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."
"Quite," said Kadar unkindly. "Not to worry: you'll understand the result." He gunned his engine, and the backwash from the propeller behind his seat inflated the parachute. The craft rolled forward and was airborne in seconds.
Sartawi resisted the impulse to empty his Kalashnikov into the arrogant bastard. He didn't know what a hard time Ranger Sergeant Martin Hannigan was having resisting a similar impulse, but with Sartawi himself as the target.
* * * * *
The Keep of Fitzduane's Castle — 0023 hours
Fitzduane had passed the last of his SA-80 ammunition to Andreas, who seemed to have a talent with the weapon, and was now armed with his Browning 2000 self-loading shotgun, a Browning Hi-Power 9 mm automatic pistol, and his katana.
Score two out of three for John Browning, he thought. How many people had been killed with weapons designed by Browning? Was a weapons designer a war criminal or merely a technician whose designs were abused? Did it matter a fuck anyway?
His Browning shotgun was no longer its long rib-barreled, elegant self. Faced with the space restrictions of close-quarters combat within the castle confines, he had taken a hacksaw and, feeling like a vandal for desecrating such an integrated design, had sawed the barrel virtually in half. The muzzle now started only two fingers' width beyond the wood-encased tubular magazine that supported it. The resultant weapon looked crude and deadly, and loaded with XR-18 ammunition, it was still effective up to about fifty meters.
He ran through his defenses, trying to work out his strengths and weaknesses — and what the Hangman might do. His perimeter was now confined to the keep itself and the tunnel complex below. The rest of the castle was in enemy hands. The likely points of attack were the steel door into the tunnel, the door between the keep and the great hall, and the top of the keep itself. There was also the risk of penetration at any one of the narrow slit windows of the keep, although most would be a tight squeeze even for a very slim man. They could, however, be fired through by an attacker and therefore had to be either blocked up or guarded.