Free Sky Strike by James Rouch Page A

were some he’d like to give her that weren’t in any drill manual. Probably, though, she’d end up ordering him. Maybe that would be ... No. No, his thoughts had strayed that way before and he didn’t like the dark depths to which they led. He didn’t go in for that sort of thing, hadn’t ever... wouldn’t... but if he did...
    There was a loud excited whoop from the APC. Damn it, what the hell was Dooley up to now? He hurried over, before the big clown made more noise. I’m rich, Major. I’m rich. Oh, look at it, look at it.’ Dooley was huddled beside a small safe that had been concealed behind a false locker front. From it he had taken, and spread on the map table beside him, several large bundles of bank notes, each a different currency and most from the neutral nations around the Zone; a small collection of stone-jet jewellery, among which a superb diamond cluster ring stood out; two shin carved figures in what looked like near-flawless jade, and a gold bar.
    The bullion had been cut in half in order to fit the hiding place, and the residue from that operation had been carefully preserved in a corked test-tube. Tm rich I’m rich I’m rich. Oh, I’m rich...’ ‘Shut up you big oaf.’ Revell was interested in the find, but not for the same reason. His interest lay in the fact that the discovery of the handsome nest-egg tended to confirm the mental image of the vehicle’s owner that was forming in his mind.
    The pennant already told him the man was a general, but the way the APC was fitted out with luxury touches told him that the Russian officer was also a man of ambition, who wanted the good things in life. His cache of various currencies also betrayed the fact that he was a realist, and not the sort to go down with a sinking ship. Not that the Warsaw Pact forces were losing the war, but this man was prepared for any eventuality.
    Having examined the compact but powerful radio equipment on board, Revell also knew that the general had some Western tastes. A radio operator, perhaps one with a less than perfect memory, who did not want to incur the commander’s wrath by being slow, had carefully marked certain frequencies on the dial. Revell knew them, they were British and West German civilian radio station frequencies.
    ‘I get to keep it, don’t I, Major?’
‘Take the notes and jewellery if you want, but leave the bar where it is. Even you can’t tote that much extra weight around with you.’
    Like a child who had just had the cherry stolen off the top of his cake, Dooley looked very unhappy. He pocketed the other items. ‘Maybe just one half, Major?’
    ‘Don’t get greedy, Dooley. You’ve enough there to get that pig-rearing farm when you get out, with something left over to treat your jaw.’
    Although he brightened a little at the thought, Dooley still cast wistful glances at the safe as the portions of bullion were replaced and the buckled door slammed to wedge it tight closed.
    ‘Truck coming, Major.’
    In response to Clarence’s call through the open hatch, Revell climbed out, in time to see Hyde steering a trailer-towing fuel tanker down the track. Andrea rode on the front fender, holding on to a headlamp bracket. Her jacket was open and her breasts bounced noticeably at each bump.
    While a hose from the bowser was being unreeled to the APC, Revel took the sergeant aside.
    ‘Fast work. How did you do it?’
‘I didn’t, she did.’
    As he moved to walk away, Revell tackled Hyde on the subject again, trying desperately to be casual, not too insistent, and knowing he was failing.
    ‘What did she do?’
‘She took off the combat gear and ran in front of the first truck that was travelling on its own. It just happened to be a bowser.’
    ‘And?’
    ‘It stopped.’ Hyde tired of the game, he’d known what the officer was after all along. ‘She had on just a pair of white knickers and a tight white T-shirt; she doesn’t wear a bra, and what do you think? It stopped, a bloody