Opening fire, he knew it was already too late. In the couple of seconds before impact, as he watched his shells blasting bodies apart on the embankment, through his mind raced a flickering selection of terrifying images. Dominant among them was that of their sergeant’s fire-ravaged features. Ripper saw it superimposed on his own, as the warhead of the same type that had burned away Hyde’s facial tissue and reduced him to a wicked parody of human appearance, closed range.
Striking the turret front, the rocket’s lethal payload detonated instantaneously and focused into a pencil thin jet of pure energy, bored into the armour.
The air in the turret became roasting hot and was filled with smoke and stinging bright sparks and the smell of furnace heated metal.
‘Jesus, I’m on fire, I’m on fire.’ Thrashing about to reach the area of searing pain, Ripper slipped from his seat and fell to the cabin floor. He felt wads of cloth and packs being bundled against him to smother the flames, then tasted a mouthful of the bitter contents of a gushing fire-extinguisher.
‘Leave him, use it on the turret. The fire suppression system isn’t working.’ Grabbing and hauling clear the smoke-blinded gunner, Revell unhooked another pyrene and aimed its billowing discharge upward, toward the glow at the centre of the dense smoke filling the turret and command cupola.
‘Am I burned? I got to know, tell me. How’s my face?’ There was no reply to Ripper’s frantic plea. He tried to get a hold of a leg to detain someone, any one of those who constantly trampled him, but his attempts were kicked or stamped aside, and he could only listen to the noises as the crew fought to contain the blaze.
In the absence of any order to the contrary, Burke kept the APC going flat out. He’d seen too many other squads die when they’d bailed out prematurely, still within small arms range of the enemy, when they could have stayed with their transport longer, ridden it safely into cover. Repeatedly he smashed his fist down on the button that should have manually countered any malfunction in the automatic extinguishers, but the square of green plastic set in the control panel, that would have signalled its activation, remained stubbornly unlit.
‘Clear the way.’ With shoulder and elbow Thome pushed the others aside as he pulled the flamethrower cylinders from beneath the dribble of molten plastic and metal and shifted them to comparative safety behind the driver’s seat.
‘Are you fucking mad?’ A glance as they bumped the seat-back told Burke what it was that had been moved to share his portion of the interior. ‘Move those blasted things away from me, stuff them through a bloody hatch.’
‘At a pinch any of us could handle this crate, but you can’t spit fire, so you go through the hatch. We need this more than you.’ Thorne leaned forward so that their driver got the full benefit of his broad smile.
‘We’ve got it licked.’ Revell’s throat felt like it was lined with a coarse grained sandpaper. His extinguisher was almost empty, but the yellow glow of the fire was gone. ‘Cut in the air conditioning again. We’ll motor another mile or so to be on the safe side, then stop for a check of what systems are still functioning.’
‘The stop’ll have to be now. Fancy a spot more fire-fighting?’ Bringing the APC to rest on the gentle incline of a compacted stone ramp up to the causeway, Burke looked along the length of the wooden structure.
A hundred yards of its centre, unnaturally dried by the harsh chemicals with which it had been saturated, impregnated with the oil dripped from thousands of sumps and back axles, was blazing. It was a great roaring avenue of flame.
NINE
‘…but our troops do report several hits, Comrade Colonel.’ Alternately sweating and shivering with nervous tension, the major steeled himself for an answering blast as violent as those that had greeted the rest of his report.
Rozenkov considered himself something of an artist, a master even, when it came to instilling terror. Like any other art, the inflicting of fear could not be played all on one note, or portrayed all in one colour: contrasts were called for, and he used one now. He lowered his voice until it was almost a whisper, purging it of any overtones of menace, replacing it with gentle amusement.
‘Oh, that is most interesting, then I take it that the NATO squad still in pursuit of the delegation are ghosts.’
There was a trap here, the liaison officer could sense it, but there was no escape to be found, he had to reply. ‘It would appear, Comrade Colonel, that the hits failed to penetrate their armour…’
‘Even more interesting. Perhaps you would care to inform me what calibre of weapons are issued to your troops, what type of ammunition. I am sure also that if they are using standard issue equipment our armament experts will be intrigued to discover what level of incompetence is required to render ineffective their tried and tested inventions.’
Again the major knew an answer was called f6r, was expected, but he had none. Anticipating the colonel’s next words to be the ordering of his arrest, those that came were all the greater surprise.
‘Never mind, Major Morkov. The results of the GRU’s abortive attempt to halt the pursuit, no better than I expected, will have had the precise effect on the civilians that I required. They will have heard the engagement, perhaps even guessed its significance, but whether they have or not they will now know that there is only one way they can go, eastward, straight into our waiting arms.’
‘I understand, Comrade Colonel. We will use the NATO squad to drive them on.’
‘You do not begin to understand.’ Rozenkov shoved a bulky file across the desk. ‘It has cost the KGB a well planted agent of influence and two senior field operatives to discover the composition of that pursuit group. We have brushed with them before, perhaps military intelligence has also. See for yourself.’
The fat folder was well thumbed, greasy and torn where it had been often and carelessly handled, its cover marked by overlapping coffee rings. ‘I have heard of this Special Combat Group, Comrade Colonel, but I have not personally had occasion…’
Lips curling in a sneering smile, Rozenkov enjoyed the KGB’s moment of superiority over Military Intelligence. He gathered the file back to him, clumsily patting straight the edges of the stack of paper and only succeeding in adding more creases to the un-aligned sheets.
‘They are a miniature private army, a rag-bag assortment of mercenaries and deserters from several countries armed forces, led by an American major. We knew they were in disfavour, thought they had been disbanded, but they have turned up again.’
‘Surely, they cannot number more than a, dozen, they can pose no threat?’
‘In the past they have been more than a threat. Several important operations have been spoiled by them. There are officers above us both who would be higher still had it not been for the activities of that squad. Today they have, for once, served not hindered our purpose. It would be fitting if that were their last act. The next time let there be no mistake. Wipe them from existence and we shall both do ourselves some good. Fail, and I shall make certain that any blame attaches to you.’
Behind the desk a large scale map of Bavaria had been tacked to the wall. A pink headed pin marked the approximate position of the civilians, a sparse scattering of blues represented the GRU units racing to intercept their pursuers. There were two more pins, both a luminous red. They were at present stuck in the plaster just off the edge of the map.
Those were the KGB Spetsnatz units being hastily briefed for the reception. Once they were on the map it would not be for them the same slow overland progress as the Military Intelligence companies. Aboard fast helicopter gunships available to such elite units they would race in, covering at speed difficult territory that others were crossing at a comparative crawl.