Douglas Preston - Two Graves

83

WITH THE NAZIS ON THE RUN, THE RANKS OF DEFECTIVE twins—now swelled by the majority of their siblings—turned toward Nova Godói. Running along forest trails, they soon reached the town, streaming in. The well-swept streets were empty, the cheerfully decorated houses shuttered and dark. The townsfolk were hunkered down, some hiding, while many others appeared to have fled.

Reaching the central square, the groups of twins began to break into smaller parties, heading down the side streets, ready to engage in any mopping-up operations that might be necessary. Pendergast, following along, scanned the crowd and found Tristram. He went over to him. For a moment they looked at each other, and then they embraced.

“You need to establish a base of operations,” he told his son in mixed German and English. “I’d suggest the town hall. Take the Bürgermeister and any other town officials into custody. Set up a strong defense in case of counterattack.”

“Yes, Father,” Tristram said. He was flushed and breathing heavily, and a cut on his forehead was bleeding freely.

“Take great care of your own personal safety, Tristram. There may be plenty of Nazis still around, including rooftop snipers. You’re a prime target.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I have some unfinished business. At the fortress.”

Pendergast began to turn away, then glanced back at his son. “I’m proud of you, Tristram,” he said.

Hearing this, the boy flushed with confusion and even surprise. As Pendergast turned to go, he realized this was probably the first time anyone had ever praised him.

Leaving Tristram to secure the town hall, Pendergast made his way by side streets to the village quay. There were some snipers, but without leadership, and in the growing dark they were ineffectual. The sun had set over the western ridge of the cinder cone, a streak of blood fading in the sky. Across the lake he could see the two boats with the remaining Nazi forces arriving at the island’s shattered docks. He stared up at the cruel-looking lines of the castle, painted vermilion by the last rays of the dying sun.

The Nazis and the few remaining super-twins sympathetic to their cause had been soundly beaten and were in retreat. But there were still many enemy soldiers about; the Nazis retained their scientists, technicians, and laboratories; and their fortress remained a formidable redoubt, almost impregnable. They had been dealt a severe blow—but there was nothing to stop them from taking up their evil work again.

On top of that, Fischer was still alive.

For a long time, Pendergast stared across the lake. Then he walked down the quay, selected an inconspicuous and still-undamaged motor launch, jumped in, started the engine, and cast off, heading in the direction of the island.

The night was now so advanced that his little vessel vanished into the darkness of the lake. Keeping to a quiet speed, the engine purring and barely audible, he made his way across the lake, circling to the western side of the island. A few hundred yards from shore he cut the engine and rowed, using the flashlight, carefully hooded, to locate the tunnel from which he’d swum when escaping the fortress hours before. Finding the entrance, he rowed the launch into the stone passageway, then started the engine once again and threaded the labyrinth of watery passages until he felt the keel of the boat scrape against the stone of the floor. Beaching the craft, he continued on foot, passing the bodies of the colonel and several of his men, until he reached the large, domed space with the steel cage set into the center of its floor.

He paused, listening intently. Overhead, he could hear the faintest sounds of activity: the rhythmic tromping of boots, the faint bark of orders. But down here, in the lowest level of the fortress, all was quiet. He turned back to the ammunition dump contained within the steel cage, shining his light into it. It was a large and varied assortment of munitions and ammo: rolls of det cord and bricks of C-4, stacks of M112 demolition charges, 120mm tank gun cartridges, cans of precision-machined gunpowder, land mines, stacks of crates containing small-arms ammunition, cases of grenades, RPGs, mortars, .50-caliber machine guns, and even a brace of mini-guns with dozens of ammo boxes for each.

The large cage was securely locked, and it took Pendergast over five minutes, using improvised tools, to gain access. Once inside, he looked around more closely. As he’d noticed on his prior passage through this space, the Nazis had made use of a natural fissure in the old volcano to store their weapons. Despite the vast amount of shells, weapons, and casings visible within the cage, it was only the tip of the iceberg: an even greater amount of ordnance lay below the level of the floor, protected by the walls of the fissure itself. The Nazis had taken no chances that, in the event of an attack, a lucky shell hit from an invading force could accidentally touch off their magazine: it was buried deep in the lowest level of the fortress, its main bulk surrounded and shielded by protective volcanic rock.

It was also designed so that, if it did go off, the explosion would be severely confined by the natural rock. It would not destroy the fortress above.

Or would it? As he contemplated the arsenal, Pendergast remembered something else: the broad, fresh radial pattern of cracks he’d noticed in the curtain wall of the fortress. These were not cracks caused by the normal settling of an ancient wall; just the opposite. They had been caused by an upward heaving of the ground, an upsurge that had separated and dislocated the huge blocks along the castle’s foundation. That indicated only one thing: a recent resurgence of the volcano’s caldera floor by the upward movement of magma. Which meant the dead volcano was perhaps not so dead, after all.

As if on cue, a tremor—similar to the ones he’d noticed earlier—shook the floor ever so slightly beneath his feet.

The Nazis had been careful to safeguard their arsenal from any outside attack short of a tactical nuclear strike. However, in so doing, it was possible they had overlooked the possibility of an attack from within —an attack involving both high explosives… and Mother Nature. They were not, Pendergast thought with a faint smile, very good geologists.

Grabbing one of the canisters of black powder, he pierced it with his knife and poured the contents over the crates and boxes and powder kegs that made up the ammo dump. He emptied another canister over the weaponry, and then another, until the entire upper surface of the magazine was coated with a thick dusting of gunpowder. Then, taking two more cans, he slipped one under his arm while using the other to make a trail of powder away from the arsenal, out the open door of the cage and along the floor, headed back in the direction from which he’d come. Discarding the empty can, he opened the second and last, and continued the gunpowder trail, out of the domed area and down the narrow stone passageway.

The last of the gunpowder ran out and Pendergast put the can aside. Taking out his flashlight, he played it back along the narrow black trail he’d just made. It was approximately sixty feet long. He paused a minute, drew in a deep breath. Then, kneeling, he removed the lighter, held it to the end of the line of black powder, and flicked it on.

Immediately there was a spark, a puff of flame, and—with an angry hiss—the trail of powder began to burn, dissolving into a low cloud of smoke as it flared its way back toward the weapons cache. Pendergast turned and ran back down the branching passageways of the sub-basement.

He had just made it to the boat and was getting into it when a tremendous, earsplitting roar sounded behind him. This was followed by a second, and then a third, as a chain reaction of explosions began setting off more and more of the castle’s cache of arms. Even at this distance, the force of the initial blast knocked him sprawling into the bottom of the boat; ears ringing, he got up, shoved off, started the engine, jammed it into full throttle, and headed out the escape tunnel at top speed, passing dangerously close to the stone walls as he followed the twistings and turnings of the passageway. Now the explosions were coming so fast they were no longer discrete blasts, but rather one constant fusillade of noise and fury, as the Nazi arsenal exploded with ever-increasing violence, the blasts moving deeper and deeper inside the fissure beneath the castle. The force of the explosions was shaking the very walls around him, and now stones, dirt, and nogging from the ancient ceiling were falling, collapsing with immense force into the water behind him, setting up a thunderous surge of water that pushed his boat forward.