His fate in the balance, Pritkov began to slowly crumple at the knees and had to be supported by the escort who held him with distaste. Fear induced a delirious semi-conscious state. He babbling quietly, alternating that with suppressed sobbing and soft pleading.
Beyond the men forced to support him, no one in the room had the slightest interest in him and his fate. It did not do to have any involvement with anyone who was so deeply in disfavour, beyond wondering if the special protection he enjoyed would save him from this latest severe error of judgement. Anyone else would most likely have been a corpse by now. It would just have been a case of precisely where the conversion from life to death was to take place. Judging from his colour, Pritkov looked like a dead man already.
Zucharnin was ignoring him as well, was still barking down the telephone. “Well I bloody well know now but why wasn’t I told earlier? Are you still running this war just for your own benefit? Were you thinking to gain some credit by keeping this to yourself? In a few hours I hope I shall be rolling vital ammunition convoys through that location. I don’t give a damn if a few of them get vaporised but I don’t want their bodies forming part of a bloody great tangle of wreckage those following will have to go pussy-footing around. In future, if you have some, don’t withhold information, don’t hug it to yourself.” For a moment he listened, his chin jutting and his lips tight closed.
The young staff officer was looking towards the door. How he would have loved to about turn and walk out through it. He edged a half pace backwards. The general noticed, slapped the telephone down and scowled.
“Where the hell do you think you might be off to?” With an abrupt gesture he indicated for the military police to leave. Zucharnin had brought himself under control but there remained an edge in his voice, a clipped and icy tone.
“ So, one of our patrols bumped into a parachutist. The oafs killed him. That was…” he consulted his watch, “…hours ago. And in all that time no one thought to inform me. And it was discovered he had a nuclear device, a demolition bomb, and still neither you nor Grigori thought to tell me.” Zucharnins eyes had locked on the young officer and they stayed on him as he waited for an explanation. None was forth coming.
Pritkov might be scared but he was not fool enough to try and stumble through any excuses or explanations. That could only make it worse.
“Very good. Gregori says he has a team working on the device. I am making you responsible for what happens…”
“Surely the General does not intend I should go out there and personally…”
“ A gutless wonder like you would not be of any use, so no. Simply inform me when my convoy route is safe. If they are unsuccessful there’s no need, I am near enough to see the mushroom for myself.”
The General indicated for the room to be cleared, but he signalled the young officer to remain.
The instant the door closed on the last of them, Pritkov collapsed in to a chair and dabbed at his face with a handkerchief. As the officers had filed out they had avoided looking at him. Some smirked when their backs were safely turned, others bit their lips thoughtfully. Sympathy did not feature in any of their expressions.
“It was you to whom the field officers reported and you who elected to pass the information to Gregori
“That is the correct procedure…”
Closing his eyes and rocking on his heels, the General took a moment to maintain his self-control. When he had almost succeeded he reached out with both hairy backed hands and thumped them down on to the captains shoulders. It was not a blow but the heavy impact was sufficient to make the slightly built staff officer buckle and cringe. Zucharnins fingers closed about the his epaulettes and lifted his jacket so that its collar rose to hide his neck. “There are times when one does not go by the book.” He pushed his blotchy face close to the young captains. “There are times when one thinks of the consequences for others first. Not many, they are rare and few and far between but there are times. Do you understand?” His voice had dropped, so that there was no chance of his words being heard in the outer office.
“Yes, I understand.”
“Good, because you are stretching to breaking point the special treatment I can offer you. I do not want to have to tell your mother and other relatives I have had you shot, though I would be merciful and of course tell her it was in the line of duty. Have you written to her this week?
“No.”
“Then write tonight without fail and do not forget this lesson. If you screw up again I can make life…uncomfortable… Now go.”
“Thank you… Stepfather.”
“And save that for when we are at home.”
For once Burke didn’t have to worry over much about conserving fuel. This wasn’t another of their long-range reconnaissance missions. It was a short distance smash and grab raid. He gunned the twin Alison’s to full power and they surged down the debris littered carriageway towards the bridge.
As usual the port engine produced more thrust and he had to over-ride the hovercrafts own systems to balance the colossal surge of power. Within a hundred metres the thirteen tons of machine was moving at fifty kilometres an hour. Another two hundred metres, when they reached the approach to the bridge, they were hitting eighty-five.
The downdraft from the beneath the armoured skirts blasted huge volumes of the choppy water in to the air. Before reaching the far side of the river they twice swept across the remains of dead bodies and sent the scorched cadavers skimming across the surface of the river.
Then they were climbing the rubble slope where the dockside had been pulverised and showers of light debris flew into the air. It added to the dense fog already created by the deluge of smoke rounds. As they came up on to the riverside walkway twice they sideswiped the burnt-out shells of automobiles to send them spinning away, one of them to be left hanging over the river.
“We’re there. Hold on.” If the Russians had been sufficiently alert to monitor the approach of the hurtling APC Burkes next move would take them out of any weapon sights they might have been levelling.
A wrench of the steering column and he sent them through a wild skidding turn down broad steps and in to a pedestrian area running parallel to the river. Lampposts, phone kiosks and lottery booths were snapped off, crushed and hurled aside. They were still at full speed and approaching the limit of the shrouding smoke when Burke savagely threw the thrust into reverse and brought their speed to a crawl as he ploughed though a courtyard, under an archway and then across a compact area of garden.
“Find us that hole.”
Burke didn’t need the Majors order; he had already identified the shopping mall and sent the slab front of the hovercraft in through the wide glass doors. Swerving through turn after turn the iron Cow smashed and obliterated plate glass frontages and elaborate displays. At one turn, dead ahead, a group of Russian infantry were looting a store. They tried to run but in succession the five men disappeared beneath the craft and came rolling out at the back, bloody, broken bundles.
Exiting the Mall, towing a plume of glass fragments Burke sent the APC down an alleyway so narrow that the steel reinforcements on the bulging ride-skirt struck cascades of sparks from the stone and brickwork walls on both sides simultaneously.
Accelerating to near maximum speed again they raced out and across a wide boulevard and in to another Mall. This time, after penetrating the already derelict pedestrian area, Burke used reverse thrust to bring the hovercraft to a halt and set it down on the cream tiled floor.