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themselves it was another bunch of strays, there had to be benefits from their falling in together. For an anti-aircraft unit the advantage would be increased infantry to protect it. For his men it was a lifeline. Transport meant a chance to recover from their weariness, perhaps the opportunity to get sufficiently far ahead of the Russian advance to prepare some hot food. But most of all it offered the opportunity to move fast enough to escape being encircled by the enemy and killed or captured. And being captured by the Warpac forces was merely death postponed.
    Looking back, the major saw that some of the company were straggling. ‘Sergeant Hyde, have them close up, regular intervals. If anyone falls out they’re to be stripped of ammunition and left behind.’
    It worked, as nothing else would have done. Those to whom each step was agony found the strength to withstand the pain; those who felt they were about to drop from sheer exhaustion found untapped reserves of energy.
    Like walking zombies they kept moving. With almost mechanical strides and with laboured breath whistling between gritted teeth they kept going. They knew they had to.

    SEVEN

Rain dripped from great banks of razor-wire flanking a high spike-topped steel mesh gate. The massed coils of serrated metal strips had been added to at different times. Most strands were heavily rusted; others, though streaked or spotted with the same dull encrustments, could still show lengths that gleamed brightly. A moss- blotched reinforced concrete guard post flanking the gate was unmanned, and the gate itself hung open.
    Above soared a towering cliff of dark granite. The walls of the castle extended it still higher. Tire marks showed a single light vehicle had been through that day.
    ‘Do we knock and wait for the butler.’ Scully felt nervous, overpowered by the sheer scale of the rock face.
    ‘There can’t be anything special in here.’ Checking quickly for booby-traps, Carrington went forward a few meters, but could see the side road for only a short distance where it followed the base of the cliff. ‘They wouldn’t leave the post unmanned and the gate open if there was.’
    ‘Maybe the two guys in the Hummer were the last to leave.’ Ripper also felt oppressed by the sheer scale of their surroundings. When he looked up he had to fight down the fear that the whole mountain was looming over him, falling to crush him.
    ‘Wouldn’t it be great if this was the entrance to that Paradise Valley?’
    ‘You think they’d leave the gate open if it was?’ Hyde snorted. ‘A place like that would be protected by a battalion at least.’
    ‘We’re never going to find out by standing here.’ Revel checked he had a round chambered and with Andrea at his side led in through the gate. Carrington tagged close behind them.
    Andrea loaded a smoke round into the grenade-launcher slung beneath the barrel of her Ml6. ‘When I was in the camps there were many stories about a special place that held vast stocks of everything we could ever want. All that we so desperately needed was supposed to be there. Food, clothing, medical supplies, arms, everything.’
    Though she talked as they walked, Andrea never for an instant relaxed her vigilance. Revell made no response, giving all his concentration to trying to anticipate what lay around the next bend.
    ‘An old man came to one camp I was in. He was crippled and almost deaf and covered by many great scars. Always he spoke of a wonderful valley where anything could be had. If you could get in. Eventually he persuaded some men to go with him. He would not tell them the location in advance, only that it was in this general area. We never heard of any of them again.’
    Still between high frost-cracked walls of granite, the road curved around the base of the cliff. Beside the road there was room only for a shallow stream that crossed and re-crossed the metalled surface, and where they had to wade through it the water lapped