Body Count Read Online Free PDF Page B

followed the others to the stairs, a thought occurred to Gebert. Thorough though the blackout would be, and vigorously as it would be enforced by the police and air raid wardens, tonight it would not be complete.
    Flaring in a circle about the city were those fires, and it the centre, carefully spaced around the park, were the four big blazes the fire chief was allowing to burn themselves out. Munich had been marked out as a target, complete with bull's-eye.

    SIX

“Stupid bloody way to die.” Sgt. Hyde walked along the row of bodies. He counted fifty.
    The last of the corpses had been pulled from-the tangle at the bottom of the subway steps and laid out to await removal. Jackets and torn scraps of clothing covered the faces, but here and there a piece of material had slipped aside.
    All those that the NCO saw wore the same terrified expression, eyes bulging, tongues protruding. The press, as the panicking mob had rushed the staircase, had crushed their chests and suffocated them. Many had died while still on their feet. Trapped and carried back and forth by the surging mass, their bodies had not even been able to fall.
    “And not a single bomb dropped so far.” Scully kicked a flattened beer can from the outstretched hand of a victim.
    “Just as well.” Burke redraped the exposed face of a pretty - or what had been - a pretty teenage girl. “Seeing as how we've had to stay above ground to deal with this lot.”
    “There was never likely to be any. Probably a radar operator with the jitters was spooked by a speck of dirt on his screen.” Scully looked down the short flight of steps. “Amazing how they managed to bend those steel handrails. They even tore off some of the tiles towards the bottom.”
    “Think of it as a few tons of meat being shoved about.” Corp. Carrington handed a purse he had found to a police officer. Many of the dead had been stripped almost naked. Every shred of evidence would be needed to assist in identification, especially with so many casual visitors in the city.
    “Don't you have any feeling for the poor sods?” Burke handed over a sheaf of identity cards he had picked up. Several were saturated with blood, or other substances he didn't like to dwell on.
    “Don't jump down my throat. What I meant was, well, you've seen those westerns where stampeding cattle knock over chuck wagons. Same sort of principle applied here.”
    “People aren't cattle,” Burke persisted stubbornly with his objection. “I didn't say they were...”
    “Right, back in the station you lot.” Several times while his men had been carrying out their gruesome task, Hyde had been forced to step in and prevent bickering that threatened to be become, more than that.
    All of the men were on edge. Seven days among the flesh-pots had been an attractive proposition at first, but Munich had been an unfortunate choice. Something of the brittle mood of the city had communicated itself to the troops.
    It would not have been so bad if they could have gotten away quickly, but the major had insisted on their being mustered early so that the missing could be identified. And now the air raid, even though it had not materialized, was bound to create further delays.
    From across the city came a brief burst of light machine-gun fire. “Flak?” Garrett listened, but it wasn't repeated, though he thought he distinguished two or three single shots following it. “No, can't be. Too light, not enough of it.”
    “Shut up.” Carrington thought he heard something. He strained to catch it again. “I must be imagining – “
    A glass canopy above their heads shattered, and a body hurtled down amid shards of glass. It jerked to a stop a meter above the ground and swung violently back and forth, suspended from a tangle of fine lines caught in the roofs lattice girdering.
    “Shit.” Dooley scrambled to his feet, to be knocked flat a second time as the figure swung back and caught him again. Blood spattered from the lacerated hands