Ripper and Henry got out of the car. Ripper headed off to meet the lady. Henry held his Uzi at the ready under a folded raincoat.
After ten minutes, Ripper returned with a petite blonde. Leo took a good look at the lady and enjoyed the rest his tired eyes were getting. She was tiny about five one and beautiful. Her hair fell in gentle waves about her shoulders, and even behind large dark glasses the fine cheekbones were apparent. The coat she wore almost hid the curves, but not quite.
Ripper opened the back door of the car and she climbed in. Leo stared at her. The car pulled away from the curb.
The woman settled into the seat. She removed the dark glasses and opened the coat. The promise was fulfilled; soft curves pressed against a white blouse, and her skirt rose inches up shapely thighs as she sat back in the plush upholstery. His eyes drifted up toward her face and Leo found himself staring into a lovely smile, eyes and lips sparkling in greeting. She was quite aware of the effect she was having on the man in the bandages.
"You look like the 'Invisible Man,' Mr. Sticker," she said, then laughed. Leo joined in the laughter as well as he could, his smile visible between the strips of bandages.
"It may look ridiculous, but it keeps me alive," he said.
One hour later, the limo returned to the Tower. Sergeant Henry got out and opened the rear door as Leo sighed with genuine regret. He hadn't been able to speak entirely freely to this woman, but they both sensed the bond beginning between them.
The blonde beauty walked briskly back to the Tower and joined a crowd of tourists. Sergeant Paul Henry scanned the area to ensure that no one was paying undue attention to her.
The Marine's head snapped back. The impact of the bullet sprayed the limo with blood.
Before Leo and Ripper could react to the loss of their only guard, the back door flew open and a man jumped into the car, the muzzle of his Uzi pointing directly at Leo's swathed head. The front passenger door opened and a second man joined them. Leo packed a Colt Python but the first man had expertly searched the Fed and come away with it.
The second man ordered Ripper to roll. Ripper's fist, held in an iron grip by his captor, contained both keys and Colt in clumsy disorder; he was soon disarmed. Leo cursed. He and Ripper had been forced to make this meet with small numbers no heavy armament, no backup for a secret meeting with a double agent in the royal family. That was the way it had to be, and it had backfired.
One of the assailants pulled a folded canvas sack from under his jacket and placed it over Leo's head. The same man gave Ripper directions, leaning over the partition that separated the driver's compartment from the rear passenger area. His partner sat in front, silent, pointing a semiautomatic at Ripper's groin. After twenty minutes of following directions, Ripper parked on command.
The back door of the limo opened and Leo was pulled out onto the sidewalk.
Ripper never heard the report of the gun as it boomed within the close confines of the car, nor did he feel the impact of the bullet as it parted bone and brain on its way through his skull. The bullet emerged to continue through the windshield of the car, leaving a star-shaped, blood-soaked glass memorial to an Able Team ally who did his duty because of a burning conviction that it was right.
The murderer quickly got out of the limo and ran to a Ford Granada parked behind them. Leo and his abductor were already in the back seat. The bandaged, trussed and bagged Leo fought with the man on hearing the gunshot that ended Ripper's life. The man viciously clubbed his struggling captive. Ripper's killer settled into the driver's seat and tore off, tires smoking.
Leo had no idea how long he was unconscious, but he came to in a room with cement walls, an overhead light, and the chair he sat in. Ropes bound him hand and foot. The bandages that had hidden his identity had been removed. He was stripped to the waist. On his chest he felt small electrodes. Leo knew what these were for and knew that his situation was desperate.
"Good to see you awake, Mr. Sticker." The voice came at Leo from all sides. It was a deep mechanical voice, not unlike the synthesized voice in electronic toys. Leo noticed the television camera for the first time. It was in a corner of the room and took in the full sweep of Leo's prison.
"You have been looking for me for quite some time," the electronic voice droned, "and now you have found me. I am Shillelagh. You will get to know me rather well over the next little while, but I don't think the experience will be pleasant for either of us. I am a professional, Mr. Sticker, and I willdo what is necessary. From the little I know about you, I suspect that there could be great profit in knowing more about you. A mixture of drugs and other, shall we say, physical inducements should prove effective in obtaining all of the information I need. Shall we begin?"
Leo writhed in pain as a ball of electricity hit him, dispersed like SMG slugs ripping into his marrow. The current was reduced until it became a steady throb, tolerable but insistent. From somewhere behind, Leo heard a door open and a person walk in.
Moisture was applied to his bicep. He felt a needle pierce his skin. The sound of hard-soled shoes on the cement floor followed the needle out of the room. The current was switched off. As the drug took effect, Leo felt himself drifting into a moonless night that beckoned him like a lover. I'm ready, baby, he thought helplessly. I am ready.
The voice began asking the questions. Probing, insisting, all powerful. An evasion or wrong answer brought Leo to screams as the shock was applied. Then Leo was allowed to drift back again under the drug's influence before the voice resumed its interrogation.
5
The war wagon cruised south along the A332 highway into Windsor.
The castle had been in view for some five minutes. It loomed above the fertile green countryside like a gray sentinel. Built on top of Castle Hill, the royal "weekend retreat" was surrounded by a stone wall that stretched for more than five hundred feet in a radius around the imposing Round Tower.
The minute they saw it, the castle distracted Able Team from the task of cleaning personal weaponry for the upcoming night work. The three warriors stared at the structure, trying to fit what they saw into the detailed picture given them that morning by Leo.
Leo had described the historic building in terms of its sections.
The western section, called the Lower Ward, is an open-ended courtyard, surrounded on the three closed sides by the castle walls. Integrated into the structure of the walls themselves is a large chapel and associated buildings, and quarters for the castle guards. Towers project from the walls at regular intervals.
The Middle Ward is a large grass-covered mound. On top of it sits the bulky Round Tower.
The east boundary of the Middle Ward is a wall that by the standards of this castle is thin about a foot and a half. At the north end of the wall, a gate leads into the Upper Ward beyond.
As in the Lower Ward, the walls of the Upper Ward have sprouted extensions into the center courtyard, and rooms and quarters of all kinds have been built within these stone extensions.
It was here that the State Apartments began, filling what was once called King Charles II House. This was originally the residence of the royal family itself, who are now housed in the nearby George IV House. The two residences were cozy nests indeed, but not immune to vermin.
Blancanales pulled the van into a parking lot in Peascod Street, across from the Lower Ward. Able Team joined tourists who had been turned back from the castle and sat puzzled in their cars, wondering whether to wait out the closure of the attractions associated with the castle that were scattered along its walls. But Lyons, Blancanales and Schwarz studied the stately architecture for weaknesses in the castle's defenses.