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It was begun that same year.... And it is practically finished. Except for one obstacle." Recklow's lifted eyes stared at him over his pad. "It is virtually finished," repeated McKay in his toneless, unaccented voice which carried such terrible conviction to the other man. "Forty-eight years ago the Hun planned a huge underground highway carrying four lines of railroad tracks.
And then, Recklow, GOD'S HAND MOVED! very slightly indolently scarcely stirring at all.... A drop of icy water percolated the limestone on Mount Terrible; other drops followed; linked by these drops a thin stream crept downward in the earth along the limestone fissures, washing away glacial sands that had lodged there since time began."... He leaned forward and his brilliant, sunken eyes peered into Recklow's: "Since 1914," he said, "the Staubbach has fallen into the bowels of the earth and the Hun has been fighting it miles under the earth's surface.
Two hours later a full battalion of Alpinists crossed Mount Terrible by the Neck of Woods and exchanged flag signals with Recklow's men. They had with them a great number of cylinders, coils of wire, and other curious-looking paraphernalia.
Into Evelyn Erith's eyes there came a vague light the spectre of a smile. And as Recklow looked at her he remembered the living glory she had once been; and wrath blazed wildly within him. "What have they done to you?" he asked in an unsteady voice. But McKay laid his hand on Recklow's arm: "Nothing. It is what they have not done fed her. That's all she needs and sleep."
After a short, whispered consultation they guided their machines into the garden, through a paved alley to a tiled shed. Then they went on duty, one taking the telephone in Recklow's private office, the other busying himself with the clutter of maps and papers. And Recklow went back to the door in the wall. About eleven an American motor ambulance drove up.
And on the second night Recklow's men built fires and camped carelessly beside the brilliant warmth, while "mountain mutton" frizzled on pointed sticks and every blue-devil smacked his lips. On the early morning of the third day Recklow discovered what he had been looking for. And an Alpinist signalled an airplane over Mount Terrible from the White Shoulder of Thusis.
But, to Recklow's grim surprise, and before he could emerge from the bushes, no sooner were the two sentries engaged in lively gossip than three dark figures crept out on hands and knees from the long grass at the very base of the Swiss wire and were up the ladder which McKay had left and over it like monkeys before he could have prevented it even if he had dared.
I'm also sending three of my own people through the wire. They'll have their papers in order here are the duplicates I issued; they'll have their photographs on the originals." He fished out a batch of papers and laid them on Recklow's desk. "Who are these people?" demanded Recklow. "Mine, sir." "Oh." There fell a silence; but Recklow did not examine the papers; he merely pocketed them.
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