silenced Heckler and Koch MP5 submachine gun stuttered briefly and then stopped. Thirty rounds tore paint and wood off the barricade and slammed into the five Afrikaners. They toppled over, dead before they hit the street and sidewalk.
Kruger was already out of the Land Rover, sprinting forward to open the barricade. Other men jumped down out of the lead truck and began hauling bodies into the flower gardens surrounding the checkpoint. In seconds, only a few blood stains were left on the road-drying fast in the hot sun.
“Do we post any guards here?” The South African kommandant hopped back into the vehicle.
“No.” O’Connell pulled the partially used clip out of his pistol and snapped another home.
“They’d never make it out with the rest of us. We go in together.”
He leaned forward and tapped their driver on the shoulder.
“Okay, let’s get this done.”
They roared up the road toward the red-roofed Union Buildings.
None of their briefings or maps had done much to convey the sheer size of the complex. With its three- story-high, semicircular colonnade added in, the whole massive pile of rock and marble stretched more than seven hundred and fifty feet on its long side. Clearing the internal maze of offices and corridors would have required a full battalion of commandos-not just ninety men. Fortunately, the Allied raiding party had been given both a more limited objective and very detailed information.
O’Connell hopped out of the Land Rover while it was still slowing and ran up the steps leading to the building’s east wing entrance. Kruger and
Nowak followed, weapons out and ready. The rest of their troops were scrambling down out of their trucks and jeeps as they pulled up. From here on, speed was life.
Breathing heavily, O’Connell reached the top of the steps and kept on going-heading for a pair of wood-and- glass double doors behind a wide portico. He drew his pistol as he ran. Booted feet clattered up the steps behind him.
A Brandwag officer wearing major’s insignia and carrying a clipboard pushed through one of the doors, still talking to someone inside. He looked up in astonishment.
“What in God’sO’Connell shot him twice and jumped over the body. The door slammed shut in his face and he bounced off it with a sore shoulder. Sergeant Nowak reached the entrance in the next second and rammed into it with teeth-rattling force. The big man stepped back, shaking off the impact Three close-spaced shots fired from inside threw the Ranger noncom back in a spray of blood and shattered bone. Pieces of broken glass and splintered wood cascaded across O’Connell.
“Back!
He threw himself to one side as Kruger opened fire systematically emptying his assault rifle’s magazine in a long, tearing burst through both doors.
Agonized screams rose above the gunfire and then faded.
O’Connell, Kruger, and half a dozen Rangers and SAS troopers shoved the broken, bullet-riddled doors open and poured through into a marble-floored entrance hall. Several bodies sprawled in an untidy heap right behind the doorsBrandwag and Army guards who’d been caught by the
South African kommandant’s burst. More men flooded in from outside.
O’Connell caught a glimpse of movement down a side corridor and whirled around. One of the Brandwag sentries was still very much alive. The man was inside an antique telephone cabinet-the kind with wood-paneled walls and a light that came on whenever the soundproofed sliding door was closed. The light was on now, and O’Connell could see the Afrikaner yelling energetically into a phone.
Without time for conscious thought, the Ranger colonel brought his pistol up, aimed, and fired. The glass door shattered and the brown shirt fell against the wall-mounted telephone before sliding down to the floor. The receiver itself fell out of the dead man’s hand and swung back and forth in a slowly diminishing arc.
Damn. So much for surprise.
MAIN GUARDROOM, OUTSIDE THE STATE SECURITY COUNCIL CHAMBER
The Brandwag captain plucked the phone away from his ear. An expression of disgust warred with one of puzzled concern and won.
“Idiot.”
“Something wrong?” His closest subordinate looked up from the newspaper he was reading.
“I doubt it.” The captain shrugged.
“Well, maybe.” He chewed his lower lip for several seconds.
“One of the morons upstairs said there were intruders in the building. Then he hung up before I could ask him anything! And now they’re not even bothering to answer their blery phone.”
“Should we tell the President?”
The captain snorted.
“Are you crazy, man? Interrupt a war briefing just because some door guard might be spooked by the sight of a kaffir janitor?” He waved a hand at their magazines, water cooler, and upholstered furniture.
“Maybe you want to go fight Cubans, but I know a plush assignment when see one.
“I-et’s find out what is going on before we look like fools. Take Jaap and Dirk. It’ll do them some good to get off their fat behinds for a change. You go, too, and don’t take all day doing it.”
His subordinate chuckled and rose to his feet, buckling on a pistol holster over a slight paunch. He was getting a little bit heavyset. Maybe they’d take the stairs for a change….
QUANTUM STRIKE FORCE
Pryce! I I
O’Connell’s British XO stopped beside him.
“Here, Colonel. “
“They know we’re coming. Put eight men on the door here. The rest with me!”
The SAS captain nodded and whirled away, shouting for two of his sergeants.
“Jenkins! McRae!”
O’Connell paused long enough to holster his silenced pistol and unsling the R4 dangling from his shoulder. Firepower was more important than stealth now. He ran down the hall, heading for the staircase marked on Coetzee’s hand-sketched map. Rangers and SAS men followed on the double.
Behind him, squads and fire teams peeled off as they ran past connecting corridors and other staircases- setting up blocking positions to bottle up the Afrikaner bureaucrats and security guards in this wing. By the time he reached the right set of stairs going down, he had twenty men left.
O’Connell skidded to a stop on the marble floor.
“Grenade. “
Kruger passed him a fragmentation grenade from one of the SAS troopers.
Automatic rifle fire echoed down the hall from behind them. The
Afrikaners were starting to wake up.
He took a quick look down the stairs. Not good. About fifteen stairs down to a landing and a sharp bend to the right. Terrific. A blind corner.
O’Connell took a quick, deep breath, let it out, and started down the stairs slowly, moving one step at a time. He stayed close to the right wall. Two men dropped prone at the top of the staircase, ready to nail anybody coming around the bend.
Sweat trickled into his eyes despite the cooler air inside. Every sense he had seemed fine-tuned beyond normal human perception. He could hear every man behind him breathing heavily. He could see the tiniest strands of color running through the marble stairs ahead. He could even smell the coppery scent of the blood he’d tracked through back at the doors. Some inner core of dry humor and common sense told him that maybe he should have let one of the others go first.
Voices drifted up the stairwell from around the bend. Christ! O’Connell froze where he was and yanked the pin out of the grenade…. The Brandwag lieutenant stopped at the bottom of the stairs. What was that sound echoing down from upstairs. Gunfire? A prolonged rattling burst from somewhere above them transformed uncertainty to certainty. He turned to yell a warning back to the guardroom.
Something clattered and bounced down the stairs, rolling
right under his feet. The overweight Afrikaner looked down just as the grenade exploded.
