"Charlesby said you were with NBC. News reporter?"
She nodded, took a cigarette from the pack Lanyon offered her. As the carrier swung around a corner she rolled slightly against him, and Lanyon felt warm strong shoulders through her tightlyfitting coat.
She steadied herself with one hand on his arm, blew out a long straight stream of blue smoke.
"Patricia Olsen," she introduced herself. "On the Paris bureau. Came down here last week to get some shots for the folks back home of Monte Carlo being flattened." She tapped the tape recorder next to her with one finger. "All I've managed to get on this thing is the sound of my own screaming."
Lanyon laughed and climbed into his seat. The carrier slowed down to a crawl and Goldman stabbed a finger at the periscope. They were moving straight into the wind, up a long narrow slope. Twenty yards ahead of them, caught by its bumpers between the walls of two houses, was a long black Buick, swung up onto one side by the force of the wind. Slowly it worked itself free, then rolled onto its back and slithered down the street toward them. Goldman accelerated sharply, and the Buick locked for a moment against the heavy nose armor, then lifted sharply into the air and careened over the sandbagged hood with a tremendous clatter, rolling off the roof of the carrier. For a moment the periscope was darkened. Then it cleared and they all turned to watch through the rear-door grilles as the Buick, its body holed and dented, slithered down the street, demolishing a iow wall, from which clouds of dust took off in the air like supercharged steam.
"Bad driver," Patricia Olsen commented dryly.
They quieted, listening to the holocaust hammering past outside. They were traveling due east, straight into the wind face, and the turbulence around the rear doors exploded periodically with sharp pressure booms. The streets outside thudded with the sounds of falling masonry, the eerie piercing scream of tinplate and galvanized iron being stripped from rooftops, the explosive shatter of snapping glass.
For hours they sat bunched together silently, swaying in unison with the motion of the carrier, trying to massage a little warmth into themselves.
"How long do you think most of the buildings can stand up to this wind?" Patricia Olsen asked Lanyon quietly.
Lanyon shrugged. "If they're well built, they're probably O.K. up to about 150 mph. After that it looks as if we'll really have to hold onto our hats. How are you getting back to Paris? Most heavy transport has been requisitioned by the military."
"I don't know whether I want to get back to Paris. Too many old chimneypots there."
Lanyon glanced at his watch. It was 4:05. They had crossed the border and with luck would make Genoa in a couple of hours. Soon he'd be safely inside the _Terrapin_ and away from this madness. Oddly, though, however little he ultimately cared about the people hiding in basements in the towns through which they had passed, he found himself wondering what would happen to the girl next to him. He listened to the strong low sounds of her breathing; she looked highly adaptable and resourceful.
"Commander!" Goldman shouted, almost standing up at the wheel, his eyes fixed on the periscope. They were about ten miles from Genoa, moving down an exposed section of road that curved toward the dam at Sestra, two miles away. The broad hump of the concrete barrier was obscured by the spray whipped up from the deep torrent of water swirling down the road 50 yards away from them. Just ahead it left the roadway and spilled down into the valley, carrying with it a foam-flecked jetsam of smashed sheds and chicken coops.
"The dam's gone, Commander!" Goldman bellowed. Frantically he reversed the engine, sent the carrier backing obliquely across the road. Lanyon pressed his eyes to the periscope, then wrenched at Goldman's shoulder. High waves were cascading down into the valley, but as far as he could see the dam's outline was intact.
"Goldman, snap out of it! The dam's still O.K.!" He pounded Goldman's shoulder. "Get the engine forward again! The water's only a couple of feet deep."
Carried by the wind, the carrier was reversing rapidly. Before Goldman could pull himself together the off-side rear wheels left the road, and the vehicle swung around sharply and rolled over onto its side.
With a savage jolt the occupants were hurled off balance against the roof. Lanyon pulled himself away from Goldman, struggled painfully through the dim light past Patricia Olsen, who was rubbing her knees. Charlesby and the Wilsons were getting to their feet among the melee of suitcases and medical cartons. One of the orderlies opened the doors and kicked them outward. A whirl of dust and gravel whipped off the surface of the road and flashed past them in a white blur, while ten yards away to their left a deep stream of icy water surged past down the valley, spreading out across the vineyards.
The carrier lay immovably on its side, wheels spinning in the wind. Lanyon looked around for Goldman, trying to decide whether to clap the man under arrest, then decided the gesture would prove nothing.
Half a mile away was a group of low two-story brick buildings, grouped in a loose rectangle, a concrete tower standing above them on the far side. The remains of a rough fence ringed the compound, and there appeared to be a motor pool between two of the buildings, a collection of trucks huddled together against the storm.
"Looks like a barracks," Lanyon decided. The intervening country consisted of narrow farm strips divided by heavy hedges, ten-foothigh bocage that would provide them with enough shelter to reach the buildings.
Charlesby wearily pulled himself over to the doorway. "There's a good chance nothing will come along here for hours," Lanyon told him. "The road over the dam is probably closed by now and my guess is that they'll have radioed across to the units on this side to take another route further inland. We could be stranded here for days." He pointed to the buildings in the distance. "Just about our only hope is to head for the barracks over there."
Lanyon leading, followed by Charlesby and the Wilsons, with Patricia Olsen and then Goldman and the two orderlies bringing up the rear, they dived out of the carrier and plunged down the slope toward the hedge running parallel to the road 50 yards away.
As he left the carrier the wind caught Lanyon and gunned him along, tossing him helplessly across the lumpy soil. Over his shoulder he caught a glimpse of the others stepping tentatively out of the carrier and being whirled away on the slipstream. Charlesby stumbled and fell onto his knees, and then was swept upright again, his legs racing madly. The Wilsons, arm in arm, were being buffeted from left to right like drunken circus clowns. Abruptly Lanyon lost his own footing, fell heavily onto his knees and was tossed sideways like a child rolling down a hill.
Regaining his balance, he reached the hedge, crawled along to a narrow gateway and slipped through it into the slightly sheltered lee of the hedge. Away in the distance Goldman was bowed down with his back to the wind, being carried along the verge of the roadway. Charlesby, oilskin ripped off his back and billowing over his head, only attached by the tapes under his armpits, followed ten yards behind.
Zigzagging along the hedges in the general direction of the barracks, Lanyon kept what lookout he could for the others. Once or twice he thought he saw one of them moving along an adjacent field, but he was unable to cross the intervening open ground.
He reached the boundary of the barracks within half an hour, and lay in a ditch on the inner side of the fence-nothing more now than a series of tilting support posts-scanning the open surface of the compound. The barracks was the airmen's quarters of a small airfield. Beyond the buildings were the control tower and two or three wide concrete runways extending off into the haze. Between the barracks he could see the upright steel skeletons of two large hangars. In the nearer hangar was the tail section of a Dakota that had been tethered by a steel hawser. It slammed and swiveled in the driving wind, its identification numerals still visible.