James Rouch - Plague Bomb

Hardly a vestige of paint was to be seen on the gouged and patched armour of its hull and turret. The West German APC bore no unit insignia, nor any other identifying mark, save a partially obliterated white-outlined black Bundeswehr cross on its front. Slewing to a rocking halt, its clattering diesel raced on after the vehicle had stopped until it at last reluctantly spluttered into clicking silence after a series of gradually diminishing over-runs.

‘It will be interesting to see what kind of men would go to war in such a machine.’ Running his hand over a rough finished irregular patch that only partially concealed a deep hole in the sharply raked upper body, Boris cut his fingers on embedded fragments of tungsten, splinters from the armour-piercing round that had so narrowly failed to penetrate. Fresh blood speckled the metal as he pulled away, and he did so barely in time. The driver’s hatch flew open to crash down where his hand had been.

‘Then get a mirror, take a good look at yourself.’ Major Revell pulled himself up until he sat on the hull with his legs dangling, into the driving compartment. ‘Get your gear together, we’re moving out.’

‘In this?’ Burke had completed a slow circumnavigation of the Marder, and the curled lip with which he silently signalled his contempt for the transport had grown more pronounced with each step taken and every component investigated.

‘That’s right, in this. Sorry I couldn’t get one with white-walls and a custom paint finish.’

‘You know me better than that, Major. I don’t give a bugger what my wagons look like. They can be papered with candy stripes or stripped to bare metal, doesn’t make any difference to me. It’s the mechanics I bother about. What I’d like to know is did this crate come to a stop like it did because that’s the way you drive, or because its suspension brakes and running gear are knackered?’

‘Seen the tracks? The rest of this clunker just about matches them.’ He was talking to Burke, but Revell was looking at Andrea.

‘How long can I have to work on it?’ In the APCs condition Burke saw a chance to keep himself out of the firing line for a day or two longer. It’d mean getting dirty, but what with waiting for spares and spinning out the work maybe he could even spin it out to three, or even four, days. So he’d get his hands grubby; better than being shot at.

‘You can’t. It’ll have to do as it is.’ Revell tried, but he couldn’t catch Andrea’s eye. She had to be avoiding him deliberately. He heard but didn’t pay any heed to their driver’s litany of complaint, until he went on too long. ‘There’s a choice. Either we use this heap or we walk. Okay, so if you see it my way, help the others load.’

‘What have you got us, Major?’ Giving up an attempt to wedge a pick and shovel into blast-distorted brackets on the hull side, Sergeant Hyde threw them toward the back of the vehicle where the packs and weapons were being passed in through the wide rear door.

‘Not quite what I was after.’ Revell shrugged. ‘It’s a mission more suited to a field security unit I’d have thought, but we’re furthest forward in this sector so we got it. Seems a bunch of civvies are trying to cross the Zone to reach the Russian lines…’

‘That’s a switch, ninety-nine percent of the traffic is the other way…’

‘…The word is they’re a self-appointed peace mission, making a gesture for the world’s press. If they do link up with the commies then the KGB’s propaganda boys will have a field day. We’re to grab them first, prevent it happening.’

‘Why not send in a squadron of air-cavalry,’ Burke’s gruff disapproval floated from within the transport, ‘they’d soon locate the buggers, have them back within an hour. Save us a lot of pissing about.’

Lifting his legs out to make room for their driver to lake his seat, Revell jumped to the ground, landing beside Andrea. Now she was looking at him, and the same question was in her eyes.

‘Could be the Soviets don’t know they’re coming; If that’s the case we don’t want to put on a big show that’ll alert them. And if they do know about it, and we don’t manage to catch the civvies after mounting a maximum effort, then they’ll capitalize on it all the more. So the approach is low key.’

‘And when, if, we find these…’ Andrea sought the words, and finding them, filled their every syllable with loathing and hatred, ‘…these pathetic blinkered innocents, these Russian pawns, traitors, what then?’

‘Kid gloves all the way. Orders are we’re to gently turn them around and give them an escort back.’

‘You know the sort of people they will be, don’t you.’ Andrea turned her contempt on Revell.

‘I can guess. A worn-out union boss doing the last bit of harm he can before someone discovers he’s been dipping into the pension fund, a member or two of the World Peace Committee or some other commie front organization, an elderly faggot from a respectable British university, and others on the same line, the usual assortment.’

‘And their leader, you know what he will be. A KGB operative, perhaps one who has been a sleeper for a long time. If you do stop them, bring them back, then what? I tell you, they will use their friends and contacts in the media to brand you a thug and a fascist, and they will bay for your blood. If you take them back, then you destroy yourself.’

‘What would you suggest. Put them against a wall and turn our rifles on them?’

‘Why not. In the name of peace they would be pleased to see that happen to you, to all of us. In the name of peace, a communist dictated and dominated peace, such scum would be happy to see Russian tanks drive over the lawns of the White House, through the gates of Buckingham Palace.’

If her concern for his fate had been prompted by affection, Revell would have been over the moon, but he was well aware that it wasn’t. He found it difficult to understand her. A conscripted member of the East* German Militia, when she’d deserted she’d chosen to hide among the human flotsam of a big refugee camp up north. She had even joined and eventually led a gang composed mostly of renegade East German border guards, the lowest of the low. At any time she could have escaped to the west, but hadn’t until by chance she’d fallen in with the squad during their attack on those important Russian tank workshops.

Her intense hatred of communism couldn’t be the total explanation of her complex character. Revell’s speculations, his attempts to predict her future behaviour based on his observations were frequently confounded by some fresh contradictory act. If only he could get closer to her, get to know more about her…

‘Ready to roll, Major.’ As he reported, Hyde made a point of stepping between the officer and the girl, to be sure of getting Revell’s full attention. ‘We’ve run a check on the armament. The twenty-millimetre and co-axial machine gun in the turret are all right, but there’s a fault in the remote control for the rear roof-mounted machine gun. It’s nothing too serious though, we can probably fix it while we’re on the move. What about the crates in the back? We’re short of room, might be better if we unpacked whatever’s in them.’

‘Electronic gear. Have Boris take care of it, that’s his department. I just hope it works; we’re going to need it, we’re strictly on our own on this one. Now let’s get moving, I’ve a gut feeling tells me the Reds are going to be looking for those civvies as well, and they won’t be wasting any time…’

The hall was magnificent, as was every room in the Kremlin that Rozenkov had been led through, but the only feature of it that he took any real note of was the brilliant light from the many crystal chandeliers flooding into every corner of its vast interior.