Body Count (13 page)

“Must have used silencers.” Hyde pulled bodies aside to check if any of those at the bottom still lived. “Got in, killed the staff, opened the door, got the sentry before he could give the alarm and then bombed the door guard. By that time it didn't matter what noise they made. There was no one left to hear.” 

In the communication room Revell found every piece of equipment smashed. In confirmation of their reconstruction, they also found a dead Russian paratrooper. When they turned him over, they discovered his silenced pistol underneath.

A police officer had managed to unholster his own gun and use it to good effect. The weapon was still grasped in his hand.

All of the officers were dead. Among them was Col. Klee. Right at the end he had tried to redeem himself. His body shielded that of one of the women telephone operators. It had been a sadly futile gesture. Bullets had passed through his thin frame and killed her also.

Whirling around as he heard a noise behind him, Hyde's finger tightened over his trigger. The sound came from a small side room. He went through. It was coming from within a storage cupboard, tucked away at the end of a row of lockers.

A body obstructed the door. He pulled it away and, covered by the major, snatched it open.

“We could hear you moving. You'd never be any good at hide and seek.” Hyde immediately regretted his flippancy.

Gebert collapsed into Revell's arms. Sweat poured down his face, soaking his collar. His pants were wet to the knee from another source. “We thought they had come back. I had cramp, I could not help it.”

Aware for the first time that he had wet himself, Gebert tried to cover the large damp patches with a bloodstained folder.

From out of the cupboard behind him came Stadler. The chief of police looked grim, despite having to blink and shield his eyes against the unaccustomed glare. “Did they get everyone?”

“Looks as if they weren't in a mood for taking prisoners. How did they get in?” Revell assisted the mayor to a chair.

“From upstairs.” Gebert fanned himself with the folder, then recalled what it had covered and put it on his lap. “They must have known the layout precisely. Those damned agents again. There can be nothing about this city that the enemy does not know.”

“They didn't know about your cupboard.” 

Despite what he had been through, Gebert smiled. It faded as swiftly as it appeared, when he noticed the body that had been pulled aside. “I suppose when they caught him in here, they assumed no one else was hiding.”

Stadler had brushed himself and straightened his tie. He pushed his hair back into place. “There is now absolutely no control over what is happening in the city, besides any that might have been established at a purely local level. We've got to regain overall control. Do your men still hold the police headquarters?”

“I presume so. With a couple of platoons and that armoury, it would take more than a plane load of Russians to retake it.”

“Then we must transfer there, Major. As quickly as possible.”

They left the way they had entered, slipping and sliding on the partially congealed mess on the door. The air outside tasted better, but carried the stench of smoke from burning vehicles.

“My poor city. Poor, Munich.” Gebert forgot his own discomfort as he saw several dark columns rising high over the rooftops. “The Russian barbarians are destroying it, piece by piece.”

Stadler noticed several dead civilians on the road. “And its people, but they are doing that at a much faster rate.”

It was only a few hundred meters to police headquarters. The journey took them forty-five minutes. Cutting the corner of Marienplatz, they came under fire from a sniper post on the top floor of a bank.

From the scattering of huddled forms, it was clear the gunman had been active for a while.

Some civilians, caught in the open, had been pinned down. They cowered behind flower tubs and benches, too terrified to move.

Revell saw a woman, driven by desperation, make a break from behind a pot of shrubs towards a side street. She had gone perhaps ten steps when the first shot caught her and she stumbled. Dragging her right leg, she tried to go on, but a second bullet passed through her body. Collapsing silently, she lay still.

Dooley looked to the major for permission, before unslinging the last of their rocket launchers. He sighted carefully before firing.

The missile soared the short distance to the target in a dead-straight trajectory. As Dooley had intended, the high-explosive warhead impacted immediately below the window from which the sniper was operating.

Intended to withstand the armour of main battle tanks, the fabric of the building presented no impediment to the jet of molten material projected into the room.

Every window was blasted out by the pressure generated, as blast and flame flattened thin partition walls and roared through the top floor of the bank.

When they moved on once more, they attracted no more sniper fire.

TWENTY-TWO
“Was Col. Klee among the dead in the bunker?” Stadler took off a headset and rubbed his ears with the palms of his hands.

“Yes, he was.” Revell had to think for a moment. “In the circumstances, it's for the best. His life would have been very unpleasant when all this was over. Why do you want to know now?”

“Because if he wasn't, I'd just made up my mind to kick him in the balls. Several times. Very hard.”

The commissioner looked at the handful of officers working in the communications room. Less than a third of the positions were filled, and those by inexperienced operators. “The men I detailed to accompany his column from the barracks tell me that they're still there, and not likely to move in the foreseeable future. I've men being killed and others working themselves into nervous breakdowns, and they won't move without an order in writing.”

“What about those gunships? Have you been able to do anything about them?” As he spoke Revell could hear the distant stutter of the chain-guns engaging.

“I managed to get through to air-traffic control. They're trying to contact them. I'm hoping it'll be soon.”

“What about the shooting in the centre?” “It seems that groups of my men formed themselves into impromptu SWAT teams. It appears they are having some success, but they need ammunition and reinforcement to maintain the pressure.”

“You've riot vehicles parked below.” Revell recalled the transport that had sheltered them during the earlier assault on the HQ. “Put a squad in each. Knock out the windows and pad the sides with loads of spare body armour, and there you are, improvised APCs.”

“Good.” Stadler got through to the armoury on the internal phone. “We'll use police drivers. They will know all the back roads.”

“If they do draw fire, it'll enable us to locate others of the Russian squads.” Through the window Revell could see several pillars of smoke rising in the early afternoon air. He waited until the commissioner had finished on the phone.

“I think those fires are spreading. What's the position with the fire service?” “That I would like to know, Major. Not long after I went to the bunker, every unit and crew was ordered out of the city. The instruction came from the highest level in their service. I need hardly add that we can not trace Herr Friedmann, who issued it. It is my hope that we shall be able to eventually. Also he lied about summoning help from outside Munich.”

“Can't you get them back?” In the street below, Revell saw that the trees were swaying in a breeze sufficiently strong to shake a continual rain of leaves. Cinders and sparks were landing with them, and smouldering.

“Some I have been able to recall. Also machines that sabotage had put out of action are now mobile again. We can deploy those to contain the situation. For once the cleverness of the enemy agents has rebounded on them.”

Mayor Gebert bustled into the room. “Sorry, Karl. What a time to get the shits. How are we doing?” He scanned the screens, making little sense of them.

“Not as bad as we might be. I established contact with the out lying police station. They have men standing by to come in as we call for them. Army territorial units can't help much. They've been reduced to cadre level by recent drafts. I hadn't realized just how bad the manpower and equipment situation was after that last call up of reservists and the combing out of depot staffs.”

“The column from the airport?” Gebert picked up a sandwich from a stack on a side table, opened it up for a look inside, pulled a face, and put it back.

“Still stalled three kilometres from the centre. Looks like the Reds anticipated such a move and established roadblocks. The column has lost some armour, but they're looking for a way round.”

“Tell them not to lose contact altogether with the Russian groups. Have diem leave a token force to keep them busy.”

Stadler exchanged glances with Revell. “The major has already suggested that.”

“Yes, yes, of course you would. Sorry, Major, must learn to leave military matters to the military. Great, isn't it? Here I am, holding the position I've always dreamed of, and when it comes to a situation like this, I'm as useful as a tit on a nun.” An agonized look crossed Gebert's face. “Oh Christ, I've got to go again. You know where I'll be if you need me.”

“As the mayor has so much, eh, on his mind,” Stadler waited until he was out of hearing, “there is something else you should know, Major.”

“I figured things were sounding too good all of a sudden. So what's the problem?”

Stadler punched up a display. “Here you see all the locations where my men are engaging the Russians, but there is one fire fight in which none of my men are involved.”

“A group of officers who've lost contact? Maybe They’ve no radio.” “I cannot believe that several sets would malfunction at the same time. Impossible. The volume of gunfire reported is considerable. Too much for my men to get close enough to determine what is happening.”

“Then we're getting help we didn't ask for.” “That's the trouble. We did ask for it, or rather Col. Klee asked for it.” Stadler threw a notebook across the room. “I don't know who they are, or how they got here, but I suspect that the garrison commander's invitation to a free-for-all has been accepted.”

“And your men are unable to determine who's involved?” Revell wondered how hard they had tried, in the face of heavy fire.

“I know what you think. Two were wounded while trying. I feel like I am sitting on a powder keg.” Stadler blanked the screen. “A measure of control has been restored, but there are still half a million civilians trapped in the shelters. There is one right under this private battle. It holds over a thousand. If they should flood onto the streets...”

“The Russians would use the opportunity to shift position in the confusion. That's what they're like. They'd certainly not hesitate to use the crowd as human shields.” That was a tactic Warpac troops had grown skilled at using. Revell had often seen them employ it in battles in the Zone. They would advance, driving a wall of refugees before them, and frequently they had deliberately situated supply bases and static units in among the scattered settlements. 

“I also believe they would do that. For many of the civilians, their breaking point must be close. It will not take much to generate mass hysteria in a crowded shelter. They will run out onto the street like so many lemmings. Others will hear what is happening, and there will be a chain reaction.”

“It'll result in a bloodbath.” It needed no great feat of imagination on Revell's part to picture what such an event would be like. The blind stampede and its accompanying frenzy would kill and maim thousands, many more than the Russian bullets.

Even with the infiltrators eliminated, the result would be a mass exodus from the city and the total dislocation of vital war work. Demoralization on such a scale could even bring the West Germans to sue for a separate peace, when its inevitable domino effect had rippled through the whole country.

Stadler felt very tired, and knew he looked it. In the run up to the Oktoberfest, he had been working eighteen hours a day. Like the city as a whole he had been looking forward to the beer festival as an outlet, a chance to unwind. Instead, this had happened.

“Major Revell. I will do anything to save this city from the fate the Russians are trying to bring about. I will not see it ruined or its people slaughtered through enemy action, or through their own panic. We must bring matters under control. We must do it very quickly.”

“I’ll take my best men and find out what's happening.” Stadler made ready to put on his headset again. “While my men cannot get near that fighting, it is not possible to reassure the civilians in the nearby shelters. If the only way you can stop the battles is to fire on our own side, then don't hesitate to do it.”

“It won't come to that, I hope.” Already it had crossed Revell's mind that it might, but that would be a last resort.

The police chief wanted control of the army and police forces in the city. To give him that, Revell and his men might first have to unleash a lot of controlled violence.

TWENTY-THREE
Vehicles parked in the narrow street were riddled with bullet holes. Several sat low on the ground, or at odd angles, their tires shot to ribbons.

For the first time in the city, they, had seen tracer employed. A long stream of it had poured from a window in a department store and into a drugstore opposite. Some had missed the mark. Striking the stone wall,- they had flown off at wild angles to cause more random damage.

“It's like something out of a fucking western.” From a safe distance, Scully watched the exchanges of fire. “Pity there isn't a sheriff who can come galloping into town and clean it all up.”

“No sheriff. Just us, with you as Deputy Dog.” Sgt. Hyde fingered a long tear across the shoulder of his flak jacket. His ribs still ached where another stray bullet - most of its energy spent - had thumped into him.

They had learnt little from their reconnaissance, except that both buildings were well defended and impossible to approach. He and the major had seen no sign of the men holding out. Attempts to establish contact from a distance had been hopeless, only bringing fire down on them.