Maeve returned to the bow and acted as lookout, guiding Giordino through the black water that seemed to grow calmer the deeper they penetrated the inlet. “I see the beach,” she informed them. “You can just make out a light strip of sand fifteen meters ahead and to starboard.”
In another minute the bow and outriggers touched the strip of beach and ran up onto the soft sand. Pitt looked at Maeve. The cliffs shadowed the light from the moon, and he saw her features only vaguely. “You’re home,” he said briefly.
She tilted her head and gazed up between the cliffs at the narrow slot of sky and stars that looked light-years away. “Not yet, I’m not.”
Pitt had never let the line to the grappling hook out of his hands. Now, he slipped the leather jacket over Maeve’s shoulders and gave the line a hard tug. “We’d better get moving before a patrol comes along.”
“I should go first,” said Giordino. “I’m the strongest.”
“That goes without saying,” Pitt said, smiling in the dark. “I believe it’s your turn anyway.”
“Ah, yes,” Giordino said, remembering. “Payback time for watching like an impotent snail when that terrorist cut your safety line while you were swimming around that sinkhole in the Andes.”
“I had to climb out using nothing but a pair of screwdrivers.”
“Tell me the story again,” said Giordino sarcastically. “I never tire of hearing it.”
“On your way, critic, and keep an eye peeled for a passing patrol.”
With only a nod, Giordino grabbed at the thin line and gave it a sharp pull to test its immovability. “This thing strong enough to take my weight?”
Pitt shrugged. “We’ll have to hope so, won’t we?”
Giordino gave him a sour look and started up the side of the cliff. He quickly vanished in the blackness while Pitt grasped the end of the line and held it taut to take up the slack.
“Find a couple of protruding rocks and tie off the boat fore and aft,” Pitt ordered Maeve. “If worse comes to worst, we may have to rely on Marvelous Maeve to carry us away from here.”
Maeve looked at him curiously. “How else did you expect to escape?”
“I’m a lazy sort. I had it in the back of my mind that we could steal one of your father’s yachts, or maybe an aircraft.”
“Do you have an army I’m not aware of?”
“You’re looking at half of it.”
Further conversation died as they gazed unseeing in the darkness, speculating on Giordino’s progress Pitt’s only awareness of his friend’s movements was the quivering on the line.
After thirty minutes, Giordino stopped to catch his breath. His arms ached like a thousand devils were stabbing them. His ascent had been fairly rapid considering the unevenness of the rocks. Climbing without the fine would have been impossible. Even with the proper gear, having to make his way in the dark a meter at a time, groping for toeholds, driving in pitons and securing ropes, the climb would have taken the better part of six hours.
One minute of rest, no more, then it was hand over hand again. Wearily but still powerfully he pulled himself upward, kicking around the overhangs, taking advantage of the ledges. The palms of his hands were rubbed raw from the never-ending clutching and heaving on the thin nylon line salvaged from Rodney York’s boat. As it was, the old line was hardly strong enough to take his bulk, but it had had to be light in weight for the kite to carry the grappling hook over the top. Any heavier and it would have been a lost cause.
He paused to look upward at the shadowy lip of the summit, lined against the stars. Five meters, he estimated, five meters to go. His breath was heaving in aching gasps, his chest and arms bruised from scraping against unseen rock in the darkness. His immense strength was down to the bottom of its reserves. He was climbing the last few meters on guts alone. Indestructible, as hard and gritty as the rock on which he climbed, Giordino kept going, refusing to stop again until he could climb no more. Then suddenly the ground at the top of the cliff opened before his eyes and spread out on a horizontal level. One final heave over the edge and he lay flat, listening to his heart pound, his lungs pumping like bellows, sucking air in and out.
For the next three minutes Giordino lay without moving, elated that the agonizing exertion was over. He surveyed his immediate surroundings and found himself stretched across a path that traveled along the edge of the cliffs. A few paces beyond, a wall of trees and underbrush loomed dark and uninviting. Seeing no sign of lights or movement, he traced the line to the grappling hook and saw that it was firmly imbedded in a rock outcropping.
Pitt’s zany idea had worked incredibly well.
Satisfied the hook wasn’t going anywhere, he rose to his feet. He untied the kite and hid it in the vegetation opposite the path before returning to the edge of the bluff and giving two sharp tugs on the rope that vanished into the darkness.
Far below, Pitt turned to Maeve. “Your turn.”
“I don’t know if I’m up to this,” she said nervously. “Heights scare me.”
He made a loop, dropped it over her shoulders and cinched it tight around her waist. “Hold tight to the line, lean back from the cliff and walk up the side. Al will haul you up from above.”
He answered Giordino’s signal by jerking three times on the line. Maeve felt the slack taken up, followed by the pressure around her waist. Clamping her eyes tightly shut, she began walking like a fly up the vertical face of the cliff.
Far above, his arms too numb to elevate Maeve by hand, Giordino had discovered a smooth slot in the rock that would not damage or cut into the nylon fibers. He inserted the line and laid it over his shoulders. Then he bent forward and staggered across the path, dragging Maeve’s weight up the cliff behind him.
In twelve minutes, Maeve appeared over the edge, eyes tightly closed. “Welcome to the top of the Matterhorn,” Giordino greeted her warmly.
“Thank God that’s behind me,” she moaned gratefully, opening her eyes for the first time since leaving the beach. “I don’t think I could ever do it again.”
Giordino untied Maeve. “Keep watch while I hoist Dirk. You can see a fair distance along the cliffs to the north, but the path south is hidden by a big group of rocks about fifty meters away.”
“I remember them,” said Maeve. “They have a hollow interior with natural ramparts. My sister Deirdre and I used to play there and pretend we were royalty. It’s called the Castle. There’s a small rest station and a telephone inside for the guards.”
“We’ve got to bring Dirk up before the next patrol comes along,” said Giordino, carefully dropping the line again.
To Pitt, it felt as if he were being hauled topside in the time it took to fry an egg. But less than ten meters from the rim, his ascent abruptly stopped. No word of washing, no word of encouragement, only silence. It could only mean one thing. His timing was unlucky. A patrol must be approaching. Unable to see what was occurring on the ledge above, he pressed his body into a small crevice, lying rigid and still, listening for sounds in the night.
Maeve had spotted the beam of light as it swung around one wall of the Castle and immediately alerted Giordino, Quickly, he secured the line around a tree to maintain tension so Pitt wouldn’t be dropped back onto the beach, He brushed dirt and dead leaves over the section of rope that showed but had no time to conceal the grappling hook.
“What about Dirk?” Maeve whispered frantically, “He might wonder what happened and call up to us.”