The Iron Cow slewed sideways, skidding across the young crops. It caught him across the chest and crushed him into the side the vehicle. A spurt of blood from his pulverised lungs arced across the fully distended ride skirts. The heavy Kevlar sheets were as hard as metal under full inflation and the collision with the staff car sent it toppling over while the body of the driver ended up thrown inside it so that his legs stuck out, straight up in to the air.
“No dignity in death, is there.” Clarence caught a glimpse of the bizarre tableaux as they drove past.
“Who gives a shit when they’re dead.” Libby looked out through the gun port in the turret.
Sergeant Hyde sat down to watch Carson and Lieutenant Andy trying to fasten more straps to the nuclear weapon. They had already lifted it and wadded cloth beneath it, as an improvised shock absorber.
Several of the others were watching as well. Andrea could no longer look. She had her head in her hands and her eyes closed. She was sat as far to the back as possible, opposite their prisoner. He too was watching, making little groaning noises through his gag. Sweat was pouring down his face and soaking his collar. At every jolt the two specialists put their hands out to steady the device.
Burke took them down a shallow streambed and then up a section of bank when a large fallen tree blocked their path. As they climbed the craft canted over and then levelled up with a jarring crash. There was a sudden series of clicks from the Geiger counter.
Carson tugged at Revell sleeve and put his head close to talk to him. “I think we had better find some where to pull over.”
“Urgent?”
“Yup, kinda getting that way.”
It had taken a nerve wracking three-kilometre drive before they had found somewhere suitable. The tall unpainted metal silos flanking the derelict building suggested it had been some sort of food processing plant. All the windows were gone and the cast concrete structure was cold. Its roof had collapsed long ago and its interior, exposed to the elements, had filled with leaf litter. A few straggling shrubs sprouted from cracks in the floor and walls. That very likely explained why it had not become a home to refugees at any time in the past. There was no evidence that it had ever had any sort of occupation since it had closed down, that and its isolated position at the end of a rusted and overgrown single-track railway line.
Only Carson had remained in the vehicle. The tension had been too great for most of the others and all had volunteered to stand guard about the place. It took Major Revell an hour to make contact with the nearest NATO headquarters. Fortunately it was only six kilometres away, in Bayrueth but the question he had got Boris to encode and send was never going to be answered by a commander at local level. The question had a long way to go up the chain of command and it would be some time before it started its tortuous journey back down to them.
The counter was still rapping out its steady series of clicks but Carson had helped to sooth their frayed nerves by turning its volume right down.
“What do you think? If it’s going critical, that the right term? will we be able to lift it out and drive away or will it be a case of not touching it and doing a runner.” Not even wanting to rock the craft by going back inside, Revell posed the question from the open rear hatch.
“I truly don’t know.” Carson drummed his finger tips on his knees as he sat with them either side of the much decorated pack. “The problem is here.”
With the chisel end of the felt tip pen he indicated the two neat puncture holes made by the Russian bullets. “I can trace the path of one of them, it didn’t go far and didn’t hit anything serious, but this one,” he indicated the lower hole, “is not so straight forward. In fact it is actually a bit of a bugger.
“Is it still in there?” Revell wasn’t sure he really wanted to know, but he could not prevent himself asking.
“Oh yes, in fact they are both still in there, but as I said, this one higher up is not that important. “Bombs are like bodies.” Sitting back, Carson put his pen away. “It’s better if you can get the slug out, because if you don’t, and its some where vital, then it can move about and do more harm.”
“Especially if the body is moved?
“Just so, especially if the body is moved.”
“That stuff you encoded for HQ. Was that just technical stuff, or political.”
“Both, and even if it hadn’t been I suspect that either would have been dealt with in both ways before they got back to us.” Carson wished he could talk to the officer openly but very little of his work was suitable for shop talk.
“You mean if you asked a technical question the answer could well be based on other than technical considerations.” Revell was beginning to get an inkling of the depths of the matter with which they were having to deal. He was under no illusions; he knew that in many respects they were considered expendable. It would not be consideration of their lives that was holding up the decisions.
“Yes, that’s about it. And if I asked a why or where question they would ask for technical information before answering it.” Checking the Geiger counter to see that the volume was turned down as far as possible, Carson debated with himself whether or not it might be kinder to shut it off altogether for a while. He decided against doing it. While the respite from what sounded horribly like a count down would doubtless be welcome, at some stage he would have to turn it on again, and that would be worse.
Boris had sat on an old piece of partially dismantled machinery. It was starting to strike cold through his combat clothes. He knew he would have to be the one to return inside before any of the others. The thought that if anything happened it would be so fast he’d have no knowledge of it was uppermost in his mind, but somehow it didn’t help. After a minor stroke his father had spent the last five years of his life worrying himself physically sick at the thought he might have another. Now Boris knew how he felt. For the first time ever he could understand the fear his father had lived with for all that time. He had eventually died of liver failure instead.
Simmons struggled not to show the anxiety he felt. He tried to get others to play cards, but the couple of times a game was started it soon fizzled out, with players making foolish mistakes and throwing in their hands early, or misdealing or any one of a dozen reasons for not continuing. As the youngest member of the unit he had made much of his fitness, his toughness. He had in many previous dangerous situations acted recklessly, even shown off but this was different and he couldn’t summon any of his usual banter, his usual willingness to make light of a situation.
“Message coming through.” Carson heard the printer chattering and called Boris.
Entering, Boris wished he had originally left the APC through the slim front door, leaving it open for his return. It would have meant squeezing past Burkes controls and drivers seat before reaching his own position but it would not have meant moving past the bomb. The stupid thought occurred that if he stumbled and set it off then they would all blame him. But they wouldn’t. Neither he nor they would ever know he had fallen against it and set it off.
But with most power turned off, the drain on the batteries to actuate the door would have risked taking too much away from the communications panel. And manual operation was out of the question. A glancing cannon shell hit had distorted the door and opening it was now an operation that called for force and frequently resulted in the doors resistance suddenly ceasing and the thing flying back and crashing in to the hull.