sandbags and sending smoke and flames into the air and streams of liquid fire into the bawn below.
The powered parachute came into his line of vision again when it turned and prepared for a further attack. He could see the pilot in profile less than two hundred meters away. He fired again. This time the figure arched and its head sagged. The metal frame with its swamp boat propeller dipped but flew on and vanished into the darkness.
'Holy shit,' said Henssen in relief, 'but they're an all-singing, all-dancing outfit.' He turned toward Etan, who seemed to have sunk out of sight behind the sandbags. 'Good for you, Etan,' he said. 'If it hadn't been for you and your broom handle, we might have been barbequed.'
There was a low moan from behind the angle of the sandbags that concealed Etan. The bags were arranged in a double zigzagging line along the battlements to minimize the effects of exploding hand grenades or mortar bombs.
Henssen turned the angle.
Etan lay on her back, her hands gripping her right thigh. Blood, black in the darkness, welled through her fingers.
Outside Fitzduane's Castle – 2242 hours
Abu Rafa, commander of Malabar Unit -the unit responsible for the attack on the gatehouse – could scarcely contain his frustration. In his considered professional opinion, Kadar, who might be brilliant at planning terrorist incidents and kidnaps, was making a mess of a classic but straightforward infantry problem: the capture of a weakly held strongpoint by superior military forces.
The correct solution would have been to attack immediately on landing while the momentum of the initial assault was with them and when daylight would have allowed them to apply their superior firepower to full effect – and to hell with casualties, which wouldn’t have been heavy anyway in a sudden, forceful attack.
Bringing up the heavy machine guns, waiting until dark, and using such gadgetry as the Powerchutes and the tank-tractor struck Abu Rafa as a load of pretentious shit. Ironically it reminded him of the warnings of his onetime archenemy, he of the black eyepatch, General Moshe Dayan of Israel. Dayan had become disturbed at the tendency of the Israeli Army after the War of Independence to try for clever tactics instead of forcing home the attack – what he called the ‘Jewish solution.’ Most times, Dayan argued, what counted was less how you attacked than the spirit and force with which you did it; the intention should be to ‘exhaust the mission,’ to keep at it until you succeeded and not fuck around trying to be clever.
Abu Rafa thought that Dayan, may he rot in hell forever, was right, Allah knows. The accursed Israelis had proved it often enough – and unfortunately by combining the best of both approaches.
The Malabar commander's frustration was further exacerbated by the latest developments: the tank-tractor, whose attack should have coincided with the Powerchute assault, had broken down less than five hundred meters from the gatehouse. The fault wasn't serious and would mean only a fifteen-minute delay, but it occurred after the Powerchutes were beyond recall so the benefits of a combined strike had been lost.
The good news was that the defenders' volume of fire was very light and not accurate, except, it appeared, at close range – as the sapper had learned the hard way. Apart from him, there had been no casualties in Malabar. Seeing the weakness of the opposition and fed up with freezing in the chill night air, in what by Irish standards was a comparatively balmy evening, the commandos of Malabar were raring to go.
At first Abu Rafa thought it must be some trick of the light, and then it became clear that what he was seeing was really happening: the portcullis, that much more serious obstacle than the now-destroyed heavy oak gates, was rising. A sally by the defenders? Most unlikely. A trick? They wouldn't dare, given their inferior firepower. No, either they were surrendering or the incoming fire had affected the portcullis mechanism. Or maybe the Sacrificer was still alive and was working inside in their behalf.
Whatever the reason, it was visible proof of which side Allah was backing. Abu Rafa looked at his Russian radio and for a second debated getting Kadar's permission to attack – and then frustration won out.
'Malabar first section,' he shouted, 'follow me!' With a ferocity that General Dayan himself would have admired, he ran forward, firing from the hip, followed by the shouting, cheering me of the first section, automatic rifles blazing. They stormed through the gateway and were spreading to the left and right to secure the gatehouse and the battlements when Abu Rafa first had the thought that maybe Allah was hedging his bets.
The courtyard was suddenly illuminated by floodlights. Straight ahead of him on the battlements there were sandbagged emplacements. A burst of fire hit him in the chest, severing ribs and blowing apart his lungs. He saw three of his men disintegrate as a tongue of flame followed by a shattering roar burst forth from an opening in a pile of sandbags.
The last sound he heard before his body was shredded by the second concealed cannon at point-blank range was that of the portcullis slamming shut.
Fitzduane's Castle – 2250 hours
Eleven terrorists had gotten in – rather more than had been planned for – before the portcullis was dropped back into place. As a killing ground the bawn was ideal, and for the first few seconds surprise was total. Facing the terrorists were the two cannon manned by the Bear and de Guevain. Fitzduane, Judith Newman, and Henssen fired from the battlements. Noble and Andreas cut off the rear.
Seven terrorists died in the defenders' first hail of fire before the lights were shot out, and two more were caught by flechette rounds fired from a murder hole by Andreas as the scrabbled at the portcullis and called to their comrades outside.
The two surviving terrorists had gone in the same direction but were now on different levels. One had made it to the battlements about twenty meters from where Etan lay wounded and unconscious, the bleeding now stopped temporarily by a tourniquet that had been applied by Henssen. The other, immediately below, had made it to the cover of the outhouse – the one that had been used as a test target for the cannon – located almost immediately under his comrade's hiding place. He was using the windows and apertures to shoot from, and his short, professional bursts were disconcertingly well placed. The Bear and de Guevain were pinned down. They couldn't get around the front of the cannon to reload without exposing themselves to the crossfire from one of the two terrorist positions.
Andreas had released his loaded flechette rounds. The next 40 mm grenades in the Hawk were dual-purpose armor piercing. He checked the ammunition reserve. After he had fired the two in the weapon, he would have two armor-piercing left. Most of the ammunition supply consisted of the standard M406 HE (High Explosive), although there still remained some other specialized rounds for specific applications.
Fitzduane was on the battlements across from the terrorists. The sandbags were now working in the terrorists' favor. The infiltrator on the parapet was well concealed behind the zigzagging fortifications and was well positioned to sweep most of the bawn with fire. More seriously, if he could hold his position, he would be joined by reinforcements climbing up that section of the wall. It was beginning to look to Fitzduane as if his plan to whittle down the opposition in a killing ground might backfire.
Fitzduane spoke into the radio. 'Harry, what's that armored tractor of theirs up to?'
'It's halted about five hundred meters away.' Nobel peered through the night sight. 'There are a couple of people working on it, so I guess it broke down. Probably caused by all that weight. I wouldn't count on its staying that way for long. And by the way, we've only got four rounds of armor-piercing left.'
'Have you a shot at either of our visitors?'
'Without moving, negative. What us to give it a try?'
'No,' said Fitzduane. 'You and Andreas stay where you are and hold that gate. Use the SA-80 on single shot, and see if you can take out the guys working on the tank. We need to buy some time.' Fitzduane clicked the radio to another channel. 'Check in, Henssen.'
'Etan needs help,' answered Henssen. 'I'm okay.'
'You've got a hostile about twenty meters away, gatehouse direction,' said Fitzduane.
'I know,' said Henssen. 'I'm going to take him out.'
