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swarf in bins outside the workshop.
    It was not among the crowd of impressed Russian infantry that he sought a victim; he found his target standing a little to one side. The Russian officer might just that moment have come from the tailors. He was immaculate; jacket pressed, boots shined. At his side the wooden holster for his pistol had been polished until it almost glowed, and the metal fittings at its end, that enabled it to be used as a stock for the weapon it held, had been burnished to a mirror finish.
    The staff car parked close by was less showy, but with its neat camouflage paint and unmarked bodywork stood out among the rougher forms of transport surrounding it as much as the officer did from his none-too-willing men.
    Taking a fraction longer, Clarence sighted and applied a steady and growing pressure to the trigger. At the last instant another head was interposed between him and that he was aiming at.
    The field-police sergeant lunged forward into the officer’s arms as the file- nicked head of the bullet mushroomed on impact and burst chunks of skull- casing and brain matter from the back of his head.
    Disentangling himself from the slumping corpse the officer dived for the open rear door of his car. He was half inside the already moving vehicle when a second single shot rang out.
    Starred where the bullet had punched through, the windscreen was smeared with dark blood as the driver collapsed forward onto the steering wheel.
    Leaping in fits and starts as the dying man’s foot slipped from the clutch pedal, the car collided with the side of a Gaz six-wheeler, crushing and trapping several soldiers.
    Ignoring the pain and confusion of the distant scene, Clarence shifted his aim back to the officer. Dust and scuff marks obscured the shining black leather of his boots where the Russian had been dragged, and the sniper put his next shot into the metal panel of the door just forward of them.
    Clutching his side the officer tumbled out, and fighting the agony of his smashed hip tried to crawl away. A fourth bullet tore off his lower jaw and went on to break his breastbone and drive the sharp ends of jagged ribs into his heart and lungs.
    A smattering of shots came his way, but the fire was uncoordinated and seconds later Clarence judged it safe to look again. The immediate threat of the mass attack had evaporated. The Soviet field-police were having their work cut out just to stop many of the assault troops from making a run for it. Their methods were brutal, and though effective, did nothing to encourage enthusiasm among their victims.
    Settling down again, Clarence waited to identify whoever it was who would take over. Experience had brought even more patience to the task he already tackled with such dedication. He knew that if no other officer appeared than sooner or later one of the field-police, or perhaps an NCO among the handful of KGB troops, would emerge as the one taking charge. He chambered a round, and waited.
    Twenty-seven minutes. Revell had heard every second of each one tick loud in his mind. They’d had nothing beyond a bare acknowledgement of their signal. In three more minutes he’d have to try the radio again, and if no support was coming, if Command had nothing with which to try to blast a hole in the blockade, then he’d have no alternative but to call the squad back inside and try and nurse the crippled craft back to the protective umbrella of the convoy.
    Damn it, and they’d been doing so well, had almost been through. Intermittent small arms fire was audible outside. The Russians were probing their positions again. Soon they would dispense with the piecemeal attacks and go for a knockout punch. It could only be an absence of firm leadership that had prevented them from doing so before now.
    To a God he didn’t believe in anymore he said a silent thank you for the rigidity of the Communist system that made every man terrified of losing his own initiative for fear of the consequences of