by Jack Higgins
"And then you met Zingari."
She managed to sound angry. "The swine didn't tell me it would be like this."
"Never mind. It may well prove a most fortunate occurrence for both of us." He took her arm and said casually over his shoulder, "All yours, sergeant."
Husseini gave them enough time to get clear then shouted something unintelligible that was drowned in the immediate uproar as the two groups rushed together. Simone glanced over her shoulder. It was an incredible sight, a scene from hell with the damned pulling and tearing at each other in a shouting, struggling, heaving mass of bodies in the light from the floodlamps.
"Don't look back," Masmoudi told her. "That's feeding time at the zoo. Something to keep the animals happy. Not for you."
"Don't you believe in the equality of men then?" she said. "I understood you were a Communist."
He opened the garden gate and pushed her inside. "A magnificent absurdity. God made some men big, some small among other things."
"God?" she said. "Does he still enter into your scheme of things?"
They had reached the steps leading up to the veranda of the house and he paused, turning to look at her, a slightly quizzical frown on his face. "I think there is more to you than meets the eye, little flower," he said.
Her mouth went dry. This was not the man she had expected. Handsome, shrewd, even gentle if he wanted to be, she was sure of that. He in no way filled Zingari's description.
She said desperately, trying to be coy, "Hidden depths."
"Who knows?" He smiled faintly, opened the front door and led her inside.
It was comfortably furnished, but no more than that. A soldier's room. Table, chairs, a large divan piled high with cushions, shelves filled with books.
As he closed the door, he took her handbag from her and dropped it on a chair. There wasn't a thing she could do about that and he slipped his arms about her waist from the rear, pulling her close against him.
Quite suddenly he flung her forward across the cushions of the divan, holding her down with one hand and considerable strength. He pulled up the burnous, slipped a hand under the hem of her skirt and felt for the springblade knife.
"What have we got here?"
He pulled it away roughly, the surgical tape tearing free so that she cried out in pain. He held up the knife and sprang the blade. He laughed then, his mouth wide.
"Oh, a young lady of considerable depth, I can see that." He flipped the knife across the room to bury itself in a cupboard door.
"I didn't know what to expect," Simone said. "I only wanted to protect myself."
As he released her, she turned, the burnous opened and the hem of the cotton mini dress slipped back, exposing the thighs. Masmoudi's eyes sparkled fire; he ran a hand up each clad leg from ankle to thigh and smiled.
"You know something, little flower? I'm going to enjoy you." She felt her stomach grow weak, some deep, instinctual response moving inside her as he stood over her, hands on hips. "Yes, definitely an occasion. In fact, a champagne occasion. Wait there. I'll be right back."
He crossed the room, opened a louvred door and disappeared. Simone was on her feet in an instant and went after him. She peered through the slats of the door into a kitchen. Masmoudi opened the door of a large icebox and took out a bottle of champagne. She turned away at once, tiptoed across the room, picked up her handbag and let herself out.
She hurried down the path to the garden gate. It was all quiet now, the soldiers presumably having taken the women to their quarters, but the floodlighting was still on making it impossible to cross the square directly.
She worked her way round, keeping to the shadows, pulling the hood of the burnous close about her face and had barely reached the far side and the shelter of the vehicles parked in the shadows when Masmoudi's front door was flung open and he appeared on the veranda.
"Husseini!" he called at the top of his voice.
Simone darted up a flight of stone steps to a higher level, keeping to the wall. Up there she was in total darkness and when she looked down she saw Sergeant Husseini quite clearly doubling across the square. He was stripped to the waist and had no boots on.
She started to feel her way up another flight of stone steps cautiously and the sounds of activity in the courtyard below increased so that by the time she had reached the next level there were at least two dozen soldiers down there in the courtyard. And then, to her dismay, a voice called out in Arabic somewhere high above her, a torch was switched on and someone started to come down.
She descended the steps as quickly as the darkness allowed, pausing only when she reached the lower level, for to go down into the courtyard was to invite certain capture.
There was an iron rail. She leaned against it, looking about her desperately, aware of the sound of boots descending the steps above her and then she noticed the roof of one of the trucks four or five feet below, projecting from inside some sort of shed.
It was her only hope and as the steps grew nearer, she slipped under the rail, dropped onto the canvas roof, crawled inside the overhang and lay down. She looked at her watch. It was almost ten o'clock. She took the Ceska from her handbag, held it in her left hand, finger on the trigger, and waited, face against the canvas, while they beat the yard for her below.
It was eleven o'clock before they gave up, half-past before she could be sure. She lay there waiting, listening to the silence, trying to satisfy herself as to its totality before finally crawling back outside, reaching up for the railings and pulling herself up onto the landing. She barely hesitated before starting up the next flight of steps.
Time was of the essence now and it occurred to her that Grant and the others, ready and waiting for at least two hours on the beach, could only be imagining the worst.
It started to rain quite heavily as she went up the last few steps to the ramparts of the north wall. She hesitated, keeping to the shadows for a moment. There was a lamp of some sort twenty or thirty yards further on. A soldier stood beside it sheltering in the corner where two walls joined.
There was no sign of the other sentry which was unfortunate, but further delay was impossible so she stepped out of the shadows. As she walked, she unfastened the front of the burnous so that it fell open.
At the sound of her approach, the sentry came to life and moved into the open, his AK assault rifle at the ready. He lowered it just as quickly, his mouth gaping, for now she had moved into the area of light and made a reasonably spectacular figure in the flowing, hooded mantle and brief mini skirt.
He spoke to her in Arabic and she answered in Italian, "Hello, darling, got a cigarette?"
He hesitated then produced a packet from his tunic pocket and said, "What are you doing up here?"
"Oh, I was with one of the sergeants. He was drunk and I got bored so I thought I'd look for a little fresh air."
She leaned back against the wall, raising one knee slightly, arching her body provocatively. He moved a little closer, a glazed look in his eyes and put a hand on her right thigh. At the same moment the other sentry appeared from the darkness a few yards away.
He called out in Arabic. Simone leaned forward, cupped her hand very deliberately between the first sentry's legs, and breathed in his ear. "Can't you send him away for a while?"
The sentry didn't even hesitate. He propped his AK in an angle in the wall, turned, and advanced on his comrade. There was a rapid conversation in low tones, a certain amount of arm-waving, and the second sentry turned and disappeared into the darkness.
He turned and came toward her. "We're entitled to coffee at this time of night," he said. "He's gone to get it. I've told him to take his time."
"That's good," she said, producing the Ceska from her handbag and cocking it. "Now, do exactly as you're told and you'll be all right."
He stood very still for a long, long moment, staring at her and then he threw back his head and laughed and came forward.
"No," she said, panic moving inside her. "Please!" A
nd she was holding the Ceska in both hands.
He looked angry now, teeth bared wolfishly, and reached out to grab, leaving her very little choice. She pulled the trigger, the silenced Ceska coughed once in the heavy rain. A hole appeared an inch above the right eye, he staggered back over the platform edge and disappeared into darkness.
It was like a dream barely remembered on waking and already fading as she turned, swallowing the bile that rose in her throat. She picked up her handbag and hurried back along the ramparts out of the circle of light, stopping where a half turret, which had once obviously housed a gun, projected into space.
She pulled up her dress and unwound the two-hundred-foot line of thin twine as fast as she could, turning herself again and again until she was dizzy. It took far longer than she had imagined and by the time it was finally free she was sweating heavily and quite exhausted. When she took the torch from her handbag and threaded the end of the twine through the wire loop, her fingers trembled.
She paused, listening hard, but there was still no sign of the other sentry returning and she leaned out of one of the embrasures in the turret, switched on the torch, and started to lower it.
There wasn't much left in hand when there was a sudden sharp tug that almost had it through her fingers although as she'd looped the end round her waist she couldn't have lost it altogether. She waited. After a while there was another sharp tug and she started to haul in the line.
In a surprisingly short space of time the end of the main climbing rope appeared. Nino had spliced the end into a large loop which she dropped over one of the stone columns between two of the embrasures.
There was a long pause. She waited, shaking like a leaf, suddenly ice-cold in the driving rain, reaction, she supposed.
A cheerful voice said, "Heh, angel, you're a sight for sore eyes," and Nino hauled himself in through the embrasure.
She hugged him eagerly. "Is everything all right?"
"Sure." He busied himself unloading the large rucksack he'd carried on his back as well as his rifle. "You had us worried."
He had the second coil of climbing rope in his hand already and was paying it out into the darkness. "What happens now?" she said.
"They climb the main rope and I help them on the way with this."
"Will it be all right?"
He grinned, his teeth white in the darkness. "What the English climbers in the Alps call a piece of cake."
She pulled the burnous closer about her, shivering in that driving rain, watching as Nino brought the rope in slowly and steadily over his left shoulder and under the right arm. He only stopped once and then for no more than a second or two and then, quite suddenly, another dim figure appeared in the embrasure.
She moved forward uncertainly. "Are you all right?"
"Simone?" A familiar voice said, and Grant reached out through the darkness, pulling her close, holding her to him. It was only then that she stopped shaking.
11
To the Dark Tower
It was Barzini who first saw the lighted torch bobbing down on the end of the line no more than forty or fifty feet to the right of us. I don't think I've ever experienced a feeling of such profound relief. She was all right--that was my first and most immediate thought.
We gathered up the equipment between us and moved into position. Nino himself uncoiled the climbing rope and attached it to the line. He gave a tug, the agreed signal, and it was immediately drawn up.
"What in the hell took her so long?" Langley whispered.
Not that he could have expected an answer. I said, "Does it matter? She made it, didn't she?"
Nino was busy getting his rucksack on. He slung his rifle over his back and tested the rope. He grinned and put a hand on my shoulder. "Okay, here we go. Pray for me."
From the sound of it the young devil was enjoying himself. A stone rattled under his boot and a moment later he had disappeared upward into the darkness.
I had expected a lengthy wait and was caught unaware when the second rope snaked down over the rocks and fell across my shoulders. I was next in line, Langley to follow, with Barzini bringing up the rear. I tied the rope securely about my waist with a running bowline and gave a tug. The slack was immediately taken up and I reached for the main climbing rope.
"Good luck," Barzini whispered and I started to climb.
It was something of an anticlimax. For one thing, as Nino had said, it was better in the darkness because if you looked down there was nothing to see anyway so there was not even an illusion of height and the cliff was much easier than Zingari had suggested--a gradual incline with a broken surface of granite and basalt that gave good footholds in spite of the rain. And the safety line was of tremendous assistance, Nino pulling on it so strongly that most of the time it felt as if I was being hauled up, no strain on the arms at all.
I paused only once as I went over the edge of the cliff itself and found myself on a ledge beneath the wall. He started to pull again and it was only then in scaling the final thirty feet or so that I felt any strain on the arms at all.
A few moments later I scrambled in through the embrasure and found myself on firm ground inside the turret.
There were two figures, dimly seen. Simone said, "Are you all right?"
I reached forward and pulled her into my arms.
Langley was with us in a matter of minutes. Barzini was more of a problem and in the end had the three of us on the rope hauling him by brute force. We dragged him in through the embrasure and he fell on his hands and knees, panting for breath.
"Mother of God," he whispered. "Never again-never in this world."
I helped him to his feet and as he untied himself Nino said urgently, "Someone's coming."
"The other sentry," Simone said.
"What did you do with the first?" Langley asked her.
"I had to shoot him."
"Did you, by God." There was something close to admiration in Langley's voice. He said, "I'll handle this, old stick," and slipped off.
The sentry stood under the lamp a few yards away calling softly in Arabic. He started toward us uncertainly and Langley moved out of the darkness behind him and put a hand over the man's throat. A knife blade gleamed dully in the yellow light, the sentry grunted, and Langley dragged him back into the shadows.
He was whistling softly between his teeth when he rejoined us. "All light, old stick," he said cheerfully. "What's next?"
"Masmoudi," I said, and led the way along the ramparts until we could look down into the lighted courtyard below. "That's his house on the other side of the square."
"I've already been there once tonight," Simone said and quickly explained what had happened.
When she was finished, I said, "All right, we'll go in as arranged, looking like some duty detail--Langley up front in case his Arabic is needed, Simone in the center." I put a hand on her arm. "If anyone's around to see it will look as if you're in custody, although from the sound of it, I'd say the garrison's likely to be occupied in other matters tonight."
We went down the series of stone steps that led to the courtyard, moved into the temporary shelter of the parked truck and took up position. Then I simply gave a whispered command and we struck off across the square, Langley leading.
The rain hammered down, bouncing from the cobbles. We didn't see a soul, although the sentry on the wall above the main gate must have seen us unless he was sheltering from the downpour. Just in case, I gave Simone the occasional rough push on the way across to make it look good.
Langley opened the gate and we moved through the garden and up the steps to the veranda. The shutters were closed and Langley leaned down and peered through the slats.
He turned and said with a grin, "He would appear to be occupied."
I looked for myself. Masmoudi was sitting stripped to the waist and drinking a glass of champagne. The woman who lay stretched out on the divan beside him, one knee raised, was down to her underwear.
I nodded to Barzini, who waited, a hand
on the door knob. It opened to his touch, he moved in quickly, covering Masmoudi with his assault rifle and the rest of us crowded in after him.
Masmoudi didn't even blink. He sat there, the glass of champagne in his hand, looking us over and then he smiled at Simone. "So there you are, little flower." He spoke to her in French. "I said you had depths."
"Let's stick to Italian," I told him. "That way we'll all stay happy."
The woman on the divan opened her mouth as if to scream and Langley jammed a hand over it. "You mustn't do that," he said. "Very naughty."
She was probably no more than twenty-seven or eight but had definitely seen better days. Simone said, "Was she all you could get?"
Masmoudi sighed. "One has to do the best one can. It's not often that one like you comes our way out here in the wilderness, little flower. I should have known it was too good to be true."
She seemed amused. "You could have looked a little harder."
"Ah, but you see, I thought you'd run off with one of my men. I decided that must be the real reason you'd come in with the usual rabble. I intended to parade every man in the place in the morning and keep them out there on the square until I got to the bottom of the matter."
The woman on the divan groaned. Langley pulled her up by the hair and dragged her across to a closet. "Now be a good girl and shut up," he said cheerfully. "If you don't I'll cut your throat."
He shoved her inside the closet, closed the door then walked back to the table and helped himself to a glass of champagne. "Life really is full of pleasant surprises," he said. "This is good. Very, very good."
"But hardly the reason for such enterprise," Masmoudi said. "To what do I owe this rather dubious pleasure?"
"You have a prisoner here," I told him. "A young American named Wyatt."
He showed no particular reaction. "So?"
"We want him."
"Ah, I see now. And if I comply? What then?"
"We drive out through that gate with you along for insurance. Not far. Just a few miles up the coast."