Clive Cussler - Cyclops

Pitt could not detect any indication of movement. He gestured forward and began swimming again, using a breaststroke this time so he could keep his eyes trained ahead. Heights and shapes, angles and contours became nebulous silhouettes as they moved closer. After fifty yards he extended his feet downward and touched sand. He stood and the water came up to his chest.

"You can stand," he said softly.

There was a momentary pause, then she whispered tiredly, "Thank heavens, my arms feel like lead."

"As soon as we reach the shallows you lie still and take it easy. I'm going to scout around."

"Please be careful."

"Not to worry," he said, breaking into a wide grin. "I'm getting the hang of it. This is the second enemy beach I've landed on tonight."

"Are you ever serious?"

"When the occasion demands. Like now, for instance. Give me the gun."

She hesitated. "I think I lost it."

"You think?"

"When we went in the water--"

"You dropped it."

"I dropped it," she repeated in innocent regret.

"You don't know what a joy it's been working with you," Pitt said in abject exasperation.

They swam the remaining distance in silence until the low surf diminished and it was only a few inches deep. He motioned for Jessie to stay put. For the next minute Pitt lay rigid and unmoving, then abruptly, without a word, he leaped to his feet, ran across the sand, and vanished into the shadows.

Jessie fought to keep from nodding off. Her whole body was going numb from exhaustion, and she gratefully became aware that the pain from the bruises caused by Foss Gly's hands were fading away. The soothing lap of the water against her lightly clad body relaxed her like a sedative.

And then she froze, fingers digging into the wet sand, her heart catching in her throat.

One of the bushes had moved. Ten, maybe twelve yards away, a dark mass detached itself from the surrounding shadows and advanced along the beach just above the tideline.

It was not Pitt.

The pale light from the moon revealed a figure in a uniform carrying a rifle. She lay paralyzed, acutely aware of her naked helplessness. She pressed her body into the sand and slid backward slowly into deeper water, an inch at a time.

Jessie shrank in a vain attempt to make herself smaller as the beam from a flashlight suddenly speared the dark and played on the beach above the waterline. The Cuban sentry swept the light back and forth as he walked toward her, intently examining the ground. With a fearful certainty Jessie realized that he was following footprints. She felt a sudden anger at Pitt for leaving her alone, and for leaving a trail that led straight to her.

The Cuban approached within ten yards and would have seen the upper outline of her shape if he had only turned a fraction in her direction. The beam stopped its sweep and held steady, probing at the impressions left by Pitt on his dash across the beach. The guard swung to his right and crouched, aiming the flashlight into the bordering undergrowth. Then, inexplicably, he spun around to his left and the beam caught Jessie full in its glare. The light blinded her.

For a second the Cuban stood startled, then his free hand lifted the barrel of the automatic rifle that was slung over his shoulder and he pointed the muzzle directly at Jessie. Too terrified to speak, she clamped her eyes closed as if the mere act would shut out the horror and impact of the bullets.

She heard a faint thud, followed by a convulsive grunt. The bullets never came. There was only a strange silence, and then she sensed the light had gone out. She opened her eyes and stared vaguely at a pair of legs that stood ankle deep in the water, straddling her head, and through them she saw the inert body of the Cuban sentry stretched out on the sand.

Pitt leaned down and gently hoisted Jessie to her feet. He smoothed back her dripping hair and said, "It seems I can't turn my back for a minute without you getting into trouble."

"I thought I was dead," she said, as her heartbeat gradually slowed.

"You must have thought the same thing at least a dozen times since we left Key West."

"Fear of death takes a while to get used to."

Pitt picked up the Cuban's flashlight, hooded it in his hand, and began stripping off the uniform. "Fortunately he's a short little rascal, about your size. Your feet will probably swim in his boots, but better too large than too small."

"Is he dead?"

"Just a small dent in the skull from a rock. He'll come around in a few hours."

She wrinkled her nose as she caught the thrown fatigue uniform. "I don't think he ever bathed."

"Launder it in the sea and put it on wet," he said briskly. "And be quick about it. This is no time to play fashionable rich bitch. The sentry at the next post will wonder why he hasn't shown up. His relief and sergeant of the guard are bound to come along pretty soon."

Five minutes later Jessie stood dripping in the uniform of a Cuban armed forces patrol guard. Pitt was right, the boots were two sizes too big. She lifted her damp hair and neatly tucked it under the cap. She turned and stared at Pitt as he emerged from the trees and bushes carrying the Cuban's rifle and a palm frond.

"What did you do with him?" she asked.

"Stashed him a ways inland under a bush." Pitt's voice betrayed a sense of urgency. He pointed at a tiny beam of light about a quarter of mile down the beach. "They're coming. No time for a volleyball game. Get a move on."

He roughly pushed her toward the trees and followed, walking backward brushing away their footprints with the palm frond. After nearly seventy yards, he dropped the frond and they hurried through the jungle growth, putting as much distance between them and the beach as possible before daylight.

They had covered five miles when the eastern sky began to brighten from black to orange. A sugarcane field rose up out of the fading darkness, and they skirted its border until it ended beside a paved two-lane highway. No headlights played on the asphalt in either direction. They walked along the shoulder, ducking into the brush whenever a car or truck approached. Pitt noticed that Jessie's steps were beginning to falter and her breathing was coming in rapid gasps. He halted, placed his handkerchief over the lens of the flashlight, and shone it in her face. He didn't require the credentials of a sports physician to see that she was done in. He put his arm around her waist and pushed on until they reached the steep sides of a small ravine.

"Catch your breath, I'll be right back."

Pitt dropped down the slope into a dry creek bed that threaded a jagged course around a low hill littered with large boulders and scrub pine. It passed under the highway through a concrete pipe three feet in diameter and spread into a fenced pasture on the other side. He scrambled back up to the road, silently took Jessie's hand, and led her stumbling and sliding to the gravelly bottom of the ravine. He flicked the beam of the flashlight inside the drainpipe.

"The only vacant room in town," he said in a voice as cheerful as he could make it under the circumstances.

It was no penthouse suite, but the curved bottom of the pipe held a good two inches of soft sand, and it was a safer haven than Pitt could have hoped for. Any pursuing guards who eventually came on their trail and followed it to the highway would assume the landing party met a prearranged ride.

Somehow they managed to find a comfortable position in the cramped darkness. Pitt set the gun and flashlight within easy reach and finally relaxed.

"Okay, lady," he said, his words echoing through the drainpipe. "I think the time has come for you to tell me what in hell we're doing here."

But Jessie didn't answer.

Oblivious to her clammy, ill-fitting uniform, oblivious even to aching feet and sore joints, she was curled in a fetal position sound asleep.