camouflage was sitting next to the driver. Harry waved as he roared past the first jeep.
They were still some distance from Tweed's car so he continued on past the second jeep, waving again. But where was the third one? Tweed had said there would be three jeeps. He had to find the other one. He hammered his foot down. Soon he'd have to turn back to warn Tweed what was coming up behind him.
He never saw what happened to the third jeep because the road kept curving. The third jeep, under Ollie's command, was some distance behind the other two. Ollie was smoking a cigar when, in the wing mirror, he saw a black car coming up behind them. He realized immediately the black car could be a problem.
'Slow down,' he ordered his driver. 'Then put the jeep at right angles across the road. That will block this car coming up on our rear.'
The driver acted swiftly. Stopping, he was on the wrong side of the road. He reversed, turning the jeep until it was at right angles to oncoming traffic, making it impossible for another vehicle to pass them. Ollie hauled out his automatic from his holster, stood up, facing backwards, waited.
The black car was slowing down. He could vaguely see that the driver wore a wide-brimmed straw hat. Couldn't stand the heat. It stopped about thirty feet away. Ollie tucked the automatic inside the belt behind his back. He held up both hands, formed a crude blower.
'Road blocked. Military exercise. Go back the way you came.'
The driver acknowledged the command with a brief salute. He began to turn his car. The driver of the jeep reached for his own automatic. Ollie nudged him hard.
'Leave it alone. I'll take him. We don't want a witness. I'm waiting until he's positioned at right angles to us -then I can get him point-blank.'
The driver, who had his window down, was obviously not skilled at backing and turning. First, the engine stopped. The driver got it going again. He started backing slowly, ended up with his first try slant-wise across the road.
'Friggin' amateur,' Ollie rasped. 'Going to take him all day. The next time he should make it, then I'll make it.'
The jeep's driver was standing beside Ollie now, watching with his arms folded. Again sweat was dripping off his hands. He wiped them dry on his trousers. The black car's engine stopped again. The driver waved a hand out of the window as though to say I'm not too good at this.
'He'll get there in the-' Ollie began.
He never completed his sentence. The barrel of a Heckler amp; Koch sub-machine gun appeared over the edge of the open window. There was a devilish stutter of bullets which neither Ollie nor his driver heard. A spray of bullets hit both of them, a non-stop spray. Ollie fell dead at the same moment as his driver collapsed.
The driver of the black car climbed out, ran to the jeep. His gloved hands lifted one body, then the other, hurling both into the ditch by the roadside. He then reached in, put the gear into reverse, switched on the engine and jumped back. The jeep backed into the ditch, partly covering both of the bodies.
The driver ran back to his car, dived behind the wheel. With great skill, he swiftly turned the black car to face the way it had come. It sped back, vanished over the crest of a hill barely a minute before Harry arrived on his motorcycle, slowed, stopped, stared.
He dropped the strut to stabilize his machine, swung off the saddle, grabbed his Uzi out of the pannier, advanced slowly. As he stood on the edge of the ditch, looking down, he had no doubt both the men in camouflage jackets, half hidden under the jeep, were dead. He could see enough of their bullet-ridden bodies to be sure of that.
Two of the men who had been sent to kill Tweed were, instead, themselves lifeless. But why was the jeep lying on top of them? Harry decided he had no time to puzzle over what could have happened. He had to get back to Tweed in time to warn him two jeeps were coming up behind him. He shoved the Uzi back into the pannier, started the machine, turned it and twisted the throttle savagely until he was moving almost like a shell from a gun. He hoped to God he'd get there in time.
CHAPTER 36
It struck Harry before he saw the two jeeps that he could be recognized. He pulled up, took off his crash helmet – a very risky act – and put on wrapround dark glasses to make himself look different. He could have used the glasses earlier. The glare of the sun had bothered him on the way out.
He built up speed again, still worried that he would be too late. He crested a slight rise and there ahead of him were the two remaining jeeps. He twisted the throttle still harder. At least the blue Mercedes was not yet in sight.
Aboard the first jeep, Miller saw him coming in the rear-view mirror. He frowned, which is to say his face became even more brutal. He glanced at the driver who had also spotted the motorcycle in his wing mirror.
'Don't like this,' Miller told him. 'We had a motorcyclist pass us going the other way not so long ago.'
'Not the same guy,' the driver replied. 'No crash helmet and he's wearing dark glasses.'
'I don't take any chances,' Miller snapped in his deep throaty voice. 'I'm going to let him have it.'
He had hauled his Magnum. 357 halfway out of his holster when the motorcycle whipped past and was out of range. Miller stared in amazement.
'Must be doing over ninety. He'll come off, kill himself, do the job for us…'
Harry dropped out of sight over and down the other side of another slight rise. No more than a mile ahead he saw Tweed's blue Mercedes. He twisted the throttle like he was trying to choke it, flew like the wind. He was sweating when he pulled up alongside the Mercedes, which had stopped for him.
'Any second,' he warned Tweed breathlessly, 'two jeeps with five men in camouflage, coming up behind you…'
'Bob,' Tweed ordered immediately, 'back up to that big sand quarry we just passed. That's our fortress. Drive into it.' Moments earlier they had driven past a wide entrance in the hedge leading to a very wide and high semi- circular mound with sand walls. It was like a large amphitheatre and had obviously been abandoned. A chain system with large metal buckets dangling from it ran from the summit of the mound to a rusting muddle of sheds on the right. As the car left the road Tweed glanced back, saw two jeeps cresting the low rise.
'Drive the car near the sand wall,' Marler ordered. 'I want it well back. Harry,' he shouted through the window, 'ride up the right side of the mound but keep out of sight.'
'Take the high ground,' Harry shouted back and rode off.
'The jeeps are close,' Tweed warned.
Newman drove at speed across the base of the amphitheatre, the wheels sending up spurts of sand. He swung the car round to face the way they had come, close to the base of the cliff of sand, which had to be over a hundred feet high.
Marler pointed as he issued more orders. 'I'll be in that cave on the right, halfway up the cliff. Newman, you take Lisa and shelter behind that pile of sand on the left. Tweed, Nield, Paula, get up inside the cave on the left. Keep your ruddy heads down. Everybody take weapons. Go!'
Nield grabbed hold of the heavy satchel Harry had left in the rear section, threw back the flap. Lisa grasped one of the grenades. Paula leaned over as Harry held up the satchel, avoided the smoke canisters, clutched an explosive grenade.
'Hurry up!' Tweed snapped.
Marler, yards from the car, holding his Armalite rifle, called out to them.
'As far as we can, protect the car…'
Doors were flung open, hauled shut as they piled out of the car, ran towards their allocated positions. Tweed, despite being older, led the way, reached the sand wall which here sloped up to the cave, scrambled up with Paula behind him. He looked back, saw Paula had slipped, fallen down. He ran down again, grasped her arm, hauled her to her feet and she was scrambling up with him while Nield, now above them, peered down anxiously from the cave.
'You OK?' Tweed asked.
'I'm OK,' Paula replied.
