Several doors led off the courtyard. Tentatively tried, all were found to be locked or barricaded.
Looking back, Hyde saw Revell’s assault group racing through the open gates. There wasn’t going to be sufficient concealment for all of them in the confined space. If they were spotted, it would be instantly turned into a killing ground.
Straight ahead was the heavy double door the major had briefed him about. He waved Ripper and Ackerman forward.
Standing braced to either side of the large cast-brass handles, both men fired together. Smoke and splinters flew thickly about them as they fired twice more.
A combined shoulder charge by Dooley and Burke caved in the shattered timber. They threw themselves flat as blasts of automatic fire were sent up the corridor running away to left and right.
The respirator keeping out the effects of the gas didn’t mask the smell of the gun smoke as Revell moved quickly inside. Not much of the irritant had yet found its way to this quarter of the building.
He knew the armoury was on the top floor. The cloud of gas would grow thicker as they moved upwards and towards the front of the building. That was where the brunt of the barrage was taking place.
After the hours of darkness, it seemed strangely unreal to be in a well-lit building. Holding up his hand for silence, Revell listened for any clue to the whereabouts or the approach of the Russians. There was only the sound of his own breathing, muted by the filtering mask over his face.
Pausing only to let those men who would accompany him reload, the major moved onward. The building was an enormous maze. If he posted men to guard every intersecting corridor, then before he was on the third floor, he’d be on his own. The alternative was to search every room as they went. There was not the time nor the manpower to do that.
Finding the short flight of stairs that he’d been looking for, Revell started up. At its top, glass double doors opened into a broad passageway that ran the length of the building. He knew it would be covered.
Try as he could, he couldn’t remember which way the doors opened — inwards towards the stairs or out into the corridor. He was scrutinizing them, endeavouring to judge, by the way the hinges were mounted, when he noticed the gap between them.
Visible for only a tiny fraction of its length, a filament of fire wire bridged the gap on the side away from him. Signalling the others back, Revell edged down the stairs until the barrel of his pump gun rested on the top tread. He lined it up, ducked low, and squeezed the trigger.
The report of the firing was drowned by the roar of the detonating booby-trap grenade as the doors burst open. A mad hail of glass, wood, and plaster smothered them. Before it had begun to settle, Revell was leading his men through the wreckage.
No shots came, and they crouched low, hugging the walls as they waited for the smoke to clear. It did so to reveal two bodies. Both — a man and a woman — were in police uniforms.
The woman’s was close enough for Ripper to reach out and touch. Cautiously he rolled the body over. Dust from the explosion failed to hide the closely spaced holes across face and neck.
“Not our doing.”
“Never mind them. We keep moving.”
Dashing to the next staircase, Revell sent a blast from his shotgun straight up it, then stepped aside. Other members of the team fired baton rounds against the wall at its top.
The cylinders of plastic deformed on impact and whirled away to right and left. For a few precious seconds, anyone who waited up there in ambush for them would be either flat on the floor taking cover, or knocked down and in no state to fight.
Flanked by submachine gunners, Revell went up two steps at a time. As he reached the top, a bullet smacked plaster from the wall beside him. He turned to see a Russian paratrooper being hurled backwards by the impact of the contents of a magazine.
Revell stripped the body of three fragmentation and one stun grenade, even as it made its last twitching movements.
Through fire doors at the far end of a corridor another figure appeared. A Kalashnikov was levelled and already spitting bullets.
Shotguns and automatics blazed a return fire, and the Russian was almost torn apart by the multiple impacts. He crashed to the floor, flailing in his death throes.
Darting in to retrieve another stun bomb clipped to the dying man’s webbing, Revell found himself at the foot of yet another set of stairs. He noticed them at the same instant he saw a grenade tumbling down towards him.
Lunging forward, he caught it before its final impact, and thrust it under the partially dismembered body beside him. Throwing himself aside, he was only a couple of meters away when it detonated.
The corpse was lifted by the blast. Blood and intestines spattered the walls and ceiling. Revell felt himself being shoved sideways by the shock wave. His respirator was torn from his face. He wasn’t aware of any noise, and thought for an instant his eardrums had been burst. Then he was helped to his feet, and knew that wasn’t the case when their machine roared into action beside him.
Firing a fifty-round belt from the hip, in precise ten-round bursts, Dooley sent ball- and armour-piercing rounds through the walls flanking the head of the stairs. A paratrooper clutching an AK47 staggered into view. Blood streamed from his face. Taking a grenade from his still-dazed officer, Hyde lobbed it to land beside the man.
Pulling his mask back on, Revell felt the wall against which he leant jolt hard against him. He was aware of men rushing past, of the sound of intensive exchanges of fire. Then there came the concussion of two more grenade explosions.
Retrieving his shotgun from the floor, Revell found he still had the use of all his limbs, though his wrist was numb where he’d jarred it on his heavy landing. Apart from general bruising and a ringing in his ears, he appeared to have suffered no injury.
The pieces of flesh littering the corridor told him how very different it could have been.
On the floor above, the firing had ceased. He made his way to that level. It was to find a scene of far worse carnage than that he’d left.
Component parts of several bodies were scattered about. Blood drenched every surface and ran in sluggish rivulets across the polished tile floor. Lumps of tissue slid slowly down every wall and adhered to the cracked plaster overhead. There was an appalling stench from the spilled contents of several stomachs and bowels.
One of his own men lay dead, shot through the chest. A high velocity bullet had penetrated his flak vest, passed clean through, and exited below his neck. The collar of his body armour had been ripped off. Another man was having a rough splint bound about a shattered arm. He smiled vaguely through a morphia-induced haze.
“That seems to have accounted for them all, Major.” Hyde indicated a makeshift barricade.
A severed arm lay across the top of a shrapnel-holed filing cabinet. From beneath a collapsed pile of word processors, projected a pair of legs, incongruously naked except for their paratrooper boots. It would have taken more than that to add humour to the scene.
“Just the two casualties?”
“If you’re okay, yes, Major.” Hyde had been taking in the officer’s torn and blood-soaked battle dress.
This isn’t mine, I’m happy to say. Have the building searched from top to bottom, every room. I don’t think it’s likely, but one of them might just be holed up, waiting for us to drop our guard.”
“Something you should see in here, Major.” Ripper came out of a side room. Revell noticed the look on his face and asked no questions, going to see for himself.
There were about thirty bodies in the little office. Most were in police uniform, several women among them. They showed clear evidence of having been mown down by automatic fire from the doorway.