Hard Target (3 page)

Slow-moving figures shuffled forward, their outlines made indistinct in the gloom by the cumbersome heavy-duty anti-contamination suits and respirators they wore. Each of the apparitions waved the spray-emitting nozzle of a hose in front of him.

Activated bleach slurry ran from the hull, flushing from every crevice the last of any persistent chemicals adhering to it. That done, the skimmer was scalded clean with high-pressure steam jets. A member of the decontamination crew tapped on the driver’s vision block and gave a slow motion thumbs-up to the men inside.

There was no rush to leave the cramped quarters. Hyde and his men just sat there, letting the tension drain from them.

Collins declined the tobacco pouch and paper that Burke offered him. ‘No, thanks, I don’t. Are all the patrols like that?’

It was Corporal Howard who took it on himself to answer, when no one else did. ‘They’re all different, but that was an easy one, if that’s what you mean.’

‘Think we’ll be getting a spot of leave, Sarge?’ Burke made a critical examination of the butt he held, then puffed vigorously to keep the last shreds of tobacco alight.
‘What’s the matter?’ Libby came down from the turret seat. ‘Don’t you like your work?’

‘Fuck the work,’ Burke growled. ‘I’m just saying it’d be nice to have something to look forward to when we got back.’

The slit in the face of Sergeant Hyde that lips would have marked as a mouth barely opened as he spoke. ‘I’ve got a feeling the CO will have something waiting for us, but it won’t be a seventy-two-hour pass.’

TWO
‘I don’t give a fuck what you think of the plan, just make the shitty thing work.’ Colonel Lee Lippincott took the well-chewed pencil stub from between his perfectly capped teeth ‘ and spat out shreds of wood. ‘The orders say this is a joint operation with the British, and as I’ll be the bastard catching shit from the Liaison Staff if you screw up, then believe me you’d better not screw up. If you do, and make it back, then you’ll be fucking lucky to end up as a private third class, testing piss as a beer substitute.’

Major Revell waited until O’l Foul Mouth had finished flecking the floor to the right of his chair with another spattering of spittle and splinters. No effort he could have made would have kept the edge out of his voice, so he didn’t try. ‘OK, so this British tank-hunter squad know the ground, and the whole crazy idea comes from a smart-arse Staff Officer in Brussels, who wants an example of successful co- operation between us and them to counter stories of friction in the press back home. But why, just tell me why, a Commie tank repair shop is so damned important all of a sudden.’

‘Shit, we’ve been in the salient for two weeks now, helping bolster the British defences, you know the picture.’ Lippincott picked flakes of blue paint from his fleshy lips and examined them on the ends of his fingers. ‘After the balls-up they made of trying to clear this pocket in June, Soviet 2nd Guards ain’t exactly the Russian High Command’s favourite outfit. Rumour has it they came close to losing their fancy title. They’re going to have to try again, but they ain’t getting much in the way of new equipment. As things stand we about match them in armour, but somehow they’ve got their cruddy hands on this crack workshop unit. If their tanks are in prime condition when the show starts again, fitted with the latest mods, it could make all the difference.’
‘If we know where it is then drop a cruise on it; why send a platoon of my men on a suicide mission?’

A parody of a benevolent grin creased the colonel’s rubbery features. ‘Suicide is when you die by choice, Major; you ain’t got none.’ He read the expression on the young officer’s deeply sunburnt face, and the grin faded. Hell, Revell gave him the creeps; couldn’t take a joke, never laughed, lived like a damned monk: Jesus, he wasn’t normal. ‘We don’t have the exact location, it’s just somewhere around Gifhorn. That’s a no-go area, stiff with stinking refugees. If we kill so much as a scabby kraut goat I get stick from above, so area weapons are out, saturation, conventional or nuclear.’

‘When the hell are we going to stop fighting this war with our damned hands tied behind our backs?’ Revell crashed his palms down on the desk top between them. ‘Why is it always us who have to be the nice guys? It’s time to hit the Reds hard with everything we’ve got.’

‘Don’t fucking shout at me, Major.’ Revell’s outburst had made O’l Foul Mouth jump and now he shouted back. ‘You think I don’t know how we’re hamstrung. I’m up to my fucking arse in directives that originate from shitty do-gooding pressure groups in Germany and England and back in the States. I’d like nothing better than to put aside for each of them a share of the barrel of super-napalm I fancy pouring over the head of every last torturing Commie.’

Lippincott rose half out of his seat, hammering his desk with his fist at every word. ‘In the Balkans we were fighting Slavs, Bulgarians, even bloody Cubans, tough cruds, dirty even; but compared with 2nd Guards they’re bloody choirboys. 2nd Guards are animals, the lowest; you lift up pig-shit and that’s where you’ll find them. They tore up the rules two years ago, but our politicians haven’t heard that yet, so while the Reds do what they like we have to look twice before we so much as chuck a grenade. But at least you get to smash them sometimes - I fucking don’t.’

Revell saw the pinned-up sleeve over the stump of the colonel’s left arm and read the bitterness and frustration in his voice. He lowered his own when he spoke again, but every word was punched out sharp and clear.

‘Smash them? All we’re ever allowed to do is carry out a few raids, maybe lay an ambush or two. The rest of the time we sit in holes in the ground waiting for the next mass Commie attack. We should be taking the war to them in a big way, tearing their eyes out, not pecking at them.’

‘Not a fucking chance.’ With a neatly manicured nail Lippincott prised a sliver of soggy wood from between his top teeth and flicked it to a far corner of the office. ‘You don’t think our cruddy political bosses want us to start winning, do you? Shit, no. Of course they’ll dole out just enough hardware to let us hold the Reds, and on occasion enough to enable us to mount division strength attacks, with limited objectives of course, to keep up morale and give the newsboys some fresh footage - but they sure as hell don’t want us to start pushing the Commies right back. If that happened, the Reds might be tempted to break that cosy little hot-line agreement and take the war outside the Zone. None of those skunk-faced rats in Westminster or on Capitol Hill want any nukes falling in their back garden.’

‘You want me to tell my men that? You want me to tell them we’ve a job to do. but we mustn’t do it too well ?’

‘Don’t get smart, Major. This mission
is
important. The Hanover salient is our last chance to deny the Reds a straight run to Essen and the Ruhr and the Channel. You knock out that workshop, screw up 2nd Guards Army, and you’ll buy us more time to consolidate.’
From the top of a stack of papers in his in-tray the colonel took a type-written sheet and waved it in front of Revell.

‘No, it ain’t a new brand of arse wiper, it’s a note from a two-star general. He says the press will be getting this story. They’ll be encouraged to make a big splash about British-American cooperation if the mission goes well. Now I ain’t about to disappoint a two-star general, so don’t balls it up. No friction, understand? I want everything to go as smoothly as a well-oiled cock up a nice slack fanny, or else.

* * *

Libby’s fist hit PFC Dooley a solid blow in the gut. As he fell to his knees the big American lunged forward and, catching his opponent by surprise, brought him down too. Before Libby could regain his feet Dooley was on him and the breath whistled from them as they pounded each other.

‘What the bloody hell is going on here? Break it up.’ Corporal Howard pushed through the tight circle of men that had formed around the combatants and was then in turn pushed aside by his sergeant.

At that moment the more powerfully built American was on top, hands locked about Libby’s throat. Hyde hesitated a fraction of a second, undecided which was the best way to end the fight without giving grounds for further aggravation between the Americans and his men. But even as he stepped forward to pull them apart himself, Major Revell came through the crowd on the far side and instantly delivered a savagely powerful chop to the back of Dooley’s neck.

Eyes bulging, tongue protruding between teeth half-hidden by foam, he began to topple to the floor. His fall was arrested by the officer, who grabbed his ears and hauled him to his feet.

Revell spoke quietly, never taking his intense pale blue eyes from the semi- conscious man’s face. In the general silence the words carried to everyone there. ‘Listen to me, Dooley. The colonel said ‘no friction’, you understand?’ The soldier went cross-eyed, attempted to shake his head, winced and nodded. ‘One warning only on this one. I know you, Dooley. It happens again and you’ll be doing mine clearance with a jack-hammer, OK?’

Dooley’s knees had gone rubbery and only the officer’s tight grip kept him upright. He nodded, again with the same painful result. Letting go his hold, Revell turned to Hyde. ‘Any idea what all this was about?’

‘No, Major.’ Hyde shook his head. ‘No idea at all, but it won’t happen again.’ By Christ it wouldn’t, he wasn’t going to be shown up in front of an officer from another unit, American, British or whatever. But especially not in front of this one. Although he’d so far had little contact with the American forces that made up half the NATO troops fighting in Europe, he had in his mind’s eye a composite image of a typical Yank officer. Revell didn’t fit it at all.

The three hovercraft personnel carriers that would carry them on their mission were almost ready. Sergeant Hyde suspected that the flare-up had occurred as a result of Dooley’s constant attempts to pilfer pieces of equipment from the Iron Cow. Libby and Burke had spent weeks gathering together a complete set of accessories for their transport, from wrecks and other unofficial sources and Libby in particular had been steadily growing more irritated with the big American’s jackdaw tendencies.

Revell sat on a packing case, occasionally glancing at the map board resting in his lap, but most of the time watching the final preparations going on about the skimmers. Working conditions inside the ruined block of shops that served as a camouflaged company HQ and vehicle repair shed were appalling. The air was permeated with the stench of bleach that failed to lay the taint of cordite from the frequent conventional long-range bombardment missiles with which the Russians pounded the salient. There was only such natural light as filtered in to work by - the generator had been yet another casualty of the current spares shortage -and the floor was littered with debris, grease and broken glass.

Casually, on the transparent cover of the map of northern Germany, the major drew a broad arrow with his blue marker pen, from their present position five miles east of the centre of Hanover, to a point about thirty miles closer to the old East German border, near Gifhorn. He looked at the line, so easy to draw, taking only a second to do. How long would the real journey take, racing from one piece of safe ground, to another, constantly probing for holes in the Russians’ network of ground surveillance radars? It would take all of the remaining few hours of darkness to reach the target area. Most of the way they would be travelling through territory controlled by the Russians. There were gaps in the defences, but the deeper they went the harder the gaps would be to find, and with radio silence ordered they could expect no help if they ran into trouble, and the chances were that they would.

There would have to be ten minutes set aside for a final briefing, it certainly wouldn’t take longer than that. They had their weapons, a mission and a circle on a map. And that was it.

For two weeks his men had been holding defensive positions, with nothing to do but grow bored and become irritable. And now suddenly it was all rush again. All the preparations for a mission that called for meticulous planning were having to be completed in eight hours.
‘We’ve finished loading now, sir.’

Revell looked up. Master Sergeant Windle was stood casually in front of him. Good dependable old Windle, with the emphasis on old. He should have been rotated back to the States a year ago, but he’d played on the shortage of experienced sergeants, and wangled one extension after another. Still, while Windle was around, all was well. He’d come through so many actions without a scratch that the men had begun to believe he was immortal and regarded him as the embodiment of their luck. It was a theory that the next thirty-six hours would put severely to the test.

‘OK, have everyone muster by Hyde’s skimmer. Was there something else?’ From Windle’s perceptible hesitation before turning away he knew there was. ‘This British bunch, Major.’ Windle needed no second opening. ‘Their sergeant’s got a face like the phantom of the opera; their driver is the laziest creep I ever set eyes on, and the one who goes round with a sniper rifle substituting for a security blanket, well he’s off his head.’

‘Are you saying we...
you
can’t work with them? ‘No, sir, that’s not what I’m saying, it’s just that...’ ‘Listen, maybe we’ve been too insular, too self-contained for too long. Take a real look at our men; Dooley and that mercurial temperament of his, and Nelson with that doll...’
‘His mascot, sir.’
‘... and Cohen, he believes in Martians.’ ‘He says that’s because he’s given up believing in the human race, sir.’

‘You get my point though. The main thing is these British are good, damned good or they wouldn’t be coming with us. Now let’s get this briefing over with.’ Revell eased his aching backside off the rough wood of the crate and followed the sergeant. Well, this would be the last of the preliminaries. In twenty minutes they would pull out, to have the benefit of last light when they passed through their own lines and then he would be doing what he did best, fighting.

Dooley was forced to admit, at least to himself, that the driver of the Iron Cow was good, damned good. Private Burke might be an all-time record gold-bricker, but Jesus, could he throw that thing around. For the first time since the major had told him he’d be travelling with him and Cohen in Hyde’s skimmer he began to feel less unhappy. If he had to be going into battle again, and with the major they always seemed to be, then he might as well go in with a combat driver good enough to get them back out again.