The Veiled Lady (11 page)

Jan had the impression she was jogging through a giant's garden. All around her grew wild cabbage, the heads as large as compact cars, the enormous veined leaves a glaring sea green. She had been 56

running for well over ten minutes. There was no sound of pursuit; no sound at all came to her from back at the campsite.

The lovely blonde slowed to a walk, then stopped entirely. "Get hold of yourself, old girl," she said.

She was breathing rapidly, her mouth open. "If you're going to find the Phantom, you're going to need a plan."

She began walking, passing wild kale with curly tipped leaves the size of shop awnings. "The River of Fire should run toward the south of the volcano, he told me, toward the place where they built that sacrificial platform so long ago. So the Phantom probably went south."

Jan changed her course. Presently she was making her way through fields of gigantic weeds. The morning grew warmer; the high ceiling of mist took on a more yellow tinge from the unseen sun.

Gradually, somewhere behind her, a clattering sound started. After a moment, Jan turned her head to see what was making the noise. "Golly, a member of the familyManitidae!" exclaimed the girl biologist.

Tottering toward her through the high weeds was a praying mantis. This one was almost six feet tall, thin, green, with waving antennae and red globular again.

The wounded Silvera was swinging his rifle up eyes. It looked, with its lean spikey forefeet and elongated many-jointed body, like some fantastic mechanical construction, some robot programmed to follow Jan.

"They call the mantis the tiger of the insect world," she recalled, edging sideways. "He's a highly carnivorous fellow."

The giant mantis adjusted its course so that it was still heading right for her.

The enormous creature had assumed the bent, supplicating posture which gave it its name. The praying position which always proceeded the mantis's attack on its prey.

Turning her back on the thing, Jan ran.

It straightened and came shambling after her.

The girl was several yards ahead of the pursuing mantis when her anide got caught in a loop of ground-running vine. Her body jerked, then she fell straight forward, landing hard among some nettles. The sharp thorns dug into her bare arms as she twisted round to face the approaching carnivorous mantis.

"Darn it," said Jan. "No gun and very little chance to run."

She began to shout at the insect while she fought to disentangle herself from the prickly vines all around her. "Go away, darn you!"

The mantis was praying once again, preparing to make a spiky grab at her.

A second later the gigantic insect stiffened, snapped upright to its full six-foot length. Its antennae drooped. It started to rock from side to side. A few seconds more and the mantis toppled over to lie dead in the thorns.

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Jan saw the Phantom standing immediately behind the spot where the praying mantis had been. In his powerful hands he held his spear. "Remind me," said Jan, "to get the recipe for that poison."

"I don't think Guran will part with it." The masked man reached out a hand to her. "Careful now; easy does it."

"How'd you get here?"

"Heard you shouting."

Jan, on her feet, brushed back her blonde hair and examined the tears in her blouse. "I'm glad," she said.

"And what are you up to, Doctor Love?"

The girl took a deep breath before answering. "I was coming to find you."

"Why, what's the trouble?"

Jan said, "It's incredible, but somehow two men walked into our camp this morning. Two men with guns."

"What? How did they get here?"

"Copter," answered Jan. "Don't get your hopes up, though; their ship crashed, too."

"You wouldn't be running from a Jungle Patrol rescue team," said the Phantom. "Who are these men?"

"Their names are. . . Silvera and Tinn. Silvera is a small, swarthy, nasty man, the other one's a pudgy Chinese. I think they said they worked for a man named. . . named Barber."

The Phantom nodded. "Yes, I've heard of Barber, and some of his activities. Why would a crook like Barber be interested in a scientific project such as yours?"

"Apparently this Barber has the notion we came down here to find the treasure of ."

"He sent these two to hijack you?"

"Yes," said Jan. "But not only that. He hired Gabe to be a-well, a spy for him."

"So that's why Gabe kept wondering why you weren't looking for treasure."

"Wait though." She put her hand on his arm. "I think Gabe has had a change of heart."

"How so?"

"Well, you see, the little one, Silvera, got the idea he'd find out where the treasure was if he hit me a few times."

The Phantom's fingers tightened into fists. "He did, did he?"

"That made Karl and Gabe unhappy," continued Jan. "Gabe, being supposedly on their side, had a 58

gun. Well, what he did was shoot Silvera and tell me to run for it."

The Phantom asked, "So how many do we have to woriy about encountering in the camp?"

"I'm not sure. Silvera was hurt, but still had control of his Winchester when I left. Which could mean there are still two armed men there."

"Or possibly three if Gabe's had another change of heart."

"I don't think so. I think he's on our side for good now."

"We'll soon find out," the Phantom told her.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Colonel Weeks came pounding down the front steps of the Jungle Patrol headquarters building. A tall black man in the uniform of the Mawitaan police was approaching up the path. "Any news, Lieutenant Kiwanda?" called out the colonel.

"I think perhaps, yes," answered the police lieutenant.

"You know where Sergeant Barnum is?" The sergeant had not reported in for several hours, and the colonel, worried, had called on the Mawitaan police for assistance in finding out what might have happened.

"Not exactly where he is," answered Lieutenant Kiwanda, "but where he was something like an hour ago. We can drive there and talk to the street police man who believes he noticed your Sergeant Barnum."

"Yes, very well." Colonel Weeks followed the lieutenant to a tan-colored Volkswagen. "Where is it?"

Starting the car, Lieutenant Kiwanda said, "My man says he saw the sergeant enter Bahari Lane earlier this morning. He did not see him leave. Bahari Lane is a dead end, as you know."

While they drove toward the Mawitaan waterfront, the Jungle Patrol commander said, "Yes, that's right. So Barnum may still be on that block somewhere."

"It lies in a not too-reputable sector," said the policeman. "That particular lane is mostly uninhabited except for a few nondescript shops and some abandoned buildings."

"He's trying to get a lead on the whereabouts of Lemos," said the colonel. "Anything to tie Lemos in with Bahari Lane?"

"Lemos could be tied in with most anything." The lieutenant turned onto a curving street from which they could see the broad Mawitaan harbor. "Now and then, one or another of those gutted apartment houses on Bahari is used as a rendezvous spot for narcotics dealers and their unfortunate customers.

We try to discourage that, but, you know.. .

"Not enough men," supplied Weeks. He grew silent, dipping the bowl of his pipe into his tobacco pouch.

Lieutenant Kiwanda stopped the VW to allow a fruit vendor to push a cart of melons and pineapples

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from one side of the narrow street to the other. "Why exactly do you want to see Lemos?"

"You've heard about what happened to Doctor Love and her party, haven't you?"

"The lady scientist who was lost in , yes. What has Lemos to do with that?"

"We want to ask him," said the gray-haired colonel, "for the reason he was anxious to make sure he got a certain pilot to take their helicopter into the volcano."

"Which pilot would that be?" The black police lieutenant pulled up to a curb. "The lane is nearby.

Let us walk."

Stretching up out of the little tan car, Colonel Weeks said, "The pilot Lemos planted on the flight was Gabe McClennan."

"Ah, yes, Gabe. I was hoping he'd straighten out as he matured."

"So was I," said the colonel.

The foot patrolman was not in evidence at the moment. "My patrol corporal seems to be elsewhere,"

said Kiwanda. "We'll look over the little street ourselves."

They turned down a small shadowy lane.

Seated on a crate in front of a narrow fly-infested grocery was a huge black woman in a loose gown of bright silk. Large round discs of deep-green glass covered her eyes. She was chewing on a tiny brownish apple. "Good morning, Lieutenant."

"Good morning, Mother Mafuta."

"Have you seen a broad, stocky man go by here?" the colonel asked the fat woman.

She tapped the right lens of her dark spectacles with chunky fingertips. "I don't see anything, ever."

"But you hear," suggested Lieutenant Kiwanda.

Mother Mafuta grinned, taking another small bite of her apple. "I heard a lumbering fellow, with booted feet, go by an hour or so ago."

"Any idea where he headed?"

"All the way down the lane, to the end. Either into that warehouse nobody uses any more, or on through the alley and jumped into the bay."

"Thank you, mother," said Lieutenant Kiwanda.

Colonel Weeks was already hurrying toward the warehouse the fat shopkeeper had indicated. The building was low, a smeary black in color. The wide wooden front door stood open an inch.

Lieutenant Kiwanda kicked it gently open with his foot.

A dim silence greeted them inside.

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"Look there," said the colonel, pointing at the warehouse floor with the stem of his pipe. "That floor's been recently swept with a push broom."

"So it has." The lieutenant had his hand on his holster as they entered the dim place.

A jumble of rusted machinery lay to the immediate right of the doorway. At the other end of the low, flat-ceilinged room were piled several dozen wooden crates. You could hear the waters of the bay lapping at the pilings out behind the building. Sunlight made its way through the small dirty skylights, catching motes of dust and making them glitter for an instant.

Colonel Weeks's eyebrows went up and down. "What's that?" He trotted over near the packing cases, bent to scoop up something in his hand. He'd seen it flash in the sunlight. It was a metal paper clip.

He scanned the immediate area, then pushed his way in between the boxes.

The policeman followed him. "You've found something?" he asked.

The colonel was hunkered in front of a narrow door in the wall. Three more paper clips, linked in a chain, lay on the floor. "Fooling around with paper clips is a habit of Barnum's," he explained. He pocketed these, stood, and inclined his head toward the door. "Let's find out what's on the other side of that."

While the colonel flattened himself against the stone wail to the left of the door, Lieutenant Kiwanda kicked it open.

There was no one in the corridor beyond the door. After about three seconds, someone down at the corridor's end said, "What the hell was that?"

"I don't know."

"Go see."

Kiwanda was in the shadowy hall, running toward the voices. Colonel Weeks was close behind him.

The door at the end of the corridor snapped open and the top half of a husky black man showed. He was standing on a staircase, apparently. He held a pistol in his hand. Recognizing Lieutenant Kiwanda, he said, "How do you do, Lieutenant?"

"I'm doing very well, thank you," replied the policeman. "Will you put down the gun?"

The husky man blinked at the weapon in his hand as though he'd never seen it before. "Yes, sorry."

He reached up to place the pistol carefully on the hail floor.

"We'd like to see what's happening down there." Lieutenant Kiwanda strode ahead and picked up the surrendered weapon.

"Not much to see, Lieutenant. An old rundown pier, lots of rats. Matter of fact, that's why I had the gun, for shooting rats."

"Even so," said Lieutenant Kiwanda.

The big black man backed down the staircase.

Below was a scummy wooden dock built out over the bay water on bowlegged pilings. A swayback

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roof covered most of the ramshackle dock.

"Oh, just the man I want to see!" exclaimed a large man down on the pier. He wore a blue suit, complete with vest. His left eye seemed to be winking at them. At his feet, bound and gagged, lay Sergeant Barnum.

"Yes, I'm sure," said Kiwanda.

Colonel Weeks went down the rickety steps two at a time, and ran to his sergeant's side. "He's alive,"

he said, pulling out a pocket knife.

"Why, bless my soul," said the blue-suited Lemos, "of course he is. I was about to rush out to phone the police, Lieutenant Kiwanda. You can imagine my surprise when I arrived to inspect this shabby out-of-repair property of mine, at finding this complete stranger on-"

"Shut up," ordered the colonel. He had all the ropes off Barnum.

The stocky sergeant sat up, ripped off the handkerchief gag. "They were going to heave me into the bay soon as it got dark," he said.

"On the contrary," insisted the winking Lemos. "We were merely playing a joke. We mistook this gentleman for a prowler and decided to have a little sport with him."

"Lemos didn't expect to get caught for a few days yet," said the sergeant. "He's expecting some money which will enable him to travel far from Mawitaan."

"Money from where?" asked the colonel.

"Seems like there's a treasure at the bottom of the volcano," said Barnum. "Lemos here stands to get a piece of it."

The colonel took hold of Lemos's vest. "Why did you want Gabe McClennan to fly that plane?"

Lemos held both palms toward the angry colonel, shook them negatively. "I am not the master planner of this grand design, Colonel," he said. "I am only a cog in the wheel."

"Who makes the wheel go round?" the colonel wanted to know, his grip tightening. "What does it have to do with Doctor Love?"

"Perhaps you had best put those questions to the man who hired me," Lemos's left eye closed completely.

"Who is he?"

Lemos hesitated, then said, "Barber. He is Barber who owns and operates the Scarlet Cockatoo."

Colonel Weeks let go of the man. Turning to Sergeant Barnum, he asked, "You up to paying a visit to Barber?"

"That I am," the sergeant assured him.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE