Shaun Clarke - Heroes of the South Atlantic

SHAUN CLARKE

Published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by 22 Books/Bloomsbury Publishing plc 1993

Copyright © Bloomsbury Publishing plc 1993

Cover layout design © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2016

Cover photographs © Jim Gibson/Alamy (helicopter); Shutterstock.com (textures)

Shaun Clarke asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008154851

Ebook Edition © November 2015 ISBN: 9780008154868

Version: 2015-10-15

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright Published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF www.harpercollins.co.uk First published in Great Britain by 22 Books/Bloomsbury Publishing plc 1993 Copyright © Bloomsbury Publishing plc 1993 Cover layout design © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2016 Cover photographs © Jim Gibson/Alamy (helicopter); Shutterstock.com (textures) Shaun Clarke asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library. This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins. Source ISBN: 9780008154851 Ebook Edition © November 2015 ISBN: 9780008154868 Version: 2015-10-15

Prelude

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

OTHER TITLES IN THE SAS OPERATION SERIES

About the Publisher

Phil Ricketts was having another nightmare based on fact. He was reliving with dreadful clarity that moment the previous year when, in a shit-hole of a housing estate in Andersonstown, West Belfast, Lampton had made his mistake and copped it.

They had moved out at dawn for a carefully planned house assault after being informed by the ‘green slime’, the Intelligence Corps, that a couple of IRA men were being hidden in the estate and preparing to snipe at a British Army foot patrol. As Ricketts sat between his mates in the cramped rear of the armoured ‘pig’ taking them along the Falls Road, secure in his assault waistcoat, checking his Heckler & Koch MP5 and adjusting his gas mask, he glanced out the back and was reminded again of just how much he detested being in Northern Ireland. This wasn’t a real war with an enemy to respect, but rather, a dirty game of hide and seek, a demeaning police action, a bloody skirmish against faceless killers, mean-faced adolescents, hate-filled children and contemptuous housewives. Christ, Ricketts loathed it.

He was filled with this loathing as the pig took him through the mean streets of Belfast in dawn’s grey light – past terraced houses with doors and windows bricked up, pubs barricaded with concrete blocks, even off-licences and other shops protected by coils of barbed wire – but he managed to swallow his bile when the pig neared the estate and Sergeant Lampton, Ricketts’s best friend, started counting off the distance to the leap: ‘Two hundred metres…one hundred…fifty metres… Go! Go! Go! ’

The armoured vehicle screeched to a halt, its rear doors burst open, and the men leapt out one by one, carrying their weapons in the ‘Belfast cradle’, then raced across the debris-strewn lawns in front of the bleak rows of flats, still wreathed in the early-morning mist.

Such actions were so fast, they were over before you knew it. Ricketts raced ahead with Lampton, across the grass, into the block and along the litter-strewn walkway as someone shouted a warning – a child’s voice, loud and high-pitched – and a door slammed shut just above. Up a spiral of steps, along a covered balcony, boots clattering on the concrete, making a hell of a racket, then Lampton was at the door in front of Ricketts, taking aim with the Remington 870 pump-action shotgun. The noise was ear-splitting, echoing under the walkway’s low roof, as the wood around the Yale lock exploded and the door was kicked open. Lampton dropped to his knees, lowering the shotgun, taking aim with his 9 mm Browning handgun as Ricketts rushed into the room, his Heckler at the ready, bawling for the bastards to surrender even as he hurled in a stun grenade.

The grenade exploded, cracking the walls and ceiling, but when its flash had faded away an empty room was revealed. Cursing, Ricketts and the others explored the whole flat, tearing down the curtains, kicking over tables and chairs, ensuring that no one was hiding anywhere, then covering each other as they backed out again, swearing in frustration.

‘Let’s try the flats next door!’ ‘Gumboot’ Gillis bawled, his voice distorted eerily by the gas mask. ‘The fuckers on either side!’

But before they could do so other doors opened and housewives stepped out, still wearing their nightdresses, curlers in their hair, swearing just like the SAS men and bending over to drum metal bin lids on the brick walls and concrete floor of the walkway. The noise was deafening, growing louder every second, as more women emerged to do the same, followed by children. Their shrieked obscenities added dramatically to the bedlam until, as Ricketts knew would eventually happen, the first bottle was thrown.

‘Whores!’ Gumboot exclaimed when the bottle shattered near his feet. ‘And mind those little cunts with ’em!’

‘Damn!’ Lampton said, glancing up and down the walkway, then over the concrete wall, the shotgun in one hand, the Browning in the other, but briefly forgetting all he had been taught and failing to watch his own back. ‘Let’s get the hell out of here.’

That was his first and last mistake.

A ragged, gaunt-faced adolescent had followed them up the stairs and now emerged from the stairwell with his pistol aimed right at Lampton. He fired three times, in rapid succession, and Lampton was thrown back, bouncing against the concrete wall, as the kid disappeared again. Lampton dropped both his weapons and quivered epileptically, blood bursting from his gas mask, and was falling as Ricketts raced to the stairs, bawling, ‘Christ! Pick him up and let’s go!’ He chased after the assassin, bottles bursting around him, the drumming bin lids and shrieked obscenities resounding insanely in his head as he plunged into the dangerous darkness of the stairwell without thinking. Then…