Touch the Devil (20 page)

He shined the flashlight up and found Savary poised just above him. "Hang on," Brosnan whispered. "I'm going through."

He slipped the flashlight into his pocket, braced himself against the sides, then stamped on the grill with both feet. It buckled, started to give, and at the third attempt gave way completely and crashed to the floor eight feet below, followed by Brosnan himself.

He got up, shaken but unhurt, and looked about him. The boiler room was in semi-darkness, the only light a small bulb that hung over the dials on the instrument panel on the far wall. Most important of all, there was no one there.

He called up the shaft, "Okay, Jacques, let's be having you. Just let yourself go," and a moment later caught the Frenchman as he dropped through.

They moved to the door at once. Brosnan opened it and peered outside. Rain fell heavily, bouncing from the cobbled courtyard.

"The manhole cover is over there," he said. "To the right of the hospital entrance. Keep your head down, and let's go."

He kept to the shadows of the wall, working his way around the courtyard, Savary at his heels, until he reached the manhole cover and crouched down. He got the screwdriver out and cleaned the dirt from the iron handles that were set into the cover, but when he heaved it refused to budge.

"What is it, for God's sake?" For the first time there was panic in Savary's voice.

"Nothing," Brosnan said. "Probably hasn't been up in years. I'll fix it, don't worry."

He worked the screwdriver around the edge of the manhol
e c
over methodically, stifling an insane desire to laugh. There had been a notice on the command board at Khe Sahn. For those who fight for it, life has a flavor the sheltered never know. Whoever wrote that had certainly known what he was talking about.

He tried again, exerting all his strength, Savary wrapping his hands around him to assist. The manhole gave suddenly and easily, so that Brosnan lost his balance and they fell together.

The stench was immediate and appalling, accentuated by the freshness of the rain. Savary said, "Oh, my God, I didn't realize."

"The only way, Jacques," Brosnan said. "Down you go."

Savary disappeared into darkness and Brosnan followed, descending a short iron ladder, pausing only to slide the manhole cover back into place. When he switched on the flashlight, he found Savary standing in three feet of stinking water and excrement. The Frenchman leaned against the wall and vomited.

He turned, his face pale. "I can't take much of this, Martin." "You don't have to," Brosnan lied. "A couple of hundred yards, that's all, I promise you."

The tunnel was six-feet high and very old, the brickwork crumbling, and as they advanced the flashlight picked out rats by the dozen, scampering along the ledges on either side. Fifty or sixty yards further on, the tunnel emptied itself into a pool over a concrete apron. It was obviously the main catchment chamber for the entire system, several other tunnels emptying into it.

Brosnan slid down the apron, holding the flashlight high, and found himself almost chest deep. Savary came after him, lost his balance and went under. Brosnan pulled him up by the collar, and the Frenchman surfaced in a dreadful state, his face smeared with filth. He was badly shocked.

Brosnan said, "Come on, Jacques, keep going. Just keep going."

He worked his way across the pool and pulled himself up on a concrete ledge, heaving Savary up behind him. He followed the ledge and came to an iron ladder, the water with the sewer cascading down beside it for some thirty feet.

They descended the ladder and moved on, negotiating two more before the walkway ended.

"We must be close to the shoreline now," Brosnan said. "It can't be much further."

He eased himself down into the water, and Savary followed him. The water rose higher and higher as Brosnan advanced. There was a ground swell now, and the stench was not so apparent. Then suddenly, a yard or two ahead, the tunnel simply disappeared.

Savary said, "Now what?"

"The outfall must be under the surface," Brosnan said. "I hadn't counted on that."

"So what do we do?"

"Swim for it."

"Under water?" The Frenchman shook his head. "I don't think I can."

Brosnan gave him the flashlight. "Hang onto this and I'll take a look."

He took a couple of deep breaths, went under, and swam forward, sliding against the roof of the tunnel. Ten feet, fifteen, twenty and he was through and immediately surfaced in a channel among rocks at the foot of the cliffs.

It was dark, rain falling, a heavy swell running. He floated there for a moment, took a breath, and went down into the mouth of the tunnel again. The return journey was more difficult, but he surfaced beside Savary a few moments later and braced himself against the tunnel wall, gasping for breath.

"Bad?" Savary asked.

"Twenty feet, Jacques, that's all, and you're out."

"I can't," Savary said.

Brosnan was untying the line from about his waist and he snapped it to the link on Savary's sling. "You want to go back?' "No, I'd rather die."

"Good. I'm going to swim out again now. When you're ready, pull twice on the line and hold your breath. I'll haul you through."

He didn't give Savary time to think about it, simply dived under the water again and swam back along the tunnel. He surfaced and floated for a moment in the pool and then found that his feet could touch bottom and that it was no more than five feet deep. He pulled in the slack on the line until it was tight and waited. The tugs, when they came, were quite distinct. He started to haul in with all his strength, pulling steadily, never stopping until Savary surfaced beside him, gasping for air.

Brosnan held him for a moment, then said, "Okay, let's get out of here," and together they waded out of the water and scrambled up the hillside, the walls of Belle Isle towering into the night above them.

Lightning flickered on the far horizon as they crouched at the door of the but while Savary worked the lock. Finally, it clicked open. They moved inside, Brosnan closed the door and switched on the light.

"All right?" he said to Savary.

The Frenchman nodded, nervous, excited. The sea had washed the filth from his body and he seemed to have recovered his spirits. "We beat the bastards, eh, Martin?"

"Not yet," Brosnan told him. "Get ready, quick as you like. Two life jackets, remember, not one. We'll need all the flotation we can get out there."

Five minutes later, they were ready. Brosnan took the homing device Devlin had given him, activated it, then strapped it to one of his life jackets.

He said to Savary, "Let's go," and he switched off the light, opened the door, and they left.

The rain hammered down, and when the sheet lightning crackled they saw waves lashing into foam stretching as far as the eye could see. They descended the cliffs, following the course of a ravine that finally emptied itself into the water.

The funeral rock towered into the night above their heads, and Savary looked up at it. "Maybe we're just saving Lebel a job."

Brosnan uncoiled the line and secured it, first to Savary's sling and then his own, leaving an umbilical cord perhaps six-feet long between them.

"Together, or not at all?" Savary said.

"Exactly."

They shook hands, then made their way to a ledge on the outer reaches of the rocks where the sea roared by. Brosnan turned inquiringly, Savary nodded, and they jumped, committing themselves to the waters of the Mill Race.

They were carried along at a terrific rate, for the current was running at nine or ten knots and the distance they were covering was quite phenomenal. Strangely enough, it didn't seem particularly cold at first, but that would come later. The clothing helped there, of course, and the heavy reefers.

There was no real sense of passing time. Just the sea and the roaring and the tug of the line at Brosnan's waist as Savary pulled at it. Occasionally lightning flickered again, but all it illuminated was the sea, a waste of broken water in which they were quite alone.

After fifteen or twenty minutes Brosnan did begin to feel the cold. He wondered how Savary was doing, tugged on the line and a moment later got a response. Belle Isle was so far back there in the darkness that there seemed no longer any need to fear detection and he switched on the light on his life jacket. A moment later, Savary did the same, and they continued on, dipping over the waves like two will-o'-the-wisps in the darkness.

On the bridge of the trawler, Anne-Marie and Devlin stood at the rail as the ship plunged into the waves. They both wore oilskin coats and sou'westers, and water streamed from them.

As lightning flickered, illuminating the size of the seas breaking, the white carpet of foam, Devlin said desperately, "This is no good--no good at all."

And then Jean-Paul leaned out of the wheelhouse, his voice full of excitement. "We've got them!" he cried exultantly.

Anne-Marie and Devlin hurried into the wheelhouse. Jean-Paul and Claude bent over the blue box on the chart table. Lines moved across the screen, there was a rhythmic pinging sound, and the red illuminated figures on the digital read-out altered with incredible rapidity and finally stopped.

Jean-Paul made a quick calculation. "That's it," he said to old Marcel at the wheel. "They're about a mile to the northeast. Steer two-four-two." As they altered course, he said to Devlin, "When the regular beat of that signal becomes continuous and high-pitched, we're there."

Anne-Marie held Devlin's hand, and together they stood there watching the screen.

Brosnan was cold, and his face and eyes were sore from the salt water. He was tired, completely at the end of his tether. When Savary's light went out, he tugged on the line, but got no response and when he tried to haul the Frenchman in to him, realized he didn't have the strength.

A few moments later, the light on his own life jacket went out. So that was it then, and now that it had come it didn't seem to matter. He floated, eyes closed, head back, and was lifted high on the crest of a wave. He opened his eyes and saw the lights of a ship to the right of him.

It was enough, and as he went down into a trough he opened his mouth and yelled at the top of his lungs. Yet, in the roaring of the sea, he couldn't even hear himself.

He lifted on another wave, Savary trailing behind him. The ship was closer now, close enough for him to see that it was a trawler, her lines plain in her deck lights. He shouted and waved, all to no purpose, went down again, and then suddenly remembered Devlin's parting present at the prison, the signaling ball.

He felt for it in his right hand pocket, got it out, desperately clutching it in numb fingers, and tore at the plastic covering with his teeth. The phosphorescence dazzled him with its beauty, shining i
n t
he night like a glowworm, and he cupped it in his right palm and held it aloft.

It was Big Claude who caught sight of the light to port and ran to the wheelhouse instantly. Marcel cut back the engines and brought the trawler around, curving in. Devlin and Anne-Marie ran to the port rail where Jean-Paul and Claude were throwing a boarding net over the side.

"What do you think?" Devlin demanded.

"It's got to be them. Must be," Jean-Paul said savagely.

He took the spotlight Claude passed him, switched it on, and played it across the water.

"Nothing!" Anne-Marie said. "Not a damn thing!"

And then Brosnan rose high on the crest of a wave, arm raised, Savary trailing behind him.

Chapter
Eleven.

Brosnan coughed as the whisky caught at the back of his throat. He looked up at Devlin sitting on the edge of the bunk. "Bushmills?" he asked hoarsely.

"What else? I brought the bottle specially. And now that you're back in the land of the living, there's someone to see you. I'll see how Savary's getting on."

He moved out of the way, and Anne-Marie sat down. She still wore the oilskin and pushed damp hair back from her forehead in an inimitable gesture.

"Here we are again then," Brosnan said.

"So it would appear." She reached over and touched his face briefly. "You're still cold."

"Frozen to the bone. I'll have nightmares about the Mill Race for the rest of my life. How's Jacques?"

"Dr. Cresson is working on him in the next cabin."

"You mean he's still unconscious?"

"I'm afraid so."

Brosnan sat up, pulling the blanket around him. "Show me."

She led the way to the next cabin. Jacques Savary lay on the bunk swathed in blankets, his face white and shrunken, eyes closed. Jean-Paul watched anxiously with Devlin while the doctor worked over his father.

"He's cold," he said. "Too cold. At his age. . . ." He filled a hypodermic and injected the contents into Savary's right forearm. "The most powerful stimulant I dare use." He turned to Jean-Paul. "The pulse is very weak. He needs hospitalization as soon as possible."

"Who the hell says so," said Jacques Savary in a low voice.

His eyes were open, he smiled weakly, and Jean-Paul seized his hand and dropped to one knee beside the bunk. "What were you trying to do, scare the hell out of me?"