Mallory made a list in his mind, measuring the necessary movements of the carbine. Then he took a deep breath, sighted on the gleam in the alley, and pulled the trigger.
The gun roared. He moved to the men by the church, one, two; one dead, one winged, but the heavy bullet would do him no good, and the men in the middle of the square were diving for cover as Mallory worked the bolt and pulled the trigger. One of them was down, not moving, the other one a pair of heels vanishing behind the buttress, damn, and the cat was properly among the pigeons now.
Mallory pulled the pin on the hand grenade he had looped into the searcher’s rope and let it swing away. He kicked the rope he had cut out into space, grabbed it, and went down as close to free fall as made no difference. There were shots from below, but the bullets went wide. Mallory’s boots hit the cliff, and he bounced out, a wide arc, descending. There was a scream from above. One of the searchers had discovered that his rope had shrunk. A body whistled past, bounced once, and crashed into the buildings at the cliff’s foot. Mallory was slowing now, crabbing sideways for the roof of a building. The bullets were getting closer. Then there was a heavy explosion overhead, and another body whizzed past, preceded this time by a length of rope. The grenade had done its stuff –
Mallory landed on a roof, let go of the rope and rolled, unhitching his Schmeisser. He was breathing hard, his heart hammering at his ribs. Above him in the lights he saw three men descending, foreshortened. He loosed off a burst at them, saw two of them let go, heard the crash of their bodies coming down. The third stopped in a crease of black shadow. Mallory saw the muzzle flash. Rounds whacked into the roof around him, and grit stung his face. He felt naked on this roasting-pan of a roof. There was no cover. He squeezed off another burst at the cliff face and scuttled to the edge of the roof. Bullets cracked past his head, whipping across the cobbles from the direction of the church. He could feel the breath rasping, the sweat running. Another burst of bullets from on high kicked chips out of the parapet by his head. He took another look at the square, squeezed off a burst, rolled over the parapet and dropped to the cobbles.
It was a long drop, longer than it had appeared. Mallory landed awkwardly, felt his ankle turn as far as his boot would let it, sharp prongs of pain jab up towards his knee. No more climbing, he thought, rolling and firing at the same time, heading for the patch of shadow, ankle hurting like hell and going to hurt worse later, if anything was going to be hurting at all –
He was across the alley and in the shadow. His helmet crashed into stone. A mounting block. He was invisible, in cover. Safe as houses.
For as long as it took someone to unhook a grenade. Say, twenty seconds. There was no way out. Mallory fought the Benzedrine, and the pain, and the weariness, scrabbling for an answer. Miller was up in the tower. Wills was off with Clytemnestra. Andrea was … well, God knew where Andrea was. The important thing was not to give Miller away. If they found Miller, they found Spiro, and if they found Spiro, Spiro could be expected to tell them everything he knew.
As far as Mallory was concerned, there were no answers.
A great hush fell over the square. Mallory lay, ears pricked, waiting for the fizz of the grenade fuse, the rattle of metal on stone that would signal the finish.
But instead, he heard a voice.
‘Herr Kapitän Mallory,’ it said. It was a military voice, with an odd, bubbling hiss in it. How the hell does he know my name? thought Mallory.
‘We have recognized you,’ said the voice, as if it had heard his thoughts, ‘by your skill, at first, it must be said. Kapitän Mallory, there are things I should like to know.’
Of course there are, said Mallory to himself. ‘Who the hell are you?’ he said, aloud. He was surprised he still had a voice, let alone a voice that sounded clear and normal as it bounced from the surface of the buildings.
‘Hauptmann Dieter Wolf,’ said the voice. And to Mallory’s astonishment, a man walked out into the light. He wore a high-crowned cap, whose peak hid his eyes. Someone at some time had smashed his jaw, and whoever had mended it had not been a master of his craft, not by a long chalk. The lower mandible was horribly skewed; it looked as if it would not shut properly. Spit bubbled in the corner as he breathed, giving his voice its nasty liquid hiss. It gave him a permanent crooked grin; a crocodile grin. There was a Luger in his hand. No grenades, though.
‘Come out here,’ said Wolf.
‘Quite comfortable where I am,’ said Mallory.
Wolf’s twisted jaw writhed. ‘Let me put it like this,’ he said. ‘I have men in position who can drop some things into your hole. This would be a pity, I suppose. I have heard a great deal about you.’
Mallory had to acknowledge that Wolf was right, it would be a pity. He hesitated, his mouth suddenly dry: a dryness he had felt before, high on a Southern Alp without a name, foodless at the top of a couloir, the sun coming on to the ice above, freeing salvos of boulders that swept the gulley clean as a whistle. It was the dryness that came when you had run out of ideas, and you had to put judgement on the shelf, and trust to luck in a place where luck was not in plentiful supply.
Mallory pulled himself to his feet. His ankle hurt, now. Everything hurt. It was most unlikely that Hauptmann Wolf wanted to talk to him about the weather. More probably, he would want to cut him in half with a Schmeisser. ‘Closer,’ said Wolf. He had his Luger pointed at Mallory’s stomach. Mallory could feel the presence of Miller in the belfry. He schooled himself not to look up.
‘So,’ said Wolf. ‘We are honoured that you have been able to visit, Herr Kapitän Mallory. You and your friends, Kolonel Andrea of the defeated rabble once known as the Greek army. And of course Corporal Miller, of the Catering Corps.’
‘Who?’ said Mallory.
The saurian jaw stretched in something approaching a smile. The grin broadened. A thread of drool hung from the corner of the ruined mouth. ‘They are both dead,’ he said. ‘The Kolonel was shot. Miller we hanged.’
‘Sorry to hear that,’ said Mallory. His ankle was killing him. He told himself he did not believe a word of this. But his stomach was hollow with something worse than hunger.
The weariness flowed over him in a heavy wave. Admit it. There were hundreds of them, four Thunderbolts. Wolf was lying about Miller. But Andrea …
‘And now,’ said Wolf, with horrid affability, ‘I am going to kill you.’ Delicately, he put the Luger back in its holster and secured the flap. Removing his cap, he skimmed it on to the mounting block. Fumbling behind him, he pulled out a nine-inch dagger. Mallory had heard of this dagger. Wolf liked to use it to disembowel people.
‘One thing,’ said Mallory. I’m flattered that you recognized me. How did you do it?’
‘I should say that I recognized you from the newspapers before the war,’ said Wolf. ‘But it would not be true. The fact is that your friend Andrea told me, under torture. Just after he had told me where to find the charges you had placed so amateurishly on the Victory weapons.’ It was not just his jaw that had been broken. Without his cap, his whole head looked as if it had been crushed and clumsily reformed. The eyes were cold slits under a white-fuzzed cranium that might have been moulded from dough by a child with a taste for the macabre.
Mallory smiled at him, the bright, enthusiastic smile of someone who has just been given a lovely present. Andrea would not have revealed the time of day under torture. This unpleasant specimen was beyond a shadow of doubt telling lies.