Plague Bomb (18 page)

‘Shit, this place is built like a fortress.’ Dooley ran his hand over the large stone blocks of which the church was fashioned.

Hyde and Revell took it in turns to shout through the stout double doors in an attempt to persuade the civilians to come out.

‘Our arrival must have come as a shock,’ Clarence sat on the steps. ‘After having come this far, I cant see them just tamely going back with us. They’ll simply sit tight and wait for their Russian chums to locate them.’

‘That seems to be about the size of it.’ Getting no response to his calls, Revell ceased, and stepped back to look up at the building’s high-set windows. ‘We can’t afford to hang around for long, but the orders said to use kid gloves, so we’ll give it a last try. In the meantime, back the Marder into a side alley, no point in advertising where we are to any sky-spies that the Ruskies send over. Check for another way into this place while I spell out the alternative to these damned civvies.’

As he turned to the door again he realized that Andrea was close by his side. He liked her there, but he knew what her automatic response would be as soon as entry was gained. She would start shooting, and he couldn’t let that happen. ‘You stay with the Marder.’

Andrea knew why Revell ordered that, and began to protest, but checked herself. Understanding his reasoning did not make it any easier to accept. Learning the skills of command was not going to be easy. With sullen reluctance she shouldered her M16 and followed the APC as it backed into a narrow street beside the church.

Not bothering to listen as the major put the position to those inside, Thorne calculated the quantity of explosive he would need to blast a way in. ‘A couple of pounds of plastic will open the door. Save your lungs, Major, let me have my turn.’

‘Do that and we might just catch one of them behind it. Let’s see if Sergeant Hyde can find another entrance first. A side door ought to be easier to force than these great things.’ Damn it, damn them! Revell was tempted to give loud vent to his feelings for the benefit of the civilians, but knew it wouldn’t help, might even have the detrimental effect of reinforcing their obduracy if at the moment they were wavering. Telling them what he thought of them might be good for him, but it would as certainly eliminate any last chance of their cooperating.

Using the butt of the assault shotgun he hammered on the deep grained wood and called one last time. Still there was no response. The timber of the door seemed to absorb all his words, but he felt sure they must have heard him. Damn them!

‘There’s a side door, but ...’ Hyde had immediately to crush the rising hopes his first words had brought, ‘... but it’s made like this one, on a smaller scale, and I can hear them stacking pews or something against it.’

With the sergeant’s report removing any lingering hope that they might effect a non-violent entry, still Revell grasped at one last straw. ‘Thorne, you’re the engineer, before we resort to brute force of the explosive kind, any other suggestions as to how we might get inside?’

‘The only thing I can think of, Major, is to try nudging the doors with the APC. Using crawler gear they’d have to give eventually, the brute weighs the best part of thirty tons. Those steps wouldn’t be any problem but this would.’ Thorne slid his boot on the smooth worn stone of the porch. ‘No grip. The tracks’ll just scrabble round and round.’

‘All right, the plastic it is, but the bare minimum. I want to take those civvies back alive, not in an assortment of body bags.’

‘It’ll just be an angel’s tap, Major.’ Having worked the lump of grey material until it was pliable, Thorne began to tamp it into an inch wide where the halves of the door came imperfectly together. ‘Of course, if I had my way I’d wouldn’t piddle about like this, I’d use a satchel charge and blow it, them and the whole bloody place off the face of the map. But, like the true artist I am, I know when restraint and understatement are called for, so for you I put aside the trowel and take up the palette knife.’

‘Have you finished?’

‘Ready when you are, Major. Just putting the fuse in now. Eh, while this isn’t on the scale I usually do things, I still think it might be sensible to, eh, take cover.’

Thorne turned around to find he was talking to himself.

FOURTEEN

The antiseptic cream he’d dabbed on, and the bandage he’d wrapped about his hand had done nothing to ease Gross’s pain. Blood continued to seep through the soiled white windings.

Out of sight at the far end of the church Webb could be heard dragging heavy carved furniture to pile against the side entrance. Edwards was laid on the bare stone by the font close to the main doors, where they’d dumped him when they had to clear the back of the Range Rover to find the tools for the wheel change.

He looked about for Sherry Kane. She’d gone into a little side chapel, and he noticed how she swayed unsteadily on her feet. Nearly falling she had to clutch at a small altar for support and then slumped to the red carpet before it.

‘Not feeling too good?’ Gross stood over her, playing with his erection through his trouser pocket. ‘Fancy a bit of this to buck you up?’ Fuck it, he was running out of time. There would never be another opportunity and he’d always wanted to do it to her, ever since he’d seen her in that first film, when all those blokes had tossed off into her face. He’d have given anything to have changed places with each of them in turn, and have her blow bubbles and gurgle his with his spunk.

They were still shouting outside, but he paid no attention. Slowly, enjoying the anticipation, he unzipped himself and eased the rigid lump of flesh into the open. The air felt cool on it, and holding it at its broad base by two fingers he wagged it over her head.

‘Look at this. Any of the studs in your films ever have one this size?’

‘Get away from me, you pervert.’ Sherry would have screamed for help, but she hadn’t the strength. It felt like she was burning up, and her energy was leaking away with the sweat that soaked and trickled down inside her clothes. Even holding up her head took an effort she could barely sustain and then her supporting arms gave way and she dropped to sprawl full length on her back.

‘That’s more like it. Here, let me do that.’ Brushing aside the weak movements of her limp hands over the tight crotch of her jeans he fumbled at her zip, seeing encouragement in the gesture, not the rejection that was intended.

The denim gaped to reveal pale blue cotton briefs, and as Gross tugged at her tightly cinched belt and unfastening it began to haul her jeans off, he felt the heat rising from her body.

‘You’re ready for me then, good and hot. I like a nice warm cunt.’ A band of acute discomfort, almost pain, tightened across his large stomach and caused him to pause, but it passed, and having managed to get her jeans to her knees his hands went greedily to the waistband of her underclothes.

‘Not a real blonde then? Nice bush, what’s it hiding?’ Even as the scrap of damp material slid over her thighs he let his thumbs rake through her pubic hair, tracing the deepening groove within them. This time he tried to ignore the severe muscular twinge in his stomach, but wasn’t entirely successful and had once more to wait for it to pass before he could jam his fingers between her legs and force them as far apart as the constricting garments around her knees would allow.

Sherry could make no effective effort to prevent him from getting into a press-up position over her, and slowly lowering his corpulent body toward contact with hers.

‘You ready? Good and juicy? Looks like you’re working up a good lather.’ He’d have liked to have dangled his balls on her, dragged them over her heat radiating belly, but his big erection had caused them to contract into a compact pouch beneath him as the skin was stretched tight.

‘Ill have a quick one first, just to get rid of some of the load. Don’t worry, they’ll be plenty left if you fancy giving it a suck afterwards ...’

Sensing the beginning of the return of the gut ache he steeled himself for it, but this time the savage cramping struck with tenfold intensity. It didn’t help, only made it worse. Starting in his stomach the spasm wrenched down through his intestines.

‘Oh no, not fucking now ...’ Gross hurled himself off the woman even as he was about to thrust forward into her body. Hampered by his loosened clothing, gathering it together about himself, he managed just a couple of steps before his bowels opened noisily.

Foul smelling liquid ran down his legs. He couldn’t control it, and with each spasm came another gush of the watery excreta. Doubling with agony, frightened and weakened by the violent diarrhoea, he collapsed.

At the same instant the whole building reverberated to a sharp explosion and a cloud of smoke blew in from the doorway and rose among the exposed beams of the roof, lit in shifting bands by the light filtering \ through the high set windows.

‘It hasn’t bloody worked.’ First to reach the still] closed doors, Burke leaned against them, and was precipitated inside as they swung open at the light touch.

‘Phew. Someone has dropped his guts.’ Pegging j his nose with thumb and forefinger, Dooley sidled in and from behind a carved draught screen and looked about the interior.

‘Search the place ...’ Taking a step into the smoke-blued gloom, past Burke who was picking himself up, it was Revell who found the first of the civilians, his foot coming down on Professor Edwards’s ankle. ‘... there’re others.’

Cautiously they fanned out to advance along all three aisles simultaneously. It was Hyde who discovered Gross and the woman.

‘Phew, you sure are lucky you can’t smell that fat guy, Sarge.’ Ripper had abandoned the Spartan comfort of the Marder’s bench seat and tagged along behind the searchers. Finding he hadn’t back-tracked far enough, he took several more steps to get clear of the worst of the stench. Times like this I wish I’d had my nose burned off.’

Hyde turned his graft-patched face to the American, but said nothing. ‘Looks like these two were trying to make love, not war. All right, 111 take the man.’ He gripped Gross by the collar and started to tow him back to the door, leaving an intermittent slimy trail on the stone floor. ‘You bring the woman.’

‘Hey Sarge, I can’t do that, I ain’t fit for duty.’ Ripper illustrated his argument by flexing his shoulder, ceasing abruptly when he realized he wasn’t creating the impression he’d wanted to.

Her temperature still soaring, Sherry Kane was unable even to react to the terrible sight of the sergeant’s ghastly appearance. The fever that racked and shook her deprived her even of the strength to exhibit fear. She tried to talk to the other soldier, the young American, but couldn’t. On his face was a curious expression as he stared at her half naked body, it was something she’d not seen any friend or client of hers display in a long time, it was embarrassment.

‘Here, Dooley, can you give me a hand, I got to move her.’

‘So move her.’

‘I can’t, not like this. It just ain’t decent.’

‘Then pull her fucking knickers up.’

Like the others, Dooley had taken a good look at her, but he’d noticed her fever brightened dark rimmed eyes and perspiration smeared make-up as much as her semi-nakedness. ‘All that gabbing you do about the goings-on in those backwoods of yours, I wouldn’t have thought this would have bothered you, or are you going to tell me you only know how to pull them down.’ He kept his thick gloves on and it made the task of making her decent that much more difficult. The tight fit of the fabric to her body didn’t help and he had to keep turning her in order to inch the jeans over her wide thighs a fraction at a time.

‘Shit, it weren’t ‘til I were going on for eighteen, when I met some city girls, that I even knew there were such things as underclothes. Back home I shoved my fingers and my tool up a load of skirts, but the only thing I’d ever found in my way was an occasional hand. It’s just that it don’t seem right touching her ‘til we been introduced. Anyhow, I can see you ain’t no gentlemen, keeping your gloves on.’ ‘You show me a book of etiquette where it says I should take them off to do this and I’ll think about it, until then I’m keeping them on.’ ‘Very sensible.’ Burke had found an excuse to come and oversee the operation. ‘I can feel the heat coming off her from here. Gloves might not stop you catching something, but every little precaution helps. You know, cleaned up, with some of that muck off her face and with about twenty pounds shed off her arse and hips, she’d be quite nice, not special but nice.’

Sherry heard, and the tears that ran down her streaked face mingled with beads of perspiration and went unnoticed.

The sweep down the centre aisle was led by Clarence, and as he came level with the lectern, he heard a noise from a dark corner beyond the choir stalls. Motioning the others to hold back he crept silently forward until he could see all but a small angle of the space.

High overhead there was a ragged bordered hole in the church roof. Bulks of timber and fragments of slate littered the floor below it and for some distance around. Taking another step it was impossible to avoid the shattered pieces and they grated beneath the sniper’s boot.

It was not just the appalling smell of excreta that made him want to be out of there. Every breath he took brought also the oppressive scent of decay that pervaded the whole place, filling it and him to overflowing. ‘Come out. I haven’t the patience to wait long.’

There was no response, but Clarence heard the noise again, like that of an animal shuffling to compress itself into the smallest possible space. 

Without looking he double checked that a round was chambered in the Enfield, and took the pace that would bring the whole of the poorly lit area into his field of vision. As he did a shaft of light streamed through the gaping roof and illuminated it graphically.

Stubble darkened Webb’s chin and dust and cobwebs smothered the rest of his person. Concealment no longer possible, he stood and adopting a manner of haughty contempt, brushed himself. ‘I suppose it is your intention to kill me.’ He could not suppress the catch in his voice that betrayed his true emotional state. Fear showed also in his trembling hands, and he stuck them deep into his pockets to hide them.