Blind Fire (6 page)

Barely twenty seconds later they reappeared from another direction, but the column’s anti-aircraft defences were ready this time. Tracer of every calibre and colour hosed upwards, and from a missile carrier came the stabbing flare of flame tails, as SAMs hurled themselves after the camouflage-painted planes.

Decoy flares rippled from the Thunderbolts as they screamed over the collection of Russian armour, their titanium plated bellies shrugging aside the hail of machine gun and radar directed 23mm cannon fire. Four long slim finned bombs littered the sky after their passing, each deploying a miniature parachute.

The drogues slowed the bombs’ falls, allowing the jets to escape before the earth was rocked by four monstrous explosions. A 122mm self-propelled gun tipped on its side, and was part-buried under a shower of steaming earth. An APC was torn apart by a near miss that scattered flaming debris around a giant crater, and another simply ceased to exist as it took the full force of a direct hit. The last victim of the bombs was the missile carrier. Its radar torn away, the side of its hull crushed in, it began to burn.

Skimming the ground, the Thunderbolt pilots used every tree, every fold in the terrain to aid their getaway. They had almost made it when there was a vivid yellow flash from the leader’s port engine tailpipe.

‘He’s hit.’ Cohen watched as the aircraft shed fragments of panelling and, towing a streamer of unburnt fuel, dipped to almost touch the ground. ‘He’ll make it.’ The sight of both aircraft, still in formation, hopping over a far hilltop added weight to Hyde’s prediction. ‘I’ve seen those, buggers flying with one engine shot away and half a wing gone.’

‘Better get ready, Sergeant.’ It wasn’t immediately clear to Revell precisely what the Russians were intending to do, as every piece of amphibious armour began to roll forward. Then, when every weapon aboard them opened up on the bank, he understood.

The last of the mines was detonated by the barrage, and the APCs surged ahead, each choosing its own crossing point.
‘Hit them as they climb out.’

That was the order Hyde had been waiting for. The banks were steep and slippery, and the personnel carriers were soon in trouble, all of them having difficulty in hauling themselves from the river. The first one to succeed took long enough for Hyde to put a precisely guided rocket into its exposed and highly vulnerable thin belly armour.

The front mounted engine bore the brunt of the powerful charge, and as the vehicle slid back into the water, burning fuel gushed from its buckled hull, withering the rain-soaked weeds and briefly swirling on the fast current. It began to founder immediately and, as wounded infantry tried to hoist themselves through opened roof hatches, turned turtle and sank, forming a second obstruction to the flow.

Even as Hyde aligned on another tempting target, the farmhouse shook to a giant hammer blow, and the room was filled with dust as the door was torn from its hinges and the windows blew out.

‘Where the sodding hell did that come from?’ Snorting to clear dust from his nostrils, Burke picked himself up from the floor, then voluntarily consigned himself to it again as two more shells plunged into the paved area fronting the house.
Slabs of concrete and masses of gravel pounded and peppered the farmhouse, smashing every last pane.

‘I’ve got them.’ Swivelling the command box, Hyde brought it to bear on the T84 arid pair of APCs that were fast closing in on them. His index finger stabbed down, and nothing happened. He got the same result from the other buttons he tried. ‘They’ve got the cables.’

Supported by fire from a battery of self-propelled guns on the far side of the river, the infantry vehicles and their attendant tank were still coming on. The T84 opened up, its stabilised gun staying locked on target as the hull followed the undulations of collapsed field drains. A two-storey wing was struck by the shell, and had most of its roof lifted off by an explosion that filled its windows with flame. At eight hundred yards the APCs joined in, rounds from their 73mm main guns punching into the outbuildings. A large greenhouse dissolved in a cascade of shining shards as a shell detonated inside.

Kurt and Libby tumbled into the room. They were white with powdered plaster and their NBC suits were scorched and slashed. The German was swearing passionately and incomprehensibly as he extracted a long sliver of lathing from his arm.

‘One minute we were looking out of the attic,’ Libby had to pause to spit dust, ‘the next the ruddy floor had gone and we were coming down faster than we went up.’
‘We can’t do any more here.’ Hyde began pulling the leads from the box. ‘Might be an idea to pull back while we still can. Once those battle taxis start dropping their passengers it won’t take them long to cut us off. This place is pretty isolated.’

The men were hanging on his next words, Revell knew that. In effect the decision had already been made for him. Their teeth had been drawn and now it was only sensible to get out while they could. A broad stretch of open farmland behind the house would have to be traversed before they made it to the comparative safety of distant woods. For a short while, the Russian infantry’s preoccupation with the farm would give them that chance.

But he hated having to retreat, the job only half done. With the remaining ten missiles they might have inflicted sufficient damage to force the column to turn around. Instead, they had to be the ones to turn and run. 

‘Smash what we can’t carry. We’ll be moving fast.’ The major ducked instinctively as more shell fragments smacked into the house. A seat from the Volvo had come to rest on the window box, and hung precariously for a moment, filling the room with white smoke as it smouldered, before falling off to complete the journey the explosives had started it on. ‘We’ll pick up Clarence, and Andrea on the way.’

Five hundred yards away the tank had stopped, and was maintaining a steady fire in support of the APCs which were still coming on, making good use of their own armaments as they did.

The corridor and stairs were filled with the wreckage of smashed furniture, sagging plasterboard and broken beams. Debris cluttered most of the rooms they passed, but others were curiously untouched by the devastation, save for their broken windows.

A still-settling heap of rubble filled the porch, almost completely blocking the door. Accurate bursts of heavy machine gun fire raked the house front and ricocheted wildly from the surface of the drive in showers of gravel.

Revell found a downstairs window from which he could make a safe reconnaissance of the stable block where the couple had set up their post. Sparks flew thickly about it from a burning woodpile close by. There was no way out of the place that was not swept by the Russian automatic fire.

The troop carriers had slowed, but were still advancing; the couple would have to make their move soon. Receiving no acknowledgement of his urgent instructions to them, he put the respirator mask to his face again and repeated it. Clarence briefly appeared at a doorway, waved, and disappeared inside again.

Revell watched the seconds flickering by on his Omega. What the hell was keeping them? Would the sniper send her first, or would he make the run to test the dangers? It was fruitless to speculate. The miniature liquid crystal bars built and destroyed the seconds, telling him he would know soon enough.

Arriving in a flat trajectory at virtually point-blank range, the round fired by the T84 gave no warning of its approach. It scored a direct hit. The stable block fell apart, collapsing in a welter of shattered bricks and beams.

He wasn’t conscious of any noise. To Revell’s eyes it seemed the single-storey structure broke up in silent slow motion, first bulging outwards as the shell exploded in its heart, then disintegrating as the roof that had been lifted off fell back and found no walls to support it. Only a half-buried saddle and horseshoes nailed to jutting splintered rafters gave any clue as to what the mound of rubble might once have been.

‘Bugger,’ Hyde had witnessed the destruction as well, ‘he was a bloody good sniper. Stupid way for him to go, after all he’s been through. Pretty much the same way as his wife and kids.’

It took an effort, but Revell fought down the urge to rush out and claw at the mound. It would serve no useful purpose to add his body to the ruin. He scrutinised the tank. There was nothing he could do now, but he would know it again. If the opportunity arose ... and he’d make it... he’d extract a bloody revenge...

‘Get them moving, Sergeant. Don’t let them bunch.’ Kurt was the one who set the pace as they ran towards the trees a good half a kilometre away. Behind them, the shelling and machine gunning roared to a crescendo as the APCs closed on their objective.

Hurdling a flooded ditch, Cohen slipped on landing and sprawled in the mud. Shit, he’d have to convert some of his haul into paper, the flak-jacket weighed him down like a lead suit and, added to the bulk of his NBC outfit, slowed him to half the others’ speed.

Maybe he’d mail some of his loot back home, have Manny get a price for it next time he went into Chicago. And then again, maybe not. His brother-in-law was too full of good ideas, and too full of himself. Trust within a family is a fine thing, but at four thousand miles that was stretching trust just a little too far. And if Ruth saw the jewellery… once she tried it on, it’d be easier to cut out her heart while she was still breathing than to get her to part with it again. He’d better dispose of it himself. He’d get the best price he could when he was next in Koblenz or Bonn. So it was a buyer’s market, better some than none.

‘Come on, Corp, must be those new stripes slowing you down.’ Cohen felt Dooley’s huge hands clamping on his shoulders and dragging him to his feet. The moment’s rest had done him good, his chest didn’t hurt anymore. ‘Shame about the girl. Waste of a nice arse.’ Dooley glanced back at the collection of buildings. It was surprising, apart from a little smoke and a few chunks out of the house, it hardly looked at all damaged. ‘You ready?’ ‘Why the concern?’ Cohen set off at a jog.

Dooley took the radio-man’s pack from him, added it to his own considerable load and kept pace alongside. ‘Don’t you know? I’m your heir, I am. When you go down for keeps I’ll be the first one along to pick up the pieces. The pieces that are worth money, that is. From now until your death rattle you have me for a buddy, every minute of every hour we’re in action. What’s up, don’t you like the idea?’

‘I should be grateful? A vulture for a friend I don’t need. And about that death rattle. Don’t hold your breath waiting for it. You should live so long as to make a profit out of this bloodsucking scheme.’ ‘Yeah? Well I reckon I’ll be collecting on the deal real soon. See, I’m gonna bill you every time I save your life, or carry your pack, or...’

A spurt of speed, a quick wrench and Cohen had retrieved the radio before Dooley could stop him. ‘You hanging about I can’t help; you getting your hands on my money I can.’ Cohen patted one of his full pockets. ‘Break your heart, not my bank.’

An ‘over’ from the barrage going down around the farm dug a crater uncomfortably close to the two men, showering them with liquid soil, worms and soggy heads of wild corn. Both of them hunched lower, and conserved their breath for running.

Dooley was annoyed. Shit, what a tight-wad… but he had patience and the way the war was going, he wouldn’t have to be patient for too long. The Zone saw a hell of a turnover in personnel, a shell could turn the little Yid over at any time. Just like one had that limey sniper and the German broad. Jesus what a waste that was… that beautiful arse, what a waste...

Clarence scrabbled at the collapsed masonry, not caring what injury he did his hands as he pushed and threw the rubble aside. He saw a movement, too regular to be settlement, crawled to the tangle of splintered roof beams and began to remove the mass of tiles they supported. An opening appeared, the last few shards slithered and crashed about him, and he was suddenly afraid to look inside the hole that had appeared.

The last time he had done that, what had looked back at him had been so horrible, so pitiful, and just recognisable as one of his own children. Then it had been a Russian bomber, now it was a shell, and Andrea, not his family; but he was still afraid of what he would see. Not daring to look, he turned his face to the sky and felt the light rain wash the dust from his skin.

There were so many hatreds in him, but the greatest and most passionate he aimed in that direction. ‘God’s will’ the priest had said, ‘suffer little children’... and he thought again of those ruined young bodies and his darling wife, and wished he’d not suppressed the temptation to smash the platitude-mouthing old fool in the face.
‘Take this, take it.’

The sniper saw the Viper rocket launcher being thrust out towards him. He stretched down and hauled the projector out of the way, then reached for her hand. It was bloody - missing two nails and the tip of the thumb.

Both the APCs and the tank were now concentrating their fire on the farmhouse, while the barrage from the supporting guns had shifted to the fields on either side. The shelling ceased abruptly as he pulled Andrea clear.

Her hands and face were flecked and streaked with blood, and a large livid bruise showed on her left cheek. She stood up, shook the dust from her hair, and Clarence knew she was alright. He reached towards her and pulled a cobweb from her hair. It was the first time he had ever touched her, almost their first physical contact of any kind. The undeclared barrier that existed between them came down again, Clarence triggering it by abruptly withdrawing his hand.

‘They’ll be coming in now. We need better cover, I’ll go first.’ He meant to sprint, but every joint and muscle ached from the pounding his body had taken, forcing him to a slower pace. Machine gun bullets struck the ground about him, drilling holes in the corner of the house as he reached its sanctuary.

Andrea followed, losing precious seconds as she slipped on the loose piled bricks. She was halfway when the sharply raked frontal armour of the leading personnel carrier ploughed through the sagging remains of a tractor shed and into view.