Doomsday Warrior 10 - American Nightmare (2 page)

He laughed. He fell down on his knees, laughing. The first drops of rain from the sodden sky hit him in that position.

Water. Rock opened his mouth, took in a few precious drops.
Quick,
he told himself take off your shirt, make a bowl of bunched material. It will soak up some, but
maybe,
if the rain is hard enough . . .

The ground grew darker, absorbing the big drops that now fell. His laughter at his folly turned to joy; peals of joy. The cupped fabric of his shirt started filling with water. The sky was dark now, the lightning brilliant, terrifying peals of thunder ripping at his ears. The wind was whipping up.

He drank, rubbed the wet shirt over his sunburnt face, cupped the material again, filled it, drank again. He was feeling better. He looked up. The line squall was already passing, but there was a strange, distant roar—constant, low,
but there.
A huge storm was brewing. High winds and mega-lightning. But for now the rain let up. His vision was better, his heart beat more regularly. You could now see for a dozen miles—and Rockson, sweeping the far horizon with his gaze, detected a plateau glinting like gold below an arching rainbow. It was over a thousand feet high if an inch. And it was unmistakable. The Glower’s Plateau! He had passed this way years ago, while on a mission to secure a new super-weapon for the Freefighters. The mica-filled plateau was an unmistakable landmark. He knew his way now, for sure. He’d try to live on just the water he had imbibed, if he could. Another day, maybe two, of hard trekking and he’d see
his
mountains. He’d be home at long last. He watched the sun setting behind the plateau. Let’s see, he knew that the sun set in the southwest this time of year in North America, and if his memory didn’t deceive him, the plateau was near the old site of Salt Lake City, which had been blasted to dust in the nuke war. To reach Colorado, he’d head off at a ninety-degree angle to the left of the plateau.

If he could just avoid hypothermia—extreme loss of body heat—tonight . . . Perhaps he would have to cover himself with the red dirt he now trod over. That would keep some heat in—a dirt sleeping bag.

There was a noise—mechanical—a vehicle. Rockson dropped to the ground, flat. Shit! It was a jeep! Over to the west. He hadn’t seen it, because it was coming out of the glare of the setting sun.

Voices—Russian words.
Reds.
A patrol. They were only a few hundred yards away. Had they spotted him?

He was unarmed, except for the knife. If they
had
spotted him, he was probably a goner.

A tall Soviet officer with a gold left eyetooth glinting in the sunlight stood laughing and pointing in the lead jeep. Pointing at Rockson. He was saying something about “follow the poor bastard, until he drops, but do it slowly . . .” He was saying something about taking bets on how long the solitary man would last—Rock knew enough Russian to understand that much.

Maybe, the Doomsday Warrior thought, just
maybe
I can smash that gold eyetooth down his foul-breathed gullet. Maybe I’ll see if he laughs then.

It was a tall order, for the jeep contained six men, all armed with Kalashnikov submachine guns. And there was another jeep coming up behind it.

Two

L
ieutenant Lev Streltsy of the Soviet KGB was an ambitious and clever young officer. The descendant of an ancient Russian family whose ancestors had enjoyed privilege and favor from the tsars, Streltsy considered himself a rising star, anxious for opportunity. Little did he expect that the strange fugitive his squad had spotted and were now pursuing could be just that opportunity.

Most of the men stationed at the remote Petroff Fortress in the Utah desert considered their assignment odious. Not Streltsy. Proud and opportunistic, he found the nearly forgotten post ideally suited to his long-range secret dream: to lead a coup against the Soviet hierarchy in the West and establish himself as a modern-day star with North America as his personal domain and kingdom. Fort Petroff would serve ideally as his base of operations. Not only was it isolated beyond the watchful eyes of powerful administrators, but the garrison force of 1200 KGB operatives and young trainees provided a ready collection of misfits and nonconformists from which he could mold a cadre of loyal personal guards to support his counterrevolution. Since the leader of the KGB, Killov, had fallen from power, this had begun to be more than a mere dream.

The officers’ corps at Petroff also suited Streltsy. Comprised primarily of aged, unimaginative senior officers, Streltsy had quickly consolidated his position. The base commandant, Lieutenant General Fydor Dommsky, was more than willing to let the able young KGB officer assume the burden of command at his frontier post while he idled away the days with strong drink and sleep.

Streltsy had won the affection and loyalty of the garrison by appeasing their meaner instincts. He had regular shipments of vodka and other luxuries dropped at the base by cohorts in the Soviet Air Force. These he distributed freely to the men and they soon formed a jolly company of swashbuckling musketeers, devoted to their leader. Growing irreverent and bold in their isolation, the men openly mocked the military establishment that had banished them to this remote and desolate duty. On more than one occasion, during their drunken revelries, Streltsy had hinted at his grand schemes, and found his men receptive to the idea of rebellion.

To further activate their taste for blood and avarice, Streltsy had built a secret torture chamber. The “Bastille,” as the men called their playground, was a remarkable collection of medieval and modern torture devices that would have made Ivan the Terrible envious. Located deep underground in an abandoned missile silo several miles from the base, the Bastille served as a secret headquarters and pleasure palace for Streltsy’s band. Unwary travelers picked up by his men in their foraging patrols usually ended up screaming in agony in the Bastille. Many of the prisoners were kept alive as servants to the marauding KGB squads. Streltsy made sure his men were provided with mistresses and slaves to wet their appetites for the new order he envisioned.

To Rockson, a Russian was a Russian: scheming, clever, disgruntled, ambitious, or whatever . . . they were all poison to him. And, despite his fatigue and nausea, he intended to do his best to avoid joining the “jolly company” of KGB’ers coming after him. He knew from the uniforms that these were Killov’s sickboys and he was sure that their welcoming committee had more than tea planned for him when he finally gave out.

In any case, the game was on—Rockson now walking slowly through the maze of sand dunes and boulder fields that dotted the broad desert plain, while the Soviet jeeps tailed him from a distance, taunting him. Under normal circumstances, that much negligence on the part of the enemy would have been more than enough of an advantage for Rockson to secure his escape, or even destroy them. But the bloodfruit he had eaten was affecting his mind as well as his body. He was fighting to maintain control. But the nausea and fatigue, coupled with the burning desert sun and dehydration, were taking their toll. His eyes burned and his temples pounded with pain. The weight of his arms pulled them down limply as he shuffled along barely able to grasp the knife in his right hand, his only weapon.

He searched the landscape for a break in the terrain, a place to hide just for a minute, enough to pull his heaving stomach together and rest his aching legs. There . . . just ahead . . . about fifty yards. A narrow defile thick with leafy undergrowth . . . perhaps an escape hatch. He renewed his effort, expending his final reserve of energy, his mind racing with anticipation. Bullets were suddenly unleashed, short bursts from automatic rifles kicking up sand around his feet. They were missing on purpose. If only he could make the defile. Closer and closer . . . another ten steps. He dove for the cover, landing in a belly flop on a stretch of salt flat, the lush green foliage disappearing as the wisp of mirage it was. Rock spat a mouthful of briny sand.

“Looks like I’m about ready for a Section Eight,” Rock muttered, referring to the military regulation regarding discharge for psychological instability.

The jeeps were no more than fifty yards off now and Rock could hear the Russians laughing and jeering at him.

“Running dog,” they laughed, peppering the ground around him with bursts of fire. He tried to stand, flopped back.

Within seconds they came screaming by, firing their weapons inches from him as he crawled and stumbled, the jeeps’ fat tires inches away. They began circling the distressed Freefighter, laughing and screaming like cowboys of old.

Rock spun on the verge of panic and delirium. He couldn’t believe it would end like this. Knocked off by a band of KGB renegades in the desert, his body left to bake in the sun while scorpions scurried through his rotted cranium. In a final surge of effort he spun with a scream and heaved a rock he picked up at the windshield of one of the circling jeeps. He saw the glass shatter and the jeep spin out of control, then a fierce thud cracked his skull from behind and he was out.

Rockson awoke to find himself in a windowless, circular room. Metal walls laced with catwalks rose some sixty feet upward. He was strapped on his back to what appeared to be a large metal spoked wheel, his arms and legs stretched tight and secured with metal shackles. All around the spacious enclosure he could discern a variety of strange contraptions, vaguely familiar but unrecognizable. He shook his head to clear his vision and struggled weakly against his bindings.

Peering upward into the huge cylinder, his senses began to return.

“A silo,” he whispered, “a missile silo.”

“Correct, my friend,” replied a voice from above and behind him. “Emptied of its contents in the nuke war one hundred and three years ago.”

Rock craned his neck but could not see his adversary. Suddenly the wheel spun halfway around with a sound of electric gears, and Rock could see the man who had spoken. It was the man from the lead jeep, seated before a control panel on a platform about fifteen feet up on the wall. Five or six of his cronies clustered around him, and footsteps on the myriad of metal walkways up and down the silo told him there were others.

“Welcome to the Bastille. Formerly a missile silo, used to house one of the A-bombs your forefathers dispensed on my country in the great war. A house of death, if you will.” The gold-toothed man smiled an evil grin. “A temple of the devil, is it not?”

“What . . . what do you want from me? . . .” Rock gasped, feigning fear. In tight situations, making the opponent underestimate you is a useful strategy. In truth Rockson was not afraid.

The charade brought a hideous laugh from the Soviet lieutenant. He set the control to a slow spin and descended the stairway to the silo floor.

“Why, I’m surprised at you. An esteemed Freefighter such as you styling yourself quaking in fear at the sight of a mere lieutenant.”

“Freefighter?” Rock replied, continuing the ruse. The wheel was spinning slowly, causing Rock to twist his head back and forth as he watched the officer approach. He and his henchmen began counter circling the spinning wheel.

“Freefighter. yes. Come now, Mr. Rockson, Mr. Ted Rockson, self-styled leader of the American Resistance movement. Surely you haven’t contracted amnesia along with your other predicaments?”

“Rockson? Please . . . I don’t know what you’re talking about. My name’s Alvin. Alvin York. I’m a prospector. I don’t mean no harm. What do you want from me?”

Streltsy stopped the wheel with his hand and came face to face with his prisoner.

“Don’t play games with me, Rockson,” he said low, deadly serious. “We get news dispatches even here. Any Soviet officer worth his salt has seen your picture a hundred times. I must say, Mr. Rockson, I’m grateful you chose to stumble into my web.”

“And who are you?” asked Rockson.

“Streltsy. Lieutenant Lev Streltsy, KGB. Remember the name. If you are fortunate enough to survive your impending ordeals,” he said, waving to the collection of contraptions around the room, “you will undoubtedly hear much of me.”

“I’ll ask you again, Lieutenant,” said Rock, “what do you want?”

“Answers, my friend. Answers,” replied Streltsy, releasing the wheel and continuing his strut, his tall gaunt countenance passing Rock’s field of vision every five seconds or so. Rock saw he had the traditional dueling scar crossing the length of his left cheek, lending an ominous aura to the man’s gaunt face, his insolent sneer.

“Your friends, your plans, your weapons, supplies. I am a profoundly curious man, Mr. Rockson, and I believe there is much you can tell me. Providence has placed you in my hands. It is another indication of my destiny. You can provide me with enough information to ferret out and virtually eliminate the core of resistance in America.
You,
my dear friend, are just the opportunity I have been hoping for. You see, Mr. Rockson, besides being a curious man, I am an ambitious man. I see great things in my future. Like you, I am not altogether satisfied with the power structure of the world in its present state. In a sense, we are allies, Mr. Rockson. You are fortunate in that respect. A lesser man would have quickly turned you over to his superiors where your fate would have been sealed. The Premier himself would be most anxious to interview you. Have you ever seen Red Square, my friend?”

“No,” said Rockson, immediately regretting the lie. He knew he was in a psychological game, one that was almost sure to end in his death. Answering any question was a dangerous precedent.

“Ahh, very good. Very good. And there is no need for you to make this trip. We are similar men, Rockson. I am well aware of your prowess and abilities. Perhaps I might even have a place for you on my staff.”

“Great,” said Rockson. “Do I get an office with a window and a key to the Kremlin’s men’s room?”

Streltsy chuckled and switched the wheel to a stop, ending Rock’s dizzying spin.

“Enough idle chitchat, my friend. Now, on to business. Where were you heading when we picked you up? Who were you planing to rendezvous with?”