Victor O'Reilly - Games of The Hangman

Andreas had released his loaded flechette rounds. The next 40 mm grenades in the Hawk were dual-purpose armor piercing. He checked the ammunition reserve. After he had fired the two in the weapon, he would have two armor-piercing left. Most of the ammunition supply consisted of the standard M406 HE (High Explosive), although there still remained some other specialized rounds for specific applications.

Fitzduane was on the battlements across from the terrorists. The sandbags were now working in the terrorists' favor. The infiltrator on the parapet was well concealed behind the zigzagging fortifications and was well positioned to sweep most of the bawn with fire. More seriously, if he could hold his position, he would be joined by reinforcements climbing up that section of the wall. It was beginning to look to Fitzduane as if his plan to whittle down the opposition in a killing ground might backfire.

Fitzduane spoke into the radio. "Harry, what's that armored tractor of theirs up to?"

"It's halted about five hundred meters away." Nobel peered through the night sight. "There are a couple of people working on it, so I guess it broke down. Probably caused by all that weight. I wouldn't count on its staying that way for long. And by the way, we've only got four rounds of armor-piercing left."

"Have you a shot at either of our visitors?"

"Without moving, negative. What us to give it a try?"

"No," said Fitzduane. "You and Andreas stay where you are and hold that gate. Use the SA-80 on single shot, and see if you can take out the guys working on the tank. We need to buy some time." Fitzduane clicked the radio to another channel. "Check in, Henssen."

"Etan needs help," answered Henssen. "I'm okay."

"You've got a hostile about twenty meters away, gatehouse direction," said Fitzduane.

"I know," said Henssen. "I'm going to take him out."

"No," said Fitzduane. "No crawling around corners yet. Use the Molotov cocktails. I'm sending Judith along to help."

There was the explosion of a grenade from behind the battlement sandbags facing Fitzduane, followed by a burst of AK-47 fire. There was a pause of about thirty seconds, and the routing was repeated.

"I think out visitor is coming my way," said Henssen into the radio. "He's grenading each zig and zag as he comes."

"Give ground," said Fitzduane.

"Why do you think we're still alive?" cried Henssen. "But it's slow pulling Etan. If he rushes us, we're fucked."

"If he rushes you, blow his head off."

"Hugo," said Murrough, "I'm within a whisper of a clear shot. When he next raises his head, I'll get him."

"Jesus," said Fitzduane, "where the hell are you?"

"Top of the keep," said Murrough. "Top of the dugout, in fact."

Judith slipped in beside Henssen, smelling of poteen and gasoline from the bag of Molotov cocktails she carried. "Get her out of here," she said to Henssen, who hesitated. "Now!" she whispered urgently. Henssen did as he was told. He crawled away, dragging the unconscious Etan along the gritty stone behind him.

Judith lit two of the Molotov cocktails and tossed them over the angled wall of sandbags, where they burst further down the battlements. She lit two more and threw them. A line of flame lit up the night, exposing two attackers who were climbing through the crenellations behind where the terrorist was concealed.

Fitzduane and Murrough fired instantly, hitting the same man. Already dead, he collapsed forward into the burning gasoline. The second climber died a second later when Judith took his head off with a burst from her Uzi. The original terrorist, his keffiyeh and camouflage a mass of flame, ran screaming along the battlements toward Judith a fighting knife in his hand and all caution driven from his body by the intense pain.

There was a double stab of flame from a shotgun, and the burning terrorist was hurled back against the sandbags, his lower body a bloody, wet mass. Katia Maurer reloaded the shotgun and went back to tending Etan. Judith replaced the empty magazine on her Uzi and tried to stop shaking.

Henssen took the lighter from her trembling hands and lit a succession of Molotov cocktails and sent them hurtling down to the base of the battlements. There were screams and cries from below. Trough a firing slit figures could be seen retreating into the darkness. One dropped after Murrough fired from the dugout roof. Judith crawled along the battlements and swung two Molotov cocktails tied to a length of electrical wire through the windows of the outhouse below, turning the remaining terrorist's hiding place into a furnace. Seconds passed, and then, with a cry, a burning figure ran out into the combined gunfire of Fitzduane and Judith.

Suddenly, as if by agreement between two opposing forces, the shooting stopped, and there was an almost complete silence. Fitzduane became aware of the sound of the sea and of the wind as it blew across the battlements, and he could hear the hiss as the flames encountered the wetness of body tissue and blood. He could hear the cries of the wounded outside the castle. By the light of the nearly spent Molotov cocktails he could see bodies littering the bawn below, where the Bear and Christian de Guevain had emerged form their sandbag emplacement and were already halfway through loading the cannon.

He became aware of something else, a voice repeating something again and again. It seemed to make no sense; there was no one there. He sat down and shook his head. The voice continued. He could see himself as if her were detached from his body and floating in the darkness. He looked down, and he could see the castle spread out below and the fires burning inside it and outside the walls.

Slowly he felt himself being drawn back into the castle, and then the Bear was shaking him gently by the shoulder and talking into the radio, and he could hear the faint sound of suppressed aircraft engines overhead.

Above Fitzduane's Island – 2305 hours

"I don't believe it," said the pilot. "It's nearly the end of the twentieth century, and there is a siege going on that's straight from the Middle Ages."

"Not exactly the Middle Ages," said Kilmara. Two lines of heavy-caliber tracer curved out of the darkness and converged on the castle.

"Green tracer, 12.7-millimeter," said the pilot. He had flown forward air control in Vietnam. "Kind of makes me feel nostalgic. We're out of range at this height, thought a few thousand feet lower it'll be no day at the beach. I wonder what else they've got."

"I expect we'll find out," said Kilmara. "Get Ranger HQ on the radio."

The transport twins and their cargoes of Rangers had been left to circle out of sight and earshot over the mainland while the Optica went ahead to do what it was good at: observe. They were flying at five thousand feet above the island for a preliminary reconnaissance while Kilmara tried to establish radio contact with Fitzduane below. And to determine the scale and location of what he was up against.

Already he realized that he had underestimated the opposition. The sight of the Sabine offshore told him how the Hangman's main force had arrived, and that suggested very strongly that the Dublin operation was a bluff.

The Rangers had nearly been caught off guard completely. As it was, most of his force was more than two hours away even if it was released immediately – which he doubted would happen.

Fitzduane's Castle – 2307 hours

Sheltered in the storeroom off the main tunnel, the surviving students felt more than heard the initial noises of combat above and around them. The subsequent sound of cannon fire almost directly overhead was more immediate and menacing. It brought home the unpleasant thought that they were not out of danger yet – and that the defenders of the castle might lose. The prospect of being held hostage again by people as ruthless as these terrorists accelerated the process of selecting volunteers to join in the fighting.