Read Online High Citadel / Landslide by Desmond Bagley - Free Book Online

there. It was less than five miles up to the airstrip by the road and there was nothing to stop anybody going up there. If Grivas’s confederates were anywhere, it was not likely that they would be at this camp—but it was as well to make sure. He scanned the huts but saw no sign of movement.
    Presently he saw Forester wave from the side of the rock he had indicated and he waved back. Rohde went up first, in a wide arc to come upon the camp at an angle. Then Forester moved forward in the peculiar scuttling, zigzagging run of the experienced soldier who expects to be shot at. O’Hara wondered about Forester; the man had said he could fly an aeroplane and now he was behaving like a trained infantryman. He had an eye for ground, too, and was obviously accustomed to command.
    Forester disappeared behind one of the huts and then Rohde came into sight at the far end of the camp, moving warily with his gun in his hand. He too disappeared, and O’Hara felt tension. He waited for what seemed a very long time, then Forester walked out from behind the nearest hut, moving quite unconcernedly. ‘You can come down,’ he called. ‘There’s no one here.’
    O’Hara let out his breath with a rush and stood up. ‘I’ll go back and get the rest of the people down here,’ he shouted, and Forester waved in assent.
    O’Hara went back up the road, collected the party and took them down to the camp. Forester and Rohde were waiting in the main ‘street’ and Forester called out, ‘We’ve struck it lucky; there’s a lot of food here.’
    Suddenly O’Hara realized that he hadn’t eaten for a day and a half. He did not feel particularly hungry, but he knewthat if he did not eat he could not last out much longer—and neither could any of the others. To have food would make a lot of difference on the next leg of the journey.
    Forester said, ‘Most of the huts are empty, but three of them are fitted out as living quarters complete with kerosene heaters.’
    O’Hara looked down at the ground which was crisscrossed with tyre tracks. ‘There’s something funny going on,’ he said. ‘Rohde told me that the mine has been abandoned for a long time, yet there’s all these signs of life and no one around. What the hell’s going on?’
    Forester shrugged. ‘Maybe the commie organization is slipping,’ he said. ‘The Latins have never been noted for good planning. Maybe someone’s put a spoke in their wheel.’
    ‘Maybe,’ said O’Hara. ‘We might as well take advantage of it. What do you think we should do now—how long should we stay here?’
    Forester looked at the group entering one of the huts, then up at the sky. ‘We’re pretty beat,’ he said. ‘Maybe we ought to stay here until tomorrow. It’ll take us a while to get fed and it’ll be late before we can move out. We ought to stay here tonight and keep warm.’
    ‘We’ll consult Rohde,’ said O’Hara. ‘He’s the expert on mountains and altitude.’
    The huts were well fitted. There were paraffin stoves, bunks, plenty of blankets and a large assortment of canned foods. On the table in one of the huts there were the remnants of a meal, the plates dirty and unwashed and frozen dregs of coffee in the bottom of tin mugs. O’Hara felt the thickness of the ice and it cracked beneath the pressure of his finger.
    ‘They haven’t been gone long,’ he said. ‘If the hut was unheated this stuff would have frozen to the bottom.’ He passed the mug to Rohde. ‘What do you think?’
    Rohde looked at the ice closely. ‘If they turned off the heaters when they left, the hut would stay warm for a while,’ he said. He tested the ice and thought deeply. ‘I would say two days,’ he said finally.
    ‘Say yesterday morning,’ suggested O’Hara. ‘That would be about the time we took off from San Croce.’
    Forester groaned in exasperation. ‘It doesn’t make sense. Why did they go to all this trouble, make all these preparations, and then clear out? One thing’s