The Temporal Knights (51 page)

Idiots, he thought. The torchlight would ruin anyone’s night vision as they passed by. So, instead of entering, he crouched just outside the archway leading inside and drew his .45, the silencer affixed. “Computer one quarter view from UAV,” he whispered and the overhead view immediately appeared in the upper right hand corner of his view screen. He watched the guard amble slowly toward the gatehouse, while Captain Gardner and the rest of his team moved over the walls, followed by the majority of Lemay’s team.

The Colonel was also partially watching the view from overhead, paying close attention to any movement at all from the targets directly on the far side of the wall. For the moment the two men stayed put, as Lemay and Private Killian finally made their way to the top of the wall. Without speaking, they paused for a moment and took one last look at the guards from above. Everything was quiet. 

“Ready?” Lemay answered.

“Ready.”

“Now,” Lemay said and popped over the edge and shot the sleeping guard in the top of the head. Killian actually scrambled all the way over the wall before dispatching his target. Neither man so much as moved before they were killed. Affixed with silencers, the noise from the .45’s was minimal, but Lemay’s kill slumped against a long trident like weapon, knocking it over. It fell and clattered against the metal mechanism that secured the
iron gate. The trident did not fall with enough force to cause the gate to descend, but it made a considerable racket, enough to alert the approaching guard, who paused for a moment before coming on at a much quicker pace.

Lemay cursed softly as the guard called out. When he received no answer he called again and then broke into a jog, hurrying through the gatehouse. He never saw Private Dosland, the flash of the muzzle, or the bullet that blew the back of his skull off. His head flew back but his body fell stiffly forward with a loud and ominous thump. Everyone remained still, listening, except for the two soldiers Gardner sent against the lone guard at the rear of the castle. In a matter of seconds he was down. For the moment they controlled the castle walls without an alarm being sounded. 

“No movement detected within target area,” Garraty reported.

“Confirmed,” Lemay answered.

“Confirmed,” Gardner added, and from his vantage point from the top of the western walls all was quiet. Three minutes later thirty more men were in place on top of the ramparts.

“Sergeant Isom, how’s the town look?”

“All quiet, Sir.”

“Computer...heartbeats,” Lemay ordered and immediately over a hundred distinct red lights appeared on the TVD, too many not to be distracting, but they gave Lemay an idea on how the people of the castle were dispersed. Most appeared to be in a pair of barracks adjacent to either side of the main gate. There seemed to be an equal number located along the rear of the fortress. There was also a large concentration of heartbeats beneath Captain Gardner’s team along the western wall, but according to Sir Ceorl the stables were located in that area. The Colonel hoped that the majority of these targets were horses or other animals, but of course he would be taking no chances. From this distance, the thick stone walls of the keep made that area of the fortress a black hole, completely dark and unknown.

“Computer, identify Private Trotske,” he ordered. Trotske was in the General’s party and would be the easiest way to locate the group. Under stress, the Private developed a slightly irregular heartbeat, information the computer had stored in its medical files, and would easily recognize.

“Searching...negative,” the computer replied, and Lemay cursed, but was not truly surprised. “Captain Gardner, secure your positions.

“Aye,” the Captain replied and his team moved out with practiced ease. Their goal was to watch the courtyard, the stable area, and the front gatehouse for any sign of enemy movements while Lemay and his team of commandos stormed the keep and searched for the General.

“Positions secure,” Gardner reported a few minutes later, but just as Lemay and his team were descending into the courtyard the computer detected movement from below.

“Hold,” Gardner said as a dog walked slowly out of the stable area and into the center of the courtyard. “We have a dog,” he reported.

“Eliminate the target,” Lemay said without hesitation and an instant later there was one less dog in the world. It was not a pleasant task for the men but it was a necessity if they were to successfully rescue the General.

“Target eliminated,” Gardner reported back, feeling a bit sad about the killing.
‘I’ll get myself a dog once things settle down,’
the Captain thought. He’d never owned a dog, what with his mother, then daughter allergic to them. But he’d always loved dogs.

Colonel Lemay and his men quickly moved down a set of narrow wooden stairs to the dirt floor of the courtyard. Currently they all carried handguns with attached silencers and slung their M18’s over their backs. Once on the ground, Lemay spotted the two hummers used by the
General and his men and his heart skipped a beat, but the M60’s were unmanned. Nevertheless the powerful guns scared the hell out of the Colonel and he ordered a pair of Gardner’s men to come down and man the vehicles. Then he moved quickly, crouching slightly, and sprinted across the open courtyard. He stopped just to the left of the main door of the keep, his back against the cool stone wall.

“No enemy movement detected,” Garraty reported.

“Confirmed,” Gardner answered, but this chatter was barely noticed in the consciousness of the Colonel and his men, who were now wired and ready for action. Lemay carefully reached out and tried the door. He half expected it to be locked, but it wasn’t.

“Computer, give me heartbeats within eight meters,” he whispered, and five heartbeats immediately appeared on his virtual display coming from just inside the door, two to the left and three to the right. Lemay signaled his men, then gave the door a hard push, and came ready with his weapon. The door swung easily, but creaked loudly as it opened, revealing a narrow hallway with a single door on either side. The Colonel’s attention shifted quickly from the scene before him to the TVD and back. Every heartbeat in range remained stubbornly motionless despite the noise of the swinging door, so with a silent sigh, the Colonel quickly raised his hand and wagged two fingers one direction and then the other. Immediately four men jumped forward, two moved left and two moved right and without hesitation simultaneously burst in on the surprised guards. Five seconds later there were five less heartbeats and the area within eight meters was clear. After stationing two men to watch the door to the keep, the Colonel moved forward once more.

The hallway was cold, narrow and relatively dark, lit only by an occasional smoky torch. The group crept silently down the hall for approximately ten meters before finally coming to an intersection beyond which was a stairway…going up. There was no enemy in sight in any direction.

“Computer...heartbeats,” Lemay ordered and his face plate again lit up. “Identify Private Trotske,” he repeated.

After a few seconds all but one of the heartbeats faded. “Private Trotske confirmed,” the computer reported and highlighted the man’s heartbeat, which was off to their right and approximately twenty meters below their position.

Lemay stationed one more man at the intersection, determined not to be cut off from any retreat, and then led what was left of his strike force in the direction of Trotske’s heartbeat.

“Computer, continuously overlay any heartbeats within eight meters.”

No heartbeats appeared, and they continued on. They only moved a short distance before they came across a cluster of three doors, one on either side of the hall, and another at the very end of the corridor. According to the computer display they were now almost directly above Private Trotske’s position. The soldier’s face plates now glowed with a full eleven heartbeats within the nearby rooms. There were three on the left and eight on the right but the door directly ahead of them appeared to be empty.

“Enemy movement detected,” Garraty reported, his voice flat and without emotion. “Target fifteen meters to the east of the main gate.”

“Target eliminated,” Gardner reported moments later. Lemay frowned. There was far too much movement for this time of night. Lemay hesitated for a moment, the door at the end of the hall showed absolutely no heartbeats and he signaled for Killian to take a look. The door creaked open to reveal a store room of sorts and a narrow stone staircase going down.

Lemay smiled and debated whether or not to move on the rooms. Eleven people. It would be risky, but so would leaving them in their rear as they moved on. Within seconds he decided he couldn’t leave their only avenue of retreat threatened, even if they didn’t block their retreat they could wander about and surprise Private Morris back at the intersection.

Killian and Dosland moved first on the room with three heartbeats and quickly, almost silently killed the three men inside, though from the looks of them they were not soldiers or knights, but common men. Seconds later Lemay and four additional soldiers burst into the room with eight heartbeats and they froze instantly. Strewn throughout the room were four women all sleeping on the blankets placed on the straw covered floor. They were obviously servants, and huddled around them were four small children. Lemay knew he should remove the threat and kill the unfortunate occupants, but could not. After all he’d been through there was no way he could kill women and children, not even to save the life of his commander and best friend. He gazed around in the eerie green glow of night-vision and noticed that one small girl was awake and watching him, a sparkle of light reflecting off of her wide, frightened eyes. He held up a hand as the child sat up and tilted her head. The Americans remained perfectly still then the girl screamed at the top of her lungs. In seconds all the women and children were awake and scrambling around, another moment later every female in the room was shrieking.

“Damn,” Lemay said softly, as the screams echoed through the GBF. “We’ve been discovered,” he added calmly and ordered Dosland to stay and watch the women.

“See if you can get them to stop screaming,” he added exasperated, and then turned to the rest of his men.

“Corporal Stroff, Killian, join Private Morris at the intersection and hold that position. Use whatever force is necessary,” he ordered, thinking about the other three hundred heartbeats within the Keeps walls.

‘God what a mess,’
he thought as he moved out of the room and headed down the narrow stairway with only Corporal Harris and Private Starling in tow. As they circled down, Lemay hoped he would come across the General soon, he was running out of men to guard the strategic points of the Keep. The place was a maze, dark and very gloomy even with night-vision. They moved around each narrow corner of the staircase carefully, climbing steadily downward toward Trotske’s heartbeat. Closer and closer they moved until surprisingly the private’s signal began to move in their direction. The Colonel signaled for his men to stop and they all crouched down in the dark narrow stairway. A moment later Sadao and Jefferies rounded the corner, moving very carefully in the pitch black stairway. Lemay instantly realized that in the utter darkness they could not see him as they waited in ambush. Starling shuddered involuntarily, but Lemay was all smiles.

“Sergeant Sadao, Corporal Jefferies...we’re coming down...please do not kill us,” he said, his voice loud in the quiet stairwell. High above the screams of the women abruptly fell quiet and he frowned.

“God are we glad to see....hear you!” Sadao answered, smiling into the darkness.

“The General?”

“He’s fine, down below our position with the others...all except Hamilton,” the Sergeant reported and Lemay could see his features fall.

“Let’s get them. We have to leave now,” the Colonel replied, wondering about Hamilton, but his thoughts were interrupted by the soft stucco of gunfire overhead. He grabbed Sadao by the arm and led him down the stairs as Starling guided Jefferies.

“...Five down so far,” the Colonel heard Captain Gardner report over the GBF. “Colonel, hurry, all hell is breaking loose up here.”

“...Corporal Waldfogel, fire on the following coordinates. Five rounds only...repeat five rounds only,” Lieutenant Otsaka ordered calmly.

“Copy five rounds.”

“Let’s see if we can panic and scatter them without butchering the entire lot,” the Lieutenant added.

“Watch out! We have archers on the roof…” someone reported but in the confusion Lemay didn’t recognize the voice. Seconds later he dimly heard the sound of a M60 opening up.

“Clear…Garraty monitor the keep roof closely,” Gardner admonished.

“Yes Sir.”

“What’s the situation Lieutenant Otsaka?” Lemay asked as they descended into a scene from his childhood nightmares. The place was right out of hell as he’d envisioned it as a young boy, but there among the invisible flames stood his smiling General.

“The tent encampment is up and on alert. There are men swarming all over the countryside. We opened up with M60’s, but that just scattered them all the more...preparing for mortar fire.”

“Carry on Lieutenant. You may use maximum force on anyone caught outside the perimeter of the town. Inside Rochester show restraint, but you may use lethal force on any non-friendly approaching the fortress. Don’t let anyone near the main gate. Let’s take no chances,” Lemay added then pulled up his face plate and smiled at his friend Stephen.