Destroyer - The Empire Dreams Part 8

"We were alerted to this by a local farmer," the voice explained.

"Ah, yes," Bexton sympathized, "the poor old sot who still thinks he's seeing monkeys on the ceiling. You sound like a sensible chap, Carter. Surprised a man of science would be taken in by a boozer with one foot in the past and the other in the Boar's Head Tavern."

"I saw them!" Carter yelled. "My entire team saw them. We are tracking them as we speak."

"And what have you been drinking, Carter?" the colonel asked thinly.

"Let me talk to your superior of?cer."

"Oh, no," Bexton said, bristling. "You won't make me a laughingstock. Your old friend is merely reliving the war, Carter. Now I suggest that you and your colleagues over there in Cheshire spend more time in the heavens and less time in the pubs."

He slapped the phone down in the cradle.

If this was meant as some sort of prank, that should put a stop to it once and for all.

When the phone rang a third time several minutes later, Colonel Bexton lost what little reserves of patience he had left.

"Bexton!" he snapped into the receiver.

His face grew pale as the nasal voice of his immediate superior outlined the situation. This time the instant he hung up the phone, Colonel E. C. T. Bexton was placing an emergency call down the defense chain of command.

Per Bexton's order, a squadron of eight British Aeros.p.a.ce Harriers took off from a base in the London suburb of Croydon less than six minutes later. From what he later learned, it was already too late.

Chapter 10

The ?rst aerial bombs ripped through the neatly trimmed lawns of Hyde Park Gardens, spraying the cars and people on the streets and roadways with clods of rich black English soil.

The crowd on the sidewalk around Smith and his wife had panicked the instant they realized the signi?cance of the high-pitched whistling sounds of the falling bombs, which were audible over the blare of the air-raid siren.

Crowds of people were running in every direction. Smith pulled his wife into the relative safety of a stone overhang in the doorway of an old storefront. "Harold!" Maude Smith shouted in terror.

He gripped her arm.

"We have to get to the Underground," Smith stressed, referring to the subway system beneath London.

It wouldn't be safe for them to try at the moment. The crowd was too unruly, the people too frantic. Smith watched for the initial mob of running men and women to thin.

As he waited, the bombers grew closer.

Smith was as surprised by the look of the planes as by the attack itself. They all appeared to be surplus World War I and II aircraft.

By the looks of it, they were all in perfect working order. He had counted more than a dozen of the planes as they ?ew in. The aircraft remained cl.u.s.tered tightly together. Even with so few of them, the sky seemed thick with menacing shapes from his past.

Screaming down out of the midafternoon sky, one plane-Smith saw now that it was a Messerschmitt-buzzed the building across the street. It opened ?re with a set of wing-mounted machine guns.

The staccato gun?re was deafening. Bullets ripped into the gla.s.s and brick of the building's uppermost stories. Shattered gla.s.s and chunks of brick and mortar exploded outward, falling like hail to the street below.

The plane looked as though its forward momentum would surely slam it into the side of the building. But at the last minute the pilot cut his angle sharply. With a whine of engines, the plane did a rolling maneuver away from the building back out over the street. It soared back up into the air, dropping a dozen screeching bombs as it did so.

They impacted in the street among the gnarl of small British cars. A BMW near Smith became an explosion of ?ame and metal, its hood ?ipping up as the sh.e.l.l struck its mark.

Mrs. Smith screamed.

They couldn't wait any longer. As the crowd continued to break around them, as the planes continued to disgorge bombs from their bellies, Smith hustled his wife from the protective archway.

Like leaves dropped into a raging spring river, they were immediately caught up in the stream of people ?ooding for the nearest entry to the London Underground.

Mrs Smith clung to her husband's arm both for support and in fear. Face hard, Smith did his best to keep her safe from the panicked, shoving ma.s.ses as they moved along the sidewalk.

Fear rippled palpably through the crowd. Someone had shut off the air-raid siren. The sounds of dropping bombs could be heard both nearby and from farther away. One struck very closely, pelting the crowd with bits of tar and dirt. And something else.

Blood spattered the faces of some of the nearer pedestrians. Smith saw that he and his wife had been lucky. They were in the center of the crowd and were thus shielded from the heaviest ?ying shrapnel. Screams of agony erupted around them as the whine of the attacking plane's engine faded away.

As they ran, Smith saw one man with a streak of crimson ?owing down the side of his head. A woman-presumably a wife or girlfriend-was trying to staunch the ?ow of blood with a strip of cloth as the crowd continued to race forward.

Some people had fallen, bloodied, to the pavement. The panicked mob trampled over them. Smith saw the mouth of the Underground over the bobbing heads before him. They had only a few yards to go.

A new sound caught his attention. It was heavier than that of the other planes. The noise from the older aircraft was more of a whining complaint. This sound was a ferocious, thick rumble that rattled the buildings around them and shook the ground beneath their feet.

A huge shadow pa.s.sed above them. Still moving, some, including Smith, cast wary glances at the sky. There were more planes above London now. They had roared into view seemingly with the purpose of avenging angels. Smith saw that they were RAF Harriers.

Without hesitation, the newer planes opened ?re on the German attackers.

The crowd had dragged the Smiths to the stairs leading down into the bowels of the British subway system. Smith guided his wife's hand to the metal railing. She hurried down the stairs away from him, so concerned with ?nding safety that she was oblivious to the fact that she was now alone. No matter. She would be safe.

Smith pushed ?at against the wall of the subway stairwell, pausing brie?y to look up at the dog?ght above the skies of London.

People jostled him as they bustled down the stone stairs.

A Harrier tore into sight from the east, leveling off after a ?eeing Messerschmitt. As the newer aircraft banked over the string of sedate buildings, a long missile detached itself from the underside of the wing. For a moment it seemed as if this bomb would drop to the street, as well. But the tail quickly ignited and the missile was launched forward with a propulsive force greater than that of the Harrier itself.

The missile ate up the s.p.a.ce between the two mismatched planes in an instant. The Messerschmitt took the full force of the explosion in a spot to the rear of its c.o.c.kpit. The fragile explosives within the old plane detonated a split second after the ?ery impact of the missile.

The plane erupted in a ball of ?ame, screaming down out of the sky in the direction of Hyde Park Corner. It hit earth a moment later.

Other Harriers roared in across the tall buildings. The small planes were outdated and outmatched. They broke off the attack and headed away from the skies above Piccadilly. Some looped away from the others, streaking off in the direction of Buckingham Palace.

Two Harriers pursued the rogue planes; the rest gave chase to the largest group of ?eeing aircraft. It was over.

Not that it mattered to the terri?ed crowd.

Smith tried to move away from the wall in order to climb back up the stairs. He found it impossible to negotiate through the sea of running people.

Though the danger had pa.s.sed, Smith was caught up in the rushing tide. Against his wishes he found himself being swept down into the subway along with the rest of the frightened crowd.

Chapter 11.

Helene Marie-Simone had to be certain she had lost Remo and Chiun before she could talk freely. She had just received an urgent call from a most delicate source and had been forced to put the matter off for a few minutes until she was certain she was away from prying ears. Somehow-impossibly-the two men from America had been able to eavesdrop on her private conversations with the DGSE.

After hissing to the caller that she would return the call immediately, Helene had clicked off the cellular phone.

She shot a look at Remo and Chiun.

They didn't appear to notice. The old one was engrossed in the work of the American investigators. The young one didn't seem very interested in anything that was going on at the scene. He was yawning as he stared at the edge of the cordon.Quickly she ducked out through a gap that the truck explosion had created in the courtyard wall. She headed down the street.

Helene didn't know who these men represented, but she knew one thing for certain. They were not with the American State Department. The men were obviously spies. Though for what agency she had no idea. They didn't seem like CIA. They were certainly not FBI. Probably they were with one of the more obscure American security agencies.

The Paris police had established a wide cordon around the bomb scene. Barricades had been constructed in the streets. Uniformed gendarmes kept the curious at bay.

Helene slipped between the wooden sawhorses and line of Paris policemen. Down the street a block she cut into a side boulevard near a ?orist shop.

She glanced back around the corner. There was no sign of the two men in the busy sidewalk traf?c. Good. She hadn't been followed.

Helene quickly tugged the phone from her pocket and stabbed out the direct country code for England. "It's about b.l.o.o.d.y well time," a stodgy voice said by way of greeting.

Helene didn't appreciate the superior tone. But she was in no position to complain about it now. "What has happened?" she asked furtively.

"A bit of a mess in London," the male voice enthused. "We've got bally Jerry kites strewn all over Park Lane and Piccadilly."

"Aside from the street names, I do not know what any of that means," Helene whispered impatiently.

"Kites. Planes," the voice explained with a sigh. "Perfectly good English. Don't know what they teach you in those schools in Paris." He continued.

"German planes attacked London not ?fteen minutes ago. The RAF scrambled a squadron too late to stop them cold. They got off a few good runs before we managed to send them nose over knickers. RAF's of?cial word is that they had trouble with their ground crews. Bad weather slowed them up. Good chaps, ordinarily, but there's not a cloud in the sky."

"German planes?" Helene asked.

"Why are you telling me this? Call the Germans."

"That's the thing," said the voice. "They're not exactly German defense-force planes. They're more or less n.a.z.i era-ish."

"n.a.z.i?"

"World War II and all that. Surplus planes." Helene was trying to conjure up an image of airplanes ?fty years out of date attacking modern London in broad daylight. She found it too out of her frame of reference to imagine.

"What about survivors among the pilots?" she asked.

"Not a bally one, I'm afraid," said the man on the phone. "Well, there was one. But the blighter went and blew the top of his head off with a Luger before we could get to him. Anyway, I was thinking that since you had a spot of trouble with your depots that you might be interested."

"Why would I?"

"I imagine it's more than coincidence that your surplus war bombs are stolen the day before London is bombed by surplus planes, don't you?"

Helene was so caught up in the incredible scenario that she failed to deny that the explosives were in fact stolen.

The voice pressed on. "Radar stations say the planes came down from the north, but local spotters saw them heading up from the south over the Irish Sea this morning.""They went up and then down?"

"Most likely a trick to hide their true origin."

"Would they have enough fuel?"

"They could have been adapted to ?y longer missions," the man said. "I'm really not sure what the range is on a Messerschmitt.

However, if you're interested, after studying the possible origin of the ?ights we have traced them to only a couple of possible places. Mainland France or one of the Channel Islands. We have further learned that there were unusual shipments to Guernsey in the wee hours this morning."

"Why do you not investigate?"

"I've got quite enough to do here in London. And after all, they are your bombs. Therefore, they are your responsibility. Please do something about them, forthwith. There's a good girl."

The line went dead.

Helene clicked the small phone shut. She was frowning deeply.

Guernsey. In the English Channel. If the missing explosives had been shipped there, she would have to investigate at once.

Sticking the cellular phone in her pocket, she hurried back out onto the main street...

... and plowed straight into Remo.

He was leaning casually against the wall just around the corner from where Helene had been hiding.

"Hi." Remo smiled. "We missed you."

"Speak for yourself," said a squeaky voice. Helene jumped at the sound of the old Asian's voice. Wheeling, she cast a glance at the spot where she had been standing. Somehow Chiun had gotten behind her. He stood on the sidewalk, arms tucked inside the broad sleeves of his kimono. His face was as unreadable as that of a cigar-store Indian.

"I have important work to do," Helene said of?ciously. She pushed past Remo and began marching down the street.

Remo kept pace with her. Chiun trailed behind. "I heard. Mind if we tag along?" Remo said.

"Yes."

"Oh. Mind if we go anyway?"

"Yes."

"Too bad," Remo said with a grin.