High Citadel / Landslide

by Desmond Bagley

  His words were lost in the uproar of another diving Sabre and it was then that Forester shot him, very coldly and precisely, twice in the stomach. He did not pull out the gun, but fired through the coverlet.

  Coello shouted in pain and surprise and put his hands to his belly, but nothing could be heard over the tremendous racket above. Forester shot him again, this time to kill, right through the heart, and Coello rocked back as the bullet hit him and fell against the desk, dragging the blotter and the inkwell to the floor with him. He stared up with blank eyes at the ceiling, seeming to listen to the departing aircraft.

  Forester slid from the stretcher and went to the door, gun in hand. Softly he turned the key, locking himself in, then he cautiously parted the curtain and looked into the hangar. The file of men—the firing-squad—were marching out, followed by the officer, and two soldiers were throwing a piece of canvas over the body of Rohde.

  Forester waited until they had gone, then went to the door again and heard a shuffling of feet outside. His personal guard was still there, waiting to take him to Coello’s office or wherever Coello should direct. Something would have to be done about that.

  He began to strip Coello’s body, bending awkwardly in the mummy-like wrappings of tape which constricted him. His ribs hurt, but not very much, and his body seemed to glory in the prospect of action. The twitchiness had gone now that he was moving about and he blessed McGruder for that enlivening injection.

  He and Coello were much of a size and the flying overalls and boots fitted well enough. He strapped on the parachute and then lifted Coello on to the stretcher, covering him with the sheet carefully so that the face could not be seen. Then he put on the heavy plastic flying helmet with the dangling oxygen mask, and picked up the pistol.

  When he opened the door he appeared to be having some trouble with the fastenings of the mask, for he was fumbling with the straps, his hand and the mask obscuring his face. He gestured casually with the pistol he held in his other hand and said to the sentries, ‘Vaya usted por allí,’ pointing to the other end of the hangar. His voice was very indistinct.

  He was prepared to shoot it out if either of the soldiers showed any sign of suspicion and his finger was nervous on the trigger. The eyes of one of the men flicked momentarily to the room behind Forester, and he must have seen the shrouded body on the stretcher. Forester was counting on military obedience and the natural fear these men had for their officers. They had already witnessed one execution and if that mad dog, Coello, had held another, more private, killing, what was it to them?

  The soldier clicked to attention. ‘Si, mio Colonel,’ he said, and they both marched stiffly down to the end of the hangar. Forester watched them go out by the bottom door, then locked the office, thrust the pistol into the thigh pocket of the overalls and strode out of the hangar, fastening the oxygen mask as he went.

  He heard the whistle of jet planes overhead and looked up to see three Sabres circling in tight formation. As he watched they broke off into a straight course, climbing eastward over the mountains. They’re not waiting for Coello, he thought; and broke into a clumsy run.

  The ground crew waiting by the Sabre saw him coming and were galvanized into action. As he approached he pointed to the departing aircraft and shouted, ‘Rapidemente! Dése prisa!’ He ran up to the Sabre with averted face and scrambled up to the cockpit, being surprised when one of the ground crew gave him a boost from behind.

  He settled himself before the controls and looked at them; they were familiar but at the same time strange through long absence. The starter truck was already plugged in, its crew looking up at him with expectant faces. Damn, he thought; I don’t know the command routine in Spanish. He closed his eyes and his hands went to the proper switches and then he waved.

  Apparently that was good enough; the engine burst into noisy song and the ground crew ran to uncouple the starter cable. Another man tapped him on the helmet and closed the canopy and Forester waved again, indicating that the wheels should be unchocked. Then he was rolling, and he turned to taxi up the runway, coupling up the oxygen as he went.

  At the end of the runway he switched on the radio, hoping that it was already netted in to the control tower; not that he wanted to obey any damned instructions they gave, but he wanted to know what was going on. A voice crackled in the headphones. ‘Colonel Coello?’

  ‘Si,’ he mumbled.

  ‘You are cleared for take-off.’

  Forester grinned, and rammed the Sabre straight down the runway. His wheels were just off the ground when all hell broke loose. The runway seemed to erupt before him for its entire length and the Sabre staggered in the air. He went into a steep, climbing turn and looked down at the airfield in astonishment. The ground was alive with the deep red flashes of violent explosions and even as he watched, he saw the control tower shiver and disintegrate into a pile of rubble and a pillar of smoke coiled up to reach him.

  He fought with the controls as a particularly violent eruption shivered the air, making the plane swerve drunkenly. ‘Who’s started the goddam war?’ he demanded of no one in particular. There was just a nervous crackle in the earphones to answer him—the control tower had cut out.

  He gave up the futile questioning. Whatever it was certainly did him no harm and Eighth Squadron looked as though it was hamstrung for a long time. With one last look at the amazing spectacle on the ground, he set the Sabre in a long climb to the westward and clicked switches on the radio, searching for the other three Sabres. Two channels were apparently not in use, but he got them on the third, carrying on an idle conversation and in total ignorance of the destruction of their base, having already travelled too far to have seen the debacle.

  A sloppy, undisciplined lot, he thought; but useful. He looked down as he eavesdropped and saw the pass drifting below him, the place where he had nearly died, and decided that flying beat walking. Then he scanned the sky ahead, looking for the rest of the flight. From their talk he gathered that they were orbiting a pre-selected point while waiting for Coello and he wondered if they were already briefed on the operation or whether Coello had intended to brief them in flight. That might make a difference to his tactics.

  At last he saw them orbiting the mountain by the side of the pass, but very high. He pulled gently on the control column and went to meet them. These were going to be three very surprised communists.

  TEN

  Armstrong heard trucks grinding up the mountain road. ‘They’re coming,’ he said, and looked out over the breastwork of rock, his fingers curling round the butt of the gun.

  The mist seemed to be thinning and he could see as far as the huts quite clearly and to where the road debouched on to the level ground; but there was still enough mist to halo the headlights even before the trucks came into view.

  Benedetta ran up the tunnel and lay beside him. He said, ‘You’d better get back; there’s nothing you can do here.’ He lifted the pistol. ‘One bullet. That’s all the fighting we can do.’

  ‘They don’t know that,’ she retorted.

  ‘How is your uncle?’ he asked.

  ‘Better, but the altitude is not good for him.’ She hesitated. ‘I am not happy about Jenny; she is in a fever.’

  He said nothing; what was a fever or altitude sickness when the chances were that they would all be dead within the hour? Benedetta said, ‘We delayed them about three hours at the camp.’

  She was not really speaking sense, just making inconsequential noises to drown her own thoughts—and all her thoughts were of O’Hara. Armstrong looked at her sideways. ‘I’m sorry to be pessimistic,’ he said. ‘But I think this is the last act. We’ve done very well considering what we had to fight with, but it couldn’t go on for ever. Napoleon was right—God is on the side of the big battalions.’

  Her voice was savage. ‘We can still take some of them with us.’ She grasped his arm. ‘Look, they’re coming.’

  The first vehicle was breasting the top of the rise. It was quite small
and Armstrong judged it was a jeep. It came forward, its headlights probing the mist, and behind it came a big truck, and then another. He heard shouted commands and the trucks rolled as far as the huts and stopped, and he saw men climbing out and heard the clatter of boots on rock.

  The jeep curved in a great arc, its lights cutting a swathe like a scythe, and Armstrong suddenly realized that it was searching the base of the cliffs where the tunnels were. Before he knew it he was fully illuminated, and as he dodged back into cover, he heard the animal roar of triumph from the enemy as he was seen.

  ‘Damn!’ he said. ‘I was stupid.’

  ‘It does not matter,’ Benedetta said. ‘They would have found us soon.’ She lay down and cautiously pulled a rock from the pile. ‘I think I can see through here,’ she whispered. ‘There is no need to put your head up.’

  Armstrong heard steps from behind as Willis came up. ‘Keep down,’ he said quietly. ‘Flat on your stomach.’

  Willis wriggled alongside him. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘They’ve spotted us,’ said Armstrong. ‘They’re deploying out there; getting ready to attack.’ He laughed humourlessly. ‘If they knew what we had to defend ourselves with, they’d just walk in.’

  ‘There’s another truck coming,’ said Benedetta bitterly. ‘I suppose it’s bringing more men; they need an army to crush us.’

  ‘Let me see,’ said Armstrong. Benedetta rolled away from the spy-hole and Armstrong looked through. ‘It’s got no lights—that’s odd; and it’s moving fast. Now it’s changing direction and going towards the huts. It doesn’t seem to be slowing down.’

  They could hear the roar of the engine, and Armstrong yelled, ‘It’s going faster—it’s going to smash into them.’ His voice cracked on a scream. ‘Do you think it could be O’Hara?’

  O’Hara held tight to the jolting wheel and rammed the accelerator to the floorboards. He had been making for the jeep but then he had seen something much more important; in the light of the truck headlights a group of men were assembling a light machine-gun. He swung the wheel and the truck swerved, two wheels coming off the ground and then bouncing back with a spine-jolting crash. The truck swayed alarmingly, but he held it on its new course and switched on his lights and saw the white faces of men turn towards him and their hands go up to shield their eyes from the glare.

  Then they were running aside but two of them were too late and he heard the squashy thumps as the front of the truck hit them. But he was not concerned with men—he wanted the gun—and the truck lifted a little as he drove the off-side wheels over the machine-gun, grinding it into the rock. Then he had gone past and there was a belated and thin scattering of shots from behind.

  He looked for the jeep, hauled the wheel round again, and the careering truck swung and went forward like a projectile. The driver of the jeep saw him coming and tried to run for it; the jeep shot forward, but O’Hara swerved again and the jeep was fully illuminated as he made for a head-on crash. He saw the Russian point a pistol and there was a flash and the truck windscreen starred in front of his face. He ducked involuntarily.

  The driver of the jeep swung his wheel desperately, but turned the wrong way and came up against the base of the cliff. The jeep spun again, but the mistake had given O’Hara his chance and he charged forward to ram the jeep broadside on. He saw the Russian throw up his arms and disappear from sight as the light vehicle was hurled on its side with a tearing and rending sound, and then O’Hara had slammed into reverse and was backing away.

  He looked back towards the trucks and saw a mob of men running towards him, so he picked up the sub-machine-gun from the floor of the cab and he steadied it on the edge of the window. He squeezed the trigger three times, altering his aim slightly between bursts, and the mob broke up into fragments, individual men rolling on the open ground and desperately seeking cover.

  As O’Hara engaged in bottom gear, a bullet tore through the body of the truck, and then another, but he took no notice. The front of the truck slammed into the overturned jeep again, catching it on the underside of the chassis. Remorselessly O’Hara pushed forward using the truck as a bulldozer and mashed the jeep against the cliff face with a dull crunching noise. When he had finished no human sounds came from the crushed vehicle.

  But that act of anger and revenge was nearly the end of him. By the time he had reversed the truck and swung clear again he was under heavy fire. He rolled forward and tried to zigzag, but the truck was slow in picking up speed and a barrage of fire came from the semi-circle of men surrounding him. The windscreen shattered into opacity and he could not see where he was heading.

  Benedetta, Armstrong and Willis were on their feet yelling, but no bullets came their way—they were not as dangerous as O’Hara. They watched the truck weaving drunkenly and saw sparks fly as steel-jacketed bullets ricocheted from the metal armour Santos had installed. Willis shouted, ‘He’s in trouble,’ and before they could stop him he had vaulted the rock wall and was running for the truck.

  O’Hara was steering with one hand and using the butt of the sub-machine-gun as a hammer in an attempt to smash the useless windscreen before him. Willis leaped on the running-board and just as his fingers grasped the edge of the door O’Hara was hit. A rifle bullet flew the width of the cab and smashed his shoulder, slamming him into the door and nearly upsetting Willis’s balance. He gave a great cry and slumped down in his seat.

  Willis grabbed the wheel with one hand, turned it awkwardly. He shouted, ‘Keep your foot on the accelerator,’ and O’Hara heard him through a dark mist of pain and pushed down with his foot. Willis turned the truck towards the cliff and tried to head for the tunnel. He saw the rear view mirror disintegrate and he knew that the bullet that had hit it had passed between his body and the truck. That did not seem to matter—all that mattered was to get the truck into cover.

  Armstrong saw the truck turn and head towards him. ‘Run,’ he shouted to Benedetta, and took to his heels, dragging her by the hand and making down the tunnel.

  Willis saw the mouth of the tunnel yawn darkly before him and pressed closer to the body of the truck. As the nose of the truck hit the low wall, rocks exploded into the interior, splintering against the tunnel sides.

  Then Willis was hit. The bullet took him in the small of the back and he let go of the wheel and the edge of the door. In the next instant, as the truck roared into the tunnel to crash at the bend, Willis was wiped off the running-board by the rock face and was flung in a crumpled heap to the ground just by the entrance.

  He stirred slightly as a bullet clipped the rock just above his head and his hands groped forward helplessly, the fingers scrabbling at the cold rock. Then two bullets hit him almost simultaneously and he jerked once and was still.

  II

  It seemed enormously quiet as Armstrong and Benedetta dragged O’Hara from the cab of the truck. The shooting had stopped and there was no sound at all apart from the creakings of the cooling engine and the clatter as Armstrong kicked something loose on the floor of the cab. They were working in darkness because a well-directed shot straight down the tunnel would be dangerous.

  At last they got O’Hara into safety round the corner and Benedetta lit the wick of the last paraffin bottle. O’Hara was unconscious and badly injured; his right arm hung limp and his shoulder was a ghastly mess of torn flesh and splintered bone. His face was badly cut too, because he had been thrown forward when the truck had crashed at the bend of the tunnel and Benedetta looked at him with tears in her eyes and wondered where to start.

  Aguillar tottered forward, the breath wheezing in his chest, and said with difficulty, ‘In the name of God, what has happened?’

  ‘You cannot help, tío,’ she said. ‘Lie down again.’ Aguillar looked down at O’Hara with shocked eyes—it was brought home to him that war is a bloody business. Then he said, ‘Where is Señor Willis?’

  ‘I think he’s dead,’ said Armstrong quietly. ‘He didn’t come back.’

  Aguillar sank
down silently next to O’Hara, his face grey. ‘Let me help,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll go back on watch,’ said Armstrong. ‘Though what use that will be I don’t know. It’ll be dark soon. I suppose that’s what they’re waiting for.’

  He went away into the darkness towards the truck, and Benedetta examined O’Hara’s shattered shoulder. She looked up at Aguillar helplessly. ‘What can I do? This needs a doctor—a hospital; we cannot do anything here.’

  ‘We must do what we can,’ said Aguillar. ‘Before he recovers consciousness. Bring the light closer.’

  He began to pick out fragments of bone from the bloody flesh and by the time he had finished and Benedetta had bandaged the wound and put the arm in a sling O’Hara was wide awake, suppressing his groans. He looked up at Benedetta and whispered, ‘Where’s Willis?’

  She shook her head slowly and O’Hara turned his face away. He felt a growing rage within him at the unfairness of things; just when he had found life again he must leave it—and what a way to leave; cooped up in a cold, dank tunnel at the mercy of human wolves. From nearby he could hear a woman babbling incoherently. ‘Who is that?’

  ‘Jenny,’ said Benedetta. ‘She is delirious.’

  They made O’Hara as comfortable as possible and then Benedetta stood up. ‘I must help Armstrong.’ Aguillar looked up and saw that her face was taut with anger and fatigue, the skin drawn tightly over her cheekbones and dark smudges below her eyes. He sighed softly and nipped the guttering wick into darkness.

  Armstrong was crouched by the truck. ‘I was waiting for someone,’ he said.