The chopper was over the city by the time Hunter had figured out how to fire the grenade launcher. He had to guess at the fusing mechanisms, though. Twisting the timer on one grenade, he loaded one of the launcher’s twin tubes. Below them they could see soldiers running helter-skelter in the streets of Villefranche. The frigates had resumed shelling the city itself, hoping they’d get a lucky shot at the howitzers. These shells were causing much panic among the Iron Fist soldiers, clearly visible in their yellow designer uniforms. Fires from the Tornados’ bombing hours earlier were still burning unchecked. The noise and confusion were so intense no one noted the Sea King passing overhead.
Within seconds they were close behind the howitzers’ position. Hunter had a clear view of the big guns, lined up along a sea wall methodically pumping out shells towards the carrier. Heath slowed the chopper down and hovered about 100 yards away from the closest mobile gun.
“Hold her steady, captain,” Hunter yelled to the Englishman. He eye-sighted the grenade launcher and pulled the trigger. The launcher shuddered and belched a small cloud of black smoke that nearly asphyxiated Hunter.
Through red eyes, he followed the path of the grenade as it impacted on the turret of the first gun, blowing off a chunk of the tank-like body.
“Direct hit!” Heath yelled. “Good shot, Hunter old boy!”
Already Hunter was lining up a shot on the second big gun. But by now, the howitzer crew had spotted the chopper and were training their smaller mounted machine guns on Heath and Hunter. Plus some courageous antiaircraft gunners in the nearby town had started firing at the Sea King.
Despite a murderous barrage being fired at him, Hunter calmly loaded the launcher and line-sighted the second howitzer. He launched a second grenade. This one hit the rear of the mounted cannon, igniting its fuel supply. Within two seconds, the howitzer was engulfed in flames.
“Jesus, what a lucky shot!” Hunter yelled out.
“Should we try for three?” Heath yelled to him, straining to be heard over the noisy clatter of the chopper blades as well as the intense fire from below.
“No! Back off!” Hunter yelled to Heath, who needed no further prompting. The Britisher bolted the Sea King around and flew back over the city and out of range of any brave antiaircraft gunners.
“We won’t be able to surprise them like that a second time,” Heath told him as soon as they had cleared the area.
“We won’t have to,” Hunter said. He had sensed the approaching aircraft. It was two of the Tornados, returning to the action after refueling and rearming back on Majorca.
Heath was already on the radio, giving the Tornados the coordinates of the howitzers’ position. Hunter and the Englishman watched from a distance as the swing-wing fighters swooped in and took out the last howitzer with two well-placed antipersonnel bombs. Then the Tornados turned east and strafed the revived tank emplacements.
“Those boys have the situation under control,” Hunter called out to Heath. “Let’s head for the beach.”
The Englishman steered towards the SAS beachhead and soon the Sea King was down on the shore. Landing craft from the Norwegian frigates were busy ferrying SAS men off the beach, despite an occasional tank round landing in the sand or in the shallow water.
Hunter jumped out of the copter and quickly found the SAS beachmaster. He knew that if the SAS force had taken some casualties, the Sea King would be the fastest mode of transporting them to the medical unit on the command frigate. But the SAS casualties had been surprisingly light.
However, there were other “passengers” the SAS men wanted Hunter to evacuate …
“Right after we landed we moved into this small hotel near the highway road,” the SAS beachmaster, a Scotsman named Montgomery, told Hunter as the two men walked toward the three blocks of buildings the SAS had temporarily occupied. “We were using it as an observation post when we heard screams coming from the cellar. We found a bunch of, well, citizens down there.”
“Citizens?”
“Aye!” Montgomery said. “The Fist was using it as a jail or some such thing. Had these people under lock and key. Some were chained to their beds.”
Reaching the hotel, Montgomery led him to a room off the lobby. Hunter sensed there was something unusual about the liberated citizens. He was right. Inside sat twenty-four beautiful, if slightly disheveled, women. The women were too busy eating the K-rations the SAS men had given them to notice Hunter and Montgomery had walked in.
“Ladies of the night, they are … ” Montgomery explained. “They say they’ve been held hostage here by the Fist for better than two years. Been, should we say, ‘servicing’ them and the Faction soldiers all that time. Not getting a dime for it either.”
Beautiful women? Painted ladies? Revolutionary mistresses? Hunter thought.
“They’ve been a great help to us,” Montgomery continued. “Pointing out enemy positions and so on. Those bastards will kill them all if we leave them behind.”
One of the women, slightly older, yet no less beautiful, came up to Hunter and the beachmaster. Her name was Clara, Montgomery explained, and she was the House Madam.
“Can you take us with you?” Clara asked Hunter, her hand strategically resting on his chest. “The boys told us you are swiping that big ship out there. Well, swipe us too!’
Clara oozed sensuality. She, like the rest of her troop, was dressed in a 1960s-style miniskirt, low-cut blouse, dark stockings, and high heels. Despite her “ordeal,” she was in good shape, as it were. Very good shape …
“We’ll go anywhere, do anything, just to get out of here,” she said, with a well-practiced, innocent smile.
Hunter turned to Montgomery. “Who’s the senior man here?”
Montgomery, a field captain, shifted uneasily. “Well, sir,” he said, slowly. “The colonel took a bullet in the groin and he’s already been sea-lifted back to the ship. Our Sergeant-Major was killed by a tank shell. All that’s left are captains and a few lieutenants.
“I guess that makes you the senior man, suh!”
Hunter detected a slight smile on the Scot.
Why do these things always happen to me? Hunter had to ask himself.
Outside, the sporadic sounds of gunfire suddenly flared up. An artillery shell, fired from somewhere near the Faction T-62 emplacements a half mile away, crashed down on the street outside the hotel. One of the Tornados streaked low overhead, rattling the hotel from top to bottom.
“Sounds like things are heating up outside, major,” Montgomery said.
Hunter was still wrestling with the question of what the Recovery Force could possibly do with the twenty-four prostitutes when another tank shell landed right outside the hotel, shattering the few remaining intact windows in the place. A few cries came from the assembled ladies.
“Okay,” Hunter said, making his decision. “We’ll lift the girls out in the chopper. Captain, you’d better start withdrawing the last of your men.”
“Aye, aye, suh!” Montgomery said, flashing a smile and an authentic opened-palmed British salute.
Clara’s arms were around Hunter in a half-second. “Thank you, Major,” she cooed. “We are very … grateful.”
Ten minutes later, a very surprised Captain Heath was helping Hunter load the two dozen women onto the Sea King. The last of the SAS troopers were climbing aboard their landing crafts even as a new barrage of tank shells came crashing down on the beach. The rejuvenated attack was too little too late. The temporary SAS occupation was coming to an end, their mission successful.