The crashing resumed within ten seconds, this time steel on steel. Sam’s guess that the fire axes he’d seen in cases around the fort would come into play had been a good one. He had no illusions that the door would be able to stand up to a sustained assault. He crept along the passage back to the vault.
“Are you done?” Sam shouted through the vault doorway, momentarily blinded by the flash of Remi’s digital camera.
“Almost! Three more shots and we’re out of here,” she yelled back at him, the siren drowning out her voice as she continued to take pictures.
A beam of light appeared from the barrier. They’d pierced it. It would be only a matter of seconds until the shooting started.
“They’re through. Let’s go. Now!” Sam called. Remi didn’t hesitate. They sprinted for the far end of the passageway, where they knew from the blueprint there would be a curve and then a junction. He prayed that the diagram was accurate and that a bright mind hadn’t decided to seal their escape route at some point over the last forty years — that could ruin their night.
Sam reached the junction just as gunfire erupted behind them. Slugs whistled through the air, whining as they glanced off the stone walls and ricocheted in every direction. Both he and Remi dropped and crawled the remaining five feet, setting a new record for military-style scrambling. The gunfire continued until the shooter exhausted his clip.
Sam pointed at a dark chamber fifteen feet away and inched toward it, sticking to the floor in the event of a stray bullet bouncing off the rock walls. After what seemed like forever, they reached the doorway. The air was a bouquet of rot and decay, but also the most welcome odor in the world — salt air. From the far side of the room the crash of waves breaking against the rocks below the castle’s foundation greeted them and they both leapt to their feet and felt their way toward the sound.
There, at floor level, were three chutes that opened out onto the sea, barely large enough to accommodate a human body. The iron bars imbedded in the stone had been mostly eaten away by the elements. Sam pulled a penlight from his pocket and then reached into his bag and extracted a tire iron and rope. He swung the beam around the room in search of anything to tie the line to. There — a stone sink sat at the far end of the small space, attached to the wall. He quickly wound the end of the rope around it several times before fashioning a climber’s knot and giving it a firm pull.
“Let me break the bars, and, when I’m through, follow me down,” Sam instructed. He lowered himself to the cold stone floor, the surface slick from condensation and mold, and slid down the chute, arms first, playing out rope with his left hand, the crowbar gripped in his right.
The iron grille was little more than rust. It took less than half a minute to create a gap he could squeeze through. Chunks of iron dropped down the sheer wall outside and struck the rocks below. Sam flipped around and followed them down forty-five feet to a slim outcropping, where waves struck it and exploded in bursts of spray before retreating back into the black of night. The rope above him vibrated as Remi descended quickly; the clump of her rubber-soled boots landing on the rocks filled him with relief.
“Be careful! These boulders are slippery, and the barnacles will cut like razors if you slip,” he called, pulling out the earplugs and pocketing them as he eyed the dark castle wall above. “We need to hurry. They’ll be through soon enough, and if we’re not gone by the time they figure out how we escaped, we’ll be trying to outrun bullets and radios.”
Cautiously they began inching along the shoreline, going as fast as they dared. Remi slipped once and Sam caught her arm and steadied her. Five minutes later, the castle was behind them and they were jogging east on a rocky beach.
“How much farther?” Remi asked, easily keeping up with Sam.
“Should be no more than a hundred yards,” Sam said. “Lucky for us they never sealed up the toilet chutes …”
“Please. I’m already going to have to take ten showers just to get the feel of the mold off me. I don’t need any reminders about what the last things down the chute were.”
“They haven’t been used for years — probably at least twenty. Thank goodness for indoor plumbing, right?”
“If you say so.”
They continued loping down the beach, anxious to put distance between themselves and the castle.
“How did it go?” he asked as he slowed, eyes roving over the coastline, seeking their objective.
“I got shots of everything, including the manuscript. It practically disintegrated in my hands when I unrolled it. A shame nobody cared enough to store it under better conditions.”
“We’re fortunate there was anything left. Could you make out the writing and illustrations?”
“I did. But I’d say right now that’s not our biggest problem,” she said as flashlight beams glimmered from the castle base. “Our pursuers just figured it out. I sure hope Selma was good to her word or our troubles have just begun.”
“Look. There it is,” Sam said, pointing at a line tethered to a rock on the shore. He ran to it and pulled as hard as he could, and an ancient black inflatable boat came bouncing through the mild surf.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” Remi said.
“Hey, it’s Cuba. What do you want? This is probably pretty modern for here,” he said as the dinghy washed up onto the beach. He snapped open his Swiss Army knife, severed the line from the rock, and coiled it up and tossed it into the tired little craft.
“Get in and I’ll push it out until we’re clear of the breakers,” Sam said.
Remi checked her backpack again to make sure that it was sealed tight, the camera safe in the waterproof bag, before helping push the boat a few feet into the water and climbing in.
Sam waited until another wave surged in and heaved the tender away from the sand, turning his back to the incoming surf as it broke over him. Lights from shore swept the beach as soldiers followed their path along the rocks. The bottom fell away from Sam’s feet and he climbed aboard and, after a concerned look at the pre-1960s outboard, jerked the cord to start the engine.
Nothing.
He tried again and was rewarded with a feeble cough and puff of exhaust.
“Remi. Grab the oars and row us farther out. This might take a while.”
As she complied, he didn’t need to turn to face her to read her expression. Instead, he focused on the outboard, which finally sputtered to noisy life on the eighth try.
“There. Told you it wouldn’t be a problem.”
The moonlight glinted off the gold scarab hanging from Remi’s neck as she peered into the gloom, where she could barely make out the sound of men yelling to one another. “I’d put it into gear because we’re still in range … and will be until we can’t see the shore.”
As if to underscore her point, slugs splashed into the water behind them, followed by the sharp report of automatic rifle fire.
“Let’s hope nobody’s got a night vision scope. Keep your head down,” he said, and then goosed the throttle. He was rewarded by a groan as the motor almost died; then it revved and the boat surged forward over the small waves. More gunfire slapped into the sea around them, frustrated volleys rather than well aimed, and soon the noise of the gunfire receded as the little craft bounced its way north.
“How far?” Remi asked.
Sam pulled a small waterproof GPS from his backpack, powered it on, and squinted at the screen.
“Mile and a half due north. Now we’ll be racing the Cubans’ ability to get a helicopter into the air. If they’re as mañana about that as about other things, we should make it. It’s almost one a.m. on a weekday, and we shouldn’t show up on radar. I like our odds.”
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