Overkill (13 page)

With a series of uncomfortable jolts the elevator stopped and together they wrenched the doors open and stepped out on to the slashed and rucked remains of carpet tiles. There was no illumination in the restaurant, but it wasn’t needed. The glass walls had gone, and the breeze that blew in from one side and unimpeded out through the other brought with it the continually shifting glare from descending parachute flares.

What from the ground had seemed little more than superficial damage was very different when viewed close to. Dozens of high explosive rounds had ripped through the place, tearing down partition walls and scattering the ruined kitchen equipment through the dining and reception area to lie with the broken china and fire-discoloured cutlery. A ceiling that had been set with thousands of light bulbs simulating the patterns of the star fields was now only a mass of drooping flex and fitments.

She hadn’t let go of his arm, and didn’t as they walked to the edge of the drop. Revell was in no hurry that she should, and maintained a gentle pressure. Together they looked over the city.

Their outline sharpened by the harsh light from the drifting, blazing magnesium, Hamburg’s remaining buildings took on an appearance of stark ugliness. To Revell it was like looking into the rotting mouth of a decrepit crone by the aid of a penlight, and gave rise to the same sick sensation as viewing extreme disease or deformity did.

‘I have brought a flask.’’ Inga lowered her camera case to the floor. ‘First I shall set up my equipment, then we will have a drink, yes?’

Revell was happy to agree to that, but not as pleased when she withdrew her arm and set about clearing a space to set her tripod. She hummed as she worked, brief snatches of tunes that chased each other and tantalisingly changed each time he thought he’d recognised one.

He was enjoying being with her. She was so natural, so uncomplicated, so undemanding ... so totally unlike Andrea. That was the first time he’d thought of her since Inga had offered him the food, and even now she failed to fill his mind. Andrea was frustrating past, out of reach present and probably unobtainable future ... Inga was here, now…

The room shook and the whole tower swayed under the influence of a near miss down at ground floor level. Lunging forward Revell grabbed Inga round the waist as she over-reached herself in saving the tripod from going over the side.

Pulling her to him he held her close until the sensation of movement passed, then deliberately but with reluctance pushed her away a little before the embarrassing hardening of his body became obvious to her also.

‘That is not a common reaction to danger.’ The brushing of her slim hips against his erection as she turned away seemed an accident, but the smile she threw back betrayed that it wasn’t. Caught off guard, unprepared, he couldn’t think what to say, and said nothing. He hadn’t expected her to be an innocent, but still the boldness of her action and remark surprised him. Taking it as encouragement he stepped to her side and tried to put his arm around her waist to pull her to him but she effortlessly avoided the advance and moved to the other side of the now camera topped tripod.

‘No, not here, not now. I must work, we have the night in which to get to know each other. When the pictures are taken, when we have talked, then perhaps. We can have breakfast at my apartment, if you like...’

If it was a slap-down, it was the gentlest Revell had ever received; with considerable skill she had avoided his clutches, put him in his place, held out hope and made a half-promise. For the remainder of the night he would be more careful, less clumsy. It would be a long wait, but as he watched her bending over to adjust a lens setting and attach an image intensifier to it, saw the material of her suit pull tight across the sleek curves of her body, he knew it was going to be worthwhile.

From far below the smoke and the smell of burning rubber drifted in. Looking down, he saw that the generator truck was on fire. About a large crater nearby sprawled its operators and the entrance guard. Another of the huge explosions occurred a couple of blocks away and in a bizarre domino effect a series of end walls were knocked over by the blast.

Experience told him what type of weapon had been used to deliver such a powerful warhead. It had to be one of the huge 240mm Russian mortars. It was one thing for the city to be pounded by artillery, another altogether for the centre to be on the receiving end of a barrage from such a comparatively close- range weapon.

Revell had seen for himself the state that Hamburg’s defences were in. Old men, young boys; captured weapons and weapons fabricated from scrap and salvage: ingenuity and guts were keeping the Warsaw Pact armies at bay long after they should have been able to walk in and take over without effort.

It wasn’t right that he should be here now. As soon as he’d failed to find Thorne he should have reported back for reassignment. Maybe some of his squad were still alive, and if they were it was possible they were cursing him and Andrea for not having seen and reported the true strength of that gathering Russian attack. Damn it, there was nothing to be done about it now; there was little point in dwelling on it. But that was one of the penalties the privilege of command brought with it, the constant worry that you’d fouled up, that you’d not looked after your men as best you could.

By staying here he was failing them now, worse than that, he was failing himself. Taking off his helmet he passed his hand through his hair, and several strands came away with the combing action of his fingers. There was a giddy sickness too, not from his stomach, but from a general feeling of weakness that sapped the strength from his whole being.

A grit-filled zipper on a pocket almost defeated him and he swore under his breath as he tugged at it to overcome the resistance. The pills turned first smooth then pasty in his mouth and he had deliberately to produce saliva to swallow their residue. Finding somewhere to sit down he waited for them to start working, to combat the cumulative effects of the radiation doses he’d absorbed in the last day or so.

Some men kept a record, noting as accurately as they could the partial and whole body doses, seeming fascinated by the mounting total of the count as it steadily rose towards the level at which there would be no help to be got from medicines or transfusions, when all that could be done for them would be caring supportive treatment to ease them through the last painful hours.

To Revell’s mind the doctors had made a mistake in telling the men how much they could take before death became certain. Some might have found out for themselves, and in any event their officers would have been in the know, would have taken the right action when the time came; but for some the maintaining of the personal log became an obsession, and that often robbed them of their sanity long before there was the possibility of the radiation, stealing their lives.

Another of the huge mortar bombs exploded in the distance, followed a few minutes later by another. The Russians were taking no chances with so valuable a weapon, its towing and ammunition carrying vehicles and large crew. They were limiting themselves to just the two rounds before changing their location to defeat the tracking radars that would be trying hard to find them.

The second shot had started a large fire. With so little left to burn above ground that could only mean that the bomb had found an underground dump, or perhaps a shelter. It might not be just supplies that were being consumed.

‘Somebody bloody catch her.’ Burke sprawled in the dust, just missing the girl.

Alight from head to foot, flame streaming behind her, she was rushing about from side to side of the street, evading the arms of the men who sought to catch her and smother the fire. Bleating screams and showers of sparks marked her fast erratic course, until gusting flame whipped into her eyes searing vision from her, and she ran into the shell of a tramcar.

Sergeant Hyde was the first to reach the girl. He pulled her down to fight the enveloping flames with his bare hands, but they rekindled as soon as he went to tackle another area of her clothing.

‘She’s gone, Sarge.’ As the NCO stood back, Burke used the side of his boot to scuff dust over the body.

They left the corpse still smouldering, lying otherwise unnoticeable among the general litter of the road, and went back to help the others.

The scene in front of the blazing building wrenched at all their senses. Many of the women who had been working in the communal kitchen had managed to get out, but there could be no hope for others who might still be trapped by the inferno. Thick slabs of exotic marble were bursting in the heat, and the frontage of what had once been a banking hall was now crumbling and melting and making it difficult for the would-be rescuers to reach those injured who’d had only the strength to make it to the street and could go no further.

Screams from the burned and maimed drowned even the roar of the fire and at least one of those laid in the road, burned black, bearing seared and splashed by molten aluminium and glass, staggered to her feet, flung up an arm to shield her face from the roasting gases, and deliberately ran back inside.

Somewhere Dooley had found just enough water to soak a threadbare blanket and now he used it as a shield to try to reach the wounded. He was still yards from the nearest when the billowing steam from his makeshift protection turned to smoke and then almost instantly to flame and he had to throw it down and retreat.

An improvised fire appliance arrived, a converted fuel tanker now equipped with hoses and a pump, but before it could go into action gas cylinders inside the building began to rupture and tongues of liquid flame spurted across the road. At the merest touch the tinder-dry bodies began to burn. That brought movement to some, but it wasn’t the frantic thrashings of death agonies, just the gradual arching and rolling brought on by the rapid drying and shrinking of muscle and cartilage.

‘There it goes.’ From a hundred yards off Ripper felt the heat as the whole facade collapsed and filled the road from side to side with a wall of red-hot debris. ‘Say, if hell’s like that, I might just start going to church again.’

‘I’m surprised you’ve ever been.’ Taking up the front of the stretcher Clarence started towards the waiting red-cross-embellished Mercedes van. He was thankful he was not at the back, did not have to see the destroyed face of the girl they carried.

‘Course I been, used to go regular. Why, one time I was in the choir for a spell, ‘til there was that trouble with the organist and the new kid. Always thought the boy sung a shade too high to be quite right. And I never did trust that organist, always wore perfume, only he called it cologne, but it was perfume all the same. After a while the new kid stank of it too…’

Hyde was in deep conversation with Colonel Horst. Boris could see them keep glancing at him. He pretended he didn’t notice, and that it didn’t bother him, but it did. What did he have to do to prove himself to the sergeant, was there anything he could do that would persuade the NCO that his desertion from the Red Army was genuine, that he was not some sort of double agent? No, he doubted it. The sergeant’s suspicions went deep, but his hatred and prejudices went deeper and it was unlikely that anything could eradicate something so long planted, so firmly established. Hyde was coming over, he forced himself to be busy about his task of gathering scorched and severed limbs together. What other assignment had the sergeant for him, what worse than this had he found?

‘Got a little job for you, Boris. Here, take this pack, and hang on to it.’ Opening a corner, and pulling out a wad of the cloth bundled into it, Boris recognised the coarse texture, its colour, and then as final confirmation the insignia of a Russian captain of artillery. ‘I don’t understand, this is a Russian uniform...’

‘So it is. We’re giving you a chance to go back to your mates, to find something out for us.’ Hyde pushed the pack back at the man as he tried to divest himself of it.

‘No, I cannot. If I were to be caught... and I would be, I do not know the passwords… they would not kill me, not soon, they might keep me alive ... half alive… for years. You do not know how skilful they can be...’

‘Strange how much you seem to know about the KGB’s methods. But if they frighten you, then you’d just better make sure you don’t get caught, hadn’t you.’

Boris chased after the sergeant. ‘What do you want me to find out, is there no other way, nothing else I can do?’

‘We want to know where we can find the cruds who keep dropping these.’’ Hyde waved towards the gutted building and the bodies lining the roadway. ‘The colonel says that mortar has done more damage in one night than the Ruskies’ massed artillery has in a week. He wants us to spike it. That’s just what we’ll do, when you’ve located it for us.’

‘But it will take days. I would be detected inside an hour, it is hopeless...’ ‘It’s usually fired from positions on the far bank of that big lake in the centre of the city, the Aussenalster. That’ll give us a starting point, the rest will be up to you.’

Dazed, Boris moved away, still clutching the pack. He thought he had conquered his fear, had found its limits and learnt to cope with it, but now all the old feelings flooded back and he had to sit because his legs suddenly had no strength. Hardly knowing what he was doing he slowly and methodically wiped his hands on the rough canvas of the pack, having to grind them hard to scrape off the adhering body fats that had run from the split and bloated limbs he’d handled.

A tipper truck stopped close by, and the gang of men that climbed from it began to toss on board any corpses that the doctors and identification clerks had finished with. Using their bare hands, their shirt fronts streaked with every kind of filth, they handled the bodies as they might have handled cartons of soap.

Every one of the men had the same haggard expression and in the deep lines etched in each could be read a catalogue of horror without end. This was one of the burial squads. They were fed better than most as they had more work to do, received better medical treatment than most as their work was important and put them at risk, and they had a death rate second only to the infantry units holding the city’s perimeter. Their death came in many forms, but one factor was common to all, it was at their own hands.