Hunter Killer (11 page)

Taking a pair of wire-framed bifocals from a zipped pocket, the Russian laboriously hooked them to his ears, then peered over the top of them at the screen. Very slowly he raised and lowered his head to take advantage of the different strength lenses in turn. ‘The rust does not make it easy, but it looks like
Ivan
Rogov.’

‘He’s got it wrong, must have.’ Cline had failed to find the ship listed, even on the stapled update page he’d added shortly before leaving Bremen. ‘We sent that tub to the bottom four months ago. I saw it on the newsreels.’ ‘I saw that footage too, she took half a dozen hits off Copenhagen, very spectacular, but unless we’re about to revise our disbelief in ghosts, that is the
Rogov.’
Revell could see the bow wave and white water created by the ship’s
passage was diminishing. ‘Alright, Boris, get back to your station. Pick up what you can. I want to know what the hell that battered scow is doing here.’

At three miles, the ship stopped in the water and dropped anchor. There was a plume of mixed spray and broken ice as the chain-towing metal struck a floe. Several areas of the vessel had a patched and repaired appearance, as if the work done on her had been finished in a hurry. Large sections were painted only in primer.

‘What the hell is an LPD doing in these parts? Landing platform docks carry a battalion of marines and forty tanks or trucks. Why the hell would they be stopping here? This is the wrong place to start an invasion of Sweden.’

Try this for an answer, Major.’ Reading the strip as it came from the printer, York hesitated before tearing it off and handing it over to the officer. ‘I don’t think you’re going to like it.’
‘Has Sweden declared on Russia’s side?’

‘Not yet, Bombardier, not yet.’ Reading and re-reading the signal didn’t alter its text, Revell did it to savour the irony. All the care that NATO Command had put into choosing this island, this rather than any other. ‘No, they haven’t gone through the charade of signing a ‘communal defence pact’, but as far as we’re concerned they might just as well have done. The Swedes have agreed to the Russians setting up a monitoring and tracking station on their west coast. They’ve said they can have the use of an island; guess which one?’

‘Shit, the bastards have got him.’ The lieutenant’s body was stiff as a board and frozen to the ground. Dooley had to use a lot of force to turn it over.

‘No, it weren’t them.’ Hyde put his gloved hand on Hogg’s face, and felt his fingers slide across the smooth mask of iced blood that encased the lower half of his features. ‘He stayed still for too long, you can’t afford to do that out here.’ Picking up a handful of the loose snow he covered the lieutenant’s face, then prised the Colt commando sub-machine gun from his locked grasp, and pushed it into a drift at the base of a clump of birch.

‘Come on, there’s still work to be done.’ Hyde had to shove Dooley, who was mesmerised by the corpse.

‘Jesus, what a way to go.’ He began to move as Hyde -prodded him forward. ‘I heard of blokes choking on their own blood after getting their schnozzles bust in a fight, but I ain’t never seen nothing like that.’

‘Ah don’t know all the ways there are to die in a war, yet,’ Ripper was keeping pace alongside Andrea, but had given up trying to start a conversation with her, irritable with the smirks Dooley gave him at each rebuff. ‘But we had a couple of feuds going in my valley, and the ideas some of those guys tried on each other, you just wouldn’t believe it. There was this good ol’ boy, a Jenkins I think, he made for the can after a longish session in the back room. He sure must have had a few beers inside him ‘cause he was in a heck of a hurry, and he weren’t looking what he were doing. And he sure should have been, on account of the fact he’d got in a lucky shot the week before and peppered Granddaddy Jepson with better than a couple a hundred pieces of buckshot. Anyhow, this good ol’ boy makes it to the can, whips out his peashooter and starts a-hosing fit to bust. Only trouble is some guy had emptied the bucket and put a chunk of sodium in it. You know what happens when sodium and water mix, well it must have been a big chunk, and I reckon it reacted much the same to a dousing in processed beer. They found the roof of the shed in the next county, and the preacher’s cat were seen chewing on what looked mighty like a charcoal grilled peashooter. Mangy brute swallowed it when he saw he were about to lose it, so we never knew for sure. That was the only part of the good ol’ boy that were ever seen again.’

‘Touching, not to say unbelievable.’ Leading the group into a shallow depression close to the ruins of an outer wall, Hyde gestured the need for silence.’ We could sit here all night, trying to figure where all four of them are. My bet is they’re in the tower. We’ll work on that assumption. I want minimum casualties, minimum noise. Better still, none of either.’

‘There is only the one way in, and the door looks thick and heavy.’ The bayonet that Andrea was fitting to her rifle was burnished to a mirror finish, in imitation of Dooley’s. ‘A grenade would be a more certain way of opening it, or do you think they will be kind and let us in if we knock politely and say please?’

‘That door is thick and heavy and old, very old. Whatever rusted fastening is holding it, I’m gambling our human battering-ram here is stronger.’

Andrea looked as if she might argue with the sergeant, but she didn’t, and returned the high explosive grenade to the pouch on her belt.

‘Let’s go.’ Hyde stood up and started forward. ‘Fan out until we reach the arch, then we take it at the run. You’ll lead, Dooley.’ ‘Gee, thanks, Sarge. I’m the biggest target.’

‘You’re the biggest shield as well.’ Ripper would have added more, but Hyde had heard the whisper, and silenced any follow-up with a growl that brought no movement to his dead face.

Making no sound, they moved towards the tower that stood jagged-topped above the remains of walls about its base. Here and there a portion of carved stonework survived, jutting from frost-sintered masonry. A few large blocks, fallen from long- vanished vaulted roofs, littered the ground and turned the tracks the four left behind them into a pattern of weaving gash-like depressions.

Dooley checked the others were with him, before stepping through the arch immediately before the door. He was almost close enough to reach out and touch the weather-pitted, iron-bound planks, was gathering himself for a shoulder-charge, when it swung open.

A spectrum of expressions flickered over the face of the middle-aged man who opened the door. Fear was instantly changed to surprise that was fast transformed into a broad smile which a hand extended to endorse, then those were swept away as he caught sight of the NATO weapons the group carried, and fear blended with anger returned as he attempted to slam the door and began to shout a warning.

Deciding the same tactics could still be of service, Dooley made his shoulder- charge, crashing into the retreating man and going down with him as he stumbled backwards.

Two oil-lamps lit the bare walled ground floor room, and by their light, Ripper, last of the four to enter, saw’ that it was already over. Dooley was disentangling himself from a weakly struggling figure on the paved floor, Andrea was threatening a bearded man seated at a radio, who was not being swift enough in raising his hands, and Sergeant Hyde was covering a surly young blond male who had been trying to reach a powerful hunting rifle propped against a wall.

Keyed up, feeling cheated at not having taken part in the real action, Ripper reacted without thinking when he heard a noise in the doorway behind him. Whirling round, he lunged with his bayonet at the large figure turning to run, saw the long blade plunge in through the silky fabric of a yellow ski-suit, and felt it part and slice into the flesh beneath. Instantly, his rifle was dragged down, almost from his hands, as the victim slowly collapsed without uttering a sound.

Smeared red, the blade slid out, as the woman turned her face up to him and slumped to a sitting position in the doorway.

NINE
‘I don’t know what this lot is for, but smash it anyway.’ Hyde stood back as Dooley set to work destroying the radio equipment, using the hunting rifle as a sledgehammer. ‘Soon as that’s done, seeing as how you’ve warmed yourself nicely, go outside and scout around for any more gear they may have stashed.’

None of their prisoners had spoken, or made any move to intervene when Andrea had grabbed the woman by the hood of her ski-suit and dragged her into the middle of the room, before closing the door. Hyde’s brief questioning had failed to elicit any response from them either, save for an accentuating of the curled-lipped arrogance of the young man. That had been sufficient to tell him that one of the group at least understood English, and now Hyde had a second go.

‘Do you have a first-aid kit? Bandages? Do you have bandages? Oh, I’m wasting my fucking time with this bunch. Andrea, keep them covered. Ripper, give me a hand here.’

Close to, the woman was older than he’d at first thought, well into her forties and looking it, though the pain she was in was probably not doing much for her. She lay on her back. Hyde brushed aside the weak attempt she made to stop him, and unzipped her suit. Heavy breasts, unrestrained by a brassiere, sagged sideways but still made appreciable mounds through her several layers of clothing. ‘Not much blood, can’t find the sodding entry point, where did you get her?’

Tentatively Ripper bent down, gingerly pulled her arm away, and indicated an almost invisible tear in the material just above her thick waist.

For the first time she made a noise as Hyde half-turned her to pull the suit off the shoulder. It was too tight a fit, and instead he had the American hold her, while he inserted his fingers in the rent and tore the tough synthetic fabric. She gave a small bleating cry as he shoved her arm out of the way so that it flopped across her breasts, and scuffed up her jumper to expose the wound.

‘Very neat.’ Hyde examined the slim cut. ‘If we could fix bodies the way we can clothes, this would be a good case for invisible mending. Keep her on her side.’

‘I didn’t know she was behind me, I mean I didn’t know it was a woman.’

‘What’s that got to do with it? If it would have been right to do it to a man, why’s it wrong to do it to her?’ Hyde took a small automatic pistol, and a clip of ammunition from a pocket which moving her had revealed. ‘I’m starting to think this crowd are not your standard tourists. Give me your field-dressing, then go through their things, search every pack and . . .’ Hyde winced at the amount of crashing and banging Dooley was managing to produce as he thoroughly demolished the radio and rifle, ‘…and tell that big ape I said to destroy them, not atomise them. He can do the other job I gave him.’

With a final tremendous blow that ripped the front panel from the radio and the butt from the rifle, Dooley finished, and took a surreptitious peek at the woman’s breasts, pushed up and together by the folds of clothing rucked beneath them. ‘Nice pair of tits. Think they’ll, she’ll, make it?’

‘Who knows, she’s in shock, maybe.’ As the closing door sent a flurry of flakes across the floor of the room, Hyde smoothed the tapes securing the wad of absorbent dressing, pulled the woman’s thick roll-necked sweater down and tucked it into the ski-suit as best he could. The additional bulk beneath the suit, added to the woman’s ample proportions, prevented him from fastening it completely. He hauled her to the- wall near their other captives, and propped her against it. She fainted as he did so.

‘Nothing much in these, Sarge.’ Picking up the last of the packs, Ripper emptied them on to the floor and scattered the contents with the toe of his boot. ‘Mostly food and spare clothing. Found these though.’ He held out a small hammer and half-empty cellophane pack of masonry studs. ‘This is what they used to fasten those blackout curtains.’

‘They came prepared for just about everything.’ Hyde kicked the remains of the radio, and it tumbled to the feet of the man Dooley had flattened. He was nursing his shoulder and his face was bruised, he jumped, misinterpreting Hyde’s action and taking it as a threat.

That would be the one; to work on to get information. Sergeant Hyde had seen the same symptoms displayed before ...the civilian’s nerve had gone. The tensions surrounding whatever it was their party were involved in, the assault, and the wounding of the woman had combined to reduce him to a shivering, cringing wreck.

‘Soon as Dooley’s back we’ll move. I’m beginning to get a glimmering of what’s going on here. I don’t know what the details are, but it’s obviously part of some larger set-up, and I don’t want us being caught in the middle of somebody else’s grand plan.’

‘What do you reckon they’re up to then, Sarge?’

‘Are you really so stupid?’ Andrea’s tone dripped contempt for Ripper’s innocent question. ‘Do you really not know what these worms are?’ While she spoke her eyes stayed locked on the prisoners, the barrel of her rifle slowly panning back and forth across the group. ‘In your own country there was a left wing orchestrated cry of ‘witch hunt’ every time a man with intelligence, with integrity tried to weed them out. In Britain that tactic was rarely needed to protect them. Their type were able to worm their way into the highest places in the government and the administration, even into the secret services, where still that country suffers from the harm they did.

These are Communists, the lowest form of animal life, who sell their country for money, or the promise of power. We should finish them now.’

‘No you bloody don’t, you’re not appointing yourself chief executioner again, not while I’m leading this patrol.’ Hyde kept a casual grip on his rifle, but held it so that he could bring it to his hip and fire in an instant. ‘The major wants this lot, and I’m not about to go back without them. We’ll let him do the judge and jury bit.’

‘What else could they be, why else would they be here?’ She momentarily turned her head towards Hyde, and her dark eyes flashed frustration and fury.

‘I don’t know, perhaps they are Commies. We’ll find out when we get them back to the house, until then…’

‘Tanks…’ Dooley threw open the door, and stood clutching his chest as he gasped for breath, ‘…fucking -Russian tanks, two of the buggers, with infantry, coming this way.’