DESMOND BAGLEY
High Citadel
COPYRIGHT
HARPER
an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF www.harpercollins.co.uk
First published in Great Britain by Collins 1965
Copyright © Brockhurst Publications 1965
Desmond Bagley asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this works.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the authors imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Source ISBN: 9780008211141
Ebook Edition © January 2017 ISBN 9780008211424
Version: 2016-11-23
CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
High Citadel
Dedication
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
About the Author
By the Same Author
About the Publisher
HIGH CITADELDEDICATION
To John Donaldson and Bob Knittel
ONE
The bell shrilled insistently.
OHara frowned in his sleep and burrowed deeper into the pillow. He dragged up the thin sheet which covered him, but that left his feet uncovered and there was a sleepy protest from his companion. Without opening his eyes he put his hand out to the bedside table, seized the alarm clock, and hurled it violently across the room. Then he snuggled into the pillow again.
The bell still rang.
At last he opened his eyes, coming to the realization that it was the telephone ringing. He propped himself up on one elbow and stared hatefully into the darkness. Ever since he had been in the hotel he had been asking Ramón to transfer the telephone to the bedside, and every time he had been assured that it would be done tomorrow. It had been nearly a year.
He got out of bed and padded across the room to the dressing-table without bothering to switch on the light. As he picked up the telephone he tweaked aside the window curtain and glanced outside. It was still dark and the moon was setting he estimated it was about two hours to dawn.
He grunted into the mouthpiece: OHara.
Goddammit, whats the matter with you? said Filson. Ive been trying to get you for a quarter of an hour.
I was asleep, said OHara. I usually sleep at night I believe most people do, with the exception of Yankee flight managers.
Very funny, said Filson tiredly. Well, drag your ass down here theres a flight scheduled for dawn.
What the hell I just got back six hours ago. Im tired.
You think Im not? said Filson. This is important a Samair 727 touched down in an emergency landing and the flight inspector grounded it. The passengers are mad as hornets, so the skipper and the hostess have sorted out priorities and weve got to take passengers to the coast. You know what a connection with Samair means to us; it could be that if we treat em nice theyll use us as a regular feeder.
In a pigs eye, said OHara. Theyll use you in an emergency but theyll never put you on their timetables. All youll get are thanks.
Its worth trying, insisted Filson. So get the hell down here.
OHara debated whether to inform Filson that he had already exceeded his months flying hours and that it was only two-thirds through the month. He sighed, and said, All right, Im coming. It would cut no ice with Filson to plead regulations; as far as that hard-hearted character was concerned, the I.A.T.A. regulations were meant to be bent, if not broken. If he conformed to every international regulation, his two-cent firm would be permanently in the red.
Besides, OHara thought, this was the end of the line for him. If he lost this job survival would be difficult. There were too many broken-down pilots in South America hunting too few jobs and Filsons string-and-sealing-wax outfit was about as low as you could get. Hell, he thought disgustedly, Im on a bloody escalator going the wrong way it takes all the running I can do to stay in the same place.
He put down the hand-set abruptly and looked again into the night, scanning the sky. It looked all right here, but what about the mountains? Always he thought about the mountains, those cruel mountains with their jagged white swords stretched skywards to impale him. Filson had better have a good met. report.