"All right," Cubanez said, "everybody stay in radio contact. Alfredo…"
The big man growled something to his three comrades, and, as one, they sprinted toward the edge of the cliff.
As silent as death they sailed out into the night sky, and within seconds they were lost in the inky blackness.
"Our turn," Cubanez said. "Single file… I will lead."
Carter turned to Louisa. "Stay close to me."
"Don't worry, I will!"
One by one, over they went.
Cubanez had the difficult job leading the way. The others, crouched low, had only to follow his track.
On purpose, Cubanez swung the column in wide arcs. Because of this it was almost a half hour before they broke through the trees and found themselves in a wide field to the rear of the villa.
"Skis off!" Cubanez hissed. "We walk in from here!"
The villa squatted like a huge mound of dark stone about two hundred yards in front of them.
The field itself was used as a pasture in the summertime. It was dotted with great, high boulders and groups of pine and scrub trees.
They moved forward, again in single file. Halfway across, the trees thinned out and Cubanez picked up the pace.
Now and then Carter glanced up, his eyes scanning the night sky for the men riding the gliders.
He could see nothing. It was pitch-black, so black that the outline of the villa itself against the sky could barely be discerned.
Even as chill as it was, perspiration gleamed on Carter's face. It came from anticipation as well as the exertion of the march.
"Hold it!" Cubanez whispered.
The column stopped and fanned out behind him and Carter.
They were forty yards short of the moat and the high, stone walls of the villa. Directly in front of them was a long, seemingly unending line of huge rocks.
"Is there a path between or over those boulders?" Carter asked.
"Yes," Cubanez replied. "I spotted it with binoculars this afternoon."
"It will be as slick as glass with this new snow."
"I know," Cubanez nodded and motioned up two men from the column.
One of them carried a canvas pack, the other something that looked like two aluminum poles.
"It's a lightweight loading chute," Cubanez explained. "It extends in width and length, and weighs next to nothing."
"To walk the moat?" Carter ventured.
"Exactly. Here's your pack. You are the bomber expert. I will position the men."
Carter grinned and accepted the pack as Cubanez slipped away. From it he took a hot-shot battery, two coils of wire, and a bundle tightly wrapped in oilskin.
"What's that?" Louisa asked, peering over Carter's shoulder.
"Good old-fashioned dynamite," he replied. "It makes the kind of boom everyone around here is used to hearing."
"My God, you'll blow up the whole villa!"
"Would that I could," Carter said as he broke the ties on the wire and started wrapping the two coils together with a loose twist.
Then he opened the end of the bundle and carefully inserted a fuse into the center stick of dynamite. This done, he tied the end of the wires to the coil he had already scraped clean. Then he uncrossed the opposite ends of the coil wires and handed them to Louisa.
"Hold these… and keep your hands clear of that battery. Ramon?"
"Here," came the reply out of the darkness, and then the man himself materialized.
"How close are we?"
"The jeep just checked in. They are in place. All we need now is the word from Alfredo."
It came five minutes later when the little light on top of the two-way in Cubanez's hand glowed red. He opened the channel and spoke.
"Go ahead."
"Alfredo here. The roof is secure. Six dead, no alert. We're moving down to the tower doors now."
"Good enough." He closed the channel and glanced up at Carter. "Ready?"
"Follow me over," Carter replied. "You carry the battery. Louisa, the wires!"
In a half crouch, with his feet widely spaced and the dynamite pack in one hand, he scaled the boulder and slid down the other side on his butt.
It was about twenty yards to the moat, and by the time he got there two me" were already extending the aluminum chute. One end of it fell silently in the snow on the other side, and Carter barely missed a beat as his feet hit the chute.
It took him a full two minutes to find a depression between the phony stone and the concrete foundation. When he did, he securely lodged the lethal pouch and retreated back across the moat, playing the wire out behind him.
The two men pulled the ladder a safe distance, then slid in between the rocks.
When Carter was again squatting between Louisa and Cubanez, he took the battery.
"I'll need a little light for safety's sake, but shield it."
Cubanez cupped a penlight between his hands and pointed the beam down at the battery.
Carter attached one of the two coils to the battery terminal. Carefully he kinked the second loose wire away from the terminal and looked up.
"Ramon…"
"Si?"
"Your men know enough to keep their heads down?"
"Oh, yes. And they know the groups they split into when they get inside. I've rehearsed it all, over and over again, with each one of them."
"Good. Louisa?"
"Si?"
"Lie flat and cover your head with your rifle and your arms. When this goes, there's going to be rock and concrete flying all over hell around here. Here we go!"
Carter pressed the wire to the second terminal, and the night was filled with sound.
The explosion was deafening. Rocks, dirt, and hunks of concrete filled the air. The wall of boulders blocked most of the debris, but a few fragments must have gotten through.
As Carter lifted his head from his arms, he heard moaning just behind him.
One of the men was cursing and trying to apply a makeshift tourniquet to his arm. He saw Carter's questioning glance and flashed him a thumbs-up sign.
"Let's go!" Carter hissed when the last of the falling rocks clattered back to earth.
Sliding down the other side of the mound of boulders, they heard a second explosion far in the distance, quickly followed by a third.
Across the moat, there was a gaping twenty-foot-wide hole in the wall of the villa. Inside, Carter could see electrical sparks flying all over the place.
"Watch the bare wires when you go through!" he shouted just as he gained the edge of the moat.
The two ladder bearers were on the ball. The aluminum chute was already stretched across the moat, and they were holding it steady as Carter's boots hit it.
Two seconds later he was through the hole and into the kitchen. He could hear the jeep-mounted.50-caliber opening up in front and the footsteps of the others behind him.
Several exposed wires were doing wild things along one wall. They left sparks and the beginnings of tiny fires where they skipped. Finally two of them collided, and the lights went off when a breaker somewhere hit.
"Let's go!" Carter rasped, unlimbering the Skorpion from across his back.
There was an exit to the right and one to the left.
Carter saw Cubanez go through the right as he burst through the left, with Louisa and two of the others right behind him.
He found himself in the great room of the villa.
Two men were running wildly down the stairway. When they saw the raiding party, they tried to swing the machine pistols bumping their sides into action.
Without breaking stride, Carter sprayed them both. At the same time he heard firing from the other wing of the ground floor, telling him that Cubanez was engaged.
"Two of you take the front door! They'll be coming in from the courtyard. You… cover our asses!"
Louisa was already bounding up the stairs. Carter took off after her. Halfway up, there was a single shot and then a burst from the Skorpion.