Sky Strike Read Online Free PDF Page B

to his feet. ‘OK, so we’re not going home by the quickest route, but I still intend us to get there.’
    ‘Hey, you kidding us, Major?’ Ripper ignored Cline’s attempt to stop him from butting in. ‘This is Indian territory, and we’re plumb in the middle of it. Apart from the lil’ ol’ fact that an army of Reds must be surrounding us by now, and starting to close in, we’re a hell of a long way from the Zone, let alone our own lines. We’ve the best part of a hundred and fifty miles of badlands to cross. By the time we’ve made it I’ll have worn my boots down to the stumps of my ankles. That’s if we ever do.’
    ‘That layer of dirt on the bottom of your feet ought to be good for at least twice that distance.’ Bombardier Cline couldn’t resist the opportunity offered.
    A bullet whined past Revell, cutting the netting on his helmet. He ducked lower. ‘First thing is to get away from here while there’s still a chance of finding gaps to slip through. After that, we’ll have to keep moving, think on our feet. It won’t take the Commies long to figure out a few of us have got away, and then they’ll start a hue and cry that’ll have every member of the GDR Politzie, every militia man at a bridge or checkpoint and every Red in and out of uniform keeping a watch for us.’
    ‘Be better if we scouted for the openings, rather than all charging about, making ourselves conspicuous.’ Hyde attempted to inject at least a degree of planning.
    ‘OK, take Burke with you. He’s good at wriggling out of work, let’s see if we can apply his talents elsewhere.’
    As the NCO and driver departed, Libby detected a movement under a railway wagon a hundred yards off. The third burst he put into the Russian machine gun team wasn’t needed. He felt a hand on his arm.
    ‘Take it easy.’ Revell withdrew his hand. ‘There’ll be lots more targets yet, save some for them.’
    Deep inside him Libby felt his emotions whirling in confusion. The ordinary ones of battle were there, the ones he always experienced in combat; fear and excitement among them, but there was another, a new one that kept rising to the fore, swamping all else.
    It was a strange burning hatred that was making him kill and want to kill in a way he never had before. Gone was the control, the calm reason that had brought him safely through two years of fighting in the Zone. Replacing it was. a growing anger and, mixed in with it, an intense loathing that was aimed not at the enemy, but at himself.
    He’d tried, oh God how he’d tried, but he couldn’t wipe from his memory that last night of his leave. At most he’d only had a couple of beers, well maybe three, but he hadn’t been drunk. No, on that night he had been as cold, as calculating as ever he had been in the heat of battle. All of the old skills had been employed to pick-up the woman, and from the moment he’d begun the familiar process of talking and joking and flirting he’d known what it was he was planning to do.
    The marshalling yard wasn’t around him any more, he was back in the car, crushing her body with the urgency of his need to come. Every detail was there. It was as far as he could go in satisfying the urges that had grown inside him since Helga had been swept from his reach by the war.
    In focusing on her he’d come to detest, to hate other women, because of the temptation they presented. The girlie magazines had fed that hate, and in the car as much as anything else he’d wanted to defile the woman, pumping the product of his massive orgasm on to her clothes to stain and soil them, and doing it there as if to tell her she wasn’t worth doing it inside.
    There were times, he hardly dared admit it to himself, when the thought had been in his mind, though he’d always suppressed it, that it would have been such a relief to end it all. Forget the search, forget the war and all its horrors and discomforts. He had the means, a choice of methods was all around him. A