The Lost Temple (35 page)

He grinned and edged himself over the top of the cliff. “That’s our ticket off the island.”

Lieutenant Maxim Sergeiovich Soloviev of the Soviet Naval Infantry watched the dinghy glide toward the jetty. The oars splashed in the water; in the back of the boat he could see a tall figure sitting stiffly, with a shorter and stouter figure slouched beside him. He glanced nervously up toward the encircling cliffs to make sure his men still had it secured. The instructions from Odessa had been vague, but the threat if he failed unmistakable.

The boat knocked against the pier, next to the floating wreckage of the American seaplane. The tall passenger clambered out. Soloviev clicked his heels together and saluted smartly. “Comrade Colonel.”

The man returned it with a razor-sharp salute of his own. Soloviev tried to get a glimpse of him in the darkness. The face was gaunt and filled with violence: a white scar puckered his cheek from ear to jaw, and his right eye was covered by a triangular patch. It didn’t make much difference, Soloviev thought: the remaining eye was sunk so deep in its hooded socket that it was as black and impenetrable as the other.

Soloviev took a deep breath. “Comrade Colonel, I am pleased to report we captured the harbor without incident. My men control the cliffs and are ready to advance on the lighthouse. If our enemies are still here, I believe that is where they will have barricaded themselves.”

The colonel grunted. His companion had emerged from the boat now; over the colonel’s shoulder, Soloviev caught a
brief impression of a heavy, jowled face and short fair hair. He didn’t seem to be wearing a uniform—though, as Soloviev had learned, those were often the men to fear most in Stalin’s Russia.

“Do not underestimate them.” Even on the warm night, there was something chilling and harsh in the colonel’s voice. “Many of our men have already paid the price for such a mistake.”

“And they have something that is very valuable to us.” The other man spoke for the first time. His Russian was poor, the accent harsh. Soloviev wondered where he was from. Poland, perhaps? “It is imperative to take them alive.”

Soloviev’s heart sank. He looked to his colonel for reassurance, but got none—only a harsh twist of the mouth and a curt, “Be careful. Comrade Stalin will be most disappointed if you fail.”

As if to echo his worst fears, at that moment a volley of machine-gun fire burst out from the cliffs away to his right. A second light appeared halfway up the tower of the lighthouse. Soloviev threw himself on to the dock, though the firing was wild and the bullets nowhere near him. To his shame, the colonel never moved, but simply swivelled his good eye round to see where the shots were coming from. Soloviev shamefacedly got to his feet and was further mortified to see he had bird droppings smeared all over his uniform. Up above, more shots rolled over the island as his men returned fire. Perhaps they had hit the gunman, for the shooting from the tower had stopped as abruptly as it began.

The colonel turned toward him. The promise of an eternity of Siberian winters seemed written in the harsh lines of his face. “Send the patrol boat round to the west to cover your advance. Then take your men and take that fucking tower.”

Twenty yards away, crouched in the rocks at the bottom of the cliff, Grant watched the hapless officer run up the stairs. The patrol boat revved its engines and headed away from the pier. Its wake sent cold water sluicing round Grant’s ankles, but he ignored it. Out on the dock the colonel gave the
lighthouse one more look, as though something was puzzling him, then followed the lieutenant with his companion in tow. Grant tried to imagine the look on his face when he got inside the lighthouse.

But he wanted to be well off the island before that happened. The harbor was deserted now, except for a solitary guard posted on the jetty. A little further out the Russian flying boat bobbed in the water. It was too awkward a shape to try to bring to the pier; instead, the Russians had anchored it in the bay.

Grant pulled out the knife strapped to his leg and bit it between his teeth. Without a ripple he slid into the water and kicked his way toward the jetty.

Soloviev peered round the bunk-house wall and stared up at the tower. His men had cleared the cottage and found no one; all that was left now was the lighthouse. There had been no more shots fired from inside—perhaps his men had killed the gunman despite the Colonel’s orders. A shiver went through him at the thought. But there must be others: the radio message had said there were four enemies on the island. Maybe the colonel could overlook one more or less.

He beckoned his sergeant over. “You have the explosive charges?” A nod. “Then open that door.”

Grant moved noiselessly through the water, careful to avoid the razor-sharp fragments from Jackson’s floatplane that littered the waves. He could still hear the rattle of gunfire drifting down from the plateau, see the flashes rippling on the tower like fireworks. The Soviets must still be shooting at shadows, but that was all to the good. It distracted the guard on the jetty: he had turned to watch the lighthouse, so he never saw Grant rising out of the water behind him. Grant grabbed an iron mooring ring, then took the knife from his teeth and stabbed it hard into the back of the guard’s heel. He screamed and doubled over, twisting round to see who had attacked him. That unbalanced him. Grant reached
up, grabbed his belt and dragged him into the water. He struggled for a moment, splashing and screaming, before Grant’s knife slicing across his throat finished him.

Grant looked up at the cliffs. The shooting had stopped for the moment, but there was no sign he had been heard. He waved to where he thought Marina was and beckoned her down. Then he turned and swam over to the flying boat. It was an extraordinary aircraft, like nothing he’d ever seen: a long, upturned nose stretched out in front of the cockpit, while the single engine was mounted amidships directly above the cabin, overshadowing the windscreen like some monstrous cockatoo.

“As long as it flies,” he muttered to himself.

He hauled himself up on the nose and slithered his way aft to the entry hatch.

Smoke billowed from the chaos of tangled metal that had once been the lighthouse door. Soloviev’s ears were still ringing from the blast as his men stormed inside the tower. He waited; he was painfully aware of the colonel and his friend standing a few paces behind him, watching. He heard sporadic shots from within the lighthouse, muffled by the massive walls, and he hoped his
kulak
sergeant had had the brains to remember his orders. Had they surrendered?

The sergeant appeared in the doorway. His face was streaked with soot, and grim. “Comrade Lieutenant, come and see.”

Soloviev followed him through the twisted door. He took off his cap and flapped it in front of his face, trying to wave away the smoke that filled the lighthouse. He strode up the spiral stairs to the first floor. Through an open door he saw half a dozen men cowering in a small room. Most of them seemed to be in their underwear. “Are these the British?”

The sergeant shook his head. “Our men. We found them locked in a storeroom. It was lucky we did not use grenades.”

“Then where are the British? Who was shooting at us from the tower?”

The sergeant didn’t answer, but jerked his thumb up the next flight of stairs. As Soloviev climbed, he became aware of a strange rattling noise echoing down the stair shaft, like a tin can being kicked along a street.

He came out on the next floor—and stared in horror.

Grant guided the flying boat past the point, wrestling with the yoke against the brisk current that swirled round the island’s tip. Even at low speed, the whole cabin seemed to shake with the vibration of the engine mounted over his head.

Behind him, Marina stood by the open hatch in the fuselage and scanned the dark shore. “There.”

Grant saw them too, huddled together on a small finger of rock that dipped into the sea. He could only see two of them, but there was no time to look. A wave slapped against the hull and spilled into the cabin; it took all his concentration to hold the plane steady.

“I can’t get any closer.” He had to shout to make himself heard over the roar of the engine. “They’ll have to swim for it.”

Through the darkness he saw two men tottering on the edge of the rocks. One hesitated; then the other pushed him and he fell flailing into the water. The second followed more gracefully. The first one must have been Reed; the next looked like Jackson. But if that was so, where was Muir?

The plane rocked as the two men reached it and grabbed on. Marina hauled them in, dripping and spluttering.

Grant glanced back. “Where’s Muir?”

Jackson picked himself up off the floor. Water streamed off him. “Didn’t he find you?”

“I left him with you.”

“He thought he saw another patrol boat coming in from the other side of the island. Said he was going to find you to warn you.”

“Well, he didn’t.” Grant glanced out of the cockpit window. At the ridge at the top of the hill, he could see pinpoints of light waving in the darkness. “Shall I go and look for him?”

“No time.” The lights on the hill seemed to be getting closer. “He’d do the same if it was us out there.”

Without further argument Grant opened the throttle and turned the plane toward the open sea.

A metallic, metronomic beat filled the room, counting down the seconds of Soloviev’s career. He was standing right underneath the lantern; above, he could see its beam reflected on the enclosing glass through an open trapdoor. In the middle of the room a slowly spinning axle descended through the ceiling and disappeared into the floor, no doubt to the engine room. It bulged in the middle where a long coil of rope had been wound tight round it. As the axle turned, it dragged the sub-machine gun tied to the rope end in slow circles on the floor. The trigger was still down and the gun ticked like a clock as the firing pin hammered against the empty chamber.

The sergeant pulled out his knife and cut the gun free. To Soloviev’s relief, the clicking stopped. “A slip knot. They must have jammed it in the window. When the axle wound the rope tight, it closed round the trigger and started firing at us.”

Soloviev staggered over to the open window and gulped in the night air. Outside, he could see the colonel and his companion standing by the bunk house, looking up. Their faces were in shadow, but he didn’t need to imagine how they would look when he told them the awful news. But perhaps he could redeem the situation. The British must still be somewhere on the island.

Above him, the lighthouse lumbered on, revealing and hiding the world in passing phases like the moon. Soloviev stared out to sea, looking for solace in the still waves. Instead, to his utter and uncomprehending despair, he saw what looked like the colonel’s flying boat gliding through the water—not in the harbor where it was supposed to be, but off the far north-eastern point of the island. His legs went weak; he sagged against the windowsill. A second revolution of the lantern revealed it struggling into the air, water streaming off
its pontoons. On the third turn it was banking round to the west. By the fourth it had vanished.

The Soviet plane rose above the clouds. Grant eased back on the unfamiliar controls and relaxed into his seat. Jackson made his way forward and tapped him on the shoulder. With the engine mounted barely two feet over their heads, the noise inside the cabin was almost deafening. “Where are we going?” Jackson shouted in his ear.

Grant shrugged and tapped the fuel gauge. “We don’t have enough fuel to make Athens.”

“Gotta be Istanbul, then. That’s the nearest safe harbor.”

“Then what?” Grant glanced at the compass and nudged the yoke to correct his course.

“Then we find out what happened to the shield. And hope to hell the Commies didn’t get Muir.”

Istanbul. Next morning

Grant was woken by a terrible cry. He sat up in bed, and had already thumbed off the Webley’s safety catch before he realized what it was: the chant of the muezzin, dreamy and mysterious, drifting through the thin gauze curtains. The chorus echoed all over the city, from every minaret, like birdsong.

Curled beside him, Marina threw an arm across his chest and hugged herself against him. She was naked. Her tousled hair fanned out across the pillow; her eyes were closed; her bare leg wrapped round his. Grant reached across and stroked her shoulder, while she played with the hairs on his chest. He lay there for a few moments, soaking up the sounds, and the exotic smells of spice and dust that blew through the open window.

Marina’s hand moved down. Her fingers drifted across the taut muscles of his abdomen, then lower. Grant tensed. Gently, he rolled her on to her back and slid on top of her. He pushed himself up on his arms so he could look down on her face, the sleepy eyes slowly opening with delight. He kissed her.

By the time Grant got out of the bathroom, Marina was already dressed. “I’m going to go to the library. Sourcelles mentioned something that I want to investigate and I think they have a
Suda
here.”

Grant didn’t bother to ask who or what a
Suda
might be. “I’ll come with you.”

“No. You stay with Reed—he needs protecting. I think he’s on the verge of making a breakthrough.”

Grant looked doubtful. “Really? All I’ve seen is scribbles. I thought he was getting nowhere.”

“You don’t understand how he works. Imagine the language like a nut he’s trying to crack open. All this time he’s been holding it in his palm: examining it, turning it round, knocking it to hear the noises it makes. You think he’s learning nothing. Then, all of a sudden, he’ll tap it in exactly the right place and the shell will just fall open for him.”

“I still think you shouldn’t go out on your own,” said Grant stubbornly.

She blew him a kiss. “I’ll be back by lunchtime.”

Grant found Jackson eating a late breakfast in the hotel restaurant. The breakfast was meager—salty cheese, salty olives, salty bread and a hard-boiled egg—but the coffee was strong. Grant drank two cups.