Scrambling up through the mist, Villiers was reminded of his own selection purgatory when he'd first volunteered. Jackson came up beside him, panting.
'Just like sodding Brecon. All it has to do is rain and we'll be right at home. Why all the rush? I mean if the kid was sent for more stuff, they must be taking their time.'
'Bad feeling,' Villiers said. 'Right down in the gut. You know me. Always right when I get that.'
'Enough said,' Jackson replied, and turned and called to Korda who was twenty yards behind. 'Come on, you lazy bastard, move it!'
Instead of working his way diagonally up the steep hillside, Villiers went straight up and the others followed him. The slope lifted until it was almost perpendicular with rough frozen tussocks of grass sticking out of bare rock.
As they came to the foot of an apron of loose stone and shale, he paused and glanced back at his companions.
'Okay?'
'No, bloody awful, actually,' Jackson said.
Korda said, 'The things I do for England. My old mum will be so proud.'
'You never had one, son,' Jackson said and as they started forward, it began to rain a little.
'Watch it,' Villiers said. 'A bit treacherous from here on in.'
He stuffed the sub-machine gun inside the tunic of his camouflage uniform and zipped it up. Awkward, but it left his hands free. Once, he heaved strongly on a boulder and it tore free and he swung quickly to one side, crying a warning. It bounced and crashed its way down the mountainside, disappearing into the mist.
'You two all right?'
'Only just,' Jackson called.
Villiers started to climb again and a moment later, found himself standing on the edge of a broad plateau. Jackson and Korda joined him.
'Now what?' Jackson demanded.
Villiers pointed across the plateau to the great rock wall which faced them, draped in mist. Fissures and cracks branched across it in dark fingers. He led the way over the plateau at a jog-trot, picking his way between boulders. When they reached the base of the rock, it became apparent that it wasn't actually perpendicular, but tilted back slightly in great slabs.
'Dear God,' Korda said, looking up.
'He helps those who help themselves,' Jackson said. 'So let's get moving.'
Villiers led the way, climbing strongly, concentrating on the rock in front of him, not looking down, for a secret he had nursed to himself for years was his fear of heights. If the selection board had known that, he would never have served in the 22 SAS, that was certain.
He paused at one point, braced against the rock and for a moment seemed to float in space. It was as if a giant hand was trying to pull him away.
'You okay, sir?' Jackson called.
It broke the spell. Villiers nodded and started to climb again, forgetting his aching limbs, the icy wind, his numbed hands. He moved at last over a tilted slab and found himself on a broad ledge. Above him, a wall of rock lifted a hundred feet, no more, and beyond it was only grey sky.
He waited for the others to join him, which they did a couple of minutes later.
'Jesus, not some more,' Jackson said.
Villiers indicated a dark chimney that cut its way straight up through the solid rock. 'Looks bad, but it's the easiest part of the climb.'
'I'll take your word for it,' Jackson said.
Villiers pulled himself up into the gloom, then turned and, using the common mountaineering technique, braced his back against one wall and feet against the other, resting every fifteen or twenty feet, his body firmly wedged.
After a while he found it was possible to climb properly and the handholds were good and plentiful. Ten minutes later, he scrambled over the edge.
The wind cut like a knife and the rain, at that level, had turned to sleet. He pulled on his gloves again, stamping his feet against the bitter cold. Eventually Jackson joined him and then Korda. They looked tired and drawn and their balaclava helmets were covered in frost.
The mountains sloped down towards the sea, wrapped in grey mist and low cloud. Suddenly, the wind tore a hole in the curtain and for a moment only they had a glimpse of the Atlantic and far, far below, the tiny bay and the white finger of the old lighthouse standing at the entrance.
'There she is — Bull Cove,' Villiers said as the curtain dropped back into place. 'Let's get moving.'
He pulled the sub-machine gun out of his tunic, held it across his chest with both hands, and started to run down the mountainside.
Captain Carlos Lopez carefully uncoiled the wire he had just taped to the charge he had positioned on the second floor and paused to light a cigarette. All five floors linked now, which left only the ground. It had progressed faster than he had anticipated and he was whistling cheerfully as he started down the stairs, uncoiling the wire behind him.
Once at ground level, he ran the wire across to the centre of the floor where a large, blue cylinder stood ready. He removed the lid very carefully. Inside there were various terminals and two buttons, one yellow, the other red. Working with extreme precision, he clipped the wires into position, sat back satisfied, then gently depressed the yellow button.
He glanced up and smiled. 'One hour, baby, then the big bang.'
There was a rattle of small arms fire close at hand, and as Lopez turned, Private Olivera appeared in the doorway.
'British troops coming down the hill.'
'How many?'
'I counted three.'
There was no sound and yet suddenly blood spurted as Olivera was driven forward through the doorway in a mad dance to fall face down, his quilted parka starting to smoulder.
Lopez snatched up an Uzi sub-machine gun and ran to the door, crouching. Then he waited.
It had been sheer bad luck that Carvallo, the third Argentinian, had been sitting in the shelter of an old sheep pen some little way up the hillside, whose rusting corrugated iron roof had afforded shelter from the rain while he smoked a cigarette and wrote a letter home to his girlfriend in Bahia Blanca.
He stretched, stood up and walked out of the entrance and to his total astonishment, saw the three SAS men approaching cautiously along the track, keeping to the wall.
They became aware of him in the same instant. He snatched up his machine pistol and loosed off a wild burst that went skywards as Jackson and Korda fired together, driving him back into the sheep pen.
'Now!' Villiers cried. 'And fast!'
Korda went straight down the track, Jackson to the left, Villiers to the right. They broke from cover, running headlong, in time to see Olivera dart into the entrance of the lighthouse and stand there for a moment. Villiers and Korda both fired, sending Olivera staggering inside.
Villiers dropped to one knee to reload and Korda kept right on going, straight down the track into the open.
'No!' Villiers shouted, and Lopez fired a long burst round the edge of the door, knocking Korda off his feet.
The boy lay there for a moment, then turned over and tried to crawl. Lopez fired round the door again, the rounds kicking up fountains of dirt close to Korda's head.
Jackson ran to join Korda, loosing off a long burst that raked the doorway. Then his sub-machine gun jammed.
Jackson grabbed the boy by the scruff of the neck and pulled him into the flimsy shelter of an old water trough. In the lighthouse, Lopez shoved another clip into his Uzi and raked the trough with several bursts until water spouted from a dozen holes.
Villiers rammed home a fresh clip and went down the hill on the run, right across the front of the lighthouse, loosing off the entire magazine in one long continuous burst. As the gun emptied he dived head first into sodden bracken and rolled over, reaching for the Smith & Wesson Magnum he carried in the pouch on his right leg.