He fought the drug. He knew he'd never experience anything like these last few minutes again. The firefight had been more intense, more savage, and more brutal than he had ever imagined. The saving grace was that it had been brief. The carnage in the tunnel had been over in a few terrible minutes, and now the floor and the walls and even the ceiling were streaked with blood and human matter, and shattered bodies littered the ground.
The stench was that of a slaughterhouse.
He remembered the door crashing onto the flagstones after the terrorists had cut through it. It was pitch-dark. The sound had reverberated in his ears for what seemed an eternity, and he had become convinced that under its cover the terrorists were advancing, that even as he cowered in fear, they were only seconds away, the blades of their fighting knives and bayonets ready to cut and slash at his body.
Sit had a horror of knives. Clammy sweat poured off him as he crouched blind and helpless.
"A soldier has three enemies," Fitzduane had said. "Boredom, imagination and the enemy. Lucky you — you won't have time to be bored. That leaves two: your imagination and the terrorists. Of the two, you'll find your own mind by far the more dangerous, so watch it. A little fear gets the adrenaline going and gives you a fighting edge; that's fine. Too much fear, on the other hand, paralyzes you like a rabbit caught in a car's headlights. That, my friends, gets you — and the comrades who depend on you — killed."
He had smiled reassuringly: "The solution to excessive fear is to keep your mind busy with what has to be done and not what might happen. Think like a professional with a problem to solve and not some kid with his head under the bed sheets. Remember, chances are that there isn't anyone under the bed, but if there is, blow the motherfucker away." He had paused a beat. "This isn't a lecture from the textbooks. I've been there. Believe me, I know."
Think like a professional! Think like a professional! The instruction ran through Sig's mind like a mantra, blocking out the terror that had so nearly overwhelmed him and giving him something very specific to focus on.
He could hear footsteps moving toward him and make out the faint glow of a shielded flashlight. This wasn't his imagination. They were coming, and they seemed to think that they had found an undefended way into the keep; otherwise there would have been gunfire and grenades and certainly no flashlight. They believe we would have fired by now if defenders were in place, he thought. He heard voices speaking in whispers, and the intonations suggested relief. "Jesus Christ," he said to himself, "they really do think they have made it."
* * * * *
Andreas watched them in his image intensifier as they came through the door. First came a pair of scouts obviously primed for trouble — but with no grenades. And their bayonets were fixed. Could they be short of ammunition as well, or what this their routine when mounting a close assault? Had they fixed bayonets when they closed in on the gatehouse? He thought not, but he couldn't be sure.
The first scout checked out the dummy emplacements and found no one. They had been arranged to look as if they had been abandoned uncompleted, as if it had been decided not to defend the tunnel. The ruse seemed to be working. The first scout signaled his partner, who in turn signaled back through the doorway. Reinforcements started slipping through. They came fast and then crouched on either side of the tunnel ready for the next phase of the assault. Andreas could still see no grenades. Of course, they could have them in ammunition pouches or fatigue pockets, but still, there would normally be some in evidence in this kind of attack. Could the defenders be having some luck for a change? They were going to need it. Eighteen terrorists were now in the tunnel — that seemed to be the entire strength of the assault group — and the scouts were preparing to move forward yet again.
Andreas tapped Judith on the arm. She silently counted to five, giving him time to line up his SA-80 again. The first scout was only a few paces away. He was now beyond the killing ground of the Claymore.
Judith fired the remote switch linked to the Claymore, and seven hundred steel balls were blasted by the directional mine down the tunnel into the advancing terrorists. Floodlights positioned to leave the defenders in darkness flashed on, revealing bloody carnage.
Andreas shot the first terrorist scout through the torso and put a second round through his head. The five surviving terrorists rushed forward, guns blazing, knowing that speed and firepower were now their only defense. There was nowhere for them to hide and no time to flee.
* * * * *
Sig saw a bayonet slide toward his face and parried it with a desperate swing of his Uzi. Another AK-47 turned toward him, and he saw the muzzle flash and felt a savage blow on his shoulder. He raised the Uzi by the pistol grip and emptied half a magazine into the desperate face in front of him.
Andreas was on the ground, locked in hand-to-hand combat with a terrorist. Judith seized the attacker by the hair, pulled back his head, and cut his throat.
A fighting knife slashed at Sig's thigh, and then the hand wielding the knife was gripped by one of the student volunteers — it was Kagochev, the Russian — and the two went rolling over the sandbags into the bloodstained killing ground. Kagochev was thrown against the wall. As the attacker was about to finish him, an arrow sprouted from the terrorist's chest, and slowly he slid backward. A second arrow hit him as he was falling.
Another terrorist leaped at de Guevain as he was drawing his bow for the third time, and the Frenchman fired at point-blank range, sending the arrow right through the attacker's body to pin him against a storeroom door.
Andreas had the SA-80 in his hands again and was firing aimed shots. As if in slow motion, Sig swathe brass cartridge cases sail through the air to bounce off the wall or the ground. Andreas was moving in a fighting frenzy, shooting every terrorist he could see whether living or dead. And then his magazine was empty. He ejected it and slapped a fresh one in place. He worked the bolt and fired, and the click of firing pin on empty chamber in the tunnel was like a slap in the face. Andreas stopped and shook his head and looked around.
He and Sig looked at each other and knew the attack was over. There was silence in the tunnel but for the sound of heavy breathing.
Shortly afterward there was a warning shout and a quick exchange of identification, and the first of the Rangers appeared through the door they had been defending.
"Doesn't look as if you really needed us," he said.
Andreas smiled tiredly. "Maybe not," he said, "but it's very good to have you here. I don't think there was much more left in us."
The Ranger glanced around. "There was enough," he said thoughtfully. "There was enough."
* * * * *
Above Duncleeve — The Keep of Fitzduane's Castle
The infrared heat emissions generated by Kadar's Powerchute would have been picked up by Kilmara's IR-18 scanner in the Optica if he hadn't been so tightly focused on the heavy-machine-gun installations and the infiltrating Rangers. Kadar's second bit of luck was that the Rangers on the ground who did see him take off were keeping radio silence until the Milan opened fire — and at that stage they had other things on their minds.