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 male 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 began to brim 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 Jones 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.” He 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 together. “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, 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 began to fill 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 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 this –”
“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 was nervously straightening 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. Elaine was shaking
her head while the man gesticulated wildly about something. The organist glanced at them and continued playing, but exchanged a nervous glance 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 began to shift 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 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 Indy 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 was unable 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 him, the man from the wedding. He looked back and held an indecipherable look with Indy. Then he slowed down and hit the brakes.
“Damn it!” Indy yelled, swerving 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.
He wasn’t alone for long, though, 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?”
“It’s about time you guys showed up!” Indy yelled back. He took a step toward the officer, but paused as the latter 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!”
***
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 him. “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 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 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.
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.”
Next: Chapter Four
“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 male 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 began to brim 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 Jones 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.” He 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 together. “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, 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 began to fill 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 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 this –”
“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 was nervously straightening 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. Elaine was shaking
her head while the man gesticulated wildly about something. The organist glanced at them and continued playing, but exchanged a nervous glance 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 began to shift 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 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 Indy 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 was unable 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 him, the man from the wedding. He looked back and held an indecipherable look with Indy. Then he slowed down and hit the brakes.
“Damn it!” Indy yelled, swerving 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.
He wasn’t alone for long, though, 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?”
“It’s about time you guys showed up!” Indy yelled back. He took a step toward the officer, but paused as the latter 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!”
***
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 him. “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 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 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.
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.”
Next: Chapter Four
