While Lemka's mother cringed against the wall, holding the baby, Kaufman began methodically slapping Yusel's face with the back of his hand. The blows were not unduly severe, but they were relentlessly repeated, first on one side of the head, then on the other. Yusel grew dizzy, then half-conscious.
Kaufman stepped back, breathing heavily. The look on the old woman's eyes above her veil made him uneasy. There had been people many years before who had looked like that - people who had perhaps cringed a little but whose spirit had still defied him. 'Take the old woman and the child out of here,' he growled.
As soon as a soldier had pushed the woman and baby into the kitchen Kaufman ungagged Yusel. 'Now for some sense from you,' he said, giving him another slap across the face to restore his senses. 'I'm a reasonable man and I do not like to use force, but you must realise the unpleasant things which could happen. They won't if you answer a simple question.
Who have you brought into the country?'
Yusel looked up at him with glazed eyes. He gulped and hesitated; Kaufman hit him again. Yusel's brain reeled. His head slumped forward and began to lose consciousness. One of the guards revived him with a small, painful jab with a bayonet and Kaufman repeated his question.
'Professor Neilson,' Yusel muttered.
Kaufman drew in his breath sharply. 'Neilson!'
'The father,' mumbled Yusel. 'The father of the young scientist...'
Kaufman closed his eyes in relief. For a split second he had had a vision of a ghost. 'Why have you brought him?' he snarled. 'Where is he?'
Yusel sat silent. He watched Kaufman's hands clench into fists and slowly rise to shoulder height. He bent his head in shame and fear. 'He's in a cave above the temple,' he whispered.
'More,' ordered Kaufman.
Once he started talking, Yusel found it easy to go on.
When he faltered Kaufman hit him again or a soldier prodded him with his bayonet, until they had the whole story.
Kaufman grunted with satisfaction and turned to the soldiers. 'One of you take him down to the car. Keep him tied up. And you' - he turned to the second guard - 'come with me. We'll get this American.'
He walked outside, accompanied by the soldier. It was still calm, but there was a weird humming sound to the right, its note dropping steadily into a roar of wind. Eager to get to his quarry, Kaufman did no more than glance towards the spiralling mass of blackness sweeping along the distant mountain crests at the far end of the range.
The tornado hit them when they were within sight of the temple. Half drowned by an avalanche of water, unable to stand erect in the wind, they slithered forwards to the slight shelter the great fallen marble columns provided. And there they both lay shivering and in mortal fear, until the storm passed as abruptly as it had started.
'We'll get back,' panted Kaufman, 'before another storm.
See if our comrade and the prisoner are still all right. I will go and see what's happened to the old woman and the child.'
He had some vague idea of holding them as hostages, but when he got back to the village the house no longer existed.
the flat stone roof had shifted in the wind and brought the walls down. Kaufman looked through the gaping hole where the window had been. He turned away abruptly: the crushed body of a woman was not a pleasant sight ....
He found the soldier tinkering with the car. Water had got on the ignition leads and it was half an hour before they got the engine started. Yusel lay gagged and bound at the back. Kaufman spent the time standing around, looking up at the temple, then at the ruined house which was the tomb of the old woman and presumably the child. His mind was filled with fear and, though he would not let himself admit it, something like remorse.
The engine of the car coughed to life and began to run smoothly, Kaufman got in beside the driver. 'As fast as you can go,' he ordered, 'before another storm catches us out in the desert. And drive straight to the residence of Mm'selle Gamboul. I'll take our prisoner. Mm'selle Gamboul will want to question him herself.'
They made it just as the sky again darkened to the blackness of night. As he alighted he could hear the scream of a second tornado approaching from the far side of the city. He ran for the shelter of the house, leaving Yusel in the car.
Gamboul was seated at her desk as usual. Her face was a blur in the gloom. The electricity had failed, and the heavy curtains had been torn away from the windows where the little intricately shaped panes had been blown out.
She looked up as Kaufman came close to the desk. 'Ah, there you are,' she said impatiently. 'I want you to get out to the compound as soon as the storm eases and phone Vienna.
Tell them that we're in charge now and they must take orders from us.'
He showed no surprise. 'I shall not phone Vienna,' he said slowly and deliberately. 'There are some things you can't make a deal in, and this is one of them. I have been out in it. And I've important news.'
She stood up and approached the window, moving to the side in case more glass was blown out. 'You're afraid, you too, are you?' she sneered. 'Everyone is afraid of responsibility, of taking risks. This afternoon I visited the girl. She is dying, that one. And raving as she dies. She told me that the computer was wrong, that the message did not tell me this.
But I know, Herr Kaufman, I know! The power and the knowledge are all in my hands. No one else's.'
Kaufman crossed the room and stood beside her. Somewhere in the town a fire had started. Despite the rain, the wind was whipping it into a small holocaust.
'Reports of everything you have done for the past month have been smuggled out of the country,' he said. 'There is a man who has been here for some time. He is waiting to take a specimen of the bacteria to London.'
She wheeled on him. 'You will stop him, of course,' she warned.
He shook his head. 'I shall not.' His voice was almost gentle as he went on, 'You are not sane. You would lead us all into destruction.'
'You poor little man.' She showed no anger, only contempt.
'You are like all the rest. You have not the imagination to see. Come here!'
Abruptly she walked to the glass door leading to the balcony and turned the handle. She had to lean against it with all her weight to force it open against the wind.
'Come!' she repeated. 'Come and see the elements at work.
Working for me!' He stayed stubbornly where he was.
'You are frightened?' she laughed. 'There is no need. It will not touch us. It cannot.'
She walked majestically on to the balcony, her hair blowing back from her forehead, and paused at the balustrade, stretching her arms towards the sky. Kaufman caught the sound of her ecstatic laughter in the howling wind.
On an impulse he crossed to the door and pulled it shut.
The bedlam outside lessened as if it had moved away. Suddenly there was a crescendo of noise and the great old house shook. A piece of coping crashed on the balcony, smashing into a score of pieces.
He saw Gamboul stare down at a lump of jagged marble just as a cascade of sand struck her. She bent quickly, rubbing her fists in her eyes. Blindly she stumbled to the door and began beating on it. The thick, decorative glass broke. Her fist ran with blood. He could see her mouth opening and shutting as she screamed at him.
He backed into the gloom of the room, watching impassively.
The bursts of wind were coming faster now, until one merged into another. The house groaned and trembled.
At last it came: a roaring, crumbling mass of stone which crashed on to the balcony and, tearing it out by its concrete roots, hurled it down into the courtyard below. The dust of debris mixed with the sand like eddying smoke. Kaufman walked forward, pressing his face myopically against the glass to see what had happened.