Wyatt’s Hurricane / Bahama Crisis. Desmond Bagley
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the gaping hole he had made.
He rested for a few minutes, then went to look at the damage. By his calculations, he should merely have broken through to the next cell and it had been a calculated risk whether he would find the door to that cell locked. But to his surprise, when he looked through the hole he could see, though not very clearly, a part of the square partly obscured by a ragged exterior wall.
The shell that had hit the Poste had totally destroyed the next cell and it was only by the mercy of the excellent and forgotten builders of his prison that he had not been blown to kingdom come.
He had dislodged only two of the heavy ashlar blocks that made up the wall and the hole would be a tight fit, but luckily he was slim and managed to wriggle through with nothing more than a few additional scrapes. It was tricky finding a footing on the other side because half the floor had been blown away, leaving the ground-floor office starkly exposed to the sky. A man looked up at him from down there with shocked brown eyes – but he was quite dead, lying on his back with his chest crushed by a block of masonry.
Wyatt teetered on the foot-wide ledge that was his only perch and supported himself with his hands while he looked across the square. It was desolate and uninhabited save for the hundreds of corpses that lay strewn about, corpses dressed in the light blue of the Government army uniform. The only movement was from the smoke arising from the dozen or so fiercely burning army trucks grouped round what had been the centrepiece – the heroic statue of Serrurier. But the statue was gone, blown from its plinth by the storm of steel.
He looked down. It would be quite easy to descend to the ground and to walk away as free as the air. But then he looked across and saw the door of the ruined cell hanging loose with one hinge broken, and although he hesitated, he knew what he must do. He must find Dawson.
He picked his way carefully along the narrow ledge until he came to a wider and safer part near the door. From then on it was easy and inside thirty seconds he was in the corridor of the cell block. It was strange; apart from the heavy layer of dust which overlay everything, there was not a sign that the building had been hit.
Walking up the corridor, he called, ‘Dawson!’ and was astonished to hear his voice emerge as a croak. He cleared his throat and called again in a stronger voice, ‘Dawson! Dawson!’
A confused shouting came from the cells around him, but he could not distinguish Dawson’s voice. Angrily, he shouted, ‘Taisez-vous!’ and the voices died away save for a faint cry from the end of the corridor. He hastened along and called again. ‘Dawson! Are you there?’
‘Here!’ a faint voice said, and he traced it to a room next to Roseau’s office. He looked at the door – this was no cell, it would be easy. He took a heavy fire-extinguisher, and, using it as a battering ram, soon shattered the lock and burst into the room.
Dawson was lying in bed, his head and hands bandaged. Both his eyes were blackened and he seemed to have lost some teeth. Wyatt looked at him. ‘My God! What did they do to you?’
Dawson looked at him for some seconds without speaking, then he summoned up a grin. ‘Seen yourself lately?’ he asked, speaking painfully through swollen lips.
‘Come on,’ said Wyatt. ‘Let’s get out of here.’
‘I can’t,’ said Dawson with suppressed rage. ‘The bastards strapped me down.’
Wyatt took a step forward and saw that it was true. Two broad straps ran across Dawson’s body, the buckles well under the bed far beyond the reach of prying hands. He ducked under the bed and began to unfasten them. ‘What happened after you were beaten up?’ he asked.
‘That’s the damnedest thing,’ said Dawson with perplexity. ‘I woke up in here and I’d been fixed up with these bandages. Why in hell would they do that?’
‘I threw a scare into Roseau,’ said Wyatt. ‘I’m glad it worked.’
‘They still didn’t want to lose me, I guess,’ said Dawson. ‘That’s why they strapped me down. I’ve been going through hell, waiting for a shell to bust through the ceiling. I thought it had happened twice.’
‘Twice? I thought there was only one hit.’
Dawson got out of bed. ‘I reckon there were two.’ He nodded to a chair. ‘Help me with my pants; I don’t think I can do it myself – not with these hands. Oh, how I’d like to meet up with that son of a bitch, Roseau.’
‘How are your legs?’ asked Wyatt, helping to dress him.
‘They’re okay.’
‘We’ve got a bit of climbing to do; not much – just enough to get down to street level. I think you’ll be able to do it. Come on.’
They went out into the corridor. ‘There’s a cell a bit further along that’s been well ventilated,’ said Wyatt. ‘We go out that way.’
A shot echoed in the corridor shockingly noisily and a bullet sprayed Wyatt with chips of stone as it ricocheted off the wall by his head. He ducked violently and turned to find Roseau staggering down the corridor after them. He was in terrible shape. His uniform was hanging about him in rags and his right arm was hanging limp as though broken. He held a revolver in his left hand and it was perhaps that which saved Wyatt from the next shot, which went wide.
He yelled, ‘That cell there,’ and pushed Dawson violently. Dawson ran the few yards to the door and dashed through to halt, staggering, in an attempt to save himself falling over the unexpected drop.
Wyatt retreated more slowly, keeping a wary eye on Roseau who lurched haltingly down the passage. Roseau said nothing at all; he brushed the blood away from his fanatical eyes with the back of the hand that held the gun, and his jaw worked as he aimed waveringly for another shot. Wyatt ducked through the cell door as the gun went off and heard a distinct thud as the bullet buried itself in the door-jamb.
‘Over here!’ yelled Dawson, and Wyatt hastily trod over the rubble and on to the narrow ledge. ‘If that crazy bastard comes out we’ll have to jump for it.’
‘It’s as good a way to break a leg as any,’ Wyatt said. He felt his fingers touch something loose and they curled round a fist-sized piece of rock.
‘Here he comes,’ said Dawson.
Roseau shuffled through the door, seemingly oblivious of the drop at his feet. He staggered forward, keeping his eyes on Wyatt, until the tips of his boots were overhanging space, and he lifted the gun in a trembling hand.
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