The Golden Skull: A Rick Brant Science-Adventure Story

The hour was late. The boys and Tony Briotti bade good night to Lazada and Okola, refused the offer of another coke but accepted a ride back to the hotel in Lazada's car. As they left the house the boys looked for Chahda. There was a Sikh at the gate, but he was a big man. Chahda was not in sight.

Lazada's car turned out to be a brand-new Cadillac with a special maroon paint job and a monogram about four inches square on every door. Evidently the Assistant Secretary believed in personal advertising.

They were tired. The ride back to the Manila Hotel was made in silence, except for a brief report to Tony that all was in readiness for the trip to Baguio on the first leg of their journey.

At the hotel desk they picked up their room keys. The boys had one room, Tony another. The rooms were on the second floor, so they walked upstairs instead of bothering with the slow elevators.

"Good night, boys," Tony said wearily. He inserted his key and swung the door open, then stiffened as a crash sounded in the room. Rick and Scotty snapped out of their weary haziness and leaped into the room behind Tony in time to see a figure dive headlong from the window.

Rick yelled in horror. They rushed to the window, expecting to see the man dead on the ground below. Instead, they saw him swing lightly from the branch of a flame tree and drop to the ground. He ran across Dewey Boulevard and was lost in the darkness under the walls of Intramuros.

CHAPTER IV

Inside the Walls

"The fire escape!" Scotty yelled.

Rick was with him on the instant. They ran to the end of the corridor, threw open the door, and dashed down the fire escape. No word passed between them as they crossed Dewey Boulevard. At a time like this their teamwork was automatic.

They reached the walls of Intramuros, and Scotty went left, Rick right. Somewhere along the walls, or within the city, was the intruder. The question was, Had the intruder kept right on going across the walled city, or was he in hiding, waiting to see whether or not he was being pursued? If the former, their chances of catching up with him were almost zero.

Rick rounded the corner of the wall and had a clear view all the way down to the Department of Commerce building nearly a half mile away. There were sufficient street lights to show him that the quarry was not in sight.

He saw a breach in the wall a few yards away and hurried toward it. There was almost no light within the walled city, he suspected, but he would have to look. The breach turned out to be a pile of rubble. He would have to go over the wall unless he wanted to search for an entrance. There wasn't time for that. He climbed up the pile of rubble, careful about his footholds, and gained the top of the wall. For a moment he was silhouetted at his full height.

And in that instant a rifle cracked. He saw the muzzle flame, and in the next instant he heard the soft smacking sound of the slug as it went past his ear. There was only one thing to do. He jumped.

The wall was high, and he had no way of knowing what was below, but it was better to risk unknown rubble than another shot from the sniper's gun.

He landed with knees flexed, struck level ground, but fell forward with the momentum of the fall. Thorns dug into his hands and he smothered a grunt of pain. He lay where he was, not moving, waiting for some move from the sniper and for his eyes to adjust themselves to the dense blackness within the walls.

He wondered whether the sniper and intruder were the same man. The intruder had carried no rifle when he went out the hotel window. But it was possible that he had cached one somewhere under the wall.

What could the man have been after? Rick rejected the idea that this was common thievery. It was possible, but not probable. Especially after the attack on Tony Briotti aboard the boat. And after finding that Chahda had gone underground and was posing as a Sikh.

He was sure something was cooking that boded ill for the expedition. Nor did he have to rack his brains to find the cause. A golden skull was reason enough. Mass murder had been committed for less gold many times before this.

His eyes searched the darkness, and his ears strained for the slightest sound, but no movement or noise followed. Yet, unless the sniper were the world's most silent walker, he could not have slipped away.

And where was Scotty?

Again he pondered the mystery of Chahda. The Hindu boy had been registered at the Manila Hotel, waiting for the Spindrift party. Then, three days before their arrival, he had checked out and gotten a job as a guard at Lazada's. The disguise didn't cause Rick much wonderment. Sikhs, after all, are Indians, and Chahda had once worked for a Sikh officer in the Bengal Lancers. Rick remembered that from an incident during the Tibet expedition. It was probable that Chahda had simply gone to the chief Sikh in Manila – there was always such a leader – and enlisted his aid.

But why?

Rick tensed, sensing a presence near him. He raised on one elbow and thought he discerned a figure nearby. The figure was close to the wall. He had a hunch that it was Scotty, but he couldn't be sure. He made no further movement, waiting to see.

The figure became clearer, passed close in front of him, and from his low vantage point the man was silhouetted against the sky, which had a pink glow from the myriad neon lights of downtown Manila. No doubt of it, the figure was Scotty's. Rick got to his feet, and staying close to the wall, moved in the same direction Scotty had taken.

The inner ground of the walled city was fairly clear, but close to the walls there was considerable debris. Rick proceeded carefully, trying not to make a noise. He picked his way through tangles of weeds and wire, loose stone, and piles of junk that had been accumulating since the days of the Spanish conquistadors.

He was tense, and his face was wet with sweat. There was a possibility that the sniper was gone, but if not, a noise could bring a lethal slug. Rick thought grimly that the ancient walled city probably had seen many a murder in the more than three hundred years since the wall had been built. He had no desire to be the most recent victim.

Even as the thought crossed his mind, his foot struck the edge of a twisted sheet of steel. The sheet, all that remained of a Japanese armored car, rang dully.

Instantly the rifle flamed. The slug smacked into the stone wall a foot from Rick's shoulder. He didn't wait for the next shot. He hit the ground, scuttled a few feet, and stopped in a thorny patch. He grimaced and risked wiping the sweat off his brow. At least one question was answered. The sniper had not left.

Rick knew that the mysterious rifleman could have gotten away before this. The fact that he was still lying in wait could mean only one thing. He had known he was being pursued by the Spindrifters, and he had waited in the hope of picking off one or two of them.

Fingers of ice laid themselves across Rick's spine. It was no fun being the object of deadly intentions. He lay very still.

His hand brushed something soft among the thorns, and he thought he knew what it was. He was lying in a patch of the tiny pink flowers known as cadena de amor– chain of love. He had seen them everywhere during the day. They grew like weeds anywhere they were allowed to flourish.

The humor of it touched him. How romantic his sister Barbara would think it – to be trailing a desperado through an ancient Spanish city, and to be flat on one's stomach in a patch of chain of love. If he got out of this with a whole skin, he would write her about it, omitting such unpleasant facts as rifle bullets striking too close and thorns among the flowers.

But unless he did something about it, he probably would still be lying there at dawn. He rose to his knees, then to his feet, holding his breath until lack of response from the rifleman told him he had not been observed. Then he resumed his slow march in the direction Scotty had taken.

All guidebooks to the Philippines mentioned the walled city as a "must-see" item for tourists, and Rick had intended to take a daytime tour. This was not a suitable substitute. He would still have to return by day. He moved on, with extreme caution. He could see nothing but the upper edge of the wall and the silhouette of the ancient cathedral a few hundred yards away. But movement of air, a slight thinning of the darkness, told him when he passed openings in the thick wall.

Suddenly he stopped, all senses alert. He had heard something. As he waited, muscles rigid with the strain of listening, he heard a whisper no louder than the rustle of a moth's wing.

"Rick?"

"Yes," he breathed.

Even though he was expecting it, he gave an involuntary jump when Scotty's hand touched his sleeve. Scotty's lips touched his ear and the husky ex-marine whispered almost inaudibly:

"Gate to the street. Ten paces ahead. I have an empty gasoline drum. Going to throw it. If he fires and is close enough, rush him. If not, make for the gate. Can't stay here all night."

Rick found Scotty's shoulder and squeezed it to indicate agreement, then he crouched low, ready to move like a plunging fullback in any direction.

Scotty moved away. In a moment Rick heard the faint scrape of metal on stone. He filled his lungs with air, then held his breath, waiting.

He sensed rather than saw Scotty lift the gas drum over his head. Even when empty, gas drums weigh quite a bit, but Scotty launched it like a medicine ball. Rick saw it briefly, a cylindrical shadow against the sky, then it landed with an appalling clatter, struck sparks from a stone, and rolled noisily away.

The rifle flamed one, twice. It was perhaps twenty paces away, and the shooting was toward the drum. Rick rushed forward, arms outstretched. He heard a slap like a baseball hitting a glove, then a cry of pain. The rifle blasted again, muzzle skyward.

Rick thought he heard a siren wail, but there wasn't time to wonder. He sprang headlong toward the rifleman. His shoulder struck flesh which yielded. Then warm metal touched his hand and he grabbed for it. The rifle barrel! He leaned on it, keeping it vertical, and put his weight into the job of driving its owner back off balance.

A blow caught him under the eye and he saw stars. For a moment he relaxed his grip, then he released the rifle and reached until he found cloth. He pulled, letting himself go backward as the wearer of the cloth was pulled off balance. He landed on his back, and a knee in the chest drove the air out of him. He rolled sideways, fists driving out. One connected and the shock of hitting bone ran through his knuckles and up his arm.

A heavy weight landed on his stomach and he grunted, trying to roll out from under. Again his fist lashed out and connected. He drew it back for another punch.

Brilliant light illuminated the scene. Rick blinked in the glare and saw Scotty's grim face above him. Scotty had his fist cocked back for a punch that would have knocked him colder than a raspberry popsickle.

"Hold it," Rick grunted. Scotty was forcing the air out of him by sheer weight.

Running feet pounded the earth and hands jerked both of them to their feet. Scotty held the sniper's rifle, but the sniper was gone.