A harsh voice said, ‘Guns on floor.’
Very slowly and warily, Ben and Jeff put down their MP5s, then straightened up.
‘Drop grenade launcher,’ said the voice.
Jeff cursed under his breath as he unslung the weapon and tossed it down with a clatter.
‘Also shotgun,’ said the voice. Ben shrugged the cut-down Ithaca from his shoulder and dropped it on the pile.
‘Remove head gear.’
Ben forced himself to peer through the blinding torch-beam as they dumped their precious night-vision goggles on the floor. The two guards were holding pistols. The one without a torch was clamping a walkie-talkie to his mouth. ‘This is Dovzhenko,’ he said into it. ‘I have intruders on Level Two, Sector Twelve-B.’
‘Hands on head,’ the other one commanded, shining the light in Ben’s eyes.
Ben laced his fingers together on top of his head, and Jeff did the same.
‘Step away from weapons.’
Ben heard the triumphant smile in the guy’s voice. He didn’t have to glance sideways at Jeff to know that they were both waiting for the exact same thing.
Ben knew that there were only two types of mercenary soldier. There was the type who wore the army tattoos and told all the stories, but who’d never done half the things they boasted of and therefore didn’t have the training to go with it. Then there was the type who maybe
Ben also knew that tactics were a game. And in any game, winning was often just a question of riding it out until the opponent made that vital mistake. In armed confrontation, one of the rules was never to push your luck. Not even if all the odds seemed in your favour, not even if everything seemed to be going your way, not even if the other guy was completely at your mercy.
But to the sloppy soldier there was a huge kick, a supreme power-rush, to be gained from shoving the muzzle of a pistol right in the face of an unarmed enemy and yelling commands at them. And that sloppiness was exactly what Ben had been banking on. As though they just couldn’t help themselves, the guards came right up close, pistols extended full-arm, the muzzles almost kissing his and Jeff’s heads.
Much, much too close to get away from what happened next. The man called Dovzhenko let out a scream as Ben twisted his Glock out of his fist and felt the trapped trigger finger snap. As he was ramming the butt of the gun hard and fast into the man’s teeth, Jeff had slapped the other pistol aside, wrestled it out of its owner’s grip and clubbed him round the side of the head with it. It was all over in under two seconds.
But now things were about to get a little hotter. Ben pushed Dovzhenko down to the floor with his knee pressed into the back of his neck and the Glock to his temple.
‘Where are the hostages?’ he asked. It was a question he was only going to ask once.
The man never had the chance to respond. The arched roadway suddenly blazed bright with truck headlights and the growl of the diesel engine boomed through the echoey tunnel.
‘Time to go,’ Jeff said.
The big truck burst around the corner thirty yards away and came bearing down on them. There was no chance to pick up their discarded weapons as gunfire crackled out from the vehicle and strafed the concrete. Ben and Jeff sprinted away down the tunnel, returning fire from the pistols they’d taken from the guards.
No way they could outrun a truck.
As they ran, the headlights behind them cast long shadows on the curving tunnel wall up ahead and picked out a tall side doorway covered by a rusted steel shutter. There was a gap at the bottom, just big enough to squeeze through. Ben threw himself down and rolled under the bottom lip of the steel into darkness. Bullets hammered into the shutter as Jeff scrambled in behind him. The truck screeched to a halt outside, and they heard doors opening, voices shouting commands. Another burst of gunfire, and a line of dents punched into the shutter. Shadows appeared in the strip of light underneath. Ben fired at the gap, and they skipped away in retreat.
The two of them were safe in here – but they wouldn’t be for long. Someone would be quick to figure out how to raise the shutter, or how to flush them out using gas or fire.
Stumbling around in the dark, Ben found an antiquated wall panel with a row of big switches, and threw them all. Dusty yellow lamps flickered into life, and he saw they were in an old vehicle workshop. Rusty fuel drums were stacked up against the wall next to a partially-dismantled BMW motorcycle and sidecar. In the middle of the concrete floor, a dusty tarpaulin was draped over a strangely-shaped object the size of a small van. Ben whipped the tarp away and clouds of dust billowed in the dim light.
‘It’s a Kettenkrad,’ he said. He’d only ever seen pictures of the strange Wehrmacht all-terrain vehicle. It was a hybrid of a miniature tank and a military motorcycle. The six wheels per side were linked by caterpillar tracks, and the machine was steered by a bike front end with broad handlebars. He knew enough about them to know that they’d normally been used as tractors to haul trailers and light artillery. But someone had equipped this one with a pair of forward-facing German MG-34 belt-fed heavy machine guns, turning it into a formidable assault craft.
Outside in the tunnel, the truck gave a roar as it accelerated forward to ram the shutter. The metal buckled violently inwards, but held. The truck crunched into reverse and started backing away for another hit.
‘They’re going to get through pretty soon,’ Jeff said, eyeing the buckled shutter.
‘I know.’ As he said it, Ben ran over to the stack of fuel drums. He grabbed one and shook it, heard the liquid swirling around inside. He carried it over to the Kettenkrad, quickly found the fuel tank hatch. The drum’s nozzle cap was rusted solid. He stabbed a rough hole through it with his knife and started sloshing the fuel into the tank.
‘You’re crazy. That thing’s been sitting dead for all these years.’
Ben didn’t reply as he ran round to the Kettenkrad’s driver’s seat, searching for the dash-mounted ignition switch. He flipped it on and prodded the starter.
Nothing. The battery was dead. He swore.
The truck roared forward again and hit the steel shutter, harder this time. The crash shook the walls and echoed all through the tunnel. The shutter was grotesquely bulged and distorted, but it still held. The truck reversed. A couple more hits like that and it would be through, and Ben and Jeff would be cornered, outgunned and outnumbered inside the workshop as the guards came spilling in.
Ben ran round to the back of the Kettenkrad and found what he’d been hoping for. He snatched the crank handle from a clip on the bodywork, thrust it through an opening in the radiator grille in the rear, felt it engage on the crankshaft. He said a prayer and turned the lever hard.
The engine coughed, then faltered and died.
The truck hit again, tearing the shutter from one of its roller mountings with a screech. The headlights streamed through the rips in the crumpled metal as it backed off for what Ben and Jeff both knew would be its final charge.
Ben tried the crank again. For a fraction of a second it seemed as though nothing was going to happen, but then he was suddenly engulfed in a cloud of smoke as the Kettenkrad spluttered into life. He leapt on board, twisted the motorcycle throttle and the engine gave a clattering roar.
Amazed, Jeff clambered up the side and dropped into the cramped space behind the twin machine guns. He swept away the thick layers of cobwebs, racked the cocking bolts.
‘Ready?’ Ben asked, blipping the throttle.
‘What is it you always say?’
‘Fuck it.’
‘Then fuck it, I’m ready,’ Jeff yelled over the roar of the engine.
At the same instant that the truck rammed the shutter, tore it clean off its mountings and came thundering inside the workshop, Ben was engaging the Kettenkrad’s forward drive and lurching onwards with a clattering squeal of caterpillar tracks. He opened the throttle all the way. Twisted the handlebars and aimed the vehicle straight at the truck.
‘Keep your head down,’ Jeff yelled as they charged right into the blazing headlights. Ben hunched down behind the bars. But there was no way to be ready for the blast of two heavy-calibre machine guns just over and a foot either side of his head. The sound was devastating.
