Killing Ground (20 page)

It ran head-first into a Rapier missile and dissolved in an incandescent ball of flame.

The following fighter bombers sheered away from the wall of flak, and only a couple of broken lines of tracer came close as they veered back on course and bore straight for the farm.

Twin stabs of flame marked the takeoff of more missiles, but even as they hurled themselves toward the MIGs, the jets were using maximum thrust, afterburners glowing white hot, in a wild jinking series of sharp turns to lift out of the valley.

As they ran, their under-wing stores of high-explosive and napalm tumbled toward the farm, some of the iron bombs falling in a different trajectory as their miniature parachutes slowed their headlong plunge.

Flame, smoke and tall showers of debris hid the distant cluster of buildings and smothered the fields about them. But the Rapier crews had a belated revenge.

Above a distant hill reappeared one of the MIGs. A tongue of red and yellow flame licked from the root of a partially swept wing and it towed a growing trail of black smoke.

‘He’s trying to make height for a bailout.’ Watching, Carrington hoped the jet would complete its turn over them.

The damaged aircraft never made it that far. Immediately after its pilot had ejected, it was riven by a fuel tank explosion that tore away the burning wing and sent the fuselage into a flat spin toward the valley floor.

Snatched away from it by his deployed parachute, the pilot and his armoured seat separated. Instead of popping open into a life-saving canopy, though, the chute remained a crumpled tangle of nylon.

There was a ragged cheer from the onlookers as the crewman impacted murderously hard not far from the remains of his fighter.

‘We’re on our own now.’ Thorne set down the thirty-calibre MG, and the unexpended portion of the belt swung to drape across his feet.

They reloaded, and waited, but there was no third raid. Revell stood most of them down and set those remaining to construct new air-defence positions.

Carrington found a hand, blackened, with the flesh hanging from it like the tatters of a thin glove. Casually he tossed it over the side. ‘Someone is going to get a telegram saying ‘Regret to advise you, your beloved has been almost completely lost in action.’’ He didn’t bother to wipe off the adhering scraps of bloody tissue.

‘You’re bloody insane.’ Dooley had watched the act with an expression of extreme disgust.

‘Did you expect me to keep it as a souvenir? Come off it. I’ve seen you chucking bits and pieces about without being too bothered.’

‘I don’t care about that.’ Dooley resumed shovelling clear the floor of a weapon pit. Much of the debris had been fused together by a sticky black residue. ‘What’s pissed me off is that it was wearing a ring, a gold signet ring.’

Close by, Voke heard the exchange and flashed his metallic smile. ‘It is a comfort to me to know that when I am killed I shall not die alone. I am sure you will be close by, with pliers in your hand.’

‘Everybody’s a fucking comedian.’ Changing the subject, Dooley called to the major. ‘How come they were content with just two passes? They didn’t hang about to watch results; for all they know the Rapiers are still in one piece.’

Revell had been thinking along the same lines himself. Using various vision aids one after another, he swept the valley and surveyed it thoroughly. From a window below, the Browning was again lacing the Russian smokescreen with short punching bursts, now employing a high proportion of tracer. From the large number that ricocheted from unseen targets within the screen it now looked certain that the enemy were employing mostly armoured clearing devices for the task.

It was tempting to send over a clutch of terminally guided Merlin mortar bombs, but to do so would be to invite an immediate and heavy retaliation. He would save that risk until he was sure the Russians had reached the narrowest part of the route they had chosen. If one of their huge tracked armoured engineer vehicles was disabled in the defile between the hills it would block or at least seriously hamper their progress until it was towed out of the way.

His mind came back to the question of why there hadn’t been a third air strike. And how had the other two been so precise; indeed, how had the Russian shelling been so accurate, with hardly a round wasted on the slopes below the castle mound?

Perhaps there was a second Spetsnaz operative, in the valley. But though he had no evidence one way or the other, Revell thought it highly unlikely. He had more than enough experience of the communists’ special operations units to know that it was not usual for them to duplicate their efforts. That practice mostly came from their sheer arrogance. It was a failing frequently and successfully played upon by NATO interrogators.

He handed his field glasses to Andrea, who had appeared beside him. ‘Take your time. You’re looking for an RPV.’

It was a hell of a long-shot, Revell knew that, but if any of them was capable of locating one of the small remotely piloted aircraft, it was she.

With bad grace she shouldered her M16and began a systematic sweep of the sky above the valley.

Leaving her to it, the major checked the progress of work on the new Stinger positions. They were fewer this time, and positioned close to bolt holes that would give the operators a chance to make it to the lower levels in the face of an unexpected or overwhelming attack.

From inside the smokescreen came the blast of a large mine exploding, and then a fiercely driven column of grey smoke rose above the chemically created pall.

They wouldn’t yet need to use the Merlins. No need to employ sophisticated top- attack homing warheads while the diversity of the conventional minefield was doing all right on its own. Revell returned to Andrea, in response to her call. Shit, even though it was ‘business,’ it was good to hear her wanting him. If only it was more than that...

Accepting the glasses from her, he let her guide his search until he found the object she had located. Her hands were cool and their grip light but firm.

‘Got it.’ He’d been right, it was an RPV, apparently locked into a wide banking turn some fifteen hundred feet above the valley. It was closer than that to them in their elevated position. ‘The trouble with those little bastards is that they’re damned near impossible to bring down.’

It was galling. The small unpiloted aircraft, with a wingspan of not more than ten feet, represented a tiny target, and if it was the very latest type it offered virtually no emissions to home on, so that ruled out missiles. Carrying its own microwave link, it could receive its directions and beam out its gathered information in short bursts on tight channels that were virtually undetectable.

Back at some Russian HQ they could see real-time transmissions of what was happening in the valley in perfect safety, and pass the information by unjammable land lines to their fighter bases and artillery positions.

‘If we can take it out,’- Revell knew he was supposing what was virtually impossible - ‘then it would take them a long time to get another on station.’

Andrea selected a grenade from her belt. ‘I have seen tens of thousands of rounds expended to that purpose. All without success.’

‘But it has been done.’ Not for a moment did Revell give consideration to employing the M60 for the task. Only a direct hit on the motor or a vital control wire - or even more freakishly, in the compact data link box - would disable the RPV.

‘Yes, it has happened.’ Andrea loaded the 40mm round. ‘Usually by chance.’

‘Give it a try; we’ve nothing to lose.’ Without his field glasses there would have been little for Revell to see. Even with them he often missed the small puff of white smoke from the air-bursts.

With her seventh shot Andrea exploded a shell just in front of the aircraft, but frustratingly it flew unharmed through the rapidly dissipating cloud.

He was about to call a halt when her thirteenth attempt created a burst above and behind the target. It looked like yet another miss; then the RPV side-slipped and nosed down into a shallow dive. For a while he lost it, then when he found it again, saw that its outline was slightly changed. A piece of the tail was missing. Finally he lost it once more, for good, against the confusing clutter of the far hills. The descent appeared to have been due more to the RPV retaining a degree of aerodynamic stability than to any skilful control.

When he turned to congratulate Andrea she was already gone. It was easy to see why Sampson had made his remark about her, comparing her with Karen. There were times when, strong as his feelings were for her, Andrea could be unbearably independent and arrogant.

The smokescreen about the location of the Russian attempt to broach the minefield was thinning. It was no longer being reinforced by regular flurries of shells. As it dispersed, Revell saw it reveal a total of eight burning or burned-out mine-plough and roller-fitted tanks. An armoured bulldozer wallowed in a large crater at an impossible angle, on the point of tipping over. Both its tracks were broken and an body hung from its open driver’s hatch.

Though the RP V was eliminated, the enemy gunners already had the range of the castle to an inch, and Revell made every use of cover as he moved about. He’d have expected them to recommence firing as soon as it became obvious the first air-strike had failed to neutralize the strongpoint.

It was easy to imagine the report of the surviving pilot from the second wave, on his return to base. Sixty automatic weapons had been aimed at his flight leader and must have given the impression of a powerful defence. And that would have been reinforced by the beating off of the abortive helicopter assault on the valley, plus the continuing punishment of the ground troops trying to establish a land route to the prize offered by the huge dump of materials.

Their need was underlined by the fact that of the eight destroyed vehicles on the track, four were captured NATO tanks, Leopards and Challengers, modified for Soviet-style mine clearing.

‘Here they come again.’ Carrington swung ‘round a machine gun and sighted on the clutch of gunships hovering barely visible between the hills across-the valley.

They were gone as suddenly as they’d appeared, and a pair of Stingers sent against them self-destructed when they reached the limit of their range, well short of their intended targets.

‘What are they playing at?’ Carrington waited patiently.

A single machine rose into distant view, unleashed a wire-guided rocket and hovered among the tops of firs only long enough to guide it to a direct hit on the gatehouse.

‘Fuck knows.’ Keeping a missile tube shouldered, Burke waited for a realistic target to present itself before he fired.

Another Warpac gunship soared from behind a ridge and unleashed a ripple of unguided rockets toward the ruins, diving back into hiding before the projectiles had traversed half the distance. Of the twenty that were fired, none came close. Most fell a long way short, pulverizing a lower bend in the approach road.

‘Maybe they’re the same ships we scared away before.’ Hyde too was puzzled by the evasive tactics. ‘Could be they’re still scared.’

Again missiles were sent against the ruins, one to strike where the brickwork was keyed to the natural rock. The powerful impact left no mark but a black smudge and a slight pitting.

Cannon fire was added, from Hinds whose pilots were reluctant to make themselves visible for more than seconds at a time. From such a hopelessly long range only a handful of spent rounds flattened themselves against the unyielding ancient fabric.

‘It’s not like them to piss about this much.’ Reading off the range in his sight, Burke was aware there was no point in having a go at such elusive targets. ‘Could be that they’re just decoys… Fucking shit…’ He whirled about and fired wildly at a gunship only a hundred feet overhead.

The range was too short for the missile to arm itself in the time, but its sheer speed took it plunging in through the floor of the helicopter.

Disintegrating and scattering burning propellant as it penetrated, it turned the cabin into a roaring furnace. Out of control, the helicopter toppled from the sky to crash near the remains of the Scammel.

Torrents of mud and debris swept across the top of the ruins and three more camouflage-painted gunships closed in. From their open side doors came bright lines of tracer, and coils of rope were thrown out to whip about in the downwash.

Rolling onto his back, Clarence took aim and a door-gunner sagged limply, only restrained from falling by his safety harness.

The fight became wild, the choppers hovering and backing to give their gunners the best opportunities. Men who appeared at the cabin doors and made to slide down the ropes first hosed the ruins with their personal weapons.

Putting aside his sniper rifle, Clarence, hurling himself into an adjoining gun pit, pushed a body aside and wrenched a mini-gun hard back on its mount to gain the maximum elevation. Flicking the selector to the highest rate of fire he blasted several hundred rounds into the cabin top and rotor hub of a gunship banking in a tight turn to come in to drop its infantry.

There was a small flare of flame as a fuel line to one of the Isotov turbo shaft power-plants was severed, and then as the blur of the mini-gun’s rotating barrels slowed, the gunship stalled and fell onto a corner of the ruins.

Even as the cabin distorted and buckled with the impact, the still-rotating blades smashed themselves to lethal slivers against a weapon pit. Blood fountained among the fragments of carbon fibre.

At point-blank range rifles and machine guns hosed armour -piercing incendiary rounds into the craft’s shattered cockpit and gaping cabin.

He was so close, Revell could see the struggles of the pilot and gunner to free themselves, and the sprawl of infantry fighting to drag themselves clear.

Burning fuel dribbling onto the men spurred them to frantic effort, faces distorted by the effort of forcing broken limbs to respond. There came an ominous creak of metal grinding on stone and the machine appeared to sag and then shudder as it moved bodily sideways toward the edge. It teetered, a mound of rubble collapsed beneath it, arid then it was gone, followed by a cascade of granite and sandstone chips.