Shibumi: A Novel by Trevanian

Author:Trevanian
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Thrillers, Fiction, Espionage, General
ISBN: 9780307238436
Publisher: Crown Publishing Group
Published: 2005-05-10T20:28:21.175000+00:00

All that was a year ago. When the snow cleared from the mountain, they came up and began descents of exploration and mapping. And now they were ready to make their major penetration along the course of the underground river.

For more than an hour, Hel had slept on the rock slab, fully clothed and booted, while Le Cagot had passed the time talking to himself and the unconscious Hel, all the while sipping at the bottle of Izarra, taking turns. One drink for himself. The next on Niko’s behalf.

When at last Hel began to stir, the hardness of the rock penetrating even the comatose sleep of his fatigue, Le Cagot interrupted his monologue to nudge his companion with his boot. “Hey! Niko? Going to sleep your life away? Wake up and see what you have done! You’ve drunk up half a bottle of Izarra, greedy bastard!”

Hel sat up and stretched his cramped muscles. His inactivity had permitted the cave’s damp cold to soak into the bone. He reached out for the Izarra bottle, and found it empty.

“I drank the other half,” Le Cagot admitted. “But I’ll make you some tea.” While Beñat fiddled with the portable solid-fuel cooker, Hel got out of his harness and paratrooper jumpsuit specially modified with bands of elastic at the neck and wrists to keep water out. He peeled off his four thin sweaters that kept his body warmth in and replaced the innermost with a dry jersey made of loosely knitted fabric, then he put three of the damp sweaters on again. They were made of good Basque wool and were warm even when wet. All this was done by the light of a device of his own design, a simple connection of a ten-watt bulb to a wax-sealed automobile battery which, for all its primitive nature, had the effect of keeping at bay the nerve-eroding dark that pressed in from all sides. A fresh battery could drive the little bulb day and night for four days and, if necessary, could be sent up, now that they had widened the bottleneck and double dihedron, to be recharged from the pedal-driven magneto that kept their telephone battery fresh.

Hel tugged off his gaiters and boots. “What time is it?”

Le Cagot was carrying over a tin cup of tea. “I can’t tell you.”

“Why not?”

“Because if I turn over my wrist, I will pour out your tea, ass! Here. Take the cup!” Le Cagot snapped his fingers to shake off the burn. “ Now I will look at my watch. The time at the bottom of Le Cagot’s Cave—and perhaps elsewhere in the world—is exactly six thirty-seven, give or take a little.”

“Good.” Hel shuddered at the taste of the thin tisane Le Cagot always brewed as tea. “That gives us five or six hours to eat and rest before we follow the stream into that big sloping tunnel. Is everything laid out?”

“Does the devil hate the wafer?”

“Have you tested the Brunton compass?”

“Do babies shit yellow?”

“And you’re sure there’s

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