James Rouch - Body Count

Vehicles holding several passengers always became the scene of an urgent discussion. The culmination of that was usually the quick topping-up of the tank, followed by a hurried departure. Not many made a second visit to the booth to push through the correct money and the necessary accompanying fuel ration coupons.

Hyde had also been watching what was going on. He joined the major. “You wouldn’t think this place would be deserted, at a time like this, would you? I’d have expected them to be charging well over the odds, grabbing all the profit they can.”

Revell looked up at the company logo. “It belongs to one of the big groups. The staff don’t give a damn. They’re probably a few kilometres ahead of us in traffic.”

“I suppose so, but it just doesn’t feel right somehow.” Hyde looked towards the booth. I’ll just take a look around.”

In the car wash, Hyde discovered two bodies. They were those of a woman in her early twenties and a little girl. Dragged inside, they had been dumped carelessly on the concrete floor. When he called his officer over, he pointed out the nature of their injuries.

“The woman has been shot in the back from close range. Didn’t waste bullets on the kid. Looks like she was clubbed. Smashed in her skull. This would be the work of looters, I suppose.”

“I don’t think so.” Revell felt the bodies. They still retained some body heat. “I peeped in the booth. The cash register is still packed with notes, and there’s a mass of coupons. Single-shot execution isn’t looters’ style either.”

Hyde knew what the major was thinking. “No, that’s Spetsnaz style, when they haven’t got time to indulge in a spot of rape or torture.”

“My very thoughts. This couldn’t have happened more than thirty minutes ago. The bodies are still warm.”

“She must have kicked up a fuss when they stopped for gas.” Hyde looked again at the child. Her face and blonde hair were smothered in blood that had oozed from a gash at the centre of a massive depressed fracture. “They must have taken the woman out quick, and then bashed the kiddie when she saw what was happening.”

It was difficult for Revell to be certain, but he had the impression that the traffic was flowing even slower than it had been when they pulled off. “If they grabbed their transport in Munich, then they don’t have cross-country capability. That means they’re forced to stick to the roads, and we can catch them.”

“There are thousands of vehicles. If they’ve changed into civvies, how the hell are we going to find them?”

“Well flush them out. How many weapons did we manage to keep back altogether?” Revell recalled the MP5 he had wedged under the passenger seat on the Bedford.

“Eight submachine guns, sixteen full magazines. And Andrea kept a hold of four phosphorus and two fragmentation grenades.”

“It’ll have to be sufficient. Get our best section out on the road. We’re going hunting.”

With a typical German respect for the rules, the traffic had confined itself to the three north-bound lanes. Hardly any drivers took advantage of the occasional gaps in the central crash barriers to get on to the deserted south-bound carriageways.

One that had already regretted the decision. A Citroen, displaying French licence plates, had collided head on with a Mercedes belonging to the autobahn police.

As Revell and his group advanced on foot between the rows of cars, they made no attempt at concealment, even deliberately making great show of the weapons they carried. They shouted back and forth between themselves, and had early proof that the tactic could be effective.

Twice within the first kilometre, their noisy progress flushed looters from cars up ahead. The first time it was three girls. They abandoned a near new Audi and raced up an embankment. As they went, they dropped a trail of boxes of perfume, jewellery and leather jackets.

When Dooley passed their vehicle, he reached in, grabbed an atomizer, and sprayed himself generously with Chanel. “Want not, waste not.”

A little further on, he handed the remainder of the spray to a young girl gaping from the open window of a Saab. He got a scowl from her father who sat behind the wheel. As soon as he was past, he heard the bottle break on the road, and the window being wound closed.

The second group of looters they unwittingly stumbled across was a different proposition. When the nearest of the section was still a hundred meters off, they suddenly swung their big Volvo hard into the car beside them, bulldozed past it, and tried to escape.

They got only as far as a wire mesh fence at the top of the steep-sided cutting they were in. Wheels spinning on the soft turf, the heavy car could make no impression on the obstruction, and began to dig itself into the ground. It sent up fans of grass and soil as the tires failed to find a grip.

Throwing open the doors, five male occupants jumped out. The last to do so carried a shotgun. He blasted with both barrels towards the road, then fumbled to reload.

The response to the brief burst fired over their heads by Revell was to throw their hands in the air. Then, uncomprehendingly, they watched as the soldiers stalked past and ignored them.

Once they realized that they were not being arrested, the men suddenly threw themselves into ill-organized frantic activity. While one of their number attacked the fence with wire cutters, another hurled himself back inside, and the rest put their shoulders to the rear of the car.

Part of the section’s rearguard, Andrea watched the looters’ strenuous efforts. “Such a lot of work, and for what?”

“Who knows.” Ripper was tempted to take a pot-shot, but resisted the urge. “But whatever it is, by the time they’ve sold it for a tenth of what it’s worth, and split the proceeds between five of them, it’s only going to be worth beer money.”

Andrea saw one of the men go to pick up the shotgun. She didn’t wait to see if he intended to use it. Her three-round burst broke his back and he crumpled, screaming, onto the trampled grass.

The others piled into the Volvo as it began to nudge through the fence. Andrea was about to fire again, but remembered their shortage of ammunition. She had to watch the car disappear from sight.

Ripper knocked on the driver’s window of the vehicle that had been rammed. A white-faced woman sat still gripping the wheel. Three young children were crying and fighting in the rear.

“Your car’s wrecked, lady. If you go back down the road a ways, you’ll find an Audi no one is using.”

Walking on, neither of them saw the crippled looter finally get his fingers to the trigger of the shotgun. Tormented by the excruciating pain of his wounds, he jabbed the twin barrels into his mouth, and fired.

It was a gamble, but Revell was putting everything on the Russians continuing to try and blend in with the fleeing population of Munich.

He knew that at any time the Reds could swing out of the stream of traffic and make faster progress by using the unobstructed south-bound lanes. He had to count on their not doing that. His hope was that they would realize their best chance of getting clear of the area lay in staying with the herd.

There would be police checkpoints somewhere up ahead. With such a heavy flow of traffic, there was no way every vehicle and its occupants could be scrutinized. Once over that hurdle, the Spetsnaz could head off in any direction.

Each time the section approached a large truck or bus, Revell felt his stomach start to churn. It was a familiar sensation — fear. If the Russians were cornered, they would very likely fight to the last man.

A gun battle among the lines of cars — most laden with whole families — would be horrific. The main hope of avoiding that lay in the section’s ostentatious advance spurring the enemy to make a break for it.