"How long will we have to stay here?" Maitland asked.
"Until the wind subsides. A few weeks perhaps. Is it so important? You will find nowhere safer. Remember, Doctor, a footnote to history is being made here. Think in other categories, in a wider context."
As he walked out with one of the guards, Maitland noticed that the shutters were retracting. Hardoon sat at his chair before the window, staring out as the thousand fragments of a disintegrating world soared past in a ceaseless bombardment. Just before the door closed behind Maitland the sounds of the wind rose up tumultuously.
From Hardoon's suite in the apex they took a small elevator down through the matrix of the pyramid to the communicating tunnel which ran to the bunker system 200 yards away. Maitland walked along the damp concrete uneasily, aware of the massive weight of the structure overhead, counting the dim lights strung along the tunnel.
He wondered whether there was any point in trying to argue with Hardoon. But, as Hardoon had said, for the time being, the issue of personal freedom aside, there would be little point in trying to leave. Besides, Hardoon was probably ruthless. Not only did the behavior of his armed guards indicate this, but unless he compelled their absolute loyalty the entire organization would have long since collapsed.
As they neared the midpoint of the tunnel the floor swayed slightly under their feet. Caught off balance, Maitland stumbled against the wall. The guard steadied him with one hand. Thanking him, Maitland noticed the expression on his face, a faint but nonetheless detectable hint of alarm.
"What's the matter?" Maitland asked him.
The guard, a tall, slim-faced boy with a light stubble under his helmet strap, scowled uneasily. "What do you mean?"
Maitland paused. "You looked worried."
The guard eyed him balefully, watching for any suspicious move, then muttered obscurely. They walked on. The floor underfoot was an inch deep in water. Unmistakably, Maitland noticed, the tunnel walls were shifting.
"How deep down are we?" he asked.
"Fifty feet. Maybe less now."
"You mean the subsoil's going? Good God, the wind will soon be stripping these bunkers down to their roofs." The guard grunted at this. "What's the subsoil here-clay?"
"No idea," the guard said. "Gravel, or something like that."
"Gravel?" Maitland stopped.
"What's the matter with gravel?" the guard asked, his mouth fretting.
"Nothing in particular, except that it's pretty mobile." Maitland pointed to the tunnel walls-they were now midway-and asked: "Why's the tunnel leaking? The walls are shifting around. They must be cracked somewhere."
The guard shrugged. "Wait till you see the bunkers. They're like a ship's bilge."
"But the walls aren't actually moving, surely?" Maitland examined one of the hairline cracks high up on the ceiling. It widened as it neared the floor. Below their feet it was at least six inches broad, the opposing lips only held together by the net of reinforcing bars. Water seeped through steadily, fanning out across the cement.
"A couple of engineers from Construction were down here yesterday," the guard confided. "They were talking about the underground stream loosening the ground or something."
"You'd better warn the old boy," Maitland said. "He's liable to be cut off if this tunnel fills up."
"He'll be O.K. He's got everything he needs up there. Refrigerators full 0f food and water, his own generator."
The guard looked uneasily along the tunnel. As they stepped through the tunnel and waited for Kroll to join them, Maitland glanced back and saw that the tunnel dipped sharply in the center. The two sections inclined upward at an angle of two or three degrees.
With Kroll leading, occasionally stopping to shoulder Maitland ahead of him, they walked along a maze of corridors, stairways, and dimly lit ramps traversed by huge ventilator shafts and power cables. Generators charged continually, providing an unvarying background to the sounds of steel boots ringing on metal steps, voices bellowing orders. Now and then, through an open doorway, Maitland could see men in shirt sleeves slumped on trestle beds, crammed together among their gear in the minute cubicles.
They moved down a stairway toward the lowest level of the bunker system. Maitland estimated that at least 400 men were accommodated in the network of shelters, along with enough supplies to maintain them for six months. The corridors were lined with steel and wooden crates similar to the ones he had seen in Marshall 's warehouse, overflowing from the big store chambers he had glimpsed on arrival.
Finally they emerged into the lowest level and entered a damp narrow cul de sac, at the end of which a couple of guards idled under a single light. They pulled themselves to attention as Kroll appeared and saluted him quickly, then unlocked a small door in the right-hand wall.
Kroll jerked his thumb at Maitland, bundled him brusquely through the doorway and slammed it behind him.
Maitland found the others inside, sitting on the beds around the wall, in the dull red gloom of a single storm bulb mounted over the door. Lanyon let out a low cheer when he saw Maitland, and helped him off with his jacket. Patricia Olsen lit him a cigarette, and Maitland stretched out gratefully on one of the hard horsehair mattresses.
"You've seen him, have you, Doctor?" Lanyon asked when Maitland had rested. "He told you all about his moral stand against the hurricane?"
Maitland nodded, his eyes half closed with fatigue. "The whole thing. He even showed me the wind tapping at his magic window. He's obviously out of his mind."
"I'm not so sure," Bill Waring, the other reporter, chipped in. He sat on his bed, pensively smoking a cigarette. "In fact, his instinct of self-preservation may be stronger than we think. This is the most organized set-up I've come across. Three or four hundred trained men, half a dozen big vehicles, a radio station, agents all over the country-it's a really well-run military unit. The moral stand is probably just the sauce. I figure we ought to look ahead to the next stage, when the wind dies down and he finds he really can run the whole show if he wants to."
Patricia Olsen, resting on another of the beds, nodded in agreement. "He'll discover some other moral drive then, of course." She shuddered, only half playfully. "Can you just see friend Kroll as executive vice-president?"
Lanyon smiled at her. "Relax. As long as Hardoon wants an attractive newswriter around you'll be safe." He turned to Maitland, lowering his voice and glancing back at the door. "Seriously, I've been trying to think up some way of getting us out of here."
"I'm with you," Maitland said. "But how?"
"Well, I was just explaining to Pat and Bill that probably the quickest method is for them to play along with Hardoon, produce a highly colored extravaganza about this lone hero outstaring the wind and so on. If he's sure we're sincere we can probably sell him on the idea that the story should be given a worldwide spread immediately."
"To encourage everyone," Bill Waring concluded. "Help us keep our chins up. I agree, it's the best bet."
Pat Olsen nodded. "We could easily do it. If he's got a cine camera around here we could even take some shots of him at his peephole." She shook her head ruefully. "My, oh my, but he really is a gone one."
"Where are the radio operator and the driver?" Maitland asked.
"They joined the local forces," Lanyon said. With a smile he added: "Don't look so shocked; it's an established military tradition. Kroll even offered to make me corporal."
For five days they remained sealed within the bunker. The doors into the corridor remained locked. Food was brought to them twice a day by two guards, but apart from an occasional routine check they were left virtually alone. The guards were curt and uncommunicative, and conveyed that some sort of activity was taking place on the upper levels which occupied most of the personnel for much of the day and night.