The Green Beret Read online

burst. Tensely, he hunted for anothermask. Three grenades arced through the air and yellow gas spreadacross the battlefield. The attackers ran through it. A few yardsbeyond the gas, some of them turned and ran for their own lines.In a moment only half a dozen masked men still advanced. Theinspectors fired a long, noisy volley. When they stopped onlyfour attackers remained on their feet. And they were running forcover.

  The attackers had come straight up a road that led from the GamePreserve to the station. They had not expected any resistance.The UN men had already taken over the station, chased out thepassengers and technicians and taken up defense positions; theyhad met the Belderkans with a dozen grenades and sent themscurrying for cover. The fight so far had been vicious butdisorganized. But the Belderkans had a few hundred men and knewthey had wrecked the transmitter controls.

  The first direct attack had been repulsed. They could attack manymore times and continue to spray the building with bullets. Theycould also try to go around the hill and attack the station fromabove; if they did, the inspectors had a good view of the hilland should see them going up.

  The inspectors had taken up good defensive positions. In spite oftheir losses, they still had enough firepower to cover the areasurrounding the station.

  Read surveyed his sector of fire. About two hundred yards to hisleft, he saw the top of a small ditch. Using the ditch for cover,the Belderkans could sneak to the top of the hill.

  Gas grenades are only three inches long. They hold cubic yards ofgas under high pressure. Read unclipped a telescoping rod fromhis vest pocket. He opened it and a pair of sights flipped up. Athin track ran down one side.

  He had about a dozen grenades left, three self-propelling. Heslid an SP grenade into the rod's track and estimated windage andrange. Sighting carefully, not breathing, muscles relaxed, therod rock steady, he fired and lobbed the little grenade into theditch. He dropped another grenade beside it.

  The heavy gas would lie there for hours.

  Sergeant Rashid ran crouched from man to man. He did what hecould to shield the wounded.

  "Well, corporal, how are you?"

  "Not too bad, sergeant. See that ditch out there? I put a littlegas in it."

  "Good work. How's your ammunition?"

  "A dozen grenades. Half a barrel of shells."

  "The copter will be here in half an hour. We'll put Umluana on,then try to save ourselves. Once he's gone, I think we ought tosurrender."

  "How do you think they'll treat us?"

  "That we'll have to see."

  An occasional bullet cracked and whined through the misty room.Near him a man gasped frantically for air. On the sunny field awounded man screamed for help.

  "There's a garage downstairs," Rashid said. "In case the copterdoesn't get here on time, I've got a man filling wine bottleswith gasoline."

  "We'll stop them, Sarge. Don't worry."

  * * * * *

  Rashid ran off. Read stared across the green land and listened tothe pound of his heart. What were the Belderkans planning? A massfrontal attack? To sneak in over the top of the hill?

  He didn't think, anymore than a rabbit thinks when it lies hidingfrom the fox or a panther thinks when it crouches on a branchabove the trail. His skin tightened and relaxed on his body.

  "Listen," said a German.

  Far down the hill he heard the deep-throated rumble of a bigmotor.

  "Armor," the German said.

  The earth shook. The tank rounded the bend. Read watched thesquat, angular monster until its stubby gun pointed at thestation. It stopped less than two hundred yards away.

  A loud-speaker blared.

  ATTENTION UN SOLDIERS.ATTENTION UN SOLDIERS.YOU MAY THINK US SAVAGESBUT WE HAVE MODERN WEAPONS.WE HAVE ATOMIC WARHEADS,ALL GASES, ROCKETSAND FLAME THROWERS. IFYOU DO NOT SURRENDEROUR PREMIER, WE WILL DESTROY YOU.

  "They know we don't have any big weapons," Read said. "They knowwe have only gas grenades and small arms."

  He looked nervously from side to side. They couldn't bring thecopter in with that thing squatting out there.

  A few feet away, sprawled behind a barricade of tables, lay a manin advanced shock. His deadly white skin shone like ivory. Theywouldn't even look like that. One nuclear shell from that gun andthey'd be vaporized. Or perhaps the tank had sonic projectors;then the skin would peel off their bones. Or they might beburned, or cut up by shrapnel, or gassed with some new mist theirmasks couldn't filter.

  Read shut his eyes. All around him he heard heavy breathing,mumbled comments, curses. Clothes rustled as men moved restlessly.

  But already the voice of Sergeant Rashid resounded in the murkyroom.

  "We've got to knock that thing out before the copter comes.Otherwise, he can't land. I have six Molotov cocktails here. Whowants to go hunting with me?"

  For two years Read had served under Sergeant Rashid. To him, thesergeant was everything a UN inspector should be. Rashid'sdevotion to peace had no limits.

  Read's psych tests said pride alone drove him on. That was goodenough for the UN; they only rejected men whose loyalties mightconflict with their duties. But an assault on the tank requiredsomething more than a hunger for self-respect.

  Read had seen the inspector who covered their getaway. He hadwatched their escort charge three-to-one odds. He had seenanother inspector stay behind at Miaka Station. And here, in thisbuilding, lay battered men and dead men.

  All UN inspectors. All part of his life.

  And he was part of their life. Their blood, their sacrifice, andpain, had become a part of him.

  "I'll take a cocktail, Sarge."

  "Is that Read?"

  "Who else did you expect?"

  "Nobody. Anybody else?"

  "I'll go," the Frenchman said. "Three should be enough. Give us agood smoke screen."

  * * * * *

  Rashid snapped orders. He put the German inspector in charge ofUmluana. Read, the Frenchman and himself, he stationed atthirty-foot intervals along the floor.

  "Remember," Rashid said. "We have to knock out that gun."

  Read had given away his machine gun. He held a gas-filled bottlein each hand. His automatic nestled in its shoulder holster.

  Rashid whistled.

  Dozens of smoke grenades tumbled through the air. Thick mistengulfed the tank. Read stood up and ran forward. He crouched butdidn't zigzag. Speed counted most here.

  Gunfire shook the hill. The Belderkans couldn't see them but theyknew what was going on and they fired systematically into thesmoke.

  Bullets ploughed the ground beside him. He raised his head andfound the dim silhouette of the tank. He tried not to think aboutbullets ploughing through his flesh.

  A bullet slammed into his hip. He fell on his back, screaming."Sarge. _Sarge._"

  "I'm hit, too," Rashid said. "Don't stop if you can move."

  _Listen to him. What's he got, a sprained ankle?_

  But he didn't feel any pain. He closed his eyes and threw himselfonto his stomach. And nearly fainted from pain. He screamed andquivered. The pain stopped. He stretched out his hands, grippingthe wine bottles, and inched forward. Pain stabbed him fromstomach to knee.

  "I can't move, Sarge."

  "Read, you've got to. I think you're the only--"

  "What?"

  Guns clattered. Bullets cracked.

  "Sergeant Rashid! Answer me."

  He heard nothing but the lonely passage of the bullets in themist.

  "I'm a UN man," he mumbled. "You people up there know what a UNman is? You know what happens when you meet one?"

  When he reached the tank, he had another bullet in his right arm.But they didn't know he was coming and when you get within tenfeet of a tank, the men inside can't see you.

  He just had to stand up and drop the bottle down the gun barrel.That was all--with a broken hip and a wounded right arm.

  He knew they would see him when he stood up but he didn't thinkabout that. He didn't think about Sergean
t Rashid, about thecomplicated politics of Africa, about crowded market streets. Hehad to kill the tank. That was all he thought about. He haddecided something in the world was more important than himself,but he didn't know it or realize the psychologists would besurprised to see him do this. He had made many decisions in thelast few minutes. He had ceased to think about them or anythingelse.

  With his cigarette lighter, he lit the rag stuffed in the end ofthe bottle.

  Biting his tongue, he pulled himself up the front of the tank.His long arm stretched for the muzzle of the gun. He tossed thebottle down the dark throat.

  As he fell, the machine-gun bullets hit him in the chest, then inthe neck. He didn't feel them. He had fainted the moment he feltthe bottle leave his hand.

  The copter landed ten minutes later.