Giordino gave him a sour look and started up the side of the cliff. He quickly vanished in the blackness while Pitt grasped the end of the line and held it taut to take up the slack.
"Find a couple of protruding rocks and tie off the boat fore and aft," Pitt ordered Maeve. "If worse comes to worst, we may have to rely on Marvelous Maeve to carry us away from here."
Maeve looked at him curiously. "How else did you expect to escape?"
"I'm a lazy sort. I had it in the back of my mind that we could steal one of your father's yachts, or maybe an aircraft."
"Do you have an army I'm not aware of?"
"You're looking at half of it."
Further conversation died as they gazed unseeing in the darkness, speculating on Giordino's progress Pitt's only awareness of his friend's movements was the quivering on the line.
After thirty minutes, Giordino stopped to catch his breath. His arms ached like a thousand devils were stabbing them. His ascent had been fairly rapid considering the unevenness of the rocks. Climbing without the fine would have been impossible. Even with the proper gear, having to make his way in the dark a meter at a time, groping for toeholds, driving in pitons and securing ropes, the climb would have taken the better part of six hours.
One minute of rest, no more, then it was hand over hand again. Wearily but still powerfully he pulled himself upward, kicking around the overhangs, taking advantage of the ledges. The palms of his hands were rubbed raw from the never-ending clutching and heaving on the thin nylon line salvaged from Rodney York's boat. As it was, the old line was hardly strong enough to take his bulk, but it had had to be light in weight for the kite to carry the grappling hook over the top. Any heavier and it would have been a lost cause.
He paused to look upward at the shadowy lip of the summit, lined against the stars. Five meters, he estimated, five meters to go. His breath was heaving in aching gasps, his chest and arms bruised from scraping against unseen rock in the darkness. His immense strength was down to the bottom of its reserves. He was climbing the last few meters on guts alone. Indestructible, as hard and gritty as the rock on which he climbed, Giordino kept going, refusing to stop again until he could climb no more. Then suddenly the ground at the top of the cliff opened before his eyes and spread out on a horizontal level.
One final heave over the edge and he lay flat, listening to his heart pound, his lungs pumping like bellows, sucking air in and out.
For the next three minutes Giordino lay without moving, elated that the agonizing exertion was over.
He surveyed his immediate surroundings and found himself stretched across a path that traveled along the edge of the cliffs. A few paces beyond, a wall of trees and underbrush loomed dark and uninviting.
Seeing no sign of lights or movement, he traced the line to the grappling hook and saw that it was firmly imbedded in a rock outcropping.
Pitt's zany idea had worked incredibly well.
Satisfied the hook wasn't going anywhere, he rose to his feet. He untied the kite and hid it in the vegetation opposite the path before returning to the edge of the bluff and giving two sharp tugs on the rope that vanished into the darkness.
Far below, Pitt turned to Maeve. "Your turn."
"I don't know if I'm up to this," she said nervously. "Heights scare me."
He made a loop, dropped it over her shoulders and cinched it tight around her waist. "Hold tight to the line, lean back from the cliff and walk up the side. Al will haul you up from above."
He answered Giordino's signal by jerking three times on the line. Maeve felt the slack taken up, followed by the pressure around her waist. Clamping her eyes tightly shut, she began walking like a fly up the vertical face of the cliff.
Far above, his arms too numb to elevate Maeve by hand, Giordino had discovered a smooth slot in the rock that would not damage or cut into the nylon fibers. He inserted the line and laid it over his shoulders. Then he bent forward and staggered across the path, dragging Maeve's weight up the cliff behind him.
In twelve minutes, Maeve appeared over the edge, eyes tightly closed. "Welcome to the top of the Matterhorn," Giordino greeted her warmly.
"Thank God that's behind me," she moaned gratefully, opening her eyes for the first time since leaving the beach. "I don't think I could ever do it again."
Giordino untied Maeve. "Keep watch while I hoist Dirk. You can see a fair distance along the cliffs to the north, but the path south is hidden by a big group of rocks about fifty meters away."
"I remember them," said Maeve. "They have a hollow interior with natural ramparts. My sister Deirdre and I used to play there and pretend we were royalty. It's called the Castle. There's a small rest station and a telephone inside for the guards."
"We've got to bring Dirk up before the next patrol comes along," said Giordino, carefully dropping the line again.
To Pitt, it felt as if he were being hauled topside in the time it took to fry an egg. But less than ten meters from the rim, his ascent abruptly stopped. No word of washing, no word of encouragement, only silence. It could only mean one thing. His timing was unlucky. A patrol must be approaching. Unable to see what was occurring on the ledge above, he pressed his body into a small crevice, lying rigid and still, listening for sounds in the night.
Maeve had spotted the beam of light as it swung around one wall of the Castle and immediately alerted Giordino, Quickly, he secured the line around a tree to maintain tension so Pitt wouldn't be dropped back onto the beach, He brushed dirt and dead leaves over the section of rope that showed but had no time to conceal the grappling hook.
"What about Dirk?" Maeve whispered frantically, "He might wonder what happened and call up to us."
"He'll guess the plot and be as quiet as a mouse." Giordino answered with certainty. He shoved her roughly into the underbrush beside the path. "Get in there and stay low till the guards pass by."
Inexorably, the unswerving single beam of light grew larger as it approached. After having walked their circuit a hundred times in the past four months without seeing so much as a strange footprint, the two-man patrol should have been lax and careless. Routine inaction leads to boredom and indifference.
They should have walked right on past, seeing only the same rocks, the same bends in the path, hearing the same faint beat of the surf pounding the rocks far below. But these men were highly trained and highly paid. Bored, yes, lethargic, no.
Giordino's pulse jumped at seeing that the guards were studying every inch of the path as they walked.
He could not have known that Dorsett paid a twenty-five thousand' dollar bonus for the severed hand of every diamond smuggler that was caught. What became of the rest of the body was never known, much less discussed. These men took their work seriously. They spied something and stopped directly in front of Maeve and Giordino.
"Hello, here's something the last patrol missed, or wasn't here an hour ago."
"What do you see?" asked his partner.
"Looks like a grappling hook off a boat." The first guard dropped to one knee and brushed away the hurried camouflage. "Well, well, it's attached to a line that drops down the cliff."
"The first attempt to enter the island from the bluffs since that party of Canadian smugglers we caught three years ago." Afraid to stand too close to the edge, the guard beamed his light down the cliff face, but saw nothing.
The other guard pulled out a knife and made ready to cut the line. "If any are waiting to come up from below, they're about to be awfully disappointed."
Maeve sucked in her breath as Giordino stepped out of the bushes onto the path. "Don't you characters have anything better to do than wander around at night?"
The first guard froze, his knife hand raised in the air. The second guard spun around and leveled his Bushmaster M-16 assault rifle at Giordino. "Freeze in your position or I'll fire."
Giordino did as he was told, but tensed his legs in preparation to spring. Fear and temporary shock gripped him at realizing it was only a matter
of seconds before Pitt would be hurtling toward the sea and rocks below. But the guard's face went blank and he lowered his weapon.
His partner looked at him. "What's wrong with you?"
He broke off, peered behind Giordino and saw a woman step into the beam of light. There was no fear in her expression, rather it was one of anger. "Put away your silly guns and behave as you were trained!" she snapped.
The guard with the flashlight beamed it at Maeve. He stood in silent surprise, peering intently into her face before finally mumbling, "Miss Dorsett?"
Fletcher," she corrected him. "Maeve Fletcher."
"I . . . we were told you drowned."
"Do I look like I've been floating in the sea?" Maeve, in her ragged blouse and shorts, wasn't sure how she appeared to the guards. But she knew without doubt that she didn't look like the daughter of a billionaire diamond tycoon.
"May I ask what you're doing here this time of the morning?" the guard asked politely but firmly.
"My friend and I decided to take a walk."
The guard with the knife wasn't buying it. "You'll excuse me," he said, grabbing the line in his free hand in readiness to slice it with his left, "but there is something very wrong here."
Maeve stepped over and abruptly slapped the man with the leveled rifle across the cheek. The startling display of supremacy surprised both guards, and they hesitated. Swift as a coiled rattler, Giordino sprang at the nearer guard, brushing away the assault rifle and smashing his head into the man's stomach. The guard grunted in a violent convulsion before crashing to the ground on his back. Giordino, losing his footing, toppled across the fallen guard.
In the same instant, Maeve threw herself at the guard poised to cut Pitt's lifeline, but he swung a vicious backhand that caught her on the side of the head and stopped her in her tracks. Then he dropped the knife and threw up his assault rifle, the index finger of his right hand sliding against the trigger as he aimed the barrel at Giordino's chest.
Giordino knew he was dead. Entangled with the offset guard, he had no time for any defensive move.
He knew it was impossible to reach the guard before he saw the flash from the muzzle. He could do nothing but stiffen his body in expectation of the bullet's impact.
But no shot rang out and no bullet struck Giordino's flesh.
Unnoticed, a hand with an arm attached snaked over the edge of the cliff, reached up and snatched the ripe, jerking it out of the guard's hands. Before the guard drew another breath, he was yanked into space. His final scream of terror echoed throughout the black void until it became muffled and died as if covered by a funeral shroud.
Then Pitt's head, lit by the flashlight on the ground, raised above the cliff's edge. The eyes blinked in the glare of the light and then the lips turned up in a slight grin.
"I believe that's what you call flying in the face of adverse opinion."
Maeve hugged Pitt. "You couldn't have arrived at a more opportune moment."
"How come you didn't blast away with your little pop gun?" asked Giordino.
Pitt pulled the tiny automatic out of his back pocket and held it in the palm of his hand. "After the guard with the flashlight failed to find me hiding in a crevasse, I waited a minute and then pulled myself up to the edge of the cliff to see what was happening. When, I saw you were within an instant of being shot, there was no time to draw and aim. So I did the next best thing."
"Lucky he did," Maeve said to Giordino, "or you wouldn't be here."
Giordino was not one to display maudlin sentiment "Next chance I get, I'll carry out his trash." He glanced', down at the guard who was writhing on the ground in the fetal position, clutching his abdomen.
He picked up the M-16 and checked the ammo clip. "A nice addition to our arsenal."
"What do we do with him?" asked Maeve. "Chuck him over the cliff?"
"Nothing so drastic," answered Pitt. Instinctively, he glanced in both directions along the path leading along the ledge. "He can't hurt us now. Better to gag and tie him up and leave him for his buddies to find.
When he and his partner don't show up to check in at the next guard station, they're certain to come searching for them."
"The next patrol won't show up for another fifty minutes," said Giordino, rapidly pulling the nylon line over the cliff's edge onto the path. "Time enough for a good head start."
Minutes later the guard, his eyes wide with fright and clothed only in his underwear, hung in space from the grappling hook, ten meters below the rim of the cliff top. The nylon line was wrapped around his body tightly, like a cocoon.
With Maeve as a guide, they set off along the cliff path. Giordino packed the diminutive automatic pistol, while Pitt, now clad in the guard's uniform, carried the Bushmaster M-l6. They no longer felt exposed and helpless. Irrational, Pitt knew, for there must have been no less than a hundred other security guards standing watch over the mines and the island's shoreline. That wasn't the worst of their problems. Now that there was no returning to the Marvelous Maeve, they would have to seek other means of transport, a plan Pitt had always held in the back of his mind without the foggiest notion of how to carry it out. That wasn't a primary concern just yet. What mattered now was finding Maeve's boys and stealing them out of the hands of their crazy grandfather.
After traveling about five hundred meters, Maeve held up a hand and gestured into the thick underbrush. "We'll cross the island here," she informed them. "A road curves to within thirty meters of where we stand. If we're careful and remain out of sight of any traffic, we can follow the road into the central housing area for Dorsett employees."
"Where are we in relation to the volcanoes that anchor each end of the island?" asked Pitt.
"We're about half way between and opposite the lagoon."
"Where do you think your boys might be held?" Giordino put to her.
"I wish I knew," she said distantly. "My first guess is the manor house, but I wouldn't put it past my father to keep them under guard, in the security compound, or worse, they're kept by Jack Ferguson."
"Not a good idea to wander around like tourists looking for a restaurant," said Pitt.
"I'm with you," Giordino agreed. "The proper thing to do is find someone in authority with the answers and twist his arm."
Pitt fastidiously straightened the jacket of his stolen uniform and brushed off the shoulders. "If he's on the island, I know just the man."
Twenty minutes later, after traveling over a road that wound in a series of hairpin turns over the spine of the island, they approached the compound that housed the mining engineers and the security guards.
Keeping in the sheltered gloom of the underbrush, they skirted the detention camp for the Chinese laborers. Bright lights illuminated the barracks and open grounds, surrounded by a high electrified fence that was topped by rows of circular razor wire. The area was so heavily secured by electronic surveillance systems that no guards were walking around the perimeter.
In another hundred meters, Maeve stopped and gestured for Pitt and Giordino to drop behind a low hedge that bordered a concrete thoroughfare. One end of the road ended at a driveway that passed through a large arched gate to the Dorsett family manor house. A short distance in the opposite direction, the road split. One broad avenue trailed down a slope to the port in the center of the lagoon, where the docks and warehouses reflected a weird appearance under the eerie yellow glow of sodium-vapor lamps. Pitt took an extra minute to study the big boat tied beside the dock. Even at this distance, there was no mistaking the Dorsett yacht. Pitt was especially pleased to see a helicopter sitting on the upper deck.
"Does the island have an airstrip?" he asked Maeve.
She shook her head. "Daddy refused to construct one, preferring all his transportation by sea. He uses a helicopter to carry him back and forth from the Australian mainland. Why do you want to know?"
"A process of elimination. Our getaway bird sits yonder on the yacht," Pitt said.
"You clever man, you had that
in mind all along."
"I was merely swept up in a orgy of inspiration," Pitt said artfully, then asked, "How many men guard the yacht?"
"Only one, who monitors the dock security systems."
"And the crewmen?"
"Whenever the boat is docked at the island, Daddy requires the crew to stay in quarters ashore."
Pitt took note that the other fork in the road curved toward the main compound. The mines inside the volcanoes were alive with activity, but the central area of the Dorsett Consolidated Mining community was deserted. The dock beside the yacht appeared totally deserted under the floodlights mounted on a nearby warehouse. Everyone else, it seemed, was asleep in bed, a not uncommon circumstance at four o'clock in the morning.
"Point out the chief of security's house," Pitt said to Maeve.
"The mining engineers and my father's servants live in the cluster of buildings closest to the lagoon,"
answered Maeve. "The house you want sits on the southeast corner of the security guards' compound. Its walls are painted gray."
' I see it." Pitt drew a sleeve across his forehead to wipe away the sweat. "Is there a way to reach it other than the road?"
"A walkway runs along the rear."
"Let's get moving. We don't have a whole lot of time before daylight."
They stayed in the shadows behind the hedge and the neatly trimmed trees that stretched alongside the paved shoulders of the road. Tall streetlights were spaced every fifty meters, the same as most city streets. Except for the soft rustle of wild grass and scattered leaves beneath their feet, the three of them moved quietly toward the gray house at the corner of the compound.
When they reached a clump of bushes outside the rear door, Pitt put his mouth to Maeve's ear. "Have you ever been inside the house before?"
"Only once or twice when I was a little girl and Daddy asked me to deliver a message to the man who headed his security a long time ago," she replied in a soft murmur.
"Can you say whether the house has an alarm system to detect intruders?"