Doomsday Warrior 01 (29 page)

“Here, Rock,” Dr. Shecter said, reaching into another crate. “An ultralight rad suit, not much bigger than a pack of cigarettes.” In a line, moving from the right of Rockson, the other men of the team were receiving the same supplies and instructions from Shecter’s assistants. Dr. Shecter always felt it incumbent upon himself to personally explain details to Rock. “I know you men don’t put much faith in rad suits,” Shecter continued, “and it’s true that most Freefighters have extremely high tolerance for radiation. Still, Rock, there are hot zones out there that would fry any living thing. Even you. So please.” He looked at Rockson with concern. The man wasn’t exactly foolhardy but he didn’t fear death at all. And that made him take few cautions.

“Positively, Doc,” Rock said, slipping the small container holding the suit into his saddle pouch for quick usage.

“Now, this is something we’re extremely proud of, Rock.” Shecter beamed, pulling up another device. “An atomic cell inertial sextant navigation computer.” He handed Rock an oddly shaped half-globe with various lenses affixed every few inches. “Just place it on any surface, adjust the small, expandable legs beneath it until these four bubbles on top come together and line up. Easy to use, works off either the sun or the stars. Can be programmed for locations, directions, distance between points. And under a pound.” Shecter was positively glowing.

Rockson took the device. “Here, McCaughlin,” he yelled out. “You’re the sighting man. Here’s a toy for you.” McCaughlin walked around several hybrids, pushing them rudely out of the way and took the sextant, looked at it bemusedly and walked back to his own riding ’brid and four pack brids. He was responsible for all their larger supplies. Erickson, the cook had to contend with his own four packers, who seemed to be resisting taking on the mini-stoves and cooking supplies that Shecter’s men were helping the Swede load up.

“Now, Rock, you like to use one type of shell in your .12-gauge pistol, the X-pattern heavy shot, but I’ve got something that I think could have numerous uses.” He handed Rock a handful of loads. “Gas, Rock. Explode and release an invisible cloud of MR-3 gas. Anything within twenty feet will go out like a light. And it’s non-lethal. Might feel sick as a horny dog in August for several days but definitely survivable. Just make sure you’re at least thirty feet away. The winds break it down molecularly within seconds. Bio-degradable nerve gas.” Shecter chuckled.

“Now this sounds interesting,” Rock said, loading the shells into his cartridge belt around his waist. “How many you got of these?”

“Just a dozen for testing, Rock. The damn nozzle on the gas injector broke last week. All we have is these experimental samples. But they work.” He handed Rockson the rest of the ammunition.

“I’ll be sure to use one on the first killer dog pack that finds me appetizing,” Rock said.

“Here’s the emergency pack, as always,” Dr. Shecter mumbled, handing Rock a small canvas pack about five-by-ten inches and just over an inch thick. “Poison tabs, anti-venoms—with serum, in hypo ready to use. These poison things here, by the way, are much more potent than the old ones, Rock,” Shecter said ominously. “We’re using shellfish toxin. Takes three seconds. Just a jab of the needle and—no pain.”

“Sounds wonderful,” Rockson said, throwing the emergency pack into his forward saddle pouch. “I’ll take a dozen.”

“And last but not, as they say, least,” Shecter said, picking up a lunchbox-sized container. “The medikit—has spray-bandage, plastisalve, seal-gauze, antizones, a mini-fluoroscope for locating bullets or shrapnel and, oh, etc., etc. You know what’s in there, for Christ’s sake,” Shecter said abruptly, growing suddenly impatient with the whole procedure.

“Indeed I do,” Rock grinned. “And have had cause to use all of them.” Rockson had been skeptical of Shecter’s doohickeys at first. But after they helped him out of numerous tight situations and saved his mutant hide again and again, he was a believer. He mentally memorized the location of everything he had just loaded. Once Rock placed something firmly in his consciousness, it was never forgotten. He glanced around at the other members of the Expeditionary Force Six. They were all loaded up, mounting their ’brids. McCaughlin still struggled with several boxes on his last unloaded ’brid. “Damn box!” he yelled, trying to balance the thing on the hybrid’s curved back. Every time he reached for a piece of rope to tie it, it began slipping out of his hands. The others stared on, suppressing belly laughs.

“Well, Doctor, I hope we see you again soon and that we’re all still alive.”

“And I hope that your mission is a success, Rock. I can’t overemphasize the importance of this strange race’s weapon. Their technology must be incredible. These kinds of weapons would make mincemeat of Russian armor. Even fortresses could be directly attacked.” He shook hands with the warrior. “God and science be with you, Ted Rockson,” Shecter said.

Rock swung his booted leg up over the palomino’s wide back and pulled the reins ever so slightly to the right. The hybrid responded instantly, giving off with a little snort by way of comment.

“Freefighters, we move,” Rockson said, holding his arm in the air and letting it fall slowly until it was pointing straight forward. The horse walked slowly through a long, ten-foot-wide concrete road, its hard hoofs echoing like shots from the flat walls. The other men fell in, single-file behind Rock, talking, joking, looking back at McCaughlin who sat twisted around in his saddle, yelling at the pack ’brids as they juggled the supplies on their writhing backs, moving jerkily along behind him.

The multilayered weaving of netting, branches and leaves was pulled aside at the end of the square tunnel by automatic motors. Rock and his men emerged into the cool night air of the Rocky Mountains in the middle of thick woods. The branches closed behind them. The men ceased their chatter so as to be alert to every movement and sound of the night. Their hybrids picked up speed as they came to sloping fields until they were moving at a brisk trot. The half moon, misted over with the high purple clouds of the stratosphere, peeked from behind openings in the puffy layers from time to time as a billion twinkling stars rayed down from the heavens onto the mounted force.

The night was beautiful, Rock thought, letting his head drift up across the infinite sky. He rocked gently back and forth atop the powerful hybrid, its thick muscles tightening and relaxing as its legs pushed the ground past. Rock let his eyes drop again until they were peering directly ahead into the gray darkness of the hills and woods. What was ahead? Only God knew that. But he, Ted Rockson, would find out.

Twenty-Five

P
resident Zhabnov read the reports of the massacre of the KGB flamethrower squads in the Little U.S.A. sector of Stalinville with mixed emotions. He was glad that the KGB had looked bad, but did it mean that there was a serious problem in the American sections? And what was he to make of the attack on the KGB headquarters there and the blowing up of a major munitions dump? The natives were growing restless. Too restless! There had been a munitions depot blown up before he came but that had been years ago. What the hell was going on?

And the letter from Premier Vassily disturbed him. He had expected that the premier of all the world would at least chastise Killov, give him a slap on the wrist for his unauthorized use of N-bombs on the hidden American city. But the old coward had knuckled under to Killov. The colonel’s faction on the Politburo must indeed be powerful. And Killov didn’t like him one bit. Put the two together and Zhabnov could see that it all spelled, Goodbye presidency—or worse.

I must make my mark, Zhabnov said to himself after mulling it over for a while. The two Negro waiters who stood next to his desk in the Oval Office remained silent while he paced the room. They poured out new glasses of brandy when he stopped in front of them.

“I need to do something to impress the premier that I am as powerful as Killov, that I can do an even better job in keeping order than he.” He spoke at the black servants, immaculate in their white tuxes, but looked at them as if they were chairs, inanimate objects who couldn’t understand a word he was saying. “I’ll also act to show that I’m more of a friend to Killov, more in sympathy with his plans. It’s time to bury the hatchet with the colonel—to save my own skin when Vassily kicks off. Yes! It’s a good idea.” He downed a shot of the brandy and reached for another. The liquor was working its way into his blood stream, making him feel woozy and powerful.

“But how to demonstrate strength? How to show I support Killov? How to combine the two?” The Negroes stood, still as statues, staring straight ahead at the opposite wall, their hands folded neatly at their waists. President Zhabnov paced back and forth, his eyes blinking madly, as he bit his upper lip, deep in thought. “I’ve got it,” he suddenly yelled, throwing his brandy glass to the floor with a crash. “I’ll do what Killov did—bomb a hidden American city with neutron bombs.” He would do what the KGB Death’s-Head leader had done on his own initiative. “Yes, in retaliation for the attack on Stalinville from within and without. Yes, and that will make it look as if I’m supporting the KGB who were so cowardly attacked in their flame-thrower mission.” Oh, how clever he was. The others thought him not as sharp as Killov or the cagy Vassily, but they were wrong. Yes, that was absolutely the thing to do. His own intelligence reports had determined that a city called Union City by its inhabitants existed in the mountains of South Dakota—right in Killov’s back yard. Why tell Killov and let him get all the glory? Why not use this opportunity to strengthen the morale of his United Socialist States Air Force. He could have their Sukoyov-97 bombers attack the Americans with the N-bombs.

He would call in his top officers that afternoon and give them two days to prepare to attack—all in the name of retaliation. But the attack had to succeed, as Killov’s had. He had heard disquieting reports that his air force had been cannibalized by Moscow officials who needed the parts for the Eastern Front—the war with China that was growing rapidly in intensity, as the Chinese mounted their thirty-fifth attack in the last century against Red forces on the border. But surely he had enough functioning planes left to mount a small bomber attack.

He picked the phone up and called his top air force general, Lavkov. A weary-sounding Lavkov answered the phone. He claimed he had been on duty for forty-eight hours without rest, that there had been a number of rebel bands sighted throughout the country and reconnaisance flights had been going out in droves.

“I want to see you immediately,” Zhabnov said brusquely. “Drop all that stuff. I’m calling a meeting of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for tonight—nine
P.M.
in my Oval Office—you will inform whichever of your staff must be in attendance. Make sure they’re absolutely trustworthy. You know what I mean.” He hung up.

That night at 9:00 exactly, the meeting began. The mood was uneasy, for there had been no meeting like this since the Black Rebellion in the Detroit fortress back in ’82. Then the army had been called out to decimate twenty thousand rioters, resisting a thirty percent decrease in food rations.

Zhabnov gave a speech about the defense of the conquered territories. And just in case one of the officers assembled was KGB, he offered warm praise for Killov’s recent actions.

“I think we can all be grateful for Colonel Killov’s recent success with atomic weapons. He has been an inspiration to me. Now we will carry out our own attacks with atomic devices as well.” A murmur of amazement went through the Oval Office as the twenty-seven assembled Red brass glanced at one another in confusion.

“The air force will carry out the attack using two neutron bombs, but I want the army as well to conduct massive maneuvers near Stalinville so that the civilians and the rebels in that sector will know of the president’s determination to have order maintained.”

“The air force will have ten bombers up within hours of receipt of the neutron weapons,” General Lavkov said loudly, rising from a chair near Zhabnov.

“I was thinking more like fifty or a hundred,” Zhabnov said right back. “As a show of strength. Fly over Little U.S.A., blacken the skies, the mountains around the area with aircraft—”

“But, Mr. President,” Lavkov interrupted imploringly, knowing he was treading on thin ice. “With the equipment we have—the shortage of parts—orders from the premier to cooperate with Moscow Central’s requests—we would be lucky to get twenty bombers up there, Besides we’ll only need one if we’re dropping two devices.”

Zhabnov’s face grew red. “I said fifty, Lavkov. Didn’t you hear me? This is not just for the rebel’s benefit, but for Killov and even Vassily. I want them to know that the damned army and air force are still powerful here in America. That we can move and move fast, that we can strike like one of these American rattlers and kill. Do you understand me?” The general staff were amazed. They had never seen Zhabnov like this. So there was something there after all. Perhaps they had all miscalculated the workings of Mr. President.

“Yes, Mr. President, but—”

“Well, get as many as you can up there, Lavkov—at least forty. Do you hear me? Send up fighters, anything. I want them all to feel the power and might of the Soviet forces. We need good press in
Pravda.
How long?”

“Seventy-two hours, Mr. President,” Lavkov said glumly.

“Don’t fail me on this one,” Zhabnov said.

“Yes, Mr. President,” the Red air force general replied. “I’ll get them up there.” He saluted and headed out. He’d have to get every damn air base on the East Coast on ready to pull it off. And he knew he’d better pull it off. His head was on the chopping block and he could feel the ax descending.

By Lenin, I’m getting to be a tough customer, Zhabnov thought later, after the generals had left with their orders. He called up his research-and-experimentation director and asked how Project Lincoln was going—the plan to turn American slave workers into fighters against their own countrymen, the Freefighters.

“We are making slow progress,” Kaminski said, “but just a few more weeks and—”