A green light began flashing on the overhead.
'Go! Go! Go!' the jumpmaster shouted, and Hawke and Stoke bolted to the edge of the ramp and hurled themselves out into the night air. The SAS troops rapidly moved out onto the ramp and, just seconds after Alex and Stokely jumped, followed.
Stoke pulled his rip cord immediately, waiting for the sensation of the chute slipping out of his backpack and separating. A second later, he was yanked skyward by his harness, always a nice, cozy feeling.
He looked down between his boots. There was patchy fog, but he saw the roof and identified the LZ where he was supposed to land. It was a large area of flat roof surrounded by four chimneys. He tugged on his guidelines a bit, lining up for it, and saw that Alex Hawke, who'd been just in front of him, was flaring up for a landing.
Damn!
There was an X-ray with an AK-47 standing guard on the roof not fifty feet beneath Hawke's feet. Had Hawke seen him too?
The guard was gazing out to the Grampian Mountains, daydreaming or something. Luckily, he was facing away from Hawke. And Stoke. But at the last second something caught the man's eye. The whole sky above the castle was filled with parachutes. He spun around bringing his weapon up.
Hawke, to Stoke's great relief, had already pulled his silenced SIG pistol. He was still about forty feet above the rooftop and swinging under his canopy. Hawke managed to acquire his target and take the man out with a single head shot before he could kill any paratroopers. Moments later, Hawke's boots hit the roof. When Stoke dropped in, Alex was already gathering his chute and moving away, clearing the LZ for the new arrivals who were landing all around them.
Minutes later, Stoke and the assault team were happily standing on the roof of Balmoral Castle. No one was hurt, no one was shooting at them, no one had a clue. Hawke called for a head count. After every man on the roof had sounded off, he pulled down the lip mike inside his helmet and said to the Chinook pilot, 'Rattler One, Rattler One, this is Warlord. Twenty-eight out and twenty-eight down, safe and sound, roger?'
'Roger that, Warlord. Pretty good shot from a swinging harness, by the way.'
'Got lucky. We're going in.'
'Uh, roger, Warlord, this is Rattler One, we acknowledge, sir. We will remain at zero-two-thousand until LZ is completely clear, then set the bird down and await any wounded Yankees for emergency med evac. We'll keep her spooled up for a quick exfil, don't worry. Rattler One, standing by, over. Godspeed, Warlord.'
'Roger, Rattler One, over,' Hawke said into his lip mike, moving quickly across the tar-papered rooftop toward a weathered wooden door set between two chimneys. He remembered this door from his childhood. It was never locked then, it was not locked now. 'How'd you know about this door?' Stoke asked.
'I spent half my boyhood playing cowboys and Indians in this house. I know every square inch of it.'
'Go, go, go!' Hawke said to the SAS commandos and they didn't need further encouragement.
THEY MADE THEIR WAY DOWN the steps leading to the attic. Hawke had never truly appreciated night-vision goggles until this very moment. The team was snaking silently through the dark attic rooms, a powerful, lethal force that he truly believed could overcome any conceivable obstacle.
Hawke led them to the staircase leading to the top floor of the castle. He raised his palm for a halt, pulled the door open, stepped outside, and did a quick recon of the long corridor. As he remembered, this floor was primarily devoted to storage, laundry, pressing, and staff quarters.
'Clear,' he said, returning, snapping a glow stick and tossing it. The team swiftly moved down the long corridor to the next staircase. When he reached the bottom stair and an open door, he was about to step out into the hallway when he saw the guard sitting at the top of the next staircase, his AK-47 across his lap, smoking a cigarette and gazing off into space.
Hawke stepped back and whispered, 'Guard. Mine.'
The pale green carpeting underfoot was very deep, and Hawke approached the man with great stealth. He had his pistol out should the man spot him, but he much preferred to use the assault knife carried in his other hand. He got behind him without incident, reached down and clamped his hand over the man's mouth, yanked his head back to expose the throat beneath the beard, and slit it from ear to ear.
He turned and saw Stoke's face back at the door and motioned for the team to follow him. They reached the ground floor without further inconvenience, pausing halfway down the stairway and listening for noise of any kind. Only a silence resounded from the grand old rooms he'd loved to explore as a boy.
The SAS lads did a full sweep of the entire floor. Clear. The hostages were being held down in the cellar, just as Hawke had surmised upon seeing the queen's BBC video. The low, curved, white-plastered ceiling, the dim, naked bulbs above her head, even the white-painted brick wall behind the Sword of Allah banner.
He was quite sure the terrorists, with their limited knowledge of the castle interior, would have used the main stairs to the cellar. But there was another staircase, one very few people even knew existed, a very narrow, steep, and seldom-used staircase. The door to it was hidden behind a Chinese screen in the butler's pantry. These stairs were reserved solely for the yeoman of the cellar to ferry wine up from the Queen's wine cellar. And, luckily enough, it was at the exact opposite end of the house from the main stairs.
Hawke had spent a good deal of time hiding in that wine cellar. A good deal of time hiding in every nook and cranny in the entire house. And there was a way one could pass from the wine cellar out into the main rooms of the cellar. Which meant they might get very lucky and have the element of surprise.
Hawke signaled the team to follow him and went left. They were headed for the kitchen and from there to the butler's pantry and the secret staircase. Hawke paused at the kitchen door. There was someone in there, he heard china rattling. He halted the squad and pushed through the swinging doors with the muzzle of his HK leading the way.
'Higgins,' Hawke said quietly.
'I recognize that voice,' the man said. The elderly fellow turned with a smile on his face. 'My goodness, your lordship, how long it's been.'
'Yes. We'll talk later, Higgins. We've come to rescue the hostages. You know where they are, of course?'
'Oh, yes, m'lord. They're all down in the cellar. I've been charged with keeping them fed. I'm up and down stairs from morning till midnight. Awful down there. I've been in service to Her Majesty for my entire life. She has never treated me with anything but respect and kindness. And I tell you it's frightful, sir, disgraceful the way those men are treating our Monarch.'
'Hold on a tick, Higgins, I'll be right back.'
Hawke went back through the doors.
'Stoke, we just got lucky. Member of the household staff in there. Knows exactly where they're keeping the Yankees. Let's go get these bastards.'
Returning to the kitchen and seeing Higgins again gave Hawke an idea.
'Higgins, we need a piece of paper and a pen, pencil, anything. I want you to make a drawing of the section of the cellar where the hostages are being held. I want you to use an RF to indicate precisely where each member of the Royal Family is located. Use an O for a hostage and an X for a terrorist. Try to place them all exactly where they were the last time you saw them.'
'Yes, m'lord,' Higgins said, pulling out a drawer with a legal pad and a box of ballpoints. As he sketched, Hawke peppered him with questions. Were the hostages bound in any way? Had any member of the Royal Family been harmed? Exactly how many terrorists was he dealing with? Were any of them wearing suicide vests?
'Here you are, your lordship, best I can do, no artist I'm afraid.'
'It's perfect. I recognize this space. It's the very large area filled entirely with furniture. The one with little alcoves along the south wall. The big room near the main staircase, correct? All the way at the other end of the house?'
'That's the one all right, sir,' Higgins said, eyeing the SAS troops. 'This lot looks like they can take care of themselves.'
'It's Her Royal Majesty these men want to take care of, Higgins. The Royal Family and all those other poor innocent people down there. What's the Queen's favorite cocktail, Higgins? Gin and something as I recall…'
'Gin and Dubonnet, sir, all she ever drinks.'
'I'd have one ready for her, Higgins. I think she'll be most appreciative.'
'I will indeed, sir. Jolly good idea.'
'Any more dead or wounded?'
