The Twisted Cross (21 page)

He dipped his wing and checked the landscape below. Sure enough, several columns of white smoke were rising from a point about nine miles off his port side. He confirmed that the radio signals were coming from this area by hand-cranking the Kingfisher's antenna in that direction, while simultaneously fiddling with the radio's tuner bar.

Immediately he knew he had stumbled across somebody's little war. The area of the conflict was still a good ten miles from the ruins at Coba, and so it would have been easy for him to just pass it all by.

But his body was beginning to tingle with a familiar sensation, sending a flood of messages via his nerves and bones to his brain. Someone down there was in trouble. Or more accurately, from what was coming over the radio, someone down there was in big trouble, surrounded and about to be overrun.

He was weighing the question of whether or not to check it out more closely when his radio suddenly came to life again. "East wall defenders!" he heard someone in absolute desperation yell out. "Fall back! Fall back to cover the women and kids!"

That did it. Soldiers fighting soldiers was one thing. Disputes and little wars come and go, and no quick decision could ever be made as to which side was right or wrong.

But women and kids in danger was a different matter ...

"What in heaven's name is that?"

The man named Brother David had spotted just a glint of silver coming straight at him through the smoke and flame-filled sky.

"Is it a Phantom?" the man on his left, Brother Paul, asked. "It seems to be moving too slowly."

"I cannot tell," Brother David shouted back to him, his voice becoming lost in the sounds of the battle raging around them. "But we have just one SAM left. I should not waste it, even now!"

They were hopelessly surrounded and being overrun. Their small church mission

- nothing more than a tiny chapel and a few buildings with a high stucco wall around it -had been under attack for two days by the bandit gang known as Dos Chicos. The Fighting Brothers -a 55-man order of highly-religious soldiers

-had been battling back with small arms and the few mortars they had. But now it appeared as if the better-armed, numerically-superior Dos Chicos were about to overwhelm them for good.

The bandits had had some outside help and it appeared to have turned the tide in their favor. An airstrike by a lone Phantom earlier in the day had sufficiently weakened the west wall of the mission to allow the Chicos to batter it down with recoilless rifle fire. Now the enemy was swarming through the gap they had made and were climbing up to the roof of the church itself.

In the basement of the chapel, the women and children of The Brothers were huddled, awaiting their fate . . .

Brother David and Brother Paul both knew what that fate would be. Once the Dos Chicos overwhelmed the last of their Order's defenders, wholesale rape and massacre would surely follow.

But now, almost like an angel from heaven, the strange-looking airplane appeared overhead.

"It is a seaplane!" Brother Paul yelled out after shooting at point blank range two bandits who were trying to scale the still intact east wall. "Is it here to attack us?"

"Our last prayers should be to hope not!" Brother David hollered back, himself plunging a long sword into the neck of yet another bandit.

Suddenly the silver seaplane was upon them. It roared over, no more than 20

feet above the mission, its full-throttled engine making so much noise that bandits and defenders alike stopped to watch it pass. /

The airplane quickly climbed, turned and came around again. Brothers David and Paul both saw it wag its wings noticeably. Somehow, Brother David got the message.

"Everybody down!" he screamed at the top of his lungs. "Everyone! Get down!"

Instantly those defenders on the parapets and in the courtyard fell flat out, their hands over their heads. The seaplane thundered in, the huge gun under its left wing suddenly erupting in a tremendous flash of smoke and fire.

Seconds later, Brother David saw" that half the roof of the church had been blown away, taking a third of the attacking bandits with it.

"My God!" Brother Paul cried out. "He has sent us a miracle!"

"Get down, Brother!" David yelled, yanking the man back down with him.

The airplane had turned and was coming in again. This time its right wing erupted, a flash of missiles shooting out from under it. In an instant, the fiery barrage demolished what remained of the heavily-damaged west wall, killing a dozen bandits outright and trapping many more under tons of smoldering rubble.

"It's the Angel of Mercy!" Paul cried out again.

Two passes of the airplane was enough for Dos Chicos - they wanted no more.

Those who had survived quickly retreated across the fields surrounding the mission and into the deep woods beyond.

Brother David sighed in relief as he watched the enemy flee. "The Lord has certainly looked down upon us this day," he said.

Twenty armed men were waiting for him when Hunter put the Kingfisher down on the small manmade lake close by the mission.

He climbed down out of the cockpit and onto the plane's float, a long rope in hand.

"I'd appreciate some help" he called over to the soldiers, men he was certain were the defenders of the mission. A few of them would have to grab hold of the rope and pull the airplane to shore.

But the Brothers did him one better. As one, fifteen of them leaped into the water, moved to positions around the airplane and literally carried the Kingfisher to the bank. All the while the soldiers were bellowing hurrahs! at the tops of their lungs.

Brother David, the commander of the religious fighters, was on hand to greet him as he stepped from the float to dry land.

"Friend, I don't know who you are, but this day you have caused us to be blessed," the big, moon-faced monk told him after introducing himself. "I thank you for all of us . . ."

Hunter shook his outstretched hand. "Just heard that you were having a little trouble," he said. "Thought I could help."

"Help, you did, sir," David said. "And the Bible says that good works should be returned in kind. Thus, we must repay you."

"No," Hunter said, holding up his hand. "That's okay. No payment necessary . .

."

Brother David looked legitimately hurt. "But we must," he said. "It is our way. At least, you will come and eat with us?"

By this time the rest of the fighters had gathered around them. Their uniforms could only be described as "modern contradiction." Each man wore a brown sackcloth, right out

of Little John's Sherwood Forest wardrobe. Yet holding the garment to their waists were numerous ammunition belts and bandoleers. Also each man was carrying some kind of weapon, be it an M-16 or a AK-47, and more than a few also carried rocket-propelled grenade launchers. Nearly every weapon had some kind of religious medal or scapula hanging from it. The RPGs he saw had several small crucifixes dangling from their stocks.

All in all they looked like a tough, but pious bunch of guys.

"Sure, I'd be glad to eat with you," Hunter said finally.

A spontaneous cheer went up from the fighters and the , small group moved back toward the partially destroyed, ' still-burning abbey.

"Whatever brought you to us, Brother?" David asked him.

One man, the fighter David introduced as Brother Paul, was carrying a battered Blowpipe SAM launcher.

"That did," Hunter told him, pointing to the shoulder-launched weapon. "I picked up your SAM's targeting signals on my airplane's computer. I'm glad you decided not to fire that at me."

"We definitely had the feeling that we shouldn't," Brother Paul said. "After all, one does not fire a missile at the hand of God,"

Hunter was still rolling that statement over in his mind when they reached the mission. The place was in a kind of controlled chaos. Surviving Brothers were hastily removing the bodies of the bandits killed during the battle, as well as caring for their own dead and wounded. Others were already moving pieces of the smashed west wall back into position. At the same time Hunter watched a slow parade of women and children stream out of the basement of the chapel.

"Sorry about your church," he said, eyeing what was left of the still smoldering roof. "I wouldn't have cut it so close if I'd known your people were hiding inside."

"Don't think another moment about it," Brother David told him. "We are a small but determined ministry. We have

been out in this Godforsaken country for several years and we've battled back from worse things than this. A roof we resurrect. Our lives we cannot . . .

Only He could do that."

"Besides," Brother Paul told him, "it is a concrete shelter under the church.

None of the dependents was hurt."

But Hunter had just barely heard Paul say this. Instead his eyes were glued on some of the women who had just climbed out of the shelter. He had expected them all to be dressed like nuns or something. Instead, most of the young ones were wearing tight jeans or even just bathing suits - very skimpy bathing suits.

His thoughts were disturbed by a tugging on his pant leg. He looked down to see a small boy, no more than five or so, looking up and pointing at him.

"I know who you are," the boy declared. "You're The Wingman, aren't you?"

At last, Hunter thought, someone who knew he was still alive.

"Yes, I guess I am," Hunter said, bending down on one knee to shake hands with the boy.

"Surely, you are not serious?" Brother David asked him. "You are not Hawk Hunter, are you?"

Hunter straightened up and smiled. "Yes, I am," he said. "Major Hawk Hunter of the United American Air Force."

"I suppose I should have known, the way you handled that airplane," Brother David said. "But it is truly a work of God that you are here. For you see, there is someone here with us who knows you well. In fact, he speaks about you all the time."

Hunter was astounded. He couldn't imagine who it could be.

Just then he heard someone call out his name: "Hunter! Paisano!"

He turned around and thought he was face-to-face with a ghost.

It was none other than the Commodore Antonio Vanaria.

"Jesus Christ!" Hunter blurted out, at once hoping he hadn't offended any of the Brothers. "Commodore! I thought you were dead!"

They embraced, the short, wiry little man kissing Hunter twice on each cheek in impeccable Italian style.

"Me? DeadP" he laughed, beating his chest with a boastful motion.

"Impossible!"

The commodore had been part of the flotilla that helped tow the USS Saratoga across the Mediterranean to the Suez in an effort to halt the onslaught of Viktor's Lucifer armies. The last time Hunter had seen the man, he and his small navy of boats -the Liberte Manna-were sailing off to a climactic mid-canal confrontation against the vanguard of Viktor's surface fleet. It was a battle everyone assumed had no survivors.

"How in hell did you get here?" Hunter asked the man, good-naturedly shaking him. "We all thought ..."

"You all thought I was killed," the commodore finished his sentence for him in broken, heavily-accented English. "I thought I was killed too! My ship -it was blown right out from under me. My crew -all gone! I wake up -it is two days later. Above me, all around me, there is fighting. The Modern Knights against the Lucifer Army. Tanks. Rockets. Big guns. Boom! But I cannot move. My legs are broken. My hand is fractured in thirty places.

"The Modern Knights, they find me. Their doctors patch me up. They send me back to Italy. But I stay there for only a few months. I get restless. Then I get invitation to sail across Atlantic on nice ship. A luxury ship and I will have the best cabin. I know I want to come to America. I want to find you and my friends again! But there is fighting going on, we hear. The captain decides to go to California as he wants to see the beaches. But before we are to go through Panama, something in my head says: Get off this boat, Antonio. I do.

Later I hear, she's been sunk by Nazis!"

Hunter listened to the story, shaking his head. The guy was just like old Captain Pegg-they both could spin a damn good yarn. It was just that the commodore's came with Italian subtitles. Only later did Hunter learn that his Paisano had actually stolen away on a ship, one of very dubious character sailing out of Sicily. Having been discovered mid-route, the commodore just barely saved himself from

being thrown overboard by promising to cook for all those on board. (Hunter knew from experience that the little guy was an excellent cook.) In no time at all the commodore was able to ingratiate himself with the bulge-over-the-left-side-pocket crew, whipping up gourmet Italian feasts for them on a nightly basis.

However, once they had made landfall, the commodore was tossed overboard, not too far from Cancun. The Brothers found him washed up on the beach and soon thereafter, the commodore found God.

The two Fighting Brothers and the commodore led Hunter to one of the mission's houses and soon the pilot found a large goblet filled with wine sitting in front of him.

The commodore offered a toast to him, then downed his entire glass of vino in no more than three gulps.

"I'm really glad to see you alive and well, Commodore," Hunter told him, taking a healthy swig of the wine himself. "What a coincidence that we should meet again, and here of all places."

"Hunter, my friend" the little man said with a wink, pouring out another glass of wine, "the Lord truly does work in mysterious ways . . ."

Hunter then told the commodore as well as Brothers David and Paul about the crisis situation in Panama and his mission to find Sandlake's daughter.

"We know all about these Nazis," Brother David told him. "In fact, they have given air support to the Dos Chicos gang, the people you saved us from today."

Hunter was surprised to hear this. In the grand scheme of things, it would seem that a battle between Dos Chicos and the Fighting Brothers would be small potatoes to the Canal Nazis.

Brother David read his mind. "I know what you're thinking," he said. "Why would The Twisted Cross become involved in our little war?