Operation Nassau by Dorothy Dunnett

stars could be seen, and another light: a large unseen beam, like that of a lighthouse, which swept the sky at ten-second intervals. It came from the Fort Fincastle water-tower which was up there, perched out of sight beyond the right-hand-side cliff. To reach the water-tower and the old fort which lay beside it, one travelled between the high walls to the end of the gorge, which was blocked by a steep range of steps known as the Queen’s Staircase. Anciently built, it is said, by slave labour, these sixty-six steps provide a formidable climb and are a popular subject for amateur Kodaks in daytime. In further pursuit of the picturesque, the margin between the staircase and the left-hand canyon wall has been filled with a many-staged waterfall which accompanies the steps from bottom to top in a series of platforms and jets. A wall divides the steps from the cascade.
    We were looking at that, when the reflected beam from the water-tower, sweeping round, caught a movement inside that dark gorge. And as we saw it and hurried to follow, the figure vanished, and in a moment even the sound of his footsteps had stopped.
    We ran into the shadows and halted. Ahead, black against the dark blue sky, reared the staircase, with the water slope silent beside it: one cannot photograph waterfalls in the dark. On either side, the cliffs rose, soft and scratched: broken by roots and cacti and feathery plants, with here and there a shelf of debris, I remembered, left by some fall. Not a hard task for an agile man to scramble up; although no one was attempting it now: the smallest sound would have been audible, there where we stood.
    He was waiting, therefore. For what? For us to begin noisily searching, there in the dark? For us to tire and walk off, leaving him to climb those steps unhindered? For the steps must be what he was making for. And he had had no time to climb them: of that I was quite sure.
    ‘Oh, well,’ said Johnson, and put his hand in his pocket. ‘Here’s to my rust-proof drip-dry titanium vest, and all who sail in her.’ And the beam of a pocket torch sprang out and swept the cliffside.
    There was a bang, rocketing about between the cliff walls, and a tinkle of glass. The light went out, smashed by a bullet. ‘It’s all right,’ said Johnson’s voice peacefully from another direction. ‘I wasn’t holding it. But now we know where our fellow is . . .’
    ‘On the waterfall slope,’ Trotter said. Johnson who was running already towards the place of the gunflash, didn’t answer, and we both took to our heels in his wake. The gun fired again, and we could hear the howl of the shot, and the clatter of chippings from the rock face. Johnson said curtly, ‘Get behind those bushes, and down.”
    I saw him walk slowly forward. Ahead, the rising slopes of the dry waterfall gave nothing away. Even the sweeping light from the tower barely touched its dark corners and ledges, masked with ferns and boulders. Nothing moved. Johnson said, raising his voice, ‘We know you are here, and we have guns too. There is nothing at all to prevent one of us going back for the police while the others stay and keep you cornered till they come. Throw your gun down and climb out with your hands up. You know what you’re in for if you damage us with that thing.’
    The reply was a shot, aimed accurately at where Johnson had been standing: answered before the echoes had stopped by a thunderous shot from the gun in Johnson’s hand. I saw Trotter’s head tum towards me, his eyes glinting, and remembered the bulge in his pocket when I first met Johnson Johnson, in the Buick, outside my father’s that day. But I had assumed his threat just now to be bluff. Then Johnson fired again and I saw something move this time: a plant dimly shook and a figure, moving in and out of the dark, began quickly to scramble up the waterfall bed. ‘On the left.’ I said suddenly, to Johnson. ‘Can you pick a lock?’
    ‘My darling doctor,’ said Johnson