THE ZONE 01 Hard Target by Hard Target

Author:Hard Target
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2011-12-21T16:05:22+00:00

‘You religious, you believe in the power of prayer?’ Collins didn’t know what to make of the question. He answered hesitatingly. ‘Eh, I hadn’t really thought... I suppose... well I haven’t... not for a long... no, not really.’

‘Pity, that rules out the one useful thing you could have done. OK, so I’m kidding. Help the Hulk with his toy. He’ll show you thirty different wrong ways to reassemble an M60.’

The hasty softening amendment he tacked on to the slap-down had come almost unconsciously from Cohen. Thirteen months he’d been in the Zone, he was a veteran already. His first day of combat seemed a lifetime away. But it wasn’t so far back that he couldn’t remember what it was like to be the rookie in a squad. This British boy was no different; the butt of all the humour, the recipient of all the dirty chores. Not that he was making it any easier for the kid. The hardening process, the acquiring of the tough shell that would at last get him accepted as a member of the team, would only take longer if he didn’t take all the knocks as they fell due.

‘Don’t you listen to him, kid. There ain’t nothing I don’t know about this piece.’ Dooley’s hand flew the practised ritual of disassembly. ‘Only thing you’ve got to watch with these is that you don’t put the piston back in the cylinder the wrong way round. If you do, the gas ports don’t line up and she’ll only fire once before stopping. That’s not even in the Tech. Manual, but we ain’t going that far, not as we might want to slap this old Betsy back together in a hurry if any Ivans come prowling.’ He held the barrel up to the light and squinted up it. ‘I wish I were with the major and that three-stripe horror show right now. I’d be looking up a fuck- sight more interesting hole than this.’

Rinehart paused from applying a fresh set of dressings to Nelson’s shattered cranium. ‘I reckon that’s just wishful thinking. Whatever the major is doing now, he ain’t within a hundred yards of a nice slice of tail.’

Her name was Andrea; that and what she had told him earlier about her reasons for being there was all he knew about her. There had been no further opportunity to ask question. The camp was now wide awake and every path was sprinkled with its quota of scruffy hollow-cheeked people. Some slithered slowly through the dust on seemingly aimless journeys, others sat or squabbled or loitered. Each had the half furtive, half apathetic expression that only life, or rather existence, in the camps could induce.

They passed through the little graveyard behind the church. In every corner there were heaps of mouldering bones. The press for living space was so great, the need to find shelter so urgent, that the vaults and tombs had been opened and their long dead occupants replaced by a mass of the half living.

A

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