James Rouch - Plague Bomb

His confusion and hesitancy over Rozenkov’s proper title cost the head of operations much of the advantage he’d hoped to gain by his forethought and thoroughness. The remainder of it was lost when the summary page was ripped from the front of the bulky file, and the rest of it thrown back at him.

Hardly seeming to have glanced at the half page of double spaced lines, Rozenkov singled out the head of communications, identifying him by the radio-technical corps insignia on his shoulder.

‘I want a radio link installed in here, on my desk, so that I can keep in personal touch with our units in the Zone.’

‘Of course Comrade Colonel.’ The head of communications smugly beamed as he avoided his discomforted colleague’s mistake. ‘I can have you patched through on the army net. It will mean running cables through the building from the communication centre in the basement, but…’

‘I do not want to talk with army, not with corps, not division, not even battalion. I want to be able to talk direct with platoon and company commanders in the field. What technical problems may be involved I do not care. Have it done.’

Glancing again at the summary, Rozenkov frowned, and there was a noticeable ripple of movement among the crowd, like a contagious shudder. ‘There is no mention of the arrangements for press coverage, why is that?’

‘The intention is, Comrade Colonel, to fly the delegation to Moscow, to meet the representatives of the world media here.’

It was only when she spoke that Rozenkov realized there was a woman in the group before him. Little beside-the lack of shadow on her chin betrayed her. In a suit of very masculine cut, with a severe hairstyle, she was otherwise an unremarkable member. ‘And if we do that we lose half the value of the exercise. There must be no hint, no possibility of the suggestion being made that we brought them into the country via a neutral. A press conference we can arrange any day, an event, a genuine event, could be of propaganda value behind price. The press must be somewhere close at hand when we make contact with these civilians.’

‘But how Comrade Colonel…’

She was ugly, squat and ugly, Rozenkov found time to wonder how a woman with no natural talent for her work could have got so high, without having had the advantage of attractive femininity to play on. Later he would learn more about her.

‘… that is a quiet sector. There is no reason for correspondents of the calibre we require to be there, what pretext could we give?’

‘We shall select some unit within a short flying time of where we can anticipate the civilians making contact. If we tell the media people that the unit is to be inspected by the President of the Supreme Soviet, then they will be clamouring to go.’

‘With respect, Comrade Colonel, the foreign press have been speculating on the Comrade Leader’s health. You will recall that they have made much of the fact that he has not been outside the Kremlin in six months.’

‘Then can you think of anything more likely to attract their interest and attention? There need be no embarrassment. Until they see him they will print nothing, and when the delegation appears instead they will take that as their story and forget the other. Now, what arrangements have been made for the civilians’ interception?’

‘All field units have been alerted…’

‘Are you mad?’ Rozenkov exploded. ‘Would you have them make contact first with a bunch of stupid Cossacks, or Serbs, who are either going to shoot them by mistake or bugger them and give them the pox? Order all units withdrawn from the immediate area, then get me the GRU liaison officer. Perhaps Military Intelligence will have units in the vicinity that can cover for us until we are ready to airlift a Spetsnatz company into place.’

Rozenkov was having to rebuild the whole operation from the ground up. Virtually nothing had been done, and what had was ill planned and uncoordinated. He was about to dismiss the gathering but checked himself, and lowering his voice so that they had to strain to hear every word, spelled out his position, and theirs.

‘If this operation does not reach the successful conclusion expected of it by… by those above us, then there will be… changes… It should not need saying, but I do so to make everything clear; no excuses will be acceptable. The operation is basically simple, with only three component stages. That civilian delegation will be located, intercepted and used to the fullest advantage in the world press. It is possible, even likely that NATO troops will be used to prevent that happening. At all costs they will be stopped from interfering. Before they can do any harm to our plan they must be destroyed.’

It took Revell only a minute to check the corpses of the remainder of the decontamination squad. In the suit of each he found the same neat circular punctures he had noticed in the first. Several of the bodies had been riddled, and it was very obvious that the men had walked into a hail of high velocity automatic fire.

With the Marder grinding and growling along behind him he started toward a pair of Land Rover ambulances parked at the roadside a hundred yards on.

In each the crew of driver and medical attendant still sat in the cab, behind multiply starred windshields that were further obscured by splashes of congealed blood burst from gaping wounds caused by the deformed bullets’ impacts.

A few yards further, and about a Bedford dump truck and trailer mounted compressor lay the rotting bodies of the pioneers who had been the original victims of the cleverly sprung Russian ambush.

Foxes and scavenging crows had torn open body cavities the snipers’ bullets had not already pierced, and now past the stage of bloating putrefaction what was left of the skin and other tissue hung in ribbons from disjointed skeletons.

There wasn’t the time to make a search and confirm it, but Revell knew that among the trees close by, investigation would have uncovered the spots where the carefully camouflaged riflemen had patiently lain in waiting for each arrival in turn. The trampled grass would have re-grown, but the spent cartridge cases would still be there.

The Marder stopped by the ambulances and Sergeant Hyde began to organize the systematic looting of everything usable from the well equipped vehicles. Between them the Land Rovers provided sufficient NBC equipment to make good all their shortages, and provide ample spares of those items most likely to need subsequent replacement under intensive use.

‘You feeling a mite happier about going into those badlands now?’ Though he heard clearly over the intercom, Burke made no reply to their gunner. Instead he looked back to see if the American was still fidgeting in his turret seat as he usually did before resettling, and then engaged the drive fiercely. The violent tactic brought complaint from more than his intended victim.

‘Fuck it, stop chucking this crate about like it was a fucking stock car.’ Pushing aside the avalanche of ammunition clips and medical kits that had followed him to the floor, Dooley regained his seat on the bench.

Boris had suffered worse than a sudden loss of dignity. Blood oozed from a deep gash high on his forehead, where his head had made hard contact with a hull fitting. He made no complaint, not even when Thorne, acting begrudgingly on their officer’s orders, cleaned and covered the indented cut. No sound came from him when the hair the impact had embedded in his flesh was pulled away, nor when the first field dressing applied proved to be too small and had to be ripped off to be replaced by a larger.

‘Tough buggers, those Ruskies.’ Watching, Dooley saw the deserter immediately resume what he had been doing, pausing only to wipe spots of blood from the respirator lens he’d been replacing.