“It well might be. That would fit in with what little we know about them.”
“But why here? Why in the middle of the Brazilian jungle? From everything I’ve heard, Argentina is the place they’ve been operating from.”
“Things have been getting hot for them in Argentina. They’ve attracted too much attention and embarrassed the Argentine government. There have been indications that they’ve been skipping to Brazil and holing up in the interior. So this doesn’t surprise me. What does worry me is just how extensive a setup they may have here.” Victoria did indeed look anxious. “After all,” she pondered, “the two of us can’t snatch Von Koerner if they’ve got an army guarding him there.”
“Well, let’s wait and see. There’s no sense trying to make plans until we find out exactly what we’re up against.”
It was shortly before dusk of the third day that we reached the “evil place” and got some glimmering of just exactly what we were up against. The jungle gave way to a small bunch of rolling hills—-an isolated out-cropping that was surrounded by more jungle on all four sides. At the base of one of those hills was a sort of wooden frame structure like the entrance to a mine tunnel. Squatting in front of it was a man with a rifle slung across his knees. Fortunately, we saw him before he saw us, and we quickly ducked back into the concealment of the jungle.
“Dis muz be der blace,” I said to Victoria, my apprehension making me bend over backward to keep it light.
“Yes. But now what?”
“Simple. We just go in and get Von Koerner.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that. What else can we do but play it bold as brass? I know the odds are against us, but the big thing we’ve got on our side is the element of surprise. So let’s use it. As soon as it gets dark, I’ll take care of the guard and we’ll go for broke.”
I was right, and Victoria knew it. The moon was just coming up when I crept up on the sentry. I clobbered him with the butt of my pistol, and he never knew what hit him. Victoria helped me drag his unconscious body into the underbrush, and then we returned to the entrance to the tunnel. Inside the mouth of it there was a shaky wooden elevator. We got abroad it, and I operated the pulleys to lower us. We were creaking along cautiously when a voice called out some words in German from below.
Fortunately, I speak German fluently. “Why so early, Karl?” the voice had called. “Our shift has another hour to run.”
“My stomach is bothering me,” I replied quickly in German. “Someone must relieve me now.”
“But you can’t tell that to the Captain. He’ll have a fit.”
“Not with what I know about him,” I yelled back, hoping the words might have more meaning to him than they did to me.
“What is this, Karl? What do you—?”
“Wait until I get down. I’ll tell you. Just wait. You’ll be surprised.” I decided to take another chance with Karl’s buddy. “But take a look down the shaft and make sure there’s no one around to bother us while I tell you.”
“All right.”
“Quick!” I whispered to Victoria. “Take off your bra.” The Tiahuanacos had given her back her clothes before we left their village, and I remembered that there had been a bra among them.
“Steve,” she whispered back now, “you do get the damnedest impulses at the damnedest times.”
“Don’t be funny. Hurry up.”
“Do you think your friend down there will wait? I mean, I’m willing, but—-”
“Oh, shut up!” I took her bra and had her lie down on the platform behind me. Then I crouched on the very edge of it as we descended from the shadows into the glare of the light from below.
“Karl?” He was standing alongside the elevator platform and squinting up toward it as it descended. “The coast is clear. Now what is it about the Captain?”
“Just this!” I lunged as I spoke and garroted him neatly with Vickie’s brassiere. The wind whistled out of his windpipe as I pulled it tight to make sure he wouldn’t be able to yell. Just a little more pressure, and it would have been enough to break his neck. But I wanted him alive for now.
Vickie, her de-bra’ed breasts bobbling interestingly under the skimpy white blouse she wore, hopped off the platform and wrenched the rifle he’d been holding from his hands. She removed the bayonet attached to it and held it to his throat. Fear, plus the way I was choking him, made his eyes bulge.
I eased up a little, and he sucked in air as if his lungs couldn’t get over the surprise of being granted another breath. “Now I want some quick answers,” I told him in German. “And if I don’t get them, the lady will slit your throat. Kapish? Now make them fast, because if you take the time to think up a lie, I’ll strangle you before she slashes you. You got that?”
He nodded like a yo-yo. The way he did it said more than that he merely understood. It said he believed. And it said he’d do what I wanted because, the nodding said, he very much wanted to live.
“How many men here?”
“Fifty-seven.”
“All armed?”
“Ja. All but one. An old man. He just got here.”
“And where is he?”
“In a back area on the next level. They’ve set up some sort of laboratory there for him I think he’s a scientist.”
“Check. How many sentries between here and there?”
“One beside the lift on the next level. One outside the laboratory.”
“How big is this place?”
“Just the two levels. About a dozen rooms-—just caves really. One is quite big. That is where the men have their sleeping quarters.”
“Where is that one?”
“At the rear of this level.”
“Well, we won’t disturb them. What’s in the rest of the caves?”
“Quarters for the officers. They each have an individual suite. The colonel has three rooms. Those are the only ones that are really finished.”
“The colonel. Is he the one in charge of this shooting match?”
“Ja.”
“And where does he take his orders from?”
“Somewhere in Argentina.”
Is your organization very big there?”
“Ja. I think so.”
“Who’s in charge of it?”
“I don’t understand the question.”
“The hell you don’t.” I yanked hard on the bra around his neck and his eyes pleaded for mercy. “Who heads the organization?” I asked again.
“Why, the Fuhrer, of course,” he answered when he got back his breath.
“What Fuhrer? What’s his name?”
“Adolf Hitler!”
Victoria stayed my hand before I could choke him again. “Wait,” she said. She turned to the German. “Adolf Hitler is dead,” she told him.
“Nein!” Frightened as he was, he denied it fanatically. It was obvious he wasn’t trying to lie. He believed what he said. “Hitler lives!” he insisted.
“That’s what they believe,” Victoria told me. “It’s the foundation of the whole movement. Those at the top perpetuate the myth to keep the underlings like him in line. You’ll never convince him that Hitler is dead.”
“That’s okay. I don’t have time for a de-Nazification seminar right now anyway.” I turned back to the sentry. “What’s in the next room?” I asked him, pointing down the tunnel.
“Explosives are stored there. Dynamite and ammunition.”
“Show us.” I prodded him down the corridor until we went around a bend and entered a large cave.
“Look at that!” I whistled. There was enough ammo there for a small-scale war. I thought about it a minute and then spoke to Vickie. “Look,” I said, “here’s the plan. You know how to set a long fuse that will give you time to get out of here before it goes off?”