They were tough men but also, by their definition of reality, realists. They gave me information quickly enough. I told them I would kill a man for each unanswered question or unsatisfactory answer and torture the last one. They believed me. Perhaps they had been informed of the failures of the others to kill me.
Noli had recruited them through an agent, and they had been flown up here with ten men and landed on the meadow north of Catstarn. Others had come by car and on another flight of the big helicopter.
There were probably thirty-five to forty men in Catstarn Hall and Castle Grandrith. Noli might not believe in God, but he certainly believed in overkill. Of course, he had Caliban to worry about, too.
Those of his men not Albanian—about half—had been paid $5000 apiece and promised another
$5000 after the job was completed. That it, after I was killed.
Noli had told them they might have to deal with another enemy, a Doctor Caliban. But not if I was killed soon and they got away.
Where was my wife?
When I asked this, my heart was squeezing, and I was shaking a little. I expected the worst.
Their spokesman replied that she was holed up in the castle. When the copter had descended and the cars had come in in a two-pronged attack, she had fled to the castle with a rifle. She had wounded two men during her flight.
The castle was across the tarn from the hall. It had been in ruins since the time of Oliver Cromwell, but I had rebuilt part of it. The keep was massively constructed and built as a refuge for atom bomb attacks or an emergency like this. The great stone doors had been closed behind her, and she could not, as yet, be pried loose. Bazookas had launched missiles against it without success. Clio sat inside with an untouchable source of oxygen and plenty of supplies. She could be blasted out if enough powder and time were used, but Noli had quit trying. He was afraid of attracting the villagers. The five domestics were still alive but locked up in a storeroom.
This had happened two days ago at dawn.
The three men had been diverging, as if they were corners of a very slowly growing triangle, while I was questioning them. Perhaps they hoped that, since it was so dark and they were moving so slowly, I would not notice. Even if I had been blind, I could have told that they were moving away, since their body odors were getting slightly weaker.
I don’t think that they would have tried anything if they had believed that I was going to let them go.
But they must have decided that I would not dare to release them, since they could get to a phone in the nearby village of Cloamby or at a farmhouse on the secondary road and call Noli. It was possible that Noli had cut the telephone lines, but I could not trust them to tell me the truth about that.
One of them barked, “Take them!” and dived off to the left. The other two jumped for the right, one diving at my feet. There was a twang as Trish’s crossbow cut loose. I fired four times. The top of the head of the man coming at me must have been blown off, because, as I later found out, my pants were wet with blood and brains. His head almost struck my leg as he fell. The fellow nearest me had his pistol out (I had suspected that they were carrying weapons under their coats but did not want to frisk them in the dark). My second bullet hit him in the shoulder; his pistol flamed to one side; he was hit two more times before he struck ground. The third, of course, had been pierced at point blank range with the crossbow bolt.
I made sure all three were dead by using my knife. Then we stood above the bodies, listening. There were no sounds, nothing to indicate that our shots had alarmed anybody.
I said, “Let’s get back to the car.”
We walked back, and then drove it up to where the men lay, loaded in the weapons and the walkietalkie, and were on our way. The road was steep and narrow here and wound up and back and forth on the face of mountain. At the top, it began to run through heavy woods, winding back and forth for a mile and then coming out on a fairly level stretch of 500 acres.
The tarn was a rough question mark-shaped lake about a half-mile long and two hundred yards wide.
The castle was on the west side of the lower end of the tarn and the rather large chateau of Catstarn Hall was opposite the castle. The garages, servants quarters, and stables were north of the Hall. To the west, on a high hill, was the huge granite rock roughly shaped like a chair. This is the High Chair which I referred to before and which is connected with the enigmatic local saying. The original Randgrith is supposed to be buried by its base.
The walkie-talkie squawked as we drove into the woods, and a man said, in English, “Murray! What the hell’s the matter with you? Report!”
Trish was driving. I imitated Murray’s voice as best I could (I am an excellent mimic) and said,
“Murray here. No sign of Grandrith yet.”
There was silence. Then the man said, “Have you forgotten something, Murray?”
It was evident I had. I had forgotten to question Murray about passwords over the walkie-talkie. He had told me the code used for identification in getting into the Hall and the castle, but I had blundered in this respect. So now they would be even more on their guard.
In the distance was a faint whirring noise. It sounded like a helicopter rising, and it was probably coming to investigate.
We abandoned the car after maneuvering it on the narrow road to face the other way. I left the keys under a bush near it. If we had to, we might be able to race away in it.
As I got out of the car, I heard another sound. It was quickly overridden by the chopping of the approaching helicopter, but not before I knew that a plane with propellers was nearby. Then we were in the woods, and the copter was hovering about 50 feet above the car, its searchlight poking around the woods. We made our way westwards. Through breaks in the vegetation, I looked for the plane. I could see nothing, not even a darkness flitting across the sky. I suspected that the plane was Caliban’s.
Another storm was advancing towards us. The thunder and lightning were nearer, and the wind had increased.
The copter continued to fly back and forth, its beam probing. It did not have much chance of spotting us in the very heavy undergrowth. I have always encouraged the opposite of park woods in my forests.
We got to the edge of the clearing. A hundred yards across the lawn was the back of Catstarn Hall. Its three-story rambling Tudor structure was splotched with white in the blackness. It looked unlit until someone briefly opened a door. Light jumped out like a lion from a cage.
At that moment, a distant flash of lightning revealed a 2-motored amphibian descending from the south. It was landing broadside to the wind but had to do so because the tarn runs longest from south to north. It was crabbing to keep from drifting and also slipping in at a very-steep angle. Its lights were not on. Apparently the pilot was depending on the lightning flashes for his illumination, and also on his radar for the altitude detection.
There were more lightning flashes. The copter abruptly turned from the hunt and headed towards the tarn. Four men ran out of the house towards another copter, a smaller craft guyed down on the meadow between the Hall and the stables. Murray had not told me about this copter.
The amphibian’s motors roared as it straightened out and flew up from the tarn, only thirty feet below it. Two more lightning flashes showed two small objects streaking from the plane. One struck near the copter on the ground. The other hit the big copter in the air. The machine on the ground was knocked over on its side by the explosion, which ripped the guy wires apart. The big copter became a great flaming globe and fell on the roof of the Hall.