was now Novak’s greatest protection, shielding him from the riflemen on the
battlements. Bullets could only shoot past him; they could not reach him. Novak
had to do nothing. Gravity would do its part.
The B team, waiting in the boat at the base of the cliff, would do the rest.
The overhang of the cliff had protected the compound from amphibious attack over
the centuries, even as the rocks and shoals kept warships from approaching too
closely. The location of the fortress had been well chosen. And yet these
features could provide the invaders with safety, too.
Peter Novak was almost home.
For the rest of them, it would not be so simple.
Janson and Katsaris could rappel down the cliff easily enough. But what of Donna
Hedderman? There was no spare climbing harness and braking system for her use. A
long look passed between Janson and Katsaris: wordlessly, a plan was agreed
upon, tacitly devised in desperation.
Even as he made a double cord loop around another rock horn, Theo’s expression
was clear enough. Damn the American! But leaving her behind was out of the
question.
A burst of gunfire kicked up a painful spray of rock.
There was no time.
More and more of the sentinels would direct their raking fire toward the
promontory. No doubt the darkness and fog made sighting difficult, for the
bursts were aimed with only approximate accuracy, and at forty yards, that was
not sufficient for a reliable kill. The rebels were compensating with sheer
quantity, however. More fire rained down on them. How much longer before a
bullet struck home?
“Rig yourself,” Janson ordered Katsaris. Meanwhile, Janson belayed the woman
with what was to have been his own harness, the nylon webbing stretching tautly
around her thighs and considerable waist. Hastily, he rigged the figure eight. A
less-than-gentle push, and she was on her way down.
That left Janson with neither a harness nor a rappelling device. Facing the
anchor Katsaris had rigged, he straddled the rope, looping it around his left
buttock and across his hip, up across his chest and around his head to his right
shoulder, and then over and down his back to his left hand. The rope was now
configured in an S around his upper body. He would guide with his right hand,
regulate speed with his left. Clasping the rope palm up, he could move it off
his back to increase speed, and winch it around his hip to slow down. His nylon
clothing would provide some protection from rope burns. Still, he was under no
illusions. He had body-rappelled once before, in a training exercise; it would
be extremely painful.
“Does that really work?” Katsaris asked skeptically.
“Sure it does,” Janson said. “I’ve done it before.” And he had hoped he would
never have to do it again.
Several buzz-saw-like bursts of gunfire pelted the cliff like a hailstorm of
lead. The rock at their feet exploded, only inches away; fragments stung
Janson’s face. There was no time.
“I’m stuck!” Donna Hedderman’s wailing voice, perhaps thirty feet down the
cliff.
“We’ll be right there,” Janson called to her, as he and Katsaris eased off the
overhang. Bending at the waist, the two men kept their legs perpendicular to the
sheer surface, “walking down” where it was possible. For Janson, the descent was
excruciating; the nylon shell was strong but supplied no cushioning as the cord
bit into his flesh. The only way to lessen the pressure was to increase the
demands on his already aching muscles.
“Help me!” The woman’s quavering voice echoed against the sheer rock.
A third of the way down, they found her and saw what had happened. Her long,
matted hair had become entangled in the figure-eight rappel device. It was a
hazard they should have anticipated. Katsaris took out a knife and, propelling
himself sideways with his feet, approached her. She let out an earsplitting
scream. With one slice, her entangled hair was free. But there was more of it,
and it could happen again. Katsaris released his brake hand and activated his
autoblock, a piece of webbing that now wrapped around his rope and arrested
further descent.
“Hold still,” he said. Inching farther toward her, he grabbed handfuls of her
hair and sliced them off, ignoring her loud squawks of protest. As coiffure it
was inelegant; as a safety precaution it was a thing of beauty.
Janson worked hard to keep up with the others, gritting his teeth as the
stresses moved along the cord. At one moment, it tightened around his chest like
a python, constricting his breath; at the next, it was digging into his gluteus
muscles. Body-rappelling was natural, he supposed, in the way that natural
childbirth was. The agony was what made it real. His hands were overstrained;
yet if he let go of the rope, there would be nothing between him and the rocks
below.
He had to hold on just a little longer. He had to keep reminding himself that at
the base of the cliff, the other team members would be waiting for them, in the
ultralightweight rigid inflatable boat that had been stowed on the BA609. They
would be rested and ready. Janson and the others would be safe in their hands.
If only they could reach them.
Clear like water, cool like ice.
Seconds ticked by like hours. He could hear the sounds of the aquatic team as
they untrussed Peter Novak and bundled him into the boat.
This race would go to the swift. If there was any doubt where they had gone, the
cable anchors would tell the sentries everything they needed to know. And if
those anchors were sliced in the next few minutes, three people would plunge to
their death. The darkness and fog were their only allies, time their greatest
enemy.
The only hope of survival lay in speed—to get off the ropes and into the boat as
fast as possible.
How much time had passed? Forty seconds? Fifty? Sixty?
Just when his muscles had reached the point of total depletion, Janson felt
hands reaching up to grab him, and finally he let go of a lifeline that had
turned into an instrument of torture. As he took his seat in the flat-bottomed
watercraft, he looked around him. There were six of them. Novak. Hedderman.
Katsaris. Andressen. Honwana. Hennessy would be piloting the BA609, taking
second shift.
The motor whined as the rigid inflatable boat—a Sea Force 490—shot off from the
rocks, hugging the shore for half a mile as it moved south, and then out into
the mist-shrouded waters. The poor visibility would make it difficult to sight
the RIB, and they had chosen a course that would take them out of the way of the
rebels’ fixed artillery. “All accounted for,” Andressen said into his
communicator, alerting Hennessy in the BA609. “Plus one guest.”
A few bullets pocked the waters some distance from them. They were bullets fired
out of desperation, fired for show. But such stray projectiles could sometimes
achieve the same result as ones that were carefully guided.
Only when they were half a mile out could they no longer hear the sounds of the
rebel forces; KLF gunfire no doubt continued, not least out of sheer
frustration, but the reports were lost amid the sound of the restless ocean.
The Sea Force heaved in rhythm with the waves; its powerful motor strained as it
competed with the monsoon-roiled waters. As the Anuran coast disappeared in the
mists, Janson had a fleeting sense of how insignificant their vessel was, a tiny
thing of rubber and metal propelling itself though the vast, empty seas. And yet
for those who cared about the future of humanity on this planet, its cargo was
significant indeed.
Peter Novak faced the direction in which they were traveling. From the set of
his jaw, Janson could see that he was continuing to regain a sense of his
identity, a sense of his selfhood. Yet his expression was blank; his mind was
elsewhere. The spray and spume of the ocean was glittering in his hair and on
his face; his broadcloth shirt was spattered with brine. From time to time, he
would run a hand through his bristle-thick hair.
Hedderman’s face was buried in her hands. She had curled up into a ball. It
would take her a long time to heal, Janson knew. The two had fallen into the
KLF’s clutches in radically different circumstances and were a study in
contrast.
Janson’s men, too, were silent, lost in thought, or rehearsing the remaining
operational steps.
Would the rebels follow in a speedboat? It was a possibility, though not a
probability. If one was not skilled at rappelling, Adam’s Hill was a formidable
obstacle.
The six people in the RIB could hear the whomp-whomp of the rotors before they
could see the craft. Another quarter mile of open sea separated them from it.
Andressen checked his watch and turned up the throttle. They were in operational