Colin Forbes: The Heights of Zervos

'So it's best they stay there for the moment,' Macomber broke in briskly.- 'Wait here until we've gone and then go to your room, please.' He turned to Grapos. 'There are only three of them but this could be the most dangerous job of the lot. Let's get going.'

They ascended to The third floor without incident and Macomber led the way with the Greek one step below him. The Scot was desperately worried about what might happen if the destroyer came within range before they reached the tower, but he still went up cautiously, pausing at each landing to listen carefully, climbing the stairs like the others on the soles of his boots, so they made very little sound as they approached the fourth floor. Macomber had reached the landing, was about to peer round the corner, when he heard footsteps coming along the top floor. Gesturing to the others below, he waited. The footsteps arrived at the top of the staircase, then faded. Macomber ran up the last flight, saw an empty corridor stretching away, a short passage to his left, an iron-studded door in the stone wall at the end of the passage, a door which must lead to the tower and which was open. He went silently down the short passage and listened at the open door, looking up a stone spiral which vanished round a corner in the gloom. He arrived just in time to hear someone hammering sharply on a wooden surface in a certain way, a signal which doubtless identified the new arrival. Metal scraped over metal as a bolt was withdrawn, nailed boots climbed the last few steps, a trapdoor slammed shut and the bolt rasped home again.

'Who was it?' Grapos whispered in his ear while Prentice and Ford kept a watch on the corridors. Macomber waved a hand to make the Greek shut up and started up the spiral, feeling his way in the darkness with his hand on the roughened wall. The steps were dangerously narrow, fading into nothingness at the inner edge, and when his head touched something he knew he was at the top. He retreated down several steps and switched on his torch. The trap-door was a massive slab of wood, so close-fitting that no hint of daylight had shown through in the darkness. We'll never break through that, he thought, and went back down the spiral.

'We can't shoot our way up on to the roof,' Macomber informed them quietly, 'there's a trap-door like a piece of teak up there. Prentice, let's take a quick look at the Abbot's bedroom and see what drags the brave captain – if it is Braun -out into the open. Ford, you stay here while Grapos watches the lower stairs. If someone starts coming down this spiral, join Grapos, and we'll take care of ourselves.'

They approached the bedroom tentatively in case a guard had been left inside, but the room was empty. The windows looked out over the mountain and the only furniture was an austere bed, a wooden table and a chair. A wireless transmitter rested on the table with a pair of headphones laid neatly behind it close to the chair. 'So that's it,' Macomber commented. 'He's transmitting to Burckhardt from here now. He must have found the roof inconvenient. I'm damned sure he thinks we've all been killed – he hasn't even locked the door.'

'Couldn't,' Prentice pointed out laconically. 'There's no keyhole. Do you think he'll be back?' He was looking out of the window but the wall of the tower cut off any view down to the lake.

'I hope so. It's our only chance of getting up to that tower roof. I'd give anything now for a ten-kilogram demolition charge. Placed under that trap-door it would blow the whole roof into the lake. We'll have to work something simple out in case he does come down again. I expect he might – those headphones look as though he's expecting to use them again in the near future.'

This time Macomber let Prentice make arrangements for Braun's reception because he wanted to hold himself in reserve for what he proposed to attempt if Braun came down again. While Ford watched the staircase, Prentice and Grapos took up ambush station on either side of the doorway leading up to the spiral. Macomber waited at the end of the stone passage with his Luger ready for an emergency. It was a simple-seeming operation like this which could so easily go wrong. They waited and the minutes passed as Macomber wondered whether Braun was now permanently stationed on the roof, whether having radioed a warning of the attack on the monastery he was now going to sit tight until the first half-tracks poured into the square below. Or would he venture once more down the spiral to send a further message about the destroyer's progress? In the silence he heard his wrist-watch ticking and then he heard something else.

Something which thudded hollowly from the ulterior of the spiral. The trap-door had been opened very quietly this time, had then been closed with less sound than previously. Macomber stared down the passage to where Grapos waited pressed against the wall, his knife held by his side, to where Prentice waited on the other side of the doorway, his forehead moist although the temperature was low inside the stone passage. There was a long pause when they heard nothing and Prentice began to think it was a false alarm, but the Scot thought differently and could almost sense the presence of someone listening inside the spiral before he came out. Then a boot scraped over stone, the muzzle of a machine-pistol stabbed out of the doorway and a uniformed captain of the Alpenkorps came out behind it. Prentice grabbed with both hands as Grapos lunged with the knife, but the German swung round with a swift reaction which made Macomber take a step forward. The lieutenant had one hand pressed over his mouth, the other locked round his throat when the German swung so unexpectedly, tearing the hand free from his throat. Grapos had little better success when his knife hit the wrong target, was deflected along the barrel of the machine-pistol and skidded over the German's hand, which made him let go of the weapon but had no disabling effect. The German flung his whole weight on Prentice, catching the freed hand between himself and the bare wall, and the lieutenant thought his knuckles were broken as Grapos lunged a second time and the knife went home. Braun sagged, collapsed on the floor, and when Macomber checked his pulse he felt nothing. Captain Braun had become a permanent casualty.

'I'm going straight up,' Macomber said quickly. 'We're running out of time and they may think Braun's forgotten something if I go up now. Grapos, if I can get that trap opened, can get even half-way on to the roof, you follow…'

He was mid-way up the spiral when the pain caught him across the back, a sharp stabbing pain which locked him immovably for several seconds: he must have twisted something when he'd leapt out of the half-track. He suppressed a groan, felt Grapos bump into him, and forced himself up the last few steps. With the Luger in his right hand, his fingers felt the trap-door to check his whereabouts, then he rapped confidently on the underside of the lid in a certain way, the way Braun had rapped. There was a pause, long drawn-out moments when he thought the stratagem hadn't worked, followed by a rattling sound as the bolt was withdrawn.

It went wrong at once. The trap-door opened slowly and there was no one to shoot at as daylight flooded down into the spiral. When the gap was wide enough he ran up the last few steps, aware of an unforeseen handicap – the trap was being opened from behind him by someone he couldn't see. He reached the stone-paved roof and half-turned round, only to find himself again temporarily immobilized in that position by the fierce pain which seared his back and cramped his movement, making it impossible for him to aim the Luger at the kneeling corporal who slammed down the trap and pushed the bolt home. The falling slab of wood had struck Grapos on the shoulder, leaving Macomber isolated on the roof with the two Germans. The corporal, still on his knees, was reaching for a pistol lying on the stones beside him when Macomber threw his Luger. The weapon smashed into the corporal's temple and he fell over sideways, his fingers still closed over the pistol as he lay still, facing the sky with his eyes open. The other soldier had been standing by the wall looking out over the gulf when Macomber came onto the roof, his body crouched as he pressed his eye to a powerful field-telescope mounted on a tripod, while close by a short, squat-barrelled mortar was set up on its own tripod near a pile of snub-nosed shells. Heavily built, the German's open collar exposed a thick neck, and he was only taken by surprise for a few seconds, then he dropped to his knees and began tugging furiously to free something caught under the canvas which cushioned the mortar bombs. It came free as Macomber wrenched himself into action and reached him.