Bloody Passage - Jack Higgins [56]
She moved forward uncertainly. "Are you all right?"
"Simone?" A familiar voice said, and Grant reached out through the darkness, pulling her close, holding her to him. It was only then that she stopped shaking.
11
To the Dark Tower
It was Barzini who first saw the lighted torch bobbing down on the end of the line no more than forty or fifty feet to the right of us. I don't think I've ever experienced a feeling of such profound relief. She was all right--that was my first and most immediate thought.
We gathered up the equipment between us and moved into position. Nino himself uncoiled the climbing rope and attached it to the line. He gave a tug, the agreed signal, and it was immediately drawn up.
"What in the hell took her so long?" Langley whispered.
Not that he could have expected an answer. I said, "Does it matter? She made it, didn't she?"
Nino was busy getting his rucksack on. He slung his rifle over his back and tested the rope. He grinned and put a hand on my shoulder. "Okay, here we go. Pray for me."
From the sound of it the young devil was enjoying himself. A stone rattled under his boot and a moment later he had disappeared upward into the darkness.
I had expected a lengthy wait and was caught unaware when the second rope snaked down over the rocks and fell across my shoulders. I was next in line, Langley to follow, with Barzini bringing up the rear. I tied the rope securely about my waist with a running bowline and gave a tug. The slack was immediately taken up and I reached for the main climbing rope.
"Good luck," Barzini whispered and I started to climb.
It was something of an anticlimax. For one thing, as Nino had said, it was better in the darkness because if you looked down there was nothing to see anyway so there was not even an illusion of height and the cliff was much easier than Zingari had suggested--a gradual incline with a broken surface of granite and basalt that gave good footholds in spite of the rain. And the safety line was of tremendous assistance, Nino pulling on it so strongly that most of the time it felt as if I was being hauled up, no strain on the arms at all.
I paused only once as I went over the edge of the cliff itself and found myself on a ledge beneath the wall. He started to pull again and it was only then in scaling the final thirty feet or so that I felt any strain on the arms at all.
A few moments later I scrambled in through the embrasure and found myself on firm ground inside the turret.
There were two figures, dimly seen. Simone said, "Are you all right?"
I reached forward and pulled her into my arms.
Langley was with us in a matter of minutes. Barzini was more of a problem and in the end had the three of us on the rope hauling him by brute force. We dragged him in through the embrasure and he fell on his hands and knees, panting for breath.
"Mother of God," he whispered. "Never again-never in this world."
I helped him to his feet and as he untied himself Nino said urgently, "Someone's coming."
"The other sentry," Simone said.
"What did you do with the first?" Langley asked her.
"I had to shoot him."
"Did you, by God." There was something close to admiration in Langley's voice. He said, "I'll handle this, old stick," and slipped off.
The sentry stood under the lamp a few yards away calling softly in Arabic. He started toward us uncertainly and Langley moved out of the darkness behind him and put a hand over the man's throat. A knife blade gleamed dully in the yellow light, the sentry grunted, and Langley dragged him back into the shadows.
He was whistling softly between his teeth when he rejoined us. "All light, old stick," he said cheerfully. "What's next?"
"Masmoudi," I said, and led the way along the ramparts until we could look down into the lighted courtyard below. "That's his house on the other side of the square."
"I've already been there once tonight,"