The filthy face and grime-smeared hands, that were all that was visible of the curled form beneath the pile of rags and paper cement bags on the sagging camp bed, blurred into rapid action with an ugly snarl.
Eyes only half accustomed to the gloom made it difficult for Hyde to accurately intercept the pistol produced from beneath the sacking, but the toe of his boot just caught it, and spun it to a far corner.
A howl of rage came from the figure, and then a brief torrent of hate-filled German, before Libby pounced and shoved a wad of cloth into the gaping mouth.
‘Shut up, you old cow.’ With the palm of his hand the sergeant shoved the woman back down on the bed from which she’d half-risen. He pinned her flailing arms to her side and her struggles ceased, but not her muted attempts to tell the intruders what she thought of them and their methods.
‘Take it easy, Sergeant. If you reckon she can tell us something, we need her cooperation. Breaking her arms won’t get it. Who is she?’ There was nothing to give Revell any hint that this was other than just one of the thousands of shelters that made up the camp: or that the old woman was any different from the specimen who’d attempted to claw him shortly before, or any of the hundreds more of her kind who must inhabit the place.
‘This is Old Mother Knoke. She’s just about the most poisonous old witch in the whole of the Zone.’ Shred at a time, Hyde pulled out the gag.
As the last piece was removed she opened her toothless mouth, then caught sight of the Makarov 9mm automatic that Libby had retrieved from the corner and was now training on her. Instead of shouting, she began a venom filled monotone of guttural invective.
‘In English, you nasty old bitch, in English.’ At the words from Hyde she stopped and put her head on one side, like a bird considering the risks before tentatively approaching what could either be a rare tasty morsel or a trap. Her eyes flickered from Hyde to Libby, and then to Revell, oh whom they lingered longer, before coming to rest on the sergeant again.
‘I know you, Faceless.’ The lank white hair bobbed up and down as she nodded her recognition. ‘Have they given up trying to repair you, will they not let you go home like that?’ Mother Knoke gave a dry cackle at her own humour, while her sharp grey eyes strayed once more towards the American officer. ‘Whatever you want it will cost you,’ again the sly glance at Revell, ‘a lot.’
‘You just worry about the payment you’ll get if you don’t supply what we want.’
Again there was the dry rustling laugh as the old woman digested Libby’s threat. ‘A shot will bring the Russians. There is a post not fifty metres from here.’ The lop-sided leer with which she concluded the sentence disappeared, as Libby gathered up a handful of mixed cloths and wadded them about the barrel of the pistol.
Feeling a light tap on his shoulder Hyde turned to see Revell’s beckoning finger, and went with him to a corner.
‘Sergeant, I’ve gone along with this so far, but will you tell me just what the hell you’re up to with this smelly old dame? Just how is she going to help us?’
Hyde checked over his shoulder and saw that Libby and Mother Knoke were still frozen in the same tableau, the swaddled tip of the gun barrel only an inch from the woman’s temple.
‘You know what it’s like in the camps, Major. To survive everyone has to corner some sort of business. Mother Knoke is too wrinkled to sell herself, too lazy to work, so she’s developed to a fine art and a decent, business what most old women do in a small way and never give a thought to, she’s a gossip. There’s nothing happens around here she doesn’t know about. She knows who comes, who goes, who dies. That’s now she lives. If you want to trace a member of your family or find out who’s paying the best price for young virgins, or who can get a message out to the West – then you ask Mother Knoke.’
‘What’s it going to cost us?’ Much as Revell felt revulsion at being involved in the transaction, there was a practical side in which he had to take an interest. ‘We’re travelling light, apart from our weapons and ammunition, and it appears the old vulture has ways of getting those for herself.’
‘A lot of them in the camps have got guns. After every battle they’re there for the taking. Now and again the Reds have a sweep to try and collar them all, like we do with the camps near us, but these are big places… still I suppose we might want to use the grubby hag again, so we’d better sweeten the pill.’ From a capacious pocket Hyde took out a plastic bag that bulged with a selection of K-rations.
‘These are for you, if…’ Hyde had to snatch the bag out of reach as Mother Knoke, ignoring the pistol trained on her, lunged forward to try and secure the bait, ‘… if you’ll tell us all you know about a new Soviet unit operating somewhere around here. The 97th Technical Support Battalion.’
Conflict combined with greed and frustration chased across Knoke’s dirt-ingrained features. ‘I not know about army, only refugees.’ Her hands opened and closed spasmodically as though she longed to snatch the food.
Libby ostentatiously checked the safety catch was off on the pistol, and that a round was chambered, then brought it back to bear on his target.
Again Hyde tantalisingly dangled the powerful persuader. ‘Don’t give me that. You’re like a bloody Hoover, you suck up and store every whisper, you know something.’
Still the flexing fingers displayed just how much Mother Knoke wanted what was so temptingly offered. There was a, note of anguish in her voice as she saw the chance of obtaining the food slipping away. ‘I do not know, if I did…’ She had eyes now only for the bag. ‘I only know about camp.’
At random, Hyde extracted a cube of anonymous food from the cache and tossed it to her. He turned to Revell. ‘She doesn’t know anything, not even enough to build a convincing lie around. We might as well do a recce on foot, there’s not much chance we’ll spot anything, but…’
‘Hold it a minute. Let me try.’
A triumphant look, almost of self-congratulation, leapt into the old woman’s face as she caught Revell’s accent for the first time. Her suspicions were confirmed, he was an American. She whined. ‘If I can help… I am ill, I need food… I can help, I want to help.’
Only a warning prod from Libby stopped her lunging forward to grasp Revell’s hand, as he sat down on an empty five-gallon disinfectant drum beside the bed.
‘Have the Russians been doing any building lately, anything? Within the last two or three months.’ He didn’t need to be a brilliant detective to notice the abject disappointment in Mother Knoke’s face as she shook her head. ‘No, nothing. Some holes for guns, trenches, like always; and the new drains… that is all.’
‘What drains, where?’
‘On the far side, across the camp. They cleared the people out, said they would drain the land, make it healthy, then they would not let them back. They put mines… those who tried to return, to take tools, cement, they died.’
‘Show me where this was.’ The major thrust a sketch map of the camp and surrounding country under her nose.
She fussed with it. ‘I am not good with these.’ Finally a ragged nail stabbed down on a bulge on the east side of the camp. ‘Here, have these.’ Revell took the bag and threw it on to the bed. Mother Knoke grabbed it before it began to slide off the paper sacks and hugged it to her chest.
‘American?’ Now cunning joined greed and the other naked emotions that chased across, her face. ‘You have something else, you have lots of everything, yes? Not like tight-arse British.’ She shook the bag contemptuously at Hyde, but kept a firm hold on it. Deride it she might, lose it she wouldn’t.
Getting no hint from Hyde of what was expected, Revell handed over two packs of State Express and what money he had on him, about ninety marks. Mother Knoke didn’t count the notes, but stuffed them with the cigarettes into the plastic bag and hugged the mixed payment to her. ‘You’ve told us everything?’