Looking up Revell noticed how fast the sky was growing lighter. It was likely to be another heavily overcast day so there was no real dawn but soon it would be bright enough to bring them trouble. They had one small window of opportunity.” OK. Sergeant Hyde, get this device on board the Iron Cow. Fasten that Commies hands and secure him to the bench by the back door. There’s nothing he can reach or kick there that can do any harm.”
“You are not going to put that thing on board our transport!” It must be destroyed now.” Andrea’s voice was urgent and full of fear. She stood on the rear door-ramp, blocking any attempt to move the nuclear device inside and secure it. “We are surely not going to try and run back in daylight with that murderous contraption on board?”
Watching Dooley lift the device by its straps, Revell noticed how the others kept clear, as though a few metres would make a difference. But none made the same objection as Andrea.
“No. We’ll lay up today and have a go at getting back tonight. The Russians have been very kind to us, making this a ‘no go’ area. Maybe this lot had radioed that they were finished, though I doubt it.”
Revell conferred with the sergeant. “They have a decent radio set but Boris is pretty confident they broadcast nothing, and this close he could hardly have missed their signal. They wouldn’t want to be caught drunk so I reckon they intended spinning things out, leaving time for their celebration before reporting back. Soon enough though some KGB squad will be sent to look for them. Before they arrive we’ll be long gone and well hidden.”
Revell thrust the map at the NCO. “Want to pick somewhere? Not too far, not likely to attract the interest of the average Warsaw Pact looter.”
Sergeant Hyde had selected a spot before the rear doors were closed. Folding the large map he handed it back to the officer. “I know just the place. And I’ve persuaded Andrea her chances are better riding with the bomb than waiting for the Commies to arrive in force, and find her with these bodies.”
From more than a dozen paces the hovercraft was invisible, just another mound of reclaimed material. It had taken only a few minutes to conceal its angular bulk using broken boards, rusted sheets of corrugated metal and cloudy panels of Perspex roofing material.
Around them were stacked reclaimed material bins of all sizes and colours. Two six-wheeled garbage compactors were parked close by, concealing their transport from any casual inspection of the site through the wide unguarded gateway.
“I still reckon these garbage trucks look better.” Dooley ducked under the low shelter and watched their driver smearing thick rubberised solutions on odd shaped patches.
“You trying to say something about the state of our transport?” Burke had spent the whole day, under an improvised shelter, patching gashes and holes in the thick fabric of the ride-skirt. Twice helicopters had buzzed low above them and then he had been grateful for the ragged edged sheet of fibreboard propped overhead.
Revell had kept most of them busy on maintenance, of their transport, of their weapons. A bench had been cleared in a nearby workshop and all of them had, in turn, stripped and cleaned their personal weapons and then those from the racks aboard the APC. That done the Rardon had been serviced and the interior of the APC cleared of empty shell cases.
Their Russian prisoner had been apathetic at his situation, seemingly resigned to being a prisoner. Boris had tried to engage him, at Revells’ prompting, in conversation but he had produced no more than monosyllabic responses and a look of deep suspicion as the deserter continued the casual interrogation.
Carson had made himself enormously unpopular by working on the recovered ‘A’ weapon. Most of his work consisted solely of straightening and re-fixing inspection panels that the Russians had pried open, where they lacked the non-metric tools to do the work properly. Still his constant ministrations to the weapon had set everyone’s nerves on edge.
A half-hearted attempt by Dooley to find anything worth looting had turned into a useful scavenger hunt when his first discovery was a five hundred litre tank of kerosene. Improvising a way of piping it to the APC’s fuel tank had occupied a good part of the day but was finally successful about half way through the afternoon.
It had taken a considerable and constant effort by the Major to prevent Burke from filling the interior with tools from the yards extensive repair facilities. Finally, to placate him, Revell had permitted him to fix a large toolbox to the hull side and he had gleefully set about making a selection to fill it.
“That’s all we can do.” Revell gave his assault shotgun a last wipe over and reloaded it from the tray of colourfully tipped shells he had lined up on the bench. “We’ll need every minute of the night to make it back.” He pointed out the ration packs to Sergeant Hyde and the pan of water boiling over an open fire improvised in the centre of the floor. “They can eat now and then get their heads down for a couple of hours. Make sure the Ruskie gets something.”
He poured boiling water into a mug half filled with soup powder. Off-white fragments floated to the surface and grew as they circled. He strolled with it out of the far end of the high-ceilinged shed. Rain was still falling in the distance. It showed as faint black bars joining the low dark clouds to the jagged horizon of silhouetted rooftops.
Closer he could make out the black dot that was a terrain-skimming helicopter. One had crossed and criss-crossed the surrounding area for half an hour in the morning, holding up work on the Iron Cow, but then had moved off and was now circling several kilometres away. Water still dripped from the metal eaves and he walked forward to get away from them, ensuring he stayed sufficiently alert to hear any approach of the distant rotor blades.
Save for himself and Burke whose turn it was to guard the only entrance to the site all the others would be resting. Not all would be able to sleep. In the hours to come they would have to thread their way through territory that was fast filling with Soviet occupation troops, and that in the company of an ‘A’ bomb in a more delicate condition than he thought Carson was letting on. Thoughts of that would drive sleep from some of them. It did from him and most certainly would from Andrea. He had never seen her display a weakness before. Now though it was as if she was falling apart. She could not take her eyes of the bomb on the short drive to the reclamation facility and had been first out of the Iron Cow when the ramp began to go down, throwing her weight against it as though she might hurry the hydraulics.
Sergeant Hyde came out to join the Major, spooning noodles from an instant-food pot. “I think that having that Russian nuclear expert as our captive might be a good thing. If the Reds want him back bad enough there are going to have to tread softly. They’re unlikely to whack us hard without warning. Maybe he could be our safe conduct pass.”
“No, I don’t think they will be particularly bothered about getting him back alive. To the Russian way of thinking it would be far more important that the NATO does not have the use of him. So they’ll be happy to get him back dead or alive. Either way they’ll be trying damned hard to succeed.”
He sensed Andrea was beside him, alerted by her soft footsteps, before he looked.
“You should be getting some rest.” Revell tried not to, but could not avoid examining her face. Her delicate features, framed by the dark hair she had recently cropped short, usually had a dusting of eye make-up, no matter what the circumstances, but there was none now and her dark eyes showed the strain she was experiencing. He wished she had made the effort. It seemed incongruous at any time, perhaps especially so now but he knew the men liked it, as he did, and that she enjoyed stirring their feelings.