It made an audible landing just to the west of the circle, and four men detached themselves from the shadows and ran across the grass towards it.
In seconds they had surrounded the case, which was perhaps three feet on a side. Apparently secure in the belief of solitude, they were caught quite unprepared when a sharp voice out of the darkness said, "All right - hold very still and raise your hands. All of you." At the same moment a powerful battery-operated floodlight pinned them to the spot. The four men stood frozen in their various positions, harshly lit against the blackness of the night.
Then, as though directed by a single control, all four of them leaped away into the darkness in different directions. Napoleon's first shot snapped through the space where one of them had been standing, and an instant later muzzle flashes flickered from the shadows. Illya swept the light across the plain, but no heads were to be seen above the grass. As two slugs whipped past him, he killed the light and dived for cover behind the nearest stone himself.
He wriggled over to Napoleon for a fast conference. In terse whispers, punctuated by occasional gunshots, they worked out a plan of action.
A few seconds later the floodlight appeared again, weaving and bobbing, picking out the hiding men. As the light rose higher and higher from the ground it swung about, bathing the short scrub grass in light. The Rainbow men stayed concealed, as Napoleon's sights traversed the area.
At the same time, Illya, having thrown the cord of the floodlight over the top of a lintle-stone so it dangled in the air, and hauled it up to perhaps twelve feet from the ground, was running silently in the opposite direction. Just beyond the Heel Stone to the east was a road, and just across the road their little two-seater was concealed. While Napoleon kept the opposing team under control, he could zip around among them, pick up the box and remove it.
He whipped the camouflage blanket away, vaulted into the seat and hit the starter. The engine raced, and rear wheels threw clouds of dirt as they tore at the ground for traction. In seconds he was around the end of the fence and bounding over the tussocky grass, his headlights stabbing at the sky and sweeping the ground. The dangling floodlight picked out the crate he was after, and he gunned the engine in second gear, hoping the defenders would be able to keep out of his way.
The car jerked to a halt between the light and the box. Illya leaped out the near side and hoisted the case. Three shots whipped by him, and a short burst from somewhere below the light clipped the tops of the grass blades.
The case was large enough to be clumsy, but weighed no more than fifty pounds. Illya crouched, gripped fingers under the edge, and lifted. For a moment he was silhouetted against the harsh floodlight, and the car lurched slightly as he dropped the case into the passenger seat. He took off again, swinging right, as a fusillade went off behind him and to his left. As he made a long U-turn, headlights out, the communicator in his pocket twittered. Steering one-handed, he fished it out and flipped it open. Napoleon's voice whispered in his ear.
"Illya - I've been pinned down by the four of them while you were loading up. I can hole up where I am, but you can't get in to me. Get that box somewhere safe, and I'll call for help."
The Russian clicked an acknowledgment. Solo could take care of himself, as had been noted, and under the circumstances the box of Thrush's latest developments was worth as much as a chance on his life.
A few slugs sang by like mosquitoes as Illya dropped into top gear, fighting the steering wheel and forcing the bucking car back towards the road.
Napoleon, at the same time, crouched behind a stone and stuffed cartridges into his long magazine. There seemed to be more than four men out there now - perhaps there had been another crew with a truck some where nearby. He had seen Illya go bounding away over the plain with the box in the left-hand seat, and there had been no concerted effort to chase him.
He glanced at his watch. The glowing hands read shortly past three. It would be dawn in another hour and a half, and darkness would no longer hide him. His last act before escaping from his former hiding place had been to disconnect the lamp and deactivate the battery; that was one weapon they wouldn't be using against him. He finished reloading his twenty-shot magazine and settled down to wait.
Some ninety minutes later Napoleon crouched once again behind a stone - the Heel Stone, the same that Illya had sprinted past on his way to the car. During the last hour and more, he had been harried and chivvied from place to place, dodging from one stone to another in an effort to avoid encirclement, retreating slightly. And now he was at the easternmost stone in the whole monument - a great rough boulder perhaps ten feet wide and twenty high, jutting up from the Wiltshire grass. A wide stretch of open space lay between him and the edge of the monument.
The stones were beginning to show lighter against the western sky, now, and the last of the stars were swallowed in a light mist which formed in the air. The Rainbow men - those who were left - could not rush him across the open ground, but he could not escape from the sanctuary of the standing stone. If he could only hold them off for a while longer...
Then he felt a warmth on the back of his neck, and turned his head, shading his eyes with the palm of a chilly hand. The sun had just cleared the horizon, and the mist was burning away. The golden rays were suddenly dazzling against the last wisps of night, and he looked down.
He holstered his automatic again as the last of the mist faded, and began to run. He ran low, half-bent among the tufts of grass, directly toward the rising sun. He heard a few shots from behind him, and dodged slightly. The rising sun, almost directly behind the Heel Stone, blinded his pursuers and guided him to escape by its shadows.
Ten minutes later Napoleon rose from a crouch in the grass to check his backtrail visually. There was no sign of pursuit. Gradually he stood upright and looked all about him in the cold, wet morning air. He was alone. There was only a farmhouse, perhaps half a mile away, where no light showed to indicate a wakeful inhabitant.
He started towards it, slogging through the dew-heavy grass. And thirty seconds later something cracked through the air beside his head like the tail of a whip. He broke into a run, leaping and dodging, heading towards the distant farmhouse, as the sound of the shot reached him, flat and far away across the moors.
Into the farmyard he staggered, winded from the run. He may have lost them, or they may have been hurrying along behind. He glanced at the shuttered windows of the sleeping farmhouse, and decided against involving the citizenry. Around the far side of the house he found a bicycle leaning against a wall. He fumbled in his pockets for a pen and paper, and scribbled a note. Am borrowing your bicycle; it will be returned. Here's something for your trouble. He fastened it to a five-pound note and tacked it to the wall.
Then he straightened the bike silently, straddled it, and spun away, wobbling slightly, down the dirt road that led from the farmer's gate. Unless his pursuit had been able to bring a vehicle along with them in that long chase over the plain, he could now outdistance them with ease. The road was reasonably level, and merged with a paved thoroughfare after a mile or so, heading south.
At the junction, wet and cold, Napoleon surveyed the road and tried to orient himself. He was now, uh, southeast of Stonehenge. The nearest large town was Shaftesbury, which would be... ah... to his right. Probably.