by James Rouch
The moment came and Revell dashed forward. Ahead of the others Andrea hurdled a pile of scrap and then used a stack of truck tyres to hurl herself on to the rear deck of the armoured vehicle. Even her slight weight made the hull buck and the giant Russian’s slab face whirled round to see her. The blade she thrust forward was Teflon coated and almost invisible but the slim sharpened edge was seen and an arm came up to shield its target.
The tip sliced into the thick blanket-like coat sleeve and stopped. Bellowing with rage the Russian swept a backhanded blow at Andrea and almost toppled her from the deck. Had he not been hampered by his awkward pose, still sat on the turret edge and twisted around from the waist, the strike would have smashed her face. Recovering her balance she threw all her weight behind a second thrust and this time caught the man under the chin. Another bellow, this time of pain, was cut short as the blade sliced in and up.
Blood erupted between teeth stapled together by the saw edge back of the knife as it sliced through the bottom jaw and up into the roof of his mouth. Another blow from a massive hand, more clumsy, distracted by the agonising pain, caught Andrea again and this time brought her down on to the heavily ridged engine covers, her senses reeling from the crashing impact of the flailing backhand. One fist clenched around the hilt of the weapon impaling his jaw, with his other the big man groped for her and caught a hold of the front of her jacket. Wrenching at the material he hauled her close, so that she was an inch from his face, smelling the stale vodka breath and the blood. Out of the corner of her eye Andrea saw a movement. She felt the fingers gripping her clothes bunch, making ready to dash her head in to the turret side. And then the hold was released; blood spurted from the Russians nostrils and just missed hosing her with gore as she fell back. Revell was stood over the man, both hands clenched on a knife he had driven with pile- driver force in to the Russian, severing his spinal cord just below the nape of his neck.
Not pausing, Revell grabbed a grenade from his webbing, yanked out the pin, held it for a fraction of time and then dropped it down the turret hatch. With both hands he shoved his victim forward and it was his bulk blocking the opening that caught and smothered the blast from within.
The detonation send a cloud of dust and smoke billowing out through the drivers hatch and was immediately followed by a scream than went up and off the audible range.
Minus his legs the knifed man slowly rolled down the side of the vehicle, leaving a broad glistening smear across the drab, slogan daubed armour. The corpse flopped beside Dooley. He had unfastened a side hatch and was examining the interior by the light of a red lamp that still glowed through the thick atmosphere.
There were two bodies inside. One, half on a bunk had been killed instantly, even as he sat up and began to pull his drink-befuddled senses together. The second occupant, a woman, still had some shred of life left in her. Both her arms were torn off at the elbow, the contents of her bowels oozed through her shredded clothing. Bleached white by shock and the loss of blood the woman looked down, from one stump to the other, then she looked up and half grinned at Dooley, an idiotic attempt at a resigned smile flickering across her features. In slow motion the expression became fixed and she lolled forward, diving head first on to the floor, her cranium making a sharp crack on the unprotected impact.
* * *
Several of the Russians were dead and another was not going to last long. Arterial blood was pulsing from beneath a bandage the Samson had bound about his chest. He had been propped against the hulk of a panel van and would be left for his countrymen to find. Another had survived by pure chance; his foot rolling on a vodka bottle and tripping him as he took a stumbling pace backwards to avoid the wild assault that struck them. A comrade’s body falling across him had pinned him until the short-lived and one-sided fight was over. Hauled out from beneath a corpse, seeing the state of the others, his first reaction had been to vomit violently and then to heave and retch uncontrollably, sweat poured down his face. By the first light of dawn his visage had a distinctly green tinge.
“That was an insane chance, using the grenade.” Andrea still felt herself shaking, and hoped it did not show. That Revell had likely saved her life, and certainly saved her from serious injury, was of no consequence to her. She had retrieved her knife from the chin of the mutilated body beside her and she bent down to wipe the blade on one of the few parts of the coats material that was not splattered with blood and tissue.
“As I jumped for the side of the APC I saw that the bomb was still on the ground. They had been using it as a table” He indicated the mud-stained pack, two paper cups and a bottle stood on it. A stone was wedged under one edge so that it made a level surface.
Andrea backed from the sentient weapon and looked around to take in the scene. Close by it was the body of a paratrooper, recognisable by the harness and reserve ‘chute he still wore. His head lolled back, his arms lay at his side and his legs stretched out straight. He wore no helmet and there was no top to his skull.
Libby had been to fetch Carson and Andy from where they had been hidden, close by the Iron Cow. It was the lieutenant who recognised the dead parachutist.
“Sergeant Smith Good man. Looks like he managed to trigger the anti-handling mechanisms before they got to him” He looked about. “The others must have failed to make it out of the ‘plane. Had they reached the ground alive then no matter in what strength the Russian jumped them, for sure their bodies would be here. Don’t know what happened to them.” He indicated two crushed bodies that had been pulled aside and now were carelessly lain across a litter of scrap metal.
Revell sent Libby off to summon Burke with Iron Cow. While they waited he watched Carson going over the bomb. “Is it safe, what’s the verdict? Can we move it without it turning on us or do we destroy it here.”
By the illumination of a small flashlight, Carson was inspecting the open panels in the bomb casing. “Just like the Russians to use a sledgehammer where a scalpel would have been preferred, but yes, it’s safe to move it.” As he carried out a visual check Carson had noticed that the Russian prisoner had ceased trying to turn himself inside out and was furtively watching him, with nervous interest that showed through his fear.
“Major.” Carson spoke very quietly. It was possible the man understood English. “I’m going to poke about inside this thing, let me know his reaction.”
Unfastening a small panel that it appeared the Russians hadn’t disturbed, Carson selected a long screwdriver from a tool role and slid it down into the bomb. Very carefully he turned it clockwise, withdrew it and deliberately made a pretence of hesitating then reinserted it and began to turn the tool in the opposite direction. He stopped and withdrew the screwdriver. “Well?”
“He was OK at first, just watching. “ Revell whispered. “When you had the second go he looked like he was going to chew his fingers off, he went white and started heaving again.”
“The guy is their bomb man. I was just faking that move but he knew if I kept going I would by-pass every safety device and go straight to the trigger. I think our intelligence guys would like to have him. Got room for him as well as the bomb?”
“We can take him. Good job it wasn’t the big fellow.” Looking down at the corpse that had rolled from the turret Revell noticed for the first time that his legs were missing. “Even trimmed he would have taken up too much room.”
Dooley handed some papers to Major Revell. Most he had taken from the command vehicle but some had been on the men they had killed, and their prisoner. “That’s the lot. Carson went through their equipment; especially the tools they had been using on the bomb but he just kept on tut-tutting and finally threw the lot away.”
Looking up Revell noticed how fast the sky was growing lighter. It was likely to be another heavily overcast day so there was no real dawn but soon it would be bright enough to bring them trouble. They had one small window of opportunity.” OK. Sergeant Hyde, get this device on board the Iron Cow. Fasten that Commies hands and secure
him to the bench by the back door. There’s nothing he can reach or kick there that can do any harm.”
“You are not going to put that thing on board our transport!” It must be destroyed now.” Andrea’s voice was urgent and full of fear. She stood on the rear door-ramp, blocking any attempt to move the nuclear device inside and secure it. “We are surely not going to try and run back in daylight with that murderous contraption on board?”
Watching Dooley lift the device by its straps, Revell noticed how the others kept clear, as though a few metres would make a difference. But none made the same objection as Andrea.
“No. We’ll lay up today and have a go at getting back tonight. The Russians have been very kind to us, making this a ‘no go’ area. Maybe this lot had radioed that they were finished, though I doubt it.”
Revell conferred with the sergeant. “They have a decent radio set but Boris is pretty confident they broadcast nothing, and this close he could hardly have missed their signal. They wouldn’t want to be caught drunk so I reckon they intended spinning things out, leaving time for their celebration before reporting back. Soon enough though some KGB squad will be sent to look for them. Before they arrive we’ll be long gone and well hidden.”
Revell thrust the map at the NCO. “Want to pick somewhere? Not too far, not likely to attract the interest of the average Warsaw Pact looter.”
Sergeant Hyde had selected a spot before the rear doors were closed. Folding the large map he handed it back to the officer. “ I know just the place. And I’ve persuaded Andrea her chances are better riding with the bomb than waiting for the Commies to arrive in force, and find her with these bodies.”
* * *
From more than a dozen paces the hovercraft was invisible, just another mound of reclaimed material. It had taken only a few minutes to conceal its angular bulk using broken boards, rusted sheets of corrugated metal and cloudy panels of Perspex roofing material.
Around them were stacked reclaimed material bins of all sizes and colours. Two six-wheeled garbage compactors were parked close by, concealing their transport from any casual inspection of the site through the wide unguarded gateway.
“I still reckon these garbage trucks look better.” Dooley ducked under the low shelter and watched their driver smearing thick rubberised solutions on odd shaped patches.
“You trying to say something about the state of our transport?” Burke had spent the whole day, under an improvised shelter, patching gashes and holes in the thick fabric of the ride-skirt. Twice helicopters had buzzed low above them and then he had been grateful for the ragged edged sheet of fibreboard propped overhead.
Revell had kept most of them busy on maintenance, of their transport, of their weapons. A bench had been cleared in a nearby workshop and all of them had, in turn, stripped and cleaned their personal weapons and then those from the racks aboard the APC. That done the Rardon had been serviced and the interior of the APC cleared of empty shell cases.
Their Russian prisoner had been apathetic at his situation, seemingly resigned to being a prisoner. Boris had tried to engage him, at Revells’ prompting, in conversation but he had produced no more than monosyllabic responses and a look of deep suspicion as the deserter continued the casual interrogation.
Carson had made himself enormously unpopular by working on the recovered ‘A’ weapon. Most of his work consisted solely of straightening and re-fixing inspection panels that the Russians had pried open, where they lacked the non- metric tools to do the work properly. Still his constant ministrations to the weapon had set everyone’s nerves on edge.
A half-hearted attempt by Dooley to find anything worth looting had turned into a useful scavenger hunt when his first discovery was a five hundred litre tank of kerosene. Improvising a way of piping it to the APC’s fuel tank had occupied a good part of the day but was finally successful about half way through the afternoon.
It had taken a considerable and constant effort by the Major to prevent Burke from filling the interior with tools from the yards extensive repair facilities. Finally, to placate him, Revell had permitted him to fix a large toolbox to the hull side and he had gleefully set about making a selection to fill it.
“That’s all we can do” Revell gave his assault shotgun a last wipe over and reloaded it from the tray of colourfully tipped shells he had lined up on the bench. “We’ll need every minute of the night to make it back.” He pointed out the ration packs to Sergeant Hyde and the pan of water boiling over an open fire improvised in the centre of the floor. “They can eat now and then get their heads down for a couple of hours. Make sure the Ruskie gets something.”
He poured boiling water into a mug half filled with soup powder. Off-white fragments floated to the surface and grew as they circled. He strolled with it out of the far end of the high-ceilinged shed. Rain was still falling in the distance. It showed as faint black bars joining the low dark clouds to the jagged horizon of silhouetted rooftops.
Closer he could make out the black dot that was a terrain-skimming helicopter. One had crossed and criss-crossed the surrounding area for half an hour in the morning, holding up work on the Iron Cow, but then had moved off and was now circling several kilometres away. Water still dripped from the metal eaves and he walked forward to get away from them, ensuring he stayed sufficiently alert to hear any approach of the distant rotor blades.
Save for himself and Burke whose turn it was to guard the only entrance to the site all the others would be resting. Not all would be able to sleep. In the hours to come they would have to thread their way through territory that was fast filling with Soviet occupation troops, and that in the company of an ‘A’ bomb in a more delicate condition than he thought Carson was letting on. Thoughts of that would drive sleep from some of them. It did from him and most certainly would from Andrea. He had never seen her display a weakness before. Now though it was as if she was falling apart. She could not take her eyes of the bomb on the short drive to the reclamation facility and had been first out of the Iron Cow when the ramp began to go down, throwing her weight against it as though she might hurry the hydraulics.
Sergeant Hyde came out to join the Major, spooning noodles from an instant- food pot. “I think that having that Russian nuclear expert as our captive might be a good thing. If the Reds want him back bad enough there are going to have to tread softly. They’re unlikely to whack us hard without warning. Maybe he could be our safe conduct pass.”
“No, I don’t think they will be particularly bothered about getting him back alive. To the Russian way of thinking it would be far more important that the NATO does not have the use of him. So they’ll be happy to get him back dead or alive. Either way they’ll be trying damned hard to succeed.”
He sensed Andrea was beside him, alerted by her soft footsteps, before he looked.
“You should be getting some rest.” Revell tried not to, but could not avoid examining her face. Her delicate features, framed by the dark hair she had recently cropped short, usually had a dusting of eye make-up, no matter what the circumstances, but there was none now and her dark eyes showed the strain she was experiencing. He wished she had made the effort. It seemed incongruous at any time, perhaps especially so now but he knew the men liked it, as he did, and that she enjoyed stirring their feelings.
“There will be time enough to catch up on sleep when, if, we get back.” Not looking at the major, Andrea knew his attention, though concealed, would be on her. “The Russian kept complaining loudly about having to deal with Boris. Apparently he considers him the lowest of the low but Dooley threatened him and he is quiet now. In any event, Boris got nothing from him.”
“I didn’t expect he would.” Revell tossed aside his food container. “To have the position he has, he’d have to be a hard line party member, not the sort to start babbling classified information after a little gentle probing. Boris is no hard man.”
“Has the route for our return been chosen?” Andrea tilted her face up in to the rain that had
started to fall again, as Revell and Hyde backed away from it, in to the cover of the shed. “From the far corner of the site you can see the flyover. It is packed with Soviet troop and cargo carriers running in to the city. Soon it will be impossible for us to get through the built up area. Perhaps it is already.”
Until that moment when Andrea said it, Revell had not doubted for a moment that they would be returning through the built up area. Suddenly though he had other thoughts. It was not the first time some casual remark from her had prompted his weary, almost stultified mind to become more active. She had a way of getting inside him.
“No.” He said it in a positive tone, giving scant indication that the thought had only just occurred to him. “No, we are going to swing out in to the country, track north and then when we’re well clear of the suburbs we’ll swing west and make a fast run for the river and our own lines.”
“They are still looking for us.” Andrea waved her slim hand towards the distant speck in the sky. “ That will be backed by ground patrols and road-blocks. The hunt will intensify.”
“From the search pattern that chopper is working they must think we have moved out of the immediate area.” Higher up Hyde spotted a small reconnaissance drone. Its engine noise carried as a faint buzz, getting louder when on occasion it would swoop lower and circle a particular spot. Think they keep them up after dark?”
“ If some one is keen to have their man back, and the bomb.” Revell knew he could be grateful the Russian night vision equipment was nothing like as good as their own but the Iron Cows infrared signature was distinctive and like a neon display at night. If the enemy choppers covered the right area, then they would be identified and ground patrols would be zeroed in on them. “I think they will maintain the search twenty four seven. We’ll have to have a couple of the crew riding on top with AA gear at the ready. That should take care of that risk.”