"Entry team — go!" said Kilmara into his microphone.
On the giant screen the six Rangers of the entry team could be seen sprinting across the two hundred meters of the perimeter. Each pair carried a single rubber-covered titanium alloy scaling ladder.
"...but in exchange for our providing a helicopter at first light to take you to the airport, you must agree to release the hostages before entering the helicopter," continued Brannigan. His face was creased with strain.
"Tina's moving," said Acoustic Surveillance.
"Can't see her," said cherry picker team leader.
"Where?" said Kilmara.
"Can't tell exactly," said Acoustic Surveillance. "The noise doesn't sound right. Hell, I think she's just kicking her leg against the banister. Wait! She's definitely moving now — down the stairs."
"Dieter still a clear shot," said cherry picker team leader.
"Du Arschloch!" shouted Dieter. "Do you think we're idiots? You'll agree to our terms immediately, or I will kill one of the children here and now. You understand, huh?"
Brannigan waited a few seconds before replying. His face was dripping sweat, and he looked ill. "Kretz," he said, "Kretz, for God's sake, hold it. Don't touch another hostage."
"I spit on your God," said Dieter. "You'll follow our terms exactly." He gave a thumbs-up sign to Tina and beckoned for her to come over and listen.
The entry team had made it across the floodlit section of the perimeter and was now crouched in the ten meters of shadowy darkness immediately surrounding the house. The men placed the three ladders outside the rear window of the master bedroom, and the first three Rangers started to climb. The balance of the unit hunkered down in firing position, ready to give covering fire.
"She's definitely going for the phone," said Acoustic Surveillance.
"We can see the edge of her shoulder," said cherry picker team leader. "Not enough for a shot."
The first three members of the entry team reached the top of the ladders and placed a large rectangle of explosive cord on the glass. At the press of a detonator, the focused explosive charges would cut through the glass, blowing any debris into the curtains.
"Entry team ready," said Burke.
"Shit, it's really starting to blow," said cherry picker team leader.
"Stand by, front team," ordered Kilmara.
"Front team ready," said the team leader. The three Rangers facing the front door had their grenade launchers pointed at the fanlight above the door. The grenades — a mixture of blast and stun — were aimed to explode just below the top of the stairs, creating a lethal wall between Tina and the hostages.
"Hostages still in the master bedroom in same positions," said Acoustic Surveillance.
"Very well, we agree," continued Brannigan. "The helicopter will arrive at precisely eight a.m.. You will have to wait till that time if it is able to reach us from its base. It does not have night-flying instrumentation."
"You Irish are so backward," sneered Dieter, grinning at Tina. She laughed.
"It's a German helicopter," said Brannigan inanely. It was clear he thought that he would be unable to sustain the conversation much longer. He signaled a hurry-up sign.
"We have Dieter in clear shot — and Tina's shoulder," said cherry picker team leader, "and we're steady for the moment."
"Cherry picker, fire!" ordered Kilmara.
* * * * *
The apple green bullet entered Dieter's head near the crown and exited through his upper teeth and thick black mustache. He swayed slightly, and blood gushed from his mouth. The telephone was still in his hand, and his eyes were open, but he was already dead.
The second sniper hit Tina in the upper right shoulder. The high-penetration round drilled straight through the bone, and the Skorpion dropped form her hand.
All the lights were cut.
Forty-millimeter grenades exploded on the stairs and in the front hall in a rolling series of eyeball-searing flashes. The front team switched to machine-gun fire and the three belt-fed Minimis poured 750 rounds into the confined space in fifteen seconds.
Simultaneously the entry team detonated the explosive cord, and with a sharp crack the thick glass of the double-glazed window dropped onto the bedroom floor.
The cherry picker team poured rifle fire through the skylight. After a couple of seconds, when the tough glass was adequately weakened, the sniper with the grenade launcher opened fire, his grenades punching straight through the remains of the skylight and exploding in the hall below.
Night-vision goggles in place, the entry team cut through the heavy curtains with razor-sharp fighting knives, and Rangers leaped into the darkened bedroom, covering the open doorway and spraying automatic rifle fire through it onto the landing. Then Lieutenant Burke moved forward and tossed V-40 hand grenades out onto the landing and into the hall below. Each grenade bust into 350 lethal fragments.
Meanwhile, the second three Rangers of the entry team clipped the top of an emergency escape chute to the window aperture and began sliding the four children to safety with the backup team on the ground below.
"We're in the bedroom," said Burke into the helmet microphone. "Hostages are alive and being removed now."
"Cherry picker and front teams, cease fire," said Kilmara. "Restore perimeter lighting. Entry team, secure house."
The second three Rangers of the entry team slid the last child down the chute. Burke was changing magazines and the remaining two Rangers were checking the bathroom when Tina crawled in.
No trace of the pretty young Italian girl remained. Her clothes and body were shredded. Her left cheek was gone, exposing the bone. Blood and matter streamed from dozens of wounds. Her right arm hung uselessly, and the fingers of its hand were missing. But she had the Skorpion in her left hand. Its muzzle wavered, and she fired.
Time seemed suspended. There was nothing the young Ranger lieutenant could do. There was a stab of flame and a huge blow over his heart. Burke spun around and collapsed against the wall.
The thing that had been Tina gave a gurgling cry, and the Skorpion dropped from her hand. She moved her fingers up to her throat and scrabbled uselessly at the knitting needle that emerged through it, then collapsed onto her back, her heels drumming against the floor in her agony of death.
Maura O'Farrell, her two hands clenched around the adhesive tape handle of the knitting needle, withdrew the makeshift blade and plunged it in again and again until a Ranger pulled her away.
* * * * *
They picked their way through the wreckage. It seemed inconceivable to Fitzduane that anyone could have survived the destruction in the hallway. There was scarcely a square centimeter of the floor, walls, and ceiling that was not scarred with shrapnel or pocked with the huge bullet holes of the modified Glaser rounds.
A Ranger technical team was meticulously photographing the scene with both video and still cameras. There was always something to be learned for the next time.
Dieter lay facedown. The pool of blood he lay in was sprinkled with fallen plaster and pieces of debris. His whole back was pitted with wounds from the salvo that had followed the initial fatal shot. Fitzduane bent down and examined first the right wrist, which bore a gold identity bracelet, and then the left, after removing a heavy gold wristwatch. The glass was intact, and the watch was still working. He dropped it on the body. "Nothing," he said to Kilmara.