James Rouch - Blind Fire

An inch at a time, Revell eased himself up until he stood on the threshold of the room. Four doors led off, and all were closed. He didn’t know what logic or intuition prompted him to first try the door to his immediate left. He crept to it, grasped the satin-finished aluminium handle and barged\ in, crouching low to present the smallest possible target.

A dozen shots from a 9mm automatic sprayed wildly past him, then the Russian officer threw the pistol itself and bolted for the window. Hurdling the bed he hurled himself at the glass, and it shattered, but that was as close as he came to diving through it and on to the roof of the next building.

Snarled by a net curtain that caught on his every button and buckle the Russian fought to free himself, but it resisted the efforts he made to tear it or pull it down. The harder he tried, the more entangled he became. Though it bowed and the brackets supporting it started their screws from the wall, the curtain rail held.

‘You going to finish him, Major, or do you want me to do it?’ Standing by the door, Dooley watched the Russian’s weakening struggles. Andrea squeezed past the big man. ‘I will do it, let me.’

‘No, cut him down. Our Command are always looking for propaganda, something to counter the lies the commies trot out every day, let’s give them a war criminal.’ Revell stepped aside to let the others reach the trapped man. A heavy cuff to the side of the Russian’s head, delivered by Dooley, put a swift end to his Up-curling invective, and caused him to sag at the knees.

Revell had stooped to retrieve the Stechin pistol when a drawn-out wailing scream flooded the apartment. Dooley and Andrea both stood by the prisoner, both held bayonets. It was the girl’s that was smeared with dark blood, stained almost to the hilt.

‘What the hell…?’

‘She just did it, I couldn’t stop her…’ Only twice before had Dooley seen his officer as furious. ‘I thought she was just cutting the curtain, like me.’ The major hadn’t blown his top in ages, not since Andrea had joined them, and now the old rage had returned, and it was aimed at her.

‘I have no time for trials. This is more sure.’ She held up the bayonet ‘He might have escaped from us, or taken his own life.’

‘And you thought you’d save him the bother. Listen carefully, when I give an order you follow it.’ The words were uttered quietly, but carried more menace than if they had been shouted. ‘If you ever do anything like this again, if I even have reason to suspect that you have, then you go in the cage. When I say I want a Russian kept alive I mean it. There are thousands out there you can butcher, but if I want a prisoner for a special reason, then you leave him alone.’

Andrea was considering the threat that had been made. ‘And how could you have me put in the cage, without making great trouble for yourself?’ A small tight smile curled up the corners of her mouth.

He told her, with the same slow deliberation as his earlier warning. ‘I will tell our Intelligence Service that Kurt told me you were an ex-Grepo, and that you killed him when you found out.’ He waited for her reaction.

She didn’t doubt that he could make the story ring true. He had already woven a tale about her and Kurt to keep them and those same skills could be used to unravel it again. How far could she exploit his feelings for her? Had she already gone too far?/Her next words must not be careless, not if she wanted to stay out of the prisoner of war camps… the thought of those cages was the only thing that brought her fear.

‘I was angry. I saw the look in his face… and thought of what he had done, even to his own men…’ Was it enough? She watched Revell to see if anything had to be added.

God, he wished he could believe her. Anyone else he might have, but not Andrea. Right here and now he had to decide whether or not to keep her. He wanted to; wanted so much more than just keep her near him. And there was the unwelcome complication of Dooley’s presence. The big man had faced plenty of charges from him in the past, and received other, more summary, punishments at his hands. If Revell backed down now there was the danger that he’d be seen to be favouring the girl. But damn it he was, always had, though he’d tried not to show it

‘Go and help with the wounded.’ He made it as sharp as he could, and there was a genuine edge to his words. Damn the girl for putting him on the spot like this. ‘And I don’t want you helping any of them out of their misery.’

‘Search him for papers.’ Revell pretended not to see the casual thoroughness with which Andrea wiped the long, thin blade on the dead Russian before going down.

‘She’s got a nice arse, Major, don’t you think?’

‘Don’t get smart, Dooley. Just give me the papers.’ He hadn’t fooled the big man, but he’d gone through the motions. Maybe now he’d be more trouble to handle away from the Zone. When Dooley wasn’t preoccupied with the problems of staying alive on the battlefield, he was every sort of trouble a commander could have. Fights . .. drink… women… it was as though he was determined to carry as many aspects of the Zone about with him as he could and, by frequently creating mayhem among the military and civilian population, he contrived to do just that. And now for a while he’d be worse, expecting to trade on what he’d just witnessed. Well, perhaps the first couple of times Revell would pedal soft, but after that… ‘You want to use those, Major. Be sort of fitting.’ Dooley was indicating the incendiary grenades. ‘Why not? Here, you do it.’

As Revell left the room, Dooley lobbed a bomb on to the double bed. The dead body swayed as it hung, moved by the waves of roasting air that surged through the broken window. As the last footsteps the apartment would ever hear echoed back from the stairs, the fine filaments of nylon shrivelled in the heat and finally released the Russian. He fell forward, and one hand flopped out of the window, held there by impaling pinnacles of glass. The fierce gusting draughts from the fire kept it in bobbing motion, and it waved goodbye to the world.

‘… Done to a bloody crisp. Not one of them’ll make it to the field hospital, let alone to a burns unit.’ Burke watched the pair of scruffy Hueys lifting off, the late afternoon sun highlighting the faded red crosses on their cabin doors. ‘How come you didn’t hitch a lift, you could have played on that?’ He nodded at the wrappings of bandage around Dooley’s leg.

‘No way. We’re going back bloody heroes. If anyone is chucking forty-eight hour passes about, I want to be in line to collect my own. I might just get overlooked if I’m sitting in a bed that stinks of disinfectant, surrounded by twenty other guys with a better claim.’

‘Move it you two.’ Hyde called from the door of the Chinook. ‘We’re waiting to lift off.’

‘On our way, Sarge.’ There was a loud rush of wind from Dooley’s lower gut. ‘See, I’m even using jet propulsion.’

The co-pilot greeted them as they boarded. ‘Which of you two has pinched a stack of our decorations?’

The expression on Burke’s face was one of genuine surprise, that on his companion’s affected innocence and ignorance. ‘If I had my way I’d leave you here, let you walk it. Don’t take any more or we might put you out yet, at three thousand feet.’

‘Touchy ain’t he?’ Making himself comfortable, Dooley waited until the co-pilot had returned to his seat and was busy with the controls before taking out a wad of crumpled glossy paper from beneath his jacket. ‘Hey, look at this one.’ He held out a full colour centrefold crotch-shot towards Burke. ‘She’s got a crease right along her crack. Now ain’t that something to get your teeth into, or your tongue.’