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The clicking became louder. Then it stopped and a torturous silence set in.
Pitt tried to contain his breathing to hear better; all his ears could detect was his own heartbeat Something was out there, not ten feet away. He compared himself with a blind man who was being stalked down a back-street alley. The eerie, spine-chilling atmosphere of the surroundings numbed his thinking with a sense of hopelessness. He shook it off, forcing his mind to concentrate on methods of combati
ng the unseen terror.
The musty stench of the tunnel suddenly became overpowering, nearly making him sick. He also detected a faint animal odor. But from what kind of animal?
Quickly a plan formed in Pitt's mind, and he decided to take a gamble on the unknown quantity. The Zippo came out of his pocket. He flipped the little wheel against the flint and held it a brief instant until the wick burned brightly. He cast It up and into the air ahead. The tiny flame sailed through the darkness and illuminated two glowing fluorescent eyes, backed by a giant shadow that danced hellishly on the walls and floor of the passageway. The lighter clinked to the ground, its flame snuffed out by the fall. A low menacing growl came from the eyes and echoed through the stone labyrinth.
Pitt reacted instantly and coiled on the hard floor. Then he whipped over on his back and thrust the knife up into the dark void, holding the handle tightly in the sweating palms of both hands. He could not see his ghostly attacker, but he knew now what it was.
The beast had noted Pitt’s exact location in the brief flickering flame from the lighter. It hesitated for an instant, then it sprang,
The ageless animal instinct of sniffing its prey before attacking spelled the big animal's doom. The delay gave Pitt precious time for his sudden evasive body roll, and the huge white dog overshot his quarry. The action happened with such blinding speed that all Pitt could recall afterwards was the feel of the knife slicing into a soft furry surface and the wetness of heavy liquid splattering in his face.
The growl of the killer turned to the howl of the mortally wounded as the knife laid open the great Shepherd's flank just behind the ribs. The walls of the stone corridors thundered in a chorus of reverberating roars that burst from the thick, hairy throat a split second before the hundred and eighty pounds of animal fury crashed into the vertical stone beyond Pitt and fell heavily to the ground, thrashing in spastic agony for several moments before dying.
At first Pitt thought the dog had missed. Then he felt a sting across his chest, and he knew it hadn’t. He lay without moving, listening to the death throes in the blackness. Long minutes after the passageway returned to a ghostly stillness, he remained limp on the uneven floor. The tension finally passed and his muscles started to loosen, and the pain began to arrive in earnest, clearing his mind to a new sharpness.
Pitt slowly rose to his feet and leaned wearily against the unseen blood splattered wall. Another shudder shook his body and he waited until his nerves calmed before stumbling into the darkness ahead where he shuffled his feet back and forth until they came in contact with his lighter. He lighted the little metallic box and surveyed his wounds.
Blood seeped from four evenly spaced furrows that began just above the left nipple and extended up and diagonally over his chest to the right shoulder. The claw marks were deep in the skin but their depth barely penetrated the muscle tissue. Pitt’s shirt hung down like a shredded flag of red and khaki. All he could do for the moment was tear off the dangling strips of ragged cloth and pad the gashes. It would have been the easiest thing in the world to collapse to the ground and let a wave of comforting unconsciousness gather him in its trough. The temptation was strong, but he resisted it. Instead he stood on steady legs with a quartz clear mind, planning his next move.
After another minute, Pitt walked over to the dog. Holding the lighter aloft, he stared down at the dead animal. It was laying on its side, the entrails in a gruesome heap outside the body cavity. Trails of blood streaked the floor, running in separate little streams toward an unseen low point somewhere in the direction from which he had crawled. The weariness and the pain dropped from Pitt like a falling coat at the gruesome sight. Rage and anger engulfed his body and soared
from the state of fearful, life saving caution to a state of uncaring indifference toward danger and death. One thought held and gripped his mind: murder von Till.
His next step sounded simple, absurdly simply; be must find a way out of the labyrinth. The odds seemed long, and the chances hopeless. Yet the thought of failure never entered his mind. Von Till’s words about the next flight of the yellow Albatros settled any doubts for him. The gears in Pitt’s head meshed in analytical thought, spitting out facts and possibilities.
Now that the scheming old German knew the First Attempt was remaining anchored off Thasos, he would have it attacked by the Albatros. It would be too risky for the old plane to try another afternoon attack, Pitt reasoned. Von Till, no doubt, would send it aloft as soon as possible, probably at dawn. Gunn and his crew must be warned in time. He glanced at the luminous dial on his wrist watch. The needle-like hands registered 9:55. Dawn would break at approximately 4:40, he figured, give or take five minutes. That left six hours and forty-five minutes for him to find an exit from this crypt and alert the ship!
Pitt shoved the knife in his belt, snapped the lighter shut to conserve fuel and started up the left passageway toward the source of a very slight air current. The going was easier now. Pitt was damned if he’d crawl anymore. He hurried without hesitation. The passage narrowed to three feet in width, but the roof stayed out of reach above his head.
Suddenly his outstretched hand struck solid wall The passage ceased; it was a dead end. He flicked the lighter and saw his mistake. The air current came from a small crack between the rocks. An audible humming noise also issued from the crack. It was the sound of an electric motor, hidden somewhere beyond the wall in the bowels of the mountain. Pitt listened for a moment, but then the sound ceased.
“If at first you don’t succeed,” be mused aloud,
“try another passage.” He retraced his steps and quickly reached the intersection, this time taking the tunnel directly opposite the one he had cautiously crawled through.
He lengthened his stride and pounded on into the impenetrable darkness; the cool damp paving numbing his stocking feet. He idly wondered how many other men, or women for that matter, had von Till literally thrown to the dog. In spite of the near chilly air, the sweat ran off his body in streams. The pain across his chest seemed remote, too remote to belong to him. He could feel the blood mingling with the sweat and running down into his pants. He kept going and was determined to keep going until he dropped. A thought tugged at his mind to slow down and rest, but he rejected it and quickened his pace.
Again and again his groping hands and the periodic but welcome flicker of the lighter discovered new passages that branched off into endless nothingness. In some, the rocks had caved in, sealing them off, probably forever.
The lighter was on its last breath, the fluid almost gone. Pitt used it as little as possible, relying more and more on his bruised and scraped fingers. An hour passed, and then another. He continued on, pushing his tired and torn body through the ancient passages.
His foot struck something solid, and he pitched forward onto the bottom steps of a stone stairway. The edge of the fourth step caught him across the nose, gashing the bridge to the bone. Blood spurted down his cheeks and coated his lips. All at once the exhaustion, the emotional drain and the despair flooded over his battered body, and he folded limply on the stairs. Everything began to slow down. He lay and listened to the blood drip on the step beneath his head. A soft white cloud materialized out of the black gloom and gently covered him.
Pitt shook his sore and fuzzy head violently, trying to clear the cobwebs. Slowly, very slowly, like a man lifting a tremendous weight he raised his head and shoulders and began agonizingly to crawl up the stairway. Step by step he struggled, until at last he reached his destination.
A webbing of heavy bars marked the top of the stairway. The grille work was ancient and heavily rusted but still thick and strong enough to hold back an elephant.
Pitt hauled himself painfully onto the landing. A curtain of fresh air greeted his skin, replacing the musty odor of the labyrinth. He gazed through the rectangles between the bars and his spirits soared at the sight of the stars blinking in the sky. Back in the winding passageways he had left like a dead man in a casket It seemed l
ike an eternity since he saw the outside world.
He pulled himself to his feet and shook the bars. There was no movement. The lock on the massive gate had recently been welded closed.
He checked the width between each bar, searching for the largest opening. The third space from the left, held the greatest spread; about eight and one-half inches. He laboriously stripped off all his clothes and set them on the other side of the barrier. Next he smeared his blood into the sweat and exhaled until his lungs ached in protest. Then, slipping his bead between the bars, he strained to push one hundred and ninety pounds into the outside landscape. The rust from the bars flaked off against his slippery skin and stuck to the glue-like blood. A racking moan of pain escaped his mouth as his genitals scraped over the ragged edge of one bar. He desperately clawed at the ground and gave a final heave. His body came free.
