by James Rouch
Habit, almost amounting to instinct, caused Clarence to replace the magazine and methodically pump carefully aimed shots at the vehicle and its passengers. The truck stalled. Leaving two men dead in the cab, those riding on the open back jumped off and dove underneath for cover.
At that range, fifteen hundred meters, the sniper knew his bullets could pass clean through the truck’s chassis and still find them. Or he could flush them into the open by igniting the gas tank. But he didn’t.
He had, quite simply, had enough of killing. Pushing the rifle to one side, he stretched out and turned over on his back. It was good to at last take the pressure off his elbows, and to straighten the crick in his back, neck and shoulders. Almost as an afterthought, he removed his earplugs.
By now the sun would almost have set behind the hills. Very little light was finding its way in. He lay there, in the semi-darkness, trying to come to a decision he knew he could no longer put off.
TWENTY SEVEN
“Anybody care to explain what’s happening here?” Revell left it to Sampson and some of the pioneers to carefully remove the casualties from the top of the APCs. The unloading of the stunned and bewildered refugees from the trucks he delegated to Sergeant Hyde.
Close to the children’s graveyard was parked an immaculate M-34, two-and-a-half-ton truck. Revell didn’t have to look at its insignia to know to what outfit it belonged. Standing in front of it were twenty MPs. In front of them, a pile of new pick handles.
Lieutenant Vokes had them covered with his pistol. He was flanked by two of his men holding levelled SA-80s, and Old William with his shovel.
With his Walther, Vokes waved forward a big sergeant from among the group. Revell recognized his face from the earlier incident. “Ball seems to be in your court.”
“We’ve been threatened. We are now. You’re a witness.” Selecting a pick handle, Revell hefted it, and made an experimental swing. “Nice of you to bring us these. That’s what they are, isn’t it? Presents?”
“My men were attacked last time. They were for our self-protection.” The sergeant was almost purple with suppressed fury at his situation. “We came here to take you in, under close arrest.”
“What’s the charge?”
“You got all day?”
“Major,” Vokes had been listening intently to the conversation. “If you go with these men, I believe something will happen to you on the way to headquarters.”
“I won’t be going with them.”
“Going to do a runner?”
Revell read the contempt on the sergeant’s face, and then wiped it off. “I’m going in OK, but not with you. For two reasons. First, like my lieutenant says, there’s a chance I might be in less than perfect health by the time I get there, if I do. Second, your transport has been commandeered.”
“The hell it has, who by?”
“Me. We’ve got wounded civilians here. Your truck is just the right size to take them in comfort, of a sort. You and these other thugs can walk. I’ll give you an armed escort part of the way. To see you come to no harm, naturally. I’d get going right away if I were you. It’s going to be as black as hell tonight. My men have torches but I doubt they’ll lend them to you.”
“I’ll herd them, Major.” Carrington pushed himself forward. “I haven’t forgotten that crack about baby killers.”
“OK, take three men with you. Ride in one of the APCs, and set a fast pace. I don’t want these specimens in these parts a moment longer than necessary. About six kilometres should give them a good workout.”
For a moment it looked as if the MPs were considering non-cooperation, then they saw the faces of their escorts and thought otherwise.
“Get the injured on board. I’ll hitch a ride with them.”
“You want your own escort, Major?”
Revell declined Dooley’s offer, and a dozen more from others as he got his kit together. While he was gathering and packing it he noticed Andrea watching. Already she had changed back into battledress. He was jamming the last items into a borrowed kit-bat when she sauntered over.
“You watched me, in the woods?”
“I hadn’t intended to, but when I saw what you were doing…”
“You saw everything?”
“Yes.”
“When, if you come back, I will do it again, for you to watch. You will enjoy that, as you enjoyed the last time.”
Her hand sought and found his erection. She squeezed it hard, trying to hurt, failing because of the thick folds of material. “Perhaps I will let you help me. Perhaps.”
He said nothing. There was nothing he could say. Did he hate her or love her? Shit, as if he didn’t have enough on his mind.
Try as he did though, full as he was of worries about the situation he’d got himself into, he couldn’t get her out of his thoughts. From the cab of the truck, as it pulled out, she was the last one he saw.
“I don’t like you, Major Revell.” The general leaned back in his chair, sucking hard on his pipe as he applied a match. “You shouldn’t be in the army. You should be out their wandering the Zone with one of those renegade bands. Orders mean nothing to you. Discipline means about the same. You boss, because you certainly don’t command, you boss a rag-tag outfit of misfits who wouldn’t last five minutes in a decent military unit.”
“A lot of soldiers wouldn’t last five minutes in my combat company, general.”
“Always the smart answer. Well let’s hear your smart answer to this one. How did we find out so fast that you were pulling a stunt? You’ll never guess. We got it from the Reds. That’s it, they spotted it on satellite before the 717th could report in themselves. Not nice finding that out from them. Spoiled the President’s day, sort of.”
“Are they breaking the truce?”
“What the hell do you care? You know why it spoiled the President’s day? Because he was on the hot line yesterday. Seems T Corp had put that file of yours and the films into a real special package. Yesterday they made a present of it to the Reds, with a note saying we’d show it to the up-coming Conference of Neutral Nations. The Reds don’t need any more bad press at the moment, especially not while those gents are in meeting. So we were going to hold it over them, get some sort of useful deal out of them. One that would be in our favour.”
“What sort of deal?”
“How the hell should I know. I don’t get invited to the White House that often. I’m told we’d have got something we wanted real bad. Would have got it too, whatever it was, only your raid screwed us up. The Russians are saying that if we forget those graves, they’ll forget the raid. Seems they weren’t that keen on that character Tarkovski, any more than we were. Word is, they’re going to take care of him, if you haven’t yet.”
“So in the eyes of everyone, our knocking about a KGB punishment battalion who are known to be guilty of mass murder and worse, is about the equivalent of their war crimes against a few thousand civilians. Men, women and children.”
“You play with words all you want. If I were you I wouldn’t buck it. It’s got your nuts out of the fire. But don’t you go thinking you’ve got off.”
Puffing vigorously at his pipe, the general walked to the window. “It’s not my decision, but all charges against you are to be dropped. You keep your rank and your command.”
“There has to be a catch.”
“You’re damned right there is. You and your cruds like the Zone, so in the Zone you’re going to stay. You think in the past you’ve had nasty missions, they ain’t nothing to what’s being dreamed up for you at this moment. And to give you an idea of the thinking about your company, I’ll tell you right here, the first thing you’re getting is a week’s leave for every last man. And not just with some shitty rest camp with a flea-bitten cinema and two bathrooms. No, you’re being dumped outside the Zone for seven whole days. Guess why.”
“You’re hoping we’ll get desertions.”
“Got it in one. If it isn’t convenient to disband you, well l
et you wither away. What’s left after you get back are going to be hurling from one hot spot to another. If there’s anyone of you left after six months I’ll be amazed, and maybe a touch disappointed.”
“Is that it, General?” Revell had heard such promises made before. This one he was more inclined to take seriously.
“That’s it. Consider yourself lucky it’s worked out this way. I’d have done it differently.”
“And the Communists get away with the murder of those civilians.”
“Let it go, Major. You’re in a league you don’t know anything about, in way over your head. There’s nothing you can do anymore. You had your fun, you slapped the Reds’ wrist, it’s over. And don’t go getting any ideas about peddling your copies of those reports among the press boys here. That’s been taken care of. None of them want to lose accreditation. And as for the television crews… you know them, if it isn’t here and now and in colour then they don’t want to know. There isn’t anybody else to sneak it to. The story is as dead as those civvies.”
TWENTY EIGHT
Before leaving the headquarters building, Revell went to the men’s room. As he washed his hands he saw his face in the mirror. The splashes of blood, now dried and flaking, couldn’t hide the stress lines around his eyes, or the bags beneath them.
Another officer came in and stood at the next basin, scrubbing ingrained ink stains from his fingers. It took a moment to click, then he recognized Captain Porter.
“I’ve got it.”
Porter was almost dancing with excitement. “I’ve got my discharge, medical grounds. I’d never thought of that. A sergeant suggested it.”
“Rather quick, wasn’t it?” Revell knew it could take months before you came before a Board. He’d watched every stage of Dooley’s several attempts, becoming quite an authority on the subject in the process.
“Is it? The sergeant arranged it all. He has a friend…”
“Must have cost a lot.”
Porter reddened and tried to laugh the suggestion off.
“So what now? Back to the States, and teaching?” He’d dried his hands, and would have left, but Porter was in the narrow doorway.
“Oh no. That’s not my only stroke of luck. That county paper, I told you about. Well they’ve offered me a position. Not exactly as a reporter. More sort of an office post, in editorial, but of course I’ll still be able to submit stories. Who knows, perhaps one of them will get picked up by a national. That does happen, you know.”
“When do you go home?” Suddenly Revell was not in a hurry. “As soon as I can get a flight. Within a week I should imagine.”
“Give me your address. There’s something I can send you.” Producing a very professional looking notebook, Porter jotted it down and handed it over. “Is it a story? I mean, rather out of the ordinary. Hope you don’t mind my asking, but so many I speak to, when I mention I write, they think I can get their memoirs published…”
“It’s a story.”
“Oh good. I do hope it gets me a by-line.”
“I should think there’s a very good chance it’ll surprise you.”
Stepping out into the blacked out street, Revell felt a great weight had been lifted from him. He felt the piece of paper in his hand. Carefully he folded it and pushed it to the bottom of an inside pocket. The town was a miserable one, just inside the western fringe of the Zone, but for Revell it was a great place. As he walked in search of a ride back to his unit he felt really light and carefree. Yes, this was a great town. It was good to be alive.
It was pitch black. Only the luminous dial of his watch was visible in the trench. Clarence watched the fires at the farm. Many times he saw figures clearly silhouetted against the flames, but he never touched his rifle. Among the burning ruin of the farmhouse he could see the outline of a flak-gun, canted over at a crazy angle.
A huge barn was emitting vast showers of sparks that started hundreds of secondary fires in the fields. Some of them would merge, and for a brief while a line of fire would snake along in the distant darkness.
He couldn’t be certain under these conditions, but he got the impression that objects were being thrown into some of the fires. That didn’t make sense, unless it was the bodies of their dead they were disposing of in so convenient and labour saving a manner.
All sense of time had been lost, and it didn’t matter. Clarence felt for the satchel he had brought with him. Carefully he emptied its contents, sorted them by feel, and arranged them along the floor of the excavation.
Strange that for so long he had been obsessive about cleanliness, and here he was, content to remain in this unlined scrape. It was like lying at the bottom of a grave, without benefit of the decency of a lined casket.
By now he would be posted as missing. They might come out and search, but he’d been careful to separate from his escort a considerable distance away from the site he had finally chosen.
All the months and years of killing were almost over. He felt as if he were burned out. Burned out… how appropriate.
The Browning Hi-Power was heavy in his hand, its chequered wooden grips warm against his palm. He had to turn on his side.
With his free hand he groped for the metal canister wedged between the breech of the rifle and the wall of the trench. He slipped his middle finger through the dangling ring at its top.
Strangely, Clarence realized that he felt no fear, no emotion of any sort. He had handed out death so many times. Always with a cool, calm precision. This was only one more, to be handled with the same methodical patience.
Slowly he withdrew the pin from the thermite demolition grenade. Satisfied it was out, he placed the end of the barrel of the pistol in his mouth and squeezed the trigger steadily.
Unrecognized by those who held his arms and legs, the broken corpse of Colonel Tarkovski was swung back and forth, and then into the burning barn. Blazing bales tumbled down and hid his remains from sight.
On a hillside above the farm there was a brief flare of bright light. It passed unnoticed.
THE ZONE Series by James Rouch:
HARD TARGET
BLIND FIRE
HUNTER-KILLER
SKY STRIKE
OVERKILL
KILLING GROUND
PLAGUE BOMB
CIVILIAN SLAUGHTER
BODY COUNT
DEATH MARCH
Copyright
Copyright © 1989 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
THE ZONE E-Books are published by
IMPRINT Publications, 3 Magpie Court
High Wycombe, WA 6057. AUSTRALIA.
Produced under licence from the Author, all rights reserved. Created in Australia by Ian Taylor © 2005
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