From their vantage point, they could see the length of the wide Maximilianstrasse in either direction, and long sweeps of the ring road that formed the other arms of the intersection.
Ripper laid three spare magazines on the polished top of the writing desk he was using as a rest. “Think that'll be enough?”
Having laid out six of the thirty-round clips at his fire position, Dooley looked across and shook his head. “We've got it, we might as well use it. When we get back in the Zone, it'll be a case of counting every last bullet, and making it count. I'm enjoying not having to worry on that score.”
“What the hell is that vandal doing?” Garrett had been watching Carrington pull down drapes and flimsy partitions between room displays in the upstairs showroom.
“Maybe they offend his sense of taste.” Sgt. Hyde looked pointedly at the pair of rocket launchers beside Dooley. “Or maybe he doesn't want the backwash from those to start a fire. You should have thought of that. I know you're tired, so am I, but that's no reason to get sloppy. Give the corporal a hand.”
Through his binoculars, Revell could see activity on the bridge. Although it was partially obscured by the overhead trolley car power lines, he could make out the hull shape of a big eight-wheeled Luchs armoured car.
Moments after he saw the stab of flame from its cannon muzzle, he heard the savage crack of its firing. Another drew up alongside and added its firepower.
It wouldn't be long. The Russians wouldn't be able to withstand that sort of pressure for any length of time. And when they fell back, it would be to run right into his sights.
TWENTY-FIVE
Edging forward in turns, the armoured cars continued to blast away with their main and secondary armaments at an unseen target. Most of their stray shots were soaked up by the trees that flanked the long avenue, but some skimmed over the broad surface of the road to destruction elsewhere.
Chunks of stone and scabs of metal were punched from the big monument in the middle of the road, as high explosive and armour-piercing rounds struck it. Other cannon shells self-destructed against parked trolley cars and street signs.
From unseen sources behind the massive eight-wheelers came a storm of small- arms fire. Through his glasses, Revell could see bark flying from trees under the combined impacts, and stationary cars shuddering and bouncing on their sus- pension, due to the same cause.
“They'll have to back away from that lot.” Sighting on the last of the long line of trees, Dooley waited for his targets to come into view. “Here, you don't think they'll slug it out to the finish with those wagons, do you?”
“I imagine their orders are to create the maximum disruption to the life of the city.” Revell had already considered and dismissed the possibility. “When things get too hot, they'll move on and make a nuisance of themselves elsewhere.”
“Looks like you're right, Major.” For a brief moment, Hyde thought he saw a figure moving among the trees.
“I've got him as well.” Ripper confirmed the sergeant's sighting. “About ten trees up on the left-hand side. Heading straight towards us.”
Revell examined the area pinpointed, but saw nothing.
”Just the one?”
“Just the one. Don't know if it's the same one though.” Ripper eased the safety off his MP5. “It's a mite far, but you want me to see if I can stir anything up?”
“No, hold your fire-. They'll be more than one. We want them all in the open.” Switching his attention back to the armoured cars, Revell saw that they had started to move forward cautiously. There were short nervous bursts of fire from their coaxial machine guns as they came on.
“They've lost sight of the Russians. They're just playing safe.” Coming along behind the armoured cars, Revell could see a dozen men on foot, hugging close to the big hulls for cover. Much further back a larger body of men was fanning out to take advantage of the cover offered by the trees.
“Shouldn't be long.” Before him, Hyde took in the wide expanse of the intersection. From above, its surface was confused with a wild, seemingly illogical pattern of road markings that made his eyes go funny as he looked at them. I’ve got them. Corner of the building opposite, the fur shop.”
“Not yet. I'll say when.” Revell had seen the two Russians. His caution was warranted. A moment later three more appeared on the other side of the carriageway, at the end of the line of trees.
Their targets were at the extreme effective range of their weapons. Revell was having to take the gamble that the enemy would elect to come straight on, across the intersection. If they chose instead to break into a building and mouse hole further along the block, then his men would not get another chance. That was the choice, fire now in the certainty that some would get away, or gamble that they would maintain their straight line retreat. Being wrong would mean they'd all get away.
Through his binoculars he watched them, trying to read their intentions. They were all together now, partially hidden by an angle of the wall. Gestures and movement within the group seemed to suggest that there were two options heatedly debated. Strange that at such a time they should employ democracy, when they were far more used to dictatorship.
The decision they came to was acted on immediately. With the nearest of the armoured cars only a couple of hundred meters off, they broke from their partial cover and sprinted into the road.
Tracking them, Revell had already decided on the point at which he'd order his men to fire. He was about to, when the chance was taken from him.
Out of the large ground-floor windows of an imposing building on the other side of the crossroads, someone spurted several streams of tracer.
One struck short and began to skip towards the runners, scattering lethal ricochets before it. Three more found their targets immediately.
Taken in the flank, the only Russian to get time to turn and level his AK47 never got off a shot. He fell riddled with bullets, across his companions.
“Who the fuck did that?” Dooley still sighted on the centre of the crossroads, finger on the trigger.
Saying nothing, Revell observed the armoured cars drive forward until they drew up twenty meters from the bodies. A turret hatch opened cautiously and a commander looked out His companion in the other vehicle followed suit, and the two of them looked uncomprehendingly at the corpses.
“Are we going down, Major?” Hyde gathered up the magazines he had laid out, and returned them to his pouches.
“Well, we're doing no damned good up here. Have the men shoulder their weapons. I've no wish to get smeared by a trigger-happy turret-gunner by mistake.”
The two armoured cars, and a third which had joined them covered the intersection. By the time Revell had pushed his way through to the bodies, the men of the column had stripped them of anything that could be remotely considered a souvenir.
Each of them hit by ten or more bullets, they lay grotesquely sprawled, half- naked, in mud largely composed of their own blood.
It was several minutes more before a group of camouflage-dad men came from the ambush point. There were seven in all, four of them were armed with general purpose machine guns.
They walked casually but confidently forward. Revell sensed they were more alert to their surroundings than their bearing suggested. Instinctively he picked out the officer among them, even though none wore any insignia.
“Your work?” He indicated the remains.
“Yes. Pip you at the post, did we? Saw you breaking in, figured we could get in first.”
The officer patted the GPMG carried by the man next to him. “As you only had squirt guns, I thought you'd wait until they got in close. I'm Capt. Chester, 7th Squadron Special Air Service. You'll be Major Revell; we were briefed you were in the area.”
“Pity you weren't briefed that an infantry outfit was moving in as well.” Almost imperceptibly a shade of his self-assurance was shaved from the captain's manner. “Why's that.”
“You had a fire fight with them about an hour ago. Their fault as well, but they were the losers.” Revell almost mentioned the shelter and the asphyxiated civilians, but decided against it.
“As far as we knew at that time, the city was a free-fire Zone. We'd only just landed.”
“So, who's command are you under?” Revell had noted the radio backpack carried by one of the SAS men.
“Same as you will be, in about...” Chester looked up as a Black Hawk, with two gunships as escort, swept past overhead. “...about five minutes, I should say. My boss has been sent in to take over from the civil authority. Seems like the federal government believe the situation can be salvaged.
“I see. So such credit as there will be, is for them, is that it?” Revell thought of Police Chief Stadler, first hamstrung by military incompetence, and now deposed when the situation was within an ace of being remedied, or at least getting a lot closer to it.
“Not for me to say. Can't say I let politics bother me. I can tell you one thing though.” Chester looked at the small police radio, at the major's belt. “With more of our chaps due in soon, there's not going to be a lot more for you to do. Very nice of you to leave plenty of the Warpac warriors for us to deal with though. Thanks a lot.”
“You going to take that shit, Major?” Dooley went to go after the captain as he walked away, but the officer's hand restrained him. “We're not in the business of private feuds. He is right though. With an SAS staff running things, and sufficient units on the ground, all we're going to end up with is herding civilians.”
“Great, let those supermen get the shitty end of the stick.” Ripper looked back towards the furniture store. “I saw a king-size bed in there that is screaming to be tried out.”
“Sergeant, let's take a stroll.” At a little distance from the SAS soldiers, Revell used his radio to contact Stadler. “Might as well warn him what's coming. Chances are he doesn't know yet.”
Stadler did know; a message had been relayed via the link with the airport. He was preparing to hand over, and that was all he told Revell before signing off.
“I don't blame him for being pissed off.” Hyde sat on a traffic bollard, unfastened his helmet, and ran his hand back and forth over his head. It felt strange to be without it all of a sudden, after so long. “I don't mind living a bit longer, but I don't like being made redundant.”
“Like it or not, we are.”
Revell looked up as he heard the power traverse of an armoured car turret start up. At the same moment, he noticed the sound of an approaching engine.
The column had begun to move out. Now the mixed force of airport police and security staff scattered in every direction, urgently seeking any cover they could find. Caught on the wrong side of the road, the SAS men ran from behind a trolley car to deploy their machine guns.
A sports car shot from a side street and swerved to avoid a group of men. It would also have missed the trees, but a ragged fusillade of shots sent it out of control, and glancing off one, it hit another head on.
Closest to the scene, Revell and Hyde dashed to the wreck. A middle-aged man was sprawled across the seat. His face was badly cut from his impact with the windshield, and both hands had been smashed by bullets.
“Looter?” Hyde helped pull him clear as flames began to lick from under the crumpled hood.
“Nein. No, I am not a looter.”
Talking was an effort, and Revell judged by the quantity of blood issuing from the driver's mouth and nose that he'd suffered serious internal injuries.
“I was trying to get help. I thought you were more Russians.” “More?”
“Yes, ten of them, in the Theatiner Church. I escaped in the panic and confusion when the killing started.”
TWENTY-SIX
It took Sgt. Hyde thirty-two seconds to round up the section , trying not to attract attention. The hardest part was extricating Andrea from a circle of admirers that included several of the SAS men. He was only just in time to prevent her commit- ting some act of violence, going by her expression.
In the same length of time, Revell mounted the rear hull of the nearest armoured car and put an argument forcefully to its commander.
The young lieutenant of the West German Territorials had been chafing at the bit, frustrated by the slow pace of the column, dictated by the excessive caution of his accompanying infantry. His English was no better than the major's German, but he understood what was wanted, and grinned at the prospect.
“Where you going, Major?” Capt. Chester ran to the Luchs, which Revell's section were boarding, finding handholds on the rear deck and hull sides. “This isn't the Second World War. You're not a tank-rider battalion. Where are you off to?”
“If you're needed, you'll get a call on the radio.”
With that Revell had to hold on tight as the eight-wheeler surged forward, demolishing a steel post and driving over the top of it.
Fear was no stranger to Revell. He experienced it every time he went into action. This occasion it was particularly strong, almost overwhelming. If he could have thought of any other way into the church, even with acceptable civilian casualties, he would have employed that method rather than this.
The rear of the building was in shadow, as were the courtyard approaches to it. There would be enough of the late afternoon light for the Russians to see them. Hopefully not sufficient for them to be accurately identified.
When they had first arrived, there had been a couple of shots from inside, but there had been no more. The screaming and crying had continued though, and had jarred on the men's nerves.
Andrea alone had remained undisturbed, unmoved by the distress they could hear. She had got on with her preparations, seemingly able to blot out or ignore what she heard.
Not for any reason that he could understand, Revell neatly folded his camouflage jacket and webbing, propping his submachine gun carefully against the pile.
“Smelly sods, these Spetsnaz.” Ripper sniffed the sleeve of the Russian battle dress.
“The particular sod who was wearing it spilt half his stomach and twenty-four hours of food and shit inside it. Your pants would stink after that.” Carrington wrenched the unfamiliar webbing around until he had it settled more comfortably. “I'll be glad to get mine off as- well though.”