The Balkan Assignment (12 page)

Maher was waiting for us at the site of the cave-in, relaxing near a pile of broken rock. He added the beam of his flashlight to ours as we came into view.

"Is everything all right?" he asked anxiously, ignoring my greeting. I nodded. "So far. Have you been able to clear a way through the cave-in yet?" Maher stood up and reached for his shovel, ignoring my question. I waited a moment and thinking he hadn't heard, repeated it. Again he ignored me and then stopped and stared blankly at the rockfall.

"Klaus," I said peevishly and Mikhail chuckled and picked up his own shovel. Something wasn't right . . . I took the flashlight from Mikhail and went over to Klaus. In the light I could see that his skin was ashen gray. Sweat stood out on his forehead in large droplets in spite of the coolness of the tunnel. Mikhail muttered in the background. Maher's breathing was ragged and his hands were shaking. I put a hand on his shoulder and shook him gently.

After a moment or so he responded and his eyes lost their inward-turned glaze to peer at me.

"Klaus," I shook him again gently. "Klaus, what the hell is the matter with you?" With an effort, he smiled and took my arm.

"Chris, it's time you got here . . . is the engine fixed?" I nodded and glanced around at Mikhail who shrugged. Maher pushed my hand aside and turned away. "Come,

we must finish. Morning will soon be here and we must

be gone . . ." he let the sentence trail off uncertainly. I went over to Mikhail. "What's the matter with him?" He shrugged again. "Ghosts." And it dawned on me. Beyond the rock slide was the cistern where the five slave laborers had been killed. Five men whom Maher had permitted his executive officer to murder. Perhaps his terror was magnified by the natural feeling of his claustrophobia brought on by the downward-slanting narrow walls of the tunnel, or perhaps it was fatigue and worry. But whatever, it had Klaus strongly in its grip.

"Sometimes today he was like this for a few minutes. Then he was all right again. He will hold together. Nazi!"

Mikhail spat in disgust and with a sneer as Maher went to work on the rock. The tunnel had been cut through the soft rock that formed the underpinnings of St. Peter'

s Mountain and shored with heavy timbers. Sometime during the twenty-five years since the end of the war, a timber had splintered under the load and a portion of the roof had collapsed. The cave-in brought down large boulders, some up to eight feet in diameter. These were the keys to the rock-fall which Mikhail intended to crack with black powder charges.

With hammers and rock drills, the three of us, at Mikhail's direction, spent another hour cutting a variety of channels and grooves into the three largest exposed rocks. It was obvious that Mikhail was an expert with explosives. He carefully went over each boulder to be dealt with, tracing faults and identifying pressure points. Once these were located and marked with chalk, he put us to work with the rock drills. Coarse grains of black powder, grudgingly measured out were then tamped into the holes with a wooden rod, a fuse inserted and a wooden plug

pressed down into the hole to seal in the exploding gases.

It was close on three a.m. when Mikhail finished. After we had completed the drilling, Klaus had begun to wander back and forth to the beach. Occasionally, he stopped to watch Mikhail work, then would go out again to the beach never saying a word. The tension mounted inside the tunnel as Klaus's weird behavior increased. It was so unlike him that I wondered if he wasn't becoming deranged.

Finally, Mikhail straightened up and stepped back to examine the rockfall. He grunted once and began to gather up his tools .

One minute it was silent, a silence that had come with the cessation of the incessant hammering, the next the tunnel was filled with the grinding roar of sliding rock and debris as a section of the roof twenty feet behind us gave way. Mikhail collapsed as the gasoline lantern was smashed, throwing the tunnel into inky blackness. Then it was over as quickly as it had begun. A few shudders of compacting rock and silence. It had happened so quickly that I barely had time to move from where I had been resting against the original rockfall. My hand was shaking so badly as I struck a match that it went out immediately. The second stayed lit somehow and its uneven light helped me find the flashlight that Klaus had propped on a rock to illuminate Mikhail's working area. In its strong, yellowish beam I could see where the tunnel roof had torn away between two supporting crossbeams. Water poured steadily out of the gash; water from the winter rains that had filtered down through the rock overlapping the western flank of the mountain and loosened the soft, sandstone like shale . . . literally rotting it away. The new cave-in left us sealed into a pocket no more than twenty feet long by the width of the tunnel . . . five feet.

Mikhail stirred against the rockfall where he had fallen and in a moment more, he was struggling to sit up.

"What . . . what . . ." was all that he could manage coherently. The rest was gibberish in Serbo-Croatian. A small piece of rock had ricocheted back, glancing off his head. It left a nasty but not serious cut.

The cold terror of our predicament now took hold of me with the clutching, squeezing fingers of nausea and

shock. In a daze, I watched Mikhail struggle into a sitting position and stare stupidly at the blood smeared on his hand where he had wiped his forehead. I sat down beside him and forced my head between my knees, breathing deeply to shake off the nausea. After a few minutes, the nausea and heat flush began to pass and I lay back gasping for breath. Mikhail stared as if seeing me for the first time. He blinked and rubbed his eyes and forehead again, starting the blood afresh.

"What in the name of God happened?" he mumbled.

For a moment, my throat would not work. Finally, I managed to force out in a hoarse voice: "The roof has collapsed . . . we're damned lucky . . . we weren't caught under . .."

"Where is Maher?" he demanded.

"Maher?" I repeated stupidly. "Outside on the beach ... I think. He was watching the beach until we finished."

Mikhail's laugh was harsh but agreeable. "Yes, he is standing guard on the beach . . . because he caused the roof to collapse. He tried to kill us!" Mikhail spoke with such certainty that for a moment I almost believed him.

"Why the devil would he do . . .?" I crawled forward to where the water was pouring down from the roof and splashed handfuls over my face and neck.

"Why not?" Mikhail interrupted. "The gold, you fool. If he can kill us, he will have the gold for himself .. . there would be no need to share it. That is why he no longer wants to go to Turkey as we planned. And why he does not want to tell where he now plans to go.

"

"Nuts!" I muttered. "Klaus can't fly an airplane. At the least, he would need me for that." Mikhail's head jerked around again and he glowered at me, his face working intently.

"Of course," he said slowly, to himself. "You are right. He cannot fly an aircraft. You must have been caught in here by accident ... poor planning for his part. That means he will be digging through to you and then you will both kill me . ." Mikhail did not finish the sentence—instead he launched himself at me. The suddenness of his attack took me by surprise and he caught me solidly in the chest with one hammerlike fist. I went down, gasping for breath. Mikhail was a big man, nearly sixfoot-three inches and well over two hundred pounds. Against that, my six-foot-one and 180 pounds were barely a match. Against the cunning and combat techniques he had learned as a partisan and guerrilla instructor, it was no match at all.

Mikhail followed the first blow with a kick that came up fast, catching me in the ribs. The yellowish light cast by the flashlight spiraled and did not stop until I felt the hard surface of the tunnel floor against my back. Mikhail reached down and grabbed my jacket with both hands and yanked me to my feet and hit me twice with teeth-rattling, back-handed blows that dumped me on the far side of the tunnel. Mikhail came in low for the kill .. . and I don't doubt that he meant to kill me. In the past three days I had almost convinced myself that he was a homicidal, manic depressive. He now confirmed that theory for me.

Mikhail lunged across the tunnel. As he reached for me, I kicked him in the shin, dragged my foot back again and kicked hard against the side of his knee. He went down like a rock and the pistol butt with which I hit him on the head was harder . . . though not by much . . . than the fist with which he clipped me. But he went down and I stayed up, and it was easy enough to hit him again on the head. This time he stayed down and stayed still.

I backed slowly across the tunnel, keeping an eye on his inert form all the while, and sank down next to the flashlight. I was too weary and disgusted to examine my bruises. I leaned my head against the wall for a moment . . . and more exhausted than I had realized, promptly passed out.

Several moments of panic passed before I remembered where I was and what had happened to place me half sitting, half lying in a widening pool of freezing water. The tunnel was silent except for the receding buzz in my head. As it died away, I became aware of a strange and intermittent scraping noise. I picked up the torch from the edge of the puddle and flashed it around the cavern. The water leaking through the ceiling in a steady freshet was already several inches deep over the rough-cut floor. Mikhail still lay on his back, half across a pile of rocks where I had knocked him unconscious hours, minutes, days before? His chest rose and fell evenly so I knew at least he was still alive; although then I couldn't have cared less. Except for the rising water, everything was as it had been. The scraping noise was louder against the entombing rockslide. Suddenly, it was punctuated with a grinding roar as a large boulder shifted position and thudded to the tunnel floor . . . on the other side. Klaus was digging through to us; at least I hoped to God it was Klaus. I dragged a shovel and pick to the slide and went to work. As I did so, the scraping noises stopped on the other side. I banged the shovel against a rock and immeditely the noise began again with renewed vigor.

I worked steadily for twenty minutes and ran out of wind; I had managed to make only a small dent in the debris. Disgusted, I waded over to Mikhail and shoveled water into his face until he woke up sputtering.

It took several minutes for him to regain consciousness enough to get to his feet. When he did, his face converted itself into one single snarl of hatred and he jumped me. Knowing his one-track mind, I had been expecting this reaction and was ready for him. The flat of a shovel in the face may not be pleasant, but it does have definite sobering tendencies, and between us we started to make progress on our side of the rockslide. The slide was deeper than I had anticipated. Not only had the tunnel roof collapsed, but everything above it as well seemed to have settled downward, compacting and twisting the mass of boulders and timbers. It began to look as if we would have to dig through half the mountain to get out. I had considered using the blasting powder to clear some of the debris, but that was thoroughly impractical as the concussion in the confined space would have flattened us like eggs.

Mikhail gave out first and stumbled over to the shelving slope of the original slide and sank down breathing heavily, his head thrown back and hands resting on his knees. After a minute, I followed him. He had picked up the flashlight and was aimlessly examining the slowly dimming bulb.

"That bastard Nazi has done this to us," he finally choked out. Suddenly Mikhail jumped to his feet and attacked the slide in a frenzy, realizing as well as I what was happening. For several minutes he worked like a man possessed, flinging dirt and rock in a steady stream until eventually

the lack of oxygen began to tell and the shovel dropped from his hands, and all he had left was a steady stream of curses.

I remember watching Mikhail slowly crumple into himself and wondering how he had ever managed to sustain a four-year guerrilla effort if he cracked that easily. He huddled down against the slide, mouth pressed against the rock, seeking the faintest trace of air. His curses gave way to mumblings that were either prayers or gibberish. The last thing I remembered was a dull and persistent ache in my chest.

Water dribbling into my face brought me awake again. Klaus was kneeling over me, face anxious as he poured water from a canteen. I coughed and choked and waved him away. When he was sure I was awake, he started to work on Mikhail. I climbed dizzily to my feet and staggered across the cavern to the spot where Klaus had cleared a way through the slide. The fresh air blowing through the opening was the sweetest I have ever tasted. My legs gave way and I sat down suddenly, smack into a puddle of water. For the longest time I just sat in that puddle, breathing deeply, waiting for the blackness to go away. Behind me, Mikhail began to cough; deep racking spasms which finally died away to intermittent groans. I leaned back against the rock and turned my head to watch him. He had shrugged off Klaus's supporting arm and was trying to stand. Klaus moved in again to help, but Mikhail tore his arm free and shoved Klaus away. Then he staggered past me and up the tunnel.

Klaus made as if to follow him, but stopped beside me when I held up a restraining hand and watched Mikhail weave up the tunnel and out of sight.

"If I were you, I'd stay out of his way for a while," I muttered.

"What . . . I don't understand what you mean . . ." "The hell with understanding, just stay out of the way for now."

Whether or not he realized exactly what had happened, the bruises on my face were fresh enough. He nodded and followed Mikhail slowly up the tunnel. After a few minutes I felt strong enough to follow them both.

As I emerged from the tunnel, I found the wind blowing stronger than ever. From the vantage point of the sloping beach, I could make out the silhouette of the PBY riding nervously at anchor in the cove. The moon was just disappearing over the western flanks of St. Peter's, its hard light filling the clear sky. Down on the edge of the beach near the calque, Mikhail and Klaus were standing with their backs to me. The wind carried away any trace of their voices, but the tenseness of their postures and their gesticulations left no doubt that they were arguing. After a moment, Klaus swung around and stormed angrily back up the beach. He passed me without a word and disappeared into the black tunnel. Mikhail turned and climbed into the boat and went into the tiny wheelhouse. He was safe enough there I decided. No one in his right—or wrong—mind brought up along the shores of the Adriatic would chance a small boat in a bora wind. I followed Maher into the tunnel and found him at the site of the original rockslide. Maher gave me a searching glance. "Mikhail thinks that I arranged the rockslide to kill him," he said slowly.