Exocet - Jack Higgins [33]
'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