But in this world, the guilty lived on…and the innocent died. Spared from the wrath to come.
And perhaps that was the price.
6:26 P.M.
Balmoral Castle
No turning back. Hilliard flattened himself against the wall as rifle bullets slammed into the lintel of the door above his head, oak splinters flying through the air.
If one of the militants in the passageway beyond had an RPG like those attacking the front of the castle…he shuddered. It would be over quickly.
But if it meant saving the wife and child of a boy he had watched grow to manhood…
He glanced over to the other side of the door, meeting William’s gaze as the Prince slid a fresh magazine into the mag well of the G36.
His eyes signaling an unspoken question: Ready?
This was wrong, the SO-14 commander thought—all of this was wrong. Protocol said to evacuate the Royal Family, get them to safety. Protocol said—
Sod protocol. He took a deep breath, his hands tightening around the grip of his own rifle as he nodded. Go.
He moved from cover, his weapon coming up through the smoke and haze as he spotted a figure standing perhaps halfway down the passage—catching a glimpse of the Prince out of the corner of his eye, mirroring his own actions.
And the halls of Balmoral reverberated with the sound of gunfire…
6:28 P.M.
The river Dee
“Keep him quiet,” Bahadar Singh warned, putting out a hand behind him to hold Catherine back against the rock—the three of them sheltering beneath a rocky outcropping jutting out over the river, the waters of the Dee swirling around their ankles.
The Glock was in his right hand, its slide locked back on an empty magazine. His last.
Expended laying down covering fire in the effort to break contact when they had been discovered up-river.
And it had worked, but now—he heard voices not far away from them, the familiar rough accents of South London. Searching for them.
Now all he could do is shelter his principals and hope they weren’t found. O Lord of the Sword, he whispered, reciting the words of the bani under his breath, may we seek Thy refuge. Protect us with Thine own hands…protect us from the designs of our enemies.
Footsteps sounded on the rocks only feet away and he held his breath, every nerve on a razor edge, every muscle tensed.
And then he heard young George begin to cry.
6:29 P.M.
All those years. Hilliard went wide around the corner as he entered the ballroom of Balmoral, the Prince following close at his side. Rifle pressed tight against his shoulder as he stepped over a terrorist’s corpse.
Walking the beat in London. Protecting the Royal Family. He had never been forced to take a human life, until today.
Perhaps he had always known it could come to this, but knowing—wasn’t the same as reality. Nothing close.
The body of the gardener lay in the middle of the room, sprawled on his back. Sightless eyes staring toward the ceiling, blood staining his faded blue shirt.
Worricker, the SO-14 commander thought, remembering the man’s name. Nearly fifty years of service to the Royals…one of Her Majesty’s favorites. Prince Charles’ engraved side-by-side Purdey lay there only inches from the old man’s fingers—the shotgun’s breech broken open, empty shells lying on the rug.
He’d had to have taken it from the castle’s gun room, been reloading it when he was killed. A last, desperate act. Selling his life dearly, in defense of his monarch.
Hilliard heard William curse softly at the sight of the man’s body, a bitter, regretful sound.
Loss.
“Ready, Your Highness?” he asked, hearing more bursts of gunfire from somewhere deep within the castle as they stood there in the middle of ballroom, rifles in hand. If they were going to reach Catherine, they could afford no delay.
“Aye,” the Prince nodded, sorrow in his eyes as he turned. “There’s nothing I can do for him here.”
Let the dead bury their dead. “I remember him from when I was a lad, coming up here on holiday. He was—”
Whatever he might have been about to say was lost as another loud explosion reverberated from the south end of the castle, Hilliard’s earpiece crackling with a burst of static—and then the voice of one of the men he had detailed to escort the Queen, shouting to make himself heard over the noise of rifle fire. “…we’ve been cut off from the bunker. There’s no way to get the Queen down without exposing her to fire.”
My God. This was spiraling out of control. “Can you fight your way through?”
“That’s a negative, they have a clear field of fire on the entire hall. We don’t have enough men—Nawaz and Hockings are down. Can’t do anything more than try to hold our position in the tower for as long as we can.”
“Hold there,” Hilliard responded grimly, looking over at Prince William. “Her Majesty is under attack in the tower. I know you want to find your wife an’ son more than anything else on God’s good earth, Your Highness, but my men aren’t going to be able to hold out much longer. And if the Queen dies, the England we have known dies with her.”
He could see the agony in William’s eyes, the fear and indecision. Torn between love and duty. Duty to his family…and to the realm.
A few seconds passed, and then the Prince shouldered his rifle, gesturing toward the stairs at one end of the ballroom. Stairs leading to the second floor and the tower. “Let’s be going.”
6:30 P.M.
It felt like a scene from another age as Harry dropped to one knee, bracing himself against the thick trunk of the oak towering over his head—the western wing of the castle on fire—angry flames leaping into the slate-gray sky above, silhouetting the figures standing in the cover of the black Suburbans.
“I have three men near the carriage porch, all of them armed. Two more by the back van, one of them with a rifle. Eighty meters,” Harry heard Roth say, not taking his eyes off the AK’s sights.
“Solid copy,” he replied, forcing his breathing to slow, the sights wavering as he tightened his grasp of the Kalashnikov’s foregrip. “Man to his left has a radio.”
Command and control. Here, as in Vegas, Tarik was leaving nothing to chance…with Colville’s nationalists facilitating him every step of the way. Blood on all their hands
“We take them both at once,” he said, his finger curling around the trigger. “You have the man on the right.”
“…yes, I understand, brother,” the jihadist said, hearing Farid’s voice in his earpiece as he toggled the radio’s microphone, turning away from the Suburban. “I haven’t been able to raise them in the last five minutes. I—”
The words died in his throat, a sound like the explosion of a rotten melon assaulting his ears—something warm and wet spraying over his face.
He had just enough time to turn, mouth open in shock at the sight of his partner slumping to the ground, the back of the man’s head blown away, blood and brains trickling down the side of the vehicle.
The next moment, a 7.62x39mm round smashed through his own skull, and everything went dark.
6:31 P.M.
There was a rough exclamation, followed by a splash as the searcher entered the river, coming around the edge of the rock—the muzzle of his rifle leading the way.
Protect thy disciples, Bahadar Singh breathed, dropping the empty Glock into the river as he came out of his crouch, his body slamming into that of the terrorist. And destroy my enemies.
He seized the barrel of the rifle in his right hand, pushing it away just as a ragged burst ripped from its muzzle—going wild in the air.
No. His kirpan coming out in his left hand, eyes locking with those of his oppponent only moments before he buried the curved blade in the young man’s belly, nearly disemboweling him.
Blood spurting from the wound, a crimson flow staining Singh’s hands as the terrorist tried to push him away, both of them falling backward into the river. Catherine’s
screams echoing over the water.
The Sikh pushed the man’s hands away, his turban coming undone as he wrestled with him in the shallows, seizing hold of the dagger’s hilt and plunging it between the man’s ribs again and again—churning the water into a bloody froth.
A glimpse of movement out of the corner of his eye—the shape of another terrorist rushing down the bank above him—and Singh rolled over on his back in the river, his hands finding the H&K G3. Bringing it up, water and brass streaming from the rifle’s ejection port as he fired.
He could see the bullets strike his target as if in slow-motion, plumes of blood rising across the man’s chest as he wavered, falling backward like a broken doll.
Singh pushed himself to one knee, his long wet hair flowing unbound over his back like the mane of a lion. The rifle coming back against his shoulder as he scanned for threats. Nothing.
The echoes of the last shots dying away through the woods to be replaced by the more distant sound of gunfire from toward the castle itself—seeming to swell in intensity even as he listened.
He turned to see Catherine staring at him from a few feet away, her face drained of color—eyes wide with shock. He rose to his feet, rifle in one hand as he extended the other toward her and the boy. “We need to move, Your Highness. Now.”
6:33 P.M.
RAF Lossiemouth
Moray, Scotland
“Tyrant One Zero, this is Tower,” the middle-aged man in the uniform of an RAF warrant officer announced, gazing out the control tower windows toward the slate-gray fighter jet sitting on the runway a few hundred meters away—the glow of its engines already visible in the gathering dusk. “Winds 220 at thirteen knots, runway 23 right. You are cleared for take-off, Leftenant.”
A moment, and then the young flight lieutenant’s voice came back over his headset. “Runway 23 right, cleared for take-off. Tyrant One Zero.”
Go with God, leftenant, the older man thought, his face sober as he stared out the window. He’d been watching young pilots take off these runways for years—but there was nothing ordinary about this flight, as the cylindrical shapes of the Paveway IV laser-guided bombs hanging beneath the Typhoon’s wings bore witness.
Now, the life of the Queen herself was in danger. Cut off from help. And he knew perhaps better than even the pilot out in that cockpit just what a desperate play this was.
He saw the Typhoon begin to roll down the runway, gathering speed—twin gouts of flame suddenly spurting from the tail of the plane as the afterburners fired, the roar vibrating across the airfield and rattling the windows of the control tower as it climbed into the evening sky.
He keyed his mike again, glancing back to see the second fighter taxiing down the runway. “Tyrant Two Zero, this is Tower. Winds 220…”
6:34 P.M.
Balmoral Castle
Open ground. Naked and bare. Over a hundred meters of it before the castle. No place to run, no place to hide.
Harry dropped to one knee on the once-manicured grass, hearing the whiplash crack of bullets crease the air above him as he ejected the AK’s empty magazine, plucking another from his chest rig with a fluid, practiced motion. McTaggart only a few feet from his shoulder, the rhythmic chatter of the man’s rifle adding to the cacophony surrounding him.
A man was never more alive than in the midst of battle. Death whispering about his ears.
A seductive voice. He glimpsed Roth off to his left, brass ejecting from the former Royal Marine’s weapon as Harry slammed the magazine into the Kalashnikov’s mag well—pulling back the charging handle to chamber a round even as another pair of jihadists emerged from the dark shadows of the treeline toward the castle’s great tower, barely twenty meters away.
“Shooters on the right!” He screamed a warning to McTaggart, his voice carried away in the din of battle—his rifle’s muzzle describing a painfully slow arc as he brought it to bear, iron sights centering on the lead terrorist even as the man opened fire.
Chaos. Harry threw himself sideways, hitting the ground as bullets fanned the air past his head. Rifle bucking into his shoulder as he fired.
His first shot went wild—the second and third striking his target high in the chest. The man went down, legs kicking as McTaggart dispatched his partner with a controlled burst of fire.
Two more down. But they couldn’t stay here. Exposed. Out in the open.
“Flank left!” he called out, catching Roth’s eye and gesturing with his support hand toward the parked Suburbans thirty meters to their west. “Move—move!”
6:36 P.M.
The Shaikh had assured him that the Queen’s security would be the only opposition they would face, Farid thought, his dark eyes blazing as he made his way up the grand staircase toward the second floor, rifle in hand.
That their brother’s sacrifice in Aberdeen would tie up all available units, that there would be no time for the British to mount a response.
None of which explained the chaos unfolding without. “Yalla, yalla!” he barked, stepping over the body of a dead servant as he came upon a pair of his men sheltering at the threshold of a door. Come on, come on.
Cowering. Like so many he had seen in Syria. Eager for the fight—to prove themselves in Allah’s struggle—until the bullets began to fly, and the prospect of martyrdom became a reality.
“We can’t,” one of them responded, his voice cracking. Refusing to meet Farid’s eyes. “They’re covering the corridor—Mohammad and Amin are already dead.”
“And if you stay here,” the Syria veteran responded, drawing his pistol from within his jacket and aiming it at the young man’s head, “I’ll send you to meet them. Do you wish to meet God by my hand, or by that of the infidel?”
6:37 P.M.
Harry raised himself up on one knee as he saw Roth and Flaharty make their break for the vehicles, laying down covering fire on the treeline.
He fired until the AK’s charging handle locked back, fishing another curved magazine from his chest rig as he ejected the empty. Couldn’t keep this up much longer.
Pushing himself to his feet, Harry ran forward a few paces to where McTaggart knelt, firing as he went. “Move!” he screamed, placing a hand on the older man’s shoulder as he reached him. “I’ve got your six.”
A nod of acknowledgement and the constable rose, turning as Harry fired again and again, retreating backward toward the vehicles—ragged bursts of fire ripping from the Kalashnikov’s muzzle. Suppressive fire.
And then he heard it, a familiar whine searing through the air near his head. The sickeningly soft sound of a bullet smashing into human flesh.
He turned back just in time to see McTaggart sway. A second round slamming into the man’s side, going through the plate like it was paper.
His legs going out from under him as he crumpled to the ground.
No. He heard a raw scream of anger, realizing only then that it had come from his own throat. And good men die.
Mehreen’s words echoing through his mind, hollow—filled with foreboding. Not today.
Not when victory was so close.
He reached McTaggart’s side, firing as he moved. Fury clouding his vision. The chatter of Roth and Flaharty’s rifle sounding distant, far away as he stooped down. He could see the pallor of the man’s face in the gathering dust—his eyes slowly opening and closing as he struggled to breathe. Bloody spittle flecking his lips.
He shook his head, knowing the signs. All too well. “Come on now, mate—stay with me. You’re going to be all right.”
He reached down, his left hand entwining in the straps of the constable’s plate carrier—the stock of the AK pressed tight against his shoulder, firing it in one hand as he began to drag the dying man backward toward cover.
Not today. Not today…
6:38 P.M.
“Price, what’s your status?” Hilliard demanded, breathing heavily with the exertion—William at his back pulling rear security as they moved together down the upstairs hall, past
one of the bedrooms used by guests of the Royal Family in years gone by. “I say again—what is your status?”
Nothing but static. The commander’s lips pursed into a thin line, the sound of gunfire growing ever closer. Either his officer was engaged heavily and unable to respond, or…
No. He forced that thought away from him, cursing beneath his breath. They were going to be there in time. They had to be.
A heavy oaken door barred their entrance to the tower itself, and Hilliard threw himself against it, knocking loudly. “Price! Open up!”
A moment passed, and then the bar slid back, the door opening to reveal one of his officers—a leveled Glock in the man’s hand. More of his men back toward the remains of the other door, taking cover behind a rude barricade of heavy furniture. The room filled with the acrid smell of gunpowder.
“Thank God it’s you,” he said, lowering the weapon and stepping back to let them in even as a ragged burst ripped from the muzzle of Price’s rifle. A deafening sound in the confines of the tower. “We’re running low on ammunition,” the SO-14 officer continued, his face grim. “No way of telling how many men they have left, but it’s too sodding many.”
“And Her Majesty?” Hilliard asked, glancing around the room and finding no sign of the Queen.
“We evacuated her upstairs,” the man responded, gesturing toward the winding stone steps leading to the upper levels of the tower. “Along with our wounded.”
“Go join them, Your Highness,” Hilliard advised, looking back at William—but the Prince responded with a shake of the head, ejecting the magazine of his rifle and hefting it in his hand.
“You know better than that, Colin. I’m not going anywhere.”
Noblesse oblige, the commander thought, acquiescing with a brief nod. William’s mother had understood it, and drilled it into her young son. The obligations of royalty, a prince fighting alongside his subjects. One final time.
Embrace the Fire (Shadow Warriors Book 3) Page 67
