Sky Strike (3 page)

Attempts to free the trapped co-pilot were hopeless. The concrete lamp standard that had crushed the other flight deck crew had wrapped the metalwork of the cockpit tight around his legs. But it wasn’t that pain that prompted the man’s ghastly yelling; slashed by scalpel-sharp slivers of glass, the flesh and muscle of his face hung down into the torn hands he cupped to hold them. Like bloody steaks, the flaps of tissue flopped back and forth at his every move.

Taking the kit Revell pushed into his hand, Hyde extracted the syringe, and with the force of a knife-thrust plunged the long thick needle in through a tear in the co-pilot’s tattered flak-jacket as close to the heart as he could get, and rammed the plunger home.

As though it mattered against the other agonies and fears he was experiencing, the man jumped and mewed at the sliver of metal’s penetration, then the huge overdose hit him and every fibre of his suffering-wracked body relaxed and he died.

Another helicopter passed overhead. Others could be heard, and so could the rattle and crash of automatic and cannon fire. Even as they had been going down, Revell’s mind had been interpreting the wild flitting images he’d glimpsed through the cabin windows. The rail junction and marshalling yard could only be a few hundred yards off. Maybe the raid wasn’t as big a shambles as it had looked from the air, maybe most of the first wave had got through, and even if they hadn’t, the second was due soon, and then they’d have enough men on the ground to do the job and still hold a perimeter against the time when pick-up would be possible.

A decrepit Tatra truck rattled around a corner two blocks away, and several half-dressed East German Militia snapped off a wild fusillade of automatic fire from its back as it rocked to a stop across the road. Cline and Dooley sent several disciplined short bursts in return, and the truck crashed through a clumsy, tyre- stripping, five-point turn before roaring off the way it had come, its passengers tumbled into a heap.

‘We got them, Major.’
‘Fuck off, Bomber, they pissed off because they were shit scared.’ Dooley fitted a fresh belt to the M60, letting its loose end hang free down to his knees.

The heat drove Libby back, forcing him to abandon his attempt to save a case of ammunition. A moment later machine gun rounds began to cook-off inside the Black Hawk, and they all had to duck as some came out through the bubbling alloy skin of the fuselage.

Revell tossed a sack of rifle grenades to the armourer. ‘We’ve got all we can carry. Everyone take a maximum load. If things are as screwed up as they look, then we won’t be able to count on much in the way of re-supply.’

They were fifty yards from it when the helicopter’s fuel tanks ruptured and exploded. Libby saw the mini-gun, the section of floor to which it was bolted, and a shower of ammo boxes sail across the street to crash into and through the wall of a warehouse.

A gunship spun into the road ahead of them, disintegrating and filling it with fire that instantly spread to the timber yards on either side. Sergeant Hyde struck off down a side alley, and the others followed. They had to step over a man-sized depression in the asphalt that was filled with a stinking red pulp. Tangled white silk draped a stack of oil drums close by, linked to the remains by twisted rigging lines.

The alley ended at a wire mesh fence. Through it, made indistinct by the clouds of drifting smoke, Libby saw their objective. It looked different from the aerial photographs. The bare cement walls had been toned down by the application of a wash of camouflage paint, but the control-tower-like glass top was unmistakable. Steel shutters had been added, but had been left folded back. From where they stood, at ground level, it was impossible to be sure, but at least ten, and possibly twenty or more long lines of assorted railway wagons separated them from the signal cabin.

‘Sure is a pity the major can’t do a Moses, and get these freight cars to part for us.’

‘Just get us through the fence.’ Cline slapped his cutters into Ripper’s hand. ‘Shit, how come you’re always giving me the work?’ ‘Every time you open your mouth, you draw attention to yourself.’ Clarence volunteered the answer as he worked at the other side of the opening, cutting through the woven intersection of the wire to work at twice the young infantryman’s speed. He had to brush aside Boris’s attempts to help.

The Russian was nervous and, hampered by the whipping aerial of his man- pack radio, only managed to get in the way. His nervousness showed in the taut lines in his slab face and his fumbling eagerness to get the squad moving once more.

From the far side of the yard came the sounds of small-arms fire, and further away, the fast punching crack of multiple cannons.

‘In we go.’ Revell went first, and stood guard as the others and their loads were fed through. His first glance had told him there was no choice of route. To go around the long lines of wagons would have taken too long. They would have to thread through them, squeezing between each row into what was a potential killing ground if there were any more militia in the area. And by now there was a strong chance there would be.

Andrea sent a long burst at a brown-uniformed figure that sprinted from a small shed. The last few bullets caught him, and the man went down, kicked once then lay still. ‘A Russian. They said nothing about Russians.’

‘Probably just railway troops, bound to be a few. Burke, get me his jacket.’ ‘I’ll get it.’ Before Burke could act Dooley had set down his machine gun, and was running towards the body, spare belts flapping about him.

A second figure appeared at the door of the shed, then ducked back as Libby fired from the hip, a brief burst that went nowhere near its target, but drove the Russian back out of sight before he could take aim with a pistol.

Not bothering even to attempt to remove the jacket, Dooley grabbed the corpse by the wrist and began to tow it back, sweeping a broad stroke on the damp ground that was marred by the indents made by the trailing boot heels.

The shed blew apart, first being lifted from its foundations, and then collapsing inwards like a card house, as Andrea’s 40mm rifle grenade went in through a window.

Mud and blood had to be wiped from the corpse’s sleeve patch before Revell could decipher its design.

‘Well, is he railway troops?’ Burke pushed forward, trying to see past Sergeant Hyde.
‘No, artillery.’ Turning the body over with his boot, Hyde reached into an unbuttoned pocket and took out the Russian’s pay book. He handed it to Boris. ‘Does this tell us any more?’

Flicking over the well-thumbed pages, Boris stopped at those detailing the soldier’s specialist training. ‘He is with an air defence regiment.’ ‘No bloody wonder they’re hacking our choppers out of the sodding sky. This shit must have a load of mates around here. No one said anything about all this bloody flak. A bloody milk run they said. It’s fucking Arnhem all over again.’

Burke watched as Dooley roughly cut away the badges from the dead man’s jacket. ‘I wondered what had made you so keen. You started souvenir collecting?’

‘Yeah, sort of. Fetch a good price do these, from the typewriter warriors back at HQ.’ He cursed at having to leave the belt buckle, as Hyde shoved the M60 at him, and pushed him after the others.

As Libby moved from the security of one line of wagons to another his mouth was dry and his breath came faster. Beneath the big steel-bodied cars nothing could touch him, but each time his turn came to wriggle into the open, drag his rifle and pack out after him then dash the few feet to the next sanctuary, before repeating the same frantic process in reverse, fear struck him in a way that was almost physical. He watched Clarence when his turn came. The sniper’s coolness made him as devoid of expression as the hideously disfigured Sergeant Hyde, but there was nothing in his actions, no extra caution, no hesitation, to betray even a suggestion of fear.

There were fewer choppers going over now, but the sounds of battle around the yard were increasing, with several more heavy weapons coming into action. The crash of grenades was becoming more frequent, and then they heard the first thunder of demolition explosions, and mushrooms of smoke and debris soared high above the yard from the direction of the engine roundhouse.

The concealment offered by the rolling stock ended a good seventy-five yards from the signal cabin. Between it and them gleamed several sets of tracks, woven into a complex junction at the throat of the yard. Stray shots had chipped the reinforced structure, making a couple of star-surrounded holes in the smoked glass windows, but the indicator lights on the modern control board inside could still be seen, blinking on and off.

‘We’ll put down smoke.’
‘Hell, Dooley, you hear the major? Ain’t enough your big feet are gonna have to trip the little o’l light fantastic over ah’ that ironmongery, he’s gonna make you do it with your eyes tight closed, or as good as.’

‘Shut it, Ripper.’ Hyde had been scrutinising the wagons of a train standing some fifty yards on the other side of the cabin. ‘I think we can save some rounds, Major.’ He pointed out from beneath the bulk cement carrier to a pair of unmarked matt-black tanker wagons.

‘It’s worth a try, and the wind’s in the right direction.’ Revell nudged Libby, and indicated the cleaner of the two wagons. ‘Five rounds.’

‘Like shooting at a barn. Reckon he’ll hit it?’ This time Ripper didn’t need to be told, he saw Revell looking his way, and shut up instantly.

Five sparkling spouts came from the evenly spaced punctures made by the high-velocity bullets. ‘Looks like aviation gas. Try the next in line, same again.’

This time the spurting fluid was darker, splashed less where it landed.

‘That’s what we want, some nice heavy stuff. OK Andrea, put an incendiary grenade into the side of the first one.’

It was almost point-blank range, and she had only to elevate her rifle a fraction for the tube of the grenade thrower slung beneath the barrel to put a phosphorous round into the centre of the target.

The detonation of the leaking kerosene mixture was instantaneous. There was a rippling flash of pale flame, barely visible even against the dark paint of the tanker, and then a massive report as the wagon bucked violently and twisting pillars of fire sent its top-mounted valves and inspection hatches hundreds of feet into the air above the marshalling yard. Almost the entire contents were consumed in that moment, but where the gushing liquid had mixed with the glutinous mass from the next wagon it burned longer.

Thick black smoke began to billow about the signal cabin and drift across the tracks towards the squad, as the heavier fuel started to burn in earnest, showing a curling angry red at the base of the pall.

An arm-waving figure appeared at a doorway in the otherwise blank walled base of the cabin. Chased by a flurry of hastily aimed shots, it dived back inside and the door slammed shut.

Cline was the first to reach the building. He fired a burst from his Colt Commando at the now closed door, forcing the others to dive to the ground to find shelter from the wild ricochets that whined and bounced from the thick metal and its strengthened surround.

‘Mad arse.’ Dooley was astounded to look up and see the bombardier still in one piece. ‘Shit, you should be more full of holes than a fucking colander.’ ‘All of you. Take cover. Libby, get us in there.’

Libby took a wad of plastic explosive from his pack and worked it in his hands to make it more pliable, before pulling it apart, and moulding each of the chunks against the door’s exterior where experience told him the bolts were most likely to be. He used a fuse with the shortest possible delay, and barely had time to join the others behind an angle of the structure before it blew with an eardrum-punishing roar.

Hyde had to barge dine aside before he could toss the concussion grenade through the opening. Dust and smoke swept back into his face and the major used the second it took him to recover to pass him and go in first.

Half -hidden beneath the flattened door lay the partially dismembered body of an East German railwayman. His blood had made the floor slippery and Revell almost fell as he reached for the splintered handrail and started up the concrete stairs three at a time, with Cline hard on his heels.

A single fluorescent tube still lit the windowless room. As it swung, its flickering light made weird shadows of the rack upon rack of relays, switches and other electronic equipment. Another flight led to the control room. The door at its top was closed.

Shouldering his assault shotgun, Revell fired twice and even as the gouged and shattered door crashed back, was racing up to, and through it.

A single hand frantically waving a soiled handkerchief was the only obvious movement among the huddle of four figures in a corner. There was a woman among them, as white-faced as the men, her eyes staring from behind thick lensed glasses.

‘Down.’ Revell demonstrated his meaning by jerking the barrel of his 12-gauge towards the floor. The cabin staff understood and dropped as if pole-axed, laying stiff and un-moving. ‘Set the charges, I want this place ready to blow in ten minutes, and get Boris up here. I want to find out how many of the others have made it down safely.’ Leaving dine to guard the prisoners, he took advantage of their elevated position to try to get some idea of what was happening in the rest of the yard.

There were several big fires around the perimeter of the area, but whether they were the results of the efforts by other assault groups, or simply marked the sites where choppers had crashed in, it was impossible to tell. A handful of smaller blazes had started among the long rows of rolling stock, and a large cloud of oily smoke was beginning to rise from the direction of the machine shops. That had been a prime target, it had to be the result of demolition.

‘I cannot raise any of the other groups, Major.’ Before reporting that fact, Boris had taken the precaution of checking that the radio was working perfectly. Forestalling the officer’s inevitable question.

‘Probably too busy to answer, that’s all. Keep trying.’ A burst of machine gun fire came in through the window above Revell’s head, and he hunched up to protect himself from the shards of glass that rained on to his helmet and shoulders. ‘How’s the work going? I want us out of here.’