James Rouch - Hard Target

Sunk down into his flak jacket, now slowly beginning to recover from the nausea of the long night ride, Cohen appeared to have shrunk. ‘So what do we do, sit here and wait for him to get lucky, and us to run out of ours? Please, don’t think me pushy, but a way out of this shit I would like to hear.’

Despite the noise and the danger, Andrea had fallen asleep on Clarence’s shoulder. After two attempts to gently push her off the sniper had accepted the situation, even drawn a spare jacket over her. He had raised no objection when Hyde had mounted to the turret in his place.

Revell fought down an impulse, but couldn’t completely subdue the urge he felt to separate them. It surged to the fore whenever his eyes strayed that way. ‘If we can’t beat them, perhaps we can con them.’ He grabbed a signal pistol and box of flares. ‘Get everything burnable outside and I want two belts of machine gun ammunition; and somebody get me a couple of gallons of whatever it is this bus runs on.’

Whipping the branches with the fierce downdraught from its five whirling blades, the gunship executed a tight turn at the end of its latest strafing run and began a sixth. Flame-tailed rockets flashed from the two pods slung from pylons beneath each stub wing set just behind the cabin, and the snouts of the cannon barrels below its nose showed a continuous blur of ragged-edged yellow as they maintained their high rate of fire.

The woods heaved and shook at the hammer blows. Revell crouched by the side of the skimmer and waited. A rocket detonated among a clump of holly bushes only twenty yards away, transforming the rich green leaves into flaming cinders that were scattered along with the branches. Debris still falling about him, Revell ran to the pile of kerosene-soaked rags and fired a flare into them. He felt the sudden heat on his face as the bonfire instantly ignited, sending black smoke billowing up through the trees. For good measure he flung the box of flares into the fire, then sprinted back to the skimmer as ammunition in the belts began to cook off and send multi-hued tracer in every direction.

‘He’s buying it, the fucker is buggering off. No, he’s not, what the hell is he doing?’ Dooley watched from the doorway as the helicopter did a half turn, and then hovered. ‘The bastard, he’s coming down, he’s going to drop off infantry to come and make sure of us.’

‘Full power!’

Burke had already anticipated the major’s order, and the craft was surging forward even as Revell jumped on to the ramp. With it still lowered, the skimmer thundered through the trees towards the spot where the chopper was coming down, and reached it as the first of a squad of heavily armed Russian infantry was preparing to jump from its side door even before the wheels were on the ground.

Burke threw the motors into full reverse thrust and the Iron Cow slewed to a stop only fifty yards away. Hyde opened up with the Rarden. All of the first clip were hits, one shell plunging in through the side of the machine just below the weapon operator’s forward cockpit, and two more scoring direct hits on the main cabin. At the same time Revell and Dooley hosed light automatic fire from the ramp and cut down two Russians who had fallen from the cabin doorway and were making frantic wild jumps to get back on board as the gunship soared up beyond their reach.

At maximum elevation Hyde managed to score one more hit, on the port engine housing, just to the rear of the pilot’s cockpit. Oily smoke poured from the damaged turbo shaft’s exhaust stack and the machine began to pitch nose down.

Two hundred feet above the clearing, a big bubble of flame came from the open cabin and was sliced into streamers by the blades. Its dive steepened and a pin-wheeling body and pieces of equipment fell from it as it turned on to its side before plunging into the trees.

Revell handed the XL6 rifle back to Libby, who’d dragged himself to the doorway to look at the spectacle. ‘I don’t think I’ll be needing this again. OK everyone, back to your seats.’

Andrea sat next to Clarence again, and pulling the jacket over herself, nestled against him once more. The sniper affected not to see the look Revell gave him, as he rearranged the material to cover her better, and then left his arm resting lightly across her shoulders.

A leering grin creased Kurt’s dirty face, but a glance at Revell and he said nothing.

‘What’s the heading, Major?’ Burke hit the control to bring the ramp up. ‘Due west.’ Revell felt he hardly had the strength left to speak, as if the last drop of energy had been drained from him. ‘Let’s go home.’

‘According to TASS you burned down a whole fucking refugee camp.

O’l Foul Mouth lounged back in his chair. ‘Just the part they were using.’ Major Revell had washed and shaved, and he still felt a thousand years older than the antique desk the colonel sat behind. ‘Yeah, well that’s as maybe, but because of the chance of a fucking stink from all the shitty liberals and fellow-travellers back home there ain’t gonna be no press, no medals, no hoo-ha.’

‘Then what’s our version, sir.’ That last word almost stuck in his throat.

‘We don’t know nothin’, sweet F.A. Our reply to the Reds’ accusation is to say that if independent observers are let in, they’ll see we didn’t do it. But of course the Huskies ain’t gonna allow that, because those same busy-bodies will see what’s left of the workshops. So we score that way. Shit, I know it ain’t much, but there’s times, like over the ‘80 Olympics, when just getting up their hairy nostrils is a victory.’ Lippincott shuffled the papers on his desk to no particular purpose.

‘Eh, those Limeys still around?’

Their sergeant is busy trying to find transport to get them back to their unit.’ The question seemed to have no supplement. Revell hoped the interview was over. ‘If that’s all, Colonel…’

O’l Foul Mouth looked up sharply. ‘Don’t be in such a fucking hurry, Major, and tell the British the same, I got another little job for you…’

HARD TARGET

BLIND FIRE

HUNTER-KILLER

SKY STRIKE

OVERKILL

KILLING GROUND

PLAGUE BOMB

CIVILIAN SLAUGHTER

BODY COUNT

DEATH MARCH

Copyright © 1980 by James Rouch

An Imprint Original Publication, 2005

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without permission of the publishers.

First E-Book Edition 2005

Second IMRPINT April 2007

The characters in this book are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.

THE ZONE

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Produced under licence from the Author, all rights reserved. Created in Australia by Ian Taylor © 2005