Lieutenant Vokes had them covered with his pistol. He was flanked by two of his men holding levelled SA-80s, and Old William with his shovel.
With his Walther, Vokes waved forward a big sergeant from among the group. Revell recognized his face from the earlier incident. “Ball seems to be in your court.”
“We’ve been threatened. We are now. You’re a witness.” Selecting a pick handle, Revell hefted it, and made an experimental swing. “Nice of you to bring us these. That’s what they are, isn’t it? Presents?”
“My men were attacked last time. They were for our self-protection.” The sergeant was almost purple with suppressed fury at his situation. “We came here to take you in, under close arrest.”
“What’s the charge?”
“You got all day?”
“Major,” Vokes had been listening intently to the conversation. “If you go with these men, I believe something will happen to you on the way to headquarters.”
“I won’t be going with them.”
“Going to do a runner?”
Revell read the contempt on the sergeant’s face, and then wiped it off. “I’m going in OK, but not with you. For two reasons. First, like my lieutenant says, there’s a chance I might be in less than perfect health by the time I get there, if I do. Second, your transport has been commandeered.”
“The hell it has, who by?”
“Me. We’ve got wounded civilians here. Your truck is just the right size to take them in comfort, of a sort. You and these other thugs can walk. I’ll give you an armed escort part of the way. To see you come to no harm, naturally. I’d get going right away if I were you. It’s going to be as black as hell tonight. My men have torches but I doubt they’ll lend them to you.”
“I’ll herd them, Major.” Carrington pushed himself forward. “I haven’t forgotten that crack about baby killers.”
“OK, take three men with you. Ride in one of the APCs, and set a fast pace. I don’t want these specimens in these parts a moment longer than necessary. About six kilometres should give them a good workout.”
For a moment it looked as if the MPs were considering non-cooperation, then they saw the faces of their escorts and thought otherwise.
“Get the injured on board. I’ll hitch a ride with them.”
“You want your own escort, Major?”
Revell declined Dooley’s offer, and a dozen more from others as he got his kit together. While he was gathering and packing it he noticed Andrea watching. Already she had changed back into battledress. He was jamming the last items into a borrowed kit-bat when she sauntered over.
“You watched me, in the woods?”
“I hadn’t intended to, but when I saw what you were doing…”
“You saw everything?”
“Yes.”
“When, if you come back, I will do it again, for you to watch. You will enjoy that, as you enjoyed the last time.”
Her hand sought and found his erection. She squeezed it hard, trying to hurt, failing because of the thick folds of material. “Perhaps I will let you help me. Perhaps.”
He said nothing. There was nothing he could say. Did he hate her or love her? Shit, as if he didn’t have enough on his mind.
Try as he did though, full as he was of worries about the situation he’d got himself into, he couldn’t get her out of his thoughts. From the cab of the truck, as it pulled out, she was the last one he saw.
“I don’t like you, Major Revell.” The general leaned back in his chair, sucking hard on his pipe as he applied a match. “You shouldn’t be in the army. You should be out their wandering the Zone with one of those renegade bands. Orders mean nothing to you. Discipline means about the same. You boss, because you certainly don’t command, you boss a rag-tag outfit of misfits who wouldn’t last five minutes in a decent military unit.”
“A lot of soldiers wouldn’t last five minutes in my combat company, general.”
“Always the smart answer. Well let’s hear your smart answer to this one. How did we find out so fast that you were pulling a stunt? You’ll never guess. We got it from the Reds. That’s it, they spotted it on satellite before the 717th could report in themselves. Not nice finding that out from them. Spoiled the President’s day, sort of.”
“Are they breaking the truce?”
“What the hell do you care? You know why it spoiled the President’s day? Because he was on the hot line yesterday. Seems T Corp had put that file of yours and the films into a real special package. Yesterday they made a present of it to the Reds, with a note saying we’d show it to the up-coming Conference of Neutral Nations. The Reds don’t need any more bad press at the moment, especially not while those gents are in meeting. So we were going to hold it over them, get some sort of useful deal out of them. One that would be in our favour.”
“What sort of deal?”
“How the hell should I know. I don’t get invited to the White House that often. I’m told we’d have got something we wanted real bad. Would have got it too, whatever it was, only your raid screwed us up. The Russians are saying that if we forget those graves, they’ll forget the raid. Seems they weren’t that keen on that character Tarkovski, any more than we were. Word is, they’re going to take care of him, if you haven’t yet.”
“So in the eyes of everyone, our knocking about a KGB punishment battalion who are known to be guilty of mass murder and worse, is about the equivalent of their war crimes against a few thousand civilians. Men, women and children.”
“You play with words all you want. If I were you I wouldn’t buck it. It’s got your nuts out of the fire. But don’t you go thinking you’ve got off.”
Puffing vigorously at his pipe, the general walked to the window. “It’s not my decision, but all charges against you are to be dropped. You keep your rank and your command.”
“There has to be a catch.”
“You’re damned right there is. You and your cruds like the Zone, so in the Zone you’re going to stay. You think in the past you’ve had nasty missions, they ain’t nothing to what’s being dreamed up for you at this moment. And to give you an idea of the thinking about your company, I’ll tell you right here, the first thing you’re getting is a week’s leave for every last man. And not just with some shitty rest camp with a flea-bitten cinema and two bathrooms. No, you’re being dumped outside the Zone for seven whole days. Guess why.”
“You’re hoping we’ll get desertions.”
“Got it in one. If it isn’t convenient to disband you, well let you wither away. What’s left after you get back are going to be hurling from one hot spot to another. If there’s anyone of you left after six months I’ll be amazed, and maybe a touch disappointed.”
“Is that it, General?” Revell had heard such promises made before. This one he was more inclined to take seriously.
“That’s it. Consider yourself lucky it’s worked out this way. I’d have done it differently.”
“And the Communists get away with the murder of those civilians.”
“Let it go, Major. You’re in a league you don’t know anything about, in way over your head. There’s nothing you can do anymore. You had your fun, you slapped the Reds’ wrist, it’s over. And don’t go getting any ideas about peddling your copies of those reports among the press boys here. That’s been taken care of. None of them want to lose accreditation. And as for the television crews… you know them, if it isn’t here and now and in colour then they don’t want to know. There isn’t anybody else to sneak it to. The story is as dead as those civvies.”
TWENTY EIGHT