by Ted Bell
Shit said, “How big is Switzerland, anyway? Tiny little place, ain’t it?”
“Switzerland is two times the size of New Jersey. New Jersey, by far, has the larger population. Nonetheless, there are nine hundred and fifty thousand people in the Swiss army. At any given time, most of them are walking around in street clothes like you or me, or in blue from the collar down. And at home, every damn one of them’s got an assault rifle under the bed!
“I’m talking about a civilian army, Joe, a trained and practiced militia, ever ready to mobilize. They serve for thirty years. All nine hundred and fifty thousand are prepared to be present at mobilization points and battle stations throughout the country in considerably less than forty-eight hours. That’s why I’ve been telling you and Volodya we gotta blitzkrieg this thing.”
“Give me forty-eight damn hours,” Shit said, “I’ll go in and get your damn gold out. Listen, they got an air force? Prob’ly not . . .”
“Hell, yes, they’ve got one,” Beau said. “But you will drive the length and breadth of Switzerland and you will never, I mean, ever, see an air force base.”
“Where the hell they keep all their airplanes then?” Shit asked, reasonably enough.
“Inside the mountains. Deep beneath the ground. Inside giant hangars carved out of the mountains with high-speed aircraft elevators modeled after those on aircraft carriers, that’s where. Elevators take the fighters up to the catapults at the top of the mountains and spit the motherfuckers out at fifteen thousand feet! And all over the country, there are hidden highways used as ground airstrips in remote regions for the Swiss fighters to use in the event of attack.
“Their air force keeps their airplanes inside the mountains?” Shit said in total disbelief. “With carrier elevators and catapults? Man, that is pure badass.”
“Yes. Mountains everywhere are fighter bases. You’ll be hiking in the Alps through some meadow of wildflowers and come across two paved airstrips—but no airport, no evident hangars, because the modern ones are deep under the meadow. And no evident airplanes, no refueling trucks, not even a wind sock to mark the spot of airborne operations . . .
“You see such airstrips in many mountain valleys, too. Near the older ones are World War II hangars that are nothing but subtle rises in the ground. They are painted in camouflage and covered with living grass. Other strips are more enigmatic, since no apparent structures exist at all!
“If you just happen to be looking, though, you might see a hole at the top of a mountain open up—might see something like an enormous mouse hole appear chimerically near the peak of an alp.”
“Chimerically,” Shit repeated, nodding his head.
“Keep your eyes open. Because shortly, out of that mountain mouse hole comes a wave of supersonic aircraft—a Tiger, a Mirage—all bearing on their wings the traditional Swiss white cross on a field of red. In a matter of seconds, squadrons are climbing into the air. Manned by pilots who have been training and sitting inside the mountains waiting night and day, month after month, year after year, for someone to be stupid enough to invade Switzerland.”
“Like us,” Joe said, suddenly horribly depressed.
“No, not like us,” Beau said. “I’m not stupid. At least when it comes to fighting and winning wars. Got a pretty goddamn good track record in that department.”
“Hell, Beau,” Joe said morosely, “what makes you think we can defeat a million-man army? And a hidden air force?”
“Speed, that’s what. And, of course, surprise. We get in and out, with all our gold, in less than twelve hours. Way before the forty-eight it will take them to mobilize. We’ll take heat, sure, but the advantage of surprise and our instant mobilization? That will win the day. Watch and see.”
“I guess so.”
Beau almost came out of his chair. “You guess so, Joe? You’ll be sitting up here in your mountain fortress telling everyone else what to do. What’ll I be doing? I’ll tell you. I’ll be right in the thick of it on the ground, leading the troops to hell and back, praying to god there ain’t a bullet out there with my name carved in lead, that’s what. Don’t give me any more of your happy horseshit, Joe. I ain’t in the mood for it.”
Joe said, “You’re getting paid millions of dollars to take this risk. Nobody feels sorry for you around here.”
“And you’re not getting paid millions? Gimme a fuckin’ break, Uncle Joe.”
Joe said, “All right, that’s it. I’m going to bed. But I just want to say one thing, get it off my chest before I can go to sleep tonight. You listening, Beau?”
“Yeah, I am. But I’m the only one, Joe. Your little cowboy buddy Shit Smith just did a face-plant in his quiche lorraine. He’s going to be in great shape tomorrow . . . Go on, say what you got to say, man. Get it over with.”
“I got to say that it occurs to me, and it really bothers me, that you never gave President Putin your ‘stupid enough to invade Switzerland’ speech. Now, why do you suppose that is?”
“That’s it?” Beau laughed. “Seriously? I didn’t tell Putin? That’s all you got, man? Christ Jesus, I’ll tell you why. Got us a saying out in West Texas might help you out a tad, partner. You listening?”
“I’m listening.”
“We say, ‘Never ever tell the daddy of some rich gal you’re aiming to marry that his little girl is ugly.’”
Joe stood up, wiped his mouth with his linen napkin, and threw it down on the table.
“Ah, great, Beau. That’s really good. Very reassuring. So now you’re saying to me our little girl is ugly? Christ, I hope you know what the hell you’re doing, Colonel. Because you sure haven’t rallied the troops round the table tonight.”
“Go to bed, Joe. You’ll feel a whole lot better in the morning,” Beau said, pushing back from the table. He left the dining room.
Joe sat there awhile, digesting all the worrisome things he’d just heard, listening to Shit Smith snorkeling loudly in his soup. He’d take him to his room, let him sleep it off. Then fill him with hot coffee and take the sub back across the lake to Seegarten.
He and Shit had a mission tonight.
All day, and he couldn’t say why, Joe had nursed a feeling that Alex Hawke might be coming. Tonight or the next night or the next. He had no idea. But if Putin got word of it, that wonderful little boy he’d come to love would be dead in a matter of minutes. There was nothing else for it.
Joe and Shit would spend tonight on the island.
He was determined not to let some KGB thug kill an innocent child who’d done nothing. Nor kill a desperate father guilty of nothing but wanting to save the life of his only son.
If he was right, and Hawke was coming to rescue his son tonight, Joe would make sure that Putin’s assassin had to go through Joe Stalingrad and Shit Smith in order to pull the trigger.
Chapter Seventy-Nine
Lake Zurich
Six high-speed boats, all jet black, all deck lights blacked out, five men to a craft. Stokely, ex–SEAL commando, driving the lead boat at the tip of the spear, a tight V formation. Hawke and Artemis were both just coming aboard, along with Auguste François, ex–French Foreign Legion, and a tough little Kentucky war fighter, a legendary Ranger sniper everyone called Beetle.
Before firing up the three powerful outboard engines hanging off the stern, Stoke had killed all the lights aboard, and only the instrument panel was casting a dull reddish glow on their faces.
“Everybody strapped in?” Stoke asked his crew.
Affirmative yo’s all around.
“Stoke,” Hawke said, “give me a heads-up when we approach the five-thousand-yard-out mark on our approach to the island. We want to drift in and out of the fog. Edging closer into the docks at dead slow, staying close to the parameters of the fog until we get a good look at what we’re dealing with. If there’s a major artillery piece on the dock aimed in our direction, I want to disappear back where I came from . . .”
“Aye aye, Skipper.”
“Let the ot
her five skippers know as well.”
“Not now, but right now!” Stoke said, grabbing the VHF radio.
Powering through the thick lake-effect fog that lay over the surface, and traveling at racing speeds down the mirror-smooth lake, they maintained their strictly held V-formation. The lead boat’s foaming white-water wake was enormous. Racing engines, each pumping out a thumping three hundred horsepower, were kicking up all kinds of hell.
Hawke was at the stern of the lead boat, mentally taking stock of his team fanned out back there.
After all the discussions about strategy, after all the endless poring over CIA sat shots of the island, the Seegarten compound, calculating the dimensions of the big docks that stuck far out into Lake Zurich . . . after all the long nightmare of wondering if Alexei was dead or still alive, Alex Hawke was at long last taking the fight to the enemy.
And taking the infamous warlords Thunder and Lightning along for the ride.
Every man of the five squads was kitted out the same. They wore dark camouflage tiger stripes, wore nothing at all reflective, faces blacked out with camo war paint. Thunder and Lightning would be invisible when the five boats slowed dramatically to a dead-slow drift out of the fog and toward the docks.
“Mark!” Stoke said. “Five thousand yards and closing . . .”
Hawke felt the boat shudder and slow dramatically as Stoke throttled back at the five-thousand-yard marker. Looking through the powerful Leica binocs, Hawke went to the stern. He was surveying the dockage space, the shoreline, and the outer perimeter of the walled compound. Boat one would arrive first at the long dock at Seegarten and—
“Shit!” Hawke whispered, whirling around and motioning for Beetle to come aft to him.
Two makeshift wooden guard towers had been hastily erected since the last CIA sat pass! One, the closest, gave a view to the seaward side, and the farthest one looked out over the forest at the rear, or, western side of the residence . . .
Hawke handed the binocs to Beetle.
“First tower dead abeam of us, Beetle. I count three guards, two searchlights up top. Stoke, stop the boat a thousand yards offshore. Beetle needs to take out that first tower trio of tangos before they pick us up . . .”
And so it began.
Alex Hawke, as the Alpha Squad leader, would take his men way south along the shore, staying outside the wall, before turning west and entering the deep forest at the rear of the compound. Covering his flank, and ultimately joining up with Alpha, would be Stokely and his Bravo Squad.
Once Hawke and his two squads were in place in the woods behind the house itself and ready to scale the wall, they would alert Fitz’s Charlie Squad and Brock’s Echo to commence combat operations at the lakefront entrance to the compound.
Chief Rainwater, a towering figure in the rarefied world of combat demolition, and his Charlie fighters would be rigging Semtex plastic explosives at the wide entrance gate and all along the base of the seaward wall. Once the wall was breached, Echo, led by Harry Brock, would race inside the compound, with Charlie and his guys hot on their heels, all obliterating anyone who was suicidal enough to get in their way.
At least that was the way it was supposed to work, Hawke thought, as the big black speedboat nosed through fog thick enough to choke you and smelling terribly of seaborne iodine. The engines, at idle speed, were burbling softly at the stern.
“I’m sighted in, Skipper,” Beetle said quietly, a man at one with his gun, lightly gripping the forearm, right elbow rock steady on top of his beanbag . . .
“Range?” Hawke said.
“One thousand yards, sir.”
“Elevation?”
“Fifteen degrees, plus or minus two.”
“Comfy?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Take them out,” Hawke said simply.
And Beetle did just that. Easy. All head shots: pfft, pfft, pftt.
One. Two. Three.
Simple as that.
The Alpha attackers crept through the forest toward the rear of the compound, the sounds of their footsteps muffled by the dense layer of pine straw under the soles of their combat boots. A light rain had begun to fall and the dark and looming trees were dripping.
Hawke could see lights through the branches now, blooming yellow in the windows of the upper floors. He signaled the squad to halt just shy of the clearing on this side of the thick brick wall. Moments later, Stoke and Bravo Squad arrived and took up positions inside the trees.
Stoke was looking up at the barbed wire atop the wall, surveilling their situation, quickly making a decision. “No need to demo the wall, Skipper,” he said quietly to Hawke.
“Tell me.”
“I climb this tree right here, boss. The topmost branches look sturdy enough to take my weight. And those branches reach out pretty far into the clearing. I make my way out, heave a grapnel hook, catch the highest railing on that top-floor terrace, and secure it. We hand-over-hand it across the line, no noise to alert guards or—”
“Guard,” Hawke said, “coming around the far corner of the house with his dog. Beetle? You on this bastard?”
“Aye, sir. I’ve got him.”
“Take the shot.”
Two barely audible puffs of soft sound and the threat was eliminated.
“Okay, Mr. Jones,” Hawke said, “let’s do this quickly before another one shows up.”
Stoke was already well up into the tree, climbing surely and quickly and silently.
“Artemis, you’re next. Then me. Beetle, you’re last because I want you to remain in the treetops until it’s all over, making that hushpuppy of yours bark whenever necessary. Yes?”
“Yes, sir. I was thinking that, too. Shooting starts, there’s a really good field of fire inside the perimeter of the wall from way up there. Maximum effect of the weapon.”
Hawke looked up, saw Artemis some twenty feet up and climbing fast. He pulled out his radio. He needed to get Brock and Chief Rainwater on the same page, pronto!
“Charlie, Delta, Echo, this is Alpha, Bravo. We are in position inside the woods west of the compound. Found a way to breach the wall and enter the top floor minus the explosives. Terrace up there. Once we’re in position to insert, I’ll signal. Everybody copy that?”
They affirmed and Hawke started to climb like a man possessed.
He could barely stand the pounding deep inside his chest that was his terrified heart. If all went according to plan, within an hour, Artemis would be aboard the Blue Streak, ferrying Sigrid and little Alexei home to England, to his beloved Hawkesmoor. But. What if Alexei was not there in the corner room, had been moved?
Or what if the incursion had been seen and Putin had already given the order to—No. You don’t go there, Lord Hawke. You calm yourself down and you go through that door with the force of a million men and a thousand hurricanes. You find your son, and you keep him safe forever.
That’s what you do, Lord Hawke, that is what you damn well do.
Chapter Eighty
Charlie Rainwater couldn’t help but smile when he got Hawke’s new plan of attack. Commander Hawke was not going to announce their imminent arrival inside the compound with a noisy explosive breach of the rear wall after all . . . no!
Alpha and Bravo were already inside the rear perimeter! All eight men were up on the top-floor terrace, northwestern corner, all without an audible shot yet to be fired. The chief’s plastic C-4 and Semtex charges along the seaward walls were all rigged and primed, and he was just waiting for Hawke to give him the signal to pull the trigger that would launch a spear-thrust attack on Seegarten proper.
He, along with Harry Brock’s Echo and Fitz’s Delta, had rigged the entire seaward portion of the thick wall to blow inward; all that steel and concrete blasted backward into the faces of the enemy inside. The second Hawke heard the explosions over on the lake side, the two squads under his command would breach the doors and windows and get inside the house in a matter of seconds.
They would then loc
ate the hostage while Charlie, Brock, and Fitz led an assault on the front of the house, striking in a classic pincer movement. Putin’s KGB and Spetsnaz forces would be getting M60 hellfire and stun and frag grenades from two directions at once, and from overwhelming force, a Thunder and Lightning house specialty.
Static on Rainwater’s radio, then: “Charlie, this is Alpha. Pull the trigger, boys, we’re going in.”
The chief keyed the radio transmitter as his two squads leapt from the seawall down to the dock to take cover. His idea was that they would commence the attack from this ideal cover and assess the resistance before mounting the seawall and rushing the holes in the compound walls.
The multiple explosions were deafening.
The eight men crouched on the dock hugged the seawall and waited for the smoke to settle. “I’ll take a look,” the warrior called Thunder said three minutes later.
He rose up and put the glasses to his eyes to survey a scene of horrific destruction. “Holy shit,” he whispered, astonished at the effect of their charges. “They’re either all dead or they’re playing possum under all that masonry. But I’m not taking any chances. Break out the heavy artillery, M60 teams, and lay down a barrage of suppression fire on my signal.” Charlie’s two weapons were capable of firing several types of ammunition, including ball, tracer, and armor piercing.
“As soon as the dust settles again, we hit them with those big-ass M32 grenade launchers and we go up and over this wall . . . Commence firing!”
Those ten headbangers were up and over that seawall and charging through what was left of the perimeter wall. Desolation and destruction were everywhere they looked.
“Down! Snipers on the rooftop!” Brock shouted as he dropped and rolled, coming up with his weapon trained on the three tangos sighting down at them from high above. He squeezed the trigger and wasted them.