Smeared red, the blade slid out, as the woman turned her face up to him and slumped to a sitting position in the doorway.
NINE
‘I don’t know what this lot is for, but smash it anyway.’ Hyde stood back as Dooley set to work destroying the radio equipment, using the hunting rifle as a sledgehammer. ‘Soon as that’s done, seeing as how you’ve warmed yourself nicely, go outside and scout around for any more gear they may have stashed.’
None of their prisoners had spoken, or made any move to intervene when Andrea had grabbed the woman by the hood of her ski-suit and dragged her into the middle of the room, before closing the door. Hyde’s brief questioning had failed to elicit any response from them either, save for an accentuating of the curled-lipped arrogance of the young man. That had been sufficient to tell him that one of the group at least understood English, and now Hyde had a second go.
‘Do you have a first-aid kit? Bandages? Do you have bandages? Oh, I’m wasting my fucking time with this bunch. Andrea, keep them covered. Ripper, give me a hand here.’
Close to, the woman was older than he’d at first thought, well into her forties and looking it, though the pain she was in was probably not doing much for her. She lay on her back. Hyde brushed aside the weak attempt she made to stop him, and unzipped her suit. Heavy breasts, unrestrained by a brassiere, sagged sideways but still made appreciable mounds through her several layers of clothing. ‘Not much blood, can’t find the sodding entry point, where did you get her?’
Tentatively Ripper bent down, gingerly pulled her arm away, and indicated an almost invisible tear in the material just above her thick waist.
For the first time she made a noise as Hyde half-turned her to pull the suit off the shoulder. It was too tight a fit, and instead he had the American hold her, while he inserted his fingers in the rent and tore the tough synthetic fabric. She gave a small bleating cry as he shoved her arm out of the way so that it flopped across her breasts, and scuffed up her jumper to expose the wound.
‘Very neat.’ Hyde examined the slim cut. ‘If we could fix bodies the way we can clothes, this would be a good case for invisible mending. Keep her on her side.’
‘I didn’t know she was behind me, I mean I didn’t know it was a woman.’
‘What’s that got to do with it? If it would have been right to do it to a man, why’s it wrong to do it to her?’ Hyde took a small automatic pistol, and a clip of ammunition from a pocket which moving her had revealed. ‘I’m starting to think this crowd are not your standard tourists. Give me your field-dressing, then go through their things, search every pack and…’ Hyde winced at the amount of crashing and banging Dooley was managing to produce as he thoroughly demolished the radio and rifle, ‘…and tell that big ape I said to destroy them, not atomise them. He can do the other job I gave him.’
With a final tremendous blow that ripped the front panel from the radio and the butt from the rifle, Dooley finished, and took a surreptitious peek at the woman’s breasts, pushed up and together by the folds of clothing rucked beneath them. ‘Nice pair of tits. Think they’ll, she’ll, make it?’
‘Who knows, she’s in shock, maybe.’ As the closing door sent a flurry of flakes across the floor of the room, Hyde smoothed the tapes securing the wad of absorbent dressing, pulled the woman’s thick roll-necked sweater down and tucked it into the ski-suit as best he could. The additional bulk beneath the suit, added to the woman’s ample proportions, prevented him from fastening it completely. He hauled her to the wall near their other captives, and propped her against it. She fainted as he did so.
‘Nothing much in these, Sarge.’ Picking up the last of the packs, Ripper emptied them on to the floor and scattered the contents with the toe of his boot. ‘Mostly food and spare clothing. Found these though.’ He held out a small hammer and half-empty cellophane pack of masonry studs. ‘This is what they used to fasten those blackout curtains.’
‘They came prepared for just about everything.’ Hyde kicked the remains of the radio, and it tumbled to the feet of the man Dooley had flattened. He was nursing his shoulder and his face was bruised, he jumped, misinterpreting Hyde’s action and taking it as a threat.
That would be the one; to work on to get information. Sergeant Hyde had seen the same symptoms displayed before…the civilian’s nerve had gone. The tensions surrounding whatever it was their party were involved in, the assault, and the wounding of the woman had combined to reduce him to a shivering, cringing wreck.
‘Soon as Dooley’s back we’ll move. I’m beginning to get a glimmering of what’s going on here. I don’t know what the details are, but it’s obviously part of some larger set-up, and I don’t want us being caught in the middle of somebody else’s grand plan.’
‘What do you reckon they’re up to then, Sarge?’
‘Are you really so stupid?’ Andrea’s tone dripped contempt for Ripper’s innocent question. ‘Do you really not know what these worms are?’ While she spoke her eyes stayed locked on the prisoners, the barrel of her rifle slowly panning back and forth across the group. ‘In your own country there was a left wing orchestrated cry of ‘witch hunt’ every time a man with intelligence, with integrity tried to weed them out. In Britain that tactic was rarely needed to protect them. Their type were able to worm their way into the highest places in the government and the administration, even into the secret services, where still that country suffers from the harm they did.
These are Communists, the lowest form of animal life, who sell their country for money, or the promise of power. We should finish them now.’
‘No you bloody don’t, you’re not appointing yourself chief executioner again, not while I’m leading this patrol.’ Hyde kept a casual grip on his rifle, but held it so that he could bring it to his hip and fire in an instant. ‘The major wants this lot, and I’m not about to go back without them. We’ll let him do the judge and jury bit.’
‘What else could they be, why else would they be here?’ She momentarily turned her head towards Hyde, and her dark eyes flashed frustration and fury.
‘I don’t know, perhaps they are Commies. We’ll find out when we get them back to the house, until then…’
‘Tanks…’ Dooley threw open the door, and stood clutching his chest as he gasped for breath, ‘…fucking -Russian tanks, two of the buggers, with infantry, coming this way.’
‘Get those lights out. Put the woman on that little sledge, move…’ Hyde never got to finish the sentence.
As Ripper went to pick up the woman, he momentarily blocked Andrea’s view of the three male prisoners. The young blond grabbed the opportunity and dashed for the door. About to extinguish a light, Dooley wasn’t close enough to intercept, and instead he slammed the door. It caught the blond on his shin, thigh, and head and there was an ugly sickening crunch as the heavy wood made contact and swept him aside. The Swede was spun around by the impact and thrown into the wall. Dazed by the blow, he didn’t even have time to use a hand to protect his face.
The other two men were easily dissuaded from a half-hearted attempt to follow him by the aggressive and threatening gesture Andrea made with her M16. They meekly allowed themselves to be herded from the tower, supporting their dazed and bleeding comrade, at the tip of her bayonet.