by Tom Clancy
Carr’s response was automatic. The weapon up, bolt back, he aimed and pulled the trigger, firing fifteen rounds into the automobile’s windscreen. The result was immediate. The Rover had been moving backward in a fairly straight line, but the moment the bullets started hitting, it swerved right, and ended up against the brick wall of the hospital. There it stopped, the pressure off the accelerator now. Carr sprinted over and looked inside to see that there was one less police constable in the world, and that, to him, was no great loss.
“What’s that?” It was the helpful roadside cop rather than Popov who asked the rhetorical question. It was rhetorical because automatic-weapons fire is not something to be mistaken for anything else. His head turned, and he saw the police car—an identical twin to his own—scream backward, then stop, and then a man walked up to it, looked, and walked away. “Bloody hell!”
Dmitriy Arkadeyevich sat still, now watching the cop who’d come to his unneeded assistance. The man ran back to his vehicle, reached inside and pulled out a radio microphone. Popov couldn’t hear what was said, but, then, he didn’t need to.
“We’ve got them, Sean,” O’Neil’s voice told him. Grady acknowledged the information, thumbed the end button and speed-dialed Peter Barry’s cell phone.
“Yes?”
“Timothy has them. The situation appears to be under control.”
“Okay.” And this call ended. Then Sean speed-dialed yet another number. “Hello, this is Patrick Casey. We have seized the Hereford community hospital. We are currently holding as hostages Dr. Chavez and Nurse Clark, plus numerous others. We will release our hostages if our demands are met. If they are not met, then it will be necessary for us to kill hostages until such time as you see the error of your ways. We require the release of all political prisoners held in Albany and Parkhurst prisons on the Isle of Wight. When they are released and seen to be released on the television, we will leave this area. Do you understand?”
“Yes, I understand,” the desk sergeant replied. He didn’t, but he had a tape of this call, and he’d forward the information to someone who would understand.
Carr took the casualty-receiving entrance; the Barry twins, Peter and Sam, walked through the inside of the building to the main entrance. Here things were somewhat chaotic. Carr’s initial fusillade hadn’t been heard clearly here, and most of the people had turned their heads to the rough direction of the noise, and on seeing nothing, had turned back to attend to their business. The hospital’s security guard, a man of fifty-five who was wearing something that looked like a police uniform, was heading for the door into the hospital proper when he saw the twins coming toward him with weapons in hand. The retired policeman managed to say, “What’s all this?”—the usual words of a British constable—before a jerk of one rifle muzzle convinced him to raise his hands and shut up. Sam grabbed his collar and shoved him back into the main lobby. There, people saw the weapons. Some screamed. A few made for the doors, and all of them got outside without being fired upon, since the Barry twins had enough to do already.
The police constable’s radio call from the side of the road generated a greater response than Grady’s phone call, especially with the report that a constable had been shot and probably killed in his car. The first reaction of the local superintendent was to summon all of his mobile units to the general area of the hospital. Only about half of them had firearms, and those were mainly Smith & Wesson revolvers—not nearly enough to deal with the reported use of machine guns. The death of the constable was established when an officer who had been parked near the hospital failed to report in, despite numerous calls over the police radio.
Every police station in the world has preset responses for various emergencies. This one had a folder labeled “Terrorism,” and the superintendent pulled it out, even though he had the contents memorized, just to make sure he didn’t forget anything. The top emergency number went to a desk in the Home Office, and he reported what little he knew to the senior civil servant there, adding that he was working to get more information and would report back.
The Home Office headquarters building, close to Buckingham Palace, housed the bureaucrats who had oversight over nearly every aspect of life in the British Isles. That included law enforcement, and in that building, too, was a procedures folder, which was pulled from its slot. In this one was a new page and a new number.
“Four-two-double-three,” Alice Foorgate said, on picking up the phone. This was the line used exclusively for important voice traffic.
“Mr. Clark, please.”
“Yes. Wait, please.”
“Mr. Clark, a call on double-three,” she said into the intercom.
“This is John Clark,” Rainbox Six said, lifting the receiver.
“This is Frederick Callaway at the Home Office. We have a possible emergency situation,” the civil servant said.
“Okay, where is it?”
“Just up the road from you, I’m afraid, the Hereford hospital. The voice which called in identified itself as Patrick Casey. That is a codename that the PIRA use to designate their operations.”
“Hereford Hospital?” John asked, his hand suddenly cold on the phone.
“That is correct.”
“Hold for a second. I want to get one of my people on this line.” John put his hand over the receiver. “Alice! Get Alistair on this one right now!”
“Yes, John?”
“Mr. Callaway, this is Alistair Stanley, my second-in-command. Please repeat what you just told me.”
He did so, then added, “The voice identified two hostages by name, a Nurse Clark, and a Dr. Chavez.”
“Oh, shit,” John breathed.
“I’ll get Peter’s team moving, John,” Stanley said.
“Right. Anything else, Mr. Callaway?”
“That is all we have now. The local police superintendent is attempting to gather more information at this time.”
“Okay, thank you. You can reach me at this number if you need me.” Clark replaced the receiver in its cradle. “Fuck,” he said quietly.
His mind was racing. Whoever had scouted out Rainbow had done so for a reason, and those two names had not been an accident. This was a direct challenge to him and his people—and they were using his wife and daughter as a weapon. His next thought was that he would have to pass command over to Al Stanley, and the next—that his wife and daughter were in mortal danger . . . and he was helpless.
“Christ,” Major Peter Covington muttered over his phone. “Yes, sir. Let me get moving here.” He stood and walked into his squad bay. “Attention, we have some business. Everyone get ready to move immediately.”
Team-1’s members stood and headed to their lockers. It didn’t seem like a drill, but they handled it as though it were. Master Chief Mike Chin was the first to be suited up. He came to see his boss, who was just putting on his body armor.
“What gives, skipper?”
“PIRA, local hospital, holding Clark’s and Ding’s wives as hostages.”
“What’s that?” Chin asked, blinking his eyes hard.
“You heard me, Mike.”
“Oh, shit. Okay.” Chin went back into the squad bay. “Saddle up, people, this ain’t no fuckin’ drill.”
Malloy had just sprinted to his Night Hawk. Sergeant Nance was already there, pulling red-flagged safety pins from their plug points and holding them up for the pilot to confirm the count.
“Looking good, let’s start ’er up, Lieutenant.”
“Turning one,” Harrison confirmed, as Sergeant Nance reboarded the aircraft and strapped on his move-around safety belt, then shifted to the left-side door to check the tail of the Night Hawk.
“Tail rotor is clear, Colonel.”
Malloy acknowledged that information as he watched his engine instruments spooling up. Then he keyed his radio again. “Command, this is Bear, we are turnin’ and burnin’. What do you want us to do, over?”
“Bear, this is Five,” Stanley’s voice came back, to M
alloy’s surprise. “Lift off and orbit the local hospital. That is the site of the current incident.”
“Say again, Five, over.”
“Bear, we have subjects holding the local hospital. They are holding Mrs. Clark and Mrs. Chavez as hostages. They’ve identified both of them by name. Your orders are to lift off and orbit the hospital.”
“Roger, copy that. Bear is lifting off now.” His left hand pulled the collective, climbing the Sikorsky into the sky.
“Did I hear that right, Colonel?” Harrison asked.
“You must have. Fuck,” the Marine observed. Somebody was grabbing the tiger by the balls, Malloy thought. He looked down to see a pair of trucks speeding off the base, heading in the same direction as he. That would be Covington and Team-1, he thought. With a little more reflection, he took the Night Hawk to four thousand feet, called the local air-traffic-control center to tell them what he was doing, and got a transponder code so that they could track him properly.
There were four police vehicles there now, blocking the access to the hospital parking lots but doing nothing else, Popov saw through his binoculars. The constables inside were just looking, all standing outside their cars, two of them holding revolvers but not pointing them at anything but the ground.
In one truck, Covington relayed the information he had. In the other, Chin did it. The troopers were as shocked as they had ever allowed themselves to be, having considered themselves and their families to be ipso facto immune to this sort of thing because nobody had ever been foolish enough to try something like this. You might walk up to a lion cage and prod him with a stick, but not when there weren’t any bars between you and him. And you never ever messed with the lion’s cubs, did you? Not if you wanted to be alive at sundown. This was family for all of them. Attacking the wife of the Rainbow commander was a slap in all their faces, an act of incomprehensible arrogance—and Chavez’s wife was pregnant. She represented two innocent lives, both of them belonging to one of the people with whom they exercised every morning and with whom they had the occasional pint in the evening, a fellow soldier, one of their team. They all flipped on their radios and sat back, holding their individual weapons, allowing their thoughts to wander, but not very far.
“Al, I have to let you run this operation,” John said, standing by his desk and preparing to leave. Dr. Bellow was in the room, along with Bill Tawney.
“I understand, John. You know how good Peter and his team are.”
A long breath. “Yeah.” There wasn’t much of anything else to say right then.
Stanley turned to the others. “Bill?”
“They used the right codename. ‘Patrick Casey’ is not known to the press. It’s a name they use to let us know that their operation is real—usually used with bomb threats and such. Paul?”
“Identifying your wife and daughter is a direct challenge to us. They’re telling us that they know about Rainbow, that they know who we are, and, of course, who you are, John. They’re announcing their expertise and their willingness to go all the way.” The psychiatrist shook his head. “But if they’re really PIRA, that means they’re Catholic. I can work on that. Let’s get me out there and establish contact, shall we?”
Tim Noonan was already in his personal car, his tactical gear in the back. At least this was easy for him. There were two cell-phone nodes in the Hereford area, and he’d been to both of them while experimenting with his lock-out software. He drove to the farther of the two first. It was a fairly typical setup, the usual candelabra tower standing in a fenced enclosure with a truck-type trailer—called a caravan over here, he remembered. A car was parked just outside. Noonan pulled alongside and hopped out without bothering to lock it up. Ten seconds later, he pulled open the door to the caravan.
“What’s this?” the technician inside asked.
“I’m from Hereford. We’re taking this cell off-line right now.”
“Says who?”
“Says me!” Noonan turned so that the guy could see the holstered pistol on his hip. “Call your boss. He knows who I am and what I do.” And with no further talk, Noonan walked to the master-power panel and flipped the breaker, killing transmissions from the tower. Then he sat in front of the computer control system and inserted the floppy disk he’d carried in his shirt pocket. Two mouse clicks and forty seconds later the system was modified. Only a number with a 777 prefix would be accepted now.
The technician didn’t have a clue, but did have the good sense not to dispute the matter with a man carrying a gun.
“Anybody at the other one—on the other side of town?” Noonan asked.
“No, that would be me if there’s a problem—but there isn’t.”
“Keys.” Noonan held his hand out.
“I can’t do that. I mean, I do not have authorization to—”
“Call your boss right now,” the FBI agent suggested, handing him the land-line receiver.
Covington jumped out of the truck near where some commercial trucks were parked. The police had established a perimeter to keep the curious at bay. He trotted over to what appeared to be the senior cop at the site.
“There they are,” Sean Grady said over his phone to Timmy O’Neil. “Sure, and they responded quickly. Ever so formidable they look,” he added. “How are things inside?”
“Too many people for us to control properly, Sean. I have the twins in the main lobby, Jimmy here with me, and Daniel is patrolling upstairs.”
“What of your hostages?”
“The women, you mean? They’re sitting on the floor. The young one is very pregnant, Sean. She could have it today, looks like.”
“Try to avoid that, lad,” Grady advised, with a smile. Things were going according to his plan, and the clock was running. The bloody soldiers had even parked their trucks within twenty meters of his own. It could scarcely have been better.
Houston’s first name wasn’t really Sam—his mother had named him Mortimer, after a favored uncle—but the current moniker had been laid on him during boot camp at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, eleven years before, and he hadn’t objected. His sniper rifle was still in its boxy carrying case to safeguard it from shock, and he was looking around for a good perch. Where he was standing wasn’t bad, the sergeant thought. He was ready for whatever the day offered. His rifle was a virtual twin to that used by his friend Homer Johnston, and his marksmanship was just as good, too—a little better, he’d quickly tell anyone who asked. The same was true of Rifle One-Two, Sergeant First Class Fred Franklin, formerly an instructor at the Army’s marksmanship training unit at Fort Benning and a deadly shot out to a mile with his huge MacMillan .50 bolt-action rifle.
“What d’ya think, Sam?”
“I like it here, Freddy. How about you go to that knoll past the helo pad?”
“Looks good to me. Later.” Franklin hoisted the case onto his shoulder and headed off that way.
“Those people scare me,” Roddy Sands admitted over the phone.
“I know, but one of them is close enough to take out at once, Roddy. You take that job, lad.”
“I will, Sean,” Sands agreed from inside the cargo area of the big Volvo truck.
Noonan, now with the keys to the other site, was back in his car and heading that way. The drive would take twenty minutes—no, more, he realized. Traffic was backing up on this “A”-class road, and though he had a gun on his hip, and even police identification, his car didn’t have a siren and gumball machine—an oversight he himself had never considered, to his sudden and immediate rage. How the fuck had they forgotten that? He was a cop, wasn’t he? He pulled to the shoulder, turned on his emergency flashers, and started leaning on the horn as he sped past the stopped cars.
Chavez didn’t react much. Instead of looking angry or fearful, he just turned inward on himself. A small man, his body seemed to shrink even further before Clark’s eyes. “Okay,” he said finally, his mouth dry. “What are we doing about it?”
“Team-1 is there now, or should be.
Al is running the operation. We’re spectators.”
“Head over?”
Clark wavered, which was unusual for him. The best thing to do, one part of his mind told him quietly, was to sit still, stay in his office and wait, rather than drive over and torture himself with knowledge that he couldn’t do anything about. His decision to let Stanley run the operation was the correct one. He couldn’t allow his actions to be affected by personal emotions. There were more lives at stake than his wife’s and daughter’s, and Stanley was a pro who’d do the right thing without being told. On the other hand, to stay here and simply listen to a phone or radio account was far worse. So he walked back to his desk, opened a drawer, and took out his Beretta .45 automatic. This he clipped to his belt at his right hip. Chavez, he saw, had his side arm as well.
“Let’s go.”
“Wait.” Chavez lifted Clark’s desk phone and called the Team-2 building.
“Sergeant Major Price,” the voice answered.
“Eddie, this is Ding. John and I are going to drive over there. You’re in command of Team-2.”
“Yes, sir, I understand. Major Covington and his lads are as good as we are, sir, and Team-2 is suited up and ready to deploy.”
“Okay, I have my radio with me.”
“Good luck, sir.”
“Thanks, Eddie.” Chavez hung up. “Let’s get going, John.”
For this ride, Clark had a driver, but he had the same problem with traffic that Noonan was having, and adopted the same solution, speeding down the hard shoulder with his horn blowing and lights blinking. What should have been a ten-minute drive turned into double that.
