As the APC neared, the officer called his men to attention and they presented arms and he saluted as the stolen vehicle swept past and out on to the open road. This wagon is done up like a mobile whorehouse.’ Dooley tried one of the leather-upholstered bucket seats that replaced the thinly padded benches normally a feature of those spartan vehicles.
‘Hey, now there’s a real neat idea. I heard of a floating crap game, but the idea of sex on wheels, I like that.’ Ripper thumbed through a rack of magazines. Several were western publications. Between the latest copy of Pravda and Red Star were a Playboy and two Mayfairs.
‘I think this might explain things.’ Clarence took a bright coloured square of embroidered cloth from a small locker and held it out for the others to see. ‘Pretty. What is it?’
Clarence snatched it out of Ripper’s reach, to prevent it being covered with filthy fingerprints.
‘You ought to do your homework.’ Dooley leant forward, to try to look in the locker. ‘That is a general’s pennant. It could explain why we got the red carpet treatment, in fact I guess it does. Anything else in there?’
‘Help yourself.’ Clarence moved aside to let the big man rummage excitedly through the contents.
‘I can get a fortune for these, and look at this, it’s…’ Suddenly Dooley became secretive. ‘I ain’t sharing.’ Items he took from the locker were transferred to his pockets with clumsy attempts to conceal them. He kept alternately chuckling and peering round suspiciously, as if expecting the others to attempt to pilfer his trophies.
Most of the traffic on the road was military. Burke was careful to keep to the same speed as the vehicles around him and they weren’t bothered by the traffic police who constantly patrolled on noisy mud-plastered motorcycles.
Not all the other road users were so lucky. Twice they passed trucks that had been ordered off the road for checks, and saw their drivers being pushed and bullied about while papers were scrutinised.
They were forced to slow as they passed a field where a Chinook helicopter had crashed. The cabin had broken in half on impact, leaving the rear portion little more than a low ash white hump at the centre of a circle of scorched grass. Only the remains of the engine stood above the fused and melted aluminium of the airframe.
From the shattered front portion of the craft a group of laughing East German pioneers were dragging the bodies of the flight deck crew, using meat hooks.
The drivers and passengers of other vehicles on the road were leaning out of their cabs and shouting encouragement, and Hyde had to physically restrain Cline from firing his rifle from one of the side gun ports.
‘We can’t help them now. You want something to do, then take the radio over from our gibbering Ruskie. He’s in no fit state to use it at the moment.’
Dooley made a great show of sympathy towards the bombardier, spoiling it by grinning broadly as he did so. His words also lacked sincerity. ‘Now ain’t that a shame, Bomber, and just as we were getting used to your funny little medal-hunting ways.’
‘What do you mean?’ Not made happy by what he saw as relegation to a less than glamorous job, Cline was in no mood to put up with Dooley’s sarcasm.
‘Oh nothing, nothing much. It’s just that this unit gets through radio-men like you wouldn’t believe. Mind, with your self-destructive urges maybe you’ll last longer that way. You’re hardly likely to charge the Ruskies, threatening to deafen them with a burst of static.’
Gradually the traffic flow built up speed once more. As the APC neared the top of a gradient it gave a jolt, and the note from one of the twin rear engines faltered. As they topped the crest it happened again, and this time both units cut in and out erratically.
‘Hang on.’ As Burke called the warning he wrenched the steering wheel hard over and the APC rolled on its suspension as it left the road to turn on to a deeply rutted and potholed farm track.
With the squad all shouting, and trying to secure handholds to prevent themselves being hurled about, their driver put the eight-wheeler through another tight turn.
Bodies and equipment crashed about filling the crew compartment with noise and confused movement and loud cursing and swearing. Only Libby in the turret gunner’s seat managed to hold on, and he made several hard contacts with the many angles and projections in the steelwork about him.
With a final pounding bounce the APC stopped. ‘Everybody alright?’ Burke had to duck a barrage of water bottles, magazines, helmets.
‘You mad sod.’ It took three attempts before Cline managed to regain his sense of balance, his feet and something of his dignity. ‘What the bloody hell were you trying to do?’
‘Don’t fucking blame me. The major said to get off the road when we ran out of fuel. Just be grateful we’d made it to the top of the hill. It would have been a bugger sight more hairy if I’d had to do it backwards.’
‘OK, quiet. Let’s see where we are.’ Revell unfastened the hatch above his seat and stood to look out.
Considering they’d had little choice in its selection, their situation was quite a good one. They were out of sight of the highway, in the centre of a strip of woodland running beside a dirt track, that led to a cluster of neglected barns and machinery sheds grouped about an old stone farmhouse, lower down the steep hillside. He was about to duck back when he heard the squeal of approaching tracks, and the creak and crack of trees going down before a heavy vehicle.
‘Diesel. Wouldn’t you know it’ Dooley tossed the filler cap away, not bothering to replace it on the elderly Blaw-Knox bulldozer.
Utterly confused, and obviously not understanding a single word that was said to him, the machine’s equally ancient driver at last got some glimmering of the meaning of Cline’s urgent pantomime and climbed down from his roll cage protected seat to join the two middle-aged surveyors who were already having their hands tied.
Andrea was doing a thorough job of securing their bonds. She felt a tap on her shoulder, it was Revell.
‘Go with Sergeant Hyde. I want you to get us some gas. We can hardly trot along to the nearest Commie fuel dump and ask for a few cans, so you’ll have to try a spot of highway robbery. It’ll have to be done without attracting attention. You’ve the equipment that should enable you to sucker a couple of truckers.’
‘Shall I expose my… equipment, or do you prefer I simply flaunt it.’ She was taunting him, Revell knew that. ‘Just get the gas, I don’t care what you do.’
‘I do not believe that, but I will get it for you.’ The bitch. The damned bitch. She must by now know how he felt about her and yet, at best, she still treated him with mild amusement. More often she ignored him, though he’d never known her refuse or be slow to act on any order he gave. There were some he’d like to give her that weren’t in any drill manual. Probably, though, she’d end up ordering him. Maybe that would be… No. No, his thoughts had strayed that way before and he didn’t like the dark depths to which they led. He didn’t go in for that sort of thing, hadn’t ever… wouldn’t… but if he did…
There was a loud excited whoop from the APC. Damn it, what the hell was Dooley up to now? He hurried over, before the big clown made more noise. I’m rich, Major. I’m rich. Oh, look at it, look at it.’ Dooley was huddled beside a small safe that had been concealed behind a false locker front. From it he had taken, and spread on the map table beside him, several large bundles of bank notes, each a different currency and most from the neutral nations around the Zone; a small collection of stone-jet jewellery, among which a superb diamond cluster ring stood out; two shin carved figures in what looked like near-flawless jade, and a gold bar.