Fitzduane 01 - Games of The Hangman

by O'Reilly-Victor

  "We'll know soon enough." De Guevain was wearing a checked keffiyeh that he'd found in the car. Fitzduane was similarly attired. The Frenchman's manner was withdrawn and focused, and his hands were clasped around the slender shaft of a heavy hunting arrow.

  The figure in the animal mask up ahead waved at them with his left hand. His right hand was clasped around the pistol grip of a Uzi submachine gun. Fitzduane slewed the car to a halt, using the hand brake to demonstrate a suitable degree of fishtailing. The rear of the car was seventy-five meters from the Sacrificer.

  * * * * *

  Draker College — 1809 hours

  They'd done it, they'd actually done it, the Sacrificer on guard at the main gate was thinking. His father was a Spanish industrialist who had prospered under the Franco regime but now felt it expedient to keep a low profile. He spent more and more time pursuing various business interests — and women — in South America. His younger son, Carlos, was something of a disappointment. The lad lacked the realism necessary to survive in this world, and the machismo. He was, to be frank, an embarrassment. DrakerCollege was an ideal place to put him until something could be worked out. His father did not spend much time thinking about what that solution might be. He was a master practitioner of the ‘out of sight, out of mind’ philosophy, and there were so many more enjoyable distractions.

  Carlos's hatred of his father created a void. The camaraderie of the Sacrificers filled that void and gave Carlos a sense of power and self-esteem which, up to that time, he had very obviously lacked. He was impressed by his own daring. Only minutes before he had actually killed two human beings with cyanide. Now he waited for the saboteurs of Phantom Unit who had been assigned to blow the bridge. He didn't know them by sight, but he had been briefed on the make and registration number of their car, and he knew their estimated time of arrival.

  The Volvo had stopped just out of easy shooting distance, as if it had hit a rock or had some mechanical trouble. Maybe it had a flat tire; the way it had slewed suggested that. He made a thumbs-up sign to show that they had taken the college successfully and walked forward to give them a hand.

  The driver and the passenger got out, and the driver kicked the left rear wheel in irritation. The other man opened the back of the station wagon and peered inside. Carlos could see the tip of what looked like a tire iron. He was torn between going to help and staying at his post as instructed. He cupped his hands to shout that he would like to help but that he was under orders.

  The passenger stepped out from behind the car with something in his hands that seemed pointed above Carlos's head. His brain, pre-conditioned to see a spare wheel or a jack, rejected the initial message of his eyes. His brain was still making an attempt to process what he was seeing when the arrow struck the center of his chest, smashing through his ribs and penetrating his lungs. A second arrow followed almost immediately and hit him lower in the abdomen. He collapsed without a sound. He was thinking as he died that the day had gotten colder.

  * * * * *

  Draker College — 1810 hours

  De Guevain was temporarily stunned by the consequences of his act. His face lost all its color, and he stood, unmoving, the bow dangling in his hands. Fitzduane tore the bow from his grasp and threw it into the back of the Volvo, then pushed de Guevain roughly into the passenger seat and slammed the door after him. With the tailgate still open, he accelerated the car and roared through the main entrance into the forecourt inside.

  The place was deserted. Several cars stood there with their hoods open and engines wrecked.

  "Do it very fucking fast," said Fitzduane.

  Murrough, how knew the college layout, signaled Andreas to follow. Together they ran around the back of the college to where the jerry tunnel emerged. Murrough, his .303 sniper rifle strapped to his back, had an SA-80 in his hand with the fire selector switched to auto. Andreas carried Fitzduane's pump-action Remington and the Hawk grenade launcher. The Hawk was, essentially, a giant semi-automatic two-handed weapon loaded with twelve 40 mm grenades in a rotary magazine that it could discharge in six seconds. It was heavy and took practice to use accurately, but as a close-assault weapon it was devastating.

  They could only hope that the attack force had not yet made it out of the tunnel. It was the one location where they might hold off a superior force. They had been instructed not to fire, if possible, until Fitzduane had secured the hall, where he knew the students normally assembled. "Right now we've got surprise on our side," he said, "but that's strictly a one-shot deal."

  Murrough's heart gave a leap when he saw that the mouth of the jerry tunnel was empty. He was fifteen meters away when two camouflaged figures emerged. He hit the ground, and Kalashnikov fire sliced the air around him. There was a double roar as Andreas's Remington went into action. A hail of fire was returned from the tunnel, which had suddenly filled with men.

  Murrough lay on the ground, the fire too intense to permit him to move. A grenade tumbled through the air and blew a garden water butt to pieces beside him, drenching him. Sick at heart, he knew they were too late. They couldn't hold the tunnel.

  He felt his legs being pulled, and he slid backward over the gravel path. An accented voice told him to stop being an idiot, and he began to struggle. Stone splinters and earth cut his face; rounds sliced the ground where he had been an instant before. He emerged behind the brick base of a greenhouse. Andreas, panting with the effort, let go of Murrough's ankles. "It seemed like you were glued there," he said.

  "I was," said Murrough.

  The fire from the tunnel slackened, and four terrorists ran out. Recovering quickly, Murrough dropped two with an SA-80 burst, and Andreas got a third with the Remington. The fourth went to ground in the garden. The firing from the tunnel mouth increased again, and they knew another wave would emerge any moment. There were too many to stop. It was now just a matter of time.

  "I think we're out of the surprise business," said Andreas.

  "Maybe," said Murrough. He racked his brain to recall what he knew of the garden and tunnel layout. There had to be some way to buy some time.

  * * * * *

  Draker College — 1813 hours

  Fitzduane, followed by de Guevain, Henssen, and Judith Newman, headed into the main building toward the assembly hall.

  Judith had sprinted back to the dead guard at the gate to relieve him of his Uzi and spare magazines. Her eyes had lit up when she saw the Israeli-made weapon. She had learned to shoot with one on the kibbutz before anyone had gotten around to teaching her to cook or sew, and from her early teens she could outshoot most of her fellow sabras. She caught up with the others as they moved swiftly but cautiously through the long corridors that led to the hall.

  Fitzduane had briefed them on what he remembered of the geography of the place. He was far from familiar with much of the DrakerCollege layout, but details of the main public rooms remained in his mind. The assembly hall, which doubled as a theater, had a stage at one end and an L-shaped gallery equipped with an organ at the other. The main doors opened to the right of the stage end. The room, which had two sections of seats divided by a central aisle, could accommodate about two hundred and fifty. There were windows at the second-floor level, and you could see out through some of them to the grounds at the rear. He hoped like hell Murrough and Andreas were not being targeted from a window overhead. He had forgotten to warn them of that particular possibility. There was a second door on the other side of the stage, directly facing the main doors. There were no doors at the rear of the room that he could recall, though stairs led to the gallery from that end and the gallery itself had an exit at the second-floor level.

  He guessed he was up against no more than four to six of the Sacrificers. Given the layout of the room, they'd be on the stage, by the doors, and — probably — in the gallery.

  He pointed at a small door set into the paneling farther down the corridor. "Henssen and Judith, that's yours," he said. "There's a circular staircase behind it that leads to
the gallery. Get up there and move when I do. Remember, take out the opposition fast or we'll have a massacre on our hands." The two nodded and vanished through the paneling.

  Fitzduane braced himself outside the main doors with de Guevain, now with some color back in his cheeks, to one side. A burst of fire came from the rear of the college. Fitzduane, carrying his own Browning automatic shotgun loaded with XR-18 ammunition, nodded to de Guevain. Acting as one, they flung open the double doors, sending one guard standing on the inside of the door sprawling. In the center of the stage, a Sacrificer who had been threatening the rows of students below him swiveled his weapon toward the intruders and died instantly under a blast from Fitzduane's shotgun. Fitzduane fired a second time at another Sacrificer standing by the facing door. Wheeling around, de Guevain shot the guard they had knocked to the ground as they entered the room.

  Judith mounted the circular staircase ahead of Henssen. The sound of firing from the rear of the building came as she was opening the gallery door a crack to take a look. A Sacrificer who had been positioned in the center of the gallery to keep watch over the hostages ran across to the windows to see the cause of the disturbance outside. He turned in alarm at the sound of Fitzduane bursting in below and for a split second stood there uncertain which way to move. Judith shot him three times in the torso while he was making up his mind. Henssen, seeing the body still upright, fired over her shoulder with his AK-47, sending chips of bone flying in a spray of blood out of the corpse's head. The body collapsed against the gallery rail, pouring blood onto the students below.

  Outside, the sound of gunfire intensified.

  Inside the assembly hall the students stared uncertainly at their rescuers. Many of them still had their hands on top of their heads, as the Sacrificers had instructed. They couldn't adjust immediately to this new development. Most were still in shock. The bodies of the duty faculty lay where they had fallen after execution in front of the stage. The floor was slippery, and the air reeked of blood, cordite, and the smells of sweat and fear.

  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 PhantomSea 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 for 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 large 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. "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 then the four HEDP."

  There was another pause, and then Murrough answered: "Done."

  A figure, grenade in hand, made 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 in 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.