A body dropped on me like the proverbial ton of bricks, and I went flying from the saddle. On the ground, the man lost his grip for a moment and I twisted away to see it was one of the Rifs.
He’d dropped back, climbed onto a ledge at the corner and waited. He pulled out his dagger and came for me.
I ducked the first slice and avoided the second one. I’d almost forgotten I carried one stuck in my belt, and I brought it out with a sweeping motion. The curved dagger was not a weapon I was used to and against an experienced fighter it could be worse than no weapon at all.
I tried a swipe with it and he deftly fended it and came around with a slashing blow that almost ended the fight. I felt the tip of the blade nick my throat as it went by. I went into a crouch and circled.
He brought his blade upward in an arc and then back and forth in two quick motions and once again I twisted away with not more than a fraction of an inch to spare.
Angry, I tossed the damn dagger to one side and faced him. I saw his broken teeth flash as he smiled in anticipation.
He rushed me, which was what I was waiting for.
I dropped low and came up inside his curved swing with a hard right to the belly.
As he grunted I grabbed his arm, applied pressure and gave him a hip-flip. He went crashing down onto the ground. Before he could gather himself, I scooped up the dagger from where I’d tossed it and brought it down in a crashing, curving blow. I watched his head separate from his body.
“That one’s for Aggie Foster,” I muttered.
My stallion had halted nearby. I retrieved my rifle and started off at a gallop.
El Ahmid and the other two would be somewhere ahead, waiting, I knew.
I rode on for a while and then took to my feet, moving silently, cautiously along the pathway. The mountain rose to the right of me in a series of rocky formations and the path curved and twisted. Suddenly I heard the neigh of a horse ahead.
I moved forward slowly, keeping to the deep shadows alongside the steep rock sides of the mountain. I saw them waiting, El Ahmid and the other two. Taking my rifle, I checked the chamber and uttered a mixed oath and expression of thanks. There was but one bullet in it. I had intended to step out and start blazing away. It would have been a very unhappy surprise for me.
“I won’t wait any longer,” I heard El Ahmid say. “Muhad would be here by now if something hadn’t gone wrong. Perhaps they are both dead.”
The other two nodded solemnly, and I watched as El Ahmid walked over to the side of the mountain and began to press his hands along the stones.
Suddenly, with a groaning, rumbling noise, one of the stones began to move slowly, opening up in door-like fashion. Shades of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, I muttered to myself. I stayed quiet as El Ahmid and the other two got on their horses and disappeared into the mountain. In a moment the stone began to move again and with a rumbling groan went back into place.
I moved out into the open. They were inside the tunnel. Whether they were going to hide out there or ride through it and into Spain, they’d be there a while. I waited, giving them plenty of time to move deep into the tunnel. I didn’t want them to hear the door open again.
Finally, I went over to the stone wall of the mountain and began to press against it as I’d seen El Ahmid do. Nothing happened and I almost felt like saying “Open, Sesame.” I started over again, this time pressing harder, moving along the rock inch by inch. Half-way across a smooth section I felt a slight movement.
I stepped back quickly and watched the rock slide open again. I mounted my horse and rode in, expecting utter darkness. I found the tunnel dimly lighted but still lighted by a series of small light bulbs hung from the ceiling and obviously operated by a battery generator.
I walked the stallion down the slope of the tunnel, surprisingly wide, and my eyes took in the old wood beams overhead, most of them shored up by fresh timbers. The tunnel sloped downward steeply for a long while and then leveled off.
I spurred the Arabian on to a fast trot, risking the echo that resounded in the tunnel. A dank clamminess was in the air now, and I guessed I was underwater.
They had to be ahead someplace. There was nowhere else to go.
I pressed on, pausing to listen. I heard nothing and decided to go forward faster. As I galloped through the tunnel I saw them ahead, waiting, facing me. I halted some ten yards from them.
“So, American,” El Ahmid said. “I underestimated your cleverness. But you have just entered your tomb.”
“Maybe,” I answered. “May it’ll serve for all of us.”
I glanced up at the stone and dirt roof, the walls of stone and hard-baked clay. They had survived centuries, held together by the chemical knowledge of an ancient culture, but I had my doubts if they would survive a good-sized explosion. All it would take would be enough of a shock tremor. The pressure of the water outside would do the rest, and once it caved in the whole thing would go.
I looked at the trio in front of me. If they made it to Spain, they’d still be the only ones who knew of the existence of the tunnel. I knew El Ahmid would merely bide his time for another attempt, perhaps this time with different backers. I couldn’t let them get away, no matter what it cost.
This ancient feat of Arab engineering was a kind of time-bomb from the pages of history, a legacy left by the old Moslem conquerors. It would be ironic if, after hundreds of years, they would have the last laugh on the western world.
El Ahmid would see to it if he were left to escape. He was inflamed with his own sense of destiny, a man too dangerous to let get away.
I had the dagger and a rifle with one bullet in it. Not much to fight with. The tubes of paint in my pocket were the best bet. They’d cause a helluva explosion, enough, I felt certain, to bring the old tunnel to a crashing, water-filled end. Would there be a chance to get out before it collapsed around my ears? The chances were more no than yes.
“Take him,” El Ahmid said quietly and I saw them start to move toward me, each one of them drawing his long, curved dagger.
I backed the horse down the tunnel and did some fast calculating. I had two tubes of the explosive paint. If one could wreck the tunnel and bring it crashing down, with the sea pouring in, there’d never be time enough to outride the rushing water and escape via the entrance. They’d try it, I knew, but they’d never make it.
But I’d still have one tube left and a half a minute, perhaps a whole minute, before the tunnel filled with water. I thought back to what I knew of the laws of water pressure and counter-force. I knew what Hawk had told me about the paint, that once lighted it would go off underwater as well as on land.
What the hell, I muttered, it was worth the risk. I could afford to be philosophical. There wasn’t anything else left to be. But if I had a million-to-one chance I had first to avoid getting sliced up three ways.
El Ahmid and the other two were advancing on me.
I wheeled the stallion around, galloped back a few yards and then turned and charged them. They halted and waited for me, their vicious daggers upraised, ready to carve me up as I tried to run the gauntlet through them.
I saw El Ahmid’s smile of disdain once again. I kept the stallion at full gallop, heading right for them and I drew my own dagger to make it look good. The horse’s head was level with their steeds’ when I slipped from the saddle and swung around under the horse’s neck in an old trick taught me by a movie stunt rider years ago.
I heard the three daggers clank against each other as they swiped at empty air. Once through them I swung back into the saddle and leaped off the horse while he was still running. He went on down the tunnel as I grabbed one of the paint tubes from my pocket. I held my lighter against it and it flared up, a lovely rose madder. I had some fifteen seconds leeway before it ignited.