Read Games of the Hangman Online
Authors: Victor O'Reilly
29
Fitzduane's Castle — 0004 hours
Kadar's mood
had oscillated from one extreme to the other during the last few hours.
Now, despite the initial setbacks, he felt
euphoric.
Victory was imminent, and it
was all the sweeter for being the harder won.
He looked
around the great hall.
The room was
impressive, the quality of the woodwork outstanding.
How many generations of Fitzduanes had talked
and eaten and planned in this very room?
What blood had been shed here?
What compromises and betrayals had been required for the Fitzduanes to
have survived
turbulent history?
He sat in the
padded carved oak chair at the head of the table and rubbed his fingers on its
massive, timeworn oaken mass.
He could
feel the slight undulations that represented the original adz marks.
My God, he thought, this banqueting table
must have been made before Christopher Colombus sailed for
Mona Lisa, before Louis XIV built
"Sir?"
said Sabri Sartawi, the commander of the Icarus Unit and now the only one of
Kadar's senior officers still alive.
Kadar was sitting at the head of the table, his eyes closed,
his
fingers caressing the beeswax-polished wood.
There was a smile on his face.
Desultory gunfire could be heard around the
keep, and from time to time the dull whump of a Molotov cocktail.
It was a hell of a time to daydream, but
nothing Kadar did surprised Sartawi anymore.
The man was obviously insane; still, his insanity was mixed with
brilliance.
It now looked as if despite
everything, they were going to pull it off.
"Sir?"
repeated Sartawi more forcefully, and Kadar's eyes snapped open.
For a moment Sartawi thought he had gone too
far.
The eyes blazed with anger.
The moment
passed.
"Yes?" said Kadar
mildly.
His fingers were still feeling
the patina of the table.
"Situation
report, sir," said Sartawi.
"Proceed."
"We've
broken through the concealed door in the gatehouse winding room," said
Sartawi.
"It leads down a circular
staircase into a tunnel.
We estimate
that the tunnel links up with the base of the keep, but we can't be sure because
our way is blocked by a heavy steel door."
"Blow
it."
"We
can't," said Sartawi.
"We used
up the last of our explosives in the car bomb.
We're out of grenades and RPG-7 projectiles, too.
We never expected to have to fight this kind
of battle.
Also, we're very low on
ammunition, perhaps one or two magazines per man."
"Are the
Powerchute and the LPO-50 ready?" said Kadar.
The Powerchute in question was the one that
had been flown by that unlucky follower of Hasane Sabah, the Iranian
Husain.
Although Husain had lost
interest in this world after his encounter with the firepower of Fitzduane's
SA-80, his dead body had balanced the motorized parachute in such a way that it
had made quite a respectable landing on its own —not far from the takeoff
point.
Kadar had had it moved so that it
could take off again out of sight of the defenders in the keep.
"Both are
ready," said Sartawi.
"And the
heavy-machine-gun crews have been briefed."
Kadar was
silent for a moment, lost in thought.
He
pushed back his chair, stood up, and paced up and down the room.
He turned to Sartawi.
"We have metal-cutting equipment,"
he said, "the stuff we used to make that armored tractor.
Use that on the tunnel door.
I'll lay odds that our hostages are on the
other side.
I want the door open at the
same time as the Powerchute attack.
Also, I want all this" — he gestured around the great hall —
"set fire to.
We'll burn the
bastards out."
"What
about the Rangers?" asked Sartawi
.
"A few
jumped, I think, before we hit the plane."
"A
handful of men two kilometers away
isn't
likely to
affect the outcome," said Kadar.
"And by the time they get close enough to join in the fighting,
we'll have the castle and the hostages."
I hope you're
right, thought Sartawi, but he didn't say anything.
He'd heard the Rangers were formidable, but
it was true there could be only a few of them — and they would be out in the
open against the fortified heavy-machine-gun positions.
Kadar took one
last look at the great hall.
"Beautiful, isn't it?"
Sartawi issued
the orders.
Battle-fatigued members of
Icarus Unit hauled cans of fuel up the stairs and drenched the floor and
timbers of the huge room, then spilled more fuel on the stairs and the rooms
below.
*
*
*
*
*
Fitzduane's Castle — 0013 hours
There had been
a brief lull in the fighting, though sporadic sniping continued.
Fitzduane had used the brief respite to arm
and deploy the students and to carry out a quick tour of inspection of his
much-diminished perimeter.
Everyone was
exhausted and hungry and looked it.
Food
was provided while there was the opportunity.
They all knew they had very little time.
Slumped on a
sandbag in a corner of what had been his bedroom but was now the main defensive
post at the top of the keep — the fighting platform seemed to attract a
disproportionate amount of heavy-machine-gun fire — Fitzduane took the mug of
coffee and the sandwich that Oona offered him.
He didn't really know what to say to her.
Only twelve hours ago she had been a
contented woman with a husband she adored — and now Murrough was dead.
So many dead, and because
of him.
Would it have been better
to have stood aside and let the Hangman have his way?
He didn't think so, but then your own
immediate world was affected, it was hard to know what was right.
Truth to tell,
violence didn't discriminate.
The
victims of warfare in the main weren't any better or worse than anybody else,
whatever the propaganda made out.
The
North Vietnamese, the South Vietnamese, the Israelis, the Arabs, the police,
the terrorists — almost all were fundamentally alike when you really got down
to it:
ordinary people with wives and
mothers like Oona who got caught up with something that got out of control.
Oona finished
dispensing coffee and sandwiches to the others in the room before turning back
and looking at him.
Fitzduane felt the
sandwich turn to cardboard in his mouth.
He swallowed with difficulty and then tried to say something
appropriate, but what words he managed sounded inadequate.
Oona kissed
him on the forehead.
"Now look,
Hugo," she said, "we all have to die, and Murrough died in a good
cause, to save other people, and children at that.
He died fighting and, may the Lord have mercy
on his soul, but he loved to fight."
When Fitzduane
took her in his arms, he could feel her sobs, he could hear Murrough talking to
him, he could see him, and he knew then whatever the Hangman might attempt this
time, he was going to be stopped.
Oona gently
freed herself and wiped the tears from her eyes.
"Eat you food and don't worry about
Etan," she said.
"And then put
a stop to the Hangman once and for all."
Fitzduane smiled
thinly.
"No problem."
Oona hugged
him again,
then
returned to helping the others.
As she left,
the Bear came into the room and sat down on another sandbag facing
Fitzduane.
He was puffing slightly.
"Castles," he finally managed,
"weren't built for people of my dimensions and stature."
"If you
wore armor regularly," said Fitzduane, "you got into shape fast
enough, and hopping up and down circular stairs was no problem.
Also, everyone was smaller in those
days."
"Hmph,"
muttered the Bear.
He ate the rest of
Fitzduane's sandwich in silence.
"You did
an ammunition check?" asked Fitzduane.
"Uh-huh,"
— the Bear nodded — "another one.
You won't be surprised to hear the situation has worsened.
I'm impressed at how much we've been able to
get through.
I guess it's not surprising
when you can empty a thirty-round in less than three seconds."
"So how
many seconds do we get per man?" said Fitzduane with a tired smile.
"For automatic weapons, less than five.
We're better off for shotgun rounds and
pistol ammunition, though not by much.
We're out of grenades and Molotov cocktails.
We've go two Claymores left and plenty of
antique weaponry — and food."
"Food?"
"Lots of it.
If
an army really does fight on its stomach — and who should know better than
Napoleon
?
— we're going to be fine."
"I am
glad to hear that," said Fitzduane.
*
*
*
*
*
Fitzduane's
If there was
one thing in the world — leaving out drink and women — that Ranger Sergeant
Geronimo Grady loved more than driving fast cars at somebody else's expense, it
was firing the Milan Missile at government expense.
At least he
was one taxpayer who knew exactly where his money was going, for each missile
cost as much as he would earn in two years, and the supporting equipment, such
as the computerized simulator he had spent so many hours, days, and weeks
practicing on, cost more than he was likely to earn in a lifetime.
It was a sobering thought, and it added a
definite piquancy to his pleasure.
Oddly enough,
he had never considered firing the
Up to now it had
been more like a giant video game, even when he'd fired live missiles in the
Glen of Imaal.
He wondered how he'd feel
as he pressed the firing button knowing that other human beings were about to
be obliterated by his action.
Given his
relentless Ranger training, the briefing on the Hangman, and the basic fact
that if he did not eliminate the opposition first, it would be quite delighted
to do that small thing to him, he thought he'd feel just fine, but he didn't
know.
He wouldn't actually know until
he'd done it — and that experience was only scant minutes away.
His hands felt sweaty, but he couldn't move
to wipe them.
Twenty meters
ahead of him Lieutenant Harty was about to kill two terrorists posted on the
Hangman's perimeter to take out any Rangers who had survived the SAM-7.
Grady could have done it — they looked close
enough to touch and smell through the gray-green image of his four-power night
sight — but it was to be done silently.
Harty specialized in such tasks and was equipped accordingly.
The double
thunk of the specially built heavy-caliber subsonic weapon was scarcely
perceptible in the gusting wind.
Grady
saw the effect before he heard the
noise,
and the
result was all the more obscene for being rendered bloodless by the
limited-color filtered image in his telescopic sight.
It was as if the first man's face had
suddenly been wiped away and replaced with a dark smear.
The second terrorist turned his head in a
reflex action toward his dead comrade.
The modified Glaser bullet struck him on the cheekbone and blew off the
top of his skull.
Grady and his
loader ran forward and slid into the captured position.
A regular army
and fire the missile, but in the Rangers, as always, you did more with less,
better and faster.
Or you didn't get in,
or you died.
It was a
natural depression, nearly ideal as a
were going after tanks.
But there were
certainly more than the five meters of clearance that you needed to the rear to
avoid toasting yourself in the backblast.