Knaves Over Queens

by George R. R. Martin

  Some of the SAS men laughed. Most of them had shifted in their seats to look over at Rory. He saw the appraising glances from the commandos and wondered briefly if he should have kept his mouth shut on the flag bridge after all.

  ‘If Sub-Lieutenant Campbell – Archimedes – cannot disable the Pucarás from the overwatch position, we will go to Plan B, and things will get considerably noisier. But keep the timing in mind, because the window of operations is a small one. Do stick to the timetable if you want to get off that rock and back to Hermes, unless you have a desire to sample the quality of the cooking in an Argentine POW camp.’

  There was more laughter from the troops. Rory smiled weakly at the joke. He was Navy, not SAS, but even he understood very well that having to spend time in a POW camp was not the worst possible outcome for anyone on this mission.

  Major General Moore ran them through the timeline of the raid once more — undoubtedly for the benefit of Rory and Major Singh, the last-minute additions – and concluded the briefing a few minutes later. Rory didn’t feel any more prepared than before he had walked into the room.

  ‘A word, Sub-Lieutenant,’ the general said when everyone started filing out of the compartment, and Rory stayed behind. ‘I got Admiral Woodward to agree to this because it’s a night-time raid, and there won’t be any air threat to Hermes while it’s dark. But we are taking a risk sending you out like that. Major Singh will come along and make sure that you come back in one piece. And please make it worth that risk. Don’t make me regret convincing the admiral to let you come along.’

  ‘Understood, sir,’ Rory said. ‘I’ll do my very best.’

  Outside in the passageway, Major Singh walked up behind him and patted his shoulder. The Silver Helix agent was in his camouflage Army uniform, but tonight he had web gear on top of his jacket, and he had exchanged his blue turban for a black one.

  ‘Congratulations,’ he said. ‘You are a commando now. Let’s get you to equipment issue and dressed for the part. The mission starts at 2200 hours.’

  Phase III: Pebble Island

  West Falkland Island, May 14th, 1982

  After three years in the Royal Navy, Rory didn’t get seasick often any more, but riding in the back of a Sea King helicopter into forty-knot headwinds charted some brand-new territory for nausea in his brain. It didn’t help that the cargo compartment was crowded with battle-ready commandos and their equipment. The SAS lads looked calm and collected, but Rory could tell that everyone was tense, except maybe for Major Singh. The Lion sat in the jump seat next to Rory, his backpack and rifle upright between his legs, the fingers of his left hand lightly touching the pommel of the dagger on his web belt while the big Sikh looked at the helicopter’s bulkhead absent-mindedly. Rory would have liked a calming chat before the start of the action, but the interior of the Sea King was noisy, and conversations had to be held at near-shouting volume. Whatever space inside the helicopter that wasn’t taken up by a geared-up soldier was filled with ammunition and equipment. The Sea King had windows, but it was pitch dark outside, and the total lack of visual references combined with the buffeting from the winds made Rory queasy.

  They flew through the darkness for what seemed like hours until the helicopter finally started a series of banking and descending manoeuvres.

  ‘Thirty seconds,’ the pilot called out towards the back.

  All around Rory, the SAS troopers started readying their gear with practised movements. Rory tried to emulate them, fumbling with the straps of his assault pack and untangling the Sterling submachine gun they had issued him back on Hermes.

  ‘Relax,’ the Lion said next to him and reached down to free Rory’s gun sling from the support strut of his seat. ‘We are not doing a parachute drop. We are just getting off the normal way.’

  ‘In the dark. Onto enemy territory,’ Rory added, and Major Singh grinned. His teeth looked very white in the semi-darkness of the Sea King’s cargo hold.

  ‘That is how war works,’ he said. ‘Especially when the SAS is involved.’

  The helicopter settled on the ground, and the troops opened the sliding doors to either side of the Sea King. The SAS men filed out of the cargo hold quickly and smoothly, and it was evident they had done this a thousand times. Rory tried not to hold up the egress too much and followed Major Singh as fast as he could. A few dozen yards away another Sea King landed, this one carrying the other half of D Squadron.

  Outside, the SAS charged their L1A1 rifles, and some of them set up a security perimeter. Rory hadn’t realized just how much extra ordnance they had brought with them until the other troops and the Navy airmen had unloaded the helicopters completely.

  ‘Everyone check their loads,’ the officers announced. ‘Everybody will carry at least two rounds for the mortars in addition to their combat load.’

  The SAS added the green plastic containers with the mortar bombs to their rucksacks and secured them with straps. Rory did the same. When he looked over to Major Singh, he saw that the Lion had lashed three double containers to his pack.

  ‘Mountain Troop, take point with the lads from Boat Troop. Keep your intervals. And don’t get distracted admiring the scenery. Once we get there, we have thirty minutes,’ the SAS major in command ordered.

  They all synchronized their watches, and the SAS squadron marched off into the darkness. Rory wasn’t an infantryman, and the last time he had marched with a pack and a rifle had been during basic training. But these men were the best at this particular sort of thing, so he decided to stick close to Major Singh and do everything the SAS men did.

  There wasn’t much scenery to admire on Pebble Island. Rory remembered the assessment of his Navy friend that the Falklands looked a lot like the remote parts of Scotland, and he had to agree. It was all rock-strewn and hilly, with very little vegetation other than grass. Doing everything the SAS men did turned out to be easier in intent than practice because even with all their heavy gear they were the fastest marchers he had ever seen. Rory puffed along behind Major Singh and the supremely fit commandos.

  ‘It’s just like Scotland,’ he said to the major as they were ascending a little hill, the wind whipping into their faces, making everyone pull the cords on their parka hoods tighter. ‘There’s even bloody sheep. Look.’ He pointed over to a herd of them, barely visible in the darkness a few hundred yards off their path on the slope of the hill.

  ‘Ten thousand sheep on this island,’ Major Singh informed him. ‘Been a sheep farm for a hundred and fifty years. I doubt the sheep care whether they get shorn by Argentines or British.’

  They reached the summit of the little hill a few minutes later. On the plains ahead of them, maybe a mile or so in the distance, Rory could barely make out some structures, a few low buildings rising from the sparse grass. When he checked with his binoculars, he could make out the silhouettes of aeroplanes backlit by the moonlight reflecting from the nearby ocean.

  ‘Send a signal to Glamorgan and let them know we have the objective in sight,’ the SAS major ordered. ‘Mountain Troop, let’s get to work. Air and Boat troops, move out to the blocking and reserve positions. Ten minutes until go time, gentlemen.’

  Rory and Major Singh went ahead with the Mountain Troop, whose task it had been to sneak into the Argentine installation and place demolition charges on the aircraft before Rory volunteered his talents. The SAS men moved silently and professionally, using hand signals to coordinate their movements. Major Singh stayed close by Rory’s side and directed him silently whenever Rory didn’t see or understand a hand signal. As a Navy sailor, he had only received minimal weapons instruction years ago, and he had forgotten almost all of his knowledge about infantry formation tactics from basic training. He had never been afraid of the dark, but this place was unsettling, especially given the knowledge that hundreds of armed men were camped out in that installation just a mile and a half away, ready and willing to kill them if they made their presence known.

  Mountain Troop was five hundred yards f
rom the edge of the airfield when the captain in charge ordered everyone to spread out and take up firing positions. He made his way back to Rory and Major Singh. ‘Can you do your thing from here?’ the captain asked Rory. ‘Any closer and we have to keep an eye out for their sentries.’

  Rory checked his surroundings with the binoculars again. ‘I see three I can get for sure. But that low building there – I can’t see what’s next to that, or behind it. Too bloody dark.’

  ‘Try these.’ The captain opened a pouch on his web gear and handed Rory a set of goggles on a head strap. Rory put them on, and the captain reached out and turned a knob on the goggles. Rory’s field of view instantly turned from various shades of black to a grainy green, but everything further than fifty feet away instantly became visible as if it was merely the beginning of dusk.

  ‘Latest generation image intensifier,’ the captain said.

  ‘You SAS boys get all the expensive toys,’ Rory replied. He looked around at the men in their fighting positions, then back at the airfield. A few small lights were burning over at the installation, and even though they looked like little glowing pinpricks to his naked eye from this distance, they flared bright as stars through the night vision goggles. What had been largely a featureless expanse before now looked perfectly defined to Rory. ‘There’s the runway,’ he said. ‘And four … five … make that six Pucarás. There’s some sort of transport as well. And four more I don’t recognize.’

  ‘Let me see for a moment.’

  Rory handed the night vision gear back to the SAS captain. ‘Looks like Turbo-Mentors,’ he said after looking at the field for a few moments. ‘Training craft. But they can still report back our positions once the invasion fleet starts moving.’ He returned the night vision goggles to Rory. ‘Question is, can you fry the bastards from this far away?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ Rory said. The captain grinned at the conviction in his voice.

  ‘That’s what I wanted to hear. Wait for my go. Confirm?’

  ‘Waiting for your go, sir.’

  ‘Good man.’ The captain got out his radio and spoke into it in a low voice. ‘We have positive ID on the primary assets. Our man is ready to turn them into lawn decorations. Lock and load, and prepare for a response from the garrison force.’

  The troop leader radioed back their acknowledgements. For a moment, it was dead silent on their little hillock apart from the ever-present South Atlantic wind.

  ‘Glamorgan is standing by for bombardment,’ the SAS captain said. ‘You are cleared to engage, Sub-Lieutenant.’

  ‘Do your thing, Archimedes,’ Major Singh said next to him.

  Rory took a deep breath. Then he scanned the line of ground attack craft parked five hundred yards away and focused his attention on the leftmost one, the plane closest to the end of the runway and therefore the one likely to take off first in the event of an alert.

  Whenever anyone asked – and plenty of people had since his card turned – he never quite knew how to explain his ability. The closest he had ever come was to liken it to secondary school, to his biology classes. They’d had a human anatomy model in the classroom, a plastic dummy that had removable parts. You could strip all the layers away – first the pectoral and abdominal muscles, then the rib cage, then the internal organs. Heart, lungs, intestines, until you had the shell of half a body with nothing but the spinal column and the strands of the nervous system. Whenever he looked at a machine with electronics in it, he felt as if he was back in that classroom looking at the anatomical mannequin with its layers peeled away and the nerves sitting out in the open. He could feel the energy in the batteries and capacitors, sense the silica and copper pathways of the electrical systems. The Pucarás were over a third of a mile away, but he could still focus on each node in their artificial nervous systems in turn. They were simple machines compared to the Royal Navy’s Harriers, but they still had basic computers, gyroscopes, radios, inertial navigation devices, all sorts of things that required circuit boards and capacitors.

  Rory concentrated on the plane in the centre of his night vision goggles’ field of vision. As always, he got just a little dizzy when the electromagnetic energy built up between him and his target. He directed it towards the nose of the plane and swept the electronics with a sharply focused pulse. Even from five hundred yards away, he could feel the pathways of the wiring and the circuit boards start to glow as he pumped a voltage into them they were never designed to withstand. It was silent and invisible to the commandos, and he reckoned they’d want tangible evidence that he was doing what he said he’d be able to do, so Rory focused again and doubled his effort. The second sweep had rather more dramatic results than the first. The overheated circuits were already damaged beyond repair, but now the wiring in the plane burst into flames. Rory gave it a third EMP pulse just to make sure the plane was thoroughly slagged.

  ‘Well?’ the SAS captain asked.

  In the distance, flames started licking out of the crack between the Pucará’s avionics access panel and the fuselage. In the near-complete darkness, they were visible even without night vision goggles. Rory nodded towards the plane in response. ‘That one’s flown its last sortie,’ he said.

  The captain trained a set of binoculars on the distant aircraft. Then he grinned and slapped Rory’s shoulder. ‘Bloody brilliant. Now do the rest, if you wouldn’t mind.’

  ‘Not at all,’ Rory said, feeling a little smug. He wished the admiral had come along for the mission, even though he knew that flag officers ordered commando raids, they didn’t join them. He turned his attention to the next plane and repeated the process, focusing a tight beam of electromagnetic energy and then sweeping it over the next Pucará in line, then the one next to that. The other two were lined up on the other side of the runway, so he got up and shifted his position a little to get a better viewing angle. Major Singh and the SAS captain moved with him and took up positions on either side of him again when he settled on the grass and adjusted his night vision goggles once more.

  ‘Movement,’ someone behind them called out in a low voice. ‘Sentry, single mover. Two o’clock, coming out from behind that low Quonset.’

  Rory looked in the direction the other SAS trooper indicated. There was a lone Argentine soldier out there, walking from one of the few buildings on the airfield over to the fuel pumps, which blocked his view of the plane that had started to burn. In a few moments, he’d either see or smell the fire coming from underneath the Pucará’s hood.

  ‘Look lively, lads,’ the SAS captain said. ‘Things are about to get interesting. Do hurry up, Sub-Lieutenant.’

  Rory swept the remaining two Pucarás. They were small, graceful aircraft, and they looked as if they would be a blast to go for a ride in. It seemed a waste to destroy them, but he remembered the burn victims from the Sheffield being offloaded on the Hermes, and what little regret he felt dissipated at once.

  He had just disabled the sixth and last Pucará when the first one on the other side of the line exploded with a dull thunderclap that rolled across the dark glen. The fire he had set just moments earlier had probably spread to the fuel tank or loaded ammunition. The orange-red bloom of the explosion roiled into the night sky and lit up the airstrip. The sudden brightness washed out the display of Rory’s night vision goggles. When his vision returned, the Argentine sentry was no longer in sight.

  ‘They’ll be looking for us any second now,’ the SAS captain said. ‘Do the rest. Corporal Park, signal Glamorgan to commence bombardment.’

  Rory’s heart pounded as he returned his attention to the rest of the parked aircraft. The four Turbo-Mentors were next. He swept them one by one, as hard and tightly focused as he could, and three of them caught fire almost instantly, one of them belching a tall jet of flames from its portside wing before disappearing in a bright orange fireball. The boom that followed was so loud that it felt as if it made the ground shake a little even at this distance.

  Somewhere out over the ocean Rory saw what looke
d like lightning flashes. A few seconds later, another explosion threw up a geyser of earth and rocks near the fuel dump. This one looked a lot bigger than the one caused by the aircraft blowing up. After a few seconds more, another explosion followed, then a third. That one hit something unseen but volatile. Even the disciplined SAS men couldn’t hold back their astonished excitement at the fireworks display in front of them. It looked like New Year’s Eve over the Thames. Glowing bits of debris flew outwards from the explosion in a huge shower of sparks and smoke trails. The destroyer HMS Glamorgan, waiting several miles offshore, had started her planned bombardment with her 4.5-inch main battery guns. A second or two later, the heat from the explosion washed over them. It smelled like hot metal and gunpowder.

  ‘They hit the ammo dump,’ Major Singh said with satisfaction in his voice. ‘On the third shot. Good show.’

  ‘Are the planes all slagged?’ the SAS captain asked Rory.

  ‘All done for,’ Rory confirmed.

  Glamorgan’s high-explosive shells came in with clockwork-like regularity, a round hitting the airbase every five or six seconds. It seemed extremely foolhardy to lie prone only a few hundred yards from an airfield that was being worked over by artillery from miles away, but the gunnery officer on Glamorgan knew his job. The destroyer’s big guns walked their fire all over the area of the base, but none of the rounds fell close to Rory and the SAS. After a few minutes, the bombardment ceased. The silence that followed was almost total. Only the crackling sounds from the fires on the airbase reached their ears.

  ‘Right, then,’ the SAS captain said into the silence. ‘Scratch one airfield. Everybody grab your gear and fall back for assembly. Mountain Troop, keep overwatch. And radio the mortar crews to leave their tubes. Ditch the bombs, too. We’ll go light and fast on the way back.’

  Rory got up from his prone position with a little groan. Using his ace ability always tired him out. It usually felt as if he had just washed down a dose of sedatives with a dram of cask-strength Scotch. He pulled the night vision goggles off his head and held them out to the SAS captain.