Exocet (v5) (9 page)

'My God,' Fox said.

'There's worse, Harry. The fifteen thousand ton container ship,
Atlantic Conveyor,
has also been taken out. Two Exocet hits definitely confirmed.' He shook his head. 'Because of her size on the radar screen, they probably thought she was one of the aircraft carriers.'

There was silence for a while, only the muted sounds of traffic from outside in the square. Fox said, 'What do we do now, sir?'

'I think that's obvious,' Ferguson told him. 'Don't you?'

* * *

When he knocked at the door of the flat in Kensington Palace Gardens for the second time that day, there was a delay before slow steps approached and the door opened on the chain.

Gabrielle looked out. She stared at them for a long moment, then opened the door and led the way into the sitting room. She was wearing the old bathrobe and looked dreadful, her hair tousled, eyes swollen.

'You've heard the news,' Ferguson asked gently.

She nodded. 'Yes.'

'And?'

She took a deep breath and folded her arms as if holding herself together. 'When do you want me to go?'

'Tomorrow, I think. You still have the apartment on the Avenue Victor Hugo?'

'Yes.'

'Good. Get yourself settled in. You'll be informed what to do by our man in Paris, or if necessary Harry can go over on the shuttle to see you. And there is one more thing.'

She looked incredibly weary now. 'And what would that be?'

'You'll need a back-up man. Someone totally reliable, to be on hand in case you get into trouble.'

It was as if she knew what was coming. Her eyes widened in a kind of horror. 'You've sent for Tony?'

'That's right. He should be here in thirty-six hours at the outside.'

She shook her head helplessly. 'I'd like to kill you, Ferguson. I really would like to see you dead and I've never wished that on any human being in my life. See what you've done to me? You and people like you, corrupt everything you touch.'

'Harry will make your travel arrangements,' he said. 'He'll be in touch. Take a couple of pills, get some sleep. You'll feel better for it.'

When they went outside, it had started to rain. Ferguson paused to button up his coat and Fox said, 'Can she handle it, sir? It's expecting a hell of a lot. I mean, the impression I get is that she's head over heels in love with Raul Montera.'

'Yes, an interesting situation,' Ferguson said. 'But we don't really have any choice, do we?' He glanced up at the rain and raised his collar as he went down the steps. 'All of a sudden I feel old, Harry. What do you think about that? Very, very old.'

* * *

In Buenos Aires, the Plaza in front of the National Congress Building was crammed with thousands of excited people, hundreds of blue and white Argentinian flags waving everywhere.

The crowd roared, above the hooting of car horns:
Argentina! Argentina!
On a balcony in full uniform, silver hair swept back, arm raised in salute like a Roman emperor, Galtieri took the plaudits of the crowd.

And then the voices changed, became a chorus like the sea rushing in, carrying everything before it and the word that they repeated over and over again like a litany, was Exocet.

* * *

Ferguson was sitting by the fire in the flat toasting crumpets when Fox came in with a signal in his hand.

'Oh, I wanted to see you, Harry. Who have we got at the Paris Embassy who isn't a complete idiot?'

Fox thought about it. 'George Corwin is a possibility, sir. Was a captain in the Green Howards when we recruited him. Did quite well in Ireland. His mother is French, that's why we posted him to Paris.'

'Excellent. He can pick Montera up when he arrives from Buenos Aires. Find out where he's staying and liaise with Gabrielle till Tony gets in. Talking about Tony, what's happening there?'

'I was just bringing this signal to show you, sir. Text of a message from H.Q. at San Carlos via SAS headquarters at Hereford.'

'What's it say?'

'Confirm Major Villiers and Sergeant Major Jackson en route as ordered.'

'I wonder how Tony took it, being hauled out of the action like that.'

'I shouldn't imagine he'd be too pleased,' Fox said.

'Well that would make sense, knowing our Tony,' Ferguson said. 'After all, it's the only war he's got.'

9

On the day previously it had been quiet at first light in the mountains of north Falkland, the only sound a dog barking from one of the hillside farms far, far below in a valley.

The four-man SAS reconnaissance team had been operating behind the Argentine lines for ten days now, having been put ashore by submarine before the British landings at San Carlos on the twenty-first.

The team consisted of Villiers, Harvey Jackson, the radio operator, Corporal Elliot of the Royal Corps of Signals; and the fourth member of the group, a trooper named Jack Korda, a volunteer to the SAS from the Grenadier Guards like Villiers and Jackson.

It was bitterly cold. When Villiers had first awakened he had found his sleeping poncho covered in hoar frost. He stood now in the hollow beside a small cave, not much more than a fissure in the rocks, inside which Korda was heating tea on a small chemical stove.

Villiers, like the others, wore a black woollen balaclava, more against the cold than anything else. His camouflage uniform was soaking wet, his fingers numb with cold as he ate from a mess can with a spoon. Jackson sat cross-legged on the ground, a guardsman to the end, and scraped shaving foam from his chin with a plastic razor.

Villiers' spoon rattled against the bottom of the mess tin. He stowed it away in his pack and accepted the mug of tea Korda passed him.

'I've had enough chicken supreme to last me a lifetime. How about you, Harvey?'

'Oh, it keeps me going as well as anything else, ' Jackson said. 'Food's not all that important. When I was seventeen the food in the guardsmen's mess at the Depot was so awful, I've never been able to take it seriously since.'

Elliot was crouched by the radio and Villiers moved across. 'Everything okay?'

Elliot glanced up and nodded. 'Through in a minute.'

The patrol's task was simple enough: to pick up as much information as possible about Argentinian troop movements in the area. The information would be of the utmost importance when British forces broke out from the San Carlos beach-head.

The equipment Elliot carried was of the latest kind. There was a small typewriter-style keyboard and through this system, messages could be entered and stored in code. When Elliot was ready, the touch of a button was sufficient to send a message of a few hundred words in a matter of seconds. They were on the air so briefly that it was impossible for the enemy to have any hope of tracing them.

Elliot looked up and grinned. 'That's it.' He started to pack his equipment.

Korda crawled out of the fissure with more tea. 'When do we go in, sir? How much longer?'

'Rations for four more days,' Villiers reminded him.

'Which means we can last a week,' Harvey Jackson said. 'Longer, if you don't mind raw mutton. Sheep all over the place. The Argies have been doing very nicely on that diet.'

Before Korda could reply, Villiers said, 'Just a minute. Something coming.'

There was a murmur in the distance that grew louder. Villiers and the others crawled forward cautiously to the edge of the hollow and peered over. They each carried the same weapon, a silenced sub-machine gun.

An Argentinian truck was approaching along the rough track about a hundred yards away, its front wheels spinning on the frozen ground, only the half-tracks at the rear keeping it going.

The driver and the man who sat beside him in the front seat with a rifle across his knees, were muffled up to their ears against the intense cold, scarves bound around their faces.

'Sitting ducks,' Elliot said. 'Even if there's somebody in the rear.'

But the patrol's task was to seek information, not confrontation. Villiers said, 'No, let them go.'

And then the truck slithered to a halt, half-slewed across the track directly below them.

'Watch it!' Villiers said.

They crouched low. The driver jumped down from behind the wheel and Villiers heard him say in Spanish, 'This stinking engine again with the stinking oil that isn't supposed to freeze and turns into lumps instead. What are we doing in this place?'

He raised the bonnet to examine the engine. His friend got out still holding his rifle, and lit a cigarette.

'Okay, ease off,' Villiers whispered.

As they started to slide back from the rim, Korda put out a hand to steady himself. Rock and soil broke away suddenly and slid down the slope to the track below, gathering momentum.

The two Argentine soldiers cried out in alarm. The one with the rifle swung round, raising it instinctively and Harvey Jackson, having no choice, jumped up and cut him down with the silenced sub-machine gun. The only sound was the bolt reciprocating. The Argentinian's rifle flew into the air and he fell back against the truck.

The driver got his hands in the air fast and stood waiting as the four men went down the slope. Korda banged him against the truck, legs spread, and Jackson searched him with ruthless efficiency.

'Nothing,' he said to Villiers and turned the soldier round.

He was only a boy, no more than seventeen or eighteen and frightened to death.

'What's in the back?' Villiers demanded in Spanish.

'Supplies, equipment,' the boy said, eager to please. 'Nothing more, senor, I swear it. Please don't kill me.'

'All right.' Villiers nodded to Jackson. 'Take a look.'

He lit a cigarette and gave one to the boy whose hand shook as he accepted a light. The fear in him was so strong you could almost smell it.

Jackson came back. 'Must be sappers. Lots of landmines in there, explosives and so on.'

Villiers said to the Argentinian, 'You're with an engineering unit?'

'No,' the boy said. 'Transport. The men I took to Bull Cove last night, I think they were engineers.'

Bull Cove was a place Villiers and the patrol knew well. One of their first tasks on arrival had been to survey the area as a possible site to put more troops ashore behind the Argentinian lines when the push started from San Carlos. The cove had proved an admirable choice; well protected from the sea with a deep water channel through a narrow entrance above which stood a disused lighthouse. Villiers had sent in a favourable report.

'How many of them were there?'

'An officer and two men, senor. Captain Lopez. They unloaded a lot of equipment and then the Captain decided he needed some special fuses.' He took a crumpled list from his pocket. 'See, here it is, senor. He was sending me back to base for these things.'

Jackson looked over Villiers' shoulders. 'Kaden Pencils. That's pretty heavy stuff. What in the hell does he want that for?'

To blow up the lighthouse, senor.' the boy said patiently. 'And rocks, also, I think.'

To blow up the lighthouse?' Jackson said.

The boy nodded, 'Oh, yes, senor, I heard them discussing it.'

'Rubbish,' Jackson said. 'Why go to the trouble? It hasn't been used for thirty years. Doesn't make sense.'

'Oh, yes it does, Harvey,' Villiers said, 'if you consider its position on the rocks above the entrance. Bring it down, and you'll efficiently block the only deepwater channel into the cove.'

'Christ,' Jackson said. 'Then we'd better do something about it and fast.' He said to the boy in bad Spanish, 'How far is it from here on this track.'

'Fifteen or sixteen kilometres round the mountain.'

'Only not in this, not any more.' Villiers kicked the half-track. There was a strong smell of petrol and it dripped from the tank in a steady flow, melting the frozen ground. 'You did a pretty thorough job, Harvey.'

Jackson swore savagely. 'So what in the hell do we do?'

Villiers turned and looked up at the mountain towering into the mist. 'Bull Cove's directly on the other side. Say six miles. We'll do it the hard way. You, me, Korda. Leave all equipment behind. Sub-machine guns only. Now you'll find out what all that endurance testing on the Brecons was about.'

They went back to the hidden encampment, Jackson pushing the boy along in front of him. As Villiers stripped his excess gear, he said to Elliot. 'You follow with the boy. Don't bother about this stuff. Just bring the radio and your own gear.'

'Very well, sir.'

'And the kid,' Villiers said. 'I want him to arrive with you. No stories about how he made a run for it and you had to cut him down, understand?'

'Do I look as if I'd do a thing like that, sir?' Elliot demanded.

'Yes,' Jackson said sourly. 'So don't. I'll give you two and a half hours to join us and let you choose an easy route out of consideration to the kid. Five minutes over and I'll have your guts for garters.'

'All right,' Villiers said. 'Let's go, you two,' and he turned, moved out of the hollow and started to run across the hillside.

* * *

It has been said that out of every fifty soldiers who volunteer for transfer to the Special Air Service Regiment, only one makes the grade. The culmination of a savage and punishing selection procedure is the endurance march across the wilderness that is the Brecon Beacons.

The would-be recruit is required to march forty-five miles across some of the worst country in Britain, loaded down with a pack of around eighty pounds and a belt kit weighing another fifteen. His eighteen pound rifle has to be carried because SAS weapons are not allowed slings, so that they are always available for instant use.

Scrambling up through the mist, Villiers was reminded of his own selection purgatory when he'd first volunteered. Jackson came up beside him, panting.

'Just like sodding Brecon. All it has to do is rain and we'll be right at home. Why all the rush? I mean if the kid was sent for more stuff, they must be taking their time.'

'Bad feeling,' Villiers said. 'Right down in the gut. You know me. Always right when I get that.'

'Enough said,' Jackson replied, and turned and called to Korda who was twenty yards behind. 'Come on, you lazy bastard, move it!'

* * *

Instead of working his way diagonally up the steep hillside, Villiers went straight up and the others followed him. The slope lifted until it was almost perpendicular with rough frozen tussocks of grass sticking out of bare rock.

As they came to the foot of an apron of loose stone and shale, he paused and glanced back at his companions.

'Okay?'

'No, bloody awful, actually,' Jackson said.

Korda said, 'The things I do for England. My old mum will be so proud.'

'You never had one, son,' Jackson said and as they started forward, it began to rain a little.

'Watch it,' Villiers said. 'A bit treacherous from here on in.'

He stuffed the sub-machine gun inside the tunic of his camouflage uniform and zipped it up. Awkward, but it left his hands free. Once, he heaved strongly on a boulder and it tore free and he swung quickly to one side, crying a warning. It bounced and crashed its way down the mountainside, disappearing into the mist.

'You two all right?'

'Only just,' Jackson called.

Villiers started to climb again and a moment later, found himself standing on the edge of a broad plateau. Jackson and Korda joined him.

'Now what?' Jackson demanded.

Villiers pointed across the plateau to the great rock wall which faced them, draped in mist. Fissures and cracks branched across it in dark fingers. He led the way over the plateau at a jog-trot, picking his way between boulders. When they reached the base of the rock, it became apparent that it wasn't actually perpendicular, but tilted back slightly in great slabs.

'Dear God,' Korda said, looking up.

'He helps those who help themselves,' Jackson said. 'So let's get moving.'

Villiers led the way, climbing strongly, concentrating on the rock in front of him, not looking down, for a secret he had nursed to himself for years was his fear of heights. If the selection board had known that, he would never have served in the 22 SAS, that was certain.

He paused at one point, braced against the rock and for a moment seemed to float in space. It was as if a giant hand was trying to pull him away.

'You okay, sir?' Jackson called.

It broke the spell. Villiers nodded and started to climb again, forgetting his aching limbs, the icy wind, his numbed hands. He moved at last over a tilted slab and found himself on a broad ledge. Above him, a wall of rock lifted a hundred feet, no more, and beyond it was only grey sky.

He waited for the others to join him, which they did a couple of minutes later.

'Jesus, not some more,' Jackson said.

Villiers indicated a dark chimney that cut its way straight up through the solid rock. 'Looks bad, but it's the easiest part of the climb.'

'I'll take your word for it,' Jackson said.

Villiers pulled himself up into the gloom, then turned and, using the common mountaineering technique, braced his back against one wall and feet against the other, resting every fifteen or twenty feet, his body firmly wedged.

After a while he found it was possible to climb properly and the handholds were good and plentiful. Ten minutes later, he scrambled over the edge.