The Veiled Lady (4 page)

Colonel Weeks's big hand clutched the shoulder of the Jungle Patrol radioman. "Keep trying," he said.

Five long minutes had passed since Doctor Jan Love's voice had abruptly ceased coming to them.

Outside the afternoon was waning, the heat of the day diminishing.

"Doctor Love, Jungle Patrol calling," said the freckled young radio operator. "Jungle Patrol calling Doctor Love. Come in, please."

Only more silence.

"No contact, sir. Their radio's dead."

The gray-haired colonel winced slightly at that last word. Then nodding his head, he moved to a phone. "Sergeant Barnum?" he said when his aid answered,

"Yes, sir," replied Barnum. "I was about to drop over there to the radio shack and find out how Doe Love is doing. Have you-?"

"I want a Patrol copter sent out to at once," ordered Colonel Weeks. "Alert Sandy and Smythe at our Llongo-country base. I want them to fly over that volcano."

"Sir," said the sergeant, "is there something wrong?"

"That's what I'm hoping Sandy and Smythe can findout," replied the commander. "Their orders are to fly over and observe. Under no circumstances are they to go into the volcano."

"Did Doe Love crash or what?"

"At this point we don't know, Sergeant."

"Could it have anything to do with Gabe McClennan?" asked Sergeant Barnum. "I just found out something funny from Corporal Gillis."

The colonel had his eyes on the radio, but he turned back to the phone as he asked, "What did he say?"

'Well, about a year or so ago there was a traffic tie-up out near where Fred Orlando, that other copter pilot, lives," said Barnum. "And his wife called us to rush a JP ambulance through the jam and take Orlando to the hospital. Corporal Gillis was in charge of the detail. Seems a milk wagon tipped over on the-"

"What was wrong with Orlando?"

17

"Appendicitis," answered Sergeant Barnum.

"Damn it!" said the colonel, bringing one fist slamming down. "So either he or Gabe was lying this morning. If only I'd known in time to ask him about it over the radio!"

"Can't you ask now?"

"I wish I could." The colonel hung up, and crossed the room to stand behind the radioman.

"Anything?"

"Absolutely nothing, sir."

'Well, keep trying," said the colonel. "They may simply have had some minor problem with their radio."

"Didn't sound like that, sir. The way that girl shouted sounded to me like-"

"Keep trying," repeated Colonel Weeks. He began a nervous pacing. "What did she run into? 'Why, it's a gigantic b-l' was the last thing she said. Damn, what did that b stand for?"

"Bird?" suggested the radioman. "Or maybe bull, if they were near the ground."

"Not something that starts with a b," said the colonel with a snort. "Something that starts with a b sound. Like...beast, behemoth..."

The radioman shrugged. "I give up."

"Well, I'll be in my office," said Colonel Weeks. "Let me know as soon as you make contact."

"Yes, sir," said the freckled young man. "Jungle Patrol calling Doctor Love ~. Jungle Patrol calling Doctor Love..."

The commander walked out into the dying day.

Far from the Jungle Patrol headquarters and the port city of Mawitaan lie the Deep Woods, Modem civilization has been unable, or perhaps unwilling, to penetrate the Deep Woods and so it remains an untamed and mysterious place, filled with wild, strange, and secret things.

In the heart of the Deep Woods is a great cave gnawed into a high, gray cliffside. The jagged mouth of the cave looks, to the relatively few who have seen it, like nothing so much as an enormous skull.

As the day ended, other ears listened to the anxious voice of the young radio operator.

"Doctor Love, come in please . Jungle Patrol calling. Over,"

The young voice echoed inside the shadowy Skull Cave, bouncing from the cave walls.

To one side of the vast cave a dais rose and atop this dais was a stone throne. The skull motif was repeated here; a grinning skeleton head had been roughly carved out of the stone.

Sitting casually on this formidable throne was a broad-shouldered, magnificently muscled man who seemed to be no older than thirty. He was masked and wore a skintight costume with a death's head 18

grinning from the buckle of his gunbelt. The fingers of his powerful right hand were steepled on his crossed knee. As he listened he raised the fingers from his knee and moved them to pat one of the holsters at his side.

Stretched out at the masked man's feet was a handsome animal that resembled a German Shepherd.

Actually, it was a mountain wolf. When the man touched his holster, the animal pricked his ears, looking up at his master's face.

Standing up, the masked man left the dais and moved closer to the powerful radio set which kept him in contact with Jungle Patrol headquarters. The big wolf rose to follow him, making a gentle rumbling sound in its chest.

"I don't think it's any use," said the far-away radio operator to himself. "No use at all."

The masked man turned toward the mouth of the great cave. "What do you think, Guran?"

Squatting just inside the cave was a tiny gray-brown man. He was chunky and hardly more than three feet high. He wore a hemp skirt and a broad hat made of thatch. Resting close at hand was a short, poison-tipped spear. Guran was a member of the Bandar pygmy tribe, the little people who were the only ones who dared to dwell in the Deep Woods. Still hunkered on the threshold, Guran replied, "I think once again the old stories have been proven true, Phantom."

The Phantom left the radio, and walked over to his old friend. "You mean the stories about the deadliness of ?"

"Yes, Phantom," answered the pygmy. "It is said, and I believe truly said, that no one of the jungle has ever entered that volcano and returned to tell the tale." Guran shook his head, giving a small shudder, "It is a place of death-a place of sacrifice."

"Not of sacrifice any longer, Guran," reminded the Phantom. "That was all centuries ago, wasn't it?"

'Yes, many centuries ago," answered the pygmy. "In the days when the first Phantom walked the jungle." The Bandar people had lived in this mysterious wood for centuries, even before the coming of the first Phantom. Guran had known the present Phantom since he was a child, The Phantom began to pace the stone floor of the Skull Cave, with the wolf, Devil, at his heels. "I wonder what that girl and her party ran into down there," he mused. "What was it she said? 'It's a gigantic b-!' What does that b stand for? And what did she find within ?"

"Death," Guran told him. "That is what waits for everyone who tries to learn the secrets of ."

With a smile, the Phantom said, "And you think that would happen to me, too? Guran, should I give it a try?"

The pygmy jumped to his feet, clutching his spear. "You're not thinking of going to look for that foolish female doctor, are you, Phantom?"

"I'll wait and see what Colonel Weeks's patrol helicopter finds out," the Phantom said. Though none knew it, the Phantom himself was actually commander in chief of the Jungle Patrol. Even Colonel Weeks did not know the identity of the mysterious commander in chief from whom his orders came, though the shrewd colonel had a strong suspicion. "I have a hunch they aren't going to learn anything by flying over ."

19

Guran stood with his spear held at the ready in front of him, as though he were about to be attacked by something. "I have a hunch, a premonition, too, Phantom."

"Which is?"

"It is that you will face great danger should you seek to find that girl," said Guran. "Well . . . perhaps you will not have to go at all. Yes, perhaps." He turned from the Phantom, making his way out into the twilight.

CHAPTER SIX

Sergeant Barnum pushed the wooden door of the radio room open with one big, booted foot and stepped in out of the night. The darkness behind him was filled with the restless hum of insects and night birds. "I brought you something from the commissary," announced the stocky sergeant, tipping his chin in the direction of the tray he was carrying.

The colonel sat in the shadows, his gray head bent, his blunt fingers pressing against his cheeks.

"What?" he asked, looking up.

There was a new man on the radio now. He made a hopeless shrug in the direction of the approaching sergeant.

Brushing aside a pile of papers, Sergeant Barnum set the dinner tray atop a desk near the commander, "I brought you some dinner, sir."

"Anything new from Sandy and Smythe?" asked Colonel Weeks,

"They've returned to base," answered the sergeant. "You ordered them not to descend into ."

"No, there's no use losing them, too,"

"You don't know Doctor Love is lost," Sergeant Barnum pointed out while he took the silver covers off the various serving dishes. "All you know for sure is that her radio is on the blink. Maybe all the steam in the volcano caused that. I know on humid days I have a heck of a time bringing in the opera broadcasts on

"I should never have allowed her to go," said Colonel Weeks. His pipe had long since gone dead. He tapped it absently on his knee. "A vulnerable young girl like her."

"Doctor Love handled herself pretty well around here," the sergeant reminded him.

"The pistol range, the gymnasium. Those are simple everyday challenges compared to-compared to lord knows what she ran into down there. What did she mean when she said, 'It's a gigantic b-!'?" He rose Out of the shadows, strode toward a tape recorder on a workbench.

"Fasting isn't going to help you solve the problem any quicker, sir." Sergeant Barnum nodded at the tray of steaming food. "As a matter of fact, I read someplace that protein helps the brain to-"

"Be quiet, Sergeant, I want to play this tape again," said the gray-haired Jungle Patrol commander.

The sergeant picked up a mug of coffee from the tray. "At least, drink this."

20

The colonel frowned, then took the tan mug and sipped at the hot coffee. He jabbed the playback button on the tape machine and listened, for the tenth time, to the last message from Doctor Jan Love.

Her frightened voice repeated once again, "Just below us, moving fast. Good gosh, I can see it now.Why, it's a giant b-1"

As the girl's voice faded away, Colonel Weeks said, "What could it have been?" He sat hunched forward, his lips forming the letter b over and over, trying to guess what came next.

Large glistening red ants were marching across the rough wooden floor of another radio shack. This one was far to the South of Mawitaan, in a rundown scatter of outpost buildings on the route to the Llongo country. The light of the hanging oil lamp made the hurrying scarlet ants glow as though they were on fire,

Tinn, the weary-looking Chinese, did a little hopping dance as he crossed the room, avoiding the lines of red ants and the other skittering insects. He studied a lopsided wooden chair, poking at a black spot on the seat. The spot scurried away. Sighing, Tinn sat down, He began to constructhimself a new cigarette. "Anything new?" he asked,

Sitting before the radio set was a small dark man in a soiled checkered shirt and ancient khaki trousers. He was about forty years old, with bright, deep-set eyes. "Not a single damn word," said Silvera. He glanced at his bare elbow, then slapped at the flying insect that had alighted there, "One would think that smudge you exhale would keep all these rascals at a distance."

Tinn blew out smoke, watching Silvera, "We'd better get in touch with Barber."

"I'm not anxious," said Silvera, "One likes to avoid those harangues of his."

"The longer we wait, the longer the harangue," said Tinn, puffing on his homemade cigarette. "He's going to blame us for all this, no matter what we say."

Silvera pointed a lean finger at the radio set. "It's not my fault that damn Gabe hasn't seen fit to communicate with us,"

Eyes half-closed, Tinn asked, "You think he's dead?" Silvera shrugged. "It's possible. One hesitates to pronounce him dead on insufficient evidence."

"But you heard Doctor Love go off the air, you told me," said the Chinese. "That was before I arrived at this hole. She stopped dead in mid-broadcast, didn't she?"

"She did indeed," said Silvera. "Gave one goose-bumps, the frightened scream she gave out~"

"Okay, suppose they crashed and are all dead. It's no use our sitting around here, letting the bugs feast on

Nodding slowly, Silvera said, "Very well. We will beard the lion and report to the chief." The dark little man fiddled with the radio set for a few moments,

"Finally," spoke Barber back in his office at the Scarlet Cockatoo. "What does Gabe report from inside?"

21

Silvera backed away from the radio speaker, as though it were the pale fat Barber in person.

"Nothing, riot a single damn word."

"What? Do you mean you've been unable to make contact with him?"

"I don't mean that at all. On the contrary, it is Gabe who hasn't gotten in touch with us."

"Why?"

"There's a possibility he's dead."

"Dead? What happened to them?"

"One can only guess," said Silvera. He told the distant Barber about the last message from Doctor Love which he'd monitored.

Barber cleared his throat, an angry rumbling sound, "I was certain she knew what she was doing," he said~ "Though it's possible this is . . . yes, it's possible this is only a cover-up. She may be feigning silence so she can go after the treasure in secret,"

"I didn't get the impression the girl was putting on an act."

"I'm not interested in your subjective judgments, Silvera, I'm interested only in the fortune I know holds," replied Barber's voice. "I'm convinced Doctor Love has knowledge of that wealth. Well, then--you'll have to find out."

"Find out what?"

"Find out what's going on down there in the volcano."

"But if Gabe doesn't contact us, how can we?"

"You'llhave to take alternative measures," suggested Barber.

"Such as?"

"Perhapsyou'll have to find a way to get down inside yourselves," Barber told him.

CHAPTER SEVEN