1 The Late Visitor Princeton, New Jersey Early 1934--Winter The arctic wind growled like a living beast at the corners of the house, and it was this otherworldly sound--transformed by the imagination into something both frightening and pitiful--that caused Indiana Jones to look up from his reading for the first time since supper. Having been wrenched from tales of gold and ghosts in the mountains of New Mexico, it took him a moment to gather his senses and correctly place the source of the eerie wail. He marked his place in Coronado's Children with a scrap of paper. Then he removed his reading glasses, placed them carefully atop the pile of other books and assorted maps beside his chair, and massaged his tired eyes with his fingertips. His vest was unbuttoned and his favorite bow tie, a gift from Marcus Brody, dangled limply around his neck. Indy glanced at the clock on the fireplace mantel--above the hearth that had grown cold from neglect--and uttered a grunt of disbelief that it was nearing midnight. In a little less than six hours, he would be on a train bound for New Mexico. He should have been asleep hours ago, but he was reluctant to surrender himself to the nightmares. He couldn't remember exactly when they began--they may have gone as far back as that summer in Utah, when he was thirteen--but there was no doubt that they were becoming more frequent. And more frightening. The nightmares always followed the same pattern: Indy would come to his senses inside a small, dark box. His arms would be pressed tightly against his sides. Not until the dirt started raining on the lid would he realize that he was in a coffin, and the coffin had been lowered into a grave. He would shout and claw madly at the coffin lid, but to no avail--he was buried alive. Then came the knock. Softly, muffled by the crust of snow that clung to the front door and nearly lost in the fury of the winter storm that was turning the New Jersey countryside into something white and alien. Had Indy not been summoned back to the here and now by the shriek of the wind, he might have missed it; even so, he wasn't altogether sure that he hadn't imagined the sound. Indy unlocked the door and swung it open a few inches, allowing a torrent of snowflakes to swirl and flutter into the living room, and blinked against the numbing cold. A figure in a dark overcoat, with a hat pulled low over his eyes, stood at the bottom of the steps. His right hand gripped the rail, whiletucked beneath his left arm was a package about the size of a cigar box. "Dr. Jones?" the man rasped. "Yes," Indy said. "Forgive the inconvenience--" the man began, but he wheezed to a stop in midsentence. He closed his eyes, as if in pain, and held up one hand to beg Indy's patience. Indy grasped the man's elbow. "We'll be more comfortable talking where it is warm," Indy said as he pulled the man gently into the house and shut the door behind him. He walked him across the room and to the heavily padded chair next to the fireplace. "Thank you," the man gasped. The visitor removed his hat, tugged off his gloves, then placed the articles on the arm of the chair. The dark wooden box, however, he kept safely on his lap. The visitor was at least seventy. His hair and beard were the color of dirty snow, and the skin on the backs of his hands shone like blue-veined alabaster in the light from the electric lamps. There was a nasty scrape on the back of his right hand, and although the cold appeared to have stopped the bleeding, it looked painful. To Indy, the bruise seemed to be in the zigzag pattern of a tire tread. "Sorry to barge in on you like this," the old man said. "It shows a dreadful lack of manners. But you were the only person I could think of at this hour." "Don't worry about that," Indy said as he leaned down and looked into the man's unusually alert, steel-gray eyes. "Are you hurt? Or are you sick? Can I ring the doctor for you?" "I'm quite all right," the old man said with a wave. "Did you lock the door behind me?" "No, but--" "Please, humor an old man," the visitor pleaded. "Lock the door." "Are you sure you're all right?" "For now. Lock the door." "If you say so," Indy said as he went to the door and slid home the bolt. Beside the door was his suitcase, packed and ready to go. On top of the suitcase was his fedora. "A trip?" the old man asked. "Yes," Indy said. "I'm leaving in the morning for New Mexico, where I hope to do some limited but potentially rewarding archaeological work in the Guadalupe Mountains." "Treasure hunting," the old man said. "I am rather cold and would be grateful for something warm to drink. Whiskey, perhaps." "I'm all out. But I could warm some coffee." "That will do. Black, with lots of sugar." Indy went to the kitchen, lit a burner, and placed the pot of three-hour-old coffee over it. While the coffee was heating he knelt at the fireplace and prodded the ashes of the old fire with a poker. Soon he had located a pocket of embers and, by carefully feeding them with paper and kindling, made a cheerful blaze to take the chill from the room. "Careful," he warned a few minutes later as he handed the visitor a steaming mug. "Don't burn yourself." "Thank you," the old man said, holding the mug with both hands. Then he eyed Indy curiously. "You don't remember me, do you?" "No," Indy said. "I'm not surprised." The old man gently probed the back of his skull with his fingers, then grimaced in pain. "It was years ago. You were a graduate student at the University of Chicago and I was on tour, and our paths crossed one night when you accompanied Abner Ravenwood to one of my lectures at the old civic auditorium. My name is Evelyn Briggs Baldwin." "Of course!" Indy said. "You lectured on your adventures with Peary in the Arctic and your own dash for the pole in 1902. You built Fort McKinley, discovered Graham Bell Land, and believed that the aurora borealis could be harnessed as a perpetual source of power for humanity. . . . I found the concept quite fascinating, actually." "It is comforting to know that someone remembers me after all these years," Baldwin said. "I certainly remember you. You were so full of questions after the lecture, so brimming with enthusiasm. You impressed me that night, and afterward I made a point of following your career in the papers. You have been no saint, Dr. Jones. You seem to have had more than your share of what in simpler times used to be called scrapes." "Well . . ." "No matter," Baldwin said. "It shows that you have spirit, that you aren't afraid to challenge convention for the sake of the greater good. It is the reason that I am here tonight. I obtained your home address, with the intent of mailing you this chest." Baldwin tapped the box with his forefinger. It was made of some kind of dark exotic wood, had brass hinges and a sturdy thumb latch, and resembled a tiny treasure chest. It had obviously held some type of medical or scientific instrument, but that must have been long ago; there were many gouges and scratches on its exterior, the corners had been beaten down, and the gold-scripted name of the manufacturer, Burroughs Wellcome & Co., was badly cracked and faded. A heavy piece of twine had been tied around the chest to discourage anyone from trying to open it. "Why me?" Indy asked. "Because there is no one else I can trust," Baldwin wheezed. "I have been forgotten by the world, condemned to old age and a series of meaningless clerking jobs with various government departments. I never married. All of my friends are dead. I have a niece who lives in Kansas, but we are hardly close. And the secret which I am about to entrust to you requires someone with your degree of resourcefulness." The old man paused. So much talk had clearly exhausted him, and he needed a last bit of strength. He leaned back, rested his head against the back of the chair, and draped his hands over the box in his lap. A drop of blood glistened from the interior of his right ear. "I'm calling the doctor," Indy said. "No," Baldwin said. "I am no longer asking." "But I have more that you must know." "Then you can tell me while the doctor is on his way," Indy said. He hurried to the telephone, jiggled the switch hook, but his ear was met with silence. "It's dead," he said as he replaced the receiver. "The storm must have knocked down the lines. I'm surprised that we still have electricity." "Not the storm," Baldwin said. "It is the Schutzstaffel, and they have followed me here. Do you own a gun?" "Of course," Indy said. He glanced at the suitcase, where his .38-caliber Webley revolver and a box of cartridges were nestled amid the socks and underwear. "But who are these people and why would we need to defend ourselves?" "You know them better as the SS," Baldwin said. "Nazis," Indy said. "Stormtroopers." "This is a special squad," Baldwin said. "Agents of the Luminous Lodge of the Vril, also known as the Thule Society, the seed from which the German National Socialist party grew. This group of fanatics has been trailing me for months. Finally, earlier tonight, on the streets of Washington, they ran me down with a motorcar in an attempt to kill me and take my secrets. I escaped only because an alert cabby saw me go down and stopped to help. . . . Get your gun." "You're delirious," Indy said as he took his winter coat from the hook next to the door. "You rest here quietly. I'm going to bring a doctor back with me." "No," Baldwin said. "There is no time." Excerpted from Indiana Jones and the Hollow Earth by Max McCoy All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
