why not! He only knew he had to take a closer look at the subterranean layout of the place. 'Maybe it's for later,' he shrugged.
Humph answered shrug for shrug, and said, It's your game, Harry. And without more ado his dead mind lit with al the details of the snaking tunnel labyrinth through the bedrock under Le Manse Madonie. The Necroscope memorized all the co-ordinates he needed - including those of that forbidden nether tunnel in the very bowels of the place, where Humph had earned himself a reprimand.
Got what you want, Harry?
'Let's hope so,' the Necroscope answered, and excused himself. He was going to be busy now.
Good luck then, Humph told him, his dead voice fading into nothing.
Harry got down from the rock. It was time for his distraction, a diversionary tactic. He took three fragmentation grenades from his belt pouches, pulled their pins, lobbed them left, right, and centre as far as he could throw. Then he ducked down in a cluster of rocks and counted off the seconds.
In the silence of the warm Mediterranean night, with only the frying-fat sounds of a hundred cicadas, and the toot-toot! of owls to disturb it, the abrupt triple blast of the grenades going off one, two, three, sounded like the beginning of World War HI. Shrapnel whistled overhead.
Harry waited until the echoes came rolling back from the mountains, then stood up. Sulphur and cordite stench came drifting on orange and grey clouds, while across the false plateau the lights of Le Manse Madonie blinked on one by one until the entire fagade was lit up like the esplanade of Edinburgh Castle during the annual tattoo. There was even a searchlight beam in one of the corner towers, that began to sweep the ground immediately outside the walls. Whoever was awake - probably all of them by now - they'd heard the blasts but hadn't detected the source. And that wouldn't do.
Harry gave it a count of ten, then lobbed another grenade off to his left. This time, after the flash and the bang, the searchlight beam came lancing right at him. He sat down in the rocks and let it pass overhead. Unless these people were equipped with something extraordinary in the way of night-sight binoculars, they wouldn't see anything at this range.
A minute passed, and another; the beam flashed to and fro; a motor coughed into life and a vehicle - probably a Landrover, four-wheel drive engaged - roared into view from under the arch of the entrance. It came bumping across the rough terrain, headlights blazing. Then another motor snarled into life, and with a rising whine and the unmistakable whup, whup, whup of rotors, a helicopter hovered into view from behind Le Manse's wals.
Harry wasn't about to let these vehicles get to him, only to where he had been. By now every occupant of Le Manse Madonie would be looking - and thinking - out. It was the Necroscope's time to go in. He conjured a Mobius door, and jumped ...
... To the location, the co-ordinates, that had come over the clearest (and the darkest) from J. Humphrey Jackson's memory: a junction of rock-hewn tunnels deep under Le Manse Madonie. Darkest, because this was a place that Humph hadn't much cared for. The Necroscope had felt it as the dead American had guided him along the route: his reluctance - even in death, and after all this time - to have to visit this spot again, however briefly. It was easy to see why.
The place was claustrophobic, soulless, empty ... there was nothing here, except the junction of tunnels itself. Yet it was as if something listened. So that Harry found himself listening back, to nothing. Maybe it was just the knowledge of the weight of rock overhead - claustrophobia, yes, - and the sudden notion that if Le Manse were a beast, these tunnels were its jaws; and the waiting for them to close. It was an oppressive place, evocative of morbid thoughts ... but no more so than any deep, dark, deserted mine shaft. So Harry thought, as he deliberately shook the feeling off.
The gouged, arched ceiling was low, no more than six and a half to seven feet. Every fifteen paces or so, dim naked light bulbs were strung to the walls, bending away horizontally with the curvature of the tunnel. The illumination they offered was eerie at best: more a haze than true lighting. This was a meeting point for five tunnels. Stone