by Ted Bell
There was a pervasive attitude of disbelief among those on the bridge that night. Hawke was taking the boat on a collision course . . . did he intend to ram the Russian frigate?
He did not.
Blackhawke surged ahead through the oncoming waves as her twin gas turbines spooled up, delivering power to the four enormous bronze screws churning beneath the stern. Her course seemed intended to take her right into the teeth of the enemy guns. No matter what happened, the Russians on her bridge would have precious little time to avoid this sudden and deliberate incursion into their space . . .
At the last possible moment, Hawke said, “Helm, hard to starboard. Put her damn lee rail down . . . and . . . Fire Control, launch port-side JDAM . . . Now!”
JDAM, Joint Direct Attack Munition, was the most powerful antiship missile in existence. Two can take out any aircraft carrier afloat. The very idea that such an innocent-looking vessel could even conceivably be armed with such a weapon would be incomprehensible to Hawke’s counterpart on the opposing bridge. Still, life was full of surprises, as Hawke intended to remind the Russian captain.
“Fire Control, status?” Hawke said.
“Initiating prelaunch checklist . . . weapon powered up . . . autotrack engaged . . . master arm is hot . . . weapon status go, sir.”
“Then go!” Hawke said. “Fire!”
The fish was away.
Hawke’s stony blue eyes watched it close the gap between the ships . . . there was a cra-a-a-ck . . . men turned away from the blinding sight.
The explosion was nothing short of massive. A blinding, searing flash of white that quickly burned into geysers of yellow, orange, and red climbing skyward out of swirling clouds of blackest smoke.
And when it cleared, a cheer went up on the bridge and from one end of the ship to the other. The missile had literally blown the Russian ship in two, its back broken, blown apart. The two halves, engulfed in flame, were still afloat, canted at odd angles as masses of crewmen could be seen leaping from the rails and desperately trying to outswim the pools of burning oil spreading rapidly on the surface around the doomed vessel.
Hawke said, “Helm, set a course for NAS Key West, would you please? All ahead flank. I’m going below to grab a catnap. Could somebody wake me when we’re about an hour out? Thank you.”
And with that he retired from the bridge that had recently seen such intense action. The skipper headed for the owner’s stateroom; he was keenly anticipating reconnecting with his favorite goose down pillow.
To the victor go the spoils, after all.
CHAPTER 76
Castle Drum
They came for the boy at dawn.
Archie Carstairs was at his window post in the castle’s north tower. It had been a quiet night. From the highest windows, his view was of fjords, fields, and forests stretching away to the sea. Down the hill and to the left, tucked into a copse of blackthorn trees, was a tidy white two-story house with black shutters. It had been home to the McPhee family for generations. When the day was over, it would be a smoking ruin.
Archie got his first sight of the approaching commandos just as the red sun peeked over the eastern horizon. He counted twenty-one. Fanned out across a plowed field, swinging their electric torches to and fro, the twenty commandos began their methodical advance on the castle.
He saw that the leader had called a halt. The big commando went from man to man, pausing a minute or two with each one, checking weapons, issuing last-minute orders for the impending assault on Castle Drum.
Now Archie could make out clearly defined silhouettes. These were spec-ops commandos, that much was certain. They had the swagger, the heavy black combat kit, the serious weaponry that marked the breed. What Archie, the former infantryman, wouldn’t give right now for an SBS sniper rifle with a high-powered night-vision scope.
Archie’s automatic weapon, his cherished HK MP5, was unbeatable for close combat. But it was never going to be very effective against the enemy when fired from this height. It was a heated subject and one he’d discussed at great length with Walker the night before. All to no avail. He took a deep breath to calm himself. There was nothing to be done now. He needed to use the stillness, the quiet darkness of the hour, to compose himself for the coming battle.
Downstairs, the dogs were sleeping by the smoking embers in the Great Hall, thank God. And every light was extinguished. The Russian prisoner was bound and gagged in one of the countless guest rooms on the second floor. Inspector Walker was posted at one of the library windows on the ground floor. He had the Russian sailor’s automatic assault rifle and two 9mm pistols, his own, and one taken from the prisoner down by the river. When the Russian ammo was expended, he had his own HK MP5 as back-up.
If it got to the point where they were using pistols . . . well, best not to go there.
The glass had been removed from the one of the library windows. In addition, Archie and Walker had shoved a heavy wooden table up close to the sill. It would give Walker, the ground-level shooter, a much better field of fire. And an unobstructed view of the final approach up the hill to the entrance of Castle Drum.
Laddie McPhee was the second ground-level shooter. The old fellow was now perched in an open window in the main dining room. He had a brace of Purdey 12-gauge shotguns, loaded, and .30-06 Springfield rifle with a reasonably good scope. He’d told Archie he could shoot a toothpick out of a man’s teeth at fifty paces with that rifle. And Archie had no reason to doubt the man’s veracity. His marksmanship would be invaluable. And his boxes of ought-six ammunition.
Pelham was now posted to a window in the nursery on the third floor. Archie had given the old fellow his sidearm and an automatic rifle. As soon as they engaged the enemy, Pelham was to race from room to room, firing from all the third-floor windows. This, to give the enemy the calculated impression that a far larger number of shooters was defending a castle under siege.
Even Alexei would play a part in the defense.
Laddie had spent hours teaching the boy to shoot, ever since his arrival at Castle Drum. After much heated discussion, Inspector Walker had decided that the boy be allowed to crouch beneath the nursery window with his .22-caliber rifle, loaded. “If something bad happens to Pelham,” Walker had told him, “if he cannot shoot any longer, then aim your rifle out the window and shoot at anything that moves. These are bad men, Alexei, they want to hurt us.”
Under the circumstances, Archie believed, they had done all they possibly could to prepare for a frontal assault on Castle Drum.
After interrogating the captured sailor all afternoon, the men inside the castle had formed their plan of defense. They’d based it on assumptions formed after hearing the prisoner’s story. Two ten-man squads under the command of Captain Ivan Isakov, KGB Special Operations, Baltic Fleet, were approaching. Their mission was to search the house and grounds at Castle Drum. Only one prisoner was to be taken alive. A six-year-old boy named Alexei Hawke.
Isakov’s orders were that if he did not have the young heir, dead or alive, in his hands, he need not bother returning to Moscow. To say that Isakov would be highly motivated would be the grossest form of understatement.
Archie caught a glimpse of movement in his binoculars. The enemy had begun to move once more.
He turned away from his lookout and raced out of the small room toward the stairs. It was his first responsibility to warn the others that the enemy had been sighted before resuming his tower post. He ran out into the hall, then raced down the main staircase to the ground floor first, darting into the Great Hall to alert Walker.
“Twenty-one, total,” Archie said, out of breath. “Walking abreast about fifty yards apart. Coming up the hill below the ruins of that old McPhee house. Pretty damn cocky about it, I’d say. We’ll give them something to think about, I’ll venture, sir. At the very least.”
“Indeed. As soon as you’ve warned Laddie and Pelham, get back up to the tower position. As soon as they’re in range, I’ll commence firing. Tell the
others to follow my lead and commence firing at will. Now, go!”
IT TOOK LESS THAN TWENTY minutes for the commandos to crest the hill. They were ranging wider apart, leery of the silence that reigned inside the dark castle. Their recon had never returned. They had to assume he’d been killed or captured. Either way, whoever was waiting up there on the knoll knew they were coming.
Walker knew. He picked a man on the left flank. Braced his weapon against the sill and squeezed the trigger . . . BAM! Saw the commando stagger a few steps, regain his balance, and keep coming. Kevlar body armor. His comrades started firing in earnest. Two commandos took off running on a line straight for the windows where Walker’s initial shot had come from.
The Russians must have now realized how dreadfully exposed they were on the open ground. Three of them made for the ruins of the old house and ducked inside. The rest took what little cover the open ground afforded them. The barrage of enemy fire in response took effect; huge chunks of stone were blasted out of the castle walls, windows blown inward, doors splintered . . . and on they came.
The men defending Castle Drum gave them everything they had.
Walker fired, reloaded, and fired again, repeating the cycle as fast as humanly possible. He was concentrating his fire on the right flank now, those men closest to the castle.
Laddie, at his post in the dining room, saw one man drop, fired his old rifle again, and saw another man gravely wounded before turning his gun on his own house and the three men inside . . .
Pelham, up in the nursery, saw one of the attackers below crossing his position. He was clearly en route to the Great Hall window where Walker was holding his own. Pelham swiftly brought the 12-gauge to bear as the commando drew near, fired, and saw the man fall to the ground, mortally wounded. That’s when the thought first occurred to the old fellow . . . there were just too damn many of them.
And on they came.
He looked down into Alexei’s shining face, wondering if this brilliant new day would mark the bitter end of everything he held dear in this world . . . Alexei was tugging at his elbow.
“Can I shoot, too, Pelham? Please?”
He looked down at him with infinite sadness in his old eyes. He now feared the worst.
“No more shooting now, Alexei. Soon, we’re all going up into the tower along with Inspector Walker. He’s found a secret hiding place for us up there. We’ll be together . . . waiting for the bad men to leave us alone . . . that’s my brave boy . . . you can bring your gun, my darling boy.”
Pelham’s soft blue eyes were brimming with tears, and he brushed them away with the ragged and careworn sleeve of his sweater. He saw the open box of shells and grabbed a handful. He then began firing as fast as he could reload, blinded by tears, but unwilling to cease until he had nothing left to shoot . . .
THE ENEMY WERE SO CLOSE now, Walker thought, so goddamn close. Within a few hundred yards of the barricaded front door. Moments before, the KGB captain had huddled them up near the McPhee house. Walker instinctively knew they were planning a final push, an all-out assault on the entrance now. They had to hold them off . . . somehow.
And now he wasn’t at all sure there was much the defenders, staunch as they were, as brave as they had been, could do about it . . . no cavalry was coming up the hill to their rescue. No British paratroopers floating down from above, guns blazing at the merciless attackers now storming the castle walls . . .
But, in the end, Walker was wrong about all that.
Someone had come to the rescue.
It was Archie.
The inspector’s heart swelled up, then lifted with pure joy. He saw Lord Hawke’s helicopter! It appeared as if out of nowhere, rising straight up from behind the hill, juking this way and that, catching the first rays of the sun on its shiny red flanks.
And now Archie dove again and again on the Russian commandos, strafing them even as he banked hard left, then hard right. He was hanging halfway out of the cockpit, secured only by his harness. He seemed to be firing a heavy machine gun left-handed at the Russians, the enemy scattering in a blind panic now. Somehow the man was shooting with his left hand while he was flying the damn thing with his right hand—it was a bloody, bloody miracle.
The surviving commandos dove this way and that, desperately seeking cover that did not exist. A few made it back inside the old white house, many others did not. Those men died on their feet, raked by lethal fire from above. The desperate survivors trapped inside the house were firing up at the belly of their tormentor, hoping for a miracle that would bring the machine down in flames . . .
But miracles were in very short supply now. And here came Archie and the scarlet chopper once more, skimming low over the ground toward Laddie’s ruined house. Then he was hovering above it for a moment, ready to deliver the coup de grâce. He leaned far out and Walker could see him, watched him drop at least half a dozen live hand grenades down Laddie’s chimney.
Archie instantly hauled back on the stick and put the beast into a steep vertical climb as a fiery ball of orange flame and black smoke rose straight up out of the house like a cannon blast fired into the early morning sky.
It was over.
PELHAM AND ALEXEI WATCHED IT ALL, cheering Archie on from the nursery window. The old fellow was weeping hot tears of joy when he gathered his beloved Alexei up into his arms and hurried down the staircase to find Laddie, Walker, and Pelham, all there, waiting at the entrance.
The three of them, overcome with joy and relief, were standing just outside the splintered oak door, looking up, watching Archie land the helicopter in a rose garden a hundred feet from the castle’s front door. He settled the machine, shut the engine down, and climbed out, running out from under the still-spinning rotors toward all his joyous comrades.
They stood as one by the front door, each of them celebrating his victory in his own peculiar way. Laddie and Archie were dancing a Highland fling with Alexei in Archie’s arms. Walker and Pelham, well, they just stood there, clapping their hands, applauding, giving the man the hero’s welcome he so richly deserved.
Pelham knew the Battle of Castle Drum would never be recorded when historians set down the tales of epic victories on Scottish soil. But for the brave little band of men, and one small boy, who were there that day, who had fought so valiantly against such seemingly insurmountable odds, that fateful day would always have a proud place in their private memories.
These were his thoughts as Pelham left them all celebrating out there in rose garden. And walked through the sunlit rooms to his sanctuary off the kitchens. He pulled up his wooden stool, climbed up on it, and took down a dusty old MI6 high-frequency radio from the cabinet. Hawke had showed him how to work it a long time ago, telling him he was always to use it whenever he had significant news to impart. This would be the first time he had ever used it.
Hawke was off fighting his own battles, he knew that.
But Lord Hawke needed to know one thing. He needed to know that the men to whom he’d entrusted the protection of his worshipped and adored son had not let him down.
Nor would they ever, as long as Pelham Grenville was alive.
CHAPTER 77
At Sea
There was a rap at Hawke’s stateroom door.
Irritated, because he was tired and because he never took naps but now felt he needed one, he swung his long legs over the side of the bed and crossed the room to the door. Pity the poor person who might be disturbing him for naught.
It was Harry Brock. Brock and his sidekick, the kid the Raiders all called Gator. Catching himself about to say something prickly, while feeling enormously grateful for all the heroics that Harry and Gator had displayed ashore that day, Hawke said, “Why, Harry, I was just thinking about you two gentlemen. I see they patched you up down in sick bay. What’s up?”
“Do you mind if we step inside? It’s kinda important,” Harry said.
“Come in. Have a seat over there and I’ll grab my robe.”
Hawke sat down
on the small leather sofa facing the two warriors. “All right, gents, what’s on your mind?”
“Have you met Gator Luttier, sir?” Harry said.
“I’ve not. Gator, is it? You did a hell of a job up on that mountain last night. You and Mr. Brock.”
“Thank you, sir,” Gator said, and looked over at Harry to jump in.
“Gator came to see me about an hour ago,” Harry said. “He wanted to tell me about something that happened up in that blockhouse we took out. Soon as I heard what Gator had to say, I thought it was something you needed to be aware of. Like, now.”
Hawke sat back and lit a cigarette, all hope of any rest dashed. “Go ahead, Gator. Tell me what happened.”
“Well, sir, we went in together, see, me and Harry. He took the top floor, me the bottom. Blew the door and found a bunch of guys in there playing poker, Cuban enlisted men and a couple of Russian officers. We weren’t expected and we shot ’em up pretty good. Mr. Brock, well, he got hit and knocked unconscious. That was upstairs and, hell, I didn’t know a damn thing about it, though. I had one man down, Russian, still breathing. He was hurt plenty bad. Sucking wound in the chest. Knew he wasn’t going to make it, but, still, I tried to comfort him a little, like you do, you know. All the rest were dead. He wanted to talk. Crazy talk. About how fucked everything was. How the Russian military didn’t want to go to war with America. It was all that damn warmonger Putin. Him and somebody called ‘Uncle Joe.’ They were the ones would get everybody killed and—”
“Uncle Joe? Who the hell is that?” Hawke suddenly leaned forward. “Go on, Gator.”
“Well, it was all Uncle Joe this and Putin that. Whoever this Joe cat is, he seems to be running the circus. And then he really got my attention when he said something about a guy called the ‘Colonel.’ Said that was the one secretly doing all the dirty work for Putin. Said he was the one who shot down that civilian airliner over China. An op he ran from somewhere or other in Siberia. Well, at that point he was pretty delirious, but I felt like I had to keep him talking. And here’s the thing about it, sir. What I felt you needed to know about. This guy, the colonel? He’s an American.”