Timebomb

Начало книги

‘Come on, boys, put your backs into it,’ he rasped. ‘Show some life and push.’

But they wouldn’t have heard the anger, or the anxiety, in his voice.

It had been sluicing rain when they had started to move the cart and its load away from the bunker in Area 19. By the time they reached their destination, the sleet would have become a dense shower of snowflakes.

Three conscripts were at the back, gasping with the effort. Their boots slithered and slipped on the metalled surface where thin layers of ice had crusted. Himself, he had his shoulder on the right side of the cart. From there he could use his strength and guide it down the centre of the roadway towards the check-point. They had already passed through the gates in the wire that circled Area 19. In front of them was the entry and exit guard post to the Zone, and another half-kilometre ahead the main security post. Even he, Major Oleg Yashkin — and he had thirty-two years’ service with the 12th Directorate — was subject to the bitter cut of the cold in the gale. His uniform, of course, was of far better quality than those of the conscripts, and his greatcoat was heavier and thicker, but he, too, felt the brutality of the weather, coming from the north, sweeping down from the regions of Arkhangelsk or Novaya Zemlya or the Yamal peninsula. It was perfect for his purposes.

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