Prince Hunter

by Garrett Russell

  Hawker waited until O’Hara was past him. He put his left hand up to the knife hilt. He gritted his teeth against the wave of pain he knew would come and pulled to get the blade out of his shoulder. It was jammed against the broad collarbone. He had to tug and twist the knife savagely and he could sense the red film which blurred his sight deepen to almost blindness before the blade slipped free of the torn flesh. It came out with a gush of blood, sticky and warm against the thick wool of his jersey.

  Hawker rolled onto his side and used his left arm to push himself up to his knees. He was on his feet in an instant and sprinting the 20 feet of the cabin, the throwing knife balanced lightly in the palm of his left hand. He caught up with O’Hara at the crew door.

  The Irishman was standing stupidly at the lip of the door. The flight deck on the left side of the Sea King was completely empty and he seemed to be puzzled by how Andrew and the navigator had disappeared so quickly. His senses came back from the stupor at the sound of Hawker behind him, just over an arm’s length away.

  O’Hara twisted around, swinging the pistol up to chest height. Too late. Hawker was already on him in a low tackle, driving the knife with all the force he had left into O’Hara’s guts.

  They fell out through the door together, driven by the force of Hawker’s impact. O’Hara landed heavily on his back. He cushioned the fall for Hawker, but he still had the gun clenched solid in his hand. Hawker yanked the knife out of the big man’s stomach, slashing the cutting edge down as it came. A deep pink froth oozed from O’Hara’s mouth along with a grunt of pain. He struggled to lift the two pound weight of the Browning towards Hawker’s face.

  Hawker slashed the knife free and stabbed it hard into O’Hara’s side, but the thick sailing suit hampered the blow. He pulled back on the handle, slashed the blade across the back of O’Hara’s right hand to slow him down with the gun, and lunged at the bare inch of flesh between the Irishman’s beard and the collar of his jersey.

  O’Hara bucked like a bull when the six inches of the blade sank into his neck. Then he was still. Hawker pulled back on the knife and heard a hissing gurgle as the last of the air in O’Hara’s lungs bubbled out through the blood that ran down his windpipe.

  ‘Woman killing cunt!’ Hawker said in Spanish. His voice was broken with hatred as well as exertion. He lifted the knife high and drove it down into O’Hara’s chest, leaving the hilt to stand free. He prised the pistol out of O’Hara’s still clenched hand and turned his attention to the other side of the Sea King.

  The deck crew were retreating in one solid bunch towards the bridge housing. Hawker could see their legs through the gap under the helicopter’s fuselage and realised that Andrew and the navigator must have slithered under there to escape O’Hara’s fire. He picked himself up and ran painfully around the nose of the Sea King.

  The crowd was already 20 feet away, rapidly closing on the shelter of the ship’s superstructure. Hawker could see four light brown flying suits on the edges of the crowd. He identified them as the Sea King’s two airmen, the navigator, and the medical officer Harris. But where was Andrew?

  There he was, almost invisible in the centre of the throng of men except for the bulge of his flight helmet jutting above their heads, thanks to his six foot height. It seemed to be an admirable act of corporate courage. Rather than every man for himself, the deck crew had obviously realised that there was only one target and they had coalesced with the presence of mind to form a human bulwark around their prince.

  Hawker slowed, coming close to the limit of his physical endurance. His right arm hung down limp from the slowly growing patch of red at his shoulder. The Browning hung heavy in his left hand. He could hear behind him the rotors of the other Sea King thumping the air as it lifted off the ship’s deck. He felt as if he’d just made a smashing hundred yard dash all the way up the touch line, to be tackled by the other team’s whole back row just short of the try line. He was done.

  Then the hairs on his neck prickled at another sensation of danger. Close danger. He turned to see the command pilot leaping out of the Sea King, where he must have sheltered in his cockpit seat from the moment O’Hara’s hell broke out. He hit the deck running and was now coming towards Hawker at a determined sprint. Another brave man, throwing his body at an armed enemy.

  Hawker raised the pistol and mustered all his strength to point it. The pilot stopped, trapped by his own audacity.

  The two men faced each other for a frozen moment, eyes locked in a silent gaze as their ears filled with the roar of the other Sea King rising away from the deck. Hawker let the gun drop from its aim on the pilot and broke his gaze as he caught a blur of new movement in the periphery of his vision. From the door in the superstructure, less than a hundred feet further up the flight deck, came a line of Royal Marines running at the double. Five or six men were led by a young lieutenant, a Sterling 9mm sub-machine gun cocked and poised at his hip.

  Hawker held his left arm out, let the pistol fall to the deck, and turned to face the marines.

  ‘Capitán Paul Hawker, Argentine Navy.’ He yelled above the still noisy background of rotors and turbines. ‘I surrender.’

  The lieutenant shouted a curt command and the marine charge stopped. Most of his men dropped to one knee and aimed their weapons at Hawker. The lieutenant and an NCO, also armed with a Sterling, continued to approach him, carefully leaving clear space between him and the aimed rifles.

  The crowd of seamen also stood frozen in a group, like roadside witnesses to an accident, and Hawker could see Andrew now moving out of the middle towards the front line of them facing him. The Sea King skipper was circling wide around him to join them.

  ‘Down on the deck,’ barked the marines lieutenant and Hawker gratefully sank to his knees, then sprawled forward to lie flat on his stomach.

  The NCO moved in, frisked him with brisk efficiency and said, ‘He’s clean, sir.’

  ‘Check the other one,’ said the lieutenant, waving his gun towards the lump of O’Hara’s body on the other side of the helicopter.

  ‘He’s dead,’ Hawker lifted his face in an effort to be sure to be heard. ‘But there’s someone else in the chopper you’d better get the MO to look at.’

  The lieutenant nodded and the NCO was up and gone. He said a quick word to Harris, who was already stepping forward from the knot of seamen, then led him cautiously towards the cargo door of the Sea King. Harris stooped to pick up his medical kit bag from where he had dropped it when the chaos began and followed the NCO into the cabin.

  They were out of sight for less than twenty seconds before the marine’s boots appeared on the other side of the helicopter as he jumped down from the crew door to examine O’Hara’s inert mass. A few seconds later Harris came back out through the cargo door and trotted towards Hawker, shaking his head sadly.

  ‘You’re the only one I can save,’ he said as he helped Hawker roll onto his back and began to probe at the gore of his shoulder. ‘Though God knows why I should bother.’

  ‘Please do everything you can for him, Doc,’ said a new voice from the crowd of faces that was now gathered around Hawker. He struggled to focus and saw Andrew, now with his helmet off, pushing through to the fore.

  ‘Your Royal Highness,’ Hawker said as clearly as he could manage. ‘I have to explain.’

  ‘You just killed the man who was trying to kill me,’ said the prince. ‘That’s explanation enough in my book.’

  ‘No, it’s not,’ Hawker gasped through the pain of the doctor’s probing. ‘I must talk with you, then with your commanding officer. It’s a matter of life and death. English life, and I fear it may be already too late.’

  ‘Then you’d better talk quickly,’ said Andrew. And he knelt down on the deck close to Hawker’s side.

  11:45 Argentina Time

  The trawler closed on Inconquista and throttled back to docking speed. The helmsman slipped his boat into the lee of the bigger vessel, threw the prop into reverse, and let the swell bring the
two hulls together. Two men stood by at the bow and stern of the trawler with docking lines in their hands and American M-16 automatic rifles slung commando style across their backs.

  When the boats drifted within arm’s length, they both leapt across the trawler’s gunwale, over the patrol boat’s rail, and made fast their lines. They slipped their weapons off their backs and casually trained them on the Argentine sailors gathered on Inconquista’s foredeck.

  Lieutenant Roca looked down on the trawler in utter astonishment. Its after deck was packed with men and duffle bags.

  ‘Order your men onto the trawler,’ said Sullivan. ‘We’re going to do a little swap.’

  ‘Impossible. I cannot give up my ship,’ Roca protested

  He was answered by a slight metallic click as Gaffney pulled back the hammer on his revolver. He stepped across the narrow bridge deck and pressed the snub barrel into the young coxswain’s throat.

  ‘What would you prefer, then. To keep your boat or your crew?’

  ‘We outnumber you by better than two to one,’ said Sullivan in a tone so reasonable that he could have been concluding a business deal. ‘We are taking this vessel with or without your cooperation. And it makes no difference to us whether it’s with or without all your lives.’

  ‘You’ll never manage it,’ Roca protested vainly again. ‘This is a high performance fighting vessel. You need trained men to handle it.’

  ‘Look again at those men on the trawler,’ Sullivan made it sound like an order. ‘Some are electronics specialists who’ve outsmarted the best of the British army. Others are engineers and fitters for the engine room. The rest have spent most of their lives on the North Sea. We’ll manage fair enough.’

  ‘And every one of them an Irishman,’ added Gaffney. ‘All flown out to Uruguay special. So, get your men’s arses moving, Roca.’

  Roca moved to the door of the bridge and shouted the order to his six men mustered on the foredeck. They looked back, frightened and confused.

  ‘Be off with them yourself,’ Gaffney growled at Roca. ‘And take this one with you.’ He shoved the young coxswain roughly towards Roca. ‘On the bloody double!’

  Roca snapped another order and straddled the rail to jump down to the trawler deck. His new words and action finally got all of his crew to move and follow him.

  The two Irishmen who had boarded the patrol boat stayed where they were and swung their weapons around to keep them trained on the Argentine seamen now slowly moving across to the foredeck of the trawler.

  ‘Two still on board our boat, sir, twelve on the trawler,’ the marine sergeant said in a low mumble to Lieutenant Astiz.

  ‘Are the twelve armed as well?’ Astiz murmured back. They were crouched behind the bulk of the Exocet missile launch canister on the after deck and on the other side of Inconquista from where the trawler was tied up.

  ‘Could be,’ said the sergeant. ‘They all have big kitbags, big enough to carry an M-16.’

  Astiz thought for a moment.

  ‘Then we’ll have to hit them hard. No mercy. These bastards intend to hijack the whole damn vessel. Wait until they start to climb across between boats. That’s where they’ll be most vulnerable. And make damn sure you get the two already on this boat first.’

  ‘Understood, sir,’ said the sergeant. He glanced at the other two marines to make sure they also understood without the need to repeat it.

  ‘That leaves the other two Irish who Roca said were on the bridge,’ Astiz set his jaw. ‘Sergeant, you’re in command here. I’ll go up and take them myself.’

  He slipped away from his men and disappeared through a hatch, hoping he would have time to work his way silently through the innards of the boat and up to the bridge before the shooting started and he lost the element of surprise.

  He was in the corridor behind the bridge, easing his way gingerly towards the door, when the rattle of automatic fire echoed through the aluminium superstructure. He sprinted the last few steps to the door, flung it open and jumped into the bridge with his PA-3 held ready in two hands ahead of him.

  The bridge was empty. The body of the navigator, sprawled stiffly on the deck, was the only sign of anybody there. Astiz ignored the dead man, raced to the starboard wing, the side the trawler was on, and came out firing aft towards the trawler in support of his men.

  The aft deck of the trawler was utter chaos. A row of bodies was scattered along the gunwale, their chests and backs stitched with neat rows of deep red dots. One man was slumped double across the patrol boat’s rail. Another had fallen and jammed between the sides of the two boats, his arms and torso heaving with the movement of the sea. Five or six of the Irish were hit. The rest were flat on the deck, taking cover behind the bodies of their comrades and scrambling for their kitbags. Two had already got theirs unzipped and were frantically dragging M-16s out.

  Astiz let off a short burst in their direction and they ducked down for cover. He yanked the pistol out of the webbing holster on his belt and yelled out, ‘Roca, catch this!’

  Roca was taking cover forward of the trawler’s deck housing. His men were flat on the deck behind him. He caught the gun as neatly as Astiz had tossed it to him and jumped back aboard the Inconquista shouting something that Astiz couldn’t hear above a new burst of gunfire from the marines in the stern.

  Astiz died without ever understanding Roca’s warning. The bullet slammed into the back of his skull and sent him reeling head first over the bridge rail.

  Gaffney ran into the bridge from the port wing bridge and ran low to where Astiz’s sub-machine gun had fallen to the deck.

  ‘You’re a clever one, that’s for sure,’ said Sullivan behind him. ‘How did you know the Argies would be cunning enough to smuggle infantry aboard?’

  ‘I didn’t. But I’m always prepared for an attack from behind. That’s how you survive in Ulster,’ Gaffney smiled sourly. He threw his Smith & Wesson revolver to the deck and swooped up the PA-3. He stood up on the starboard wing and sprayed the foredeck of the trawler with a two second burst.

  ‘That should keep them in their place. Now let’s get the buggers in the back.’

  Gaffney and Sullivan stormed down the companionway to the port deck and began to edge their way down the flank of the superstructure towards where the three Argentine marines were crouched.

  The relative silence on this side of the boat was eerie. The shouts and curses of the men on the trawler and the moans of the wounded were almost completely blocked by the superstructure. The clatter of automatic fire was muted, too, though the sharp bark of the Argentine 9mm weapons was now being answered by the deeper blast of at least one M-16.

  Lieutenant Roca strained to hear Gaffney and Sullivan move down the deck. He was sheltered behind the armour plate housing of the boat’s forward gun. He waited until he was sure the two Irishmen were halfway along the superstructure before he stepped into the open behind them. The pistol roared and bucked in his hands. Sullivan slammed face first into the wall and slumped down crookedly to the deck. Roca fired a second time, too quickly to get his aim right. The bullet whined off the aluminium wall half a metre from Gaffney’s head. The little Irishman whipped around in a surprisingly rapid reflex and fired a burst from his hip.

  The pistol bucked again in Roca’s hand as the 9mm bullets stitched a diagonal line from his shoulder across his chest.

  Gaffney had stopped firing and turned back to the stern before Roca’s body fell to the deck. He started into a crouching jog and came around the corner of the superstructure spraying the after deck with fire.

  One of the marines was already hit. The other two were in Gaffney’s direct line of fire. When he released the trigger from the burst that brought them both down in a spray of shredded uniform and spurting red, a deathly silence fell on both boats.

  Gaffney slipped back behind the cover of the deck housing, flicking the magazines in his weapon to reload. He was gasping and wheezing, his face red with exertion and his eyes almost popping.
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  He heard no more gunfire from the deck of the patrol boat, but he silently counted off 30 seconds before moving cautiously out.

  He ducked back immediately under a barrage of fire from the trawler and bawled at the top of his voice, ‘Stop your fire, you blithering idiots. It’s me, Patrick Gaffney. Hit one of those warheads and you’ll have us all killed. Now come on aboard and get this boat cleaned up.’

  ‘Not all of you,’ Sullivan yelled with a grimace of pain from where he still lay against the patrol boat superstructure. ‘Two men stay on the trawler and keep armed guard on those Argies up on the foredeck.’ He slumped back from the effort and passed out.

  13:00 Argentina Time

  ‘You’ll live,’ said Gaffney.

  John Sullivan winced as the older Irishman wound hard on a dressing wrapped tightly around his upper chest and shoulder.

  ‘And that’s just as well,’ Gaffney grunted as he finished the dressing. ‘Otherwise we’d have no one to navigate this tub.’

  ‘How much of a crew do we have?’ Sullivan wheezed.

  ‘Enough. Eight including you and me. Some wounded like you but mostly sound. The rest I’ve had laid out on the trawler. They’re adrift now, with what’s left of the Argie sailors, no doubt trying to figure out how to start the engine.’

  ‘You’ve got living men on it?’ Sullivan sat up suddenly from the bunk where he was lying.

  ‘That was always the plan. No witnesses,’ Gaffney said evenly. ‘Sometimes I think you’re too soft for this game, Johnny me boy.’

  ‘When will you do it?’ Sullivan shifted his gaze away from Gaffney’s eyes.

  ‘Soon as you’re ready. I want all of us on deck to honour our dead proper.’

  Gaffney helped Sullivan shuffle out to the deck, being careful to not put pressure on his heavily bandaged arm and shoulder.

  Six other men stood on the foredeck. They all wore camouflage fatigues, and all had their gaze fixed towards the south west horizon, where the silhouette of the trawler bobbed on the swell about a mile away. Three of the men stood in a neat line along the rail, each holding an M-16 at ease. The other three were gathered around a small grey box with a long whip antenna jutting out of it.