[In an alternate universe, this was the fifth Indiana Jones movie, a direct sequel to Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, released five years later in 2013.]
Set in 1964, the film opens on a view of a mountain peak as Indiana Jones’s signature brown fedora steps before it. The “mountain” is revealed to be the Paramount Studios logo on the side of a large warehouse. We follow Indy from behind as he traverses the many security measures in and around the building. He eventually gets inside the warehouse full of hundreds of thousands of sealed wooden crates stacked to the ceiling. It is the same warehouse from the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Indy sneaks through the aisles, trying to avoid the guards and alarms, then climbs up to a top shelf and finds the crate labeled “Ark of the Covenant.”
***
Cut to: a forest. An aging Indiana Jones hacks his way through thick trees and brush, searching for something important. Finally he finds his “treasure” on the ground—a little white golf ball—then uses his club to hit it. Indy exits the woods to a golf course where he is surprised to see a black car parked on the fairway beside his golf bag. Two “Men in Black”—federal agents—exit the car.
“Professor Jones?” One Fed offers to shake his hand.
Indy refuses him. “I’m retired.”
“We’re sorry to hear about your wife,” says the other Fed.
“You came all the way out here to offer condolences?” Indy says. “You could have just sent a card.” He sets up to hit the golf ball.
“Actually we’re here because the Ark of the Covenant has been stolen,” the Fed says.
Indy slices the ball back into the woods. “I recovered the Ark for you guys once before and you hid it away from me and the rest of the world. If you lost it again, it’s your own damn fault. So go find it yourselves. Indiana Jones is too old to chase fortune and glory anymore.” He drops a new ball and prepares to hit it.
“That’s curious,” the Fed says, “considering the Ark was stolen by Indiana Jones.”
Indy hits the ball into the woods. “What?”
They show him a surveillance photo of a man in a brown leather jacket and fedora with a whip outside the warehouse.
“Hey, what’s going on here?” Indy says. “That’s not me.”
“Indiana Jones, the third,” adds the Fed.
They show him another photo from the front, revealing the face of his son, Henry Jones III, aka Mutt Williams.
“That little…” Indy grits his teeth with anger and disbelief. More photos show Mutt leaving the warehouse with the crate containing the Ark. “Paramount!? That’s your idea of ‘top men’? A Hollywood movie studio?!”
“It’s a front,” the Fed says. “We thought people would assume the Ark was just a prop from the Ten Commandments or some cheesy B-movie about an adventurer. Who would care about a movie about an archaeologist?” They laugh.
Indy must find the Ark to prevent its power from being used for evil. But more than that, he wants to find his son—and maybe take out his old whip to teach him a lesson or two.
“I’ll find him,” Indy says. “I’ll get the Ark back.” He throws his club into the woods. “I hate golf anyway.”
***
Indy travels to his son’s apartment in San Francisco to search for clues. He finds a photo of Mutt posing with a young blonde hippie woman.
On Mutt’s dresser is a schedule for ships departing from San Francisco to Shanghai. He doesn’t notice a yellow snake sneaking up from behind. Just before it bites him, Indy spots the snake in the mirror. He runs to the kitchen and uses a steak knife to chop the snake’s head off.
***
Indy boards a ship to Shanghai. While sleeping, he is attacked by the same type of snake. He uses his whip to snatch it and flush it down the toilet. Then a ninja enters the cabin to attack him. After a fight scene, Indy chokes the ninja with his own nunchucks and tosses him overboard.
***
In Shanghai, Indy walks around a street market showing the photo of Mutt and his girlfriend, asking if anybody has seen them. One tip says they saw the woman at Club Obi Wan, the nightclub from Temple of Doom.
On the way back to his hotel to change, Indy notices he has picked up a tail. He grabs a bicycle, and a chase ensues through the crowded streets of Shanghai with his pursuers firing guns at him. There are several close calls, but Indy escapes.
***
After showering, shaving, and changing into a white tuxedo, Indy goes to Club Obi Wan later that night. He spots Mutt in a back room with a large crate. Indy confronts him, and they argue back and forth, fighting for control of the Ark. Indy is enraged that his son turned to the dark side, becoming a thief who steals precious artifacts to sell to the highest bidder—especially an artifact as powerful as the Ark of the Covenant. Mutt blames Indy for Marion’s death. They were on vacation to view ancient ruins in the jungles of South America when a rope bridge broke while she was walking on it.
Police arrive with guns and tell them to hand over the crate. The cops open it to reveal, not the Ark, but packs of opium inside. Both Indy and Mutt are surprised. The cops thank Mutt’s girlfriend, Lucille Belloq, for the tip. Mutt did not know she was the daughter of Indy’s old rival. Indy and Mutt are both arrested for drug smuggling and sent to prison.
***
Sitting in their jail cell, Indy tells Mutt that Lucille clearly set him up—she had been using him to steal the Ark for her all along. “She takes after her father…”
“She told me about a group of Nazis who escaped to a secret underground base in Antarctica,” Mutt explains. “They discovered the location of the Ark and were planning to steal it. I had to get it before they could…”
Indy is relieved to learn that Mutt only stole the Ark to protect it, but they fear Lucille is working for the Nazis and will now bring the Ark to them.
“I can’t believe you got seduced by a Nazi,” Indy says.
“I didn’t know, I thought she was a hippie!” Mutt says. “Plus, you’re one to talk about sleeping with Nazis.”
“Who told you about that?”
“Grandpa.”
***
In the middle of the night they’re awakened by a Chinese man walking down the cell block with a weapon that looks like a medieval torture device. “Dr. Jones?” the man says, lurking in the shadows on the other side of the prison bars.
Indy and Mutt both point at each other, saying, “That’s him.”
“You don’t recognize me, Dr. Jones?” The man puts on a NY Yankees cap as he steps into the light.
“Short Round!” Indy is happy to see his old friend. “You’re…tall. Or taller. What are you doing here?”
“Rescuing you.” Short Round uses the “weapon” to pick the lock of the cell. “Hurry, Dr. Joneses, we don’t have much time.”
“He’s not a doctor,” Indy says.
“I’m six credits away from my PhD!” shouts Mutt.
They fight off a few guards in the hallway as they attempt to escape from the second floor of the prison. Short Round says he has a getaway car parked outside. They reach the staircase and start to descend.
“Wait,” Indy says. “I need to get something first.” He goes up the stairs to the evidence locker on the third floor and retrieves his fedora and whip.
When they return to the staircase, a dozen armed guards are waiting at the bottom. Indy, Mutt, and Short Round run to the windows at the back of the building, parallel to a river, but the water is too far away to jump, and the fall to the street is too high to survive. Gunshots fire behind them. They are trapped.
“You had to go back for your hat?!” Mutt says.
“I also got this.” Indy takes his whip out and uses it to latch onto a lamp post to create a makeshift rope swing. “Go ahead.” He offers the handle to them.
“Are you crazy?!” Short Round says.
A bullet whizzes by. Mutt takes the whip, jumps out the window, and swings across the street like a monkey, splashing safely into the river.
The whip swings back to them. Short Round jumps next, followed by Indy. Mutt climbs into a docked boat and hot-wires it. Indy and Short Round join him. After a high-speed boat chase, they escape to safety.
***
Short Round searches Mutt’s hotel room, but Lucille has already packed all her stuff and left with no trace.
“Any idea where she might have went?” Indy asks.
“If she’s working with the Nazis, then they must have gone down under,” Mutt says.
“Australia?”
“No, all the way down under.”
***
Cut to: Indy and Mutt on a plane to Antarctica.
Mutt tells Indy about a missing German U-boat from WWII that is rumored to have escaped to New Swabia, the Nazis’ Antarctic colony. The theory states Nazi scientists were working on UFOs in an underground base and may have even discovered Agartha, the legendary kingdom located inside hollow Earth. Indy is skeptical, but Mutt tells him about Operation HIGHJUMP, the US Navy expedition to Antarctica in 1946-47, led by Admiral Byrd, who wrote in his diaries that he flew through a portal to hollow Earth where he observed an advanced civilization.
As Indy and Mutt search Antarctica, they come upon a group of Emperor penguins. Hijinks ensue as one penguin gets on Indy’s nerves by repeatedly stealing his hat and mocking him behind his back. Indy pulls his gun to shoot it.
“Whoa, dad!” Mutt says. “What are you doing?!”
“I think this penguin’s working with the Nazis!” Indy says.
“What?! Do you have hypothermia? Or are you just senile?”
“I’m telling you, there’s something off about it!”
“Dad!” Mutt grabs his gun. “It’s just a penguin!”
Indy eyes the penguin suspiciously as they leave to continue searching. There is a US military base and some scientific research facilities, but they find no Nazi bunker or portal to hollow Earth. At the US base, an old archaeologist friend of Indy’s stationed there assures them that no other people have arrived to Antarctica in the past few days, so Lucille and the Ark could not possibly be there.
“If I was a Nazi, where would I take the Ark of the Covenant?” wonders Mutt.
“Maybe the same place as last time?” says Indy.
***
They travel to the island in the Aegean Sea where René Belloq opened the Ark at the end of Raiders. But again, there are no Nazis—except for the melted remains of Toht and the others who didn’t “close their eyes” decades ago.
“Maybe they took it where Moses received the Ten Commandments,” suggests Mutt.
***
Cut to: Indy and Mutt climbing Mount Sinai, but they see no sign of Lucille or the Nazis anywhere.
“I never thought I’d be so disappointed to find no Nazis,” Indy jokes.
***
They fly home to the States.
“What more do you know about this Nazi girlfriend of yours?” Indy asks.
“Ex-girlfriend,” Mutt says. “Like I said, I thought she was a hippie. I visited her commune once, led by some guru named Swamisarpa.”
“Do you know what part of India he’s from?”
“He’s not Indian,” Mutt says. “He’s a blonde-haired white guy from California.”
***
Mutt and Indy dress up as hippies, wearing tie-dye shirts, vests with peace-sign pins, bandannas, long-haired wigs, and sunglasses. Indy tops off his costume with his brown fedora. They drive together on Mutt’s motorcycle to the hippie commune up in the hills outside San Francisco.
The hippies act very zen and friendly, talking about “free love” and “flower power,” dancing, doing Kundalini yoga, gardening, smoking pot, and milking their goats. Mutt asks about Lucille, but they have no helpful info.
“She’s a free spirit, man, she goes where the wind blows.”
“Can we speak to Guru Swamisarpa?” asks Mutt.
“I’m sorry, but Der Guru is not here,” says their hippie host in a bit of an accent.
“Isn’t that him, right over there?” Mutt points to a man in sunglasses with flowing blond locks and a long beard, sitting cross-legged meditating, completely unperturbed by the three snakes crawling on him.
“Yes, that is Der Guru but he is not here,” the hippie says. “He is in the astral realm, communing with spirits.”
“Snakes!” Indy tries to alert them.
“They are attracted to his energy,” the hippie says. “Der Guru loves all creatures. We are vegetarian here. Anyone who harms an animal—so much as a fly—is banished for life.”
She tells them perhaps Guru Swamisarpa will speak to them later. In the meantime, they share a meal with fresh food and milk from their farm. Indy keeps an eye on Swamisarpa who sits completely still in meditation the entire time. One zoned-out hippie dude offers Indy a tab of LSD. Indy pretends to drop it on his tongue but instead drops it on the floor when they’re not looking. While they’re eating, a helicopter lands on the commune to take Swamisarpa away. The remaining hippies wave goodbye, shouting how much they love him and wishing him good karma.
“Wait, where’s he going?” asks Mutt.
“On pilgrimage,” says the LSD hippie, now smoking a joint.
“To where?” asks Mutt.
“Nirvana,” says the hippie.
“Where exactly is that?” asks Indy.
“Far out, man,” says the hippie.
“How far?” asks Indy.
“Outta sight,” he says. “Dig it?”
“It’s underground?” asks Indy.
“Right on, man.” The hippie takes a long toke from his joint. “Right on….” He passes out.
Indy and Mutt roll their eyes.
***
They leave the commune, but Indy insists something is off. “I don’t trust those hippies. And that Swami guy seemed kinda fishy.”
“Guru wouldn’t hurt a fly,” Mutt says.
“Guru my ass,” Indy says. “Gotta be something wrong with anybody who likes snakes that much.”
“You’re being racist against their Hindu culture.”
“Me racist? He’s a white guy acting like he’s Indian. He’s the racist.”
“You’re just too old to understand the groovy vibe of the younger generation,” Mutt says.
“No, I’m with it,” Indy says. “I’m groovy.”
“Look at your hat, dad. You are not groovy.”
“What’s wrong with my hat?” Indy adjusts his fedora. “I’m groovy.”
***
Indy and Mutt take off their hippie disguises then sneak back onto the commune after sundown. They watch from afar as the “hippies” exchange their flower-power clothes for occult robes then surround a fire chanting in a foreign language. Indy and Mutt begin to see haunting visions in the flames. Some of the people appear to be morphing into psychedelic serpents.
“What is happening?” Indy rubs his eyes. “I’m freaking out, man!”
“I think they slipped acid in our milk,” Mutt says.
“Acid?” Indy rubs his stomach. “You mean they poisoned us?!”
“Not that kind of acid,” Mutt says. “LSD.”
They watch as the cultists perform a ritual sacrifice of a goat.
“I thought they were vegetarians,” Mutt says.
“They’re satanists,” Indy says. “See, I told you, never trust a hippie.”
“At least Lucille isn’t a Nazi,” Mutt says.
“She’s a devil worshiper, Mutt!”
“Is that worse?”
One cultist opens a basket to release dozens of yellow snakes. They slither through the blood and consume the goat.
“Let’s get out of here,” Indy says.
“You two aren’t going anywhere.” A hippie/cultist steps behind them holding a machine gun with a snake around his shoulders.
“Whoa, mellow out man, we’re hip, we’re groovy.” Mutt gives him a peace sign, but the cultist continues aiming the gun at them. Mutt changes his peace sign to devil horns. “Hail satan?”
The cultist shakes his head. “Come with me.”
“Make love, not war!” Indy kicks the cultist in the nuts.
Mutt swoops behind the man and uses the snake to choke him. The cultist fires his gun into the air, alerting the others. Mutt finishes choking him then takes his gun.
Indy and Mutt run to their motorcycle to drive away, but a VW van follows them with hippie cultists leaning out the windows firing machine guns. Indy returns fire while sitting on the back of the motorcycle.
“Go faster, kid!” Indy says, dodging bullets. “You drive like your grandpa!”
“I’m seeing two roads right now!” Mutt says, the LSD distorting his vision. “Shoot better!”
“I’m seeing four dragons!” Indy fires at the hallucinatory beasts in the sky.
Mutt takes a hard turn around a cliff edge, and Indy nearly falls off the motorcycle before grabbing Mutt to hold on. The VW van is going too fast, however; and flies off the cliff, crashing to the ravine below in a fiery explosion. There are no survivors.
***
Indy and Mutt return home to sleep off the drugs and nurse their injuries. With Guru Swamisarpa gone and all the cultists from the hippie commune dead, Indy fears they lost any further leads. Except…
“The snakes,” Mutt says. “They were golden lancehead pit vipers.”
“How do you know that?” asks Indy.
“I love snakes,” Mutt says. “I’m minoring in Ophiology.” He explains there is only one place in the entire world where golden lanceheads naturally exist: Ilha da Queimada Grande aka “Snake Island.”
“No way,” Indy says. “Anywhere but there.”
***
As they travel to the small island off the coast of Brazil, Mutt explains how the Brazilian Navy maintains an automated lighthouse on Snake Island, but visitors are prohibited because it is considered “the most dangerous place on earth” due to the abundance of venomous vipers. There is one snake per square meter on the island. Indy has a bad feeling about this...
They anchor their boat along the rocky coast but Indy refuses to get off.
“Are you coming, old man?” asks Mutt.
“Maybe we should check Antarctica again,” Indy says. “I’m telling you, there was something about that penguin.”
“Dad…”
“There are no snakes at the South Pole.”
“Devil-worshipers have the Ark!” Mutt says. “I have anti-venom for when you get bit.”
“When?” Indy gulps.
“If,” Mutt corrects himself. “Just don’t antagonize them. They’ll only strike if threatened.”
Indy takes a shot of liquor—then another—then jumps off the boat onto Snake Island.
They use machetes to hack through the thick jungle, making their way up the hill toward the lighthouse.
“I don’t know why you insist on carrying that whip around,” Mutt says. “A rope and grappling hook are much more useful.”
Indy is too frightened by the snakes all around him to argue.
They make it up to the lighthouse and climb the tower, but it is empty—though they can hear the faint sound of drums beating somewhere below. They find a hidden passageway to a winding staircase that leads to an underground temple composed of stone ruins thousands of years old. Ancient snake-themed hieroglyphs and occult symbols line the walls.
They continue down a dark fire-lit hallway toward the drums. Mutt, leading the way, steps on a booby-trap, and the floor opens up. He falls into a deep pit, too steep to climb out, and the gap in the floor is too far for Indy to jump across to the other side.
“Get me out of here!” Mutt screams. “They’re all over me!”
“I thought you love snakes?” Indy says.
“Not snakes,” Mutt says. “Cockroaches!” Thousands of giant bugs are crawling all over him.
“Are you kidding me?” Indy says.
“I hate roaches!” Mutt says, frantically trying to brush them off.
Indy uses his whip to climb down into the pit, then tries to use it to climb up the other side, but it’s too short.
“I need your rope,” Indy says.
“What?” Mutt is too distraught by the cockroaches crawling all over him.
“Would you get a hold of yourself!” Indy shakes him. “They’re just bugs!” Indy pulls a cockroach off Mutt’s shoulder and eats it. He then grabs Mutt’s rope and grappling hook.
“I should have known,” Mutt says. “On this island, cockroaches are the primary food source of…”
Golden lancehead pit vipers—dozens of them start slithering down the walls. Indy freaks out and drops the rope.
“Relax,” Mutt says, “They don’t want you, they want the roaches.”
Indy and Mutt both overcome their fears and work together to throw the grappling hook up and climb out of the pit.
They continue down the hall, careful to avoid booby-traps, then make it to the central chamber of the temple. Along with the drums, they hear people chanting in a foreign language.
Two figures in hooded robes stand on an altar with the Ark of the Covenant and a coffin. A dozen other cultists in dark robes sit cross-legged around them drumming and chanting. Others are doing Kundalini yoga. They are all so focused on the ceremonial magic ritual being performed that they don’t notice Indy and Mutt enter.
“And Moses and Aaron went in unto Pharaoh,” the hooded man says, reaching for the Ark, “and they did so as the LORD had commanded!”
Mutt grabs his gun, but Indy stops him. “Wait, let them. They’ll destroy themselves. Just close your eyes.”
Indy and Mutt close their eyes as the hooded cultist opens the Ark. A bright light envelopes the temple as they hear spirits, flames, and bolts of energy. The chanting and drums cease, and the temple goes silent. When the bright light dissipates, Indy and Mutt open their eyes—but are surprised to see the cultists still alive and well. The Ark of the Covenant has closed once again.
“Welcome, Indiana Jones.” The cultist on the altar removes his robe to reveal himself as Swamisarpa, though he is barely recognizable without his long hair and beard, replaced with an undercut haircut and thumb-width mustache. “How was the milk?”
“Missed me, Mutt?” Lucille removes her robe and winks then kisses Swamisarpa—or Steve. Both Indy and Mutt are confused.
“We know the trick to close our eyes,” Swamisarpa says. “It is not the power of the Ark we wanted, just a few items inside it.” He displays an ancient staff in his hand while Lucille holds a basket and a small bottle. “And thou shalt take this rod in thine hand, wherewith thou shalt do signs!” Swamisarpa raises the staff over his head, a fire erupts, and the cultists resume drumming and chanting around it.
“Aaron’s rod, the brother of Moses.” Indy raises his gun at Swamisarpa.
“And Aaron cast down his rod before Pharaoh, and before his servants,” Swamisarpa says, quoting from Exodus, “and it became a serpent!” He points the rod at Indy, and a beam of energy turns the gun in his hand into a snake.
“Ah!” Indy tosses the snake away.
Mutt aims his own gun, but Swamisarpa uses Aaron’s rod to turn it into a snake as well. Indy and Mutt draw their machetes.
“For they cast down every man his rod, and they became serpents!” Swamisarpa uses the rod to turn their machetes into snakes.
Indy and Mutt drop the snakes then look at each other. “Let’s get ‘em!” They charge toward the altar.
“Then Pharaoh also called the wise men and the sorcerers: now the magicians of Egypt, they also did in like manner with their enchantments!” Swamisarpa points the rod at four of his cultists who each transform into human-sized snakes.
One snake wraps itself around Indy’s lower body while another snake coils around his upper body. The other two snakes do the same to Mutt, constricting them in place.
“Lucille!” Mutt shouts. “I can’t believe you’re a devil-worshiper!”
“We don’t worship Satan,” Lucille says. “We worship Wotan—god of witchcraft, war, and wisdom—and Vishnu, destroyer of worlds!”
“Der Führer was possessed by the spirit of the great Aryan god Wotan and was the ninth Avatar of the Hindu god Vishnu,” Swamisarpa says. “And with the power of Aaron’s rod, I shall become as he! Reincarnate the archetypal force of the shudibudishvabhaba, Adolph Hitler!”
He opens the coffin beside the Ark to reveal a Nazi flag and a skeleton dressed in a Nazi general’s uniform.
“Hail Hitler!” Lucille and Swamisarpa salute the corpse.
“Hail Hitler!” The rest of the cultists pause their drumming/chanting/yoga to shout and salute.
“Is that…” Indy studies the skull and bones.
“Der Führer’s remains were retrieved from his bunker in Berlin by loyal brothers and kept in hiding until the time was right,” says Swamisarpa. “Which is now. With the powerful spirit of Hitler, I will end this dark age of the Kali Yuga, to reign in the Fourth and Final Reich, as god of gods, king of kings, supreme leader to rule all the world…forever!”
The cultists cheer and continue chanting.
“We anoint this holy relic of Der Führer with the spirit of the shudibudishvabhaba.” Lucille opens the bottle and pours holy oil from the Ark onto Hitler’s corpse.
“And I shall consume this manna.” Swamisarpa eats the manna from the basket. “Then be consumed by Wotan!” He raises Aaron’s rod, strikes his own forehead with it, then transforms into a superhuman-sized serpent.
“Yes, my Führer!” Lucille pets the giant snake. “Become the shudibudishvabhaba, savior of the Aryan race!”
“I guess she was a Nazi after all,” Mutt says.
“I don’t know what I hate more,” Indy says, “snakes or Nazis.”
“What about Nazi snakes?” Mutt says.
“The worst!” Indy watches in horror as the massive serpent that was Swamisarpa starts to consume the corpse of Hitler.
More vipers emerge through the cracks and crevices of the ancient temple walls. The cultists drum and chant in a mixture of German and Hindi. Indy desperately struggles to break free, but the snake’s grip on him is too tight.
“Dad,” Mutt whispers to Indy, “snakes don’t have eyelids.”
“Now is not the time for fun facts, junior,” Indy says. “That giant snake-man is about to reincarnate as Hitler!”
“The Ark…” Mutt squeezes his hand through the coils of the snake. “If I can just use my free hand to knock it over…with…this…” He grabs the whip from Indy’s belt.
“You’ll never be able to hit it without looking,” Indy says.
“The fate of the entire world is at stake.” Mutt starts to aim the whip.
“Give me the whip, son.” Indy reaches his hand through the snake coils for it. “Just close your eyes.”
“But dad…” Mutt is reluctant, knowing what this will mean.
“I love you.” Indy grabs the whip from him.
“I know.” Mutt closes his eyes, tears falling from the lids. “Tell mom I love her.”
“She knows.”
The Swamisarpa-serpent is just about to finish swallowing the skull of Hitler.
“Yes, yes…” Lucille is watching with wide eyes, as are all the cultists, chanting louder and louder, thousands of snakes slithering around them.
Indy slings his whip toward the Ark and knocks it off the altar, opening the lid. Fire and brimstone erupt from within.
“No!” Lucille screams as her face melts.
Just as the Swamisarpa-serpent is morphing into Hitler, it bursts into flames. The lightning from the Ark destroys all the other cultists and snakes.
When the temple returns to silence, Mutt peeks open his eyes. The snakes that were coiled around him have turned to ashes, as has everyone else in the temple. He looks to his right where Indy was, but all that remains are his fedora and whip. Wiping more tears from his eyes, Mutt picks up the whip and fedora then returns Aaron’s rod into the Ark.
***
Cut to: a university graduation ceremony. Mutt is on stage receiving his diploma for a PhD. After, he returns to an office, the door labeled “Professor Jones, Archaeology.” As he is hanging up his diploma on the wall, two Men in Black knock and enter.
“Thanks for bringing the Ark back,” one Fed says.
“I hope you’ve got a safer spot for it this time,” says Mutt.
“Oh, don’t worry,” the Fed says, “we’ve got top men on it.”
***
Cut to: Antarctica. An Emperor “penguin” carries a boxed crate into an underground bunker where hundreds more robotic penguins are stacking thousands of other crates.
***
“Top men,” repeats the Fed.
“But we’ve got another case we could use your help with,” says his partner. “Are you familiar with the Richat Structure?” They show him an aerial photograph of massive rings in the desert.
“The Eye of the Sahara,” Mutt says. “It’s in Mauritania. Some think it’s the location of the lost city of Atlantis. But there’s no solid evidence to prove it.”
“What if we were to tell you that a certain group did have solid evidence which has been hidden from the public for centuries for our own protection,” one Fed says.
“But that ‘evidence’ has now fallen into the wrong hands,” says the other Fed.
“Nazis?” Mutt says. “Please don’t tell me it’s more Nazis.”
“No,” the Fed says, “but I’m afraid it may be far worse.”
“Well…” Mutt takes off his graduation cap. “I’ve got some free time before next semester starts.”
“Thanks, Mutt,” says the Fed.
“Actually, I’m going by Indiana now.” Mutt puts on his father’s brown fedora.
THE END
To be continued in… Indiana Jones and the Rings of Atlantis
Disclaimer: This is noncommercial fan fiction (though I am available for hire, Lucasfilm).