‘Don’t try lying to me, Dooley, you’re just no good at it. Why do you think you always lose at cards?’
‘Honest, Sarge…’
‘Honest my arse.’ Hyde raised his voice. ‘Sit down. I know what you’re up to. Ever since Cohen got in the way of that tank shell at Frankfurt you’ve been trying to copy him, build a little fortune for yourself. Forget it, you haven’t the wits to amass it or the brains to hold on to it, so quit trying. Anyway, if we get grabbed by the Swedes, what do you imagine they’ll think if they find we’ve been killing and looting the bodies of their nationals. Leave that frozen carcase alone, find something else to occupy your time.’
‘I don’t see the harm in trying to come out of the war with a bit more to show for it than a load of scars.’ Grumbling in an undertone, Dooley sat down beside Andrea. She went on polishing her bayonet, appearing not to hear him, so he persisted in nudging her until he had her reluctant attention. ‘Well, what do you think? You remember Cohen, the little runty Yid who had the pockets of his flak-jacket stuffed with money and rings. Why shouldn’t I do that?’
‘If you wish to, you can.’ Andrea folded the soft pink cloth and tucked it into a pocket. ‘There are fortunes to be made in a war. Even in the camps there are refugees who have done well out of the suffering of others. Many Russian soldiers have also profited. When I was with the GDR people’s militia, many times I had to help load trains and convoys of trucks with goods the Soviets were stealing from my people. So if you wish, then gather what money you can, but while you do it remember all those you have seen die because their need, or their greed, made them reach too far, just once too often.’
‘What a nice little moral tale.’ Sitting on the other side of the girl, Libby couldn’t resist the sneer. ‘Since when have you been writing sermons? I thought all your energies were devoted to learning new ways to kill.’
‘Piss off, this is a private conversation.’ Dooley could feel tension growing like a physical thing inside him.
Clarence knew what she meant, understood the point she was trying to make. It was stupid, he’d only started to understand her since she had deserted him in favour of Dooley. There was something deep inside Andrea that drove her on. Her fanatical hatred of the Communists was real enough, but that was only a surface manifestation of what lay beneath. With her brains she could have got out of the Zone, or at least used her looks to better her situation, but she had chosen to stay among the people at the bottom of the heap. Even now she operated with this ragbag unit when she could have found something much better. It was as if she needed it to be that way, needed to see and experience the suffering. And what she saw at first-hand fed her hatred and helped her kill and, coming full circle, the killing then compounded the horrors she’d witnessed. A fruitless cycle of death, whose beginning was unknown and whose inevitable end, after many, many turns, must be violent and bloody.
‘Those Ruskie sailors aren’t the best at station keeping, Major.’ Cline had to revise his log entries as the enemy ships veered from heading to heading. ‘If I allow for the wandering about, take a sort of average course, then it looks like they’ll pass within three miles of the island. We’ll be able to take them on at point-blank range. You want me to alert the launcher crews?’
‘We’re not engaging the vanguard.’ Revell saw the look Cline gave him, and was tantalisingly slow in adding, ‘Not yet. Once those Ruskies figure out what’s coming at them, and from where, our target practise will be over. I want to engage the maximum number of targets in the shortest possible time. Let the lead group pass, we’ll give the cruisers a few rounds from astern, but save most of the rounds for the next bunch. We might not get the chance to use our reloads. I want to do all the damage we can with what rockets are in the tubes now.’
‘What about the Ivan Rogov? That damned tub is sitting in our laps.’ York had turned to an illustration of a sister ship. ‘That baby packs a hell of a punch. Says here she’s got guns and missiles of her own. If her captain decided to join the fight, we’re a sitting target.’
‘So is he.’ The cold must be more than numbing his body. That was something Revell should have thought of for himself. What else had he missed, what else was there that he was overlooking? For many hours now the Rogov had been a part of the local scene, he’d grown used to its presence until it had merged into the background and he’d come close to forgetting, damn it, he had forgotten it. ‘If it’ll put your mind at ease, York, then we’ll give the tub the undivided attention of half a dozen rounds, how does that suit you?’
‘Just fine, Major. Want me to let you know of anything else I think of?’
‘I believe you may be, as you Americans say, pushing your luck.’ Boris rapped the radio-man’s ankle with the steel-shod side of his boot., He said the words quietly enough not to carry to the officer, but still managed to inject the urgent note of warning he intended.
‘Vanguard is coming into camera range now.’
Under Cline’s practised guidance a TV camera panned over an expanse of slab-dotted sea. He switched to a second, and instantly the screen was filled with a bow-on shot of an ice-coated destroyer. An arcing bow wave carried a crescent of ice and foam up and away from the knife-edged hull.
‘Pennant number is five-six-four.’ Having retrieved his book, Cline sought the vessel’s identity. ‘Here it is, Strogiy, modified Kashin class destroyer. Last reported in Leningrad yards for extensive refit.’
‘Find and identify the others, especially the two cruisers.’
Revell stood away from the bombardier’s chair. The operator would be under sufficient pressure without his appearing to hover over him. One after another the vanguard escorts jumped into focus, were identified and logged. In several cases the ships could only be identified by class or type, their pennant numbers were as new as the hulls, and unlisted. A guided missile frigate was of a class never seen before, and defied Cline’s efforts to positively identify it.
‘There’s one of them.’ A Kresta class cruiser jumped into vision. Going for a close-up, Cline panned along its impressive length. The ship bristled with a staggering array of antenna complexes and weaponry. A moment later he found a second, and this one he was able to identify. ‘It’s the Marshal Voroshilov, another that was last seen in the yards.’
‘That’s an anti-submarine force. Our subs are going to have a tough time with that crowd.’ Revell scanned the list.
‘If we used all the tubes, we could do them a fair bit of damage, give our blokes a chance.’ Only two buttons had to be depressed and Cline could immediately transmit the ships’ positions to the launcher crews. He’d been with the battery long enough to know that it would take the gunners mere seconds to align the tubes and get clear. In a matter of minutes the Russian ships would be on the receiving end of a storm of fragmentation warheads that would rip through their complex radar equipment and mow down any crew on deck or behind light protection.
‘No, they’ll have to take care of themselves. Our orders say we go for the big tubs.’ On the screen the view of the ships was changing from side-on to a three-quarter rear shot. ‘Have number one site prepare to engage the cruisers. Seven rounds each. Site two can put a half dozen rounds into the Rogov.’ Revell turned to York. ‘And this is where you start to do your work. The moment we open fire, start playing with your fireworks. I want any Commie tracker who so much as glances this way to get thoroughly confused. Use chaff, ECM, whatever you need to decoy any radar homing warheads they throw, but go easy on the pyrotechnics. Libby salvaged what he could, but we’re still short, so make it last, be sparing. I want maximum value from what we’ve got.’