by James Adams
It was for this moment that the officers and men of HMS Campbeltown had trained. It was for now that the hours, the days and weeks had been spent practising again and again the coordination required to make an operations room run effectively.
“PWO Air, target type and range? CHOPS, Sea Wolf status.”
The principal warfare officer responsible for the air battle receives all the information from the sonar operators and any other data that might help analyse the threat. In his coordinating role, he has the total picture and it is his responsibility to produce timely and accurate information for the captain. His response was immediate.
“Small cruiser, sir. Range 7,000 yards. Speed fifteen knots. Course 280, bearing 120.”
The chief petty officer, operations (missiles) runs the Sea Wolf missile system from two television screens situated to the left of the captain’s chair. Jonny looked over and saw him hunched over his keyboard, his fingers flying furiously. “Sea Wolf B radar scanning, sir. Missiles on line. All systems in the green.” As he spoke a line of fifteen green lights above the two television screens came on.
“Fire when ready.”
“Fire when ready. Aye, sir.”
The Sea Wolf radar conducts a ninety-degree vertical sweep every second. Once the target coordinates are fed into its computer, a second sweep narrows the arc to forty degrees. A second later the missile radar locks on to the target. Ten seconds after Greaves gave his final order the first missile fired out of its launcher with a massive cloud of white smoke and a roar that could be heard in the operations room. A fraction of a second later, the second missile launched.
“Fail safe,” Greaves muttered.
The two TV monitors in front of the missile controller lit up. A small television camera in each of the Sea Wolfs’ nose cones relayed an image back to the controller who could then direct the first stages of the missile’s flight by means of a tiny joystick to the left of his console. Once the seeker in the missile nose cone locked on, then the course was set, the target certain and all the operator could do was watch the final moments before impact.
“Another message, sir,” Jonny heard in his headphones. But it was too late.
For a few seconds the screen was blank and then suddenly a white power cruiser appeared on the TV monitor. At first a tiny speck, it grew and grew as the operator homed the six-foot missile to its target. The operator focused the nose camera and for a brief moment the image was frozen on the screen. Jonny clearly saw the faces of the two women. Julie Cohen, the hostage of last resort, was looking directly at the camera, the terror clear on her face. Then the second woman looked up from the microphone. With a frisson of horror, Jonny recognized Dame Mary Cheong. Their eyes seemed to meet across the chasm of water. The memory of that moment outside the Tunnel, when he had seen determination on her face instead of despair after her failed mission to persuade the terrorists to surrender, crystallized in his mind. Now it made sense. She — not Stanley Kung — was the Leader, the mastermind behind all this horror. It was her ruthless control that had created Dai Choi. With her consummate understanding of corruption and manipulation of power she had worked from within the establishment to undermine a system she despised.
Dame Mary Cheong stopped speaking and then her face fixed in horror as she understood in her final moments that death was arcing towards her at 3,000 miles an hour.
Long after the explosion had obliterated the small ship, the image of Dame Mary Cheong, despairing and defeated, remained.
The shuffling, shambling crowd of passengers and their escorts looked like refugees rescued after a long sentence in a concentration camp. A dreadful toll had been taken on the seventy-five passengers who had embarked on the journey to France. Fifteen were dead, twenty wounded, all showed the scars of their incarceration.
Hodder wanted to shout at them, to urge them forward, to tell them that time was rapidly running out. But the vacant stares, the frightened eyes and the sheer exhaustion were eloquent testimony that these people had suffered enough. Any suggestion of an even more horrible fate lurking above would, he suspected, simply cause what little life was left in them to fizzle out. Already his men were supporting one or two of the wounded. They had run out of painkillers from the meagre supply they had been able to bring with them. Each step along the track brought a shriek of agony from one of the wounded. But each step was a few feet further towards the safety of the dry land.
The attack on the train had left Kate Carr purged of her anger and sorrow. She had replayed the killing of the Poison Dwarf in her mind, had heard again the sickening impact of the tube sinking into his throat and then his dying gasps as he struggled for breath. She felt no revulsion now. With every step, she knew she was heading back to a life she understood. With every step she felt the security of Emma’s small hand in hers. Looking down at her daughter now, she marvelled at the resilience of small children. She was filthy, but there was a spring in her step and some of the old ebullience was returning. Kate wanted to stop and put her arms around her daughter. She was her family now. This time, Tom would not be there to welcome them home. She felt the tears course down her cheeks.
Then suddenly she heard a shout and looked up from the tracks. Ahead the circle of light that was the Tunnel mouth beckoned to them. Those in front started to run in the short, drunken steps of the exhausted. Caught up in the excitement, she felt her own pace quicken. The circle got wider, the light sharper, and then they were out into the glorious bright summer afternoon.
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