High Citadel / Landslide

by Desmond Bagley

  His mouth tightened when he saw how narrow the gap was. Maybe he wouldn’t have to climb the pass after all; maybe he’d have to fight and die right where he was. He judged that by the afternoon the gap would be narrow enough for a man to jump and that O’Hara had better prepare himself for a shock. But O’Hara had seemed untroubled and talked of a plan, and Forester hoped to God that he knew what he was doing.

  When he got back to the rock shelter he found that Willis had come down from the hutted camp. He had hauled a travois the whole way and it was now being unpacked. He had brought more food, some blankets and another crossbow which he was demonstrating to O’Hara.

  ‘This will be faster loading,’ he said. ‘I found some small gears, so I built them into the windlass—they make the cranking a lot easier. How did the other bow work?’

  ‘Bloody good,’ said O’Hara. ‘It killed a man.’

  Willis paled a little and the unshaven bristles stood out against his white skin. Forester smiled grimly. The backroom boys always felt squeamish when they heard the results of their tinkering.

  O’Hara turned to Forester. ‘As soon as they start work on the bridge we’ll give them a surprise,’ he said. ‘It’s time we put a bloody crimp in their style. We’ll have breakfast and then go down to the bridge—you’d better stick around and see the fun; you can leave immediately afterwards.’

  He swung around. ‘Jenny, don’t bother about helping with the breakfast. You’re our star turn. Take a crossbow and have a few practice shots at the same range as yesterday.’ As she paled, he smiled and said gently, ‘We’ll be going down to the bridge and you’ll be firing at a stationary, inanimate target.’

  Forester said to Willis, ‘Where’s Peabody?’

  ‘Back at the camp—making more arrows.’

  ‘Have any trouble with him?’

  Willis grinned briefly. ‘He’s a lazy swine but a couple of kicks up the butt soon cured that,’ he said, unexpectedly coarsely. ‘Where’s Armstrong?’

  ‘On watch down by the bridge.’

  Willis rubbed his chin with a rasping noise. ‘That man’s got ideas,’ he said. ‘He’s a whole Manhattan Project by himself. I want to talk to him.’

  He headed down the hill and Forester turned to Rohde, who had been talking to Aguillar and Benedetta in Spanish. ‘What do we take with us?’

  ‘Nothing from here,’ Rohde said. ‘We can get what we want at the camp; but we must take little from there—we travel light.’

  O’Hara looked up from the can of stew he was opening. ‘You’d better take warm clothing—you can have my leather jacket,’ he offered.

  ‘Thanks,’ Forester said.

  O’Hara grinned. ‘And you’d better take your boss’s vicuna coat—he may need it. I hear it gets cold in New York.’

  Forester smiled and took the can of hot stew. ‘I doubt if he’ll appreciate it,’ he said drily.

  They had just finished breakfast when Willis came running back. ‘They’ve started work on the bridge,’ he shouted. ‘Armstrong wants to know if he should shoot.’

  ‘Hell no,’ said O’Hara. ‘We’ve only got two bullets.’ He swung on Rohde. ‘Go down there, get the gun from Armstrong and find yourself a good spot for shooting—but don’t shoot until I tell you.’

  Rohde plunged down the hill and O’Hara turned to the others. ‘Everyone gather round,’ he ordered. ‘Where’s Jenny?’

  ‘I’m here,’ called Miss Ponsky from inside the shelter.

  ‘Come to the front, Jenny; you’ll play a big part in all this.’ O’Hara squatted down and drew two parallel lines in the dust with a sharp stone. ‘That’s the gorge and this is the bridge. Here is the road; it crosses the bridge, turns sharply on the other side and runs on the edge of the gorge, parallel to the river.’

  He placed a small stone on his rough diagram. ‘Just by the bridge there’s a jeep, and behind it another jeep. Both are turned so that their lights illuminate the bridge. Behind the second jeep there’s a big truck half full of timber.’ O’Hara placed a larger stone. ‘Behind the truck there’s another jeep. There are some other vehicles farther down, but we’re not concerned with those now.’

  He shifted his position. ‘Now for our side of the gorge. Miguel will be here, upstream of the bridge. He’ll take one shot at the men on the bridge. He won’t hit anyone—he hasn’t yet, anyway—but that doesn’t matter. It’ll scare them and divert their attention, which is what I want.

  ‘Jenny will be here, downstream of the bridge and immediately opposite the truck. The range is one hundred and eight yards, and we know the crossbow will do it because Jenny was shooting consistently well at that range all yesterday afternoon. As soon as she hears the shot she lets fly at the petrol tank of the truck.’

  He looked up at Forester. ‘You’ll be right behind Jenny. As soon as she has fired she’ll hand you the bow and tell you if she’s hit the tank. If she hasn’t, you crank the bow, reload it and hand it back to her for another shot. If she has hit it, then you crank it, run up to where Benedetta will be waiting and give it to her cocked but unloaded.’

  He placed another small stone. ‘I’ll be there with Benedetta right behind me. She’ll have the other crossbow ready cocked and with a fire-bolt in it.’ He looked up at her. ‘When I give you the signal you’ll light the paraffin rags on the bolt and hand the crossbow to me, and I’ll take a crack at the truck. We might need a bit of rapid fire at this point, so crank up the bows. You stick to seeing that the bolts are properly ignited before the bows are handed to me, just like we did yesterday in practice.’

  He stood up and stretched. ‘Is that clear to everyone?’

  Willis said, ‘What do I do?’

  ‘Anyone not directly concerned with this operation will keep his head down and stay out of the way.’ O’Hara paused. ‘But stand by in case anything goes wrong with the bows.’

  ‘I’ve got some spare bowstrings,’ said Willis. ‘I’ll have a look at that first bow to see if it’s okay.’

  ‘Do that,’ said O’Hara. ‘Any more questions?’

  There were no questions. Miss Ponsky held up her chin in a grimly determined manner; Benedetta turned immediately to collect the fire-bolts which were her care; Forester merely said, ‘Okay with me.’

  As they were going down the hill, though, he said to O’Hara, ‘It’s a good plan, but your part is goddam risky. They’ll see those fire-bolts before you shoot. You stand a good chance of being knocked off.’

  ‘You can’t fight a war without risk,’ said O’Hara. ‘And that’s what this is, you know; it’s as much a war as any bigger conflict.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Forester thoughtfully. He glanced at O’Hara sideways. ‘What about me doing this fire-bolt bit?’

  O’Hara laughed. ‘You’re going with Rohde—you picked it, you do it. You said I was garrison commander, so while you’re here you’ll bloody well obey orders.’

  Forester laughed too. ‘It was worth a try,’ he said.

  Close to the gorge they met Armstrong. ‘What’s going on?’ he asked plaintively.

  ‘Willis will tell you all about it,’ said O’Hara. ‘Where’s Rohde?’

  Armstrong pointed. ‘Over there.’

  O’Hara said to Forester, ‘See that Jenny has a good seat for the performance,’ and went to find Rohde.

  As always, Rohde had picked a good spot. O’Hara wormed his way next to him and asked, ‘How much longer do you think they’ll be fixing that plank?’

  ‘About five minutes.’ Rohde lifted the pistol, obviously itching to take a shot.

  ‘Hold it,’ O’Hara said sharply. ‘When they come with the next plank give them five minutes and then take a crack. We’ve got a surprise cooking for them.’

  Rohde raised his eyebrows but said nothing. O’Hara looked at the massive stone buttresses which carried the cables of the bridge. ‘It’s a pity those abutments aren’t made of timber—they’d have burnt nicely. What the hell did they want to build them so big for?’
/>   ‘The Incas always built well,’ said Rohde.

  ‘You mean this is Inca work?’ said O’Hara, astonished.

  Rohde nodded. ‘It was here before the Spaniards came. The bridge needs constant renewal, but the buttresses will last for ever.’

  ‘Well, I’m damned,’ said O’Hara. ‘I wonder why the Incas wanted a bridge here—in the middle of nowhere.’

  ‘The Incas did many strange things.’ Rohde paused. ‘I seem to remember that the ore deposit of this mine was found by tracing the surface workings of the Incas. They would need the bridge if they worked metals up here.’

  O’Hara watched the men on the other side of the gorge. He spotted the big man with the beard whom Forester thought was the leader, wearing a quasi-uniform and with a pistol at his waist. He walked about bellowing orders and when he shouted men certainly jumped to it. O’Hara smiled grimly as he saw that they did not bother to take cover at all. No one had been shot at while on the other side—only when on the bridge—and that policy was now going to pay off.

  He said to Rohde, ‘You know what to do. I’m going to see to the rest of it.’ He slid back cautiously until it was safe to stand, then ran to where the rest were waiting, skirting the dangerous open ground at the approach to the bridge.

  He said to Benedetta, ‘I’ll be posted there; you’d better get your stuff ready. Have you got matches?’

  ‘I have Señor Forester’s cigarette lighter.’

  ‘Good. You’d better keep it burning all the time, once the action starts. I’m just going along to see Jenny, then I’ll be back.’

  Miss Ponsky was waiting with Forester a little farther along. She was bright-eyed and a little excited and O’Hara knew that she’d be all right if she didn’t have to kill anyone. Well, that was all right, too; she would prepare the way and he’d do the killing. He said, ‘Have you had a look?’

  She nodded quickly. ‘The gas tank is that big cylinder fastened under the truck.’

  ‘That’s right; it’s a big target. But try to hit it squarely—a bolt might glance off unless you hit it in the middle.’

  ‘I’ll hit it,’ she said confidently.

  He said, ‘They’ve just about finished putting a plank in. When they start to fasten the next one Rohde is going to give them five minutes and then pop off. That’s your signal.’

  She smiled at him. ‘Don’t worry, Tim, I’ll do it.’

  Forester said, ‘I’ll keep watch. When they bring up the plank Jenny can take over.’

  ‘Right,’ said O’Hara and went back to Benedetta. Armstrong was cocking the crossbow and Benedetta had arranged the fire-bolts in an arc, their points stuck in the earth. She lifted a can. ‘This is the last of the kerosene; we’ll need more for cooking.’

  O’Hara smiled at this incongruous domestic note, and Willis said, ‘There’s plenty up at the camp; we found two forty-gallon drums.’

  ‘Did you, by God?’ said O’Hara. ‘That opens up possibilities.’ He climbed up among the rocks to the place he had chosen and tried to figure what could be done with a forty-gallon drum of paraffin. But then two men walked on to the bridge carrying a plank and he froze in concentration. One thing at a time, Tim, my boy, he thought.

  He turned his head and said to Benedetta who was standing below, ‘Five minutes.’

  He heard the click as she tested the cigarette lighter and turned his attention to the other side of the gorge. The minutes ticked by and he found the palms of his hands sweating. He wiped them on his shirt and cursed suddenly. A man had walked by the truck and was standing negligently in front of it—dead in front of the petrol tank.

  ‘For Christ’s sake, move on,’ muttered O’Hara. He knew that Miss Ponsky must have the man in her sights—but would she have the nerve to pull the trigger? He doubted it.

  Hell’s teeth, I should have told Rohde what was going on, he thought. Rohde wouldn’t know about the crossbow and would fire his shot on time, regardless of the man covering the petrol tank. O’Hara ground his teeth as the man, a short, thick-set Indian type, produced a cigarette and carelessly struck a match on the side of the truck.

  Rohde fired his shot and there was a yell from the bridge. The man by the truck stood frozen for a long moment and then started to run. O’Hara ignored him from then on—the man disappeared, that was all he knew—and his attention was riveted on the petrol tank. He heard a dull thunk even at that distance, and saw a dark shadow suddenly appear in the side of the tank, and saw the tank itself shiver abruptly.

  Miss Ponsky had done it!

  O’Hara wiped the sweat from his eyes and wished he had binoculars. Was that petrol dropping on to the road? Was that dark patch in the dust beneath the truck the spreading stain of leaking petrol, or was it just imagination? The trigger-happy bandits on the other side were letting go with all they had in their usual futile barrage, but he ignored the racket and strained his aching eyes.

  The Indian came back and looked with an air of puzzlement at the truck. He sniffed the air suspiciously and then bent down to look underneath the vehicle. Then he let out a yell and waved violently.

  By God, thought O’Hara exultantly, it is petrol!

  He turned and snapped his fingers at Benedetta who immediately lit the fire-bolt waiting ready in the crossbow. O’Hara thumped the rock impatiently with his fist while she waited until it got well alight. But he knew this was the right way—if the rags were not burning well the flame would be extinguished in flight.

  She thrust the bow at him suddenly and he twisted with it in his hands, the flame scorching his face. Another man had run up and was looking incredulously under the truck. O’Hara peered through the crude wire sight and through the flames of the burning bolt and willed himself to take his time. Gently he squeezed the trigger.

  The butt lurched against his shoulder and he quickly twisted over to pass the bow back into Benedetta’s waiting hands, but he had time to see the flaming bolt arch well over the truck to bury itself in the earth on the other side of the road.

  This new bow was shooting too high.

  He grabbed the second bow and tried again, burning his fingers as he incautiously put his hand in the flame. He could feel his eyebrows shrivelling as he aimed and again the butt slammed his shoulder as he pulled the trigger. The shot went too far to the right and the bolt skidded on the road surface, sending up a shower of sparks.

  The two men by the truck had looked up in alarm when the first bolt had gone over their heads. At the sight of the second bolt they both shouted and pointed across the gorge.

  Let this one be it, prayed O’Hara, as he seized the bow from Benedetta. This is the one that shoots high, he thought, as he deliberately aimed for the lip of the gorge. As he squeezed the trigger a bullet clipped the rock by his head and a granite splinter scored a bloody line across his forehead. But the bolt went true, a flaming line drawn across the gorge which passed between the two men and beneath the truck.

  With a soft thud the dripping petrol caught alight and the truck was suddenly enveloped in flames. The Indian staggered out of the inferno, his clothing on fire, and ran screaming down the road, his hands clawing at his eyes. O’Hara did not see the other man; he had turned and was grabbing for the second bow.

  But he didn’t get off another shot. He had barely lined up the sights on one of the jeeps when the bow slammed into him before he touched the trigger. He was thrown back violently and the bow must have sprung of its own volition, for he saw a fire-bolt arch into the sky. Then his head struck a rock and he was knocked unconscious.

  II

  He came round to find Benedetta bathing his head, looking worried. Beyond, he saw Forester talking animatedly to Willis and beyond them the sky, disfigured by a coil of black, greasy smoke. He put his hand to his head and winced. ‘What the hell hit me?’

  ‘Hush,’ said Benedetta. ‘Don’t move.’

  He grinned weakly and lifted himself up on his elbow. Forester saw that he was moving. ‘Are you all right, Tim?’

>   ‘I don’t know,’ said O’Hara. ‘I don’t think so.’ His head ached abominably. ‘What happened?’

  Willis lifted the crossbow. ‘A rifle bullet hit this,’ he said. ‘It smashed the stirrup—you were lucky it didn’t hit you. You batted your head against a rock and passed out.’

  O’Hara smiled painfully at Benedetta. ‘I’m all right,’ he said and sat up. ‘Did we do the job?’

  Forester laughed delightedly. ‘Did we do the job? Oh, boy!’ He knelt down next to O’Hara. ‘To begin with, Rohde actually hit his man on the bridge when he shot—plugged him neatly through the shoulder. That caused all the commotion we needed. Jenny Ponsky had a goddam tricky time with that guy in front of the gas tank, but she did her job in the end. She was shaking like a leaf when she gave me the bow.’

  ‘What about the truck?’ asked O’Hara. ‘I saw it catch fire—that’s about the last thing I did see.’

  ‘The truck’s gone,’ said Forester. ‘It’s still burning—and the jeep next to it caught fire when the second gas tank on the other side of the truck blew up. Hell, they were running about like ants across there.’ He lowered his voice. ‘Both the men who were by the truck were killed. The Indian ran plumb over the edge of the gorge—I reckon he was blinded—and the other guy was burned to a crisp. Jenny didn’t see it and I didn’t tell her.’

  O’Hara nodded; it would be a nasty thing for her to live with.

  ‘That’s about it,’ said Forester. ‘They’ve lost all their timber—it burned with the truck. They’ve lost the truck and a jeep and they’ve abandoned the jeep by the bridge—they couldn’t get it back past the burning truck. All the other vehicles they’ve withdrawn a hell of a long way down the road where it turns away from the gorge. I’d say it’s a good half-mile. They were hopping mad, judging by the way they opened up on us. They set up the damnedest barrage of rifle fire—they must have all the ammunition in the world.’

  ‘Anybody hurt?’ demanded O’Hara.

  ‘You’re our most serious casualty—no one else got a scratch.’

  ‘I must bandage your head, Tim,’ said Benedetta.