War Weapons (18 page)

“He’d gotten to three,” Bo said, slapping Stone on the shoulder for the third time.

“Two—I think it was two,” a voice said as the two Cheyenne dropped down. The men reached for nonexistent weapons at their
sides, but Stone reassured them that the Indians were friends. With the explosions of the land mines the rest of the fort
knew something was up. Stone had blown their silence trip within about twenty seconds. But then he’d had no choice. They’d
just have to change the screenplay a little in mid-shooting.

“Look, do you know where the tanks were taken?” Stone asked them all frantically.

“I—I think I overheard a guard say they were in C Warehouse, whatever that means,” Bull said as he shook his head, trying
to clear out the loose screws and cobwebs that the detonation of the land mines had created.

“Yes, I know where that is,” Little Bear said, looking around nervously when he heard a sound come from nearby. He extracted
a snub-nosed .44 from his black denim jacket and held it ready. “But perhaps you could take any of them. From what I know,
mostly what they use here is Bradley IIIs. Probably getting ready to take out of here over in Section D, north end of the
fort.” He pointed off to the distance where they could now hear firing, as the rest of the Cheyenne attack units were obviously
running into opposition now that the fort had been alerted. The loud, crisp pops of the land mines going off here and there
meant they were already using their heaviest firepower.

“We gotta move,” Stone said, addressing them all. They were ready to follow just about any fucking order he had to give them
now. The fucking guy had come through. He saw them staring at him with near hero worship in their eyes, and he looked down,
embarrassed, as he spoke. “Look, there’s no time for plans—just try to take whatever tank or tanks you can and stir the place
up. Then get the hell out of here. Head due east—you hear me?—due east.”

They all looked at one another for a second, knowing it was the last time they might ever see each other. And then they split
up, moving fast in all directions.

S
TONE AND the two Cheyenne flew through the back alleys and narrow passages between the barracks, the rows of canisters, and
parts that filled the place. Ex-caliber had somehow fitted himself alongside Stone in the slung-back seat of the three-wheeler,
but there wasn’t a hell of a lot of room, so he kept digging into Stone’s leg, trying to get more space, the front part of
him half hanging out of the tearing vehicle. At last they emerged from the darkness and into the light. And the silo came
into view. The chrome-topped hood rose out of the ground a good six feet and was perhaps ten feet wide. Four floodlights sent
down brilliant beams of light that made the place well lit enough to shoot a movie.

The three all-terrain vehicles pulled to a stop just where the darkness turned to light and hid the three-wheelers in the
shadows. They started forward in a half crouch, Excaliber sort of crawling along behind when a voice stopped them in their
tracks and a figure stepped forward from behind a shed.

“Stone, Stone, always so predictable,” the general mock scolded the man he hated most in this world. “Now how did I know you
were going to come to this silo?”

“Just psychic, I guess,” Stone muttered back as he noted from the periphery of his vision that the low roofs of two of the
barracks had machine-gun posts, two of them—both aimed at the intruders. “But then you’re a very talented man when it comes
to murder. The whole world knows that.” Stone smirked, trying to rile the bastard a little. Trying to follow his father’s
constant adage to always make your opponent angry, lose control. For then you can take advantage of his impulsive motion or
action—and destroy him.

But the general, unlike Stone, took the ability to kill well and in large numbers as a compliment and smiled back. “Thank
you. I appreciate the kind words. But, Mr. Stone, there is one thing—before I kill you. Your little Rin Tin Tin there killed
my favorite dog—if you remember. Now I have another dog that would like to meet him. A close friend of Apollo’s, rest his
soul.” The general clapped his hands hard twice, and the sharp retorts bounced around the nearby walls, and out of nowhere
a pitbull emerged, coming straight to the general’s side. He was huge, the biggest of the breed that Stone had ever seen,
and Excaliber was no slouch in that department, either, weighing in at over eighty-five the last time Stone had put him on
the bunker scale. But this bruiser who stood at shoulder height, perhaps as large as a Doberman, had to tip the scales at
a hundred and fifty. It must have been a mutated gene of some sort, from the radiation that lingered throughout America. But
if it was a mutant, the animal in no way looked imperfect. As both Stone and Excaliber looked across at their opposite numbers
who stood at the far side of the silo, they could see that the canine was in perfect shape, with muscles that literally rippled
across every square inch of its body, even as it breathed. Its neck was as thick as a man’s thigh, and its long jaws hung
open slightly, revealing incisors a good six inches long that looked like they could snap through steel.

“A final bet,” Patton said, sweeping his hand across the fort, the missile silo. “You know I’m a betting man. Always have
been. To me God tells you how he feels in a bet. After all, it’s up to him, right? So it’s my dog against yours, Stone—winner
takes everything. And I mean everything.”

“No way, Patton,” Stone began to yell back at the sadistic bastard. “Excaliber’s front leg doesn’t even work, he’s wounded,
infected … he’s—” Stone looked down at the hapless dog, which didn’t look too happy about the turn of events, either. As a
fighting dog bred to kill tigers, he was always ready for a good scrap. But the very thing that had made his breed so fierce
and indestructible, aside from their cannonball bodies and jaws that were more powerful than any other dog’s in the world,
was their intelligence. So the pitbull was also a realist. In good shape, he knew he could kick the other mutt’s ass. But
his paw being useless and hanging in front of him, Excaliber knew he was in for trouble, big trouble.

“You don’t understand, Stone.” Patton laughed as he stepped back and held out his hands. “You don’t have a choice. Go, Aristophanes,
kill.” He clapped his hands once, and the huge pitbull lunged forward, its jaws opened and snarling like a wolf. “Nor does
your dog,” he added, but no one even heard that. If Patton had named his dogs after Greek poets and philosophers to point
out a softer, more refined side of their nature, this one hadn’t been told about it. He looked mean and real bad.

Excaliber rolled his eyes up at Stone with an oh-God-do-I-really-have-to-do-this kind of expression. And then he charged forward
to meet the other pitbull, which was just passing the silo itself, halfway to him. He tried to charge, anyway. Excaliber made
two full strides forward and then collapsed straight down on his right side as his leg buckled out from under him. All things
considered, this was just about the best thing that could have happened to him. For right where his skull had just been, the
adversary slammed its jaws shut with such force that a tooth broke free from the inner part of its mouth and flew out. Excaliber,
lying flat on his face in the dust, saw the leg of the attacker just inches from his own mouth, and being an opportunistic
kind of creature, he just sort of opened up his jaws without even rising and slid his head suddenly forward like a snake striking.
The teeth crunched into the animal’s left front leg, cracking it at mid-joint with a loud snapping sound. Aristophanes fell
down in a heap, cracking the underside of his jaw, and Excaliber pulled away until he was about two yards off and crouching
down, growling with a high-pitched squeal like a steampipe going off.

Stone and the two Cheyenne watched, their hands primed to grab for their weapons. For they knew that whatever happened, the
machine gunners on the roof would open up the second it was over, the second Pattoh commanded them to. So they watched with
both fascination and horror, along with the rest of them, as the two animals battled to the death.

Excaliber was feeling a hell of a lot better already, now that he had taken out the opponent’s leg. That made the odds at
least slightly better, and the canine knew that the other would be awkward at first while it had been walking on three legs
for nearly two days. It waited patiently, crouched back on its back legs, waiting for the enemy to strike, to make a mistake.
The pitbull didn’t have to wait long. Aristophanes rose with a howl of rage from his rough tumble to the ground. He turned,
mindless of the pain in his leg, and started forward, slowly at first, as if to lull Excaliber into thinking he was going
to circle—and then suddenly sprang up off both back legs. But the smaller pitbull had been thinking the other was about to
try such an attack. As the immense killer dog came soaring through the air like a rocket ready to draw blood, Excaliber pushed
himself over, so he went onto his back. Aristophanes soared right over his head, snapping down at him, perhaps inches away.
But the bites missed, and the smaller dog kicked its rear legs up, helping the airborne attacker along.

Patton’s dog, an animal that had fought fifty fights in its three-year career, had never lost one. It knew it was tough. So
it had no fear, took no caution, even with three legs. Excaliber twisted himself upright with a single whiplike twist of his
strong body. He came up to three legs and faced the enemy, which was still adjusting itself after its ten-foot flight, then
crash-landing on its head on a small rock. Aristophanes let out a roar of fury, a sound that should have come from a lion
or a mountain cat rather than a dog, a high-pitched wail of pure rage. He came forward on the fly, once again not judging
the strength of the broken leg. He was almost upon Excaliber when he went down again, his jaws snapping, this time into the
dirt so that his teeth scooped up a whole mound of earth that was swept into his mouth and throat. Excaliber again took advantage
of whatever presented itself to him. In this case it was his opponent’s stomach as the animal lay sideways for an instant
before it could regain its balance. The smaller pitbull snapped forward, digging in as far as it could, and closed its own
murderous jaws. The teeth dug deep into the animal’s guts, deep inside it, ripping through intestine and kidney, liver and
spleen. Excaliber clenched once again, hard, and then ripped away with all his might.

The flood of guts and innards, coated in a slime of blood mat exploded out as Excaliber pulled backward, was truly revolting
to see. The only one that didn’t know it was dead was Aristophanes itself, which somehow hobbled to its three working legs
and stared at Excaliber, pulling its lips back, snarling, showing what remained of its macho. It felt strange, like everything
was tingling, and its stomach felt on fire, but there was no time to stop now—it would see later. It started toward Excaliber
again and tried once more to leap, to propel itself like a missile. But nothing happened. The legs collapsed like rotten,
splintered pieces of wood, and the huge pitbull, dragging a trail of intestine along with it, sort of slithered toward Excaliber,
still opening and closing its jaws in a frenzy.

Even the victorious Excaliber couldn’t stand the pitiful sight. The dog had been brave; it fought to the end. It didn’t deserve
to suffer. Knowing he had won already, but having his own streak of animal compassion, Excaliber lunged suddenly forward and
clamped onto the dying canine’s throat. With a single powerful snap and then a shake of his muscular head, he flung the once
powerful animal out of his jaws again, and it fell to the ground, dead.

Stone and the two Cheyenne moved almost instantaneously the instant they saw Aristophanes receive the coup de grace. And barely
in time, for the machine gunners above them clicked back their firing mechanisms and pulled their triggers. But the attackers
were already rushing to each side, heaving up the land mines they carried in satchels around their shoulders. Four streams
of .30-caliber slugs scissored patterns all over the field, sending up numerous puffs of smoke and digging little pockmocks
into the hard dirt. Stone heaved first one mine to the left, the other to the right, spinning them both out like discuses
at the Olympics. To each side of him he could see the Cheyenne throw theirs, and then they all dived down again as the lines
of bullets came screaming toward them. Explosion after explosion ripped the air, as if lightning bolts were striking all around
them. NAA troops went flying from both rooftops, spinning wildly, arms and legs flailing around like broken dolls. It was
truly—as the lyrics went—raining men.

W
HEN THE smoke had cleared and the few screams had died out, as had their screamers, Stone jumped up with his .45 in hand and
spun around to sight up Pattern. But the general was already gone, dust swirling where he had stood. Stone instantly shifted
his eyes down to the dog, praying that after such a valiant and clever fight it had survived. But the pitbull was already
rising and shaking itself from head to foot. Although coated with a layer of dust from the mine explosions and a few splashes
of blood from the dog it had sent to the Great Pound in the Sky, the ass-kicking canine seemed okay. In the sudden, immediate
silence Stone could hear the cracking of firearms from every direction of the fort, along with larger explosions, grenades,
artillery. All hell was breaking loose, though there was not the slightest way of knowing what was happening or who was winning.

Stone rushed forward, stepping over some of the ripped bodies, and reached the shining surface of the silo’s cover. He ran
his hand down the outside; it was as smooth as glass and as tough as shit, Stone knew. Yet they had to get in there and fast.

“Here,” Little Bear said, taking two more mines from his satchel. “These have ten-second timers. They’ll go off together.”
He slammed the mines onto the crease of the silo cone, the razor-thin line that separated the two halves of titanium steel,
and turned a little dial.