Crown Jewel: The Battle for the Falklands Read Online Free

Gun in their direction, anyway.  Using his gunner’s night vision system to keep the targeting reticle centered on the lead figure, Donnan could see the unique outlines of hot Kalashnikovs.  Also, at least one fighter had something across his shoulder.  The weapon’s silhouette suggested that of a Russian-built rocket-propelled grenade.
    “Bulldog 31,” the American commander called out.  “Put fire on that group.”
    “Negative, too close to village,” Albert responded almost instantaneously.
    “That’s an order, Bulldog 31.”  The American was in command and knew it.  Interpreting his screen, Donnan told Albert that the enemy was getting in a vehicle parked outside a village shack.
    “Sir, our Al-Qaeda target is likely among this bunch,” Donnan posited.  “Request Hellfire.”
    Albert took a moment, and then authorized Donnan to use the air-to-ground missile.  Donnan locked the Longbow radar on the vehicle.
    “Longbow lock-up.  Firing.”  Another Hellfire screamed away.  The missile skipped down the hillside at the vehicle.  Both men watched their night vision screens.  The target pulled forward several feet.  It stopped in front of a small brick building, and several figures emerged and moved to the SUV’s open rear doors.
    The heat signatures of this second group were smaller, and one seemed to clutch a small bear-shaped object.  Donnan knew the UN was fond of handing out teddy-bears to the children of Afghanistan.
    “Bloody hell,” Donnan exclaimed, “I think there are women…and a child.”  Knowing full well that the seeker in the Hellfire’s nose would continue to guide it in anyway, Albert ordered Donnan to shut down the radar.
    In what seemed an eternity, both men watched as the family scrambled into the target vehicle.  The SUV began to roll again.  It moved several feet before the Hellfire knocked on its front passenger-side door.  Albert and Donnan watched in horror.  The cockpit screens flashed white, blinded by the Hellfire’s high-explosive anti-tank warhead.
    “Good shooting, Bulldog,” came over the radio.
    Slumped in their cockpit harnesses, both men sat in stunned silence.  These two warriors had just become murderers.
    The Apache drifted slightly.  The tips of its rotor came dangerously close to a rock wall.  Albert snapped out of it and corrected the helicopter’s attitude.
    ◊◊◊◊
    A summer shower had cooled London, making the city glisten in the sunshine.  Grey clouds cleared, and beams of light shone on the dome of Saint Paul’s cathedral, the spires of Westminster Abbey, the skyscrapers of Canary Wharf, and the iron span of Tower Bridge.  The Thames River snaked beneath the myriad of bridges that spanned it, and the bright day made its mud-brown waters sparkle.  Below the streets of the metropolis stretched the cylindrical tunnels of the ‘Tube,’ London’s underground railroad.
    At the Tube’s Embankment Station, a government official got off a silver train, and, minding the gap, stepped onto the platform.  As she moved toward the station’s exit, the official came upon someone reading a newspaper.  Next to the pudgy fingers that clasped the front page, she saw a picture of the Prince in full military dress and a headline that declared: PRINCE ALBERT IN AFGHANISTAN.  She gasped and hurried to her Whitehall office.
    Within the soot-covered Ministry of Defence building, she burst into the minister’s office.
    “Have you seen today’s paper?” she asked the minister.
    “Yes, yes.  Damnit, yes,” he grumbled back.
    “Al-Qaeda and the Taliban will get word.”
    “I know, I know.  It’s time to bring Prince Albert home.  Make it so,” the minister ordered.
    “Yes, sir,” the official sighed.  She would have a long day of phone calls ahead, though she would have Prince Albert safely home within a week.  She got to work.
    The minster leaned over his desk.  He would request a cup of tea later, but in the meantime, he thumbed