If they had, and they detected the invisible beam he was directing, then at any second they might retaliate and the eye he pressed to the rubber surround of the sight be boiled from his head. He had seen it happen, and it took conscious willpower to keep him there.
From beyond the ceramic and steel armour he heard the crash and clatter of the squad’s weapons going into action, and answering fire from Russian small arms. A grenade exploded, someone was screaming.
Without moving from the gunner’s set, Revell groped with his free hand for his assault shotgun in the rack below. His fingers found its barrel and he hauled it up to cradle its familiar bulk across his lap. Now he had two reasons for leaving the laser, but still he stayed, and waited.
Andrea saw her grenade blast the Russian’s body apart, and with careful deliberation put a second forty-millimetre shell into the chest of another. He went the same way, and took the men either side with him.
Trailing blue smoke from its burned-out rocket motor, an anti-tank missile flashed past to self-destruct over the river when it failed to find a target.
Another group of Russians charged from cover, shouting and yelling as they came. Once more they had to bunch to pass between piles of props and girders and once more they were slaughtered as they were channelled through those killing grounds.
From the top of a gantry walkway, Clarence took in the scene below. So far he had left the killing to the others, he was looking for different targets, and now he found them.
Behind a long brick-built workshop Russian military police and KGB troops were using sticks, boots and rifle butts to hurry soldiers being unloaded from packed trucks and field cars. Using the telescopic sight on his rifle the sniper panned across the new arrivals. Few of them carried weapons, some didn’t even have proper boots, and were wearing various types of footwear of obvious civilian origin. All of them were in rags, with the few insignia visible indicating that they were from all sorts of units: construction, pipeline and chemical, as well as artillerymen and radio-technical troops.
Some of them looked frightened, many bewildered; none of them looked happy. Weapons were being thrust at them, AKS-47s for the lucky ones, a couple of grenades for those less fortunate, lengths of angle-iron and chain for those not even that lucky.
Despite the rising dust clouds and scudding smoke from riverside fires, the sun was hot on Clarence’s back. If it brought him discomfort it didn’t register, when he was lining up on a target nothing ever did. Of more concern to him was the distortion caused by the heat haze shimmering from the piles of ships’ plates, and the confusing, near blinding, glint from heaps of swarf in bins outside the workshop.
It was not among the crowd of impressed Russian infantry that he sought a victim; he found his target standing a little to one side. The Russian officer might just that moment have come from the tailors. He was immaculate; jacket pressed, boots shined. At his side the wooden holster for his pistol had been polished until it almost glowed, and the metal fittings at its end, that enabled it to be used as a stock for the weapon it held, had been burnished to a mirror finish.
The staff car parked close by was less showy, but with its neat camouflage paint and unmarked bodywork stood out among the rougher forms of transport surrounding it as much as the officer did from his none-too-willing men.
Taking a fraction longer, Clarence sighted and applied a steady and growing pressure to the trigger. At the last instant another head was interposed between him and that he was aiming at.
The field-police sergeant lunged forward into the officer’s arms as the file-nicked head of the bullet mushroomed on impact and burst chunks of skull-casing and brain matter from the back of his head.
Disentangling himself from the slumping corpse the officer dived for the open rear door of his car. He was half inside the already moving vehicle when a second single shot rang out.
Starred where the bullet had punched through, the windscreen was smeared with dark blood as the driver collapsed forward onto the steering wheel.
Leaping in fits and starts as the dying man’s foot slipped from the clutch pedal, the car collided with the side of a Gaz six-wheeler, crushing and trapping several soldiers.
Ignoring the pain and confusion of the distant scene, Clarence shifted his aim back to the officer. Dust and scuff marks obscured the shining black leather of his boots where the Russian had been dragged, and the sniper put his next shot into the metal panel of the door just forward of them.
Clutching his side the officer tumbled out, and fighting the agony of his smashed hip tried to crawl away. A fourth bullet tore off his lower jaw and went on to break his breastbone and drive the sharp ends of jagged ribs into his heart and lungs.
A smattering of shots came his way, but the fire was uncoordinated and seconds later Clarence judged it safe to look again. The immediate threat of the mass attack had evaporated. The Soviet field-police were having their work cut out just to stop many of the assault troops from making a run for it. Their methods were brutal, and though effective, did nothing to encourage enthusiasm among their victims.
Settling down again, Clarence waited to identify whoever it was who would take over. Experience had brought even more patience to the task he already tackled with such dedication. He knew that if no other officer appeared than sooner or later one of the field-police, or perhaps an NCO among the handful of KGB troops, would emerge as the one taking charge. He chambered a round, and waited.
Twenty-seven minutes. Revell had heard every second of each one tick loud in his mind. They’d had nothing beyond a bare acknowledgement of their signal. In three more minutes he’d have to try the radio again, and if no support was coming, if Command had nothing with which to try to blast a hole in the blockade, then he’d have no alternative but to call the squad back inside and try and nurse the crippled craft back to the protective umbrella of the convoy.
Damn it, and they’d been doing so well, had almost been through. Intermittent small arms fire was audible outside. The Russians were probing their positions again. Soon they would dispense with the piecemeal attacks and go for a knockout punch. It could only be an absence of firm leadership that had prevented them from doing so before now.
To a God he didn’t believe in anymore he said a silent thank you for the rigidity of the Communist system that made every man terrified of losing his own initiative for fear of the consequences of getting it wrong.
‘Aircraft. IFF doesn’t function.’
‘Where are they coming from, how many?’ Revell couldn’t leave the designator, was forced to constantly realign it as blast waves shifted them, or the pressure of the backed-up river moved the block ships; he had to rely on Boris’s interpretation of the information on the screens. If the Identification-Friend-or-Foe equipment really had failed then their radio-man’s alert and swift observation might be the only thing to provide warning of danger from the skies.
‘From the north west. There are two, no three. Approach speed is very fast, mach two, no, closer to mach four. The set must be at fault, the picture is all wrong, they have no wings.’
‘Better secure everything. Warn the others to keep down, forget the Russians.’ The set was working perfectly, but Revell couldn’t blame the man for thinking it must be on the blink. Those fast approaching ‘aircraft’ could only be cruise missiles. Wingless, they relied on body-lift at high supersonic speeds to carry their payloads.