The Kremlin File

Fourteen

I turned back from surveying the cove and found Noah walking curiously around the chopper, nodding to himself. But when he came toward us, his face was drawn, his eyes troubled.

I said in a voice as even as I could keep it, “You did yourself proud, and I confess I can’t explain it. You even brought us a taxi to take the doctor off.”

His lips twitched briefly, but he remained somber. “Miss Sawyer. She is a loss to us all. One art I am not capable of is resurrection. But we can give her an honored place among our heros.”

A voodoo burial for Tara? I didn’t think so. Her father wouldn’t appreciate that. I planned to take her body with us, but I decided not to discuss it then. Noah was still talking.

“The wind will come again soon. These structures,” he flapped a hand toward the quadrangle of rooms, “have been jarred by the bombs, weakened. When the storm returns, the walls will crumble. It would be best if you joined us below.”

He didn’t wait for us to agree but started toward the tunnel, then disappeared. Mitzy and I followed. I stopped for a minute over Tara. It made me sick and angry. It would be a pleasure to use every AXE technique I knew on Colonel Carib Jerome.

There were now two short candles burning on the altar, one of thanks, I supposed, and one of supplication. We were going to need all the help we could get. Noah was busy with prayer sticks, maybe clearing Tara’s way to wherever he expected her to go.

I wasn’t needed there. I felt caged and restless. I wasn’t even aware that I was pacing back and forth till Noah turned and said softly, “You need not remain just here, Mr. Carter. This is a labyrinth; there are other rooms you might care to explore.” He touched a stone that looked like part of the wall, and it swung inward, onto a passage.

His words held a hint of accusation — I was obviously disrupting his ceremonies, and I was glad enough to leave. I still had candles in my pocket, and I lighted one. Then Mitzy and I stepped through the hidden door, and Noah closed it behind us. Steps twisted downward; the corridor branched off into paths cut out of soft limestone.

We found a room with a wide well in the middle. This was where water was caught and stored for times of siege. Other rooms served as root cellars — they were cold enough to keep food for long periods of time. Still another was a “butcher shop,” filled with hanging carcasses. I had wondered how the old man had fed his hungry horde when they couldn’t safely hunt outside the walls.

For an hour we wandered from one dead end to another, yet there was always enough fresh air. I wanted to find the source. Following the angle to the candle flame, we walked along a curving passage that spiralled up toward the surface. Just when I thought we were almost at ground level, we came to a padlocked iron grille that blocked the passage. I worked at the lock with my stiletto, and it finally fell open. We moved on past the grille and up a flight of steps to the second corner turret. Air was coming in through the open gun slots.

The outer door of the turret was barred on the inside. I lifted the bar, and we continued on up a mahagony stairway up to a trap door that opened into the upper turret room. Mitzy had said it in the beginning — nobody had seen all the old faker’s surprises.

This was obviously a radio room. It was filled with sending and receiving equipment — the best.

I sat in front of the console on a bamboo chair and suddenly began to laugh. Mitzy reacted differently. She was furious.

“Why, that damned old hypocritical con man!” she yelled. “He’s given everybody the shaft. He shoos us out of his fake houmfort so he can make his chicken magic in private. Then he patters up here to pick up a weather report. No wonder he was so damned certain there’d be a hurricane.”

“And he rubbed our noses in it with that wild act.” I added. “He had me talking to myself. Jungle drums! I bet you’ll find another outfit hidden in the bushes, broadcasting up to the second news on the Port of Spain front. Let’s find out what’s happening in the world.”

I flipped a few switches, and a lightbulb glowed overhead. The power plant hummed as the set came to life. But the only sound that came through was the crackle of static. Too much electricity from the storm to let anything else through. I shut it down.

The gun ports in the radio room were boarded shut. We couldn’t see out, but the howl of wind and the roar of torrential rain told us the hurricane was back in full force. Judging by the length of the first half, this storm would blow over before we found our way back to the others.

I locked the grille on our way back. I’d be damned if I was going to let on to Noah that I’d discovered his game. An hour later, when I walked past the wily old man on my way up to check on the chopper, I kept a straight face. But it wasn’t easy.

The worst of the storm was over. But the helicopter was gone! At least it wasn’t where we had left it. I went out to look around, squinting against the rain that filled my eyes. The chopper lay smashed up against the wall, the long prop blades broken, the engine splintered by a giant tree trunk felled by the wind.

Now the radio was our only link to the outside. But we wouldn’t be able to get through for the next couple of hours. The sky grew even blacker with the coming night. Even if I could have gotten through to Hawk, he wouldn’t have been able to get a chopper through the storm. So the hell with it till morning.

I had a picture of what the island must look like — just a tangle of trees blocking the roads. Jerome couldn’t send any vehicles over them, and he wouldn’t try an air attack at night. His boats couldn’t make it, either, till the raging sea subsided.

I went down to break the news.