Designated Targets

“Savor this moment, gentlemen,” the führer declared as he slowly circled the Ops Room, followed by his entourage. “There has never been a greater force assembled in the history of human conflict. And there has never been a heavier blow landed on that little island. We are not just remaking history today. We are smashing it into a thousand pieces.”

HMS TRIDENT, THE ENGLISH CHANNEL

“Good luck, Major Windsor.”

“Thank you, Captain Halabi. Better luck next time, eh?”

The commander of the Trident and the SAS officer saluted each other. Harry’s was the last group to be lifted off the destroyer. The observer group, for the most part, had been put ashore, with just two liaison officers remaining. Harry was lifting with his squad and their equipment for a fast, nap of the Earth flight to London, from where he was to link up with the regiment. Nobody yet knew where that might be. It would depend on the Germans to a large extent.

Weak gray sunlight poured in through the hangar roof. The sky was a shroud, the color of dirty washing water. It was a high ceiling, however, and it seemed as if hundreds of planes dueled beneath the clouds. Here and there, puffs of smoke and flame marked the end of the fight for somebody. Parachutes billowed occasionally, but not always, and once or twice he heard the crackle of laser fire burning the air around the ship as a Stuka or a Heinkel pressed home a suicidal attack.

No jets had as yet reappeared. Halabi had told him she expected they’d be back when her antiair stocks were demonstrably empty.

She didn’t even wait for the elevator to lift them clear of the hangar, returning to her station as soon as they began the ascent. A couple of the Air Div crew waved him off, and Harry replied with a thumbs-up. But he felt a lot less jaunty than the gesture implied.

The Germans were attempting a multidimensional assault right out of the twenty-first-century playbook. Their coordination was hopeless, and a lot of the technology they needed simply did not exist yet. A couple of hastily built, poorly flown ME 262s just didn’t count.

But having secured their eastern flank, they seemed to be bringing the entire weight of their continental war machine to bear on the south of England.

Every now and then, when the pounding of the five-inch guns and ack-ack mounts abated, he could hear the much deeper, more sonorous bass note rumble of ten thousand engines. Of twenty thousand guns, and high-explosive shells, and dumb iron bombs detonating for hundreds of miles around. It was the sound of two worlds grinding against each other, and even with his years of service, he’d never known anything like it.

St. Clair sat across from him, sphinxlike and withdrawn. His sergeant major was always like that, on the edge of battle.

The chopper’s engines hummed into life as the elevator lifted them clear of the hangars and into the daylight. His six troopers reacted in character. Some simply adjusted their Bergens and checked their weapons. Some leaned forward in their seats to catch whatever glimpse they could of the world outside, a slate gray tableau of small, antique warships tossed on heaving seas.

One man, Gibbs, slept with his head cushioned by a life jacket.

“Sergeant Major, what’s our current strength at Kinlochmoidart?”

“One hundred and twenty-five officers and other ranks, sir. Captain Fraser’s already got them turned out and kitted up. They’re waiting for movement orders.”

“Very good.”

The Eurocopter cycled up to full power as Harry felt the Trident come around. They began to dip and rise on the confused swell and crosscurrents where the waters of the Solent met those of the Channel. The rotor’s down blast tugged at his battle dress and made it difficult to communicate without shouting. He signaled to St. Clair to engage tac net. Everyone who hadn’t already done so fitted combat goggles and earbuds before powering up their helmets.

Over the years, Harry had trained his software to the point where it was virtually an extension of his own psyche. Without being instructed, it brought up eight separate windows, biofeedback from his men and himself. Instinctively he scanned the squad, looking for signs of combat fatigue, developing psychoses, exhaustion, or any of the myriad symptoms that stalked everyone who did this sort of work for too long.

They all checked out.

A link to the helicopter’s on-board systems provided a V3D holomap of their flight plan, while an outside link to the Trident added relevant battlespace data. Harry hummed quietly as he took in the information. In truth, there was no safe route they could take to the drop-off. Hundreds of 109s and 110s infested the airspace around them. It was going to be like flying through a hailstorm, trying to avoid the stones.

They lifted off, and he acknowledged a couple of crew on the deck of the cruiser who paused to wave them away.

“Right, everyone, I’ll keep this short.”