Games of the Hangman (89 page)

"We can hold out fairly well against small-arms fire and the other
light stuff, but the RPG-7s, if they have them, could be a problem.
 
They won't blow a hole through walls this
thick, but if they get one through a window, the room inside won't' be a lot of
fun."

The Bear broke in.
 
"We've used
up every sheet and blanket and fertilizer bag and sack in the place, so we've
got sandbagged blast shelters in every room and sandbags hanging inside every
window and weapons slit.
 
You can pull
aside the bags
with
 
a
rope if need be.
 
We've also sandbagged
the floors against blast and built extensive overhead cover."

"What's the range of the RPG-7?" asked Etan.

"Up to five hundred meters, theoretically," said Fitzduane,
"but they are normally used at less than half that.
 
To hit something as small as an arrow slit,
particularly at night and shooting upward, you'd want to be closer in
still.
 
I don't think the RPG-7s are
going to be our main problem.
 
We want to
worry more about explosive charges placed up close by sapper squads.
 
A few pounds of C-4 in the right place, and
the scenery starts changing.
 
Make sure
nobody gets in close, and make doubly sure if they are carrying anything like a
satchel charge.
 
Another thing:
 
make sure when you drop somebody, he stays
dead.
 
For all the hype about hydrostatic
shock and exit wounds the size of soup plates, 5.56-millimeter doesn’t always
have the knockdown power of 7.62-millimeter.

"Or .303," said Murrough.

"So aim for multiple hits if possible," continued
Fitzduane.
 
"Three rounds rapid
works just fine."
 
He looked at
Noble.
 
"I'm sorry, Harry.
 
We're getting off the point."

Noble nodded.
 
"Okay," he
said.
 
"We've covered who we are up
against and how many, and we've had a quick look at their firepower.
 
Now the question is
,
what are they going to do with all this?

"The
Hangman, as far as we know — and thanks to our friend's computers
"
 
—
he pointed
to Henssen — "we know a great deal — has never been faced with this sort
of problem.
 
Up to now he has always
fought on his terms, mostly quick in-and-out actions with much smaller groups
of men.
 
His tactics then have been based
on deception, surprise, speed, and firepower; they have been characterized by a
disregard for human life and, from time to time, a warped sense of humor and a
fondness for the bizarre.

"In this
case the Hangman has to get hold of at least some hostages, or he has no chips
to play with.
 
Unusually for him, because
an escape route is one consistent feature of his operations, he seems to have
committed himself totally.
 
That mightn't
have been his intention — the plane may have been his way out — but it's the
situation now, with all that it implies.
 
He and his men have nothing to lose.
 
They are going to be driven by desperation."

"What's
to stop him from getting back on the
Sabine
and sailing off into the sunset?" said Andreas.

"Because
high seas or not, he knows full well he'll never be allowed to get away.
 
Every antiterrorist force in
Europe
wants his hide, and I wouldn't put it past the
Israelis to swim over; they tend to travel when the incentive is right.
 
No, the Hangman has to get what he came for
here, or he hasn't much of a future."

"So what
do you think he'll do?" asked Andreas.

"There
are various scenarios we've looked at."
 
Fitzduane broke in.
 
"First,
it looks like he's going to wait until dark; that's the most likely explanation
as to why he hasn’t attacked up till now.
 
Second, he's likely to use massive firepower to keep our heads
down.
 
Third, he's going to mount at
least two attacks simultaneously, and one or more of them will be a diversion.

"The high
ground in this battle is the keep.
 
If he
gets that, he commands everything else.
 
On the other hand, a direct assault on the keep could be mounted only by
scaling the walls on the seaward side, and that would be suicidal.
 
The other approaches are protected by the
curtain walls.
 
He's most likely to try
for the gatehouse first, because from there he can mount a protected fire base
against the keep and under its cover take us out with explosives or fire.
 
That suggests an attack combining firepower
to keep our heads down, a diversionary attack on the curtain walls, and a
sapper attack with explosives on the gatehouse.
 
The portcullis would then be blown with explosives, and in they'd pour."

Fitzduane
paused.
 
His message was getting
home.
 
The analysis was making everybody
think more of the totality of the problem and not just about his or her own
immediate tasks.
 
Their shortage of
manpower to deal with the diverse areas they had to cover became more and more
apparent.

"Another
possibility is that they'll concentrate on the great hall and use boats to
assault from the seaward side.
 
The great
hall backs directly onto the sea, and although it has firing slits in the
windows, it has no battlements.
 
Also,
it's lower to scale, and the slate roof could be penetrated.

"Yet
another possibility is that they'll use a favorite Middle Eastern weapon — the
car bomb.
 
I imagine they can get some of
the vehicles at Draker going again.
 
One
of those driven at speed against the portcullis and loaded with a few hundred
pounds of explosives might make whoever is manning the gatehouse very
unhappy."

He
smiled.
 
"Right,
so much for the crystal ball stuff.
 
Here's the deployment.
 
Harry and
Andreas will take the gatehouse with their personal weapons and the Hawk.
 
Heini and Murrough will man the keep's
fighting platform and watch the curtain wall facing the lake.
 
Etan and Henssen will watch the curtain wall
facing inland and the great hall.
 
Judith, Christian, and I will make up the mobile reserve.
 
Katia and Oona will look after food, first
aid, the students, and whatever else is necessary.
 
We'll keep in touch by radio.

"By the
way, one thing we don't know is whether they have any night-vision
equipment.
 
I would doubt it, given the
operation they thought they were mounting, but let's play it safe.
 
Anyway, they have had enough daylight to map
the apertures and our defense positions, so we'd better expect to receive
accurate incoming fire.

"The good
news, of course, is that we do have some night-vision sights for the
SA-80s.
 
They'll work up to about six
hundred meters.
 
I suggest you fit them
immediately and zero them in in the tunnel on a rotating basis.
 
Night vision is something they probably won't
expect from us — let's not reveal the fact that we have it too early.
 
I'll tell you when.

"We do
have floodlights set up for the bawn, the battlements, and the outside
perimeter of the castle.
 
We've wired
them up on separate circuits, so one shot won't put out the lot, but I don't
think they'll last too long in a firefight.
 
The hope is that they'll give us an edge when it matters.

"Remember
to use the cover we've got and not to fire from the same position for more than
a few seconds.
 
Our muzzle flashes will
show up in the darkness."
 
He paused
for a moment,
then
clapped his hands.
 
"Let's go to it."

Outside, full
darkness was fast descending, and a strong breeze had picked up, sending the
clouds scudding across the half-moon.
 
No
movement could be detected amid the force that faced them, but each defender knew
that the respite would be short-lived.

Those issued
the SA-80s switched sights under the Bear's direction from the four-power day
and low-light SUSAT sights to the similarly magnified night-vision Kite system
and then zeroed in one by one in the tunnel.
 
The compact Kites were a vast improvement over the bulky image
intensifiers Fitzduane had first encountered in
Vietnam
.
 
They carried third-generation tubes resistant
to ‘whiteout’ and weighed only a kilogram each.

The magnified
picture they presented dispelled any illusions the defenders might have had
that the terrorists had somehow vanished.
 
The noose had tightened further.

Working
swiftly, the Bear and Christian de Guevain set up the initial experimental
charges in the two cannon.
 
The weapons
looked sound, but what ravages time had worked to their castings would be
determined only by experiment.
 
Using a
ramrod made from a mop handle, de Guevain loaded the first charge of weed
killer mix and a wad.
 
As an afterthought
he inserted one of the ornamental cannonballs.
 
He then retreated smartly behind a pile of sandbags while the Bear lit a
paraffin-soaked rag stuck on the end of a fishing rod and, remaining under
cover himself, swung the burning rag to the touchhole that he'd primed with
black powder.
 
There was a modest
explosion, and the cannonball plopped to the ground about ten meters away.

"It'll
scare ‘em shitless," said de Guevain.

The Bear
handed de Guevain the mop.
 
"Sponge
out," he said.

Sponging was
an essential part of the procedure if the next gunpowder charge was not to be
prematurely ignited by either the hot barrel or any remaining particles from
the previous firing.
 
"This time I'm
doubling the load — and you can do the honors."

The fourth
shot sent the cannonball right through the stone wall of the storehouse.
 
It came to the Bear that Fitzduane's castle
was due for considerable structural alteration before the night was out.

They increased
the charge slightly for the fifth test and used the shrapnel mix.
 
The results were awe-inspiring.
 
The Bear and de Guevain settled on that
formula and went to work making extra pre-packed charges of both propellant and
shrapnel out of rolled-up newspapers and panty hose.
 
By the time they had finished, darkness had
fallen.

Finally, it
was truly
night
.

*
   
*
         
*
         
*
         
*

Airborne approaching the west of
Ireland
— 2223
hours

Kilmara was in
continuous radio contact with Ranger headquarters in
Dublin
, but there was still no word from
Fitzduane, and the Ranger colonel was becoming increasingly worried.
 
He could understand one or two checks being
missed, given the social rather than military environment in Fitzduane's
castle, but the total silence over such a long period was disturbing.
 
Add in the inability to communicate with the
guards at Draker — or, indeed, anyone else on the island — and the bridge's
being down, and it looked like this was going to be no drill.

Flying in the
silenced Optica in darkness was an experience.
 
The transparent Perspex bubble in which they were encased became
invisible, and one had the sense of being part of the night, of actually flying
without the physical aid of an airplane.
 
It was disorienting.
 
There was no
apparent
structure form
which to get one's bearings,
no window ledge or solid door.
 
It was
both exhilarating and terrifying, but it did make for an outstanding
observation platform, and unlike a helicopter, which spends most of its time
trying to shake itself to pieces, the Optica had no problem with vibration.

He switched on
the lightweight Barr and Stroud IR-18 thermal imager and scanned the
countryside
below
 
with
the zoom lens set at wide angle.
 
The
unit worked on the principle that everything above absolute zero emits some
radiation in the electromagnetic spectrum and that some of this is infrared,
with contrast resulting from both the relative temperatures and the strength of
emission.
 
The resulting television
picture was a cross between conventional video black and white and a
photographic negative.
 
The system could
‘see’ through mist and fog and normal camouflage.
 
Fortunately, he thought, the human body is
also an excellent heat source and shows up clearly against most terrain.
 
The unit just might help make some sense out
of what was going on on the island.