dawn the Marines landed at the old Pearls airport in the north, midst teaming rain and anti-aircraft fire; at the same time the Rangers flew in from Florida over New airport midst even heavier anti-aircraft fire; at dawn a party of SEALs attacked the Radio Free Grenada station. At dawn the twenty-one SEALs and Jack Morgan stormed Government House.
They came fighting up the streets towards the hilltop, midst the clatter of guns and the stink of cordite, and they stormed the perimeter of Government House.
Morgan frantically threw himself at the wall midst the cacophony of gunfire, swung his leg up, and rolled over the top. He landed with a crash in a flowerbed. He scrambled up and crouched there, rasping, thanking God, getting his breath. Over the wall came the others. They ran off in different directions to cover different aspects of the house; the commander rasped ‘Go’ and Morgan ran.
He ran flat out across the lawn, for the kitchen. The commander flung himself at the door handle. It was locked. He stepped backwards and kicked, and the door crashed in. They burst through the door together.
‘Freeze! – US soldiers! – Freeze!’
The dark kitchen was empty. The commander bounded for the door to the corridor, stood flat against the wall. Morgan crouched, dry-mouthed. The commander shouted:
‘Freeze! – We’re US soldiers! – Freeze!’
Nothing. Only the crack and thud of gunfire out there. The commander burst through the door. He ran up the corridor, to the hall.
It was empty. He looked into the dining room. There was nobody. Morgan came running up the corridor. The commander bounded up to the living room door, and flung it open.
‘Freeze! US soldiers! – ’
There was a mass of shocked faces, black and white, people on the floor. There was a moment’s silence; then an elderly black man got to his feet shakily.
‘Praise the Lord …’ he said.
‘Are you the Governor, sir?’
The black man nodded his head. ‘I am, Paul Scoon …’
Morgan’s eyes were sweeping every face in the darkened room. He rasped, ‘Is Mrs Anna Hapsburg in the house?’
The Governor was saying to the commander, ‘Our radio was shot out –’
‘Anna Hapsburg! Is she in the house?’
‘Oh,’ the Governor said distractedly – ‘She must be upstairs …’
Morgan’s heart turned over. He turned and hurried out of the room. He bounded up the stairs.
The thud of gunfire was muffled. Morgan strode down the upstairs passage, looking into each room. They were all empty, the curtains drawn, mattresses on the floor. His mouth was dry. He came to the last room.
‘Anna?’ He twisted the door handle.
The door moved, then it was stopped by an armchair.
‘Anna?’ He shoved. The armchair slid.
The room was in half-darkness.
He looked in at. A pistol, pointed straight at him. Behind it, a woman crouched, at the end of the bed. He could only see her forehead, and her two white hands.
His heart was pounding. It was unreal. He lowered his gun.
‘Anna? Put the gun down. This is Jack Morgan.’
She stared incredulously at the blackened face smiling uncertainly at her, her frightened eyes wide, the gun still tremblingly pointing at him. Morgan put his hand to his head, and pulled off his cap.
‘It’s Jack.’
She stared at him, the gun still pointing. Then; slowly, incredulously she straightened up.
‘I don’t believe it …’
Morgan was grinning at her, shaky with relief. ‘Well, it’s me …’
She put one hand to her head incredulously. But the other still held the gun at him. ‘I don’t believe it …’
He said: ‘I’ve come to get you out of here. Now put the gun down.’
She slowly lowered the gun, staring. Shakily he stepped around the armchair, a smile all over his face. He stepped over the mattress towards her. She stood there, astonished, gaunt. Then she dropped the gun, and closed her eyes.
In the north the guns and mortars stuttered and thudded as the marines fought it out at old Pearls airport. In the south the Cuban anti-aircraft fire was so heavy, pounding the sky, that the commander of the Rangers aborted the first jump, but he knew from photographs that the positioning of the guns was such that they could not be lowered to hit a target under six hundred feet, so he brought his men in at five hundred. They hit the ground almost immediately after their parachutes opened, and they went running into action, guns blazing against heavy Cuban rifle fire. Over near Grand Anse beach the SEALs fought their way into the Radio Free Grenada broadcasting station, and the other party of SEALs attacked Richmond Hill Prison, supported by helicopter gunships. At strategic points within Government House the SEALs waited, ready to blast the heads off anybody who tried to breach the walls.
In the bedroom, Morgan sat on the mattress with Anna Hapsburg. There was nothing he could do about the war raging out there, there was nothing he wanted to do but sit here with her and just thank God she was safe, that the might of the entire United States was out there fighting their battles for them. He was still shaky at seeing her, and, oh, he just wanted to take her in his arms; but there was nothing like that in the air. She was a very different woman from the one he had seen a year ago. She was thinner, her long legs seemed longer, her shoulders more angular, her smoky blue eyes bigger, and there was no sparkle in them. She said grimly:
‘I’m sorry, I don’t believe you, Jack. It’s just too much of a coincidence.’ She looked at him: ‘They sent you to get me, didn’t they?’
‘They?’ And he felt like laughing, he was so happy.
She said, ‘The Americans, obviously. You’re here with the American army.’ She shook her head at him. ‘After what Max did to you, you disappear off the face of the earth. Suddenly Max is killed in a coup, and you reappear in an American invasion, like a knight in shining armour. They sent you, didn’t they? Because they know we were lovers once.’
Oh God, he wanted to tell her the truth, he didn’t owe a damn thing to the Royal bloody Navy – but he did not want to turn her against himself.
He said: ‘Look, once you’ve been in the Navy you’re never really free of them, they’ll call you up in emergencies. And this was an emergency. The Americans needed local knowledge of Grenada. They didn’t even have up-to-date plans of the island – they came in with tourist maps. So they called on the British, because this used to be a British colony. And so the Navy pulled me out of retirement. But my only job was to brief them on the features of the island,
