"I pray thee tell to me:"

backs to the wall!" A certainty, an assured competence in the voice that made for instant obedience. "Take a good look at them, Sergeant." Almost conversational now, the tone, but neither torch nor gun barrel had wavered a fraction. "No shadow of expression in their faces, not even a flicker of the eyes. Dangerous men, Sergeant. The English choose their killers well" Mallory felt the grey bitterness of defeat wash through him in an almost tangible wave, he could taste the sourness of it in the back of his mouth. For a brief, heart-sickening second he allowed himself to think of what must now inevitably happen and as soon as the thought had come he thrust it savagely away. Everything, every action, every thought, every breath must be on the present. Hope was gone, but not irrecoverably gone: not so long as Andrea lived. He wondered if Casey Brown had seen or heard them coming, and what had happened to him: he made to ask, checked himself just in time. Maybe he was still at large. "How did you manage to find us?" Mallory asked quietly. "Only fools burn juniper wood," the officer said contemptuously. "We have been on Kostos all day and most of the night. A dead man could have smelt it." "On Kostos?" Miner shook his head. "How could?' "Enough!" The officer turned to someone behind him. "Tear down that screen," he ordered in German, "and keep us covered on either side." He looked back into the cave, gestured almost imperceptibly with his torch. "All right, you three. Outsideand you had better be careful. Please believe me that my men are praying for an excuse to shoot you down, you murdering swine!" The venomous hatred in his voice carried utter conviction. Slowly, hands still clasped above their heads, the three men stumbled to their feet. Mallory had taken only one step when the whip-lash of the German's voice brought him up short. "Stop!" He stabbed the beam of his torch down at the unconscious Stevens, gestured abruptly at Andrea. "One side, you! Who is this?" "You need not fear from him," Mallory said quietly. "He is one of us but he is terribly injured. He is dying." "We will see," the officer said tightly. "Move to the back of the cave!" He waited until the three men had stepped over Stevens, changed his automatic rifle for a pistol, dropped to his knees and advanced slowly, torch in one hand, gun in the other, well below the line of fire of the two soldiers who advanced unbidden at his heels. There was an inevitability, canon digital camera red a cold professionalism about it all that made Mallory's heart sink. Abruptly the officer reached out his gun-hand, tore the covers off the boy. A shuddering tremor shook the whole body, his head rolied from side to side as he moaned in unconscious agony. The officer bent quickly over him, the hard, clean lines of the face, the fair hair beneath the hood high-lit in the beam of his own torch. A quick look at Stevens's pain-twisted, emaciated features, a glance at the shattered leg, a brief, distasteful wrinkling of the nose as he caught the foul stench of the gangrene, and he had hunched back on his heels, gently replacing the covers over the sick boy. "You speak the truth," he said softly. "We are not barbarians. I have no quarrel with a dying man. Leave him there." He rose to his feet, walked slowly backwards. "The rest of you outside." The snow had stopped altogether, Mallory saw, and stars were beginning to twinkle in the clearing sky. The wind, too, had fallen away and was perceptibly warmer. Most of the snow would be gone by midday, Mallory guessed. Carelessly, incuriously, he looked around him. There was no sign of Casey Brown. Inevitably Mallory's hopes began to rise. Petty Officer Brown's recommendation for this operation had come from the very top. Two rows of ribbons to which he was entitled but never wore bespoke his gallantry, he had a formidable reputation as a guerrilla fighterand he had had an automatic rifle in his hand. If he were somewhere out there. . . . Almost as 'if he had divined his hopes, the German smashed them at a word. "You wonder where your sentry is, perhaps?" he asked mockingly. "Never fear, Englishman, he is not far from here, asleep at his post. Very sound asleep, I'm afraid." "You've killed him?" Mallory's hands clenched until his palms ached. The other shrugged his shoulder in vast indifference. "I really couldn't say. It was all too easy. One of my men lay in the gully and moaned. A masterly performancereally pitiablehe almost had me convinced. Like a fool your man came to investigate. I had another man waiting above, the barrel of his rifle in his hand. A very effective club, I assure you. . . ." Slowly Mallory unclenched his fists and stared bleakly down the gully. Of course Casey would fall for that, he was bound to after what had happened earlier in the night. He wasn't going to make a fool of himself again, cry "wolf"

"Then by my sooth," King Henrie said,

quietly until the last of the passengers had descended or been carried from the tractor cabin, then waved us all into a straight line facing towards Corazzini and himself. Both of them had their backs to the canvas screen, while we were placed just far enough clear of the shelter to be blinded by the increasingly heavy snowfall that swirled down into our eyes, but not so far off as not to be clearly seen by them. Whatever these two did, I was beginning to discover, betrayed that economy of movement and unquestioning sureness of the complete professionals who had long ago worked out the answers to and counters against any of a vast range and permutation of situations they were ever likely to encounter. Smallwood beckoned me. "You haven't finished your radio call, Dr Mason. Finish it. Your friend Hillcrest must be wondering at the delay." The gun in his hand came forward a fraction of an inch, just enough for the movement to be perceptible. Tor your own sake, do nothing to arouse his suspicions. Don't be clever. Keep it brief." I kept it brief. I excused the interruption of transmission on the grounds that Mahler had taken a sudden turn for the worseas indeed, I thought bitterly, he hadsaid that I'd guard the missile mechanism with my life and apologised for cutting the call short, but said it was essential to get Mahler to Uplavnik with all speed. "Finish it off," Smallwood said softly in my ear. I nodded. "That's the lot then, Captain Hillcrest. Will make the noon schedule. This is Mayday signing off. Mayday, Mayday." I switched off, and turned indifferently away. I had taken only one step when Smallwood caught my shoulder and whirled me round. For such an apparently slight man, he was phenomenally strong. I gasped as his pistol barrel dug into my stomach. " 'Mayday', Dr Mason?" he asked silkily. "What is 'Mayday'?" "Our call-sign, of course," I said irritably. "Your call-sign is GFK." "Our call-up is GFK. Our signing-off is 'Mayday'." "You're lying." I wondered how I could ever have thought this face meek and nervous and colourless. The mouth was a thin hard line, the upper eyelids bar-straight and hooded above the unwinking eyes. Flat marbled eyes of a faded light-blue. A killer's eyes. "You're lying," he panasonic lc43 digital camera repeated. "I'm not lying," I said angrily. "Count five and die." His eyes never left mine, the pressure of the gun increased. "One . . . two . . . three" "I'll tell you what it is!" The cry came from Margaret Ross. 'Mayday' is the international air distress signal, the SOS... I had to tell him, Dr Mason, I had to!" Her voice was a shaking sob. "He was going to kill you." "I was indeed," Smallwood agreed. If he felt either anger or apprehension, no trace of either appeared in the calm conversational voice. "I should do it nowyou've lost us four hours' head start. But courage happens to be one of the few virtues I admire. . . . You are an extremely brave man, Dr Mason. Your courage is a fair match for yourahlack of perspicacity, shall we say." "You'll never get off the ice-cap, Small wood," I said steadily. "Scores of ships and planes are searching for you, thousands of men. They'll get you and they'll hang you for these five dead men." "We shall see." He gave a wintry smile, and now that he had removed his rimless glasses I could see that the man's smile left his eyes untouched, left them flat and empty and lifeless, like the stained glass in a church and no sun behind it. "All right, Corazzini, the box. Dr Mason, bring one of the maps from the driver's seat." "In a moment. Perhaps you would care to explain" "Explanations are for children." The voice was level, curt, devoid of all inflection." I'm in a hurry, Dr Mason. Bring the map." I brought it and when I returned Corazzini was sitting on the front of the tractor sled with a case before him. But it wasn't the leather-covered portable radio: it was Smallwood's robe case. Corazzini snapped open the catches, pulled out Bible, robes and divinity hood, tossed them to one side then carefully brought out a metal box which looked exactly like a tape-recorder: indeed, when he shone his torch on it I could clearly see the word 'Grundig'. But it soon became apparent that it was like no tape-recorder that I had ever seen. The twin spools he ripped off the top of the machine and sent spinning away into the darkness and the snow, the tape unwinding in a long convoluted streamer. By this time I would have taken long odds that anyone suspicious enough to investigate would have found that tape perfectly genuine: probably, I thought bitterly, Bach's organ