Sky Strike (7 page)

‘Ease back on the gas. We don’t want to get tangled up with them.’ The line of twenty or more well-spaced trucks had also been seen by Revell, but what he had noticed almost as quickly, and had given him much more cause for concern, was the half dozen motorcyclists escorting it. Not content to hold their station, the riders were flashing back and forth along the slow-moving file, constantly waving and signalling to the crews, apparently urging them to greater speed.

‘If those wagons are in the same state as this one, it’ll take more than a few shouts to get them to roll any faster. Shit, one of the cocky sods is taking an interest in us. Let’s hope he can count, and realises we’re not one of his.’

The motorcycle roared past, executed a tight skidding turn behind them, and suddenly appeared alongside the driver’s window. Its rider gesticulated wildly, and shouted at the top of his voice, but was barely audible above the bellow of the Gaz’s holed exhaust.

‘He wants us to catch up with the others. He thinks we are with them.’ Boris gave the translation out of sheer habit, he was beyond reasoned thought as he watched the two-wheeler dart ahead, and saw the machine pistol slung behind the rider’s back. ‘I feel sick.’

‘Then do it in your damned helmet. Not over me.’ From the floor Revell retrieved one of the helmets they had pushed beneath the seat as the escort had drawn up alongside, checked it was the Russian’s own, and pushed it at him. ‘And don’t do it on the radio either.’

Every few moments the motorcyclist would glance back at them, twice making a beckoning gesture.

‘You better do as he says. Just keep as much distance as you can between their tail-end Charlie and us, without giving them reason to take an interest in us again.’

‘What happens if they turn east, or stop for a brew?’ Burke was trying to judge the distance just nicely, close enough to the convoy to keep the escort happy, but not so close that they’d be under constant scrutiny.

‘If and when, we’ll play it by ear.’ Revell looked out of the side window, and pretended not to hear the sounds of their Russian emptying the contents of his stomach.

‘Shit, shit, shit.’ Near-bending the gear lever in his effort to shift to a lower ratio, Burke eventually had to settle for the jerking snatch of dropping two, as the convoy slowed to a crawl ‘They’re turning off. Oh bloody Christ, look where we’re going.’

There was no chance to make a break. The first five trucks had already turned into the camp, and half the escort had dismounted to direct the rest of the vehicles off the road. A heavily armed group of military police stood by a BRDM scout car beside the gates and were taking a bored interest.

Boris was sick again, as their turn came to drive into the huge sprawling vehicle park beside the serried ranks of bleak barrack huts, but had nothing left to bring up, and could produce only ugly retching noises and a little spittle.

The guardhouse beside the entrance was a single-storey concrete structure that doubled as a pillbox. A light flak-gun stood on its roof, surrounded by a low rampart of sandbags. Once past it Burke had no choice but to tag behind the last in line of the convoy. The whole place swarmed with Russians, and a large concrete building, unremarkable save for its extreme ugliness, indicated that the place was a headquarters of some sort.

‘Flak-outfit.’ As they motored past rank after rank of soft-skinned transports, further back, outside a large hanger-like shed, Revell noticed two tracked missile systems receiving attention from fitters. ‘No, keep going.’

Burke didn’t need any urging. Instead of parking in line alongside the other trucks, he kept straight on. ‘Have you seen the fence around this place? There’s no way we can crash through in this crate, all we’ll do is pull up a few posts, wrap ourselves in barbed wire and make a hell of a lot of enemies.’

‘We’ve got those already. Steer for that building at the end of the next block. The one with the green roof, standing a bit on its own.’

Bringing the truck to rest beside a huge radio van that looked as if it was either in the process of being built from spare parts, or itself being cannibalised for spares, Burke had a twenty-second fight with the gears to find neutral, and eventually gave up and turned off the engine, keeping his foot on the clutch until the last shuddering over-run had ceased.

‘Someone is coming to tell us off for parking in the wrong place.’ The clipboard waving junior sergeant was shouting at the top of his voice, and going red with the effort of doing that at the same time as jogging towards them.

Waiting until the man was only a couple of yards from the cab, Revell hurled the contents of Boris’s helmet from the window. A little spattered back inside, but most of it went over the clipboard, and the junior sergeant’s boots.

For a long moment the insulted individual just stared, then whirled on his heels and ran back the way he had come.

‘He’s gone to fetch us trouble.’

‘At least it’s bought us time. Get Boris out, I’ll collect the others.’ Time; they needed more than time. Now a miracle would have been useful. Revell recalled his own words to Sergeant Hyde, earlier in the day, about thinking on their feet. Well, look where it had got them, not to safety, but right into the heart of an enemy camp. It was too late now, but maybe Hyde had a point, about the need to find the time for at least a degree of planning. But that wasn’t Revell’s way, oh no, he just went charging on... well the charging was about to end.

Any moment now the Russians would wake up to what was happening in their midst, and then the end would be swift and bloody. He would have to make a point of staying close to Andrea, save a bullet or a grenade for her. She would not do it for herself, not while there was still a chance of one Russian presenting himself as a target.

‘Looks like we jumped out of the frying pan and locked ourselves in the oven, Major.’ Hyde was already ushering the others from the back of the Gaz. He indicated Boris, who, in a state of collapse, was having to be supported by Ripper and Burke. ‘What’s the matter with him, has he been hit?’

‘Just scared silly.’

‘Ain’t we all.’ Ripper’s helmet was knocked back, to reveal his spotty forehead. ‘Reckon you’ve found a cure for my acne, Major. Pretty soon some Ruskie is gonna come along and blow my head off.’

‘There’s a squad of heavies coming.’ First to spot the approaching Russians, Clarence looked about for a useful place of concealment.

Hyde had already found one, an empty vehicle workshop ... well, almost empty. When the others squeezed through the narrow opening between the tall sliding doors, they also had to step over the corpse of a fitter whose head lay at an unnatural angle to his spread-eagled body.

‘What a beauty, what a bloody beauty.’ Going up to the big BTR-60 armoured personnel carrier that was the only vehicle in the place, Burke ran his hands over the meticulously applied three-colour camouflage finish, then walked round it, touching each of the eight brand new tyres in turn and enthusing about its lavish equipment. He completed his tour of the massive battle-taxi. ‘Have you ever seen one of these brutes in this condition, ever seen any Ruskie or Warsaw Pact transport in this condition?’

‘It’d make short work of the fence.’ Libby was more practical in his appraisal of the eight-wheeler.

‘The search seems to have moved away,’ Clarence made his report from the door.
‘They will be back.’

That the girl was right, Revell didn’t doubt for a moment What the Russian character lacked in capacity for initiative was more than compensated for by an ability to apply sheer mindless persistence to any situation. And if the cause of that determination was a vindictive lust for revenge then it became all the stronger. When the Soviet NCO got over his first burst of passion, and stopped darting about at random, he was going to commence a very thorough search of the area.

‘Into the carrier.’ Revell knew they had nothing to lose, were as good as dead if they didn’t burst out. They would still have the element of surprise on their side for a few minutes longer, but as the hue and cry spread that would vanish. It had to be now or never.

The others wasted no time in boarding, clambering up the APC’s hull and climbing in through the small side doors and roof hatches. Two of them had to assist Boris, who was incapable of doing anything for himself, so great was the state of shock he was in. Hyde held back, to help with the heavy doors.

Starting at the third attempt, the armoured vehicle’s engines filled the shed with noise and pungent black exhaust fumes. As they did, the pair threw themselves at the doors and a growing wedge of bright sunlight flooded in, making beams through the smoke.

Burke set the APC rolling as the last man boarded. ‘You hear these motors? This crate must belong to someone very fussy, or very special. The mechanics must have spent hours on them. They usually run like asthmatic steam engines.’

Having boarded by a rear hatch, Revell went forward to the commander’s seat beside the driver, and was slowed by having to thread his way past the gunner’s seat suspended from the turret above the middle of the single narrow compartment, and already occupied by Libby. By the time he got his first look out through the forward vision port, their driver was already setting an erratic course among the various vehicle parks and workshops.

‘I’m bloody lost, this place all looks the same to me. Where’s the fucking perimeter?’ Having to brake hard and swerve to avoid a petrol tanker that pulled out in front of them, Burke recognised a feature and got his bearings as they turned on to the new heading. But it wasn’t the one they wanted, and with serried ranks of close-spaced huts and parked trucks and field cars to either side, there was no way he could turn off.

Having at last in the cramped confines of the turret managed to feed a belt of mixed armour-piercing and incendiary rounds into the 14.5mm heavy machine gun, Libby looked out through the sight aperture, and immediately chambered around.

Ahead was the gate by which they had involuntarily entered. The scout car had been joined by a pair of T62 tanks, and as the gun crew manning the flak-position on the roof of the guardhouse saw the APC approaching they began frantically traversing their weapon.

SEVEN
Russian troops were pouring from the guardhouse as Libby made ready to open fire on the flak-mount There was nothing he could do about the tanks, but by Christ he’d take some of that gun crew with him. ‘Hold your fire.’

The major’s order crackled over the headset at the same moment as Hyde shook his ankle to get his attention, and shouted the same thing. When Libby looked again the scene at the gate was transformed.

In front of the guardhouse an officer was hurriedly marshalling a line of troops, while the gun crew had all stood to attention. One of the tanks was backing off to make more room at the gateway.

As the APC neared, the officer called his men to attention and they presented arms and he saluted as the stolen vehicle swept past and out on to the open road. This wagon is done up like a mobile whorehouse.’ Dooley tried one of the leather-upholstered bucket seats that replaced the thinly padded benches normally a feature of those spartan vehicles.

‘Hey, now there’s a real neat idea. I heard of a floating crap game, but the idea of sex on wheels, I like that.’ Ripper thumbed through a rack of magazines. Several were western publications. Between the latest copy of Pravda and Red Star were a Playboy and two Mayfairs.

‘I think this might explain things.’ Clarence took a bright coloured square of embroidered cloth from a small locker and held it out for the others to see. ‘Pretty. What is it?’
Clarence snatched it out of Ripper’s reach, to prevent it being covered with filthy fingerprints.

‘You ought to do your homework.’ Dooley leant forward, to try to look in the locker. ‘That is a general’s pennant. It could explain why we got the red carpet treatment, in fact I guess it does. Anything else in there?’

‘Help yourself.’ Clarence moved aside to let the big man rummage excitedly through the contents.

‘I can get a fortune for these, and look at this, it’s…’ Suddenly Dooley became secretive. ‘I ain’t sharing.’ Items he took from the locker were transferred to his pockets with clumsy attempts to conceal them. He kept alternately chuckling and peering round suspiciously, as if expecting the others to attempt to pilfer his trophies.

Most of the traffic on the road was military. Burke was careful to keep to the same speed as the vehicles around him and they weren’t bothered by the traffic police who constantly patrolled on noisy mud-plastered motorcycles.

Not all the other road users were so lucky. Twice they passed trucks that had been ordered off the road for checks, and saw their drivers being pushed and bullied about while papers were scrutinised.

They were forced to slow as they passed a field where a Chinook helicopter had crashed. The cabin had broken in half on impact, leaving the rear portion little more than a low ash white hump at the centre of a circle of scorched grass. Only the remains of the engine stood above the fused and melted aluminium of the airframe.

From the shattered front portion of the craft a group of laughing East German pioneers were dragging the bodies of the flight deck crew, using meat hooks.

The drivers and passengers of other vehicles on the road were leaning out of their cabs and shouting encouragement, and Hyde had to physically restrain Cline from firing his rifle from one of the side gun ports.

‘We can’t help them now. You want something to do, then take the radio over from our gibbering Ruskie. He’s in no fit state to use it at the moment.’

Dooley made a great show of sympathy towards the bombardier, spoiling it by grinning broadly as he did so. His words also lacked sincerity. ‘Now ain’t that a shame, Bomber, and just as we were getting used to your funny little medal- hunting ways.’

‘What do you mean?’ Not made happy by what he saw as relegation to a less than glamorous job, Cline was in no mood to put up with Dooley’s sarcasm.

‘Oh nothing, nothing much. It’s just that this unit gets through radio-men like you wouldn’t believe. Mind, with your self-destructive urges maybe you’ll last longer that way. You’re hardly likely to charge the Ruskies, threatening to deafen them with a burst of static.’