by James Rouch
It was tempting to send over a clutch of terminally guided Merlin mortar bombs, but to do so would be to invite an immediate and heavy retaliation. He would save that risk until he was sure the Russians had reached the narrowest part of the route they had chosen. If one of their huge tracked armoured engineer vehicles was disabled in the defile between the hills it would block or at least seriously hamper their progress until it was towed out of the way.
His mind came back to the question of why there hadn’t been a third air strike. And how had the other two been so precise; indeed, how had the Russian shelling been so accurate, with hardly a round wasted on the slopes below the castle mound?
Perhaps there was a second Spetsnaz operative, in the valley. But though he had no evidence one way or the other, Revell thought it highly unlikely. He had more than enough experience of the communists’ special operations units to know that it was not usual for them to duplicate their efforts. That practice mostly came from their sheer arrogance. It was a failing frequently and successfully played upon by NATO interrogators.
He handed his field glasses to Andrea, who had appeared beside him. ‘Take your time. You’re looking for an RPV.’
It was a hell of a long-shot, Revell knew that, but if any of them was capable of locating one of the small remotely piloted aircraft, it was she.
With bad grace she shouldered her M16and began a systematic sweep of the sky above the valley.
Leaving her to it, the major checked the progress of work on the new Stinger positions. They were fewer this time, and positioned close to bolt holes that would give the operators a chance to make it to the lower levels in the face of an unexpected or overwhelming attack.
From inside the smokescreen came the blast of a large mine exploding, and then a fiercely driven column of grey smoke rose above the chemically created pall.
They wouldn’t yet need to use the Merlins. No need to employ sophisticated top- attack homing warheads while the diversity of the conventional minefield was doing all right on its own. Revell returned to Andrea, in response to her call. Shit, even though it was ‘business,’ it was good to hear her wanting him. If only it was more than that...
Accepting the glasses from her, he let her guide his search until he found the object she had located. Her hands were cool and their grip light but firm.
‘Got it.’ He’d been right, it was an RPV, apparently locked into a wide banking turn some fifteen hundred feet above the valley. It was closer than that to them in their elevated position. ‘The trouble with those little bastards is that they’re damned near impossible to bring down.’
It was galling. The small unpiloted aircraft, with a wingspan of not more than ten feet, represented a tiny target, and if it was the very latest type it offered virtually no emissions to home on, so that ruled out missiles. Carrying its own microwave link, it could receive its directions and beam out its gathered information in short bursts on tight channels that were virtually undetectable.
Back at some Russian HQ they could see real-time transmissions of what was happening in the valley in perfect safety, and pass the information by unjammable land lines to their fighter bases and artillery positions.
‘If we can take it out,’- Revell knew he was supposing what was virtually impossible - ‘then it would take them a long time to get another on station.’
Andrea selected a grenade from her belt. ‘I have seen tens of thousands of rounds expended to that purpose. All without success.’
‘But it has been done.’ Not for a moment did Revell give consideration to employing the M60 for the task. Only a direct hit on the motor or a vital control wire - or even more freakishly, in the compact data link box - would disable the RPV.
‘Yes, it has happened.’ Andrea loaded the 40mm round. ‘Usually by chance.’
‘Give it a try; we’ve nothing to lose.’ Without his field glasses there would have been little for Revell to see. Even with them he often missed the small puff of white smoke from the air-bursts.
With her seventh shot Andrea exploded a shell just in front of the aircraft, but frustratingly it flew unharmed through the rapidly dissipating cloud.
He was about to call a halt when her thirteenth attempt created a burst above and behind the target. It looked like yet another miss; then the RPV side-slipped and nosed down into a shallow dive. For a while he lost it, then when he found it again, saw that its outline was slightly changed. A piece of the tail was missing. Finally he lost it once more, for good, against the confusing clutter of the far hills. The descent appeared to have been due more to the RPV retaining a degree of aerodynamic stability than to any skilful control.
When he turned to congratulate Andrea she was already gone. It was easy to see why Sampson had made his remark about her, comparing her with Karen. There were times when, strong as his feelings were for her, Andrea could be unbearably independent and arrogant.
The smokescreen about the location of the Russian attempt to broach the minefield was thinning. It was no longer being reinforced by regular flurries of shells. As it dispersed, Revell saw it reveal a total of eight burning or burned-out mine-plough and roller-fitted tanks. An armoured bulldozer wallowed in a large crater at an impossible angle, on the point of tipping over. Both its tracks were broken and an body hung from its open driver’s hatch.
Though the RP V was eliminated, the enemy gunners already had the range of the castle to an inch, and Revell made every use of cover as he moved about. He’d have expected them to recommence firing as soon as it became obvious the first air-strike had failed to neutralize the strongpoint.
It was easy to imagine the report of the surviving pilot from the second wave, on his return to base. Sixty automatic weapons had been aimed at his flight leader and must have given the impression of a powerful defence. And that would have been reinforced by the beating off of the abortive helicopter assault on the valley, plus the continuing punishment of the ground troops trying to establish a land route to the prize offered by the huge dump of materials.
Their need was underlined by the fact that of the eight destroyed vehicles on the track, four were captured NATO tanks, Leopards and Challengers, modified for Soviet-style mine clearing.
‘Here they come again.’ Carrington swung ‘round a machine gun and sighted on the clutch of gunships hovering barely visible between the hills across-the valley.
They were gone as suddenly as they’d appeared, and a pair of Stingers sent against them self-destructed when they reached the limit of their range, well short of their intended targets.
‘What are they playing at?’ Carrington waited patiently.
A single machine rose into distant view, unleashed a wire-guided rocket and hovered among the tops of firs only long enough to guide it to a direct hit on the gatehouse.
‘Fuck knows.’ Keeping a missile tube shouldered, Burke waited for a realistic target to present itself before he fired.
Another Warpac gunship soared from behind a ridge and unleashed a ripple of unguided rockets toward the ruins, diving back into hiding before the projectiles had traversed half the distance. Of the twenty that were fired, none came close. Most fell a long way short, pulverizing a lower bend in the approach road.
‘Maybe they’re the same ships we scared away before.’ Hyde too was puzzled by the evasive tactics. ‘Could be they’re still scared.’
Again missiles were sent against the ruins, one to strike where the brickwork was keyed to the natural rock. The powerful impact left no mark but a black smudge and a slight pitting.
Cannon fire was added, from Hinds whose pilots were reluctant to make themselves visible for more than seconds at a time. From such a hopelessly long range only a handful of spent rounds flattened themselves against the unyielding ancient fabric.
‘It’s not like them to piss about this much.’ Reading off the range in his sight, Burke was aware there was no point in having a go at such elusive targets. ‘Could be that they’re just decoys… Fucking shit…’ H
e whirled about and fired wildly at a gunship only a hundred feet overhead.
The range was too short for the missile to arm itself in the time, but its sheer speed took it plunging in through the floor of the helicopter.
Disintegrating and scattering burning propellant as it penetrated, it turned the cabin into a roaring furnace. Out of control, the helicopter toppled from the sky to crash near the remains of the Scammel.
Torrents of mud and debris swept across the top of the ruins and three more camouflage-painted gunships closed in. From their open side doors came bright lines of tracer, and coils of rope were thrown out to whip about in the downwash.
Rolling onto his back, Clarence took aim and a door-gunner sagged limply, only restrained from falling by his safety harness.
The fight became wild, the choppers hovering and backing to give their gunners the best opportunities. Men who appeared at the cabin doors and made to slide down the ropes first hosed the ruins with their personal weapons.
Putting aside his sniper rifle, Clarence, hurling himself into an adjoining gun pit, pushed a body aside and wrenched a mini-gun hard back on its mount to gain the maximum elevation. Flicking the selector to the highest rate of fire he blasted several hundred rounds into the cabin top and rotor hub of a gunship banking in a tight turn to come in to drop its infantry.
There was a small flare of flame as a fuel line to one of the Isotov turbo shaft power-plants was severed, and then as the blur of the mini-gun’s rotating barrels slowed, the gunship stalled and fell onto a corner of the ruins.
Even as the cabin distorted and buckled with the impact, the still-rotating blades smashed themselves to lethal slivers against a weapon pit. Blood fountained among the fragments of carbon fibre.
At point-blank range rifles and machine guns hosed armour -piercing incendiary rounds into the craft’s shattered cockpit and gaping cabin.
He was so close, Revell could see the struggles of the pilot and gunner to free themselves, and the sprawl of infantry fighting to drag themselves clear.
Burning fuel dribbling onto the men spurred them to frantic effort, faces distorted by the effort of forcing broken limbs to respond. There came an ominous creak of metal grinding on stone and the machine appeared to sag and then shudder as it moved bodily sideways toward the edge. It teetered, a mound of rubble collapsed beneath it, arid then it was gone, followed by a cascade of granite and sandstone chips.
As suddenly as they had appeared, the gunships departed, racing for the cover of the hills and woods. They trailed smoke and dropped a shower of external fittings and torn panels as they went. Unable in that condition to execute wild evasive manoeuvres, they had to soak up more damage from the tracer that chased after them.
It had been a crazy tactic. Revell couldn’t begin to understand what the Russians had hoped to achieve. They’d been trying to land troops in what had to be a suicide mission. Unless ... unless Burke was correct and the whole episode was a diversion from some other piece of nastiness they were hatching.
A monstrous explosion rocked the whole fabric of the castle. Smoke and dust belched from every entrance to the lower levels in a raging blast that threw him over.
TWENTY ONE
Pushing himself to his feet, he heard screams coming from below—girls’ screams. Grabbing his shotgun and waving Hyde and Voke to stay, Revell raced for the cellars.
Burke was already ahead of him, Colt automatic in one hand, the other clenched tight about a grenade from which the split ring attached to the pin dangled brightly.
On the ground floor several men had been mowed down by the blast, mostly those who had been in direct line with the cellar entrance. Some lay still, heads shattered, but most still moved, hugging themselves against the agony of broken bones. Others stood dazed, stupefied by the powerful concussion. Andrea was among them, nursing her left wrist.
Pushing in front, Revell led down the steps. By a miracle the lights still functioned, but they served little purpose. He strapped on his respirator as some protection against the thick choking dust as he groped his way down.
At the bottom they stopped and listened. From roughly in the direction of the dispensary came the muted sobs of a terrified girl. Sensing rather than seeing what was happening, Revell held out his arm to check Burke’s impulse to go straight toward the sound.
Revell was frightened at the prospect of the terrifying game of blindfold hide- and-seek that lay ahead. It would be as dangerous and deadly a fight as any he’d ever taken part in, as could ever be imagined.
Hugging the wall they stumbled forward, with Revell trying desperately to recall every turn, every doorway, every side passage.
He could see perhaps a matter of inches, six perhaps, not more. The air was hot and carried a strong scent of partially consumed explosive. His foot made contact with an object that rolled away. Still keeping the shotgun trained ahead, he stooped to feel about. His searching fingers found several of the items, grenades.
A few steps farther and another forced investigation brought about the discovery of the remains of the man who had been carrying them. Underfoot the floor was slippery with blood. From a helmet he touched, Revell determined that the bodies they were encountering were members of the Dutch ammunition detail. Groans came from a body he stepped on. Attempting to move it aside, he found it had no arms; both were off at the shoulder.
The clattering fire of a Kalashnikov punished their ears in the confined space, but Revell took no account of that when he replied with a three-round burst. There was no response to the hail of flechettes that filled every inch of the passageway with a quota of needle-sharp steel.
Wafting past, a current of cool air brought an improvement in visibility. Silhouetted against a circle of light haze dead ahead was a dark blur. It was slowly crumpling, and as he went down a second slumped from the shadows across it.
‘Two down; how many more to go?’ Burke felt the grenade warming in his hand, and knelt to roll it in the dust, to make sure it wouldn’t stick to his damp palm.
Resolving itself gradually into the outline of the shattered postern door, the patch of light enabled Revell to orient himself. ‘They must have climbed up and put a charge on it, while we were occupied upstairs.’
Before he could fire, Burke had snapped off a shot and a figure sidling through the opening was thrown back and screamed for a long time as he fell down the cliff face.
From the chunks of flesh and small splinters of wood to which the door and its surround had been reduced, Revell was sure that at the moment the demolition charge exploded the passageway must have resembled hell.
Men caught in the blast had been torn apart, and the loads they carried scattered. It was a miracle that none of the ordnance had gone off at the same time. With every other room packed with ammunition from floor to ceiling, a chain reaction of secondary detonation would have blasted the stump of the castle across the countryside and left nothing but the bare rock.
A small round dark object was tossed in through the doorway. They threw themselves down, but the Russian grenade burst between the bodies and, beyond bringing down more dust into the already heavily laden atmosphere, did no harm.
There was a tugging at Revell’s foot, and he looked down. The Dutchman Old William was sprawled on the floor, his hair matted with blood and his face lined with cuts. Unable to talk, he gestured toward a door.
Burke cautiously pushed it open. It was the wine vault. The air was almost clear. There was a cage of songbirds on the table, but they were the only occupants.
‘The fucker’s skipped.’ Burke took a tighter grip of his pistol.
‘He might not have got far.’ The smell of death and the slimy mess beneath his feet offered the hope to Revell that the deserter, whether he had mistimed an escape or taken advantage of the confusion of the attack, was dead.
‘That bloke is a survivor. I’ll put money on his still being alive.’
A heavy figure blundered into them from behind, and after the start i
t gave him, the major was glad to see Dooley. Even with his respirator on, his great bulk made him unmistakable.
Revell motioned toward the opening. ‘Dooley, stay here. Anything comes in through there you know what to do. Same goes if we flush someone out and he makes a bolt for it.’
‘What if he come this way instead? You want prisoners?’ Straightening the belt of the M60, Dooley undraped another three from around his neck. He settled himself in the doorway of the wine cellar, after a quick glance inside to reassure himself that his feathered friends were all right.
‘They were trying to kill your birds, weren’t they?’
Nothing more was needed to settle Dooley’s determination. He reached out and began to gather sandbags about himself. Noticing Old William, and after a cursory examination concluding from his shallow but steady breathing that he was still alive, he dragged him in behind the barricade as well.
The temptation to slip into the vault and extract a bottle was strong, almost overwhelming, but there was in his mind a more powerful reason, besides self- preservation, for not stirring from his position.
From within the cellar came a sad whistle of half-hearted song. He thought of the hard work it had been to gather the colourful birds in their aviary, with it almost encircled by burning sheds and garages. They’d been panicking, and he knew he must for certain have missed some that were hiding in nesting boxes.
‘Miserable shits.’ Dooley talked aloud, but to himself. ‘Not bad enough they don’t believe in God, they’ve got to go around trying to kill all his little creatures as well.’
He was in that frame of mind when a grenade popped in through the opening. It bounced once, almost playfully, then detonated harmlessly among the tattered corpses. Holding his fire he let three of them enter, ducking low to avoid the long bursts they directed down the passageway. Only when they paused to reload did he open up.
Coming from what must have been to them an impenetrable dark, the Russians were caught by surprise. It must have been an agonizing shock when the heavy- calibre bullets smashed into their legs and brought them down hard.
