As he followed the others to the stairs, a thought occurred to Gebert. Thorough though the blackout would be, and vigorously as it would be enforced by the police and air raid wardens, tonight it would not be complete.
Flaring in a circle about the city were those fires, and it the centre, carefully spaced around the park, were the four big blazes the fire chief was allowing to burn themselves out. Munich had been marked out as a target, complete with bull’s-eye.
SIX
“Stupid bloody way to die.” Sgt. Hyde walked along the row of bodies. He counted fifty.
The last of the corpses had been pulled from-the tangle at the bottom of the subway steps and laid out to await removal. Jackets and torn scraps of clothing covered the faces, but here and there a piece of material had slipped aside.
All those that the NCO saw wore the same terrified expression, eyes bulging, tongues protruding. The press, as the panicking mob had rushed the staircase, had crushed their chests and suffocated them. Many had died while still on their feet. Trapped and carried back and forth by the surging mass, their bodies had not even been able to fall.
“And not a single bomb dropped so far.” Scully kicked a flattened beer can from the outstretched hand of a victim.
“Just as well.” Burke redraped the exposed face of a pretty — or what had been — a pretty teenage girl. “Seeing as how we’ve had to stay above ground to deal with this lot.”
“There was never likely to be any. Probably a radar operator with the jitters was spooked by a speck of dirt on his screen.” Scully looked down the short flight of steps. “Amazing how they managed to bend those steel handrails. They even tore off some of the tiles towards the bottom.”
“Think of it as a few tons of meat being shoved about.” Corp. Carrington handed a purse he had found to a police officer. Many of the dead had been stripped almost naked. Every shred of evidence would be needed to assist in identification, especially with so many casual visitors in the city.
“Don’t you have any feeling for the poor sods?” Burke handed over a sheaf of identity cards he had picked up. Several were saturated with blood, or other substances he didn’t like to dwell on.
“Don’t jump down my throat. What I meant was, well, you’ve seen those westerns where stampeding cattle knock over chuck wagons. Same sort of principle applied here.”
“People aren’t cattle,” Burke persisted stubbornly with his objection. “I didn’t say they were…”
“Right, back in the station you lot.” Several times while his men had been carrying out their gruesome task, Hyde had been forced to step in and prevent bickering that threatened to be become, more than that.
All of the men were on edge. Seven days among the flesh-pots had been an attractive proposition at first, but Munich had been an unfortunate choice. Something of the brittle mood of the city had communicated itself to the troops.
It would not have been so bad if they could have gotten away quickly, but the major had insisted on their being mustered early so that the missing could be identified. And now the air raid, even though it had not materialized, was bound to create further delays.
From across the city came a brief burst of light machine-gun fire. “Flak?” Garrett listened, but it wasn’t repeated, though he thought he distinguished two or three single shots following it. “No, can’t be. Too light, not enough of it.”
“Shut up.” Carrington thought he heard something. He strained to catch it again. “I must be imagining – “
A glass canopy above their heads shattered, and a body hurtled down amid shards of glass. It jerked to a stop a meter above the ground and swung violently back and forth, suspended from a tangle of fine lines caught in the roofs lattice girdering.
“Shit.” Dooley scrambled to his feet, to be knocked flat a second time as the figure swung back and caught him again. Blood spattered from the lacerated hands and face of the man, as he struggled feebly to release himself. A babble of incoherent Russian came from his gashed mouth.
“Paratrooper!” An instant after the shock, Hyde gauged the situation. “Scully, get up on top, cut him down. We’ll want him alive.”
The injured Russian was still trying, weakly, to free himself from his harness. His feeble, barely coordinated movements brought his hands into contact with the damaged AK47 slung across his chest.
Several closely spaced shots rang out. The impact of the bullets sent the paratrooper spinning like a crazy pendulum.
“What the fuck did you do that for?” Hyde rounded on the police officer who still held his Walther pistol. “We might have got something out of him. He’s no bloody good now, is he?”
The officer looked down at the automatic, as if doubting it was he who had fired. Then he looked at the obviously very dead Russian and appeared to be about to throw up. He swallowed hard, his face staying drained of colour.
“I’m krieg totet man seinen Fiend.”
“Sure, you kill your enemy in war, but we could have taken him prisoner. Kriegsgefargen, verstehen Sie michP A prisoner of war, you understand?”
The body collapsed heavily to the ground as Scully finally managed to sever the tough strands of nylon rigging.
“You want me to get the chute as well?”
“Everything, and have a look for any equipment that might have got ripped away as he broke through.” Hyde carried out a hasty check of the many pockets in the paratrooper’s jumpsuit, by the light of a small torch. They were crammed with ammunition. His webbing carried extra magazine pouches and those too bulged.
A pack had been torn away and lay nearby. That the sergeant checked more gingerly. Its contents were a selection of demolition devices and fragmentation grenades. Several were fitted with what looked like booby-trap attachments, to give them a dual function.
Hyde indicated the ordnance to the police officer. “Dangerous, Gefahrlich. Put a guard on it.”
“Looks like this creep sacrificed creature comforts in order to carry as much ammo as he could.” Dooley had noticed that the Russian carried no rations, not even a water bottle. “Must have been planning to live off the land.”
Audible quite clearly now were sporadic outbreaks of rifle and machine-gun fire, coming from the direction of the city centre. They were punctuated by occasional grenade explosions.
“Pretty obvious this one wasn’t on his own.” Hyde looked up into the clear night sky. Only wisps of smoke were straying across the face of the moon. “The major is due back soon. We’ll set up what defences we can right here, and wait for him. No point in us chasing off without knowing where we’re going, or what we’re likely to run into.”
“Hope he’s not too long.” Dooley listened to the shooting. “I get the feeling all hell is about to break loose around here.”
Ackerman was sore, in every sense of the word. His eye still stung. He was sure the blow from the MP’s fist had blackened it. Shit, all those bribes he had been forced to shell out, and he’d still got busted just as the deal was going down.
The Turks had jumped from the back window of the warehouse. It was slight compensation to him that both had been prevented from making an escape by breaking legs on landing.
All that time and effort, and all those German marks, and for what? For a few short moments he had been on the verge of making a fortune. A couple of minutes longer, and the truck would have been loaded and away.
And now? The money was lost, the truck would be confiscated and the goods still sat in the government warehouse. The only ray of light had been the major turning up to spring him. Even then the provost marshal wasn’t about to let him go until he had proof that the unit was going straight back into combat in the Zone.