Games of The Hangman f-1

by VICTOR O'REILLY

  The tank was advancing very slowly. The weight of its armor alone was unlikely to account for its pace, nor would there be any tactical reason for advancing at a crawl, so either the machine wasn't working properly or there were more unpleasant surprises in store.

  At 150 meters, Andreas opened fire with the Hawk, acutely conscious that he had only four armor-piercing rounds left. A Kalashnikov bullet ricocheted through the arrow slit as he fired the first projectile, and he missed completely. Shaken, he aimed again. When the tank was about 120 meters away, he fired. This time the round punched through the armor plate and exploded. Still the tank came on.

  At eighty meters Andreas fired two more armor-piercing rounds. One 40 mm grenade hit the facing armor plate close to where it butted against the side armor. The explosion blew the welding, peeling open the front of the tank like the lid of a sardine can. Still the tank came on, and only then were the slow speed of the vehicle and its resistance to the armor-piercing grenades explained. Behind the steel plate was a second multilayer wall of concrete blocks and sandbags, their sheer physical mass impossible to penetrate with the light weaponry at the defenders' disposal.

  The peeled-back armor and the close range did offer some possibilities. Andreas lowered his aim. Perhaps he could knock out a wheel or disable the steering mechanism. His last armor-piercing round seemed to have little effect, but three high-explosive grenades fired in quick succession from less than forty meters at the right front wheel of the armored tractor jammed a steering rod and forced the vehicle marginally out of alignment with the gate.

  Still the vehicle came on. Firing was now incessant on all sides. The terrorists sensed that they were close to breaching the castle, and the defenders, casting aside all attempts at restraint, used their night vision-equipped SA-80s and full firepower to devastating effect.

  It wasn't enough. Six terrorists died in the hail of accurate automatic rifle fire before the remainder realized what they must be up against and sought physical cover — but then sheer numbers began to tell. A gap in the clouds meant that moonlight illuminated the battleground for a few critical minutes. Windows and firing slits could be seen as black rectangles against the gray mass of the castle walls. Accurate automatic rifle fire kept the defenders pinned down while the tank prepared to advance to point-blank range, where it would detonate the explosives it carried on a boom.

  Keeping Fitzduane's castle between it and the SAM-7 position, the Optica screamed low over the sea at near-zero height, causing Murrough on the roof of the dugout to duck as the futuristic-looking aircraft flashed above him before it climbed at the last moment and then banked and dived. The SAM-7 fired a split second before a stream of tracer bullets followed by rockets blew the entire missile crew to pieces and the launcher into the undergrowth.

  The SAM-7 had been aimed at the Ranger transport carrying out its low level drop on the north side of the island. Six Rangers had jumped before the missile, traveling at one and a half times the speed of sound, hit the port engine. The high-explosive head ignited on contact, blasting the engine and wing off the aircraft and setting fire to the fuel tanks. The sky lit up, and the flaming mass, raining debris, knifed its way through the night air and exploded against the hillside, mercifully cutting short the agonies of the pilot and copilot and the remaining two Rangers still aboard. One more Ranger was killed by a piece of red-hot engine cowling as he swung from his parachute.

  Five Rangers, including both members of the Milan missile team, reached the ground alive. When they linked up with Lieutenant Harty, the unit commander, checked in by radio with Kilmara. Then he spoke into his helmet microphone. "Let's do it, lads," he said. "Time for them to pay the bill."

  Spread out in combat formation, faces blackened, heavily laden with weapons, ammunition, and equipment, the unit moved toward the action. The sound of firing, the crump of grenades, the arcing of tracers, and a burning glow indicated with brutal simplicity the location of the battleground.

  * * * * *

  Fitzduane's Castle — 2338 hours

  Andreas loaded his last two high-explosive grenades. The noise inside the gatehouse was deafening. Beside him, Harry Noble, reinforced now by the Bear and de Guevain, fired burst after burst at the elusive, threatening figures outside. The terrorists had learned from their earlier casualty rate and now made use of every scrap of cover, including the lumbering shape of the tank. Their fire had increased in accuracy and was backed by the heavy machine guns, which made accurate defense nearly impossible even when a clear target could be made out.

  The tank was less than twenty meters away — it was now obvious that the boom with the explosive charge was inside some sort of protective metal casing — when Andreas released his very last grenade. The tank lurched as if it were human. The right wheel and steering rods had been blown away completely. Already veering to the right of the gate before the final grenade hit, the tank now slewed off the road completely and tottered over on its side. Andreas and Noble gave a cheer.

  "Down!" shouted the Bear, pushing Andreas to the floor. The entire building rocked as the boom charge exploded. The blast funneled through firing slits and murder holes, throwing Noble, who had reacted a shade too slowly, against the portcullis winding mechanism. The main gear wheel tore open his body in a dozen places, killing him instantly. The Bear glanced through a murder hole. The main force of the blast had been dissipated against the thick walls of the bawn. The portcullis, though twisted and bent and bearing the scars of the earlier RPG-7 assault, was still intact. He checked the castle approach, where the wrecked tank, now reduced to twisted mass of hot metal, lay to one side. As he watched, thick smoke, billowing from a row of smoke grenades, began to obscure the access road to the portcullis. The temporary lull in the firing from the terrorists in front of the castle ceased, and yet again automatic fire thudded off the castle walls and whine through the firing slits.

  A roaring shape, a Land Rover, shot out of the smoke and smashed into the portcullis. The Bear glimpsed a figure jumping from it just before impact, and again he flung Andreas to the floor.

  This time the force of the explosion was truly horrific in its immediacy and intensity. The floor heaved and ripped open, revealing the mangled remains of the portcullis below. It was no longer an effective barrier. Dazed and breathless from the blast and unable to respond, the Bear watched helplessly as figures ran through the open gateway.

  He heard running footsteps on the stairs outside, and a hand grenade was thrown into the room. The small black object bounced across the floor before the Bear's eyes, coming to a halt less than two meters from him. It seemed to pause before toppling over through the crack in the floor and exploding a spit second later.

  A camouflage-clad figure, the keffiyeh around his neck wet with blood from a long slash on his right cheek, burst into the room, firing an AK-47. Lying on the floor just behind him and out of sight, de Guevain, who had been reloading, grabbed a cavalry saber and slashed the terrorist across the back of the knees. The terrorist pitched forward, his automatic rifle dropping from his hands. Andreas, also sprawled on the floor, extended his SA-80 with one hand and pressed the muzzle against the terrorist's neck. The three-round burst exploded the man's head and filled the room with a red mist.

  A second grenade was lobbed into the room, but in his excitement the terrorist in the doorway had forgotten to pull the pin. The Bear, still shaken but forced into action by the desperate need to survive, seized it, pulled the pin, and threw it back through the doorway.

  The terrorist concealed there couldn’t run for cover down the narrow circular stairs because of the men behind him. There wasn't time to throw the grenade back into the room. He chose the only option he could think of and dived into the room away from the grenade, rolled, and came up firing. Rounds pumped into Harry Noble's dead body. The grenade exploded at the top of the circular staircase, temporarily blocking access to the room. Andreas shot the terrorist in the stomach before he had time to change his point of aim.
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  De Guevain ran to the concealed door that led to the tunnel and swung it open. Andreas and the Bear grabbed what extra weapons and ammunition they could and, with a last glance at Harry Noble's body, ran for safety. De Guevain followed, pulling the massive door behind him and ramming home the series of bolts and securing bars. They had bought some time at the cost of yet another life — but the Hangman's forces were now inside the castle.

  * * * * *

  Above Fitzduane's Castle — 2351 hours

  The Sabine had moved to within five hundred meters of the shore and then had opened fire on the keep with a pair of heavy machine guns. Murrough had been swept off the dugout roof by this concentration of fire from an unexpected quarter, and his body now lay outside the castle walls.

  Circling high above the battlefield, his ammunition low, Kilmara had expended the last of his ordnance on this new threat. In two low-level attacks he had put the heavy machine guns out of action and holed the ship below the waterline. The cattle boat, essentially a series of open ramp-linked decks with the engine and crew quarters at the stern, had no bulkheads, and seawater had rushed in through the holes. The Sabine was sinking.

  The few surviving crew had headed toward land in an inflatable. With the Optica's external weaponry out of ammunition, Kilmara instructed the pilot to fly low. He killed the remaining three survivors with his automatic rifle, using the Kite night sight and shooting through a firing port in the door.

  The SAM-7 missile was out of commission, and there was no sign that the terrorists had brought more than one unit, so the Optica was now operating as it had been built to — as a combined observation aircraft and command post. Kilmara's eyes were fixed mainly on the IR viewer screen, with intermittent glances at the flames and tracers and other graphic signs of the intense combat below. Keeping above the effective range of the surviving land-based heavy machine guns, the Optica circled the combat zone, monitoring developments, providing precise enemy position locations for the advancing Rangers, and keeping in touch with Fitzduane, Dublin, and the remaining Ranger transport, which was still circling, ready to drop its force as soon as the heavy machine guns were silenced.

  As commander, Kilmara found that the hardest part of any combat situation was the necessity of remaining aloof from the main action while his men fought and, all too often, died. He had a near-overwhelming desire to parachute from his transparent bubble in the sky, but he kept it suppressed and concentrated on what the modern military termed ‘C3I’: command, control, communications, and intelligence. Or, as he had once termed it: "Fucking around with a fiddle while Rome burns."

  If only the Rangers on the ground could clear the heavy machine guns out of the way, then he could bring the balance of his force into action. "If only" — a pretty useless phrase in the real world.

  Kilmara pressed the radio transmit button to call the Rangers on the ground but after a moment released it without speaking. His men knew full well what to do.

  * * * * *

  Ironically, considering the arrival of the Rangers on the island and the recent news that regular army reinforcements were at last on the way — although they would not arrive for several hours — the situation on the ground had never looked worse. The terrorists were now inside the castle. They had taken the gatehouse and occupied the outhouses and battlements of the bawn. Fitzduane had just made the decision to abandon the great hall and consolidate in the keep and the tunnel below. He hadn't much choice, since the terrorists occupied the floors below the great hall.

  Fitzduane's original force had been whittled down to seven effectives, including the two middle-aged women who were primarily non-combatants. Several of the seven were wounded, lightly in most cases but with the inevitable toll on energy and stamina. Henssen had lost the use of one arm. Ammunition, given the intensity of the combat, was running low. The grenades and other specialized weaponry had been largely expended.

  With great reluctance, Fitzduane deployed the ten student volunteers. At the rate things were going, he'd soon be down to a bunch of teenagers and medieval weaponry.

  29

  Fitzduane's Castle — 0004 hours

  Kadar's mood had oscillated from one extreme to the other during the last few hours. Now, despite the initial setbacks, he felt euphoric. Victory was imminent, and it was all the sweeter for being the harder won.

  He looked around the great hall. The room was impressive, the quality of the woodwork outstanding. How many generations of Fitzduanes had talked and eaten and planned in this very room? What blood had been shed here? What compromises and betrayals had been required for the Fitzduanes to have survived Ireland's turbulent history?

  He sat in the padded carved oak chair at the head of the table and rubbed his fingers on its massive, timeworn oaken mass. He could feel the slight undulations that represented the original adz marks. My God, he thought, this banqueting table must have been made before Christopher Colombus sailed for America, before Leonardo da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa, before Louis XIV built Versailles.

  "Sir?" said Sabri Sartawi, the commander of the Icarus Unit and now the only one of Kadar's senior officers still alive. Kadar was sitting at the head of the table, his eyes closed, his fingers caressing the beeswax-polished wood. There was a smile on his face. Desultory gunfire could be heard around the keep, and from time to time the dull whump of a Molotov cocktail. It was a hell of a time to daydream, but nothing Kadar did surprised Sartawi anymore. The man was obviously insane; still, his insanity was mixed with brilliance. It now looked as if despite everything, they were going to pull it off.

  "Sir?" repeated Sartawi more forcefully, and Kadar's eyes snapped open. For a moment Sartawi thought he had gone too far. The eyes blazed with anger.

  The moment passed. "Yes?" said Kadar mildly. His fingers were still feeling the patina of the table.

  "Situation report, sir," said Sartawi.

  "Proceed."

  "We've broken through the concealed door in the gatehouse winding room," said Sartawi. "It leads down a circular staircase into a tunnel. We estimate that the tunnel links up with the base of the keep, but we can't be sure because our way is blocked by a heavy steel door."

  "Blow it."

  "We can't," said Sartawi. "We used up the last of our explosives in the car bomb. We're out of grenades and RPG-7 projectiles, too. We never expected to have to fight this kind of battle. Also, we're very low on ammunition, perhaps one or two magazines per man."

  "Are the Powerchute and the LPO-50 ready?" said Kadar. The Powerchute in question was the one that had been flown by that unlucky follower of Hasane Sabah, the Iranian Husain. Although Husain had lost interest in this world after his encounter with the firepower of Fitzduane's SA-80, his dead body had balanced the motorized parachute in such a way that it had made quite a respectable landing on its own —not far from the takeoff point. Kadar had had it moved so that it could take off again out of sight of the defenders in the keep.

  "Both are ready," said Sartawi. "And the heavy-machine-gun crews have been briefed."

  Kadar was silent for a moment, lost in thought. He pushed back his chair, stood up, and paced up and down the room. He turned to Sartawi. "We have metal-cutting equipment," he said, "the stuff we used to make that armored tractor. Use that on the tunnel door. I'll lay odds that our hostages are on the other side. I want the door open at the same time as the Powerchute attack. Also, I want all this" — he gestured around the great hall — "set fire to. We'll burn the bastards out."

  "What about the Rangers?" asked Sartawi. "A few jumped, I think, before we hit the plane."

  "A handful of men two kilometers away isn't likely to affect the outcome," said Kadar. "And by the time they get close enough to join in the fighting, we'll have the castle and the hostages."

  I hope you're right, thought Sartawi, but he didn't say anything. He'd heard the Rangers were formidable, but it was true there could be only a few of them — and they would be out in the open against the fortified heavy-machi
ne-gun positions.

  Kadar took one last look at the great hall. "Beautiful, isn't it?"

  Sartawi issued the orders. Battle-fatigued members of Icarus Unit hauled cans of fuel up the stairs and drenched the floor and timbers of the huge room, then spilled more fuel on the stairs and the rooms below.

  * * * * *

  Fitzduane's Castle — 0013 hours

  There had been a brief lull in the fighting, though sporadic sniping continued. Fitzduane had used the brief respite to arm and deploy the students and to carry out a quick tour of inspection of his much-diminished perimeter. Everyone was exhausted and hungry and looked it. Food was provided while there was the opportunity. They all knew they had very little time.

  Slumped on a sandbag in a corner of what had been his bedroom but was now the main defensive post at the top of the keep — the fighting platform seemed to attract a disproportionate amount of heavy-machine-gun fire — Fitzduane took the mug of coffee and the sandwich that Oona offered him. He didn't really know what to say to her. Only twelve hours ago she had been a contented woman with a husband she adored — and now Murrough was dead. So many dead, and because of him. Would it have been better to have stood aside and let the Hangman have his way? He didn't think so, but then your own immediate world was affected, it was hard to know what was right.

  Truth to tell, violence didn't discriminate. The victims of warfare in the main weren't any better or worse than anybody else, whatever the propaganda made out. The North Vietnamese, the South Vietnamese, the Israelis, the Arabs, the police, the terrorists — almost all were fundamentally alike when you really got down to it: ordinary people with wives and mothers like Oona who got caught up with something that got out of control.

  Oona finished dispensing coffee and sandwiches to the others in the room before turning back and looking at him. Fitzduane felt the sandwich turn to cardboard in his mouth. He swallowed with difficulty and then tried to say something appropriate, but what words he managed sounded inadequate.