‘Yes, Comrade Colonel.’
The salute that accompanied the trembling words was immaculate, spoiled only by the terrified man’s inability to entirely prevent his hand from shaking.
‘Good, we understand each other. Here is what I want.’ Rozenkov threw a rolled map across the desk to a fumbling catch. ‘On there is marked the probable route being taken by a group of western civilians I am anxious should cross the Zone unmolested, by NATO troops at all, by any of ours until we have a proper reception prepared for them. Already I have a report that a squad of enemy troops are in close pursuit. You will employ any men you have available in the area to intercept and eliminate them.’
‘I understand, Comrade Colonel.’
‘Splendid, your continued robust health and contentment with family life depend upon it. Remember, on no account are the civilians to be stopped, they must not even know we are taking an interest in them at this stage. Do whatever you have to, you know the results I require.’ Rozenkov farted loud and long, the pressure of the escaping gas near lifting him in his chair. ‘Here, you may sit at my desk, use my radio link. I have to go for a shit.’
As he left the room, and the overpowering stench behind him, Rozenkov enjoyed a sardonic inward laugh. There was an apt symbolism in the pungent fumes the major was having to endure without protest. The men he would be ordering into action would be coming up against gasses themselves. Instead of stinking bowels though, they might smell faintly of fruit or apple blossom, or new mown hay, but for all their fragrance they would be utterly deadly.
Sitting down he noticed with satisfaction that the paper was a roll of decent quality tissue, not the usual box of glazed individual leaves. For the first time since he had entered the building he had a moment to think. On reflection he was beginning to see certain advantages in some of the improvisations that urgency had forced on him. Principal among them was what he’d most recently arranged.
The employment of GRU units for much of the dirty work could turn out to be a really good thing. He would hold his own men back until the interception could be made with maximum effect, letting military intelligence take the casualties, and if anything went wrong, a large share of the responsibility. Yes, it was a good arrangement.
By now the liaison officer would have examined the map, seen where he was having to deploy his troops. For him, and for them, it would not be a good arrangement. He would have trouble explaining their use to his superior, and their loss.
On two occasions in the past Revell had been forced by circumstances to finish off, to kill, members of his own command who were desperately wounded and in danger of falling into Russian hands. That it had been by far the most humane thing to do, saving them from the further agonies of torture; that had not made it any easier. What the leader of the refugees was asking was no more palatable.
He knew he could not do it himself, nor could he order any of the others to do it. Asking for a volunteer was no solution either. Almost certainly Andrea would be the only one to do so. His mind was already in sufficient turmoil over her for him not to want to carry an image of her gunning down unarmed sick refugees, whatever their condition, how ever great a mercy it might be. He sought another way.
‘Dooley, up here, bring your pack. Not that one, the one you keep tucked out of sight.’
Slowly and suspiciously Dooley produced it and handed it to the officer. He watched nervously as the major rummaged about inside it.
Various small tins and boxes were crammed into the bulging pack and Revell had to delve deep before he found what he wanted. The Soviet Makarov pistol was wrapped in a piece of garish printed cotton, along with two loaded magazines. Throwing the hand gun to the spokesman, he retained the clips for the moment. ‘You know how to use it?’
‘Yes.’ Slowly and painfully he tested the action, noticed it was unloaded and looked back to Revell.
‘I’ll drop these off a little way up the road. You understand why, don’t you?’
‘All we want is to die, to end our suffering. There is no anger left in us, not even toward the Russians who made us this way. We are past caring. An act of indiscriminate revenge upon you would serve no purpose.’
‘I’m sorry…’ Rebinding the cloth about the magazines Revell tossed them down.
‘Thank you.’ Fumbling with fingers made clumsy by disease-induced deformity he slid a clip into the butt, and turning his back on the Marder shuffled toward the children who sat by the side of the stretcher.
Without being ordered, Burke eased in the drive and made the quietest departure he had achieved to date. As the hatches were being pulled shut they heard a shot. A second followed before they were secured.
Speed was reduced to a crawl, with the APC in bottom gear as they approached the summit of the long climb, when a pin sheared and the left track broke. At that slow pace their driver was able to bring the machine to a halt before they ran off it.
Following the sergeant from the Marder, Revell joined him in an inspection of the damage. ‘Could have been worse, at least we won’t have to piece it, but it’s another hold-up we could have done without.’
‘About thirty minutes I should think, Major. Less if the broken pin comes out easily.’
‘They never fucking do.’ With the maximum amount of noise Dooley dropped the tool kit.
Boris and Thorne struggled with a spare track plate that was proving difficult to remove from the brackets fastening it to the hull side. Their comments as Burke sauntered past carrying a single track pin, and grumbling about having to do it, were drowned by the thunder of Dooley’s assault on a recalcitrant fragment of distorted metal still retaining the failed component.
‘Post a guard sergeant, and have an air-watch kept, then we’ll have a stroll to the top and see what lies ahead. Might as well take that advantage of this stop.’
The view was not as panoramic as that they’d had from the hill on which they made their electronic sweep, but it was even more informative. Before commencing a systematic search of the slice of Bavaria laid out before them, Revell couldn’t resist a swift general sweep along the road where it went off into the distance.
‘Got them.’ Studying the scene a moment longer, he handed the binoculars to the NCO and directed his observations to a causeway and Bailey bridge across cratered and flooded ground less than two miles ahead.
‘Looks like they’re stuck.’ Adjusting the setting to suit his weaker sight, Hyde scrutinized the distant tableau.
Four figures stood about a Range Rover that had stopped on the log built causeway leading to the bridge, a little short of a section that had partially subsided into the artificially created bog.
‘Do we go in on foot and grab them now, or wait for the track to be fixed?’ Hyde returned the glasses.
‘I think we’ll wait for the wagon.’ Something else caught Revell’s attention. ‘In fact we’ll have to.’
Midway between them and their quarry he’d seen a pair of light trucks and a field car parked among the trees, far enough in for them to have been invisible from the road. In the course of the day they’d seen dozens of rusting wrecks and at first glance that was all those three vehicles had registered as, but then instinct made him focus on them again, and a more critical inspection revealed that they weren’t hulks.
It was the trucks’ erected canvas tilts that betrayed them. Tough though the material was, it would not have survived several months’ continual exposure to Europe’s unrelenting elements. If they’d been derelicts then there ought only to have been a few flapping strips by this time, but that wasn’t how it was.
The transports were all late models that, aside from being mud spattered, appeared to be in perfect condition. That discovery made, it didn’t take Revell long to discover what they were doing there.