Read Games of the Hangman Online
Authors: Victor O'Reilly
As the Optica
flew on, he practiced mostly by spotting cows.
On the outskirts of one village he ran across a hot spot he could not
identify at first:
the shape was
horizontal and smaller than a cow, though it was emitting nicely.
A check with the zoom revealed a couple hard
at it on a blanket, a penumbra of hot air around the central image bearing
witness to their dedication.
Kilmara knew
that it was theoretically possible to land any of the three aircraft in the
flight on the island — all had short takeoff and landing characteristics — but
the margin for error was slight even during the day.
It was not a viable option at night.
The Rangers
were going to have to jump once he had some idea of the local tactical
situation.
The big question was
where.
Jumping on top of a hostile force
in an age when everyone carried automatic weapons wasn't the best way to boost
morale.
He had already had the dubious
thrill of jumping into enemy fire, and although the tracers looked pretty as
they sailed up toward you, it wasn't an experience he longed to repeat.
From their
past discussions Kilmara knew that Fitzduane's preferred tactical option would
be to hole up in his castle until help came, but he also know that what one
wants and what happens in a
combat
situation can be very different things.
Since the two sides, by definition have totally opposing objectives,
much of combat in reality tends to be a chaotic mess.
In this situation the views of the college
faculty could have complicated the equation.
The action could be concentrated around
Kilmara knew
that his best chance of finding out what was going on before he committed his
small force lay in making radio contact.
The long-range transceiver might be out for some reason, but when he
came close to the island, he should be able to make contact with Fitzduane's
personal radio — if anyone was listening.
A message from
Ranger headquarters sounded in his ears.
An emergency meeting of the Security Committee of the Cabinet had
convened.
Right now the primary task of
the Rangers, it had been clearly laid down, was to ensure the safety and
integrity of the U.S. Embassy in
No convincing case had been made for any
change to those instructions.
Colonel
Kilmara and the airborne Ranger group were to return to Baldonnel immediately.
Kilmara's request for backup army support on
standby had been denied.
The
Taoiseach's hostility was becoming a problem.
Well, fuck him anyway.
The pilot
looked at Kilmara.
He had not
acknowledged the radio message, though the routine words had come instinctively
to his lips.
He had served under the
colonel for a considerable period of time.
Kilmara pointed at the long-distance radio and drew a finger across his
throat.
The pilot switched off the unit
and grinned.
"Doing a Nelson?"
he asked.
Kilmara made a
face.
"I've no ambitions to be a
dead hero or to be kissed as I lie there dying," he said into the
intercom.
"But
Nelson won the battle," said the pilot.
Kilmara raised
his eyebrows and went back to looking at cows.
On previous operations they had always had the reassuring backup of the
regular army.
This time it looked as if
they'd be on their own.
The black
silhouettes of the hills of
up on the horizon, and there was the glint of moonlight off a lake below.
"ETA twenty-two
minutes, Colonel."
The colonel
had his eyes closed.
"Too many
cows," he said.
The pilot
checked the firing circuits of the Optica's electronically controlled machine
guns and rocket pods.
The aircraft had been
designed for observation and endurance, but with lightweight armaments it had
proved possible to give it some punch.
The firing
circuit check
light glowed green.
All was in order.
The Rangers flew on.
*
*
*
*
*
Fitzduane's
All
preparations had been completed more than twenty minutes earlier, but a glow had
lingered longer than expected in the sky, and Kadar wanted the maximum benefit
from the cover of darkness.
The night
still wasn't jet black, but given the near-perfect day and the half-moon, it
was as dark now as it was going to get within his time frame, and the increase
in cloud cover should provide the needed protection.
Fitzduane's
castle had been well enough sited to cope with medieval warfare and even
conventional musketry, but it had disadvantages when longer-range weapons were
brought into play.
Kadar had found
several random jumbles of boulders in a semicircle about a thousand meters from
the castle, and there he had constructed three sangars, rock-fortified
emplacements, to hold his heavy machine guns and the SAM-7 missile.
He was out of normal rifle range but well
within the distance appropriate for a heavy sustained-fire weapon.
The Russian 12.7 mm DShK 38/46 was effective
up to two thousand meters.
Kadar
regretted he hadn't brought any specialist night-vision equipment, but he
doubted it would prove essential.
Firing
parameters had been constructed while there was still adequate light, and the
basic structure of the castle was clearly outlined against the night sky.
His covering fire might not be as accurate as
he would have liked, but the volume would make up for it.
Another dull
explosion sounded from within the castle courtyard — what the plans he had
found in the
bawn — and he again failed to identify its source.
It was too loud and resonant for a rifle or
shotgun but lacked the acoustic power of a heavier weapon.
Perhaps it wasn't an explosion at all but
some kind of pile-driving or hammering or attempt to signal.
A signal — that was
probably it.
He smiled to
himself.
It was a brave attempt, but there
was nobody to hear.
He had brought
two Powerchutes on the
Sabine
for the
primary purpose of providing an escape vehicle in an extreme emergency.
A Powerchute would get him off the island to
a place where a vehicle, money, and other emergency supplies were
concealed.
The second unit was a backup.
He knew that
in committing the Powerchutes to the battle ahead, he was cutting off his own
last retreat, but that didn't matter anymore.
This was a fight he was going to win.
He didn't want the second-class option.
He wanted the exhilaration that makes men the world over attempt the
impossible, the thrill that comes from taking the maximum risk:
of committing everything or dying.
He gave the
signal.
The Powerchutes started their
engines and moved forward.
Each powered
parachute consisted of a tricycle framework with a propeller mounted at the
rear.
Forward momentum and the
slipstream from the propeller inflated the parachute canopy.
Within a few yards the Powerchutes were
airborne and climbing rapidly.
The
Powerchute was a parachute that could go up as well as down; it could be
maneuvered much like a powered hang glider, reach a height of ten thousand
feet, fly at fifty kilometers per hour — or descend slightly with the engine
cut off.
Each Powerchute had a maximum
payload of 350 pounds, and in this case it was being used to the absolute
limit.
Each was fully laden with pilot,
weapons, grenades, satchel charge, and homemade incendiaries.
Kadar turned
to his final surprise.
The welders of
Malabar Unit had done an excellent job.
The big German tractor and the trailer they had found at
stop high-velocity rifle bullets.
Firing
ports had been cut at regular intervals for the crew's automatic rifles, and an
explosive charge protruded from a girder at the front.
Kadar had made
himself a tank.
He spoke into one of the
Russian field radios and the tank's-tractor's engines burst into life.
"Geranium
force," he ordered.
"Attack!
Attack!
Attack!"
The darkness
around the castle was rent with streams of fire.
28
Fitzduane's Castle — 2228 hours
The sandbags
covering the arrow slits shook under a burst of heavy-machine-gun fire that
raked across the front of the gatehouse.
Fitzduane had stipulated that the sandy earth used to fill the bags be
well dampened.
The sweating students had
groaned because the earth was noticeably heavier when wet, but the merit of
this precaution now became obvious:
the
damp earth absorbed even the heavy machine-gun rounds, and though the sacks
themselves were becoming bullet-torn, their contents stayed more or less in
place.
Their
defenses
against direct gunfire and the more dangerous problem within the stone confines
of the castle — ricochets
— were holding.
Noble's mental image of the sandbags leaking
their contents like a row of egg timers did not seem likely to materialize for
some time.
Noble was just
thinking that thanks to the castle's thick stone walls, the noise of the
gunfire was almost bearable when a double blast sent tremors through the whole
structure and temporarily deafened him.
He removed a sandbag and peered through a murder hole overlooking the
main gate.
Two rocket-propelled grenades
had blown huge gaps in the wooden gates.
As he watched, two more grenades impacted.
He hugged the floor while further explosions
rent the air only a few meters away from where he lay.
Blasts of hot air and red-hot grenade
fragments seared through the open murder hole.
When the clatter of shrapnel falling to the floor had died down, he
snatched a look at the gateway again.
The second set of explosions had finished the destruction of the wooden
gates and blown the splintered remnants off their hinges.
Burning pieces of the gates cast flickers of
orange light into the darkness, and the familiar smell of woodsmoke blended
with the acrid fumes from the explosives.
His initial shock at seeing their defenses torn away so quickly turned
to relief when he noticed that the portcullis still stood more or less intact,
its rigid structure absorbing the shock waves and presenting a difficult target
for the hollow-charge missiles.
A camouflaged
figure darted out of the darkness and dropped to the ground.
A few feet from Noble, Andreas was watching
the perimeter through the night sight on his SA-80.
The man was clutching a satchel charge.
He lay in a slight dip, thinking he was
concealed by the darkness while he regained his breath.
He was still over a hundred meters away.
Andreas fought
the desire to shoot when the green-gray image of the terrorist showed clear
against the orange reticule of the sight.
It would be so easy.
The
temptation was nearly overwhelming, but Fitzduane had given strict orders that
the night-vision equipment was to be used only for observation until he gave
the word.
He wanted the attackers to get
cocky, to come closer thinking they were concealed by the darkness.
To enter the killing
ground.
"Sapper
at two o'clock — a hundred and twenty meters," he said to Noble.
"You take him."
Noble looked toward him uncertainly, hearing
the noise but not the words, and Andreas realized he must still be deafened
from the blast.
He repeated his request,
shouting into Noble's ear.
Noble nodded
and readied his Uzi.
The sapper
advanced another twenty meters on his belly and then broke into a run.
The heavy machine-gun began concentrating its
fire on the gatehouse.
The sapper was
fifty meters away when Noble, still dazed, fired and missed.
The sapper hit the ground.
He was now dangerously close, and Andreas was
thinking that playing it smart and not using the SA-80s yet might mean not
using the SA-80s ever.
"Being too clever by half," as the English put it.
The sapper showed himself again, and Andreas
was about to fire when heavy machine-gun rounds hitting just above the arrow
slit made him duck, granite chips filling the air.
He heard Noble's Uzi give a long
half-magazine burst.
Then the air
outside the gatehouse was in flames as the satchel charge blew up, the force of
the blast blowing him back from his firing position.