Lomax could hear the truck start to slow and he nodded to Boyd and they crouched under an overhang where the dry soil had started to erode and then the truck had passed them and braked to a halt.
The driver leaned out of his cab and called angrily to George who stood a few yards away looking convincingly helpless as sheep milled around him.
The driver leaned further out of the window and shouted again. At that moment, Yanni came round the back of the truck and moved forward quickly. His long staff rose and fell across the unprotected neck with the force of a headsman’s axe. The German made no sound and when the young shepherd reached up and opened the door, his lifeless body tumbled to the ground.
Lomax and Boyd were already scrambling out of the ditch and running towards the truck. Boyd stuffed his beret into a pocket of his camouflaged battle smock and pulled on the driver’s grey forage cap. It was a size too small, but tilted down across the forehead was convincing enough to pass at a distance.
He scrambled behind the wheel and Lomax turned to Yanni who was on his knees going through the dead man’s pockets. “Shove him into the ditch and get to hell out.of here. You haven’t got long, remember.”
George Samos was already driving the sheep from the road and Boyd took the truck forward as Lomax climbed up into the cab from the other side. Within a few moments they were clear of the sheep and the noise fell away behind them as they turned another shoulder of the mountain and moved through a deep ravine.
As Lomax took Boyd’s Mauser from one of his pockets and checked the silencer and the clip, they moved out of the ravine and the monastery came into view.
It was perched spectacularly on the edge of a small plateau which jutted from the side of the mountain like a shelf. Behind it, a wall of rock at least five hundred feet high blocked any other access.
Lomax crouched on the floor of the cab, his head and shoulders under Boyd’s legs, the Mauser ready in his right hand.
Boyd kept the truck moving at a relatively fast speed. As he started to slow he said, ‘That’s a bit of luck. He’s raising the swing bar already.”
“Well still have to take care of him.”
Boyd nodded. “Right, here we go.” —
He braked to a halt, keeping the engine ticldng over, and opened the door. The sentry called out something which Lomax couldn’t catch and came round the side of the door.
He was a small, undersized man in his forties and wore a pair of ugly steel military spectacles. His rifle was slung carelessly over one shoulder and there was a smile on his face.
Lomax gave him no chance. He grabbed him by the front of his tunic, pulled him forward and shot him between the eyes. He scrambled back, hauling the body up into the cab, and Boyd slammed the door and took the truck through the gates.
The slight, foolish smile was still frozen into place on the dead man’s face, but blood poured from his nostrils and mouth. Lomax shoved him to one side as Boyd turned the truck in a half-circle and braked sharply at the entrance to the tower. ù Lomax opened the door, jumped down to the steps and moved inside quickly, sub-machine gun ready. It was cool and dark and very quiet. The first steps of the spiral staircase were only a few feet away, the door to the guardroom beside them. When someone inside laughed, it sounded remote and somehow unreal.
Lomax moved to the door, Boyd at his shoulder. He wiped sweat from his brow with the back of a hand and nodded. Boyd opened the door quietly and they moved inside.
Two of the guards sat at a table playing cards in their shirtsleeves while the other lay on one of the narrow iron cots reading a magazine. One of the card-players cursed and threw down his cards. The other one started to laugh, his hand reaching out for the coins hi the centre of the table, and then he saw Lomax and Boyd.