Rules of the Hunt (4 page)
Still, they
hadn't vanished into the
had at first feared.
He thanked the
Great God of Special Forces they weren't keeping full radio silence, as would
have been the case on a real operation.
After more than thirty years of the military, he had never gotten used
to losing men.
The
him.
He had acknowledged briefly and
caustically and was then able to meditate, with rather more equanimity, on the
matter of the dead sheep.
The sun was
well up when Kilmara suspended the exercise and they
laid
up and prepared food.
It was only then
that one of the Delta team mentioned the civilian helicopter he had seen land
on the north side of the island.
He had
assumed it was connected with some local inhabitant, and, since it was away
from the exercise area, he brought the subject up only in passing.
Kilmara knew
the topography and the context.
"A
forced landing?" he said hopefully, a mug of tea in his hand.
"Maybe,"
said Lonsdale, the Texan, who as a reflex had examined the helicopter briefly
with his night-vision binoculars.
He sounded
unconvinced.
There had been no smoke or
erratic maneuvering.
The flying had been
purposeful, skilled.
"It came
in low and fast."
He thought
again.
"It was a civilian bird, but
it was more like he was heading for a hot landing.
Probably an army hotshot
reliving his past."
Kilmara sipped
his tea without tasting it.
"What
then?" he said.
"Three
guys got out.
They were dressed in
vacation gear, you know, hats with flies and those sleeveless jackets with lots
of pockets.
They had fishing poles with
them.
They seemed to know where they were
going.
They headed toward Duncleeve,
your friend's place.
I guess they fucked
up on their navigation and landed a little short.
They wouldn’t have been able to see the
castle from that height with the hills in the way."
"Fishing
poles?" said Kilmara.
"I guess
they call them rods over here," said Lonsdale.
"They had them in those long bags you
use when you're traveling.
You know,
kind of like a gun c—
"
It
hit him.
"Oh,
shit!"
Kilmara's
unfinished tea cut a glistening swath through the air as he flung the mug to
one side.
"It's
not
the fishing season," he
snarled.
His command echoed through the
clearing.
"RANGERS, MOUNT UP!
THIS IS NO DRILL!"
They were at
the wrong end of the island.
*
*
*
*
*
It had been
Fitzduane's practice to ride the length of the island along the cliffs of the
southern coastline and past
This pleasant
routine had lost something of its attraction one morning when he had found
young
neck hanging from a tree.
And it was
that hanging that had brought him into the world of counterterrorism.
It was a world that had no exit.
That particular incident had ended with the
destruction of the terrorist known as the Hangman, but the dead terrorist had
been the linchpin of a worldwide network, and revenge by one of the surviving
terrorist groups was no small possibility.
The memories
of that incident and its consequences lingered on all too well without the
added stimulus of the sight of the hanging tree.
Also, Boots had a three-year-old's attention
span.
He liked shorter rides, more variety,
and to finish up at the waterfall.
The cascading
water at Battleford entertained him and distracted him sufficiently for
Fitzduane to be able to enjoy his surroundings without having to answer a
question every thirty seconds.
Boots
liked to splash and float sticks and throw stones into the water.
The stream was shallow there and relatively
safe.
That day, with
Boots secure between his arms on a special seat on the saddle in front of him,
Fitzduane first headed west toward Draker, as had been his old routine, but
then turned inland, past a section of particularly treacherous bog, and veered
north across the track that ended with Draker Castle and on toward the hills
that guarded the northern coastline.
Fitzduane
loved the feeling of the young body next to his.
Boots's curiosity and sense of fun were
contagious.
His excitement and
enthusiasm were total.
From time to time,
unconsciously, Fitzduane would pull Boots to him and caress the top of his head
with his lips or stroke his cheek.
He
knew that this was a special age and a special closeness, and that this time
would pass all too soon.
The center of
the island was relatively flat by the standards of the terrain, and here, just
north of the track, Fitzduane and Boots found a neat row of dead sheep.
A note written on milspec paper was wired to
a stick and fluttering in the wind.
It read:
"
find these sheep before I have had a chance to hide them, I can explain
everything!
See you for dinner this
evening."
It was signed, "
Fitzduane
smiled.
Kilmara tended toward the
incorrigible.
It was a miracle he was
making general, given the number of enemies he had made, but occasionally
talent will out.
He was curious
about how Kilmara's exercise would work out.
He had high hopes for the Guntrack concept, small light fast vehicles
festooned with weaponry and capable of outrunning and destroying a tank, and
costing a fraction of the amount.
There was
evidence of several of the tracked vehicles around.
The tracks seemed to have sprung out of
nowhere and then headed north.
He
followed them, and behind a clump of rocks found the drop pallets and Kevlar
restraining straps under a camouflage net.
The tracks then headed in different directions.
Well, he would find out the details that
evening.
Boots was
enjoying himself playing with the camouflage net and jumping from pallet to
pallet.
Fitzduane dismounted and let
Pooka, their horse, nibble.
Boots soon
worked out a game whereby he would throw himself off a pallet and Fitzduane
would have to catch him.
Boots jumped fearlessly, utterly confident that his father would
keep him from harm.
Boots suddenly
screwed up his face, so Fitzduane pulled down the little boy's pants and let
him pee away from the wind.
The exercise
was a success.
They mounted up and
headed due east, parallel more or less with the hills, and toward Battleford.
*
*
*
*
*
The watcher
saw them first.
He took no action.
His main concern was guarding their rear and
their escape route.
It was all clear.
Below him, the
spotter picked them up as they emerged around the base of a foothill and headed
toward the waterfall.
He spoke to the
sniper.
The rifleman
adjusted his point of aim in response to this information.
Seconds later,
rider and son on horseback entered the limited field of vision of his
telescopic sight.
*
*
*
*
*
Kilmara had
often noticed there was a natural temptation to consider the movement in itself
a positive result.
In his opinion, this
tendency had bedeviled maneuver warfare since
But Kilmara
was an old hand.
He went for the high
ground — a protruding foothill — and there positioned
himself
on a reverse slope.
He then spoke into
his headset microphone, and a telescopic mast began to extend from the back of
the Guntrack.
It stopped when it was
just over the brow of the hill.
A higher
slope behind them meant nothing was silhouetted against the skyline.
Kilmara could
now view most of the low-lying terrain as far as Duncleeve and beyond.
There was some dead ground due to natural
variations in the fall of the land and there were hills on the north side of
the island — to his left from where he was positioned — but it was the best he
could do in the time available, and Kilmara rarely worried about the
theoretical optimum.
He wasn't an
idealist; he was a pragmatist.
He had
learned over more than three decades that the profession of arms was a practical
business.
Mounted on the
extended mast was a
looking infrared observation
unit.
This operated like a variable,
very-high-magnification telescope, but with the added advantage of a wider
angle of vision linked with the ability to see through mist and rain and smoke
and darkness.
The image was transmitted
to a high-resolution television screen which was built into the console in
front of him.
Methodically,
he began an area search, operating the
Concurrently, he had ordered the other two Guntracks forward.
One was following the line of the
foothills.
The other was advancing
toward Duncleeve at high speed on the track that ran the length of the island.
Behind
Kilmara, in the heavy-weapons gun position, a Ranger tried to link up with Duncleeve
by radio.
His satellite communications module
was capable of bouncing a signal off a satellite orbiting in space and reaching
around the world through a network of relay stations, but it could not get
through to Duncleeve about three miles away.
The satellite was connected to Ranger headquarters in
the Irish telephone system.
This was one
link too far.
Fitzduane's local
telephone exchange was old and tired and low on the priority list for
modernization.
Some days it just seemed
to need to rest up.
And this was one of
those days.
himself
for not
reporting the helicopter sooner, despite the fact that the Colonel, when he had
cooled down, had said there was no reason he could have known its significance.
The Colonel was right, but that didn't make
him feel any better.
He had a strong
sense of unit pride, and the U.S. Army's elite Delta Force was his world.
He felt he had been shown up in front of the
Irish, and he was determined to redeem himself.
The Irish were
good — damn good, in fact — but nobody could touch the best of the best, and in
Lonsdale's opinion that designation went to Delta.
Beside him was a heavy piece of milspec green
metal topped by a telescopic sight.
The
awesome-looking weapon looked oversize and brutal when placed beside a
conventional sniper's piece.
It was the
newly developed
semiautomatic rifle.
Each round was the
size of a large cigar and could throw a 650-grain bullet over three and a half
miles.
That was the theoretical
range.
On a practical basis, given the
limitations of the ten-power telescopic sight and human eyesight, the maximum
in the hands of an absolute master was about one third of this, or 2,000 yards.
The longest combat shot that Lonsdale had
ever heard of was around 1,800 yards.
Hits in excess
of 1,000 yards from even the best of sniper rifles were the stuff of myth and
legend until the
scene.
They still required extraordinary
skill.
"I've got
Fitzduane," said Kilmara, and tightened the focus on the
He
passed the location to the two other Guntracks.
One continued toward the castle.
The other was in a side valley and out of sight of Fitzduane's location.