Body Count (12 page)

He shouted as loudly as he could, but neither his imperfect German, or English, made any impression on his attackers. Blows rained against his arms and hands where he clung to the MP5. Fingers were plucking at his holster, trying to remove his pistol.

It was the struggling and tussling of the mob itself that prevented their immediate success. Several though had fastened strong grips on his submachine gun, and he could not resist their efforts much longer.

There was a face at the back that Revell recognized. It was Sophia. She was trying to pull the men off, calling to them, but failing to have any effect. Constantly she had to pick herself up after being knocked aside by the mad scramble.

A shot rang out, deafeningly loud in the confined space. The bullet penetrated the suspended ceiling and brought down a light fitting and a shower of fragments of plastic. Still lit, the neon swung back and forth, making wild shadow patterns on faces.

Two more shots rang out and destroyed other panels and neons above them before the crowd finally backed off. The shouting and baying halted, and Sophia took advantage of the lull to tell everyone she could reach that she knew Revell.

Andrea had her MP5 levelled at the attackers, who were now slowly pressing back into the main body of the crowd. Apart from them a little, stood a police officer, not knowing which side to join.

Crossing to Revell, Sophia looked as if she would have put her arms about him, but she saw Andrea's expression and stopped short in front of him.

“I am sorry. We are all frightened. There have been shots at some who tried to leave, to see what was happening. We thought the Russians had taken the city.”

“Well, they haven't, not all of it. Are things bad down here?”

“It is getting worse. There have been fights. There is talk that one man was killed on the platform, and that others were wounded by knives and bottles. How much longer shall we be down here?”

He could hear the strain in Sophia's voice. For the first time he was conscious of being able to hear a constant undercurrent of groaning and crying coming from the crowd. Occasionally there would be an aggressive demand for silence, followed by a loud slap and then more shouting from several voices, accompanied by ever louder wailing.

“I understood they were going to get you all out through the subway system. Has nothing been done?”

“A few have been seen to go into the tunnels. Most are too frightened to make the attempt. I believe it is far worse down there. They have no sanitation for such numbers.”

I’ll see if I can find out what's supposed to be happening. As I understood it, everything was organized.”

Accompanied by both women, Revell went to the entrance and a few steps up towards street level, to get better radio reception. Though he tried for several minutes, he had no better luck than earlier.

His men wouldn't like it, but they could cope with being hunted by one of their own gunships, until the situation was brought under control somehow. But the civilians below needed reassurance. There was none he could give them. It wasn't even wise to mention the evacuation plan, in case it had been dropped. A false hope could be as dangerous as a real fear in these conditions.

“Does no one care? They can have no idea what conditions are like in the shelters.” Sophia was near to tears.

“I expect everything is being thrown in to the effort to clear the Russians out first.” Revell could think of no other excuse to make. “It's unpleasant I know, but they are safe.”

In truth though, that wasn't something that Revell could be certain of at all. He thought again of those senior officers he'd seen in the bunker. There might be those among them who were brilliant at organizing logistics - the nuts and bolts of running and feeding an army - but this was a situation they were hardly equipped to handle.

The comfort of the air-conditioned bunker, with its generous allocation of space, gave them no insight into what it was actually like for the other half million in the city. Very likely they had not even given it a thought, taking it for granted that the conditions that prevailed for them were universal.

The general's bunker had been built long before the war. Originally it had been solely intended for use as a civil defence operations centre, in a post nuclear strike scenario.

Shelters built at the start of the war, for the mass of the population, had few of the same refinements. Civilian administrations had balked at the high expenditure involved in fitting all of them out to that standard. In the majority of cases, air- filtration, sanitation, and the necessary stocks of food and medical supplies had been given scant attention.

The rapid advances of the first Russian attack on West Germany had triggered a defeatist attitude among many politicians. Many had even tried to convince themselves that occupation was for the best. In their eyes, it would at least result in reunification.

But the stalling and then staying of the onslaught, resulted in the formation of the huge north-south no-man's-land-the Zone. With the armies locked in battle within that well-defined area, those who opposed the shelter program had been able to get it cut back. What was happening in Munich was the consequence of that.

Ripper vaulted down into the stairwell. “Major, we've spotted a squad of Reds trying to hot-wire a truck. Think it could be the ones who shot their own buddies?”

“How many of them are there?”
“Five. Sgt. Hyde has gone after them. He's taken four men and the machine gun.”

Even as Ripper spoke, from a block away came a rattle of automatic fire, punctuated by several grenade explosions.

TWENTY
Andrea had been deliberately edging closer to Sophia, realizing that her proximity made the girl uncomfortable. She tried to see what Revell had seen in her.

Attractive, in a soft well-manicured way, but the makeup applied hours before did nothing for her now. Lack of sleep, stress, and the conditions below had smudged or removed most of it. Her clothes, too, Andrea noted, were soiled and crumpled. Yet still, she sensed, the major was attracted to her.

Having reduced the girl to a shivering bundle of nerves, Andrea moved away and contented herself with staring at her, while toying with her submachine gun.

They moved up to the street when they heard Hyde returning. Sophia hung back at the top of the stairs.

“Four down.” Hyde was pushing a Russian ahead of him. “This one tried playing dead, until Scully kicked him in the balls.”

“We'll drop him off at the command bunker on the way. If they've got their act together, they'll be able to carry out some sort of interrogation. I doubt they'll get much though.”

If the Russian had understood, as was likely, Revell gave him credit for not showing it. His face wore a sullen frown, and he looked out at his captors from under bushy eyebrows as he kept his head bowed.

Scully produced an antitank rocket launcher. “They had this. I suppose other groups will have them as well.”

“More than likely.” Revell examined the weapon. A bullet had smashed the trigger group, rendering it useless. “Did they have anything else of interest?”

“Only these.” Hyde displayed a pack of demolition charges and small antipersonnel mines. “No papers of any description.”

“We'll hang on to the ordnance.” Listening for the gun-ship, Revell thought he could detect the faint and distant beat of its rotors, but couldn't be certain. “Best we move out to our next objective, before that maniac does another sweep over this quarter.”

Even as he said it, the chopper lifted over the buildings at the far side of the formal gardens and its roar burst upon them.

There was no chance to dive into cover. As the machine swooped closer, Revell could only throw himself down in the road. Before he cradled his head in his arms, he had a clear view of the stubby barrel of the chain gun mounted below the craft's fuselage and of the half-empty rocket pods on its stub wings. A salvo pulverized cars on the other side of the road.

Their prisoner grabbed his chance, tugging himself away from Sgt. Hyde, who tried to pull him to the ground. He looked around once, and then bolted for the entrance to the subway.

Hyde could only shield his eyes against the storm of dust thrown up as the gunship passed very low overhead. From somewhere he heard a shout that carried even above the noise of flailing blades and screaming twin engines.

As the blast of sound diminished, it was replaced by another. The first shout was joined by others that blended with it to create a banshee howl. Above that rose a scream of agony that transcended any Hyde had ever heard.

It went higher and higher, reaching a note it did not seem possible for a human voice to attain and hold. For a moment it dropped to a racking sob, then soared once more, to end abruptly and be replaced once more by the howl.

With Revell, the sergeant raced for the steps. When they reached the bottom it took a moment for their eyes to adjust to the gloom. Before them a tightly packed crowd backed away in a semicircle from a bundle of rags on the floor.

The bundle moved spastically, ugly slithering sounds coming from it. Bending closer, hesitating before he reached out, Hyde turned the bundle over.

Tearing fingernails had clawed the Russian's face until there was nothing left beyond scraps of ragged flesh adhering to cheek and jawbones. Everything else was gone. Close to the still moving man lay an arm, pulled off in a frenzied tug-of- war as he was fought over. The remaining limbs were resting at odd angles to the victim, all were clearly broken. Ends of bone grated together as the Spetsnaz sol- dier writhed.

Taking out his pistol, Hyde held it close to the Russian's head and pulled the trigger. A final convulsive spasm shook the Russian as fragments of skull and spongy brain matter flew across the floor, and then it was over.

“Let's get out of here.” Revell was all too well aware that he had come perilously close to meeting a similar fate in that place.

As he backed out, the mob edged forward to once more engulf the body. Neither Revell or Hyde looked back to see what they were doing with it.

The same priest was at the door when Revell left Sophia at the Theatiner Church. He had looked out at the men with the major, seen their tired, dirt-streaked faces, the blood on their battle dress and weapons.

Without having to ask, he knew that his prayers had been in vain. Before closing the door, he watched them go. All his life he had been a pacifist, now as he turned back into the church he discovered a doubt in his mind. He looked at the many young men in the pews. Most were foreign labourers, brought in to maintain production at the many armament factories; others were tourists. But there were a number, a larger number than he might have expected - who were German.

There had been a time when he had admired the courage, as he had thought of it, of those who had dared to say that they would not fight. Now he was reconsidering his attitude. Pacifism had always been a cornerstone of his belief.

Where was the courage in letting others give their lives for you? At worst, those young men had to put up with scorn and insults. That might take away their dignity, their self-esteem at times, but it let them keep their lives.

Making his way to the altar once more, the priest found a quiet corner and went down on his knees, bowing his head low.

His prayer was an inward thing, the words being framed but not uttered by his lips. Before, he had prayed that the major would not have to kill. This time, the priest added the supplication that he should have the strength not to condemn the officer if he had to.

As they passed the New Town Hall on the way to their objective, Revell had half-expected to come under fire from the bunker entrance. To ward off the possibility, he tried repeatedly to get through on the radio as they approached. Still he could get nothing.

Overhead a second gunship had joined the first. They beat back and forth across the city. Sometimes they would dive out of sight, then there would come the sound of rocket and cannon fire. Shortly after came the multiple, devastating impacts.

“Looks like they're attacking targets of opportunity.” Hyde listened to another long burst of cannon fire. “They can't be under any sort of ground control. They're treating Munich like a free-fire zone.”

“I'd like to know why.” Revell took a swig from a can of lemonade. “From the shooting we can hear, I'd say there must be other hunting teams engaging the Russians around here. At this rate, how long is it going to be before we bump into one, and get involved in a shoot-out with our own side?”

TWENTY-ONE
The door to the bunker was almost off its hinges, partially concealing a body; and from what Revell could see of its condition, a grenade had done the damage.

Just inside were three more dead and the mangled remains of a machine gun. Sections of splintered furniture were scattered about. Smoke from their smouldering edges bit into his throat and made his eyes water.

“No bodies outside.” Hyde stepped over a large puddle of blood. “How the hell could the Reds have got close enough to use grenades without getting casualties?”

Carrington entered behind them, paused, and ran his hand over the back of the door. “Major, that grenade went off right inside. All the gouge marks are in the back of the timber. If it had been thrown from the street, how did it do that?”

“Spetsnaz often use NATO uniforms.” Looking at the scorch marks on the walls and ceiling, Hyde knew the corporal was correct. The door must have been almost closed when the explosion occurred. “Maybe they tricked their way inside?”

“Not very likely.” Revell recalled his own reception by the guards. “The mood these men were in, it was definitely shoot first and ask questions later.

“The alternative is that they got in through the main building, and came out this way. That doesn't look good.”

Submachine gun at the ready, Revell started down the stairs. The lights were still on, but the air-conditioning was not. Dust and smoke hung in the air. There was a strong smell of cordite, and other less easily identified odours.

In the corridor the sentry lay dead. He had been killed by a single shot through the head. The arrangement of his body and the position of the wound suggested he had been turning to see who was coming through the double doors behind him. They were half-open. As Revell stepped through, he knew what he was going to find. Each room contained its quota of dead. The Russians had worked systematically through the bunker.