Victor O'Reilly - Games of The Hangman

At 150 meters, Andreas opened fire with the Hawk, acutely conscious that he had only four armor-piercing rounds left. A Kalashnikov bullet ricocheted through the arrow slit as he fired the first projectile, and he missed completely. Shaken, he aimed again. When the tank was about 120 meters away, he fired. This time the round punched through the armor plate and exploded. Still the tank came on.

At eighty meters Andreas fired two more armor-piercing rounds. One 40 mm grenade hit the facing armor plate close to where it butted against the side armor. The explosion blew the welding, peeling open the front of the tank like the lid of a sardine can. Still the tank came on, and only then were the slow speed of the vehicle and its resistance to the armor-piercing grenades explained. Behind the steel plate was a second multilayer wall of concrete blocks and sandbags, their sheer physical mass impossible to penetrate with the light weaponry at the defenders' disposal.

The peeled-back armor and the close range did offer some possibilities. Andreas lowered his aim. Perhaps he could knock out a wheel or disable the steering mechanism. His last armor-piercing round seemed to have little effect, but three high-explosive grenades fired in quick succession from less than forty meters at the right front wheel of the armored tractor jammed a steering rod and forced the vehicle marginally out of alignment with the gate.

Still the vehicle came on. Firing was now incessant on all sides. The terrorists sensed that they were close to breaching the castle, and the defenders, casting aside all attempts at restraint, used their night vision-equipped SA-80s and full firepower to devastating effect.

It wasn't enough. Six terrorists died in the hail of accurate automatic rifle fire before the remainder realized what they must be up against and sought physical cover – but then sheer numbers began to tell. A gap in the clouds meant that moonlight illuminated the battleground for a few critical minutes. Windows and firing slits could be seen as black rectangles against the gray mass of the castle walls. Accurate automatic rifle fire kept the defenders pinned down while the tank prepared to advance to point-blank range, where it would detonate the explosives it carried on a boom.

Keeping Fitzduane's castle between it and the SAM-7 position, the Optica screamed low over the sea at near-zero height, causing Murrough on the roof of the dugout to duck as the futuristic-looking aircraft flashed above him before it climbed at the last moment and then banked and dived. The SAM-7 fired a split second before a stream of tracer bullets followed by rockets blew the entire missile crew to pieces and the launcher into the undergrowth.

The SAM-7 had been aimed at the Ranger transport carrying out its low level drop on the north side of the island. Six Rangers had jumped before the missile, traveling at one and a half times the speed of sound, hit the port engine. The high-explosive head ignited on contact, blasting the engine and wing off the aircraft and setting fire to the fuel tanks. The sky lit up, and the flaming mass, raining debris, knifed its way through the night air and exploded against the hillside, mercifully cutting short the agonies of the pilot and copilot and the remaining two Rangers still aboard. One more Ranger was killed by a piece of red-hot engine cowling as he swung from his parachute.

Five Rangers, including both members of the Milan missile team, reached the ground alive. When they linked up with Lieutenant Harty, the unit commander, checked in by radio with Kilmara. Then he spoke into his helmet microphone. "Let's do it, lads," he said. "Time for them to pay the bill."

Spread out in combat formation, faces blackened, heavily laden with weapons, ammunition, and equipment, the unit moved toward the action. The sound of firing, the crump of grenades, the arcing of tracers, and a burning glow indicated with brutal simplicity the location of the battleground.

Fitzduane's Castle – 2338 hours

Andreas loaded his last two high-explosive grenades. The noise inside the gatehouse was deafening. Beside him, Harry Noble, reinforced now by the Bear and de Guevain, fired burst after burst at the elusive, threatening figures outside. The terrorists had learned from their earlier casualty rate and now made use of every scrap of cover, including the lumbering shape of the tank. Their fire had increased in accuracy and was backed by the heavy machine guns, which made accurate defense nearly impossible even when a clear target could be made out.

The tank was less than twenty meters away – it was now obvious that the boom with the explosive charge was inside some sort of protective metal casing – when Andreas released his very last grenade. The tank lurched as if it were human. The right wheel and steering rods had been blown away completely. Already veering to the right of the gate before the final grenade hit, the tank now slewed off the road completely and tottered over on its side. Andreas and Noble gave a cheer.

"Down!" shouted the Bear, pushing Andreas to the floor. The entire building rocked as the boom charge exploded. The blast funneled through firing slits and murder holes, throwing Noble, who had reacted a shade too slowly, against the portcullis winding mechanism. The main gear wheel tore open his body in a dozen places, killing him instantly. The Bear glanced through a murder hole. The main force of the blast had been dissipated against the thick walls of the bawn. The portcullis, though twisted and bent and bearing the scars of the earlier RPG-7 assault, was still intact. He checked the castle approach, where the wrecked tank, now reduced to twisted mass of hot metal, lay to one side. As he watched, thick smoke, billowing from a row of smoke grenades, began to obscure the access road to the portcullis. The temporary lull in the firing from the terrorists in front of the castle ceased, and yet again automatic fire thudded off the castle walls and whine through the firing slits.

A roaring shape, a Land Rover, shot out of the smoke and smashed into the portcullis. The Bear glimpsed a figure jumping from it just before impact, and again he flung Andreas to the floor.

This time the force of the explosion was truly horrific in its immediacy and intensity. The floor heaved and ripped open, revealing the mangled remains of the portcullis below. It was no longer an effective barrier. Dazed and breathless from the blast and unable to respond, the Bear watched helplessly as figures ran through the open gateway.

He heard running footsteps on the stairs outside, and a hand grenade was thrown into the room. The small black object bounced across the floor before the Bear's eyes, coming to a halt less than two meters from him. It seemed to pause before toppling over through the crack in the floor and exploding a spit second later.

A camouflage-clad figure, the keffiyeh around his neck wet with blood from a long slash on his right cheek, burst into the room, firing an AK-47. Lying on the floor just behind him and out of sight, de Guevain, who had been reloading, grabbed a cavalry saber and slashed the terrorist across the back of the knees. The terrorist pitched forward, his automatic rifle dropping from his hands. Andreas, also sprawled on the floor, extended his SA-80 with one hand and pressed the muzzle against the terrorist's neck. The three-round burst exploded the man's head and filled the room with a red mist.

A second grenade was lobbed into the room, but in his excitement the terrorist in the doorway had forgotten to pull the pin. The Bear, still shaken but forced into action by the desperate need to survive, seized it, pulled the pin, and threw it back through the doorway.

The terrorist concealed there couldn’t run for cover down the narrow circular stairs because of the men behind him. There wasn't time to throw the grenade back into the room. He chose the only option he could think of and dived into the room away from the grenade, rolled, and came up firing. Rounds pumped into Harry Noble's dead body. The grenade exploded at the top of the circular staircase, temporarily blocking access to the room. Andreas shot the terrorist in the stomach before he had time to change his point of aim.