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?'
'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
