Lurching, shuddering, it began to follow an erratic zigzag course towards the roadblock. Unguided save by whatever malfunction was affecting its steering, it succeeded in missing every major obstruction, riding over or thrusting aside any minor ones.
It was almost like being back on the ranges, and Revell waited until it was within seventy-five yards before sending the missile on its way. With instruction manual precision, the shaped warhead struck the base of the turret, which was ripped off by the resulting explosion.
‘Still coming on, Major.’ Cohen could hardly believe it. With a tall pillar of fire gouting from the huge hole in its hull top, the unmanned target was maintaining its bizarre progress. ‘And I don’t like the look of it.’
‘I’m not wasting a round…’ Revell was already switching his aim to a Shilka flak-tank, that was trying to create a new side street by the brutal but effective process of crushing a picturesque half-timbered building.
‘You’d better, Major. Its next turn will bring it right to us.’ Revell couldn’t achieve sufficient depression to bring the missile tube to bear on the new danger, and as he wrestled with the mount the burning tank clanked and squealed on to a heading that would bring it straight at them.
The masonry-topped hull of the embedded APC offered no real obstacle to the runaway. Without being deflected from its random course, the tank climbed the metal flank of the obstruction and, with its bow plate facing up to the sky and its steadily rotating tracks grinding great furrows in the carrier’s armour, hung there for a moment.
Though he at last managed to fire, Revell knew it was useless. At so short a range the flight time was too brief for the missile to arm itself, and with only a fraction of its burn-out velocity, it broke into its component sections when it hit the target. Warhead, motor and electronics fell harmlessly on to the sidewalk amid a tangle of guidance wires.
There was just time for Cohen to snatch the radio pack and hunch over to protect it, before the APCs hull collapsed under the crushing weight, and the T84 was catapulted down and forward through the front of their building.
Flame from the explosive and diesel-fuelled fire swept up the stairs. Revell felt his throat constrict as rasping super-heated smoke filled the room, then was blinded by it as the floor began to sag and long, widening cracks raced up the walls.
The smoke was making it more difficult to find and identify targets. And there were fewer of them. Clarence repeatedly scanned the ground laid out below, but the only Russians to be seen were the dead and dying. When a group of survivors were occasionally forced to change position by the imminence of a building’s collapse, they did so at the double, using every scrap of cover. Inevitably one of them I would fail to make it, and the sniper would add another to his score, but only rarely was there the chance of a second shot.
Andrea was always ready when it happened. As the frantic infantry and dismounted tank crews piled in through another doorway, she would give them just a moment, then send a fragmentation grenade in after them. It was she who spotted the three officers attempting to set up a heavy machine gun in the car park behind the hotel.
‘They are mine.’ She yanked on the sniper’s arm as he took aim. ‘We’ll take them on together.’ Clarence pulled himself free. ‘No, they are mine. This time it is you who will back me.’
‘Get on with it then.’ He couldn’t keep the snap out of his words. This was the first time she’d asserted herself, and he didn’t like it. So far they had worked perfectly as a team, until now she had accepted the role of giving support fire without question; in fact they’d reached the stage where few words were needed between them. It was as if a form of telepathy had joined their minds, making it possible for them to function as though they were one.
Taking the grenade from her depleted stock, Andrea didn’t need to look as she dialled its fuse setting for an air-burst, and loaded it into the large bore tube below the rifle’s barrel. The sniper’s reaction to her demand had neither surprised nor bothered her; she had expected it. He could serve no further purpose, she had learnt all she could from him. It would take little to terminate their tenuous relationship. There had been nothing linking them beyond a shared interest in killing, and now there were other lessons to be learnt elsewhere – with another.
The 40mm grenade detonated right over the group, even as they brought the machine gun into action. Razor fragments scythed down from the grey smudge that banged into existence above the Soviet officers’ heads.
There was anger in Clarence, mostly from old memories, and more recent hatreds; but their recall had been triggered by Andrea’s new air of dominance. It prompted him to do something he’d never purposely done before. One of the Russians hadn’t gone down, he staggered about clutching at his stomach. The sniper carefully and deliberately put the 7.92mm bullet into the base of his spine.
At the impact the wounded man straightened up, arched backwards and flung his arms wide. A great mass of guts cascaded from the released wound, and the officer slipped in the dangling mess and fell to roll in them, before a final spasm sent his limbs into spastic jerks and he at last lay still.
Andrea had watched over the sights of her M16. A thin, tight smile turned up the corners of her beautiful mouth. ‘That was good. That was very good.’
His thoughts were in a turmoil. There was so much he wanted to say, to explain, but he couldn’t bring himself to speak to her. They might be fighting the same war, but they weren’t fighting it the same way. Before, he’d felt they had much in common, now he knew that was an illusion. And he also knew, without having to ask again, the answer to the question he’d put earlier, and which she’d so consistently and expertly parried. She was in the war because she loved the killing.
Clarence watched her snap three fast single shots at a Russian sidling down a distant alleyway. Down to the stance and style, she had copied his technique to the last detail. It was as if, leech-like, she had sucked every single shred of knowledge from him. With single-minded determination she had spent hours on the ranges, and the result of all that practice, that honing of all she had absorbed from his unconscious instruction, had paid off. A body sprawled in an alley three hundred yards off testified to that.
‘Who will it be next?’ It was something he had to ask. There was no hesitation, no surprise or mock confusion. ‘Perhaps the one who knows about heavy weapons, Libby. Or perhaps the big man, Dooley.’
‘Yes, you’ll learn about fighting from him, and end up having to fight him off. Is that what you want? Or don’t you mind so long as you pick up some useful tips on bayonet work?’
‘Yes, I mind. But he will not touch me, I can look after myself. And if he should try, then I shall do something to him that will prevent his ever trying again.’
Not for a moment did Clarence doubt her, she meant every word. Perhaps he was fortunate that his sex drive was dormant. Had he not been restrained by the crushing weight of his memories, it would have been very easy to feel strongly attracted to this superb young woman. Perhaps in time he would have been.
He looked at the scratch marks on the wall beside him. It needed just one more, just one to bring his score to two hundred. The opportunity came almost immediately. Only two blocks away, a Russian tank commander was hobbling down a side street. There was lots of time, even more when the target stopped to rest and rub a leg that a torn pair of coveralls revealed as livid and swollen. The powerful telescopic sight allowed him to see the man’s face clearly as he grimaced from the pain of his wound.