Dark Full of Enemies(61)
He doubletimed to the head of the column and fell in behind Petersen just as they reached the rail tunnel. Petersen turned to him and held up a hand. McKay turned and signaled likewise to Stallings, who did the same, and in the dark behind him he could hear more than see the column stop. A few men knelt, puffing and blowing. He worried about noise discipline again.
Petersen trotted back along the column and came forward again with H?kon and Magnus. H?kon, the smaller of the two, carried a bundle slung across his chest—Graves’s little gift for the rail bridge. He had put together the material for his bomb in the boat on the way and shown the pair how to set the charge. Once in place, they would climb back to the ridge and join the others waiting in ambush on the heights. Petersen had picked Magnus for his mechanical proficiency, and H?kon because, as Petersen put it, “He will do anything.” Magnus smiled and nodded to McKay, and then Petersen waved them forward. They stepped up onto the tracks, looked left and right, and ducked into the black maw of the tunnel.
Without a signal, the remaining nine rose and moved forward again. McKay’s heartbeat picked up, and, absurdly, he thought of the Hardr?de’s engine—tonk-tonk-tonk. He grinned beneath his scarf. Soon, now.
They slipped and scraped across the ridge and came to the footpath between the headquarters camp and the dam. Petersen’s men immediately fell out and, working slow and quiet in the darkness, laid their ambush.
Petersen watched a moment as if admiring his men, then turned to McKay. He gestured—After you—and McKay led them, five now, up the dark ridge toward the glow.
He climbed the ridge and looked on the dam again. He stood as Stallings, Graves, Ollila, and finally Petersen moved up beside him and knelt. It was the first time Stallings and Graves had seen the dam. He looked at them—only Stallings seemed awed. Graves looked eager, ready to put his explosives to use. McKay looked at Ollila, who looked back at him. He remained, for a moment, inscrutable, blank, but finally smiled—a wide, childlike grin.
Then McKay noticed the music—Wagner, drifting up from across the lake. It puzzled him, but he would not mind the distraction. Anything to cover their approach.
He looked again at Ollila and nodded. Ollila knew what to do. He dropped to his belly in the snow and crawled off into the crannies of the rock, looking for a blind. German hunting.
Now for the hard part, McKay thought, and signaled to the others to follow. He had scouted a point at which they could climb down—an angle of the cliffs not completely sheer, set low in a saddle of the mountains and ending at the bottom in what had looked like a snowy bank of scree. The cliff still rose over one hundred and fifty feet above the dam, but the bank saved them at least fifty feet of climbing. It was the chink in the mountain wall they needed.
When he reached the top of the cliff, he and Stallings dropped their packs and set to work by instinct. They both carried rope, hammers, ice axes, pitons, and karabiners. They drove a network of long pitons into the rock, dulling the blows with a rubber sheet folded between hammer and piton. Only Wagner and the snow, crunching, squeaking, made any sound. Soon they had ropes dropped over the ledge. McKay would abseil to the bottom carrying only his Thompson. Stallings would come last. The difficult part came in between.
McKay hooked to the rope and leaned back, out and away, over the edge, and held on, braced above the cliff and the darkness below. He tested his footing once on the gritty stone, then kicked back and dropped away. For a few moments he fell alone, in the dark, just himself and the cold rush of air and the music reflecting off the rock. He could have been at home, climbing in the Gorge.
He slowed himself and stepped easily down to the snowy scree, unhooked, and gave the rope a tug. Moments later, out of the vault of the night came Graves. He descended under control but came too fast, and McKay could hear the rope scorch through the palms of his gloves as he gripped himself to a stop six feet above the ground. Graves’s arms shook with the effort.
“Bllllllloody—” Graves said, and let go.
He dropped and crashed but stopped himself before rolling down the bank of rock. McKay turned to look at the dam, lying in its dragon-reek behind them, and waited. The guards walked their rounds, and a new act of the Ring began. He looked at Graves. Graves grinned and held up his hands—his gloves hung in shreds around his palms. He picked the remnants off and flexed his fingers as he mouthed some choice obscenities. McKay smiled and shook his head and tugged the rope again.
The gear came next—first Graves’s pack, the most precious, then McKay’s and Stallings’s. Petersen came next, abseiling down like a veteran climber. McKay had only had time to give him instructions once aboard the fishing boat, but the lesson had stuck. Now for Stallings. McKay signaled up the rope and felt suddenly sick. He imagined Stallings, concussed Stallings, slipping from the rope halfway down.
Stallings made it down easily. At the bottom, he released the rope, stooped for his pack, and grinned at McKay when he stood. Didn’t think I’d make it, huh? McKay shouldered his own pack and led them down the bank.
The climb had brought them the cliffs down two hundred yards behind the dam, in the dark beside the lake. What scree they dislodged from the snow and ice skittered down to the shore. They reached the bottom of the bank and followed the base of the cliffs, hunched to keep low and out of sight. They could see clearly, or well enough, in the ambient glow of the dam now. They reached one last shoulder of rock and McKay stopped. This was it.