The hardest part was angling up from the mouth of the furnace into the opening of the pipe itself. I rubbed a lot of skin off my torso just doing that. I’d attached a short piece of rope to the inside of the furnace door and I pulled it shut behind me and let the rope drop. Our pursuers would figure out our escape hatch sooner or later, but there was no point in making it easy for them.
I started inching upward then, lying on my back at the 45-degree angle of the pipe and using my feet as a lever to push me. By rolling my eyes as far up as they would go in their sockets, I could just make out Consuela’s legs above me. It was easier to see the furnace below, and I kept my eyes on it. If that door opened, I intended to pull up the tommygun and start shooting.
However, by the time Raoul reached what must have been the ceiling of the basement, there was still no sign of pursuit. “It is a very tight turn here,” he called down. “We must all slide down a little so that I can turn over on my belly to get past it. Then you must all do the same.”
When I reached the bend, I saw what he meant. It had been difficult for the rest of them to get past it. It was damn near impossible for me. The main obstacle was a ridge of iron where the pipes joined. With much grunting, by hunching my shoulders, I managed to pull through it. But that made me overconfident, and when I pulled the rest of my body through too fast, my rear end wedged in the juncture. I damn near unmanned myself before I managed to pull loose.
After that, though, it was easier for a while. The pipe went horizontally; as near as I could tell it was following the baseboard of the main room of the house. There were several smaller pipes branching off from it, but the main one, thank goodness, didn’t narrow. What it did do, after we’d crawled the horizontal length, was angle upward again.
There were two more such junctures and I rubbed my tail raw before the pipe ended in a wide, vertical, stone chimney. There was more room now, but climbing straight up was obviously going to be quite difficult. Raoul wisely called a halt so that we might rest before attempting it. He propped himself in the opening of the chimney. The rest of us were still strung out in the pipe. I was still bottom man, with Consuela just above me. That was the position when she made her delicate little announcement.
“I,” she said demurely, “have to go to the bathroom.”
“Why is it,” I wondered aloud, “that James Bond never seems to run into little predicaments like this?”
“I can’t help it,” Consuela said a little whinily. “I have to.”
“Well, you’ll just have to wait,” the madam told her in the tone of voice mothers reserve for little children on long automobile trips.
“I think we’d better move on,” Raoul said.
“And quickly,” I agreed squeamishly.
“I’ll try to wait,” Consuela promised.
“I’d very much appreciate that,” I told her.
Raoul pulled himself up in the chimney and braced his feet against the opposing walls. In this way he managed to make some upward progress. Then he braced his back against one wall and his feet against the other wall and reached down with one hand to pull the madam up. When she too had managed to wedge herself halfway up the chimney, I pushed up against Consuela from underneath—with some trepidation, I admit—until she was braced in a similar position. Then I managed to move upward into the mouth of the chimney myself.
Raoul reached the top and pulled the madam up beside him. When she jumped down to the roof, he pulled Consuela up and she followed. Then Raoul jumped to the roof, and a moment later I joined them there.
Just as my feet hit it, there was a burst of gunfire from an adjoining roof. The four of us fell flat, and then crawled behind the chimney to get as much cover as was possible. I heard the sound of footsteps coming up from the stairwell below us.
I spotted the trapdoor which must lead to the stairwell. It was made of some kind of heavy metal. There was an iron crossbar which could be slid into place to latch it. But it wasn’t latched now. I inched across the roof to the trapdoor.
When I reached it, I flung it open and fired blindly down the stairs. There were screams and curses and the sound of at least one body falling. I slammed the trapdoor shut and slid the crossbar into place. That would hold them for a while. Then I ducked another burst of sniper fire and rejoined my three companions behind the chimney.
“They have us pinned here.” Raoul put the obvious into words.
“How about the roof on the other side?” I peered into the darkness behind us.
“Nothing coming from there yet,” the madam observed.
Raoul crawled over to the edge of the roof and then back to us. “It’s a long jump,” he said, “but I think I can make it. I have had experience with such leaps when running from the police as a boy in Havana.”
“What about the ladies?” I asked him.
“Never.” He shook his head. “Nor you, Mr. Victor. I doubt that you could make it. You are not so light and small as I am.”
I crawled back to the edge of the roof with him and saw that he was right. I know my own limitations. I could never have leaped that distance. And it was three long stories to the ground.
“There is a clothesline over there,” Raoul observed. “If I jump successfully, I can toss it back. Then we can secure it at both ends and you three can cross hand over hand.”
It looked risky as hell, but there was no other choice. The three of us crouched in the shadow of the chimney as Raoul tensed himself to run and jump. He sprang as though he’d been fired form a cannon, shot across the roof and dived into the air. A crackle of sniper fire pinged at his heels.
Raoul fell short of the neighboring roof. His toes grazed the edge and then his body plunged downward. Somehow he managed to grab the edge with one hand as he fell and he hung onto it. Sitting there, able to do nothing but watch, my own muscles tensed as he painstakingly tried to pull himself up.
He managed to secure a grip with his other hand on the edge of the roof. Now he was trying to chin himself with both hands. A flashlight beam shot up at him from the courtyard below. I could see the tendons of his arms stand out in its glow. Inch by inch he managed to raise himself until his shoulders were level with the rooftop. Just then the rebels in the courtyard began shooting at him.
I raced over to the edge of the roof and shot back at them with the tommygun. I aimed at the light, and I hit it. Just as it went out, I saw Raoul successfully heave himself up onto the roof.
A moment later he’d cut the clothesline loose. He weighted one end of it with a brick and tossed it to me. We both secured the rope, leaving just a little slack, and then I tossed the brick back to him with the excess rope attached to it. He tied that, and now there was a double strand of stout rope running between the two rooftops. Whether it would be strong enough to support the weight of a human being, the next few moments would tell.
The madam was the first to try it. Raoul and I both used our weight to anchor the ends, and the gutsy madam pulled herself across. She was lucky. Beneath her they hadn’t yet come up with another light, and there was no attempt to fire on her. They were still sniping at me from the other roof, but that couldn’t be helped. I just crouched as low as I could and trusted to the shadows to hamper their aim.
Now it was Consuela’s turn. She hesitated just a moment before she started. “I still have to go to the bathroom,” she told me a little shamefacedly.
“If the impulse strikes you while you’re crossing, don’t hesitate for an instant,” I advised her. “There are only enemies below.”
She started across. Suddenly a flashlight beam shot up again and caught her. Shots rang out. Nature took over and Consuela relieved herself. Just before I fired and knocked out the second flashlight, I heard the disgusted cries of “Caramba!”--and some stronger curses which defy translation-—from the courtyard below. And then she was safely on the other side.
Now it was my turn. I tied the tommygun to my ankle so I’d have both hands free, and started across. But I was much heavier than either of the two women. Halfway across, the rope suddenly gave, and abruptly tore loose from its mooring on the roof I’d left. I went hurtling into space.
Raoul must have grabbed the other end and braced it solidly. Holding onto the rope for dear life, I was caught up short before I’d plummeted more than one story. I dangled there for a moment, too surprised at still being alive to think of what to do next.
Then I felt the rope being tugged from above, and I realized that the three of them must be trying to pull me up. I began climbing as they pulled. I might have made it, too, if a window hadn’t suddenly opened in the house I’d just left and a rebel hadn’t started spraying bullets at me. I kicked out at the wall, and with the momentum the movement gave me I swung around in a wide arc, thus presenting a moving target which would be harder for him to hit.
The maneuver worked. It threw his aim off, all right. But, unfortunately, it had another result. It put an additional strain on the rope where it pressed against the edge of the roof. Just as I hit the widest point of the arc, the rope parted—and once again I plunged into blackness.
This time there was nothing to hold on to. There was nothing but air between me and the ground below. The daring young man on the flying trapeze had lost his trapeze. So now there was nothing to do but fly through the air with the greatest of ease and wait for the ground to come up and hit me. I knew I wouldn’t have long to wait!