Chapter 22
THEIR NEW cell was black, tiny, and cold. It had no windows. There were two inches of muddy, stagnant, stinking water on the stone floor. There were no bunks, no chairs, no toilet facilities. There was nothing but blinding blackness, so thick you could almost cut it. Durell could not see Finch or Irene. All three of them had been taken down another flight of steps, then along a curved stone corridor, and thrown without ceremony through the doorway. The steel door clanged shut, bolts rasped, a lock clicked. No light came through the steel panel. There was nothing but time, only minutes of it, and the waiting.
Irene wept.
He could hear her sniffling and trying to blow her nose, only two feet away from him, but he could not see her. He wondered if her tears were from rage or fear.
"Finch?" he said quietly.
Georgette's voice was calm. "I told, you to call me Winky, Sam. Please."
"Yes. How do you feel?"
"Awful. Nothing seems to work, does it? Do you really think they'll go through with it? Do you really believe they'll just actually come in here and shoot us and bury us where we'll never be found?"
"Yes, I think so," Durell said. "If they can."
"Aren't you scared, Sam??
?Yes.?
?I'm glad. You wouldn't be human, otherwise." Irene choked off her sobs for a moment. "The bloody bitch! She'll do it, all right. And I'm her true sister! I offered her everything, a whole new life here-"
"And went in with her to rob the country blind," Durell said coldly.
"Oh, shut up! Don't harp on it!"
Irene began to weep again in the total darkness. The cell was very small, not more than six feet square. The arched ceiling of mossy, wet bricks scraped the top of Durell's head when he stood up. Finch slipped her hand into his. Her fingers were very cold. The water on the floor sloshed back and forth around their ankles. Durell looked at the luminous dial of his watch. It was already twenty minutes to three in the morning. Twenty minutes left, until Watsube's besieging forces began their hourly barrage. There was no way out. No way to stop the clock, to persuade Mickey Maitland and her mercenary lover to change their minds. He could have offered himself as a hostage for ransom, perhaps; but he didn't think the woman would have gone for that. The principal thing was to stay alive somehow. But he couldn't see any way to do it now. There was something about Adam Chance that made any appeal bound to be fruitless. Perhaps he could have persuaded Willie Wells to help. No opportunity for a talk with the black man had presented itself for hours, however. For one of the rare moments in his life, after all his years in the business with K Section, he saw himself without hope.
Irene stopped sobbing "Listen! Oh, God, they're coming now! It's too early, isn't it? They're not supposed to do it until the noise of the barrage begins. Isn't that what she said? Oh, she can't really mean it! She won't kill me! After all we went through as kids, all the hard-rotten times we suffered. No, she won't do it to me."
"She will," Georgette Finch said coldly. "So stop sniffling and pull yourself together."
"Listen!" Irene insisted. "Hush!"
They were all quiet. The water noise around their feet died away as they stood still in the fetid darkness and trained their senses outward. At first Durell could hear nothing. Then he detected a faint clinking noise, more imagined than heard. He moved carefully to the cell door, felt its lock, put his fingers lightly on it, and waited. There was a momentary thin shock in his fingertips. And another. The old iron plate moved slightly.
"Sam?" Georgette whispered.
"Someone is out there."
"What are they doing?"
"Trying to work the lock."
"But I don't understand-"
The lock definitely moved under his fingers. He felt the tall girl press close beside him in the blackness. He smelled the scent she had used in her hair. There came several more clicking sounds, one last tremor.
Someone out there began to open the door.
A very thin shaft of light came into the cell. Durell stepped back, pushing Finch behind him. Raising both arms, he clasped his hands together above his head to form a bludgeon. He would not go meekly like a lamb to the slaughter, he decided.
The door opened wider. The light flooded in, illuminating the tiny cell, the slimy stone walls; the black water in which they stood. Irene whimpered. Durell waited, arms raised. A long shadow fell into the room and darkened Georgette Finch's pale face.
"Mtamba?" someone whispered.
Durell did not take his eyes from the narrow opening. The door stopped moving. No one came in.
"Mtamba? It is I, Captain Abraham Yutigaffa. And Sergeant Kantijji."
Durell nodded to Finch, who said loudly, "Are you the execution squad?"
"No, no, please, Miss Finch. We have come to help you. Be quiet, please. No one knows we are here."
The shadow became foreshortened, and a man stepped through the cell doorway. Durell brought his raised, clenched fists down with all his strength. The man grunted, stumbled forward into the cell. A large automatic pistol flew from his hands and splashed into the water on the floor. The man was Kantijji. He fell on all fours, shook his head, slumped face down into the water, and began to cough and groan and choke. Durell shoved him over on his back with his foot.
"Come in, Yutigaffa. Throw in your weapon first, or Kantijji is a dead man."
Finch started to scoop up the automatic, and Irene darted for it, but Finch knocked her aside. Kantijji kept groaning on his back. The light wavered from outside.
"Do not kill Kantijji, please," came the voice from the corridor.
"Your gun, Captain."
"Yes, sir."
A hand and an arm appeared, holding another automatic. Irene hissed and reached for it. Again Finch blocked her, knocked her against the wall, and took the gun. She was now doubly armed.
"Come in, Captain," Durell said softly.
"Yes, mtamba."
The tall FKP man carried a flashlight. Durell eased the door almost shut after him, careful not to let the latch fall and lock them all in again. In the glare of the torch, Yutigaffa's eyes were bloodshot, and his face was an odd gray, etched with exhaustion.
"How did you get here?" Durell asked. "Answer quickly. We don't have much time."
"We have been hiding. We know this place, Mr. Durell, all the secret rooms and corridors. We have been looking for the Silver Scorpion, who has taken control over the police. The Scorpion is nominally my superior, who gives me orders." Yutigaffa paused and looked down at Kantijji, who now struggled to sit up. His brown face, with its tribal scars, was without expression. "We know who the Silver Scorpion is now. We know that the FKP, as an organization, was ordered to act in treason against the Raga."
"I know who the Scorpion is too," Durell said.
"Yes. General Watsube," Yutigaffa said.
"Wrong. It's his ex-wife. Mickey Maitland. She's the one," Durell said.
There was a moment's silence while Yutigaffa thought about it. Durell took one of the guns from Finch. It felt fine in his hand, heavy and solid. He decided he would kill anyone in his way now, without compunction. Yutigaffa met his gaze and then looked away, nodding.
"Yes. Yes, mtamba. I see it. I was mistaken."
"It's Mickey, all right," Irene said suddenly. "Durell is right. I can tell you all about that. She used old Telek tribal chiefs to revive the old jungle legends. She was bloody clever, that sister of mine. She's your new boss, Captain."
Yutigaffa shook his head. "May I help the sergeant?"
"Stand him up," Durell said.
"You hit him very hard, sir."
"I meant to kill him. He's lucky."
"But we are loyal to the President, Inurate Motuku. We are devoted to him and to Boganda. Can you believe that, sir? We want to do what is best for our country, and we believe in the Raga."
"All right," Durell said. "So what?"
"So we must get you out of here at once."
Durell looked at his w
atch. It was still fifteen minutes before the hour. "We have a little time."
"No, sir. The Teleks are finished. It will all be over soon. But we must leave at once, because-"
"Hot diggity," Finch said.
Durell heard the whistling sound of the mortar shell before it burst. Even before it fell, the thought flashed through his mind that it was almost a quarter of an hour early. For over a week Watsube had been lulling the defenders of the Getoba into a sense of regularity, by shelling the Teleks punctually on the hour for exactly five minutes. They had become habituated to the time schedule, and they had grown careless about seeking shelter before the hour. Now, all in an instant as the first explosion came, Watsube's strategy became evident. The Teleks were caught in the open, unprepared, in their beds at this early hour of the morning; the sentries would be drowsing, secure in the belief that they had a quarter of an hour more before they had to go underground.
There came a violent crash, somewhere in the fort directly overhead.
And another.
Then the full fury of the barrage fell all around them.
Brick dust filled the air. Chips of concrete rattled down around them. There came distant screams and shouts of dismay through the pandemonium of bursting shells. The ground shook. Durell caught Finch's arm, pushed Irene out of the cell, and noted that Yutigaffa helped his sergeant up and out through the door behind them. There was a dim light at one end of the corridor that flickered, went out, and came on again as they headed that way. Running feet sounded on a spiral stairway at the end of, the vault. More brick chips flew from the repeated shocks of the shelling. Dimly, through .the bedlam, Durell heard the chukking sound of machineguns.
"Not up the stairway, sir," Yutigaffa said. His shadow was long, somehow primitive, in the faint glow of the naked, flickering bulb. "There is a doorway just beyond. It goes to an ammunition cellar, where the Portuguese kept their shells in the old days, many, many years ago."
"You first, Irene," Durell said.
The girl hung back. Her mouth trembled. "I don't understand what's happening."
"The Getoba is finished, that's what's happening," Durell said. "Go ahead."
There came a rumbling crash as part of the old fort collapsed. It was plain that General Watsube knew where the mercenaries made their headquarters. The shelling was concentrated right here. As they ducked under the iron stairs, booted footsteps crashed on the treads, coming down. Durell pushed Finch through the narrow magazine door and waited. Yutigaffa and Kantijji were still in sight. The man who came down was white, but he was not Colonel Chance. Judging by his khaki uniform, he was one of the mercenary officers. The man's face was panic stricken.
"Wait!" He spoke with a German accent. "Bitte. Colonel Chance must have the Ragihi. We are being destroyed! The Ragihi must help us stop the enemy, send a message-"
He had a Luger in his hand. As he leveled it at Durell, his mouth contorted, Durell shot him twice, once in each leg. The man screamed and came tumbling down the rest of the spiral steps, falling over the rail to thud on the stone floor at their feet.
"Come on," Durell snapped.
He followed Yutigaffa and Kantijji into the old arsenal. Finch held the flashlight. The place was a huge vaulted cavern, filled with dust and old junk lumber, barrels, scrap iron; it was divided into smaller cubicles along the wall in which weapons and munitions had once been stored.
Irene's voice was an echoing wail. "How do we get out of here now?"
"There is another door, Ragihi. This way."
The bombardment grew in intensity. Even down in the old arsenal the shocks and explosions made loose mortar fly. Finch began to cough in the dust. Her eyes met Durell's and slid toward the two FKP men. "Can you trust diem?"
"We have to. Where is the door, Captain?"
"Over there." Yutigaffa looked like an elongated, primitive, African wood carving. "But I cannot go with you. I have my own job to do."
"The Silver Scorpion??
"She must be finished, mtamba."
"We'll all go with you," Durell said.
Yutigaffa nodded. His face was solemn. "As you wish, mtamba."
Chapter 23
"IT WILL be very difficult for the ladies," Yutigaffa said "You wish to stop the barge, do you not?"
"I intend to," Durell said.
"When I saw it last, the trucks were being gotten ready to drive aboard."
Durell turned to Irene. "You can stay, here if you wish. I think you'll be safe until the fighting is over."
"No, I couldn't bear it alone in this place." Her small jaw was suddenly stubborn. In the light of the flashlight, he saw that her face was smudged and dirty, strained with her exhaustion; but he saw a new determination there, a strength that must have been born into her to enable her to survive the slums of her childhood. She shook herself. "I've got a job to do too. It's all my fault, all of it. All the killing, the rebellion, all this. If I hadn't brought Mickey here, none of it would have happened. So it's my responsibility. I figure that whatever the Raga does to me, I deserve it."
"Why the change?" Finch asked mildly.
Irene looked up at the tall girl. "The Raga treated me real decent, he did. And all I did was bring trouble to him and his country."
"But if Mickey hadn't tried to cross you, you'd have gone off with her and all the loot," Finch persisted.
"I don't know. Maybe I would. Maybe I wouldn't. But I'll stay with you, if you don't mind."
"All right," Durell said. "Let's go."
There was an iron trapdoor in the brick ceiling. A narrow ladder led up to it, spiked into the wall. Kantijji climbed up first, guided by the flashlight Finch held. The man reached the ceiling and the iron plate built into it, got his shoulders against the trap, and heaved confidently.
Nothing happened.
Kantijji shoved again, his face showing the strain. Big veins stood out at his temples. His brown face reflected the anguish of his effort. Yutigaffa called up to him softly. Kantijji tried once more. The iron trapdoor creaked upward, fell aside with a loud clang. The tumult of the bombardment doubled suddenly. There was, fighting somewhere in the north area of the fort, and the distant reply of machineguns sounded from the Getoba's walls. Durell urged Irene up the ladder, then Finch. Yutigaffa hesitated, then followed. Durell went last.
A narrow corridor, not more than two feet wide, led them on a slightly curved route between high brick walls and a crudely plastered ceiling. Yutigaffa went along it for about fifty paces, then played the light on the wall and found still another iron door, and opened it.
They were outside.
The endless roar of shells bursting and the intermittent blasts of light struck them with a physical impact. The barrage hammered at the walls of the Getoba near the fort. There were dim sounds of return small-arms fire in between the shell bursts. They were on a narrow parapet guarded by a rusty iron railing. Below them was the east wall, reaching to the right, where fires burned fiercely in the narrow alleys. A number of bodies of the defenders were sprawled in the wreckage of houses and in crumbled masses of stone and splintered wood that blocked some of the little streets. The hot night air struck them with the impact of steaming towels. Durell looked the other way and saw the red glimmer of more fires reflected on the black surface of the Natanga River.
"We'll go that way," he decided.
"Mtamba, there is fighting there along the waterfront," Yutigaffa suggested.
"The barge is there too, right?"
"Yes, sir."
Durell went first. Irene and the two FKP men were in the middle. Georgette, armed with one of the pistols, guarded the rear. The parapet extended for about a hundred feet toward the river, then suddenly broadened into a wider terrace behind the Moorish-styled walls. A shell had burst here, tearing away part of the masonry, creating a gap that blocked their way just at the corner where they would face the riverside. The hole was narrower close to the wall of the old fort, and Durell studied it for a moment, then gathered himself,
and jumped across. When he landed on the other side, a block of stone gave way, and he suddenly started to fall. He grabbed at the opposite edge, felt his hands slide on the rough fragments of stone. His left foot scraped on a projection. He caught it with his feet and checked his fall. For a few seconds he simply clung there, maintaining his balance, with nothing but empty space below.
"Sam?" Finch called.
"I'm all right."
Assignment- Silver Scorpion Page 17