CHAPTER ELEVEN
And there it stood, towering above the Jeep: the presumptive headquarters of Miguelito Loveless III.
"So, how do we get in?" Chin wanted to know.
West replied, "These places always have a secret door."
Chin put the Jeep in gear and drove slowly around the mesa. The trio saw nothing that suggested a hidden entrance. At its eastern end, Chin turned right and headed toward the mesa's rear, a good mile-and-a-half away. It was then that they heard a distant humming from above. Looking skyward through binoculars, they saw a plane approaching.
"I think that's a troop carrier," said Chin.
The engines and propellers grew louder as the olive drab aircraft settled onto the landing strip. Chin turned the Jeep around and looked for a hiding place, but nothing obvious jumped out at her.
"Maybe," said Artie, "we're far enough away that they won't see us."
Watching through their spyglasses, the agents saw what looked like a golf cart approach the plane. A man dressed in a Nazi uniform emerged from the aircraft and boarded the cart, which presently vanished from sight.
"I think we've found your secret door!" Chin shifted into gear and gunned the accelerator.
xxx
To their surprise, the agents did not need to figure out how to open the door; it stood wide open. The trio disembarked from the Jeep and cautiously approached the entrance.
A voice familiar to both West and Artie came from a speaker mounted above the ingress. "Greetings, Mr. West. Mr. Gordon. Agent Chin. I've been expecting you. Please, come in!"
As they did so, two men and a woman, dressed in red jumpsuits and holding handguns, appeared in the entryway. The first man said, "We need to frisk you."
West said to him, "I remember you. How's the chest?"
Through clenched teeth, "Still sore, like I am at you."
"Did you expect me not to fight back?"
Before he could answer, the disembodied voice instructed, "Be sure to search them thoroughly. Per granddad, Misters West and Gordon hid many weapons and gadgets in their clothes and on their persons."
"You want a cavity search, doc?" the first man asked.
"Not that thoroughly," Loveless replied.
The guards left the confiscated weapons and gadgets in a pile by the door and prodded the agents forward through a well-lit tunnel. After about fifty feet, they were at another door, this one with a vault wheel in the center of it. The female guard turned it twice to the right and three times to the left, and the door gradually swung open.
"After you," said the first man.
They entered an office-like room, at the rear of which was an oaken desk in front of a bookcase next to a picture window with curtains drawn over it. On the top shelf of the bookcase stood what looked like an eight-inch replica of a man.
Miguelito Loveless III, dressed in a flamboyant red tunic festooned with chevrons and phony medals, stood behind the desk. Seated in front of it was the Nazi officer who had gotten off the plane. Severe-looking and middle-aged, he stood up as the agents approached.
"Mr. West, Mr. Gordon, Agent Chin. I believe you know who I am." He motioned to the Nazi. "This is Obersturmbannführer Rath."
"Rot," Artie pronounced it. "What a fitting name for a Nazi."
"Don't bother needling him, Mr. Gordon. He doesn't speak English." While Rath returned to his seat, Loveless came out from behind the desk and stood directly in front of West and Artie. "I know what you're thinking: I'm the first Loveless man who has towered over you, correct?"
"The thought had occurred to me," said West.
"Don't want no short people 'round here." He slowly paced back and forth in front of the agents. "I hear the Secret Service went through a lot of trouble and expense to send you after me. You were better off dead."
Artie nudged his partner. "What did I tell you?"
"But since you're here, I'll bring you up to date on my activities. First, how much do you know about my background?"
"What we've read in your Secret Service file." West pointed at the bookcase. "What's with the rag doll?"
Loveless laughed out loud. "Rag doll? You amuse me! That 'rag doll' is my late, unlamented father."
"Hiram Springfield?" Artie asked rhetorically. "He disappeared in 1912, a year after…." He cut himself off.
"After my mother was gang-raped by men that he hired to do it!" His raised voice was filled with hate, but he quickly recovered. "So, I did to dear old dad what my grandfather once did to you, Mr. West. The difference is, I never made a recovery potion. Instead, I put him in a Mason jar and kept him there."
A reticent West inquired, "For how long?"
"About a month, but I grew weary of his incessant whining. So I drowned him in the bathtub and read up on taxidermy. You can figure out the rest."
A mortified Agent Chin exhaled through puffed-up cheeks.
Loveless continued, "But moving on, do you remember Dr. Faustina?"
"Entirely too well," West assured him.
Chin volunteered, "I read about her. Didn't she bring the dead back to life?"
"Indeed, she did." To West and Artie, "Several months after your encounter with her, she and granddad crossed paths. He was intrigued that Faustina could resurrect the dead, but thought it cumbersome that she needed copious amounts of electricity."
"That make sense," Artie said. "Electricity wasn't in wide use yet."
"Precisely. Granddad was convinced that he could raise the dead without it, but died before his research was complete."
"So, of course," West interjected, "you picked up where he left off."
"Indeed, I did! It took years, but I finally got it right." He opened a desk drawer and produced a syringe filled with green liquid. "When I inject this elixir into the brain of the recently deceased, they come back to life, back to reality. Well, in a sense. They no longer have fully functioning minds, but that makes them perfect servants—or menials, as I call them."
Loveless approached the window behind his desk and opened the curtains. It overlooked a cavernous room filled with at least 100 "menials." A dozen jumpsuited guards escorted them through a rear exit.
"The results of my work, gentlemen—and lady. At this moment, they're boarding a plane for delivery to Herr Hitler."
"What does he wants with zombies?" West asked.
"Are you serious? Imagine no longer burying your war dead because you can bring them back to life, to fight again and again! You also don't need to feed them. They never get sick, either. And when you're done with them, you put a bullet in their brains. With an army like that, who couldn't conquer the world?"
Artie pointed out, "From what I've read about Hitler, he isn't too fond of you guys."
"Oh? And who might 'we guys' be?"
"Let's face it, Loveless. You don't exactly come across as a ladies' man."
He raised his eyebrows. "My proclivities are my own business, and nobody else's. Herr Hitler understands this."
"Oh, sure he does," Artie shot back. "Until he gets what he needs from you. Then he's only too glad to slap a pink triangle on that tunic of yours! Or do you honestly think you belong to the 'master race'?"
Loveless snorted. "Hitler's a buffoon! All his talk about mud races and a master race. The entire human species is a mud race! Did you really think I bought into that garbage?"
Obersturmbannführer Rath stood up and glared at Loveless. "Was sigen sie uber den Fuehrer?" ("What are you saying about the Fuehrer?")
Loveless assured him, "Ich sage ihnen nur, was sie horen wollen." ("I'm just telling them what they want to hear.")
Rath, looking mollified but not fully convinced, sat back down.
West asked, "So, why help him conquer the world?"
"Because I fully intend to be the power behind the throne. Hitler is simply a means to an end. If not him, it would have been someone else."
Artie laughed out loud. "You honestly think Hitler's going to be subservient to you? And I thought your grandfather was delusional!"
Loveless exploded, "You will not speak of granddad in such a manner! He was ten times the man you ever were."
"And Tom Thumb was ten times the man he ever was!"
Loveless slapped Artie's face, but caught himself. "Oh no, Mr. Gordon. You won't trick me into losing my temper and giving you a chance to beat me. That was granddad's shortcoming, not mine."
Artie shrugged. "Worth a try."
"One more thing," said West. "You've been a step ahead of us the whole time. How?"
"Quite simple; I have a mole in the Secret Service. Don't I, Agent Chin?"
A startled West and Artie turned toward Chin, who stoically looked straight ahead.
"Amanda? No!" said Artie. "Tell me you're not a traitor."
"A traitor?" She stepped forward and turned to face the partners, hands on her hips. "To whom? The Neanderthals who called me 'chink' and 'coolie' when I was barely out of diapers? The losers who bullied my father on the Hoover Dam project? My dad's an engineer, goddammit! He helped design that dam, and was there every step of the way when they built it. And yet, he was endlessly ridiculed by lowlife morons who never went to high school! 'Where's your poni-tail, Chin? How was the cat you ate for supper?' If that's who I'm a traitor to, then good!"
Loveless gave a laugh and clapped his hands. "Well put, Amanda! I can see I've chosen wisely."
She bowed to Loveless. "Thank you, Doctor."
West ventured, "So, what's why you didn't meet us at the airport."
She nodded. "I had to make it look good, though, so I rigged my engine to overheat. And I never tailed Miguelito, like I told you. I was in the limousine with him."
Artie noted, "You're a hell of an actress, I'll give you that. When those things attacked us, I honestly thought you were scared."
"Oh, I was." She turned to face Loveless. "You could have warned me, you know. I had no idea you were sending those dead guys after us!"
"I told you exactly what you needed to know, Amanda. And I thank you for all your help. When I return from Germany, I shall remit your final payment. Money, it's a gas. Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash."
"How long will you be gone?" she asked.
"About a week. Then you can take your parents home to China. That is your ultimate goal?"
"It is."
"In the meantime, why not return home to Los Angeles? Visit your family. I'll call you when I need you again."
"Sounds good!" She turned toward the exit. "Jim? Artie? I'm sorry about this. I really liked you guys."
"And this is how you show it?" Gordon spat.
When she was gone, Loveless nodded to the guards who stood behind West and Artie. Two of them produced miniature blowguns, pointed them at the back of the agents' necks, and exhaled forcefully. Tiny darts escaped from the blowguns and embedded themselves in West's and Artie's necks. The agents lapsed into unconsciousness.
xxx
When they awakened, they were encased in glass. It looked for all the world like an eight-foot Mason jar, complete with a twist-on lid.
Loveless and Obersturmbannführer Rath stood outside the glass. The former said, "This is a life-sized re-creation of what I did to my dear father. Except in his case, I punched air holes in the lid. For you, I did not do that. By the time I return, you'll have suffocated."
"That's not very creative," West noted. "Your granddad would never approve."
"Granddad came up with exceptionally creative ways to kill you, none of which worked. He was about creativity; I'm about efficiency."
"Then why not shoot us and get it over with?" Artie inquired.
"I don't have to be that efficient! I never met my granddad, but I know how much he hated you two. By making you suffer, I'll honor his memory. And now, I'm off to Germany. I hate to leave you, but I really must say, goodnight sweetheart goodnight."
Loveless exited the chamber, leaving two guards behind. The one with the sore chest pointed his machine gun at the glass and opened fire. West and Artie dropped to the floor in hope of dodging the bullets, but they needn't have bothered.
The guard laughed. "Scared you, didn't I? Don't worry, the glass is bulletproof. I was just messin' with ya. Doc said I could."
West and Artie returned to their feet.
"You might as well get settled in. Nothing can break that glass. Believe me, I've tried. Your little explosives wouldn't make a single crack, even if you had them. And you don't! I knew enough to check your boot heels." He pulled a chair up to the oversized Mason jar, sat down, and rested the soles of his feet against the glass, a complacent leer on his face. "Was kickin' me in the chest worth it, West?"