Taking Prince Ganefkhamen's private airplane to Enigma House, Alexandria's Empire Club, Sir Heathcliffe, Cara, Juliet, Max, the prince, and newcomers Nicholai Petrolovich and his companion Ana met recent Empire Club inductee Cecil Mbanke, a young man from a lost East African tribe who was granted membership to The Empire Club for his heroic slaying of a vicious lion with his bare hands. Soon thereafter, two academicians, Professor Ruehl Kaplan and research assistant Fraulein Liesl Doëmer, colleagues of the late Dr. Deiter Ernst who was recently killed in the African veldt by a pack of cheetahs, visited Enigma House in search of an African guide who could take them to Dr. Ernst's last known location to continue his research -- research that would take them in search of the fabled resting place of the Earth Mother, the mystical graveyard where all the noble animals of the veldt went to die. Leaving Cara, Juliet and Ana behind with the prince, Sir Heathcliffe, Nicholai, Cecil and Max led the researchers on their expedition -- for such a dangerous safari was a matter among men.
As the party trudged through the veldt, Cecil sensed they were drawing closer to the Earth Mother's secret resting place, since his tribe was long ago entrusted with the task of guarding it. As the party camped for the night, one of Nicolai's wolves turned up missing, and Nicholai and Sir Heathcliffe took to the dark underbrush to find the beast. After Sir Heathcliffe rescued Nicholai from a pit of quicksand, Nicholai's wolf turned up, pursued by two wild cheetahs. As Max joined the fray, the men downed the cheetahs, thanks to Sir Heathcliffe's trusted Frederick's Bull Rifle and to Max's bare fists. Delving deeper into the veldt by day, the group found themselves repeatedly attacked by roving cheetahs, which Sir Heathcliffe continued to fell with relish. When challenged by Nicholai that this "hunting" expedition was nothing more than a senseless quest for revenge by Professor Kaplan for the killing of his colleague Dr. Ernst by the cheetahs of the Ugandan veldt, Sir Heathcliffe assured him that one cannot seek vengeance on animals, since revenge was a matter among men.
Knowing full well that the beasts were guardians of the Earth Mother's tomb, as was he, Cecil determined that he must stop the slaughter of the Earth Mother's trusted feline sentinels and keep the location of Her tomb a secret. That night, Fraulein Doëmer gave Cecil her notebook, a journal in which she compiled and built upon the research of the late Dr. Ernst. Later, while the party slept, in the dying embers of the campfire, Cecil burned the pages of the text in which lay the key to determining the Earth Mother's final resting place and the maps that would help them return to civilization. Knowing full that he may well have doomed his party to wander the sprawling veldt until the burning sun stole their last breaths, Cecil assured himself that the Earth Mother's secret was once again safe and that some matters were not meant for men . . .
Episode Thirty-Seven: Cara Mia
Meanwhile, back at the Al-Moud Estate in Alexandria, while the men were away on safari, Cara showed Juliet a doll she had owned since childhood, which she kept in her nursery. When Juliet inquired about a missing brass button on the doll's dress, Cara told her of the button she found in Heathcliffe's Paris estate, and, linking with Juliet mentally, showed her the flashback she had experienced upon touching the button. With the help of Juliet's mystical training from the monks of the lost Tibetan city of Divinidon, the two delved even further into Cara's subconscious, examining the flashback in even greater detail . . .
Cara vaguely envisioned a blurry mental image of a woman reading a letter. She recognized the woman from her previous vision, where Cara witnessed a young Heathcliffe Quentin Merryweather saved her toddler self and her mother Alexa from the sinking Titanic by offering them his first-class ticket to secure them passage on a lifeboat. In this image, the letter Alexa read insisted that she bring Cara to "The Majestic Club" in New York City, and was signed by one Madame Marie Leveaux. Alexa sought the help of her brother in Paris, who gave Cara a doll wearing a dress adorned with brass buttons. Embassador Al-Moud, discovering that Alexa had taken Cara to Europe, sent his old military buddy Colonel Suf to track them down. Suf pursued Alexa and Cara throughout Europe to no avail . . . but Suf was not their only pursuer . . .
Delving still deeper into Cara's unconscious, Cara and Juliet witnessed the Italian thugs that Cara had seen in her previous vision of young Heathcliffe's adventure on the Titanic pursuing Alexa and Cara through the streets of an Italian city, unbeknownst to Alexa and the toddler Cara. More surprising still, was the subsequent appearance of two Phoenix Hordesmen, who thwarted the attempts of the thugs to capture young Cara. Next, Cara witnessed Alexa and her toddler self arrive at the Liverpool dock where the Titanic was about to set sail. Cara played the entire incident again for Juliet, and they again witnessed Phoenix Hordesmen mysteriously appearing in the bowels of the Titanic, thwarting every effort of the Italians to capture the toddler Cara. Finally arriving on the shores of New York City in a lifeboat, Alexa and Cara were intercepted by Colonel Suf, who had arrived first, and awaited them. Again seeing Phoenix Hordesmen in the crowd, Cara realized that the Hordesmen used their mental abilities to influence Alexa into turning the young Cara over to Colonel Suf, who then delivered the child to her father, the Embassador. It was the last time Cara had ever seen Alexa.
Disturbed by this vision, Cara and Juliet convinced Prince Ganefkhamen to take them to see Suf, who was now a General in the Egyptian army. Granting them audience, Suf insisted that it was not his place to tell Cara of her mother's fate, but after incurring the combined wrath of Cara and Juliet, General Suf gave Cara an address in the United States, in New Orleans, Louisiana . . .
Episode Thirty-Eight: To Feed an Army
Over dinner with her father, Egypt's Embassador to France, Cara broached the topic of the fate of her mother, and the role of the mysterious American Madame Marie Leveaux in her disappearance. Embassador Al-Moud was mortified at the mention of Leveaux, and demanded Cara never invoke her name again in his household. At Cara's insistence, Embassador Al-Moud conceded that she deserved an answer, and told Cara the story of her birth . . .
Embassador Al-Moud met Alexa in a Paris flower shop when he was but a young diplomat around the turn of the century. He immediately fell in love with Alexa and brought her to Egypt. Although the two had not yet married, Alexa grew heavy with child and, to avoid a political scandal, Al-Moud's aides sent Alexa to Paris and kept her whereabouts from the young diplomat until the baby was born. Alexa then returned to Egypt with the infant Cara and the Embassador married Alexa. He soon discovered that Alexa was receiving letters from Marie Leveaux, an American that Embassador Al-Moud had met and had an affair with soon before meeting Alexa. Leveaux's letters suggested that Cara was actually her daughter by the Embassador, and that Alexa's baby was switched with Cara by some unseen hand.
Cara's dinner with her father was interrupted when United States Naval officers arrived at the Al-Moud estate to negotiate the release from Egyptian prison of Private Kowalski, one of Commander Jack Perceval's men who was bushwhacked by Number Nine and left tied up in the Embassador's stable when Perceval and his men arrested Sir Heathcliffe at the Embassador's estate weeks before. When Cara inquired from her father why the United States Navy was hunting Sir Heathcliffe, Embassador Al-Moud told her that General Suf has suggested some "outlandish" stories regarding where Cara had been the last few months. Little did the Embassador know, the amazing tales of Cara's recent exploits in outer space in a stolen rocket ship were true . . .
Episode Thirty-Nine: Girls' Night Out
In 1835, a Sioux Indian tribe raided a tiny shack in the Texas badlands where a man lived with his wife and four-year-old daughter. Hoping to spare his family a savage murder at the hands of the Sioux, he shot his wife and attempted to do the same to his daughter, but her strong telepathic powers prevented him. The Sioux killed the man and took the child, to teach her the mystical ways of the plains shamans. When Colonel Grey of the United States Army rescued her as they slew the tribe for their crimes, he raised her as his own, naming her "Hyacinth" . . .
Nearly one hundred years later, in Enigma House, Alexandria's Empire Club, archaeology student Deirdre Kayleigh Campbell received a telegram from her mentor Indiana Jones, instructing her to retrieve an artifact he recovered in Thebes which he left at the University of Alexandria, in the care of his friend Dr. Marcus Brody. In the company of Prince Ganefkhamen of Egypt; Cara Al-Moud; Juliet DuPont; and Nicholai Petrolovich's "little sister," Ana, Deirdre met Dr. Brody at the University who, rather befuddled, explained that he had already given the piece to who he thought was Deirdre Campbell, and described the truck she carried the artifact away in. Cara's psychic sense directed the group to the Fort at Quaite-Bey Peninsula where they discovered that Grandma Hyacinth Grey, matriarch of the infamous Grey family, and her three granddaughters, Lily, Magnolia and Rose, had hoodwinked Dr. Brody into turning the artifact -- a large boulder, inscribed with ancient prehistoric runes -- over to them.
While Prince Ganefkhamen alerted the gendarme, Cara, Juliet, Ana and Deirdre took on the Grey sisters in a bloody gunfight and fisticuff melée with gumption that would have made the Suffragettes blanche. Grandma Hyacinth used her mental abilities and ancient shaman chants to open a portal with the magic boulder, summoning winged fiends from a primordial netherworld until Cara's sharpshooting thwarted her efforts and Juliet's mystical powers cast Hyacinth into the very portal she had opened, and sealed it behind her . . .
Episode Forty: The Savage Breast
Cara Al-Moud decided to recover from her "night out" with Prince Ganefkhamen and her fellow female fortune-hunters by traveling to Hong Kong with Max Galahad and Ana to visit their friend Jimmy Sung. Cara, Ana and Max were met at the airfield by Jimmy's "right hand man" and second in command of the Tong, Danny "Killer" Mak. Under orders from Jimmy to escort them to safe accommodations until Jimmy was prepared to receive them, Danny took them to Lotos Mansion, the Hong Kong Empire Club, where they were cordially greeted by Lotos Mansion Vice-President Charlie Chan and his "Number One Son," Lee. The hosts were preparing a reception banquet in honor of the induction of two new members, Dutch paleontologist Dr. Ralph von Koenigswald and Australian explorer of the Arctic, Dr. Augustus "Augie" Laramie, which was to take place the following day, when their startling paleontological find, for which they were to be awarded membership, would arrive from the Arctic Circle by boat in Victoria Harbour.
The next day, Sammy Palermo arrived in the Bellerophon III at the Hong Kong airfield in search of Max, but found, instead, young Claire "Number Nine" Witherspoon on the waterfront of Victoria Harbour, betting on a boat race that was to precede the arrival of Dr. Koenigswald's find. Sammy and "Number Nine" won big when their boat, navigated by a young street urchin named "Leaf ," placed first. Soon thereafter, Cara, Ana and Max arrived with Drs. Koenigswald and Laramie to witness the arrival of the remains of a 30-foot, prehistoric ape dubbed "gigantopithecus arcticus", which was sailed into Victoria Harbour frozen in a giant block of ice. Hidden among the crowd was Japanese espionage agent Mr. Moto, perhaps to observe what strange wonder was soon to arrive and fall into the hands of the Chinese government.
All chaos ensued when unseen fireworks technicians fired rockets at the ice block, sending the giant, frozen beast overboard into Victoria Harbour. The giant ice block cracked like an ice cube in a warm cocktail as it fell over into the warm harbor waters, and the giant beast awakened, leaving destruction in its wake. Cara's attempts to calm it with her telepathic powers backfired also, serving only to enrage the beast more. The fearsome "Monkey King" grabbed Cara in his enormous paw, and climbed a nearby observation tower. Six stories above the earth, the beast placed Cara down on a ledge when her soothing singing calmed its savage breast. As Danny Mak trained his deadly pistol on the crown of the giant beast, the observation tower began to crumble beneath its weight, and the ledge upon which Cara clung for dear life started to give way . . .
Episode Forty-One: Fall of the Monkey King
Japanese gangster Tanaka Kyoshi and two of his shady, black-suited thugs emerged from the crowd in the streets of Hong Kong as the giant, prehistoric gigantopithecus ape, found by Drs. Koenigswald and Laramie, clung to the crumbling observation tower on the Victoria Harbour waterfront. Complying with Kyoshi's request for "contained chaos," the two thugs left their post at the fireworks rocket launchers to seek new ways to kindle the commotion. One thug loosed a poultry truck into the crowded streets, and, the young street urchin boat racer "Leaf," and his newfound companion "Number Nine" leapt into the moving vehicle to steer it out of harm's way . . . and into the harbor. Fortunately, Sammy Palermo fished the two out of the water just in time.
On the crumbling tower, a mysterious Buddhist monk pulled Cara safely inside a window as the ledge and connected wall crumbled to the earth below, taking the Monkey King with it. The monk introduced himself as Lu Wen, follower of the great Buddhist teacher from millenia ago, Xuan Zang. Lu Wen led Cara out of the remains of the tower, where they met with Sammy, Danny Mak and Dr. Laramie. The five rushed to an ancient Buddhist temple in the center of the city, and, inside, they discovered a large, marble basin containing a shallow reservoir of water. Before long, a wolf emerged from a recess in the temple and magically transformed into the dark-clad monk Fung Chi, the villainous monk who all but wiped out the followers of Xuan Zang. Simultaneously, a car full of Kyoshi's armed gangsters arrived outside. As Lu Wen and the heroes engaged the gangsters and the villainous Fung Chi in a battle to the death, the giant ape lumbered through town toward the temple, leaving destruction in its wake.
Lu Wen and the heroes felled the gangsters and the evil monk, and lured gigantopithecus into the basin, which crumbled under its enormous weight. The giant beast plummeted down a deep well under the basin, hundreds of feet below the earth, this time leaving only an echo of its clamorous demise in its wake. As they left the temple, Lu Wen and the heroes found themselves surrounded by Mr. Moto and a team of armed Japanese agents who inquired as to the whereabouts of the Monkey King . . .