Overkill tz-5

by James Rouch

  Somewhere Dooley had found just enough water to soak a threadbare blanket and now he used it as a shield to try to reach the wounded. He was still yards from the nearest when the billowing steam from his makeshift protection turned to smoke and then almost instantly to flame and he had to throw it down and retreat.

  An improvised fire appliance arrived, a converted fuel tanker now equipped with hoses and a pump, but before it could go into action gas cylinders inside the building began to rupture and tongues of liquid flame spurted across the road. At the merest touch the tinder-dry bodies began to burn. That brought movement to some, but it wasn’t the frantic thrashings of death agonies, just the gradual arching and rolling brought on by the rapid drying and shrinking of muscle and cartilage.

  ‘There it goes.’ From a hundred yards off Ripper felt the heat as the whole facade collapsed and filled the road from side to side with a wall of red-hot debris. ‘Say, if hell’s like that, I might just start going to church again.’

  ‘I’m surprised you’ve ever been.’ Taking up the front of the stretcher Clarence started towards the waiting red-cross-embellished Mercedes van. He was thankful he was not at the back, did not have to see the destroyed face of the girl they carried.

  ‘Course I been, used to go regular. Why, one time I was in the choir for a spell, ’til there was that trouble with the organist and the new kid. Always thought the boy sung a shade too high to be quite right. And I never did trust that organist, always wore perfume, only he called it cologne, but it was perfume all the same. After a while the new kid stank of it too…’

  Hyde was in deep conversation with Colonel Horst. Boris could see them keep glancing at him. He pretended he didn’t notice, and that it didn’t bother him, but it did. What did he have to do to prove himself to the sergeant, was there anything he could do that would persuade the NCO that his desertion from the Red Army was genuine, that he was not some sort of double agent? No, he doubted it. The sergeant’s suspicions went deep, but his hatred and prejudices went deeper and it was unlikely that anything could eradicate something so long planted, so firmly established. Hyde was coming over, he forced himself to be busy about his task of gathering scorched and severed limbs together. What other assignment had the sergeant for him, what worse than this had he found?

  ‘Got a little job for you, Boris. Here, take this pack, and hang on to it.’ Opening a corner, and pulling out a wad of the cloth bundled into it, Boris recognised the coarse texture, its colour, and then as final confirmation the insignia of a Russian captain of artillery. ‘I don’t understand, this is a Russian uniform…’

  ‘So it is. We’re giving you a chance to go back to your mates, to find something out for us.’ Hyde pushed the pack back at the man as he tried to divest himself of it.

  ‘No, I cannot. If I were to be caught… and I would be, I do not know the passwords… they would not kill me, not soon, they might keep me alive… half alive… for years. You do not know how skilful they can be…’

  ‘Strange how much you seem to know about the KGB’s methods. But if they frighten you, then you’d just better make sure you don’t get caught, hadn’t you.’

  Boris chased after the sergeant. ‘What do you want me to find out, is there no other way, nothing else I can do?’

  ‘We want to know where we can find the cruds who keep dropping these.’ Hyde waved towards the gutted building and the bodies lining the roadway. ‘The colonel says that mortar has done more damage in one night than the Ruskies’ massed artillery has in a week. He wants us to spike it. That’s just what we’ll do, when you’ve located it for us.’

  ‘But it will take days. I would be detected inside an hour, it is hopeless…’ ‘It’s usually fired from positions on the far bank of that big lake in the centre of the city, the Aussenalster. That’ll give us a starting point, the rest will be up to you.’

  Dazed, Boris moved away, still clutching the pack. He thought he had conquered his fear, had found its limits and learnt to cope with it, but now all the old feelings flooded back and he had to sit because his legs suddenly had no strength. Hardly knowing what he was doing he slowly and methodically wiped his hands on the rough canvas of the pack, having to grind them hard to scrape off the adhering body fats that had run from the split and bloated limbs he’d handled.

  A tipper truck stopped close by, and the gang of men that climbed from it began to toss on board any corpses that the doctors and identification clerks had finished with. Using their bare hands, their shirt fronts streaked with every kind of filth, they handled the bodies as they might have handled cartons of soap.

  Every one of the men had the same haggard expression and in the deep lines etched in each could be read a catalogue of horror without end. This was one of the burial squads. They were fed better than most as they had more work to do, received better medical treatment than most as their work was important and put them at risk, and they had a death rate second only to the infantry units holding the city’s perimeter. Their death came in many forms, but one factor was common to all, it was at their own hands.

  Until now Boris had thought that nothing could have induced him to do that job. Suddenly it seemed a desirable alternative to the task that lay ahead.

  THE OTHER SIEGES

  USS NEW JERSEY

  Aircraft flying from the aircraft carrier Forrestal, flagship of the American Pacific fleet, are now able to maintain round the clock air-cover over the battleship New Jersey, two hundred miles off Manila. They will sustain the effort until tugs arrive in eighteen hours to take the ship in tow. Converted to carry and launch salvos of cruise missiles, and re-commissioned thirty-eight years after its completion, the 60,000 ton veteran of World War Two has comprehensively vindicated President Reagan’s decision and confounded those who called the ship a dinosaur and predicted she would go to the bottom in her first engagement.

  The New Jersey has withstood three days of bombardment by Russian missile boats firing one-ton ship-killer missiles. During that time the battleship’s defences have defeated seventy missiles before they could get through, and sunk eighteen enemy vessels confirmed and a further unknown number of transports and landing craft.

  Of the nineteen hits sustained on the New Jersey’s hull and superstructure only ten achieved penetration, two of them failing to detonate. Less than ten per cent of the ship’s complement have been rendered casualties. Despite the damage to the propellers and rudder that immobilised the ship early in the engagement, more than sixty missiles were launched at the Russian task force, inflicting losses that forced it to turn about and run for Vladivostok. The Soviet press is already clamouring for the punishment of the ship’s captain, Edward J. Morgan, accusing him of ‘the murderous and piratical act of attacking unarmed merchant vessels.’ The State Department had no comment to make. The President is reported to have smiled, and said, ‘Nuts.’

  ELEVEN

  The waters of the lake were still as glass, and reflected the pyrotechnics in the heavens as perfectly. And despite the boom of distant detonations and the closer clatter of a desultory machine gun duel at the northern end of the Aussenalster, it seemed that every slight sound made by their hessian-muffled oars was as loud as the roar of a pounding waterfall.

  Flak jackets had been hung along the side of the ex-lifeboat, as much to do something to break up its angular outline as to provide any degree of protection.

  It had taken them thirty minutes to get safely clear of the west bank, painstakingly threading their way round and through the vast amount of wreckage the day’s breeze had piled against the shore. Further out it was easier, but more than once they had to stop paddling and tense against a collision they could not avoid with the partially submerged wreck of a yacht that had drifted away from the masses of destroyed craft occupying the basins of the many marinas.

  Fifty yards from the shore, partially hidden from it by the upturned hull of a bullet-riddled cruiser, they hauled the rubber dinghy alongside. Boris was given the torch, helpe
d over the side, and pushed off towards the shore. They saw his terrified face just once as the awkward craft spun around, then he got into the rhythm of it and began to use his hands to propel himself to the bank.

  ‘Poor guy. He’s shit scared.’ Dooley watched the Russian land and scramble into the cover of a stand of leafless trees before he lost sight of him in the darkness.

  In trying to shift to a more comfortable position on the hard wooden seats, Ripper succeeded only in slipping off and sitting in the several inches of dirty water swilling about the bottom of the boat. ‘Aw shit, I’ve wet me-self.’

  ‘You and Boris both.’ Dooley let his fellow American struggle back up on his own.

  ‘That’s a point.’ Unsuccessfully Ripper put his hands to the seat of his pants and attempted to wring them dry. ‘Say, Sarge. If our pet Ruskie produces the goods then that’ll prove he’s on our side, you’ll have to trust him then.’

  ‘Like hell I will. It might just mean his KGB bosses are letting him throw us a crumb or two so he can hang around and wait for something big to come along.’

  ‘A 240mm mortar with its crew and support vehicles is hardly a crumb.’ Clarence could see flaws in the sergeant’s argument.

  ‘Keep the noise down, let’s have it quiet from now on.’ However logical the sniper’s reasoning, Hyde wasn’t about to drop an ingrained prejudice so easily, and by virtue of his rank he was able to cut short the discussion, and halt the offences upon it.

  Occasionally they would have to dip their oars and make a few strokes to compensate for an almost imperceptible drift, but that apart, all they could do was wait. Several times they heard vehicles on the Russian side. They seemed all to be wheeled, as there was no grinding of squealing of tracks, but the racket made by their knocking engines, rattling panels and crunching gears made even that vague identification suspect.

  The interior of the lifeboat was alternately bright as day and pitch black, as star shells ignited and expired overhead. One of them fell, still burning, into the lake close by, and the surface exploded into bubbling steam as it fought to quench the blazing ball of magnesium. When finally the waters won, a large area of the lake was wreathed in a floating white mist that carried with it the pungent smell of the extinguished chemical fire.

  They had to wait almost two hours for the signal, and when it came Burke, who was on lookout, had to wait for it to be repeated twice more before he could convince himself it wasn’t his strained eyes playing tricks.

  Using the minimum number and quietest possible strokes they pulled to the shore, and had to wade the last few yards through a carpet of floating debris, when the boat grounded.

  ‘Just for once I’m sure glad I didn’t listen to my Mam.’ Dripping from head to foot, Ripper was the last to reach the cover of the trees. ‘She always told me I should join the navy. Shit, after tonight nothing is ever going to get me into a boat again. My arse is numb, my arms ache, and to cap it all the damned ship moved when I were climbing out.’

  ‘Pity the water wasn’t a bit cleaner, you’ve been needing a good wash for ages.’

  Ripper took no exception to Burke’s remark. ‘I know that, but like I told you, it’s done on purpose. If it comes to close fighting, and you’re up wind of some Ruskie, smelling like a perfume counter, then you might as well turn a spotlight on yourself. Those Ghurkhas don’t wash when they’re in action.’

  ‘You’re not in the same class.’ Clarence didn’t take his eye from the image intensifier fitted telescope of his Enforcer rifle, as he panned through the trees. ‘But you might absorb another lesson they could teach you, the need for silence. Now shut up.’

  It was a timely warning. A line of slouching soldiers were ambling along a path through the trees. An NCO in charge was making regular, half-hearted-sounding threats, but they had no impression on the file of Russian infantry who neither straightened up nor smartened their pace. Without looking to right or left, with eyes only for the broken surface of the path, they passed within thirty feet of Hyde and the hastily concealed members of the squad. As they vanished into the distance the platoon leader’s gruff voice could once more be heard raised in unenthusiastic exhortation to his weary men, still apparently without effect.

  Boris had been the first to take over, and was the last to emerge. ‘This whole area is full of Russians. I was challenged; I had to kill a sentry.’ Although already wiped clean he continuously rubbed handfuls of grass over his palms and between his fingers to rid them of the very last traces of blood. ‘It is alright, I hid his body.’

  ‘Have we got a lead on those mortars?’ Hyde displayed no interest in the fate of the unlucky Russian, or the trauma suffered by their deserter in having to kill a fellow countryman with his bare hands.

  ‘Yes. It is like always. There are several fired, pre-surveyed and ranged sites from which it is fired in random rotation. The nearest is only two hundred metres from here.’

  ‘Right, so we’ll set an ambush for them. Let’s go.’ Hyde knew he need add nothing more.

  The men fell into single file, each taking the position in the order of march that by custom and practice had become his. Dooley was rear guard and for his size moved with surprising stealth as they came out from the trees and crossed a wide road between the wreckage of a burned-out ammunition convoy. He was just across when a scout car sped past, the strips of tread from its worn tyres making a rippling sound as they flailed the surface. He looked back once before following the others into the ruins of an apartment block. Another Russian platoon was plodding through the trees they’d just left. Now there was no doubting what Boris had said, there were enemy troops everywhere, and some were now behind them.

  ‘We must not wait any longer.’ Inga began to pack her camera equipment away. ‘The new demolition party that has arrived may not know that we are up here. If they blow the tower early…’

  Revell had been dozing, but when he looked over the edge and saw the men far below beginning to stack drums of cable near the entrance, he understood the urgency.

  In places the stairs had ceased to exist, destroyed by the same hits that had bitten great pieces from the tower’s external fabric. When they reached one of these sections they had to improvise, sometimes using the handrail, still secured to the wall, like a fireman’s pole, and once having to make a drop of fifteen feet to the next intact flight, easing themselves down until they were holding on by their fingertips and then carefully aiming their fall on to the narrow strip of bare concrete that was all that stood between them and the eventual oblivion of a three hundred foot plummet to the ground level.

  It might have helped had the staircase been as dark as had the interior of the lift, but there was sufficient light from the fires and star shells coming in through the many rents in the wall for every danger to be graphically visible.

  Several times Revell wondered at the girl’s coolness. Though she might be frightened at some of the risks they were forced to take, and only a fool would not have been, still she kept going, without any hesitation, any holding back. It was an impressive display of willpower, and seemed so out of keeping with the aura of, if not helpless, at least dependent, vulnerability and femininity, that it gave rise in his mind to a first enigma about her.

  They made it to ground floor level with only minutes to spare. Two men who were working to connect the last of the charges looked up in utter astonishment when the pair walked from the service stairway and out past them.

  ‘Do you want to stay and see it go down? In a world full of destruction, it must be considered something special.’

  ‘You’re the something special I’m interested in right now.’ He almost cringed. Had that sounded as school boyish to her as it had to him? It was an agony, waiting for her reaction.

  ‘That was a nice thing to say. Then shall we go?’

  Past the still smouldering wreck of the generator truck, the crater, the almost invisible dark stains where the guard and the first demolition crew had lain, they walked away fro
m the tower, striking out in a direction that Revell hadn’t been before.

  Their way took them through what must once have been a beautiful park. Most of the flowerbeds and displays had been ploughed over by shell fire, but those that had survived the violent transplant bloomed on and filled the air with scents that for a while washed from the senses the memory of smoke and cordite and death.

  The tracks of a miniature railway had been caught in the general upheaval and now made fantastic loops high off the ground, still bound as parallel ribbons of steel by their remaining ties, just like the full-scale tracks that arched above so many bridges and embankments across the city.

  Exhibition halls in the park had been reduced to no more than steelwork frames, revealing their bombed interiors to the world, and a glass-topped observation tower lay stretched full length, still largely intact thanks to its reinforced construction, and half buried in the lawns that had given before its plunging weight.

  Inga’s apartment was on the second floor of a building that looked as if it had been struck by the full force of a battery of Katyushas. She led him up a staircase that was only a little better than the one in the TV tower. At its top (for although the building went on, the stairs did not), she opened a smoke-stained door and they stepped through into total darkness.

  Revell stood waiting as a match flared behind him. That slight light made mad shadows and reflections dance about it and robbed him of the chance to get a first sneak preview of the room. Dark shapes chased along the walls, darted to the ceiling and then were lost as the light dimmed to nothing, but it was like the pause between tuning-up and the overture.

  Civilisation burst upon him as an oil lamp was turned up full. He had forgotten that there were rooms with curtains and carpets, with furniture, with paintings, with tables, with ornaments… with all the things that people beyond the Zone took for granted. In a brief instant he came to understand the full meaning of that pat intellectual phrase, culture shock. It must be like this for an aborigine, seeing his first house, his first automobile. Shock was the only word that described the sensation. War had done more than rob him of some of his life, it had obscured his memories until trenches and shelters and filth and hunger seemed the norm.