“There will be time enough to catch up on sleep when, if, we get back.” Not looking at the major, Andrea knew his attention, though concealed, would be on her. “The Russian kept complaining loudly about having to deal with Boris. Apparently he considers him the lowest of the low but Dooley threatened him and he is quiet now. In any event, Boris got nothing from him.”
“I didn’t expect he would.” Revell tossed aside his food container. “To have the position he has, he’d have to be a hard line party member, not the sort to start babbling classified information after a little gentle probing. Boris is no hard man.”
“Has the route for our return been chosen?” Andrea tilted her face up in to the rain that had started to fall again, as Revell and Hyde backed away from it, in to the cover of the shed. “From the far corner of the site you can see the flyover. It is packed with Soviet troop and cargo carriers running in to the city. Soon it will be impossible for us to get through the built up area. Perhaps it is already.”
Until that moment when Andrea said it, Revell had not doubted for a moment that they would be returning through the built up area. Suddenly though he had other thoughts. It was not the first time some casual remark from her had prompted his weary, almost stultified mind to become more active. She had a way of getting inside him.
“No.” He said it in a positive tone, giving scant indication that the thought had only just occurred to him. “No, we are going to swing out in to the country, track north and then when we’re well clear of the suburbs we’ll swing west and make a fast run for the river and our own lines.”
“They are still looking for us.” Andrea waved her slim hand towards the distant speck in the sky. “That will be backed by ground patrols and road-blocks. The hunt will intensify.”
“From the search pattern that chopper is working they must think we have moved out of the immediate area.” Higher up Hyde spotted a small reconnaissance drone. Its engine noise carried as a faint buzz, getting louder when on occasion it would swoop lower and circle a particular spot. Think they keep them up after dark?”
“ If some one is keen to have their man back, and the bomb.” Revell knew he could be grateful the Russian night vision equipment was nothing like as good as their own but the Iron Cows infrared signature was distinctive and like a neon display at night. If the enemy choppers covered the right area, then they would be identified and ground patrols would be zeroed in on them. “I think they will maintain the search twenty four seven. We’ll have to have a couple of the crew riding on top with AA gear at the ready. That should take care of that risk.”
“Let us hope you are right.” Andrea shook the rain from his glistening short hair and went off on her own.
Taking no chances, Revell did not order Burke to power up until a full half an hour after sunset. For an hour before that they had kept watch for any aerial surveillance but it had either been stopped or had moved away. A suggestion of afterglow showed on the horizon where the rain clouds were gradually clearing, but the immediate streets they encountered were dark enough. It was an industrial area and for the first kilometre they saw no one and no vehicles.
“The Commies will have already imposed a curfew, they always do.” Burke kept the engine power steady, at a pitch that would enable him to accelerate almost instantly to top speed if the Major called for it, or come to a dead stop within their own length if need be. “Miserable lot of sods. They really know how to kill the nightlife in a place. Their own cities must be dreary holes.”
“They are, I have seen them.” Andrea was watching their prisoner and now as he stretched cramped legs she was especially vigilant. “It is easy to understand why their idea of celebrating is to get drunk as fast as possible.”
“You are wrong. We are a happy people.”
Coming from the Russian prisoner the words were a surprise to all who caught them.
“Well that’s saved the interrogation boys a spot of work. Proves he knows some English.” Libby offered the man a cigarette and shrugged when it was refused. “But we know you drink.”
“I do, yes.”
“Good job you didn’t start before you tackled the bomb.”
The Russian looked down and was grinning when he looked up again. “Actually I had what you would call a couple of good belts, when my officer wasn’t looking. The work is not bearable otherwise.”
All talking ceased as the hovercraft suddenly slowed.
“Patrol, a couple of motor-cycles and a scout car, cannon armed.” Burke let the speed slip further and allowed the uneven power of the engines to drift the craft towards the bulk of a high-sided trailer parked at the roadside. “They’re passing ahead of us, two junctions further on…they’re gone.”
The sibilant effect as they all breathed out at the same moment signalled their relief.
“You mean you do delicate, not to say dangerous, work disarming nuclear demolition devices while you’re under the influence?” Libby shook his head in disbelief. “You hear that Carson?”
“We all need something.” Between his fingers Carson held up a small orange tablet. “Morphine sulphate, sixty milligram.”
“Hell, the fate of the world is in the charge of drunks and dope fiends.” Libby looked at the bomb, wondered how his mind would hold up, working on those devices, whether he would need anything to calm his nerves.
Carson was laughing and from a small container shook out a dozen more of the orange pills. “Here, have some,” he swallowed half the amount and offered the rest around the interior. “They’re only tic-tacs. Just the right colour, yeah?”
Andrea enjoyed Libby’s discomfort. Her humour though was a brittle thing, instantly quashed by a glimpse of the bomb as it rocked on the floor close to the turret basket.
It took them two hours, at a snails pace, to elude motorised patrols that were crossing and criss-crossing the area. Obviously the Russian officer in charge of the search was taking no chances. Just in case they remained in the vicinity, waiting for the hue and cry to die down then his patrols would be waiting for them to break cover.
“ We’ve done seven kilometres in five hours” Burke was expertly manoeuvring the APC, faithfully tracking the stop-start route Revell indicated. “We are just down the road from where we picked up the bomb. That’s the same autobahn ahead of us. Every route we take we run in to it. The damn thing virtually circles this area. The alternative is to go back through the city, and that is a non-starter.”
Gently bringing the Iron Cow to a halt in the deep shadow of a flyover, Burke glanced to where Revell was looking at a repeat of the drivers’ screen. “We’re facing the right way, but how do we get through that lot.”
Snaking through the convoluted road network, in a seemingly never-ending stream, was a non-stop column of supply trucks and tracked and wheeled troop carriers. Well spaced out and displaying an unusual degree of convoy discipline, still the Russian vehicles were closer enough to each other to ensure that nothing was going to break through their line without being seen. While it was highly unlikely, as usual with the rudimentary level of equipment on Soviet supply vehicles, that even the convoy leaders would have the facility to signal for help, the line of trucks was constantly patrolled by motorcycle and scout car equipped military police.
If the hover APC tried to smash a way through the lines of traffic then the MP’s would transmit their position, and direction, instantly. Within minutes gun ships would be in the air heading their way and ground patrols would be closing in fast.