War From The Clouds

Chapter Nine

Years ago, when I was sitting in the anteroom of AXE's offices on DuPont Circle in Washington, waiting to report on the completion of an assignment, a secretary had inadvertently left open the intercom to David Hawks's office. I heard my old boss tell someone in there:

"If ever AXE comes up with a truly impossible assignment, one that could not possibly be handled by a mortal with a mortal's powers and intelligence, one that could not be handled by man s most sophisticated weaponry or technology, one that could be resolved only by divine intervention or by the gods themselves, I would give that assignment to Nick Carter and fully expect him to resolve it."

'l remember the response from Hawk's unknown visitor: "Nobody is that good."

«True» Hawk had said. "Nobody is that good, not even Nick Carter. But he thinks he's that good and, after all, isn't that all that's necessary in any assignment, impossible or otherwise?"

Well, perched there in that filthy hole of a chimney with my body wracked with pain, my back and knees raw, a dead warrior in my arms, a nest of impenetrable scorpions just above me, a water-filled cave entrance far below me and a virtual army of fanatics on top of the mountain, I suddenly realized that that intercom hadn't been left open accidentally. It had been done on purpose. I had been conned into thinking that, even if nobody was good enough for a particular assignment, I was fully expected to complete it successfully.

I realized something else, I really wasn't good enough, not for this one. It had been a stacked deck against me all along. I had come this far through sheer luck and brashness and downright foolhardiness. And where had I come? To my own death trap, that's where.

"Nick?" Elicia cried, more panic" in her voice. "Nick, I'm slipping. I can't hold on any longer."

All right, I thought. I don't know what to do, but I'm expected to do something. David Hawk had expected it all along and had gotten the results he desired. Elicia expected it. The two warriors waiting just below expected it. Even if my next move were a wrong move, I had to make it.

"We'll have to drop him," I said to Elicia. "It seems cruel, but the man is dead and won't feel a thing. Let him go." I looked down at the waiting warriors. "Take the body and let it fall back down the chimney."

They were aghast at the thought, and their faces showed it, but they took their comrade as Elicia and I eased him down. They held him for a few minutes, then reluctantly let him go. We gritted our teeth and held our positions in that narrow chimney and listened to the smacking, crunching, grinding sounds as the man and his rifle dropped all the way down and slammed into the sacrificial platform two hundred feet below.

And what next? When the warrior had first run into the scorpion nest, I had considered using one of my gas bombs to rout them. But the plan had some unpleasant ramifications.

For one thing, in that closed area the gas would spread out in a cloud and engulf us all. I knew from experience that no man could hold his breath long enough for the gas to disperse. Secondly, the gas might linger in the tunnel above us, especially if there were level areas up there. And a third thing: gas would escape at the top of the chimney, and might be detected by forces up there, forces who would know immediately that someone was coming up the chimney.

A plan began to hatch in my head as I rested there and felt a soft breeze waft upwards past my body. It wasn't a perfect plan, but no plan is.

"Move back down the chimney," I said to Elicia and the two remaining warriors. "Go down about a hundred feet and wait for me."

"But there's no time," Elicia protested.

"I know. We're not interested in stopping Don Carlos any longer. We're interested in survival. Forget the time."

Even as they moved back down the chimney, though, I knew that I hadn't meant that about not being interested in stopping Don Carlos. That was the main objective and my years of training wouldn't let my mind forget it, not even for the moment, for self-survival.

When Elicia and the two warriors were out of sight, I took a smooth, sleek little Pierre from a pouch on my thigh and tied the end of the nylon rope to the pin. I worked the bomb into a niche in the rocks, tested to make sure it wouldn't come away easily, then moved back down the chimney. When I had gone fifty feet, I found a small ledge and began to load the contents of my pocket onto it. I crumpled up all the money in my billfold into a heap. I took out my passport and my identification card and a bunch of other cards I carry around for a number of reasons: my blood donor card to remind me that I am also human; my library card to remind that civilization really does have its finer side; my credit cards to remind me that civilization has another side; my health insurance card to remind me that I'm not (as Hawk's friend suggested) invincible; some receipts and notes to remind me that life has a quiet aspect to it at times. I put the wallet itself on the pile.

I remembered that my notebook had been put in the pouch with Wilhelmina. I recovered it and tore out the page containing the map I'd drawn of Alto Arete's fortifications. I then tore out all the other pages, crumpled them up and put them on the pile. I tucked the folded map back into the pouch.

Next, I took out Hugo and began to slice long splinters off the butt of the Russian automatic rifle. It was soft wood and I thanked the Russians for cheapening up in such a way. The wood had a fragrance to it, like cedar. It would burn well. I cut several short lengths of nylon rope and added them to the pile, then took apart a half dozen bullets and shook gunpowder over the whole thing. I found two extra books of matches and, only as a last resort when I was certain they were needed to make the fire more effective, I added my last box of goldmonogramed Turkish cigarettes.

When I had eased below the ledge to keep the gunpowder from flashing in my face, I lit a match and flipped it up onto the pile. The flash was instant and blinding. I moved back down the chimney and watched as the flames built and set up eerie shadows in the space above me.

It took less than a minute before I felt an increase in the wind moving up past me. The fire was creating a fine draft, as I expected it to in this narrow chimney. I watched, waiting for the flames to reach a peak, but carefully watching to see that it didn't burn the length of nylon rope that I had tied to Pierre and snaked down past the ledge holding the fire.

When I was certain that the upward draft was at optimum force, I yanked on the nylon. I heard the familiar pop as Pierre burst open in the closed space well above the fire. I sucked in my breath and held it, still watching the fire on the ledge a dozen feet above. There was hardly a flicker in the flames from the explosion of the gas bomb and I knew I was safe.

The draft created by the fire, had swept all the gas upward. The draft would also clear the gas out of level tunnels and other pockets where it might otherwise collect.

Best of all, the gas would infiltrate that nest of scorpions and, unless they were capable of holding their breaths for the next few minutes, wipe the nest clean of life.

But I was still worried about what might happen on top of the mountain when they saw the blue cloud of gas and the white smoke. As I said, the plan wasn't perfect.

I gave the fire another five minutes, then called down to Elicia and the warriors. Even as Elicia responded, I felt something soft and furry land on my shoulder. I started to brush it off, then realized what it was. I shone my flashlight on it and saw that it was a scorpion.

It was deader than hell.

"What did you do?" Elicia asked as she drew up behind me. I was putting out the fire so we could go past the ledge without being burned.

"Made a few sacrifices of my own" I said, thinking of the lost money and library card. They represented a small loss compared to Pico's daughter and all those other victims of Don Carlos Italla's idiocy, but a sacrifice, nonetheless.

As we moved upward, brushing aside dead scorpions from the now defunct nest, I explained to Elicia what I had done and she showered me with so many compliments that I began to wonder what David Hawk would say when he heard my report on the clearing of the scorpions. I knew what he would say, to the word:

"Standard operating procedure, N3. Why did it take you so long to think of it?"

It is sometimes depressing working for a man like David Hawk. But only sometimes.

Our only obstacles now were time and a flagging of strength. As we continued to climb the chimney, knocking away more nests of dead scorpions and spiders and other denizens of the dark chimney that runs straight up through the mountain to Alto Arete, the air seemed thinner and less satisfying to breathe. But it was clean air now, thanks to the draft from the fire; and the tunnel was clear of life-threatening creatures, thanks to Pierre's lethal draft.

We no longer could inch our way up by using our backs and knees against opposing walls. The hole had narrowed so much that my shoulders barely cleared its sides. We used tiny notches and ledges and, in some stretches, found the walls so smooth that we actually wriggled like snakes to gain upward purchase.

We did run across several level areas where we could rest, but I kept looking at my digital watch, seeing the minutes flick away. The numbers seemed to be constantly changing. 7:45. 7:59. 8:05.

I lost all sense of place and had no idea how far we had come from the cave. It could have been five hundred feet, or five thousand. I knew only that sundown was rushing across the island and that Don Carlos would soon step onto a balcony of his palace up there on Alto Arete and fire his flare, signalling the beginning of a bloody revolution that would rock the island from end to end, side to side. Once that started, I would not have an ally in the whole country. All the Ninca Indians would be dead, as would the guerillas who opposed Don Carlos.

Without allies, I knew, there was no way for me to get off the island country of Nicarxa. There would be no report to David Hawk or the President because there would be no one to report.

"What time is it?" Elicia asked as we rested in a narrow tunnel that angled upwards at about forty five degrees.

"Almost eight o'clock," I lied. I had been lying about the time for the past two hours. Even though I'd told her earlier that we were no longer concerned with Don Carlos Italla's plans but with our own survival, I knew she didn't accept that anymore than I did. She still hoped to stop the maniac and save her country from a bloodbath. I had tried once to shatter that hope, when my own hope was at rock bottom — I wouldn't do it again. But I looked at my watch and saw that the numbers were clearly at 8:12.

"Do you think we're near the top?" Elicia asked.

"I'm pretty sure we are," I said.

This time, I wasn't lying. For the past several yards, the chimney had been getting narrower and narrower. I could barely squeeze my shoulders past small outcroppings. And I noticed that a number of smaller holes ran off into different directions. I had the sickening feeling that the chimney would degenerate into a series of tiny openings through which only smoke (and poison gas) could pass.

The feeling was justified. Just as my digital watch clicked into place at 8:15, I shone my flashlight ahead and saw that the main chimney ten feet ahead was no wider than a man's boot. Smaller chimneys led off from the channel like dark fingers, each about the size of a fist.

I stopped and probed the area above, but could find no way for us to get through. It was possible that this series of smaller holes represented only a small section of the overall chimney, that they funneled into a main chimney up above. The question was, how did we get past this natural obstruction to the main chimney?

What was needed now, I knew, was that divine intervention David Hawk had spoken of. I had no weapons to deal with the situation. As a matter of fact, no sophisticated weaponry or technology could solve this problem in time for us to stop Don Carlos.

I reached the point where my shoulders would no longer let themselves be squeezed any closer together. Ahead, the main chimney narrowed like dark railroad tracks in the distance. This time, though, the narrowing was no optical illusion. It was real.

We could go no farther.

"Why do you stop, Nick?" Elicia said. "We still have time to stop Don Carlos, but we must not stop. Not now."

Truth time.

There was no way I could lie my way out of this predicament. I would have to tell her and the two warriors that we were stopped, that we could not proceed. Pierre couldn't help. Hugo couldn't help. Wilhelmina could blast away forever and make no dent at all in the obstacle ahead.

Nick Carter had failed. Oh, sure, there might be people in the future who might say I had given it my best shot. That is, if any of us got out alive to tell the story. Even if they said I gave it my best shot, they'd still have to sigh and shake their heads and finish the statement: "Even though he gave it his best shot, he still failed."

"Nick, are you all right? Why have we stopped?"

I couldn't answer, couldn't tell her. I wanted to. I wanted to tell her that I expected failure all along, that I had been proceeding like a damned programmed automation, a brainless creature destined to smash itself on the rocks of total adversity, of hopelessness.

My fingers sought a higher ledge. My mind entertained the hope of squeezing my shoulders just a bit tighter, of going on; hope that the chimney would widen in just a few more feet and we would be able to continue to the top.

The hope, however, was faint and dim. What was really going through my mind was just how we four would spend our remaining hours alive. Would we talk among ourselves as hunger turned to starvation, as life began to seep away leaving our bones as evidence to some future archeologist that we had been here? Would that archeologist puzzle about our predicament, have any hint at all as to why we had wedged ourselves into this incredible mountain?

Hope was still alive and my fingers kept searching for one more ledge.

My mind, however, was still active in other areas. It was possible, I thought, that we could go back down to the cave and subsist on bats until desperation drove us to that dark pond and that impossible swim back to the well. We could eat scorpions. There were a lot of dead ones down there. We could eat the two warriors who had died in this hopeless endeavor. We…

"We're in deep trouble, aren't we?" Elicia said, the panic coming again to her voice. "We can't go any farther, can we?"

My fingers found a narrow depression in the rock. I didn't want to have to answer Elicia. I probed the depression and tried to get my fingertips into it. It wasn't a ledge and it wasn't deep enough to provide purchase. I kept trying.

"Answer me, Nick." We're trapped and it's almost time for Don Carlos to send his signal and I can't even find a ledge to pull me higher into this damned hole and we're going to die here while all your countrymen are dying outside. I opened my mouth to tell them all the truth, but I couldn't find my voice.

I was incapable, in that moment of frustration and failure, to admit that I was frustrated, that I had failed. My fingers worked frantically in the narrow depression. I slid my hands across the depression and found that it was a straight line, as though it had been chiseled there by man and not by nature.

"You don't have to answer," Elicia said, a slight choking in her throat. "Your silence tells me everything."

"I'm just thinking, Elicia," I said, lying again, although it wasn't a total lie. I was thinking. I was thinking about how bats and scorpions and human flesh would taste to a man about to perish of starvation.

"I want to tell you," Elicia said, a braveness in her voice now, "that I cherish those moments in the Council House. I am in love with Purano and would have married him and bore his children, but I would not have forgotten my love for you, for what we had together."

"Elicia, don't talk like that. You're giving up."

"Haven't you given up?"

I pushed against the rock wall just below the depression, a new hope rising. Nothing happened.

"No, I haven't given up. There's no reason to give up."

"Then, why won't you answer my questions? Why don't we continue on?"

I pushed hard against the rock wall, then slid my hands down the wall close to my chest. I found another faint line there, another slight depression. I worked my fingers across it, gouging out crumpled rock. It was another straight line and the crumpling rock felt like mortar in my hands.

Mortar? Here, near the top of a natural chimney? I worked the stone dust in my fingers and tasted it. As comparison, I licked the natural rock wall in front of me. The tastes were different.

Elicia was crying softly now, but my mind was too busy with the new puzzle to give time to comfort her. I had nothing yet with which to comfort her — perhaps I never would.

I probed the wall and traced the lines that ran parallel about eighteen inches apart. I found corners, then began to trace lines that ran vertically. It was a square. A square of lines filled with what might be mortar. A sealed opening or door? Impossible? Yes, impossible. My mind in its desperation was playing morbid tricks on me.

In a tiny part of my mind, I had retained hope that there would be a kind of door or other man-made opening at or near the top of this natural chimney. Of course, the same part of my mind that hoped for the opening also held out the distinct possibility that that opening would be heavily guarded.

What lay behind this square of stone sealed with crumpling mortar? Or, my mind swerved from that grim possibility, what made me think I'd be able to break the seal and get this stone unseated? How thick was the stone and did they have something even heavier and thicker directly behind it?

Relying on that thin hope, I took Hugo from his sheath and began tracing the thin point of the stiletto around the squared lines. I had given up using the sharp weapon to get myself and the others out of this predicament. I made a silent apology to the vicious little knife.

"Nick, what are you doing?" Elicia asked, between sobs. "Are you trying to cut your way through solid stone?"

"That, my sweet," I said, chuckling as renewed hope rose to a crescendo in my soul, "is a fairly adequate description of precisely what I'm doing."

I heard one of the warriors mutter something that sounded like "loco," but I went on slashing at the" cracks. Mortar by the handful fell past me and showered Elicia and the two warriors. I knew I would be able to loosen the mortar and possibly push the square stone out of its socket in the wall, but what then?

Even if there were no guards behind this wall and even if Don Carlos hadn't yet signalled for the revolution to begin, what chance had one exhausted gringo, a sobbing girl and two disconsolate and disenchanted Indians against the formidable bastion described by Luis Pequeno, the Cuban Marine whose story had set me on this fantastic voyage up through the center of the mountain?

No matter, I thought. One thing at a time. If I were concerned about how to stop Don Carlos once I reached his lair in the clouds, I should have resolved the matter long ago, not now. Now was the time for action, any action, to get out of this dark trap and to do all that was humanly possible to complete the mission.

When Hugo's thin blade could find no more loose stone and mortar to unseat, I put him back in his sheath and leaned as far away from the square as possible. I put the palms of both hands against the stone and gave a push. It didn't budge. I pushed harder, grunting like an animal in heat, but the stone was unmovable. I rested, took time to look at my watch — it stood at 8:20 now — and explained to Elicia what I was trying to do, then gave the one final shot of my strength. It still didn't move. The watch numbers flicked to 8:24. Sweat, spurred by physical exertion and growing panic, mixed with the soot, spider webs and mortar on my face and hands.

I had no energy to give the stone much of a push now. I had used it up. Perhaps a rest of five minutes or so would restore it, but each passing minute meant a greater risk of failure, if we hadn't already failed.

It was then that I heard the faint clanking sound from behind the stone. I felt the stone move against my chest. I put my palms against it, took a deep breath and willed my strength to return without a proper rest.

I pushed as hard as I could. The stone moved a fraction of an inch and I felt that it wasn't me that had moved it. Someone was tugging from the other side. I understood the clanking sound then. Don Carlos had undoubtedly fitted the stone with a metal handle of some sort, in case he needed to remove it and use the chimney as an escape route. Someone was in there tugging on that metal handle. That someone was obviously not a friend, but an enemy who had heard me scraping away with Hugo and was curious to see what was happening in the chimney.

Again, I thought, it's no matter. Friend or foe, I'm coming through.

I heard the clank again, felt the stone start to move. I timed my final push with that, gave it all I had, and the stone popped out of that square like the cork from a bottle of exquisite champagne.

Even as the stone was falling away and I was peering into a dimly-lit chamber beyond, I had Wilhelmina in my hand. The stone plummeted to the floor of the chamber and I saw a short man in monk's garb scrambling out of its way. He still had his hand on the metal handle he'd been tugging on.

I leaped through the opening and stared at the startled monk. I took a look around and saw that we were in an enormous wine cellar. The monk had let go of the handle and was lying on his backside, staring up with wide eyes at the big pistol in my hand.

"El diablo," he gasped.

"No," I said, "not the devil, but somebody just as determined. And if you don't cooperate right now, my friend, this someone is determined to blow your head off. Tell me, has Don Carlos sent the signal yet?"

I could hear Elicia and the two warriors coming through the hole behind me, and could tell by the monk's face that they were entering the room. His eyes grew wider, as though he had seen more devils. We must have looked terrifying with our faces, hands and clothing smudged with soot and other assorted debris from the chimney.

"What signal, senor?" the monk asked.

I put the cold muzzle of the luger to his forehead and slid back the ejection chamber. I tightened my finger on the trigger.

"This devil isn't kidding around, pal," I said. "You know what signal. I'll give you one more chance, then I pull the trigger."

He sweated and squirmed a little, then he seemed to recognize one of the warriors with me. He squinted at the warrior and a smile played at his lips.

"Uturo?" he said.

The warrior nodded. "I am Uturo. Who are you?"

"Sagacio," the monk said. "I am your father's brother. I am your uncle."

"No," the warrior said. "Sagacio was killed when I was ten years old."

"So they told you," the monk said. He was smiling openly now. He started to get up, looked cross-eyed at the business end of Wilhelmina and changed his mind. "I got drunk one night on wine," he went on, "and fell in with some of our tribe that had already joined Don Carlos and his rabble. When I sobered up, I was their captive. I was brought here a dozen years ago and have been here ever since."

The warrior studied the chunky monk for a time, then leaned down and took the man's hand. He slid up the coarse robe and peered at a wide scar just below the biceps. He smiled then and looked at me.

"It is Sagacio. It is my uncle. He got that wound on a boar hunt. I remember it."

Old Sagacio began to ramble on then, about other mutual memories, but I had to put a stop to it. I had already put the luger in my belt and the old monk had raised from his undignified position, no longer afraid of the devils from the chimney.

"Has Don Carlos sent the signal?" I asked again.

"No," the monk said, shaking his head. "There is a storm and the entire mountain is covered with clouds. Don Carlos is furious with the weather, even though it is passing to the southwest. The clouds will be gone in a few minutes and he will send the signal then."

"And what are you doing down here?" I asked, looking around the wine cellar again. "Planning to get drunk again?"

"No, I was sent to fetch more wine for Don Carlos. As I said, he is furious with the storm and has been drinking steadily ever since it started."

A thought struck me.

"If you came for wine for your master, knowing that he's furious and will probably be even more pissed off if you don't hurry, why did you take time to pull on that stone?"

Sagacio looked sheepish, then the look turned to one of shrewdness.

"I have sought escape ever since I was brought here," he said. "Many of Don Carlos Italla's earlier followers and all of his captives despise the man now. He is not a man of god, but a man of satan. We all look for ways of escape."

"And they all know about the sacrificial cave and the legendary chimney?"

"Yes. When we are sent for wine, we each keep trying to pull out that stone. Don Carlos says that the area behind it is inhabited by devils who will cut out our tongues and lead us to hell. Still, we chance it. When I heard you digging, I felt that my chance had come. I pulled and pulled, and it finally came out."

I had another thought. It was the constant pulling by the monks that had loosened the mortar at the back end of the stone. If not for them, I would never have found those depressions, those squared lines. Such things are not accidents, I realize. Fate, perhaps, but not accidents. Perhaps fate had other good things in store.

"How many of Don Carlos's people feel the same as you? How many can we count on as allies?"

"Allies in what?" Sagacio asked, his face screwing up with puzzlement.

"We've come to stop him," I said, "to stop the war, to end his reign from this cloudy mountain-top."

Sagacio looked at us, mentally counting our forces against those of his master.

"We started out with a larger force," I told him, "but things happened along the way. Now, will you help us? Are there others who will help?"

"What is it you wish from us? We will help."

I took out the map I had drawn with Luis Pequeno's assistance, and spread it on the ground. Sagacio took a torch from a distant wallhanger and brought it close.

"Is this an accurate map of what's on top of the mountain?" I asked.

"As far as it goes," he said. "Below ground here are the wine cellars which are extensive. Off that way, down that tunnel, is the central arsenal." He pointed to a corridor cut into the stone. "Don Carlos has Russian munitions there, much TNT and dynamite. Up that way…" he pointed to a stone staircase — "is the main guard station where a dozen armed men are on duty at all times."

"Are they from your tribe?"

"No, they are guerillas from the regular population. Some of them hate Don Carlos, but I'm not certain of which would be a friend or which would be an ally."

"All right," I said. "Here's what you do. Take the wine to Don Carlos, then return to the guard station. If you recognize any guard that might be a friend, take him aside and tell him to distract the other guards in some way. Get them away from the station. We'll go past the station, make our way to the palace and see if we can take Don Carlos hostage. If we succeed, his friends will be helpless and you can start organizing his enemies to keep his friends from rushing us. Can you do that?"

"If I have a weapon."

I gave him the Russian rifle I'd been whittling on to make my fire down there on that ledge, when Pd set off Pierre to kill the scorpions. He grinned shrewdly and slipped the rifle up under his smock. I looked at my digital watch. It stood at 8:37.

"We'll come up in ten minutes," I said. "Make sure you've done your work then."

"I will make sure."

When he was gone, I went over the plan with the two warriors — Uturo and the man whose name I still couldn't remember. It was a simple plan. We'd move past the guard station, across the main plaza to the palace, circle to a side door, kill the guard with Hugo, slip into the palace and make our way to Don Carlos's quarters.

"And what will I do?" Elicia asked.

"Stay down here," I said. "The three of us can do it, with help from Uturo's uncle."

A door slammed behind us and we all four nearly jumped out of our clothes. We heard heavy boots on stone steps, heard the coarse laughter of half-drunk men. We scattered among the shelves of wine. I stood with my back to a row of dusty bottles, hoping I wouldn't knock one loose and give away my position.

Four guards with rifles slung over their shoulders bounded into the cellar and began to examine bottles on the nearest shelf. I could see Uturo in the aisle next to mine, but the other warrior and Elicia were out of sight. I held my breath and waited.

"This is the cheap stuff, for the neophyte monks," one of the guards snarled. "Look around and find the bottles reserved for our esteemed leader."

They started looking around, coming closer and closer to the aisles where Uturo and I were hiding. I kept wondering where Elicia and the other warrior were hiding, hoping the guards wouldn't stumble across them first.

I didn't have to worry about that. The guard who'd complained about the cheap stuff was heading directly for my aisle. I moved down a few feet, to position myself out of range from the other three guards, held Wilhelmina at the ready and waited.

He turned into the aisle and I squeezed the trigger. I saw a portion of his head blow away, saw the smile of anticipation turn to one of horror. In the quiet cellar, the boom of the luger was like a dynamite blast.

In that same instant, Uturo stepped from his aisle and began shooting at the other three guards. Another automatic rifle from the right began to chatter. Two other guards fell and I stepped out of the aisle to see the fourth guard charging up the stone steps toward the guard station. I aimed and fired, but he disappeared behind a wall. I was certain I hadn't hit him.

"Come on," I yelled. "Let's go before they gather their senses."

Knowing that we had been pressed into acting too soon, long before Sagacio could have done us any good, we went charging up the steps.

I was fully prepared for a full-scale shootout with the remaining guards at the station. As I neared the top of the stone staircase, I looked back to see that Uturo and the other warrior were right behind me. Elicia was nowhere to be seen and I had a kind of gut fear that perhaps she'd been hit by a stray bullet. There had been an awful lot of shooting down in that wine cellar.

At the top of the stairs, two doorways led off a narrow corridor. There was a torch burning in a holder at the end of the corridor and, near one of the doors was the fourth guard, crumpled up like a piece of foil.

I had hit him with that last shot as he had rounded the corner of the staircase. He had made it this far and had died before he could warn the others. And the winecellar was so deep and so well insulated with stone that the shots apparently hadn't been heard in the guard station. I held up my hand to stop the charging Uturo and his friend.

"Time for a bit of discretion instead of foolhardy valor," I said. "Let's go below and set up a plan. Uturo, grab an arm and let's take this dead guard with us."

Quietly, we retreated, dragging the dead guard down the staircase into the cellar. Wine from broken bottles now covered the floor. I called out to Elicia, but got no answer. Time was running out for us, but still I made a quick search among the aisles. No Elicia. I was starting down the corridor toward the arsenal when footsteps sounded on the stone staircase.

The warriors and I went into a defensive stance behind the racks of wine bottles. I aimed the luger at the base of the steps and waited, my finger itching to blast away at more guards. Sagacio's bulky frame appeared in my sights.

"Don't shoot," he said, gazing fearfully around at our leveled guns, at the four dead guards and at the broken wine bottles.

"What are you doing back down here?" I demanded. "You were to create a diversion among the guards."

"The station is empty," he said, the look of puzzlement back on his pudgy face. "I took the wine to Don Carlos and found him even more furious than ever. The storm has passed, but the whole of Alto Arete is still swathed in clouds. The wind seems to have died and the clouds aren't moving away. The signal wouldn't be seen. If they don't clear soon, Don Carlos will use his radios to call for the revolution."

"That means we don't have any time to fool around," I said. "We'll put on the uniforms of the dead guards and you can lead us out of here. Do you know where the guards are — the ones from the guard station?"

"I have no idea. When I returned from the palace and found the station empty, I thought perhaps you had killed them all. These four," he said, indicating the dead guards whose uniforms we were stripping, "aren't on duty now. They must have found the station empty and come down to steal wine."

That much was obvious, but I was still puzzled by the absence of guards at the station. And I was worried about Elicia. But, again, I thought, there's no time for anything but action. We donned the uniforms of the dead guards and, with Sagacio going ahead to make certain the way was clear, we went up the steps again.

The guard station was indeed empty. I checked the cabinets of rifles, grenades and mortars, pocketed a couple of grenades, and peered out into the courtyard.

In the dim distance, the palace loomed like a fairyland castle in swirling fog that was the immense cloud resting on top of Alto Arete. Lighted torches fought vainly against the darkening cloud, but I could see the main gate of the palace, see that no guards stood in the courtyard or near the gate. I opened the door leading to the courtyard and held up my hand as a signal to those behind me.

"Sagacio, you take the lead. When you're halfway across the courtyard, we'll follow."

The chubby monk took one fearful look at the empty courtyard and the swirling fog, hitched up his smock and marched through the doorway. I watched as he strode across the cobblestones and wondered where he was keeping the Russian rifle I had given him earlier.

The shot rang out clear and loud, only slightly muffled by the thick cloud. I looked around to see where the shot had come from, but it was dark and silent out there. When I looked back Sagacio, he was stopped in the center of the courtyard, his face peering up through the cloud at the upper stories of the palace.

Another shot came. I saw the pinpoint of flame this time. It was from the roof of the palace.

This time, Sagacio didn't merely stand in the courtyard. He turned toward us, his face writhing in pain. He held up pudgy hands in a kind of supplication, begging us to understand that he hadn't betrayed us. Then, he spiraled to the ground, his smock settling about his fat dead body like a shroud.

Even as I was feeling sorry for the hefty little monk and trying to decide what to do next, the rain of bullets began.

Thunder seemed to break out on the mountain-top. Bullets crashed through the windows of the guard station. The courtyard filled with rushing, running shapes, all firing rifles. At us.

A kind of hell had come to the mountaintop, and we were at the core of that hell.