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‘Only the Russians will know of them.’ Andrea turned her dark brown eyes to the officer. ‘I do not think those we hit will be in a position to make a complaint.’

That was a face Revell could have looked at all day. He’d moved heaven and earth to retain her in the squad, despite the violent opposition from I-Corps, and even though keeping her had also meant keeping Kurt. Hell, he still didn’t really understand why he’d done it.

It wasn’t as though there was anything between them. Clarence was the only one she associated with, and even their relationship seemed to be strangely a-sexual, the only visible link between them being hatred of the Russians.

But then everyone who fought the communists soon learned to loathe them; for their atrocities, their sheer barbarity. In Clarence and Andrea though, the depth of feeling went far beyond that. For them the killing of Russians was their whole life, the very essence of their existence. Clarence’s score was close to two hundred. Andrea didn’t keep a tally, the most important thing to her was how soon the next chance would come.

‘Smoke up ahead.’ The pilot leant out into the aisle and called back. So Andrea’s next chance would come soon. Revell stepped into the cockpit. Peering through the wiper-swept glass, he looked towards the several thin pillars of black smoke that rose to the cloud base and spread beneath it.

‘Better take us down as low as you can. We’ll hedge-hop from now on.’

‘Already doing it.’ The pilot indicated the altimeter, steadily dropping past the thousand feet mark. ‘There’s no armour on this bus, not even the blades.’ He jerked his thumb towards the Lycoming engine above their heads. ‘One cannon shell through them and we’re gonna be aboard an olive drab carousel, going nowhere but down. You ain’t expecting me to dump you right on top of the commie column are you? Cause I ain’t too keen on that.’

Now they were right over the source of the smoke. Below, Revell could make out the burning tanks and trucks. A bubble of flame rose from a ditched command vehicle as its fuel ignited, mushrooming in the air behind them, before the wash from the helicopter’s passage scattered and dispersed it.

‘Looks like those poor shits took a hammering.’ The co-pilot unwrapped a piece of gum and popped it into an already full mouth.

‘Yeah, the babies we’re looking for sure passed this way.’ At fifty feet the pilot levelled out, and the countryside flashed past beneath the chopper. ‘You ain’t answered me yet, Major. I said how close? It ain’t that I’m pressing, it’s just that I’ve got kinda attached to this body of mine. I’d like to keep it in one piece for a mite longer, like ‘til I kick off through old age.’

‘Just keep us as low as you can. Give it another ten minutes at this speed and then let’s take it real easy. So long as we don’t overshoot, we should stay out of trouble. They’ll be concentrating their radar watch forward.’

A glance was enough to tell Revell that Sergeant Hyde had everything under control in the back. The British NCO had woken Burke by the simple expedient of whipping away a vital component of his nest, causing the remainder to collapse and deposit him on the floor.

The others were already gathering their equipment together. With every move that Dooley made, small squares of folded paper fluttered out of the bottom of his jacket, until he fastened it tighter. His plunder of the decorations had been extensive.

Twelve times in fifteen kilometres they flew over wrecked NATO supply trucks, and once glimpsed the blazing guard shack of a small roadside dump.

‘We were pretty fast off the mark.’ With unconscious skill the pilot skimmed the unwieldy helicopter over the telephone wires and occasional power lines. ‘But those Reds must be going like bats out of hell to have got this far. They ain’t being held up by anything, just smearing anybody who gets in their way.’

They whirred over a lone Mack tank transporter. It looked as if it had been bulldozed off the road. A fire was growing in the cab and the bodies of its crew lay beside it.

‘That fire hasn’t got a hold yet. We’re right on their tail.’ Straining to catch a glimpse of the enemy column, Revell spotted it as the Chinook banked round the side of a wooded hill. ‘Down, put us down.’ At the shout, the pilot brought the helicopter to a virtual standstill, then let it drop fast until it hovered only a few feet off the road. ‘So what now, and remember, this ain’t no gunship.’

‘There are no important intersections for about fifteen kilometres.’ Revell studied the map. ‘Then the road forks and they could go either way. Get us ahead of the column, well wait for them there, and in the meantime we can drop a few presents.’

A loud groan from Cohen was smothered by the howl of the engines, as the chopper soared vertically into the cloud before whirling on to a fresh heading, then, nose down, began to pick up speed. ‘So can we go back for my stomach later?’

‘Never mind your gut, get on that radio. I want that ECM platform now. The rest of you, we’ve got work to do.’ Scanning the various loads that had been hurriedly thrown aboard before their rushed departure, it was with relief that Revell saw the crate he wanted was the one nearest the rear door. ‘Get it ready for a drop.’

A blast of cold damp air struck at them as Hyde lowered the ramp. ‘Are we letting the whole lot go at once, or a handful at a time?’

‘We’ll make four drops at irregular intervals. That’ll stop them anticipating and keep them nervous. Put down a hundred at a time, on my signal.’ The view the major had out of the open rear of the chopper was unreal. The whole world was a uniform grey, devoid of any feature that would serve as a reference point. That insubstantial wall of cloud could be a hundred yards away, or just at the end of the ramp.

Dooley used a swing of his boot to free the final reluctant catch, and the side of the case fell away to reveal the loaded racks within. ‘All ready, Major.’

‘Right, make sure they go down on the road…’ Revell saw the puzzled expression on Dooley’s face. ‘Well there wouldn’t be any damned point in hiding the things in the fields if the Reds are barrelling straight down the road, would there? I want them nice and conspicuous.’

‘Funny thing war, isn’t it, Sarge?’ Dooley watched the officer making his way to the cockpit. ‘Some dumb shits back home must have spent years developing these, figuring out how to make them camouflage themselves when they’re dropped. Just when they’ve got it right, we come along and start scattering the bloody things out in the open.’

‘He’s not getting fucking philosophical again is he, Sarge?’ Burke yawned. ‘The last thing I want after a rude awakening from you is a load of bleeding waffle from him.’

‘Just get ready to drop two racks when I tell you.’ They were descending again, Hyde could tell that, as he waited for the signal, by the feeling in his stomach and the colour of Corporal Cohen’s face. It went from flushed pink to white to green in as many seconds, then disappeared as the radio-man ducked down, stuck his head in a paper bag and made repulsive noises while his shoulders heaved.

Suddenly they were out of the cloud and only a hundred feet above the road. Rain swept in gusts at them, stinging their eyes. The chopper levelled out and its speed fell rapidly, so that the road was no longer a blurred black ribbon. Details could be made out. The patches of old repairs, sprouting clumps of weeds, individual puddles and longer flooded stretches where neglected ditches and field drains had overflowed.

‘Now.’ Hyde’s hand slapped down on Dooley’s shoulder as he saw Revell wave from the cockpit.

In swift succession Dooley tripped two releases, and a pattern of bowling ball sized objects arced over the ramp and down towards the road. Some of the spheroids landed on the verges but most, prevented from bouncing and brought immediately to rest by their special ribs and fins, settled on the road.