Ted Bell - Warlord

"No problems on the way up from London, I trust?" Smith said.

"None at all."

The two walked to the rear of the van and Singh opened the padlocks that sealed the double doors. He swung them open to reveal thirty heavily armed men, ten in civilian clothes, ten in perfect copies of Balmoral security uniforms, and ten commandos in full camo. They were seated along benches opposite each other.

Their eyes were eager; they were aggressive young men recruited from the poorer, more radical Muslim neighborhoods of London, all screened for intelligence, courage, and religious fervor. Once identified, they'd then been sent to the mountains of northwest Pakistan. There, under the aegis of Sheik Abu al-Rashad, in a terror camp operated out of the bunker at Wazizabad, they'd been through six months of heavy military/terror training.

One of Abu al-Rashad's most trusted veteran commando officers, a graduate of Sandhurst, had supervised these U.K. fighters during the preparation for this Balmoral operation, going so far as to construct a mock-up of the castle's interiors. His name was Colonel Abu Zazi. The burly, bearded desert fighter climbed down out of the truck and embraced Smith.

It was Zazi who would lead the critical phase of the attack.

The storming of Balmoral Castle.

ALL THIRTY OF THE YOUNG HOMEGROWN U.K. terrorists gathered around Smith at the main control console, listening carefully to his every word. No one paid the slightest attention to the three bloodied corpses crumpled against the rear wall. Although the fighters were barely out of their teens, they were all about focus. Tonight would be the realization of all their months of training in the mountains of Pakistan. And, finally, vengeance for the deprivations and humiliations heaped upon their families since arriving in the United Kingdom decades earlier. Not to mention the daily murder of their brothers by invaders in the mountains of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

It had fallen to these boys, these angry children of Islam, to deliver a blow of unprecedented magnitude against the infidels and their supreme rulers.

Ten of the young fighters were dressed in photographically precise reproductions of the Balmoral Security Forces uniform, right down to the buttons. They would be first to take action and Smith addressed them as a group.

"As you well know, your first objective will be to neutralize the Balmoral security guards and the Raytheon PIDS surveillance system of electronic fencing and sensors. Ten Balmoral security guards are all currently at their posts throughout the forests surrounding the castle. Ten monitoring stations, each not much larger than a small garage, are all linked directly to this command center. At the Wazizabad camp, you were provided with maps of the Balmoral estate, indicating the location of each station and its designated number. They have the maps, Colonel Zazi?"

"Of course."

"Good. When I give the order, you ten will proceed to your assigned stations in the vehicles outside, clear?"

"Clear, sir," they all replied in their oddly unaccented English.

"Do not deviate from your assigned routes through the woods. Each station is equipped with TV monitors displaying live feeds from the many closed-circuit cameras in every guard's assigned sector. In addition, as you know, they constantly monitor the various hardwired sensors designed to alert them to any suspicious human presence on the grounds. Yes?"

They all nodded in unison.

"My old friend John over there on the floor is going to provide cover for your approach. John has a lovely family living right here on the estate, not five miles distant. So John is going to make an announcement to the on-duty security officers. When you arrive on station, you will look like an electrician and you'll be expected. In that satchel over there are dark green Balmoral electrical engineering jumpsuits and caps to be worn low over your faces."

"One question," Hurri said.

"Yes?"

"The glass in those forest stations? Bulletproof?"

"Good question. Should have been covered in training. Yes, it is. You will need to get the security officer inside to admit you. Big smile as you rap on the window. Remember, they are armed too. Anything else? No? Good. As soon as John's announcement is made, move out. John? We're ready for you now."

Two of the young terrorists dragged the bound chief of security over to the console and placed him in a chair in front of a microphone. Then they removed his cuffs.

Smith sat on the edge of the console looking down at the chief of security, now in a state of shock.

"Do exactly as I say, John. Should you deviate from the script, I assure you, two of these men will go directly to your home and kill your entire family. The children first. You know that I will do it, don't you, John?"

He nodded, tears in his eyes, a broken man.

"First, John, I want you to shut off all the power to every single motion, heat, audio, and thermal sensor within the perimeter. Do it now."

Like an automaton, John reached forward and pulled back on four bright red levers. All of the sensor readouts above were suddenly extinguished. "Good. Now do exactly the same with all the security cameras. Power them all down."

When that was done, Smith placed a handwritten script in front of the man and bent the microphone toward him.

"You're going to make this announcement. You're going to do it with a pistol at your head so you don't make any stupid mistakes. And you are going to sound as natural as possible under the circumstances. Let's do a rehearsal, shall we? Read it first without the live microphone."

He got through it, with only a slight tremor in his voice. In his mind, he saw nothing but the faces of his beloved family.

"Good enough. Try to give it a more 'just a minor glitch, lads,' attitude this time, will you? Now we'll turn the mike on and do it for real."

The man leaned into the microphone and spoke.

"Heads up, lads. Bit of a cock-up here with the electrical system as you've no doubt noticed. Some sort of a short between your stations and the main circuit breakers. I've already alerted Engineering staff and a team of electricians are on their way to restore power. They'll need to check the connections inside each of your stations. We shouldn't be down for more than a few minutes, they tell me. No worries, lads. Everyone read me loud and clear?"

The ten officers could be heard over the speaker system, all responding in the affirmative. Smith switched the microphone off.

"Now, John, I want you to shut down the officers' interstation communications. Cellular has already been jammed; I can't have them talking to each other. As soon as those boys have shut this compound down, we'll move on to Colonel Zazi and Phase Two. In an hour or so. As General Singh will inform you, John, you still have a role to play. That's why you're still alive."

"Bugger it," the man murmured. His mind was racing in all directions, searching for a way to save his beloved Queen. But every thought was a dead end.

"Colonel Zazi, your men are fully briefed and ready to go?"

"Indeed. We only await your orders."

"Good. Have them use this time for a final weapons check."

From this moment forward, Hurri Singh would take over here in the command and control post and the ten stations soon under his control. The ten men who'd been sent out on the grounds to neutralize the Balmoral Security team had been trained to replace the dead guards at their individual stations. All of the cameras and sensors would then be restored to full power. Balmoral would once more become impenetrable, but the fox was now guarding the henhouse.

CONGREVE WAS AGOG. HERE HE was, at Balmoral Castle of all places, standing around in a kilt (first time ever in a bloody skirt, he believed) and HRH, the Duke of Edinburgh, was about to tell him and his fiancee, Lady Diana Mars…a joke.