Based on the story by George Lucas

and the screenplay by Jeb Stuart and Jeffrey Boam

 PROLOGUE

Moscow
1949

MGB commissioner Sergei Ustinov had mixed feelings about his boring
desk job, but on the whole he enjoyed the feeling of importance without too
much actual risk. Yet he knew the field agents lived for that risk—often
died for it, as well—and he felt sorry for them whenever they were
reassigned to something comparatively dull by the whims of paper-pushers
who didn’t understand their circumstances.
Vadim Cheslav was one such agent. After a string of relatively
glamorous and dangerous assignments at which he had excelled, he was
about to lose those opportunities thanks to the eccentricities of men higher
up the chain. It was Ustinov’s job to inform him of that. He didn’t usually
deal with the agents directly—few of them even knew who he was—but
this new mission was being given top priority. Why, he couldn’t imagine.
“The liaison with our mole at White Sands has been compromised,” he
told Cheslav, who was sitting across the desk from him already looking
bored. “You are to replace him. This comes from the highest level.”
“Excellent,” Cheslav said, picking at his fingernails. “I haven’t been to
America for a long time.”
“You’ll finish up your loose ends in Bulgaria, and then undergo some
training to ensure that you’ll blend in,” Ustinov continued. “But we won’t
be sending you right away. Keep your distance until he calls on you. We
can’t afford any mistakes this time.”
“There won’t be any,” Cheslav said. “I could do this in my sleep. Are
our other agents really that incompetent?”
Ustinov hesitated.
“What?” Cheslav demanded, unintimidated by his superior’s rank.
“Our mole believes the Americans are looking at more than simple
weapons testing. There’s a mountain nearby that’s long been purported to
be a site of… well… extraterrestrial activity.” He put out his hands, a bit
chagrined at having to relay that information.
“And since we seem to be lacking a resident alien expert, I’ve been
called to fill in,” Cheslav concluded. “Wonderful.” He didn’t seem as upset
as Ustinov had expected, but not thrilled, either.
“I’m sorry, that’s just what I’ve been told,” Ustinov said. “Er—do you
believe in aliens?”
“If Stalin does, then we all do,” Cheslav said, standing up and
stretching. “I’ll be on my way then. Oh, one more thing—are you familiar
with the American agent known as Indiana Jones?”
“Of course,” Ustinov said. “I don’t believe the stories about him,
though.”
“You should,” the spy said calmly.
Ustinov scoffed. “Babylonian demons? Nazi zombie insurrections?”
“I don’t know about those details,” Cheslav said, pacing behind his
chair, “but the man lives up to his reputation in every degree. And you had
better believe that if anything unusual happens at White Sands, Dr. Jones
will show up somehow or other. The man has a gift.”
“What are you saying? That we should be on guard?”
“And then some,” Cheslav said. “In my estimation he’s worth at least
twenty average agents.” He smiled to himself. “But then again, I worked
alongside him during the war, saw his strengths and weaknesses first hand.
So maybe I’m exactly the right person to send.”
“I’ll see about getting you a partner,” Ustinov said, but Cheslav had
already walked out the door.
 CHAPTER ONE

Borneo

The river was always darkened by the shadows of the various subtropical
faunas along its banks, but as it passed beneath a mountain range it became
nearly impossible to see beneath the water’s surface. On this day a
proboscis monkey hurried nervously through this area, knowing from
experience that crocodiles waited just out of sight.
Upstream, a small steamer came around the bend, and the monkey
regarded it with curiosity. He had seen such metal beasts occasionally
before but had no idea what to make of them. They had never harmed him,
and he presumed this rather dilapidated specimen would be no exception.
Then he heard shouts from its direction. Shouts of panic.
“Dr. Jones, we’re out of coal!” one voice yelled. Though these words
meant nothing to him, the monkey decided not to take any chances and
scurried off into the undergrowth.
The voice belonged to a wild-eyed native of Borneo named Kabul who
was just now shoveling the last dust of coal into the ship’s engine. He
glanced back at the man whom his cry had brought up from below deck.
The man, Professor Indiana Jones, was more accustomed to life or death
situations than to teaching in his classroom, as evidenced by the fedora,
bullwhip and leather jacket that he wore whenever he got the chance.
 Indy didn’t bat an eyelash as he pushed Kabul aside and took the wheel.
“Burn anything you can get your hands on, Kabul,” he said. “I’ll try to get
her out into the current.” He yanked the wheel hard to starboard and
checked the steam gauge, which still showed half full. “Damn it, I meant to
get that gauge fixed,” he muttered, thumping it with his fist. He only
succeeded in bruising his knuckles.
“I should have fixed it,” Kabul said as he loosened a portion of the
deck. “I forgot. I am sorry.”
They passed beneath the shadow of the mountain. Along the riverbank,
crocodiles twenty feet long and six months between meals eyed the boat,
seeming to sense that it was in trouble. Kabul pulled down a pole that held
the awning and broke it across his knee, but instead of a snap, he was
shocked to hear a resounding boom.
Indy and Kabul exchanged a look as a plume of water rose twenty feet
high off the port side of the steamer. Indy looked downriver at a World War
II-vintage PT boat, equipped with machine gun and cannon. It roared
around a bend in the river and bore down on the tiny steamer, its deck
swarming with river pirates waving guns and a variety of Malaysian
machete known as parangs. The front cannon fired another 5mm shell that
missed the steamer by several feet.
Indy cracked open his Webley, checked the cylinder, and was pleased to
find it full. He tossed it to his companion. “Make them count, Kabul,” he
said. For himself he grabbed a .45 automatic from a hidden shelf under the
gunwale.
Kabul nodded but didn’t like the odds.
The PT boat pulled up alongside and half a dozen pirates swarmed onto
the steamer’s deck, eager for blood. At first the tiny boat seemed deserted.
Then suddenly with a loud crack a bullwhip lashed out of nowhere,
wrapping itself around the waist of a startled pirate and hurling him over the
gunwales into the river. Indy snapped the whip loose and shot a second
pirate as the crocodiles slid into the water, eager for a snack.
Kabul fired with desperate abandon and in a moment was out of bullets.
He threw the gun at a pirate as two others overwhelmed him and thrust him
into the mast. “Dr. Jones!” he gasped, but Indy was preoccupied with his
own struggles at the moment. Kabul’s thrashing was useless as they
wrapped a rope around him.
 A well-dressed gentleman in a pith helmet appeared on the deck of the
PT boat to watch the action. He saw as Indy, his hiding spot compromised,
ducked around the front of the boat right into the fist of a huge pirate.
Indy’s gun skittered across the deck as he flailed and nearly fell over
backward, but the pirate grabbed him and bent him over the gunwale,
pushing his head closer to the water with one hand and bringing a parang to
his throat with the other.
Indy couldn’t even think of getting loose; he had to use both hands to
keep the blade from carving him another mouth. Even now, his professorial
brain was running as he looked at the blade. It was optimized for a stronger
chopping action than a traditional machete, with a heavier blade and “sweet
spot” further forward from the handle, owing to the vegetation being
woodier in Malaysia than in South America. It had three different edges; the
front was very sharp and used for skinning, the middle wider and used for
chopping, and the back end near the handle was very fine and used for
carving.
He might have laughed at the absurdity of it all, but this was hardly the
first time he’d had a knife at his throat. The pirate did laugh, though it was
hardly the first time he’d held a knife at someone’s throat. He released the
pressure as he looked up at the well-dressed man, who had boarded the
steamer and walked over to them. The man wiped his brow with a
handkerchief and stared down at Indy.
Indy knew this man by the name of Frederick Baldassare and, in spite of
the imminent danger, his first thought was exasperation. He had dealt with
this type over and over and over again throughout the years, trying to steal
the fruits of his archaeological labors for whatever reason. René Belloq, a
rival archaeologist, had been the most unique, interesting and competent
one, but he had died thirteen years ago. The rest all blurred together.
“Where are the maps, Dr. Jones?” Baldassare demanded. At least he
didn’t waste time blowing hot air like most of the others.
“You want maps? Check my glove compartment,” Indy said. Wait,
hadn’t he said that before sometime? Probably. He was running out of witty
retorts.
Just then a pirate emerged from below deck with a trunk and held it up
to Baldassare, who eagerly broke it open. It was filled to the brim with
artifacts from a deceased local civilization; the products of three weeks’
digging. Though not shiny or fancy in any way they provided a fascinating
glimpse into the lives of ancient people and would be considered
immensely valuable to any museum—something that Baldassare, judging
by the gleam in his eyes, was aware of. “Never mind,” he said. “These will
do. You see, I’m not greedy, Dr. Jones.”
Indy wasn’t paying attention. He was eyeing a crocodile, unsatisfied
with its earlier morsels, moving silently as a torpedo for his head.
Baldassare followed his gaze and grinned. “Dr. Jones’ services are no
longer required,” he said. “Get rid of him.”
The huge pirate leaned in with Indy to finish the job just as the
crocodile lunged out of the water. With a strength born of desperation, Indy
jerked his head away and yanked the pirate’s knife hand into the croc’s
gaping maw. The reptilian jaws clamped shut on the hand and snipped it
clean off. The pirate withdrew his stump and ran screaming across the deck
back to the PT boat.
Indy lunged for his gun. Baldassare kicked it out of his grasp, but Indy
turned his landing into a roll and came up with it aimed straight at the pirate
leader. Before he could say anything, however, something sharp and metal
landed in his back, just above his left shoulder blade. White-hot pain seared
from the spot. As his groaned and reached out his right arm for it,
Baldassare darted away.
The handle of the knife stayed just beyond the reach of his groping
fingers, and in the corner of his eye he saw two pirates charging at him. He
swung around with the gun in his left hand, and as he did his shoulder
popped out of its socket and he slipped the knife easily from his back. But
the pirates were already upon him and knocked him over the side, where the
water of the dark river closed over his head.

***

“Dr. Jones!” Kabul yelled again, and a filthy rag was quickly jammed into
his mouth. He watched the water churn, then turn a sickening red.
Baldassare smiled at the sight. “Your Dr. Jones has finally met his fate,”
he said. “Truly we have witnessed an historic day. I am honored to have
been responsible for it.”
The pirates set to work unloading the boxes of artifacts from the tiny
steamer onto the PT boat, but Baldassare stopped one of them and
whispered something in his ear. The pirate laughed and went below deck.
When he returned, he was holding several boxes of dynamite, and he began
stacking them around Kabul’s feet.
“This is nothing personal,” Baldassare assured his captive. “I’m not the
bloodthirsty type, but the boys here are more cooperative if I sate their lusts
once in a while.” From his pocket he pulled a single dynamite stick and
nestled it against the boxes. Then he lit the long fuse and bolted onto the PT
boat after the others. In spite of his noble words, he laughed with the rest of
them as they pulled away.
Kabul watched the fuse burn quickly across the deck. He struggled with
his bonds, but although the rope was old and worm-eaten, it was tied fast.
Slipping out would take more time than he had available.
Then a hand grabbed the gunwale. A moment later Indiana Jones rolled
back onto the steamer, his clothes in tatters, his other hand in a death grip
on his hat. He lay gasping and coughing on the deck but did not look up.
After what seemed an hour he gathered the breath to say scornfully,
“Like I’ve never wrestled a crocodile before.” He shook his head. “I’m
getting too old for this, Kabul…”
Kabul strained at his bonds and yelled through his gag, but Indy didn’t
notice. The fuse went right under the archaeologist’s leg without him seeing
it. “I’ve got to get out of this grind…” he continued.
Kabul’s eyes bulged in panic. He put everything he could into yelling,
but the gag was as tight as the ropes.
“…Find a place to settle down.” Had he really just said that? Yeah, he
had, so it must be true. He realized he wouldn’t kid about such a thing.
“Ummmmmm!” Kabul screamed. The fuse ran up the last five inches,
four inches—he closed his eyes and prepared for oblivion—
“Kabul,” Indy said, “are you listening to me?” He rolled over onto his
back, saw the dynamite, and in one swift motion that was more instinct than
thought he hurled it into the jungle, where it exploded and scattered a
chorus of brightly-colored birds.
Kabul’s eyes rolled back in his head and he fainted.
“Well,” Indy said, “why didn’t you say something?”

***

Missing sections of its decking and masts, the steamer putted on down the
river. “All our work, gone,” Kabul lamented as he steered. “Three months,
no pay. Everything gone. Even three days late to pick up doctor.”
Indy gasped and took a break from painfully trying to put on another
shirt. “Not everything,” he said. He picked up his other shirt, wet and
bloody, from the deck at his feet, and from its pocket he pulled out a small
golden idol. Kabul laughed, and he managed a weak smile. “All Baldassare
got was a load of crockery,” Indy continued. “By the time he finds out we
have the idol, we’ll be on our way back to London.” Suddenly his guide’s
words registered. “What doctor?”
“Dr. McGregor,” Kabul said, “from Princeton. You said that you would
take her north to—”
Indy remembered now but wanted no part of it. “That was before I
quit,” he interrupted. The words surprised him, but again, as soon as they
were out he knew they were true. He was fifty years old, for crying out
loud. It was time to do something else.
“You must,” Kabul said. “You promised Marcus.”
Indy hesitated. He had indeed promised this as a favor to his old friend
Marcus Brody, who had taken a liking to Dr. McGregor. Marcus had done
so many things for him, too, that he didn’t want to let his buddy down. But
he couldn’t take another adventure, and he couldn’t go anywhere without
adventures happening to him. Besides, he could always arrange for
someone else to pick her up. “Marcus will understand,” he said. “I’m
through.”
Kabul saw that he was serious, and shook his head in wonder. This was
not the Indiana Jones he had come to know.

***

The little steamer threaded its way among the tambangs, lorries and dugout
canoes full of wares and pulled up to a rickety river dock. Before it had
stopped moving, Indy hopped onto the wharf teeming with river people and
nearly stumbled over a large yellow crocodile stretched out on its back. He
jumped back with a yelp and the bystanders laughed. Kabul followed, also
giving the reptile a wide berth.
“Get to the bar and call London,” Indy said. “Tell them we’ve got the
idol and to wire us some cash. Then try to sell the boat.”
“What’re you going to do?” Kabul asked.
 “I’m going to find Dr. McGregor and tell her to get another guide, then
go to the hotel and have a hot bath.” Ah, hot baths. There was something
you didn’t get much in the adventuring business, and after three months in
the jungle nothing could provide more ecstasy, with the possible exception
of real food.
Kabul nodded and moved away. He felt bad for Marcus and Dr.
McGregor, but he knew better than to try to change Indy’s mind when it
was set.
Indy continued down the crowded dock until he found Casada, a
heavily-tattooed pots and pans trader with distended earlobes whom he had
met when starting out on the expedition. Casada’s eyes brightened to see
him alive. “Dr. Jones,” he said. “Long time…”
“Casada, have you seen an American woman looking for me?” Indy
asked. “Probably going out of her mind right now…”
The trader pointed down the dock at a Caucasian woman in her early
thirties. She had shoulder-length dirty blonde hair framing a pale triangular
face with brown eyes and a dainty little nub of a nose. Dressed in khaki
pants, a T-shirt, and a red bandanna, she laughed and talked with several
native women, looking and sounding completely at home.
“She’s been waiting for you,” Casada said, “but she’s not worried.”
Indy felt something strange come over him. With his good hand he
quickly attempted to button his shirt and run his fingers through his hair as
he snuck a look at his ragged appearance in the shiny bottom of one of
Casada’s pots. Hopeless, he realized, his heart gripped with panic. Before
he could escape, a voice stopped him.
“Dr. Jones? I’m Elaine McGregor.”
Indy looked up to see the woman looking at him through a pair of the
most amazing eyes he had ever seen, and he had seen quite a few. Even
through the scents of the marketplace he could distinguish her perfume, and
it made him light-headed. “Dr. McGregor,” he said, his tongue suddenly
feeling like lead in his mouth. “I’m sorry I’m late—we had a little trouble
getting here and—”
“You’re wounded!” she gasped, catching sight of the back of his
shoulder.
How could he have forgotten? “Oh, it’s nothing. Just a—”
She barked some foreign words with the distinctive tone of command.
Instantly people on the dock were moving like the wind, bringing her
supplies.
Indy gaped. “You speak Iban?”
A man selling herbs offered an armload of his wares to Dr. McGregor.
Without hesitation she selected three and began making a poultice. “I speak
forty-nine languages and dialects, Dr. Jones,” she said. “I’m a linguist, or
didn’t Dr. Brody tell you?”
“There were obviously a lot of things Marcus didn’t tell me about
you…” he mumbled.
She pressed the poultice, which had taken her less than thirty seconds to
make, to his back. “How does that feel?”
Whatever she had done was incredible. The pain and stiffness in his
shoulder muscles evaporated and he could to move his arm again. “You’re
an angel,” he said before he could stop himself.
“Not hardly,” she said, giving him an enigmatic smile.
Indy’s heart jumped. And then he caught himself. What the hell was
going on? He was feeling, not to mention acting, like a third-grader with a
crush. Certainly he’d been with enough beautiful women over the years that
he shouldn’t have been fazed by anything one could dish out. Besides, there
were important matters to take care of. Get a grip on yourself, Jones, he
thought. “Look, Dr. McGregor—”
“Elaine,” she corrected, starting to bandage his arm. He tingled where
her fingers brushed his sleeve.
“Elaine,” he amended. Dispensing with the formalities already; perfect.
“Going upriver in Borneo to find some temple that no one’s heard about for
eight hundred years sounds great when you’re sitting in an office in
Princeton. But Borneo isn’t for the faint of heart. Headhunting is still a
major practice of the upland tribes and the river is full of pirates.”
She frowned. “Does that mean you won’t be coming with me?”
He blinked. “You mean I didn’t discourage you?”
“Not hardly,” she said, finishing his bandage and pulling it snug. She
looked him in the eye again. “The Iban temple exists,” she said with
conviction. “It has taken me three years to raise the money for this
expedition, and though I’m touched by your concern for my well-being, it
won’t stop me. Finding the temple means more to me than anything. Either
you take me, or I’ll find a guide who will.”
“Well.” Indy swallowed, suddenly feeling the heat. “I don’t want that to
happen.”
 Their gazes remained locked for a few more seconds, and at the same
moment both of them began feeling a bit uncomfortable. As luck would
have it, Kabul reappeared just then. “Good news, Dr. Jones!” he said,
rushing up to them. “I sold the boat!”
Indy snapped back to the present. “Not now, Kabul,” he mumbled sotto
voce.
“Good price—what?”
“You sold the boat?” Elaine sounded a bit distressed. “Your boat?”
“Yes,” Kabul said apologetically, looking in confusion from one to the
other.
“No,” Indy said, forcing a laugh, “there’s been some mistake. He didn’t
sell our boat.” He gave Kabul a cold hard stare and put extra emphasis on
his words. “I never said sell ‘the boat’. I said sell ‘the goat’.”
Kabul was totally lost. “The goat?”
“Is there a problem?” Elaine said testily.
“No, no problem,” Indy insisted. “Why don’t you get your things?
Kabul is going to get the boat ready for the trip upriver.”
Kabul’s eyes widened. Elaine looked at them both strangely, then
shrugged to herself and moved off into the crowd. Indy stared after her in a
daze, admiring her walk, the walk of someone who knew where she was
going and what she wanted in the world. His gaze drifted down to her
ankles. Nice ankles, strong ankles.
It took him a few seconds to notice Kabul tugging on his sleeve. “Indy,
are you all right?” he was saying. “Do you have a fever or something?
You’re acting strange.”
Indy waved him off. “I’m just tired. I’ll sleep on the boat.”
“If we can get it back,” Kabul said. “The man I sold it to will want
twice as much for it now, to recoup his loss.”
“Write him a check,” Indy said. “Let me worry about it.” Actually,
Marcus Brody would be the one who would have to worry about it, but Indy
would make it up to him. Somehow.

***

The crackling fire sent sparks spiraling up into the sky, joining the stars
before they fizzled out. Indy knew that in fact most of the stars themselves
had also “fizzled out” quite some time ago, and their light was just now
reaching Earth. The kind of distances involved were impossible for him to
wrap his brain around. He preferred not to try.
“They were never so bright back in New Jersey,” Elaine said. She was
seated next to him on the fallen log he had dragged over to the campsite.
Nearby, out of sight but taking care to stay close to the fire, Kabul gathered
more wood.
“You should get out in the field more often,” Indy said. “I’ve seen this
light show a thousand times, from as many angles.”
“It’s always been in the nature of mankind to explore, and colonize, and
basically conquer everywhere he can reach,” Elaine continued. She gestured
up at the sky. “Do you think he’ll ever get that far?”
Indy shrugged. “I imagine if he does, he’ll lose interest and come home
pretty quick. Dusting off space rocks isn’t my idea of a swell time.”
“No,” she said, casting a sidelong glance at him. “I’m sure arrowheads
are much more interesting.”
“Yes, as a matter of fact, I happen to think they are,” he said, narrowing
his eyes at her. “If you’d care to attend one of my lectures on the subject,
I’m sure you’ll come to agree.” He paused to reflect for a moment. “When
they aren’t being thrown or shot at you, they’re much easier to examine.
That’s always nice.”
She laughed; a magical sound like the tinkling of fairy wings. The red
glow of the campfire gave her skin an unearthly quality that might have
been unsettling on some people, but in this case only served to augment her
beauty.
As she looked into his eyes he noticed the familiar telltale signs that
she, too, was beginning to feel something strange. Something unfamiliar,
something wonderful, something alarming. She tried to push it aside,
pretend it wasn’t there. But before her brain could stop it, her mouth was
saying, “I feel compelled to tell you, Dr. Jones, that I’m engaged.”
Indy’s heart sank, but for the moment he hardly noticed it, so trapped
was he in those gorgeous brown eyes. “Apropos of what?”
She shrugged. “I just—your reputation precedes you, Dr. Jones. I’ve
heard about how you seduce another woman at least every month. And I
don’t mean to flatter myself, but if you had that in mind again, you just
should know that it isn’t going to work out like that.”
“I’m insulted,” he said. “I’m perfectly capable of maintaining a purely
professional relationship with a colleague of the opposite sex.”
 “Yes?” she said, raising an eyebrow. “Do you know that from
experience?”
“Yes!” he snapped. “There was Sophia Hapgood, for one, and—and—
others. They’ll come back to me.”
“I suppose those would be less memorable,” she said, shaking her head
sadly. “All those women—tell me, Dr. Jones, did any of them really mean
anything to you? Or was each just the latest trophy for the shelf of your
manhood?”
“That’s getting a bit personal,” Indy said, shifting away from her.
“You’ve made your point. You’re off-limits. I respect that.”
“Sorry, I can be a bit blunt sometimes,” she said, not sounding sorry at
all. “It’s none of my business. Anyway, let’s forget this silly talk. We have
work to do.”
“Agreed.” Indy intended to do just that, but before his brain could stop
it, his mouth was saying, “Who’s the lucky guy?”
“Dr. Benjamin F. Morganthal. A charming, intelligent man…”
“An intelligent man wouldn’t let you come to Borneo alone, Dr.
McGregor,” he retorted softly.
“Maybe he was glad to be rid of me for a while,” she retorted back.
“He’s fond of peace and quiet, and he knows I can take care of myself.”
“Peace and quiet. I wonder what that would be like.”
“Perhaps you should have gone into philosophy, Dr. Jones,” Elaine said,
standing up and brushing ash off her pants legs. “I’m turning in. Good
night.”
Indy mumbled something back to her and continued to poke at the fire
in silence. He became aware now of the pain in his heart at having learned
she was engaged, and hated himself for it. What had he expected, that
they’d live happily ever after together? It had never worked out long-term
before, all those other times. And now he was—Lord, was he really fifty?
He’d never get used to that.
He had to be losing his mind; that was all there was to it. His decision to
quit, impetuous though it had seemed even by his standards, had clearly
been at least a few years in the making. He had been working up to it as his
disillusionment had grown for some time. However, his rescinding of that
decision owing to an infatuation with a woman he’d just met, an engaged
woman no less, really was sudden and crazy enough to cause him some
alarm as he thought about it now.
 “So,” Kabul said, approaching with the firewood from where he’d been
lurking just within earshot, “that could have gone better, eh?”
“Stuff it,” Indy said.
Kabul didn’t stuff it. “You know,” he continued as he set the wood
down, “she’s not married yet. I didn’t even see a ring.”
Indy shook his head. “What are you suggesting? I’m a decent man,
Kabul, or at least I try to be. She’s taken. I’m staying out of the way.”
“Suit yourself. We have bigger things to worry about anyway.” The
guide glanced around as if afraid their adversary would burst from the
undergrowth at any moment. “When Baldassare finds out about the maps he
will kill you.”
“Trust me, Kabul,” Indy said. He’d said that more than a few times over
the years—sometimes it was justified, and sometimes not, but he tried not
to think about that. “He’ll never know.”
 CHAPTER TWO

The faces of Indiana Jones and Elaine McGregor were tantalizingly close to
each other, separated by less than three inches. For Indy, the world was
reduced to her eyes and the soul behind them. Gone was the giddy
infatuation that had mysteriously gripped him six weeks earlier, replaced by
a burning passion, something deeper, a desire for her mind, her emotions,
her hopes and dreams, her essence, if that made any sense, which it
probably didn’t, but he didn’t care.
A bit of his earlier nerves returned as he cleared his throat and tried to
tell her what he was thinking. “Elaine?” he began, but could go no further.
She moistened her lips breathlessly, uncertain of what to expect. “Yes?”
she said.
He could chicken out and say something stupid, or he could push
forward. He chose the latter option before he could give himself a chance to
think; a strategy that had so far worked out on many adventures. “These six
weeks have been the greatest of my life.”
She looked away for a moment, then met his gaze again. “Mine too,”
she said softly.
What did she mean by that? What was she thinking? He could only
guess, but the possibilities gave him the courage to finish. “Maybe you
won’t believe me, when I tell you that I’ve never said this to anybody
before,” he said, “but… I love you.”
 For one awful, interminable moment, she stared. Then her face softened
and she said, “I know.”
For another awful, interminable moment, he was at a loss for words.
Finally she swooned. “Oh, Indy,” she said. “I don’t care if you’ve said it
to a million other women. I love you, too.”
“Very romantic, Dr. Jones,” a man’s voice said. “I do believe I’m
getting something in my eye.” They both looked to see Frederick
Baldassare moving up next to them. They were surprised for a moment to
see that he was upside down. Then they remembered where they were.
They were a few miles outside the excavation site and a few dozen feet
from the river, hanging with hemp rope by their ankles from a tree branch
over a few humongous mounds of dirt. Bleached skeletons of jungle
animals dotted the area. In the river the PT boat floated, followed by a
string of rafts onto which Baldassare’s pirates were now loading the last of
some crates.
“Leave her alone, Baldassare,” Indy snarled. “This is between you and
me.”
“You are so right, Jones,” Baldassare said. He smiled at the inverted
woman. “That’s why anything I can do to increase your suffering makes me
that much happier. And after that oh-so-touching moment just now…” He
shrugged and walked a few steps to the tree next to them, where Kabul was
suspended. “With her next to you, I doubt you’ll even worry about your
precious guide, here,” he continued, “but why leave any loose ends?”
“I thought you weren’t the bloodthirsty type,” Kabul said.
“Not usually. But I’m making an exception for my good friend Dr.
Jones.” Baldassare snapped a low branch off of Kabul’s tree and struck one
of the mounds with it. Several red ants the size of grasshoppers emerged.
“Army ants, Dr. Jones. These little soldiers can strip an elephant to the bone
in two hours. I suppose they’ll just consider you a snack.”
“May I remind you,” Indy said, “that I do know a thing or two about
rainforest ecosystems?”
One of the pirates called out to Baldassare that they were finished
loading the crates. “Excellent,” he said. “Now, I believe Dr. Jones and his
friends would like to get down from there. Give them a hand, would you
please?” So saying, he headed for the gangplank.
The pirate chortled and shimmied up the tree holding Indy and Elaine,
and set to work starting a fire on the branch to which their ankles were tied.
The branch was thick and would take a while to burn through, but the ropes
would be done for within minutes.
Desperate, Indy saw only one option. “Congratulations, Baldy, you’re
really on top of things,” he said. “Too bad it’s all going to be for nothing
without us to translate the maps.”
Baldassare raised an eyebrow and signaled the pirate to stop. “Maps?”
Elaine blinked. “Maps?”
Indy shot her a conspiratorial look. It was brief, too brief for Baldassare
to catch, but through the bond he and Elaine and developed over the past six
weeks, it spoke volumes to her.
Her face flared. “Indy! I told you not to say anything about the maps!”
“What good is it going to do us if we’re both dead!?”
Baldassare watched them in bemusement. This was clearly a pathetic
last-ditch ploy to save their skins. Or was it? Could he take that chance?
“What maps?” he demanded, coming back to them.
“Don’t you dare tell him!” Elaine said.
“For the other Iban temples,” Indy said. “The maps are on the rafts. Cut
us down and I’ll translate for you.”
“Indy! You promised!”
“A wonderful proposition, Dr. Jones,” said Baldassare, “but we know of
Dr. McGregor’s linguistic talents. So why should I take you both, when she
can provide us with two sources of enjoyment?” He turned to the pirate still
squatting in the tree. “Cut her down,” he said.
The pirate set to work on the rope and grinned like a child in a candy
store. Another pirate came over to catch her, the same look on his face. Two
sources of enjoyment, Indy thought, and a chill ran down his spine. “If you
bastards do anything to her,” he said, “I’ll… I’ll do something to you that I
can’t even describe without making myself sick.”
“Getting sick is the least of your worries right now, Dr. Jones,”
Baldassare said.
Indy watched helplessly as Elaine was carried over to the PT boat. To
her credit, she did not scream. She would be brave to the end and that was
merely one reason he loved her—but he was determined that the end would
not come today. The pirate finished setting fire to the branch he was on and
hurried over to repeat the process with Kabul’s. Small tongues of flame
spread among the hastily set up pile of lint and kindling, already probing at
the taut hemp.
 Finished with his job, the pirate headed back for the boat. Baldassare
started to follow, then paused to demolish an ant mound with his stick. A
river of angry red insects came pouring out. “Au revoir, Dr. Jones,” he said,
tipping his pith helmet. “I’m going to enjoy cruising down the river
listening to your screams.” With a sardonic laugh he climbed the gangplank
to where his pirates stood waiting for him. At a signal, they pushed Elaine
below deck.
Looking back, she finally cried out, “Indy!”
The word stabbed Indy to the heart, but he forced himself to ignore her
and the boat as it thrummed to life and pulled away. He couldn’t rescue her
if he didn’t rescue himself first, and that would take focus, and it would
have to be fast. The rope was getting singed.
“Nice try, Dr. Jones,” Kabul said with resignation. “At least there is
hope for Dr. McGregor. And at least we will die together.”
“Don’t panic, Kabul,” Indy said. “I’ll think of something.” He always
did. How many tight spots had he been in over the years, tighter than this
even? Of course, sometimes it was an improbable last-second rescue that
had saved him, he realized. Maybe that would happen again, but he couldn’t
count on it, could he?
Kabul eyed the flames. “Please think quickly,” he said.
That was it; he had an idea. It was actually rather obvious; the question
was whether or not he could pull it off. Clenching every muscle in his body,
he yanked himself one way, then the other. With the lack of leverage he
moved about an inch both ways, but building on that momentum he went
slightly further the next time.
“Kabul, swing to me,” he called out. He only hoped that Kabul could do
it. Hell, he hoped that he could do it. His progress was maddeningly slow,
and already his muscles screamed for relief and sweat poured down his face
into his eyes. But he would not stop. With muscles built over decades of
adventuring, and the adrenaline of needing to save the woman he loved, he
shut out the discomfort and focused only on going farther, farther…
Of course, the other issue was whether the ropes would hold. The
flames were directly on them now.
Then behind his back he felt the breeze of Kabul’s fingertips brushing
past his. The jungle guide had developed muscles enough to handle this as
well. “Kabul, grab my hands,” Indy commanded. On the next pass, their
fingers touched and scrabbled for a hold, but slipped through. Indy cursed
to himself. The next time, they got a solid grip. “Now get my wrists,” Indy
said. “Good, now hold on.”
“If you insist, Dr. Jones,” Kabul said. He eyed the ants, which had
begun building themselves into a tower to reach the two men. “Dr. Jones,
the ants are coming!”
Indy’s hands flew over Kabul’s knots. As a former Boy Scout, this was
the easiest part. He had them undone in moments and Kabul started on his.
Kabul wasn’t as good at it, but with the extra mobility afforded by his freed
wrists he didn’t take much longer.
“Climb the rope!” Indy said. Moving their hands down, or rather up,
each other’s backs, they climbed each other until they could reach where
the ropes wrapped around their ankles. From there they were forced to let
go, swinging back toward their original positions and away from the ant
tower, and begin climbing hand over hand up to their respective branches.
Indy’s rope snapped just as he came close enough to snag his. Still ignoring
the soreness all over, he got a grip with his other hand and pulled himself up
into the tree.
Kabul was not as fast, and his own rope burned through just a bit too
soon. He lashed out for the branch but his reach fell short by millimeters.
He fell with a yelp toward the angry ants.
And stopped an inch above them.
He looked up. Indiana Jones had leaped from his tree into this one and
grabbed his hand. Kabul gratefully offered his other hand and allowed
himself to be pulled up. The branch groaned but held. He glanced back at
the ants, seeming to chitter with rage at their meal’s escape. They were
gruesome up close; masses of pincers and antennae and pumping little legs.
He shuddered. “Little demons.”
“Not so little,” Indy said between breaths. “But rumor has it in some
circles that they grow even bigger in South America. I hope I never have to
find out if that’s true.”
He looked at the ants, and at the river. He was tired, sweaty and sore all
over. But he felt a vigor that had been missing for some time. He could have
viewed rescuing the damsel in distress as just another box on the adventure
checklist, but right now it was so much more to him than that. He was going
to rescue Elaine, and he was going to enjoy it.
He picked his fedora up from the ground where it had fallen nearby,
placed it on his head where it belonged, and grinned at his guide. “Come
on, Kabul,” he said. “Tired already? This is just our warm-up.”

***

The PT boat labored under the load of rafts trailing behind it, seven to be
exact, as it moved around a long bend. The pirates, tired from loading them
and also loaded themselves with a few too many congratulatory whiskies,
lay comatose along the deck, snoring, drooling and belching.
In his dirty yet stylish jungle gear, not to mention the fact that he was
sober, Baldassare presented quite a contrast as he strutted across the deck.
He paused at the wheelhouse and spoke to the pilot. “When the river
divides, make sure to keep to the left,” he commanded. “I’m going below to
attend to some… business.”
The pilot gave him a lecherous grin and nodded assent.
Baldassare headed into his cabin where Elaine stood guarded by two
pirates. Her face twisted in loathing when she saw him. “You murderer!”
she snarled.
“I’m worse than that, Dr. McGregor,” he hinted. “But let’s not discuss
me. I’d much rather you tell me where the temple sites are.”
“I can’t translate that right now,” she said coldly. “It’ll require months
of study.”
He smiled in spite of himself. Such a pathetic, desperate lie. “Come
now, Dr. McGregor.” He drew a razor sharp parang from his belt and deftly
flicked away the top button of her blouse. “This is no time for modesty. I’m
told you are the world’s foremost ancient language expert.”
Elaine pulled her blouse together, ignoring the guards at her sides.
“There is no map,” she said. “There are no other temples. Dr. Jones was
bluffing. Haven’t you heard that in archaeology ‘X’ never marks the spot?”
Well, that was possible, but if true, she would regret it. “Perhaps we
should give you some time to think about things.” He looked at the two
pirates. They smiled and drew their long knives.
Outside, a pirate snoozing on one of the rafts blinked himself awake
when a shadow blocked out the tropical sun warming his belly. He looked
up and barely had time to register the silhouette of Indiana Jones before a
fist returned him to unconsciousness. Indy glanced around and headed for
the next raft, staying crouched alongside the crates.
 Unseen by him, another pirate had just stirred awake on one of the rear
rafts and noticed Indy’s tiny steamer trailing along behind them. He picked
up his machine gun and fired it into the air to alert the others.
Elaine and her captors looked up at the sound. Baldassare turned to the
pirates. “Find out what’s going on!” They grunted and headed for the deck,
holding out their knives.
The PT boat and its string of rafts were approaching a fork in the river.
The pilot pulled the wheel to the left, unaware that Indy was creeping along
the deck behind him. Suddenly the pirate with the machine gun opened fire,
stitching the deck just behind Indy with bullets. He dove behind the
bulkhead, wood splinters spraying his ankles, but bullets ripped through the
wheelhouse. The pilot slumped over the wheel and the boat headed for the
right channel.
In his cabin, Baldassare felt the boat lurch and drew his pistol, but
Elaine conked him on the head and dashed out—into the hands of a large
pirate with tattoos all over his body. She screamed.
Kabul slipped out of the water and over the side of the boat. Pirates
were running about the deck now, groggy with sleep and drink but ready to
kill. One was running to commandeer a heavy machine gun mounted on the
bow. Kabul intercepted him, slicing his stomach open with a knife and
grabbing the gun himself. He laid down cover fire for Indy, hitting several
pirates including the one with his own machine gun. Indy saluted him and
wasted no time dashing toward the rear to confront Elaine’s assailant.
He grabbed a knife from a fallen pirate and held it out in a warning
stance. The pirate smirked, released Elaine and pulled out his machete with
a cruel laugh of anticipation. His laughter caught in his throat and his smile
faded. Then he dropped to the deck with a knife in his back. Kabul stood
behind him.
Indy glanced at the other side of the boat where Kabul had been
manning the machine gun. “How in the—?”
“Indy!” Kabul and Elaine yelled. A pirate was rushing toward him. He
grabbed the attacker by his wrists, slammed a knee into his solar plexus,
and flipped him over the side of the boat.
Baldassare moved along the deck, shouting orders, when something
very wrong caught his eye. “No…” he whispered.
On the run from three pirates, Elaine scooped up the fallen handheld
machine gun just as they cornered her against the wall. They jumped back
as she pulled the trigger, but all that came out was a click.
It was jammed.
The pirates grinned and moved closer, arms outstretched. Elaine
brandished the gun like a club, ready to bash their brains out. Then all at
once their faces clouded over with terror and they turned tail and fled. She
looked around and saw that all the pirates and Baldassare were retreating to
the rear of the boat and down the string of rafts. “Indy, they’re running!”
she called out.
“Yes!” Kabul said, running up to her. “They’ll think twice before they
challenge us again!”
The remainder of the pirates reached the last raft and climbed into the
little steamer. Baldassare cut the rope and looked back to see Indiana Jones
himself watching them from the rear of the PT cruiser. He tossed the rope
aside and grinned devilishly.
Indy smiled at his good fortune, but only for a second. Baldassare still
held a gun; why hadn’t he just shot them? Something was wrong… he
looked over the side of the boat. The water was moving swiftly. Too swiftly.
Elaine noticed his face. “What’s wrong?”
“Listen.”
They stopped and listened. A dull roar downstream grew louder by the
moment. They looked at each other and both comprehended at the same
time.
“The falls,” they said together.
Indy wheeled around the side of the engine house. Less than a hundred
yards ahead of them he saw a veil of spray four stories high—the side effect
of a waterfall half a mile wide and dropping a thousand feet to the chasm
floor.
At the stern of the steamer, Baldassare waved and laughed. “Good-bye,
Dr. Jones,” he said. “I would have liked the ant thing better, but hey,
whatever works.” The steamer putt-putted away.
Indy ran to the stern of his new boat, shouting orders. “Kabul, bring it
about!” he yelled.
Kabul leaped behind the wheel, distastefully shoved aside the dead
pilot, and began turning the boat. The chain of rafts slowly turned with
them, but the pull of the current was too great. The veil of mist loomed
closer and the roar grew stronger. “There’s too much drag,” he yelled.
“We’re being pulled over!”
 The little steamer was still putting upstream when Baldassare suddenly
noticed they were losing power. Their progress was slowing. The pirate
steering the boat checked the gauge, flicked it, and frowned.
The last of the rafts was almost to the falls, its load of crates trembling
and threatening to fly loose. The PT boat’s engines strained against the
current, but they were losing. “It’s no use,” Elaine said. “Cut the rafts!”
“No! We can save them!” Indy said.
Kabul hesitated. He had never disobeyed Indy before, but he knew
Elaine was right. There was no getting around the fact.
Elaine put her hand on Indy’s arm. “Indy, listen to me,” she said softly.
She looked him in the eye. “Let them go.”
He held the look, and knew she meant it. His mind flashed back to
eleven years ago, when he’d had the Holy Grail very nearly in his clutches
—he could touch it!—but due to less-than-ideal circumstances his father
had told him, in that exact tone of voice, “Let it go.” He had. He had given
up the Holy Grail. Compared to that, these were worthless trinkets. With
one swift motion he cut the line and watched the rafts disappear over the
falls.
Kabul gunned the engines and the PT boat surged upstream with a
noticeable increase in power. Just then the steamer passed them going in the
opposite direction, caught in the pull of the current. The pirates on board
were screaming their heads off and abandoning ship.
“I knew we should have gotten that gauge fixed,” Indy said.
Kabul nodded as the steamer followed the rafts over the falls. “What
can I say, Dr. Jones? I’m a procrastinator.”

***

Indy stepped out of Baldassare’s cabin in a fresh change of clothes. He

didn’t hold himself to particularly high standards while out in the jungle,
but when it got to the point where he couldn’t stand his own stench he
usually freshened up a bit. At least, that was how it usually was. He usually
didn’t have someone with him to impress. But he did now, and he saw her
standing at the stern of the boat, staring off into the trees.
He came over to stand next to her. He had no idea what she was
thinking or what he should say, but he felt he ought to say something. All
too well he understood what it was like to lose artifacts of unspeakable
significance. “All your work…” he began.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said faintly.
“But three years of your life, all your studies…”
“Still worth it.” She looked up at him. “We may yet be able to salvage
something,” she said. “And in any case, I’m found something much more
valuable to me on this expedition.”
He smiled and pulled her close. I love you, he’d said earlier that day.
Perhaps it wasn’t strictly true that he’d never said it before, now that he
thought of it. At least he’d felt this way before more or less. With pangs of
regret he remembered Vicky Prentiss… Molly Walder… Deirdre
Campbell… Alicia Dunstin… Marion Ravenwood. Three of the five were
dead, killed by his adventures. With the other two—things just hadn’t
worked out. Oh yeah, and then there was Rita. He tried not to think about
that one. Things really hadn’t worked out there.
But that was then and this was now. He was fifty years old and he
needed to settle down and get on with his life before it was too late. For a
moment he thought he glimpsed an eagle soaring across the sky over her
head—and that was impossible, because eagles didn’t live in this part of the
world, but it wouldn’t be the first time. That was the sign he needed. This
time there were no nerves, and he knew exactly what he was going to say.
“Dr. McGregor…”
“Yes, Dr. Jones?” she said, but he knew that she knew exactly what was
coming.
“Will you marry me?”
“I thought you’d never ask,” she gushed, and kissed him on the lips.
The sheer power of the kiss took him by surprise; then he surrendered to
it, allowing it to send energy throughout his battered body. Thus
empowered, he returned the favor, and they moved together into a world
apart, a world of pure emotion where God’s only creations were one man
and one woman, and their feelings for each other were all that would ever
matter.
“I ought to tell you something,” she said when they came up for air.
“Elaine is my middle name. My first name is Patricia.”
Indy groaned. “I guess I have to tell you, then, that Indiana is a
nickname and my real name is—”
“Save it for our wedding night,” she said, and pulled him back in.
 But he froze as a troublesome thought occurred to him, something he
had honestly forgotten about. “What will Benny say?”
Elaine frowned, displeased at being brought out of their private world.
“Benny is a charming, intelligent man,” she said. “He’ll think of
something.”
A pang of guilt seared his heart, but then she kissed him again, and the
Borneo rainforest faded into oblivion around them.
 CHAPTER THREE

New Jersey

“In the jungle…”

“How romantic…”
“Maybe I should go to the jungle…”
The trio of bridesmaids looked at each other and giggled, then returned
their attention to the mirror and continued primping. Though no observer
would imagine for a moment that any further touches could be required or
indeed possible to augment their stunning beauty, they each desired that
everything be absolutely perfect on this, the most exciting day of their lives.
Helen McGregor, a well-bred woman who remained attractive even in
her mid-fifties, arranged the shoulders of her daughter’s wedding gown and
looked at the two of them in the mirror together. Elaine looked exactly as
she herself had at that age and displayed the same emotions as she had at
her own wedding; a facade of calm barely masking tremendous excitement
and just a touch of fear. She was radiant beyond description. And yet,
something was wrong and it made Helen uncomfortable. Her eyes brimmed
with fluid.
Elaine turned away from the mirror. “Mother, what’s wrong?” she said,
expecting to hear some nostalgic reminisces about her mother’s own
wedding or about how fast she had grown up.
 “When we bought this dress,” Helen said, indicating its entire length
with her hand, “I thought you were going to marry Benny. You two were
made for each other. It was perfect.”
“Oh, Mother.” Elaine embraced her. “When you get to know Indy,
you’ll see I made the right choice. He’s—he’s just incredible. He can do
anything.”
In the groom’s chamber, Indiana Jones fumed with rage as his fingers
struggled with his tie. Today he was tying the knot, but he suddenly
couldn’t remember how to tie this knot. Left over right, and under—no,
around—or was it right over left? No, he’d already tried that—
He exhaled with relief when a pair of older hands took over. “Easy
there, Junior,” his father said. “My God, the Nazis never half scared you so
much, did they?”
“I got used to them,” Indy said with a forced grin. This was a rather
more unique experience. He had gotten married once, he remembered,
thinking back to Deirdre Campbell with a twinge of sadness. But that had
been on a boat in a South American port, with a few people he had just met.
It hadn’t seemed such a big deal as this did now.
His father smiled as well. “You’re not used to her, though, eh? Small
wonder.” Henry Jones Sr. finished Indy’s tie and made a few minor
adjustments. “There you are, Junior. I don’t know how you expect to ‘tie the
knot’ when you can’t even—”
“Yeah, I thought of that, Dad. Hilarious. And don’t call me Junior.”
Henry chuckled softly to himself and looked at his son. It seemed only
yesterday the man had been a toddler climbing onto the roof of their house
right here in Princeton and scaring the daylights out of him. And yet,
somehow they seemed to have taken eons to reach this point, when his son
was finally settling down from his reckless ways to raise up posterity for
him. Neither of them could afford to wait any longer—Indy was getting old,
now, and what did that make him?
Still, he wasn’t entirely comfortable with this situation, and perhaps it
was too late to voice his concerns, but he felt he ought to anyway, as long as
they were having this father-son moment alone together. “I’d known your
mother for three years before we got married,” he began.
Indy rolled his eyes. “What’s your point, Dad?” he said, his tone
suggesting he knew exactly what it was.
 “My point is: what do you know about this girl? Who are her parents?
What schools did they go to?”
“I don’t know and it doesn’t matter. I love her.” Indy looked at Henry as
if daring him to press the issue.
Henry returned the look for a moment, then softened. He didn’t want to
ruin this moment. “Your mother would have loved to be here, Junior,” he
said.
Indy stared thoughtfully at the ceiling. “Maybe she is,” he said. “Maybe
she is.”
“She would tell you something, if she could.”
“What?”
“Don’t blow it.”
“Thanks, Dad. I’ll try to remember that.” Indy looked at the two of them
in the mirror and lost himself in thought as he imagined the missing third
member of their family.
Just then the door flew open and Elaine poked her head in. “Knock,
knock. May I come in?”
Radiant didn’t begin to describe her. Henry was speechless. “You
look… fabulous,” Indy said.
Elaine glanced between them. “I’m sorry, am I interrupting something?”
“No,” Indy said. “Dad was just leaving…”
Henry cleared his throat uncomfortably. “Isn’t it bad luck for the bride
to be seen by the groom before the wedding?”
“I’m not superstitious,” she said. “Are you?” She glided over the floor
to him, then gave him a wink and a kiss on the cheek.
Henry’s face turned a light shade of pink and he seemed to have trouble
finding his voice. “Me, superstitious?” he croaked. To Indy he said, “I’ll
just… meet you in the church.” He stumbled toward the door.
“Hey,” Indy called after him, “see if you can figure out where the hell
Marcus is at, will you? I gave him very specific, written directions. He
should be here by now.” Henry nodded and shut the door behind him.
As soon as he was gone, Indy pulled Elaine close to him. She smelled
exquisite, like the atmosphere of heaven. She said, “I just wanted to tell
you… this is the most wonderful day of my life. And I love you, more than
anything.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Anything?”
“Anything,” she whispered, and drew him in for a kiss.
 Before they could leave the material world behind, there was another
knock on the door and a bridesmaid stuck her head in the room. “Elaine,”
she said, trembling with excitement, “it’s time.”

***

The strains of jubilant organ music swirled around the chapel on Princeton
University campus as it filled with guests. Short Round and Sallah, two of
Indiana Jones’ oldest friends from China and Egypt, respectively, ushered a
pair of women to their seats. The women, too, were well acquainted with
Dr. Jones.
“I can’t believe he actually found someone who would say yes,” the
first said.
“I know,” the second said.
Sallah smiled in bemusement. “You mean other than yourselves?”
The women both gave him a stony look.
Short Round and Sallah looked around the chapel and smirked to
themselves. While the bride’s side of the church housed a contingent of
well-dressed and groomed middle and upper class folks, Indy’s side told a
different story. While there were some of that ilk, it was for the most part a
wilder, more worldly group of guests from all points of the globe, more
diverse than New York City. Elaine’s acquaintances eyed them with
suspicion, and some of them returned the favor.
At the front of the chapel, Henry and Indy stepped out with the minister
and looked back over their shoulders as bridesmaids began to enter the
chapel. Henry smiled at each of them. His smile grew broader when he saw
Marcus Brody, former curator of the National Museum and Dean of
Students at Marshall College but more importantly a close longtime friend
of both Joneses, rushing up to them. Indy was ecstatic to see him as well,
but his smile quickly faded when he saw the seventy-year-old man’s
condition.
“So sorry I’m late, Indiana,” he said, panting as sweat ran down his
ruddy face. “My business took rather longer than expected. And as for these
directions you gave me, well, I couldn’t quite make out—”
“Easy, Marcus,” Indy said, putting a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “You
shouldn’t have pushed yourself. I’d rather have you late to my wedding
than late as in, you know, dead. Get him a glass of water,” he ordered a
bystander.
“Rubbish, Indy,” Marcus said, waving him off. “This event is one of the
few things I’ve left to live for.”
“You and I both,” said Henry, slapping him on the back. “I’ve been
through some marvelous and strange happenings with Junior, but this is one
I’d begun to consider impossible.”
“Make up your mind, Dad. You’ve always wanted me to get married,
then suddenly you didn’t, now just as suddenly you do. And don’t call me
Junior.”
“I only meant—”
“Hello there,” Marcus said to himself as he ogled the bridesmaids, “I do
believe my heart is feeling better already.”
“Delightful, aren’t they?” Henry said. “Particularly the one in the
middle, if I do say so.”
“I just threw up in my mouth a little,” Indy informed the old men.
In the foyer at the rear of the chapel Elaine nervously straightened her
veil as her father, Fred McGregor, looked on. He gave her a peck on the
cheek and patted her hand. “Relax,” he said. “You look wonderful.”
She smiled and opened her mouth to say something, but the door in
front of them began to open. She gathered her composure and they stepped
to the door, but just then the other door, behind them, burst open. A
handsome man in his early forties ran in, gasping for breath and on the
verge of panic.
Elaine’s smile faded.
From the viewpoint of Indy and his father, she and the man were plainly
visible through the door. They could see Elaine shake her head while the
man gesticulated wildly about something. The organist glanced at them and
continued playing, but exchanged a nervous look with the minister. Elaine
was making no move to enter the chapel.
“This is unusual,” Henry said. “An old friend?”
“I don’t know,” Indy said, but a horrible suspicion was coming over
him. Dr. Benjamin F. Morganthal?
“See, these are the things a long engagement would point out,” Henry
said.
“Dad, you’re getting wound up over nothing,” Indy snapped, but his
stomach was tying itself in the knot. The gestures from both her and the
man were growing more and more animated by the second.
“Does that look like nothing to you?” Henry hissed. Indy didn’t answer.
“Perhaps she’s double-parked,” Marcus said.
The guests on both sides of the room shifted uncomfortably.
“Perhaps you should go find out what’s going on,” Henry continued.
“Dad,” Indy said, finally turning to face his father, “I’m sure it’s okay. I
—”
“Junior! Look!”
Indy’s head snapped around. Elaine’s father was motioning to him from
the rear of the chapel. His daughter and the other man were nowhere to be
seen. “She’s gone!” Fred yelled, as if they hadn’t noticed.
“Oh dear,” Marcus said.
“I knew you should have found out more about her,” Henry said, but
Indy was already rushing up the aisle.
“What do you mean she’s gone?” he demanded.
“He took her!”
That was all Indy needed to hear. He was out the door just in time to see
a black sedan roaring off. Behind him he heard Fred yelling about
something, but he paid no attention. He looked around and spotted his
wedding car with “JUST MARRIED” soaped on the windows and cans
hanging off the back. The driver waited beside the car, reading a newspaper.
“Ah, Dr. Jones,” he said as Indy approached, “is something—”
As gently as he could under the circumstances, Indy shoved him aside
and jumped behind the wheel. Fortunately the key was in the ignition and
he was on the sedan’s trail in moments. It weaved back and forth through
the sleepy college town traffic, but he matched its moves perfectly, cans
banging on the asphalt behind him.
Soon only one car separated them. Indy pulled off to the right to pass
when a truck backed out in front of him. With a curse he slammed on the
brakes and cut the wheel, sending his car roaring across campus, cutting
down sidewalks and over lawns. Having had some experience with high-
speed out-of-control vehicles, he was able to steer while keeping the sedan
in the corner of his eye.
Well, mostly. He wasn’t able to keep himself from blasting through a
hedge onto the football practice fields. The football team ran for cover, but
he had already cut hard to avoid them, endangering instead the band and
cheerleaders. They scattered, showering Indy’s car with pom-poms and
leaving him a slalom course of expensive brass equipment. One dedicated
young lady turned her run for life into a series of cartwheels, distracting
him for one vital second that would have been better spent regaining control
of the vehicle.
He roared down an embankment onto a lower field where homecoming
floats were being prepared and swerved between two, but failed to avoid
crashing through the tallest one, a beefeater, taking half the chicken wire
and crepe paper with him. His inertia quickly tore it into smaller pieces and
left it behind just in time for him to see looming before him two stories of
wood being stacked for the homecoming bonfire.
Indy yanked on the wheel yet again and clipped the corner of the pile
with a sickening thud. In his rear-view mirror he saw it wobble and collapse
as students leaped for cover and he burst through a picket fence onto the
street and directly behind the sedan.
“Top that,” he said.
He floored the gas, moving fender to fender with it. He could see Elaine
in the front passenger seat, and next to her, the man from the wedding. The
man looked back and held an indecipherable look with Indy. Then he
slowed down and hit the brakes.
“Damn it!” Indy swerved into a yard once again. He managed to avoid a
bed of begonias and bring the car to a stop before it would have smashed
through the wall of the house. Through the window, a startled family looked
up from their lunch. He gave them a sheepish grin and a wave.
Behind him and out of his view, the black sedan disappeared around the
corner and ran up the ramp of a tractor trailer truck. Two men dressed as
movers folded up the ramp and closed the doors, which were emblazoned
with the name “CAMPUS MOVERS”.
Indy pulled out of the yard and roared around the corner, going straight
past the trailer. The “movers” climbed into its cab and drove off. The road
ahead was empty. He stopped the car, climbed out and looked around, but
Elaine was gone.
 CHAPTER FOUR

Indy wasn’t alone for long, as a pair of police cars with sirens wailing
careened around the corner after him and screeched to a stop. “Hey, you!”
an officer yelled, jumping out. “Who d’you think you are, anyway? Do you
know how much damage you just caused and how many people you could
have killed?”
“Oh, it’s you, Dr. Jones,” an officer from the other car said more calmly.
“Aren’t you getting a little old for this?”
“It’s about time you guys showed up!” Indy yelled back. He took a step
toward the officers, but paused as the first one reached for his gun. “Why
aren’t you guys ever around when the action’s going on? The love of my
life is gone, thanks for noticing!”
The second officer nodded. “Been there,” he said. “It’s the little things
you forget to do, isn’t it?”
Most of the wedding guests were still present when Indiana Jones
returned to the chapel with the officers in tow. They milled about in
confusion, uncertain what was going on. Some of those on Indy’s side of
the chapel thought that perhaps it was all part of the show, for their pal Dr.
Jones had always been an unconventional sort. When they saw the police
and the distress on his face, however, they knew something had gone
horribly awry.
Henry and Marcus were consoling Elaine’s mother while her father
stood awkwardly by. Indy hurried over to them. “Was that Benny?” he
demanded.
“No,” Fred said. He looked at the officers. “I hardly think—”
Henry raised an eyebrow. “Benny?”
Helen burst out wailing. “No,” she sobbed. “Benny would never have
done something like this.”
Impatient, Henry said, “Will someone tell me who’s this Benny?”
“Our daughter’s fiancé,” Helen said.
Henry gaped at Indy. Marcus tried to hide his own surprise but failed.
One of the officers suppressed a snicker.
“Before me, Dad,” Indy said.
“You stole another man’s fiancee?” Henry demanded.
“Things just turned out that way, and I didn’t ’steal’ her, she made her
own choice,” Indy snapped. To Elaine’s father he said, “Have you ever seen
him before?”
“Once,” Fred said, thinking. “At her office… about a year ago. I don’t
know what went on or what they talked about. This is terrible…”
“These guys hadn’t heard anything about it,” Indy said, jerking his
thumb at the police. “Why the hell didn’t you call and report a kidnapping?”
“Because,” Fred said, sounding exasperated, “he didn’t kidnap her.”
“What?” said Indy, Henry and Marcus.
“She went with him.”
Over the years, Indy had taken more than a few punches to the stomach,
but none of them compared to this feeling here and now. He took off his
buttoner and tossed the flower. The sight of it suddenly nauseated him.
Henry wrapped a sympathetic arm around Elaine’s father. “Are you a
golfing man, Fred? I’ve always found that in extreme cases like this, it’s
best to go play a round of golf.” Without another word they moved off.
Marcus glanced at Indy and saw that there was nothing he could do. He
clapped his friend on the shoulder and hurried after the other two men.
“Well,” one of the officers said, clearing his throat, “I’m not sure
whether to let you off with a warning or throw you in the slammer for ten
years. Why don’t you take some time to recuperate and then we’ll see you
in court on Wednesday.” He handed Indy a ticket. Indy took it and crumpled
it into his pants pocket without a glance. The police tipped their hats and
left, guests staring after them.
Sallah came over and enveloped Indy in a bear hug. “Indy, my friend,”
he said. “I heard everything. It is a terrible thing when a woman deserts the
man who loves her. If there is anything I can do, anything at all…”
“Thanks, Sallah,” Indy said, forcing a smile.
“I’ve always found that in extreme cases like this, it’s best to go have a
drink,” said Indy’s old college roommate, Jack Shannon, joining them. His
red hair and goatee were thinning and had acquired some gray, but his build
was as tall, lanky and unmistakable as ever. Seeing him actually soothed
Indy’s pain a little. But only a little.
“No thanks, Jack,” Indy said. In this condition he knew he would go
overboard on the alcohol.
Then their group was expanded by a man just over a decade younger
than his father, but much larger. “Indy, I am so sorry,” Remy Baudouin, his
friend from the first world war, said in his thick Belgian accent. “What you
need right now is a little womanly comfort.”
“Bloody women are what got him into this mess, aren’t they?” retorted
a British man about Indy’s age; his friend George “Mac” McHale from the
next world war. “You can’t trust dames once they’ve sucked you dry. I’ll bet
you anything that bastard who took her had money —at least more money
than a bloody college professor.”
“That’s great, Mac,” Indy said with a scowl. “Thanks for clearing that
up.”
“Hey, just saying it’s nothin’ personal. Say, mate,” he turned his
attention to Jack, “mind if I take you up on that drink offer?”
“And me too,” Remy said. “Come on, Indy, just the guys. It will be
good for you.”
Indy sighed. “All right,” he gave in. A hangover would be better than
this.
The two women that Sallah and Short Round had escorted in earlier had
been lingering and eavesdropping this whole time. Now they giggled.
“Count us in,” one of them said. He didn’t even know who’d invited them.

***

Indy stared into his glass, unable to remember how many he’d had before it.
Didn’t matter, he decided, and downed it in a gulp. Elsewhere in the bar
Jack was playing jazz, Mac was playing poker, and Remy was playing the
field. On either side of Indy sat the two women who had followed them.
They looked vaguely familiar, but after how many he’d been with over the
years and in his current state of mind, he couldn’t place their names.
However, he was ready to welcome their comfort as if they were his best
friends.
“How could this have happened to me?” he mumbled half to himself. “I
mean, I’m the catch of the century… and I know about centuries. I’m an
arch—an arche—a digger.”
“Oh, honey, I know,” the blonde gushed, putting an arm around him.
“My heart breaks for you.”
“It’s her loss, Indy,” the brunette said, putting an arm around his other
side. “Though, it’s true,” she added after a moment of reflection, “you’ve
never had particularly good timing with women.”
Indy looked up. “Good timing?” he said, more out of a stupor than
curiosity.
“Remember that time in the desert you left me tied up in a bad guys’
tent…” she said.
“Or the time you left me all alone in that creepy palace just so you could
go explore some tunnel full of bugs…” the blonde added.
Indy tried to think back to both incidents, but it hurt his brain so he
stopped. “Well, the least she could’ve done is tell me,” he mumbled.
“He isn’t the easiest person to talk to, either,” the blonde said, now
addressing the brunette.
“I know,” the brunette said, “and when he sleeps he does this little thing
when he breathes—”
“Like this!” They both emulated Indy sleeping and burst into fits of
laughter.
“You are wonderful company,” Indy said.
“Oh, Indy, really,” the blonde said, becoming sympathetic again, “when
it comes to women, you are so naive. Did it ever occur to you how very
little you know about this person?”
“That’s not true…” he protested weakly.
“What are her favorite foods?”
“What’s her favorite dress?”
“He’s probably not seen her in anything but khakis.”
Indy started to protest some more, but somewhere in his alcohol-fogged
brain he realized they had a point. He reached for his glass, not realizing it
was empty—but that was all right, because he couldn’t manage to grab hold
of it anyway.
 “Oh, Indy,” the blonde said, “don’t look so sad. She probably just got
cold feet.”
She exchanged a look with the other woman, and they reminisced about
their separate memories for a moment. “Cold feet!” they said together, and
burst into laughter again. Their laughter seemed to echo through the room
and through Indy’s skull as he buried his face in his hands and wished to be
dead…
“Indy?” Jack said. “Indy, you awake?”
Indy groaned by way of response.
“Listen, I got to get back to Katrina before she worries about me,” Jack
said. “Want me to walk you out?”
Indy groaned affirmatively. Jack helped him to his feet.
Remy came over and helped support Indy’s other side. “And I must
return to my Suzette,” he added. “You see Indy, marriage only puts a leash
on you. Be glad you are free.”
“Preach it, mate,” Mac called from his poker game across the room.
“Dunno if you can hear me, Jonesy, but I’m gonna get you back your
investment in this one.”
Indy swayed and tried to clear his head. The two women who had been
talking to him were nowhere in sight. Had he only imagined them?

***

Indiana Jones walked alone across the deserted campus, the chill autumn air
nipping at his flesh. His head down and fedora cocked low, he tried to
ignore the signs of destruction that bespoke his fruitless chase earlier in the
day. He also tried to ignore the headache that was already beginning. He
had purged his system, but perhaps not soon enough.
The clock tolled three and he stopped in his tracks, disoriented for a
moment. He found himself in front of the linguistics building. The
linguistics building was something he would recognize in any state of mind,
having visited more than a few times to check on his fiancee.
For a few minutes he tried to penetrate the fog in his brain for a
coherent thought. Then, finding one at last, he moved around the side of the
building and found a window cracked. Evidently someone was still
accustomed to the muggy summer days and hadn’t adjusted yet.
 Glancing around, though he was hardly in any condition to notice
anyone more than ten feet away from him, he lifted the sash and climbed
into a classroom. He cursed as his attempt to weave through the desks in the
dark brought bruised hips and nearly sent him sprawling, but he made it to
the door, unlocked it after a few frustrating tries, and entered the hallway.
He paused only to splash his face with water from the fountain, then headed
directly to Elaine’s office. With the key she had given him, he entered.
Flipping on a desk lamp illuminated a piece of Sanskrit tablet, Egyptian
hieroglyphics on limestone, photographs of her on field work—including
one of her and Indy. He felt as if he had been stabbed. He placed the photo
face-down on the desk and opened a drawer.
He rummaged through the papers, not really sure what he was looking
for and not really looking very hard. He couldn’t even remember why he’d
come here in the first place. Was it just to torture himself by returning to the
surroundings where the woman of his dreams had worked, where he had
visited her?
It took him a few moments to realize he had reached the end of the
papers and pulled a metal panel from the back of the drawer. It took him a
few moments longer to realize the significance of this fact.
He pulled the drawer out farther and found a small compartment in the
back stacked with files and papers. The first one he pulled out was a
passport with a picture of Elaine. Not in the mood to look at her, he closed
it and was about to put it back when something clicked. He looked again.
The name on the passport read Patricia Elaine Bolander.
“Bolander?” he said, suddenly alert.
As luck would have it, the next thing he found in the papers was a
marriage certificate. It said Patricia Elaine McGregor and Robert Julian
Bolander. Indy was stunned. Why had he come here? Could his life
possibly get any worse right now? And what the hell was she up to?
He was about to get up and leave when another file caught his eye, one
labeled Military Intelligence. Since Indy had worked in the Office of
Strategic Services during the latest war, he considered himself authorized to
look at it, and did so. It was full of codified messages that he might decode
later, but what caught his eye at the moment was a wedding photograph of
Elaine and the man who had taken her. He was dressed in an army uniform.
Indy took a magnifying glass from the desk top and examined the photo.
On the man’s breastplate he could make out the name BOLANDER. He
shifted the glass down to see the insignia on the man’s lapel—OSS. Just
like him.
Indy closed the file and was considering his next move when he noticed
something on the desk that had escaped him before although it was
completely out in the open. It was a telegram reading “Recent discovery
requires your immediate attention. Stop. R.J.B. White Sands.”
White Sands—that was a missile testing facility in New Mexico that
had sprung up in the aftermath of the war, if Indy remembered correctly. It
was time, he decided, to go back into the army.

***

“Married?” thundered Henry Jones Sr. “I knew it!” He was standing in

Indy’s hotel room, wearing his bathrobe and holding a glass of warm milk,
as he looked over the photos and passport that Indy was hurriedly packing.
“It’s a front, Dad. You’re missing the point,” Indy said.
“I know what the point is,” Henry insisted. “You don’t even know who
she is. She left this Benny character for you, and now for all we know she’s
left you for this man, who was apparently her husband all along!”
Indy snatched the documents out of his father’s hands and tossed them
onto the pile in his suitcase. “I know who she is!” he snapped. “She’s a spy.
And so is the guy who broke up the ceremony. His name is Bolander. He’s
in New Mexico.”
“And she told you that, eh?”
“No, Dad, most spies aren’t in the habit of giving away every detail of
their missions.” He reflected on how upset his first fiancee, Molly Walder,
had been to discover he was an American spy and hadn’t told her. She had
been killed because of his mission. At least Elaine had done the noble thing
and gotten herself away from him. But that wouldn’t keep him away, not
now or ever.
“Son, quit feeling sorry for yourself,” Henry said. “If anyone deserves
our sympathy it’s Elaine’s father, Fred.”
Indy stopped packing. “How do you figure that, Dad?”
“There’s no wedding and yet he has to pay for everything!”
“Thanks, Dad. That helped put it all in perspective.” He began packing
again.
 Henry sighed and eased himself down onto the bed next to Indy’s
suitcase. He took a sip of his warm milk to ease his throat. “Did you ever
think,” he said, “that there might be a good reason for Elaine going off and
not telling you?”
Indy paused once more and looked his father in the eye. “Look, Dad,”
he said, “I’m not interested in what she’s doing there. I’ve had enough
espionage to last me three lifetimes. I’m going to find her because I love
her.” He turned to his suitcase again.
“And if she doesn’t love you?” Henry persisted.
Indy remained still and silent for a while. His heart quivered like a
dying autumn leaf at the possibility.
Finally he said softly, “I want to hear it from her.”
Henry put a firm hand on his son’s arm. “That’s a very noble quest,
Junior,” he said. “Just don’t make a fool of yourself.”
Indy forced a smile. “Thanks, Dad.”
Henry rose to his feet and downed the last of his milk. “I ought to be
turning in,” he said. “I’ll give your regards to Marcus. He’ll be upset not to
have seen you off.”
“He needs his rest,” Indy insisted, “and this can’t wait.”
Henry nodded wistfully. “I hope you find what you’re looking for…
Indiana.”
 CHAPTER FIVE

Indiana Jones drove his rented ‘49 Ford somewhat cautiously through the
swirling dust that had surrounded him for the last few miles, courtesy of the
army trucks and Jeeps moving up and down the road. From New York to
Chicago to St. Louis by DC-3, then by sleek passenger train to Albuquerque
and by car to the middle of the desert. Not the most exotic or interesting
place he’d been, but he wasn’t here for sightseeing anyway.
New Mexico, like most places these days, was rich in memories. His
Aunt Grace and cousin Frank had lived on a ranch here, and he had visited
them on occasion during his youth. On one particular spring break, he and
Frank had hitchhiked to Mexico to find a bordello, only to be kidnapped by
Pancho Villa’s men, sparking a chain of events that led to his involvement
in World War I. He wondered sometimes how differently his life might have
turned out if a couple of teenage boys hadn’t let their hormones carry them
away.
A few years later, before starting college, he had visited them again, and
this time gone on a vision quest with a Navajo named Aguila or “Changing
Man.” They had hiked up a mesa, and Changing Man had told him to wait
there alone until an animal approached him, which from then on would be
his spiritual guide. It had taken two days, but finally he had seen an eagle.
Since that time the sight of an eagle had sometimes provided
encouragement or direction on his adventures. Like his latest adventure,
Elaine.
 He had run into the Navajo again a few years later and discovered that
neither of his names were merely figurative language. The man had the
power to transform into an eagle, and who knew what else. Indy had no
idea where he was now or even if he was still alive, but always half-
expected to run into him when he came back to the American Southwest.
He seemed like the kind of person to keep popping up like that.
Indy came back to the present when his vehicle emerged from the cloud
as he turned into the small parking lot of Al’s Atomic Diner. It struck him
as rather tasteless to capitalize on a weapon of mass destruction as a
gimmick for a cheap restaurant. The images of Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
obliterated by nuclear bombs, were still vivid in his mind from four years
ago. Although he hadn’t actually been there, the photographs of the cities
and their inhabitants were nearly enough to put him in a cold sweat.
Still, he couldn’t let his personal misgivings get in the way. He needed
to find Elaine sooner than later and the diner looked like a good place to
start—this area wasn’t exactly bustling with activity.
Indy entered the diner and brushed the dust off his hat. His ears were
instantly greeted by a Hank Williams song from a radio somewhere and the
low murmur of conversation from two cowboys and a few enlisted men at
various tables. Only the waitress behind the counter, a short and stout
woman with poofy orange hair, looked up at his entrance. Giving her a
friendly nod, he took a seat and picked up a menu.
“Breakfast?” she asked with little curiosity.
Indy shrugged. He was still looking. Everything on the menu was
prefaced by the word “Atomic” or some variant thereof—Atomic Eggs,
Atomic Western Omelet, A-Bomb Special.
“Anything ‘Atomic’ has got lots of chili pepper in it,” the waitress said.
Does it also melt people or cause radiation poisoning? Indy wondered.
Out loud he said, “I’ll try the omelet.”
“One omelet!” she called over her shoulder to the cook at the kitchen
window, who nodded.
Indy handed her the menu and along with it showed her a photo of
Elaine. “I’m looking for this woman,” he said.
She eyed the photo carefully and shook her head. The cook strained for
a look and Indy held it up to him. He also shook his head. Indy put the
photo down on the counter, revealing the man who had been covered by his
fingers.
 “Never seen her,” the waitress said, “but it looks like she’s a friend of
Bob’s.”
“Bob?” Indy said.
“Bob Bolander. Fella in the picture.”
Behind him, the younger of the two cowboys reacted slightly. The older
one turned a handsome, weathered face about his own age. Indy didn’t see
them.
“Come in often?” he asked the waitress.
“Every day,” she said.
The cook handed her Indy’s omelet and she set it down in front of him.
Both of them watched expectantly as he took his first bite. He chewed,
waited, chewed some more, and suppressed a smile. This wasn’t nearly
what he had anticipated. Of course, he had dined on quite a bit of rare and
spicy cuisine elsewhere. He poured some Tabasco sauce over the omelet
and took another bite. That was a bit more like it.
The cook raised his eyebrows nearly off of his forehead. The waitress
decided to pretend nothing had happened. “Real nice guy,” she continued.
“A gal remembers a fella like that—handsome. Polite. Smart.”
Indy started to feel sick and didn’t want to hear any more. “How would
I find him?” he demanded a bit too brusquely.
“Easy,” the cook said. He pointed with his thumb. “Just follow them
trucks.”
Indy looked out the window at the line of army trucks. Whether this was
part of the convoy he had seen on the way in, or a different one, he had no
idea. But it didn’t matter. He dropped a bill on the counter and hopped up.
“Thanks. Keep the change.”
“You know,” the waitress said, “you’re the second fella in here today
asking about him.”
Indy froze in his tracks and turned to look at her. She was looking
around the diner for someone, but the only trace of the two cowboys was
the money sitting on their table.
She shrugged. “Well, was here.”

***

The ‘49 Ford followed the caravan of military vehicles up a dirt road which
had branched off from the main one. They turned past an army checkpoint
where two sentries waved the vehicles in. All of them except Indy’s.
“What can we do for you, sir?” a sentry asked, in a tone of voice that
clearly indicated he was unwelcome here.
“I’m going to see Robert Bolander,” Indy said. “My name is Colonel
Jones.”
The sentry looked him over skeptically.
“Retired,” he clarified. “OSS.”
“I’m sorry, sir,” the sentry said, “we’re in the midst of maneuvers. No
one’s admitted.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll stay close to the trucks.”
“It’s too dangerous, sir. We’re shooting live shells.”
They would have to try harder than that. “That’s funny,” Indy said, “I
haven’t heard any artillery.”
The sentry was stumped for a moment. Trucks were beginning to back
up behind the Ford. The second sentry approached with a no-nonsense look
on his face. “I’m sorry sir,” he said, “you’re blocking the way. You’ll have
to leave.” His hand hovered over his sidearm.
Indy looked from one man to the other and shrugged. “All right,” he
said. “I didn’t really want to see Bob anyway. He’d talk my ears off. Thanks
for saving me.” He turned the car around.
Once he had gotten a safe distance away, Indy stopped the car, got out,
and trained his binoculars on the convoy as it rolled along the dusty road
from the checkpoint and disappeared below the level of a hill. How to get
in? There was surely a way. He’d gotten into places more heavily guarded
than this. He continued to scan the terrain until his gaze stopped on a horse
standing beside a barbed-wire fence. What was it doing out here? Well, for
his purposes, that was beside the point.
He made his way down to the horse. It was clearly very tame and not in
the least concerned by his approach. For his own part, he was an excellent
rider and had been for years. The absence of a saddle would prove no
difficulty. The horse barely twitched an ear as he climbed on. “Heigh-ho,
Silver,” he said, giving it a smack.
They rode off to what he judged as a sufficient distance, then galloped
for the fence. If it was too close, the horse would refuse to jump and he’d
just try again. Hopefully.
The horse cleared the fence with no problem and continued without a
pause. Indy decided he was quite pleased with it and would try to get it a
carrot later. At the edge of a hill he stopped it and dismounted. He needed to
make sure the coast was clear to continue, and he wanted to examine the
ground. It appeared blackened, scarred. He could see now that a large black
streak extended for over a mile until it disappeared beyond the next hill.
Curious, but not his primary concern right now.
Indy got back on the horse and followed the streak to that hill, where he
stopped once again. Now he could see below him a huge military operation
serviced by hundreds of troops. Forklifts loaded wooden crates into the
back of transport trucks which lined the road. Generator trailers surrounded
the perimeter and machine-gun mounted Jeeps patrolled the hills. In the
center of everything, a massive tent was surrounded by smaller tents, with
men in white coats entering and leaving every few seconds.
Indy stared at the operation in wonder. What could it all mean?
Whaaaa! came the sound of a spotter plane roaring over his head. He’d
forgotten to look up. Seconds later one of the Jeeps roared up behind him.
He swung back up onto the horse and galloped off, the Jeep in pursuit.
“I could have planned this better,” he told the horse, realizing he had no
idea where they were going. Riding full bore, they came to a ravine ten feet
deep and twelve feet wide. The horse cleared it easily. Indy grinned, patted
its neck and looked back at the Jeep.
The Jeep cleared it as well. Indy frowned. But there was nothing for it—
he put more leg into the horse. They were coming up now on another,
clearly wider ravine. The horse jumped again and barely made it, sending
bits of rock and sand skittering into the abyss.
Indy looked back once more. This time, the Jeep did not make it. It
plowed grille-first into the side of the cut and sent the soldiers inside
bouncing around. Indy grinned more broadly than ever, but just as he was
about to slow the horse down, two more Jeeps fell in behind him.
“Aw, hell, can’t you give a guy a break?” he muttered.
A third ravine was coming up now. It was larger than the first two.
Much larger. As they approached it seemed to stretch on forever. He wound
his hands around the horse’s mane and prepared for the impossible. Not
impossible, really. He’d done more impossible things than this. Suddenly
the horse pulled itself to a stop and he nearly lost his hat.
Indy looked back at the quickly approaching Jeeps. “C’mon,” he hissed
in the horse’s ear, “you can do it.” He circled back to try again and gave the
horse a kick. They charged toward the gap once more—
 And Indy pulled the horse to a stop inches from the chasm’s edge.
Rocks tumbled down into it, about seventy-five feet to the bottom.
“You were right the first time,” he said, patting the horse’s neck. Better
make that two carrots. But when he’d be able to do that he wasn’t sure,
because the Jeeps had caught up to him. He raised his hands in surrender.
“Okay, okay,” he said. “You boys win this round.”
He dismounted as an MP got out of one vehicle and approached. Indy
extended his hands so they could be cuffed—now that his advantage was
gone, he felt it best to cooperate with soldiers of his own nation—but the
MP hit him in the neck with a needle instead. Before he could react, his
vision blurred and faded to nothing. It was the fastest-acting stuff he had
ever been injected with.
Before his knees buckled and he collapsed to the ground, he was already
out cold.

***

The first thing he saw on awakening was Bob Bolander. It made him wish
he were unconscious again.
Indy sat across from him in a military tent, with two MPs flanking the
chair that held him. Life size, in color and up close, Bolander was twice as
handsome as his photograph, but the thin hard line that now formed his
mouth made him quite an unpleasant specter. “You are a very difficult
person to get rid of, Dr. Jones,” he said.
Indy tried to shake the cobwebs out of his brain. One thing was still
fresh in his mind, however. “What’ve you done with her, Bolander?” he
demanded.
Bolander’s expression did not change. “Elaine said you were stubborn.”
Indy leaped to his feet. The rush of blood to his head left him
disoriented and made him regret it, but it wouldn’t stop him from squeezing
the miserable bastard’s throat until—
“Dr. McGregor is safe,” another voice said. A tough-looking General in
his late fifties, clearly a veteran of the latest war and possibly the one before
that, stepped into the light. “She is working on a project for the
government,” he continued, and extended a hand. “Ralph McIntire, Colonel
Jones. United States Army.”
 Indy accepted the proffered hand with his own, still cuffed, and without
enthusiasm. “When can I see her?” he demanded.
“The first thing we have to establish,” said Bolander, who hadn’t
flinched, “is what have you seen?”
Indy saw no reason to lie. “Skid marks, mile, mile and a half long. If I
had to make a guess I’d say there’s been some kind of aircraft crash… high
altitude, probably Russian.”
General McIntyre raised an eyebrow. “How would you know it was
Russian?”
Indy shrugged. “Why else would you need a linguist at a crash site?”
Bolander and the General exchanged a look. Bolander’s mouth had
softened a bit. He was concerned about something. “Dr. Jones,” he said,
“you’ve put us in a very difficult situation.”
“My condolences,” Indy said. “I want to see her.”
“I’m afraid that’s impossible. This is a top secret oper—”
Indy sprang forward and wrapped his handcuffs around Bolander’s neck
before the two MPs could draw their weapons. The General raised a hand
and stopped them from shooting him.
“I didn’t come to listen to you tell me about your problems, Bolander,”
Indy snarled. “I want to see Elaine.”
“I think that’s a reasonable request,” the General said. “First, let him
go.”
Indy let go of Bolander and held out his cuffs to be unlocked. Instead,
one of the M.P.s hit him with a blackjack.

***

“Oh. Indy…”
Elaine’s voice jarred him back to consciousness as nothing else could
have at this point. He blinked awake to find her staring at him, her hand
stroking his head. He was no longer handcuffed and was stretched out on a
cot in another tent. His gun was gone, but he still had his bullwhip. She
smiled to see him awake.
“Elaine,” he gasped. He tried to sit up, but fell back, feeling the knot in
his head.
“No, stay down and listen,” she said, patting him gently. Then a trace of
anger crept into her voice. “You shouldn’t have followed me here.”
 “No?” Indy said in mock surprise. “Someone kidnaps you from our
wedding, and you just expect me to wait till you get home?”
Elaine sighed and massaged her brows wearily. “Oh, Indy,” she said,
“there’s a lot you don’t know about me.”
Indy smiled in spite of himself. “It’s okay, honey. I know you’re a spy.
Been there.”
“I’m not a spy,” she said, slightly annoyed, “I’m a specialist, and—how
did you find out?”
“I did some poking around,” Indy said. He pushed himself up onto his
elbows. “You could’ve told me.”
Elaine put her hands on her hips and assumed a defensive position.
“You didn’t tell me you were a spy during the war. Both wars, actually.”
“Well, I—” Indy frowned. “How did you know that?”
“I had you checked,” she said smugly, batting her eyelashes. “What
kind of person would marry someone and not know who they’re marrying?”
Indy grimaced at the echo of his father’s words. Who, indeed? And
what had he gotten himself into now?
“Indy,” she said, kneeling down at the bedside and taking his hand, “I
wanted to tell you what was happening, but I couldn’t. There wasn’t time,
and even if I could—it was better if I just left.”
Looking into those gorgeous eyes, Indy softened and wanted to let it all
go. But he couldn’t, not after the worry she’d put him through. “A downed
Soviet plane is more important than our wedding?”
She blinked at him. “A Soviet—is that what they’ve told you?”
“They didn’t have to tell me. I saw the site and—”
Without another word Elaine got up and went to the entrance of the tent.
“You there!” she commanded an MP beyond Indy’s range of vision. “Get
General McIntyre and Mr. Bolander immediately.” The MP moved off
quickly. She returned to her fiancé’s side once more. “Indy,” she said softly,
“you have to believe me. I would not have left my own wedding unless I
felt something was so great that it threatened the lives of everyone I love.”
This whole situation was beginning to get very familiar. He had gotten
himself into something big, very big, which was about normal for his
excursions. But he didn’t care for any of that now—he just wanted to be
with Elaine. “Does that mean you won’t come back with me?”
Her face fell. “I can’t,” she said. Then it rose again just as quickly.
“But,” she said, “I have a wonderful idea.” She looked up at Bolander and
McIntyre as they entered the tent. Without wasting time she said, “I need
Dr. Jones to remain and work on the project with me.”
Indy and Bolander reacted in unison. “What? No!”
“Bob,” Elaine said to Bolander, ignoring Indy, “I need him to help me
with the codes.”
“Dr. Jones isn’t cleared for this operation,” Bolander insisted haughtily.
“I don’t want to help you,” Indy told Elaine.
“Indy, will you stay out of this!” she snapped.
“Elaine!” Bolander thundered. “May I remind you that you have taken
an oath of secrecy.”
She threw up her hands. “So, shoot me. This is a scientific discovery of
epic proportions and you’re treating it like a breach of national security.”
The General regarded the three arguers with bemusement.
Indy managed to sit up in bed. “Since when did a plane crash qualify as
a scientific discovery?”
Elaine tensed her hands slightly in exasperation. “Indy, will you listen to
me,” she said. “This is not about a plane crash.”
Bolander moved to her side and took her hand. “No, Elaine,” he said, “I
think you should listen to Dr. Jones. He is absolutely right. He has no
interest here. He didn’t come to become involved, and he wants to leave.
Isn’t that right, Dr. Jones?”
Indy stared at Bolander and Elaine, at his hand on hers, which she had
not removed. He did not like the proximity between them. He didn’t know
what was going on here, but he knew one thing for damn sure—he wasn’t
going to let this creep get between him and his fiancee.
“No,” he said.
Only a blink betrayed Bolander’s surprise. “Excuse me?”
“No. On second thought,” Indy said, stretching and rising to his feet, “I
think it’s an excellent idea.”
Elaine beamed. The General smirked. Bolander looked stunned and
more than a little perturbed. “Dr. Jones,” he stammered, “that’s quite
commendable of you but in all honesty, with your background, well, I don’t
think you would qualify for top security clearance.”
Finally, the General spoke. “Bolander,” he said, “if this man can help us
get to the bottom of this thing, he’s got my approval.” He turned to Indy and
extended his hand once again. “Colonel Jones, glad to have you aboard.
Let’s get you up to speed.”
 “Thanks. Can I get my gun back?”
“We’ll see.” The General and Elaine led Indy out of the tent with
Bolander in the rear, fuming silently. Still suffering a bit from fatigue and
the drug he’d been injected with earlier, Indy’s eyes seared with pain at the
sunlight reflecting off the desert sand. He blinked rapidly and managed to
adjust in a few seconds.
“There is one more piece of business,” General McIntyre added. “The
oath.”
“The oath?” Indy said.
“The loyalty oath, Indy,” Elaine said. “It’s mandatory.”
This sort of treatment for a retired Colonel who’d probably risked his
life for this country more times than everyone else on this base put together!
“Since when did—”
“Spies, Colonel Jones,” the General said sadly. “I’m afraid the Russians
are everywhere.”
“Already,” put in Bolander, “intelligence sources say that Soviet
operatives are in the southwest. We’ve been fortunate up to now. We can’t
take chances.” His tone of voice indicated that as far as he was concerned,
Indy was about as welcome here as a Soviet operative.
They stopped in front of another tent. The General raised his hand.
“Repeat after me: ‘I solemnly swear that the things I am about to witness
will remain secret, so help me God.’”
Indy raised his hand. “I do solemnly solemnly swear that the things I am
about to witness will remain secret, so help me God.” He began to lower his
hand, but the General continued.
“‘I swear allegiance to the United States of America and promise to
uphold her values against all powers who threaten her.’”
“I swear allegiance to the United States of America and promise to
uphold her values against all powers who threaten her.” The General was
finished, so Indy lowered his hand. He gave Elaine a look as if to say
“Happy now?”
The General was; he beamed with satisfaction. “Excellent,” he said. “I
knew we could count on you, Colonel Jones. To tell you the truth, I think
only the first half of that oath is strictly necessary. The Commies would
never say it; they’re all atheists.” He opened the flap of the tent. “Prepare
yourself, Colonel Jones.”
 CHAPTER SIX

Indy wasn’t sure what to prepare himself for. He’d seen such a wide and
varied variety of impossibly strange people, places and things in his travels
that he wasn’t sure anything could really make his heart race anymore. He
found himself yearning to recapture the original thrill, the sense of wonder,
of exploring his first Egyptian tomb as a boy on his father’s lecture tour.
But since that time, over all these years, the abnormal had become normal,
the extraordinary ordinary. Elaine was the most exciting thing in his life
now and he didn’t think this would change that.
He stepped into the tent, which somehow seemed much larger on the
inside. All around them a small army of workers were cataloging thousands
of pieces of metal, of a type he didn’t recognize. He wasn’t a metallurgist,
but he found that odd nonetheless. Indy moved into the room and picked up
a piece. He crumpled it in his hand and then watched in stupefaction as it
returned to its original shape with not a single wrinkle to show for it.
He had seen this stuff two years ago—where, he didn’t know. The
government had taken him and some others in a bus with blacked-out
windows to look at some kind of wreckage and mutilated remains. There
had been an intense magnetic shroud there, and didn’t seem to be one here,
but still he knew what he was about to see.
“Amazing, isn’t it?”
He looked up at a lean and scholarly scientist who was watching him
with bemusement. Like all other scientists working on this project he wore
a long white lab coat.
“I’ll say,” Indy replied. “Usually when the government says they have
top men working on something, this is the last thing they have in mind.”
The scientist laughed, a strange little tittering sound. “’Top men,’ eh? I
suppose I’ll accept that designation.” Like many of the scientists around
here, he was a German, only four years removed from being an enemy of
the United States and for that matter, the rest of the world. Any war crimes
he may have had a hand in were nullified by the knowledge and brainpower
he had to offer. Indy was bemused, in a sad kind of way, that he had seen
the day when Americans were uniting with Germans against Russians
instead of vice-versa. He still immediately liked this guy more than
Bolander.
“Dr. Jones,” General McIntyre said, joining them. “Dr. Avril Bernard,
the chief scientist in charge of the project.”
Indiana Jones gave the man a friendly nod and turned back to the
material in his hand. “What is it?”
Bernard didn’t seem in the least disturbed by his curtness. “Part of an
alien spacecraft,” he said casually.
Indy looked up at him with a start. He knew some of these guys could
be eccentric, but—“Oh, really?”
Bernard’s expression, at least, was completely serious. “Two days ago,
Dr. Jones, a spaceship was struck by lightning and crashed into the desert at
this site. What you are holding is part of its outer shell, but more
importantly, it is evidence of extraterrestrial life.”
Indy cast a quick glance at the others to see if they were all endorsing
this. They were. Either that, or they were all playing some kind of strange
prank on him. Carefully, he said, “Don’t you think you guys are jumping to
conclusions?”
The General answered his question with a question. “What do you see,
Dr. Jones?”
Indy studied the metal carefully. The government had threatened to
charge him with treason if he ever mentioned the other wreck he’d
examined, and he didn’t want to risk finding out if that restriction still
applied in another government facility, but this one was similar enough that
he came to the same conclusion. “I see… an advanced lightweight metal
used by the Russians for high altitude flight or even rocketry.”
 “That’s ridiculous!” scoffed Bolander. “The Russians are years behind
us in research—”
“Seems to me that’s what you said before they announced they had the
bomb.”
Bolander fell silent.
Indy continued, “You guys see a spaceship because that’s just what you
want to see. Throughout history, people unable to explain natural
phenomena used flying saucers and visitors from other planets.”
Bernard asked, “Do you seem daunted that the top scientists in the
world conclude this to be an alien space craft?”
Indy looked at Elaine, his Elaine. She, of all people, should have known
better. She was usually so level-headed and pragmatic. “Daunted?” he said.
“No. Disappointed, maybe. I saw some things like this way back in ’30,
when jet engines were new. People were scared of them and assumed they
had to be from space, because they didn’t understand the technology, but it
was all Earth-bound.”
Bernard and the General exchanged a look. “Follow us, Dr. Jones,” the
General said.
Bernard led Indy to three coffin-like cylinders at the other side of the
tent and nodded to a guard, who opened one. Fog from the refrigerant inside
escaped and billowed into the dry desert air with a hiss.
Indy looked inside. As the fog cleared, he could make out a charred
humanoid creature, less than four feet long, with elongated arms and
fingers. Again, it looked very familiar, though he still wondered at the lack
of magnetism.
“They were recovered at the crash site,” Bernard explained. “Do you
still feel we’re dealing with human life?”
“No,” Indy admitted. “They’re apes. Belango apes. I’ve run across them
in Madagascar. Hairless from the fire.” He shrugged. “The Soviets must be
using them for experiments or something.”
Bolander closed the lid and gave Elaine a meaningful yet vague look. “I
think Dr. Jones has seen enough,” he said. “Now,” he continued to Indy, “if
you’ll excuse us, we have serious work to do.”
“Is that what you call this?” Indy turned to Elaine, more disappointed
now than ever. “I’m sorry, I thought you could tell the difference between a
scientific inquiry and a wild goose chase.” He started toward the door of the
tent.
 Elaine was angry, but not at him. She wheeled on Bolander. “Damn it,
Bob! Show him or I leave also.”
Bolander looked anxiously at the General and Bernard, who indicated
their agreement with Elaine. Indy, his curiosity piqued in spite of himself,
hesitated at the door.
“Oh, all right,” Bolander said, sounding as if it were anything but. “This
way.”
Guards lined both sides of the containment room. Several physicists
with goggles and lab coats huddled around the center of the room where a
lead casement, a small coffin-like box, dominated. As Indy moved up to
inspect the box, a technician reached into it and retrieved a stone cylinder,
holding it up for him to see.
The cylinder was fifteen inches long, five inches in diameter, with a
dozen raised rings spaced at regular intervals along its length. Every inch
was covered in rows and rows of tiny detailed pictographs, cuneiforms and
glyphs, thousands altogether. At a glance it had the appearance of ancient
workmanship. That definitely hadn’t been part of the other crash site.
“Do you recognize the markings, Dr. Jones?” Bernard asked.
Indy caught something in the scientist’s tone and realized he was being
tested. He studied the stone more carefully. “Egyptian, fourth century…
Mayan. Sanskrit. Chinese pictographs. This thing’s been around.” Or it was
a forgery, more likely. He ran through the symbols in his mind. “The
Egyptian markings indicate… power.”
Bernard smiled. “Precisely.” He nodded to the technicians, who brought
a radio and a light bulb next to the device. The radio suddenly burst into
jazz music, the light bulb glowed, and the cylinder glowed as well, but with
an intensity like nothing Indy had ever witnessed—like the sun, but without
burning his eyes.
He was dumbfounded for a moment.
“Go ahead,” Bernard said gleefully, “touch it.”
The technician was already holding it, so he figured it would be okay to
follow Bernard’s request. He reached out and touched it. “It’s cold,” he said
with some surprise. It reminded him of the Sankara stones he had once
found in India, which had also glowed without heating—at least most of the
time.
The radio and light bulb were removed, and the glow faded from the
cylinder. Despite his self-consciousness as the others watched him
expectantly, Indy allowed his cynical mask to drop. He’d seen enough
strange things in his time on this planet—who was to say there weren’t
some from other planets as well? But the question was, why would they
bother to come here?
“We don’t think even the Russians can take credit for this, Colonel
Jones,” the General said.
“We’ve measured the negative ions around it,” Bernard said. “We’ve
done every radiation test; it shows no signs of radioactivity. But it appears
to have been the aliens’ fuel supply.”
“And now,” Bolander added with an intolerable air of smugness, “it’s
the property of the United States government.”
Indy could feel Elaine’s gaze on him as he also felt himself drawn to the
mystery. The sense of wonder and novelty he used to feel at strange and
mysterious phenomena was creeping back in, because this time he was
sharing it with her. Or maybe it was just because this one allegedly came
from outer space. He ran his fingers over the markings on the outside.
“The prevailing belief,” Elaine said , “is that the writings represent
instructions for use.”
“Sort of an owner’s manual,” General McIntyre said.
“And it was found at the crash site?” Indy inquired.
“Actually,” the General said, “one of our spotter-planes found it over
four miles away.”
“In the hands of one of the aliens…” Bernard said.
How odd. Why would one of the aliens be clutching its own power
supply during a crash? Had it been attempting repairs in mid-flight?
“I want this moved to a laboratory where we can control the security,”
Bolander said, giving Indy a sour look.
“And I say no one’s moving that thing until I know precisely what it is,”
the General said, sounding like one who had had this argument many times
before.
“We don’t have time, General,” Bolander snapped. “Do you realize how
difficult it’s been to keep this discovery quiet? In four days we’ve managed
to keep a lid on this thing with the press as well as clear evidence over
twenty square miles.” He pointed to a map on the wall. “You’ve had your
chance to study it here. Tomorrow morning this entire area must be
evacuated. Remember —” His eyes flitted to Indy and he grimaced.
“Remember Roswell.”
 Indy remembered Roswell, and so did everyone else in the country. The
General frowned but nodded consent, accepting his defeat. “Dr. Jones,” he
said, “do you think you can pinpoint what this thing says?”
Indy studied the intricate markings some more. The “power” reference
had been simple enough to decode, but the rest not so much. “There’s no
discernible pattern,” he said. “The languages are all mixed together.”
“We’re working with a computer to codify the different languages,”
Elaine said, “but it’s been slow going.”
“How much time, Dr. Jones?” the General pressed, ignoring her.
Indy was both amused and frustrated by the man’s urgency. “You’re
talking about codes that have never been cracked.”
“Give us two days,” Elaine said.
“You have twelve hours,” the General said. He turned and left the
containment room.

***

It was a race against the clock as Indy, Elaine, and technicians began the
painstaking process of recording data in a work tent. Symbols were noted.
Computer cards were stamped. In a nearby computer trailer, a technician
fed stacks of cards into a huge computer, which rapidly counted the
signatures on each card and recorded the data on spools of computer tape.
At Elaine’s direction a military photographer took pictures of the
inscriptions.
Indy wanted to talk to her. He wanted to come to grips with what had
happened—she’d left him at the altar and he’d found out she was a spy —
fine, a specialist if she preferred, and now they were working together on a
top secret government project involving aliens. Okay, so it wasn’t all that
complicated, or even all that unusual by his standards, but he still felt a bit
overwhelmed. They couldn’t talk about it, though, because they needed to
devote complete attention to their work.
After he clarified one important detail.
“So,” he said, not looking up from his work and trying to sound casual,
speaking just loudly enough for her to hear him over the German-accented
chatter around them, “you and Bolander aren’t married, right?”
He could almost feel her rolling her eyes. “No, Indy,” she said. “It’s just
helpful sometimes, as a woman trying to be taken seriously in my line of
work, to have real or perceived connections.”
Indy nodded to himself. “Just friends. Great.”
Now Elaine sounded even more exasperated. “I didn’t say we were
friends. Forget about him, okay, Indy?”
He had many more questions, but he found their work engrossing
enough to hold off a while longer. He hadn’t had a challenge like this for a
while and the old thrill of decoding cryptic ancient writings was flooding
back. Sharing it with the woman he loved made it that much better.
“Numbers,” he mumbled. “Lots of numbers.”
“And in pairs,” she said, pointing. “The Assyrian pairs are grouped here
—Mayan here, Egyptian here—”
“And no two the same. It’s a lousy way to write an instruction manual.”
He had to wonder why, if this thing was from space, it was written in Earth
languages. Had these creatures been to Earth before? Had they learned
these languages from Earthlings, or taught them to them?
Indy shook his head in frustration and looked away for a moment. As he
did, the map on the wall caught his eye.
“Unless,” he continued, an idea dawning, “it isn’t a manual at all.”

***

Out in the New Mexico desert, in the growing light of dawn, two figures on
horseback rode slowly across the high desert plain, seemingly oblivious to
the chill night air. They approached a roadblock guarded by two MPs sitting
in a Jeep and listening to the radio. As they drew closer, the soldiers
climbed out with their rifles and flashlights at the ready.
“Halt,” the first said. “This is a restricted area.”
As the two figures stopped their horses just within range of the
flashlight beams, they became recognizable as two cowboys. The younger
one leaned forward in his saddle and expertly spit a stream of tobacco juice.
“We just come to see what all the commotion’s about,” he drawled.
“Maneuvers,” the second soldier said, a little too quickly.
The older cowboy straightened in his saddle and stared out across the
plain. “Ain’t heard any artillery,” he said. “You boys working on a secret
weapon or something?”
The two soldiers shared a nervous look. Their superiors hadn’t done
much to prepare them for civilian confrontations.
 “Look here, fellas,” the first said, “I’m sorry you came all this way for
nothing, but we’re going to have to ask you to turn around and leave.” He
gestured ever so slightly with his rifle as he said this, hoping to get the hint
across.
“Why?” the older cowboy said, not seeming intimidated in the slightest.
“Afraid we might be Ruskie spies or somethin’?”
The two cowboys shared a laugh, and the soldiers couldn’t help joining
in. Then suddenly the young cowboy stopped laughing and said to his
companion, “Oni dolzhny byt’.“
The soldiers froze at the sound of the strange tongue.
“What did he say?” one of them demanded.
The older cowboy drew a silenced pistol and aimed at the two soldiers.
“He said, ‘They should be.’”
Before the soldiers could unsling their rifles the older cowboy shot them
both cleanly in the head. He blew the smoke from the barrel, spun the pistol
around his finger and returned it to his holster with the dashing flair of an
American movie cowboy.
Then he dismounted and began changing into one of the dead soldiers’
uniforms. “Come on, Veska,” he said in Russian, “get moving.”
His younger companion dismounted as well, glad to be off the horse,
and rubbed his sore bottom. “I don’t understand how John Wayne does it,”
he muttered.
 CHAPTER SEVEN

The lights of the main tent burned brightly in the predawn void. Soldiers
patrolled the perimeter, listening to a chorus of coyotes in the distance that
gave an unsettling tone to the encampment.
Inside the tent, Indy gestured at a US Geological Survey map of this
part of New Mexico as he spoke. “The wreckage of the saucer was here,”
he said, marking the site with a pen. “The device and the dead alien were
found—” he drew a straight line nearly four miles away “—here.”
He looked up at Bolander, the General, Dr. Bernard, and Elaine, who
were listening with varying degrees of interest.
“Interesting, Dr. Jones,” Bernard admitted, “but what does this have to
do with the calculations?”
“Coordinates, Doctor, not calculations,” Indy said. “They’re
geographical coordinates.” He drew another line to a distant mountain.
“The numbers correlate to Mount Keemo,” Elaine explained. “They’re
the exact longitude, latitude…”
“The mountain has long been associated with gods of various Indian
religions,” Indy said. “Sacrifices were once made there. Even the Spanish,
in 1525, noted strange lights around the summit.” Before, he’d dismissed
that account as some kind of natural phenomenon, but now he had second
thoughts in spite of himself.
Bolander was not impressed. “Oogie boogie stories, Dr. Jones,” he said.
 “Besides, Dr. Jones,” Bernard said, in a somewhat more polite tone,
“this isn’t the only area of supposed contact with extraterrestrial life. There
are similar purported sites in Peru, Egypt, China… The fact that these
numbers match is just a coincidence.”
Indy didn’t understand why people who claimed to have a crashed alien
spacecraft were being so skeptical, but he was prepared anyway. “Is it?” he
said, and pulled out another map, this one of the whole world. Sites were
marked in several countries.
“The numbers on the device that we can translate correspond with these
longitudes and latitudes,” Elaine said. “In every case… it is a mountain.”
This information unsettled the others, even Bolander.
“Apparently,” Indy said, “he was trying to return that thing to the
mountain.”
“Why?” the General asked.
“We don’t know for sure,” Indy admitted.
“And what happens,” Bolander said, trying to sound merely curious, “if
you don’t return it to the mountain?”
Now they were getting to the crux of the matter. “The writings warn of
dark consequences.”
The General raised an eyebrow. “Such as?”
“Visits of fire-breathing serpents,” Elaine said. “Monsters. Dragons with
fire coming from their eyes. Something like that. We don’t know how literal
it is.”
“It reminds me of a crystal cylinder the British found at Stonehenge
over twenty years ago,” Indy said. “At that place it opened a dimensional
gateway with monsters inside. Those were literal enough.” He saw that
Bolander and Bernard didn’t believe him. He wouldn’t have either if he
hadn’t been there. “What we do know,” he continued, “is that a tremendous
power is to be unleashed at that place.”
“What kind of power?” the General said, making no effort to hide his
increasing concern. “I mean, are we talking about end of the Earth stuff
here?”
“We’ve entered a lot of data into the computer,” Elaine said. “It’ll take a
while to find out.”
“Whoever, whatever developed this, didn’t want humans fooling with
it,” Indy said.
“Stories to scare a primitive people,” Bernard said.
 Indy looked at the scientist with bemusement. He’d seen enough
“stories” of this ilk that ended up being all too real. “With all due respect,
Dr. Bernard, you haven’t a clue what you’ve got.”
Bernard didn’t flinch. “When the first man found fire, Dr. Jones, did he
refuse to use it because he didn’t understand what he had? We may not
understand this today, but that doesn’t mean we should give it back.”
“Give it back to whom?” the General said. “We haven’t had any more
sightings.”
“You should also consider the possibility that you may need to destroy
it,” Indy said. “That’s how I had to deal with the crystal cylinder. It was
heartbreaking, but—”
“Even more risky,” Elaine interrupted him. “We don’t know what kind
of power that might unleash. It could be worse than splitting the atom.”
“We’re not giving it back and we’re not destroying it,” Bernard said
impatiently. “It’s ours. But I agree that the device should not be moved until
we know more.”
Suddenly an explosion outside the tent jolted the group. Indy opened the
flap to see smoke billowing out of the computer trailer. Technicians leaped
from the trailer, fanning the smoke. One of them called back to the
scientists, “We’ve blown a tube in the computer!”
Indy and the others stepped outside to watch the work being done.
General McIntyre scowled, then turned to Indy. “When will we know more,
Colonel?”
“It will take us a while with the computer out,” Indy said.
The General’s scowl deepened. “As soon as possible,” he said, making
it sound almost like a threat. He and Bernard moved off to inspect the
damage.
Elaine squeezed Indy’s hand. “I’m going back in,” she said, and re-
entered the tent before he had a chance to say anything.
Indy decided to wait a moment before rejoining her. Looking around
and trying to clear his mind, he spotted the photographer and waved him
over. “Finish the photos and get me the prints as soon as possible,” he said.
“Yes sir,” the photographer said and moved off.
Indy stared at the horizon and thought for a moment. Truth be told,
though he’d gotten engrossed in this project, he was more than happy to
take a breather. Things had been moving quickly and, if the experience of
hundreds of adventures was any indication, they would accelerate further
still before long. Adventures didn’t care that he was getting older. He would
probably still be having them when he was ninety, although he might just
end up recounting his previous ones to anyone who would listen. He
seemed to be doing that a lot lately too.
He was distracted by an immense glow on the horizon, as if the sun
were rising in a sped-up filmstrip. But this glow didn’t give him a warm
feeling; it only made him shiver from something more than the night air.
“Testing the bomb.”
Indy realized he was not alone. He turned to see Bolander standing next
to him, staring off at the horizon with a look of pride on his face.
Indy grunted. “Testing it, huh? Why bother? Seems to me it worked
well enough at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.”
Bolander raised an eyebrow. “I take it you’re not a fan of the bomb, Dr.
Jones…”
“I’m not,” Indy said curtly, and he was in no mood for a conversation
with anyone who was. As if he needed another reason to dislike this man.
“Don’t worry,” Bolander said, “it’s over fifty miles away. If what you
said back there is true, it may be a thing of the past.”
“It’s just a race to you, isn’t it, Bolander?”
Bolander looked at him as if he were a child asking stupid questions.
“It’s always been a race, Jones,” he said. “If anyone should understand that,
you should. As long as there’s been civilization it’s been a race for power.
Nothing’s changed.”
“Except the stakes,” Indy said, almost to himself. A sinking feeling
came into the pit of his stomach. On countless occasions he’d stopped
foreign governments—Nazis, Communists, fascists, imperial Japanese—
from using powerful artifacts for conquest or domination. But it had never
occurred to him that he might someday be faced with his own government
attempting the same thing. As the familiar atomic mushroom cloud formed
and caught the first rays of the sun, he wondered where his loyalties would
lie.
Bolander smiled as if enjoying his silent ethical dilemma, though he
would surely have Indy clapped in irons if he knew anything about it. “The
atom is our friend, Jones,” he said. “Remember that.”
He left. Indy stared after him for a while, then started back toward the
tent. In the corner of his eye he noticed the photographer moving away on
the other side. He watched that man for a minute too, then entered.
 Instantly he knew something was wrong. Elaine was missing, and so
was the alien device. “Elaine?” he called out, a lump rising in his throat.
There was no answer.

***

As another glow came over the horizon, this time from the sun, Veska
moved around the side of another tent. He dumped his camera, then
removed the mysterious power cylinder from his photographer’s coat and
stared at it in triumph. Suddenly a shadow fell over him, and he looked up
to see Indy pointing a .45 at his chest.
“I’ll take that,” Indy said, and snatched the device away from the
startled spy.
No sooner had he done so then he felt the barrel of another gun pressed
to the small of his back. “As fast as always, Indiana,” a calm Russian voice
said, “but alas, no smarter.”
He recognized the voice. It was a voice that, despite the many dime-a-
dozen adversaries he’d dealt with over the years, still managed to send a
chill or two down his spine. “Cheslav,” he muttered. “I should have
known.”
Cheslav pushed him into the tent, where Elaine was tied up at the foot
of a table. He was briefly reminded of another woman in another tent in
another desert, about a decade ago. He’d abandoned that woman, but he’d
learned his lesson. He would never abandon this one, not to save the world,
not for anything, and he would kill these bastards if they’d done anything to
her.
“Just like the old days, Indy,” Cheslav said, “except this time you’re on
the wrong side.”
“I always felt like you wished I was,” Indy said.
Elaine looked from her captor to her fiancé in surprise. “You know this
person?”
“His name is Vadim Cheslav. He’s with the MGB, or whatever they’re
calling it this week. Not sure who this other clown is.”
“You’re Russian?” she asked Cheslav. “But your dialect—it’s
excellent.”
He gave her a slight yet charming bow. “Thank you, Dr. McGregor.
Coming from a linguist of your stature, that’s a great compliment.” He took
the power device from Indy and tossed it to his partner. “Indy, meet Veska. I
warned my boss about you and he insisted I have a partner.”
“I’d be careful with that thing, Cheslav,” Indy said. “I wouldn’t move it
if I was you.”
“I appreciate your concern, Indy,” Cheslav said. “But unfortunately, I
have to move it if I’m to get it to Moscow.”
“Moscow?” Elaine repeated incredulously. “You can’t possibly think
you’re going to be able to walk right out of here undetected?”
He shrugged. “Why not? That was exactly how we walked in. By the
way, for that horse you rode here, Indy, you’re welcome. It wasn’t easy to
find another on such short notice.”
“That was a Commie horse?” Indy said. “No carrots for him after all.”
It wasn’t one of his better jokes, so he didn’t take it personally when the
Russians didn’t crack a smile. Veska pulled what appeared to be an ordinary
lighter from his pocket, but then pressed a button that caused a tiny needle
to pop out of the metal housing.
“The poison take only seconds,” Cheslav assured him.
The younger spy jabbed the lighter at Indy, but Indy grabbed his arm
and they crashed across the table. Elaine, having loosened her bonds while
the men were distracted, chose this moment to jump to her feet, kick
Cheslav in the shin, and make a break for the door. Before she could exit,
an MP blocked her path and saw the scuffle. “What’s going on here?” he
demanded, drawing his sidearm.
“Stop him!” Elaine cried. “He’s a spy!”
Veska broke free of Indy’s grip and lunged at the MP, burying the
poison needle in his eye. Cheslav reached for his silenced pistol. Indy
knocked it from his hand but Cheslav, with a flurry of swift karate moves,
sent him crashing into the table again.
“Until we meet again, Indy,” he said, giving a polite nod as he grabbed
Elaine and ducked out of the tent.
Indy grabbed the .45 from the MP already laying dead on the ground
and rushed out of the tent, blinking into the sunlight, to see Cheslav’s car
already churning up clouds of dust as it headed toward the gate. He fired at
it and blew out one of its taillights.
Inside the car, Veska floored it as Elaine struggled to get free of
Cheslav’s grip in the back seat. Cheslav opened a knapsack and removed a
switching device. He hit three of the switches on it, and three corresponding
explosions rocked the camp behind them. As he was about to hit the final
switch, Elaine knocked the device from his hands and out the window.
“Very brave, but foolish,” he said, and slapped her hard.
The explosions had sent the camp into confusion. General McIntyre and
Bolander rushed out of their tents to find Indy coughing through the smoke
and gesticulating wildly at the escaping vehicle. “Russians,” he said when
he could get a breath. “They’ve got Elaine!”
“Stop that car!” Bolander yelled.
“Don’t worry,” the General said, looking more relaxed, “they can’t get
away.”
A staff car zoomed up and Bolander climbed in. “Hey, wait!” Indy
yelled, but Bolander didn’t. Leaving him and the General, both cars roared
toward the guard house, with the driver of Bolander’s car trying to close the
gap between them. Outside the guard house, an MP lowered the gate and
blew his whistle at them to stop. Veska ignored him and aimed right at the
gate. Cheslav pulled a grenade and tossed it into the road behind them.
The MPs dove for cover as Cheslav’s car crashed through the gate and
the grenade exploded, leaving a crater in the center of the road. Bolander’s
car plowed into it and the next three vehicles crashed into each other,
blocking the exit from camp. Indy realized he didn’t particularly enjoy
watching the action without being in the middle of it. Commie or not, he
was missing that horse about now.
Bolander climbed out of the crater and tried to direct the pursuit with
hand signals. Obeying him, a truck smashed down the barbed wire fence
surrounding the camp and four Jeeps with mounted machine guns followed
Cheslav’s staff car.
Back at the crash site, a Bell bubble helicopter had begun warming up.
“This way, Jones!” the General called, waving him over. Indy wasn’t about
to question the order, and climbed in after him as it lifted off the ground. He
risked a glance at the destruction and chaos below as they pulled away.
Same old Cheslav.
They scanned the horizon for a moment, and then Indy spotted
Cheslav’s car on the road below, a plume of dust rising behind it, with
easily a mile lead on the Jeeps following it. “There he is.”
The helicopter dropped down to road level as the route began winding
into the mountains. The ’49 Ford wheeled around the twists and turns but
the helicopter, able to go as the crow flies, was gaining. Cheslav popped out
the window and fired at them, forcing the pilot to veer away just as the
spies’ car disappeared into a tunnel in the mountain.
“We’ll get him on the other side,” the General said.
The pilot pulled up and the helicopter lifted over the mountain. What
they saw on the other side made the General and Indy both pause.
“Damn…” the General said.
It was a huge Army missile testing base with at least thirty identical ‘49
Fords parked inside the entrance. Indy groaned. This would be worse than
the basket chase in Cairo.
He jumped out before the helicopter’s skids had touched the ground and
began searching for Cheslav as the General notified the guard at the gate.
An alarm sounded, gates dropped and soldiers ran from the barracks. Indy
ignored them, moving from car to car, opening doors, searching, trying to
be quick but not to miss anything important. Sloppiness could be as fatal for
Elaine as slowness. He passed one car, then returned, checking the taillight
—it was shattered.
“Indy!”
The car was useless. He looked up in time to see Cheslav, Elaine and
Veska moving into a security area. He rushed after them.
Turning a corner, he found a dead end and a concrete bunker. A bullet
zinged past his head and he jumped back, looking up in time to see Veska
enter the bunker. Judging by the fact that the bullet hadn’t gone through his
head, the spy probably wanted him to follow, which meant that he shouldn’t
—but he needed to get Elaine one way or another. Though lacking a gun of
his own—his trusted old Webley, or his Smith and Wesson, or even a
Beretta would have made him happy at this point—Indy wasted no time.
His fists and bullwhip would have to suffice.
The door clicked shut behind him. The bunker was devoid of furniture
or supplies. It had three smooth concrete walls with a funnel opening in the
ceiling, like a chimney. The fourth wall of the bunker was metal and
covered with four large metallic discs, and its upper part opened up to
reveal the sky. Veska was climbing it.
Indy bounded across the room and pulled him to the floor, sending his
gun flying. “Where is she?”
Veska gave him an evil smile. Indy knocked the smile off his face.

***
Inside a simple control room, two technicians had just finished lunch.
“Okay, Phillips,” one said, dabbing the last bits of mustard off his lips,
“begin pre-ignition.” They could hear the alarm outside, of course, but it
had gone off by mistake several times and they were tired of checking on it.
Someone else would take care of it soon.

***

Inside the bunker, steam began to rise from the “discs.” Indy suddenly
realized the fourth “wall” was actually the business end of a rocket sled. In
that moment of distraction, Veska knocked him to the floor and scrambled
back up the side of it.

***

The first technician put on his headset and seated himself in front of the
console. “Okay, all systems are go. Let’s get this baby down the track. Start
countdown…”
Phillips flipped the switch and, watching the second hand of the clock,
began counting. “Ten. Nine. Eight…”
Indy climbed the wall after the spy.
“Four… three…”
Veska climbed out of the bunker and started to scramble across the top
of the rocket sled just as Indy pulled himself to the top as well—
“One… Ignition.” Phillips hit another switch.
The four rockets ignited with a deafening roar, filling the concrete
bunker with intense exhaust that blasted out the chimney top. The rocket
sled catapulted from the bunker at one hundred miles an hour down the
track with Indy and Veska clinging for dear life to the metal chassis. Indy’s
face rippled from the G-forces, and his grip began to slip. He strained for a
better hold.
Veska, in a sheltered indention of the metal skeleton, saw his grip
slipping and tried to kick him off, his boot grinding Indy’s fingers against
the metal. Indy grimaced but held on. He’d had plenty of practice. Veska
tried again, harder this time, and Indy slipped back toward the flaming
rockets before regaining a hold. The heat on his back was less than
comfortable. He looked around for something, anything to use as a weapon.
Veska saw how close Indy was to the burners and tried one more time to
knock him loose, but this time Indy was ready. Just as Veska raised his boot,
Indy let go with one hand, yanked a rubber hose from the engine and
sprayed hot oil over the spy.
Screaming in pain, Veska lost his grip. His body whipped past Indy
through the flaming burners, which ignited the oil and toasted him instantly.
Veska’s crisped remains flew away along with the dust behind the speeding
rocket.
Indy put his free hand back down, but his own grip was still slipping.
Looking around without distractions now, he saw a conduit marked
“OXYGEN INTAKE” and pulled that hose as well. The engine and the four
burners immediately snuffed out just as he lost his hold and flew off the
back.
Indy hit the ground hard, rolled away from the track, and came to a stop
where he laid motionless for a couple minutes. The ringing in his ears
dissipated and the pounding in his heart lessened. Slowly he raised his head.
The desert was a mirage. Through the waves of heat he saw an ambulance
and a car approaching before he dropped, exhausted.
The vehicles pulled up next to Indy. Two men hurried out of the
ambulance and rushed over to him. He tried to open his eyes and get a look
at them, but the men stood directly in front of the blinding sun. They spoke
in Russian, but one of the voices sounded familiar. It didn’t have a Russian
accent. “Put him in the trunk,” it said. “We will need him.”
“How will we get out of here?” the driver asked.
“Go west across the desert. You’ll be met in Harmond in four hours.”
Indy tried to raise his head again—he needed to see the man with the
familiar voice, and ideally get out of here and find Elaine—when the driver
hit him with a blackjack. This is getting a little old, he thought as
everything went dark.

***

Indy had been in the trunks of enough cars to recognize his surroundings
not long after regaining consciousness. It was dark, hot and thoroughly
cramped, but at least he was still in one piece. Inside the car, through the
wall, he could make out the Russian voices, not including the one that had
sounded familiar, and the radio flipping back and forth between news and a
local Country Western station.
As the passenger, unseen by Indy, studied a map and occasionally
glanced at the dash-mounted compass reading due West, the driver sang
along with the radio. “My heart is broken in two… by you—”
The other spy wrinkled his nose and switched the channel again. “How
can you listen to that garbage?”
“I like it,” the driver said defensively. “One of America’s few
redeeming qualities.”
The other spy rolled his eyes, but he was more concerned about the
map. He consulted the compass again. “Something’s wrong…” He frowned.
“We should be there by now.”
“We are going right. See… west.” The driver pointed to the compass.
“Yes, but…” The second spy regarded the instrument with a look of
distrust, then out his window. “If we’re going west… then why is the sun
over here?”
The first spy leaned over to see the sun. He wasn’t the sharpest tool in
the shed, but he was fairly certain the sun’s trajectory should remain
consistent between this hemisphere and the one he had left. As realization
dawned, he thumped the compass with his fist. The “S” swung around to
show true South. It had been stuck.
The second spy let fly a string of Russian obscenities. “You idiot. Now
you’ve done it—we’re lost!”
“Great,” Indy said to himself.
He rolled painfully onto his back and caught a whiff of something
disgusting. He yanked at a blanket next to him, revealing what he could just
make out in the darkness as the toasted form of Veska.
“Great,” Indy repeated.
On second thought, maybe it actually was. He reached into Veska’s
pocket and his fingers closed around the pseudo-lighter, melted into a lump
but still recognizable. He took it out, pushed the button to pop out the
needle, covered Veska back up and got to work on the latch of the trunk
with his new tool. With a little jiggling it popped open, and he carefully
watched the scenery they were passing by. Sand, sand, the occasional
sagebrush or cactus, and sand.
 As soon as an opportunity presented itself, he sprang out and rolled
behind a stand of cacti so the spies wouldn’t see him in their rearview
mirror. He knew he would rather take his chances with desert survival than
with Cheslav’s minions, and besides, he needed to get back to Elaine.

***

A little while later, the car reached the top of a hill and looked out on a vista
with a town of newly-built houses sitting far below. As it pulled closer, it
passed a carefully hand-lettered sign that said BOOMSBURG. Please Drive
Carefully. Speed Limit 25.
“Boomsburg.” The passenger spy consulted the map. “I don’t see it.”
“Well, it looks new,” the driver spy said. “Maybe it’s not on the map
yet.” He pointed out the window. “There’s a phone.”
They pulled into a gas station. There was no activity, but inside the
office, an attendant dozed with his feet up on the desk and a baseball cap
pulled over his eyes. The second spy gave him a contemptuous glance, then
headed to the pay phone. He reached into his pockets and found them
empty. “Hey, I need some change!”
Rolling his eyes, the other spy came over and plugged some change into
the phone. They picked up and dialed “0,” but the line was dead. The first
spy clicked the receiver. Nothing. Capitalism in action, he figured.
He hung up and looked around. Peering inside the gas station, he
noticed something that had escaped his notice before. “Hey, that gas station
attendant is a mannequin!”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” his companion said, but as he looked he fell
silent.
Just then a siren started to wail, and it didn’t sound like a fire truck or a
police car.
Both men glanced at each other. “Uh… oh…”
They bolted for the car.
Driving like bats cut of hell, they sped out of town and across the desert.
As the town faded behind them, they began to relax—until they passed a
sign that said ENTERING TWO MILE ATOMIC BLAST ZONE.
The two men exchanged another look, realizing they had once again
gone the wrong way.
 The driver slammed on the brake and spun the steering wheel just as the
sky in front of them flashed white and a heat wave incinerated the car.
Though they were no longer around to hear it, a monstrous clap of thunder
from the shock wave followed, blowing out the fire and lifting the charred
vehicle like a feather, tossing it back toward the town.
As the shock wave roared across the desert and hit the town, its cars,
gas pumps, signs, mailboxes, roofs, street signs, fuel tanks, everything not
bolted down were propelled ahead of the blast. When it touched houses, the
impact blew out walls and ripped off roofs, leaving only foundations.
Miles away, Indy looked back at the mushroom cloud rising into the
sky. He had seen such a cloud in black and white, in photographs and
newsreels, of course, but never for real, never so close. His knees shook in
spite of himself. Incredible destructive power, and did the people who held
it know how to use it responsibly? Was there a way to use it responsibly?
He didn’t think he could answer either of those questions in the affirmative.
He turned away. To his relief, an Army vehicle was approaching. He
flagged it down.
 CHAPTER EIGHT

Scalding water showered down on Indy’s skin as it was scrubbed raw by a

decontamination team in white suits and masks. They seemed determined to
take revenge on every bit of dirt that had ever touched him since he was
born. Normally he would have tried to make conversation while stuck in a
place for so long, but in this particular place it felt a bit awkward. And the
scrubbers didn’t shy away from his awkward places either.
Finally the leader of the team signaled, the water stopped and Indy was
allowed to move stiffly out of the shower. The scrub had left him red all
over, but at least he wasn’t a pile of irradiated dust. The team leader
checked him over with a hand-held Geiger counter, which didn’t beep.
“Clean,” he declared.
“I’d better be after that,” Indy said. “That’s as close as I ever want to get
to a nucular blast. But supposing I ever did,” he added out of more than
simple curiosity, “what should I do?”
The team leader looked at his companions, who all shrugged. He looked
back at Indy. “Well, I suppose you could climb into a fridge or something,”
he said.
“And that would keep me safe?”
The others laughed nervously.
“Not likely,” the team leader said, “but it would cool you off, and you
wouldn’t see the end coming.”
 With that comforting thought, Indy stepped into the dressing area where
the General and Bolander sat waiting for him. Without wasting time on
greetings he said, “It was Cheslav.”
“Impossible,” Bolander said. “Our people have Cheslav under
surveillance in Bulgaria right—”
“Well, your people are wrong. I know him from the war. Where is
Elaine?”
“She’s, ah, disappeared,” the General said, looking sheepish.
“Disappeared?” Indy said, his temper rising even as his spirits sank.
“How could she disappear at a top security military base?”
“We were wondering the same thing, Dr. Jones,” Bolander said, his eyes
boring into him.
Indy scowled at him. “And what’s that supposed to mean?” He finished
toweling off and began to dress.
“Could it be that your associations with the Russians are more than just
passing acquaintance?” Bolander mused, sounding as casual as if he were
discussing the weather. “Your background has always been suspect, Jones.”
Indy moved toward Bolander with such speed that the OSS man backed
away. “Listen, baby breath,” he snapped, “I’m the one who was in the trunk
of the car, remember? You’ve got a mole in this operation, but it isn’t me.
Cheslav knew exactly what he was after. Somebody was helping him.”
“Did you get a look at him?” the General asked.
“No…” Indy said. “But I recognized his voice. He spoke Russian, but
with a German accent.” Who could that be? It was on the tip of his tongue,
but he’d dealt with so many Germans in his life that they all blurred
together now. “Hand me that shirt,” he said, reaching for it.
Bolander started to hand it to him, then stopped, seeming hesitant to get
close to him after his brush with radioactivity.
Indy smiled at the man. “The atom is our friend, Bolander, remember?”
Bolander handed him the shirt at arm’s length.
“A German accent?” the General said. “Great. That rules out all but
about two hundred of the scientists I got around here.”
“Something else, Jones…” Bolander said. “Those calculations Elaine
was working on when the computer went down came back.” He handed the
computer printout to Indy.
As Indy read it, his face tightened. This wasn’t good. This wasn’t good
at all.
 “What is it?” the General asked.
“She was right…” Indy said. “The numbers represent a descending
scale…”
“A descending scale?”
“A countdown.”
The General looked a little flustered. “You mean it’s… a bomb? We’ve
got to find it.”
“Find Elaine and we’ll find it,” Indy said. He hardly gave a damn about
the bomb, or whatever it was, while she was missing. He could worry about
it after he found her, and they’d already wasted enough time. He started to
the door, but two MPs blocked his path.
“We’ll take it from here, Dr. Jones,” Bolander said behind him.
Indy spun around. “What?”
“You’re under arrest,” Bolander explained.
“For what?” Indy demanded, wanting to wring the man’s neck. This was
no time for jokes.
“Conspiracy of espionage,” Bolander said, looking just a little smug.
“You are to be sent back to Washington under a military escort.”
“Are you out of your mind?” Indy said. He looked to the General for
support, but McIntyre just spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness.
“I’m sorry, Jones,” he said. “We can’t risk a leak at this stage. Nothing
personal.”
“Take Dr. Jones to the brig,” Bolander said, sounding very personal.
As Indy fumed, the guards handcuffed him and led him out. The last
thing he saw in the room was Bolander looking smug.

***

Indy was led down a hallway toward the hangars where crates of the crash
wreckage were being loaded onto planes. “Wait here,” one of the guards
said, stopping him by the doorway and moving off to find transport.
Indy stood with the second MP and began to plan his escape. He’d
escaped from much tighter spots than this—earlier today, for example—so
his only real concern was doing it quickly enough to track down Elaine. As
he was thinking, he was distracted by a very familiar and unexpected sound
—the voice of the unidentified spy. He was speaking in English, but his
German accent was unmistakable. Indy carefully moved into the doorway
and looked inside.
“I should have known,” he muttered.
Dr. Avril Bernard was supervising the loading of a large crate marked
“HAZARDOUS MATERIAL” onto the back of one of three vehicles. As it
started to slip from the workmen’s grasp, he snapped, “Be careful, you
fools!”
On an impulse, Indy started through the doorway after him, when the
MP grabbed him. “Where do you think you’re going?”
Thinking quickly, Indy pretended to suddenly wrench his ankle.
“Owww!” He bent down to rub it and when the MP bent down too, Indy
gave him a two-fisted undercut, caught the now-unconscious man in his
arm and slipped the handcuff key out of his pocket. Too easy. These
military boys were getting soft.
Bernard signaled the two drivers, then climbed into a Jeep between
them. As the mini-convoy pulled away, the third driver shifted into gear and
his fuel truck fell in line with the other two vehicles. He didn’t notice Indy
running after him.
Outside at the gate, a guard looked over Bernard’s papers and motioned
the three vehicles out of the base. As the fuel truck pulled through, he didn’t
notice Indy holding onto the railing of its roof.
The three vehicles roared along the desert road. Bernard stared at his
watch and looked to the sky. He motioned to the driver to take a dirt ranch
road, and the Jeep turned onto it.
A few miles later, the mini-convoy pulled into a decrepit gas station off
the old dirt road. The wind blew through screenless windows. A pair of
ancient gas pumps standing guard at the front were the closest thing to any
sign of life. The convoy stopped and Bernard brushed the dust from his coat
as a cloud, churned up by the tires, billowed over them.
Indy, still clinging to the roof, was completely coated in dust. He spat it
out of his mouth and then froze as he heard a car approach. It also stopped
by the gas station. Cheslav climbed out. A moment later, another Russian
pulled Elaine from the back and brought her to face Bernard.
Seeing her, Indy suppressed the urge to leap down and take on the
whole lot of them at once. That wouldn’t do her any good right now, and he
needed answers.
 Elaine wanted some answers too. “What did you do with Indy?” she
demanded.
“Alas, Dr. Jones was in an accident,” Bernard said. “All I can tell you is
that it was over quickly.”
Elaine turned pale. “Indy’s dead?”
“Yes,” Bernard said. “Very.”
Elaine seemed unable to speak for a moment; then she regained her
composure and her face hardened. She knew her duty and that was just
another thing Indy loved about her. “Right this minute,” she said, “every
soldier in the state is out looking for that device.”
“That may be so, Doctor,” Cheslav said, “but they aren’t looking here.”
He stepped and cocked his ear to the sky, then smiled. “It’s coming.”
Elaine listened but didn’t hear anything other than the desert wind.
“What?”
Cheslav didn’t answer, but after a moment the sound of a plane became
audible. He motioned to the guards in the truck. One ran inside the gas
station and reappeared with an orange wind sock.
Indy looked up at the sky and saw a Tupolev TU-4 flying fortress bank
over a distant mountain range and swing toward the area. At just short of
one hundred feet long, with a wingspan nearly one and a half times that
length, it seemed incongruous with the Soviets’ mission of stealth.
However, as a reverse-engineered copy of the Boeing B-29 Superfortress
that had been designed and built on this country’s soil, it appeared right at
home. Only context clued Indy in to the difference this time around.
As the guard climbed to the roof and raised the wind sock from the top
of the gas station, the transport dropped its landing gear and floated down to
the roadway, making a perfect landing.
“Where are we going?” Elaine asked.
“You’ll love Moscow this time of year,” Bernard said. He smiled and
waved to the fuel truck. The fuel driver started the motor and eased it up to
the taxiing aircraft. The plane’s freight door opened, and two Russian crew
members with machine guns climbed down to supervise the loading.
“You won’t get away with this, Cheslav,” Elaine said.
“On the contrary, my dear,” the Russian responded. “You are the one not
getting away.” He motioned for one of the guards to put her on the plane.
The other guard began unloading the crates to be put aboard.
 The fuel truck driver dragged the hose to the wing and started to refuel,
bouncing his knees and looking around idly at the dull, drab scenery. It took
him a moment to realize the fuel had stopped. “Hey,” he called out to the
available guard, “check the line!”
The Russian guard moved to the hose and followed it to the rear of the
truck, where he found a belt tied around the fuel line. “What the —”
He looked up just as Indy’s fist hit him square in the jaw.
Growing impatient, the driver was about to check on the fuel line
himself when suddenly the fuel began flowing again. “That’s good,” he said
to himself.
From behind the truck Indy emerged wearing the Russian guard’s
jacket, cap and parachute and carrying his machine gun. He moved to the
rear door of the aircraft and slipped inside. Simplest thing in the world.
He’d worn so many disguises in his time that sometimes he thought he
should have taken up acting. His father might have preferred that.
As the four propellers started up again outside, he moved among the
boxes in the storage compartment, noting that they were all labeled as U.S.
Army weapons. Maybe this was a Boeing B-29 after all. Whatever, didn’t
matter. The other guard yelled at him to close the door. Indy moved to do
so, but found to his surprise that it wouldn’t budge. He grunted and tried
again. He could have moved it with one hand ten years ago.
The guard yelled at him again. “Yeah, yeah, I’m getting it,” Indy
muttered.
The guard impatiently came back to help; then a look of recognition
dawned on his face as he realized this wasn’t his comrade. Before he could
shout a warning to the others, Indy elbowed him out the door and onto the
ground, then closed it.
“I told you I’d get it,” he said.
Cheslav was watching the plane taxi away when he noticed the guard
laying on the runway. He looked up at the plane just in time to see Indy’s
smiling face through the rear window. The American gave him a wave as it
roared into the sky. Indy had learned the hard way about the potential
consequences of such cockiness, but he knew Cheslav wouldn’t risk a radio
communication with the plane this close to the military base.
In the plane’s main compartment, Bernard lifted the device out of its
case. Two of the rings had changed color, lit up in a bright lime green.
“Every millennium something comes along to propel one civilization light
years ahead of the rest,” he said as he looked it over. “This is it.”
“You have no idea what you’re holding,” Elaine said beside him.
“No,” he admitted, not looking at her, “but we Russians will unlock its
secrets and when we do, we will rule the Earth for centuries. The Earth—
and who knows where else?”
“All this time I trusted you.”
Bernard finally took his eyes off the device, giving her a pitying look.
“You Americans are so foolish,” he said. “You look for the enemy in all the
wrong places. Poets, artists… Take heart that the device is going to a place
where such research is given its place of highest scientific regard.”
“You don’t know what that is,” Elaine said again.
Behind them, unable to hear through the wall, Indy moved through the
cargo hold looking for the device. On the other side, two more Russian
soldiers were taking the American weapons from their crates and examining
them. One picked up a bazooka, put it on his shoulder, tested its weight and
peered down the barrel. The other one chose that moment to walk up behind
him and yell, “BOOM!”
The first soldier jumped back and nearly dropped it. He glared as his
comrade roared with laughter.
Still chuckling, the second soldier noticed Indy and called out to him.
“Hey, Yuri, come see the American weapons.”
Indy froze. This was not an ideal situation. Who would have thought
Soviets could be chummy with each other?
The first soldier narrowed his eyes. “You’re not Yuri.”
Well, so much for that approach. Indy wheeled and aimed his machine
gun at them. “Stay right where you are,” he said in flawless Russian.
Immediately both soldiers throw their hands up. Before he could say
anything else, however, they started laughing. Indy frowned. Had his
Russian been less flawless than he’d thought?
They started toward him. Indy pulled the trigger, but nothing happened.
“We have the same problem with Russian weapons…” one soldier
began.
The second Russian held up the machine gun’s magazine and smiled.
“They only work with bullets.”
They threw open the door to the forward compartment and shoved Indy
inside. “Indy!” Elaine cried out, jumping up from her seat and embracing
him. He was so happy to see her that he returned the embrace, heedless of
the weapons aimed at his back. Everything he had been through faded away,
didn’t matter now that he was finally in her presence.
“Dr. Jones,” Bernard said coolly, “what a surprise.”
“I bet,” Indy said, letting go of Elaine and getting down to business. He
still needed to get her out of here and save the world. “If you’re heading to
Moscow, Bernard, I’d think twice about it. This thing won’t make it.” He
pointed to the device.
“What?” Elaine said, sounding startled despite her own warnings to
Bernard a couple minutes earlier.
“Oh,” Bernard said, “is it a time bomb now, Jones?”
“Take a look at it,” Indy said. “Two of the concentrate rings are lit. The
countdown has begun.”
Bernard barely glanced at it. “We have mountains back in Russia, Dr.
Jones,” he said. “And I’m biased, but I daresay they’re superior to the ones
in your country. What a shame you can’t stay for the trip… something about
a weight problem.” He motioned to one of the soldiers, who stripped off
Indy’s parachute.
A moment later, Indy was being held by both guards in front of a set of
opening bomb bay doors, wind blasting him in the face. This wasn’t the
first time someone had tried to throw him out of a plane—it wasn’t even the
first time someone surnamed Bernard had tried to throw him out of a plane
—so he wasn’t as frightened as he otherwise might have been. “You’re
making a big mistake, Bernard,” he called back. “I hold a grudge.”
“I’m not afraid of ghosts,” Bernard retorted, signaling the Russians to
toss him.
Indy closed his eyes. The plane suddenly rocked, nearly sending all
three of them flying out, then rocked back the other way as the guards
steadied their footing.
Bernard grabbed the radio. “What’s going on?” he demanded.
“Comrade,” came a worried-sounding voice in response, “something is
following us.”
“The Americans?”
“We—don’t know.”
“Lose it!” Bernard motioned the guards to move away from the
opening. “We may need you as a hostage. A temporary reprieve, I assure
you, Dr. Jones.”
 “It always is,” Indy said.

***

At an Air Force tracking facility in Colorado, a radar dish slowly swept

through its usual circle, while inside a fresh-scrubbed but rather bored radar
operator stared at the tiny screen. Day in, day out, he watched the line move
around the circumference of the circle, like a fast clock with no numbers.
He had jumped at the chance to protect his country from danger, but if there
was danger, it wasn’t taking this route and his presence here was
superfluous. Perhaps the only thing worse than the boredom was the feeling
of futility.
But today, right now, for the first time since he’d worked here, a blip
moved rapidly across the screen. It was so fast he almost thought he had
imagined it, but then it moved back the other way. No craft he was aware of
could move, let alone change direction, that quickly. It was probably a
glitch with the machine, or he’d finally begun to lose his mind, but there
was no taking chances. And either scenario would still be more exciting
than the usual routine.
“Sir,” he called out, “I’ve got a blip over Tri-Wing south southeast.”
His shift commander approached and looked over his shoulder. “Do we
have aircraft in that quadrant?”
“Negative,” the operator said, his heart pounding a little. What if it was
something real? What if some new and unfamiliar technology was out
there, above American soil? Another blip appeared, this one moving at a
normal speed, but it hardly seemed important now.
“Scramble intercept,” the commander said, a trace of concern creeping
into his voice.
Almost as soon as he had spoken, two U.S. Sabre Jets roared off the
runway outside, into the sky. The operator wished for a moment that he
were in one of them, then reconsidered. Whatever the drawbacks of this job,
at least it was safe.

***

The pilot and co-pilot had seen something flash past the windshield of the
plane and disappears into the clouds, and they had no idea what it was, but
it didn’t look like any plane they had ever seen. They were craning their
necks to look for it when the clouds ahead of them parted to reveal, coming
straight at them at frightening speed, something out of a nightmare.
They braced themselves for impact, but the flying saucer stopped less
than a hundred feet ahead of them and hovered at the same speed as the
plane, staying just in front of them. It was a silver disc, plain aside from the
ring of lime green lights along the outer edge and the bump in the middle
that probably indicated a control center. It had no visible instruments,
hatches, or windows. And it was easily twice the size of the flying fortress.
“Bozhe moy,” said the pilot, suddenly no longer an atheist.
In the back, Indy, Elaine, Bernard, and the soldiers were tossed about as
the plane rocked and the windows glowed with an eery light. The soldiers
panicked and reached for their weapons, but there was nothing inside to
shoot.
“It’s them,” Elaine said quietly.
Bernard gave her an irritated look to mask his fear. “Who?”
“The aliens…” She gestured at the device. “They want it back.”
 CHAPTER NINE

Indy could have scoffed at Elaine’s assertion under less stressful

circumstances. She hadn’t seen the alleged spaceship, he hadn’t seen the
alleged spaceship—but the light and the jostling of the plane were enough
to make it seem very real at the moment. He certainly didn’t have a better
explanation. His surroundings felt claustrophobic all of a sudden, as if the
plane would shrink until it crushed him inside it.
Bernard grabbed the radio. “Get away from them!”
“I can’t…” came the pilot’s response. From the cockpit, he could barely
make out the shimmers in the air that denoted some kind of energy
emanating from the spaceship, enveloping them. “They’re flying the
plane!”
Bernard pursed his lips together.
“Well, Bernie, we may as well sit back and relax,” Indy said, doing
exactly that. He didn’t feel very relaxed, but his captor didn’t need to know
that.
“Look!” Elaine said, pointing out the window. “Oh no. They’re going to
ruin everything.”
“You Americans excel at that,” Bernard said.

***
Outside, the two Sabre Jets roared across the sky, the distinctive yellow
stripes on their bodies and wings conveying a message of speed and danger.
“This is the United States Air Force,” Sabre One broadcast. “You are in
violation of American airspace—” He looked down, seeing the spaceship
and the Russian plane. “What the?” He switched channels to his wingman.
“Do you see that?”
“I see,” Sabre Two said slowly. “I don’t believe it.”
There would be time to figure out what this strange vessel was later—
some new Russian machine, no doubt. “Repeat,” Sabre One radioed out to
it. “You are in violation of American airspace. Respond or we will engage.”
No answer, not even static. He wasn’t about to wait around and see what
it could do.
“Sabre Two,” he said, “this is Jigsaw Daddy… engaging.”
“Roger that.”
The two jets dropped down on the craft. Running in classic dogfight
style, mortars firing, they made a pass overhead. It wobbled from the hits as
they exploded against its exterior, leaving no visible damage. The jets
banked and came back, this time firing missiles. As they struck the ship it
released the Russian plane from its tractor beam and allowed the pilot to
regain control.
The jets split formation and came at the spaceship from opposite
directions for a final pass, but this time—
“What the?” Sabre Two said. “Where’d it go?”
The saucer reappeared in front of Sabre One. “I’ve got it!” he said. “In
pursuit.”
“On your wing,” Sabre Two assured him.
The Sabre Jets roared one after the other out of the clouds and after the
flying saucer, staying with its every move as it fled before them. Sabre One
moved his finger to fire, but the saucer dipped and dodged, faster than
anything its size had a right to be, just before he could pull the trigger.
“Almost…” he said to himself. “One more second…”
The clouds cleared to reveal a mountain dead ahead. The saucer pulled
up at an impossible angle and the Sabre Jet, unable to follow, rammed into
the face and exploded.
Behind him, Sabre Two pulled up just in time, skimming the top of the
mountain. He stared back at the explosion in disbelief, but there was no
time to mourn his fallen brother. “Where’d you go, you cowardly
sonofabitch?”
As if in response, the saucer appeared in front of him over a mile away.
“Try a taste of this,” he said, emptying both missile racks. The missiles
raced toward the saucer and engulfed it in an explosion larger than the first.
He smiled to himself.
His smile faded when the saucer emerged from the explosion without so
much as a scratch on its hull.
“What the—” he began again, but before the expletive could escape his
lips the saucer fired an orange beam that surrounded his plane and melted it
into oblivion.

***

“Sabre Two, come in Sabre Two, do you copy?” The shift commander
shook his head in disbelief. “Damn it.”
An air of panic was sweeping through the facility. “Did you see how
that thing moved?” someone whispered.
“Scramble more fighters, sir?” someone else asked.
The shift commander shook his head again, as if in a daze. “We don’t
know what we’re up against, what it’s capable of. We need more intel. And
backup.” He ran for the phone and picked it up. “Hello? Get me General
McIntyre.”

***

Inside the Russian plane, Indy and the others still couldn’t see the saucer,
but they watched the second Sabre Jet vanish before their eyes. Bernard,
finally beginning to lose his composure, yelped, “They’re going to kill us!”
“No, they’re not,” Indy said, maintaining his composure despite his own
nervousness. “If they wanted to they would’ve already. Elaine is right—
they want it back.”
Just as quickly as it had surfaced, Bernard’s fear was masked with
defiance. “Never!” He turned to the soldiers. “Shoot it down!”
Trembling, they rushed further toward the back, where the weapons
were.
 “Are you out of your mind?” Elaine said. “If the jets couldn’t stop them,
what can you do?”
“We cannot let them have it,” Bernard said, avoiding the question.
“Technically it is their property,” Indy said. “Maybe we can negotiate.”
“It’s my property,” Bernard said, his eyes wild.
The fourth soldier appeared with the bazooka, now loaded.
“You can’t do that!” Elaine said.
Indy caught her meaning immediately—as bad as the Russians were, at
least they were human and he knew their intentions and their limitations.
The creatures in the saucer, on the other hand, were a mystery. All he knew
was that they seemed to be invincible and would probably just be angered
by any further attempts to destroy them. The conviction in Elaine’s protest
was all it took to propel him into action. He pushed away from the other
solder and lunged at the one with the bazooka, trying to wrest it away from
him.
They were both jostled as the saucer returned to the front of the plane
and again locked on with its tractor beam. In that moment Indy’s finger
brushed the trigger and the weapon went off, taking the other soldier off his
feet and blowing through the door, the cockpit, and the nose of the plane to
hit the saucer head-on.
“Wow,” Indy yelled above his ringing ears and the rush of wind,
“they’ve improved those.”
The saucer, finally showing visible damage, cut the tractor beam and
wobbled off, its lights flickering and its control center trailing smoke. Indy
struggled to his feet as wind rushed through the gaping hole in the empty
cockpit. Any relief he might have felt was short-lived as he exchanged a
look with Bernard and the plane went into a dive.
The wind roaring through the compartment sucked the other Russian
soldier out of the opening. Bernard and Elaine each grabbed onto a seat to
avoid his fate and Indy, in a gesture converted into reflex by now, lashed out
with his bullwhip onto a handle on the wall. With his other hand he
managed to snag the parachute that had been taken from him. In exchange,
his hat flew off.
As he struggled, Bernard was forced to let go of the device and it rolled
away, lodging behind another seat. Elaine saw it and reached for it with one
hand. “I can get it,” she said to herself.
 Indy pulled his other arm through the parachute, then saw her. “Elaine!
No!” Visions of another woman reaching for another priceless artifact
above another fatal drop flashed through his mind, just as they had with the
artifacts on the rafts, but this time their positions were reversed and he
could only hope that Elaine wouldn’t make a hypocrite of herself.
Elaine, fortunately, knew her limits better than Elsa had. “I can’t reach
it!” she cried out.
Bernard watched them for a moment, seeming to calculate his own odds
of getting the device back. Then the seal on his seat ripped free and he flew
from the plane, screaming. Elaine must have weighed slightly less; her own
seat began to come apart as well, giving her a few more inches and allowing
her to grasp the device with her free hand.
“Take my hand!” Indy called out to her. She tried, but there was no way
to do so without letting go of the device. If she let go of the seat instead, she
would be swept out in an instant. “Let it go!” Indy yelled.
“No,” Elaine said. Maybe she was like Elsa after all. A moment later
her seat tore lose and she was sucked outside after Bernard, still holding the
device. “Indyyyyyy!”
Without a moment’s thought, Indy let go of his whip and followed her.
The ground, far below, spun up at them as the wind roared by at 180 feet
per second. Elaine was screaming, her composure gone, unaccustomed to
the gut-wrenching terror of falling. He angled his body toward her, reaching
out with one hand, then trying with the other—
Their eyes locked, and the spinning commotion around them faded
away. Their hands locked next, and Indy knew there wasn’t a moment to
lose. “Hold on!” he said, releasing the parachute with his other hand and
shooting them skyward. He nearly let go as it nearly pulled his arm out of
its socket, and with their combined weight it didn’t slow their fall quite as
much as it was supposed to, but they were safe for the moment. “Oof! Well,
better than a rubber raft, eh?”
“Huh?”
“There was this one time—ah, I’ll tell you later.” He pulled her close
and held her tight, feeling the pounding of her heart. He might never let go
of her again.
Behind them, the plane plummeted to earth and created the third major
explosion of the day. The saucer, still wobbling from the attacks, returned to
hover over the burning wreckage. Now Indy could see it and he couldn’t
deny what he could see, even though his brain had a hard time
comprehending the significance. Even from this distance its massive scale
was obvious, yet it seemed just a little less scary now, less mysterious, more
tangible, something he could analyze and think about.
The aliens—they had to be aliens, because this thing certainly wasn’t
piloted by Belango apes—performed an analysis of their own. Green lights
reached down and scanned the wreckage for a moment, then went out. The
saucer rose slowly and moved away in absolute silence. Then it shimmered
and vanished as if it had been a mirage.
“Back to Mars?” Indy wondered.
“I hope so,” Elaine said. Her heart rate had slowed a little, but she didn’t
sound convinced.

***

“Where the hell did it go?” the shift commander demanded. “Is anyone
picking it up? Anyone?”
All the radar operators murmured and shook their heads.
“General McIntyre wanted us to blow it out of the sky,” he continued.
“He isn’t going to like this.”
The operator who had first spotted the anomaly on his screen didn’t like
it either. He didn’t feel safe anymore.
 CHAPTER TEN

Indy removed the Russian soldier’s uniform in favor of his usual outfit. He
lamented the loss of his bullwhip, but it wasn’t irreplaceable—unlike his
hat, which he wasn’t surprised to find on the ground a few feet away. He
scooped it up, dusted it off, and placed it on his head.
Elaine looked at the ground, up at the sky, and back at the ground.
“How?”
Indy shrugged. “Someone up there must like my style.”
In one direction a trail of smoke marked the plane’s final resting place;
in another, a swarm of buzzards marked what he presumed was Bernard’s.
From the angle of their landing and the position of the sun he determined
that they needed to walk south-southwest to get back to New Mexico. They
had no hope of getting there in time on foot, of course, but even a car
probably wouldn’t be fast enough. They would need to get hold of the
Army base and have another plane pick them up. That would raise the little
issue of him resisting arrest and escaping, but he could deal with that when
the time came. The highest priority now that he had Elaine was to save the
world.
They walked in silence for a few hours, keeping up a moderate pace to
conserve moisture, each unwilling to broach the discussion of what they
had just seen. Indy was less sobered by the existence of extraterrestrial life
per se—it seemed logical that other planets somewhere in the universe
would be inhabited, after all—than by the fact that it was here, and by what
it had shown itself to be capable of.
Elaine was the first to break the silence. “You have family around here,
yeah?”
Indy winced. “I’m not sure where ‘here’ is, exactly, but yeah. I’d like to
visit them when all this is over, but they might still be upset about the
wedding…” He cursed herself when he saw the look of guilt that came over
her face, and changed the subject quickly. “I met another guy too, an old
Indian who called himself Aguila or Changing Man.” He told her about the
vision quest and the transforming and the eagles. He hadn’t mentioned it
before because telling her that an eagle told him to marry her, in a manner
of speaking, might have come across the wrong way.
Elaine raised an eyebrow. “Sounds like quite a character,” she said.
“After so many run-ins with the supernatural, you must not even get
surprised anymore.”
“I shouldn’t,” Indy agreed.
“So why were you so skeptical about the aliens?” Elaine said, getting a
little huffy. “They’re not even that strange compared to some of the things
you’ve told me. You acted like I was some kind of idiot for taking them
seriously.”
“I apologize,” Indy said. “The thing is, Elaine, I’m a scientist. I will
always be a scientist. That means looking for the rational, logical
explanations first, and only falling back on the supernatural when I have no
alternative, no matter how many supernatural things I’ve run into before.
Does that make sense?”
“Yeah, it does,” Elaine said. “I don’t think there’s a distinction, though.
Not in the mind of God, anyway. Someday our science will figure out the
things we now deem ‘supernatural.’” She thought about it for a moment.
“Really, the aliens are just beings like us with more advanced technology.
No unscientific fallbacks necessary.”
“Are they really like us at all, though?” Indy wondered.
They lapsed back into silence. He was tired of thinking about it, and he
was tired in general, and he was hot, and he was thirsty. As yet there was no
sign of civilization. He hoped Bernard’s buzzards didn’t come after them.
The sun was low in the sky when they started trudging up a deep hill
and Elaine broke the silence again. She clutched the device, on which two
more rings were already lit. “If they wanted it that badly, they’ll keep
hunting for it,” she said.
“No, they won’t,” Indy said, trying to reassure himself as much as her.
“They’ll think it was destroyed.”
“Maybe, and maybe not,” she corrected him. “Who’s to say they don’t
have a way of tracking it? These creatures are too powerful, that’s all we
know. I don’t think they’ll give us time to learn much else.”
With that, Indy’s attempt to reassure himself had failed. “We’ve got to
find a phone and call the base, before we run out of time.”
They reached the top of the hill and finally saw below a cluster of shops
and a two lane blacktop. Most of the buildings were dark, but as they
approached, they found a decrepit trinket shop with a flickering neon light
in the window announcing “We have authentic Indian moccasins!” The
actual name of the store was so worn and faded as to be rendered illegible.
No sign indicated that it was closed, and the door was unlocked, so Indy
and Elaine climbed the steps of the porch and went inside.
“Hello?” Indy said. “Anyone here?” No answer. “Great, not another
Boomsburg.” At least the Army wouldn’t be conducting tests this late in the
day.
They looked around. An eclectic scattering of knickknacks lined the
walls, piquing Indy’s curiosity and making him wish he had the luxury of
an afternoon to spend sifting through them. A coffee cup stood on the desk
in the center of the room, still steaming, and Vera Lynn’s optimistic voice
drifted from an old radio in the corner. The place had an eerie feel that Indy
had only experienced in tombs and sepulchers, not a bad feel per se, but an
unnerving one.
“Indy…” Elaine said. “I don’t like the feel of it. Too deserted.” Right,
she was a linguist, not as used to it.
“Got to be someone here, coffee’s still hot,” he pointed out. “They must
have just stepped out for a minute. Or maybe the aliens already abducted
them.”
She reached over the desk to punch him in the arm. “Not funny. I—”
She froze as a noise of moving clutter reached them from the back of the
store.
“Hello?” Indy called out again. Again no answer. He looked behind the
desk for a phone. What he really wanted was a drink, but that could wait a
few minutes longer. He’d take the coffee if no one claimed it soon.
 “Hello?” Elaine echoed, sounding a little more worried. “Indy, maybe
we should leave?”
Something crashed in the back as if an entire stack of shelves had fallen
over. Indy reached for his gun, only to remember that he didn’t have it. A
little dog trotted out of the back, a black Labrador with a tan underbelly,
larger than a puppy but not yet fully grown. It stopped and panted, looking
at them as if delighted to make new friends.
Elaine let out a huge sigh of relief. “Hello there,” she said, reaching to
scratch its head. “You’re a cutie.”
The dog wagged its tail, thrilled with the attention from the nice lady.
Indy smiled; he loved dogs immensely, but there was no time to play with
this one just now. “Ask him if he’s got a phone.”
The dog gave a friendly bark, then trotted into the back room.
Indy gave Elaine a look. She shrugged. “Stay here, in case anyone
comes back,” he said, and followed the dog as she continued to look
around.
It led him through the room, where indeed an entire stack of shelves had
fallen down. There were authentic Indian moccasins and various assorted
junk in which even his archaeological sensibilities would be hard-pressed to
find value. The dog headed out the back door, around to the front.
Indy didn’t want to leave Elaine too far behind. He had already lost her
once. “You know where you’re going?”
The dog paused and gave him an affirmative-sounding bark, as if it
understood his words. He marveled. It reminded him of Loki, another dog
he’d met in Mongolia, who had seemed almost human in his behavior and
the look in his eyes. One of his companions had claimed, in fact, that Loki
was the reincarnation of a human, and if true that was hardly the strangest
thing Indy had encountered. But there was no time to ponder that, as this
dog kept going and moved toward another building across the street.
Indy entered, and as his eyes adjusted he saw what hadn’t been apparent
from the outside; it was a garage. His hunt among the scattered tools and
automobile parts for a phone had no success, but he found a sink and
gorged himself on glorious cold water. He would go back for Elaine as soon
as he figured out what the dog wanted. It was barking now, wagging its tail,
drawing his attention to the old pickup truck still up on a jack.
“This is what you wanted to show me?” Indy said. “Hey, you’re kind of
a genius. Wish I had some dog treats. You’re not a Commie dog, are you?”
He laughed at his own stupid joke and realized he was too tired.
Indy walked to the truck and gave it a quick once-over to see how well
it would run. It looked like it just needed a new tire, and someone had been
in the process of putting it on. He decided to finish the job so they could get
the hell out of here.
As he got on his knees and started to unscrew the nuts, the dog
wandered over to him, panting happily as if pleased with itself for leading
him here. “When I was a little boy,” Indy told it, “sometimes people asked
me what I wanted to do when I grew up. And never, not once, did I ever
respond ’Steal vehicles.’ But somehow I’ve ended up doing that a lot.”
He almost imagined he could hear it laugh.
He paused to give it a scratch behind the ears and check for a collar, but
it had none. “What’s your name?” he said. “Have you got a name? An
owner? I might just steal you, too.” He pointed to himself. “I’ve got a dog’s
name. Elaine doesn’t know about that yet. She said to wait until we were
married before I told her… Seems like so long ago…” He gazed back in the
direction of the shop, suddenly feeling a stupor of thought.
The dog whined, sounding sympathetic.
“I don’t want to wait any longer,” Indy said, not sure if he was talking to
himself or the dog. “I’d just as soon elope while we’re out here in the
middle of nowhere, but that wouldn’t be fair to all my friends who came so
far on such short notice. Of course, most of them have already gone
home…” He threw up his hands in frustration. “Why couldn’t those damn
aliens have waited one more week to show up? One more day, even?”
The dog whined again, but this time nudged his hand that was holding
the wrench.
“Right,” he said, turning back to the truck and suppressing his suddenly
unruly emotions. “Back to work.” He fumbled with one of the nuts, and it
rolled off into the darkness. The dog groaned along with him as he realized
this project might now take a little longer than he had hoped.

***

Back in the trinket shop, Elaine was just beginning to relax, though she still
clutched the device as tightly as a newborn child. It had dawned on her a
while ago that she would have to get used to adventures if she was going to
spend the rest of her life with Indiana Jones, but it seemed more real now.
Being kidnapped by Communists and falling out of the sky wasn’t her idea
of a swell time, but it was worth it to be with him—right? Did the other
women who had shared his adventures think so too?
She couldn’t help being flattered that he had come after her. He
shouldn’t have come to White Sands in the first place, shouldn’t have
interfered with her work. And yet, if he hadn’t, she would be in Moscow
right now. She shivered. This shop didn’t seem so bad compared to that.
And after all, maybe she had been wrong not to tell him before she left.
Relationships were built on trust, weren’t they? Bolander would have been
furious, but now that she thought about it, she could have lived with that.
He wasn’t the most pleasant guy to work with in the first place. Pretending
to be married had been his idea, and she had gone along with it out of duty,
but he wouldn’t have been her first or second or thousandth choice. From
now on, she decided, including Indy would be a condition of her continued
employment, and if Bolander had a problem with that he would just have to
get over himself. She figured General McIntyre would be more amiable
about it. He usually was.
She didn’t notice a slight wind picking up outside the window, rattling
the wind chimes on the porch. She didn’t notice the buzzing neon sign blink
and go out. She didn’t notice the rising steam from the coffee mug suddenly
vanish.
She noticed the radio crackle and go dead, and she didn’t like it.
“Indy?” she said, her earlier unease returning in a rush.
There was no verbal response, but her ears picked up a deep humming,
so deep that the items on the shelves began to dance and rattle like in an
earthquake. As the humming grew louder, a trolling shadow slowly passed
over the shop, and outside, familiar fingers of green probe lights struck the
roof.
Elaine stared at the ceiling, which groaned and creaked as if someone
were walking over it. Dust filtered down and the light fixtures swung.
“Innn… dyyy…” she whispered, hoping that he would somehow hear her
from wherever he’d gone off to. “Forget the phone… let’s just leave…”
Just then the humming stopped. In the silence, she caught her breath and
heard the sound of the back screen door creak open, followed by the dog
growling.
“Indy?” she said, a bit louder this time. “Are you back there? I said, let’s
leave.” She took a few cautious steps toward the back.
 As she turned the corner she saw the dog, but no Indy. It gave her an
idle glance; then its growl erupted into full-out barking at something behind
some shelves. She clutched the device more tightly to her chest as if it could
offer some form of protection.
“Indy…” she whispered. “Is that you? I said—”
The dog yipped like a chihuahua and jumped back as the apparition
emerged from behind the shelves and extended itself, an enormous spidery
creature with seven foot long arms and bony fingers. Its pale wet skin
appeared translucent and reflected every bit of the meager light in the room,
giving it the appearance of glowing. It looked like the corpses they’d
recovered at the crash sight, but so much larger and so much uglier.
It turned a long, gaunt, and decidedly sinister face toward her.
Elaine did what any rational person would have done. She screamed.
 CHAPTER ELEVEN

The alien reached toward Elaine with its long arms, coming closer ever so
slowly like the worst nightmare she’d ever had, one where her feet were
rooted to the floor. But they weren’t, and she bolted back into the shop just
in time to see another spidery alien across the room. It turned toward her as
she entered, knocking over several shelves in the process and sending
moccasins and carved wooden souvenirs flying.
How had they gotten in here, anyway? She hadn’t heard any doors or
windows or footsteps. No point in worrying about that now, though. She
looked around for something to use as a weapon. She found nothing that
looked like it would make any impact on the creatures. Bug spray, perhaps?
Maybe by some ridiculous chance they were vulnerable to bug spray? She
grabbed it and sprayed the first one. It waved the spray away and hissed as
if annoyed. So much for that gamble.
The one in the shop lunged forward with a sudden burst of speed. Elaine
screamed again and stumbled backward, bumping the door frame with the
device. The creatures both recoiled like snakes. The first one’s jaws moved
and emitted a guttural sound that set her hairs on end. “Mookaarahhh…”
Emboldened by the sudden show of weakness, the dog valiantly ducked
between the legs of the first creature and charged the second, nipping at its
leg. The alien skittered backward like a crab and, aiming a long finger,
froze the canine in mid-bark. It stood there looking for all the world like a
stuffed toy among the souvenirs on the floor.
 Elaine didn’t have time to feel sorrow for her new little friend; the
disruption was all she needed. Before the creatures could react, she rushed
back through the store and out the door. Indy pulled up in an old pickup just
as she ran out.
“There’s nobody here,” he said, “but I—”
“Drive!” she screamed at him, running around and fumbling with the
passenger side door. “Just drive!”
He gave her a quizzical look. “What?”
“Don’t talk,” she said, nearly ripping the door off its hinges as she
pulled herself inside. “Drive!”
Indy shrugged and floored it. The truck roared out onto the road, twin
beams of light illuminating a path through whatever darkness the full moon
didn’t dispatch. Elaine struggled to catch her breath and looked out the back
window, expecting to see the aliens behind them at any moment. “What’s
wrong?” Indy asked.
“Two of them…” she panted. “Big… Long arms… Poor dog.”
Indy finally became alarmed. “They killed the dog?”
“Yes! No… I mean—I don’t know. He froze it.” Elaine was shaking all
over, nearly hysterical. “I don’t know! I don’t know! They followed us!”
Indy slammed on the brakes and they slid to a stop next to a corrugated
fence. He looked at her with concern, but more for her current mental state
than for any perceived danger. “Elaine… are you sure you saw something?
They must think we died in the crash.”
“I’m not imagining things!”
“Okay, okay,” Indy said. “Just calm down. There are no aliens here
now.”
“Except that one!” Elaine pointed outside, her eyes bulged and she
screamed again.
Indy looked up and nearly screamed too at the sight of the giant louse
looming above them, wiggling its antennae and staring straight at them with
its mindless beady eyes. Then he smiled as he realized where they were.
“Nice effects,” he said, “but I don’t think I’ll bother to see it. They usually
skimp on plot.”
At the revelation that they were outside a drive-in movie theater
showing previews, Elaine got ahold of herself for a moment and pretended
not to be embarrassed. “They weren’t small like the others,” she said. “Like
soldiers. Indy, they know we’re alive, and they know we have this.” She
looked at the device and saw that it was now half changed. Had that
happened just in the last few minutes while they were escaping? “Oh, my
God… it’s changing faster.”
That was real enough. “Come on,” Indy said, “We’ll find a phone
inside.”
They paid at the ticket booth and pulled into the back row of the theater,
next to a cinder block concession stand and a pay phone. No sign of the
aliens yet, but now they knew it was only a matter of time, time they may
not have.
“There’s the phone,” Indy said. “I’ll call the base. You stay here.”
“That’s what you said the last time.”
Indy looked into her eyes. A million things rushed into his mind that he
wanted to say in that moment, but there was no time, and in the end there
were only two words that would suffice. “Trust me.”
She looked back into his eyes and nodded. He wasn’t going far. She was
being silly.
He got out of the car, hoping that she could trust him. He thought of
another woman, on another night much colder than this, to whom he’d said
those same words. That had turned out all right—in the short term. Then
he’d let her down and now she was long gone. But he hadn’t had a choice,
had he? Why was he thinking of that now?
Elaine watched him go, then looked up at the screen. An alien armada
covered the sky as, on Earth, the humans ran for cover. Though hardly a sci-
fi aficionado, she was intrigued enough to keep watching, in no small part
because she hoped it would take her mind off their own all-too-real
predicament for a while.
“This is so cheesy.”
Elaine looked over at the next car, a convertible where a teenage boy
and his date were also watching the movie, its soundtrack coming from the
small speaker hung on their window.
“They don’t have rays like that!” he continued, waving a hand of
exasperation.
His date raised a bemused eyebrow. “How do you know?”
“He’s right, the rays are invisible,” Elaine interrupted. “And the ships
are much bigger.”
They both stared at her. Ignoring them, she reached out and put her own
speaker on the window to hear. She also heard Indy saying on the phone,
“Get me General McIntyre…”
On screen, an alien in a bubble helmet was trying to communicate with
the Earthlings. She watched, transfixed, as the female lead, Miss Roberts,
spoke to Dr. Doom right in front of it. “They’re trying to talk to us, Doctor,
what’re they saying?”
“Do not be afraid, Earthling…” the alien said.
“No, that’s not what they say at all!” Elaine yelled, getting the attention
of every couple nearby. “If they talked at all it would be so much easier…”
On screen, the alien moved around in rigged, jerky, robotic movements.
“Wrong! Totally wrong! And they sound like…” She imitated the guttural
sound as well as she could. “Moo-kaa-ra… Ma-kah-ra…”
Suddenly, coming from her own mouth, the sound seemed almost
familiar, but not quite—
She repeated it to herself, testing the feel of it on her tongue. “Moo-kaa-
rahh.”
Next to her, the girl shifted away from her date. “I told you only
weirdos park on the back row.” He nodded in agreement, started the car and
moved them to a new parking spot.
On the phone, Indy concluded, “We’ll stay right here.” He hung up and
moved back to the truck. As he walked he realized that every couple in
every car was necking. It inspired him.
Elaine jumped as he opened the door. Next to her, the tinny speaker in
the window conveyed Dr. Doom’s voice saying, “Miss Roberts, there isn’t
time!”
“They know where we are,” Indy said, climbing in. “The Army, I mean.
We’re going to stay here till they arrive.”
“Please, Doctor…” Miss Roberts said.
“Here?” Elaine glanced around. “Do you think it’s safe here?”
“I don’t know…” Indy looked into her eyes again, holding the gaze
longer this time, and pulled her across the bench seat, closer to him. “I think
it’s safer over here.”
Elaine snuggled a little closer.
On screen, Miss Roberts was almost hysterical. “My God, Doctor! Do
something!”
Elaine smiled at Indy. “My God, Doctor… Do something…”
Indy obliged, kissing her. She kissed him back and they slid down in the
seat. She reached up and turned off the movie sound.
 Indy had to admit that, as tedious as some aspects of his adventures had
gotten, this part still gave him a certain thrill. True, it had come to seem a
bit empty as year after year it failed to develop into anything permanent. He
had come to feel that he wanted to share something more than a few
moments of passion; he wanted to share his life—and not just with anyone,
but with someone special. But now he had that. Soon, very soon, as soon as
this little alien incident was over. He closed his eyes and breathed deep.
A shadow crossed over the moon.
Onscreen, negotiations had failed and the armada of flying saucers
hovered over the city once more. Frightened pedestrians ran for cover. The
movie flickered in the stillness, unnoticed by most of the preoccupied
couples; then the saucer, a black disk, floated like a shadow over them.
Moving slowly, as it passed over each car it sent an X-ray beam through the
roof, observing the kissing couple inside and then moving on to the next
one. None of them paid it any attention.
It stopped over Elaine and Indy’s truck. Other than Indy’s unique attire,
he and Elaine could have been mistaken for any other couple by an alien
race unfamiliar with the variations in human appearance, but the device
resting between them was unmistakable. Its tractor beam fixed itself to the
truck.
Onscreen, a space ship emitted a glowing tractor beam of its own,
which attached to an ocean liner and lifted it out of the water, drips falling
from its hull. In front of the screen, the tires of Indy’s truck slowly left the
ground, dirt falling from the treads. The speaker wire went taught, then
snapped. No one noticed.
“I never knew drive-in movies were so interesting…” Elaine murmured.
She kissed Indy again.
The truck rose in the air, lifted over the rear fence, then moved off in
place beneath the space ship over the desert. Through the windshield, all the
stars of heaven flashed past as the romantic full moon held steady, but Indy
and Elaine remained oblivious, having eyes only for each other.
“Oh, Indy…” Elaine finally said. “Can you ever forgive me for running
out like that?”
“I’ll think of something…” he said. It didn’t seem to matter anymore.
That seemed like another time, another life. He moved in to kiss her again,
then stopped. The way the wind blew through her hair was captivating, but
it wasn’t right. He sat up. He looked up. He assessed the situation: “Oh,
shit.”
Elaine looked up at him dreamily, then came to the same realization.
“Oh, my God! You said it was safe!” She looked up at the saucer above
them. It was shaped differently than the one from earlier, flatter and
smoother, but that was no consolation. “Where are they taking us?”
Indy looked down at the sand flying past below. “Out to the desert.”
As if in response to his words, the spaceship slowed to a stop and
lowered the truck gently onto the ground. Deactivating the tractor beam, it
moved a little ways away and also landed. Its lights went out. Indy watched,
fascinated, but Elaine locked both the doors and hyperventilated.
“Don’t panic,” Indy said.
“That’s easy for you to say, you didn’t see those ones in the shop…”
Suddenly the locks popped back up. Elaine pushed them back down.
They popped up again. She frantically rolled up the windows. They
shattered, blowing the glass outward.
“Well, professor,” she said, “now can we panic?”
Indy didn’t answer. What could he say?
The door of the saucer slid open. A ramp lowered. A moment later, a
bug-like creature appeared in the the light of the ramp. It was small, the size
of the dog they had seen earlier, and not slimy at all.
Elaine let out a sigh of relief. “That’s not like the ones I saw.”
The creature moved into the headlights of the truck. It looked harmless,
almost cute, but Indy knew better than to let down his guard. “Well, it’s
coming toward us,” he said. “Let’s hope it doesn’t have the same attitude
problem either.”
The anthropologist part of his brain analyzed the situation, heedless of
the danger. Were these creatures all of the same race? Different castes with
different roles, perhaps? The ones earlier, if Elaine hadn’t been
exaggerating, may have been sent just to scare her, and it had worked. Now
the aliens were obviously trying a different tactic—good cop/bad cop,
maybe? He realized that analyzing the motives and logic of creatures so far
removed from humanity, evolved who knew how far away or in what sort
of environment, was an exercise in futility.
Hopefully some things were universal, though. An idea occurred to him
and he decided to go with it before he could analyze it too closely. “I’m
going to try and decoy it,” he whispered. “When I do, get behind the wheel
and drive.”
“Drive where?”
“Anywhere but here.” Before Elaine could protest, Indy grabbed the
device and jumped out of the truck. “Hey, you, over here!”
The thing turned its head in his direction, and it occurred to him that this
probably hadn’t been the brightest of his last-minute plans. The truck
wouldn’t have offered much protection if the aliens decided to vaporize him
like they had the jet, but at least on a psychological level it sure beat being
out here in the cold and the dark all alone and exposed. Still, there was no
backing out now.
He waved the device like a dog toy, its rings glowing in the night. “You
want it?! You want it?” He had only recently adjusted to the prospect of life
forms from other worlds, and now here he was playing keep-away with one.
Life was funny sometimes.
Other than its eyes, which followed the motion of the device, the thing
didn’t move. It seemed paralyzed. He couldn’t tell if it even understood
English.
“Move away from the truck or I’ll destroy it!” He raised it above his
head, as if preparing to dash it to the ground, though he hoped it wouldn’t
come to that. Immediately, the thing sprang off the truck.
“Indy!” Elaine called out. “Look!”
On the ramp another small alien appeared, this one looking like the ones
killed in the crash. For a moment it looked out at Indy and the thing, then it
muttered a desperate sound. “Mukara. Mukara!”
Elaine finally recognized the sound. “’Mukarah?’ ’Mukarah’… Oh, my
God…” She threw open the door to the truck and rushed toward Indy.
“Indy!”
He waved her back. “Elaine, get back in the truck! I told you to drive
away!”
“Indy! No! He’s telling us something…”
Indy lifted the device again. In the doorway the small alien shrank with
fear, and in front of him the bug-like creature stopped.
“They’re scared of it,” Elaine explained. “Or rather, they’re scared of
what we’ll do with it.”
Indy didn’t need to ask for an elaboration. He thought back to the
mushroom cloud he’d seen earlier today and could guess exactly what the
alien meant. He slowly put the device back down.
“Mukara,” the alien said again.
“Mukara. ’Dangerous.’ It’s Sanskrit…” She turned to the alien. “Salluh,
karcroom. Sallee.”
For a moment the small alien stared at them.
“What did you say?” Indy asked, feeling a little sheepish that he
couldn’t remember.
“I asked him to explain,” she said.
Without warning the alien began talking quickly, loudly. When it
stopped, Indy looked at Elaine. “What did he say?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean you don’t know!?”
She huffed at him. “I mean, this isn’t exactly an everyday language with
me, Dr. Jones.”
“Well, sorry, but you’re our only hope. Tell him we won’t hurt them.”
“I’ll try. Mallee. Chasu. Cripto.” The small alien nodded, a surprisingly
human gesture.
Indy had no way of knowing whether he could actually trust this
creature, but he just felt good doing so. He would rather have the aliens as
allies than enemies any day if he could help it. “Tell them—” Indy
hesitated, unable to believe he was about to say what he was about to say,
but in a moment he knew it was right. “Tell them I’m going to give it back.”
Elaine translated.
Indy took a step toward the saucer and the reaction was immediate. The
alien spoke quickly again, this time with a more panicky tone, and shrank
back inside the ship. “What is it? What’s he saying?”
Elaine looked as confused as he felt. “They don’t want it.”
“What?”
The buglike thing suddenly cocked its head, alerted to a sound. Before it
could move, explosions rocked the area. Indy and Elaine looked up to see
the hills surrounding the space craft ringed with military vehicles.
Floodlights illuminated the area as a tank opened fire, hitting the saucer
before it could close its door.
“No!” Elaine cried out, but she was powerless to stop the onslaught.
Indy grabbed her and pulled her underneath the truck for cover. A moment
later the spidery alien was ripped apart by machine gun fire, and the sparks
and fizzles within revealed it to have been a robot.
 The saucer tried to take off, but the artillery was too much. A truck with
nuke missiles fired at the saucer, which didn’t even try to return fire as they
sent it spinning into the side of a mountain. Another missile scored a direct
hit and the saucer exploded in a huge fireball above the area, sending fiery
chunks of metal cascading down the mountain.
Indy and Elaine stared helplessly as the Army moved down to them.
Bolander was driven down by Jeep to the pickup truck they were hiding
under. Before they could say anything, he pointed and shouted, “Arrest
them!”
They were quickly hauled out and handcuffed by the soldiers. “You
bastards, you never gave them a chance!” Elaine yelled at him.
Bolander regarded her as if she were a mentally disabled child.
“They’re hostile, Elaine. They took out two of our jets. They were a threat
to the United States of America.”
“The jets attacked first,” she said. “This has all been a
misunderstanding. They were telling us what to do with the power
cylinder.”
He raised an eyebrow. “So now you’ve talked to them?”
“Yes!”
“They speak Latin, I suppose?”
“Close. Sanskrit. I know it sounds crazy, but —”
“And what did they say? Give it back to them?” He laughed.
“Listen to her, Bolander,” Indy said. As much as he disliked the guy, he
figured he owed him a warning, as a fellow Earthling and American. “It
might save your life. That wasn’t one of their fighter ships…”
General McIntyre had walked up to them just in time to hear this
exchange, which concerned him. “What do you mean?” he asked.
“You destroyed an unarmed ship,” Indy explained. “That’s not like the
one that took out the jets. We saw it.”
“Yes, while you were trying to get away on the Russian plane,”
Bolander said impatiently. “We know about that, Dr. Jones.”
“Don’t believe us then,” Elaine said, “just look at the device.” Bolander
and the General stared at the cylinder. More than half the rings were lit.
“We’re running out of time,” Indy said. “Earth is running out of time.”
“Save your breath, Jones. You’ll need it at your trial.” Bolander turned
to a nearby Sergeant who had his back to them. “Take them back to base.”
 The Sergeant, still looking away, saluted. “Yes sir!” He barked to two
young soldiers. “You heard ’em, get these two outta here.”
As Bolander climbed into his Jeep with the General, the soldiers moved
Indy and Elaine away and loaded them into the back of a troop truck. They
took a seat in the rear, and as the tailgate closed and the truck moved away,
Indy looked out and saw the Sergeant—or rather, Cheslav in a Sergeant’s
uniform. The Russian spy gave Indy the same wave Indy had given him
from the plane.
“Cheslav,” Indy said, a lump forming in his throat as he realized his
cockiness had come back to bite him after all. “He’s here. As if Bolander
weren’t bad enough.”
“We’ve got to stop them,” Elaine said.
“The Russians, or the Americans?”
“Yes.”
 CHAPTER TWELVE

The Army convoy of missile trucks, troop trucks, and Jeeps followed the
road into the mountains. Bolander looked at his prize almost lovingly. It
would be so pretty once all the rings were lit—but more to the point, it
would yield its secrets. The United States would be secured in its rightful
place as the world’s foremost superpower and he, Bob Bolander, would
have more than a minor role to play in it. And after that—who knew what
else he could accomplish?
“Hurry,” he said, slapping his driver on the shoulder. “We’re on a very
tight schedule.”
“I don’t want to drive us off the edge of a cliff, sir,” the driver said.
“We’ll have much bigger problems if we don’t get this to Mount Keemo
in time,” Bolander said. “And I’ll make sure you die first.”
The General marveled at him. “You really believe all that stuff Dr. Jones
and Dr. McGregor were talking about, don’t you?”
“Of course,” Bolander said. “We’ve seen enough already, haven’t we?”
“Yet you don’t seem worried at all.”
“We own this cylinder now. We’re going to control the power. Bernard
was right. If those freaks can do it, so can we. Don’t go bailing on me now,
General McIntyre.” A manic look had come into Bolander’s eyes.
“Of course not.” The General mused for a moment as the Jeep started
up another steep incline. “We’ll need to tell the President about this at some
point, I suppose.”
 “Oh,” Bolander said with a half-smile, “he’ll definitely notice.”
His driver was the first to notice the clouds overhead, illuminated by the
moon, beginning to boil like a cauldron. “Look, sir!” Lightning flashed in
the distance. The wind picked up, subtly at first, then with a sudden burst
that ripped the canvas top off a troop truck behind them and exposed the
soldiers inside.
“What’s going on?” the General demanded.
Bolander looked up at the clouds, then back at the device. In that
moment another ring had lit. They were close. So close.
“Maybe we should stop?”
“No, keep going!” Bolander said, slapping the driver again. “Hurry!”
Though the General technically outranked him, he didn’t dare argue.

***

“Indy…” Elaine looked up at the sky. The soldiers around them weren’t
even bothering to hide their fear. Nice soldiers, had given her a much-
needed drink of water, but she was glad to see them afraid. Anything that
made them vulnerable could possibly be put to use. Somehow.
“I know,” Indy said. “Just hold tight.” He was working the knots against
the sharp-edged railing of the truck and had cut about halfway through. It
was laughable that these guys thought they could keep him tied up in here.
He could get out of tighter spots than this in his sleep, almost.
As he worked, he thought about the alien they had just communicated
with, and again wondered why it was speaking Sanskrit. He imagined a ship
like that visiting India in the distant past, speaking to the natives, being
heralded as a god. Again he thought of the similar properties of this device
and the Sankara stones. And were they similarly connected with all the
other ancient cultures represented in the coordinates?
He wondered if many of the supernatural phenomena he had
encountered over the years, all over the world, had their basis in
extraterrestrial activity—if the things he hadn’t been able to explain were
actually the result of technology light-years beyond Earth’s. Even in his
more skeptical years, he had always believed in God, but he was never
comfortable postulating in detail about who or what God actually was. Each
inexplicable discovery had only confused him more, and this one topped it
off.
 One thing clicked in his head, though. “Maybe the dog is still alive.”
“What?” Elaine said.
“If the aliens are friendly, maybe they didn’t kill the dog,” Indy said,
keeping his voice down so the guards wouldn’t hear. “Maybe they just
immobilized it for a while. Think we could go back and see about adopting
it?”
“I don’t care if they’re the Gandhis of the galaxy, I’m not going back in
that store for all the artifacts in the world,” she snapped.
“I don’t like this,” one of the guards said. “I don’t like this at all. We
never should have signed on.”
“Keep it together, man,” the other said. “You don’t really believe the
alien rumors, do you?”
“I don’t know what to believe. The truth is out there…”
“The crash was just a weather balloon. And this is just weather. And
we’re just hunting Ruskie spies like these two.” The second guard didn’t
sound convinced by his own words at all. “Come on, let’s keep a little
optimism here. Cigarette?”
So, Indy realized, the enlisted men weren’t in the loop but had heard
rumors and let their imaginations wander. He exchanged a glance with
Elaine. She had been listening too.
A streak of light flashed over the convoy. A moment later another
flashed by in the opposite direction. Up ahead Bolander and the General
watched it, concerned. One of the flashes returned and moved with the
convoy, exposing itself as a saucer, before disappearing over the next rise.
“I thought you said you got them all!” Bolander snapped.
“Don’t worry. We’ll take care of it.” The General got on his radio.
“Follow it!” The convoy moved into the valley, following the saucer.
Indy finished cutting through his ropes and looked up at the guards, who
were distracted by the disturbances in the sky. They had fallen silent. One
of them crossed himself.
Elaine’s face flared and she started to chant. “Makoo, Churoo. Keesna!”
The guards looked at her, frightened. Under normal circumstances they
wouldn’t have been bothered so much as confused, but these were hardly
normal circumstances. “Hey, make her shut up!” one of them told Indy.
“I can’t,” he said. “She’s possessed. They’re speaking through her.”
The guard walked over to them, trembling from more than the vehicle’s
motion. “What did she say?”
 Indy whipped his arms in front and snatched away the startled guard’s
gun, pointing it at him and the other young soldier. “She said, get out before
they kill you.”
Both men looked at her, then back at the sky, and jumped off the
moving truck. They were just a couple of kids, really, trying to serve their
country. They wanted nothing to do with whatever was going on, and Indy
knew they didn’t deserve it. He was glad he’d given them a chance to get
out of here.
“Great acting,” he said. “I almost thought Nur-Ab-Sal was back.”
“Who?” Elaine said. “Never mind, now what’re we going to do?”
“Get this truck,” Indy said.
“How’re you going to do that?”
“Climb over to the cab.”
“But Indy!”
“Don’t worry,” he said, tipping his hat, “I’ve done this before.”
“Of course you have,” she said, smiling in spite of herself.
Indy held onto the railing of the truck and swung out but, unlike before,
he slipped. Well, everyone had their off days. They just weren’t potentially
fatal for most people. His feet dragged along the rocky ground as he tried to
pull himself up. The driver, looking in his rearview mirror and seeing him,
swung the truck around to shake him off, but Indy hung on. For the
moment.
This was no time to be prideful. “Elaine!” he cried out.
She hung over the side and saw his predicament. “I thought you said
you’d done this before!”
“It’s not like riding a bike, apparently! Do something!”
Elaine looked around, grabbed the soldier’s discarded gun, and tapped
on the window behind the cab. “Please,” she told the driver, “stop the truck.
Now.”
The driver looked through the window at her and pulled the truck over.
A moment later, Indy yanked him out from behind the wheel and climbed
in. Still holding the gun, Elaine joined him from the passenger side.
Indy gave her a look. “Don’t say it.”
“Say what?”
“Thanks.”
“Don’t say thanks?”
 “No, thanks for not saying it.” He put the truck back into gear and tried
to start after Bolander and the rest of the convoy, but the engine stalled. He
turned the key again, and the engine revved, but nothing happened. “Great.
What are the odds?”
“I can get out and push,” Elaine offered.
“I’ll get out too,” Indy said, turning the key again with no more success.
“Looks like we might have to hitchhike our way up there.”

***

The convoy moved toward the saucer, which was about the size of a small
car, and sitting on the crest of a ridge as if waiting for them.
Bolander’s Jeep came to a stop and General McIntyre got out. He hadn’t
joined the Army for this. He had never dreamed a night like this would
come. But he knew his duty and he would perform it regardless of what
unexpected factors popped up, just as he had from the moment they
discovered the spaceship crash. Nazis, Commies, aliens, they were all the
same to him.
“Okay,” he said grimly, “let’s finish this job.”
The troops spread out. Rockets were prepared. Tank turrets swung into
position. Shells were loaded into barrels. Soldiers waited for the command.
The saucer hadn’t moved. Maybe it was malfunctioning, or maybe the
aliens were inside cowering in fear. He didn’t care why. He wasn’t about to
pass up an opportunity like this.
“We’ve got ‘em,” he said. “Fire!”
Missiles and tank shells battered the spacecraft. For a moment the sky
was lit up as bright as noonday with artillery. For a moment, it was
Normandy all over again in the General’s mind, but this time no one was
returning fire. The Army laid waste to the aliens for a full minute before he
decided they’d had enough.
“Cease fire!” he said.
When the smoke cleared, the spaceship was obviously damaged. Its
lights were weaker.
“I think we just about have it,” the General said.
Then it began to rise.
The small saucer revealed itself to actually be the top piece of a much
larger saucer that continued to rise above the ridge, higher and higher,
illuminating the soldiers’ faces with its lights until the entire valley shone
like noonday, more permanently this time. It towered over them, easily the
size of the mountain itself.
The General swallowed. His left eyelid twitched. His hands fidgeted.
“Now,” he said to himself, “I know how Custer felt.”
For a moment the huge saucer did nothing, as if relishing the paralysis
of fear it had struck into the Earthlings. Then a wind picked up across the
valley floor in the direction of the Army. As it blew it created small
cyclones here and there and picked up more and more speed. Bolander,
seizing the moment, climbed behind the wheel of the Jeep and made a break
for it.
The General had never retreated or surrendered, and this wouldn’t be
the first time. “All fire!” he yelled. But this time it was too late. Tank
barrels were clogged with sand. Missile truck commanders were blinded.
Soldiers dropped their guns and ran, but the wind caught them. Jeeps
flipped and sent their occupants flying. Tanks spun away through the air
like plastic toys. Men were buried alive in the burning sand with barely
time to scream.
General McIntyre watched the scene in disbelief before he, too, was
buried in the sand.
 CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Indy had examined the truck’s engine and found, to his frustration, that
there wasn’t a thing wrong with it. Now, as he sat fuming and wondering
what to do, it roared back to life as suddenly as it had cut out. He decided
he could ask questions later, and floored it without a second thought.
He and Elaine roared up to the intersection. The valley lay to the right.
“Indy, look!” Elaine said, pointing to it. Though the details were hard to
make out, the swirling destruction could be seen clearly from here. “We’re
too late,” she said.
“No we’re not,” Indy said, looking down the other road, where
Bolander’s Jeep was driving alone up into the mountains at reckless speed,
like a man who had seen the devil himself. Indy turned the truck to follow.
Bolander yelped as the bright lights hit his mirrors; then he relaxed as
the troop truck pulled even with his Jeep. “Indy, be careful,” Elaine said.
“Don’t hurt him.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Indy muttered. Out the window he yelled, “Pull
over, Bolander!” Instead, Bolander aimed a pistol at them and fired three
shots. Indy and Elaine ducked and swerved as the bullets zinged over their
heads.
“Run him off the road!” Elaine said. She grabbed the wheel and tried to
turn it into Bolander’s Jeep.
“No, but do take the wheel,” Indy said, climbing over her and out of the
moving truck. Bolander sensed what he was going to do and began
swerving, but was unable to prevent Indy from landing on the back of the
Jeep. Bolander leaned over the seat and fired. Indy dropped.
“No!” Elaine yelled.
Bolander stopped firing for a moment and peered back into the
darkness. The moment he did, Indy reappeared and slugged him. The two
men fought in the weaving, swerving vehicle. Indy hit Bolander in the
throat and the Jeep veered dangerously toward the railing in the left lane.
Elaine accelerated and moved the truck between the Jeep and the railing,
but the Jeep kept coming, almost forcing her over the edge of the cliff. She
pulled the wheel hard to keep control.
As always, Indy prevailed, finally punching Bolander out and taking the
wheel. “Try more field work, pal,” he called back to his limp opponent. “It
really builds muscle.” He signaled Elaine to follow him. They had no time
to rest when they were so near the end.

***

Mount Keemo was relatively small—not too rugged and not too steep. The
Jeep made it up with little difficulty, and Indy and Elaine parked it on the
broad flat expanse of the deserted summit, where they stood with the
device. Only one ring remained unlit, and it provided enough light for them
to see clearly even though it wasn’t quite dawn.
“What if this isn’t the place?” Elaine asked.
Indy stared out at the broad rocky terrain. A cairn of stones marked the
summit. Whether it had been here for a thousand years or two days, he
couldn’t say off the top of his head. But when an eagle soared in a loop
directly over it—definitely a real eagle, as if that mattered—he knew. “It’s
the place,” he said. “Stay here.”
He moved across the summit toward the cairn and examined it. He was
leaning more now toward the thousand years side of the spectrum. What
tribe had put it here or why, he couldn’t say, but he could guess what it was
going to be used for now.
He looked around. The eagle had settled down and perched on a tree
some distance away, watching him. The sun was almost up. There was a
different light, a strange light in the sky, growing stronger as it came up the
sides of the mountain.
In the Jeep, the injured Bolander seemed roused by the lights.
 Elaine watched, filled with wonder. Indy stood almost paralyzed as
three saucers came up on each side. They continued to climb higher until
they were overhead. Then brilliant green lights from each ship focused on
the rock cairn.
Indy knew what he had to do, as surely as if the eagle or the aliens had
broadcast the thought into his mind. It wasn’t an act of worship on his part,
though the ancients might have interpreted it as such, and if the aliens
themselves interpreted it as such and were thus mollified enough to not kill
him, that would be great too. He moved slowly toward the cairn and
reached out to place the device on it.
“Stop, Indiana!”
Indy turned to see Cheslav, still in his Sergeant’s uniform, holding a gun
to Elaine’s neck.
“That’s right, Jones,” the Russian continued. “Don’t put it down.” He
cocked the gun.
Indiana Jones knew, deep down, that he wasn’t immortal. He knew that
in theory he could die as easily as anyone else. But after all this time, he felt
as if old age was the only thing that could overtake him, and a gun held to
his own neck wouldn’t have been too much cause for concern. Yet he was
all too aware of the mortality of his traveling companions, and while he
knew he should adopt a mask of indifference for Cheslav’s sake, he
couldn’t help gasping, “Elaine…”
“If you want to see her alive in the near future, step away from the
altar,” Cheslav said. “Now.”
“Don’t do it, Indy…” Elaine said.
Indy gave her a look that told her he had no choice. Not to save his
country, not to save the world, not if it meant losing her. He stepped away.
“I’m pleased to see you still have the same weakness, Indiana,” Cheslav
said. “You always cared too much. Do you think I miss Veska? I would
have killed him myself in a heartbeat if it were helpful to my mission.” He
glanced at Elaine. “Granted, he wasn’t nearly so easy on the eyes as Dr.
McGregor, but the point remains.”
Indy refused to be baited. “Let her go, Cheslav.”
“First, toss me the device,” he said.
Indy looked from Elaine, whose eyes pleaded with him not to give in,
back to the device. What would Cheslav do with it, take it all the way back
to Moscow when it was already on a mountain right here?
 “This is why you’re on the wrong side,” Cheslav continued. “I know in
your mind, my ruthlessness makes me the ’bad guy’. But I see myself as
quite good, good at what I do. Toss me the device, Indiana, I won’t tell you
again.”
Indy knew he wasn’t bluffing. He also knew he had reached a point that
he often reached in his adventures, where despite his best efforts, neither his
own skills, nor smarts, nor even sheer luck would save him. His fate rested
within powers beyond his comprehension, whether benevolent, malevolent,
or indifferent to his plight. He couldn’t control them, couldn’t count on
them to do what he wanted, but he could anticipate them and let the chips
fall where they may.
The aliens had had ample opportunity to kill him and Elaine by now if
they wanted to. He suspected, hoped that the aliens had disabled the truck to
prevent them from being present at the calamity that had overtaken General
McIntyre and the others. And the aliens had led them here, to place this
device here, and he could only hope and pray to anything that was listening
that they knew what they were doing and had this planet’s best interests in
mind.
“You want it?” He told the spy. “Go get it.” He tossed it onto the pile of
stones. Immediately its final ring lit up and the stones began to glow. But
this wouldn’t be like Stonehenge, he realized, because the demons were
already here.
Cheslav shoved Elaine away and rushed for the device. Bolander, seeing
it so close, jumped out of the truck and rushed toward it also. Indy ignored
them both and ran to Elaine. “What’s happening?” she asked.
Bolander knocked Cheslav away, grabbed the device and held it up over
his head like Excalibur. The glow of the rocks spread to the ground around
him. His body became radiant, bathed in a strong golden light. He smiled.
“Bow down,” he said. “Bow down, rulers of the universe… for I now have
the power!”
The saucers seemed to sag in the air, as if Bolander were sapping their
energy. As he grew brighter their lights grew dimmer. Then a white light
erupted from the end of the device and stabbed skyward. The eagle flew off
with a shriek.
“I have the power!” Bolander said again. He swung the light and aimed
it at Cheslav.
 “No!” Cheslav yelled. He tried to move, but the heat was searing and in
an instant his body melted just like the Sabre Jet.
Indy and Elaine shielded their eyes from this blinding light but also
from something else. The sun broke the horizon at that moment, sending its
first red beam of light to the summit and hitting the device spot on. Instantly
the saucers also grew brighter, as if tapping into Bolander’s power source.
Bolander felt the drain. His smile wavered. He brought the device
around and aimed it at the saucers, but it had no effect. Now it was his turn
to yell “No!”
Instead the ground around him began to steam, more rocks to glow.
Another beam erupted from the other end of the device, hitting Bolander on
the forehead and splitting him in two as cleanly as an axe, but with no
blood. He crumpled in a melting mass. The device remained suspended
where he had been holding it as the ground glowed whiter and whiter.
Indy and Elaine were bathed in the light. The saucers glowed brighter,
humming louder, until in one incredible thunderclap they roared off,
splitting through the atmosphere like bullets. In their wake the entire
mountain was whipped by furious winds, and then they were gone and
everything was left silent.
Indy held Elaine. Around them there was no trace of the power cylinder,
Bolander, Cheslav or the saucers.
They were alone.
“Back to Mars,” Elaine said. “Or much farther, probably.”
Indy nodded, still staring at the cairn.
One of the saucers reappeared as suddenly as it had left, and once again
landed and disgorged its diminutive passenger. As they watched in stunned
silence, it left the ship and approached them with confidence this time,
talking rapidly.
“What’s he saying?” Indy asked.
“He’s saying thank you,” Elaine said. “For doing the right thing instead
of acting like Earthlings.”
“Thanks,” Indy said. “I think.”
“As a token of gratitude, they’re offering—” Elaine jabbered back,
asking the alien to repeat itself, uncertain if she’d heard correctly. “They’re
offering to let us come with them. To share in their enlightened culture, to
see things and creatures and places no one on this planet has ever dreamed
of—oh, Indy!” She embraced him around the neck as if she were about to
faint.
“Knowledge,” Indy said, looking up at the early morning sky and
imagining the stars that weren’t currently visible. “So much knowledge.”
“Yes,” she agreed. “Oh, Indy, I can’t imagine anything more romantic
than exploring the cosmos and learning about them together, can you?”
“No, but—” He hesitated. He should have jumped at this opportunity.
He even trusted the aliens now. But somehow, after thinking about his
previous adventures, it just didn’t feel right.
Elaine could see it in his eyes. “What is it?”
He tried to articulate it as well as he could. “You could spend a lifetime
out there and never learn a billionth of what there is to know,” he said. “I’ve
spent the better part of my life here and I still feel like I don’t know
anything. There’s so much left to be discovered and explored here. The
connection between these aliens and all the ancient cultures, for example.
We’ve only scratched the surface.”
“Now we can just ask them ourselves,” Elaine said impatiently.
“That’s not all,” Indy said. “There are thousands, hundreds of thousands
of people like Baldassare and Bernard and Cheslav and Bolander out there.
You’ve seen that they aren’t even all with the ’bad guys.’ Someone will
always need to be here to protect the world from them, and a lot of times I
have to be that guy. Hell, the Nazis alone would have taken over the world a
hundred times if I hadn’t been here.” He shrugged. “What can I say? Earth
needs me.”
“I need you,” she said, looking into his eyes.
He felt his heart disintegrating as he already knew what his answer
would have to be. “And I need you too,” he said. “You showed me that life,
even when it gets repetitive and predictable, is still exciting. It wasn’t the
aliens that made this adventure exciting—it was you. You rekindled that
spark way back in the jungle, before they ever showed up.”
“And yet you’re going to leave me,” she said. It wasn’t a question.
“You’ll come back eventually, won’t you?”
She just shrugged.
The alien jabbered at them, sounding impatient. Indy looked at it, then
back at Elaine, and held her in an embrace that he wished could last forever.
He kissed her, as deeply and passionately as he had planned to do on their
wedding day. Then all too soon he had to let her go, and she was backing
away toward the entrance to the spaceship, never taking her gaze off of him,
though he wished she would. Against the backdrop of the lights from the
interior she looked angelic, goddesslike, the most beautiful creature in the
universe.
“Good-bye, Dr. Jones,” she said.
The alien said something else to him.
“What?” she said, alarmed.
The alien repeated itself.
Elaine went pale. “He says he’ll need to wipe your memory, just in case
our old friends try to get anything out of you.”
“What?” Indy said. “No! How much of it? No!”
The alien darted back into the saucer, the hatch closed, and it lifted off
the ground as Indy ran toward it, yelling. It hovered over his head and a
beam of orange washed over him, making his whole body but especially the
top of his skull tingle with warmth. Then the saucer disappeared a second
time and he fell to his knees, dazed and exhausted. In the distance an eagle
cried out, but then there was silence.
He was alone. Again.

***

The next thing he knew, he was waking up in Al’s Atomic Diner with his
face half-buried in an omelette. The waitress and the cook were staring at
him, clearly worried, but he ignored them as he tried to take stock of his
surroundings. Everything was the same as before, except that there were
fewer soldiers and they seemed on edge about something, while the spot
previously occupied by the two cowboys now hosted a pair of Mormon
missionaries. They glanced in his direction, but he carefully avoided eye
contact.
“Rough trip?” the waitress finally prodded.
Indy grunted. “You better believe it, sister.” He didn’t remember why,
exactly, but he knew it had been. And then the memories came flooding
back, and he nearly passed out again.
“Did you find your girl?”
“Found her,” he said, his heart seizing up and making it difficult to
breathe. “And Bob. Who, as it turns out, actually is her husband. I thought
he was a front, but I was the front all along. I’m such an idiot.”
 “Been there,” the cook said, and returned his attention to the kitchen.
“Poor dear,” the waitress said, patting his hand. “The meal’s on the
house, okay? And I don’t know if you remember, since you were kind of
staggering around like a drunk, but your friend took care of the flight home
for you.”
She pointed, and Indy suddenly noticed the airline ticket sticking out of
his jacket pocket. “What?” he said. “My friend?”
“You can probably hitch a ride with those nice boys over there,” she
continued, pointing to the missionaries. Indy still refused to look at them.
“He had to leave in a hurry, and he said he was taking the Army Jeep as
compensation for his pickup that you left in the middle of the desert.”
“His pickup?” Indy was remembering something else now. A dog had
led him to a pickup truck, and he had stolen it—why? Why couldn’t he
remember? Never mind, that could wait for more immediate questions.
“Who’s this friend? What are you talking about?”
“Found you passed out on top of a mountain,” she said. “I don’t
remember, some Indian guy, named ’Argyle’ or something—”
Indy suddenly felt very wide awake. “Aguila?”
“Could have been,” she said. “Now come on, you’d better get your
strength up. Are you going to finish that?”

***

“The last time I heard a story like this was when you were trying to get out
of your Greek lessons,” Henry Jones said. “We were on the Carpathian off
the Bay of Bengal and you told your tutor you had just seen a sea serpent.”
“I did see a sea serpent,” Indy insisted. Like Miss Seymour at the time,
he had come to dismiss the sight as a figment of his youthful imagination,
but by now it seemed more likely he had been right the first time.
“Flying saucers…” Henry shook his head. “Doesn’t this world hold
enough mysteries that you don’t have to go out and make up new ones?”
“So would you buy the book or not?”
“I’d expect a free copy, as thanks for putting up with you all those
years,” Henry scoffed. “And then I might need to reconsider my stance on
book-burning. But my honest advice is to stick with archaeology and leave
the cheap sci-fi to professionals, Junior. And maybe see a psychologist
about those dreams.”
 “Right,” Indy said. He didn’t know where the alien dream had come
from, or why it seemed so compelling that he wanted to write it all down,
but the more he thought about it the sillier it seemed. Best to just forget
about it altogether.
“Just stress, I’m sure,” Henry continued. “Thanks to Elaine, no doubt. If
I ever see that rotten two-timing—”
Indy leveled a warning finger at his father. “Don’t ever speak that way
about her, Dad.”
Henry held up his hands, surprised at the emotion. “Suit yourself,
Junior. What about Bolander?”
“Say whatever you want about him.” Indy realized he was holding more
than a bit of a double standard, and that he should be at least as mad at
Elaine for having been the one to actually lie to him about her marital status
and then desert him at the altar, but he just couldn’t bring himself to it. He
still loved her in spite of everything, but Bolander, not so much. “I wouldn’t
mind seeing him fried by a flying saucer,” he muttered.
“Get some sleep, Junior,” Henry said. “It will do you good. We can talk
about this more in the morning.”
“And things will be better then?” Indy snapped. “Things will be
different?” He sat down, feeling weak, and put his face in his hands. He had
never been particularly comfortable opening up to his father, even after they
had reconciled their differences; but right now, with Marcus feeling under
the weather, he felt he had nowhere else to turn. “I’m lonely, Dad.”
There. It was on the table.
Henry crossed his arms. “You think you’ve got problems? I’m going to
die before I’ve seen a grandchild!”
Indy winced. “Thanks, Dad. That helped put it all in perspective.”
Seeing the hurt, Henry’s tone softened, and he put an arm around his
son. “Indiana,” he said, “whatever happens, whomever you find, and
however long it takes—I’m proud of you, of what you’ve done, and who
you’ve become.”
Indy returned the half-hug, his pain numbed for the moment. “Thanks,
Dad,” he said. “That helped put it all in perspective.”
He got up to leave, intent on following his father’s advice and getting
some sleep, but Henry interrupted. “Oh, by the way, Junior, the police are
looking for you. Something about missing a court date. Did you destroy a
beefeater float?”
 “What can I say? I’ve always hated those things.” Indy moved to the
door. “I’ll worry about it tomorrow. Good night, Dad.”
He left his father’s house in a daze and paused for a moment on the
porch to look up at the stars. At the sight of them, he felt an additional pang
of despair and emptiness in his heart that he couldn’t explain. He couldn’t
bear to look at them much longer, so he walked down the steps to the
waiting car.
The driver turned around as he got in. It was Short Round, loyal to the
end, still here long after most of the other guests had gone home. “Where
to, Dr. Jones?” he said.
“The airport, Shorty,” Indy said, “and step on it.”
“No problem.” Short Round turned his Giants cap around and put the
pedal down, taking care to stay within the speed limit. He had mellowed out
over the years.
Indy put his own hat down, closed his eyes, and imagined another time,
long ago. And then he realized that Elaine had shown him something
important—there was no point living in the past when the present had
plenty to offer.
He didn’t know where he would go once he reached the airport. What
did it matter? Trouble found him wherever he went, and he’d come to
realize that was just the natural order of things for him and probably would
be for the rest of his days. Maybe he’d play blindfolded darts with a map to
choose a place. Anywhere was as good as anywhere else.
The car roared off down the road, cans still banging behind it, toward an
uncertain but inevitably thrilling future.
 EPILOGUE

Sergei Ustinov had done more fun things than explain to Stalin that the
mission had been a colossal failure, that the power cylinder was gone, that
Bernard, Veska, Cheslav and a few soldiers were dead, and that it was all
due to one man—Indiana Jones. Cheslav had warned them about Indiana
Jones, but they had still underestimated him and paid dearly. Yet Stalin,
though hardly the forgiving sort, had gotten over the loss and changed
tactics almost immediately, as if this had been part of the plan all along.
Now, on his orders, Ustinov was meeting with one of his proteges, a
dark-haired woman in her late twenties who carried a rapier and thought she
had psychic powers. Ustinov thought she belonged in an asylum, but Stalin
was enamored with her for some reason and had given her the Order of
Lenin, so here she was, and since he was grateful to still have his job and
his life he couldn’t complain too much.
“I’ll get right to the point, Spalko,” he told her. “I trust you’re somewhat
familiar with the setbacks to the recent artifact recovery mission. What you
aren’t aware of is that—”
“—this mission may have been connected with another crash site, two
years ago, with another craft and another body,” she finished for him.
“Much like the ones found at sites in the Motherland. Perhaps sent here on
another mission, perhaps the same one—who can say?”
Ustinov was taken aback, but quickly regained his composure. Stalin
had obviously told her about it. “Yes, well, the American media made a big
deal out of it, but the military didn’t didn’t see any threat or any
opportunities. It moved on. But these other creatures may have power of
their own. Something more subtle, more mental.”
“True power,” she told him. “Any fool can blow up his enemy. But to
bring him around to your way of thinking, to turn him into you —that’s true
power. We should have concentrated our efforts there in the first place.”
“Well, we’re doing so now, and we’re placing you in charge,” Ustinov
said, “but not alone. We’ve learned our lesson about having too few parties
involved and being too subtle. We’re pairing you up with the Spetznatz. Not
even Indiana Jones will be able to take out all of you.”
“Indiana Jones?” she inquired. “The American archaeologist?”
“Yes, he foiled us this time around. He was part of the team
investigating both crash sites. He’ll know all about these creatures, so seek
him out. But not yet.”
“No, of course not yet,” Spalko said. “The American military is on its
guard, Dr. Jones is on his guard, and we don’t yet know enough to proceed
safely. You want me to bide my time, gather information, and move forward
very, very slowly, although you suspect that the entire thing is a waste of
time and that I belong in an asylum.”
He stared at her, speechless.
She stood up, moved to his side of the table, and patted him on the head.
“You’re an easy man to read, Ustinov,” she said. “At least you don’t think
I’m a witch.”
He hadn’t told her his name. It was classified.
She moved past him, toward the door, her rapier swishing against her
slender frame. “I can’t wait to meet this Dr. Jones,” she said.
Ustinov wondered if it was too late for a career change.
 BEHIND THE SCENES

Though this story is based on someone else’s script, I did a lot of work to
get it in the condition it’s in now. For better or worse, it may now verge on
self-parody. In my version, Indiana Jones experiences a midlife crisis and
comes dangerously close to breaking the fourth wall as he realizes how
absurd and formulaic his adventures are. I added many references to
previous adventures in the Expanded Universe, especially The Further
Adventures of Indiana Jones comics series and The Young Indiana Jones
Chronicles TV show and the Bantam novels, that most casual fans probably
aren’t familiar with. In one case this resolved a plot hole—the script never
explains where the dog came from or why it’s so intelligent and helpful. My
hinting at a connection with a shapeshifting man from other books may be a
bit of a copout, but it’s more of an explanation than Jeffrey Boam bothered
with. My most obscure reference is to a girl named Rita that Indy almost
married once, according to a couple of sentences in the original Raiders of
the Lost Ark novelization by Campbell Black, where he thinks about
random things to avoid falling asleep while lashed to the periscope of a
German submarine.
My intention with both of these approaches was to make the story a bit
more realistic by placing it in the broader context of Indy’s life, rather than
it being just yet another adventure that happens and is never mentioned
again as he moves on to the next. Yes, I realize that realism isn’t the
franchise’s highest priority, but I wanted to do something fresh and
different.
As I mentioned, I had to change a couple things to avoid redundancy
with Crystal Skull. There were surprisingly few instances of this. In the
original script Indy survives a nuclear blast in a similar yet far less
ridiculous method; he goes into a crawlspace beneath the floor of one of the
fake houses and pulls the fridge over the top of it. I had to change it so he
escapes earlier and sees the blast from a distance, providing some
foreshadowing and gentle ribbing of the much-maligned film version. The
script also has Marion Ravenwood and Willie Scott teasing Indy at the
beginning and ends with Indy and Elaine getting married. Since Indy in
“Crystal Skull” isn’t supposed to have seen Marion for twenty years, I no
longer identify these women by name, and leave it vague as to whether he’s
hallucinating them in his drunkenness and heartache altogether. As for the
second bit, it’s bad enough that his marriage to Deirdre Campbell is so
rarely mentioned in other sources, but another would just be too much to
swallow and require a sequel to explain what happened to her. So I changed
that and made it poignant and stuff.
The script was too short for a movie, let alone a novelization. I had to
insert a lot just to get it to something approaching a respectable length. If
you haven’t read the script, just give me credit for whichever parts you like,
okay? To give one of the more drastic examples, here’s a brief passage:

INDY
I didn’t discourage you?

ELAINE
Not hardly.

She finishes bandaging the wound.

ELAINE
The Iban temple exists. It has taken me three years to raise the money for
this expedition, and though I’m touched by your concern or my well-being,
it won’t stop me…Finding the temple means more to me than anything.
Either you take me, or I’ll find a guide who will.
 INDY
Well. I don’t want that to happen.

She looks into his eyes and feels the attraction herself.

ELAINE
I feel compelled to tell you, Dr. Jones, that I’m engaged to Dr. Benjamin F.
Morganthal…a wonderful, intelligent man…

INDY
An intelligent man wouldn’t let you come to Borneo alone, Dr. McGregor.

Their look is magnetic and they hold the look a little longer than
comfortable. Just then Kabul appears.

KABUL
Good news, Dr. Jones…I sold the boat.

INDY (sotto)
Not now, Kabul.

KABUL
…Good price.

ELAINE
You sold the boat? Your boat?

KABUL
Yes.

INDY
No. There’s been some mistake… he didn’t sell our boat…
(to Kabul with extra emphasis)
I never said sell “the boat”…I said, sell “the goat”.

KABUL
(totally lost)
The goat?

ELAINE
Is there a problem?

INDY
No, no problem. Why don’t you get your things. Kabul is going to get the
boat ready for the trip upriver.

Kabul’s eyes widen. She moves off. Indy watches her in a daze.

Now here’s that passage as I fleshed out and slightly rearranged it for
my novelization:

He blinked. “You mean I didn’t discourage you?”

“Not hardly,” she said, finishing his bandage and pulling it snug. She
looked him in the eye again. “The Iban temple exists,” she said with
conviction. “It has taken me three years to raise the money for this
expedition, and though I’m touched by your concern for my well-being, it
won’t stop me. Finding the temple means more to me than anything. Either
you take me, or I’ll find a guide who will.”
“Well.” Indy swallowed uncomfortably, suddenly feeling the heat. “I
don’t want that to happen.”
Their gazes remained locked for a few more seconds, and at the same
moment both of them began feeling a bit uncomfortable. As luck would
have it, Kabul reappeared just then. “Good news, Dr. Jones!” he said,
rushing up to them. “I sold the boat!”
Indy snapped back to the present. “Not now, Kabul,” he mumbled sotto
voce.
“Good price—what?”
“You sold the boat?” Elaine said, sounding a bit distressed. “Your
boat?”
“Yes,” Kabul said apologetically, looking in confusion from one to the
other.
“No,” Indy said, forcing a laugh, “there’s been some mistake. He didn’t
sell our boat.” He gave Kabul a cold hard stare and put extra emphasis on
his words. “I never said sell ‘the boat’. I said sell ‘the goat’.”
 Kabul was totally lost. “The goat?”
“Is there a problem?” Elaine said testily.
“No, no problem,” Indy insisted. “Why don’t you get your things?
Kabul is going to get the boat ready for the trip upriver.”
Kabul’s eyes widened. Elaine looked at them both strangely, then
shrugged to herself and moved off into the crowd. Indy stared after her in a
daze, admiring her walk, the walk of someone who knew where she was
going and what she wanted in the world. His gaze drifted down to her
ankles. Nice ankles, strong ankles.
It took him a few seconds to notice Kabul tugging on his sleeve. “Indy,
are you all right?” he was saying. “Do you have a fever or something?
You’re acting strange.”
Indy waved him off. “I’m just tired. I’ll sleep on the boat.”
“If we can get it back,” Kabul said. “The man I sold it to will want
twice as much for it now, to recoup his loss.”
“Write him a check,” Indy said. “Let me worry about it.” Actually,
Marcus Brody would be the one who would have to worry about it, but Indy
would make it up to him. Somehow.

***

The crackling fire sent sparks spiraling up into the sky, joining the stars
before they fizzled out. Indy knew that in fact most of the stars themselves
had also “fizzled out” quite some time ago, and their light was just now
reaching Earth. The kind of distances involved were impossible for him to
wrap his brain around. He preferred not to try.
“They were never so bright back in New Jersey,” Elaine said. She was
seated next to him on the fallen log he had dragged over to the campsite.
Nearby, out of sight but taking care to stay close to the fire, Kabul was
gathering more wood.
“You should get out in the field more often,” Indy said. “I’ve seen this
light show a thousand times, from as many angles.”
“It’s always been in the nature of mankind to explore, and colonize, and
basically conquer everywhere he can reach,” Elaine continued. She gestured
up at the sky. “Do you think he’ll ever get that far?”
Indy shrugged. “I imagine if he does, he’ll lose interest and come home
pretty quick. Dusting off space rocks isn’t my idea of a swell time.”
 “No,” she said, casting a sidelong glance at him. “I’m sure arrowheads
are much more interesting.”
“Yes, as a matter of fact, I happen to think they are,” he said, narrowing
his eyes at her. “If you’d care to attend one of my lectures on the subject,
I’m sure you’ll come to agree.” He paused to reflect for a moment. “When
they aren’t being thrown or shot at you, they’re much easier to examine.
That’s always nice.”
She laughed; a magical sound like the tinkling of fairy wings. The red
glow of the campfire gave her skin an unearthly quality that might have
been unsettling on some people, but in this case only served to augment her
beauty.
As she looked into his eyes he noticed the familiar telltale signs that
she, too, was beginning to feel something strange. Something unfamiliar,
something wonderful, something alarming. She tried to push it aside,
pretend it wasn’t there. But before her brain could stop it, her mouth was
saying, “I feel compelled to tell you, Dr. Jones, that I’m engaged.”
Indy’s heart sank, but for the moment he hardly noticed it, so trapped
was he in those gorgeous brown eyes. “Apropos of what?”
She shrugged. “I just—your reputation precedes you, Dr. Jones. I’ve
heard about how you seduce another woman at least every month. And I
don’t mean to flatter myself, but if you had that in mind again, you just
should know that it isn’t going to work out like that.”
“I’m insulted,” he said. “I’m perfectly capable of maintaining a purely
professional relationship with a colleague of the opposite sex.”
“Yes?” she said, raising an eyebrow. “Do you know that from
experience?”
“Yes!” he snapped. “There was Sophia Hapgood, for one, and—and—
others. They’ll come back to me.”
“I suppose those would be less memorable,” she said, shaking her head
sadly. “All those women—tell me, Dr. Jones, did any of them really mean
anything to you? Or was each just the latest trophy for the shelf of your
manhood?”
“That’s getting a bit personal,” Indy said, shifting away from her.
“You’ve made your point. You’re off-limits. I respect that.”
“Sorry, I can be a bit blunt sometimes,” she said, not sounding sorry at
all. “It’s none of my business. Anyway, let’s forget this silly talk. We have
work to do.”
 “Agreed.” Indy intended to do just that, but before his brain could stop
it, his mouth was saying, “Who’s the lucky guy?”
“Dr. Benjamin F. Morganthal. A charming, intelligent man…”
“An intelligent man wouldn’t let you come to Borneo alone, Dr.
McGregor,” he retorted softly.
“Maybe he was glad to be rid of me for a while,” she retorted back.
“He’s fond of peace and quiet, and he knows I can take care of myself.”
“Peace and quiet. I wonder what that would be like.”
“Perhaps you should have gone into philosophy, Dr. Jones,” Elaine said,
standing up and brushing ash off her pants legs. “I’m turning in. Good
night.”