Rhinoceros (62 page)

'We've got to make them all show themselves,' he
decided. 'So the best way to do that is to give them
something to shoot at. Brad,' he said to his driver, 'I
want you to rev up your engine, hammering it until you
can shoot past the entrance like a rocket to the moon. I'll
be behind that hedge opposite so I can see where they
all are.'

'With that machine-gunner firing like hell at me?'
'Up to you to be going so fast he misses you,' Miller
told him callously. 'When you've gone past the entrance
you keep going maybe half a mile, then turn round, rev
up again and come back here.'

'Why not just put me in a shooting gallery?'
'What?' Miller bunched his huge fist. 'Any more talk
like that and you'll lose a lot of teeth.'

He would have done it, too. But he was short of men and
still was wondering what had happened to Jeep Number
Three which should have arrived by now with two more
men. He took a quick decision.

'Our jeeps are too close to them. I want them moved
back a few yards. Don't start the engines, put the gears in
reverse and we'll push them back manually . . .'

From his position, perched halfway up the ridge, Harry
looked straight down on Marler, huddled in his cave,
gripping his Armalite. Harry had reacted fast when Miller
appeared in the entrance, but not quite fast enough. If
he'd elevated the barrel of his sub-machine gun only an
inch higher he'd have ripped the tall, white-haired brute
to pieces.

He thought of crawling higher up until he reached the
summit of the quarry. But Marler had ordered him to
occupy this position. Also, Harry was sprawled inside a
shallow gully and liked the position. He'd stay where he
was. From where he lay he couldn't see the jeeps which
had parked behind the hedge. Couldn't be helped.

Oddly enough, Marler had been thinking he'd left a
dangerous loophole in his dispositions. He had no one
on the other ridge opposite. Anyone crawling up that
side could eventually look straight down on Tweed's cave
and Newman's sandpile barrier. But Marler knew it was always a mistake to start moving men once he had them
in position. Often a fatal mistake. He'd leave well alone.

Earlier, before Harry had let loose his burst of gun
fire, he had called Tweed on his mobile. Reception was
very clear.

'Tweed? Harry here. Should have told you I found the third rearguard jeep well back from the other two. Found
it toppled in a ditch with two of the bastards underneath it, shot to pieces, riddled
with bullets.'

'That's strange . . .'

'It means now there are seven of us against five of them.
So the odds are in our favour.'

'Don't get complacent,'
Tweed warned emphatically.
'They are trained soldiers, trained killers.'

From his position inside the cave, with Nield and Paula,
he could look down and clearly see Newman and Lisa
crouched behind their sandpile. Lisa appeared to be talking
to him.

'Nothing's happening,' she whispered to Newman. 'What
can they be up to? It's so quiet. Pity Harry didn't get that
white-haired tree trunk of a man.'

'It could be deliberate tactics,' Newman told her. 'They
wait and do nothing. A kind of psychological warfare to
play on our nerves, make us do something silly. Patience
is the answer.'

It was ironic that the bull-at-gate Miller had never
thought of this move. That if he waited long enough and
did nothing it could shred their nerves.

'You're thirsty, aren't you?' Newman asked Lisa, who
had just licked her lips.

'I'm OK.'

396
'So it's a good job when we left the car I grabbed a bottle
of water. Here you are. Just take a few sips,' he warned.
'That may have to last us for quite a while.'

He felt sorry for the others who had no water at all. The
sun was scorching down on them. If the thugs had any
sense they'd wait until their opposition was in a pretty bad way. He refused a drink when Lisa offered him the bottle.
He was determined to hold out as long as he could in this
heat.

Above them Nield deliberately didn't watch them sipping the water. He just hoped the bastards would get on with it - whatever they were planning.

Miller had helped his four men push the jeeps further back
than a few yards under cover of the hedge. He'd decided
Tweed might get clever, hurl a few grenades over the hedge
to destroy the jeeps.

While his driver was revving up his engine to make a Le
Mans rush past the entrance to the quarry, Miller found a
hole in the hedge on the far side of the road. Once through to the field he moved cautiously. Crawling on all fours, he
passed another hole, but it wasn't opposite the entrance.
He kept moving.

He'd have liked to take off the flak jacket under his
camouflage tunic but he didn't for a moment consider
doing that. He had a pair of binoculars looped over
his neck, hanging down his back. They kept hammer
ing into his body but he ignored the pounding as sweat
streamed down him. Then he found another hole - facing
opposite to the middle of the entrance. A perfect look
out point. He took out a handkerchief and settled down
to wait.

He used the handkerchief to wipe neck and hands.
When he'd finished, the handkerchief was sodden. He
could hear his driver still revving up.
He's scared.
When
you're scared you start moving - at least, that was what
Miller always did.

Head hunched well down, the driver released the brake.
If he was lucky he'd be past the entrance before Tweed's men realised what was happening. As he hurtled past, Harry's machine-gun opened up, peppered the side of the
jeep with a hail of bullets. Newman had fired non-stop with the automatic rifle he had grabbed on leaving their car. Lisa
stood up, threw a grenade. It landed yards
behind the jeep, detonating without touching the vehicle, which was gone.

Miller, who had crawled well back from the hole into
the field, was jubilant, smiled savagely. Lisa's grenade, raining shrapnel into the road and the field beyond, hadn't reached Miller, who congratulated himself on crawling far enough back.

He was jubilant because he'd located their positions.
The machine-gunner was still in the same place, huddled
down halfway up the right-hand slope of the quarry.
Another man, maybe with others, was crouched behind
a sandpile on the left. And a woman was also behind the
same sandpile. What he didn't know was that Marler, with his Armalite and variety of other weapons, was hidden in
his cave on the right-hand side of the quarry.

Waiting for his driver to make his second run, coming
back, Miller hauled his binoculars round to his chest,
raised them to his eyes, focused on each location. He
saw nothing. No sign of movement or men. They were
keeping their heads down.

While doing this, Miller's brain was planning his strategy
for the final killing assault. He was now pretty sure they had
left a loophole in their defences. There had been no sign of anyone located on the left-hand ridge - to complement the
machine-gunner on the other ridge. He might scale that
ridge himself.

Then he heard his driver coming back. He jammed his
binoculars into his eyes, ready to swivel them from location
to location. The jeep seemed to be returning even faster.
Miller guessed the grenade had put the wind up him.

Marler used his mobile to warn Newman, then Tweed,
not to react when the jeep flashed past - unless it drove
inside the amphitheatre. If it did that they'd give it all
they'd got.

Harry waited for it, judging from the engine sound
just how close it was. Then he opened up with another
rain of bullets, aimed them just across the road. The
jeep flashed past. Unfortunately Harry's hands were wet
and the muzzle was aimed lower than he'd intended.
Bullets hammered into the lower part of the jeep, then
it was gone.

'Damn!' said Harry. 'Damn! Damn!'

'What do they think they're doing?' Lisa asked.

'Trying to make us give away all our positions,' Newman
told her. 'Probably got someone behind that hedge on the
other side of the road, watching. Call it a rehearsal.'

He had passed on Marler's order to Lisa earlier. To stay
put. Not to show themselves. Not to open fire. It was an
order which had not been received with much enthusiasm.
She'd disobeyed the order, but so had he.

Inside his cave Tweed was listening, hoping to catch a
sound that would give him a clue to the enemy's intentions.
He heard nothing. The silence was depressing. Below
them, behind the sandpile, it was getting on Lisa's nerves.

'They seem to be taking for ever to do something,' she
grumbled.

'Sometimes it happens like this,' Newman said calmly.
'It probably means they don't know what to do next. We're
in a strong position here.'

He didn't believe what he had just said to reassure her.
He was sure the opposition were planning carefully how
to deliver the final onslaught.

Above them, in the cave, Tweed was secretly worrying that there was a hole in their fortress. They
had no one on
the ridge above them. He didn't blame Marler who, almost
in seconds, had established a strong defensive position.
But he was still worried. Nield noticed the expression on
his face.

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?'