Final impact

“All right, all right, tell him to keep his fucking pants on,” Harry muttered, more to himself than to the operator back on the stealth destroyer. “Ronsard, give me a couple of seconds’ covering fire, then pull right back,” he ordered.

The Frenchman opened up, and the others followed suit, even though none had a clear shot: the flat hollow booms of Veronique’s Webley; the thinner, much less substantial cap-fire of Claudel’s little handgun; and the snarling bark of Ronsard letting rip the short full-auto bursts of another VLe 24.

Harry selected the barrel he’d just reloaded. As the French fighters pivoted away, he calmly stepped up to the corner, raised the weapon in a two-handed grip, and squeezed off half a strip of micronic grenades. They punched out with a slightly softer report than the penetrators he’d fired earlier, exiting the gun with a much lower muzzle velocity. Six of the electronically fired area-clearance rounds smacked into the brick wall at the far end of the alleyway, ricocheted off, and detonated in the middle of the passageway around the dogleg.

The high-explosive lozenges triggered with a roar that surprised the civilians. It sounded as though a barrage of mortar rounds had gone off. Glass shattered up and down the street. Thick clouds of dust came billowing out of the alleyway, and Harry took off again, leading them all in at a sprint. He and Ronsard fetched up at the corner first.

Disembodied limbs and torn, bloodied clothing littered the ground. Harry checked the top-down display in his Ray-Bans. Four of the red triangles had gone out. One was flashing, but he could see through the smoke that it tagged a man who was trying to crawl away, using only one arm. His legs and most of his other arm remained behind. Anjela Claudel put a single shot into the back of his head.

“Gestapo scum,” she said. “He should have suffered, but…”

A Gallic shrug.

Harry pressed himself up against the wall, which was painted with a sticky organic gruel of flesh and blood. A machine pistol, probably a Schmeisser, started up inside, hammering away in short, irregular bursts. The popgun reply of a small pistol could barely be heard over it.

Harry pulled out his flexipad. “Trident, can you get a point-to-point linkup with Brasch?”

“Aye, Colonel. Just a moment. There. Channel three. Audio only.”

Harry held up the flexipad like an old-style cell phone. “Brasch. Major General Brasch. Can you hear me? Can you respond? It’s Colonel Windsor of the Special Air Service. We’re here to extract you.”

The German replied in clear, if accented English. He sounded remarkably calm. “Your Highness, a rare privilege. I can talk and shoot, but not well together. I am at the end of the hall on the third floor. I have killed at least two of them with a small directional mine. But two remain and I am outgunned.”

“Can you see both?”

“No, just one. The other is probably watching his back. So you must be careful.”

Now, there’s a statement of the bleeding obvious, Harry thought.

The Trident’s sysop broke in on their channel. “Colonel Windsor, we have two other hostile teams closing on your location by foot. The nearest is on the Avenue de Villiers, an estimated ten minutes away. A second team has changed direction and is moving toward you along the Rue du Faubourg St.-Martin. They will arrive in approximately fifteen minutes.”

Bugger.

Harry quickly explained the situation to his comrades as the gun battle continued inside.

“Veronique and I will slow down the fascists on de Villiers,” Anjela Claudel said when he’d finished. “There is a cafй there, a favorite of the Communists. We will get help.”

There was no arguing with them. The two women simply spun away and took off.

“Right,” Harry said. “By the book then, Captain Ronsard.”

The Frenchman nodded. Harry spoke into the flexipad again.

“Herr General? We’re coming in. Move back from your door and take whatever cover you can.”

On the count of three they burst into the building.

Brasch fired off all but two of the bullets left in his clip. He would save those for the Gestapo if they came through the door. Having already upended the heaviest piece of furniture in the room across the doorway-an old, hardwood freestanding closet-he leapt into the small stronghold he’d made in one corner using a small vanity, a cheap writing table, and a stained, poorly sprung mattress. As he dived through the air, his ears were assaulted by an incredible cacophony, ripping bursts of automatic gunfire-much louder and fiercer than the MP40s the secret policemen had been firing at him-splintering wood, and cracking bricks, duller percussive thuds and enormous, bowel-shaking explosions. It was like Belgorod all over again.

Before driving into the unknown building and up three flights of stairs, Harry and Ronsard stripped in penetrators and area clearance. The small entrance hall was a slaughterhouse.