HUNTER-KILLER.

by James Rouch.

'As I see it, World War Three will be fought in two places; in Western Europe, and on and under every d.a.m.ned inch of ocean around the globe.' Admiral Harvey J. Harrison, US Navy (Retired), in an off-the-record conversation before a televised debate on armament spending, June 1978.

The Atlantic. Aircraft from the USS Aircraft from the USS Carl Vinson, Carl Vinson, lead ship of the nuclear lead ship of the nuclearpowered task force commanded by Admiral Howard Murray, have made theirsecond 'kill' in three days, bringing to four the number of Soviet submarinesdestroyed by the Force in as many weeks. NATO sources have expressedconfidence that the threat to the convoy routes is steadily diminishing. Merchantshipping losses in the last quarter were down by 46 per cent, to 789,000 tons forthat theatre.

The Mediterranean. The Palestinian gunboat, Black September Black September (ex-Soviet (ex-SovietPoluchat cla.s.s patrol boat) has been sunk by the Israeli helicopter/missile craftAliya.A mixed force of British and American destroyers has sunk the Soviet fleetreplenishment ship Boris Chilikin Boris Chilikin (23,00 tons) and driven aground or damaged (23,00 tons) and driven aground or damagedthree Mirka cla.s.s frigates off Kinaros, at the entrance to the Aegean Sea. HMSBirmingham and USS and USS Dewey Dewey suffered some damage in the night engagement, but suffered some damage in the night engagement, but are remaining on station. are remaining on station.

The Pacific. Rescue and decontamination parties are now satisfied they have Rescue and decontamination parties are now satisfied they havelocated all of the survivors aboard the USS Nimitz. Nimitz. Rough weather has prevented Rough weather has preventedthe transfer of the. last of the casualties to the hospital ship Sanctuary, Sanctuary, but a but avolunteer medical team has established facilities aboard the carrier. With 140 feetof the bow and its island superstructure gone and the bodies of a thousand crewmembers still on board, it is thought likely, though the Navy Department has issuedno statement as yet, that the ship will eventually be sunk as a war grave. Thewarhead that inflicted the damage, killing 50 per cent of the 6,328 strongcomplement, is estimated at 5Kt.

The North Seal Baltic Approaches / Baltic. In the past week, five new hulls In the past week, five new hullshave been launched from the Soviet naval shipyards at Leningrad, and fourwarships have completed fitting-out, including a Kresta cla.s.s cruiser. Threerefitted destroyers and six new frigates have joined the squadrons working-up offthe coast of Poland.Increased radio activity and the ships'' deployment has been taken by the NATOIntelligence Staffs as an indication that the Russians may shortly attempt abreakout into the North Sea. If successful this would totally alter the balance ofpower in the area, and seriously threaten the resupply of NA TO ground forces inthe Zone.

There is intense diplomatic activity between Stockholm and Moscow, and it isthought likely that the Russians are bringing pressure to bear on Sweden to gainrights of pa.s.sage for Warsaw Pact combat vessels through her territorial waters. Ifthis is granted, then the Soviet ships will be able to avoid the extensive NATOminefields in the Kattegat. Strenuous efforts to counter the Russian move are beingmade by Western diplomats, who fear that such a concession could be theforerunner of an agreement between the two countries that would virtually takeSweden into the Soviet camp.

ONE.

Flames were coming from the port inner engine of the giant Ilyshin military transport. As the aircraft banked steeply towards the cover of broken cloud below, the feather-edged yellow streamer of fire spread along the high-set wing to its root. It seared away the banded green and brown camouflage paint and its furnace heat buckled the thin alloy skin of the fuselage. The blazing two-shaft turbofan suddenly broke from its pylon and whirled into s.p.a.ce, trailing a ribbon of blue smoke.

For an instant a bank of cloud hid the aircraft from sight, then as it emerged into clear sky once more, it was wracked by an internal explosion that littered the air with anonymous debris. Huge sheets of ragged metal were caught and tossed by the slip-stream. The nose of the Ilyshin dropped sharply as it began its last, uncontrolled descent.

There followed a second, more violent explosion that tore the flame-enveloped wing from the transport, and it rolled on to its back and began to break up as it went into a steep dive. A moment before the clouds hid it again, the rear cargo doors burst open and the sky was seeded with the burning fragments of its palletised load and the tumbling bodies of its handling crew.

'Don't get f.u.c.king excited. It's not a real-time transmission. The general likes a few tapes of edited highlights played when things are a little slack.' Major Revell didn't need to look away from the big screen and the operations room spread out below to know that it was Ol' Foul Mouth who stood behind him on the balcony. The dramatic scenes of the recording had already been replaced with grid, continent outline and vari-coloured coded symbols of the status chart as he turned from the rail. 'When do I get my command, Colonel?' 's.h.i.t, you still rumbling on about that?' Colonel Lippincott shied the half-inch stub of pencil into a waste basket on the floor below and xylophoned his teeth with a fresh one, before testing its composition with a crunching bite. 'Come with me, I'll explain how it is.'

Led at a fast pace half the length of the underground complex, Revell had no chance to repeat his question, as both keeping up and the narrowness of some pa.s.sageways prevented him from putting it again.

'Well?' Lippincott threw open a rivet-studded steel door to reveal a small room not more than ten by ten. The bare, rough hewn walls of natural rock were relieved at intervals by unframed rectangles of startlingly daubed canvas. 'So tell me, what d'yer think?'

Not certain what it was he was supposed to comment on, Revell played safe. 'It isn't what I was expecting.'

'You can bet your f.u.c.king a.r.s.e it isn't. You know, I got better than ninety-five square feet here. There's a two-star general down the corridor apiece who ain't got half that, and he has to share with a couple of buckets and a mini-mop. How d'yer like the paintings?' He didn't give Revell a chance to reply. 'Did them myself. Kinda hobby of mine.'

Grateful to have been spared the need to conjure up what could only have been an unconvincing 'very nice', Revell sat on the canvas sling of the metal-framed chair he was waved to, and waited for Ol' Foul Mouth to settle in the swivelling bucket-style seat on the other side of the wide polished desk that dominated the artificially lit room.

'My one little luxury.' Lippincott ran his hand over the beautifully waxed wood. 'Had to slip a couple of fifties to a horse-faced master sergeant to get it in, but I feel happier with it down here, tucked away nice and safe.' 'There must be a lot of German civvies up above who'd like to feel the same about themselves.'

's.h.i.t, they're safe enough.' Lippincott jerked his thumb towards the rock ceiling. 'They're a good twenty of their c.r.a.ppy kilometres from the Zone. Unless the Commies start breaking the rules again, and sling a few nukes around outside of it, they're safe. Give or take a spot of s.h.i.tty fallout, that is.' 'What about my command?' Revell was growing impatient with the drawn-out preliminaries.

Taking a file from the neat stack barely lining the bottom of a wire basket, Lippincott flicked it open and smoothed the top sheet of crisp white paper. 'Before we get to that, I got the Staff verdict on that little j ob you did for me.' 'Verdict?' There'd been no special emphasis on the word, but it warned Revell to be on his guard.

'That's what I f.u.c.king said. Seems the good citizens of Frankfurt got their knickers a mite twisted over that... shall we call it 'adventure', of yours.' The colonel's finger found a particular line on the double s.p.a.ced report. 'As I read it, seems like they could have forgiven you for scaring the c.r.a.p out of them with that false Nuke alert while you flattened one of their showpiece industrial estates; but what stuck in their craw was coming back out of their shelters to find you'd done a h.e.l.l of a demolition job on a key power station, and f.u.c.ked-up who knows how many millions of man-hours of war effort.' 'I did the job I was given. My men destroyed the Ruskie armoured column...' 'Yeah, and that's probably what saved your hide, otherwise by now you'd be a s.h.i.t-house cleaner, tenth cla.s.s.'

'Are you telling me I don't get the Special Combat Company I was promised three months back, is that it?' Revell leant forward and the top back rail of his chair clanged against the stone. 'I've got just seven men, seven. A couple of the survivors from that other group we absorbed might be worth hanging on to, but that's it.' He included Andrea in the number, counting her among the men. Judging by her ability to take care of herself, there was no reason why he should do otherwise.

'Sit still. h.e.l.l, there ain't the room to get excited and start jumping about in here.

OK, so that's how it is at the moment... now will you f.u.c.king sit, shut it, and listen...' Lippincott forestalled the objections and protest he sensed coming. 'Jesus, you b.a.s.t.a.r.ds with the combat commands think you're the only ones fighting this s.h.i.tty war. All you got to fight is sneak-punching Russians; me, I've got to do battle with a dozen different cruddy Staff whiz-kids every day. Every d.a.m.ned day. You know the latest bee they got in their swollen heads? Course you f.u.c.king don't. Private armies.'

A crudely secured extension vent, from the main air-conditioning trunk in the pa.s.sageway, gave a sudden shudder and a tinny clatter of vibration at a distant impact and vomited a spoonful of fine dust that floated down to settle on the desk top. It had hardly touched before Lippincott was deftly brushing it to the floor with a soft yellow cloth he took, neatly folded, from a top drawer. Only when the oak surface was once again without blemish did he flap the residue from his shoulders and his stump-encasing sleeve.

'You any idea how many brigade, divisional, even army commanders are trying to grab the headlines by forming special units? It's a h.e.l.l of a lot. Word has come down that it's got to stop. Too much dilution of effort is the reason given. Me, I reckon it's pressure from the guys running the Rangers and Commandos and the SAS. They don't want their thunder stolen.'

'So my new outfit gets its wings clipped even before it takes off.' The news wasn't a complete surprise to Revell. He'd been half expecting something like it.

'Yeah, but only clipped. A lot of others have been plucked, stuffed and cooked.' Closing the file, Lippincott replaced it, and took a second from a locked centre drawer. 'I got something else for you here, just to keep you ticking over. It's a toughie, but tailor-made for the size of your squad.' He paused a moment before going on. 'How you feel about starting a war?'

For a second Revell thought he must have misheard him. 'd.a.m.n it, Colonel, what have we got now? A two-hundred-mile wide no-man's-land running the length of Europe; ten million dead civvies, four times that number of refugees... what more do you want?'

'We want Sweden in the war, on our side. Finland could be forced into the Russian camp at any time, it's practically in it now. Like b.l.o.o.d.y Frog-land it's more f.u.c.king neutral to the Commies than it is to us.. Shoots at us if we only look that way, and meantime supplies the Ruskies with everything from ice-breakers to bootlaces and pyjama cords. If Sweden comes in on our side it would give us a good base from which to try and get back into the Baltic. Command aren't too happy about it having become a Russian lake, and with the Finns having to worry about the Swedish army they wouldn't be able to spare men to help the Russians in Norway.'

'The country's armament industry would be useful, too.' The attractions of the possibility were obvious to Revell.

'That'd be a bonus.'

'How is the miracle going to be worked? The Swedes are firmly neutral, they've been treading very careful with the Russians.' Lippincott smiled. 'The Ruskies are going to help us, but they don't know it yet. Come to that, they won't know until after they have. What's the weather like outside? I haven't been above ground for a week.'

To Revell the question seemed an irrelevance. 'Very cold, threatening snow. Why?'

'The weather boffins reckon all the little old ladies are being proved right at last. All those tactical nukes both sides have been so cheerfully chucking about inside the Zone have screwed the climate. Winter will be early this year, stay longer and bite a lot harder. Satellites tell us that the Russians are already having to do round- the-clock ice-breaking to keep Leningrad and the other northern Baltic ports and yards open. There's seven-tenths pack as far south as Gdansk and if they're going to get all the hardware their yards have been building or updating out into the Atlantic, then they'll have to be moving it real soon...'

'Where does my squad fit in, and how's Sweden going to be dragged in?'

'The Swedes have given the Commies the OK to make the pa.s.sage to open sea through their territorial waters, so we lose our chance to hit them in the narrows of the Baltic approaches. Once they reach the Skaggerak and the North Sea they'll spread out, have more room to manoeuvre, and altogether be a f.u.c.king tough target. Any we miss will be able to play havoc with either the Brits' oil-rigs or our convoy routes. Just when it begins to look like we got the measure of their subs, they're going to chuck surface units our way.' Spitting with machine-gun rapidity and accuracy, Lippincott sent fragments of soggy pencil wood into an ashtray...

'We're going to dump you and your men on a small island inside Swedish territorial waters, where the Russians will have to pa.s.s close. You'll be given enough firecrackers to scare the s.h.i.t out of the Commies as they come racing out of the narrows between Sweden and the occupied Danish islands. If our Russian friends perform as per usual, they'll plaster the nearest Swedish territory with everything they've got. You should have a nice ringside seat for the first battle between the Commies and our newest ally.'

'And what if they're not so obliging?' The many problems the thumbnail sketch of the mission presented crowded in upon Revell. 'If the Ruskies don't lash out, then you'll have a multiple warhead Lance missile to stir them into action yourself. Nothing that'll do them any real harm, but it should get the party going.' Swivelling back and forth in his chair, and chewing furiously, Lippincott waited for the major's reaction.

'My men will be on the nearest chunk of Sweden when the Russians open fire. I'd like to know just how much ordnance is likely to come our way. What's the size of the force that'll be making the breakout?'

'Can't be sure at this stage. You'll get provisional figures before you go, and we'll feed you updates once you're established.' 'What's the estimate? There must be a number flying around somewhere.'

'It's only a guess, but Staff are working on the a.s.sumption there'll be ten major units and thirty-plus destroyers, frigates and mine hunters as escorts. You'll only be going for the big stuff, cruisers and the like.'

'And what do we hit them with? The Swedes have a good radar net. If we're going to land undetected we have to be travelling light. Since when has NATO had a weapon with a decent range, the ability to resist jamming and get through a ship's close-in defences, with a warhead. hefty enough to upset the captain of a fifteen thousand ton cruiser, that'll fit into a shoe box?'

's.h.i.t, range won't matter much. The Ruskies will have to pa.s.s within four miles of the island, probably less. They ain't the best seamen in the war, they'll allow a healthy margin for navigation error. Those s.h.i.ts know that if they stick so much as a double thickness of battleship grey outside the limits, we'll hit it with everything we've got. We can get around jamming by using a weapon that's just point and fire. If it doesn't employ guidance then it can't be b.u.g.g.e.red by electronic countermeasures. As for getting past the ships' SAMs and radar directed gatlings, they'll be beaten by saturation tactics. Send twenty rockets at a target, don't matter if it's bristling with every type of flak, some of them are going to get through, especially in the minimal flight time we're envisaging.'

'That's not a description of any anti-shipping missile that I know of.' 'That's cause it's not. The British gunners who are going with you will have simple, lightweight, trailer-mounted versions of our standard 125mm multiple rocket launchers. The sort our artillery boys use all the time. f.u.c.king clever, ain't it? The Ruskies will have planned for everything; mines, torpedoes, air-attacks, the lot, you name it they'll be ready for it. The one thing they won't be prepared for is for you to have a go at them from a direction they'll not be expecting with a weapon that's never been used that way before.'

A major drawback occurred to Revell. 'OK, it sounds smart, but even if they all get through to the target, 125mm rounds are going to do little more than skin damage to those big battlewagons. They'll shrug it off like so many flea bites and plough on.'

'We're one ahead of you. Going back a bit, one of our destroyers off 'Nam was on the receiving end of an accidental near miss from an air-launched missile one of our pilots let go by mistake. It was a Shrike I think, anyway, it had a fragmentation head and when it banged off right over our ship it took out all her radar, diced better than twenty of her crew and stopped the tub dead in the water. It was kept kinda quiet at the time. The babies you'll be taking have been fitted with similar heads. If just one of them bangs off over a Ruskie ship it'll be as good as poking the f.u.c.ker's eyes out. Any Commie admiral should take that serious enough.' 'Maybe if we did enough damage we could force them to turn around, go back for repairs. That'd lock them up for the rest of the winter.'

'Don't start getting over-ambitious, Major. That's what the city fathers of Frankfurt were beefing about. Just do the job as it's given you. If you manage to knock them about, sufficient to soften them up for a reception by the Brit Navy when they reach open sea, good. But just remember, Copenhagen is not so far from there. At the moment the Ruskies are accepting the Danes' declaration of it being an open city: they've occupied it, but they ain't harmed it yet. You overdo things and that might change. We need the Free Danish Forces. No point in roping Sweden into the fight if we upset and maybe lose an established member of NATO in the process.'

'Alright, so let's a.s.sume it all goes according to plan, and the Commies and the Swedes start chucking ordnance at each other. What about my men? We'll be in the middle of the cauldron, and back-loading our equipment is not going to be easy. If we leave a load of NATO gear on the island it won't take the Swedes long to figure out that someone has been doing some stirring. Could rather spoil things.'

'Ain't that the truth. When you've done, you'll destroy what you can't carry. It'll have to be done thorough, but it's a small price to pay for f.u.c.king up a Soviet fleet.'

'What about the men? Are you fitting them with self-destruct mechanisms?'

Coming from another man Lippincott might have seen humour in the question but not from Revell, strait-laced crud! 'The planning ain't got that far yet, but you'll be picked up as soon as the excitement dies down, or moves elsewhere. Sub, or chopper, or surface craft; we ain't sure yet.' He tidied the sheets of paper together. 'The rest you'll get at briefing before the 'off'. We've got to move real fast on this one. Met reckon the Commies will have to make a move inside the next eight days. I want you and your crowd kitted and on your way within twenty-four hours. Oh yeah, a last piece of good news. You won't be exactly making a landing on the island, leastways, not the way you mean, from the sea. I've arranged a little treat for you, you're going in by parachute.'

'The h.e.l.l we are! Better find yourself another suicide squad. None of my men are trained, give it to the SAS or the Screaming Eagles. I'm beginning to think you s.n.a.t.c.hed the mission from them in the first place.' 'Scared the s.h.i.t out of you, have I?'

'No,' Revell kept the irritation out of his voice, but it took an effort. 'No, you just wasted my time.' He made to leave.

'OK, so I was only kidding, you're not actually making a drop. Well, not a real one.'

'You want to try explaining that piece of gobbledygook, or shall I keep heading for the door?'

'Ever seen parachute extraction?'

'Where a transport comes in low and slow with its rear doors open and chutes deploy to drag out a sled-mounted cargo? Sure, I've seen it... you want my men to go to war that way? Are you crazy, that's strictly hardware only.' 'They've refined it a bit...'

'What did they do, fit the sledge with springs so it can pogo back inside if it goes down in the wrong place?'

Again Lippincott sensed no light intent behind the remark. 'I'm telling you, it's OK. There'll be three pallets. One will carry the launchers, their ammunition and the demolition charges, along with most of the electronics gadgets you'll be taking. Another will have a generator, a small tractor for dispersing the launchers and moving your stores, and your support arms and ammunition. Number three will have a cabin that you'll all ride down in.' 'And you think the Swedish Airforce is just going to stooge around and watch us while we land and set up camp...'

'You won't even see them. Your flight will replace a scheduled civvy run. When you approach your DZ your pilot will report engine trouble to Swedish air traffic control and act like he's got problems. He'll lose alt.i.tude and drop you off just before the difficulty miraculously rights itself and he turns away for home. Far as the Swedes are concerned, it'll be a routine flight that just got hairy for a moment or two.'

O'l Foul Mouth had a way of presenting a mission that Revell didn't like. What had doubtless been long thought over and meticulously worked on by experienced planning Staffs, he made sound hasty and improvised. While riding shotgun for a bunch of gunners wasn't the best job Revell had been offered, it would do as a stopgap, serve to keep the nucleus of his new command together, if it ever materialised. His life seemed a succession of stopgaps; his battles, his women, each briefly enjoyed then discarded as he hurried to the next, and hopefully better experience.

'You'll pick up your equipment and the group you're to escort at Bremen. You'll fly out from there.' Lippincott rose to conclude the meeting. 'Best round up that cutthroat mob of yours, fast as you can. Where are they now, what they doing?'

'Manning a Zone perimeter checkpoint. They'll have their hands too full of refugees to get into any trouble there.'

'You're forgetting I know that crowd, and so do you. Neither of us believe that, not for a f.u.c.king second.'

TWO.

'I hope the lieutenant knows what he's doing. We're supposed to be making sure the refugees stay in the Zone, not helping them get out.' Burke looked out from the uncurtained window, along the road to the checkpoint.

A bedraggled group of elderly civilians was shuffling through the gap that had been opened in the barricade. The moment the last one was clear Lieutenant Hogg hauled the wire-festooned pole back into place, laying it across the top of the concrete-filled oil drums. He was hampered by several of the party attempting to crowd about him and offer their thanks. An old lady in a mud-spattered suede coat kept grabbing at his hand, trying to kiss it.

'Now how far are they going to get, dressed like a load of scarecrows?' Ripper's southern drawl was accentuated by a succession of yawns, and he tucked a blanket more snugly about his legs as he lay slumped on the couch. 'Folks in these parts are s.h.i.t scared of the Zone, reckon anyone who gets out carries every disease from anthrax to the black death, and glows in the dark to boot. They'll be lucky to travel another mile, and luckier still if all that happens is that they're picked up and shoved back in.'

Ushering the civilians away with a pantomime of urgency, the young officer freed his sleeve from a rusty barb and walked back to the Iron Cow. The hover- APC was parked at the side of the road, straddling the fence it had crushed when it came to rest. Its turret-mounted Rarden cannon, supposed to be covering the road- block, drooped, and still had its bell-shaped muzzle draped with a sc.r.a.p of oily cloth against the flurries of sleet.

'He's not doing them any favours. Those Krauts think he's smiling because he's glad to be helping them. If only they knew, he's doing it because he reckons the fighting in the Zone will be simpler if he empties it of civvies.' Burke watched Libby stand aside on the vehicle's lowered front ramp to let the lieutenant in, then once more fill the doorway as he scrutinised the face of each refugee filing past. Totally absorbed in the inspection he was making, he appeared oblivious of the cold and discomfort.

Burke went back to the fire, and tossed on to it a couple of chair legs picked from among the pile of broken furniture that provided its crackling fuel. Their impact sent a ma.s.s of sparks up the chimney. 'This isn't a bad little number we've got here. I hope the lieutenant isn't about to louse it up. There's b.l.o.o.d.y millions of civvies trapped in the Zone. If word gets round that we're holding the door open, the trickle we're getting through this back road at the moment will turn into a ruddy flood. Then there'll be some questions.'

'h.e.l.l, what's the worst they can do to us?' Ripper stretched. 'They can only send us back into combat. And they'll be doing that soon enough anyway.'

Using his boot, Burke tried to return an ember to the grate, but only managed to bring down two more. 'I'd prefer it later than sooner. So would Dooley, he can't get visits from his girlfriends in the Zone.'

'Friends they may be, girls never. Leastways, not for a long, long time.' York came out of the kitchen, surrounded by blue smoke. 'The meal might be a little late. The gas must have been cut, there's hardly any pressure.' 'Doesn't seem to be affecting your cooking. You're still burning everything.' 'I'm a f.u.c.king good cook, could have been a chef.' He offered Burke the dripping spatula he carried like a badge of office. It wasn't accepted. 'So shut up then.' He listened. A steady 'thump-thump, thump-thump' could be heard. It came from the next room, sounding like heavy furniture being rhythmically b.u.mped into the wall, it went on and on. 'He's never still at it, is he? What can the f.u.c.king over- s.e.xed b.u.g.g.e.r be doing now.'

'I'd say you hit it on the head first time.' Ripper punched the cushions into a more comfortable configuration. 'I reckon he's about done with f.u.c.king, and he's started b.u.g.g.e.ring. He sure does like variety. Ain't ever known anybody who liked doing it so many different ways, 'cepting a cousin of mine who kinda got a hankering-for the livestock.'

Having failed to return the brand, Burke lost patience with it and crushed it into charcoal dust. 'I don't know about that, but did you see the old piece he took in there?' He nodded at the bedroom door. 'She must be into her fifties, must be.'

'Can't say I've ever been with one that old myself.' Reaching out, Ripper lifted a slim-necked green wine bottle from the side of the fire. He jiggled it against the light to gauge its contents, then pulled the protruding cork with his teeth before taking a long pull at a lukewarm liquid. 'Ain't a touch on a decent rye, but,' s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up his eyes he examined the label and tried to decipher the elaborate entwined script, 'but I just might be getting a taste for this here schnapps. We stay here much longer and I'll have to see if I can't lay in a supply. Where was I? Oh yeah, like I was saying, I ain't never had one that old. Come to that, apart from a hairy old dame I ran errands for when I was a kid, who used to take out my c.o.c.k and squeeze it when I got the change wrong, I ain't had no relations with any female over eighteen or so. What do you think they're like when they're getting on a spell, all kinda discoloured and crinkled at the edges, and maybe smelling a bit?'

'Sounds like a description of York's cooking.' The spatula hit the side of the fireplace as Burke ducked.

Only for a moment did the slamming of the kitchen door drown out the continual reverberations of Dooley's excesses in the next room.

A draught of cold air blasted in with Andrea and circled the stuffy room for several seconds after she closed the door behind her She propped her grenade- discharger fitted M16 against the back of the couch before taking off her helmet and slipping out of the glistening rain cape. Draping the dripping garment over the back of the remaining empty chair, she dried her face and hands on the crumpled curtain she took from the top of a sideboard. The large bra.s.s rings still attached to it clinked as she rubbed the last beads of icy water from her fringe.

'We will be moving out shortly. The lieutenant said we are to be ready.' There was no need for her to do anything to get the men's attention, she knew before she looked up that she would have an audience. The surge of cold air and the opening and closing of the doors had woken Clarence; now his head appeared out the top of the sleeping bag against the far wall. 'That will please York. His culinary efforts must be about nearing fruition, or is that a dead goat I can smell?'

'Sod York.' Burke dismissed their volunteer cook's feelings with an airy wave of his hand, then gestured dramatically at the bedroom door, 'Who's going to break Dooley's concentration and give him the bad news.' The non-stop thump-thumping had become a rapid thumpity-thumping. Andrea heard, understood, and without hesitation crossed the room and grasped the door handle. Ripper jumped from the couch and caught up in time to grab her wrist. 'I don't think that's such a good idea. Either he's going to shoot your pretty head off, or he's gonna reckon you're offering to make up a threesome and then he's liable to grab you before you get a chance to explain.'

'I know his temper, with that I can cope, as for the other ... I do not think he is suicidal.' Shaking off the restraining grip with ease Andrea pushed into the room. 'f.u.c.k off, I'm busy.' Dooley didn't even slow down, let alone falter. He had the woman bent over a dressing-table against the part.i.tion wall, and was frantically taking her from behind, his pants rucked in grubby folds around his ankles. The ample flesh of the overweight bodies slapped together with a loud wet clapping noise that failed to smother the woman's screams when she realised they were no longer alone.

'We are to be ready to move at once, the major will be back soon.' Andrea's expression didn't alter as she unblinkingly took in the scene.