THE ZONE 07 Killing Ground by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Format: epub

His squad followed, passing gingerly between the jagged projections of metal and plastic that was all that remained of the passenger vehicle’s front third.

By this time their attitude was casual, almost light-hearted with relief at another dangerous task completed, and they stopped and took out cigarettes.

They sat on the parapet, legs dangling above the broken remains of a bar mine. Split open by flying wreckage, its contents lay scattered and useless.

Grinding and rumbling its way past the battle tanks came the huge angled ‘dozer blade of an armoured engineer’s vehicle. The turretless machine lurched through a turn, and as it reached the bridge, elevated a powerful-looking hydraulic arm. As it extended, it deployed a four-pronged grab that swayed wildly from side to side. A final, less violent, course correction and its tracks bit into and climbed onto the civilian corpses, tearing them and crushing them into the road surface.

The T84s moved up behind it, waiting to cross, and with the mines in the woods at last neutralized, more APCs threaded their way between the ruins of those that still blazed and were decorated with the burned remains of their crews.

‘Looks like a lot of our stuff down there.’ Burke noted the several captured NATO transports among those backed up at the rear of the tanks.

‘So the major was right.’ In a row beside her, Andrea placed five 40mm grenades. She hesitated before returning one of them to her belt. Long before she had taught herself that overkill was wasteful, but it was a lesson that by self- discipline she had to keep drumming home. ‘If the Soviets are using captured equipment in the front line, they must be suffering shortages that would make the capture of the valley very tempting.’

Casually, not out of suspicion or interest, a Russian strolled to the wall concealing the pressurized container. He looked around, then swung over the wall and, planting himself with feet apart, began to unfasten to relieve himself.

Hyde threw the switch and then dropped the box to grab the glasses from Burke, snapping the strap. A moment to refocus ... and there it was.

A gushing cloud of sickly yellow vapour enveloped the Russian and he collapsed from sight. It expanded, doubling and redoubling in circumference. It grew to the height of the mill and to a breadth that encompassed the bridge and the leading tank.

‘It ain’t gonna work.’ Ripper watched the rapid expansion of the fuel-air mixture, saw it start to spill over the sides of the bridge.

For that instant Hyde thought he was right, the automatic ignition sequence had failed ...

A monstrous concussion lifted the sergeant and jammed the binoculars savagely hard into his eyes. The force broke open scar tissue that squirted tears of blood down his cheeks.

Mill, bridge and tanks were hidden inside an orange fireball of colossal size. From it hurtled a blast that snapped trees and stripped the ground about them down to bare earth. As it reached its maximum extent it began to rise, sucking upward with it masses of forest debris.

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