The Kremlin File

Thirteen

The altar was covered with a layer of stone fragments, and there was a fresh hole over it in the ceiling. Maybe one of the old man’s gods felt left out of his big-wind dance. The room above was intact — the entrance open and only the stone-slab door blown off. The parade was pocked with gaping pits, and the rubble spread from wall to wall. The turret above the breakwater had taken a direct hit — it simply wasn’t there any more. A few of the rooms were gone, and the fortress wall behind one of them was leveled.

The old patriarch dropped a hand onto Fleming’s shoulder, surveying the damage. His jaw was set in deep anger. He turned to look out across the mountain top, thought for a minute, then said something in patois to the doctor. Whatever he said brought a half-certain, half-speculative smile from the president of Grand LaClare Island.

Over the treetops a huge blue-black cloud was moving toward us. The trees were thrashing, their pale leaves shimmering. Through the new hole in the wall I could see the waves rising. As I stood watching the cove entrance, I spotted a long gray shape nosing gingerly through — a Corvette. I wondered what she thought her light guns could accomplish that the bomb sticks hadn’t already done.

Beside me Mitzy Gardner chuckled. “Beautiful little beast, isn’t she. What do you think Jerome’s navy will try now?”

“I don’t think this ship is his. She’s flying a Cuban flag, but I’ll lay odds that her skipper’s name is something like Ivan, not Juan. She’s an antisubmarine ship — carries eggs in her belly. She may think she can mine the cliff and blow us up.”

If so, she would have to lay in close or use frogmen, and I could handle them. The rest of our party came to watch her approach. She was barely moving, feeling her way through the shallows, heading toward the breakwater. I didn’t think she’d come in far enough to hit it, but I couldn’t help hoping she would.

She didn’t. She hove to just beyond the reach of our guns and put four black-suited swimmers over the side, lowering depth charges to them. They submerged. I gave them time to come well within range, then sprayed a pattern of lead in the water, working out from the base across their probable path. The first passes didn’t get results. But the next one did.

The water erupted in a boiling spout. The swimmers were bunched. All four charges went off together. Tons of water and scraps of black flew into the air. Water rushed in on the enormous spout, and when it subsided, a wave rose, circling outward, the force of concussion in the shallow water drove the wave hard into the Corvette, hitting her broadside and slamming her hard over. She took sea on the low side, wallowing back as the wave crashed over her and stayed aboard. It was too much weight. She lay sloshing, rolling sluggishly in the growing swells.

I didn’t think she would float long. The black cloud was billowing upward. The wind roared, and whitecaps ran before it.

At first I didn’t hear the other sound. But suddenly a squadron of chopper gun ships came into view. It was lousy flying weather for the helicopters, but lives are the cheapest commodity the communist countries have.

“Take cover.” I had to shout against the noise. “They’ll attack us here, then set one down. Get moving!”

Noah and the boy lifted Fleming and carried him toward the tunnel, with Tara Sawyer behind them. Mitzy and I brought up the rear. Tara got as far as the stairs, then swung back, defiant.

“Damn it, I’m tired of being useless. Show me how to use one of these guns and let me play too.”

The girl had guts, and I was proud of her. I gave her a quick lesson, emphasizing that she had to be sure where she was aiming before she touched the trigger.

“You stay here, Tara,” I told her. “Mitzy, pick another hole. I’ll take the other side. Let the bird land and try for the men after they’re outside. We may take a ride after all.”

I watched Mitzy run for a room farther down the row. Then I dashed across the corner of the parade as the flap of props came closer and closer. I was hardly under the roof when the choppers went over, tattooing the walls and floor with fifty caliber slugs. After they passed over, I stepped out and fired at the underside of the nearest one. It went out of control and wobbled out of sight toward the jungle. I heard Mitzy Gardner’s gun chatter. She scored a partial hit but didn’t cripple the bird. Tara caught on too late and wasted half a clip on the retreating choppers.

With all the noise their cannons were making, they didn’t even realize they were being fired on. They came back to hover over us, covering the landing of the ship I’d disabled.

A slash of heavy rain drummed across the parade.

The chopper settled to the ground, touching down like a weary bird. The door opened on the side opposite me, and a machine gun sprayed the walls that hid the girls. Then the pilot climbed out and ran around the nose of the ship while a gun inside kept him covered. I heard both girls’ guns track the pilot. He sprawled on his face in a pool of blood. The man in the chopper was still shooting in our direction. From where I stood, I couldn’t see him, so I ducked out of the room and dashed toward the chopper to get a look at him. I had to stop that gun. I fired through the glass and saw the gunner’s head dissolve into red pulp.

The rain was coming down in sheets now. The sky was an ugly greenish black. Lightning flashed, and thunder deafened me. The chopper bounced in the gale winds. The other copters couldn’t fight the storm. They turned back to try to set down on the beach. I was running to get some rope to tie down the captured bird when Mitzy’s shrill scream stopped me. She was pointing dumbly into the room where Tara had been.

I knew what had happened before I got there. Tara Sawyer lay there, her beautiful body tom to shreds and awash with blood. One short look and I got out of there fast. I couldn’t stop to think. There was a plane to anchor. But I was clumsy at the job. My mind wasn’t on it. Poor Tara! She shouldn’t have chosen to fight.

Mitzy was with me, knotting lines from the chopper around big uprooted rocks. I tied one around her waist to keep her from being blown away. By the time the plane was anchored, we had to crawl back to shelter an inch at a time, hanging on to stones. The wind had to be over a hundred miles an hour.

We didn’t go to the tunnel. I didn’t want to see Tara again right away. And I had some thinking to do. I didn’t want to face Noah, either. He had asked for a hurricane, he got it. In February, no less. I wondered how.

We sat without talking, each of us filled with our own unhappy thoughts. The storm lasted an hour before it let up. There was an ominous calm. In the Southern Hemisphere hurricanes blow clockwise; in the North they blow counter-clockwise, wheeling as they move. The velocity increases from the center toward the outer edge. Unless Noah had a curve on this one, we would soon be taking a real battering from the opposite direction.

But there was still time to see what damage the first half had accomplished. The downpour had stopped, and the parade steamed. Through the hole in the wall we saw the Corvette. It was hard aground, breaking up. The choppers were roosting in trees, and the stranded patrol boat was gone. The smashed yachts and tugs had been flung ashore. The sky was empty.