Emerald Death by Bill Craig Page A

need to get a room,” Gregor's expression was one of mock disapproval.  “Soon.”
                “Gregor, go check on Degiorno,” Hannigan growled.
                The Russian laughed and walked away whistling a cheery tune.  Mike Hannigan looked at Bridget and this time her emerald eyes did not look away.
                “Where were we?” she asked, smiling a smile that turned his insides to jello.  Hannigan took her in his arms once more.
     
                                        *****
     
    Hans Wessel stared out the porthole at the verdant expanse of jungle below them.  It looked nothing like the carefully drawn lines that decorated the antique parchment that was their only guide.  That was the bad part of surveying the jungle from so high up.  The muddy brown thread that was the river often vanished beneath the canopy of trees for several miles before emerging again.  There was no guarantee that the river you spotted was the same one you had been following.
                He had tried comparing the map to the official survey of the region.  Not surprisingly, the respective representations bore little similarity to one another. The course of tributaries could change without notice due to a fallen tree or boulder that might dam the river and change its course.  The map to the lost city had about as much in common with the official charts as the maps available to Columbus had with the Mercator Projection.  Well, he thought with a chuckle.  They have one thing in common.
    Here there be monsters....
     
    He had already run into his share of monsters.  Somewhere down there were the four that had escaped them in town.  Their victory, albeit a small one in the grand scheme, was nevertheless like grit in the gears of his pride.  The only way to begin remedying that was to make them pay; he vowed that their debt would be settled through a long and painful accounting.
                Nevertheless, the mercenaries helping the Italian were not his foremost concern, not the biggest monster on his horizon.  That dubious distinction belonged to someone much closer: the good Doctor Ragnarok.
                What concerned him most about Ragnarok was the degree of control the sorcerer had over the mission, and by extension, Wessel's own destiny.  To the masked mystic, he and his commandoes, along with the Valkyrie and the Messerschmitt fighter planes of the famed Kondor Legion, were but pawns on a game board.   As an officer and a fighting man, Wessel knew that sometimes war was exactly like that, a grand game of chess, but the power to command men to go to their deaths ought to have been given to someone trained in military strategy, not to a superstitious wizard with no battlefield experience whatsoever.
    Now two of the pilots were dead and their planes lost, and for what?  Some fabled lost city and a treasure that could grant immortality.  He shook his head.  Fairy tales and valuable resources were being directed into finding them rather than making Germany stronger.  The Reich needed men and money, not fairy tales if it were to conquer the world.
     
                            *****
     
    The sun was sinking low on the horizon and darkness was already falling within the jungle as Captain Morgan guided the riverboat up the middle of the river channel.  They were still a few hours from the thunderous cataract known as Livingstone Falls.  Barring any sort of problem, he anticipated reaching the portage sometime early in the morning.
    That was the easy part of the journey.  The lower Congo region was fairly pacified.  It was the upper reaches of the river where trouble seemed to lurk around every bend.  The inherent danger of the long river journey was part and parcel of the reason Morgan left that part of his business to younger, more adventurous men.
    “What do you hear about the pirates,