The Red Alert Story

The Red Alert Story.
by Gareth Bird

CHAPTER XIII
Jack was right. However, this was still not long enough; the cars and jeeps continued to comb the city. Jack and Gray hid in a small tube-style tunnel which housed a small stream. Trying not to get in the freezing water, they leant up against the sides, trying to regain their breaths. Jack took a long look at himself and Gray, trying to survey for damage. There was a lot of blood and areas of frostbite, but Jack was no doctor and could not tell whether they had further injuries. Besides, the cold and their hunger had numbed their senses.

Presently, they heard a helicopter pass nearby, followed by another almost overhead, judging by the beam from the searchlight which dazzled them on the ice. A large vehicle passed over the road above them, and without a sound, Jack and Gray turned to face its direction, weapons ready. "We can't last like this!" whispered Gray.

"I know." muttered Jack, thinking how they would be able to get out of their predicament. A plane flew overhead. "Geez!" he remarked "That's low."

"I know." reiterated Gray. "I can see it from here."

"'Not one of ours by any chance, is it?" wished Jack.

"No." reported Gray before a wave of helicopters flew by. However, their accompanying noise did not leave and the searchlight continued to point towards the stream. "Shit!" whispered Gray, "I think they've found us."

Jack shuffled across to the other side to try to see them. "Jesus!" he cried, "There's about six of them. Fall back to the other end of the tunnel!" he ordered and they both dragged themselves along. Gray poked out his head at the other end.

"All clear," he said. "just stay up against the embankment!" he suggested. Jack helped push Gray out of the other end and was trying to get himself out when and deep noise bellowed through the tube from the other end. He instincively looked back to see the helicopter hovering just a couple of feet above the ground, with its rotor blades spinning within just a similar distance from the walls and trees around it.

Jack shielded his eyes with a hand and blocked out the huge searchlight from his vision enough to see two small chainguns fitted to the sides of the helicopter. Jack turned back and threw himself out of the tube as the chainguns fired up and emptied several rounds of ammunition from its reserves. Bullets ricocheted off the concrete tube as Jack lay face down in the snow. He flipped himself over to see himself looking directly up into the belly of another helicopter.

"Come on!" yelled Gray, trying to climb throught the undergrowth on the embankment to the slight protection of a nearby house. Jack threw a grenade down the tunnel and could do nothing while he waited for its detonation. Finally, it did so and the debris it caused flew into the paths of the low lying helicopter's rotor blades. The chainguns stopped and the helicopter rotated about its own blades bringing the rear end right around and slammed into the side of the bridge causing another enormous explosion. Its wreckage collapsed into the stream on the other side of the bridge and smoke and steam belched out of the hulk of metal.

Under this cover, Jack hauled himself up and scrambled up the embankment as the other helicopters flew up higher, away from the debris which still littered the air. Jack saw that one of them appeared to withdraw completely, possibly through damage caused from the explosions.

He managed to get onto the road and ran as best as he could in Gray's general direction. He just about got around the corner of the house when he heard the familiar sound of bullets rattling off the brickwork and into the snow, over the booming sound of the helicopters hovering above the swirling smoke and snow. Jack saw Gray cowering low between the two houses. "What can we do now?" he asked of Jack. Jack shook his head then looked around for inspiration. None came.

He clenched his fist and punched out the window of a side door to the house and reached in to unlock it. They were now in a small garage in which a small car lay in pieces. "Maybe..." started Gray.

"No." interrupted Jack. "It'll never work, but we may be able to find another one somewhere else."

The deep noise of a helicopter drew closer. Jack glanced out of the window in the garage door to see exactly what he'd witnessed some two minutes earlier. A helicopter had lowered to almost within touching distance of the road. The chainguns began to whir as they picked up speed and Jack and Gray flung themselves out of the side door as the bullets rained into the garage.

A bottle of turpentine spirits was blown off one of the shelves and set alight. Gray grabbed it with a view to using it as a grenade. He could feel the heat even through the coldness of his hands and was unable to throw it far enough. It landed further down the alley, but out of harm's way of the helicopter.

The helicopter strafed slightly to its right to position its weapons down the alleyway, not stopping firing in order to keep up the chainguns' velocities. Jack threw himself behind a small wood silo and waited as the bullets poured into the wood. From the corner of his eye he saw Gray fall back into the garage, but Jack couldn't tell whether he'd been hit.

Soon enough, the helicopter withdrew and lifted off, apparently out of ammunition. Jack poked his head around the side of the battered silo to see two soldiers running down the alley. Jack quickly pulled himself back as more bullets filled the stricken silo and Jack readied his final grenade, which he tossed at his enemies. It exploded, but Jack had the suspicion that they'd noticed it in time when he noticed another flammable bottle fly out of the garage into the fire for good measure. By now, flames had engulfed the sides of the two crumbling buildings.

Gray stumbled out of the garage and Jack helped him the other way along the alley. Another helicopter flew overhead. It fired a few rounds but they were all way off target; Jack and Gray kept running, knowing that if they stopped to take aim, they would be sitting ducks for the helicopter gunmen.

Jack burst through the back gate of one of the yards of the houses, then tugged at the back door. It was unlocked and Jack wasted no time in getting inside. "They're pretty hellbent on seeing us dead. D'you reckon they know our plan?" asked Gray, as they hunted for the door to the garage.

"Dunno." replied Jack, kicking down the door. "It depends how much that bastard on the sub told them." They bustled into the garage to find a motor bike. However, unlike all the other cars out on the roads at this time of year, it had no chains around its tyres to give extra grip in the snow. "It'll have to do."

Jack pulled the bike out from under the junk piled above it and fired it up. Gray pushed open the garage door, and peered outside. "They're coming!" he yelled as he turned back and jumped on the back of the bike. Jack revved the bike and it sped forward. As it hit the snow and ice outside, it took all of Jack's skill and both of their feet pushing against the ground to stop the bike from skidding over.

He pivoted around his leg, a simple task given the conditions, then tried to accelerate, something he found great difficulty in doing. He headed back up the street in the direction they had come from as the other way took them back towards the centre of Leningrad, or so they thought. They passed the burning house on one side of the road, and the helicopter wreck on the other and negotiated the damaged bridge, all whilst trying to avoid cross fire from the soldiers who had appeared out of the helicopter.

Jack hit the bridge and tried not to take off, but failed. It lifted just a couple of inches off the ground, but as it landed he lost grip and the bike skidded over. They quickly picked themselves up and set off again as the soldiers raced up behind them on foot. Gray clung onto Jack with one hand and fired his pistol at the soldiers with the other. The soldiers returned fire, but their were apparantly no casualties on either side.

The bike managed to pull away from the men as a helicopter flew by and again fired at them. The bullets landed close by but never really threatened them. The helicopter flew by and continued on ahead. Another helicopter flew up close behind them. But this one was different. Gray fired a couple of shots at it, while he tried to make out the difference, but they were futile.

The helicopter readied itself to fire, when Gray realised what it was. There were no chainguns on this helicopter, instead it had air-to-ground missiles attatched to its sides. "Longbow!" yelled Gray. "Longbow!" he repeated, but there was no way the Jack would hear him.

The helicopter withrew momentarily as the bike passed underneath an archway and quickly returned having flown over it. The helicopter lowered itself such that to a passer by it would appear to be driving along the ground. Gray stared back at the helicopter some distance behind them, which again had to pull up as they passed under another archway.

By now, the gunman in the helicopter had given up trying to line up a shot on the bike and fired his first missiles at the next bridge ahead. They flew by and exploded in front of Jack, who ducked his face into his chest as they speeded through the flames and rubble and underneath the bridge.

"Longbows!" yelled Jack, as he finally realised. "How long have they had Longbows?" he cried at no-one in particular.

The Longbow pulled up again and passed over the bridge before lifting up further as Jack slid the bike around a corner at a junction. He now found himself along a main road which, having been used frequently was less icy and had some more grip, allowing Jack to be more confident with bumps and turns in the road.

The helicopter maintained its pursuit from a higher altitude and watched as the early morning traffic drove along the road, unaware of the speeding fugitives on the bike. It wasn't long before the road became more uphill and Jack found the bike straining with its load.

"Damn thing's got no power!" he cursed as it began to slow. A civilian car with more power cruised up behind and overtook. Were it not for the fact that he was neck deep in a battle with a Allied-designed, Soviet helicopter, Jack would have felt embarrassed, but as it was he saw an opportunity.

He took his hands from the bars while he slipped his rifle from his shoulder and fired at the car ahead. The rear windscreen shattered and the car slithered to a halt and Jack brought a stop to the motor bike. The driver of the car sat still with his gloves firmly clamped to the steering wheel with terror. The helicopter flew overhead as Jack leapt from the bike and ripped open the driver side door. Jack was about to grab at the man after his gestures for him to leave had failed when the helicopter banked right and fired its next load.

Jack dived for cover as the missiles landed close to the car and although did not cause the car to explode, it was blasted upside down and slid back down the hill before careering into several other cars trying to make the ascent. Gray kick started the bike again and Jack jumped on the back and they headed off up the hill again as the helicopter swooped low and past them again.

The helicopter had become restless and missiles started raining down on the street uprooting street lights and blasting other vehicles. It wasn't long before Gray lost the balance of his machine and the bike crashed into a wall.

Jack was flung over the wall by the force of the impact, landing heavily on his chest. This caused an increase in the pain which had persistantly dogged him since the outbreak of the war. He struggled to his feet, but it didn't take long for him to realise that Gray would be unable to do the same. The bike's front wheel had crumpled sideways and he'd be impaled on the handlebars.

Jack raced over as the helicopter turned for another attack. He ripped off his backpack and swapped his for Gray's, knowing that his had better provisions and equipment. The helicopter seemed unmoved by the destruction it had caused already as demonstrated by the fact that two more missiles plunged into the ground near Jack. He was again swept off his feet, then rolled over into the middle of the road.

Three planes flew low overhead and he barely heard the brakes of another car slam on having come from the other direction. Jack hauled himself up as the driver sat bewildered at the sight of carnage in front of him. Jack pulled open the door and thrusted the man out. With the engine still running, Jack pulled off with a snow-churning U-turn and sped off along the road, with the helicopter in an increasingly familiar tow.

Jack looked back in the mirror at the side-mounted missile tubes. The helicopter was close enough for Jack to see that several of them were empty having already deposited their charges. However, he couldn't tell whether they were all empty, or if it was ready to blow him off the road. It was impossible to tell. Certainly not in that light, for the routine snow showers settled in and buried the roads in a gloomy cloud.

Jack switched off his lights in an effort to blend into the snow more. He looked back again and could see nothing. As he ventured into the cloud, he could now not even see the lamp posts at the sides of the roads. Jack took the opportunity to pull over to his right and onto the path, just missing a lamp post in the process, so that he could see the next turning. When it arrived, he rounded the corner, cannoning off a parked car as he did so as an explosion behind indicated that the helicopter was still a threat.

Jack began to get even more worried than he was already when he remembered that they probably had thermal imaging cameras, which although still in their prototype stages, were increasingly becoming an essential weapon for the modern war craft. Jack shuddered at the thought that the helicopter could be just a few yards back and he may never know until it was too late.

At this, Jack floored the accelerator and was doing over 75 miles per hour as he reached a cross-roads. On the logic that if he was hit, he'd be killed anyway, slowing down would make no difference. He continued as fast as the car would let him. He survived the cross-roads with little more than a lot of car horns hooting at him, followed by several cars sliding to a standstill.

The snow began to ease off and Jack could once again see the road ahead and found himself on the outskirts of a town. He looked and listened, but could find no sign of his accompanying helicopters. Presently, he arrived at a junction which was sign-posted and Jack pulled over to the side of the road then rummaged about the car for a map.

Having sifted through leaflets and car documents he eventually found one. He spent several minutes scouring the roads trying to find out where he was based in the surrounding landscape and the roadsigns. When he found himself on the map he cursed himself for having headed a long distance in the wrong direction.

With a shiver or two he continued into the town and stopped at an inn, parking the car well out of sight. He walked in and was immediately ushered to a seat by the fire and was given a hot drink. He warmed his frost-bitten hands on the sides of the mug and leant over the fire trying to melt the ice which had accumulated on his now heavily stubbled face. He sat and shivered for several minutes as the centre of everyone's attention.

After a while, one of the men there asked him something to do with where he'd come from. Jack couldn't find enough words in Russian to give a plausible response, so he just excused himself by making out that he couldn't talk. It wasn't long before a doctor rushed in and was pointed in the direction of Jack. He gave him a quick examination, but it didn't take him long to find a whole host of things wrong with him.

The doctor was most concerned about Jack's legs. He had several chunks of flesh nicked out of him from ricocheing bullets and was littered in bruises and frostbite. Jack pointed at the stairs and rolled his hands over and over as if to try to convince the doctor he'd fallen. However, the doctor wasn't convinced. He asked about a small hole in the back of his left shoulder. Jack knew it was from the moment he'd stepped foot on Russian soil and been ambushed. Several shots had hit him in the back, and he'd been saved only by the padding given by the equipment in his pack, having taken the brunt of the bullets' forces. One had obviously protruded through the pack and resulted in a light impact with his back, yet severe enough to tear into him slightly.

Jack had his wet clothes removed and was offered dry ones, but insisted he kept his coat. The barman shrugged and returned the coat and lay the others over the boiler to dry. The doctor patched him up, then tried to get Jack to go with him. Jack was at first simply reluctant, but the doctor insisted. Jack stood up with a start and kicked back his chair. Everyone in the room was taken aback and the doctor held out an arm, asking him to calm down.

Someone behind Jack shrieked out loud, and everyone stepped back. She'd seen Jack's gun, or so he thought and his suspisions were confirmed when the Barman reached under the counter and produced a pistol. He pointed it towards Jack, then Jack ripped out his own weapon and pointed it at the woman who screamed. He edged closer, all the while people were talking - some calmly, some hysterically.

The barman fully extended his arm and looked ready to shoot as Jack grabbed the woman around her neck and backed off towards the door. He picked up the doctor's bag along the way and pulled open the main door as an army jeep rolled by. Jack ducked and one of the men in the inn leapt at Jack. The barman ran around the counter and was running over as Jack hit the man over the back of the head with the butt of his gun.

He glanced back, only to find he couldn't see the jeep and didn't know if it had gone or had heard the commotion and had stopped to investigate. Jack turned back and fired a shot at the barman's arm. He didn't hit him, but it was close enough for him to drop his gun and step back. Jack thrust the bag into the woman's hands and crawled forward to take the gun. He snatched it from the floor, keeping his own gun trained on the woman.

He instantly leapt to his feet, and despite the pain, he grabbed the woman and dragged her outside. He quickly scanned the surroundings and their was no sign of the jeep. A plane flew nearby and Jack grabbed the bag off the woman before pushing her to the ground and running over to the car. Having only been at a standstill for a short while, Jack was able to get it running and he sped off, leaving the barman rushing outside with another gun and shooting vaguely towards the car.

Jack turned off the main road and found a discrete place to stop and examine his haul. He looked through the bag and found some painkillers, of which he had more than an ample dose. But other than standard first aid equipment, he could find nothing of any use. The gun he'd aquired was a simple six-shooter, complete with ammuntion.

Jack munched on a few left-overs which he scavenged from the flat the previous night when he remembered that its owners, for all he knew, could be sitting frozen to death in the cellar. Jack shook the thought from his mind. They weren't his problem, and therefore not of his concern. After all, they were at war, and civilians or otherwise, they were the enemy.

Jack returned the remainder of his food to his bag and spent a few minutes pouring over the map trying to form a route away from Leningrad and towards his goal. He pondered several alternatives to what appeared to be a long route, but suspected that due to the weather at this time of year, the roads could be closed and he could waste precious time, and more importantly fuel, by going the wrong way. Jack knew that the car had a reasonable amount of fuel left, but if he ran out in the middle of nowhere he'd be in trouble. He put the car back on the road and set off once more.


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