by Ted Bell
In addition, each troop carried a postcard-sized blueprint of the enemy-occupied stronghold to be assaulted, plasti-cuffs, and glow sticks filled with chemicals that glow when the sticks were snapped. These would be used to mark an area as “cleared.”
Numerous SAS sniper teams were already in place on the ground. They were arrayed around the Balmoral estate’s perimeter. And they were more than ready to take out any “X-rays,” as terrorists were called, once an assault was launched to rescue the “Yankees,” which is what the SAS called all hostages, including, for the very first time, the entire Royal Family of England. A little irony there, Hawke thought, Royal Yankees.
A blowup of a recent aerial photograph of the castle from directly above was taped to the bulkhead of the cargo hold where the troops were waiting for the jump order. A red circle marked an area of the roof large enough for the big Chinook to set down. This was also the designated LZ, a one-hundred-square-yard landing zone, for the paratroopers. The waiting troops had been studying the aerial photo carefully, looking for a good bail-out spot if for some reason they missed the LZ entirely.
DIRECTLY BENEATH THE CHOPPER and Balmoral Castle, three stories underground, Ambrose Congreve was spoon-feeding his friend Sir David Trulove hot cream of tomato soup. This, courtesy of Higgins up in the kitchen. C, the crusty old gent, having taken two bullets at extremely close range, was very lucky to be alive. The credit went to one of his fellow hostages, Lady Beale, who happened to be a volunteer nurse at St. Thomas’s Hospital in London. The two slugs had narrowly missed his heart en route to passing through his body. Lady Beale had torn her purple silk skirt into strips to use as temporary bandages for the director of MI6.
It had been an extremely long and difficult day.
The killing of Colonel Zazi had had a predictable result on the mood down in the cellar. The terrorists, having seen their heroic leader shot dead, had become much harsher in their treatment of the prisoners. Prior to Zazi’s death, the young killers had pretty much ignored their aristocratic captives. Now that he was dead, they went out of their way to shout at, kick, and insult them at every opportunity.
As if that were not enough, there was the infamous “Mr. Smith.”
Ambrose could scarcely imagine how Prince Charles must be feeling. Shattered, to say the very least. To learn, to discover, that one of one’s closest friends, trusted beyond measure, beyond any faint shadow of doubt for decades, a very senior member of the nation’s key intelligence service, had in fact murdered the Prince of Wales’s beloved godfather, Lord Mountbatten. And, in a stunning revelation, to learn he’d killed the mother of his children, Diana, as well. It simply had to be beyond devastating for him and the boys.
The monster, this Mr. Smith now unmasked as the MI6 heir apparent, Montague Thorne, had even laughed while describing to the Queen in great detail how he had masterminded the horrific fire at Windsor Castle. And then, gloating, told Prince Charles and his two sons just how close he’d come to assassinating Prince Harry in Afghanistan only one month earlier!
Harry, enraged upon hearing this, jumped to his feet and spat out, “But we almost assassinated you, didn’t we, Thorne, you filthy bastard! How’s your idiot sniper doing? Is he feeling better?” This earned him a vicious backhand blow to the side of his head. For a moment, everyone in the cellar held their breath, looking at the madman Thorne, knowing they all were teetering on the thin edge of chaos and mass murder. But Monty had only laughed and walked away.
Ambrose reached into the pocket of his dinner jacket and felt the comforting presence of Sir David’s knife, still crusty with blood. He’d managed to secret it away before his jailers were any the wiser. Now, if he could only find the chance to use it . . .
SIXTY-FIVE
THE JUMPMASTER SHOUTED, “GET READY!” and Stoke, like everyone else, checked the harness of his parachute for the tenth time. It was shortly before midnight. A few minutes later the man bellowed “Stand up!” then “Check equipment!” and, finally, “Stand in the door!” At this final order Hawke and Stoke moved to the ramp at the rear of the aircraft. The SAS troops were right behind them.
The big bird shuddered and quailed, and Stoke felt the pilot begin his descent straight down from five thousand feet to two thousand feet, the altitude at which they would jump. The descent was fairly rapid, about three hundred feet per minute he guessed, and then they were hovering again. The ramp was lowered and a blast of wet air whistled into the hold as the first troops moved into position.
A green light began flashing on the overhead.
“Go! Go! Go!” the jumpmaster shouted, and Hawke and Stoke bolted to the edge of the ramp and hurled themselves out into the night air. The SAS troops rapidly moved out onto the ramp and, just seconds after Alex and Stokely jumped, followed.
Stoke pulled his rip cord immediately, waiting for the sensation of the chute slipping out of his backpack and separating. A second later, he was yanked skyward by his harness, always a nice, cozy feeling.
He looked down between his boots. There was patchy fog, but he saw the roof and identified the LZ where he was supposed to land. It was a large area of flat roof surrounded by four chimneys. He tugged on his guidelines a bit, lining up for it, and saw that Alex Hawke, who’d been just in front of him, was flaring up for a landing.
Damn!
There was an X-ray with an AK-47 standing guard on the roof not fifty feet beneath Hawke’s feet. Had Hawke seen him too?
The guard was gazing out to the Grampian Mountains, daydreaming or something. Luckily, he was facing away from Hawke. And Stoke. But at the last second something caught the man’s eye. The whole sky above the castle was filled with parachutes. He spun around bringing his weapon up.
Hawke, to Stoke’s great relief, had already pulled his silenced SIG pistol. He was still about forty feet above the rooftop and swinging under his canopy. Hawke managed to acquire his target and take the man out with a single head shot before he could kill any paratroopers. Moments later, Hawke’s boots hit the roof. When Stoke dropped in, Alex was already gathering his chute and moving away, clearing the LZ for the new arrivals who were landing all around them.
Minutes later, Stoke and the assault team were happily standing on the roof of Balmoral Castle. No one was hurt, no one was shooting at them, no one had a clue. Hawke called for a head count. After every man on the roof had sounded off, he pulled down the lip mike inside his helmet and said to the Chinook pilot, “Rattler One, Rattler One, this is Warlord. Twenty-eight out and twenty-eight down, safe and sound, roger?”
“Roger that, Warlord. Pretty good shot from a swinging harness, by the way.”
“Got lucky. We’re going in.”
“Uh, roger, Warlord, this is Rattler One, we acknowledge, sir. We will remain at zero-two-thousand until LZ is completely clear, then set the bird down and await any wounded Yankees for emergency med evac. We’ll keep her spooled up for a quick exfil, don’t worry. Rattler One, standing by, over. Godspeed, Warlord.”
“Roger, Rattler One, over,” Hawke said into his lip mike, moving quickly across the tar-papered rooftop toward a weathered wooden door set between two chimneys. He remembered this door from his childhood. It was never locked then, it was not locked now. “How’d you know about this door?” Stoke asked.
“I spent half my boyhood playing cowboys and Indians in this house. I know every square inch of it.”
“Go, go, go!” Hawke said to the SAS commandos and they didn’t need further encouragement.
THEY MADE THEIR WAY DOWN the steps leading to the attic. Hawke had never truly appreciated night-vision goggles until this very moment. The team was snaking silently through the dark attic rooms, a powerful, lethal force that he truly believed could overcome any conceivable obstacle.
Hawke led them to the staircase leading to the top floor of the castle. He raised his palm for a halt, pulled the door open, stepped outside, and did a quick recon of the long corridor. As he remembered, this floor was primarily devoted to
storage, laundry, pressing, and staff quarters.
“Clear,” he said, returning, snapping a glow stick and tossing it. The team swiftly moved down the long corridor to the next staircase. When he reached the bottom stair and an open door, he was about to step out into the hallway when he saw the guard sitting at the top of the next staircase, his AK-47 across his lap, smoking a cigarette and gazing off into space.
Hawke stepped back and whispered, “Guard. Mine.”
The pale green carpeting underfoot was very deep, and Hawke approached the man with great stealth. He had his pistol out should the man spot him, but he much preferred to use the assault knife carried in his other hand. He got behind him without incident, reached down and clamped his hand over the man’s mouth, yanked his head back to expose the throat beneath the beard, and slit it from ear to ear.
He turned and saw Stoke’s face back at the door and motioned for the team to follow him. They reached the ground floor without further inconvenience, pausing halfway down the stairway and listening for noise of any kind. Only a silence resounded from the grand old rooms he’d loved to explore as a boy.
The SAS lads did a full sweep of the entire floor. Clear. The hostages were being held down in the cellar, just as Hawke had surmised upon seeing the queen’s BBC video. The low, curved, white-plastered ceiling, the dim, naked bulbs above her head, even the white-painted brick wall behind the Sword of Allah banner.
He was quite sure the terrorists, with their limited knowledge of the castle interior, would have used the main stairs to the cellar. But there was another staircase, one very few people even knew existed, a very narrow, steep, and seldom-used staircase. The door to it was hidden behind a Chinese screen in the butler’s pantry. These stairs were reserved solely for the yeoman of the cellar to ferry wine up from the Queen’s wine cellar. And, luckily enough, it was at the exact opposite end of the house from the main stairs.
Hawke had spent a good deal of time hiding in that wine cellar. A good deal of time hiding in every nook and cranny in the entire house. And there was a way one could pass from the wine cellar out into the main rooms of the cellar. Which meant they might get very lucky and have the element of surprise.
Hawke signaled the team to follow him and went left. They were headed for the kitchen and from there to the butler’s pantry and the secret staircase. Hawke paused at the kitchen door. There was someone in there, he heard china rattling. He halted the squad and pushed through the swinging doors with the muzzle of his HK leading the way.
“Higgins,” Hawke said quietly.
“I recognize that voice,” the man said. The elderly fellow turned with a smile on his face. “My goodness, your lordship, how long it’s been.”
“Yes. We’ll talk later, Higgins. We’ve come to rescue the hostages. You know where they are, of course?”
“Oh, yes, m’lord. They’re all down in the cellar. I’ve been charged with keeping them fed. I’m up and down stairs from morning till midnight. Awful down there. I’ve been in service to Her Majesty for my entire life. She has never treated me with anything but respect and kindness. And I tell you it’s frightful, sir, disgraceful the way those men are treating our Monarch.”
“Hold on a tick, Higgins, I’ll be right back.”
Hawke went back through the doors.
“Stoke, we just got lucky. Member of the household staff in there. Knows exactly where they’re keeping the Yankees. Let’s go get these bastards.”
Returning to the kitchen and seeing Higgins again gave Hawke an idea.
“Higgins, we need a piece of paper and a pen, pencil, anything. I want you to make a drawing of the section of the cellar where the hostages are being held. I want you to use an RF to indicate precisely where each member of the Royal Family is located. Use an O for a hostage and an X for a terrorist. Try to place them all exactly where they were the last time you saw them.”
“Yes, m’lord,” Higgins said, pulling out a drawer with a legal pad and a box of ballpoints. As he sketched, Hawke peppered him with questions. Were the hostages bound in any way? Had any member of the Royal Family been harmed? Exactly how many terrorists was he dealing with? Were any of them wearing suicide vests?
“Here you are, your lordship, best I can do, no artist I’m afraid.”
“It’s perfect. I recognize this space. It’s the very large area filled entirely with furniture. The one with little alcoves along the south wall. The big room near the main staircase, correct? All the way at the other end of the house?”
“That’s the one all right, sir,” Higgins said, eyeing the SAS troops. “This lot looks like they can take care of themselves.”
“It’s Her Royal Majesty these men want to take care of, Higgins. The Royal Family and all those other poor innocent people down there. What’s the Queen’s favorite cocktail, Higgins? Gin and something as I recall…”
“Gin and Dubonnet, sir, all she ever drinks.”
“I’d have one ready for her, Higgins. I think she’ll be most appreciative.”
“I will indeed, sir. Jolly good idea.”
“Any more dead or wounded?”
“In addition to Lady Beale, I’m afraid they’ve shot your colleague, Sir David Trulove, m’lord. Didn’t want you to be shocked, sir.”
Hawke, stunned to the core, showed nothing. “Let’s go get ’em,” he said, headed for the pantry.
HAWKE COULD HEAR A LOW rumble of voices before he could see anyone. With the aid of night vision, they’d slipped through most of the pitch-black cellar without a sound. He turned and signaled the two SAS snipers to join him. They had prearranged the commencement of the operation.
Hawke, Stoke, and two SAS snipers would advance toward the enemy first, moving to within one hundred yards of the location where the hostages were held. From Higgins’s drawing, Hawke had seen that the snipers would have a clear shot at the Royals’ alcove. First, the snipers would use silenced weapons to neutralize any terrorists guarding the Queen and her family.
Hawke could feel the presence of the SAS team gathering just behind his position. Their coiled-up energy was palpable. They were spoiling for a fight and they were about to get one.
There were two guards in close proximity to the Queen. One on either side of the alcove, both holding AK-47s. The two terrorists were clearly on edge, probably very high on the massive amounts of methamphetamines they used to stay awake. The two snipers dropped to one knee, sighting in on their targets. Both men nodded, a signal to Hawke that they had acquired and were ready to fire.
HAWKE LOOKED AROUND AT THE TROOPS gathered immediately behind him. He held up three fingers. Three seconds until “go.” Simultaneously, he lightly tapped the top of each sniper’s helmet. They fired on the signal. A nearly invisible muzzle flash, two silent pffts, and two clean head shots later, the two targets dropped like sacks of dirt.
“Go, go, go!” Hawke shouted, entering the room, already firing at targets he’d chosen.
In they went.
The terrorists began spraying bullets wildly as the hostages, screaming in fear for their lives, put their heads down or dove to the floor. Hawke spotted Ambrose Congreve and Diana Mars to his right and began moving in that direction, taking out anyone who got in his way. Congreve spotted him in the fiery chaos and screamed, “Alex! Montague is Smith! Watch out for him!”
Hawke was momentarily stunned by disbelief.
Montague Thorne was Smith?
A lot of tumblers started clicking into place as Hawke scanned the room, looking for him. He heard fire coming from the direction of the Queen’s alcove and whirled in that direction, smiling at what he saw there. Prince William and Prince Harry had immediately grabbed the weapons of the two dead guards and were now on their feet, joining the battle. Prince Charles had moved to his mother, shielding her with his body, putting himself between her and the guns.
Hawke saw Stoke, too, now standing shoulder to shoulder with the two young princes, all three of them forming a protective cordon of
lethal fire around the Queen and her family. It was a brilliant idea and Hawke damned himself for not thinking of it. But this was why you needed Stoke; he instinctively did the right things in battle.
The air was filled with lead. The SAS troops were going about their business with deadly precision, calming prisoners even as they fired short bursts that always found their targets. These incredibly brave men practiced 365 days a year for precisely this kind of situation and it showed. The room had filled with choking gun smoke, making visibility difficult, but Hawke saw two middle-aged women in satin gowns suddenly rise from their hiding place with the obvious idea of making a run for it.
They almost made it.
A terrorist, little more than a boy, saw the fleeing women, whirled, and fired a sustained burst that simply tore them both apart. Furious, Hawke ran toward him, and instantly and brutally returned the favor with his assault knife. His blood was up now, he was keenly alive, and doing exactly what he’d been born to do.
Hawke sensed movement behind him and spun to see a bad guy swinging his gun up and aiming, not at him, but at Ambrose and Diana. Hawke raised his gun to fire, but Congreve beat him to the punch. Ambrose simply exploded off the divan, dove at the man, knocking his AK aside with one hand and plunging a knife directly into the man’s heart with the other.
Seconds later, Hawke knelt at Congreve’s side.
“Are you both all right?”
“Let you know when it’s over. Alex, you’ve got to find Montague. This is his operation now. He shot Sir David, for God’s sake.”
“I’ll find him.”
Hawke stood and scanned the room, trying to pierce the veil of smoke and see the face of the man who’d betrayed them all. There was still sporadic fire, but the battle was winding down and there was little doubt as to who’d won. And then he saw the demonic “Mr. Smith,” stealing ever closer to Stoke and the two princes in a low crouch, using the furniture to conceal his advance. His intentions could not have been clearer. Another second or two and he’d have a shot at all three.