One body seemed familiar to Fitzduane. The figure was tall and slim, and a ragged line of bullet holes punctured her breasts. Her face still showed the horror of her manner of dying. Her round granny glasses were in her hand, and she lay in a pool of her own blood.
Draker College—1817 hours
Kadar stood on the jetty, frustration eating away at his insides. Most of his unit had been withdrawn from the tunnel, leaving a scratch force to try for a breakout. There was no information as to who was resisting them, but reports from the firing line suggested that the opposition was light. Unfortunately, light or otherwise, it was all too well placed.
He had no intention of leaving his forces in the tunnel, where they were at their most vulnerable. He would accept a delay and try a pincers movement on the opposition. Radio contact with the Sacrificers had been cut, so it seemed as if that particular card had been neutralized somehow. He had tried to raise Phantom Sea in Fitzduane's castle, but again there was nothing but static. Suspicion nibbled at his mind, but he suppressed it. Ropes snaked to the ground as his specially trained climbers led the way up the cliffs. One way or another they would brush this irritation aside—and soon.
He was pleased at his foresight in blowing the bridge. His victims had nowhere to go. It was only a matter of time. He ordered Phantom Air to delay landing until they either broke out of the tunnel or had secured the cliff top.
Whom could he be up against? Kadar paced up and down in frustration. Above him there was a cry as one of the lead climbers lost his footing and hung, for a moment, by his fingernails from a rock. Kadar was almost sorry when his scrabbling feet found safety.
The assault carried on.
Draker College—1817 hours
Many of the students knew Fitzduane by sight from his rambles around the island, and it was this fact that made the difference. Given confidence by the presence of a familiar face who seemed to know exactly what he was doing, the released hostages streamed out of the college toward Fitzduane's castle at a fast jog. Escorted by de Guevain and Henssen, they had two miles to cover in the open, a fact Fitzduane disliked. But they were fit young people used to much longer runs, and the bottom line was that there was no alternative. The college layout would be known to the terrorists, and it was too big and sprawling to be held. Duncleeve, Fitzduane's castle, was home ground. There they had a chance.
A thousand feet up, the pilot and copilot of the Islander spotted the exodus and radioed Kadar for instructions. Seconds later the pilot banked and headed in to scout the road between the running students and Fitzduane's castle. The strip the pilot had landed on before had already been passed by the students. The pilot had no choice but to try to land on an untested spot. The Islander was a rugged aircraft built for poor conditions, so the pilot was confident he could set it down safely. He wasn't so sure he'd ever get it off again, but he knew better than to argue with his commander. He cinched his seat harness tighter and prepared to land.
Inside the college Fitzduane and Judith had moved to a second-floor location that directly overlooked the grounds at the rear and the top entrance of the jetty tunnel. He could see where Murrough and Andreas were pinned down by observing where the fire from the tunnel mouth was focused. The greenhouse the two men were sheltering in was a cascading mass of breaking glass. Fitzduane hoped the two had found some cover from the debris. He could think of more comfortable places to hide.
Thirty yards away a camouflaged figure was crawling along a gravel path to the side and rear of the greenhouse, out of sight of the occupants. He paused and removed two cylindrical objects from a pouch on his belt. Fitzduane imagined he could hear the first grenade pin being pulled and tossed aside. He had the radio in his right hand and was trying to raise Murrough. As the terrorist came to his feet and brought his right arm back to throw, Fitzduane pocketed the radio and lifted the Browning to his shoulder. The firing pin clicked on an empty chamber.
A three-round burst from Judith's Uzi caught the grenade thrower in the back of the head. He pitched forward, the grenade leaving his hand and rolling under a galvanized wheelbarrow. Fitzduane raised his head soon enough after the explosion to see the barrow, perforated like a colander, sail through the air and land in an ornamental pool with a huge splash, sending a shoal of goldfish to a slow death on the stone surround.
Judith was firing single shots into the tunnel entrance. Fitzduane picked up Murrough on the radio. "Are you okay?"
"We're not hit," said Murrough, "though we've a fair few cuts from all the glass. We can't move, though. There's too many of them in the tunnel mouth for us."
"Have you used the Hawk?"
"Not yet," said Murrough. "It's hard to get off a clear shot under this much fire."
"There's a fuel tank to the right of the tunnel entrance," said Fitzduane. "It's aboveground but buried for safety reasons in sand and concrete. A pipe from it runs down the tunnel to the jetty."
"I remember," said Murrough. "It's that bump to the right of the tunnel entrance."
"Roger," said Fitzduane. "Tell Andreas to check his grenade bandolier and look for M433 HEDP rounds."
There was a pause. Judith turned to Fitzduane. "I'm keeping their heads down," she said, "but I don't have the ammunition to keep this up for long." She held up two magazines. "Just these and three in the weapon." She fired again and inserted the next-to-last clip.
"We've found four," said Murrough, "and there are a few other varieties—some labeled M397 and M576."
"Load two of the 397," said Fitzduane, "and then the four HEDP."
There was another pause, and then Murrough answered: "Done."
A figure, grenade in hand, made a run from the tunnel. Now reloaded, Fitzduane and Judith both fired. The figure buckled but with a last effort threw the grenade. Helpless, they watched it land in the greenhouse. A cascade of brown liquid shot up into the air and rained downward.
"Shit," said Murrough. "It landed in some kind of liquid fertilizer tank. We're covered in the stuff."
"That'll teach you," said Fitzduane. "Only a moron would pick a greenhouse to hide out in."
"Get a move on," said Judith.
Fitzduane grinned at her. She had a Swiss sense of humor. She shot like a Swiss, too. "Murrough," he said, "at my command, put the 397s into the tunnel and then put the next four rounds into the tank—and if it works, run like hell to the front. We'll join you there."
"And if it doesn't?" Murrough muttered to himself.
"Ready?" Fitzduane asked Judith.
"Ready."
"Fire!" Fitzduane's automatic Browning boomed repeatedly, and Judith emptied her last magazine in a series of three-round bursts. Fitzduane could see movement in the greenhouse, where Murrough was firing the SA-80 on full automatic.
The fire from the tunnel slackened as the terrorists withered under this surge in the opposition's firepower. Andreas broke cover with the bulky Hawk grenade launcher in his hands. His covering fire slowed as Judith ran out of ammunition and Fitzduane reloaded. The terrorists inside the tunnel raised their heads.
Andreas fired the first two grenades from the Hawk into the entrance. The grenades impacted on the floor, and a small charge in each one flung the projectile back into the air to chest height, where it exploded. Shrapnel raked the confined space, and the sound of screaming echoed out. He turned the Hawk toward the fuel tank and fired the four M433 high-explosive dual-purpose grenades in two seconds, then ran with all his might away from the line of the entrance, with Murrough sprinting behind him.
The first two grenades—capable of penetrating two inches of armor—were partially smothered by the concrete and sand safety cover that was itself blown apart in the process. The third and fourth grenades, their way now cleared, exploded inside the two-thousand-gallon tank, rupturing the container but not immediately setting fire to the contents.
Fuel poured into the tunnel and then blew when it encountered a red-hot grenade fragment. A fireball shot out of the entrance, engulfing the greenhouse
that had so recently sheltered Andreas and Murrough.
There was silence from the tunnel mouth except for the crackling of flames. Black smoke billowed upward and stained the sky. At the bottom of the tunnel, and standing well to one side, Kadar felt the touch of a dragon's breath on his face. The men inside were dead, but most of the others had been withdrawn before the explosion.
The lead climbers were approaching the last stage of the ascent to the top of the cliff.
The island road—1825 hours
The pilot of the Islander took his eyes off the group of students running toward him. They were now spread out in an irregular field more than a hundred yards long. He calculated that he could bring the aircraft to a halt about a quarter of a mile ahead of the leading runners, allowing plenty of time for the Phantom Air team to deplane and set up blocking positions.
The pilot felt his wheels touch the ground in a near-perfect landing. Ahead of him he saw the runners break to left and right and a Volvo station wagon accelerate from their midst and head straight toward him. Frantically he applied the brakes; the Volvo, bouncing and vibrating at high speed, had eaten up his runway margin in less than seven seconds. The pilot tried to imagine the effect of a head-on crash at a combined speed of more than a hundred miles an hour. He knew that whatever the outcome, after it was over, the respective occupants would be unlikely to take much interest in the matter.
He looked at the patch of bright green boggy ground that bordered the road to his left and then back at the Volvo, now only seconds away from impact. His resolve faltered. Better chicken than dead, he decided, and slid the plane off the road onto the bright green grass. A mere fraction of a second later the Volvo skidded to a tire-burning halt on the other side of the road.
"A draw!" the terrorist pilot said to himself, feeling pleased that the Volvo driver's nerve had cracked only a split second after his. But the pilot's glee didn't last long. The bright green grass was, in fact, algae, he noted, and his aircraft, complete with the entire Phantom Air Unit, sank in twelve feet of scummy brown water.
"Fuck that for a caper," said Fitzduane as he stood on the verge and watched air bubbles make patterns on the green surface. "It's always easier to play a match on your home ground."
Runners streamed past him, and he waved them on toward the castle. De Guevain and Henssen puffed to a halt beside the Volvo.
"You're absolutely crazy," said de Guevain, shaking his head. Sweat streamed off him.
"Crazy but effective," corrected Henssen.
Fitzduane grinned, then opened the tailgate of the Volvo. "You old people," he offered, "need a lift?"
Fitzduane's Island—1845 hours
The castle portcullis crashed into place as the first of the terrorists reached the top of the cliff. Farther down the road there was a series of scummy plops as the two surviving members of Phantom Air who had escaped from the aircraft pulled themselves out of the algae and started to walk back to the college. Neither was looking forward to Kadar's reception, but there was nowhere else to go.
Chapter 27
Ranger headquarters, Dublin—1945 hours
The director general of the Irish Tourist Board was an urbane-looking silver-haired political appointee in his early fifties. His main operational tools—whatever the issue—were his smile, his connections, and his ability to say virtually nothing endlessly until the opposition was worn down.
In this case the issue was the proposed detention of a group of Middle Eastern travel agents by the Rangers. His aides had assured him that arresting visiting travel agents was unlikely to advance the cause of Irish tourism—and it would look and sound really lousy on television.
"Lousy on television"—the director general reacted to such stimuli like a dog to Pavlov's bell. He salivated, nearly panicked, and demanded an immediate crisis meeting with the commander of the Rangers.
It took Kilmara ninety minutes to get rid of the idiot and his supporting cast. Only then did he return to his desk to find that the informal two-hourly radio check he had agreed upon with Fitzduane during their last call had not been made and that the telephone line seemed to be out of order. A call to the security detail at Draker College proved equally abortive, which was not surprising since all the phones on the island ran off the same cable. He put a call in to the police station at Ballyvonane, the nearest village on the mainland. He knew the station itself would be closed at this time of the evening, but the normal routine was for calls to be transferred to the duty policeman at his home. '
The phone was answered on the tenth ring by a noticeably out-of-breath voice. Kilmara was informed by O'Sullivan, the local policeman, that he had just cycled back from the bridge access to Fitzduane's Island after trying to get hold of Sergeant Tommy Keane, who was in turn wanted by the superintendent to answer a small matter to do with an assault on a water bailiff. Kilmara had the feeling that O'Sullivan might expire before the conversation finished. He waited until the policeman's breathing sounded less terminal. "I gather you didn't find the sergeant?" Kilmara finally asked.
"No, Colonel," said O'Sullivan.
"What's this about the bridge access? Why didn't you cross onto the island?"
"Didn't I tell you?" answered the policeman. "The bridge seems to have collapsed. There is nothing there except wreckage. The island is cut off completely."
Kilmara hung up in frustration. It was now nearly 2000 hours. What the hell was happening on that island? The evidence was stacking up that all was not well, but it was still not conclusive. Geranium Day in Bern and severed communications didn't necessarily add up to a combat jump onto Fitzduane's Island. Or did it if you threw in Fitzduane's vibes and the Hangman's track record?
He looked at the paperwork on the Middle Eastern group, which was due to arrive on the last flight from London. The flight had originated in Libya, but there was no direct connection to Ireland. Was it credible that such a group wouldn't at least overnight in London to recharge on Western decadence?
He had a sudden insight that he was approaching the problem the wrong way. The question wasn't whether the travel agents were genuine or otherwise. The question was how to deal with two problems at once, and the answer, from that perspective, was obvious. In a way he had that cretin from the tourist board to thank for pointing it out. It took him twenty-five minutes on the phone to make the arrangements.
He found Günther in the operations room. The German looked up as he entered. He had been trying the direct radio link to Fitzduane, but now he shook his head. "Nothing," he said. "Completely dead."
He followed Kilmara back to his office. Kilmara gestured for him to close the door. "The British owe us a few favors," he said.
Günther raised his eyebrows. "So?"
"I've called one in," said Kilmara. "The Brits aren't too happy, but they'll do it."
"Fuck me," said Günther. "You're getting the British to handle the problem at the stopover in London."
Kilmara nodded. "We can't stand down the embassy security until it's done and we've sorted out our Japanese friends. But it does clear the decks a little and allow us to take a trip with a clear conscience."
"So we drop in on Fitzduane."
"We do," said Kilmara. "Let's move."
Baldonnel Military Air Base outside Dublin—2045 hours
Voices crackled in his headphones. They were being cleared for takeoff. In an ideal world, Kilmara began to think—but then he brushed the thought from his mind. He had spent most of his career working within financial constraints when it came to equipment, and lusting after night-flying helicopters in a cash-strapped economy like Ireland's wasn't going to achieve much right now.
Truth to tell, apart from the helicopter deficiency—the most expensive items on his shopping list by far both to buy and to maintain—the Rangers were well equipped and were as highly trained as he could ever hope. They'd find out soon enough whether it would all come together as planned. This was going to be like no other operation the Rangers had carried out—and
it would be their first combat jump as a unit.
Of course, it could all be a false alarm, yet somehow Kilmara knew it wasn't. Something told him that on the other side of Ireland blood had started to flow. Spontaneously his right hand felt for the steel and plastic of the SA-80 clipped into place beside his seat.
He looked out through the transparent Perspex dome of the Optica cockpit at the runway ahead, then glanced behind him to where the two Islander twin-engine light transports waited with their cargoes of Rangers and lethal equipment. The pilot's voice sounded in his earphones. The Optica had been specially silenced so that normal conversation was possible without using the intercom, but external communications made the intercom mandatory.
"We're cleared," the pilot said.
"Final check," ordered Kilmara.
Günther's voice crackled in immediately, followed by that of the commander of the second plane.
Kilmara looked at the pilot. "Let's get airborne." They took off and headed west into the setting sun.
Draker College—2045 hours
As reversal followed reversal, while outwardly showing scant reaction, Kadar had experienced the full spectrum of emotions from paralyzing fear to a rage so intense that he felt as if his gaze alone would destroy. The news that Fitzduane was, in fact, still alive did nothing to help his mood. Executing the pilot of the Islander had provided the cathartic outlet he needed. A smear of algae on the floor and a head-high blood and brain matter stain on the wall were all that remained of that incompetent.
His mind had adjusted to face the change in developments head-on. He could now see the advantages of the situation. He was confronted with the most satisfying challenge of his professional life and an adversary worthy of his talents. Operation Geranium would succeed, but only after effort and total commitment. It would be a fitting finale to this stage of his career, and to look on the bright side, fatalities on the scale he had suffered meant a much-enhanced bottom line. A reduction of overhead, you might say.
GAMES OF THE HANGMAN Page 50