They passed the Russian post Mother Knoke had mentioned, a small clearing surrounded by a dense thicket of barbed wire. At its centre stood a low hexagonal concrete structure, beside which stood a tall guyed mast, a throbbing generator and an unattended cooking fire. It was one of the Soviets’ jamming stations.
The tight bunched group passed it safely, using a layer of the passing human traffic as cover, the East Germans concealing their truncated submachine guns under drapes of sacking.
Now the camp was wide awake, and there were many more people about. After the departure of those going in search of food or salvage beyond the camp’s confines, those who were left behind were mostly inclined to simply sit and stare at the ground, or engage in listless conversation in which it seemed they could summon little interest. There was no other way for them to pass the time that hung so heavily.
There was no other sign of the Russians. Revell wasn’t surprised. With most of the Soviets’ surplus energy devoted to keeping the various satellite components of the Warsaw Pact armies in line, they had few enough men left to do a bare surveillance job on the camps, let alone police them or organise indoctrination of the inmates beyond the occasional use of loudspeakers. Only the settlement’s usefulness as cover for otherwise vulnerable installations prevented the Russians from herding the displaced civilians across the nuclear- and chemical-contaminated territory at the heart of the Zone, to the West.
To fill the void, the running of the camps fell to the gangs: deserters, criminal elements, the dregs of humanity. They brought not order, but terror, and were capable of matching the Russians themselves when it came to acts of calculated brutality.
An unexpected halt, a flurry of activity that included much pushing and shoving, and Revell found himself inside a derelict barn. Shell holes in the walls had been covered with scraps of cardboard.
The moment they were inside, Mother Knoke restarted her impassioned pleading to their captors, going down on her knees before the stocky shaven-headed individual who appeared to be their leader.
Hyde watched, saw him try to ignore the old woman for a minute, then lose patience and throw her aside. As he did, he saw the plastic bag for the first time.
There was a wail of despair from the woman as it was grabbed from her. ‘Brave lump of shit when it’s an old girl, aren’t you!’ Hyde’s unmoving visage locked on the ringleader. ‘Want to try taking something from me?’
A glare and a curled lip was the only immediate reaction from the man. He tossed the bag to the girl who was with them, accompanying it with a growled instruction.
Hyde edged a little closer to Revell. ‘They haven’t got silencers on those things, they’re not going to shoot anybody.’
‘That’s not a gamble I’m prepared to take at the moment, let’s just play along. If they haven’t killed us or at least taken our weapons by now, then they’re after something. Let’s find out what, before we take them.’
Though his German was far from fluent, Libby caught the gist of what the muscled runt had told the girl. He watched her delve into the bag and take out the cigarettes, then hand it back to Mother Knoke. The ringleader had told her to take out any money as well, but she hadn’t. Another of the gang snarled a threat at Knoke and then propelled her from the dilapidated building with his boot.
While the rest of the gang kept Revell and his men covered, the leader and girl conferred in a corner. Then she came over and stood in front of the major. ‘You are American, they are British.’ She pointed with her submachine gun. For her small frame the weapon was too large, too ugly. ‘You have come here to learn something, or do something. We will help you. In return you will take us with you when you go back. It is agreed?’
For all their caution they had been identified and followed, perhaps from the moment they entered the camp. Hyde swore, quietly, under his breath. ‘Things getting a bit hot for you round here, are they?’
A brief pause while she translated and conferred with bullet-head, and then ‘There is nothing else you need to know now. We can help, you know our price.’
He couldn’t help it: she had a gun on them, was with a band of the nastiest individuals imaginable, and still Revell could look at her and see just a beautiful girl. It was a hard, high-cheeked beauty. Tight jeans that made a dozen arrows of white creases drew his eyes to her crotch; and the dirt-streaked parka she wore, though it’s quilting revealed only a hint of the breasts beneath, was pulled tight enough to her body to illustrate a tiny waist that emphasised her unconcealable femininity.
‘Where is your transport?’
Revell felt relief the instant she translated the hoarse prompting. While that was still unknown to the East Germans he held the upper hand.
‘If they want to bargain or offer their services, tell these apes to point those weapons at the floor. I get rather stubborn when a couple of hundred rounds are aimed my way.’ It was a crucial moment. Revell watched and waited as she translated. Hell, she was lovely. Jet black hair that framed her face didn’t hang in greasy strips, but fell as separate strands that rested like a swinging bell on her shoulders. From the rear the view was just as feminine. Below the hem of her jacket the tight centre seam of the denim showed off the halves of her backside.
At last the barrels of the submachine guns were lowered, though that was as far as the relaxation went. Fingers remained on triggers, and their guards’ attitude remained one of suspicious vigilance.
‘Have you ever worked with this sort of crew before?’ Revell held an urgent whispered conversation with Hyde.
‘Never needed, and never wanted to, Major. I wouldn’t trust any of them, not as far as I could throw them, and in the case of short-and-fat there,’ he indicated the deserters’ leader, ‘that isn’t very far.’
‘We could use them though.’ Since the loss of Sergeant Windle and the others of the platoon, Revell had been only too aware of just how thin on the ground they were for the task they had been given. And now with the possibility of the workshops being dug in, the chance of extra manpower, and consequently firepower, had obvious attractions.
‘Yes, and we could get shot in the back while the job’s in progress, or right after it’s finished, if this mob see an advantage in doing that rather than going ahead with the original arrangement.’ The suspicions in Hyde’s mind were, he knew, only too well founded.
In the past British patrols had used renegade East German scouts, and the few survivors of those patrols had returned with stories of treachery and ambush.
The major had formed his own evaluation of the offer, and of the individual who made it. He thought little of either, but they needed those extra guns. ‘How many of you are there altogether?’
‘There are just the six of us. We lost five men yesterday when we tried to enter a Russian dump. Some were taken alive, so by now we will be known.’
Without question Revell accepted the girl’s statement. The efficiency of the Russian interrogation methods was well known. Both the military police, the so-called Commandant’s Service, and the military arm of the KGB were expert in extracting the truth. Anyone falling into their hands would tell everything before they died. No wonder this handful of renegades wanted out, and their desperation only made them all the less trustworthy.
‘You’re with them?’ Despite the submachine gun, and the familiar way in which she handled it, Revell found it hard to believe that the girl was a full member of this ugly crew.
‘Yes. I had been conscripted as a telegraphist into the Territorial Workers Militia. The Soviets killed all our officers, and were sending us to Russia as a labour battalion, because we would not provide a firing squad to shoot civilians who had been stealing from them.’ She threw a look of contempt at her companions. ‘I would never work for the Russians, so I ran away. This is as far as I could get.’