Doomsday Warrior 08 - American Glory (12 page)

“McCaughlin, take that extra ’brid and hook him up with your kitchen team. Might need him later. And don’t, whatever any of you do, touch the aluma-tarps! They’re covered with the stuff—you can see it like syrup coating the outer surface. We’ll have to be careful until we reach a stream where we can wash the stuff off. So don’t let your legs down, or your hands rub against it, okay?”

He didn’t have to worry. After experiencing the ocean of demonic creatures, none of them was going to mess around with the excretions. As uncomfortable as their legs were in the muscle-straining position high on their mounts’ backs, they tried to hold them even higher to avoid being anywhere near the moist, poisonous deposits.

“East—we’ll keep due east,” Rock said, starting Snorter forward at a slow gait. “I know this area, there’s a river ahead a few miles.” They followed behind slowly like a funeral procession. Even Kim and Rona were at a complete loss for words, their hearts still beating so rapidly that they felt as if they would crack their ribcages. Both were deeply shaken—but neither wanted to admit it. So they rode with heads hung down as if in mourning for the lost Matheson.

Unlike snakes of the pre-nuke war era, which had but two fangs and swallowed their prey whole, the post-war monstrosities that Rockson and his team had barely survived had
rows
of inward-curving teeth about a quarter-inch long. This enabled them to actually chew off pieces of their victims, rather than having to eat them all at once or have nothing at all. Times were hard. Only those creatures, those species that had adapted and continued to adapt to the rapidly changing environments of the earth, would survive.

Thus Matheson’s body was shared by hundreds of the undulating serpents, who ripped the carcass apart like lions at a feed. They sank their jaws deep into the bloody flesh, locked them like clamps, and then pulled back with all their weight, ripping pieces right out. The epidermis and layers of muscle were consumed within minutes. Some of the smaller vipers slid inside the body through the nose and mouth and eaten-out eye sockets. Down through the throat and the intestines they slithered, ripping at the membranous walls around them until at last they bit through to the treasures their kind thirsted after above all else—the inner organs. These they dug into with wild abandon, biting and snapping around until their bodies were coated from snout to tail with blood. They ate for hours in this warm dream sea of consumable flesh.

Nine

“Y
ou see anyone?” Rockson asked the men crouching in the dark on each side of him as they slowly scanned the Red radio-relay outpost with their binocs from a nearby hill.

“Nothing,” Chen whispered back. “The gates closed.”

“Zip,” said Detroit, letting the mini-glasses fall back around his chest and taking up 2 grenades in his grit-coated strong black hands.

“Then, it’s a go,” Rock whispered as he motioned forward with his arm twice, signaling the rest of the Freefighting force waiting behind him in the bushes. With the passage of Rockson’s plan of attack back in Century City, the Doomsday Warrior had taken that as a mandate to mean
all
of his plan. Including that part about trying to strike a deal with Premier Vassily. And that meant talking with the man, or at least with his aide-de-camp, Rahallah, who had some say in the Kremlin.

The small Red Army outpost that the Freefighters were edging toward was a long-distance communications outpost whose function was to intercept radio messages from other Red fortresses for a distance of up to 1,000 miles and relay them by satellite back to Moscow’s central Army headquarters. There they’d be pumped into their Decode-Computer, If Rock could get hold of the sophisticated transmission gear locked away in the concrete bunker—and get one of the technicians to operate it—he might have a shot at getting through. But the best-laid plans of mice and mutants . . .

They had barely gotten past the surrounding barbed wire perimeter, slicing through it with mini-wirecutters—one of many small tools that McCaughlin carried on the supply ’brids’ backs—when a floodlight swooped down and caught the three lead Freefighters frozen for a split second in mid-stride.

“Take ’em out,” Rockson yelled above the momentary silence, as the Reds slowly realized that someone was attacking them—the first time in the ten years the base had been there. Without giving them a chance to organize, the Freefighters swarmed out of the darkness, their Liberators set on full auto, firing sprays of .9mm slugs at every dark uniform they saw.

The gunners in the two machine-gun emplacements on each side of the forty-yard-wide outpost frantically swung their big .50 cals. around on their tripods, trying to sight up the fighters who jumped and darted like grasshoppers, impossible to follow through the lenses. Suddenly from out of the midst of the attackers came two spinning steel pineapples. In each tower the guards scrambled toward the wooden stairs, letting their ammo belts drop to the floor. But not one made it as the grenades Detroit had flung detonated with fiery roars. Red bodies flew through the sky, clothing blazing like sizzling comets, filling the night with the stench of human flesh.

It’s an ancient adage—probably going back to the first Neanderthal’s invasion of his neighbor’s cave—but
surprise
is the most powerful ally a fighting force can have. The enemy is caught off guard, asleep, taking a piss out back. And in the vital seconds it takes just to comprehend what’s going on—it’s too late. The Freefighters threw their ropes, climbed the walls and swept through the compound with the ferocity and timing of a pack of tigers, destroying with claws of burning slugs every Russian stupid or slow enough to stay in range. Rockson’s fifteen-man team was probably the best-trained, toughest unit in Century City—and thus in the entire country. The poor bastards didn’t have a chance. Even Rona and Kim were taking their toll, from the hill, with long range IR-scoped shots. Rock and Chen headed for the main concrete bunker set dead center of the base, dodging a line of machine-gun fire that was tracing closer to them by the second.

“Down, boys, down,” the deep voice of Detroit Green bellowed out just behind them. They hit the ground as another pair of Freefighter presents wrapped in sweat came tearing over their heads. The Red gunner tried to sight up the nearly indistinguishable black man, squinting through the eight-inch-wide slit in his pillbox about seventy feet ahead. Detroit was not just a grenade thrower—he was the ace grenade thrower. Back in Century City, he was the eternal star of the military baseball team, which played the civvies twice a year. The long muscular arms on his squat muscular body could generate such power and pinpoint accuracy that neither the opposing baseball team nor the Commies stood a chance. Both of Detroit’s death apples flew through the narrow opening, one hitting the machine gunner on the side of the head. He nearly blacked out, came to in about a second, and looked down to see the two globes lying motionless on the floor as if waiting to be picked up. He had just enough time to turn and reach for the door, his fingers barely touching the knob, when they both went off. What was left of him slid underneath the door, making a belated gelatinlike exit from the charnel room.

“Go! Go!” Rock yelled, seeing the smoke pour out of the sighting slot. They charged forward, eyes darting back and forth through the smoke and the tracers. The Freefighters pounded through panicked groups of half-naked men who came charging from their sleeping quarters, screaming in terror and firing wildly in every direction—half the shots hitting their own men. Rock’s men just hit the dirt and opened up at waist level, mowing them down like beer bottles on a rickety fence. Only these bottles spouted brews of blood when hit.

Rockson hit the stairs that led to a steel door about ten feet below a pillbox.

“Crack it,” he yelled out to Detroit, who ripped two more high-explosive doughnuts from the ammo belts crisscrossed over his chest.

“Concussion, Rock,” Detroit screamed above the battle, “gonna make a pow,” He placed the grenades against each side of his mouth, ripped the pins out with his teeth, and let them drop down the stairs, bouncing along like metal tennis balls. Rock, Chen, and Detroit flew backward through the air and hit the ground, hugging the dirt as if it were a willing woman. Suddenly they were lost in a thunderous roar and were blanketed with chunks and particles of dirt and concrete. Before the noise had stopped reverberating in their eardrums, they were up and heading down the smoky stairs, weapons out, nerves on hair trigger. The concussion had lifted the three-inch-thick steel door right out of its frame and sent it flying backward, apparently crushing someone who had been standing just behind it into a pulp that oozed out from underneath it.

Rockson was praying that the Russians had followed their typical course when building the communications outpost. As was the way of the Russian Empire—everything planned. Everything came down from the top, from bureaucrats who sat around in huge empty halls making plans and forms for the world. In Century City, the Doomsday Warrior had taken the opportunity to go through captured Russian books and letters whenever they were taken along with the other booty. And he knew they always built the com units dead center of the subbasement, reasoning that it was the most protected place in case of full-scale artillery attack—though where the Freefighters were going to get any nuclear weapons had apparently never crossed their minds.

The three Rock Team Freefighters, their faces red with exertion, sweatshirts drenched with sweat, tore through the basement searching for the stairs to the lowest level.

Rockson suddenly felt himself slammed aside by Chen, a burst of .50 cal submachine-gun fire missing his head by inches. The Chinese Freefighter martial-arts master used the collision against Rock’s body to throw himself off in the other direction. While in motion, he flung two five-pointed
shuriken
from under his sleeve and then hit the other wall, sinking to the floor in an instant. The advancing Russian gunner kept firing, spraying the weapon back and forth down the hall—until the first spinning blade caught him just under the Adam’s apple. It cut three inches into the man’s throat, severing everything of any importance along the way. The Red dropped his rifle and slammed both palms over his sudden uninvited throat operation as if trying to keep everything from falling out. But it fell out—in a gush of blood and vomit—and the man fell to the concrete spasming in his own red liquid, his eyes already fixed and staring.

“Sorry for the push, Rock,” Chen said as the three men rose to their feet and started forward again. “Didn’t think you wanted to make that fellow’s acquaintance.”

“He’s not my type,” the Doomsday Warrior muttered as he started forward into near darkness, his .12 gauge shotpistol cocked near his head. He saw just a glint of light on the floor—then it was gone. Rock dropped to his knees, lowered his head to the cold cement, and began squinting furiously. Chen and Detroit looked at each other as if their leader had gone mad.

“Uh, lose a contact lens or something?” Detroit asked, holding another grenade in his right hand and his chromium .45 in the other.

“I saw a glint—I think—I think. Here!” he said excitedly. “This is it. A trap door down to the next level. It’s sealed tight—but not tight enough. What do you think?” he asked Detroit as he traced the barely noticeable edges of the pseudo-concrete door below with his fingertips.

“Got enough apples with me—but that’s it,” Detroit said, hitting the floor with a fist. “Feels thick, Rock. These Reds—sometimes they built ’em two feet, three feet thick. These might not do shit against that—but we’ll see.” He took the remaining six grenades from his web belt—the rest were back with his ’brid—and placed them around the perimeter of the sealed door. Instead of pulling the pins, Detroit flicked a small lever on the mini-bombs that switched on their radio detonation controls. Rock shouted to the other men to mop up and stay alert, while his team went into the bunker.

“All right,” the black bull of a man said, standing up. “Let’s find a place to hide—and—we’ll see.” Detroit sounded a little edgy as if not quite sure that the grenades were really capable of doing the job. And since he was the explosives-man on the team, he felt that the success or failure of the mission was on his head. They headed back around a cement wall and Detroit pulled a small transmitter from a pouch on his belt.

“Close your eyes and cover your ears, hoys and girls,” the dust-covered Freefighter said with a smirk. “ ’Cause it’s party time.” He turned a lever on the cigarette pack-sized transmitter and a roar filled the floor they were standing on. A shock wave followed instantaneously and the three of them were thrown from their feet and covered with a blanket of debris from the detonation. “Hey,” Chen whispered, “kill
them,
not
us.”

Detroit was the first one up and around the corner—wanting to see with his own eyes whether it had worked. He shot forward, trying to peer through the still-swirling smoke—and then saw it. The grenades had blasted the concealed hatch right out of the floor. He could see down into a large chamber below, filled with dust and voices yelling in terror.

“Don’t kill ’em if you can help it,” Rock yelled out as Detroit prepared to swing down. “We need at least one tech expert alive—otherwise, we’ve just wasted a lot of ammo.”

“To hear is to obey, Effendi,” Detroit said, disappearing down into the steaming hole, followed by Rockson and then Chen. As they swung into the communications center, hanging onto the sides of the opening and then dropping the two yards to the hard floor, the stunned, dust covered Russian techs around the hundred-foot-square room ran around like chickens with their heads cut off. They weren’t fighters—just communications specialists and repairmen whose training was in turning dials, not pulling triggers. They didn’t want to die—and from the looks of the filth-covered American rebels who were coming after them, it appeared that that was the general idea.

Several of them tore over to the guncase—it was impossibly cumbersome for them to carry their weapons while working with the transmission equipment—and grabbed for pistols, Kalashnikovs—anything their hands touched. The first to arm themselves turned and tried to draw a bead on the weaving American fighters, who had just dropped in.