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He wormed between the little fir plank outhouse and a small log house from which came the odour of birds of prey.
The piles of lumber and firewood there made for good cover. That would have occurred to the men in the house, too, and they would be keeping a bright eye on the piles.
A third cry of the lark came. This was even less convincing than Barney's.
Doc wormed along the ground until he came behind the outhouse, and he stood up. He could see the lime-stone chimney on the north easily enough. He stepped back, estimated the distance and the wind again, and tossed the gas grenade underhanded. It flew up in a high arc and came down almost in its target, the square hole on top of the chimney.
It struck the edge, however, bounced up and down onto the sloping roof, bounded along and leaped from the roof's edge and fell onto the ground just below a window. Doc had stepped behind the outhouse by then and put his fingers on his ears. The blast was still get-ting echoes from the mountain behind him and across the valley when he tossed his second grenade. This disappeared down the chimney and exploded before it reached the bottom. At least, it should have done so. He had sent it higher than the first so that the six-second interval between pulling the pin and the mingling of gases would result in a blast halfway down the stone shaft.
There was the chance that Cobbs and Villiers might get hurt, but they would certainly be hurt if their captors got clean away with them. They would have to take chances, too. They were adults who knew very well what the consequences of this game might be if they lost.
The echoes of the second explosion had just died when a third, Barney's, blew up just outside the front porch - if Barney had thrown accurately. Doc charged toward the house just as Pauncho's grenade, thrown from the south, blew up the side porch.
Doc was hoping that the rapid succession of blasts would stun the defenders and yet would not kill the prisoners. He ran with the bundle of dynamite sticks held by a cord in one hand. He threw it ahead of him so it landed on the roof, leaped up, grabbed the edge, and swung himself up with the agility of a leopard. An automatic rifle began firing immediately afterwards, and the muzzle, stuck from the window, tried to follow him up. But it was too late.
Somebody began to shoot through the roof. The bullets did penetrate the three- inch thick planks, but he had moved on to a station just beside the chimney. When the firing ceased, he yelled down the shaft.
'Come on out with your hands behind your necks! Or I'll drop this dynamite down the chimney!'
'If you do, you'll kill Cobbs and the girl!' a man shouted.
Doc said, 'So what?'
There was a pause. He resisted the temptation to put his head over the mouth of the chimney to hear what they were saying. Somebody might be down there waiting to shoot his face off.
'O.K.!' the same voice shouted. 'We know when we're licked! We'll come out with our hands up!'
'Send the prisoners out first!'
There was another pause. Then the man said, 'Here they come!'
A banging as of the front door being violently opened a
Two men came out of the back, three through the front door, and two through the hole blown in the south side of the house by Barney's grenade. They came out shooting wildly. Cobbs and Villiers threw themselves on the ground, but von
Zarndirl's men did not care to waste bullets on them. They wanted to get Doc and his men first.
Doc, knowing that some of them would turn and shoot at him, tossed the bundle of dynamite toward the rear door to panic them. Then he leaped past the chimney and down to the ground, landing on both feet but going forward to the ground and rolling. His massive muscles and thick bones enabled him to take the shock without injury. He came up onto his feet, his gasgun spewing at the men in the front, two of whom had run to the north so they could get him in their line of fire. His little bullets ran across their chests, sending up gouts of flesh and blood.
Barney's FN had cut the third man almost in half.
The men in the back had taken off when the dynamite fell near them. They did not know that it had no fuse. They kept on ru
The two men who had gone out through the hole in the south side had been wounded in the legs by Pauncho's first few bullets. One got to his elbows and started to shoot, and Pauncho had to kill him. The other man put up his hands, though he was unable to stand up when Pauncho ordered him to.
Barney had untied the hands of Cobbs and the red-head. She did not look so beautiful now what with the dust and the blood and the greyish skin. But, seeing Doc, she smiled, and at that moment, dishevelled and shocked or not, she was beautiful.
Pauncho came around from the side of the house dragging a man along behind him, by the jacket collar. He dropped him before Doc, and said, 'We're in luck! Von Zarndirl, if those scars mean anything!'
Caliban gathered together the metal box and the weapons, and Pauncho dragged von Zarndirl into the house. It was necessary to give him three of the blood-building pills. There was food in the house, and the German ate after the initial effects of the pills had energised and deshocked him. Doc put Barney on guard outside with orders to watch especially for helicopters. There was a transceiver by which they could have called for help. It had been on a table near the fire-place, and it and the operator lay in two heaps on the floor. Doc's grenade had blown out the upper part of the fireplace, and the stone fragments had shattered the radio and driven a sharp piece into the operator's neck.
The interior of the house was a mess. Shattered glass, ripped blinds, curtains, overturned tables, and pieces of stone and dust lay over the single big room.
Doc injected calibanite into the arm of von Zarndirl. Within fifteen minutes he had cleared up some of the mystery.
Von Zarndirl was working for an organisation which had to be the Nine, though he did not know what its name was or even that it had a name.
Doc's face did not show it, but he was shocked. Even though he and Grandrith had turned against the Nine, he had never thought about others doing so. And Iwaldi himself was one of the Nine who sat at the table of power.
Von Zarndirl was too far down in the echelon of the Nine to be a 'candidate'. He did not know that Iwaldi was one of the mille
Almost immediately, three-fourths of the group had been crushed against the wall by a sliding stone block. Van Zarndirl, in the lead, had escaped by an inch. The survivors, five men, had refused to go on. Von Zarndirl had returned to Gramzdorf (the choppers having departed long before by prearrangement), and he had reported via radio to a Herr Schmidt, whom he had never seen. His men had observed Caliban's group, but whoever it was that received the report did not recognise any of them. Or if he did, he did not tell von Zarndirl their identities. Schmidt ordered that Cobbs or Villiers be taken for questioning. The old Norwegian, Sigurdsson, and his two companions were to be kept under close observation. If a chance arose, they were to be taken alive. But if they looked as if they might get away, they were to be killed.