“Please call me Ali, sir,” the captain said, smiling back at Hawke.
“All right, Ali, tell me about the supply situation.”
“There is a long steel dock, sir. Built into the rocks just below the fort. Where the daily tourist ferries tie up. The supply ship, she comes once a week. She ties up there, too.”
“A supply ship,” Hawke said, “Same day each week?”
“Yes, sir. Comes every Saturday night around nine. Day after tomorrow. Just like clockwork, sir.”
“Very helpful, thank you.”
“In about fifteen minutes we’ll be rounding Point Mala, sir. Then you’ll be able to see our beautiful fort in 3-D living color.”
Hawke had taken an immediate liking to the Cacique’s skipper. He’d already decided he could trust him. Years of exposure to sun and salt air had weathered his skin to a fine, nutty brown. He was a good-looking fellow, in his midforties perhaps, with thick black hair just going grey. His large brown eyes were sad and watchful above the jutting nose. He had strong white teeth and a mouth that, while smiling at the moment, could easily harden into a fierce line when the shooting started.
Hawke had sized the captain up as both a steadfast friend and a merciless enemy. He was glad to have him aboard.
“Here’s our problem,” he now said to Brock, tapping his index finger on a faded drawing appended to a larger elevation of the fort.
“The twin towers,” Brock said with only a trace of irony.
“Right. Standing guard over the only entrance in the entire structure, according to Ahmed. Look here. These steps leading up from the sea to the entrance. I have them rising fifty feet above sea level, leading up to this main gate. The only way in or out. If I were Rommel, I would have put heavy machine guns in those towers. High-rise pillboxes. I would imagine the Chinaman in charge has done the same.”
“No way inside from the rear?” Brock asked.
“No. The rear of the fort is built right into the bluff facing the sea. Surrounded on three sides by solid rock. Whoever built this bloody castle was thinking ahead.”
“We can’t sneak up behind them, we can’t land on their roof. Looks to me like we’ve got to go up the front steps and knock on the front door.”
“With the towers providing overlapping fields of fire.”
“Turning anyone attempting to mount the steps into hamburger.”
“And any approaching vessel to scrap iron. Sounds exciting, doesn’t it, Harry?”
The captain turned away from the wheel.
“All right, Commander, you can see the fort just coming into view on our port bow!” Ali said. “I won’t be able to get any closer or slow down, I’m afraid. Otherwise it will look like we’re looking.”
“Let’s go see this thing,” Hawke said.
He and Brock got up from the table and quickly moved outside onto the afterdeck. Ahmed put down his magazine and looked up as if pleasantly surprised by all the commotion. “Hate to disturb your studies, old fellow,” Hawke said. “Apparently Fort Mahoud just hove into view.”
The three men ran for’ard and stood at the rail on the port bow. Hawke and Brock both had their glasses trained on Point Mala. Gulls and terns whirled about above the towering waves that hammered the ragged and rocky shoreline. The air was misty along that point of land, and it was difficult to see much from this distance.
Hawke found himself watching with not a little apprehension as Cacique plowed through the deep, rolling waves and bits and pieces of the fort became more and more visible. They had the thing almost abeam now, and as soon as this huge wave receded, he’d have a much better idea of what he was up against.
Hawke was both thrilled and appalled by what he saw. Fort Mahoud was far more forbidding in reality than on paper. Huge waves continously smashed against its battlements and retreated. It stood there as it had for centuries, back against the sheer-faced wall, impregnable and unassailable.
It was as magnificent an example of military architecture as he’d ever seen. The fortress was built of whitish stone that seemed to gleam in the late-afternoon sun. It was battlemented, crenellated, and towered. The most imposing aspect was the looming, perfectly circular towers facing the sea. He could see the wide steps now, leading up to the large arch of the gate. It appeared to be a massive iron-barred affair that was raised or lowered from within the fort.
“See that gate?” he said to Brock standing beside him.
“Oh, yeah. I was just checking it out. I got one word for you. Semtex.”
“Yes. Assuming there is still someone alive at the top of the steps to set the charges.”
“I guess we can forget about coming down that cliff face.”
“I guess so,” Hawke said.
Fort Mahoud had been purposefully designed and built with its back hard up against a sheer perpendicular wall of reddish rock. The rock face swept up smoothly above the fort, with neither a crevasse nor a crack to be seen, for a good five hundred feet up to the top. Any thought of a nighttime abseil down that vertical cliff face was now clearly seen to be impossible. It was obvious that the only possible approach was the suicide steps leading up from the sea.
“Is this as close as we can get?” Brock asked.
“It won’t get any better closer up,” Hawke said. “What do you think, Irontail?”
Brock looked at him. “What did you call me?”
“I got it from the director. He says bullets bounce off your butt. So, what do you think?”
“Okay, how do you like your news?”
“Straight up.”
“Reminds me a little bit of Normandy in a funny, bad, way,” Brock said with a wry smile. “All we have to do is make it to the beach alive and then, completely exposed, dodge a few bullets going up fifty feet of steps, scale two sixty-foot-high towers and overpower the guards up there, take out a couple of their heavy machine guns, blast our way through an iron gate, kill a few dozen heavily armed ex–French Legionnaires and some Chinese characters, and then get twenty women and god knows how many children safely off this island.”
“I’m sorry,” Hawke said, “I wasn’t listening. What did you say, Brock?”
“I said, all we have to do is—”
“Hold on a second,” Hawke said. He’d been scanning the steel dock built into the rock on either side of the staircase. Now, he quickly swung his glasses a few degrees back to the left and froze. He’d seen something there a few seconds ago, during a break in the waves. Now it had disappeared underwater. An anomaly in the rock, perhaps, just above the waterline. He started moving the glasses in tiny increments farther to the left. The binoculars froze once more.
“What have you got, Hawke?” Brock said, raising his binoculars. “You see something I don’t see?”
“Ahmed, take a look at this, will you?” Hawke said, handing the man at his left the Zeiss glasses. “Left of the staircase. About four or five meters. Almost invisible. Tucked up under the dock.”
“Ah, yes, I see it.”
“What is it? It looks like some kind of small crescent-shaped opening in the rock.”
“It leads to the powder magazine.”
For the first time all day, the sun came out on Alex Hawke’s face. “The powder magazine?”
“Yes, sir. For wartime purposes. So forces on the mainland could resupply the garrison. They could secretly ferry stores inside the fort during a siege. During the night. Powder and ammunition.”
“Strange, I didn’t notice it on any of the plans I saw.”
“You won’t see it anywhere.”
“And why is that, exactly?” Brock said, newfound optimism in his voice. He raised his glasses and found the near-invisible tunnel again.
“A military secret, Mr. Brock. If the fortress plans unfortunately fell into enemy hands…well, you could easily see what a disaster that would be, sir, if your enemy discovered a tunnel leading directly inside the fort to the powder magazine. Field Marshal Rommel had it sealed up for just such a reason in early 1941. I myself had it reopened when I restored Fort Mahoud to original specifications. Frankly, I’d forgotten all about it. It’s not on the tour.”