Blind Fire Read Free Page A

floor.
    The others were already gathering their equipment together. With every move that Dooley made, small squares of folded paper fluttered out of the bottom of his jacket, until he fastened it tighter. His plunder of the decorations had been extensive.
    Twelve times in fifteen kilometres they flew over wrecked NATO supply trucks, and once glimpsed the blazing guard shack of a small roadside dump.
    ‘We were pretty fast off the mark.’ With unconscious skill the pilot skimmed the unwieldy helicopter over the telephone wires and occasional power lines. ‘But those Reds must be going like bats out of hell to have got this far. They ain’t being held up by anything, just smearing anybody who gets in their way.’
    They whirred over a lone Mack tank transporter. It looked as if it had been bulldozed off the road. A fire was growing in the cab and the bodies of its crew lay beside it.
    ‘That fire hasn’t got a hold yet. We’re right on their tail.’ Straining to catch a glimpse of the enemy column, Revell spotted it as the Chinook banked round the side of a wooded hill. ‘Down, put us down.’ At the shout, the pilot brought the helicopter to a virtual standstill, then let it drop fast until it hovered only a few feet off the road. ‘So what now, and remember, this ain’t no gunship.’
    ‘There are no important intersections for about fifteen kilometres.’ Revell studied the map. ‘Then the road forks and they could go either way. Get us ahead of the column, well wait for them there, and in the meantime we can drop a few presents.’
    A loud groan from Cohen was smothered by the howl of the engines, as the chopper soared vertically into the cloud before whirling on to a fresh heading, then, nose down, began to pick up speed. ‘So can we go back for my stomach later?’
    ‘Never mind your gut, get on that radio. I want that ECM platform now. The rest of you, we’ve got work to do.’ Scanning the various loads that had been hurriedly thrown aboard before their rushed departure, it was with relief that Revell saw the crate he wanted was the one nearest the rear door. ‘Get it ready for a drop.’
    A blast of cold damp air struck at them as Hyde lowered the ramp. ‘Are we letting the whole lot go at once, or a handful at a time?’
    ‘We’ll make four drops at irregular intervals. That’ll stop them anticipating and keep them nervous. Put down a hundred at a time, on my signal.’ The view the major had out of the open rear of the chopper was unreal. The whole world was a uniform grey, devoid of any feature that would serve as a reference point. That insubstantial wall of cloud could be a hundred yards away, or just at the end of the ramp.
    Dooley used a swing of his boot to free the final reluctant catch, and the side of the case fell away to reveal the loaded racks within. ‘All ready, Major.’
    ‘Right, make sure they go down on the road...’ Revell saw the puzzled expression on Dooley’s face. ‘Well there wouldn’t be any damned point in hiding the things in the fields if the Reds are barrelling straight down the road, would there? I want them nice and conspicuous.’
    ‘Funny thing war, isn’t it, Sarge?’ Dooley watched the officer making his way to the cockpit. ‘Some dumb shits back home must have spent years developing these, figuring out how to make them camouflage themselves when they’re dropped. Just when they’ve got it right, we come along and start scattering the bloody things out in the open.’
    ‘He’s not getting fucking philosophical again is he, Sarge?’ Burke yawned. ‘The last thing I want after a rude awakening from you is a load of bleeding waffle from him.’
    ‘Just get ready to drop two racks when I tell you.’ They were descending again, Hyde could tell that, as he waited for the signal, by the feeling in his stomach and the colour of Corporal Cohen’s face. It went from flushed pink to white to green in as many seconds, then disappeared as the radio-man