Doomsday Warrior 01 (23 page)

He rushed back into the other room where McCaughlin and Detroit were freeing the four other Century City prisoners, who were all smiles at their liberators’ appearance. The big Scot had the Red chief scientist, Letvok, cuffed.

“Thank God,” Gilhooley said, rubbing his wrists where manacles had been holding him pinned down for the fourteen hours since their capture. “You’re just in time, Rock,” he said, as the other men stood up and moved their aching legs and arms. “They did Armstrong in. But we could hear them trying to get anything out of him. Rock, he didn’t talk. I don’t know how in God’s name a man could take the kind of things they did to him. But he didn’t give them shit. They were just coming to get us. I was the next one, they kept telling me, trying to cheer me up, I guess. And I just don’t know if the rest of us could have gone out so . . .” He stared at Letvok. “He’s the one.”

Rock quickly told them of the plans and the freed Americans scooped up some of the Red weapons lying on the floor, wiped off the blood and grouped behind Rockson. “Gilhooley, you and your friends take charge of Letvok, and rip off one of those Mind Breaker machines. Bring it along.”

Chen was outside. “Who’s the prisoner?” he asked.

“Gilhooley said he’s Letvok. The torturer,” snarled McCaughlin. “We’ll bring him back with us—with his fucking machine.”

The men all smiled, scarcely able to believe that someone had the audacity to actually break into one of the biggest Red fortresses in America. They were now numerous enough to implement Plan Two. Rock was glad. Plan Two was one of three possible scenarios that would allow them to do utmost damage to the KGB center and its environs.

“Plan Two is in effect,” Rock said. “You all have your maps and know your jobs. Each group take your choice of our freed Freefighters here, and use them as best you can.” He turned around to McCaughlin. “You still got your mortar and the shells we loaded onto you?”

“Aye, these are just wee-bit toys to a fellow my size,” said the six-foot-five, 220 pound McCaughlin. “Hardly noticed I was carrying them. I picked up a few Kalashnikovs with grenade launchers and a satchel of grenades. Come on, Smith, let’s get moving, old buddy—and finish our job.”

“Can do,” Rock said. “Let’s move, men. I don’t know what the hell is going to happen in the next fifteen minutes but remember we reconvene on the roof helipad five at 0500. Don’t disappoint me now and get shot or something dumb like that.”

They gave short salutes and poured into different corridors and stairwells, each leader glancing at the little plastic maps that had been prepared from the underground reports. The Reds really should have done their own cleaning and vacuuming and laundry—especially laundry. For though every scrap that went in and out of the KGB center was checked for messages and
visible
writing, the invisible laundry marks made nifty maps. Some slaving American laundry woman had paid the Reds back in full for the gang rapes they had performed on her—once, when she was young and attractive. Now the Attack Force had all the locations.

Rock’s destination had to be penetrated or it could mean a quick and bloody end to the entire mission. The computer room that controlled the entire center’s operations. If he could get control, he could keep the Red troop movements inside the building under lock and key, barring movement from floor to floor. He ran up the stairwell headed for Level M with Detroit and Chen right behind him, Jergins, the computer man, taking up the rear. They had just reached Level J when a Red patrol burst through the landing door on routine patrol. The Reds and the Americans both looked surprised for a second, then reached for their guns. But the Americans were faster. Three of the Reds slumped to the concrete floor, bullets tattooing their twitching torsos. Chen stepped forward and took out the remaining pair with two lightning-fast spins of his nunchakas. This time he didn’t hold back. The KGB guards flew back against the wall, their skulls split open, a thin fluid pulsing out.

Rock held his fingers to his lips as the men opened the door to Level M. This would be the most securely guarded section of the center so they had to proceed with extreme caution. Rock and Jergins slipped on the jackets and caps of the security patrol and, without looking back, opened the stairwell door and walked right up to the security entrance. Here, there were thick, bulletproof glass panels on each side of the black steel doors. A guard sat nearby, absent-mindedly reading a book. Rock, his head tilted down and away, with his hand to his mouth as if coughing, waved casually with the other at the guard, who glanced up and then looked down again, unconcerned. Rock slipped the card key into the slot and pressed the code. The door clicked and he pushed it open. The guard glanced up, then his eyes widened in alarm as he saw the two men behind Rock come surging forward. Those guns they were carrying—they weren’t Russian, they were—

The Red guard reached for his pistol. A big mistake. Rock, using his shotgun pistol for close-in fighting, blasted him right off his seat, three feet through the air, where he slid down a wall, leaving a messy trail of smeared blood behind him. The twelve technicians and six KGB officers in the vast computer room spun around with a start at the gunfire. Two of the Blackshirts went for the Kalashnikovs slung around their shoulders. But Rockson and Detroit, firing simultaneously, turned the Red torsos into so much hamburger. The others didn’t move from their frozen positions.

“Anyone else?” Rockson asked, quickly scanning the group.

“No takers, Rock,” Detroit snickered, turning over a dead KGB body with his foot. “Ugh, those .12-gauge shells of yours really make a mess.” Half the corpse’s face was gone, revealing a ghastly smiling skull.

Rock and the Freefighters lined the surviving KGB personnel up against a wall that faced the hundred-odd feet of computer terminals, keyboards and whirling spools of magnetic tape that clicked on and off, sending out automatic commands to the building’s light controls, heat and air conditioning, door locks and just about everything else that ran on electricity. Detroit frisked them quickly, but most were unarmed. They had gotten a good haul, several of the Red officers wore stars on the shoulders.

One of them spoke up brusquely. “Whoever you are,” he said, looking at Rockson, “we’re technical officers—noncombatants.” The man had a swarthy, debauched look. One glance at his big lips and deeply creased face and Rock knew that this man had committed countless acts of torture and murder. It showed. The blood of his victims had seeped into the Red officer’s very pores.

Rock noticed something familiar about the two-star, silver-haired officer. It had been a long time but he suddenly flashed back to that day when he was a child, watching from below as a KGB Death Squad swept through his family’s cabin, torturing and killing everyone but him. The blood rushed into his head. For one of the few times in his life, Ted Rockson felt himself about to totally lose control of his emotions.

“What’s your name?” he snapped loudly at the arrogant Red brass.

“Veliky. Major General Veliky.” He reached slowly in his jacket pocket and pulled out a wallet. “You can see by my papers that I’m a—”

Rock knocked the wallet to the floor with a swipe of his .12 gauge. “Were you ever a combatant?”

“Of course not,” the Red answered, but there was a definite quaver in his voice.

“Ever been in Tremain or anywhere around there?” Rock still wasn’t positive. The face seemed so familiar, but it had been nearly twenty-five years ago.

“No! Absolutely not! Who are you men anyway?” He raised his voice, pulling himself up to his full height. “Why are you here, why—”

“Shut up,” Jergins said, lifting his Liberator. “You don’t ask the questions here.” He spat angrily just to the side of the officer’s foot.

“Remember a little cabin?” Rock continued, watching the man’s eyes with every word he spoke. “A woman and a man named Rockson. A dog? Think back—twenty-four years ago.”

Another Russian spoke up. “Spare me and I will—”

“Shut up,” snarled the officer, his face growing livid. “I’ll have you shot if you—” Jergins smacked the muzzle of his Liberator across Veliky’s face, opening a gash several inches long.

“I told you to keep that fucking Red trap of yours shut. Next time you’ll eat lead.” Jergins stepped back. The other Freefighters—Pasqual and Detroit—kept their rifles trained on the increasingly nervous computer personnel.

“He was a combatant. He was.” The Russian lackey spoke out, turning to Rockson, pleading, “Just don’t kill me. I never hurt any Americans. I swear. I just handle the maintenance of the computer.”

“Maybe I’ll let you live,” Rock said, turning to the sniveling, thin, white-smocked technician. “What sector did this man patrol twenty years ago?”

“I don’t know, I swear,” the squealer said. “But I know he did combat duty. I’ve heard him talk—brag about the women he had and the power he used to have out in the field. They all do. They all love to talk about killing and burning. I’m sick of it. I—”

“No, I never was in that area,” the Red general cried out. “It’s all a lie.” He glared at the betrayer, with blood lust in his narrow eyes.

Rockson’s mind flashed back to the man he remembered ripping the flesh off his mother as she lay tied to her bed. Ripping her flesh with a long knife, scalping her pink, pale skin as she screamed. It was this man! Suddenly he knew it.

“I remember your words, scum,” Rock said, turning back toward the Red officer, his eyes blazing with the fires of hell. “Ah, you said, ‘a pretty mutant woman with thick skin.’ Then you raped her and then you peeled her flesh like I’m going to razor your skin to the bone.”

“Rock, we haven’t got time,” shouted Jergins.

Rockson turned to the Russian who had betrayed the Red murderer. “If you want to live, tell us how to override the door controls on every level with the computers.”

“Program 45-A. It seals the doors in case of a radiation leak. I won’t just show you, I’ll do it.” He walked slowly over to the terminal under the watchful eyes of his disbelieving comrades. Jergins raised his Liberator but Rock gave him the No sign. The Russian squealer pushed a series of keys and then stepped back. “Done!”

“Good!” Rock looked at the other Freefighters. “Well, we’ve performed the first part of our job. Take all these bastards into that room and lock ’em in,” he said, pointing to the tight-lipped crew of computer personnel. “But not this one.” He looked at Veliky. “I want to be alone with this man.”

“What about me?” the Red betrayer pleaded, rushing back to Rock, nearly falling on his hands and knees. “I helped you. They’ll kill me if I stay. Let me come with you. I could reveal everything I’ve learned in my two-year stay here. I hate these bastards, I swear to you I do. They drafted me from the Ukraine. They’ve made me work for them. But they haven’t taken my mind—haven’t made me a murderer.”

The Freefighters looked at the man as if he were mad. None of them had ever seen a Red who didn’t seem to love his work. Rock nodded silently. “But tie him up, till we know we can trust him,” he muttered to Jergins. He looked back over at the Red officer who could no longer meet his eyes, staring nervously down at the floor. Rock glanced at his watch. “We’re two minutes ahead of schedule, man,” he said. “I need to do something.” He pushed Veliky ahead of him, toward a second room filled with blank magnetic tapes and supplies. “I’ll only be a minute,” Rock said. “Only a minute.” He pushed the Red general ahead of him, holding his knife loose in his hand. They heard the door close—then they heard the screams begin.

Nineteen

M
cCaughlin and Smith reached the top floor—a pool area for top KGB officers. They burst through the stairwell door into a scene of horror.

“Now, isn’t this cozy,” McCaughlin said, finding four naked officers standing around a tied and spread-eagled teenage girl. They had been taking turns raping her and pushing their pistols into her sex, which was bleeding and ripped apart. Her breasts and thighs were covered with dark, charred cigarette burns. Tears ran down her young cheeks.

“Please,” one of the Reds choked out as the others stood frozen in place, their tools suddenly hanging limp between their pale legs. “Please, you don’t understand, she—”

“What’s to understand?” McCaughlin sneered and squeezed the trigger. Three-round bursts caught first one, then another Red torturer, slamming them backward, their arms whipping wildly. The two other KGB officers dove toward the pool. McCaughlin hit one with a neat line of shots up the backbone, severing the Red’s spine so that he fell to the pool walkway at an odd angle, his body broken like a rag doll. The fourth Red made the water and began swimming along the bottom to the opposite side.

“Shoot him when he comes up for air,” McCaughlin said to Smith, as he went over to untie the girl. Before he had untied the last knot, he heard the sound of a body breaking water followed by a burst of fire. Blood slowly filled the pool, spreading out in scarlet ripples.

McCaughlin looked in the girl’s mouth—she was trying to say something. He almost gagged. She had no tongue. The bastards had cut it out as part of their sick pleasure. She was in bad shape though she seemed thankful for her rescue. She couldn’t walk and they couldn’t carry her. He leaned over the teen and whispered in her ear, “You know how to use one of these?” He handed her one of the Reds’ revolvers, from a holster hanging by the bottom of the bed. She smiled grimly. “Take a few out for us—and yourself. We have to go. I’m sorry.” Her eyes said, Don’t be sorry. She pressed her lips to McCaughlin’s cheek.

They left her there, her pistol pointing at the door—the door to the sauna from where the next bunch of torturers would soon emerge to have fun with her body. She held the gun up with both hands, waiting. She hadn’t expected to die so well. She was grateful to the big man and his companion for the chance to go out this way—instead of the cross, for the pleasure of the bastards. Now, she would have her pleasure as well. The pleasure of their blood.

McCaughlin and Smith strolled out onto the roof, trying to look nonchalant as they walked past the crews of several choppers lazing around, and headed toward the needle-shaped control tower. They were almost halfway across the roof when someone yelled out, “Hey, you two, there’s no helicopters over there. Where are you going?”