Rhinoceros

CHAPTER 37

Miller stood behind the two jeeps with a pad and pencil in his hands. The other four men, as he had ordered them to in a quiet voice, were gathered behind him, looking at what he had drawn on the pad.

'This is our plan of action. Everything depends on precise timing – so later we synchronize our watches. Brad, you did a good job taking our jeep past the entrance and back again.' He looked at the jeep Brad had driven. 'It's a bit bullet-spattered, but you're not. Which shows it can be done.'

'What can be done?' asked Brad.

Normally Miller would have torn him to pieces verbally for daring to ask a question. But when he was on the eve of an operation Miller always kept his temper, kept his voice at a low pitch. It was bad psychology to upset men just before they went into battle.

'Brad, you'll have plenty of help, plenty of diversion. With Stu by your side, you're going to drive your jeep straight into the quarry at speed. You can rev up again beforehand. Stu will have an automatic rifle, grenades. As you drive in, you head for their blue Merc. Go straight for it. Stu will be blazing away at random. When you reach the Merc you jump out of the jeep and get behind the Merc. If they want to shoot up their own car – their only means of ever getting out of here – let them. You'll be shooting back from behind the trunk. Got it?'

'Yes.' Brad licked his lips. 'You said something about plenty of diversion.'

'You, Moke,' Miller went on, turning to a soldier with a face which had a Mongolian cast. 'Saw where I got through the hedge across the road?'

'Yeah, I did.'

'You go into the field opposite with two automatic rifles and a ton of ammo. You huddle well down near the hole facing the entrance. At the right moment you start firing non-stop. Aim for the sandpile I've marked here on my map. The large half-round circle is the quarry at the back. That way, aiming for the sandpile, which probably has several men behind it, you won't hit Brad's jeep. Got it?'

'Piece of cake.'

'Moke, that's what it won't be.' Miller couldn't stop his temper breaking out. 'All of you, this is going to be tough. We'll kill them all, but it won't be easy. One of them is a woman.'

'Don't have to worry about her,' said Brad.

'I guess not.' Miller paused. 'She's the one who threw the grenade that could have blown you into the sky. Now, Alan, while I move up this side of the quarry you go up the other side, take out the machine-gunner.'

Alan walked a few paces back along the road, stared up at the side Miller would tackle. He studied it before he came back and spoke.

'Should be OK. If it's grassy like your side. A silent approach is needed to catch a machine-gunner off guard.'

'So you follow Moke through to the other side of the hedge, crawl through the high grass until you reach a point where you can cross over to the base of the slope. That's it. I will climb to the summit, then I can look down and see all of them. Should be a massacre. Timing is vital. So first we synchronize watches…'

When they had completed that task he gave each man precise timing to the minute. Some of the timings varied.

For example, Moke would let Alan get across and up on his slope before he started firing through the entrance.

'You'd all better drink some water before we start…'

He took bottles from the first jeep, handed them round. He was careful to take the bottles back. No attack force should be lumbered with anything except the weapons they'd use.

Miller again checked his watch while Brad, rather reluctantly, climbed behind the wheel of his jeep. Stu joined him. Alan and Moke cut across the road and vanished through the hole in the hedge, started crawling through the grass quickly.

Miller, his Magnum tucked inside his belt, picked up his automatic rifle, checked the action, loaded up. Then he began his climb up the slope, his long legs taking large and careful strides. Below him he heard Brad start revving up.

The tension was growing inside the quarry. Tweed glanced at his watch without letting his two companions see him do it. There were a lot of hours left while the blowtorch sun roasted them. It was a question of stamina.

Looking down, he'd seen Lisa behind the sandpile frequently talking to Newman. He almost wished Paula had stayed behind the sandpile to calm Lisa down. He glanced at Paula and she winked at him. Then the blank expression came back on to her face. She was leaning back against the bunker-like cave, showing no signs that she was in any hurry for something to happen.

'This reminds me,' Lisa was saying, 'of when I was hiding in the basement area with that tramp. Keeping so quiet while Barton and Panko spoke to him.'

'That was in Bedford Square,' Newman commented. 'Rather a long way from here.'

'But at least I'm here with you. I was thinking of when

403I'd been hit by Delgado at Reefers Wharf and was rushed to the clinic. Lying in bed I felt so frustrated because I couldn't speak.'

'But you did speak. You gave us the clues about getting to Hamburg. Which were vital.'

Keep her talking, he thought. It will keep her mind off the heat, the present situation.

'Then,' he recalled, 'you had a really tough time when you were grabbed by Delgado in Flensburg. But you saved yourself.'

'I'm glad I choked him with those handcuffs,' she said with satisfaction. 'Some people would be haunted by that kind of experience. I won't be. It was a case of him or me – and I was determined it wouldn't be me. Like Bedford Square. If Barton had come down those steps I was going to snatch the bottle from the tramp, hold it by the neck, smash it and shove it in his rotten face.'

'Well, I doubt that we'll see them again.'

The light aircraft with Barton at the controls and Panko next to him was now flying some distance away from the quarry. It was a deliberate manoeuvre on Barton's part.

'Where hell is blue Mercedes?' Panko asked.

'We'll just have to hope it reappears on the road it was on, keeping our distance well clear of that road.'

Barton was as puzzled as Panko. Earlier the Mercedes had at one moment been driving along the road, then it had vanished. The disappearing act had happened while Barton was flying the aircraft further away from the road to avoid being spotted.

When he had turned the plane round the car had gone. Barton had not seen the quarry and couldn't imagine where the car had gone. If it was hiding from them he couldn't see where it could have hidden. There were no convenient barns it might have slipped inside. No buildings of any sort as far as they could see. He took the plane to a greater altitude.

'We tell Thunder?' Panko suggested.

'Oh, that would be really smart. We phone a powerful man like that and say sorry, we've lost it. He'd give us a medal, I don't think.'

'Phone Oskar?'

'Oh, sure. Phone Oskar, a man who bites your head off when you don't get something right. Any more brilliant ideas, Panko? If you have, keep them to yourself.'

'Try to help…'

'Panko, I'll tell you how to help. Sit still. Keep your friggin' trap shut.'

Moke had darted through the hole in the hedge after Alan, had crawled through the deep grass, was now opposite the entrance. He held back opening fire while Alan, crawling almost at the speed of a rabbit, reached a hole facing the bottom of the slope below where Harry crouched in his cave. Alan rushed across the road, paused at the foot of the slope, looked up, saw nothing, began to ascend the slope, keeping below the rim, an automatic rifle in his right hand.

While this happened Brad, with Stu beside him, was revving up like mad. He nodded to Stu to warn him. Stu raised his automatic rifle, nursed a grenade in his lap, gripped well above his knees.

Miller was halfway up the slope on his side of the quarry, crouching low. He wanted to reach the summit while the jeep careered round the interior of the amphitheatre, keeping the enemies' heads down. He held his automatic rifle in his left hand – he was left-handed. He heard the jeep take off, wished he could see it, but dared not risk giving away his position.

By now Moke was blazing away, sending a hail of bullets at the sandpile on the left. He paused just before the jeep appeared, swung inside the quarry. Then he resumed his relentless firing. Moke thought the operation was going well.

In Tweed's cave, Paula, hearing the jeep starting to rev up, suddenly stood up, began climbing the sand slope above her before Tweed could stop her, before he could say a word.

Her ascent was swift. In her right hand she held the last grenade. Marler and Butler, stationed on the far side, saw her wriggling figure, fighting its way higher and higher. Both men were paralysed with fear for her. She was totally exposed.

'You crazy cow,' Marler said aloud, appalled, certain she wouldn't survive.

Tweed stared up, terror-stricken for the first time in his life. He had never felt more helpless, more affectionate, even thought of going up after her. Nield, also looking up, sensed what was in his mind.

'Stay where you bloody well are,' he snapped. 'Marler put us here. So here we stay.'

As he spoke he had grabbed Tweed by the arm, to imprison him in the cave. Tweed nearly hit him to gain his freedom, then realized the sense of what Nield had said so ferociously. He continued watching, unable to take his eyes off her.

Paula made a last spurt, arrived at the rim, hauled herself over, breathless but out of sight of the quarry. She looked down. She looked up. Then she saw him. A tall, massively built man with white hair. He was higher up, about thirty feet away.

She had rolled over to get clear of the rim. Now she stood up, took the pin out of the grenade, hoisted her arm, as she had once done playing netball at school. Something caused Miller to look round. He saw her, saw the grenade leave her hand, come hurtling towards him. He flung himself down, rolled away from her like a top spinning, felt the ground slope beneath his body, continued the roll. The grenade landed the other side of the slope, detonated. Shrapnel burst into the air. A sliver hit him in the chest. His flak jacket saved him, but he felt a bruised rib where the sliver had ricocheted off him, tearing a second hole in his camouflage jacket. Who cared about a bruised rib?

He stood up, pulled the Magnum. 375 out of his belt, went back. Paula was looking up. His head and body appeared, no more than thirty feet from her. That was when she remembered she'd left her shoulder bag in the cave – with her Browning automatic inside it.

He aimed the Magnum at her point-blank.

The muzzle looked to her like the mouth of a cannon.

She froze, braced herself.

His eyes, staring into hers, weren't human.

He pulled the trigger.

Nothing happened. The firing mechanism had jammed.

'You'll get yours later, honey.'

He started hurrying up the hill towards the summit. He could have used the automatic rifle to finish her off. But the bitch had delayed him. His timetable had gone all to hell. He could hear constant shooting in the quarry below, the jeep screaming on its wheels.

Behind their sandpile Lisa and Newman had seen nothing of the near-tragedy above them. The jeep had swung in through the entrance like a torpedo. Stu was firing non-stop with his rifle, spraying gunfire round the walls of the quarry. Firing at random. Brad aimed the jeep for the blue Merc parked below the summit of the quarry.

Newman crouched by the inner end of the sandpile. He had the stock of his rifle jammed into his shoulder. Bullets from Moke's fusillade were hammering into the far side of the sandpile. The sand was so dense none of them penetrated to where Lisa crouched.

Newman aimed his rifle at the jeep's driver. In his cave, Marler had the driver's head in his crosshairs. Inside his cave, Tweed was standing up, Walther gripped in both hands, aiming at the driver's chest. All three men fired at the same moment.

Newman's bullet hit the driver in the chest. Marler's bullet slammed into his head. Tweed's bullet tore through his throat. Brad collapsed, fell sideways on top of Stu. The rifle Stu had been firing left his hands, fell out of the jeep. Stu fought to take control. He heaved against Brad's corpse, saw to his horror that Brad's foot was jammed down hard against the accelerator.

The jeep went wild, began zigzagging across the floor of the quarry at top speed. Stu couldn't reach the wheel. Then it headed straight for the blue Merc. Tweed held his breath. If their car was smashed up they would be marooned in the middle of nowhere. If they survived and started walking, the sun would scorch them to cinders.

The jeep continued its mad zig-zagging. Almost making a tour of the amphitheatre. Then it zigzagged back towards their Mercedes. At the last moment it changed direction, skimming past the car, speeding now towards the rear wall of the sand quarry. Stu, hanging on to the windscreen, was horrified to see the quarry wall rushing towards them. The front half of the jeep slammed into the wall with tremendous impact. It stopped with the bonnet and the front seats buried deep inside the wall. Sand cascaded down on it. The motionless vehicle looked as though it had been sandblasted.

They were all staring at the phenomenon when Miller reached the summit. He was holding his automatic rifle ready for firing. From his dominant position he could look down and see all his enemies. He saw Tweed, decided to make him his first target. Kill the leader and the rest lose their nerve. He took careful aim.

Only Marler was not completely distracted by the weird end of the jeep. Out of the corner of his eye he spotted movement at the summit. A giant of a man with white hair, his rifle aimed across the other side of the quarry. He raised his Armalite, had the giant's chest in his cross-hairs, pressed the trigger. The bullet hit Miller in the chest. His flak jacket took the shock, largely absorbed it. The impact made Miller stagger, really bruised his ribs. He still gripped his rifle. The blow would have made most men fall down. He took two paces forward to the edge of the quarry, aimed again at Tweed.

Marler blinked.

Flak jacket, he said to himself.

He raised the Armalite slightly. In the cross-hairs he saw the giant's face. He squeezed the trigger. The bullet crushed the lower half of the face, blew it away. Miller fell forward over the edge, dropped head first a hundred feet. His body thudded on the quarry floor, lay still.

Harry was still alert. Moke was still firing through the entrance from the field opposite. Harry laid down a hail of fire on the road, then swiftly raised it a fraction. Moke saw what was coming, jumped up to run, took a volley of bullets, dropped. Suddenly there was total silence. Unlike the others, Harry had counted casualties. Five men had come to kill them. Two had been obliterated in the jeep, now half buried inside the cliff. Marler had shot the giant who had appeared on the summit. Harry himself had shot the man in the field who had fired non-stop through the entrance. That made four. Where was the fifth man?

While Miller had rushed up his slope to the summit after his failed attempt to kill Paula, Alan had been making his way up the far side more cautiously. There were rocks and some stones scattered in the grass. Alan wasn't sure of the precise position of the machine-gunner, so had been careful so far.

Harry was still very alert. In the heavy silence he heard the rattle of a stone falling behind him. Holding his Uzi at the ready, he stood up, facing the other way. Alan was yards away from him, standing up to get a better view, his rifle pointed at the figure which had suddenly risen up. Harry gave him a short burst. Alan, already dead, toppled over backwards, rolled down the slope to the bottom, lay motionless.

Paula's head and shoulders appeared over the rim of the quarry. She called down and her words echoed all round the amphitheatre.

'Hello, all of you. Is it safe to come down?' she enquired cheerfully.

Tweed felt relief surge through his whole body.