Seeing the building’s side door start to open, Libby leapt forward, but Andrea was nearer, and faster.
Expecting nothing more than East German sneak thieves, the Russian private held his Kalashnikov threateningly, but did not have his finger on the trigger. The surgically sharp blade swept upwards and the soldier’s expression was transformed from menace to shocked intense agony.
Already buried to the hilt beneath his chin, Andrea gave the knife a wrenching half-turn and the flow of blood from the soldier’s mouth and nose became a torrent that carried with it his severed tongue and shreds of brain matter.
As body and rifle tumbled noisily to the ground there was a shout inside the building. Hurdling the girl, pulled down by the Russian’s death throes and still trying to extract her knife, Libby plunged into the dark chill of the foundry.
Great shapes loomed over him; lumps of soot from the furnace walls showered down as he collided with cobweb-decorated chains hanging from a gantry, unintentionally sending them clanking and jangling against the chipped and heat-coloured brick. The place was filled with the deafening echoes of the multiple collisions; dust, soot and rust fell as a dark rain from the beams high overhead.
As he grabbed at them, and succeeded in reducing the sound to a gentle rhythmic clinking, he heard the shout again. It wasn’t a call of alarm, and the words were heavily slurred. Whoever was doing the shouting was too lazy, or more likely too drunk, to come and find out for himself what was going on.
Hearing the others moving into the building behind him, Libby cautiously edged forward into the cavernous interior. Ahead he could see a group of figures squatted about a stack of food on the floor: stepping into the open to challenge them, he was instantly blinded as a far door was thrown open and a brilliant shaft of light streamed into his eyes.
Blinking to try and see through the tears that filled his vision, he could only distinguish the blurred wavering outline of the helmeted Russian who sprang to his feet, discarding a scrawny chicken and grabbing for a rifle.
Another of the group was standing, moving across his dimly-seen target, and Libby held his fire as he recognised a female form. The Russian had the rifle, was aiming, and then pitched forward on to his face as Revell buried a bayonet in his back.
The other who died, his neck broken by the crashing impact of the butt of Dooley’s M60, had hardly begun to get to his feet, and the half-empty bottle of vodka he clutched was smashed as he fell.
Herded into a corner by Cline, the East German black-marketeers were a strange assortment of types, and their reactions to their suddenly changed situation were as diverse.
Dooley searched them. The shabbily-dressed old man proved to be only half the width the bulk of his heavy overcoat suggested, once he had been relieved of the twenty or more pounds of cooked sausage he had crammed into various pockets. From the woman, Dooley received a stinging slap across the face when he twice went over her matronly bust. In contrast to the senior citizen her mood was one of annoyance, with no trace of fear.
It was the last of the trio Libby found most interesting. He was young, still in his teens, and well dressed in a flashy way. A smell of cologne wafted from him and his suntanned fingers showed tell-tale white bands, where rings he’d thought it prudent to leave behind had left their mark.
Like the woman, he didn’t appear scared, but there was something in his manner, a suggestion of nervousness. For a second time Libby noticed the dance he directed towards a distant door.
The others were busy, and leaving Ripper to guard the trio, Libby crossed quietly to the door. Easing it open, ahead of him he saw a long passageway, with several rooms leading off to either side. The first had glass walls, and he could make out drawing-boards and rows of dusty shelves. With the others came more risk, and he listened carefully at each before looking inside.
Reaching the last door he paused, and put his ear to the peeling paint. He knew what it was he could hear, knew, and at one and the same time wanted to burst in and put a stop to it, and stay where he was, listening. In a moment one of the others would follow him. Every cell in his body was pounding as he eased down the door handle and gently pushed it open.
Eyes clenched in straining concentration, the Russian didn’t see him. The girl bent over the table did. Between grimaces as the Russian thrust into her backside, she gave a half-smile, that was wiped instantly from her face as she recognised the NATO uniform.
Her scream alerted the Russian, but he only had time to open his eyes before Libby was on him. A fist swung savagely hard broke his nose and spattered blood on to the girl’s rump even as his fast-shrinking erection was withdrawn. A second even harder blow burst his right eyeball from his head.
One hand trying to haul up the hampering pants about his knees, the other attempting to palm the squashed mass back into its socket, the Russian sergeant reeled, tripped and fell against the side of a battered filing cabinet, nearly severing his left ear on its razor-sharp edge.
Using his boots and the butt of his rifle, Libby laid into the man as he tried to squirm into a corner and protect himself by drawing up his knees and tucking his shattered face into a foetal position.
Everything that had been inside him for so long poured out of Private Libby. All the frustration and hate was unleashed in a frantic torrent of violent rage that went on and on. He heard bones break, saw spongy brain matter exposed as the skull was crushed, felt firm flesh give like latex foam beneath the crashing fury of his attack.
Wild hysterical screaming from the girl as her half-naked body was splattered with the blood fast smothering the room made a hellish background symphony for the ugly noises of the butchery. Libby only stopped when he had no further strength to inflict damage on the long-dead Russian.
Standing over the sprawled body he could see no unmarked inch of flesh, no recognisable feature on the face, or where the face had been. Turning to the girl Libby realised she had stopped screaming, and now stood whimpering, clutching ineffectually at herself as she involuntarily urinated in sheer terror.
‘I won’t do it to you, I won’t’
She didn’t understand his words. Libby wanted to tell her why he had done it, explain. Now she fell to her knees, clenched her wet hands together and with sobs punctuating every word, began to beg.
Oblivious to the foul smells in the room, Libby reached out and gently pulled her to her feet. The action came naturally. He put down his rifle and took out his pistol. He set the safety to ‘off’, chambered a round, and pressed the heavy, warm metal into the girl’s hand.
Her body still heaved with sobs as Libby drew her to him, held her close and cradled her head on his shoulder. Feeling her move against him he closed his eyes. She was bringing up her hand, he felt the tip of the barrel brush past his ear, and then the world burst apart with a shattering roar.
SIX
The office was painted with blood. It covered the floor and ceiling, was daubed on every wall and smeared over the few pieces of furniture.
Libby was supporting the limp body of a girl. Half of her head had been blown away and an automatic pistol, held by a crooked ringer in the trigger guard, dangled at her side.
Revell crossed the room and took the weapon from her nerveless grasp as Libby let her slide to the floor, where she flopped half on to her side, exposing the gaping hole made by the heavy bullet’s exit.
‘There isn’t the time now, but I’ll want an explanation later.’
‘You can have whatever you bloody want.’ Absently, Libby brushed tufts of matted hair from his jacket front. The action made no discernible difference to his appearance, smothered as he was in the evidence of the violence.