Victor O'Reilly - Games of The Hangman

He switched off the main lights in the tunnel and brought his SA-80 up to the point of aim. A light-colored outline in his image intensifier marked the line of the cutting torch. The door was almost through. The tunnel defenders were about to find out if there was a grenade problem.

The severed door crashed forward onto the stone flags of the tunnel. The sudden noise was followed by absolute silence.

Beside Andreas, Sig Bengtquist licked his lips and tried to swallow. He had no night vision equipment, and all was threatening darkness. "Day and Night": he thought of Osman with a sense of terrible loss and sadness, and then anger and a resolute determination to hit back, to put a stop to this evil, gripped him.

The Milan Team Outside Fitzduane's Castle – 0023 hours

The pre-aim mark of the Ranger Milan was aligned with the protruding barrel of the first heavy-machine-gun position. The terrorist gun crew was hidden by the stacked rocks and improvised sandbags of the emplacement, but Grady could imagine the scene inside: the heat from the weapon as belt after belt of ammunition snaked its way through the receiver to be sundered into brass cartridge case, propellant, and projectile. The crew members would be concentrating on their comrades to secure them from any unexpected attack. They would be tired but exhilarated, infected by the power of the weapon they served. They would be young men with mothers and families and children and dreams, motivated to be here on this island far from their home for reasons Grady would never know or ever really want to know – what difference would it make?

He pressed the firing button, sending a signal to the junction box. From there a powerful current ignited the gas generator at the back of the missile, simultaneously launching the missile and blasting the now-useless launch tube away from the launcher. Once the rocket was free of the launcher, its motor cut in. The missile accelerated up to its maximum velocity of more than nine hundred meters per second, trailing its guidance wire behind it.

With the weight of twelve kilos of missile now free of the firing post, the pre-aim mark was no longer needed, and Grady concentrated on keeping the missile with the ‘80 mil’ circle at the center of the reticule sight on the target. The trick was, in fact, to concentrate on the target, not the missile, since the Milan's tracking computer monitored the missile's position by reading the infrared signals emitted by the missile's rocket motor and sending any fresh guidance instructions along the hair-thin guidance wire.

For the first four hundred meters the missile's flight path was normally erratic, but beyond that distance the missile would follow the instructions transmitted by the wire and could be flown with unjammable accuracy onto the target. In simple terms, where Grady pointed the eight-power sight on the firing post, the missile went. Grady was flying it the way a child flies a model airplane, only at a speed and with a precision and purpose that had little to do with any child.

The missile hit precisely as aimed. Designed for punching through the thick super strength metal skin of a main battle tank, the warhead achieved its purpose by a savage transfer of kinetic energy rather than conventional explosives. Massive shock waves spread through the rock emplacement, shattering it into lethal fragments and destroying men and weapon in a millisecond.

"Cut!" shouted Grady. His number two, Roche, the loader, activated the quick-release latch that held in position the now-defunct junction box and the other end of the fired missile's guidance wire. A new missile tube was clipped into position in a routine practiced a thousand times; a fresh junction box and guidance wire were connected with the Milan firing post's electronic brain.

Grady traversed to the second heavy-machine-gun emplacement, the tripod mechanism smooth and positive; it was checked automatically by a test 360-degree traverse each time the tripod was set up. Training, training, training, concentrating only on what had to be done: no other thoughts were in his mind.

He could see the second gun firing tracer toward the castle. He aligned the pre-aim mark. This time he could see into the emplacement. Someone was gesticulating. The 12.7 mm stopped firing.

He pressed the firing button. Again his vision was obscured for perhaps half a second while the smoke from the initial ignition dissipated. On still days the smoke could linger for over a second and a half, and an operator would have to steer blind for that time, relying only on skill and experience. Novices tended to try to jerk the missile back on target when it reappeared, but that never worked. You had to keep cool and work smoothly. The Milan liked to be caressed to a kill.

The gun was swiveling toward his position. The high magnification periscope sight of the Milan showed a gaping muzzle that now seemed to be pointed directly at him. He could see the flames as the heavy weapon fired. The rounds traveled faster than the missile and cracked supersonically over his head. He was unaware of the incoming fire.

He was thinking about that flaming muzzle pointed toward him made an excellent point of aim.

There was a small explosion where the muzzle had been, and the target was obscured. His mind simultaneously registered a 40 mm grenade strike, estimated that it was either Hannigan or Quinlan giving him cover fire, registered annoyance that his aiming point had been removed, suddenly understood that he had been with a split second of being killed – and guided the missile home through the smoke and debris of the grenade explosion to the target.

It was another direct hit. "Cut!" he shouted, and again the release mechanism was activated by Roche, the junction box and umbilical wire were released, and a fresh missile was clipped into place.

Quinlan and Hannigan raked the shattered remnants of the heavy-machine-gun positions with 44 mm grenade and machine-gun fire, cutting down the few survivors in seconds.

An intense firefight broke out all around the Rangers. The terrorists, realizing that they had been infiltrated, were trying to wipe out the threat. Automatic fire filled the air, and there was the flash and crack of exploding grenades, the whump of 40 mm projectiles, and the dreadful scything and slashing of Claymores. The highly trained Rangers, though outnumbered, had the advantages of surprise, night-vision telescopic sights, better weaponry, and full ammunition supplies.

Circling above them, Kilmara in the Optica, now able to fly much lower thanks to the elimination of the heavy machine guns, identified pockets of resistance. The IR-18's thermal imager cut through darkness and normal camouflage effortlessly. Body heat given off by exertion and the radiant heat from weaponry made the task easier still. Personal infrared IFF (Identification – Friend or Foe?) transmitters worn by the Rangers enabled him to filter out his own unit. The task was made administratively easier by a coupled computer unit that remembered the situation on the ground at a designated point in time and overlaid coordinates.

The moment the destruction of the Hangman's 12.7s had been confirmed, Kilmara had given the order for the remaining Ranger transport to go in and, this time, drop its cargo of six heavily laden and impatient Rangers within five hundred meters of the outer perimeter of combat. Within minutes the Ranger reinforcements were in action. Gunther now took over ground command.

It soon struck Gunther that hostile fire was slackening and had been lighter than expected ever since they landed. In the noise and fury and chaos of the firefight it took a few minutes for the significance of this to register, but when with three aimed three-round bursts of his SA-80 he had killed a small group of men with bayonets fixed to their AK-47s, he thought it worth investigating further. He checked the ammunition pouches on the corpses. All were empty. He checked the clips on the AK-47s. These were empty also.