They'd twice almost been caught moving across the narrow causeway that passes Goose Green, both times by vehicle patrols, but each time they had gone to ground, flattened into the earth, machine guns primed in case they were seen. Both times happened in the late afternoon, and both times the patrols were moving too fast, but the second one passed less than twenty feet from where they were all prostrate, facedown in a ditch.
But the Argentinians did not see them, and when the night grew darker Captain Jarvis steered his men across the barren wasteland of East Falkland to the tiny harbor where he expected the American, Sunray, and his guys to show up.
The silence of Tuesday night, at least it was silent on East Falkland, was a major disappointment to the Captain. No radio communication had been received, and the SAS men were growing tired in their filthy, dirty clothes, totally without any form of washing kit, bereft of razors or shaving soap, no deodorant.
They had maintained fairly high standards of eating, and last night, against his better judgment, when it was clear Sunray had gone missing, Douglas authorized a new sheep raid, and at midnight they had all enjoyed excellent roast lamb and some kind of pressurized bars of spinach that tasted like cow shit. At least according to Trooper Wiggins they did.
But there was no injury or illness. Everyone felt fine, but disheveled. And up here in the hide above Egg Harbor they were nowhere near fresh water, and their supplies were running short. That night Troopers Goddard and Fermer went to sleep in the gully under the bushes with sheep's blood on their hands.
As Jake Posgate had remarked, "It's like a scene from Dracula's Revenge up here."
"Just so long as it's not the revenge of Señor Alvarez, the Argentine monster, it's okay with me," said Peter Wiggins.
And so they slept, aware only faintly of the Argentine search going on for them, because it was being conducted in a thoroughly halfhearted way. Just the occasional helicopter flying north, and nothing overhead along the Egg Harbor shoreline. Douglas guessed, correctly, the Jeep that contained the bodies of the four Argentine soldiers had not yet been found.
But this morning, Wednesday, the skies suddenly resembled World War III. It was now 0930 and three helicopters had taken off in quick succession from Goose Green headed due west, straight over the SAS hide at high speed, not slowing, heading up Falkland Sound.
Three fixed-wing military aircraft had also flown just to the north of them, heading the same way, at no more than 5,000 feet. In the distance they could hear more helicopters clattering, just west of Carlos Water, all apparently heading for the same objective.
"Jesus," said Douglas, "they must have found the bodies." He was as yet unaware of the devastation on Pebble Island, and an hour from now he would be too far away to comprehend the ensuing chaos in Mare Harbor. Right now he was merely counting off the hours to 2000 tonight, when he prayed he would hear again from the elusive Sunray.
Rick Hunter, too, and all of his team, watched the helos thumping through the leaden skies directly overhead. But they were not surprised, only thanking God they had risked the heavy seas and put ten miles between themselves and the Pebble Island airfield. It was crystal clear to them where all of that Argentinian military hardware was headed.
Rick was very contemplative, as they sat in the lee of the rocky overhang in their tiny bay, within the big long bay, which in turn was within the five-mile-wide Many Branch Harbor. He knew it would be impossible to see them from the air, and even from the south they must surely have been completely hidden.
To find SEAL Assault Team One, an Argentine search helicopter would need to be flying about fifty feet above the ground, very slowly, southwest of them, heading northeast. And even then it would be touch and go. The chances of a pilot finding exactly the right height, speed, and direction were, in Rick's view, negligible. Unless, of course, someone had told him where they were.
At 1030 it was still silent in Many Branch Harbor. No fishing boats. No boats of any kind. Although from the bluff, Brian Harrison reported a couple of trawlers heading north up Falkland South, maybe two or three miles from their little bay.
At 1030 in Mare Harbor, however, things were not silent. Lt. Commander Stafford's twelve limpet bombs, stuck on the warships' hulls, below the waterline, for'ard, midships and aft, all detonated together with a dull underwater k-e-r-r-u-m-p!!, which caused the jetties to shudder and the harbor waters to rise up into a boiling maelstrom, which crashed onto the shore, obscuring for a moment the savage destruction of all four ships.
When Argentinian naval personnel looked again, staring through the spray and billowing smoke, they were unable to comprehend what they were most certainly observing. Four warships, calmly moored on the jetties, with no enemy on the horizon, ablaze from end to end. And the skies were completely empty — no one had dropped a bomb, never mind four bombs.
Officers gathered together and quickly leapt to the alarmingly false conclusion that someone's Navy had lambasted the ships with guided missiles, well-aimed guided missiles at that.
But no one had seen anything, no dart-shaped winged killer with a fiery tail hurtling out of the skies. And these ships must have been hit by more than one missile apiece since all of them were ablaze in three different places. Great fires were raging below the foredecks, huge flames and billowing black smoke were surging upward from the engine room area, and one of the frigates looked as though its stern was blown clean off the hull. This was a big multi-hit, carried out by forces who knew precisely what they were doing.
But whose forces? The surrendered Brits, what was left of them, were limping home. Caramba! Everyone in Argentina had seen the aerial photographs of the defeated Royal Navy Fleet heading north back up the Atlantic. No, the Brits had not done this. Then who had? There was not a sign of a foreign warship in the waters surrounding the Malvinas within a two-hundred-mile radius. And the skies were clear of military aircraft. Any aircraft, for that matter.
And if it was not bombs or missiles, then what was it? The gathering of Argentinian naval officers, still staring in disbelief at the torrid scene of absolute devastation in the harbor, were totally baffled. Nonetheless, they moved into action, trying to organize stretcher parties to evacuate the wounded, trying to connect fire hoses to aim at the ships, which were growing hotter by the minute.
They were also trying to work out how quickly to evacuate the entire area when the first fire blazed into one of the ships' missile magazines and unleashed the kind of power that could swiftly knock down a town, never mind a few stone buildings in a scarcely used harbor.
As a matter of fact, the scene was much like that which faced the British in February, when their 1,400-ton lightly gunned patrol ship Leeds Castle was obliterated by Argentinian missiles. As Saint Matthew mentioned in Chapter XXVI, Those who take the sword, will perish by the sword. And, since Matthew was quoting Jesus Christ, those words were presumably equally applicable in both the Roman Catholic church in Rio Grande and in the Protestant Christ Church cathedral in Port Stanley.
And on the subject of death, Lt. Commander Stafford's men had caused a lot more of it than Rick Hunter's team, and they made Douglas Jarvis's skirmish on the mountain look like kids' stuff.
There were crews of at least twenty-two officers and men resident in each of the warships, some on watch, some asleep, some working on maintenance in the engine rooms. A total of only nine survived the savage blasts, the ramifications of which would be heard around the world.
By 1100, there was virtual chaos in the Argentine military headquarters at Mount Pleasant, as commanders tried to make sense of the barbaric unprovoked attacks on their bases by an unknown enemy. Just the previous day, the Marine Major Pablo Barry had flown in for a visit, and the entire officer community, on sea, air, and land, was now looking to him for guidance. Major Barry had, after all, been the commander who conquered the damn place in the first case.
But he was as bewildered as any of them, and, generally speaking, was greatly concerned that the enemy, whoever t
he hell it might be, would probably be considering flattening the only Argentine military base on the Malvinas they had not already eliminated: that is, the very ground on which they stood.
The news from Pebble was plainly terrible. But the news from Mare Harbor was much worse, given the heavy loss of life. Major Pablo Barry stared out at the airfield in silent rumination. Lined up were Argentina's all-conquering Skyhawks, Daggers, and Etendards, the most dangerous air combat force in South America. And he did not have the slightest idea at whom to unleash them.
The entire situation was, in his opinion, extremely unnerving. Here they were being smashed to pieces by an enemy who was refusing to identify himself, an enemy they could not see, nor even discern. Only one thought evolved in his mind: Those ships were not hit by incoming bombs, nor missiles. And, given the near-simultaneous attack on Pebble Island, there was no question of sabotage.
No, thought Major Barry. Those ships were blown up inside the harbor, by bombs that must have been attached to the hulls. Nothing else fit. Nothing else made the slightest bit of sense. Someone, somehow, had crept into the little dockyard, underwater, and planted bombs under the surface, all timed to go off bang at once.
Major Barry now knew that someone had done something very similar to the fighter aircraft at Pebble. The question was, who? Which country hated Argentina so badly they would do such a thing? And did it all have anything to do with the sheep stealers up at Port Sussex? And, if so, where the hell were they? Why had they not been found? And where was the missing patrol? Major Barry had about a thousand questions and no answers to any of them.
But shortly after noon, someone provided him with just one answer. Luke Milos, wandering among his sheep up in the high pastures above his house, had found the Jeep, and all four men inside had been assassinated, shot to pieces, dozens of bullet wounds. What's more, they had been dead for at least three days, probably since Sunday night. The Goose Green garrison had a medical team up there already and were towing the Jeep out, bringing its grisly cargo back in body bags.
On the face of it, the Argentine military had now been slammed three times, and Major Barry considered it inconceivable the three were not, somehow, connected. Although what the sheep stealers had in common with possibly two highly trained groups of Special Forces…well, heaven alone knew the answer to that.
But the Major was aware the sheep stealers were very possibly a British SAS assault team trapped, and surviving, on East Falkland after the surrender. Were the bombers of Pebble and Mare somehow connected? Did Great Britain have an ally who was prepared to fight on when all seemed lost?
None of it stacked up for the Major. And deep in his soldier's soul, he sensed the perpetrators of these atrocities had already left. They did not, he pondered, come in by air or road. And they did not land on the Falklands in a surface ship. Therefore they must have come in by submarine, and if they did, they'd most certainly gone. He considered a massive air and shoreline search by Argentina's military forces to be a waste of time. Except for the sheep stealers, who may be still in residence.
They might be caught, if a search was concentrated for long enough in the correct place. And if they were, that might shed substantial light on the source of the other two attacks. Argentina was still in control of several hundred British prisoners of war, and that gave them some heavy leverage.
The key was to catch the sheep stealers. That was Major Pablo Barry's opinion. And the Marine Commander, conqueror of the Falkland Islands, was very certain about that.
But, judging by the events of the morning, it was entirely possible the entire airfield was mined and seeded with timed limpet bombs like Mare Harbor and Pebble. The Major advised a general evacuation to the outskirts of the area, with all personnel warned to stay away from the airfield.
He also decided that a search of Pebble Island was a total waste of time, and that the helicopters of Goose Green and Mount Pleasant should all return to the Goose Green garrison and launch their search for the SAS men from there.
Meanwhile, he took a large chart of the Falkland Islands and stuck the point of his compass into the hill behind Port Sussex. From there he described a thirty-mile radius that ran way out to sea and took in all the little near-deserted harbors down the west coast of East Falkland, Kelp Harbor, Egg Harbor, Cygnet, Port King, Wharton, and Findlay.
"They're in there somewhere," said Pablo the Conqueror. "They're either in the hills or, more likely, on the coast. But we will find them."
CHAPTER TWELVE
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 27
At 1400 Major Pablo Barry ordered all aircraft out of the Pebble Island area and back to base, three helicopters to Goose Green, the rest to Mount Pleasant.
At 1500 a military aircraft bearing General Eduardo Kampf, and the C-in-C Fleet, Admiral Oscar Moreno, landed at Mount Pleasant for a high-emergency meeting with the commanders on the ground.
Major Barry spent a couple of hours debriefing them about the devastating events of the past twenty-four hours. And at 1700 they convened in an Army situation room, inside the old Mount Pleasant Airfield passenger terminal, to formulate a plan.
Each one of them was in agreement, the key to discovering the secret enemy was to round up the rustlers, and grill them, metaphorically, of course, before executing them all for the murder of four Argentine military personnel, several days after hostilities with Great Britain had formally ceased.
General Kampf was certain any SAS group would make for the coast, in order to seize their only possible chance of escape. The occupied fortress island of East Falkland had much in common with Alcatraz. It was surrounded by wide, dangerous waters, with no other way out.
"To remain here would mean certain capture," said the General. "These men are well trained and likely to be ruthless. I suggest they now have one aim in this life, and that's to beg, borrow, or steal a boat. They have no other option, and even that might not work."
"I agree," said Admiral Moreno. "If we want to find them, we have to comb the shore by land and air. It will require a lot of troops, but we have a lot of troops. And we have as many helicopters as it takes."
He glanced at his watch, and said quietly, "It's heading for 1800 and growing dark. We must prepare to launch this manhunt at first light tomorrow. Therefore we should start to get organized right now, gas up the aircraft, establish pilot and aircrew schedules. That way we can go to work as soon as it's light over the airfields."
If solutions were becoming simple in the front line of the Argentinian military, back in Buenos Aires they were becoming highly complex. The President of Argentina, in company with his principal ministers, had received this afternoon a somewhat perplexing note from the United States Ambassador Ryan Holland.
It came directly from the White House, and it was signed by the President himself, even though the letter itself had been crafted by the delicate hand of Admiral Arnold Morgan.
It read:
Dear Mr. President, Needless to say, we in Washington have been deeply saddened to hear of your recent losses of aircraft and warships on the Falkland Islands mainland. These were most unexpected attacks, and apparently without either reason or an obvious culprit. You will by now have received our electronic communiqué, with regard to reaching a satisfactory agreement with both Great Britain and the U.S. oil companies over the future of the new Malvinas. Perhaps you may feel inclined to furnish us with a reply, with a view to opening negotiations with all interested parties. The United States would be more than happy to both broker and host such talks. Yours Sincerely, Paul Bedford, President, United States of America.
The Argentine President at first read the letter with equanimity, but as he did so, he was aware of a certain sense of foreboding. The letter contained only three paragraphs, and the third was an expression of goodwill.
The first two were enormously more important, and they each seemed, at first sight, unrelated to the other…(1) Sorry about your mysterious losses of fighter aircraft and warships, (2) Perhaps you would now
like to talk about an amicable solution.
"Jesu Christo!" he breathed. "Is this a threat? Because if it is, there's no way I'm going to condone any kind of a conflict with the USA."
His Defense Minister, the trusted veteran Vice-Admiral Horacio Aguardo, asked to read the communiqué from Washington once more. And he took several seconds to make a comment afterward. But he said, very firmly, "Two things, Señor Presidente. First, the letter is almost certainly a veiled threat. Second, we are most definitely not going to have any kind of military altercation with the United States."
"Are you telling me the United States of America was responsible for the atrocities on the Malvinas?"
"Sir, I cannot say that. But that letter suggests the perpetrators of these military strikes against us may somehow answer to the United States."
"As indeed, we ultimately will do, if we are not very careful."
"Sir, I thought we were all agreed before we went into this conflict with Great Britain, it would be a straight fight between us and our very weakened opponents. With just a little help from our friends in the frozen north. We did not anticipate any U.S. involvement."
"And until now, we were right," replied the President. "And even now we cannot be sure they had anything to do with the actual attacks at Pebble Island and Mare Harbor."
"Nonetheless, there is an undercurrent in that letter from the U.S. President," said Admiral Aguardo. "You don't read it, you feel it. Because it is telling us if we don't come forward and toe the line, as laid down by the White House, something else will happen and we will not like it."
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