by Iles, Greg
Suddenly an alien voice began speaking inside the vehicle. “Phoenix to Graaff … Phoenix to Graaff … Do you read?” The tension in Pieter Smuts’s voice was like a cable stretched near to breaking.
“Phoenix to Graaff! Where are your reinforcements?”
“Answer him!” Hauer told Captain Barnard. “Tell him Graaff’s manning our turret gun!”
Hauer looked out at the house again: 160 metres. He gave Barnard an encouraging punch on the shoulder; then he ducked back into the crew compartment to confer with General Steyn. The instant Hauer left the compartment, the driver lashed out with his elbow and struck Captain Barnard in the side of the head. The Armscor lurched to a halt 140 metres from Horn House. Hauer flew forward and crashed against a steel bulkhead; only his helmet prevented him from cracking his skull. The driver snatched up the radio microphone and began transmitting rapidly in Afrikaans: “Armscor to Phoenix! Armscor to Phoenix! It’s a trap! Trap! Major Graaff isn’t here—”
Dazed, Hauer lunged back into the driver’s compartment. He did not understand Afrikaans, but he recognized a warning when he heard one. Taking hold of the driver’s head, he wrenched with all his might. The driver went suddenly stiff, then limp as Hauer snapped the man’s cervical vertebrae. “Take the wheel!” Hauer shouted at Captain Bamard.
While Hauer dragged the driver back into the crew compartment, Captain Barnard scrambled into the driver’s seat and wrestled the Armscor into gear. The vehicle lurched forward, back, then began rolling toward the house again.
Hauer laid the senseless driver against the Armscor’s side hatch and tore off his own respirator. “Another traitor!” he yelled to General Steyn.
General Steyn ripped off his gas mask. His face was flushed with anger and disbelief. At his feet the traitor squirmed and flung his arms upward. In a fit of rage Gadi kicked open the Armscor’s side hatch and shoved the driver out onto the veld. By the time Gadi shut the hatch, a Libyan machine gunner had riddled the man’s body with .30 caliber slugs.
The Armscor shivered as another Libyan machine gunner locked onto the tail of the armoured car. Hauer grabbed General Steyn’s arm. “I don’t know if the tower heard that warning, but—”
The sudden, steel-ripping roar of the Vulcan obliterated both Hauer’s voice and the rattle of the Libyan machine guns. Hauer leapt up to a firing slit. His stomach rolled as he watched the blazing tracer line march toward the nose of the Armscor. He had seen similar guns on American tank-killing planes on manoeuvres in Germany.
The rotary guns mounted in their stubby snouts spewed out 5000 depleted-uranium slugs per minute—enough to turn a T-72 tank into a burning hulk in seconds.
Captain Barnard swerved to avoid the oncoming tracer beam, but the Vulcan gunner simply adjusted his fire. Barnard screamed as the shells churned up the earth directly in front of the Armscor. Then suddenly—miraculously—the fiery stream of death winked out.
“He’s jammed!” Hauer shouted. “Go! Go!” The Armscor surged forward.
Like a hailstorm from hell, slugs pounded the vehicle from every side as Smuts’s bunker gunners opened up from their concealed positions. Hauer peered out through a gun port, trying to pinpoint the source of the fire. “Bunkers!” he shouted. “They’re dug into the hill!”
From a slit on the Armscor’s right side, Gadi fired his R5 assault rifle in careful, three-round bursts, aiming for the muzzle flashes of the bunker guns. “Momser!” he shouted, but no one heard him. The noise inside the Armscor had reached a deafening level.
Hauer was leaning into the driver’s compartment to urge Captain Barnard forward when Pieter Smuts detonated the first string of Claymore mines. Two Claymores exploded directly beneath the Armscor, hurling the eighteen tons of hardened steel into the air like a child’s toy. The vehicle tottered on its three right wheels, then crashed back onto all six and continued toward the house. Another string of Claymores exploded in front of the Armscor; hundreds of steel balls scythed into its hull, shattering the polycarbonate windshield. Captain Barnard screamed in pain, but the Armscor kept rolling.
Hauer’s mind raced: they still had more than a hundred metres to cover. The mines could be handled, but not under the fire of the tower gun. If the gunner cleared his weapon in the next thirty seconds, they didn’t stand a chance. The Vulcan had to be silenced. “Stop!” he roared. “Turn this thing sideways and stop!”
Captain Barnard—not enthusiastic about hitting any more mines himself—gladly obeyed. Hauer turned back to General Steyn and his men. “Pour it in! I’m going out!”
One of the masked men jumped down from a firing slit, ripped off his respirator and grabbed Hauer’s arm. It was Gadi. “If you go out there, you’re dead!” he yelled.
Hauer jerked his arm free. “Just keep those bunker guns off me!”
While Gadi stared, Hauer snatched up his sniper rifle and unlatched the Armscor’s side hatch. The full din of battle filled the vehicle. Holding the Steyr-Mannlicher close against his body, Hauer took a deep breath, and leaped outside. He hit the ground hard and rolled beneath the huge vehicle, praying no one had seen him. He got to one knee.
There was almost enough room for him to stand beneath the Armscor’s undercarriage. The six giant wheels provided a wall from behind which he could fire in relative safety. Bracing his right knee behind one of the giant tires, raised the Steyr to his shoulder and sighted in on the tower. The last light of dusk had almost gone. He had no night-vision scope, but the standard Kahles-Helios ZF69 optical scope was excellent. Even in near darkness it brought the tower in nicely.
When Hauer saw the turret in detail, he groaned. At 120 metres, accuracy wasn’t the problem. With the Steyr, he could fire ten bullets into a sixteen-inch circle from six times that distance. The problem was the “glass” he saw forming part of the turret’s circular wall. It would undoubtedly be made of transparent composite armour-plating. Through the scope he searched for a weakness suited to his weapon. The turret rotates, he realized, noticing the huge gears mounted beneath the observatory dome. But I can’t damage those gears. Twelve seconds later Hauer spotted his chance.
Just where the Vulcan’s six barrels protruded from the “glass,” a narrow port had been cut so that the gun could be traversed vertically. Hauer felt the hair on the back of his neck rise. He could see men working frantically to clear the jammed weapon. He laid his cross hairs on the tiny port and chambered a round into the breech. The Steyr accepted a ten-round magazine, but like most sniper rifles it was bolt-action. He would get one perfect chance, then nine snap shots. He took a deep breath and pressed his body into the huge tire that shielded him.
He felt the reassuring weight of the rifle on his shoulder, the wooden stock cool and familiar against his stubbled cheek. The sound of the battle grew dim and distant as he focussed on his target, melding his eye with the tiny crack between the Vulcan’s barrels and the armoured glass. In his mind, the coin-sized target expanded into a saucer, then a dinner plate … His finger settled firmly on the trigger. Squeeze …
The instant before Hauer fired, a blast of flame erupted from the Vulcan’s spinning barrels. Tracer rounds arced out toward the rim of the bowl. The turret began to rotate … He felt his shot disintegrating. His shoulder twitched, his stomach heaved in sudden confusion. All around he heard the desperate rattle of guns firing at the moving turret, all to no avail. The dazzling beam marched from position to position, silencing one gun after another. He felt a sudden surge of hope.
The gunner was ignoring the Armscor! He thinks we’re out of the fight! Because we’re not moving, he thinks his bunker guns stopped us! Hauer searched swiftly for a shot. With the turret rotating, hitting the tiny gun port was out of the question. Instead he picked a spot a few centimetres to the left of the Vulcan’s barrel—the spot he estimated the gunner would be sitting behind. He fired.
Nothing happened. His bullet struck the very millimetre of glass he had aimed for, but the transparent armour was simply too strong. How many per
fect shots would it take to drill through the polycarbonate? Like an automaton Hauer worked the bolt-action rifle, tracking his moving target.
Fire! Eject shell. Close bolt. Fire! The transparent wall shuddered as Hauer’s slugs relentlessly hammered the same single square of armour. Six shots … seven … eight … Fire! Eject shell. Close bolt. Fire! He jerked out the empty magazine and loaded his spare.
Around him the battle raged on. The Vulcan whined, the bunker guns chattered, the hull of the armoured car rattled like a tin can in a hailstorm. He smelled the burning phosphorus of tracer rounds as they streaked across the field in brilliant, lethal arcs. Suddenly, with a strange shiver, Hauer sensed the Vulcan’s tracer beam stagger somewhere off to his right. He jerked his eye away from the scope and scanned the dark field. Christ! The gunner had spotted his muzzle flashes!
His mouth went dry as the Vulcan’s angle of fire lowered toward him. Every fibre of his being screamed, “Run!” He shut his eyes against the fear, then forced himself to open them again and put his right eye back to the scope. Somewhere out there, he thought fiercely, is the man who is trying to kill me. He could feel the Vulcan’s slugs hitting the ground, thousands in each burst, like the first shuddering waves of an earthquake. The roar seemed to swallow up the very air. And the light! It was mesmerizing, like some lunatic laser beam.
The tracer beam slowed as it neared the Armscor. Smuts wanted to be sure he did not miss. In that moment of hesitation Hauer steadied his twitching muscles, fixed his eye upon the tiny square of armoured glass he had spent his first magazine against, and opened fire.
Pieter Smuts found his mark first. In the first two seconds of contact, the Vulcan slammed two hundred shells into the Armscor’s tail, shearing off a quarter-ton of hardened armour. The vehicle shuddered like a great wounded beast; black smoke poured into the air. Suddenly the Armscor’s turbocharged V8 diesel roared to life. In a last frantic bid for survival Captain Barnard floored the accelerator. The armoured car bolted forward like a wild bronco, leaping out of the Vulcan’s line of fire and leaving Hauer exposed on the ground.
Stunned, kneeling alone on the dark plain, Hauer raised his rifle and pressed his eye to the scope. Dirt showered over him as the Vulcan’s bullets thundered after the Armscor just metres away. There is nothing here, said a voice in his brain, nothing but you and the man behind that gun … He fired.
His bullet starred the glass. He fired again. The tracer beam jinked away from, the Armscor and moved back toward him. Too late Smuts had realized where the real danger lay.
With the Vulcan gun thundering down upon him, Dieter Hauer actually closed his eyes as he fired his last shot. The tracer beam stuttered, flashed again … winked out.
The spell was broken. Hauer scrambled to his feet and dashed after the Armscor. Gadi Abrams dragged him back through the hatch. “You crazy German bastard!”
The Armscor was filling rapidly with oily black smoke. “Everybody shoot!” Hauer shouted. “Clear a path through the mines! Detonate everything in our path!”
One Claymore exploded harmlessly nearby, but no more. The Armscor had reached the section of ground where Burton’s Colombians had been slaughtered the night before. The mines here had been spent, no replacements laid. The Armscor roared forward and reached Horn House in twenty seconds flat.
Captain Barnard pulled the vehicle across the main entrance like a barricade. Instantly two South African CT troops thrust shotguns through the ports and blasted the hinges off the teakwood door. When Hauer shoved open the side hatch, he was staring straight into the marble reception hall where Major Karami’s assassins lay dead.
“Move out!” he shouted.
“Wait!” General Steyn was up in the driver’s compartment, leaning over Captain Barnard. Hauer remembered the young man had taken some glass in the face when the windshield shattered, but as he peered over the general’s beefy shoulder he realized that Captain Barnard was suffering from a mortal wound.
“Where is it, son?” General Steyn asked softly.
“My chest … sir.”
Carefully the general probed the young man’s torso.
“I thought he was wearing a vest,” Hauer said quietly.
General Steyn pulled a bloodstained hand from beneath Barnard’s right arm. “There’s a splinter of polycarbonate sticking out of him,” he whispered. “Right where the vest stops at the underarm. God only knows how deep it went in.” He turned back to Captain Barnard. “Can you move, lad?”
The young man tried to smile, then coughed in agony. “It feels like the damned thing is buried in my heart. Like a sword … swear to God. Go on.”
General Steyn’s neck flushed red. “Nonsense, lad, you’re coming with us.”
“Don’t move me, sir,” Captain Barnard gurgled. “Please don’t.”
General Steyn looked ready to twist off the head of the man who had caused this pain. Setting his mouth in a grim line, he drew a .45 calibre pistol from Captain Barnard’s belt and placed it carefully in the young man’s hand. “If it gets too bad,” he said tersely, “you know what to do.” The general swallowed the lump in his throat. “I’ll be back for you, Barnard. You have my solemn word. Stand fast.”
General Steyn turned and squeezed his broad shoulders back through the door of the driver’s compartment. His bluff face was swollen with emotion. He looked hard into Hauer’s eyes. “If it’s a war they want,” he said, his voice trembling, “then it’s a bloody war they’ll get.” He drew his own pistol and jerked back the slide. “Into the house, lads!”
Pieter Smuts staggered away from the Vulcan and wiped the blood out of his eyes with his shirt sleeve. A dozen slivers of armoured glass had been driven into his face by Hauer’s slugs. He crouched beside Hess’s wheelchair.
“They’ve breached the outer walls, sir. I don’t know who’s inside that armoured car, but they must be friends of the Jew.”
Hess grimaced. “Who could it be but Captain Hauer?” he wheezed. “I told you never to underestimate an old German soldier. Hauer obviously outsmarted Major Graaff! Damn the man! A German! A German attacking me!”
“We can still stop them, sir.”
“How?”
“If I order our bunker gunners to cease firing, the Libyans will advance and kill anyone left alive outside the shields.”
“True,” Hess said thoughtfully. “But then the Libyans will be inside the house.”
“But not inside the shields. Not near you Fire! Eject shell. Close bolt. Fire! not near the weapons.”
Hess hesitated, realizing that the order would mean certain death for Ilse, Linah, and all of the servants. “Do it,” he said finally.
Smuts pressed a button on his console and issued the order. Outside, the rattle of the bunker guns stuttered, then died. In the eerie silence, Major Ilyas Karami ordered three quarters of his remaining commando force down the slope. The rest he held back to transport the howitzer. The battle was not yet over, and he did not intend to lose it through overconfidence. The prize was too great.
Alan Burton rolled back over the lip of the Wash and slid down the muddy wall into darkness. Juan Diaz lay half buried in the mud-and-bramble shelter Burton had built at the bottom of the ravine. Diaz’s wounds had developed an unpleasant odour, and his eyes were pale yellow slits. Burton leaned close to his ear. “I’ve got our return tickets, lad. Can you make it?”
“Si, ” Diaz whispered.
“There’s a big jet up there, an airliner, but it’s too heavily guarded. There is also a lovely little Lear that looks like a bloody Turkish brothel on the inside. That’s our bird.”
Grunting in pain, the little Cuban heaved himself to his knees, pushing away Burton’s helping hand. “Let’s go, English,” he rasped, forcing a grin. “Not enough senoritas on this beach.”
It took the two men ten minutes to climb out of the Wash and cover the eighty metres to the Libyan Learjet. Burton had to carry Diaz the last third of the way. Instead of putting the Cuban on board the jet, h
owever, Burton trudged to the edge of the asphalt runway and dropped him there. Diaz yelped as the pain of his wounds hit him. “Sorry, sport,” Burton panted. “But this is the safest spot for the time being.”
“What?” Diaz exclaimed, finally guessing Burton’s intent. “But the plane is right there!”
“Sorry, lad. I told you if I got half a chance I’d have another go at the house. When those rug-peddlers started shooting, they gave me just that. From my point of view, sport, unless I do the job I was sent here to do, that jet isn’t an escape route for me. It’s just a taxi back to purgatory. Diaz muttered a stream of Cuban profanity.
“Come along now, Juan boy. Crawl into that brush over there. Wouldn’t want those blighters over there to catch you out here alone.” Burton pointed up the runway to where Major Karami and his men struggled in the dusk. “Cut your balls off with a bloody scimitar, they would.”
When Diaz had settled himself in the tall grass, Burton said, “I know you can reach that jet on your own, sport. I wouldn’t want you to leave without me. You wouldn’t do that, would you?” The Cuban pulled a wry face. “Yesterday I would have,” he admitted. “But last night you saved my life, English. Cubano don’t forget that, eh? You go play hero. Diaz be here when you get back.”
Burton took a last look the Lear—his solitary means of escape—then he tossed Diaz his wristwatch and gave him a roguish grin. “If I’m not back in forty minutes, sport, it’s bon voyage to you with my best wishes.”
Diaz shook his head and lay back in the scrub grass. Burton unslung his submachine gun and started back toward Horn House.
Hauer charged out of the Armscor and into the marble reception hall with the South Africans on his heels. Gadi brought up the rear. The young Israeli ran straight to the corpses. “I recognize some of them,” he said. “Bastards!”
“Look, said General Steyn, pointing to the rectangular black shield blocking the main elevator. “That must be the way to the gun tower.”