Hyde was last to leave and trailed behind the others, scuffing a confusing riot of marks into the snow to disguise their tracks, as they made for a clump of trees three hundred yards to the south. As they reached it, headlamps and powerful torches were throwing long pencil beams of yellow light across the snow, illuminating the castle’s outer walls.
‘Do you need further proof?’ Handing over responsibility for their captives to Dooley, Andrea knelt beside the sergeant and watched the procession of wheeled and tracked Soviet army vehicles winding up from the sea towards the ruins. Trotting infantry kept pace beside each one, often hidden by fans of snow tossed into the air by the tracks and deep-treaded tyres as the vehicles turned.
The lieutenant’s body lay close by. Andrea reached out and prised the frost-covered image intensifier from its grasp. ‘This is hardly needed, they are not bothering to black-out.’
That fact was already apparent to Hyde, who was watching the activity around the door to the tower. ‘No, they’re acting as if they’ve got a right to be here. Either Sweden has gone over to their side, or it’s had another bloody concession wrung out of it. Whichever it is, I still want to get these cruds back to the major, so curb that bloodlust of yours a bit longer.’
‘Sarge, I been looking at those vehicles the Commies are bringing ashore.’
Squeezing between the girl and NCO, Ripper nonchalantly leant against Andrea, until the blade of her shining bayonet gently rested on his arm and drew away to leave a neat-edged tear, several inches long. ‘Looks to me like there ain’t too much to be worried about. Apart from those two tanks, the only other wagons I can see with any sort of armament are those six-wheeled anti-aircraft rigs. Heck, they can’t hurt us with those.’
‘And what if Command send a chopper to pick us off this godforsaken lump of frozen rock when the excitement’s over. You still think they’ll be nothing to worry about then?’
‘I hadn’t thought about that.’
‘Well try thinking before you decide to exercise your mouth the next time.’ After the initial confusion and coming and going around the tower, Hyde hadn’t been able to discern any special excitement among the Russians about the absence of the four agents he’d bagged, or the state of the wrecked room. Equipment was already being moved into it, and the debris-like possessions of the previous temporary occupants thrown out. That was like the Communists though, to cut their losses. The four Swedes obviously only constituted a sideshow of some sort; it was probably a relief to the commander on the spot not to have to deal with them.
There were no signs as yet that the Russians intended to start patrolling, at least none that Hyde could see. They appeared far more busy with the problems of erecting large radar dishes and antennae on the roofs of various vehicles, and guying tall sectional radio masts. Infantry, or they may have been armed engineers, were setting to work digging a seemingly haphazard scattering of slit-trenches, showing scant enthusiasm and making little progress.
‘We’d better get going in case they start to spread out a bit.’ As he began to get stiffly to his feet, Hyde heard the commotion behind him, and turned in time to see the young blond hurdle Hogg’s corpse and start for the tower. A knife protruded from Dooley’s shoulder and, even as he looked, Hyde heard the sharp snap of breaking bone as the big man forced back the bearded Swede’s head to an impossible angle.
Andrea left her rifle in the snow. Before she was into her stride her hand had found and fastened on the knife tucked into her belt. It was the weapon Dooley had given her, and as she pulled it free and came up to her fleeing quarry his words were in her mind. His lessons guided her actions, and she didn’t make the mistake of attempting to stab the running man; instead she went for a slashing cut that enabled her to keep her balance as she kept pace with her prey.
Seeing his pursuer from the corner of his eye, the blond half-turned and raised an arm to ward off the blow, red-tinged spittle flying from his damaged mouth as he made to form a shout. The heavy saw-backed blade sliced across his head and neck, from below his right ear to the top of his left shoulder. Blood and steam gushed into his collar as the tissue peeled apart, but he kept going, only now his steps were shorter, more deliberate, like an automaton.
Mouth still agape and spouting his life the Swede went down, toppling forward, not putting up a hand to fend off the impact the snow did little to soften. A geyser of blood and vapour stained his woollen hat and fair hair.
Jumping to land with both knees in the centre of her victim’s back, Andrea clenched her hands about the sticky hilt of the knife and plunged it down into his back with all the force she could muster. On the second blow, the body gave a convulsive shudder that Andrea’s slight weight couldn’t subdue, and was finally still.
She did not dismount, remaining where she was until she once again had her breathing under control. Then, slowly and deliberately, she wiped the blade on the would-be escaper’s clothing with long careful strokes. Crouched beside the body, she looked for any signs that the chase and kill might have been seen by anyone among the swarms of soldiers and technicians working within the distant oasis of artificial light. Satisfied, she began to drag the corpse back into the trees.
It was the first time she’d had occasion to use the knife, or put its ex-owner’s instructions into practice. There was much else she had learnt, and even more still to absorb; she looked forward to applying all of it as effectively.
‘Will you pull this bloody thing out!’ Dooley indicated the hilt sticking from the front of his left shoulder. ‘Every time I fucking move I feel the shitty point scraping on bone. It’s making my teeth stand on edge. I’d rather drag my fingers down a blackboard.’
‘Shouldn’t have been so ruddy slow and given him the chance to stick you.’ Taking hold of the knife with his free hand, Hyde spread his fingers about the entry point to hold back the flesh as he withdrew it.
‘I thought the fucker was half-dead. After the way he bounced off the door into the wall he should have been.’ As the sergeant began to apply a steady pull, Dooley sought around for a topic to give himself a distraction from the increasing pain as the metal started to slide from his flesh. ‘Could we move a few feet? The crud I snapped is beginning to stink. That’s the bloody trouble with doing the job by hand, gives them time for a last shit when they realise what’s happening.’
Having finished covering the blond with snow. Ripper commenced the same operation on the other body. The man’s beard was tucked tightly over his left shoulder in an extreme contortion, livid marks banded his neck, and his tongue, swollen and purple, poked final derision at the life he had fled. Foul smells emanated from the stained and steaming clothing about the lower half of his body. ‘Wait.’ Pushing the American aside, Andrea wrenched at the Swede’s clothing and tugged two belts from their loops.
‘You taking trophies now?’ Hyde watched without comment until she had finished and stood back.
‘The woman,’ Andrea indicated the glazed-eyed occupant of the sledge, now semi-conscious and moaning softly, and the bruised individual who had taken the brunt of Dooley’s shoulder-charge, ‘and that worm should be gagged.’
‘And you’d just love to do it, wouldn’t you?’ Hyde snatched the twin strips of pliant leather. ‘You know bloody well that if you half-block their mouths in these temperatures their spit-will freeze and fill their throats and kill them. If they get stroppy we’ll take care of it then, my way. Anyway, she’s struggling for every breath, I can’t see her starting to make a fuss. And the worm as you call him, well, take a look for yourself. Do you reckon he’s about to do anything heroic?’