Douglas Preston - Two Graves

He had to come up once, and then again, gulping air and plunging back down—each time to a peppering of fire. With his eyes open he could see the zipping of rounds through the water, leaving traceries of bubbles—but bullets, he knew, lost most of their deadly momentum after only twelve to fourteen inches of water.

Swimming hard, his lungs almost bursting, he peered up and ahead through the green water. He could make out the murky outline of boulders: the underwater portion of the shoreline cover he was aiming for. He surfaced in the right spot, under the boulders, sheltered from the murderous fire pouring down from the direction of the fortress. Incredibly enough, other men—half a dozen at least, including Thiago, graças a deus —were surfacing around him, hauling themselves out. Rounds were striking the tops of the rocks, showering them with chips, but they were protected—for the moment.

A large explosion in the water just offshore reminded the colonel that the enemy had mortars and grenades, too, which would soon find them.

He pushed thoughts of the utter disaster out of his head. He had men; they still had fight; all was not lost.

Crouching behind the boulders, half in and half out of the water, he cried: “Regroup! Regroup!” He could see more soldiers in the water, swimming their way, some wounded, struggling. A few went down and did not come up again; others were crying out for help. There was nothing he could do except watch them get cut down and mortared, the ambushing troops finding their range.

Gasping, dazed by the sudden reversal in fortune, the colonel looked around. Six men and himself, crouching pathetically behind the rocks. They were terrified, paralyzed. He had to do something, take control, show leadership. He peered through a narrow crack in the rocks, took stock. The ambushers were firing from behind a volcanic ridge above the docks. To his right was a slide of black rocks; if they could cross the open ground and get behind those rocks, they would have cover moving laterally up the slope and around the curve of the island.

He looked about. “Listen!” He paused, then shouted. “ Filhos da puta , listen!”

That roused them.

“We head upslope, then get behind that cover, there. Now . Follow my lead.”

“What about covering fire?” Thiago asked.

“Too many attackers—and that would only warn them. We simply run like hell. On three… One, two, three !”

They leapt over the boulders and ran diagonally across the slope of loose volcanic cinders. Immediately a barrage of fire erupted, but the ambushers had evidently not been expecting so soon a move and all seven made it behind the rockslide before the RPG volleys began. He could hear officers shouting orders in German.

“Keep going!” the colonel cried.

At a crouch, they kept on, angling diagonally up the slope and around the slight curve of the island. The fortress wall loomed far above them, rising ominously from the volcanic cinders, black and rough.

More fire came pouring in as they emerged from cover, the rounds kicking up the cinders all around them. A man to the colonel’s left grunted with a thud of lead meeting flesh, a spray of blood and matter erupting from his chest, and he fell heavily onto the rocks.

They ran on and on, the bullets peppering the cinders around them. More orders shouted in German: “ Ihnen nach! Verfolgt sie! ” The colonel understood: the ambushers were in pursuit.

“Down!” he cried. “Drop and return fire!”

The men, so very well trained, spun and dropped almost as one into the soft cinders and let loose a withering fire from their own automatic weapons; the colonel was extremely gratified to see several of the pursuers go down, the rest quickly taking cover.

“Up!” he ordered. “Run!”

In a flash they were up again and running. And as they came around the slope, he saw—above them, about a quarter mile away—the ragged hole in the outer wall. They would have a far better chance within the fortress than out in the open, on the island.

“Head for that breach!” the colonel cried, pointing.

The men angled uphill, heading for the breach, but once again exposed to fire. If only they could reach the hole, talvez …

73

PENDERGAST, WEDGED INTO A BROKEN GUN PORT IN A half-ruined wall of the old fortress, had watched the colonel’s boats approach the docks. At first he had believed it was part of the feint they had originally planned; but then, in a horrific moment, he realized the colonel had diverged from that plan.

He was headed straight for the docks.

Pendergast believed he understood the colonel’s reasoning: speed was of the essence. He and the colonel had discussed this line of attack, back in Alsdorf, and dismissed it because of the danger, however small, of an ambush. There was always the possibility that, at the sounds of the attack on the town, the men in the fortress could move quickly enough to arrange a trap—or arm a trap that was already in place. The colonel had dismissed this possibility, but ultimately Pendergast’s view had prevailed.

But, it seemed, not prevailed enough.

Pendergast watched the approach, his heart accelerating. It might work. Indeed, now he could also see that the colonel had brought far fewer men than agreed upon—with such a small force, surprise and speed became essential.

If it worked, so much the better. But it was a risk—a huge gamble.

And then, at the first eruption of fire, the docks punched up into the air, the men blown back into the water, the two vessels lurching sideways—Pendergast felt the utter stillness of shock take over. All had instantly changed. He heard the distant rattle of automatic gunfire and saw, behind a sheltered ridge just below the castle walls, the faint flashes of muzzle flare. He couldn’t see the ambushers from his vantage point, but he estimated they must comprise a moderate force—perhaps a hundred, a good portion of the fortress’s complement—well trained and organized. As the smoke from the explosions on the dock began to clear, the full dimensions of the debacle sank in. Many of the invading force had been killed outright or badly wounded, and the survivors were being mowed down in the water. But the colonel himself seemed to have survived, along with a handful of his men. Pendergast watched as they made their way behind a screen of boulders along the shore; ran for more cover farther around the hill, losing a man on the way; and then completed the final dash toward the opening in the wall, during which another soldier was cut down. Four men and the colonel made it to the breach and immediately disappeared.

Five soldiers. And himself. Six against a fortress of well-armed, highly trained fighters who were genetically bred for ruthlessness and intelligence, on their own turf, defending their land, their town, their fortress—their very reason for existence.

As Pendergast considered the problem, he began to realize that there might not be any paths to success remaining. His only consolation was that the least predictable of all human activities was war.

Scrambling down from his perch, Pendergast sprinted along a tunnel, ducking into a side passageway when he heard the approaching sound of soldiers’ boots. They went by and he flitted back out, descending a ruined staircase that headed into the foundations of the fortress. He could hear, echoing upward, the beginning of a firefight from within the walls: the defending soldiers were converging, no doubt, fighting the last of the colonel’s men at the gap or just inside.

The sounds of firing grew louder as he reached the massive, sloping basement tunnel encircling the interior of the curtain wall. He heard boots behind him again and had just enough time to swing into an unlocked lab and close its door before they passed. More shooting, bloody gargling screams. The Brazilians, at least, were putting up a remarkable fight.