Prince Hunter

by Garrett Russell

  Hawker forced his mind to focus away from Dorset, back to the South Atlantic. He forced himself to think of the Falkland Islands with the English side of his mind, the Islas Malvinas with the Argentine side. Neither could make any sense of going to war for such a paltry prize, much less killing or dying for it. Then he knew he had the key. He could force an end to this silly spat without one further drop of blood being shed.

  The heavy steel door rasped open. The time to see Anaya had come.

  They walked in the same formation as before: a guard in front, Grivas and Hawker side by side, and a guard behind. The only difference was that now, unlike the last two times he had been escorted down this corridor, his hands were free of the manacles which had previously clasped his wrists together in front of his body. This was a deliberate sign of his change in status in the eyes of his captors, from belligerent prisoner to defeated and compliant captive.

  Anaya was waiting for them in an affable mood, relaxed and casual within the formality of his braided rank.

  ‘Buenos dias, Señor Hawker,’ he said, using a careful English pronunciation of the name complete with heavily aspirated “h”. ‘Comodoro Grivas informs me you have a very interesting proposal. I am impatient to hear it.’

  He was pouring coffee as he spoke, into fine china cups marked with the Argentine naval crest in blue and gold. The steward had obviously been dispensed with for this meeting.

  He ushered them to the deep brown leather club-like chairs where they sat like three businessmen or diplomats at an informal presentation: Anaya and Grivas on one side, Hawker alone on the other.

  ‘You have the floor,’ said Anaya politely.

  Hawker savoured both the moment and a luxuriant sip of coffee before he put his cup down.

  ‘You say you wanted me to carry out this task because I understand the way the English think,’ he said in a carefully measured tone. ‘Then let me tell you what I think. The surest possible way to anger the whole of the British people is to murder one of their royal family.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Anaya nodded his agreement.

  ‘You misunderstand,’ Hawker shook his head in response. ‘Assassinate Prince Andrew in the South Atlantic and you will unite the entire British nation into baying for bloody revenge. If you think you have a formidable enemy now, that is nothing to the wrath you would bring down on yourself. And all Argentina.’

  ‘Liar!’ Anaya’s mood swung as suddenly and brutally as it had before. ‘Filthy Anglo patriot liar!’ He sprang forward in his chair so violently that his cup and saucer crashed to the floor. The fine rim of the cup smashed against a chair leg, cracking down through the naval crest, spilling rich black coffee across the carpet. The sound of the crack seemed to break the spell of Anaya’s temper for a second, just long enough for Grivas to come in.

  ‘Hear him out, Almirante. I am sure he has another way to achieve your objective.’

  ‘Ask your Irish friend Gaffney if you don’t believe me,’ Hawker carried on evenly. ‘Ask him what his IRA really achieved with the assassination of Lord Mountbatten. I was in England that summer for the Admiral’s Cup races. I can tell you I saw the public mood harden like steel against the IRA.’

  ‘But surely the British expect that Prince Andrew could become a casualty,’ said Grivas, taking the part of the admiral’s advocate. Anaya sat still and silent, fighting his own inner battle to come down from his rage.

  ‘They expect him to face the same risk as any other officer in the combat zone,’ Hawker replied. ‘That’s the English sense of fair play, and their princes have never shied from combat. Even so, if Andrew did fall to an Argentine bullet or bomb, he would become a martyr whose self sacrifice is to be venerated.

  ‘But as the victim of an operation that singled him out from the rest of the force, he would become much more than that. He would be a symbol, a rallying point infinitely more powerful than a few godforsaken rocks at the other end of the world, the face of a massive movement united in its hatred, and in the passion of its demands for Thatcher to wreak revenge with the obliteration of Argentina.’

  ‘Utter nonsense!’ Anaya found his voice, and his temper, again. ‘You make it sound as if our priority should be to go out into the ocean and protect this royal pup’s life.’

  ‘He is much more valuable to you alive than dead,’ Hawker said simply.

  ‘Then what is your plan?’ Grivas stepped in again.

  ‘Yes, where is this marvellous proposition you promised?’ Anaya took the cue with an acid glance at his junior officer. ‘What is your plan, Hawker?’

  ‘Kidnap.’

  Anaya stopped dead. He had launched himself out of his armchair to pace around the room, and he froze in mid step. Grivas looked like a stunned cartoon character, his dark moustache drooping around his half opened mouth.

  ‘Kidnap Prince Andrew?’

  Hawker nodded calmly. ‘From the flight deck of HMS Invincible, in his own helicopter, and fly him as hostage to the Malvinas.’

  Anaya sank back to his armchair, like a brocaded balloon falling back to earth. He pondered for a moment as his face lost its deep angry red, the pendulum of his mood swinging slowly back. Then a slow cunning smile swept over his face.

  ‘There to bargain with the British from a position of the most magnificent psychological strength.’ He grinned.

  ‘I thought you would recognise the appeal,’ said Hawker. But the irony was lost on Anaya, who was already racing ahead with his own enthusiasm. By the time of the Junta meeting, thought Hawker, he will be convinced that it was all his own idea.

  ‘Truly magnificent bargaining,’ Anaya whispered as much to himself as to Grivas or Hawker. ‘Then it will be a battle of wits fought with honour and glory, like the best of the old combats when chivalry and …’ he paused, dark eyes sparkling wildly with passion, ‘… that’s it. Like a classic medieval siege! We storm the enemy fortress, pluck their prince from their midst and …’ he paused again, puzzled.

  Grivas said it for him. ‘How do you propose to get aboard Invincible 500 kilometres on the other side of the Malvinas, let alone get off again with such a valuable hostage?’

  Hawker looked straight at Anaya. ‘You know, of course, of the Trojan horse.’

  Anaya and Grivas shifted imperceptibly forward in their chairs, as if choreographed. ‘Hooked!’ thought Hawker, with a grim satisfaction.

  Now to clinch it.

  ‘A small force of Greeks got inside the walls of the city hidden inside the horse, but the horse is not the point of the story. It was simply the device to get the defenders to open their doors. It could have been anything because it was the event of the horse suddenly appearing that fooled the Trojans. It was totally unexpected.

  ‘Now what is a totally unexpected event we can engineer on the perimeter of the British task force, that will get a small force aboard one of their most vital ships?’

  Hawker let the thought sink in for a moment then provided the answer.

  ‘A Mayday. A small vessel in distress and calling for help, right underneath their noses. They will not be able to resist.’

  ‘They would be suspicious,’ mused Grivas. ‘Remember they are on combat alert.’

  ‘Remember yourself what it is like to be at sea. What is the strongest bond of all sailors? Their mutual safety against the might of the ocean. If you were in command would you ignore a Mayday?’

  Grivas and Anaya both shook their heads. Grivas opened his mouth to start an objection but Hawker cut him off.

  ‘A Mayday in your own language. In English.’

  ‘Go on,’ Anaya murmured.

  ‘The British acknowledge the Mayday. They send out a helicopter because, as you correctly point out, they will be at least partly suspicious, and they will be approaching from many kilometres off.

  ‘The chopper crew reports the Mayday is a yacht. A British yacht, dismasted and taking water. The yacht crew signal they are trying to make the safety of Port Stanley. They don’t know it is now Puerto Ar
gentino because they have been out of touch with the world for 30 or 40 days. They have come from the Pacific, around Cape Horn, where they took such a battering that their short wave radio is gone along with their mast. They are running out of food and energy fast. They are lucky enough to still have an emergency radio beacon which the skipper has activated because he realises they have been blown a long way off course for the islands.

  ‘That is how they come to be so fortuitously rescued by a British fleet they did not know was there.’

  ‘By the fleet, yes,’ said Grivas. ‘But your objective is to board the Invincible. If they take you to any other ship the mission is in vain.’

  ‘Our starting odds for the Invincible are fifty per cent at least,’ Hawker pressed on, becoming more sure of himself as he went. ‘She and Hermes are the only ships with the capacity to receive passengers who could also count critical medical cases in their number.’

  Grivas nodded acknowledgement of the logic.

  ‘To improve the odds in our favour,’ Hawker continued, ‘we have to ensure that our yacht is discovered in Invincible’s sector. She and Hermes will certainly be well separated, so we can expect a Sea King from the carrier closest to the yacht.’

  ‘And once aboard you are in position to hijack the prince’s aircraft fully fuelled for a sortie, complete with himself and his crew?’ said Anaya.

  ‘All we have to do is get aboard the right chopper,’ replied Hawker. ‘An aircraft in flight is the easiest thing in the world to take by force – as any Middle East terrorist can confirm – and the British will be reluctant to fire on one of their own aircraft.’

  ‘Brilliant!’ Anaya, his token question resolved, leapt up from his armchair for the second time that morning. Only this time his mood was one of elation. He danced around behind Hawker’s chair, slapped him heavily on the back, and strode to the sideboard. Without asking or offering he started to pour three squat crystal tumblers with heavy shots of Etiqueta whisky.

  ‘A toast,’ he commanded, ‘to the most audacious naval raid in history. And to the gallant officers who conceived it.’

  He drained his glass, oblivious to a glance from Grivas which failed to disguise his surprise and disgust at how casually the admiral had included himself in taking credit for the plan.

  ‘Now we will see where the strength still lies in this Junta. To my Navy!’

  He brought the bottle from the sideboard and poured three more stiff drinks. When the fire from those settled down, he sat down again opposite Hawker.

  ‘How soon can you commence the operation?’

  ‘I already know where I can locate a yacht that’s perfect,’ Hawker swirled the last of his second whisky around the glass. ‘English name, British registered, and she’s been out of their waters for many years, so no problems if they check back to London. There is something more, though, that I need. And it is vital.’

  ‘Anything. Just name it.’

  ‘I need a British crew. Truly non-Argentine. And I need to speak to my wife in England.’

  Wednesday 5 May 1982

  Patrick Gaffney came out of the customs hall and looked for a cab. He glanced at his watch. Good, over half an hour up his sleeve to get from the airport to his appointment with Anaya.

  He pushed through the crowd towards the line of black and yellow Datsuns parked by the kerb at the cab rank, using his overnight travelling case as a ram against the other pedestrians. He walked with the cocky aggression small terriers have, stiff legged and brisk, and if he had been under surveillance, he would be a hard target for his followers to miss. Apart from his manner, his ruddy complexion and sandy hair stood out like beacons against most of the Argentine crowd.

  But he was not being followed. He knew that in his bones. There was no prickling sensation at the back of his neck, the danger sign he had learned to trust through twenty years of survival in the shadowy world of the urban guerrilla. And besides, he was among friends.

  There was no queue at the cab rank. Gaffney stepped straight up to the door of the first car. He had just reached for the handle when, to his complete astonishment, the driver reached back and flicked the lock down.

  ‘What the devil? Hey!’ Gaffney pounded on the window.

  ‘Inglés. No Inglés,’ the driver yelled through the glass, making a classic latin gesture with his fist and forearm.

  ‘English? Can’t you see I’m no Englishman you blasted Iberian idiot!’ bawled Gaffney. But he had said it in English.

  The driver wound down his window enough to spit at Gaffney’s face, then dropped the clutch and roared off with a scream of rubber on concrete.

  The second cab pulled forward and the driver leaned back to open the door for Gaffney, standing stunned at the kerb. He gaped after the fast disappearing first cab, gingerly wiping the driver’s spittle off his tie. The driver’s aim had been low, but it was a mild wonder Gaffney could be so fastidious. The tie had already been a patchwork of food and drink stains.

  ‘So, what was that all about?’ Gaffney said in careful Spanish as he climbed into the cab. After five years in South America he still had to work hard at more than basic Spanish.

  ‘Sorry, Señor,’ the driver said through a peal of laughter. ‘I must apologise for old Juan. He feels very strongly about the Malvinas, you see. He has two sons there in the army and in two days he has developed such hatred for the English that he refuses to carry any of you.’

  ‘English be damned!’ Gaffney’s Celtic pride flared in his watery eyes. ‘I tried to tell the stupid bastard, I’m not English. I’m Irish.’

  The driver roared with fresh laughter. ‘What a joke on Juan! He makes a spectacle and loses a fare all for nothing. How can he be so dumb, to fear the English reprisals so much.’

  ‘Reprisals?’

  ‘Yes. Haven’t you heard? We destroyed one of their warships with a single blow yesterday. She was called the Sheffield.’

  ‘No, I had not heard. I’ve been travelling from up country in Uruguay since yesterday morning,’ Gaffney was thinking fast and hard. ‘Take me to the Escuala Naval de Ingeniaria. And tell me more about this Sheffield.’

  The taxi ground to a halt in thick traffic along the wide Avenida Leandro Alem as they approached the Plaza San Martin intersection. Gaffney checked his watch with a worried glance. The time he had to spare was running out. Much more of this kind of delay and he’d be late.

  ‘There should not be so much traffic at this hour of the morning,’ he said to the driver.

  ‘Some kind of holdup I think in the Plaza.’

  They sat there, caught in the frozen flow of sheet metal for several more minutes, Gaffney becoming more agitated by the second. Some of the other drivers turned off their engines and got out of their cars. A few of the younger ones jumped on to their bonnets and roofs, trying to see what was happening ahead.

  Then the horns started. One or two distant ones first, like the bleat of faraway sheep. Then more, coming closer and louder, until the blare of horns swept over and past them on down the avenue, bouncing off the buildings to a deafening roar.

  Gaffney’s driver joined the chorus. He started blasting vigorously, punching the horn boss on his steering wheel as if he were playing a musical instrument. Gaffney was going to protest but it would have been of no use. The driver couldn’t have heard him anyway.

  It was unlike anything the Irishman had heard in all his years in South America. It was not the impatient blasting of frustrated Latin drivers that he had become used to hearing in every peak hour. This was an infectious chorus like the cheer of a crowd. He could see his driver’s face in the rear vision mirror, beaming with the joy of it.

  The sound continued even after the traffic started to move again. The cab driver crunched into first gear and lurched off, the Datsun jumping against the clutch as if he were trying to make it dance to the mechanical music.

  They finally approached Plaza San Martin and the cause of the delay became clear.

  There must have been se
ven thousand people swarming the Plaza. The police had just managed to herd them off the roadway to let the cars start dribbling through. The crowd moved with the same spontaneous vigour as the blasting of the car horns. They were surging over San Martin towards the Plaza Britanica under a waving mass of blue and white banners. The people on the fringes of the crowd danced among the moving cars, girls blowing kisses and occasionally risking their necks to lean into the traffic and kiss drivers on their cheeks. The whole mob was chanting and cheering together, without any obvious leaders.

  Gaffney had only ever seen its like before in a victorious grand final football crowd.

  The mass of people took over Plaza Britanica, smothering the base of the towering Big Ben replica with their jubilant blue and white banners. The minute hand of the clock clicked over the 12. It was exactly 11 o’clock and the replica Big Ben chime rang the first of its carillon. On any other day it would have sounded as authoritative above the Buenos Aires traffic as the original over the hum of London’s taxis and buses. But today it was totally drowned out by the victorious chant of the crowd.

  ‘Ar-gen-tina! Ar-gen-tina!’ they roared. And in joyous counterpoint, ‘Ex-o-cet! Ex-o-cet! Ex-o-cet!’

  Eleven fifteen. Anaya checked the brass encased ship’s clock on the wall and frowned. It was not like Gaffney to be a quarter of an hour late.

  There was a brisk knock on the door and Gaffney bustled into the office.

  ‘Sorry to waste your valuable time, Admiral, but I’m having a fine excuse. It was those damned excitable countrymen of yours, celebrating the Sheffield and causing all manner of nuisance with the transport.’

  Anaya smiled. ‘Ah yes, of course. I’ve heard they’re ripping Plaza Britanica apart. Such irresponsible treatment of government property should normally be frowned upon, but in the circumstances …’ he smiled like an indulgent grandparent allowing a precocious child more latitude than it deserved.