“Take him and move, your Highness,” the SO-14 commander barked, even as Winterson’s rifle opened up once more. There was no time for argument. Their only hope—if they were to have any hope—lay in a retreat up the steps, into the higher levels of the tower. “We’ll be right on your heels. Move!”
He saw William stoop, gathering the man in his arms—saw the prince disappear into the stairs. Reached for his own rifle, the sound of a dull thud striking his ears, as if something had been thrown, landing in the hall without.
There was no time to react, no time to find shelter. The next moment the room erupted around them…
6:55 P.M.
Harry felt the entire building tremble with the force of a second, far more powerful explosion as he reached the landing ascending to the second floor—rifle snapping to his shoulder as he doubled back, covering the next flight of stairs. Roth just a couple steps behind him, Flaharty farther back.
Nightmares flashing back through his mind—memories of an operation in Beirut, years before. A suicide vest going off in the middle of a crowded apartment building.
Ball bearings turning the corridor into a charnel house, the concussive force of the TATP taking down a wall.
A blast just like this one. A mission that had ended in failure. Innocents lost.
He shook his head and drove forward, fighting back the fear. The loss. The despair that threatened to overwhelm him. Not again.
A rough exclamation was the first thing that hit his ears as he mounted the stairs, his eyes catching sight of a pair of figures not five meters away—seconds before the corridor lit up with the muzzle flash of their rifles.
“Down!” Harry threw himself to one side, landing hard on the steps as rounds chewed through the air he had just occupied, the rifle recoiling into his shoulder as he returned fire—Roth’s Kalashnikov adding its voice to the cacophony as the British officer came to his aid.
He saw Roth stagger as if struck, one of the jihadists crumpling backward under the impact of multiple bullets, his rifle clattering to the floor. Fire and death.
Devastation. Hilliard opened his eyes slowly, dust and smoke filling the air around him. A numb feeling pervading his lower body as he lay there in the rubble of the tower room. Helpless.
He saw armed men enter the room, stepping over the destroyed barricade, a tall figure at their head—a pistol in the man’s hand as he stopped, standing over Winterson’s body.
Chuckling. A sound more devilish than all that had proceeded it, as the terrorist sent a single bullet through the dying officer’s brain. Executing him where he lay.
No. Hilliard’s face twisted in a grimace of wrath and sorrow. Struggling against the pain as he tred to roll onto his stomach—clawing for the Glock which lay only inches from his fingertips. Trying to bring it closer. If only he could reach it…
He wasn’t going to die like this. Not like this.
Another harsh laugh, and a man’s tennis shoe descended on the pistol just as Hilliard grasped it, pinning it to the floor.
The SO-14 commander looked up into the eyes of one of the younger jihadists—pure hatred staring back. Hatred…and triumph.
Hilliard saw the man’s rifle come up, its dark muzzle only inches away from his face—all other sounds fading away, his world constricting around him. Trembling despite himself as he struggled to summon up the last of his resolve, his honor. Don’t close your eyes, don’t look away. Die like a man.
He never heard the shots, just felt blood suddenly spray over his face—warm and wet.
The young man above him swaying slightly, looking down at the wounds in his chest as if in disbelief. Trying and failing to keep his feet.
Target down, Harry thought, seeing the terrorist fall before him—his muzzle already swinging toward the next target. Hearing Roth open up beside him as the two of them entered the nearly destroyed tower room, stone and plaster turned into rubble by the force of the explosion.
He saw the tall man turn back toward him—a pistol coming up in the man’s hand just as Harry squeezed the trigger.
Nothing. Just nothing—the AK’s bolt locked back on an empty magazine. Useless.
He had only a split-second to realize the truth—dropping the rifle, his hand reaching for his Sig—before the jihadist’s pistol came to bear.
A pair of rounds slammed into his body, flattening themselves against the ballistic plate. It was like being hit in the chest with a maul.
The impact knocked him back against the rubble of the wall, driving the breath from his lungs—but he didn’t go down, fighting through the pain. His fingers closing around the butt of the Sig-Sauer as he drew the weapon and brought it up, firing it off-hand even as another round slammed into the plaster by his head. No time to acquire a sight picture.
The pistol recoiling into his palm as he fired again and again, the bullets striking his target center-of-mass, mushrooming through flesh and tissue. Splintering bone.
No. This wasn’t the way it was supposed to end. Farid felt his legs go out from under him, the pistol clattering to the floor of the tower as he sank to his knees. To end like this, his men dying around him as the sound of automatic weapons fire continued to reverberate through the room.
His vision fading—narrowing to focus on the single man in front of him, weapon leveled at his head. Eyes the color of blued steel boring into his.
Failure…so close to victory. To furthering Allah’s struggle. He brought his left hand up, reaching into the pocket of his jacket for the detonator. One final blow, Allahu—
The muzzle of the pistol erupted in fire, a single 9mm slug smashing into Farid’s forehead and into his brain. And everything went dark.
Harry stood there for a moment, breathing heavily—painfully—as he watched the body of the terrorist leader topple sideways. His shattered head striking the floor with a rotten sound.
It was only then that he realized the firing had stopped—glancing around him to see the bodies of the remaining terrorists sprawled around the room. Roth stooped beside the recumbent form of a fallen SO-14 officer, clasping the man’s hand in his.
It was over. The attack averted, but at such a price. As ever, again and again through the years…war without end. And good men die.
He put a hand to his chest, still struggling to regain his breath. Looked back to see Flaharty standing there a few feet away, reloading his rifle.
Their eyes meeting for a brief moment, a barely perceptible nod of understanding. This was far from over. Indeed, it had only begun.
6:58 P.M.
“It’s stopped,” Catherine said quietly after a moment, her voice trembling ever so slightly.
And so it had, the echoes of gunshots dying away through the old castle. Replaced by a silence somehow more ominous than the crescendo of automatic weapons fire that had preceded it.
Take her to the safest place you can find, Bahadar Singh thought, his rifle trained on the entry of the plate room, recalling the man’s words. Keep her there until the threat is past.
He had been an American, that much was clear by his accent. What was he doing here?
A question that would, like as not, never be answered. Singh glanced back to where Catherine knelt in the corner—holding onto her son as if he was the last thing left to her in this world. And perhaps he was.
7:00 P.M.
“All part of the…job. You never lose your principal—give your life for theirs, if it comes to that.”
Harry knelt beside Colin Hilliard, gripping his hand as the Queen’s bodyguard coughed violently, spitting up blood—his strength rapidly flagging. Remembering the words of another bodyguard, from another time. Vegas.
Another man, so much like this one. Men who had sacrificed themselves—but in so doing, succeeded where he had so miserably failed. In protecting all that was dear to them.
In doing their job.
Roth descended the stairs, moving carefully, heavily—growing pain from the wound in his side slowing him down.
/>
It had gone straight through the flesh, in and out—missing the ribs. Had barely felt it past the impact. But now, as the adrenaline wore off…
He saw Nichols kneeling by Hilliard’s body as he reentered the nearly destroyed tower room—caught the American’s eye, the question all too visible in his own.
A grim shake of the head serving as reply. The man wasn’t going to make it.
He stooped painfully down by the bodyguard’s side as Nichols rose, Hilliard’s hand grasping for his and squeezing it fiercely, unable to speak for a few moments as he was seized with another fit of coughing, blood and spittle flecking his shirt. “Th-the Queen…is she safe?”
Faithful to the bitter end. Brass scattered everywhere through the rubble bearing testament to the valiant fight him and his men had put up.
“She is,” the former Royal Marine replied, recognizing the look in Hilliard’s eyes too well. The pallor of death in his cheeks. He didn’t have much longer, and there was so very little any of them could do. “As are the rest of the Royals.”
A duty fulfilled. Something of peace passing across the man’s bloodied countenance as he heard the words, his eyes closing for the final time. “Good…”
Chapter 34
2:08 P.M. Eastern Time
CIA Headquarters
Langley, Virginia
“…we need resources on that now. Get me everything we have in the area,” Kranemeyer barked, moving through the op-center, his eyes fixed on the television screens, most of them now tuned to European news outlets. The BBC. Sky News. Al-Jazeera.
Russia Today—which had, up until a few minutes before, been reporting Queen Elizabeth’s “death” in lurid detail—beating the nationalist war drum for all it was worth.
“Get on the horn with Alliance Base,” he said, coming up alongside Danny Lasker, “find out what they’re seeing there in Europe, what threats have hit their radar in the last forty-eight hours. Anything, and I mean anything they might have overlooked.”
“Already on it, sir.”
You always had to brace yourself for the potential of follow-up attacks, strikes designed to take advantage of the chaos—the intelligence resources an attack of this magnitude inevitably consumed.
Overwhelm the system.
A system he had sacrificed so much to keep in place—to defend against those who would have torn it down.
Turning away, he dug the burner from his pocket, reading once again the text he had received from Roy Coftey nearly four hours earlier. Before any of this had unfolded.
“What we discussed the other night…it’s been taken care of. Stand down.”
Stand down, Kranemeyer thought, his dark eyes expressionless, glancing over to hear the BBC breaking yet another news bulletin from Scotland.
That remained to be seen…
7:09 P.M. Greenwich Mean Time
Cabinet Office Briefing Room A(COBRA)
No. 10 Downing Street
“…have located an IED in a van parked by the approach on the east side of the Dee. Inspector Connarty is concerned that the bridge may itself be mined.”
Marsh shook his head as his section chief paused, glancing briefly across the conference table at General Lidington. Every moment was precious, and now this. “So what is being done about it, MacCallum?”
“They don’t have the equipment or the technical expertise to defuse the explosives safely. 321 EOD is en route from Aldergrove.”
Northern Ireland, Marsh thought, suppressing a curse. But there was no help for it…local Special Branch units weren’t equipped to handle this kind of threat. And no one was better—or closer—than the 321 Squadron. “And in the mean time?”
“Connarty has dispatched a pair of Firearms Units to ford the Dee north and south of the bridge, close on the castle in a pincer movement. They should be there in another ten minutes. Perhaps less. Police Scotland reports they have heard no gunfire since arriving on-scene.”
The silence of a tomb. The DG ran a hand across the lower half of his face, unable to shake the dark sense of foreboding overpowering him. “And the latest from the RAF?”
“Should have enough fuel to remain onstation for another twenty minutes. After that—” the section chief’s voice broke off suddenly and Marsh could hear him talking in the background, as if having forgotten he was on an open line with the prime minister.
“MacCallum…MacCallum?”
“Sir,” the section chief responded, coming back on suddenly, “we just received a transmission from Balmoral Castle. It—it’s Darren Roth.”
7:12 P.M.
The port of Aberdeen
My Lord, grant me victory over the corrupt people, Tarik Abdul Muhammad prayed, whispering the words of the dua beneath his breath as he stood by one of the computer monitors, its screen displaying a continually updating Twitter stream of the attacks, under the hashtags #Balmoralattacks and #Scotlandunderfire. The prayer of the prophet Lut, peace be upon him.
Over an hour since the attack on Balmoral was to have begun, and still nothing since the initial photographs, no confirmation from Farid that their mission had been a success. The Queen and Royal Family taken, executed on camera—their heads mounted on the tower of Balmoral. The black flag of jihad waving above.
Perhaps it was all to be attributed to the universally poor mobile reception in the Highlands. And though there was no word of their success, neither was there word of their failure—as much as the BBC’s newshosts were urging calm.
He felt a thrill run through his body at the thought, the blow it would strike against the West. A message, written in the blood of England’s royalty. No one is safe.
Nowhere.
7:16 P.M.
Balmoral Castle
“…of course. I understand, sir,” Darren Roth said, glancing out the windows of the tower to see a Police Scotland Firearms Unit sweeping across the lawn from the south. Advancing on the castle in a tight, disciplined formation. Weapons leveled.
If only we’d had them earlier, he thought—but didn’t say, listening as the DG continued.
“And regarding Her Majesty,” he began, “what are your orders?”
“Maintain your position there,” came the reply from General Lidington. “A detachment of 22 SAS is in the air from RAF Shawbury. They’ll be executing a combat drop over Balmoral, will aid Special Branch in securing the area and provide escort to move the Queen and the Royal Family to safety at Holyrood. They should be with you inside of ninety minutes.”
“Very good, sir. We’ll hold until they arrive.”
“And Tarik Abdul Muhammad?” Marsh asked, interjecting himself once again.
“There’s no sign of him among the dead,” Roth responded, glancing back to see Catherine embracing her husband with a fierce passion, heedless of the blood staining his clothes. “I think we have to assume he survived—or perhaps was not even leading the attack in person.”
How many times had they seen that, he thought, the irony too rich to be endured. The men who persuaded others to seek a martyr’s death, quailing from it themselves. Lacking even the raw courage possessed by—
Roth’s gaze fell on the form of Bahadar Singh standing in the doorway, a sudden thought striking him as his eyes searched the room.
“One moment, sir,” he said—covering the phone with his hand as he advanced on the Sikh. “Nichols? Where is he?”
“Who? What are you talking about?”
“The American who was with me earlier—he’s CIA. Where is he?”
Singh shook his head. “Saw him downstairs, about ten minutes ago. Near the kitchen court, heading out. Him and the other man.”
Stephen Flaharty. Roth swore loudly, forgetting himself as he brought the phone back up. “Sir, we have a problem…”
7:21 P.M.
The carpark
Crathie Kirk
“You about got that, lad?” Flaharty asked, rifle in hand as he glanced back over his shoulder to where Harry crouched in the open door of a s
ilver Vauxhall Corsa, the wires beneath its steering column pulled out.
Harry shook his head, his face twisted in pain as he removed the damaged plate carrier, casting it aside as he went back under the steering wheel, searching for the right wire. “Give me a moment.”
The pain from his chest was slowing him down, purplish bruises discoloring the flesh where the rounds had made impact against the plate. Through the trees, they could see the flashing blue lights of countless police vehicles in the gathering darkness—hear the ceaseless wail of sirens.
It might be a moment they didn’t have.
There, he thought, touching the stripped wires together and hearing the Vauxhall’s engine falter to life. Beckoning to Flaharty. “Get in, get in.”
The Irishman took a final glance back toward the bridge before sliding in on the passenger seat, removing the magazine from his AKM and checking it as he did so. Almost out. Harry could tell that from the way Flaharty hefted it in his hand.
Almost out—and with half their mission yet to complete. The former terrorist shook his head, looking over at him. “We’re running precious low, old son. Tell me you’ve got a plan.”
7:28 P.M.
The gliding club
Aboyne, Scotland
“You’ve lost, you know that,” Mehreen said, the HK45 drawn in her hand as she tossed a bottle of water into Conor Hale’s lap. Maintaining her distance, even in the close confines of the Cessna’s darkened cabin. “This is the end for you, no matter what else comes—no matter what happens to the Queen. No one’s going to remember you as a hero for the part you played today.”
He shook his head, struggling for a moment to open it with his ziptied hands. “All the heroes I ever knew are dead. Every last sodding one of them, dead in the service of a country that had turned its back on them long before. A hundred coffins, draped with the Union Jack—buried in forgotten little cemeteries all across the UK. Like your husband.”
She flinched despite herself, his words striking home. Watching as he lifted the water bottle to his lips, spilling some of it down his unshaven, bloodied cheek.
Embrace the Fire (Shadow Warriors Book 3) Page 69
