Doomsday Warrior 12 - Death American Style (21 page)

He took another up—a Dydrex—and looked down into the little pill box with the numerous compartments for all the ups, downs, in-betweens, muscle-relaxants, pain-killers, mega-tranqs—and a dozen other things that were in there. The man was hardly more than a walking drug himself anymore. He knew it. If they took blood from him they could bottle it and sell it back to him again. The thought amused him, and he actually laughed as he felt in such a good mood. His mouth hadn’t moved in such fashion for a long long time, and it hurt as he did so. But yes, the thought was funny. He could take an intravenous needle and stick it in one arm—and just stick the other end back into the other arm. Why, he could recycle his own drug supply. Why, the idea was positively genius. Again his mouth shook and wretched little cawing sounds came out. The captain of the boat didn’t dare look around to see just what it was that the colonel was doing. He didn’t want to know.

They moved slowly up the Potomac, so clear and beautiful this morning with the cherry blossoms reflected in its flat waters, with the stars above shining back up from the surface. The tanker headed forward like some leviathon from the Bible, some promised beast of destruction. Headed inexorably toward an ocean of blood.

Twenty-One

T
he spectacle the next morning as all the parties assembled aboard Premier Vassily’s supership, the
Dreadnaught,
was awe-inspiring indeed. Vassily had let Zhabnov have his banners and his feast—but now, now the Premier would make the Freefighters, make
Ted Rockson,
feel the pressures of history. For all men can be seduced by power. By the trappings of power. The rituals and sounds, the silk and the gold that makes a man feel stirred in his blood. Rockson was a great man, like himself, and Vassily was sure that he would not be unmoved by the display of power that was being put on for him.

Buglers, hundreds of them, lined the sides of the great carrier deck, flags a hundred feet high depicting American-Soviet friendship, immense paintings in great Soviet realism—American and Red workers shaking hands over tractor seats. Farmers, fishermen, all the workers of each land joined together in a fairy tale of “art” in which everything was peace and love. Behind them, at the far end of the
Dreadnaught,
were rows of choppers and super-advanced MIG fighters, their wings folded back like broken dragonflies. The huge guns of the great ship were poised straight ahead as if they would destroy the surrounding landscape should they wish to. The covered missile silos shone in the sun, the promise of megadeath inherent in their curved domes.

The procession walked up the long aluminum gangplank covered over with plush red carpet as the crowds of Freefighter delegates and Red officials headed up onto the top of the ship. Premier Vassily, pushed by Rahallah, then Zhabnov, then Rockson, then the rest. The pecking order of the world. They were greeted by a great blast of horns, then a hundred drummers pounded out a martial beat that could set a man’s heart to doing double-time. Huge flower arrangements, twenty, thirty feet high had been set up here and there as adornments for the conference. If Vassily thought he would win Rockson’s mind with such trappings, he was sorely mistaken. For the Doomsday Warrior was, if anything, more amused by it all than either taken in or even angered. It was hard to take it seriously when he recognized in some of the towering bouquets or flowers some of McCaughlin’s favorite ingredients for his stews. If the big Scotsman were here he would doubtless be surreptitiously snipping off whole stalks.

They were led by Russian naval officers, every one of them decked out in ceremonial garb, strikingly colorful, with wide plumed hats, all circa nineteenth century—pre-revolution days, when the czar had ruled things with no less an autocratic thumb. Two long tables had been set up, each a good two hundred feet in length—actually a number of twenty-footers pushed together—their surfaces uncovered so that their shining mahogany wood glistened like red fire in the noonday sun burning down on them.

It was an afternoon hot and sultry in a way that D.C. had been famous for all the way back to the pre-revolutionary days, when the first bold men had settled here. Fortunately, the breezes coming in off the bay and the high, billowing, parachute-like tents that had been set up above the tables made it seem far cooler than it was.

When they had been marched in, saluted, bugled, drummed and a hundred other little ritualistic ceremonies, they were at last all seated. First Premier Vassily made a little speech about peace—then Zhabnov. Then it was Rock’s turn, but he merely stared at the Premier.

“Why don’t we just get on with it, Vassily. We both have a lot of better things to do than listen to bullshit all day.” Archer, sitting next to the Doomsday Warrior, grunted with approval—not understanding his mentor’s words, but feeling the emotion behind them. He couldn’t see any food anywhere, though he looked hard. And the sudden realization that he might have to sit here all day without a single bite was starting to dawn on him with depressing clarity.

“Excellent idea, excellent,” Vassily answered without missing a beat. Behind him Rahallah stood, his hands folded in front of his waist, sunglasses on, as impenetrable as an Egyptian sphinx. “Then before we go on with the proceedings at hand, I would like to know why you violently attacked—and killed—a number of Russian officers in the city of Washington on your way here.”

Rockson testily replied, “My delegation came in
the way we had to—
making sure you weren’t planning a betrayal.”

“It’s indeed an unfortunate incident,” Vassily coolly admonished,
“but,
there have been many such incidents in the history of our relationship . . . Perhaps now we can begin to change that. I don’t want to stall the peace process . . . Look, Rockson—you killed some of my men, we hurt some of yours. Let’s just call it even, a stalemate, a sad episode that had no winners—and move on.”

“All right with me,” Rock said, leaning back in one of the ornate antique Russian chairs that the Premier had had dug up from the czar’s old palace museum and brought here by the hundreds. Every man was sitting on a priceless relic from the imperial past. “But how about fatso here.” Rockson looked at Zhabnov, who appeared ready to pop a gut. “He tortures young girls; he’s a pimp.”

“Why you—you,” he sputtered, knowing that he’d been screwed by Rockson, trumped—and he wasn’t even quite sure how.

“Sit down, Nephew,” Vassily said firmly to Zhabnov. “Or I’ll be forced to have you escorted from the premises.” Vassily looked coldly at his stupid nephew. The fool’s sex mania was abominable. Yet Zhabnov couldn’t even begin to comprehend that. Zhabnov seemed to turn about five different colors as his brain tried to calculate all the various levels that were going on. But it couldn’t. So he breathed out hard, made himself sit back.”

“Nephew will reform himself, or face punishment,” old Vassily said.” Now, I propose that all procurement of American women as ‘volunteer’ concubines cease, and that ‘volunteer’ labor camps in this country close down immediately!” There were gasps from every Russian mouth at the table, including Zhabnov’s. The American slaves were the backbone of the Russian economy here. Why, they didn’t have a single Red worker in America. Rockson sat up a little straighter, his ears perking up at the words. He had never heard them make such an offer, even if it were couched in face-saving terms.

“Secondly,” the Premier went on, and Rock noticed that today his voice was strong, clear, his color good. The man clearly believed in what he was saying. “A joint Soviet-American military command force should be set up to become a national police force, working together to rid the countryside of bandits and murderers.”

Again there were gasps and sounds of consternation everywhere. The ideas were too radical to the Russians. The Freefighters, on the other hand, were wondering if they were awake. They hadn’t expected anything of this magnitude. And suddenly they began to grow afraid, their stomachs knotting up in fear. For if it all was true, then they would have to sign a peace treaty—and God help them if it all turned out to be lies. They could be the greatest heroes, or the greatest villains, the country had ever seen.

“Thirdly,” the Premier went on, his voice if anything growing stronger with every word, “America will be returned to a democratic form of government in which Russian and American citizens will share equal voting rights. And fourthly, all Freefighters shall be given political amnesty—all political prisoners released from jail.” With that, he stopped, and sat back in his wheelchair, suddenly a little tired from talking. The hundreds of delgates, officers and mid-level bureaucrats all stared at each other, not knowing what the hell to think, say, do, or even the right expression to make. For they weren’t sure, to a man, if it was wonderful or the most terrible thing they had ever heard. For an instant, peace was possible.

But
only
for an instant! For suddenly the sky was filled with what was at first an irritating whine, then within seconds a drone that filled the very heavens with a roar. All eyes looked up to see a whole fleet of helicopters swooping in on them from four sides. There must have been thirty, even forty of the rushing black helis, moving like hawks, looming ever larger as the
Dreadnought’s
crew and the delegates’ eyes focused on them.

Then all hell broke loose. The choppers unleashed a hail of rockets and machine-gun fire that tore into the top of the great
Dreadnaught
like scythes of death. Though the fighting vessel had enough firepower to take out whole nations—nuclear missiles were stored in silos below—and conventional forces to take out a whole fleet with cannon and non-nuclear missiles systems, still they weren’t prepared for or able to deal with this quick strike, coming in at a hundred feet above sea level. Somehow, no one had ever thought of that particular possibility.
Where were they from?

Many of the delegates didn’t have a chance. Russians and Americans were cut to ribbons where they sat, their bodies jerking wildly in their seats as if they were dancing, arms and legs jumping as slugs tore into them, dismembering bodies. Tables crackled from explosions; small clouds of smoke began rising all over the deck as the shells and rockets soared down in eruptions of blood and flame. It was a massacre. Everywhere the attendees of the Peace Conference were turned into steaming raw hamburger.

Rockson barely had time to throw himself down and under the heavy table when the saw a scissor of slugs coming right down the center of the long table, cutting men apart like a they were in a slaughterhouse. He saw Rahallah grabbing the Premier and diving, trying to shield him. Rock hit the cold metal deck and slid halfway under the table. He felt the shuddering of wood above him as .50 caliber slugs tore into it every six inches or so. Splinters flew in the air all around him, some getting in his face and eyes, blinding him momentarily.

Then everything was a kaleidoscope of color, heat and pain. He heard the choppers roaring in from every direction like a herd of screaming hawks. The whooshes of their rockets being fired could be heard every second or so, then the explosions a second later. The machine guns never let up, as dozens of the helis roared back and forth fifty feet above the deck, taking out everything and everyone they could. It was as if they were exterminating cockroaches—not wanting one to live.

It was a trap! Rock realized with horror. The whole thing had been a set-up from the start. And yet? And yet,
it didn’t make sense.
If it was
their
trap—why were the Premier and the fat President hiding under a table just feet away from him?

Now a larger craft hovered, a voice boomed out on an airborne loudspeaker: “Rockson, Vassily, Zhabnov!
It is I.
”

Killov!
The man was alive. He was behind the attack!

Rock glanced up carefully from beneath the table. A black, heavily armored SK-9 chopper with death’s-head markings! Then he saw a missile fire from a chopper about two hundred feet down the deck. It seemed to come straight for him, then veered off, losing power, and hit the water. Rock searched frantically for Archer and couldn’t see the bastard anywhere. When he turned back a fraction of a second later, a chopper was only yards above, bearing down on him as if wanting to give him a real personal kind of hug. God, the thing was falling, afire!

Rockson started to roll out of the way, away from the table, which he could see was going to take the direct hit—but he had gotten only a yard or two when the whole world seemed to erupt into brimstone and blinding light. Then the Doomsday Warrior didn’t know where the hell he was, just turning and rolling and flopping around like a little boy caught in the big breakers at the beach. And Rock knew that this time he was in way over his head. And he probably wasn’t coming out.

Twenty-Two

R
ockson was spinning through the air. He had thought he had been over fifty feet from the edge of the huge
Dreadnaught,
but suddenly there it was—the water below coming up at him like a giant mirror in which he could see red explosions going off above and around him. He felt like his own body was on fire as well. He’d been hit somewhere. But he didn’t have time to check it out, to say the least. He suddenly hit the water, somehow managing in his half-stupor to come in feet first.

Even so, a hundred-foot leap when you’re half unconscious and your muscles aren’t working very well isn’t exactly fun. Rockson hit the water hard—or rather it felt like it hit him, kicked him with the force of a mule. He felt himself shooting deep under the water into the darkness, the cold, and felt his consciousness threatening to spark out. And he knew that if he passed out down here, it was over. Somehow, reaching inside with all his willpower, his mutant abilities, Ted Rockson made himself stay conscious. The cold was good, as it seemed to jar his senses a little. He lifted his head and looked up, trying to determine if he was still going down. He wasn’t, but had stopped and was just sort of floating deep beneath the water. The surface looked to be thirty feet up, though it was murky and everything was upside down and twisted through the diffracting effect of the light of day bending through the water.