Rolfe Countdown to Doomsday

1. Auflage 2012
ISBN: 978-1-905553-03-7
Verlag: Dolman Scott Publishing
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 198 Seiten

Reihe: Thriller

The UK's entire security network is mounted in an ultimate Red Alert deadline operation to avert cataclysmic disaster on a national scale. Islamic terrorism is poised to deliver its fiercest blow. The wrath of Allah let loose upon infidel Christians will be the mother of all holy chastisements -- in divine retribution for the mass slaughtering of Muslims by the demonic Western imperialists. An almighty and truly divine purging of the infidel worshippers -- that they be righteously smote down and cast into deep damnation to join their Devil. Zealous militants, the Jahidi, are sent forth on a holy mission that will wreak havoc across the country and send foreboding shock waves of the power of Islam throughout the Western world. Allah akbar! (God is great!).In a deathly race against time, MI5 and MI6 have the do or die task of thwarting this horrific doomsday threat -- their effort must succeed -- or it will be their last.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Rolfe, Brandon

Leseproben

02.40hrs, 23rd June, North Sea.

1

02.40hrs, 23rd June, North Sea. The Royal Navy Harrier Mk3 thundered onwards at 600 m.p.h., into the crimson dawn, anxious to reach its mission- point in the bosom of the rising sun. Like a great seabird, its ‘plumage’ bristling with 25-mm GU-12 cannon and AGM-65E Maverick missiles, the plane tore on through the sky, its Rolls Royce Pegasus turbofan engine screaming out its fiery fury with 21,500lb thrust, to ripple the cold air with its 0.7 Mach anger. Sunbeams pounded the great bird’s beak and tickled its belly, while others exploded into diamonds of coloured light on the glass-fibre wing tips and around the Perspex canopy, where a helmet bobbed and turned. The pilot’s helmet bore a black arrow and he aimed it 90 degrees to starboard to look out. Trained eyes darted about behind the rubber mask in an overall check along the wing; from the glistening rods to the hooded mouth of the engine nacelle, where the sun lingered, but dared not enter, to be churned by the roaring turbine blades. The head turned to port, swinging the convoluted oxygen tube like a wrinkled proboscis.

The same expert eyes judged the velocity below with their own up here, at 300ft above sea level, and returned to the front with a bob of the head. Land and sea rushed past, where minutes before, HMS Dover’s dull grey deck had been. At 02.31hrs precisely, the signal had come in from the Nimrod on RAF Coastal Command Reconnaissance, Flight 301, reporting the sighting. Flight 301 had reported the plane going down south of the Muckle Flugga rocks, just off the northern headland of Unst. Within two minutes of receiving the coded signal, HMS Dover had jettisoned the Harrier, codename PETREL, from its deck and had it racing north on Blue Alert urgency.

HMS Dover was part of Naval Strike Force Command and as such, was part of Britain’s contribution to Nato’s Greenland/Baltic maritime air-arm. On constant patrol in these waters, the 20,000 tons Dover was equipped with conventional and nuclear missiles and four Sea King helicopters and three Harriers, to investigate, intercept and ‘nullify’ if necessary, any incidences of ‘hostile influence’ --- what had been the former Soviet Bloc’s Baltic fleet --- and could well be again, the way things were cooling into another Cold War between East and West. The pilot consulted the time: 02.42 hrs. He would soon reach the target.

Zetland’s southern tip slid rapidly over the gilded silken sea below, nearer and nearer. The pilot’s head bent over the Ferranti Blue Fox radar display screen to check the electronic land map. He spoke into his rubber mask.

‘Zetland, CONTROL. About another seven minutes and we’ll be bang on target. Changing twenty one degrees west.’

The pilot tipped the ailerons with the Boulton Paul actuators, to swing the plane round smoothly and follow the spinal line of the islands. These scattered out ahead, beyond the 60th parallel and Greenland’s toe, in a sprinkling of emerald gems encrusted with golden sun and the rust of Pre- Cambrian cliffs. They were the uppermost jewels in the crown of Her Majesty’s British Dominions and all under the protection of Her Majesty’s Royal Navy. Hundreds of birds flew out in squawking flecks from the furrowed brows of the cliffs, to watch the great royal bird zoom over.

The radio began to crackle with static, just as the mainland began to splinter up into bronzed fragments: ‘CONTROL calling PETREL. Do you read me, PETREL? Do you read me?’

‘Loud and clear, CONTROL.’

‘What is your position, PETREL?’

The pilot looked down at the sea, sparkling gleefully while it rent the land asunder. ‘Just leaving the mainland now. Flying over the Yell Sound. Should be there pretty soon.’

‘Can you see anything yet, PETREL?’

‘Not yet, CONTROL. It’s too early and the angle’s too wide at this height. Don’t want to fly any higher and spot somebody’s radar.’

‘Very well, PETREL. Report as soon as RED WHALE is sighted. Back-up on the way.’

‘Okay, CONTROL. Will do.’

As the islands flitted past beneath them, the pilot watched their ghostly flight on the radar screen, checking them aloud to himself: ‘Yell -- Fetlar -- Uyea -- Unst. Nearly there now.’

02.49hrs. Sure enough, as CONTROL had promised, support appeared as two dots in the sky far behind the Harrier. They were growing larger by the second. Eurofighter Tornadoes, sent up from RAF Leeming, Yorks, they were catching up fast. Closing in, they flanked the naval plane, right and left. The Harrier pilot held up a thumb to the other pilots.

On the last island now, the great ‘seabird’ dived down for a scavenger’s look at 100ft. The two Tornadoes climbed up steeply into the sky, to bank over and circle down and round while the other plane went below. Straight ahead, the island began to split on cue into the four-mile-long Burra Firth fjord. The Harrier swooped down the glacial valley with a thunderous scream and there it was, in front.

The gigantic US Rockwell B-1B Lancer strategic bomber, bereft of its right wing, lay up on the right bank of the loch, like a monster ray fish. Entrails trailed out from the fuselage tail-cone to the GQ ribbon-type parachute brake that floated at the water’s edge. Twisted wing pieces, gleaming and smooth, fitted the scene like discarded claws. The dark General Electric turbofan engine poked out from the belly, like fish roe, dangerously close to the bomb itself. The B83 thermonuclear stand-off bomb lay dislodged to one side of the belly, with the island’s annihilation nestling in its unexploded mercy.

With the bomb safe for the moment beneath them, their mission was to fend off RED WHALE. Off-shore, the massive 8000 ton ‘whale’, black not red, basked in the sun with sinister glinting silence, while watching its ‘spawn’ scramble from the dinghies and scurry among the wreckage. The Harrier banked up steeply into the sky, blocking out the Russian sailors for a second, as it went into a tight turn. The whole North Sea spun round slowly, driven by the giant 426ft submarine in its ‘screw slot’, the binoculars winking on the 47ft long ‘sail’ of a conning tower.

‘PETREL calling CONTROL. Do you read me, CONTROL’

‘CONTROL receiving you. Go ahead, PETREL’

‘Circling RED WHALE now. Delta class, by the look of her. She’s quite a giant. Easily four hundred feet.’

‘She is Delta class. Left Gdynia in Poland six days ago. Last seen patrolling the Icelandic waters until she was reported ‘shadowing’ the plane when it came down.’

‘They’ve landed a party on shore. About twenty, I’d say.’

The radio pipped patiently during CONTROL’s hesitant silence before coming alive again: ‘The bomb must not fall into their hands. Repeat. The bomb must not fall into their hands. You have full permission to intercept, PETREL.’

‘Understood, CONTROL. Going in now.’

‘Good luck, PETREL.’

‘Tally-ho, CONTROL.’

The jet fighter screamed down in a warning swoop, leaving only sixty feet clearance for the sailors to duck their heads in reflexive fear. Everyone cringed down for a second and then straightened up to watch the great fire- bird climbing high into the sky. The officer snapped them out of their trance, waving his arm and barking them back to work with a voice as broad as the wooden Mauser holster that dangled beside the transmitter slung over his shoulder.

‘Spishitye! Mi spishim!’ (Hurry up! We have no time to lose!)

The guttural Slavic gabblings recommenced and they clambered over the plane. From high above in the sky they looked hardly more serious than romping children on a picnic treasure hunt. But they didn’t carry wooden pirate swords. Instead, they attacked the bomber with oxy-acetylene torches and heavy duty cutters, while those with the cameras climbed into the cockpit. Like Lilliputians, they worked frantically on their great ‘Gulliver’, more afraid of their commander than the Harrier, as it shattered their eardrums with another 600m.p.h screech.

Ignoring the Harrier, the men worked on feverishly, their tensions hidden inside. The great bomb was beginning to move as the two men in goggles cut away at the fuselage fastenings, behind a deluge of sparks. It looked a frightful load to move, being ominously long and fat with devilishly pointed tail fins.

That was why the other team was assembling the eight-wheeled hydraulic bogie, attaching buoyancy tanks to its sides and finally a tackle to its end and that to the cable that ran down the beach, into the water and out to the submarine.

Swooping round for another dive, the Harrier pilot prepared to fire the air-to-ground missile. He judged with lightning speed. Distance was too short for visual guidance by the missile’s aft end flares. He operated the Ferranti Airpass-11 computerised radio command-link lock-on, watching the display screen and fired. The missile rocketed away from the wing with fire-ball fury, to home in on its target, while the plane curved away. The 300lb warhead exploded in the rock-face 100 yards from the men, showering the place with rocks.

Everyone stopped work and looked around for orders. The officer had none to give, and looked round at the submarine, waiting for his transmitter to speak. No-one went back to work and anxiety mounted as the plane came in again. Everyone dived for cover just before the second warning missile was let loose. The Maverick screamed over their heads and exploded 50yds away, spewing up a shower of rocks that narrowly missed most...