Two Crosses (55 page)

David rasped, “Gabby, crawl back across when I tell you. Crawl, and you’ll find a path leading up to the top tier, over in the brush. Follow it. Climb the steps and hide there inside the aqueduct. Don’t look at me like that. Do it! Ophélie, stay with Gabby. When I count to three.” He took a breath. “One, two,
three
.”

David rose to his knees and forced himself forward in the opposite direction. Gabriella saw him out of the corner of her eye as she pulled Ophélie along beside her.

“Dear God, oh, dear God!” She heard another shot and another, but she didn’t dare look back. The end of the bridge was forty yards away. They ran, crouching, until they reached the relative safety of the thick underbrush. Gabriella pulled Ophélie up beside her, climbing the embankment and scrambling over the rocks and loose stones. Ophélie dropped her pony and cried out as it bounced down the slope.

“Come on, sweetie. We’ll get it later. We must hurry.”

She saw Ophélie’s strength fading, her face ashen with fear. It took only a few moments to reach the ancient stone steps leading to the aqueduct. She pushed Ophélie in front of her as they climbed the narrow circular stair that suddenly plunged them into darkness. Quietly they huddled in the narrow conduit. It was barely two feet wide and six feet high.

Only then did Ophélie speak. “Bribri,” she said between sobs. “Papa’s shot. He’s bleeding. Will he die?”

Gabriella shook her head. “No, no, of course not. He’ll be fine. We must wait here. He’ll come get us. He’ll tell us what to do.”

Her voice sounded surprisingly calm, she noticed. But inside, pure panic was rising. David was shot. It was a nasty hit. And somewhere, somehow, a madman with a rifle was waiting to shoot again.

Dear Lord
, she prayed silently,
You alone can see. Oh, God. Protect us. Protect all three of us. And give me wisdom to know what to do.

She sat with Ophélie for a moment. “Do you feel strong enough to walk, Ophélie?”

The child nodded.

“Then come. We’ll follow the aqueduct through the tunnel.”

They inched their way forward in the dark. Every thirty feet or so an opening in the slats above let in a shaft of light. It was all the hope they had.

David was beginning to feel light-headed as the blood seeped from the wound in his shoulder. It could have been worse, he reasoned. It could have been his heart. He had reached the other side of the bridge and sat panting. Four bullets had missed. That was good. It had to be Jean-Claude. Jean-Claude, the sniper, was baiting him. Even now he was doubtless heading for the bridge to finish his work.

Head spinning, David fought to keep conscious. Gabby and Ophélie. When Jean-Claude didn’t find them on the bottom tier, he would surely search inside the old aqueduct. They would be easy prey.

Forcing himself through the thick foliage, David climbed up toward the second tier. There was no path on this side to help him, and he slid as he climbed. Another fifty feet and he would reach the end of the third tier, which spilled over onto land by a wide stone-walled walkway. Back across the walkway he knew he could enter the aqueduct.

He paused, listening for the sound of twigs breaking. Nothing. But Jean-Claude would not be far behind. David fell onto the stone walkway and lay there for only a moment. Then he got to his feet and stumbled inside the dark aqueduct. He ducked his head to enter, for it sloped down, allowing less than six feet of height. He heard the sound of footsteps inside the hollow chamber and stopped.

God
, he thought.
God of Gabriella. I don’t know what to pray. Life. Please, life. For us.
His heart jumped erratically. More footsteps. Far away, he heard Ophélie gasp.

“Someone is there,” she whispered.

“It’s Papa,” David said with difficulty. “I’m here. Wait. I’ll come to you.”

The steps were running now. They met near the center of the aqueduct, and Gabriella caught him in her arms. “David! David, are you all right?”

He winced with pain, ignoring her question. “Gabby. He’ll come here. But … but I don’t know from which way. When he does, take Ophélie the opposite way. He’ll follow me.” He nodded upward, toward a hole between the slabs.

Gabriella gasped. “On top? You can’t … you’re hurt!”

“Gabby, dear.” He managed to smile at her as the light flickered across her face. “Gabby. This is very serious. Go to the buses. Have the police come. You’ll be safe with them.” He felt his head swimming.

“David!” Her voice startled him back to consciousness.

He turned around. Jean-Claude Gachon stood outside the aqueduct forty feet away, laughing.

“Run now,” David whispered and watched as the woman and child turned and fled down the narrow dark corridor they had just come up.

The rifle was slung over Jean-Claude’s shoulder.
A madman
, thought David.
I am dealing with a madman.
A thought resounded in his mind, as if heaven itself were screaming down to him:
Then make him mad.

With a groan he hoisted himself up through the hole in the slate, using his good arm for support. He called back to Jean-Claude. “You’re not afraid of heights I hope.”

The Frenchman laughed, a piercing, evil laugh. “Of course not.” He too heaved himself onto the roof from outside the aqueduct, and suddenly the two men stood facing one another on the twelve-foot ledge atop the Pont du Gard.

Don’t look down
, David told himself, as Jean-Claude eased his muscular frame toward him.
Keep him moving so he doesn’t have time to aim.

“You’re hurt!” Jean-Claude howled, delight in his voice. “Blood! I can see it.”

The height was dizzying. David crouched. Jean-Claude inched forward, a wild gleam in his eyes. The river, running high, tumbled past so far, far below.
Jump!
David thought. From his position in the center of the bridge, the river was directly below. Surely the water was high enough to break the fall. But then with a sick feeling he saw that the lower tier of the bridge jutted out beyond the top one. One would have to jump out awfully far to avoid hitting it.

Jean-Claude inched closer and drew his rifle. He stood twenty feet away from David. “You’re a pitiful sitting duck. A helpless hare.”

Helpless hare!
The words stung David’s mind. Not another helpless rabbit to be blown to bits by an enemy rifle. Adrenalin pumped through his body. He moved toward Jean-Claude.

The Frenchman stepped backward, laughing.

“You have been smart, Jean-Claude,” David said. “How did you find us?”

“You fool! Rosie followed you to your stinking orphanage. And now you will lie in your own blood even as she does.”

David made a quick movement again, from his crouched position, like a lion waiting to pounce.

Jean-Claude stepped back again, laughing. “I’m not afraid of a maimed cat, you filth. I will blast you in a breath.”

One more move backward, David thought, and Jean-Claude would back into a hole in the slate and lose his balance. He moved forward again and yelled, “You are nothing, Jean-Claude. Nothing! Just a simple pawn for Ali. He’ll use you, then throw you away.”

Enraged, Jean-Claude lifted the rifle. In that instant David jumped toward him. The Frenchman stepped back into the hole in the slate, teetering precariously as he fought to regain his balance. He dropped the rifle as he grabbed for thin air. The rifle floated, momentarily suspended in time, until it hit the bridge below with a hollow thud.

For a brief second Jean-Claude seemed to lose his concentration as he followed the path of the rifle with his eyes. He fell to his knees, grasping the two-foot ledge to the left of the opening in the slate. David lunged at him, and the two men struggled on the narrow ledge.

Jean-Claude grabbed for David’s shirt, but the movement caused him to lose his balance. “Fool,” he screeched as he slipped; then terror replaced the mad gleam in his eyes.

The man clutched hopelessly at David’s shirt as he dropped a few more inches, and David felt his weight pulling him down and over the edge. David grabbed on to the ledge with one arm, and a searing pain shot through his other shoulder.

“Help me!” Jean-Claude cried, but already his body was hanging perilously off the top of the bridge, and his grip on David’s shirt was slipping. David struggled to pull his weight away from the edge.

Jean-Claude cursed. “I’ll take you with me,” he said, and with a last grunt he yanked David in his clutch before his fingers lost their grip and he fell, tumbling far, far down.

David saw it in a flash, out of the corner of his eye. The man’s body struck the first tier of the bridge a hundred feet below.

David fought to pull himself back up on the ledge. It was no use. Now his legs hung out into the free air. He clung to the ledge of slate with his good arm, but he couldn’t hold on much longer.

Two thoughts flashed through his mind:
I have too much to live for now, God.
And then:
Kick out with your feet. Kick off from the stones!

With all the strength of a man who had suddenly been given another chance to live, David forced his feet against the hard rock and shoved himself off the bridge with such force that he propelled his body out, far out. It seemed an agony of hours as he fell, struggling against the sky to straighten his torso before he hit the river and sank beneath its roiling waters.

33

Victory was in the air. Ali could taste it. Somewhere, huddled in dark rooms in Évian, France, the FLN met with de Gaulle’s men at yet another attempt to resolve the fate of Algeria. The talks had dragged on now for a week. But Ali was confident of the outcome.

It was all he had hoped for, all his father had promised, and for a brief moment the sweet taste of a free Algeria made him forget his personal vendetta. But only briefly. He fingered a page from the
Midi Libre
, southern France’s daily paper. It had arrived by boat that morning along with the news of the Évian peace talks.

Ali took a long draw on his cigarette and then ground the butt in an overflowing ashtray. A caption caught his eye:
DESPERATE DIVE TO DEATH
.

The body of Jean-Claude Gachon, 31, was found on the first tier of the massive 2,000-year-old Pont du Gard yesterday afternoon. Witnesses said Gachon had shot at them as they picnicked on the ancient aqueduct. Gachon and an American, David Hoffmann, apparently climbed to the top of the aqueduct, where Gachon lost his balance and fell 100 feet below to his death.

Hoffmann, who also fell from the top, landed in the Gardon River. Police attribute his survival to the fact that the waters were swollen after Sunday’s flash flood. Despite a bullet wound in his left shoulder, Hoffmann managed to swim to shore and was taken to the hospital in Anduze.

The reason for Gachon’s attempt on the lives of the picnickers is not yet clear.

Ali wadded up the newspaper and threw it on the floor, cursing loudly. “Fool! Bumbling idiot!”

Rachid and Jean-Claude, two of his most promising men, dead. And now Ali had no information whatsoever, except that the three he wanted dead were still alive. He spat on the floor.

Hussein, who had brought him the paper, hovered beside him, a scowl on his young face.

“And what news do you have for me?” Ali questioned.

The boy straightened and spoke in his deepest voice. “No one has come from that street, sir. I have watched and watched. But sometime they will. They have to. Give me another chance.”

“Then go!”

The boy shuffled out of the grungy room.

Ali glanced at the newspaper clippings on the wall. His little mission was not complete. But the war would be over soon, and then there would be cause to celebrate. Then he would crush the pied-noirs and their filthy harkis like the butt of a cigarette. And the three he sought would be swallowed up as well. It would all work out in the end.