The Alpha Deception (22 page)

In her haste to leave, she almost forgot to retrieve the change. Pocketing it, she moved away. Best to make use of a different door in leaving, she thought, and made straight for an exit in the back of the building. She threw open the door and started out, muttering an apology to a man she had nearly collided with.

General Vladimir Raskowski smiled at her. He was holding a pistol aimed at her face.

“I trust your message to the General Secretary is on its way now,” he said. Then he stepped back so Natalya could see the armed men on either side of him before she had a chance to act rashly.

It was his tone that confused her more than anything. “You let me send it,” she realized. “You
wanted
me to send it… .”

“Guilty as charged,” Raskowski said. His perfectly transplanted hair whipped in the wind as he turned to indicate a man standing directly behind him.

She recognized the man well enough to know what she was seeing was impossible. But within the impossible lay the heart of the madness.

The one-eyed Katlov smiled at her, no longer dressed in his monk’s attire and very much alive.

“You’re dead!” Natalya said quite surely. “I saw you shot!”

And General Raskowski began to laugh.

Part Three
Rounding Up the Usual Suspects

Pamosa Springs; Friday, five
P.M.

Chapter 20

BY FIVE P.M. FRIDAY
the streets of Pamosa Springs were quiet. The town had been divided into sectors, and residents were allowed to venture out for supplies only in escorted groups. A number of guards patrolled the small commercial district on foot, while others made slow, careful loops in jeeps.

The work on the hillside, meanwhile, continued at a nonstop, frenetic pace. Whatever the invaders were mining was being transferred into the hidden gulley where even more labor was concentrated. At night huge sparks would dance into the air, evidence of massive welding equipment. Cables had been run from various power stations into the work area to provide the vast amounts of electricity needed. Something was being constructed in the gulley, the residents knew, and whatever it was, the fruits of the invaders’ mining labor must have had a great deal to do with it.

Mayor McCluskey and Sheriff Heep, en route to Doc Hatcher’s office, watched the sparks climbing toward the sky. A team of guards was escorting them there under orders from Colonel Quintell, leader of the occupying forces. Quintell met them in the waiting room. He looked harried and tired, eyes drawn, his beret off for the first time in the four days of occupation.

“We have problems,” were his first words.

“I’ll say,” returned Dog-ear.

“Why do you choose to make this so hard on yourselves?”

“It’s a tendency we have when some murdering bastards take over our town and steal what’s ours,” came Sheriff Junk’s reply.

“If we put aside our differences, we can get through this, all of us. I would be willing to go as far as to forget the events of the past two nights.”

“What events?” Dog-ear questioned.

“Please, gentlemen, do not insult my intelligence.”

“What events?” from Heep this time.

Colonel Quintell nodded to himself. “Follow me.”

He opened the door to Doc Hatcher’s examination room, and a pair of soldiers escorted Dog-ear and Sheriff Junk inside after him. There, laid out on three tables, were three sheet-covered corpses.

“Three of my men,” the colonel started with repressed rage. He drew back the first sheet. “This one was knifed in the back.” To the second corpse now. “This one had his throat cut.” And the third. “This one’s neck was snapped. It takes a tremendous amount of strength to break a man’s neck in this manner, strength and training. Do you have any idea who in your town has the training to do such things?”

“Yeah,” replied Dog-ear. “Hal Taggart, but I think we can safely rule him out.”

Quintell ignored the remark. “A victim was claimed Tuesday, a second on Wednesday, the third last night. If you won’t help me find the murderer, at least stop him on your own. I beg you. It would be for your own good.”

“Own good?” Sheriff Junk repeated. “What the fuck? You rode into town, and we came out into the street. A guy with a rifle that couldn’t shoot straight comes along after some rats, and you gun him down without a single word of warning. I’d call
you
the murderers.”

Quintell surprised them by nodding. “Denials on my part would be pointless at this stage.” The pain in his face seemed honest. “I loathe this sort of work. I loathe losing men even more, though, which is why you must understand that I cannot allow it to go on.”

“You want a list of suspects from us?” asked Dog-ear. “Just go to the town hall and read the rolls.”

“I want a list of men with recent military service or other training in weapons. This killer is an expert. After losing one man on each of our first two nights here, I doubled the patrols but he still managed to kill another. Men like that cannot go unnoticed in a town as small as yours.”

“Apparently they can,” Dog-ear told him.

“Maybe he’s just getting settled and hasn’t met many folks yet,” said Heep.

“This is nothing to joke about,” snapped the colonel. “Believe me when I say it is best for you and your town to cooperate with me. I’m simply an underling, just as frustrated and just as anxious as you are. If I do not produce the results my superiors desire, I will be replaced.” Quintell hesitated. “There is talk of a man being sent for, a man whose approach you will find considerably less cordial than mine. An enforcer, not a soldier.”

“You know this man?”

“I know his type and I hate it as much as I hate this type of work. Cooperate with me, help me find the murderer of my men. My superiors are not patient. There is no telling what steps they are liable to take. Please, I beg you, for both our sakes.”

“Don’t look to us to get your ass out of the fire,” Dog-ear said harshly.

“Your own asses will be charred far blacker than mine if the worst comes to pass.”

“Look, friend,” said the sheriff, “we couldn’t help you even if we wanted to. The killer you’re describing don’t exist in Pamosa Springs.”

Colonel Quintell stood over the third murdered soldier. His eyes were open, and a hideous grimace froze the instant of incredible agony when his neck was snapped.

“Tell that to my men,” the colonel said grimly.

A soldier appeared in the doorway and snapped to attention. “Sir, Post One reports that a man has arrived at the roadblock with clearance papers.”

“
Clearance
papers?” The dread in Quintell’s voice was obvious.

“Yes, sir.”

“Send him through,” the colonel ordered softly. He steadied himself against the table where the soldier lay.

“What’s it mean?” wondered Dog-ear McCluskey.

“That it just became too late for all of us.”

The President had listened to the General Secretary’s words in shocked silence. The fact that no interpreter had been employed, thanks to the Soviet leader’s fluency in English, made the tale even more startling and ominous.

“I don’t suppose you can tell me, Mr. Chernopolov, how your death-ray found its way onto
our
satellite.”

“It’s not our weapon. It belongs to General Raskowski, as I explained. Please, this has not been easy for me to admit.”

“Any easier for me to listen to, you think?”

“Mr. President, Raskowski was no longer one of our own. He was an outcast. The Kremlin underestimated his resources and contacts … even within your own military community.”

“I suppose you will want to blame all your aggressions on Raskowski.”

“He has made every effort to create hostility between us because he knew that open communication might prove the best weapon against him.”

“Can ‘open communication’ prevent another Hope Valley?”

“It can if we refrain from thinking in the manner he expects us to. If we are to survive this crisis, if true peace is ever to be achieved, we must rise above the inclination to accept the sentiments of those with a grasp of only part of the picture. The stakes demand it.”

“I can’t disagree with you there.”

“What will you do, Mr. President?”

“You’ll be among the first to know.”

General Secretary Chernopolov held the phone to his ear for a time after the connection had broken off. His eyes fell again on the communiqué received just hours before from Bangkok.

Natalya Tomachenko had saved her country, perhaps even the world. In doing so, however, she had placed herself in a position of power no Soviet citizen could be allowed to hold. A delicate balance was at stake which the slightest weight could throw off. Her knowledge, if used properly, could be as devastating a weapon against the Soviet Union as Raskowski’s plan itself. She had been used for so long against her wishes, and now she had the means to swing that balance in her favor.

Chernopolov replaced the receiver and lifted the communiqué in his hand. He slid an ashtray over and placed the single sheet of paper in it. Then he struck a match and dropped it down. In seconds, the communiqué was gone and with it all record of this operation.

Soon Natalya Tomachenko would follow.

General Raskowski was glad when the phone was picked up after only a single ring.

“I have reached Pamosa Springs,” a familiar voice reported.

“Your assessment?”

“It’s even worse than you were led to believe. The previous leadership was ineffectual. The plan was botched from the beginning and then a single incident escalated into a major complication. There are rebels afoot here, General. I can feel it.”

“But you will flush them out, won’t you, Major?”

“That is my specialty.”

Raskowski nodded. “I’ve always liked you, Major. I’ve followed your career since we met four years ago. I helped gain you the command that was recently stripped from you.”

“I know that, sir. And if I’ve dishonored you, please—”

“You haven’t dishonored anything! Not yourself, not me, and certainly not your adopted motherland, the glorious Soviet Union. Your career was ruined by fools just as mine was. But there’s still a place for you by my side, if you can put this town back on a tight leash. You know the stakes, Major.”

“Yes, sir. I do.”

“Six days ago I pulled your career off the scrap heap because you are much too fine a soldier to be sacrificed for the errors of the inefficient lot that surrounded you in that steaming hot box you were born in.”

“And forced to return to …”

“Not by my orders. But fate has been generous with us. It has given us a chance to work together again, perhaps indefinitely.” Raskowski paused, just long enough for his words to sink in. “But that, of course, depends on your performance in Pamosa Springs. Don’t prove me a poor judge of character.”

The major’s voice stiffened. “I assume I am permitted to use any means at my disposal to return the situation to reasonable order.”

“Anything you choose, Major. Just get it done.”

And on the other end of the line, in Pamosa Springs, Guillermo Paz smiled.

The new commander had issued fresh instructions to the soldiers patrolling the streets of Pamosa Springs after dark: they were to shoot on sight any figure they could not identify. No questions asked and no accounts to be made. The new commander, Major Paz, scared them, seeming to have little more regard for his own men than for their hostages. No man wanted to face him with failure.

The soldier on patrol between the general store and the post office had no aspiration other than to finish his shift. Dark clouds had rolled in hours before, blocking out the bright moon. But there was some light. The new commander had ordered the few streetlights throughout the town to be turned back on.

Antsy as his shift reached its halfway point, the soldier switched his rifle from his left shoulder to his right. He was stretching to shake himself alert when he heard a shuffling sound. He swung quickly.

A shadow darted through the circle cast by one of the streetlights. A dark shadow. Nothing more. A trick of the wind perhaps, or of his own fatigue.

Then came another sound. A door whining stubbornly closed. The soldier ran toward where it came from and emerged at the rear of the town grill. He knew he should report this and wait for reinforcements. But if the murderer was seeking shelter within, he wanted him all for himself. He tried the latch. It hadn’t caught. The door came open with a whining sound. The same whining.

The soldier yanked his rifle from his shoulder and held it in one hand with his flashlight in the other. Before him lay a hallway leading toward the kitchen area. To the right was—

A shuffling sound found his ears from … below. The soldier moved to the door on his right. It opened onto a narrow flight of stairs, dropping down into the basement. Flashlight beam swaying before him, he began to descend. At the bottom he saw crates and boxes stacked everywhere. The shuffling could have been rats, he told himself. Then again, it couldn’t have been rats that opened the back door.

The silence was deafening now. He started walking about, flashlight beam carving holes in the dust-coated darkness. Everything seemed as it should have been.
But wait.
Directly before him was a … He approached cautiously. Yes, a door, finished in the same color as the walls so as to be virtually indistinguishable from them except for a single brass latch. Wasting no time, the soldier yanked the door open. A musty, rotten scent filled his nostrils, a scent of dirt and rot and death. The flashlight beam poured into the blackness.

“What the hell …”

The soldier stepped through the doorway mesmerized, flashlight sweeping about. He couldn’t have seen the figure come up from behind him, and heard only a whistling sound like a scythe whipped through the air. He was thinking he should scream to draw attention when a tingle crossed his throat and he couldn’t breathe.

For the briefest of instants after his head was severed from his body he could still see, though he felt absolutely nothing. The rest of his frame spasmed before tumbling into the gush of blood that was everywhere, and his head plunked across the floor leaving a trail of red behind it.