Doomsday Warrior 12 - Death American Style (15 page)

“Oh, but come let me show you how I’ve set things up, decorated the whole place.” It always annoyed Vassily no end to be around his nephew. Decorated? The man lived in another world—of Wonderland, the way things looked. Vassily was a ruler, a leader on a grand and historic scale. He had wanted someone to take his place, to rule strongly and not let the planet be taken down into hell. Zhabnov had served as stooge in America against Killov’s dark plans. Then, the stupidity of his nephew had basically served Vassily well, enabling him to manipulate things totally. But now that Killov was gone, Zhabnov seemed too stupid to tolerate. Yet there was no one else he dared trust. Already he knew that countless conspiracies were being hatched to seize world power when he died. It was all that kept him alive, knowing that. He couldn’t die. For his death might well mean the death of an entire planet.

“This way, Uncle—oh, I’m sure you’ll like it—and the Americans, too; their delegates will find we’ve gone to no small expense to make them feel welcome.” He led Rahallah—who pushed the Grandfather forward in his wheelchair—slowly, evenly, so that there were no bumps, no sudden jarrings. They walked for about a hundred yards and Zhabnov stopped. He waved to one of his men who stood below, next to an immense tarp that covered something.

“Here—the symbol of the Peace Conference,” he said proudly, pointing at the cover. A rope was pulled, the covering fell and Vassily’s face turned pale. It was too stupid even for him to believe. A giant, smiling, circular yellow face with a hammer and sickle beneath it.

“I did some research on the Americans, Uncle, to find out what they liked. I actually read books on their art of the past. The smiling face, it was their biggest symbol, before the war. We shall bring it back to show that American and Russian can live in smiling harmony.”

Vassily looked at his nephew as if he were mad, but said not a word. As they continued forward toward the dock ahead, Vassily noticed that all the troops lining the way, on each side of the long red carpet, were wearing stupid little smile buttons.

As they walked along, the Premier heard something—very dim at first, but as Rahallah pushed him closer the words could be picked out.

“All you need is love, all you need, love, love, love.” Over and over it went piped out over loudspeakers.

“It’s
The Beatles.”
Zhabnov said, splitting a gut with pride. A huge smile sat pasted on his jowled face. “Freefighters
love
this kind of music, it is what they listen to in their hovels—rock and roll, I think it was called. I know, Uncle, that you don’t always think me the cleverest of fellows—but I wanted to prove you wrong. To take some initiative and show you I’ve got a brain on the top of this body.”

It was worse than he had ever thought, Vassily realized, shaking his head slowly from side to side as Rahallah pushed him through wide wooden doors into the towering main entrance room of the Drubkin Building, nearly five blocks on a side, twenty stories high of ultra-modern decor. Inside, as the Premier saw the huge posters of the Beatles and slogans from their songs pasted up all over the place, along with more of the stupid, happy smiles, he felt like crying.
Where the fool treads, the snake is soon to find him—and kill him.
And Zhabnov was a fool of the highest order. When Vassily died, the snakes would close in before his body was cold.

“It is all terribly stupid, ridiculous, Nephew,” Vassily said angrily. “I want everything taken down. Everything; no music, no nothing. We shall treat them with luxury, with gourmet food and, yes, with women. Try to seduce them into our terms. But
these
trappings of friendship are too simple-minded for those men. I’ve met and talked with Ted Rockson—I know. It is not good to show clever men that you are a fool, that you have completely misjudged them. Not good at all. But then you would know nothing of that, Nephew. Such a pity you are such a fool, Nephew Zhabnov. Such a damned pity.”

Zhabnov looked as if he might burst into tears. He had tried so hard, had tended to his roses so there would be enough for every delegate, had supervised the making and hanging of the smile faces himself, even the placement of the loudspeakers so that the Beatles’ tunes would be heard from every corner. And it had all been wrong. Terribly wrong. And what was worse, he didn’t even know why it was wrong.

Fourteen

R
ock and his team left the state of Kansas more than happy to be out of the damned place. They fairly flew through Missouri and within days had reached the Mississippi River. Crossing was no problem—at least on that day. Among the many climate changes that had been produced in the United States after the great war, one had affected the Mississippi River. It flowed—but according to the time of year. In wet season it was as big and rushing as in its former glory days. But for large parts of the year—the rainfall not being nearly as great on countless tributaries that had once fed it—the river often shrank down to just a band of water, then a stream. Which was how it was now, as the men pulled their ’brids to a stop at the shore and stared at the once-mighty Mississippi—hardly more than a stream of piss from a drunk’s night of beer guzzling.

Rock headed first across the thousand-foot-wide basin, which had pools of water here and there, and in the center a flowing creek perhaps five yards wide, maybe six inches deep, in which small fish dashed frantically this way and that like silver shadows, as they realized they were being squeezed tighter and tighter by the pressing walls of their watery home.

Rock could see that the men got a little depressed about the “mighty” Mississippi as they all rode across it. They had seen it before in the wet season—wide and strong. Now it had been reduced to a joke. But once they were past it and on the opposite bank, once they had ridden a few more miles down the dirt road they traversed, the incident fell from their minds and vanished, filed under “what the school books didn’t tell me”—and left there to rot.

They had gone about another twenty miles when Rock brought them to a dead stop, just before a steep rise ahead. He pulled out a well-worn map from his saddlebag and checked it carefully, looking around, apparently searching for some natural formation that would confirm their location. And he found it—four hills, almost squarish in shape, off about two miles to the right. There were puffs of smoke in the air from fires.

“I think we’ve reached our target destination,” Rock said, talking softly. “We may be nearer than I thought, in fact, so keep the ’brids quiet, take a break, and I’ll be back in half an hour.” He motioned to the martial artist. “Chen—come on pal.” Rock started forward as the Chinese fighting master jumped down from his ’brid with animal grace, landing perfectly on his toes and starting forward. Rock often used the man’s speed and super senses on scouting. Next to the Doomsday Warrior himself, Chen was probably the toughest son of a bitch pound for pound in the whole damned country. The man had saved his ass more times than he cared to remember.

The two of them half ran up the ridge, side by side, making virtually no sound. Chen had taught Rockson the toes-first running motion that could enable one to move through forests with the stealth and whisper-quiet of a stalking Indian of old. Thus they reached the top of the mini-mountain, about 1,000 feet up, not even disturbing the animal life that called the long slope home. They slid to their bellies and brought their heads to the very top, peering over carefully.

“Damn,” Chen said with a hiss.
“Damn.”
Both men stared, their eyes wide with awe. The immense trucking depot below them was filled with over a thousand big rigs—diesel-smoke-exuding tractor-trailers. In fact it was just about the biggest assemblage of vehicles either man had ever seen, stretching for over a mile in long rows. From here the Reds shipped out America’s produce and goods, even women, to all parts of the country. This was the hub of the transportation wheel. Even as they watched, trucks pulled out, so laden with goods that they rested heavily on their huge tires. There were so many—everywhere—it was hard to follow them all.

“Someday,” Rockson muttered from between clenched teeth. “Someday—we take this whole damned place out. But not today. Come on, man,” Rock said, sliding backwards away from the edge as Chen followed instantly behind him. “Let’s get back to bivouac. Now we just gotta figure out a fucking way to get hold of one of those damned things.”

The driver of the Vlushkin 20-ton diesel truck stared bug-eyed through the dirt-streaked window of his huge transport. He had been driving for three days now without sleep, and only the amphetamines he popped every six hours or so kept him going. But it also made him wired, nervous as a thief, and talkative—the man couldn’t stop talking.

“Boris, do we think we’ll make Delaware by Friday? I’ve got this bitch waiting for me there who can tickle your balls right off your goddamn cock. You hear me? You hear me?” He looked around with a somewhat insane expression at his co-driver, a huge, fat and bored trooper whose head was resting against the side of the window. The fat man kept both eyes closed, but said something every once in a while to the driver, Nashtrin. If only because he knew if he didn’t utter some kind of response to the babbling idiot’s words he would go completely mad, stop the truck, and make Boris wake up. It had happened before. It was easier to compromise—at least lie in a half sleep.

“Yes, yes, we’ll make it,” the fat half-dozer replied reassuringly.

“I don’t know, I just don’t know,” the driver exclaimed, shaking his head. “The weather’s looking bad, the clouds dropping down again like they were doing yesterday. I hate this damned America. I tell you that. When I’m out of here next year, I’ll never sign up for another tour of duty here; never. You hear me? I’d rather go back to Afghanistan. But not here. You hear me? You hear me?”

“I hear you, Boris. Yes—no more signing. Good idea.” He snorted, rearranged his obese body and tried to catch at least a few seconds of sleep.

“They push us too hard these days. Driving back and forth without being able to take a break, get any sleep. I tell you—the timetables they set are impossible to meet. Impossible.” He was fairly yelling now, more due to the fact that he was going to miss his whore in Maryland than the actual hardships of the job. In fact, compared to almost any other Red trooper stationed in America, Pastronovitch Boris Nashtrin was way ahead of the game. Prime pay, vacation, and all the black-market goods he could smuggle from stop to stop. And he knew it. But complaining made the long, dark trip a little more palatable. And so as they drove along out of Darkoff Transport Center, his jaws moved as fast as the big wheels ripping below.

They traveled down I-70, and soon were alone on the fairly well kept four-lane cement interstate. The Reds had let most of America’s highway infrastructure crumble—but here and there they had kept things going. This was one of the best—the main east-west highway that would take him straight to D.C. In fact, if he could have put the damned thing on auto-pilot he could have joined his partner there half sprawled over the seat. If it’d had an auto-pilot.

Suddenly Nashtrin’s face seemed to contort in an expression of stark horror. For the roadway in front of him had erupted into flame. He couldn’t see just what the hell was happening—just that a wall of fire was dead ahead, covering the whole road. Boris twisted the metal wheel to the right at the same time he pumped the brake up and down—and downshifted from twelfth gear all the way to first in seconds. The man was an expert driver—one of the best. Only that enabled him to bring the big rig to a skidding stop on the weed-covered knoll alongside the highway without turning the whole thing over.

The moment he came to a stop, Boris slammed his hand over his heart to make sure he wasn’t going to have an attack. With the pills and the adrenaline that had just pumped into his body, it felt like the organ was doing the thousand-mile dash—and wasn’t in the front ranks. But he had barely caught his breath when the doors on each side of the cabin were yanked open and men stood there, holding mean-looking pistols and automatic weapons in their hands.

“Sorry, boys, but we’ll be needing this big rig,” one of them said. His mismatched blue and violet eyes twinkled in the darkness of the long road, lit by the crackling fire of the flaming tree about two hundred feet back of where the diesel had finally settled to a dusty stop. “I’m sure you’ll be happy to oblige. Since the alternative is—I shoot you where you’re sitting and shovel the pieces out.” The man smiled grimly, and Boris had no doubts whatsoever that he meant it. He jumped down from the cabin, holding his hands high to show he had nothing hidden there. His fat co-driver did the same on the other side, nearly falling as his thick legs hit the ground.

“D-d-d-don’t kill me,” Boris began to plead. “I have a w-w-w-ife and family. “I—”

“Save your breath,” the apparent leader of the band of mountain bandits said, “you won’t die if you just shut up and do what you’re told. All we want’s the damned truck.” And so, for the first time in days, Boris shut his white-lipped mouth. For as much as he wanted to talk—even to his enemies—he wanted to live a lot more.

Twenty minutes later, the two men were tied up, naked, hand and foot, the rope wrapped tightly around a tree. The ’brids had been loaded up into the back of the diesel rig—and the men as well, the doors tightly closed behind them. Rock and Scheransky rode up front, dressed in the uniforms of the trucks previous occupants. The Russian defector drove, glad to be of some real service finally, and not just the most inexperienced member of the strike force.

“Now, just take it easy,” Rock said to him as Scheransky slid the truck into gear and started her out from the sudden detour into the dirt she had taken. “You say you know how to drive this thing—right?” He looked questioningly at the Russian’s face, which was glued to the road ahead—the twin beams of its headlights cutting a swath of light through the falling darkness.

“Damn right, I do,” the Russian replied without turning an inch. “Used to drive transports in Minsk. Bigger than this. Why, you just slip it into gear here like this—and—”