Seeing no sign of lights or movement, he traced the line to the grappling hook and saw that it was firmly imbedded in a rock outcropping.
Pitt's zany idea had worked incredibly well.
Satisfied the hook wasn't going anywhere, he rose to his feet. He untied the kite and hid it in the vegetation opposite the path before returning to the edge of the bluff and giving two sharp tugs on the rope that vanished into the darkness.
Far below, Pitt turned to Maeve. "Your turn."
"I don't know if I'm up to this," she said nervously. "Heights scare me."
He made a loop, dropped it over her shoulders and cinched it tight around her waist. "Hold tight to the line, lean back from the cliff and walk up the side. Al will haul you up from above."
He answered Giordino's signal by jerking three times on the line. Maeve felt the slack taken up, followed by the pressure around her waist. Clamping her eyes tightly shut, she began walking like a fly up the vertical face of the cliff.
Far above, his arms too numb to elevate Maeve by hand, Giordino had discovered a smooth slot in the rock that would not damage or cut into the nylon fibers. He inserted the line and laid it over his shoulders. Then he bent forward and staggered across the path, dragging Maeve's weight up the cliff behind him.
In twelve minutes, Maeve appeared over the edge, eyes tightly closed. "Welcome to the top of the Matterhorn," Giordino greeted her warmly.
"Thank God that's behind me," she moaned gratefully, opening her eyes for the first time since leaving the beach. "I don't think I could ever do it again."
Giordino untied Maeve. "Keep watch while I hoist Dirk. You can see a fair distance along the cliffs to the north, but the path south is hidden by a big group of rocks about fifty meters away."
"I remember them," said Maeve. "They have a hollow interior with natural ramparts. My sister Deirdre and I used to play there and pretend we were royalty. It's called the Castle. There's a small rest station and a telephone inside for the guards."
"We've got to bring Dirk up before the next patrol comes along," said Giordino, carefully dropping the line again.
To Pitt, it felt as if he were being hauled topside in the time it took to fry an egg. But less than ten meters from the rim, his ascent abruptly stopped. No word of washing, no word of encouragement, only silence. It could only mean one thing. His timing was unlucky. A patrol must be approaching. Unable to see what was occurring on the ledge above, he pressed his body into a small crevice, lying rigid and still, listening for sounds in the night.
Maeve had spotted the beam of light as it swung around one wall of the Castle and immediately alerted Giordino, Quickly, he secured the line around a tree to maintain tension so Pitt wouldn't be dropped back onto the beach, He brushed dirt and dead leaves over the section of rope that showed but had no time to conceal the grappling hook.
"What about Dirk?" Maeve whispered frantically, "He might wonder what happened and call up to us."
"He'll guess the plot and be as quiet as a mouse." Giordino answered with certainty. He shoved her roughly into the underbrush beside the path. "Get in there and stay low till the guards pass by."
Inexorably, the unswerving single beam of light grew larger as it approached. After having walked their circuit a hundred times in the past four months without seeing so much as a strange footprint, the two-man patrol should have been lax and careless. Routine inaction leads to boredom and indifference.
They should have walked right on past, seeing only the same rocks, the same bends in the path, hearing the same faint beat of the surf pounding the rocks far below. But these men were highly trained and highly paid. Bored, yes, lethargic, no.
Giordino's pulse jumped at seeing that the guards were studying every inch of the path as they walked.
He could not have known that Dorsett paid a twenty-five thousand' dollar bonus for the severed hand of every diamond smuggler that was caught. What became of the rest of the body was never known, much less discussed. These men took their work seriously. They spied something and stopped directly in front of Maeve and Giordino.
"Hello, here's something the last patrol missed, or wasn't here an hour ago."
"What do you see?" asked his partner.
"Looks like a grappling hook off a boat." The first guard dropped to one knee and brushed away the hurried camouflage. "Well, well, it's attached to a line that drops down the cliff."
"The first attempt to enter the island from the bluffs since that party of Canadian smugglers we caught three years ago." Afraid to stand too close to the edge, the guard beamed his light down the cliff face, but saw nothing.
The other guard pulled out a knife and made ready to cut the line. "If any are waiting to come up from below, they're about to be awfully disappointed."
Maeve sucked in her breath as Giordino stepped out of the bushes onto the path. "Don't you characters have anything better to do than wander around at night?"
The first guard froze, his knife hand raised in the air. The second guard spun around and leveled his Bushmaster M-16 assault rifle at Giordino. "Freeze in your position or I'll fire."
Giordino did as he was told, but tensed his legs in preparation to spring. Fear and temporary shock gripped him at realizing it was only a matter
of seconds before Pitt would be hurtling toward the sea and rocks below. But the guard's face went blank and he lowered his weapon.