secret is discovered and give up the idea.”

“Why should he report we are
soldiers?” Graham asked.

“When he saw me he called out
‘Soldat’,” Roger replied.

“I see. Yes, that will have them
worried. In that case I doubt they will come here looking for their boss. I
reckon having a battle with an unknown number of Australian soldiers wouldn’t
be part of their plan. It would blow their whole secret.”

“But where have they all been
hiding?” Roger wondered.

“I don’t know about ‘all’. There
may only be a handful; just a cadre of trained leaders. And I don’t think
they've been hiding. I think they have been like Captain Krapinski; just living
normal lives and doing some part-time training in secret.”

“Or even serving in our army to
get training,” Stephen suggested.

“Probably.
They seem to use a lot of procedures
we understand,” Graham agreed. “And now, with their plan due to start on the
nineteenth of June, they have all come together at the Concentration Area.”

“The nineteenth, that’s today!”
Stephen said.

Roger felt a sharp stab of
excitement tinged with apprehension. “So it is! Quick! We must do something. We
must tell Inspector Sharpe,” he cried.

“We’ve already sent Peter to do
that,” Graham reminded him.

Roger felt foolish for a moment,
then
said, “But Peter didn’t know about this ambush.”

“I don’t think there will be one
now,” Stephen said. “Besides, what else could we do?”

Roger resented Stephen’s tone. It
made him stubborn. “We can’t just sit here hoping it won’t happen. People could
get killed. We can’t take that risk.”

Graham shrugged. “I don’t care if
Communists get killed,” he said.

Roger felt anger flare. “Other
people could get killed too, innocent people. Beside, even if Comrade Stinkibum
is a Commo he is a guest in our country and
it’s
Australia’s responsibility to keep him safe.”

Graham looked at Roger in
surprise and had the good grace to blush. There was a short silence while each
considered what to say next.

Stephen spoke first. “We aren’t
the government. We aren’t the army. Cadets aren’t soldiers.”

Roger shook his head.
“Doesn’t matter.
We are Australian citizens and we know. We
have a duty to do something,” he replied. He scrambled to his feet, still
clutching the rifle.