‘I still think we should use the skimmer, Major.’
‘No.’ ft was a point which he and Hyde had argued at length, ‘You heard what our helpful Ivan said. Most of the installation is under or behind concrete. That Rarden cannon is good, but not that good. To do the job thoroughly we’ll have to work close-in anyway, so its bit of armour will be no advantage. And it could be pretty wild soon after we start. I don’t fancy our getaway vehicle getting knocked out by wild strays. If the truck gets hit then we can still hoof it clear and back to the woods. We leave the skimmer where it is.’
Hyde had to concede that point, but there was one other he’d already raised, but not got a satisfactory answer to. ‘What about your wounded man?’
‘You mean Nelson?’ Revell knew damned well who he meant. ‘The state he was in when we left, I doubt he’s still alive.’
‘But what if he is. You want me to leave someone behind to nursemaid him?’
‘We need every man we’ve got for the attack.’ Hell, this wasn’t the sort of thing a man should have to delegate. ‘You’ll have to rig nun so he can’t harm himself, or attract attention. There’s no alternative.’
‘There is one, and it’d be no harder to do than binding and gagging him while your other men are looking on. I don’t think they’re going to care for the idea very much. You know them, any suggestions how best to handle them?’
Revell knew what Hyde’s option was. It was one that he’d been forced to resort to himself on a deep penetration mission in Yugoslavia that had been loused up, when they’d not been able to bring out two severely wounded men. It was a hard thing to have to do, kneel beside one of your own soldiers and, while his eyes stayed locked on yours, bring your pistol up and administer that single thunderously loud shot to the back of the head, holding the barrel of the automatic an inch from the scalp, just behind the ear. But there was a difference between that, a mercy killing to save a suffering man from the further torments the Russians would inflict, and killing for the sake of convenience.
‘Just dose him up and secure him as best you can. Dooley or the others object, tell them it’s an order from me.’
‘I was planning to anyway.’ Hyde pressed the point he’d made before. ‘You don’t want me to…’
‘No.’ Knowing what was coming Revell jumped in. ‘No, killing Russians is our job. We do that as much and as well as we can. We’re soaked in blood enough already without washing in our own.’
‘If that’s the way you want it, Major.’ He gathered up his few bits and pieces and made ready to leave. ‘When are you going to tell these GDR thugs what we’ve got planned ?’
‘Not till the last possible moment. That way if one of them has ideas about running to the Reds and doing a deal it’ll be too late to matter.’
‘Perhaps they won’t be keen on carrying out the part you want them to play.’ The doubts he’d had from the first about the involvement of the ex-border guards had not deserted Hyde, in fact the very opposite. The whole bunch were traitors several times over. They’d betrayed their country, their people and even their Russian paymasters; and it was a certainty they’d survived in the camp by preying on the weak.
‘Don’t worry about it, Sergeant. One thing ties them to us, they want out and we can take them. For that reason and no other they’ll go along with us in the attack.’
‘Are we going to take them?’ So far Hyde had not been successful in anticipating the officer’s answer to any question, or reaction to any situation. More than at any other time he didn’t know what to expect now.
‘We’ll wait.’ Revell had already given the matter some thought, and the lift capacity of the Iron Cow had not been an important factor. The girl would be going with them, he knew that, had known it from the first moment he saw her. Jesus Christ, why did he have to fall in love with, or want, every woman he met? But Kurt, and the others…
‘We’ll wait and see what the casualty list is like.’
It was no answer at all, Hyde was fully aware of that. The sequence of action for the assault on the workshop flickered through his mind. Casualties… shit, that didn’t take much working out. They’d be heavy. Without further comment he left the room and went back down, two stairs at a time, to collect Libby. Now why in hell’s name was he hurrying? Casualties… yes they’d be high, already were with three-quarters of the platoon destroyed on the way there. That was seventy-five per cent. Everything was bloody decimals or averages or percentages now, and he knew them alclass="underline" the odds against getting a wound and the percentage that did, point–what of a ton of high-explosive had to be dropped to wipe out a platoon. This was a rotten mission, but it would be his last if the percentage figure reached a hundred.
There was complete silence in the skimmer when Hyde finished the briefing. A long loud fart from Burke was the first thing to break the silence.
‘Yeah,’ Dooley spoke, ‘that’s about the effect it had on me.’
‘Do any of you have any questions?’
‘I have.’ It was Cohen. ‘Tell me where the major is holed up at the moment, and what he’s doing.’ He turned an oily self-satisfied smile towards Dooley, and patted his money pocket confidently.
‘I’ve no idea what he’s doing, but he’s in a place Dooley might like…?’ Cohen’s smile began to fade.
‘…It’s called The Farm.’
With an effort Dooley pulled out the tight waistband of his pants and shouted down into them. ‘You hear that, you hear where we’re going? Great balls of steaming crap, now why can’t every fight be like this?’ He broke off from addressing his genitals to push away a crumpled scrap of paper Cohen was offering him. ‘What the hell’s that, I want cash, real money.’
‘It’s one of your markers, for fifty bucks; leaves you owing me four hundred.’ Dooley looked down into his underwear again. ‘You just keep on growing, fella, I’ll get back to you later.’ The taut waistband snapped back. ‘Not so fast, just because you take markers doesn’t mean I believe in them. No, I want real money.’
A look of mute appeal at the great unreasonableness of the big man’s pronouncement met with no sympathy and Cohen put the paper away again. ‘I don’t carry that much.’
‘You lying crud.’ Jango joined in, enjoying Cohen’s annoyance. ‘In that top left pocket of yours you’ve got a roll that thick.’ He waved his bony fist. ‘Half of it’s in twenties, come on, pay the man.’
‘Shut up, you lot. Sort your debts out after we get back.’ Hyde grew impatient at the flippancy.
‘When you say everyone is going, Sarge,’ while the bickering had been going on, Burke had given that a lot of consideration, ‘do you mean every one. You know, all of us?’
‘All of us.’ Hyde laid great stress on the ‘us’. ‘I’m a driver, not a bloody rifle-man.’
‘Actually you’re a combat driver, so just for once we’re going to use the other half of your supposed abilities. You wouldn’t have an objection, would you?’ Hyde paused only a minute, then injected an aggressive edge into his voice. ‘Good, you haven’t. Right there’s work to do,’ he became brisk. ‘Libby, take Collins and a roll of tape and mark the safe path to the perimeter of the woods. When we come racing back tonight there isn’t going to be time for fancy pussyfooting in the dark.’