Tilting, tipping, tail swinging a little as he maneuvered the air drafts, the bird sank to the ground. Then the unforeseen happened. The prop wash blasted against the floor, ballooned out and blew the sitting bodies over on their sides.
The motor revved up. The ship lifted. It was over my head when I stepped out of the doorway, the pilot out of sight behind the belly. I couldn’t get a shot at him. Even if I could, at that height he would wreck the plane. I let go a burst anyway, drawing a line the length of the underside. It didn’t kill the pilot. He peeled up over the wall, disappearing behind it. I ran to look through the gun slots and saw the chopper drop into the cove in flames.
Beside me Mitzy taught me words I’d never heard.
We went downstairs. A candle was burning, reflected in all the anxious eyes. I shook my head.
“He got wise. We should’ve anchored those decoys. Noah, I guess your wind is about our last friend.”
It was unkind to shaft him that way. I started an apology, but he held up a hand. He was quiet, unsmiling for a long minute, then his brows lifted, wrinkling the high forehead. There was a long sigh.
“Storms in winter are rare here. We expect them in June, July, particularly in August. However, it does no harm to ask. If the rest of you will leave me, I will make preparations for the ceremony.”
Well, hell, we might as well have a show. It would pass time until Jerome threw his next wave at us.
Fleming accepted my arm to steady himself as he hopped up the steps behind the girls and the young native. Noah called after us.
“Please clear away bodies. They are offensive to the gods.” The sudden malevolance in his voice was a shock.
I dumped the officer from Fleming’s chair, let the doctor sink into it, and took the corpses to the corner turret. It was work wedging them through the slots, but by shoving them through head first, I managed to dump them into the sea. Then I went to sit beside Fleming.
Suddenly Noah appeared. He didn’t look like the same man. His head was turbaned, amulets hung around his neck, long earrings swung from his lobes, bracelets covered half his forearms, gourds hung on a belt making hollow music as he walked. His eyes were wide open, staring, black depths with no bottom. He was high on something. He didn’t see any of us, stalked to a ladder and climbed to the roof.
Up there he began to chant and dance, gourds bouncing, bracelets clinking, amulets flying, building to a pitch of frenzy. He spread his long legs, threw his head back and raised his arms to the sky. Wind, more than had been earlier, caught his white hair and beard, flailing them around his head. The voice I had guessed could thunder thundered now.
He stood, listening. Something answered. At first I thought it was a long, distant roll of thunder. A chill went through me. But it wasn’t thunder and I had another chill. The sound was planes. Bombers. Coming high.
It appeared to me that Jerome’s allies had given up on taking Fleming alive. The doctor was no use to them, only an obstacle to be swept aside to give them access to the island.
I saw the planes above the parapet, perhaps two miles away. This was no place to linger. I ran toward the catacomb, hitting two rungs at a time, waving the group toward the tunnel.
The girls and the boy picked up Fleming, chair and all, bringing him in. Noah followed. I fumbled for an altar candle, lit it, and continued on.
Down in the lower chamber I helped Fleming sit down. Mitzy, holding her machine gun, and Tara slumped against the wall. The boy huddled close to Noah.
The rock around us quaked and a dull explosion echoed off the tunnel walls. Another came before the sound faded, then others. A stick of bombs plastered the grounds above us. Dust and acrid gases filtered through, stinging our nostrils. There were five drops in quick succession.
Claustrophobia took hold of Tara. She scampered up the steps. I went after her, caught her at the top and held her tightly. There was silence. No more explosions shook the headland. The first wave of planes had gone. Now we could expect choppers and more parachutists sent to see what the bombs had accomplished. I needed to be on top to meet them.
I started up and discovered I wasn’t alone. Everybody had enough of that graveyard. Tara, Mitzy and the boy were at my heels; Fleming and a groggy Noah, supporting each other, followed.
Thirteen
The altar was covered with a layer of stone fragments, and there was a fresh hole over it in the ceiling. Maybe one of the old man’s gods felt left out of his big-wind dance. The room above was intact — the entrance open and only the stone-slab door blown off. The parade was pocked with gaping pits, and the rubble spread from wall to wall. The turret above the breakwater had taken a direct hit — it simply wasn’t there any more. A few of the rooms were gone, and the fortress wall behind one of them was leveled.
The old patriarch dropped a hand onto Fleming’s shoulder, surveying the damage. His jaw was set in deep anger. He turned to look out across the mountain top, thought for a minute, then said something in patois to the doctor. Whatever he said brought a half-certain, half-speculative smile from the president of Grand LaClare Island.
Over the treetops a huge blue-black cloud was moving toward us. The trees were thrashing, their pale leaves shimmering. Through the new hole in the wall I could see the waves rising. As I stood watching the cove entrance, I spotted a long gray shape nosing gingerly through — a Corvette. I wondered what she thought her light guns could accomplish that the bomb sticks hadn’t already done.
Beside me Mitzy Gardner chuckled. “Beautiful little beast, isn’t she. What do you think Jerome’s navy will try now?”
“I don’t think this ship is his. She’s flying a Cuban flag, but I’ll lay odds that her skipper’s name is something like Ivan, not Juan. She’s an antisubmarine ship — carries eggs in her belly. She may think she can mine the cliff and blow us up.”
If so, she would have to lay in close or use frogmen, and I could handle them. The rest of our party came to watch her approach. She was barely moving, feeling her way through the shallows, heading toward the breakwater. I didn’t think she’d come in far enough to hit it, but I couldn’t help hoping she would.
She didn’t. She hove to just beyond the reach of our guns and put four black-suited swimmers over the side, lowering depth charges to them. They submerged. I gave them time to come well within range, then sprayed a pattern of lead in the water, working out from the base across their probable path. The first passes didn’t get results. But the next one did.
The water erupted in a boiling spout. The swimmers were bunched. All four charges went off together. Tons of water and scraps of black flew into the air. Water rushed in on the enormous spout, and when it subsided, a wave rose, circling outward, the force of concussion in the shallow water drove the wave hard into the Corvette, hitting her broadside and slamming her hard over. She took sea on the low side, wallowing back as the wave crashed over her and stayed aboard. It was too much weight. She lay sloshing, rolling sluggishly in the growing swells.
I didn’t think she would float long. The black cloud was billowing upward. The wind roared, and whitecaps ran before it.
At first I didn’t hear the other sound. But suddenly a squadron of chopper gun ships came into view. It was lousy flying weather for the helicopters, but lives are the cheapest commodity the communist countries have.
“Take cover.” I had to shout against the noise. “They’ll attack us here, then set one down. Get moving!”
Noah and the boy lifted Fleming and carried him toward the tunnel, with Tara Sawyer behind them. Mitzy and I brought up the rear. Tara got as far as the stairs, then swung back, defiant.