Still picking up speed they passed the victim of their turret gun and crossed a road to enter another pedestrian area. A single line of light tracer flicked after them and Clarence silenced it with another pyrotechnic display from the rear gun port. Every round he sent against the Russian gunner went in through the top floor windows of the building from which that last fire had come. Briefly the rooms interior was revealed by tracer ricocheting about it then the curtains flared up and smoke hid all detail.
“Slow down.” Panning fast through the command cupola vision blocks Revell saw they had entered an area identical to that from which the deluge of fire had been launched. But despite the roar of the twin engines and another succession of collisions continuing the avalanche of noise, the enemy fire had ceased. “On your left, the arcade, put us in there stern first.”
Executing a sliding turn to line up with the narrow opening, Burke gave the motors a burst of reverse thrust to set them down among the debris of children’s rides and broken fancy goods stalls.
“Dooley, Andrea, out. Recon’ report…the immediate area. Turret gun, cover them.” Revell watched the pair out through the small front hatch then ignoring his usual weapon, the assault shotgun, he followed close on their heels with an M60 that trailed a fifty round belt. He knelt in the arcade entrance to add covering fire if it should be needed. Above his head came the whine of the traversing motor keeping the turret gun aligned with the two scouts.
He watched them dive from cover to cover, searching the surrounding buildings through the sights of their weapons. The street was darkening and smoke was starting to come down it in eddies from the distant flak truck. Through his glasses he could see a small but fierce fire burning at the top of the gun mount. Occasionally there would be a sudden glare of light as a round among the ruined magazines cooked off and a fraction of time later he would hear the report.
In five minutes the pair were back. It was Andrea who reported. “Nothing. We went as far as the next intersection. We can see down it for half a kilometre in both directions. Some evidence that fighting passed this way when the Russian assault came in, but nothing for a while The wrecks are all cold, so are the bodies.”
“And no one is stalking us. Who ever blasted at us just now has no interest in following up.” Dooley was surprised at that. Though the calibre of the Russian troops they had recently encountered was poor, he would have at least expected a couple of gung-ho medal hunting types to be sneaking along with an RPG.
“They’ve found the bomb Major. It’s got to be that.” Andy stood beside them, yawned and stretched. “They’ve located it and are working on it, or plan to in the near future. Looks like they have cleared an area, cordoned it and we’ve just entered it. No one is going to chase us in to here. Either because they know what is going on and they are shit scared or because they have orders to provide a cordon and nothing more. You know what the Commies are like. They obey instructions to the letter, no initiative.”
Carson finished adding embellishments to his helmet. “They sure as hell are being ultra cautious and setting the perimeter a long way out. They can’t have any idea what they are dealing with. Must think it’s in the Kiloton range.”
“Maybe that’s why they put the old truck on guard. They have positioned an expendable reserve unit to create the cordon.” Samson instinctively ducked as a crackle of fire from the flak-mount sent tracer rounds showering the storefronts. “They were not about to risk decent front line equipment, a Shilka or something on those lines where it might get flipped by a hefty whack from a pressure wave.”
“So we’ll be able to ride in and collect the bomb?” Burke had kept the turbines ticking over and constantly checked the temperatures were not rising. “Whether they are already working on it or not, there is bound to be some sort of guard detachment present.” Revell knew it was never going to be that easy. “If they have commenced disarming it, what’s the likely number of men we’ll face?”
“A couple of specialists maybe, plus a handful of guards, KGB and very few of them. It will be a punishment detail most likely. They will run if any shooting starts.” Carson smiled. “At least that’s my experience. Proximity to A-bombs is no good for the nerves of men who are not used to them. Especially if they are not of a good calibre to start with.”
“Well if they had the jitters before, the racket we’ve made will have jangled their nerves still more. We may be a fair distance off, but they must have heard that.”
Revell would have given anything to be able to listen in to the local Russian military radio traffic at the moment. If anything were being reported by the troops they had just encountered it certainly wouldn’t be believed at their HQ. The hover APCs were so rare that few of the enemy had ever heard of them and certainly never seen one. Any estimate of their speed was bound to be grossly inaccurate and if that were dismissed as fantasy then other aspects of the report would be. And now that the intruder had passed them and entered an area certain to be controlled by the KGB, any infantry commander would be happy to dismiss the whole thing as some isolated incident, a lost NATO patrol trying to make a dash for their own lines.
Andrea had sat quietly once the firing stopped and she had nothing more to occupy her. She heard their banter about the nuclear bomb but knew they were never going to bring it on board. It would be insane, especially when they had the materials to destroy it safely where it lay. At the thought of transporting the weapon she found her hands shaking. She gripped her M16 tighter to stop the nervous reaction.
An exchange of automatic and mortar fire far off to their right interrupted her thinking. A moment later there was another outburst, even further away and in the opposite direction.
The Major listened until the exchanges of fire died away. “That is happening all the time and all over the place. Who ever is baby-sitting that bomb will be getting more than a little nervous. Our recent exchange will be another bit of background noise to worry about. We carry on as planned. You getting anything useful on the radio intercepts Boris.”
Hunched in tight against the display consol of the radar and radio position. Boris, with his headphones clamped down hard had made no contribution to any of the conversations.
“Nothing significant major.”
“They’re maintaining a radio silence?”
“No, I do not think it is that.” Boris again scanned the frequencies he would have expected the Soviet forces to employ. “I think it might be something else. We know they are employing second-rate units and reserve equipment. I think it may be the case that they have simply not been issued with decent scales of communication equipment. What they have they may be too ill trained to make good use of.”
“You’d know, wouldn’t you.”
Boris ignored Rippers dig, not looking up as he knew the American would be displaying his mass of small teeth in a wide grin. He squeezed closer to his electronics position and ignored them all.
Revell made sure that Burke understood the route and then took over in the turret for the final approach.
Once they were out of the arcade and the last lengths of window frame and pieces of glass had fallen from the hull their progress was whisper quiet. At barely a walking pace Burke was able to avoid obstacles and kept the noise to a level where the crew would be able to detect incoming fire by hearing it well before they could see it, almost as fast as the hostile fire locator would pick it up.