James Rouch - Body Count

“Well, we’re doing no damned good up here. Have the men shoulder their weapons. I’ve no wish to get smeared by a trigger-happy turret-gunner by mistake.”

The two armoured cars, and a third which had joined them covered the intersection. By the time Revell had pushed his way through to the bodies, the men of the column had stripped them of anything that could be remotely considered a souvenir.

Each of them hit by ten or more bullets, they lay grotesquely sprawled, half-naked, in mud largely composed of their own blood.

It was several minutes more before a group of camouflage-dad men came from the ambush point. There were seven in all, four of them were armed with general purpose machine guns.

They walked casually but confidently forward. Revell sensed they were more alert to their surroundings than their bearing suggested. Instinctively he picked out the officer among them, even though none wore any insignia.

“Your work?” He indicated the remains.

“Yes. Pip you at the post, did we? Saw you breaking in, figured we could get in first.”

The officer patted the GPMG carried by the man next to him. “As you only had squirt guns, I thought you’d wait until they got in close. I’m Capt. Chester, 7th Squadron Special Air Service. You’ll be Major Revell; we were briefed you were in the area.”

“Pity you weren’t briefed that an infantry outfit was moving in as well.” Almost imperceptibly a shade of his self-assurance was shaved from the captain’s manner. “Why’s that.”

“You had a fire fight with them about an hour ago. Their fault as well, but they were the losers.” Revell almost mentioned the shelter and the asphyxiated civilians, but decided against it.

“As far as we knew at that time, the city was a free-fire Zone. We’d only just landed.”

“So, who’s command are you under?” Revell had noted the radio backpack carried by one of the SAS men.

“Same as you will be, in about…” Chester looked up as a Black Hawk, with two gunships as escort, swept past overhead. “…about five minutes, I should say. My boss has been sent in to take over from the civil authority. Seems like the federal government believe the situation can be salvaged.

“I see. So such credit as there will be, is for them, is that it?” Revell thought of Police Chief Stadler, first hamstrung by military incompetence, and now deposed when the situation was within an ace of being remedied, or at least getting a lot closer to it.

“Not for me to say. Can’t say I let politics bother me. I can tell you one thing though.” Chester looked at the small police radio, at the major’s belt. “With more of our chaps due in soon, there’s not going to be a lot more for you to do. Very nice of you to leave plenty of the Warpac warriors for us to deal with though. Thanks a lot.”

“You going to take that shit, Major?” Dooley went to go after the captain as he walked away, but the officer’s hand restrained him. “We’re not in the business of private feuds. He is right though. With an SAS staff running things, and sufficient units on the ground, all we’re going to end up with is herding civilians.”

“Great, let those supermen get the shitty end of the stick.” Ripper looked back towards the furniture store. “I saw a king-size bed in there that is screaming to be tried out.”

“Sergeant, let’s take a stroll.” At a little distance from the SAS soldiers, Revell used his radio to contact Stadler. “Might as well warn him what’s coming. Chances are he doesn’t know yet.”

Stadler did know; a message had been relayed via the link with the airport. He was preparing to hand over, and that was all he told Revell before signing off.

“I don’t blame him for being pissed off.” Hyde sat on a traffic bollard, unfastened his helmet, and ran his hand back and forth over his head. It felt strange to be without it all of a sudden, after so long. “I don’t mind living a bit longer, but I don’t like being made redundant.”

“Like it or not, we are.”

Revell looked up as he heard the power traverse of an armoured car turret start up. At the same moment, he noticed the sound of an approaching engine.

The column had begun to move out. Now the mixed force of airport police and security staff scattered in every direction, urgently seeking any cover they could find. Caught on the wrong side of the road, the SAS men ran from behind a trolley car to deploy their machine guns.

A sports car shot from a side street and swerved to avoid a group of men. It would also have missed the trees, but a ragged fusillade of shots sent it out of control, and glancing off one, it hit another head on.

Closest to the scene, Revell and Hyde dashed to the wreck. A middle-aged man was sprawled across the seat. His face was badly cut from his impact with the windshield, and both hands had been smashed by bullets.

“Looter?” Hyde helped pull him clear as flames began to lick from under the crumpled hood.

“Nein. No, I am not a looter.”

Talking was an effort, and Revell judged by the quantity of blood issuing from the driver’s mouth and nose that he’d suffered serious internal injuries.

“I was trying to get help. I thought you were more Russians.”

“More?”

“Yes, ten of them, in the Theatiner Church. I escaped in the panic and confusion when the killing started.”

It took Sgt. Hyde thirty-two seconds to round up the section , trying not to attract attention. The hardest part was extricating Andrea from a circle of admirers that included several of the SAS men. He was only just in time to prevent her committing some act of violence, going by her expression.

In the same length of time, Revell mounted the rear hull of the nearest armoured car and put an argument forcefully to its commander.

The young lieutenant of the West German Territorials had been chafing at the bit, frustrated by the slow pace of the column, dictated by the excessive caution of his accompanying infantry. His English was no better than the major’s German, but he understood what was wanted, and grinned at the prospect.

“Where you going, Major?” Capt. Chester ran to the Luchs, which Revell’s section were boarding, finding handholds on the rear deck and hull sides. “This isn’t the Second World War. You’re not a tank-rider battalion. Where are you off to?”

“If you’re needed, you’ll get a call on the radio.”

With that Revell had to hold on tight as the eight-wheeler surged forward, demolishing a steel post and driving over the top of it.

Fear was no stranger to Revell. He experienced it every time he went into action. This occasion it was particularly strong, almost overwhelming. If he could have thought of any other way into the church, even with acceptable civilian casualties, he would have employed that method rather than this.

The rear of the building was in shadow, as were the courtyard approaches to it. There would be enough of the late afternoon light for the Russians to see them. Hopefully not sufficient for them to be accurately identified.

When they had first arrived, there had been a couple of shots from inside, but there had been no more. The screaming and crying had continued though, and had jarred on the men’s nerves.

Andrea alone had remained undisturbed, unmoved by the distress they could hear. She had got on with her preparations, seemingly able to blot out or ignore what she heard.

Not for any reason that he could understand, Revell neatly folded his camouflage jacket and webbing, propping his submachine gun carefully against the pile.

“Smelly sods, these Spetsnaz.” Ripper sniffed the sleeve of the Russian battle dress.

“The particular sod who was wearing it spilt half his stomach and twenty-four hours of food and shit inside it. Your pants would stink after that.” Carrington wrenched the unfamiliar webbing around until he had it settled more comfortably. “I’ll be glad to get mine off as well though.”