Desmond Bagley - Wyatt’s Hurricane

He walked with steady dignity down the long room, and after a moment’s hesitation Wyatt followed, hearing Serrurier’s hysterical scream as he left. ‘Do you understand, Mr British Scientist? We do not have hurricanes in San Fernandez !’

Outside, Hippolyte became vindictive. He considered Rawsthorne had made a fool of him and he feared the retribution of Serrurier. He called a squad of soldiers and Wyatt and Rawsthorne found themselves brutally hustled from the palace to be literally thrown out of the front door.

Rawsthorne examined a tear in his coat. ‘I thought it might be like that,’ he said. ‘But we had to try.’

‘He’s mad,’ said Wyatt blankly. ‘He’s stark staring, raving mad.’

‘Of course,’ said Rawsthorne calmly. ‘Didn’t you know? Lord Acton once said that absolute power corrupts absolutely. Serrurier is thoroughly corrupted in the worst possible way – that’s why everyone is so afraid of him. I was beginning to wonder if we’d get out of there.’

Wyatt shook his head as though to clear cobwebs out of his brain. ‘He said, “We do not have hurricanes in San Fernandez,” as though he has forbidden them by presidential decree.’ There was a baffled look on his face.

‘Let’s get away from here,’ said Rawsthorne with an eye on the surrounding soldiers. ‘Where’s the car?’

‘Over there,’ said Wyatt. ‘I’ll take you back to your place – then I must call at the Imperiale.’

There was a low rumble in the distance coming from the mountains. Rawsthorne cocked his head on one side. ‘Thunder,’ he said. ‘Is your hurricane upon us already?’

Wyatt looked up at the moon floating in the cloudless sky. ‘That’s not thunder,’ he said. ‘I wonder if Serrurier has found Favel – or vice versa.’ He looked at Rawsthorne. ‘That’s gunfire.’

It was quite late in the evening when Wyatt pulled up his car outside the Imperiale. He had had a rough time; the street lighting had failed or been deliberately extinguished (he thought that perhaps the power-station staff had decamped) and three times he had been halted by the suspicious police, his being one of the few cars on the move in the quiet city. There was a sporadic crackle of rifle fire, sometimes isolated shots and sometimes minor fusillades, echoing through the streets. The police and the soldiers were nervous and likely to shoot at anything that moved. And behind everything was the steady rumble of artillery fire from the mountains, now sounding very distinctly on the heavy night air.

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