Lanyon wondered if most of the world’s great rivers had been similarly drained. Was the Amazon a dry mile-wide ribbon of sand, the Mississippi a 2,000-mile-long inland beach?
Three miles away the coastline and the sea were a blur, but the port of Genoa appeared to be sealed by a ring of wrecks. Almost certainly the Terrapin would still be at its berth in the sub-pen, unless he had been abandoned and the ship recruited for some other special mission, in which case it was probably lying on the bottom of the ocean. The chances of reaching the sub-pens seemed slim, but over the past days they had managed to get from the airfield to their present retreat, and with luck they would keep moving.
Lanyon pulled on the cigarette, watching a large wooden shed sail through the air 50 feet off the ground about half a mile away. It was still intact, rotating slowly, apparently just dislodged from some protected site. Suddenly it struck the shoulder of one of the hills leaning into the valley, and immediately disintegrated like a bursting shell into a momentary cloud of pieces each no bigger than a matchbox.
He replaced the brick and packed the window slit carefully. Patricia was still asleep, apparently exhausted. They had arrived at the pillbox two days ago, after a frantic 90-mile-an-hour ride in a renovated staff car. Here they had enough food for a few more days—two or three cans of salt pork they had found in the basement, a basket of rotting peaches and half a dozen bottles of coarse wine.
Lanyon slipped out through the doorway into the rear of the cave. Ten yards from the pilibox the floor dipped downward and expanded into a wide gallery which had been used as a mess room by the troops guarding the dam. Tiers of bunks lined the walls, and two long rough tables were in the center, strewn with unwashed cutlery and bits of bread. Water dripped from a score of cracks in the ceiling, forming in pools on the floor or running away into the other caves leading off from the gallery.
Lanyon picked up a clean jerrican, scooped up some of the water and then put it on the table. Treading through the debris of sodden magazines and cigarette packets, he made his way to the rear of the gallery, took one of the lower passageways that had been fitted with a simple railing. It curved downward slightly, and appeared to be the emergency exit out into the ravine behind the cliff. A side road had led into the ravine, but Lanyon had been unable to steer the car into it when they arrived, and they had been carried into the lee of the cliff and left to crawl out of the wreck and climb up the face to the pillbox 50 feet above.
At several points the cave broke through the side of the cliff and through the apertures Lanyon could see across to the sheer brownstone face twenty yards away. Air gusted into the ravine, but small firs and thornbushes still clung to rocky ledges. He and Patricia would probably be able to use the route if it led in the right direction.
He stepped out of the mouth at the bottom and looked around him. The cliffs on either side went up 300 feet and a continuous cascade of stones and rocks fell from their tops, spitting at the ground around Lanyon’s feet. Bracing himself against the wall of the ravine, he slid along through the downdraught of air, trying to see where the narrow corridor led. Overhanging shelves of rock shielded him occasionally from the hail. The high gulleys ran away at oblique angles into the hills, and the whole system appeared to move southwest, in the direction of Genoa and the sea.
One hundred yards out, he turned back and re-entered the cave.
Patricia was sitting up when he reached the pillbox, combing her hair in the mirror of her compact. She had lost her handbag and make-up but her lips were full and red, her skin a honey cream, and she looked fresh and vital, even though she had been through the last five days with little to eat and a minimum of rest.
“Hello, Steve.” She smiled up at him. “Anything happening?”
“Still blowing hard,” he told her. “Looks as if it’s nearing the twohundred-mile-an-hour mark. How do you feel?”
“Wonderful. This is the life that really does a girl good.” She reached out to take his hand, the lapels of the windbreaker swinging back.
“Whoops,” she said. She pulled Lanyon down to her. “Anyone else around?” she asked.
Lanyon shook his head, grinned affectionately at her.
“No. Go ahead, though, I’m watching.”
Patricia put her finger on his nose, pushed him back. “Now, now, Commander, just put away that naughty periscope. And you haven’t shaved.”
Lanyon took her in his arms and they wrestled playfully on the mattress. He kissed her hard on the mouth, then sat up and looked at his watch. “Pat, I hate to break up a party, but if we’re going to get out of here we’d better start moving soon. Do you feel strong enough?”
Lying back, she nodded and put her hand on his arm.
“Just about. What do we have to do?”
“There’s a ravine that leads off toward the city. With luck we may be able to reach the outskirts, then pick up some military transport.” He looked at his watch. “I’m frightened that if we don’t get back soon Matheson may accidentally scuttle the ship. Or else that it’ll be detailed off on some other wild-goose chase.”
He stood up and pulled a can out of the Italian army haversack hung below the gun slit. Clipping open the lid, he carried it and the jerrican across to Patricia.
“It’s probably worth trying to eat some more of this stuff, even though it doesn’t look it. Anyway, if it’s any consolation it’s not much worse than the chow aboard the Terrapin.”
Forking some of the pork into her mouth, Patricia pulled a face. “Crumbs, I don’t know whether I’ll come with you after all.” She paused, her face worried. “Steve, do you really think they’ll let me on? I know you’re the captain and all that, but after the admirals’ wives have made themselves comfortable there just may not be enough room for a working gal from NBC.”
Lanyon smiled at her. “Relax. There aren’t any admirals’ wives in the neighborhood, let alone any admirals. You’ll be on board even if I have to marry you.”
“Even?” Patricia said in a playful tone. “Well, thanks.”
A vortex of air whirling down the face of the cliff pulled at the pillbox, shifting the stones heaped into the window slit, spitting dust over their heads. Lanyon took her hand and steadied her, then lifted her to her feet. His hands felt her shoulders under the windbreaker, her ash-blonde hair billowing across his face as her head tipped back under the pressure of his mouth on her lips.
Entering the ravine, they moved cautiously along the east wall, sheltering under the overhanging shelves while showers of stones drove down from the roof, darting forward during the clear periods. Air swirled around them, exploding with vicious snaps as vortices span off the lips of the ravine and burst against the floor 300 feet below. Higher up, just under the roof, they could see a few forlorn firs clinging to their footholds in the sides of the rock face, their outlines blurring as they quivered in the duststorm.
They reached the point to which Lanyon had explored previously, where the ravine divided, the larger space, on the northern side, gradually opening out into a wide-walled valley, across which the air stream moved like a huge wave front over a rockpool, sucking away every loose fragment of rock, every vestige of vegetation. Lanyon realized that if they ventured into the valley the negative pressure field would probably suck them straight up into the air and whirl them away toward the hills in the west.
The southern division was little more than a narrow fissure in the rock face, shelving away toward the southeast at a gradually tilting angle. Once a small stream had splashed down it, and the stones were smooth and polished, still damp in the sandy bed.
They climbed along it, a narrow ribbon of daylight winding somewhere above them to the left. Lanyon held Patricia’s hand, steered her over heavy boulders and spurs, pulling her across smooth polished slabs that fell across their pathway like eroded tombstones.
For half an hour they made steady progress eastward, moving, Lanyon estimated, at least a mile nearer the city, almost in sight of the farthest suburbs. Th
e ravine opened into a narrow flat-bottomed canyon, the sheer face on its eastern side sheltering the tree-covered slopes stretching away from them.
Patricia pulled Lanyon’s arm.
“Steve, look. Over there. Is that a farmhouse?”
Lanyon followed her pointing finger, saw the low ragged outline of what had once been a castellated wall curving away along a road which crossed the end of the canyon.
“May be part of an old castle or château,” Lanyon commented. “With luck we’ll find someone else there. Come on.”
On their right the ground shelved steeply to the crest of the cliff 150 feet above them. Built onto the supporting shoulders was what bad once been a monastery, a long two-storied complex of massive stone walls and buttresses five or six hundred years old. The top story and roof had been stripped away but the lower section, just under the crest, was still intact, rooted into the sloping rock face below.
The ruined wall enclosed what was left of the garden and vineyards. Halfway along, an arched doorway let into a yard between low outbuildings. Lanyon took Patricia’s arm, and they bent down and moved slowly along the wall toward the entrance. They paused in one of the doorways, and Lanyon pounded on the heavy wooden shutters.
“No one here!” he yelled to Patricia. “Let’s see if we can get inside.” They moved around the yard, trying the windows and shutters. All the entrances had been carefully sealed, the doors into the main building braced with padlocked crossbars. Lanyon pointed to the circular stone lid of the grain chute recessed into the cobbles.
“There’s a good chance we’ll be able to get in through here.” He pulled out his jack knife, snapped the blade open and pried it in under the lip of the lid, tearing his nails as he wrestled the heavy disc out of its socket. Finally he freed it, dragged it to one side and peered down into the chute. Fifteen feet below the polished metal slide angled down into one of the storage silos, wooden stalls half filled with grain. Lanyon took Patricia’s hands, watched her disappear down into the dim half light.
He followed her quickly, trying to brace himself but ending up to his waist in the soft rustling grain. They shook their clothes free, Patricia leaning on Lanyon’s shoulder, and thoved below the arched ceiling toward a low flight of steps that led into another storeroom. Here and there light filtered in through narrow grilles, revealing the dim outlines of corridors winding between massive pillars and vaulted ceilings.
The next storeroom was empty. They crossed it, walked down a short flight of ancient steps into the basement of the monastery itself.
“Looks as if this monastery’s been disused for some while,” Lanyon commented to Patricia. “The local farmers probably work the land and store their grain here.”
They reached heavy wooden doors at the end of the corridor. Lanyon turned the circular hasp in the lock and peered through into total darkness. Taking out his flashlight, he flashed it on, then whistled sharply.
“Wait a minute, Pat. I think I’m wrong.”
They were looking into a large storeroom about 30 yards long, floor and far wall cut into the cliff itself, roof carried by massive buttresses. Stacked in lines down the full length of the room were hundreds of huge crates and cartons, their contents glinting in the torch beam.
“The monks must have stored everything away here before they left,” Lanyon muttered. They moved forward down one of the aisles. He brushed against a square waist-high object that gonged metallically, then shone the torch on a large white washing machine.
He tapped it to attract Patricia’s attention. “Up to date, aren’t they?” Moving the torch, he then saw that there were half a dozen other machines next to it, all of them taped with the manufacturer’s protective wrappers.
Pausing, he started to examine the stacks of cases more carefully.
“These haven’t even been used,” Patricia commented.
Lanyon nodded. “I know. Something curious about all this. Look at those.” He swung the flashlight against the wall, where the blank eyes of 20 or 30 TV receivers stared back at them, like a display in a darkened shop window. Next to the TV sets were two big red-and-yellow plastic-fronted jukeboxes, and beyond these a pile of radios, vacuum cleaners and electric stoves, heaped with smaller cartons containing irons, hair driers and other domestic appliances.
Flashing the torch, Lanyon walked slowly down the aisle. On the left, down the center of the storeroom, was a solid wall of what appeared to be machine tools—lathes, circular saws, jig-cutting equipment—the steel bearings and drives pasted over with brown tape.
“One of the stores must be using this place as its warehouse,” Patricia remarked. “Strange selection of items, though.”
Lanyon nodded. “How did they get all this stuff up here?” They bad reached the far end of the room, and he turned the handle of the double oak doors. “Looks to me—”
As he opened the door, lights moved at the far end of the corridor beyond, and he had a brief impression of four or five men shifting some bulky object on a small trolley. He pushed the door to and snapped off the torch, just as a shout of recognition went up.
“Steve, they’ve seen us!” Lanyon held Patricia’s arm.
“Listen, Pat, I’m not sure who these people are. They look like looters to me. We’d better get out of here.”
He switched on the torch again and they ran quickly down the aisle past the stacks of radios and washing machines. As they reached the doorway Lanyon saw a large black-garbed figure moving silently below the vaulted arches of the adjacent storeroom. The man noticed the beam of Lanyon’s torch and immediately slid back into the darkness behind one of the pillars.
Lanyon pulled Patricia back into an alcove between the door and the stack of TV sets. He slipped his ·45 automatic out of its holster, eased up the safety catch.
“Wait here, Pat,” he whispered. “Try not to move. Someone came in after us through the grain store. I’ll see if I can get behind him.” He felt her hand hold his tightly, her face tense. He dived through the doorway and crouched down behind one of the pillars, just as the doors on the far side of the storeroom swung back and torches flared across the piles of merchandise.
Lanyon began to edge forward to a central pillar that fanned out in the middle of the chamber. Ahead of him he could hear someone moving along the stonework.
He was halfway across when lights flooded on in the storeroom behind him, a string of bulbs around the walls filling the chamber with hard white light. Voices shouted out again, feet hammered across the stone floor.
Spinning around, he ran back to the storeroom, reached the door just as Patricia, hiding in the alcove a few feet from him, screamed.
Dazzled for a moment by the light, Lanyon’s eyes raced around the room. He caught a fleeting glimpse of two swarthy-faced men in black trousers and windbreakers swarming between the crates, then saw a third moving nimbly halfway down the aisle, a heavy Mauser in one hand, the long barrel pointed at Patricia.
The shot roared out into the confined air, slamming against the tiers of metal cabinets, the flame flashing off the TV screens. One next to Patricia shattered in a burst of glass. The man with the Mauser stopped, feet placed wide apart, then raised the gun again.
Dropping to one knee, Lanyon straightened his arm, steadied his elbow with his left hand, then fired quickly. The power of the ·45 stunned the air for a moment, and the two men on the far side of the room ducked down. The gunman with the Mauser had been kicked back onto the floor by the heavy bullet passing through his chest, and lay inertly on his face, blood leaking slowly across the cobbles.
Lanyon knelt down to see if Patricia was all right, but out of the side of his eye was aware of someone bending over him. He managed to duck just as the blow caught his ear, rode onto the floor with it. As he started to get up the man kicked him viciously in the chest and Lanyon staggered back, ribs tearing with pain, trying to level his automatic.
Then the other two men were on him, wrestling him down onto the floor again, their fists sl
amming at his face. A heavy boot stamped onto his hand, knocking the gun away, and then he was pulled back on his feet and propped up against one of the packing cases. He had a confused image of Patricia down on her knees; then a big man with a red vicious face clubbed him savagely across the forehead with the barrel of the ·45. Lanyon sagged over and smashed on the floor. The big man snapped the gun butt into his hand and leveled it at Lanyon, his eyes narrowing like an insane pig’s.
The two other men stood waiting expectantly, one of them with his knee in the small of Patricia’s back, holding her down on the floor. Lanyon rolled wearily against the case, trying to clear his eyes of the blood running from the wound across his temple, barely aware of the gun barrel a few inches from his head.
Suddenly the big man paused, lowered the gun, then stepped forward and ripped open Lanyon’s windbreaker, grabbing the lapels of his drill jacket, fingering the gold USN tabs. He stuffed the automatic into his belt and cuffed Lanyon’s head back, running his strong thick fingers over Lanyon’s bruised cheeks.
He tapped Lanyon’s face softly, and a grim smile broke across his huge features. He took Lanyon by the shoulders, shook him twice in his strong arms.
“Eh, Capitano!” he called out. “You O.K., boy?”
When Lanyon steadied himself and looked at him, he stepped back and gestured to his men to help Patricia to her feet. Then he grinned at Lanyon, pulled one of the men over to him by the shoulder, and spoke to him rapidly in Italian, jerking his thumb at Lanyon.
The man nodded, then spoke to Lanyon.
“You help Luigi at Viamillia,” he told Lanyon matter-of-factly. “He ask how you feeling?”
The Wind From Nowhere Page 9