He hung up the phone, not realizing that his connection with Sir Guy had been severed midway through what he considered a well-deserved tirade.
Colonel Bexton did manage to do a little more light paperwork in the ensuing two minutes after Philliston's phone call. His peace was disrupted when an aide raced into the room with an urgent message from London. It had come not from RAF sources, but rather from the radio. The BBC World Service was reporting that London was, indeed, in the process of being heavily blitzed by hostile forces.
Colonel Bexton took the news with a choice of words that would be recalled for years to come among those aspiring to become officers of Her Majesty's Royal Air Force and who had no desire to follow the colonel's lead in reaction to a crisis.
"Oh, bloody hell," said the soon-to-be-retired Colonel E. C. T. Bexton.
Chapter 19
Smith caught up to the last SS-uniformed soldier on the top few steps of the lower staircase.
The rest of the band had just rounded the corner and was heading up into the daylight. They weren't paying attention to their rear.
Smith flung himself at the legs of the escaping soldier, wrapping his arms around the man's knees. The man let out a startled yelp as he toppled forward against the stairs.
The heel of the young soldier kicked up as he ran, catching Smith in the jaw. The impact cut a small gash in the CURE director's jaw and shifted his rimless glasses. Smith barely noticed.
The image was ridiculous. A man in his seventies tackling a fit twenty-five-year-old man.
But Smith had not only the element of surprise on his side. He had training. These so-called soldiers, no matter their pretension of identifying themselves with the formidable Nazis of ages past, were exceedingly sloppy.
The man fell and turned, kicking at his still unseen attacker as he tried to grab for his machine gun. His hat dropped off, revealing a pale, tattoo-painted scalp.
Smith had already rolled away from the flailing legs. Grabbing the soldier by the belt, Smith dragged him down the stairs with a mighty tug.
The skinhead bounced roughly down the wellworn steps, the back of his shaved head slamming against the concrete. He had just located his gun. It slipped from his fingers, rattling down the stairs beyond Smith.
When the young man was within reach, Smith lashed out with his free hand-fingers curled, palm extended. His hand smashed into the bridge of the skinhead's nose with a sickeningly loud crunch.
Blood gushed from the man's nostrils. He wriggled woozily, trying to pull himself back away on elbows and heels.
Smith repeated the blow, more vicious this time. The crunch was louder, the effect lethal. The young skinhead's eyes rolled back in their sockets. His head lolled to one side. He didn't stir again.
Kneeling next to the body, Smith didn't take time to catch his breath. He scrambled down the stairs, snatching up the skinhead's dropped machine gun in his gnarled hands.
It was set to fire.
His bones creaked as he climbed to his feet. Ignoring the pain in his jaw, Smith ran up to the landing.
The group of SS-clad skinheads had no idea what had just happened behind them. They were higher up the second landing, stuck in a bottleneck. The first men in line were waiting for a lull in the fighting at street level before racing into the smoke and flames in the road outside.
Not that there was much resistance from above. Even though some bobbies were allowed to carry guns in modern London, the police in the square were no match for the heavily armed IV troops. What the soldiers were avoiding were the bombs and occasional machine-gun bursts from their own attacking air force.
Smith braced his back against the wall as he stole a quick look up at the neo-Nazi troops.
Clustered together. An inviting target.
Smith twisted into the landing. His gray face a steel mask, he began firing carefully and methodically at the troops jammed tightly on the stairwell.
The gun rattled a relentless staccato in his steady hands. Bullet wounds erupted on the nearest startled troops. There were screams and shouts.
Caught off guard, the soldiers didn't know how to react. There were too many of them packed together to maneuver well. Those who did manage to wheel around succeeded only in firing on their own troops.
Bodies fell in crumpled masses, toppling atop one another in an avalanche of twisted limbs.
In a matter of seconds the subway staircase was transformed into a blood-drenched abattoir.
For several long moments Smith was forced to duck and hide behind the wall. For short stints he would pop out and fire on the dwindling German forces.
Eventually all that was left in the staircase was Smith. And the bodies of the men he had killed. He peeked around the corner.
The others had fled.
A rectangle of daylight that appeared to have been cut out of the concrete around him opened into the street. He could hear the angry pop-pop-pop of machine-gun fire echoing down the now silent stairwell.
Dropping the weapon in his hands, Smith scooped up two others from a pair of nearby corpses. Slinging one gun over his shoulder, he held the other firmly in his hands.
Ignoring the pains that screamed from every joint, Smith hurried up through the scattered dead to the street above.
THE CHAOS of Trafalgar Square was far below. Remo had just reached the top of the nearly two-hundred-foot-tall granite pedestal. He was standing next to the legs of the sixteen-foot-tall statue of Lord Nelson, and he still didn't know what to do about the huge German bomber.
The Heinkel moved with a plodding remorselessness across the smoke-choked sky.
Remo saw that its bay doors were open. Briefly a broad face came into view. It disappeared into the cavernous interior of the large aircraft.
What could Remo do?
Remo patted his pockets. He had nothing but his phony ID, a few credit cards and a roll of cash. Desperation.
There was nothing he could use. Nothing he-
The Heinkel was directly above him. It was like the Shadow of Death had passed over London.
All at once Remo became aware of something new in the air above him. Something small had fallen from the plane.
He looked up.
The bomb-the first of many, Remo was certain-was whistling angrily toward his head.
He glanced around frantically. He could rip one of the legs off Lord Nelson and use it to bat the bomb harmlessly away.
Bad plan. That wasn't how bombs worked. They waited until they hit something and then blew up. This wasn't a game of tag. He'd never win a contest with a bomb by striking it first.
It was closer now...twenty feet ...ten feet... There was not much choice. Remo steeled himself. Five feet...
It would have been easier if the bomb hadn't been sitting in a French farmer's field for thirty-seven years and then in a deminage depot for another eighteen.
Two feet...
No choice.
One foot...
Remo slapped his hand out.
The whistling bomb was at chest level now. He caught the nose of the 75 mm shell with carefully cupped fingers.
Slow the descent. Turn the bomb around.
Remo felt the rough, corroded surface of the unexploded shell through every nerve ending in his hand. Fingertips became suction cups. A variation of the technique that allowed him to climb sheer faces. Using the coarse bomb exterior for leverage, Remo whipped the explosive device back in the direction it had come.
The entire sequence took a split second to perform. The shell soared back up through the open bay doors of the Heinkel just as the aircraft began to drop another small handful of bombs.