Read Games of the Hangman Online
Authors: Victor O'Reilly
Fitzduane
considered the problem of ammunition shortage.
The only solution to that, barring the hope of resupplying from enemy
casualties, was to fall back on the antique weapons.
Muskets, a blunderbuss, the crossbows, and de
Guevain's longbow had all been prepared for use.
Pikes and swords and other nonprojectile
weapons, down to his set of French kitchen knives, lay at hand.
The student
volunteers were an agreeable surprise.
They were bright and zealous, concealing their fear under stuck-out
chins and other resolute expressions.
They were also — in the literal sense — fighting mad.
They had seen people they had lived and worked
closely with slaughtered, and they wanted revenge.
Giving them weapons had turned this desire
into an achievable reality.
They were
determined to get even.
Sadly the
stark truth of what they were up against had been brought home to them in the
most fundamental way within minutes of their initial briefing.
A young Sudanese, Osman something or other —
Fitzduane hadn't
time
to learn most of their names —
had been killed while keeping watch at a murder hole.
He had taken a shade too long to check his area,
and just as he was about to replace the rope-suspended sandbag that covered the
hole, he had been hit in the head and virtually decapitated by a 12.7 mm
heavy-machine-gun bullet.
Less
that
two minutes later a blond Polish boy had died the same
way.
The eight survivors had learned
from this fast.
They now moved and
reacted with as if every action in battle were a matter of life and death —
which, pretty much, it was.
The radio
beside him came to life.
"Receiving
you," said Fitzduane.
"We're
about to take out the 12.7s," Kilmara informed him.
"Well be dropping the second stick —
Günther's lot — almost immediately and near the action.
It shouldn't be much longer.
What's your situation?"
"We're
close to the bow and arrow stage," said Fitzduane, "and we're kind of
low on arrows."
"Try
charm," said Kilmara.
"One
extra thing:
your roof is on fire.
I can't see anything yet, but there's a heat
buildup like you wouldn't believe on the IR."
"Well,
fuck ‘em," said Fitzduane.
"Now I'm really pissed off.
It's my home they're messing with."
"Will the
heat be a problem?" said Kilmara.
"Can you defend the keep if there's an inferno next door?"
"I think
so," said Fitzduane.
"Heat
rises,
and the walls are damned thick.
It might get hot in here, but it shouldn't
become untenable."
"I'll
hold you to that," said Kilmara.
"Got to go.
It's
show time."
*
*
*
*
*
The Tunnel
Under
The Castle — 0023 hours
Andreas
watched the heavy iron door, which was all that separated the defenders from
their attackers, glow cherry red as the oxyacetylene cutting flame bit into
it.
The door was old — made generations
before the invention of modern hardened metals — and the flame was cutting
through it effortlessly.
tunnel, and soon the cutting flame itself could be seen.
The radio
wouldn't function underground, so Andreas sent one of the students to inform
Fitzduane that thing were about to liven up again.
The good news was that their use of a torch
to break in suggested that the attackers were either very low on, or out of,
explosives.
Andreas's main
fear was grenades.
He tried to think
whether he'd taken enough precautions against them.
The defenders had prepared their normal
sandbag barricades, of course, but they had also made extensive use of chicken
wire and fishing net screens, which they could shoot through but which should,
while they lasted, deflect any thrown object.
He wondered if
the tunnel defense was a strong enough force to hold.
The addition of the ten students had seemed
like a major boost, but after the two fatalities, and once the runner was
subtracted, the net gain was only seven — and four of those were on duty at
various locations in the keep.
The
tunnel force actually numbered just six:
Andreas himself, Judith, de Guevain, and three students.
Henssen was now unconscious under Katia's
care, and Oona was acting as den mother to the noncombatants.
Six amateur
defenders against a trained attack force didn't sound quite enough somehow,
thought now that he thought of it, he, Lieutenant Andreas von Graffenlaub of
the Swiss Army, wasn't exactly an amateur —and these bastards who were trying
to break in were already responsible for the deaths of three members of his
family.
He switched
off the main lights in the tunnel and brought his SA-80 up to the point of
aim.
A light-colored outline in his
image intensifier marked the line of the cutting torch.
The door was almost through.
The tunnel defenders were about to find out
if there was a grenade problem.
The severed
door crashed forward onto the stone flags of the tunnel.
The sudden noise was followed by absolute
silence.
Beside
Andreas, Sig Bengtquist licked his lips and tried to swallow.
He had no night vision equipment, and all was
threatening darkness.
"Day and
Night":
he thought of Osman with a
sense of terrible loss and sadness, and then anger and a resolute determination
to hit back, to put a stop to this evil, gripped him.
*
*
*
*
*
The
The pre-aim
mark of the Ranger Milan was aligned with the protruding barrel of the first
heavy-machine-gun position.
The
terrorist gun crew was hidden by the stacked rocks and improvised sandbags of
the emplacement, but Grady could imagine the scene inside:
the heat from the weapon as belt after belt
of ammunition snaked its way through the receiver to be sundered into brass
cartridge case, propellant, and projectile.
The crew members would be concentrating on their comrades to secure them
from any unexpected attack.
They would
be tired but exhilarated, infected by the power of the weapon they served.
They would be young men with mothers and
families and children and dreams, motivated to be here on this island far from
their home for reasons Grady would never know or ever really want to know —
what difference would it
make?
He pressed the
firing button, sending a signal to the junction box.
From there a powerful current ignited the gas
generator at the back of the missile, simultaneously launching the missile and
blasting the now-useless launch tube away from the launcher.
Once the rocket was free of the launcher, its
motor cut in.
The missile accelerated up
to its maximum velocity of more than nine hundred meters per second, trailing
its guidance wire behind it.
With the
weight of twelve kilos of missile now free of the firing post, the pre-aim mark
was no longer needed, and Grady concentrated on keeping the missile with the
‘80 mil’ circle at the center of the reticule sight on the target.
The trick was, in fact, to concentrate on the
target, not the missile, since the Milan's tracking computer monitored the
missile's position by reading the infrared signals emitted by the missile's
rocket motor and sending any fresh guidance instructions along the hair-thin
guidance wire.
For the first
four hundred meters the missile's flight path was normally erratic, but beyond
that distance the missile would follow the instructions transmitted by the wire
and could be flown with unjammable accuracy onto the target.
In simple terms, where Grady pointed the
eight-power sight on the firing post, the missile went.
Grady was flying it the way a child flies a
model airplane, only at a speed and with a precision and purpose that had
little to do with any child.
The missile
hit precisely as aimed.
Designed for
punching through the thick super strength metal skin of a main battle tank, the
warhead achieved its purpose by a savage transfer of kinetic energy rather than
conventional explosives.
Massive shock
waves spread through the rock emplacement, shattering it into lethal fragments
and destroying men and weapon in a millisecond.
"Cut!"
shouted Grady.
His number two, Roche,
the loader, activated the quick-release latch that held in position the
now-defunct junction box and the other end of the fired missile's guidance
wire.
A new missile tube was clipped
into position in
a routine practiced a
thousand times; a fresh junction box and guidance wire were connected with the
Milan firing post's electronic brain.
Grady
traversed to the second heavy-machine-gun emplacement, the tripod mechanism
smooth and positive; it was checked automatically by a test 360-degree traverse
each time the tripod was set up.
Training, training,
training
, concentrating
only on what had to be done:
no other
thoughts were in his mind.
He could see
the second gun firing tracer toward the castle.
He aligned the pre-aim mark.
This
time he could see into the emplacement.
Someone was gesticulating.
The
12.7 mm stopped firing.
He pressed the
firing button.
Again his vision was
obscured for perhaps half a second while the smoke from the initial ignition
dissipated.
On still days the smoke
could linger for over a second and a half, and an operator would have to steer
blind for that time, relying only on skill and experience.
Novices tended to try to jerk the missile
back on target when it reappeared, but that never worked.
You had to keep cool and work smoothly.
The
The gun was
swiveling toward his position.
The high
magnification periscope sight of the
He could see the flames as the heavy weapon
fired.
The rounds traveled faster than
the missile and cracked supersonically over his head.
He was unaware of the incoming fire.
He was thinking about that flaming muzzle
pointed toward him made an excellent point of aim.
There was a
small explosion where the muzzle had been, and the target was obscured.
His mind simultaneously registered a 40 mm
grenade strike, estimated that it was either Hannigan or Quinlan giving him
cover fire, registered annoyance that his aiming point had been removed,
suddenly understood that he had been with a split second of being killed — and
guided the missile home through the smoke and debris of the grenade explosion
to the target.
It was another
direct hit.
"Cut!" he shouted,
and again the release mechanism was activated by Roche, the junction box and
umbilical wire were released, and a fresh missile was clipped into place.
Quinlan and
Hannigan raked the shattered remnants of the heavy-machine-gun positions with
44 mm grenade and machine-gun fire, cutting down the few survivors in seconds.
An intense
firefight broke out all around the Rangers.
The terrorists, realizing that they had been infiltrated, were trying to
wipe out the threat.
Automatic fire
filled the air, and there was the flash and crack of exploding grenades, the
whump of 40 mm projectiles, and the dreadful scything and slashing of
Claymores.
The highly trained Rangers,
though outnumbered, had the advantages of surprise, night-vision telescopic
sights, better weaponry, and full ammunition supplies.
Circling above
them, Kilmara in the Optica, now able to fly much lower thanks to the
elimination of the heavy machine guns, identified pockets of resistance.
The IR-18's thermal imager cut through
darkness and normal camouflage effortlessly.
Body heat given off by exertion and the radiant heat from weaponry made
the task easier still.
Personal infrared
IFF (Identification — Friend or Foe?) transmitters worn by the Rangers enabled
him to filter out his own unit.
The task
was made administratively easier by a coupled computer unit that remembered the
situation on the ground at a designated point in time and overlaid coordinates.