the others.
'How many men have you deployed in this area?' von Schiller asked.
'Three full companies, over three hundred men. All well trained. Many
are battle-hardened veterans.'
'Where are they? Show me on the map.'
The colonel came to stand beside him. 'One company here, another
billeted at the village of Debra Maryam, and the third company at the
foot of the escarpment, ready to move forward and attack Harper's camp.'
'I think you should attack them now. Wipe them out, before they can
uncover the tomb-' Nahoot came in again.
'Shut your mouth,' von Schiller snapped' without looking up at Nahoot.
'I will ask for your opinion when I need it.'
He considered the map for a while longer, then asked Nogo, 'How many men
has this guerrilla commander, what is his name, the one who has allied
himself to Harper?'
'Mek Nimmur is no a guerrilla. He is a bandit, and notorious shufta
terrorist,' Nogo corrected him hotly.
'One man's freedom fighter is the next man's terrorist,' von Schiller
remarked drily. 'How many men has he under his command?'
'Not many. Fewer than a hundred, perhaps no more than fifty. He has them
all guarding Harper's camp, and the dam.'
Von Schiller nodded to himself, plucking at the lobe of his ear. 'How
did Harper and his gang return to Ethiopia?' he mused. 'I know he flew
from Malta, but it is not possible that the aircraft could have landed
down there in the gorge.'
He hopped down off his block and strutted to the window of the hut
through which he had a panoramic view spread below him. He stared down
into the depths of the gorge, a vista of cliffs and broken hilltops and
wild tablelands, smoked blue with distance.
'How did they get in without being discovered by the authorities? Did he
parachute in, the same way as he dropped his supplies?'
'No, said Nogo. 'My informer tells us that he marched in with Mek
Nimmut, some days before the supplies were dropped to him.'
'So from where did he march?' von Schiller pondered.
'Where is the nearest airfield where a heavy aircraft could land?'
'If he came in with Mek Nimmur, then they almost certainly came in from
the Sudan. That is where Nimmur operates from. There are many old
abandoned airfields near the border. The war,' Nogo shrugged
expressively, 'the armies are always on the move, that war has been
going on for twenty years.'
'From the Sudan?' Von Schiller picked out the border on the map. 'So
they must have trekked in along the river.'
'Almost certainly,'Nogo agreed.
'Then just as certainly Harper plans to escape the same way. I want you
to move the company of men that you have at Debra Maryam and deploy them
here and here. On both banks of the river, below the monastery. They
must be in a position to prevent Harper reaching the Sudanese border,
if he should try to make a run for it.'
'Yes. Good! I understand. That is good tactics,' Nogo nodded gloatingly,
his eyes bright behind the tenses of his spectacles.
