Whatever the reason, it was visible proof of which side Allah was backing. Abu Rafa looked at his Russian radio and for a second debated getting Kadar's permission to attack — and then frustration won out.
"Malabar first section," he shouted, "follow me!" With a ferocity that General Dayan himself would have admired, he ran forward, firing from the hip, followed by the shouting, cheering me of the first section, automatic rifles blazing. They stormed through the gateway and were spreading to the left and right to secure the gatehouse and the battlements when Abu Rafa first had the thought that maybe Allah was hedging his bets.
The courtyard was suddenly illuminated by floodlights. Straight ahead of him on the battlements there were sandbagged emplacements. A burst of fire hit him in the chest, severing ribs and blowing apart his lungs. He saw three of his men disintegrate as a tongue of flame followed by a shattering roar burst forth from an opening in a pile of sandbags.
The last sound he heard before his body was shredded by the second concealed cannon at point-blank range was that of the portcullis slamming shut.
* * * * *
Fitzduane's Castle — 2250 hours
Eleven terrorists had gotten in — rather more than had been planned for — before the portcullis was dropped back into place. As a killing ground the bawn was ideal, and for the first few seconds surprise was total. Facing the terrorists were the two cannon manned by the Bear and de Guevain. Fitzduane, Judith Newman, and Henssen fired from the battlements. Noble and Andreas cut off the rear.
Seven terrorists died in the defenders' first hail of fire before the lights were shot out, and two more were caught by fléchette rounds fired from a murder hole by Andreas as the scrabbled at the portcullis and called to their comrades outside.
The two surviving terrorists had gone in the same direction but were now on different levels. One had made it to the battlements about twenty meters from where Etan lay wounded and unconscious, the bleeding now stopped temporarily by a tourniquet that had been applied by Henssen. The other, immediately below, had made it to the cover of the outhouse — the one that had been used as a test target for the cannon — located almost immediately under his comrade's hiding place. He was using the windows and apertures to shoot from, and his short, professional bursts were disconcertingly well placed. The Bear and de Guevain were pinned down. They couldn't get around the front of the cannon to reload without exposing themselves to the crossfire from one of the two terrorist positions.
Andreas had released his loaded fléchette rounds. The next 40 mm grenades in the Hawk were dual-purpose armor piercing. He checked the ammunition reserve. After he had fired the two in the weapon, he would have two armor-piercing left. Most of the ammunition supply consisted of the standard M406 HE (High Explosive), although there still remained some other specialized rounds for specific applications.
Fitzduane was on the battlements across from the terrorists. The sandbags were now working in the terrorists' favor. The infiltrator on the parapet was well concealed behind the zigzagging fortifications and was well positioned to sweep most of the bawn with fire. More seriously, if he could hold his position, he would be joined by reinforcements climbing up that section of the wall. It was beginning to look to Fitzduane as if his plan to whittle down the opposition in a killing ground might backfire.
Fitzduane spoke into the radio. "Harry, what's that armored tractor of theirs up to?"
"It's halted about five hundred meters away." Nobel peered through the night sight. "There are a couple of people working on it, so I guess it broke down. Probably caused by all that weight. I wouldn't count on its staying that way for long. And by the way, we've only got four rounds of armor-piercing left."
"Have you a shot at either of our visitors?"
"Without moving, negative. What us to give it a try?"
"No," said Fitzduane. "You and Andreas stay where you are and hold that gate. Use the SA-80 on single shot, and see if you can take out the guys working on the tank. We need to buy some time." Fitzduane clicked the radio to another channel. "Check in, Henssen."
"Etan needs help," answered Henssen. "I'm okay."
"You've got a hostile about twenty meters away, gatehouse direction," said Fitzduane.
"I know," said Henssen. "I'm going to take him out."
"No," said Fitzduane. "No crawling around corners yet. Use the Molotov cocktails. I'm sending Judith along to help."
There was the explosion of a grenade from behind the battlement sandbags facing Fitzduane, followed by a burst of AK-47 fire. There was a pause of about thirty seconds, and the routing was repeated.
"I think out visitor is coming my way," said Henssen into the radio. "He's grenading each zig and zag as he comes."
"Give ground," said Fitzduane.
"Why do you think we're still alive?" cried Henssen. "But it's slow pulling Etan. If he rushes us, we're fucked."
"If he rushes you, blow his head off."
"Hugo," said Murrough, "I'm within a whisper of a clear shot. When he next raises his head, I'll get him."
"Jesus," said Fitzduane, "where the hell are you?"
"Top of the keep," said Murrough. "Top of the dugout, in fact."
Judith slipped in beside Henssen, smelling of poteen and gasoline from the bag of Molotov cocktails she carried. "Get her out of here," she said to Henssen, who hesitated. "Now!" she whispered urgently. Henssen did as he was told. He crawled away, dragging the unconscious Etan along the gritty stone behind him.
Judith lit two of the Molotov cocktails and tossed them over the angled wall of sandbags, where they burst further down the battlements. She lit two more and threw them. A line of flame lit up the night, exposing two attackers who were climbing through the crenellations behind where the terrorist was concealed.
Fitzduane and Murrough fired instantly, hitting the same man. Already dead, he collapsed forward into the burning gasoline. The second climber died a second later when Judith took his head off with a burst from her Uzi. The original terrorist, his keffiyeh and camouflage a mass of flame, ran screaming along the battlements toward Judith a fighting knife in his hand and all caution driven from his body by the intense pain.
There was a double stab of flame from a shotgun, and the burning terrorist was hurled back against the sandbags, his lower body a bloody, wet mass. Katia Maurer reloaded the shotgun and went back to tending Etan. Judith replaced the empty magazine on her Uzi and tried to stop shaking.
Henssen took the lighter from her trembling hands and lit a succession of Molotov cocktails and sent them hurtling down to the base of the battlements. There were screams and cries from below. Trough a firing slit figures could be seen retreating into the darkness. One dropped after Murrough fired from the dugout roof. Judith crawled along the battlements and swung two Molotov cocktails tied to a length of electrical wire through the windows of the outhouse below, turning the remaining terrorist's hiding place into a furnace. Seconds passed, and then, with a cry, a burning figure ran out into the combined gunfire of Fitzduane and Judith.
Suddenly, as if by agreement between two opposing forces, the shooting stopped, and there was an almost complete silence. Fitzduane became aware of the sound of the sea and of the wind as it blew across the battlements, and he could hear the hiss as the flames encountered the wetness of body tissue and blood. He could hear the cries of the wounded outside the castle. By the light of the nearly spent Molotov cocktails he could see bodies littering the bawn below, where the Bear and Christian de Guevain had emerged form their sandbag emplacement and were already halfway through loading the cannon.
He became aware of something else, a voice repeating something again and again. It seemed to make no sense; there was no one there. He sat down and shook his head. The voice continued. He could see himself as if her were detached from his body and floating in the darkness. He looked down, and he could see the castle spread out below and the fires burning inside it and outside the walls.
Slowly he felt himself bein
g drawn back into the castle, and then the Bear was shaking him gently by the shoulder and talking into the radio, and he could hear the faint sound of suppressed aircraft engines overhead.
* * * * *
Above Fitzduane's Island — 2305 hours
"I don't believe it," said the pilot. "It's nearly the end of the twentieth century, and there is a siege going on that's straight from the Middle Ages."
"Not exactly the Middle Ages," said Kilmara. Two lines of heavy-caliber tracer curved out of the darkness and converged on the castle.
"Green tracer, 12.7-millimeter," said the pilot. He had flown forward air control in Vietnam. "Kind of makes me feel nostalgic. We're out of range at this height, thought a few thousand feet lower it'll be no day at the beach. I wonder what else they've got."
"I expect we'll find out," said Kilmara. "Get Ranger HQ on the radio."
The transport twins and their cargoes of Rangers had been left to circle out of sight and earshot over the mainland while the Optica went ahead to do what it was good at: observe. They were flying at five thousand feet above the island for a preliminary reconnaissance while Kilmara tried to establish radio contact with Fitzduane below. And to determine the scale and location of what he was up against.
Already he realized that he had underestimated the opposition. The sight of the Sabine offshore told him how the Hangman's main force had arrived, and that suggested very strongly that the Dublin operation was a bluff.
The Rangers had nearly been caught off guard completely. As it was, most of his force was more than two hours away even if it was released immediately — which he doubted would happen.
* * * * *
Fitzduane's Castle — 2307 hours
Sheltered in the storeroom off the main tunnel, the surviving students felt more than heard the initial noises of combat above and around them. The subsequent sound of cannon fire almost directly overhead was more immediate and menacing. It brought home the unpleasant thought that they were not out of danger yet — and that the defenders of the castle might lose. The prospect of being held hostage again by people as ruthless as these terrorists accelerated the process of selecting volunteers to join in the fighting.
There had at first been some resentment at Fitzduane's decision to kept them unarmed and away from the firing line, but the logic of his reasoning soon won out. They had to face the unpalatable fact that the initial threat had come from their own student body — and there was not guarantee that one or two or more Sacrificers might not be left. The discussion of how to resolve this dilemma had begin enthusiastically but not very productively. Things changed when the Swede, Sig Bengtquist, a mathematician and a distant relative of the Nobel family, started to speak. Up to now he had been silent, but the notepad he seemed never to be without, even when dragged unwillingly into some sporting activity, was covered with neat jottings in his microscopic handwriting.
"There is no foolproof way of ensuring that we do not select a Sacrificer by accident," he said. "But I think we can establish some orderly criteria to improve our chances of choosing the right people."
"You've worked out a mathematical formula," said a voice.
"Yes," said another. "We're going to draw the lucky winners out of a hat or roll dice to see who gets a chance to be shot at."
There was strained laughter. They had decidedly mixed feelings about experiencing any further the lethal realities of combat. Some were terrified at the thought. Others were itching for a chance to hit back and be players and not merely pawns in this game of life and death. What they had seen earlier in the day — the slaughter in the college — had left them with no illusions about glory or the supposed glamour of war.
"Go on, Sig," said the deep baritone voice of Osman Ba, a Sudanese from the northern part of the country and the Swede's best friend. From the contrast in their coloring they were known as “Day and Night.” There were nods of agreement from the others. There were about fifty students in the room — representing half as many nationalities — and since there weren't enough chairs, most were sitting on boxes or on rugs on the floor. Empty sandwich plates and glasses were piled next to the door. Several of the students, worn out by the excitement of the day and the post-stress reaction, had fallen asleep. The others all looked tired, but what they were trying to do held their interest, and their eyes, though mostly red-rimmed from strain and fatigue, were keen and alert.
"I have drawn up a matrix," said Sig, "a spread sheet if you're accountancy-minded, cross-referencing all who have volunteered to fight with the criteria. As it happens, this approach produces sixteen names, so we still have to find some way to whittle down the list to the ten names we've been asked for. I would suggest nothing more scientific than reviewing the sixteen names and, after any objections, putting all the remaining ones into a hat and pulling out the first ten."
"Makes sense," said Osman Ba.
"What are these criteria?" asked one of the Mexicans. "I think it's only fair that we should know how these names have been selected."
"Of course," said Sig. "The points are mostly obvious. All additional suggestions are welcome." There was silence in the room before Sig spoke again. They could hear the sounds of gunfire and more explosions. The prospect of leaving their safe underground haven was looking less appealing by the minute.
"Not a member of the ski club," said Sig. "All the known Sacrificers were, you will recall."
"That lets me out," said a Polish student, "but it doesn't make me a Sacrificer."
"Eighteen or over," continued Sig, "familiar with weapons, good health, and eyesight and no serious physical defects, good reflexes, good English — that seems to be the common language among the existing defenders. Not an only child." The list went on for another dozen points. "And someone we all instinctively trust. Gut feel," he added.
He read out the sixteen names. Three were vetoed. At Sig's suggestion, no reasons were given. The remaining thirteen names were placed in the now-empty bread bin. Three minutes later the chosen ten looked at each other in the knowledge that before dawn one or some or all of them might be wounded, even dead.
Sig was elected leader of the volunteers.
"Why only ten of us, I wonder?" asked Osman Ba. "They could have asked for more. Why not twelve like the apostles?"
"One of the twelve was a traitor," said Sig. "I guess Fitzduane is trying to improve the odds." He was reflecting that his little group was about as multinational as it could be. Would it help that traditional enemies — Russian and Pole, Kuwaiti and Israeli, French and German among them — were now on the same side? Did it make any difference what nationality you were when you were dead?
His mouth was dry, and he swallowed. Osman was doing the same thing, he noticed. That made him feel marginally better.
* * * * *
Above Fitzduane's Castle — 2307 hours
"Quite a party," said Kilmara into his helmet microphone.
"About bloody time," answered Fitzduane. The signal strength was good, and though his tone was professionally neutral, the relief in his voice was palpable. "I hope you've brought some friends. The Hangman is here in strength."
"Situation report," said Kilmara.
Fitzduane told him, his summary succinct and almost academic, detailing nothing of the fear and pain and the gut-churning tension of combat.
"Can you hold?" asked Kilmara. "I'll have to locate my DZ well north of you or the 12.7s won't leave much of us. It could take an hour or longer to link up with you."
"We'll hold," said Fitzduane, "but it's getting hairy. We don't have enough bodies to man the full perimeter properly. We may have to fall back to the keep."
"Very well," said Kilmara. A heat signature blossomed on the IR-18 screen. Reflexes already primed, virtually simultaneously the pilot punched a switch to ripple-fire flares and, banking away from the oncoming missile, put the Optica into a series of violent maneuvers culminating in a steep dive.
"A fucking SAM," said the pilot seconds later when it w
as clear that the heat-seeking missile had been successfully decoyed by the intense heat of the flares. "Who would have thought it? A heat-seeking SAM-7 at a guess. Good thing we got away or we'd be fireworks."
"Brace yourself for more fancy flying," said Kilmara. "We're going to have to keep their heads down during the jump." He broke off to bark instructions to the two Ranger transport aircraft, which were preparing for a run to the drop zone. In response, the lead plane peeled off to starboard, leaving the second Islander alone heading toward the DZ. It was out of range of the heavy machine guns, but a SAM-7, what the Russians called a Strela or “Arrow” — has a range of up to 4,500 meters, depending on the model, and the slow Islander, low and steady for the drop, would be a tempting target. A possible tactic was to fly very low because a SAM-7 isn't at its best below 150 meters, but there was the small matter of allowing the parachutes time to open. In addition, budget constraints had meant that automatic flare dispensers weren't fitted to the transports, though conventional Very pistols were carried and might be of some help.
Kilmara raised Fitzduane again for a brief discussion of tactics and the disposition of the Hangman's forces. The primary targets would be the missile position and the heavy-machine-gun emplacements. The other threats would have to wait.
Unfortunately they wouldn't. As the Optica prepared for its strafing run and the Ranger transport flew toward the DZ, the Hangman launched another attack on the castle, with the tank spearheading the thrust.
* * * * *
Fitzduane's Castle — 2318 hours
Games of The Hangman f-1 Page 54
