Overkill Read Online Free

turning the three shots into a wild continuing fusillade.
    While Andrea covered him, Revell ploughed through the punctured plastic and hauled out two Russians. One of them, an officer, died even as he was laid on the open floor. The pioneer who was with him was in a bad way, he’d taken a full charge in his back but he was still alive.
    Swooping on the corpse, Dooley stripped it of pistol and insignia and everything else he considered of value. 
    ‘What about this one, or are you going to have the decency to wait for him to die.’ Clarence watched the process with distaste.
    With a sharp knife Dooley removed the officer’s buttons and ornate belt buckle. He didn’t even spare a glance for the dying man. ‘You’ve got to be joking. A Ruskie pioneer? A fucking cannon fodder conscript they haven’t even bothered to give a rifle. You got to be joking.’
    Andrea looked from the officer’s dusty but mostly correct uniform, to the pioneer’s rags and tattered boots. ‘Another fine example of Communist equality; and that they would teach the world.’
    The wounded man was moving, trying with movements he could hardly control to reach the mangled centre of his back. His questing fingers touched the area and dipped into the pulped flesh and oozing blood. He gave a despairing cry that turned to a choking cough and then an ugly rattle, as the terror of the extent of his injuries and his situation struck him, and died.
    ‘Eleven minutes, Major.’ Clarence had to duck back inside as he called from the doorway, on coming under fire from one of the barges. As he levelled his sniper rifle waiting for the Russian officer to pop up again, he heard the sharp crack of the Iron Cow’s Rarden and the shouts and screams that came from the barge as two shells passed through it from side to side. Above the cries of wounded he heard another commotion, and then a pistol was thrown over the side, followed by the limp and bloody body of an officer. A selection of off- white rags were waved from the craft.
    They didn’t have to wait. Burke had the HAPC ready for them when they reached the steps. As they boarded, one of the charges they’d left behind went off prematurely. It was very muted, producing only billowing clouds of white powder that fountained from every vent and opening in the building.
    The girl had said nothing to him about the incident in the power station. At the time Revell had thought he was saving her life. Alright, so the reality wasn’t as dramatic as that, but she must have known what was in his mind, and still she’d said nothing. She never spoke to him, she answered when he spoke to her, but she never initiated conversation. Sometimes being around her became so difficult for him, so frustrating, he felt he could almost lash out at her. If he did though she’d hit back, and despite her slighter build would probably manage to hurt him before he could pin her down. He could imagine a wrestle with her being exciting, the thought of it was rousing him ...
    All of the remaining charges blew together. Every door and window and ventilator was blasted from the power station as the whole structure swayed and bulged. For an instant it seemed as if it would remain intact, and then the wall facing on to the wharf, already weakened by the earlier explosion, crumpled away from the rest of the building and a thousand tons of razor-sharp rubble collapsed into the river and across the barges.
    ‘Tell them the job’s done, there won’t be any more mines.’ As their radio-man, watched by Sergeant Hyde, transmitted the message, Revell reached for his water bottle. It was empty. As he bent down for it, the letter fell from his pocket. He snatched it up and crumpled it into another whose zipper still worked. Now he was wishing he hadn’t brought it with him, what the hell, he wasn’t interested in what the bitch got up to now. When she’d remarried it was for more than mercenary reasons—he’d been happy to hear that she