When it happened, Ourumov jerked and actually cried out in dismay.
The wall on their left seemed to disintegrate and the prow of the powerful T55 lurched through the debris onto the road directly behind them. It slewed from side to side, but still followed, at its flat out speed.
In the car there was a touch of terror in Ourumov’s voice as he shouted to the driver to move it. The fear which now came as a stench from the general was founded on an incident during the Afghanistan campaign when he had been in a tank, similar to the T55 that rumbled at their heels. Ourumov’s tank had taken a direct hit and the general was only one of two people to get out alive. In his darker dreams he could still hear the screams coming from the rest of the crew as the metal coffin burst into flames. He had shown a not unnatural fear of tanks from that time.
Bond had sighed with pleasure when he fitted himself into the driving seat of the T55 and switched on, pulling the small knob that controlled the starter, hearing the engine immediately rumble into life. He looked around and saw there was a fuel gauge showing full; the rest of his quick course in tank driving was one of trial and error, testing the long metal lever controlling the gears and the thick control column which, he discovered, turned the machine somewhat violently, slowing the tracks on one side and speeding those on the other so that it staggered to left or right. The brakes and accelerator were easy enough to find, and the only problem he faced there was that they were transposed from those of a normal car - brake pedal on a long stalk for the right foot and accelerator on the left.
He had no time to examine, let alone use, the array of electronics, but he did know that he could not drive the beast and fire the 100mm gun that sprouted some twenty-nine feet from the turret. There was a machine gun in reach alongside the driver’s seat. He could not use that while Natalya was still in the car, so he concentrated on a straight chase. With luck, if he could control the machine, he might just run Ourumov to earth - literally.
What he had not bargained for was the lack of vision through the forward slit. Somewhere within reach there was probably a periscope so that he could view the rear, but, for the time being, he needed all his concentration to learn how to handle a T55. It always looked so easy when you saw those tank battles in movies, but he had quickly discovered that unless you knew what you were doing, the tank had a tendency to drive you rather than the other way around.
He had also not taken in the noise factor. Inside the brute there was a bone jarring vibration from the tracks, and the noise was amplified by the interior which seemed to act as an acoustic chamber.
One of the first things he had done on hitting the street was to reach for the driver’s headphones and clamp them on, then hit the search button on the radio in the hope of locking on the police band. His Russian would probably be enough to follow any chatter concerning road blocks and the like. The rest was - in the words of an old sergeant major he had once known “Brute force and ignorance’.
As well as controlling the tank, dealing with the extreme noise and vibration, not to mention the limited sight lines, he had to watch for the unexpectedly high volume of traffic which was out in force this evening. Twice he had almost squashed a couple of cars, now he saw Ourumov’s car take a right and he followed, cutting the corner at an angle so that the tank’s hull lifted and there was an unpleasant buckling and crunching sound as he flattened a row of parked cars. As the hull came down again, Bond saw the car had hit an intersection crammed with traffic and was reversing rapidly, touching the sides of other parked cars as it went, sending sparks from the bodywork as it weaved backwards, then taking another right turn into an alleyway.
He gunned the motor and, this time, made a perfect right turn, tapping the brakes and hitting the accelerator with the control column hard over. Too late he saw that, while the alley was big enough for the car, it certainly gave no leeway to the tank. He was committed, though, so he straightened up and increased speed.
It was a bumpy ride as the alley was some six feet too narrow for the T55. This was where the brute force and ignorance came into play, and to his surprise, he found that if the alleyway were too narrow, the tank took care of it, cutting a swathe of brick, dust and rubble from the buildings on either side, jerking and heaving its way along the old cobbled narrow street, finally bursting out onto a wider road - a T-junction with a wide canal facing him.
There was nothing he could do but pull the tank around to the left, in a series of jerks and motor noise.
The car had squealed left, and then right, onto a bridge crossing the canal, turning right. He started to make the right turn onto the bridge when he realised that it was impossible. The T55 had carved its way through the alley without any problems, but he could now see, through the smoke and brick dust filtering through the narrow driving slit, the bridge was a delicate and beautiful structure, built to take normal traffic, but a serious hazard for the tank, the weight of which it could not possibly carry.
He was pointing in the wrong direction, the hull swivelled to the right several feet from the entrance to the bridge.
Aloud, he said, “Let’s see how you can manage a oneeighty,’ touching brakes, holding the control column far over to the right, then putting his left foot hard down on the accelerator.
It was like a fairground ride. The tank swung around on its own axis, doing a perfect 180 turn, and as it completed the manoeuvre, he saw that the military were already chasing him - a pair of the jeep-like vehicles and two BTU-152us, fully loaded with troops who seemed to be sitting to attention in the long open back.
The two little jeeps had no chance. Their drivers, blinded by the dust and smoke, could not even see as they shot out of the alley exit and ploughed straight ahead, seeing the canal too late. They both tried to fly, which is not a good option in small jeep-like vehicles.
They remained airborne for a few seconds, then smashed hard into the dirty water of the canal, their occupants leaping and scattering into the water.
The pair of BTUs made the left turns, very close to each other and were on top of Bond’s tank before they knew it. He tried to weave out of the way, but hit one of the BTUs head on, swerved and just touched the side of the other vehicle - which was enough to push the troop carrier aside. As he moved forward at full speed, Bond was aware of men yelling as they were thrown from their stricken six-wheeler.
“Road hog,’ Bond muttered, craning forward to see Ourumov’s car ahead of him, moving in the same direction, but on the far side of the canal.
Inside the car, the General was panicking. “For God’s sake it’s only a slow old tank. Outrun him.”
“I’m doing my best, sir.” The driver was about as happy as the general.
In the back seat, Natalya glanced through the rear window and saw that the tank was making steady progress, almost running parallel with them on the opposite bank.
She smiled with glee, then turned and gave Ourumov a wolfish grin.
The general caught her look, did a double take, his face crimson with anger. “Shut up!” he barked at her, then saw they were approaching another bridge to their right. “Over that bridge,’ he screamed at the driver. “Cut in front of him. Over the bridge and straight on. He won’t have time to turn quickly. We can lose him.” Natalya’s smile faded as she saw six police and military cars racing up behind the tank on the far side. The police cars were making no secret of their presence - lights flashing and sirens wailing. The military vehicles, Armoured Personnel Carriers (APCs), were bristling with weapons.
Bond saw Ourumov’s car pull right, onto the bridge.
He floored the accelerator but the tank seemed to be already at its maximum speed and he could see that he could not expect to catch the car before it exited from the bridge and, presumably, head on down a road to his right.
He knew other transport was chasing him, even though he could not see them. The wail of the sirens, though faint in his ears, was detectable and lord knew what else was out there: he pictured APCs with anti-tank missiles which could easily blow him to fragments.
The car shot off the bridge, straight in front of him.
Bond slowed, stick hard over and his feet moving between accelerator and brake. This time he had complete control and the tank turned accurately into the street. Ahead he saw the car, held up, waiting to traverse a roundabout in the centre of which stood a huge gleaming statue of Czar Nicholas on a great winged horse.
For a moment, Bond thought he was going to catch up and be able to ram Ourumov’s car, but as he approached, so the car made its turn into the traffic flow.
“He who hesitates.” Bond muttered and took the tank straight on and right across the roundabout. Inside his metal capsule, he clearly heard the scream of braking cars and trucks desperately trying to avoid hitting the tank, and he mouthed a curse when the right track sliced into the front of a beer lorry. Some of the load bounced in front of the driver’s slit and he wondered what the final damage might be.
