The gloom of the underground lake abruptly deepened.
Hart stopped, treading water. It wasn't completely dark because there was still a faint blue glow from the ice roof, but the reflected light that came from the lantern at the upper end of the cave waterfall had gone out. He waited a minute for the storm troopers to restore it but nothing happened. The pilot shouted. There was no answer. He could just make out the pale glimmer of the falls and he began breast-stroking toward it. The light didn't come back on.
He reached the rock shelf at the base of the waterfall, rested a moment, and then boosted himself up. With growing apprehension he side-stepped along the ledge to the waterfall and groped in its spray for the climbing line. The rope had disappeared.
"Hans!" he yelled. "Rudolf!"
Silence.
They'd abandoned him.
So much for Drexler's promise. Greta must have succeeded with the drug and the couple's usefulness was at an end. Worriedly, he wondered if Drexler would harm her.
Hart had expected them to wait until the last of the lake growth had been delivered to the sub. His escape plan- it was more a desperate hope than a plan- had always called for Greta's assistance. She'd organize a distraction of some sort, make sure he had at least some supplies- enough to attempt the unthinkable.
By simply leaving him in this dark hole, though, Drexler seemed to have foreclosed that possibility. He tried to think. They must be satisfied he couldn't follow even though he'd mentioned his climb out in the dark before. How could they be so sure? What were they counting on?
Of course. Rudolf had said it. They were going to blow up the cave.
"My God."
He shivered. Don't panic! If you panic you'll never get back to Greta.
He realized he had one chance. They must have allowed time for themselves to get clear of the grotto: Fritz's skeleton had forcibly demonstrated how unstable the tubes were during a nearby explosion. The lantern hadn't been extinguished that long. It was plain: he'd have to catch them before the timer went off.
He clenched the cliff. He would catch them.
He'd climbed this waterfall and chimney so frequently along the rope, learning hand- and footholds, that he should be able to do it blind without one. Now that would be tested. Reaching up in the cold water he groped for a familiar handhold, found it, and pulled, placing his foot next. Yes. Just as he remembered. Think! Go slow enough to think.
When would the explosion go off?
He pushed himself up as the water beat on him in the dark, leaning out to gasp for breath. Damn them! But anger spoiled concentration. So. Carefully. Three points on the rock at all times. Reach only with one hand or one foot. Up…
It was disorienting in the dark, but he climbed until echoes told him he'd reached the point where the water fell out of its pipelike chute toward the lake. He reached in back of himself and his palm slapped rock. Yes! He pushed off, his back slamming against the other side of the chimney to wedge himself. Now he could ascend with more confidence.
How many minutes had passed? How long would the timer be set for?
Progress was painful: at one point the chute widened so much that he had to brace with his arms instead of his back, trembling from the strain. Then he was past it and sound and touch told him he was finally near the chute's upper lip. Bending and bracing, he brought himself around to a point where he could lunge face-first into the rushing river above the edge of the falls, frantically grabbing for slimy handholds to prevent himself from being swept back down into the lake. Then he kicked and pulled furiously until he was up, kneeling in the level stream, chest heaving, one hand around a vine for support.
A vine?
He dropped it as if shocked. It had to be the wire of the demolition charge.
"Jesus Christ." He stood, swaying as he caught his breath. It was pitch black. He carefully shuffled forward against the current until his shin brushed the wire and elaborately stepped over it. A thought occurred to him. If the Germans had bothered to set explosives on the downstream end of the grotto, where the river would eventually cut a new path anyway, they'd certainly wire the upstream end as well. He'd have to watch for explosives there too.
How much time?
He counted his steps upstream, trying to visualize the grotto. One chance, one chance, he kept telling himself.
By his calculation he was near his sleeping spot. There wasn't even a spark of illumination. It was blacker than night, as black as a tomb. But if they'd been hasty… He crawled out of the river and groped in the sand, the mineral smell of the hot spring giving him a crude compass. Yes! The wool of his blanket! He scrambled across it, banged painfully into a rock, felt its underside… Thank God. They'd left what he'd stored there: his parka, boots, and helmet. The miner's helmet. The bastards had been too arrogant or too lazy to pack his gear out. Too stupid. He sobbed a prayer of relief.
He found the battery and flicked on the light, its modest glow seeming brilliant. Hastily he hauled on clothes and boots and sprang up with the helmet on his head, the beam stabbing wildly around the lip of the falls. He spotted a drooping wire connecting two charges on either side of the water. A box, a clock. He inspected. The timer hand had stalled at the zero point! Had the demolition failed? He bent closer, peering, and realized there was an audible ticking. The timer hand was simply close. Very close. Two minutes to go?
He didn't have a clue what would happen if he tried to disconnect the wire.
He began running upstream, water spraying and the beam of his helmet bouncing madly. Ahead was the dark hole of the tunnel that led out of the grotto. He jumped, wedging his arms into the tunnel, and kicked upward. Another wire caught on his coat. Damnation! Gently he lifted the parka free and humped over it like a worm, losing the thread of seconds he'd been counting in his brain. His boot snagged and he tensed for an explosion that didn't come. Then he was past the wire and crawling furiously through the narrow tunnel, his sphincter tightening at the thought of the charge about to go off at his back. He came to the tight squeeze he and Greta had found and wriggled through it like a madman, his clothes a smear of dirt. Then on and on, each yard a measure of safety…
Something kicked him hard from behind and a roar clapped his ears. The explosion actually lifted and shoved him forward, hot as hell, the roar blasting his helmet off and sending it sailing ahead of him until the battery wire yanked taut. Then he came down with an oof and a gout of heat and smoke and gritty debris rattled past him, choking his throat with dust. Somewhere he could hear the crash of immensely heavy rock falling.
Crawl, dammit! Crawl!
He was clawing now, the helmet jammed back on his head, wriggling forward until he could rise to his hands and knees, then to a crouch, staggering as fast as he could with his bent back scraping rock. Air kept pummeling him as the ceiling gave way behind, each collapse triggering another in a chain reaction. He managed a stooped run just as the roof of the low tunnel gave way with a roar. Something heavy clipped him like the swipe of a claw… and then he was beyond the cave-in, coughing painfully in a swirling cloud of dust and smoke, his head ringing and the miraculously shining beam of his headlamp knocked awry.
For the moment, at least, he was alive.
He stood a minute, dazed. Then he dimly remembered he didn't have time to rest: the storm troopers were well ahead of him, no doubt readying another explosion at the outer entrance. He stumbled on, finding the haze beginning to clear as he climbed up the slope of broken basalt boulders. Ahead was the vertical chimney that led out of the mountain. He climbed to the plug that choked the chimney's base.
Anxiety plagued him. Had they blown the outer entrance? No, not yet. Of course not yet: the Germans hadn't had time to climb out themselves. Get a grip! Panting, he worked around the jam of rock to where he could see up the immense chimney, flicking off his headlamp.
Far, far above was the bob of lamps like his own, as remote as stars, as elusive as fairy lights. It was them. The storm troopers. They were still hoisting themselves and their packs of lake organism out of the cave, slowly inching up the chimney toward the tunnel that led to his alternate exit. The lights were like a taunting beacon.
Somehow he'd have to outrun them. He groped along the wall. Yes! They were packing out so much cargo they'd failed to carry out all the ropes. And why bother? With the initial explosion the American was certainly already dead, the cave useless. So they'd left in place the climbing line that followed the first pitch up the vertical shaft. He grasped it and pulled as hard as he could with grim satisfaction. Should have cut it, Bristle-Head. Should have stopped to make sure. Too cocky. Too lazy. He put up a foot to climb.
The cave quivered then and he put out a hand to brace himself. Another explosion? No, a tremor from the sister volcano. A sympathetic echo to the manmade bomb. He heard cries of alarm from the Germans far above, and behind him there was a growl of settling rock. Shards rattled down the chimney and he crouched, listening to them whine and shatter. Christ, what a hellhole he'd found!
Then the cave quieted again. The shouts echoed away. Both Hart and the Germans resumed climbing, the pilot going as hard as he could while watching the lights above. At least he wasn't burdened with a damn pack. He was gaining.
Twenty feet. Fifty. Seventy. All by feel up the rope. The cave so dark it was as if he was climbing in space. It became a kind of rhythm, his trance broken only by another falling rock, this time dislodged by someone above. He hugged the chimney wall as it sizzled past with terrifying energy, its fragments clicking like angry insects when they ricocheted back up the shaft around him. The rock had to be an accident, he told himself. There was no way the Germans could be throwing at him. No way they could see unlit Owen Hart, the stalking ghost.
He reached the tunnel shelf where he and Greta had first entered the cave and risked a quick blink of light. Another climbing line was still in place. He grasped it.
"What was that?" The voice came from far above.
"What?"
"I thought I saw a light!"
He waited. The headlamps above had paused.
"I don't see anything."
"You're spooked," someone growled. "Come on, let's get out of this pit." It was Hans, the pilot guessed. "I'd feel safer on the Russian Front." The lights began moving again, Hart following as he heard them shouting instructions to each other to belay their heavy packs.
Finally the lamps began to wink out: the Germans had reached the steep tunnel at the top of the chimney that would take them to the outside and were slowly climbing into it. He waited a moment until the last one disappeared and then gratefully flicked his own headlamp on, momentarily half blinded. One more rope to go! He still had a chance! The damn Nazis would have to pause at the top exit to set further charges. He'd catch them there.
With his light on he could move faster. He'd never worked so hard in his life, lungs aching, muscle fiber screaming. Up, up, up. The dread of being trapped in the mountain electrified him. Somehow, he would get to Greta, take the food, say goodbye…
"Goddamn!"
The oath made Hart jerk in alarm. There was a bang and a bullet whined off the face of the shaft, the pilot instinctively ducking his head. Then another, closer this time. He switched off his lamp.
"What is it?"
"The American! He's following us up the rope!" Another shot.
"What! Impossible! Cut the line, cut the line!"
"No, wait! I think I can hit him…"
Another bullet slammed inches above the pilot's head. Owen planted his boots on a ledge and hugged the cliff face, trying to melt into it. More shots, wilder this time in the dark. Then a headlamp beam was dancing as it tried to find him.
"There he is!"
Hart froze in the illumination.
"I've got him…"
The rope went slack.
"No!"
Hart clutched the cliff.
"Jesussss…!" The cry above dissolved into a scream and the headlamp beam began revolving. One of the Germans had cut the line while the shooter was still hanging on it. The rope slithered down past Hart, its end slapping him in the face, and the gunman hurtled by at the same time, his body cleaving the air, his wild screams echoing and reechoing as his light tumbled down into the pit. There was a sickening thud, far below, and the lamp went out.
"God in heaven! What happened?"
"It was Oscar! He went back down the rope, you fucking idiot!"
A moment of silence. Then, "Where's Hart?"
"How the hell do I know?"
"If you'd just shot him at the bottom like I told you- "
"Shut up. I'm going back down to look for him."
"No! There's no rope!" A pause. "He can't follow us."
"Maybe. Come here." The voices grew quieter. Were they climbing again?
Hart was trembling, afraid his fear would shiver him right off the cliff. There was nothing to do for it but struggle upward. He risked his light, tensing for a gunshot, and then, when no bullet came, picked out handholds he'd used before. Amazing what the brain remembered! So he climbed like a man possessed, his gaze fixed on the tunnel hole at the ceiling. His lamp was growing faint, his muscles trembling, his mind screaming at itself not to think about the hundreds of feet of yawning blackness below. And then at last he was at the tunnel too, jamming his exhausted arms and kicking his way upward, his breath coming in gasps, sweat stinging his eyes. He switched off his lamp to disguise his success and crawled hard up the lava tunnel. Time. Time! Soon they'd be setting the last charges. As he crawled upward, sometimes banging painfully into unyielding rock, he tried to listen for sounds of the Germans ahead. Silence. Were they simply out-running him?
Suddenly light blazed and he was squinting into the glare of a headlamp. Hans was filling the tunnel ahead with his giant's body, his head uphill, grinning at Hart over the cocked readiness of his upraised knees. "Now we fight one last time, yes?" the German greeted. Then he lashed out with his boots.
Hart reared back, the leather missing his nose by the width of a sole. The pilot skidded downward into safer shadows, braced, and yelled. "Too slow, you Nazi gorilla!"
"Come here, Hart! Fight like a man, you coward!"
Owen reviewed his mental map of where they were. Switching on his lamp for an instant he spied a side tunnel. He turned the light off and writhed into it.
"You kick like a girl, Hans! You fight like your mother!"
Cursing, the German fired. A pistol bullet whined off the rocks. Then more shots, an angry fusillade more to vent anger than hit anything. He heard the click of a fresh clip being slipped into the gun. "Hart!" The pilot was silent. Hans worked down the tunnel after him. Owen waited.
"Hart?"
There was silence.
"Hart, where are you?"
Cautious now, his gun out, the German slid past the side tunnel, dropping toward the junction of tube and chimney.
"Hart? Did I get you, yellow man?"
The pilot pushed off into the main tube and dropped toward the German. Hans twisted with a curse, trying to bring his gun around in the restricting tube, but before he could get his arm free Owen struck with his own boot, catching the storm trooper on the nose. The man howled and slipped toward the abyss, his vision blurred by his own blood. The gun skittered out from under him.
"Boots hurt, don't they?" the American growled.
Hans had jammed himself into the tube at the lip of the chimney, his legs kicking in empty air as he arrested his fall. "You bastard!" he roared. "I'm going to choke the life out of you! I'm going to squeeze until you beg!"
"Fuck you, Hans." Owen braced himself uphill from the German and pulled on a loose rock, yanking it free and shoving it downward as hard as he could. The exertion cost him his own grip and he slid after the small boulder as it banged down toward the storm trooper. Hans instinctively put out his arms to protect his face, a fatal error. He lost his grip on the tunnel.
"Shit!"
There was a thud as the boulder hit, a howl of outrage, and a rattle of loosened rocks. Then Hans's light disappeared. He was gone.
Hart thrust out his own arms and legs to brake himself at the edge of the chimney and skidded to a stop, listening in horrified fascination to the long, trailing scream. Then it stopped abruptly, the sound dying in its own echoes.
Two down, one to go. Panting, the pilot began climbing again, yanking away the route-marking ribbons he'd left on their initial descent.
When he neared the surface he switched off his light and crept ahead cautiously. Had the remaining Nazi simply set the charges and fled? Hart almost hoped so. He was too exhausted for a fight. He debated, sweating.
Then he risked a shout. "Rudolf!" The yell echoed through the cave.
"Hart?" The voice was wary.
Owen tightened his voice as if he was in pain. "It's Hans. Hart hurt me, but I got him! Help!"
"Hans?"
"Help me, dammit! I can't climb out! I lost my light!"
There was an uneasy silence. Then a scraping as the German began to slowly descend. "I'm coming!" He added a cautious warning. "I have a gun!"
"For God's sake don't shoot!" Hart slipped down into a side tunnel he'd explored earlier. "Help me! I'm bleeding!"
"Try to climb up, Hans! We have to hurry! The timers are set!"
"Please! It hurts!"
"Fuck." The German scrabbled lower. His light began to glow on the tube walls.
Hart retreated into the side tunnel. "In here!"
There was a splash of light. Bristle-Head followed, swearing. "It's too tight! What are you doing in here?"
"I'm lost!" Hart groaned. "Hurry!"
Then he dropped quickly and silently to the main tube and began to double back toward the surface.
"Hans! Where are you? Hans?"
Quickly now, very quickly.
"Christ! The markers are all gone! Hans?" Silence. "Where the hell are you?"
Time. How much time?
Realization dawned. "Hart! Hart, you son of a bitch!" Bristle-Head began to climb back. "A dead end! Where are the damn markers? Hart, you sneaking bastard…"
Owen switched his lamp on to hurry. Bristle-Head must have seen its receding glow because another shot rang out far below him, its energy consumed by ricochet.
"Hart…!"
The pilot staggered into the small, sandy-floored room at the cave mouth. His battery was nearly exhausted, its light duller than a candle. In the feeble gleam and the pale light from the nearby entrance he saw explosives wired as before. Behind and below he could hear the German swearing furiously as he tried to find his way up the cave. The pilot looked at the timers. Eleven minutes. Too long. Taking a breath, he shoved the minute hand on the dial to one, praying he hadn't disrupted its mechanism. "Time's up, Rudolf," he whispered.
He hurtled forward on hands and knees toward the low slit of the cave opening, clawing for its brightness. His head popped out into the shock of Antarctic cold and he rolled out onto the shelf and over its lip to the snow below, landing with a thud and digging in with fingers and toes to arrest his slide. Then he pressed his face into the slush and waited.
The flank of the mountain heaved.
There was a roar and a fountain of rock debris made an arcing plume from the cave entrance. The fragments sailed over the pilot's head and spattered onto the cone far below Hart's position. He could hear the grinding collapse of rock inside the mountain.
Was it over?
Then there was an ominous rumble, outside this time. He lifted his head. Beyond the haze of smoke and dust at the collapsed tube's mouth, farther upslope, a slice of snow had sheared away and was avalanching downward like an advancing wave. Hart staggered upward to the basalt outcrop and threw himself at its toe. Thundering snow blasted over his head and crashed onto the slope where he'd lain moments before, churning like a threshing machine, eating space. He pressed himself into the outcrop. Then the avalanche guttered out on the slopes below and the mountain's quivering stopped. Sound growled away.
Numb, he stood up. The cave was gone, erased by a smear of rock. He was alone and the world was still.
Turning, he looked out over the immensity of Antarctica. A clean sharp wind snapped at his filthy clothes. The cove far below still beckoned.
He took a deep breath. It was time to get back to Greta.