Doomsday Warrior 16 - American Overthrow (6 page)

At last a vote was taken as the clock hit midnight. It was close. 51 to 49—for sending a team up there to see what the hell was happening. Recommendations were asked of Rath as to just what kind of team should be assembled.

“I think we all know there’s only one man for a job as hazardous and important as this,” Rath said with a grim smile as his eyes rested on the man with bloodshot eyes sitting in the front row sipping coffee. “As much as I should probably toot the horn of my own staff’s abilities, I know this is as much of a potential combat mission as straight intel gathering. I recommend— Ted Rockson. I say he should assemble a team of his choosing and set out tomorrow for Pattonville, authorized to do what he can to alter this serious situation.”

The council again voted, this one a lot quicker vote than the other. And the motion carried by a wide majority. Rock’s abilities were widely known. All eyes were on the Doomsday Warrior who wearily raised his half-empty cup of black coffee.

“Salud,” he said in a half whisper. “Fucking salud.”

Six

G
eneral Hanover’s commando teams left Pattonville at two in the morning before the moon had completed its curve across the purple-tinged night sky. The two-hundred-man force was jittery, extremely nervous. It was only their second attack on one of the neighboring Free Cities; their target was Truman Town, some thirty miles to the east. The small rebel city of only eight thousand was known for their intricate baskets and pottery.

It was a perfect test for their developing tactics of warfare under General Hanover, who had his own dark ideas about how to conduct war against his fellow man. But then, Hanover believed that what he was doing was right, even justified under the iron hand of God. And such men are the most dangerous, those who kill with the word “God” on their lips. For they know no bounds, and have no morality other than what they hear the dark angels whispering in their ears.

“We’re behind schedule,” Lieutenant Trancer shouted to his men as they rode along on hybrid horses spread out on a dirt road behind him. He couldn’t afford any foul-ups on this one. His predecessor, Major Smoth, who had trained the commando forces, had screwed up the first actual combat operation—the takeover of Phillipsburg, a very small Free City some hundred miles to the north. General Hanover had chosen it because of its small size, only three thousand souls, and because it was isolated, without any radios or telecom equipment. The people of Phillipsburg believed in a primitive way of life. An easy target! But the good major had nearly managed to screw it up anyway, gassing a quarter of his own men, letting several dozen of the villagers escape before they were tracked down and eliminated so they couldn’t warn the rest of the Free Cities. And then, worst of all, he had somehow botched the operation completely, releasing large amounts of the
wrong
gas—and the entire village had been wiped out. Every man, woman, and child exterminated as if they never existed.

Lieutenant Trancer checked his watch in the moonlight. They were back on schedule, thank God for that. The bungling major wasn’t seen again once the combat squad had returned to Pattonville. The lieutenant wasn’t going to allow himself to meet the same fate. He knew that if General Hanover’s plans came to fruition, those in on the ground floor, men like himself, would rise to the top, would be rulers of America someday soon. He had to be smart, careful, and daring, all at the same time.

He waved the men on and rode around to the back of the convoy to check the gas canisters. Two wagons with special ball-bearing shocks and padded wheels were in the rear of the contingent with teams of specially trained “non-bolting” ’brids in their traces. They couldn’t take any chances with the deadly CX12 nerve gas. One slip with that stuff and everybody would be corpses faster than they could say “shit.”

“How’s it going, men?” the lieutenant asked the drivers of each wagon. “Any problems at all? And I mean at all. Anything making funny noises, any canisters shifting? Anything? I’d rather you told me and we called the whole mission off than have another disaster.”

“No problems, sir,” both drivers responded. They knew the capabilities of the gas and weren’t exactly about to mess around with it themselves. The entire commando force wore toe-to-hairline rubberized suits and breathing apparatus which they had swung back around their necks. The gas had been watered down slightly so that theoretically it couldn’t be absorbed through the skin but had to be breathed in. The Pattonville science team had done wonders with gas. Using one basic molecule taken from an old canister of gas from before the great war, they had managed to twist it, bend it, and reshape it so they had four gases. Four levels of deadliness. Level one knocked men out and destroyed their individuality—turned them into kind of zombies, level two knocked out and killed in minutes. Level three killed in seconds, through breathing. And level four—just a few molecules of it on the skin burned out the nervous system within ten seconds.

It was all for the greater good, the lieutenant repeated to himself silently as he rode back up to the front of the line. All for the greater good. With the Free Cities in their loose conglomeration of alliances, nothing was ever going to happen to change the political shape of America. Anarchy reigned. And with anarchy nothing could evolve. General Hanover had been chosen to change things. A great man at a turning point in history. And the lieutenant had been with him from the start when the general took over Pattonville. The coup had been the lieutenant’s most thrilling day in his life. His loyalty for the general was absolute.
It better be.

An advance scout came riding back just as Lieutenant Trancer reached the lead of the line.

“Sir, sir,” the man shouted breathlessly as he reined in his ’brid. “We’re there. It’s just over the next ridge. I surveyed it for a good five minutes with my binocs—and nothing. A couple of guards up in some trees near the town entrance, asleep. Could hear their snores a hundred yards off. There’s nothing to stop us. I guess the bastards aren’t exactly expecting an attack.”

“Good, good,” Trancer laughed, slapping the man on the shoulder. He was suddenly feeling in a good mood. This attack was going to come off without any problems. He could feel it in his guts.

He led the team up to a grove of trees beyond which the town lay fully exposed like a naked woman in her bed of dark trees. The squads had been through this all before as they quickly broke down into their combat formations. The gas canisters were removed and strapped to the backs of the dozen men who would be carrying them in.

He gathered the officers of each of the commando squads and went over the plans once more.

“Now Alpha team comes in from the east, Beta team from the west, Omega team from the north, and Epsilon from the south. Got that?”

“Affirmative,” the men replied with enthusiasm.

“We’ll commence the gas sweep at exactly 6:00
A.M.
Synchronize watches. Any attacks by guards or someone out taking a leak who happens to have firearms on them—take them out, hard and fast. Use your silenced Liberators,” the lieutenant said. Century City had shipped five thousand weapons to the Pattonville military over the last two years. Little did they know what their weaponry was going to be used for!

“No questions—let’s go, men. And remember, the future of our God-ordained campaign to reunite America under General Hanover begins here tonight. This is an historic moment.” He turned and led his own unit, which was going to capture the government seat of the town and its comm equipment. The two-hundred-man force split up silently and quickly spread out in a circle around the town. Trumantown was a scatter of houses, hidden in thick woods, with high overhanging trees to protect it from the Red spy drones.

Lieutenant Trancer could feel his heartbeat speeding up by the second, sweat pouring out within his sealed uniform. “Masks down,” he commanded his elite twenty-man team. “We’re going in in twenty seconds.” About fifty feet to his right he heard the telltale hissing of gas being released. As the fates would have it, they had hardly gone a hundred feet down the main street of the town when three drunken farmers came walking down the center singing, with their arms around each other. They looked surprised and then terrified as they realized something was up. But the lieutenant’s silenced .9mm Uzi spoke whispers of death and the three tumbled to the dirt street; bloody bags of flesh.

There—he had killed already tonight. Had been the first to break the seal of blood. It was a good sign. The men were coming in from all sides now, spraying out their invisible gas into the air from every direction to make sure it permeated all the houses, the underground dwellings. Already a few stray dogs and cats had keeled over and were lying there motionless. Good, good, it was all working according to plan.

The lieutenant raced down the main street with his team scouring the one and two story log buildings to make sure no one was trying anything funny. But not a face appeared at a window. They reached the combination town-seat and radio-center, where the single man on duty was already slumped over in his seat, earphones still on.

The lieutenant allowed himself a smile of complete self-satisfaction. This was going to be a snap. They’d merely have to round up the unconscious government and police officials, liquidate them—and then when the town woke up in a few hours with headaches the likes of which they’d never felt before, they’d be in for a big surprise.

“Sir, sir,” his right hand, Sgt. Wilkers said, nervously as he bent over the radio man. “This man—is dead.”

“What the hell do you mean—dead?” The lieutenant screamed as he walked over the few yards and grabbed the communications man’s shoulder. The body fell over on its side, the eyes wide open, the pupils dilated. The skin was ghostly pale, lips waxy yellow. It was a Level Four reaction!

Trancer suddenly felt his stomach turn over a few times. The man shouldn’t have died from the gas that had seeped in through the windows. Level One gas would never take out a young person in good health! This muscular fellow looked like he lifted oxen for exercise. Or had. Why was he dead?

The lieutenant ran out the door and into the street. There were bodies in several doorways. He rushed to the nearest house and inside, his gun at the ready. But there was no need for it. Everyone inside, six people and their two dogs, were slumped over. A check of their pulses proved they were dead as doornails. Rigor mortis was already setting in.

He rushed out now, feeling hysterical. It had all been planned so perfectly. It was impossible that anything could have gone wrong. But it had,
terribly
wrong. Each house told the same story. Death, fast and painful, many of the corpses with blistered red skin, their eyes and tongues exploded from their bodies.

“You
idiots,”
he screamed at the gathered gas teams who had lined up in the main street. “That’s not Level One gas in those canisters—it’s Level Four! You bastards screwed this up. We’re
all
dead men now!”

“But sir, it says Level One, CX12 right on the outside of every canister,” one of the gasmen screamed, near breakdown. They all knew the consequences of what had just happened.

“I don’t give a shit what it says,
asshole,”
the lieutenant screamed back. “Just look around you.” And it was easy enough to see in the dawn’s early light that all were dead. Every man, woman, and child. Every pet and livestock. Every insect and microbe for hundreds of yards as well had died. The lieutenant felt tears well up in his eyes. It was all ruined. The whole town dead. The second time it had occurred. His glorious future was down the drain. The general would not suffer such fools, no matter whose fault the gas-loading had been.

“Come on,” he said wearily as he turned and headed back down the main street toward the waiting ’brids some quarter mile off, upwind of the gas holocaust. “There’s nothing for us here.” They walked off slowly, every man whitefaced, knowing they would join the town of corpses soon enough.

Seven

A
s the gas assassins were returning to Pattonville from their mission of total death, Rockson lay in bed in his small cubicle in one of Century City’s multi-levels. Next to him was Rona Wallender, naked as a bluejay and sleeping happily with a big smile on her face. She had knocked softly, then loudly on the door around two in the morning after Rockson had retired to his room. His head had been swirling with troubled thoughts about the mission he would soon have to embark on. He hadn’t really wanted to let her in, as much as he usually craved her firm, sexy body. But she had been persistent, banging on the steel door, until several other sleepers down the corridor came out and told her to shut the fuck up. Which to Rona,
being
Rona, had nearly precipitated a fistfight—until Rockson, seeing it was all just going to get worse, had opened the door.

They made love for half an hour as she stripped and dove on top of him without a word. But though his body sort of took over on automatic pilot, his mind wasn’t really into it. Not tonight. And when the redhead had fallen asleep, her face nestled into his neck and her smile as broad as a Cheshire cat’s, Rockson just lay there thinking. Thinking of
Kim
and just what the hell was happening to her. And President Langford. The silver-haired seventy-year-old was one of the most charismatic, honorable men Rockson had ever met. He had a profound respect for the first President of the Re-United States of America in one hundred years. Rockson had been a member of the Constitutional Convention that had met several years earlier to reestablish a new confederation of Free Cities, a new nation. He had come to know Langford, who had been elected there. And Rockson had also come to know Langford’s daughter Kim. Rockson had read that a man couldn’t love two women with the same intensity. But he did. Rona and Kim.

And just the sheer fact that he kept thinking about them, made him angry at himself. Here, the fate of the Free Cities itself was very possibly at stake. There had never been a coup in one of the rebel towns before. This was a new development, and one that he didn’t like at all. Yet Rockson spent the night, when he knew he should have been resting up for what was going to be a long and extremely dangerous haul ahead, tossing and turning and screwing and not getting a minute of restful sleep.