Killing Ground Read online

  Reaching into a small recess just inside, the lieutenant flipped a switch, and from deep below them came the sputter of a generator coughing into life. A widely spaced row of lights glowed into life to illuminate a steep stone stairway.

  Taking another quick look at the time, Revell then had to give his undivided attention to the worn and slightly damp steps. ‘We’re running out of time, Lieutenant.’

  ‘I know that, Major. For me and my men it is running out very fast.’

  NINE

  There were at least thirty cellar rooms and vaults, ranging from little more than a cupboard-sized space to the three or four that would have garaged comfortably a brace of Challenger main battle tanks.

  Most were lined with racks of small arms of every description, including mortars and anti-aircraft missile launchers. All were accompanied by stacks of the appropriate ammunition. The largest was filled with anti-tank weapons TOW’s, already uncrated and assembled.

  Several times Voke talked down the major’s comments or criticisms. ‘Wait until I have shown you everything, then tell me what you think. I am being as quick as I can,’ he added to forestall that objection.

  ‘There is ample fuel for the generator, and its standby. Water, rations, chemical toilets - even a well-equipped dispensary. See, you can enter the cellars from several places inside the castle, but this is the only entrance or exit outside the walls.’

  Drawing back three huge bolts on a studded door, Voke pulled it open with an effort and a gust of wind slapped rain into their faces.

  For the first time Revell didn’t mind; it was very cool and refreshing after the exhaust-filled fetid atmosphere of decay in those catacombs.

  As they stepped out, behind and above them soared the castle wall. To their left a narrow path hewn from the rock started down across the cliff face. It was slippery, and overgrown in places. Between them and a long drop to the trees far below was a ruined wall that bore faint signs of once having been crenulated, to offer its defenders firing positions. Now it was mostly gone. Unlike the main body of the castle this small outwork had been allowed to deteriorate. As they cautiously worked their way lower they passed several small towers built around natural fissures and caves in the face. Covered with creeping weeds, walls sagging, their interiors were dark, forbidding caverns they did not investigate.

  Once Revell fancied he heard something behind them, but though he paused to listen, the sound wasn’t heard again and they restarted.

  The path ended in a tower more substantial than the other, set with a gate made of timbers that could have been hewn only from whole trees. With some difficulty they scrambled up the inside of the tower until, by bracing their feet against the stubs of roof beams projecting from the stonework, they could look out over the parapet.

  ‘Just one minute more, please, Major. Then we shall start back.’ Voke pointed down toward the pine-woods. ‘Look there.’

  Barely visible between the close-spaced trunks, Revell could make out shapeless bundles of cloth. Though the material had not yet begun to fade, already they were disappearing beneath the perpetual shower of needles and cones.

  ‘A couple of dozen dead civvies. So? It’s hardly anything out of the ordinary in the Zone.’

  ‘At various other locations around the valley there are several hundreds more. And not just ordinary refugees. Many of them were members of deserters’ gangs and other similar bandits.’

  ‘How come?’

  Voke grabbed the opportunity offered by the major’s curiosity. ‘Until yesterday this complex was under the command of a captain in the Royal Engineers. He had passed up promotion to stay here. He was too old for a field command and felt that this was the closest he could get. He was very reluctant to leave. He had been here since shortly after the outbreak of war. I had several long talks with him before he left, and of course he showed me over the whole site.’ Sensing Revell was about to look at his watch again, he went on faster, gesturing with wide sweeps of his arms so that Revell had to look up to see what he was indicating.

  ‘During his time here a vast amount of ammunition and equipment had to be condemned. Either obsolete or at the end of its shelf-life, it could only be destroyed. There was in fact so much to be got rid of that an ordnance disposal section was stationed here permanently. I am not sure I remember all the figures correctly but in total I believe there to be about two thousand tons of shells, mines and bombs in the valley.’

  ‘I’ve seen waste on the sort of scale you’re talking about.’ Revell’s thoughts went back in time. ‘And not just in this war either. My uncle was in ‘Nam during the last months. He said one of his regular duties was guard on a dock where they loaded ships to dump ammo in the gulf. There must have been thousands of tons shipped out.’

  ‘The waste here would have been in proportion.’

  ‘How does that explain those stiffs?’

  ‘Very simple.’ Voke could not repress a chuckle. ‘He hated waste. There was a disposal site in the hills, but it was never used. Every unwanted mine, rocket, bomb, shell, and grenade has been used to construct a wide killing zone around the valley.’

  ‘We passed through a roadblock in a gorge about six, maybe seven kilometres from here. On the road out past the old mill. Was that some of his work? If it was, it may be formidable, but it wouldn’t stall Soviet combat engineers for long.’

  ‘That?’ Voke laughed outright this time. ‘My men laid that in a couple of hours. Think what it would have been like if we had been adding to it and refining it for two years.’

  ‘And it’s all unofficial?’ Revell tried to picture the ordnance experts using all their skill and ingenuity over the months and years to lay thousands, perhaps millions of mines and booby-traps.

  ‘It is all very unofficial. The captain was very unhappy when he was ordered out. He wished to stay and see his plan put to the test. Of course, during his time here it was, on a fairly small scale.’

  ‘You mean refugee gangs like those down there.’ Revell found the whole concept fascinating but flawed, deeply. ‘Knocking off a few civvies, even when they come at you mob-handed, is very different from trying to stop a Soviet Guards Army with all their resources.’

  ‘I am aware of that; so was the English captain. His theories were well tested. Gangs have tried to break in using vehicles and armour salvaged from the battle- fields. Once it was a single Challenger backed by several APCs. Another time a large group of deserters tried it with Leopards and T72s. All were stopped. And there is more than just explosive devices, machine-gun-rigged to sweep avenues of approach, gas shells, flame throwers...’

  ‘What’s that low concrete structure at the bottom of the cliff?’

  ‘That was one of the captain’s favourites; there are two others positioned where they’d be appropriate.’ Although Voke knew exactly where to look and what he was looking for, the camouflage of the bunker was so good it took him a moment to pinpoint it.

  ‘In there mounted on an old semi-trailer is a large generator. There is a spring down there and the ground is wet all the year ‘round. Triggered by the approach of infantry it will start up and push a very high voltage through the ground.’

  Impressed, Revell tried not to sound it. ‘The instant it starts up it’ll stand out on the IR screen of every Soviet tank and SP for miles, and be picked up instantly by every Warpac electro-emissions detector truck.’

  ‘So what, quite frankly?’ Voke was not about to be put down. ‘The concrete is two meters thick and the air intake and exhaust pipe are well protected. It has fuel for two-and-a-half days. Tell me, how would you walk up and switch it off? It cost the captain his spirit ration for two months to bribe helicopter pilots to lift in the trailer and concrete, a load at a time.’

  Seeing the advantage he had gained, but sensing the major was still not convinced, Voke pressed on. ‘You must understand, that is just one tiny part, almost an afterthought among the mass of defences. And every precaution has been taken against countermeasure
s. A high proportion of the mines are resistant to the overpressures of fuel air explosives if the enemy uses that method, and .of course most of the ground is highly unsuitable for the deployment of mechanical means of clearance.’

  In the distance a gunship beat fast across country. It trailed a tail of black smoke from its cabin. Too far away to identify, Revell knew it had to be a Warpac machine. No NATO helicopter in trouble would be heading in that direction. The source of the smoke suddenly showed a bright speck of flame and the chopper dipped from sight behind a ridge. Moments after, a puffball of dark smoke rose to be lost among the rain clouds.

  ‘Look, Lieutenant, you’ve been trying to impress me and you’ve succeeded, but - and it’s an insurmountable but - you’re basing your defences on the castle. That makes it a non-starter. That great pile is a dream target for any gunner, and it wouldn’t take long for some commie missile battery observer to pass the coordi- nates back to his commander, and then they’d bring the roof right down on our heads.’

  At the sound of a light footstep Revell swivelled around to level his combat shotgun. He checked himself in time. It was Andrea. He was frightened, relieved and angry all at the same time. ‘I- told you to stay with the transport.’

  ‘It is as well I did not; there is something you should see.’

  Halfway back to the castle’s postern door a body sprawled across a pile of rubble. Its legs made a partial dam to the water sluicing mud down the steps in a series of tinted cascades.

  ‘Spetsnaz.’ Andrea made the word an obscenity and rolled the corpse onto its back with her heel.

  The man’s head lolled at an unnatural angle and blood still pulsed from a gaping neck wound so deep a sliver of spinal column showed between the parted tissue.

  ‘I was following you down when I saw him. He came from one of the little towers. He was too intent on watching you to notice me. Come, there is something else.’

  They stepped over the body. Rain was washing spattered blood from its face, revealing Slavic features and eyes still open wide with the shock and terror of sudden death.

  Retracing their route, Andrea indicated the interior of a tower. ‘Look in there.’

  Jutting in a half-circle from the rock, the structure was in better condition than most. Clambering over the rotted remains of its broken door, Revell entered. It was dark inside and lightened only gradually as his eyes adjusted to the gloom. The two floors above had rotted through and their crumbling remnants littered the floor. By the sparse illumination shafting through an arrow slit he saw that the defence work had been built around a fissure in the cliff, which had been widened to form a small room.

  Andrea pulled aside a debris-covered ground sheet. Beneath it lay a rolled sleeping bag, a stack of Russian ration packs, ammunition, and a radio. Quickly checking that it was not rigged with a booby trap, she flicked a switch. Turning the tuner, all that came through was a selection of oscillating whines.

  ‘Those jammers of theirs are pumping out so much power it’s even queering their own channels.’ A heap of dead branches in a dark corner caught Revell’s attention and he pulled them aside. ‘I thought I might find one.’

  His actions revealed a small microwave dish complete with transcriber unit and headphones.

  ‘What does this mean?’ Voke examined the bowl of the satellite link.

  ‘With this he could have kept in constant touch with his base. So long as he kept transmission time to a minimum there was virtually no chance of detecting him.’ Looking about, Revell went to a corner that appeared largely free of the rotten boards and joists. He dragged his boot back and forth, raking up the deep layer of compacted rubbish. At the second attempt he exposed the crushed remains of empty ration cartons and cans.

  ‘There’s a lot of them. So, Lieutenant, it would appear the Reds know all about Paradise Valley, and have done for a long time. That Special Forces man of theirs must have been hanging around to report on the movement of supplies and additions to the defence measures. If they’ve been taking that sort of interest, then I can tell you why that billion dollars’ worth of gear hasn’t been bombed. It’s because they want to capture it intact, for themselves.’

  Voke almost had to run to keep up with the major. ‘Knowing about the minefields is not the same as clearing them.’ He got no response. ‘Wait, Major.’ He grabbed Revell and held him back at the postern door. ‘I know how vulnerable the castle is while still whole. The first task I had in the field was salvage work at Anholt castle, almost on the Dutch border. That Canadian battalion took shelter there during the second advance by the Soviet Second Guards Tank Army. We pulled out only two or three alive, out of six hundred.’

  ‘Then you see why this place is a death trap…’

  ‘Yes, Major. That is why the top floors are already rigged with several thousand kilos of explosives. The ground and first floors have walls up to seven meters thick. On top of that our demolition will put a layer of rubble of not less than the same depth.’

  ‘Twenty feet of solid stone?’ Even after years on the continent it still took Revell that moment of time to convert from metric.

  For an instant Voke’s hopes soared, then plummeted once more as the major’s next question veered to a tack.

  ‘How have you got the valley rigged for destruction?’ Revell recalled the huge caverns filled with unfuelled transport. ‘There’s several acres of storage down there. Have you been as thorough with that?’ ‘We have had only six days. The fuel and ammunition dumps presented no problems but they are a long way from the transport and other less flammable equipment...’

  ‘So if you tried to hold out and failed, the Reds are going to get a present of sufficient goodies to re-equip most of their front line in this sector.’

  ‘Not necessarily. Like the captain, I resorted to unconventional measures. I ran a pipe from the Av-gas tank at the landing ground to the air-conditioning inlets.’ Voke allowed himself a weak smile, even though he felt sure he had lost his argument over defending the valley. ‘Turning a valve wheel will flood every part of the complex with aviation fuel. We have wedged all the fire doors open; you may have seen that. Ignition will blast open the floor of the valley and turn it into a sea of fire.’

  TEN

  ‘Have you a large-scale map of the area?’

  With a reluctant sigh, taking a hand from the wheel, Voke reached into his jacket and handed one over. ‘Keep it. I shall not be needing it.’

  No one spoke as the Range Rover left the courtyard, negotiated the tight turn onto the road and started down. Voke because he had failed in what he’d hoped to do, Andrea because that was her way. Dooley’s silence had yet another reason. When Andrea had gone off after the officers he’d spent some minutes in searching several of the castle’s lower rooms, and found nothing worth looting.

  Revell studied the map, making notes on the soiled margin, having to brace himself against the vehicle’s roll on the steeply cambered corners in order to keep his writing legible.

  For Dooley, even the sight of the three exhaust-pluming Bradley’s in the village street, bringing with them the prospect of their being off soon, did not cheer him. He stayed sullen, head bowed. He’d thought the great castle would have held a fortune in valuables. Instead it had been stripped as bare as any refugee shanty town after an enforced move. Shit, how the hell was he supposed to build up funds for when he finally got out of the army? That creep Cohen* had been full of bright ideas, but he’d bought it before it could do him any good. So he’d lasted longer, big deal. His wealth at that moment amounted to maybe ten thousand in back pay and a handful of rings, gold teeth and assorted scrap gold jewellery worth perhaps another two thousand. Fuck it, if he ‘was going to batten on some rich old dame in Miami then he’d need at least three times that for some smart threads, a flash car and the right sort of watch and accessories. He was jogged from his thoughts by their arrival back in the village, and the smell of cooked meat.

  With a self-satisfied smirk, Scully was
using an ash rake to drag the steak from the furnace. Each man in the company was given a part-burned slab weighing about a kilo, and a large ladleful of soft cooked vegetables. Nothing else would have roused them from sleep.

  ‘All ready to move, Major.’ Hyde’s report was rendered almost indistinct by the massive bite of sirloin he was chewing. ‘I’ve checked them over.’

  ‘Right. I’ll want that one.’ He indicated an APC whose turret-mounted Bushmaster cannon had been supplemented by a pair of Stinger anti-aircraft missiles instead of the more usual twin TOW launch boxes.

  ‘So you are going, then?’ There was no pleading in Voke’s voice but he could not keep his disappointment out of it.

  ‘Not far. I want to meet the commander of that Rapier battery. If we’re going to hold this valley then we’d better get our acts together.’

  Voke’s wide grin exceeded by a considerable margin any he’d produced so far.

  ‘We need to buy time.’ Revell looked up. The cloud ceiling was down even lower. The topmost towers of the castle were now hidden for much of the time. ‘It’s what they push up by road we have to worry about most, at present. If we can push that stone bridge down that should hold them for a while.’

  Voke looked at the map. The old mill was marked in also. ‘Of course when we blow the top off the castle much of the wreckage will fall onto the road, and of course the way into the valley will be blocked at the same time. It would take the heaviest earth-moving equipment some time to make them passable even for tanks.’

  ‘That’s fine, but I’d like to hold them off a bit farther away than on our own doorstep. Have your men throw an assortment of mines and demolition gadgets aboard a truck. We’ll try to get to the bridge before them and see if we can’t blow it up in their faces.’

  ‘No problem, Major.’ Voke called in Dutch to one of his men, who immediately dashed for the church. ‘Before the order came to complete the setting of charges and evacuate we had prepared such a load. There was no point in unloading so we parked it under camouflage behind the church.’