to stabilize it.
As he worked, Janson primed his own wad of Semtex, then took a few moments to
determine the optimal position of the second blast. The positioning of plastique
was crucial to the desired outcome, and they could not afford to fail. So far,
they had been protected by the isolation of the dungeon—the layers of stone
protecting it from the rest of the north wing.
Mayhem had occurred, but no sound would have been audible to those who were not
its victims. There was no way to make a soundless exit, however. Indeed, the
aftershock from the blast would travel almost instantaneously throughout the
Stone Palace, rousing everyone in the immense compound. There would be no
confusion among the rebels about where the blast had originated, no confusion
about where to dispatch soldiers. The escape route had to be hitchless, or their
efforts would all be for nothing.
Now Janson pressed his ounce of Semtex to the corner of the far wall where it
met the curving top of the copper-lined tank, three feet above Katsaris’s ounce.
It fell off, and Janson grabbed it before it hit the ground. The ivory putty
would not adhere to the greasy surface.
What now? He took out his combat knife and used it to scrape the gummy residue
from the corner of the tank. The blade was soon ruined, but his penlight
revealed an area of gleaming, gouged metal.
He pressed the unsoiled side of the Semtex wad to the spot. It hung there, but
uncertainly, as though it might drop at any moment.
“Fall back!” Janson called.
Theo and Janson exited the tank, Janson taking one last look to make sure the
Semtex was still in position. Once the two rejoined the hostages, around a bend
in the corridor, they depressed in unison the radio frequency controllers that
activated the batteries.
The explosion was deafening, the reverberation a rumble-roar, like a vast
collection of forty-thousand-watt speakers blasting bass-range feedback. The
shock waves traveled through their flesh, causing their very eyes to vibrate.
White smoke billowed inward, bringing with it the familiar nitrous scent of
plastique—and something else, too: the salty tang of the sea breeze. They had a
route to the compound’s exterior.
If they lived to use it.
CHAPTER EIGHT
How long would it take before the KLF forces were fully mobilized? A hundred and
twenty seconds? Less? How many guards were on duty? How many guards were
stationed along the battlements?
They would find out soon enough.
A portion of the heavy stone wall had crumbled under the blast, and thick,
jagged metal plates were strewn everywhere. But Theo’s penlight confirmed what
the moist sea breeze had promised. The opening was wide enough to enable them to
clamber out to the exterior of the compound, if they used a push-pull maneuver.
Katsaris went first. Janson would go last. Between them, they would help the
weakened captives make their way over the rubble and onto the surrounding
grounds.
Eighty seconds later, the four of them were on the outside.- The sea breeze was
stronger, and the night sky was brighter than it had been; the cloud cover was
beginning to break up. Stars were visible, and so was a patch of moon.
It was not a good time for the nocturnal glow. They were outside the dungeon.
But they were not free.
Not yet.
Janson stood against the limestone wall with the others, determining their
precise position. The breeze cleared Janson’s nostrils, cleared them of the
bloody, clinging stench of his victims, as well as of the fainter animal stench
of the unwashed captives.
The area immediately beneath the limestone wall of the compound was safer, in
certain respects, than the area farther out. The seaside battlements, he saw,
were filled with armed men, some manning heavy artillery. That was why the
battlements were constructed—to fire upon the corvettes and schooners of rival
colonial empires. The farther out they were, the more exposed they would be.
“Can you run?” Janson asked Novak.
“A short distance?”
“Only a short distance,” he said reassuringly.
“I’ll do my damnedest,” the billionaire replied, jut-jawed and determined. He
was in his sixties, had been held in captivity under doubtful conditions, but
his sheer force of will would see him through.
Janson felt reassured by his steely resolve. Donna Hedderman he was less certain
of. She seemed the kind who might collapse into hysterics at any moment. And she
was too heavy to sling over a shoulder.
He put a hand on her arm. “Hey,” he said. “Nobody’s asking you to do anything
that’s beyond you. Do you understand?”
She whimpered, her eyes beseeching. A commando in black face paint was not a
comforting sight to her.
“I want you to focus, OK?” He pointed to the rocky outcropping, fifty yards
away, where the promontory dropped off in a sheer cliff. A low split-rail fence,
painted white and peeling, surrounded the cliff, a visual demarcation rather
than a physical impediment. “That’s where we’re going.”
For her sake, he did not spell out in further detail what the plan called for.
He did not tell her that they would be going over the cliff, dropping down on
ropes to a boat waiting on the frothing waters eighty meters below.
Katsaris and Novak now sprinted toward the rocky outcropping at the promontory’s
rocky overhang; Janson, slowed by the wheezing American, followed.
In the gray scale of nighttime vision, it looked like the very edge of the
world. A crag of pale rock, and then nothingness, complete and absolute.
And that nothingness was their destination; indeed, their only salvation.
If they reached it in time.
“Find anchor!” Janson called to Katsaris.
The cliff was largely gneiss, a tough, metamorphic rock, weathered into
irregular crags. There were a couple of plausible rock horns near the overhang.
Using one of them would be safer and faster than pounding bolts or pitons into
crevices. With sure, deft hands, Katsaris wrapped two loops of rope around the
more prominent of the solid rock horns, making a double-strand loop beneath it,
secured with an overhand knot. If one strand were cut—by friction against a
sharp crag, or a stray bullet—the other would hold. Janson had packed dry-coated
9.4mm Beal rope, with some elasticity to control the deceleration rate in a
fall. It was compact, but strong enough for the job.
As Katsaris secured the anchor, Janson swiftly trussed Novak in a sewn nylon
climbing harness, making sure the leg loops and waist belt were securely
buckled. This would not be a controlled rappel: the work would be done by the
equipment, not the man. And the equipment could not be elaborate: they had to
rely upon devices that could be easily carried. A figure-eight descender would
serve as the rappel brake. It was a simple piece of polished steel, smaller than
his hand, with two rings on either end of a center stem. One ring was big, the
other small. No moving parts. It could be rigged rapidly and easily.
Katsaris passed a bight of the rappel rope through the big ring and looped it
around the stem. He clipped the small ring onto Peter Novak’s harness with a
locking carobiner. It was a rudimentary device, but it would provide enough
friction to safely control the rate of descent.
From a corner tower above the battlements, a guard aimed a long burst of gunfire
in their direction.
They had been spotted.
“Christ, Janson, there’s no time!” Katsaris shouted.
But he could buy time—perhaps a minute, perhaps less.
Janson unhooked a stun grenade from his combat vest and threw it toward the
watchtower. It arced through the air and into the guard’s cabin.
At the same time, Janson tossed the rope coil over the cliff. The sooner Novak
followed, the safer he’d be: a single-pitch rappel was his only chance.
Unfortunately, the Kagama in the watchtower was swift and skilled: he grabbed
the grenade and hurled it away from him, with seconds to spare. The grenade blew
in midair, the flash outlining the four people at the edge of the cliff for
attack like a floodlight from a guard tower.
“Now what?” asked Novak. “I’m no rock climber.”
“Jump,” Katsaris urged. “Now!”
“You’re mad!” Novak cried out, aghast and terrified by the black nothingness
that seemed to stretch out below.
Katsaris abruptly lifted the great man and, taking care not to lose his own
footing, pitched him off the side of the cliff.
It was graceless. It was also the only way. The humanitarian was in no state to
absorb and follow even the most elementary coaching: a regulated plumb drop was
his only chance. And the overhang meant that the rock face would be a safe
distance away from him.
Janson heard the controlled slither of the 9.4mm rope as it fed through the
figure-eight brake, confirming that the cord would bear him down to the
water-plashed rocks below at a regulated speed of descent. The plunging cliff