The Red Alert Story

The Red Alert Story.
by Gareth Bird

CHAPTER XII
Jack spent the next couple of hours sitting on a small wooden chair, slowly feeding a hungry fire with any scraps which could provide warmth to the otherwise freezing home. Every so often he could hear a few police cars sweeping the area, doubtlessly hunting for him and his comrades. Quite frankly, Jack was beyond caring whether or not they were caught because to him, the monumental loss their unit had suffered at the quayside had to be too great for the feasibility of the completion of their mission.

A loud crack from the fire grabbed his attention and he suddenly sat bolt upright and clasped his bloodied fingers around the butt of his gun. Jack cursed himself for mentally giving up and reassured himself that he was subconsciously ready to carry on even if mentally and physically he was a wreck. He told himself that all he needs to do is to stay alert and banish his thoughts of defeat to the furthest corners of his mind. Easily thought, but difficult to execute.

In an attempt to freshen up, he slowly creaked open the front door and dug his hands into the fresh snow which had accumulated during the absense of civilisation. He picked up a handful and brouht it back inside before closing the door and re-applying its barricade. He scooped up the snow and held his breath, then burried his head in his hands. After a few seconds, he dropped the snow and shook his head.

He gave a sigh and rubbed his eyes and felt ready for anything. He went and sat down next to Rigg, who was lying on the table, wrapped in blankets. He was still breathing, barely. "The poor bastard's going to freeze to death." he muttered. He felt his hands. They were like ice, or was that just his own? He couldn't tell and crossed the room to tend to the fire, which was on the verge of extinction.

Black appeared from the back room. He stretched out and nodded at Jack, who reciprocated. Black cupped his hands and splashed some icy water over his face from the bucket by the sink. "Hey!" called Jack as Black shook his head. "That's supposed to be drinking water."

"Yeah, whatever..." he replied. He dried his face on one of Rigg's blankets then replaced it over his countryman. "Well, by my reckonings, I'm up and it's your kip."

"Hmm," murmured Jack, half-listening. "Sorry, what?"

"My watch." clarified Black, pulling up a chair next to Jack and warming his hands on the fire.

"Nah, I don't need it now." relied Jack. "You go and, you know, you go and have a rest, or something." he mumbled, turning back towards the fire.

"What?" asked Black. "No way. I've just got myself up and I ain't wasting it." argued Black over a yawn.

"Suit yourself." muttered Jack, flicking a piece of ice off his jacket. "So," started Jack after a few minutes. "Now what do we do?"

Black shrugged and pulled out a battered wrist-watch from a pocket. "Hmm," he began as he started to wind it up. "If this is right, twenty to four, then it must be, what?" he paused as he thought for a second or two. "It must be the 11th today. Yeah?" he asked.

"Probably." replied Jack, unenthusiastically.

"Yeah well, that'll give us about, what, three weeks?" asked Black. Jack shrugged. "You know, 'til D-Day."

A thought struck Jack and he asked a question he'd been meaning to ask for some time. "What makes you so sure they can have the nukes ready by the new year?"

"They told us." he replied, but quickly corrected himself following a surprised look from Jack. "They didn't tell us!" he joked, "I meant to say that we overheard it - same difference." Jack nodded.

"And what about the release of some prisoners, or something?" asked Jack. Black looked taken aback. "I don't know." continued Jack, "It was something Dunn said."

"Prisoners." mumbled Black, lost in thought. "Prisoners." he repeated. He waited for about thirty seconds before snapping his fingers. "Yeah, I reckon I know what you mean. Not real prisoners, but POWs. Captured by the Soviets. They're releasing the Finns. Didn't you realise? They're collaborating; they let them use Finland as a Northern outpost on the condition that all soldiers captured by the Ukrainians at the start of the war are released."

Jack gave a slow nod. "'Makes sense, I suppose." he answered, taking a chunk of wood and throwing it into the fire. They sat and watched the mesmorising cinders spark off the wood as it slowly burned in front of them.

After a couple of minutes, Black stood up and began to rummage around the cupboards and drawers again, whilst Jack stayed on his chair, rubbing his ears. "What've you found?" he called, without turning around. Black returned with a half empty packet of cigarettes and offered one to Jack. "That's a week's wages to these people." he informed.

"I know." replied Black, offering them closer. Jack took one, as did Black, who reached into the fire and pulled out a burning stick.

"Watch your face." warned Black as he held it up to Jack's cigarette. Once lit, Jack drew a long breath it, or at least he planned to. Instead, he yanked it from his lips and coughed out loudly.

Black stared at Jack as he lit his own, but was soon, too, waving it around having thrown the stick back into the fire. "What the fuck are these?" he coughed.

Jack spat into the corner of the room and lobbed the cigarette into the fire. "No idea," he choked, wiping a tear from his eye.

Black braved another drag, but wished he hadn't. "I wouldn't spend an hour's wage on these!" he joked as his voice once more croaked into a cough. He, too, threw it into the fire. He was about to throw the remaining ones in but felt Jack's icy hand clasp on his wrist.

"Week's wages, remember?" he said, staring at Black.

"Yeah," he nodded, "you're right." Jack released his arm and Black threw the cigarette packet back towards the open drawer it had come out of. "They can find them tomorrow."

"It is tomorrow." informed Jack, and Black nodded. "Hang on," he said, looking up at Black. "does that mean we're leaving today?"

"When else?" asked Black.

"Well, what about Rigg?" reminded Jack.

"What about him?" he replied. "No, sorry, I didn't mean it to sound like that." Jack waited for him to clarify himself. "I mean, what can we do for him?"

"I thought perhaps we were going to stay here for a bit, you know, to give him a sporting chance. I mean he won't last five minutes out there." answered Jack.

"What? You mean lie low for a while until this thing blows over?" argued Black. Jack shrugged. "Well I've got news for you, sunshine, it's not going to blow over. Judging by the attack earlier on, they know we're onto something - and they aren't going to sit back and let us do whatever that may be, are they?"

"I know." insisted Jack. "But maybe it's too late? Maybe they've stepped up security and we'll never stand a chance of getting there and finding out about their bombs."

Black shrugged and stood up again. "I don't know." he said to no-one in particular and wandered back across the room to one of the cupboards out of which he produced a small bottle of vodka. "They can't make smokes," he started, with the cap squeaking against the glass as he opened it. "But they can at least make a proper drink." he admitted.

"D'you know what time it is?" asked Jack in disbelief. Black poured himself a measure and put the bottle down on a worktop.

"Nearly ten to four." he said, finally. He took the glass and sipped at the drink. "That's the stuff." he smiled, before necking the rest. "Ahh!" he burst. "D'you want some?" Jack shook his head. "Suit yourself." said Black as he poured himself another drink and took the bottle with him as he sat down by the fire. Black shivered. Jack sneezed. "It'll warm you up a bit." suggested Black, pouring Jack a glassful. Jack shook his head again. Black turned to face the fire. "OK. You have it." he said, tipping it over the fire, which instantly roared up, fuelled by the drink. "Woohoo!" cried Black as he watched the spottles of vodka burn blue. "This stuff must be at least 50 per cent!" he finished as he drank the remainder of his second glass.

Jack took the bottle and screwed on the cap then returned the bottle to the cupboard. He slumped back into the uncomfortable chair and rubbed his eyes and tried to settle back to sleep. He awoke a couple of hours later, his back stiff from the chair. He saw that Black and Taylor were up and Taylor, nursing his shoulder stood by the unbarricaded door gripping the handle whilst Black readied his rifle. "What's going on?" he asked.

Black put his fingers to his lips and jerked his head in the direction of the door. Jack flexed his cold fingers then took up his position facing the door with his rifle pointing dead ahead. "They're here." whispered Black. A sharp rap on the door interupted the silence and was accompanied by barking dogs. Black nodded to Taylor who pulled open the door a crack. He was shown a badge as Black listened, out of sight, to what was being said. Immediately, he yelled "No!" and slammed the door back shut.

Unfortunately, one of the officer's hands was caught in the door, stopping it shut. Black tugged at the door and slammed it again and repeated it until the arm dragged itself back outside. Jack, meanwhile, had retreated from the door and was rallying Gray and Munro, who returned to see and hear bullets blast inwards through the door.

Black returned fire, as did Jack and Munro, when the kitchen window smashed and a Soviet police officer scrambled inside, firing a couple of pistol shots wildly into the room. Gray quickly saw to it that he would fire no more. Black emptied his rifle's ammunition, then dropped it and reached for Rigg's pistol, at which, the door was kicked open while Jack struggled to re-load. Two Soviet policemen and an attack dog ran inside. Munro shot one of the men as the dog pounced at Jack. He froze as the huge jaws lumed towards him and as Munro's policeman slumped to the floor, Jack rammed his gun into the side of the dog's face.

The dog keeled over and, for a second, was dazed and disorientated. However, by the time Jack had readied his gun to fire, it was up again and leapt at Jack for a second time. A deafening crack caused Jack's knee-jerk duck as Black's bullet whistled passed his ear and hit the dog more or less where Jack had done.

"There's more coming!" yelled Munro as he took the pistol from the body of the second man he had shot, having already taken the first. "Is there a back way out?" he asked, although he didn't think there was.

"There's a window in the bedroom," informed Taylor, "but they'll have no doubt covered that."

"Shit!" cursed Black, looking around vainly. "Help me here!" he called to Jack, and they lifted Rigg off the table before tipping it on its side and pushing it against the door. "Think!" he yelled to himself.

"Is there a way out onto the street from the cellar?" asked Gray as he blocked up the window with the base of a chair.

"I don't know. Is there?" replied Black. He looked at Jack, who shrugged, before nodding towards the cellar door. Black fumbled through the keys, unable to grip them because of the cold before opting to kick down the door. It led into a hall with the trapdoor into the cellar, a flight of steps leading upstairs to the other flats and another outside door.

"This way!" suggested Taylor, pointing to the door.

"No!" ordered Jack. "That leads out to the front, remember? It's crawling with pigs!" Black hadn't stopped to listen; he was half-way up the first staircase by the time Jack finished. "What about Rigg?" asked Jack.

"I've got him!" yelled Munro from the other room. "Just get out of here!" he finished, running through with Rigg over his shoulder. They all followed Black up the stairs to see him on the third floor, kicking down the door. It revealed several terrified occupants, awoken by the fighting. Black waved his gun around and they all stepped back, out of his way. He ran over to the back of the flat and slid the window up to see several policemen surrounding the rear.

"Shit!" he screamed, again. "Has this place got an attic?" he asked Jack, who had since caught up. Black repeated the question in Russian, pointing his gun for added intimidation.

"Here!" called Gray from the staircase. "Look! There's a hatch! Give me a lift up!" he told Jack as he returned, who did so. Gray punched open the hatch and pulled himself up, then turned to offer his hand to Jack who hoisted himself up too. "Good news!" called Gray as he started crawling along. "It's open - you know, there's no walls!"

Black climbed up too and he and Jack each grabbed one of Rigg's arms and pulled him up then passed him to Gray who dragged him along too. Taylor hesitated. "Come on!" ordered Black.

"I can't do it!" called Taylor. "It's my arm!" he explained as the downstairs door caved in and the policemen burst ran inside. Munro picked up Taylor and threw his arm and, with a shriek of pain from Taylor, Jack and Black lifted him up then finally pulled up Munro as the footsteps of the Soviets drew ever closer.

They all crawled across the loosely slewn boards which lay about the attic except Munro, who stayed at the hatch and bashed the floor around it until it's wooden frame began to splinter, then he turned and headed after the others.

"How far are we going?" called Gray from the front, pulling Rigg along.

"All the way!" yelled Black, pushing Rigg. Suddenly a loud cracking sound caused them to turn back as one of the policemen groped around at the frame of the hatch as it fell from the ceiling, bringing a lot of the attic floor down too, rendering chase near-impossible. Munro chuckled to himself, but stopped quickly as he saw what happened ahead of him.

Gray had slipped and lost his balance in his attempt to drag Rigg, and the pair fell onto the unsupported floor, through which they both fell, landing in the bedroom of the flat he was above. Gray was lucky in that his fall was broken by Rigg. However, the fall broke Rigg's neck and the accompanying sound was clearly audible over the noise of the bedroom ceiling collapsing.

Gray got up and shook his head, and finally saw the extent of damage the fall had done to Rigg. "Leave him!" shouted Black, "Just get out of here!" he ordered as he scrambled around the hole and took the lead along the attic. Gray climbed on the bed of the petrified occupants and leapt up at the hole, but could only grip the rotting timber and chunks of plaster, which instantly disintergrated on contact.

Instead, he pushed his way over to the window. He slid it open and stuck out his head and saw a drain pipe some three feet away. He looked back down the alley to see a couple of policemen waiting to follow a third through the back window. He pointed his pistol towards the Russian civialians, who were still huddled up in the bed with fear, before raising a finger to his lips. They nodded. He looked out again and saw that they had gone, so climbed onto the sill and struggled for grip on its icy surface.

He was about to leap for the pipe when he again lost his balance and slipped off. His arms waved about and managed to grab the sill again as he dangle over the floor of the dark alleyway. After pausing to get back his breath, gained some momentum in his legs back pushing against the wall and swung his feet into the window of the second floor. It didn't break. He tried again, but it still didn't shatter. As panic began to set in, he stuck out an arm in the direction of the drain pipe, but there was no hope of reaching it, and unable to hold his weight with just one hand on the icy ledge, he dropped down onto the ledge below.

He feet couldn't grip on that ledge either and he dropped further until his knees simulataneously landed on the sill. They momentarily broke his fall and allowed him grasp at the window frame. This wasn't enough, though, and he dropped again.

Not for the first time he found himself dangling, this time he was clinging to the window ledge of the second floor, some eighteen feet above the ground. "Eighteen feet, not all that far." he muttered to himself. "I've lowered myself a further six or seven." He paused, then thought better than to drop to the ground. Instead, he found that he feet had found something else to stand on; it was one of the shutters of the first floor window.

Having steadied himself, Gray quickly psyched himself up to jump for the drain pipe once more. Finally, he made a lunge at the pipe, but in doing so, he forced the shutter off it's catch and it swung around its hinge until it began to come apart from its frame. Gray cursed himself for not taking the stairs, even at the risk of being caught at the bottom. As it was, he found he could cling no longer to the window frame and fell heavily onto the weakened shutter, which immediately was taken out of its frame and they both crashed down to the ground.

By this time, Black, Taylor, Jack and Munro had crawled to the end of the terraced flats, and dropped out of the ceiling into the top of the stairwell. Without slowing for a moment, they hurtled themselves down the stairs to the outside door. Once there, Black paused, ensuring that they had all got to the bottom, then kicked open the door so that they could all run out together.

They ran out without looking and just hoped there were no policemen there. It turned out that there was one man, but appeared to have no firearm. Instead, he ran up the street after them, waving a baton around and calling for his comrades. Munro turned on the spot and squoze an icy trigger finger and put down the man with a single shot to the face.

A chain-tracked police car skidded along the snowy road and was catching up rapidly as they turned the corner which led under a narrow archway into a small square. The car, which quite blatently was not going to fit through, made an attempt anyway. Its side panels and wing mirrors were scraped off, and the two left hand doors crushed inwards, but it maintained its pursuit, aware of the importance of capturing, or neutralising them.

The quartet quickly split up and headed across the square, but all still generally in the same direction. Munro closed in on the fountain in the sqaure's centre and pulled out a grenade. He ran around the fountain, by which time the car had nearly caught up, and then primed the grenade before tossing it into the fountain. He turned and fled as the grenade and the fountain exploded sending gallons of water and sheets of ice across the square, which was already icy.

The police car was within a few yards of Munro at this point, and one of the two men had leant out of the window and was aiming his pistol whilst his partner tried to negotiate the obstacles which lay ahead. Immediately, the car skidded on the slippery surface sending it into an uncontrollable spin. The passenger in the car held on tightly to the door frame and fired aimlessly into the blackness; the driver could do nothing but put on a futile opposite lock on the steering wheel.

Munro didn't care and just kept running. Had he looked back, he would have seen the car slam into a small house which over-looked the square, crushing the skull of the car's exterior passenger. The driver was flung sideways and although physically sound, was unable to open the crushed driver-side door and had to find an awkward route out through the semi-shattered windscreen.

By now, siren wails filled the dawn skies as other police cars homed in on them. Jack ran past a back alley to see Gray limping along as fast as he could, but as far as Jack was concerned, it wasn't fast enough. He darted around the corner and grabbed Gray's arm and pulled him down a perpendicular alleyway.

Another police car arrived in the square, with headlights and guns ablaze. Munro, Taylor an Black scrambled out of the square through alleyways and small gaps inbetween the houses. It wasn't long before Jack felt the presence of another police car and as he stepped out of his alleyway and into the street ahead, he nearly ran into it. He turned on his heel and he and Gray hobbled down the street as the car spun into a U-turn and made chase.

However, Jack was wrong. It was no police car, it was a Soviet jeep. Its soldier occupants let off a few rounds in the general direction of Jack and Gray. Jack felt a bullet scrape the side of his leg, followed by another which grazed the side of his boot. They dived behind a dustbin, which momentarily covered them as it became riddled with bullets.

Gray threw his one and only grenade into the Jeep as it screeched to a slippery halt just ahead of them. One of the men jumped out of the jeep just prior to its explosion and another emerged from the wreck alight, before collapsing in the snow. Jack waited long enough to take a clear shot at the able-bodied, if somewhat painful, soldier and put his man down, then followed Gray back up and across the road to another gap between the houses.

They spent several minutes dodging the cars and jeeps and after nearly an hour, Jack and Gray were thoroughly lost. They paused in the shelter of a shed in a back yard and counted their ammunition, at which they both sighed and got ready to move on. Jack estimated that they would have perhaps two more hours on relative darkness before the day really broke.


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