30


The Tunnel Under Fitzduane's Castle — 0100 hours


Sig Bentquist lay sprawled against some sandbags that had become dislodged in the fight and tried to make sense of it all.

He found it difficult since he was in pain, though the medication given to him by the Ranger medic — a grim figure in his blue-black combat uniform, blackened face, radio-equipped combat helmet, and mass of high tech weaponry — was starting to take effect. He was beginning to feel drowsy. Recent memory and current reality were becoming confused.

He fought the drug. He knew he'd never experience anything like these last few minutes again. The firefight had been more intense, more savage, and more brutal than he had ever imagined. The saving grace was that it had been brief. The carnage in the tunnel had been over in a few terrible minutes, and now the floor and the walls and even the ceiling were streaked with blood and human matter, and shattered bodies littered the ground.

The stench was that of a slaughterhouse.

He remembered the door crashing onto the flagstones after the terrorists had cut through it. It was pitch-dark. The sound had reverberated in his ears for what seemed an eternity, and he had become convinced that under its cover the terrorists were advancing, that even as he cowered in fear, they were only seconds away, the blades of their fighting knives and bayonets ready to cut and slash at his body.

Sit had a horror of knives. Clammy sweat poured off him as he crouched blind and helpless.

"A soldier has three enemies," Fitzduane had said. "Boredom, imagination and the enemy. Lucky you — you won't have time to be bored. That leaves two: your imagination and the terrorists. Of the two, you'll find your own mind by far the more dangerous, so watch it. A little fear gets the adrenaline going and gives you a fighting edge; that's fine. Too much fear, on the other hand, paralyzes you like a rabbit caught in a car's headlights. That, my friends, gets you — and the comrades who depend on you — killed."

He had smiled reassuringly: "The solution to excessive fear is to keep your mind busy with what has to be done and not what might happen. Think like a professional with a problem to solve and not some kid with his head under the bed sheets. Remember, chances are that there isn't anyone under the bed, but if there is, blow the motherfucker away." He had paused a beat. "This isn't a lecture from the textbooks. I've been there. Believe me, I know."

Think like a professional! Think like a professional! The instruction ran through Sig's mind like a mantra, blocking out the terror that had so nearly overwhelmed him and giving him something very specific to focus on.

He could hear footsteps moving toward him and make out the faint glow of a shielded flashlight. This wasn't his imagination. They were coming, and they seemed to think that they had found an undefended way into the keep; otherwise there would have been gunfire and grenades and certainly no flashlight. They believe we would have fired by now if defenders were in place, he thought. He heard voices speaking in whispers, and the intonations suggested relief. "Jesus Christ," he said to himself, "they really do think they have made it."


* * * * *


Andreas watched them in his image intensifier as they came through the door. First came a pair of scouts obviously primed for trouble — but with no grenades. And their bayonets were fixed. Could they be short of ammunition as well, or what this their routine when mounting a close assault? Had they fixed bayonets when they closed in on the gatehouse? He thought not, but he couldn't be sure.

The first scout checked out the dummy emplacements and found no one. They had been arranged to look as if they had been abandoned uncompleted, as if it had been decided not to defend the tunnel. The ruse seemed to be working. The first scout signaled his partner, who in turn signaled back through the doorway. Reinforcements started slipping through. They came fast and then crouched on either side of the tunnel ready for the next phase of the assault. Andreas could still see no grenades. Of course, they could have them in ammunition pouches or fatigue pockets, but still, there would normally be some in evidence in this kind of attack. Could the defenders be having some luck for a change? They were going to need it. Eighteen terrorists were now in the tunnel — that seemed to be the entire strength of the assault group — and the scouts were preparing to move forward yet again.

Andreas tapped Judith on the arm. She silently counted to five, giving him time to line up his SA-80 again. The first scout was only a few paces away. He was now beyond the killing ground of the Claymore.

Judith fired the remote switch linked to the Claymore, and seven hundred steel balls were blasted by the directional mine down the tunnel into the advancing terrorists. Floodlights positioned to leave the defenders in darkness flashed on, revealing bloody carnage.

Andreas shot the first terrorist scout through the torso and put a second round through his head. The five surviving terrorists rushed forward, guns blazing, knowing that speed and firepower were now their only defense. There was nowhere for them to hide and no time to flee.


* * * * *


Sig saw a bayonet slide toward his face and parried it with a desperate swing of his Uzi. Another AK-47 turned toward him, and he saw the muzzle flash and felt a savage blow on his shoulder. He raised the Uzi by the pistol grip and emptied half a magazine into the desperate face in front of him.

Andreas was on the ground, locked in hand-to-hand combat with a terrorist. Judith seized the attacker by the hair, pulled back his head, and cut his throat.

A fighting knife slashed at Sig's thigh, and then the hand wielding the knife was gripped by one of the student volunteers — it was Kagochev, the Russian — and the two went rolling over the sandbags into the bloodstained killing ground. Kagochev was thrown against the wall. As the attacker was about to finish him, an arrow sprouted from the terrorist's chest, and slowly he slid backward. A second arrow hit him as he was falling.

Another terrorist leaped at de Guevain as he was drawing his bow for the third time, and the Frenchman fired at point-blank range, sending the arrow right through the attacker's body to pin him against a storeroom door.

Andreas had the SA-80 in his hands again and was firing aimed shots. As if in slow motion, Sig swathe brass cartridge cases sail through the air to bounce off the wall or the ground. Andreas was moving in a fighting frenzy, shooting every terrorist he could see whether living or dead. And then his magazine was empty. He ejected it and slapped a fresh one in place. He worked the bolt and fired, and the click of firing pin on empty chamber in the tunnel was like a slap in the face. Andreas stopped and shook his head and looked around.

He and Sig looked at each other and knew the attack was over. There was silence in the tunnel but for the sound of heavy breathing.

Shortly afterward there was a warning shout and a quick exchange of identification, and the first of the Rangers appeared through the door they had been defending.

"Doesn't look as if you really needed us," he said.

Andreas smiled tiredly. "Maybe not," he said, "but it's very good to have you here. I don't think there was much more left in us."

The Ranger glanced around. "There was enough," he said thoughtfully. "There was enough."


* * * * *


Above Duncleeve — The Keep of Fitzduane's Castle


The infrared heat emissions generated by Kadar's Powerchute would have been picked up by Kilmara's IR-18 scanner in the Optica if he hadn't been so tightly focused on the heavy-machine-gun installations and the infiltrating Rangers. Kadar's second bit of luck was that the Rangers on the ground who did see him take off were keeping radio silence until the Milan opened fire — and at that stage they had other things on their minds.

Kadar was not aware of the precise nature of the Optica's detection equipment, but as an added precaution against visual observation he circled around the front of the castle walls, flying only a few meters above the ground and thus out of sight of the defenders in the keep. He did not gain altitude until he was out over the sea.

The castle lay ahead and below him.

Beyond it he could see stabs of orange light and the sudden flash of grenade explosions. The Rangers must have arrived earlier than expected. It was fortunate there were so few of them. He was confident his men could hold at least until he had secured the remaining portion of the castle — and then it really wouldn't matter. When he had the hostages, the tables would be turned.

He noticed with relief that the heavy machine guns were no longer firing. He checked his watch. The plan was working. His men must have ceased fire at the time agreed. He hadn't noticed because he had been flying out to sea at that moment. It reminded him that he was operating more than a minute behind schedule. He tried to check with Sartawi by radio but received no reply. Sartawi was doubtless otherwise occupied. He tried to raise the small assault group now waiting in hiding at the foot of the keep and received a double microphone click in reply. It wasn't an orthodox acknowledgment, but he understood the circumstances. He was pleased. Things were looking good.

He was not unaware of the hazardous nature of his mission, but even though he had the means to make his escape, he no longer considered such an option. He had heard that war generated its own momentum, and now he knew that it was true. His original objective, the capture of the hostages, hadn't changed, but his prime motivation now, regardless of the cost, was to win. He knew he was going to. It wasn't that his forces were stronger or better equipped or for any precise, quantifiable reason. Instead, it had to do with more ephemeral things such as the scale of his vision, the force of his leadership, and his sheer overwhelming willpower. He had always been successful in the end, despite difficulties at times. It had been so nice he had started to control his own destiny, and it would remain so.

He tired to imagine how the defenders inside the keep would feel if they knew he was up here armed with a weapon that was virtually irresistible. Would they pray? Would they try to run? Where could they run to? How would they deal with the unbelievable horror of being burned to death — hair on fire, skin shriveling, eyeballs exploding, every nerve ending shrieking and screaming? In the end not a corpse, but a small, black, shrunken heap scarcely recognizable as ever having been human. On top of everything else it was, in Kadar's opinion, an undignified way to go.

Ahead of him the sky turned red with fire as the roof of the great hall fell in and flames and sparks shot up into the night sky. God, but it was an impressive sight — a tribute to his, Kadar's, power and vision and a direct insult to Fitzduane. The castle was the man's home, and it had stood for hundreds of years — and now he, Kadar, was casually destroying it. He wondered if he would have the chance of burning Fitzduane to death — or was Fitzduane dead already? He rather hoped not. He would enjoy looking into his eyes before engulfing him in a stream — what flame gunners called a ‘rod’ of burning napalm.

He decided to circle again, until the temporary increase in the intensity of the fire from the great hall had subsided. It was always like that when a roof fell in — a sudden flare-up that died down very quickly, a last show of strength before the end.

He would be a couple of minutes late landing on the keep, but that shouldn't really make any difference. The heat from the great hall combined with the intense heavy-machine-gun fire must have rendered the top couple of floors untenable. Certainly he could see no one on the dugout roof now, and there had been reports that it had been manned earlier.

He used the extra time while he circled, and the great hall fire waned, to rerun through his mind the details of his assault plan. The flamethrower was the same Russian LPO-50 model he had used to such good effect at CampMarighella in Libya. He had brought it not for any military reason — the remotest possibility of the scale of combat that had developed had never occurred to him, even in his most pessimistic evaluations — but to deploy on the hostages in case of intransigence. For this reason he had brought along only three ignition charges — tanks like divers' air bottles containing thickened fuel propelled by pressurizing charges that fired through one-way valves when the trigger was pressed — which permitted just nine seconds of continuous use — not enough for general combat but more than adequate for several very spectacular executions.

The three charges would also, he was sure, be quite enough to turn the tables in the narrow stairs and rooms of the keep. One to two seconds per room should be more than sufficient to incinerate every defender inside. It had been pointed out to him by his instructor that the LPO-50 was, in fact, designed exclusively for outdoor use, for the very good reason that the heat it generated was intense and the oxygen usage quite enormous. Kadar had brushed aside such caveats. He was confident he could handle the flamethrower, even in the confined space of the keep, without either cooking himself or being asphyxiated. He was a master of the tools of killing.

Initially he had considered flying around the keep and smothering each aperture with napalm, but that would have left him vulnerable to the defenders' fire. There was also the problem that the LPO-50 was bulky and almost impossible to use from the Powerchute without modifying the airframe, since the unit was designed to be worn as a backpack. He had also disliked the idea of being so close to all that flaming oil when the only thing that kept him up was a fragile nylon parachute canopy. He could see his wings melting and himself reliving Icarus's unenviable experience.

He had therefore settled on the simpler plan of landing on the now-deserted roof, breaking through the sandbags to incinerate any defenders below, bringing up reinforcements by rope from the base of the keep, and then blasting his way, room by room, floor by floor, to the hostages. It was a simple, direct plan, and it was going to work because no one can stand and fight when facing a flamethrower. Very soon he would control the keep.

His mind flashed back to those early, vulnerable, happy days in Cuba when he and Whitney were lovers. He had been naïve then, naive and ignorant of the reality of the human condition, which is to control or to be used or to die. He remembered Whitney's death; it hadn't been in vain. That terrible episode had made Kadar strong and invulnerable. He recalled his meticulous plotting and execution of his mother and Major Antonin Ventura. There had been so many since then. It had become easier over time. More recently the violence had become an end in itself. It had become a necessity. It was now an exquisite sensual pleasure.

The Hangman prepared to attack. Sixty seconds from making a landing on the keep, his Powerchute engine sputtered and cut out. It was out of fuel — the result of a slow leak caused by one of Etan's rapidly fired broom handle Mauser bullets during the flying machine's previous attack.

Terror and rage suffused Kadar's being. His mood crashed from euphoria to panic. For several seconds he sat in the Powerchute, motionless, incapable of deciding what to do. Then he noticed the craft's forward motion, and his confidence returned. Unlike a helicopter, which went vertical rather quickly when the power was cut off, the Powerchute was a forgiving beast when engineless. It was, after all, no more than a parachute with something like a propeller-equipped lawn mower engine tacked on. The parachute was quite big enough and strong enough to bring both pilot and appendages to the ground in a mild and gentle manner.

Unfortunately for Kadar — given the chute's forward momentum and the way the wind was gusting — the immediate ground was represented by the burning cavern that had been the great hall.

Slowly he sailed nearer and nearer to it until he could feel the heat sear his face. The metal of the Powerchute frame became too hot to touch. The flamethrower was going to explode and douse him with burning napalm. Horror overwhelmed him. He began to shake with fear.

Frantically he tried to free himself of the flamethrower and at the same time to steer away from the conflagration.

The flamethrower had been clipped to the Powerchute frame with D-shaped carabiners — the things climbers use. They were easy to manage and utterly reliable if handled at the right angle, but in this case Kadar had to twist awkwardly back, and the release of each one of the four carabiners in turn was an endless nightmare. His fingers slipped and skidded and became slimy with blood from his scrabbling fingernails. He was physically sick with fear and panic.

He unclipped three of the carabiners, but the fourth evaded his every attempt. The flamethrower remained tied to the Powerchute as if it had a mind of its own and were determined to go down with its owner and burn him to death.

Kadar saw that he was not going to make it if he stayed with the doomed aircraft. He hit the quick-release buckle on his safety-harness, balanced himself on the edge of the Powerchute's metal frame, and, timing it as well as he could, threw himself through the air toward the edge of the dugout.

The drifting Powerchute still retained some momentum, which caused him to land hard on a corrugated-iron-reinforced corner of the dugout. The edge of the rusty metal sliced into his torso, and he heard a crack. He felt a terrible pain in his leg, as if his femur were broken. He felt himself sliding, and his hands flailed frantically, trying to find something to grip. He found a makeshift sandbag, but the material, previously slashed by heavy-machine-gun bullets, tore in his hands.

He was screaming — he couldn't stop screaming — and he couldn’t see because blood from a slash on his forehead mixed with earth from the sandbag was streaming into his eyes, and he felt a sudden, terrible rush of heat from the flames when the fire in the great hall burned through the metal casing of the abandoned flamethrower, igniting the whole twenty-three-kilo backpack.

He felt himself being gripped by his left arm and pulled forward away from the edge and dumped facedown on the sandbagged center of the roof. He slid his right hand under his body and drew his pistol. The weapon was already cocked with a round in the chamber. He slid the safety catch to the off position.

"Turn around," said Fitzduane, who had decided to reoccupy the top of the keep after the heavy-machine-guns positions had been destroyed. A further incentive had come from a Ranger report of some as-yet-unaccounted-for flying machine that had been seen taking off with a hostile aboard.

The form lying facedown on the sandbags looked familiar, but Fitzduane couldn't bring himself to believe that it was the Hangman, or Balac or Kadar or Whitney or Lodge or whatever he was calling himself these days.

Kadar wiped the blood from his eyes and blinked. He could see. It was still possible. It could be done.

He raised his upper body on his hands, then took most of his weight on one arm and gripped his pistol with the other. He half turned to identify the precise location of his target. His eyes locked on those of his rescuer, and he stirred in surprise and then burning hatred. Good God! It was his nemesis; it was that damned Irishman. A lust to obliterate Fitzduane swept over him.

Simon Balac! The Hangman! The shock of recognition hit Fitzduane with equal force. He was momentarily stunned. Somehow he had assumed that the Hangman would remain safe in the background, directing operations. He had never expected that the man would put himself in harm's way. He felt a cold, clinical desire to kill, and then an adrenaline rush. It was a combination he hadn't experienced since seeing Anne-Marie slaughtered in the Congo nearly two decades earlier. It was a killing rage. He moved a step toward Kadar.

The Bear, who was out of ammunition and had been delayed while looking for an alternative weapon, was climbing the ladder leading to the roof. He called out to Fitzduane. It was a casual shout of inquiry, but it saved Fitzduane's life. The Irishman turned slightly to acknowledge the Bear and the Hangman rolled and fired.

Fitzduane felt a burning sensation as the round furrowed his cheek. He staggered backward and slipped on a coil of rope. He crashed onto the sandbags as further shots from the Hangman cracked over his head and smashed into the tripod-mounted block and tackle.

With difficulty the Hangman hauled himself upright.

Distracted by his agony, his hands shaking, Kadar made a half turn and fired in the direction of this new arrival. His burst of four shots missed, but the Bear lost his original point of aim, and instead of impacting on the Hangman's torso as intended, the crossbow bolt sank into the Hangman's broken leg at knee height, splintering bone and ripping cartilage. He screamed at the sudden crescendo of pain and emptied his magazine in futile rapid fire in the direction of his tormentor.

The Bear crouched down on the access ladder behind cover and restrung his crossbow and fitted a fresh bolt.

Kadar sobbed in agony and frustration and groped for a fresh magazine for his automatic. There was nothing there. He remembered his fatigues ripping when he landed. The spare clips must have fallen out of his torn cargo pocket. He glanced around and saw one of the magazines on the edge of the roof. As he limped hesitatingly toward it, a second crossbow bolt smashed into his back. It failed to penetrate his Kevlar body armor, but the momentum of the missile threw him forward, and he stumbled onto his knees.

The impact of the roof on his wounded knee and broken leg caused pain so extreme that he felt cocooned in a miasma of pure horror. Beads of sweat broke out on his face, and it was only through the maximum exertion of his formidable willpower that he was able to remain conscious. He fought to stay in control. His nightmare of suffering was worse than anything he had ever known or could have believed possible. His cries echoed into the flame-lit darkness, and tears ran down his cheeks. He tried to crawl toward the magazine. He whimpered.

Fitzduane, blood streaming from his furrowed cheek and momentarily disoriented by his fall, took long seconds to recover. Still somewhat dazed and oblivious of the shotgun strapped to his back, he dragged himself to his feet and with both hands grabbed the heavy coil of rope he had tripped over.

Kadar sensed Fitzduane's approach as he was reloading his automatic. He worked the slide, chambered a round, and cocked the weapon, then turned to shoot the Irishman.

Fitzduane slashed down hard and at an angle with the rope, lacerating Kadar's face and knocking his gun hand to one side. He then dropped the rope and grabbed Kadar's hand as it moved back toward him. Groggy from his wounds and the near-unendurable pain, Kadar tried to fire but could not; Fitzduane had his thumb inserted between the hammer and firing pin, and he gripped the slide tightly. Slowly Fitzduane forced the weapon away from where it had been pointed, but he had to remove his thumb as the Hangman twisted the automatic. Kadar fired repeatedly in a frenzy of desperation, but the rounds blasted futilely into the night.

Fitzduane waiting until the Hangman's weapon was empty and then butted him in the face with his head, smashing his opponent's nose. As the Hangman reeled and cried out in agony, Fitzduane loosened his grip on the man's arms and drew his fighting knife. He plunged it under the body armor into the terrorist's stomach and twisted and ripped with the blade. A terrible keening moan filled the air.

The Bear came up, another bolt fitted to his crossbow, and fired point-blank at Kadar's threshing, contorted face. The Hangman's head was twisted to one side at the moment of being struck, so the bolt cut through both cheeks, clefting the palate and smashing teeth. His whole body convulsed at the impact, but frenzied, he fought on. Blood and mucus frothed from his lips and bubbled from the holes in his cheeks, and terrible gagging animal sounds came from him. The Bear felt nauseated as he strained to reload his weapon.

Fitzduane withdrew his fighting knife, angled it toward the vitals, and then thrust it hard into Kadar's side and left it there. Without a pause he flicked open the coil of rope, knotted it around the Hangman's neck, and kicked the spasming body over the side of the keep. The roped hissed through the pulley and then snapped taut.

Fitzduane lay down on the roof and looked over the edge. The rope from the block and tackle ended in a shape twisting and turning in the glow of the fire from the great hall. It hung just a few feet from the ground.

Fitzduane hauled himself off the roof and descended the circular stairs to the bawn below. The Bear followed him.

When they reached the courtyard, Fitzduane turned and looked up at the hanging form. A Ranger shone a light on the distorted and bloody head. The crossbow wounds dripped blood and matter. The damage done to the face was extensive. Nonetheless, they could see that it was, without question, the Hangman. The body was still twitching.

Fitzduane looked at his friend and then back at the Hangman. The killing rage had subsided. What he saw sickened him.

"It must be finished," said the Bear.

The Irishman hesitated for a moment, and then he thought of Rudi and Vreni and Beat von Graffenlaub and Paulus von Beck and of all the pain and bloodshed and horror that this man — this man he had once liked — had been responsible for. He thought of the time he had gone to Draker to tell them of the hanging and how he had stood there in his wool socks talking to a lived-in but still attractive brunette in her mid-thirties who wore granny glasses. He thought of the carnage in Draker when they had gone to rescue the students, and of a blood-smeared body perforated with Uzi fire, one hand still holding her granny glasses. He thought of Ivo and Murrough and Tommy Keane and Dick Noble and of the woman he loved, her thigh pumping blood. He thought that he was tired and that the Bear was right and that this thing must come to an end. He didn't care about the reasons anymore.

The body twitched again and swung slightly on the rope.

Fitzduane slid his automatic shotgun into firing position and released four XR-18 rounds into Kadar's form, smashing the torso completely, ripping the heart from the body, but leaving the head and hands intact.

"Dead?" he said to the Bear.

"I think it is quite probably," said the Bear, going very Swiss and cautious all of a sudden. There was a pulpy mess where Kadar's middle had been. "Yes," he said, nodding. "Yes, he is very definitely dead."

"Swiss timing," said Fitzduane.

"So it is over," said the Bear. He was looking at Fitzduane with compassion and not a little awe. The business of killing was a tawdry activity, whatever the need, but it was a business, like most human activities, that demanded talent. Fitzduane, sensitive and sympathetic though he was by nature, had a formidable talent for violence, a hard and bloody edge to his character. Here was a decent man who had tried to do a decent thing and who had stumbled into a bloodbath, had participated in that slaughter. What scars would his friend's soul now carry? The Bear sighed quietly. He was weary. He knew that he, too, was tainted.

He shook his head, depressed, then pulled himself together and gave a quiet growl and stared at the remains of the Hangman. Fuck him anyway; he deserved to die. It had to be done.

Fitzduane looked out over the glowing remains of the great hall and beyond the bawn. There were no lines of tracer, no explosions, no screams of pain or sounds of gunfire. Rangers were moving into the sandbagged emplacements on the battlements. Kilmara in his Optica still circled in the sky above.

Fitzduane reached out for his radio. "You still up there?"

"Seems like it," said Kilmara. "It's really quite beautiful from the air, but there's nowhere to pee."

"The Hangman's dead," said Fitzduane.

"Like the last time?" said Kilmara. "Or did you manage a more permanent arrangement?"

"I shot him," said Fitzduane, "and knifed him and the Bear shot him and we hanged him and he's still here — well, most of him. Enough to identify anyway."

"How often did you shoot him?" said Kilmara for no particular reason. Stress reaction was setting in. He suddenly felt very tired.

"Quite a lot," said Fitzduane. "Why don't you come down and take a look?"

"So the fat lady has finished singing," said Kilmara.

"Close," said Fitzduane.


* * * * *


Duncleeve — Fitzduane's Castle — 0300 hours


Fitzduane and Kilmara finished their tour of inspection, and then Kilmara was called away to take a radio message from Ranger headquarters in Dublin.

Kilmara was limping but otherwise in good shape. He had sent the Optica back to refuel an hour ago and had parachuted into the bawn. It had been a perfect jump, but he had landed on one of the cannon and twisted his ankle.

The immediate threat seemed to be over, but until the island had been thoroughly searched by daylight, they couldn't be sure, and it was prudent to play safe. Accordingly the exhausted defenders and the only marginally fresher Rangers stood to and manned the full castle perimeter again but left the territory outside to the dead and whatever else chose to roam around at that hour of the morning.

Ground transport brought regular army units to the mainland end of the island road, and a company of troops was sent over by rope while the engineers set to building a Bailey bridge. Mortar and light artillery emplacements were set up to give fire support if needed. As dawn was breaking, around five in the morning, the first regular army unit arrived on the island.

Kilmara had been absent longer than expected. He returned looking distinctly annoyed, sat on a sandbag, and poured some whiskey into the mug of coffee a trooper brought in.

"I've got good news and ridiculous news," he said. "What do you want to hear first?"

"You choose," said Fitzduane. He was sitting on the floor, his back resting against the wall. His wounded cheek had been tended to by a Ranger medic. It appeared quite likely there would be a scar. Etan was nestled in his arms, half asleep. Without conscious thought he was stroking her gently, as if seeking reassurance that she was indeed alive. "I'm too bloody tired. I don't think I've ever been so tired. If this is what a siege is like, I'm glad I missed out on the Crusades. Imagine this kind of caper going on for months on end in a temperature like a furnace while you're wearing the equivalent in metal of half a car body under a caftan with a cross painted on it for the other side to shoot at. They must have had iron balls in those days."

"Or died young," said the Bear.

"Start with the good news," said Etan, who was bandaged and in slight pain but cheerful; she was just glad to be — more or less — unharmed. The Ranger medic had said the wound wasn't serious and would heal quickly.

"We've got a prisoner —a guy named Sartawi, one of their unit commanders," said Kilmara, "and nearly in one piece for a change. And he's talking. It will make explaining away all these dead bodies a lot easier if we have the background. All I can say so far is that it's just as well you had your shit together, Hugo; otherwise we really would have been headed for a bad scene. The Hangman didn't intend to leave any survivors. There was a hidden agenda, and Sartawi was in the know. All the students were to go in the exchange. It was the Hangman's idea of a little joke."

"What's the ridiculous news?" asked the Bear.

"We're having a visitor," said Kilmara. "He's flying in by chopper — piloting the damn thing himself — in less than an hour, and he's being tailed by a press helicopter. This is all going to be a media event."

"The little fucker doesn't miss a trick," said Fitzduane. "I take it you tried to put him off?"

"Need you ask?" said Kilmara. "I told both him and his press guy that the time wasn't right, and anyway, the place isn't secure."

"But he didn't believe you," said Fitzduane.

"No," said Kilmara. "He did not."

"Why don't we kill him?" said Fitzduane. "I've had a lot of practice lately."

"On live television," said Etan, "and in front of half the Irish media? And me without my makeup on."

"I'll help," said the Bear, "but who are you talking about?"

"Our Taoiseach," said Fitzduane, "one Joseph Patrick Delaney, the prime minister of this fair land . He screwed us in the Congo, and he's been screwing this country ever since. He's coming here to kiss babies and pin medals on the wounded — and make a short speech saying he did it all himself. He's corrupt and a class-A shit and decidedly not one of our favorite people."

"Oh," said the Bear. "I thought the Rangers were responsible for keeping him safe."

"This is a very mixed-up country," said Kilmara. "I think I'll get drunk."


* * * * *


Fitzduane's Castle — 0623 hours


It had started to rain shortly after dawn, and the wounded man lying concealed under the remains of the homemade tank greeted this downturn in the weather with relief. The cold rain soothed his horribly burned body and helped conceal him from the searching soldiers.

The man hadn't been wounded in the tank itself, but near the walls. He had been caught by a Molotov cocktail blast as he prepared to throw a grapnel, and for some seconds before his comrades had beaten out the flames he had been a human torch. By the time he recovered consciousness the comrades who had saved him had been killed. He had found their bodies one by one as he crawled his way to the cover of the tank and temporary safety.

He was within a few seconds of the cooling wreckage of the tank — the journey seemed to have taken hours — when a random burst of automatic-weapons fire smashed into his legs, splintering the bones and destroying any lingering hope that he might have a future. He could, perhaps, surrender, but the best he could hope for would be life a revoltingly disfigured cripple — and he had no home to go to, no country to go to. The idea of a future in a refugee camp — if he wasn't shot or imprisoned — had no appeal. And he would be penniless. Ironically, for many the whole point of this mission had been to make enough money to give themselves completely new lives. And for a time it looked as if they might make it.

Well, it was the will of Allah. Now all that remained was to die in the most suitable manner — to die avenging his comrades and so to meet them again in the Gardens of Paradise.

He had lost his AK-47 when he was hit by the gasoline bomb, and that he regretted, for a true soldier never abandons his weapon; but crawling to his steel sanctuary he had found something far more deadly: an RPG-7 rocket launcher. It was loaded, and although there were no spare rockets, he was confident that one would be enough for his purpose. He doubted very much that he would have the opportunity to fire for a second time. It would be as Allah willed. Each man had his own destiny, and out of apparent disaster often came good.

The man with the burned body and smashed legs moved his weapon into firing position when he heard the sound of helicopter rotors coming ever closer. The pain was truly terrible, but he embraced it and used it to keep himself conscious for those last few precious seconds.

The helicopter came into range. The RPG-7 was a straightforward point-and-shoot weapon with no sophisticated guidance system, so it was vital that he be accurate.

The helicopter was going to land in front of the castle. Through the 2.5 magnification telescopic sight it looked as if there were only one person inside it, but he must be someone important because soldiers were bracing themselves and an officer was shouting commands.

All eyes were on the helicopter. No one noticed the tip of the RPG-7 pointing out of a slit in the wrecked tank. The helicopter was less than seventy meters away when the dying man fired.

The Taoiseach of Ireland was actually thinking of Kilmara, and the bittersweet irony that the man he had betrayed so long ago was now going to enhance his political reputation through reflected glory, when he saw the 1.7-kilogram rocket-assisted fin-stabilized missile blasting toward him. For an infinitesimal moment he thought his victorious troops were firing some kind of victory salute.

The HEAT warhead cut straight through the Perspex canopy, making two neat, round holes as if for ventilation. There was no explosion. Fitzduane, Kilmara, the Bear, Etan,, and the other survivors of the original defenders watched the missile strike — and plow through the cabin harmlessly — with absolute incredulity.

There was a barrage of shots as the firer of the missile was cut down.

Kilmara put down his high-power binoculars. He had been looking directly at the Taoiseach in the approaching helicopter at the precise moment of the free-flight missile's impact.

"Well, I guess we can't win them all," he said slowly as the Taoiseach headed to fast toward a decidedly rough landing. "Too much vodka on the RPG-7 production line, I suppose." His eyes lit up. "Still, that'll teach him to listen to my advice. What a hell of a way to start the day."

"How did you do that?" said the Bear to Fitzduane.

"And without moving your lips," added de Guevain.

"I didn't," said Fitzduane, "Though it was temping."

"Probably a spell," said de Guevain.

"Great television," said Etan. "The bastard will make the news yet again."

"Nonstick politician or not," said Kilmara with some satisfaction, "I think he'll need a fresh pair of pants. Oh, well, his day will come."

The media helicopter had arrived and was obviously torn between wanting to get close-ups of the perforated aircraft and a not unreasonable desire to avoid receiving the same sort of treatment as the Taoiseach. Camera lenses sprouted from open doors and windows. The pilot, manifestly without combat experience — made a series of quick forays and then darted away. Fitzduane expected this amateur jinking to dislodge one of the cameramen any minute and for a body or two to come flying through the air.

"What's the time," asked the Bear.

"About six-thirty," said Fitzduane. "Time for all good Irish men and women to be in bed."

"Time for breakfast," said the Bear.

"Typical for a bloody Swiss," said Fitzduane.


"If everybody minded their own business," said the Duchess in a hoarse growl, "the world would go round a great deal faster than it does."


—Lewis Carroll,

Alice in Wonderland


"A Swiss Lewis Carroll is not possible."


—Vreni Rutschman, Zurich, March, 1981


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