Elijah's Chariot (The Forgotten Children Book 1) (10 page)

Sean’s
fingers closed tightly around the headphones over his ears. The soft foam
squeezed under his grip and he strained to understand the words that were
intermixed with the static. The slanted rays of cold, winter sunlight danced
over hundreds of steel-colored buildings, around wind-blown deserted street
corners and through the window’s reinforced glass into Sean’s eyes as he stared
out across the city. 

The
efficient and well-mannered Thompson had shown him a couple of hours ago how to
operate the shortwave radio that sat on one of the desks near the computer
equipment. Sean was fascinated right from the start. The only people that he’d
been able to find so far didn’t speak any English, but their voices sounded
friendly enough. After a while, he’d given up trying to contact anyone and just
sat listening, slowly rotating the dial through all the frequencies, picking up
on various tones of static. 

The
sun was going down. Kevin was asleep on the couch, having taken four Advil to
fight his headache. John Rohrstadt was sitting on one of the kitchen stools
reading. Thompson and Connors had taken Kimberley’s body outside earlier in the
day. Sean assumed they were napping upstairs. 

Suddenly,
a couple words of what sounded like English barked through the headphones. Sean
reached for the dial to make the signal clearer, sitting up straighter and
turning some of the instruments on the radio that Thompson had shown him. 

“This
is Gremlin Seven, repeat, Gremlin Seven. Can you hear me?” Sean said into the
microphone. He held the headphones securely to his head with both hands. The
voice was still there, just faintly. It sounded like singing or crying. He
closed his eyes, trying to figure out if it was saying anything when it
suddenly stopped. 

“Oh,
oh, you’re, somebody’s there, oh somebody can – can you understand me? You, viy
govoritye po-angliskiy? Can you understand me?”

Sean’s
eyes popped open as soon as he heard the woman’s voice coming in clearly
through the headphones. His hand jumped for the button and he responded, “Yes,
I can understand you. Where are…”

“Oh,
thank God, I’ve been trying to call out to anyone, anyone out there for… for a
long time, since last night, maybe? I don’t know, there’s, there’s just no one
else here, I haven’t been able to find anyone else. They’re all dead…”

Sean
paused, unsure of how to reply. She sounded like she was crying, her words
coming out between big gulps and sniffles. She wasn’t making a lot of sense. 

“My
name’s Sean. I’m from Pasadena, California. I’m in Moscow with my dad on
business. What’s your name?”

Soft
laughter filled his ears. “Hello Sean from Pasadena. I’m Pamela from… I don’t
know where I’m from. Not from here, that’s for sure. Not anywhere near here …”

“Are
you alone Pamela? Where are you at?”

There
was no response – just a soft crackling sound across the airwaves. Sean was
about to readjust the dial when her voice came back on.

“Uh,
I don’t know, not sure where, Sean from Pasadena. Not sure where, not sure how
long I’ve been here. They chased me in here… maybe yesterday some time? I ran
across the big courtyard and came in here and now there’s a shelf and a desk in
front of the door and I’m keeping the lights off, but I know that really it’s
just a matter of time…”

“Who
chased you?” Sean asked. 

“A
bunch of kids. A bunch of filthy, ugly bleeding Russian street kids. I saw them
outside the hotel and they just looked at me walking down the street. I wanted
to find a taxi, but I couldn’t… somewhere… far away somewhere, I couldn’t get
there. Then they started running after me, they were yelling something at me, I
couldn’t understand. I threw my money at them, dropped my purse, but they kept
running, I don’t know what they wanted…”

Sean
held onto the microphone firmly. He took in a couple of breaths, but let it out
slowly each time, unsure of what to say. Finally, he said, “It’s okay, Pamela,
everything’s going to be okay. We can come get you and, and then we’ll bring
you back here, it’s safe here…”

He
heard the soft laughter again. The volume gradually increased until she began
to cry. Her whimpers came clearly through the headphones into his ears and her
voice began to rise into a loud wail. Then, the mournful sound immediately
stopped and he heard the faint catches of laughter in her voice. 

“Oh,
Sean, oh, Sean from Pasadena, it’s not safe there. It’s not safe anywhere.
Sean?”

“Yeah?”

“Sean
– we’re going to die, honey. We’re all going to die.”

The
last words were hissed out so loudly that Sean had to tear the headphones off
his head. He threw them onto the desk and sat staring for several moments, only
listening to his own quick, short breathing. Finally, he pulled the black
earpieces back on. 

“Pamela?
Hello?”

There
was no response. He tried several more times, but was unable to get anything
more from her. Maybe she had to go out, he thought. Maybe her radio stopped
working or something. 

He
sat there for several minutes, leaning back in the chair, the headphones still
on his head relaying the occasional burst of brief static. Sean stared out at
the dark windows in the apartment building across the street. The fading
sunlight was casting long shadows on the asphalt and the chunks of dirty,
melting snow in the gutters. 

Staring
intently at the darkened window only a street away from him, Sean wondered who
lived in that apartment. He wondered if last week at this time the window had
been lit from a kitchen or bedroom light of the family that lived there. He
wondered where they’d gone. Had they stayed in their apartment, in their own
beds right up until the end? Or, had they left the city for their summer
cottage or gone to find relatives somewhere? He wondered if that light would
turn back on again sometime, if anyone would ever look out of that window
again. 

Sean
was roused from his doze by a soft tap on his shoulder. He must have only been
asleep for a couple minutes – the sun was only a little farther down in the
sky. His father was standing behind him, bleary-eyed, rubbing a hand over his
face. 

“I
thought I heard voices – did you get somebody on the radio?”

Sean
shook his head. “She’s gone. I tried to find out… she’s not answering.”

“Well,
who was it? Did she speak English?” Kevin said as he stretched his arms wide
and yawned. 

Sean
continued to stare out the window. “Dad – what’s going to happen?”

Quick
pounding echoed through the hall outside the thickly padded front door. Then, a
deep voice shouted something in Russian. 

Kevin
turned at the sound. John Rohrstadt put his magazine down on the counter and
walked over to the door to peer through the peep hole.

“No
one there,” John said. “Must be someone at the apartment down the hall.”

Kevin
turned back to Sean and put his hand carefully on his shoulder. “We’re going to
be okay, son. We’re going to get back home.”

The
shouting in the hall resumed – louder. John started unlocking it – going down
the row of five locks. 

“Don’t
open that door,” said Connors from upstairs. John had his hand on the knob and
turned toward Connors as the man walked quickly down the stairs. 

John
pulled the door open slightly, as far as the chain would allow. “We could try
to talk with them – maybe they know something. Thompson speaks great…”

His
words were cut off by deafening cracks of gunfire from the hallway. Connors
nearly tripped down the stairs and John leapt back from the door, leaving it
still slightly ajar. Kevin gripped Sean’s shoulders tightly and started pulling
him away from the desk, behind the couch. 

Alan
Connors slammed the front door and quickly refastened all the locks before
ducking down and backing far away from the apartment entrance. Thompson emerged
into the loft area above the living room carrying a handgun. 

They
heard more shouting from the hallway, then the sound of running feet on the
stairs. They all quickly moved toward the kitchen, ducking behind the counters
and eyeing the door. 

A
thunderous blast ripped through the corridor. The walls seemed to heave and the
window panes rattled so violently that it sounded as if they were about to
shatter into pieces. All the men immediately dropped to the floor as debris
struck the outside of the front door. 

Peering
at the door from his position facedown on the floor in front of the
refrigerator, John said, “They didn’t get through – the door held!”

“They
weren’t blowing our door, dummy. Looks like our neighbors have company,”
Connors said. 

Again,
the sound of feet running on the stairs and down the hallway, along with
shouting, came through the thick black matting of the front door. This was
quickly followed by more chainsaw-like machinegun fire, punctuated by screaming
Russian voices. 

“Who
are they?” Sean asked. He was sitting on the floor, leaning back against the
cabinets with his father’s arm cradled protectively around his head and
shoulders.

“Mafia
probably,” Thompson said. “This is a fairly nice building. Most of our
neighbors are rather wealthy. Many of them probably have some kind of mob
connection.”

“Do
we have any other weapons?” Connors asked Thompson.

“Plenty
– front closet. Rounds are in the boxes at the back.”

Alan
Connors stood up and walked toward the closet a few feet down the hall from the
front door. Machinegun bursts and the occasional single-fire pistol shots could
still be heard clearly, echoing through the building. 

Connors
shouldered a couple of M-16 assault rifles and a sub-machinegun. He grabbed
handfuls of ammunition boxes and stuffed them in a duffle bag, then tiptoed
back to the kitchen. 

He
crouched down by the cabinets and passed one of the assault rifles over to
Thompson, then handed the sub-machinegun to Rohrstadt. “Okay, Ralph, how do
these things work?”

Thompson’s
response was cut off by another deafening explosion, which sent them all back
to the floor, hands over their ears as the walls shook. Dust was coming into
the room at the edges of the door. 

“That
one sounded a little further away,” Sean said. 

“They’re
in that apartment. Are those things grenades?” Connors said to Thompson. 

“Possibly.
But, I’ve only heard grenades go off at a practice range. They sound a lot
different outside,” Thompson said as he began loading the M-16. 

There
were a few more machinegun bursts down the hallway, then a calm silence
descended on the building as dust settled onto the living room furniture in the
fading light. 

Everyone
looked up, training their ears toward the front door, as if this new position
would help them hear better into the apartment down the hall. 

“They’ve
stopped,” John said into the silence. “Are they coming here next?”

Connors
shook his head, still staring at the front door. “I’m not sure that they know
anyone’s here. It might be a good idea to keep it that way.”

The
five of them sat huddled on the kitchen floor, clutching the firearms closely
to their chests, straining to hear anything. A steady hum of muffled voices had
been bouncing down the corridor for the past ten minutes, but they weren’t sure
if it was the home assault team or a television or radio left on. The cadence
and volume of the speech was a little too regular for casual post-massacre
conversation. 

Finally,
they heard what sounded like a few pairs of feet shuffling through debris in
the hallway. The elevator pinged, then there was silence. A couple minutes
later, they heard an engine starting outside, which then slowly faded away down
the street. The sun had gone down and the Embassy apartment was quite dark with
only a little light from outside street lamps streaming in through the
windows. 

They
all lay on the kitchen floor, trying to control the sound of their breathing in
the relative silence. The only thing they could hear was the steady hum of
those same muffled voices from the other end of the hallway.      

“Are
they gone?” asked Rohrstadt softly.

“Can’t
be sure,” Thompson replied. 

“Do
we go check it out?” Rohrstadt whispered.

“Go
ahead – you first,” said Connors. 
       Silence again fell on the small group of men huddled together in the
dark. Twenty minutes later, Kevin sat up straight, leaning his back against one
of the cupboards and stretching. 

“How
long are we going to wait?” he asked.

“We’re
doing fine in here, aren’t we?” Connors replied.

“We’ll
have to leave the apartment eventually – shouldn’t we know for sure?” Kevin
said.

Ralph
Thompson stood up slowly, his hands gripping the rifle tightly. He stepped
quietly across the wood floor towards the hallway, stopped and listened. After
a few seconds, he turned back and shook his head. 

Connors,
a doubtful grimace on his face and his M-16 held ready, walked slowly to the
front door and looked out through the peep hole. “It’s too dark,” he whispered
back to the others still in the kitchen. 

Thompson
tiptoed over to stand beside Connors as he slowly unlocked the front door.
Connors pulled it open a crack and peered out. The door to the apartment at the
opposite end of the hallway was gone and chunks of plaster and dust were
scattered everywhere.

The
two glanced at each other, whispering, and Thompson nodded. He flattened his
back against the wall and squared the rifle in his hands with the muzzle
pointing in the air. Connors pulled the front door open slightly and stepped
out into the hallway, M-16 held out in front of him. 

He
picked his way carefully down the hall, stepping over the occasional piece of
concrete or wood splinter from the destroyed door frame in front of him.
Lamplight poured into the corridor from a window above the stairwell opposite
the elevator. Connors made his way carefully to this midpoint and tried to look
out the window onto the street below. The sound of a television continued from
the blasted apartment at the opposite end. 

Suddenly,
a figure stepped casually into the doorway. Connors froze and turned quickly
toward the young man dressed in a blue jogging suit. The thin, pale-skinned,
buzz-haired young man looked in surprise at Connors. A cigarette hung from his
lips. A sub-machinegun was resting in his right hand. 

Both
of them stood motionless for a split second, staring at one another. The young
man glanced down at the M-16 in Connors’ hands. He began to raise his own
weapon as he stepped through the doorway. Connors spun around and began running
for the open doorway. 

The
young man brought the sub-machinegun up to his shoulder and fired a quick burst
at Connors’ back as he was reaching out to push open the apartment door. The
force pushed him forward into the door. It swung open, banging against a table
and swung back as Connors crumpled into a heap on the living room floor. 

Thompson
kicked the door back open and swung himself into the doorway, M-16 at his
shoulder. He fired down the hallway, riddling the walls and the young man. The
pale-skinned youth grunted in surprise as he fell backward, the cigarette
slipping from his lips and scattering ashes down the front of his blue warm-up
jacket. 

Thompson
stepped back into the apartment and slammed the front door, quickly locking it.
John and Kevin rushed over to Connors who was lying facedown on the floor. They
carefully rolled him over and John cradled his head, trying to make him
comfortable. 

Sean
stood by the refrigerator, watching Connors coughing and sputtering as Thompson
flicked on the light and started rifling through the front closet for a first
aid kit. 

“Left
one behind,” Connors croaked. “Left one to clean up.” He coughed and blood shot
out of his mouth onto his shirt. 

“Don’t
speak Alan, we’ve got to stop the bleeding,” Kevin whispered.

Thompson
brought over a first aid box and started pulling out white gauze bandages.
Kevin glanced from him to the exit wounds in Connors’ chest and then to Sean
who stood silently by – watching. 

“No
matter,” Connors rasped. “We’d all have been dead by morning anyway. I just
beat the rest of you by a few hours.” He coughed again, flecks of blood
spattering from his nose and mouth. “You know, it’s kind of funny. This is my
first time to Russia.”

Thompson
pressed the white gauze against the oozing holes in his chest – his shirt was
mostly soaked. Ten seconds later, Connors’ chest stopped moving.   

The
three men knelt in silence for a few more minutes. Thompson glanced at the
front door. “No more shots. No voices,” he said. “He probably was the last one.
Otherwise, someone would have come.”

John
carefully laid Connors’ head on the floor and closed his eyes. Kevin stared at
the body as he tried to wipe some of the blood off his hands. 

“Okay,
what now?” Thompson asked quietly, his rifle slung over his left shoulder.
“Stay or go?”

“Why
would we go? They don’t even know we’re here,” John said.

Kevin
shook his head. “When they come back and find their man dead, they might start
looking around. We can’t hide out here forever, especially if they brought more
explosives.”

“Can’t
we just keep the door locked? You said that was reinforced steel.” John asked,
his loose jowls hanging open in fear. 

“We
don’t know what kind of firepower they have. With us trapped in here, they
could wait out there all day just trying different things to see what would
finally work. They’d eventually get in – or just wait for us to come out,” said
Thompson.

“If
we go, we have to go now. They could be back any minute,” Kevin added.

“Let’s
load up and be out of here in five minutes,” Thompson said. He turned to grab
the duffle bag and began loading boxes of ammunition.   

Kevin
and John quickly joined him, stuffing weapons, clothing, food and first aid
supplies into bags. Sean remained standing in the kitchen, staring at Connors’
body. He’d never seen anyone die before. It all had happened so fast: one
minute, Connors was talking and walking around the apartment. Now, he was lying
on the floor, not moving. It was like it wasn’t even him anymore. Like the man
before had been someone else entirely. 

Thompson
quickly unlocked the front door and pushed his rifle’s muzzle through the
opening. He took a quick glance outside, then nodded back to the others. 

Kevin
pulled Sean to the door, carefully stepping over Connors’ body. John suddenly
turned and ran to the VCR to grab the tape. He stuffed it in his bag and
followed the others out the front door. 

The
rest of the building was deserted as was the street. They quickly loaded their
things into the car that Kevin and Sean had arrived in and sped away.