he stared fixedly at the big hooded monk.
Now there was a sound on the air, a faint flutter like moth’s wings against the glass of the lantern, and the monk cocked his head slightly, listening intently.
Peter was balancing distances and times and odds in his head.
The monk, the five armed men in the courtyard, the approaching helicopter The monk was the most dangerous factor. Now that Peter knew who he was, he knew also that he was one of the most highly trained fighting men against whom he could ever match himself.
The five men in the yard Peter blinked with sudden realization. They would not be there any longer. It was as simp leas that. Caliph would never allow himself to be seen by any but his most trusted lieutenants, and by those about to die. The monk would have sent them away. They would be waiting close by, but it would take them time to get back into action.
There were only the monk and Caliph. For he knew that the dinning of rotor and engine was bringing Caliph in to the rendezvous. The helicopter sounded as though it were already directly overhead. The monk’s attention was on it.
Peter could see how he held his head under the cowl, he was off-guard for the first time.
Peter heard the sound of the spinning rotors change as the pilot altered pitch for the vertical descent into the tiny courtyard. The cell was lit through the doorway by the reflection of the helicopter’s landing lights beating down into the courtyard with a relentless white glare.
Dust began to swirl from the down-draught of the rotors, it smoked in pale wisps into the cell and the monk moved.
He stepped to the doorway, the empty dark hole in the cowl which was his face turned briefly away from Peter as he glanced out through the entrance of the cell.
It was the moment for which Peter had waited, his whole body was charged, like the S in an adder’s neck before it strikes. At the instant that the monk turned his head away, Peter launched himself across the cell.
He had ten feet to go, and the thunder of the helicopter’s engines covered all sound yet still some instinct of the fighting man warned the huge monk, and he spun into the arc of Peter’s attack. The head under the cowl dropped defensively, so that Peter had to change his stroke. He could no longer go for the kill at the neck, and he chose the right shoulder for a crippling blow. His hand was stiff as a headman’s blade and it slogged into the monk’s shoulder between the neck and the humerus joint of the upper arm.
Peter heard the collar bone break with a sharp brittle crack, high above even the roar of the helicopter’s engines.
With his left hand Peter caught the monk’s crippled arm at the elbow and yanked it up savagely, driving the one edge of shattered bone against the other so it grated harshly, twisting it so the bone shards were razor cutting edges in their own living flesh and the monk screamed, doubling from the waist to try and relieve the intolerable agony in his shoulder.
Shock had paralysed him, the big powerful body went slack in
Peter’s grasp.
Peter used all his weight and the impetus of his rush to drive the monk’s head into the doorjamb of the cell; skull met stone with a solid clunk and the big man dropped facedown to the paved floor.
Peter rolled him swiftly and pulled up the skirts of the cassock.
Under it the man wore paratrooper boots and the blue full-length overalls of Thor Command. On his webbing belt was the blue steel and polished walnut butt of the Browning Hi-power .45 pistol in its quick-release holster.
Peter sprang it from its steel retaining clamp and cocked the pistol with a sweep of the left hand. It would be loaded with Velex explosives.
The woollen folds of the cowl had fallen back from Colin Noble’s head, the wide generous mouth now hanging open slackly, the burned-toffee eyes glazed with concussion, the big crooked prize-fighter’s nose all the well- remembered features, once so dearly cherished in comradeship.
Blood was streaming from Colin’s thick curling hairline, running down his forehead and under his ear but he was still conscious.
Peter put the muzzle of the Browning against the bridge of his nose. The Velex bullet would cut the top off his skull.
Peter had lost his wig in those desperate seconds, and he saw recognition spark in Colin’s stunned eyes.
“Peter! No!” croaked Colin desperately.
I’m Cactus Flower!” The shock of it hit Peter solidly, and he released the pressure on the Browning’s trigger. It held him for only a moment and then he turned and ducked through the low doorway leaving Colin sprawling on the stone floor of the cell.” The helicopter had settled into the courtyard. It was a five-seater Bell jet Ranger, painted in the blue and gold colours of Thor Command and on its side was the
Thor emblem and the words:
THOR COMMUNICATIONS
There was a pilot still at the controls, and one other man who had already left the cabin of the machine and was coming towards the entrance of the cell.
Even though he was doubled over to avoid the swirling rotor blades, there was no mistaking the tall powerful frame.
The high wind of the rotors tumbled the thick greying leonine curls about the noble head, and the landing lights lit him starkly like the central character in some Shakespearian tragedy - a towering presence that transcended his mere physical stature.
Kingston Parker straightened as he came out from under the swinging rotor, and for an earth-stopping instant of time he stared at
Peter across the stone-paved courtyard. Without the wig he recognized
Peter instantly.
Kingston Parker stood for that instant like an old lion brought to bay.
“Caliph!” Peter called harshly, and the last doubt was gone as
Kingston Parker whirled, incredibly swiftly for such a big man. He had almost reached the cabin door of the Jet Ranger before Peter had the
Browning up.
The first shot hit Parker in the back, and flung him Now forward through the open door, but the gun had thrown high and right. It was not a killing shot, Peter knew it, and now the helicopter was rising swiftly, turning on its own axis, rising out over the edge of the precipice.
Peter ran twenty feet and jumped to the parapet of the hewn stone wall. The jet Ranger soared above him, its belly white and bloated like that of a maneating shark, the landing lights blazing down, half dazzling Peter. It swung out over the edge of the cliff.
Peter took the Browning double-handed, shooting directly Upwards,
judging the exact position of the fuel tank in the rear of the fuselage, where it joined the long stalk like tail and he pumped the big heavy explosive shells out of the gun, the recoil pounding down his outflung arms and jolting into his shoulders.
He saw the Velex bullets biting into the thin metal skin of the underbelly, the tiny wink of each bullet as it burst, but still the machine reared away above him and he had been counting his shots.
The Browning was almost empty.
Seven, eight then suddenly the sky above him filled with flame,
and the great whooshing concussion of air jarred the stone under his feet.
The jet Ranger turned over on her back, a bright bouquet of flame,
the engine howling its death cry, and it toppled beyond the edge of the precipice and plunged, burning savagely, into the dark void below where
Peter stood.
Peter began to turn back towards the courtyard, and he saw the armed men pouring in through the stone gateway.
They were Thor men, picked fighting men, men he had trained himself. There was one bullet left in the Browning.
