Victor O'Reilly - Games of The Hangman

Ahead of him, slight to his right and just under a thousand meters away, were the heavy-machine-gun emplacements pinpointed by the colonel circling in the Optica overhead. Nearly a full kilometer couldn’t be considered point-blank, but it was close enough. At that distance Grady could achieve almost one hundred percent accuracy on armored moving targets, at least in training. So the first gun position shouldn't be a problem.

The second position might be harder, since it would have time to locate the Rangers and open fire before he could reload. If they had infrared equipment, the backblast would give him away immediately. Theoretically, since the missile would take perhaps twelve seconds to complete its flight, both emplacements could fire back for vital seconds if they reacted fast enough. On the other hand, if they were concentrating on the castle and didn't have any specialized gear, he might just get that second missile off in time. It was possible to fire up to five missiles in a minute under some circumstances, but in this case, if he allowed for reloading and changing the point of aim – not to mention firing in the dark under combat conditions – the minimum time window, assuming two first-time hits, should be estimated at around thirty seconds.

He calculated that in those thirty seconds the Russian-made 12.7 mm heavies could put about six hundred rounds into him, Geronimo Grady, personally. It was an incentive to shoot straight.

I occurred to Grady that he was doing much the same job as Harty had just carried out, though on a larger scale. He tried to cleanse his mind of the images of two human beings being so casually swatted away. He tried not to think what Geronimo Grady would look like after six hundred 12.7 mm rounds had done their worst to him. Then training and discipline took over, primed by a healthy dose of fear. Harty tapped him on the shoulder. "Engage," he said.

Fitzduane's Island – 0013 hours

Five Rangers out of the first stick designated to jump had survived the SAM-7 strike.

While Harty, Grady, and Roche, who was acting as a loader, concentrated on setting up the Milan missile position, the balance of the tiny force, Sergeants Quinlan and Hannigan, infiltrated through the terrorists' perimeter defenses and set up a strike position less than a hundred meters from the two heavy-machine-gun positions and well to one side of the Milan's projected line of flight.

The two men had sent he effect of a Milan strike on a number of occasions and had no desire to encounter an errant missile. They comforted themselves with the thought that not only was the Milan under Grady's hand devastatingly accurate, but it was so programmed that if, for example, Grady were hit and lost control, the missile would ground itself and self-destruct instantly. Or should.

It was Quinlan and Hannigan's job to do any required tidying up after the Milan had done its work – to kill any and all survivors and either or capture or destroy whatever 12.7s survived the initial attack. To achieve this goal, what they lacked in manpower they compensated for in weaponry.

The term heavy battle order meant just that. In the weapons canister attached to his leg by a cord when he jumped, each man had brought with him a Minimi machine gun equipped with Kite image intensifier telescopic sights, ammunition belts in special lightweight containers that could, if required, be clipped directly onto the weapons, spare barrels, reserve ammunition in clips – the Minimi could use either belts or the standard NATO clip found in the SA-80 – grenade launchers, 40 mm grenades, hand grenades, Claymore antipersonnel mines, automatic pistols, and fighting knives.

Heavy battle order looked impossible the first time you saw all the gear laid out on the ground, and it felt absolutely impossible the first time you knitted up, but the right candidate and training, training, and more bloody training, thought Quinlan, made all the difference. Now he regarded it as routine not only to be able to carry such a load but, if necessary, to move silently and swiftly and to fight while draped in it like a Christmas tree.

The most frustrating thing about infiltration, thought Hannigan, was having to bypass all those juicy targets in favor of one designated goal. Quinlan seemed to enjoy the actual business of evasion, but Hannigan always got frustrated at having to exercise such restraint. In this case he couldn't deny the logic of taking out the 12.7s first, but it hurt him particularly to have to remain impotent, with his marvelous collection of tools of destruction unused, while a pair of hostiles chatted in plain sight a couple of stone's throws away before one of them climbed into a strange-looking contraption, started up an engine, and lo and behold, but wasn't science wonderful, shot off into the sky suspended from a parachute – a device that, up to that moment, Hannigan had always suspected of being used solely for descending.

There was a double click in the radio earpiece built into his helmet. He forgot about flying parachutes, and the unsettling fact that the pilot seemed to have been wearing something unpleasantly like a Russian-made flamethrower, and concentrated on the heavy-machine-gun positions.

Grady was about to do his stuff.

Fitzduane's Island – 0013 hours

He knew he didn't have to fly the Powerchute himself, and he also knew that if he did, he could use it for the purpose for which he had originally included it: to fly to the mainland if things went wrong.

Nonetheless, he thought as he strapped himself in, it just felt right to do the job himself, to show all of them, friend and foe alike, that he was not just a thinker and a planner but a true Renaissance man – scholar and artist and man of action.

"Commander," said Sartawi, after he had checked Kadar's flamethrower and other weaponry – and after he had decided he'd shoot Kadar down if he showed the slightest sign of trying to desert the battle, "I wish you'd reconsider. You are too important to risk." Sartawi was also aware that only Kadar knew the details of how the hostage negotiations were to be conducted.

Kadar grinned. He felt no fear, though the danger was obvious. To risk one's own life was the ultimate sensual thrill. He felt powerful, indestructible.

"Sir," insisted Sartawi, "have you considered the risk from the Ranger aircraft circling above?"

"Sartawi," said Kadar, "I'm making the flight, and I want no more arguments. As for the Ranger aircraft, it is toothless. It has obviously expended all its ammunition or it would be participating in the battle. Now are you clear as to what we are doing?"

Sartawi nodded. "Yes, sir," he said. "The heavy machine guns will keep the top of the keep and designated apertures under fire until you are in position to strike. On your radio command – or as signaled by the first use of the flamethrower – the machine guns will cease fire and you will attack the top of the tower with the flamethrower. You will then land on the dugout and be joined by an assault team currently in position at the base of the tower. Using the flamethrower to clear the way, you will then sweep the tower floor by floor. Simultaneously we shall break though into the tunnel." He paused.

"The machine guns," prompted Kadar.

"Once the keep has been taken," continued Sartawi, "the heavy machine guns and all units now outside the castle will withdraw to within the castle. There, with the hostages captured, we shall negotiate as originally planned. The Rangers will have arrived too late."

"There you are," said Kadar, "a nice simple plan with a healthy risk-to-reward ratio – and our defenders further distracted by a little heat from the side once the great hall goes up in flames."

Sartawi looked blank. "It's a good plan I'm sure, sir. But risk-to-reward ratio? I'm afraid that I don't understand this term."