The Rock (25 page)

THE SOURCE

Proletesk, Ukraine

23 DECEMBER 1995, 1100 LOCAL

23 DECEMBER 1995, 0800 ZULU

Hawkins looked through his binoculars at the small dacha one last time and then handed them to Tuskin. "You know this place?"

Tuskin spit into the snow. His coverall was now white, speckled with green dots and stripes, matching perfectly with the snow and low-lying pine trees. "Yes. I know it. It is one of many places the SVR--you knew them as the KGB, but now they have a new name--takes those who will never be seen again. The guards live in comfort, the prisoners in pain. The contrast is deliberate--calculated to help in the process of breaking the prisoner. They have had many years to perfect their techniques. Too many."

"What about security?" Hawkins asked.

Tuskin gave a smile that chilled. "Who would dare attack? You would be crazy to attack the SVR."

Hawkins stood. "Well, that I am."

Tuskin stood and slapped him on the back. "We should never have been enemies."

Hawkins pointed at the dacha. "How do you want to take it down?"

"The general will be in the cellar. The guards are probably drunk. The SVR are all scum who live off of others' misery." He looked at Hawkins, as if trying to gauge his reaction. "We kill all and take the general out. How does that sound for a plan, my friend?"

Hawkins hefted the plasma projector. "Sounds good to me. Let's do it."

They moved through the woods, down the slope to the small house perched on the edge of the ice-covered lake. They'd landed in the skimmer over two hours earlier on the other side of the large ridge they were now descending. As soon as they'd stepped out of the door, it had immediately sealed itself back up, but Hawkins had no doubt that it would open again when they came back.

The ride from Tunguska had been wild. It had reminded Hawkins of nap-of-the-earth (NOE) flying in a helicopter with an expert and somewhat crazy pilot at the controls. Right after they'd punched through the Wall, the autopilot had kicked in, taking them from Tunguska to the location Hawkins had indicated on the video screen. They'd skimmed along, the bottom of the craft barely inches above the trees, always staying in the lowest ground available. Their speed had been incredible for that low an altitude-Hawkins estimated they'd flown at almost five hundred miles an hour.

Hawkins shifted his focus to the present as he reached the edge of the wood line surrounding the house. There were forty feet of open space. Two black sedans with chains on the tires sat in front. There was no sign of a guard on the outside. His heart was pounding in his ears, his senses reaching out and picking up things that would have normally escaped unnoticed. Time was slowing as he slid into combat readiness. Tuskin pointed and twitched his head-gestures most would have not understood. Hawkins felt an affinity for his blood brother in killing. He understood perfectly. He moved across the open snow in smooth steps, his entire body tuned in to the building ahead, awaiting any reaction.

Tuskin moved in his peripheral vision, heading toward the back of the building. Hawkins reached the side of the dacha and took a quick glance around the corner. A porch stretched ahead, leading to the front door in the center. He looked over his shoulder and Tuskin's eyes were on him, waiting. Hawkins nodded and moved around the corner, stooping low so he wouldn't be seen through the first window he passed. As he straightened, the front door opened and a man stepped out, still speaking in Russian over his shoulder.

The plasma projector seared the man in half, and in less than half a second Hawkins was in the doorway, spraying down the room. Men died even before their conscious minds understood what was happening. Hawkins let up on the trigger only when the far wall blew apart from the ray. A stairwell beckoned to his right. The golden ray of another projector sliced across his left front, catching two SVR men coming out of the other room on the main floor. Tuskin stepped into the room, his eyes taking in the smoldering remains of the bodies.

Together the two hit the stairs going down. A voice--disturbed by the strange sound of the wall getting blown out--called out in Russian, asking Ivan what was happening. A sustained burst blew in the heavy steel door at the bottom of the stairs and Hawkins stepped inside. The torturer was so surprised, his first round was wide, splashing against the concrete above Hawkins's head. There was no second shot as Hawkins obliterated the man. He lowered the muzzle of the projector and looked at the only man left alive in the building.

The general was naked and tied to a wooden X bolted to the wall. The car battery and alligator clamps laid out on a cart were enough to indicate the crude methods the SVR had been using to dredge information. The general's eyes widened as Tuskin walked into the room.

"Pyotr! You have come to help me!"

Tuskin didn't say a word as they cut the general free and dragged him up the stairs and through the carnage they'd caused, pausing only to grab an overcoat for the man to wear. The older man collapsed as they left the building, and Tuskin threw him over his shoulder. They made it to the skimmer in five minutes and the door slid down to admit them.

Tuskin unceremoniously threw the general down onto the metal floor. As the old man gasped for breath, Tuskin knelt over him, his words a low hiss of Russian. "Who did you sell the bombs to?"

The general looked up and smiled painfully. "Ah, Pyotr. They have asked that for a week. You did not have to kill all those guards to play this game. I will never speak. Who put you up to this? Kolgorov? Roskin? What do they care?"

Tuskin pulled his knife out. "No game, Comrade General. I am not with anyone. I am for me. Who did you sell the bombs to?"

The general shook his head. "I fought in the Great War. I served for forty-eight years after. And what did I get? Nothing. So I made my own way as the rest of the country did. Isn't that what capitalism is supposed to be? Looking out for yourself? That I failed and was caught is my mistake. I will die with that."

Tuskin put the knife against the general's throat. "Who did you sell the bombs to?"

The general didn't flinch. "The SVR did all they could for a week. You can't do more. I am a dead man."

"Not yet," Tuskin muttered as he slid the knife down the man's body and pressed it in. "You don't know what pain is yet. The SVR were amateurs. I am not."

Hawkins stared unemotionally as the screams echoed against the metal skin of the skimmer. Tuskin used the knife skillfully, choosing maximum pain with minimal actual physical damage. The colonel's voice was ice cold as his hands worked. "I am not SVR. I am not Spetsnatz anymore. I answer to no one. There are worse things than death, Comrade General. You will experience them all. If you tell me who, I will make it short and easy. Until you do, it will never end. We can keep you alive. The SVR really didn't care who you sold the bombs to, because they thought the buyers were out of the country and it wasn't their problem anymore. You were an embarrassment and there wasn't much they could do about you or the bombs."

The knife twitched and the general screamed again, curling up in the fetal position, trying to escape. "Not like the electricity, is it, Comrade General?" Tuskin asked. "You knew after the shock that your body and mind were still there. But now, now, you don't know what will be left after the blade is done, do you?"

"Why, Pyotr?" The general sobbed. "Why are you doing this to me? The country betrayed us! You owe them nothing."

"I owe the people something," Tuskin said.

Hawkins grabbed his comrade's hand, preventing the fatal twist, and shook his head. "We need him," he mouthed to Tuskin.

"The people," Tuskin repeated. "All those who have lived their lives, simply trusting that those who held the power would at the very least not destroy them." The knife moved to a less lethal position and slid in.

The general screamed and vomited, the meager remains of his last prison meal spewing onto the floor. "Please, Pyotr! Please!"

"Who, General? Who?" Tuskin turned to Hawkins. "Hold his head still."

Hawkins reached down and grabbed the general's white hair, clamping his other arm around the neck, immobilizing the old man. Tuskin moved the point of the knife to just in front of the general's left eye.

"Pyotr! You wouldn't!" The eye was mesmerized by the bloody tip, centimeters away.

"Who? You have five seconds or I take out that eye. Then the other. I'll stop the bleeding, so you will survive. Then I will castrate you. Then your hands. And we will keep you alive. We will cauterize the amputations as we go so you don't bleed to death." Tuskin's voice was totally devoid of emotion.

"Five. Four. Three. Who, General?" Tuskin paused for a few seconds. "Two. One." The knife darted forward, piercing the eye. It took all of Hawkins's strength to keep his grip as the body spasmed wildly from pain. Tuskin levered down on the knife and the ruined eye popped out, dangling by the occipital cord. Tuskin neatly severed the cord and the eye fell to the floor.

"Stop screaming, General. That won't save your other eye." Tuskin reached down and picked up the eyeball, holding it directly in front of its partner. "You have five seconds or you never see again." Blood oozed from the hole in the general's skull. "I don't know who he was." The words spilled out like the vomit that had preceded them.

"You lie," Tuskin replied. He dropped the eyeball and stomped his boot on it, the noise causing Hawkins to flinch.

"No! I don't know. We never met face-to-face. There was a dead drop. He contacted me there and he left the gold there. After I had the gold, I put the two bombs in place for pickup."

"Gold? He paid for both in gold?"

"Yes!"

"The same person bought both?

"Yes!"

"An African?"

There was a brief pause, and Tuskin moved the knife closer to the general's eye. "I don't know!" The general shook his head. "He wasn't African."

"But the Africans exploded one of the bombs under Vredefort Dome," Tuskin said. "Was this man a front for them?"

"I don't know."

"You are wasting my time, old man. What do you know?"

"The Africans may have gotten one of the bombs--maybe both. But the man I sold them to-he was Russian. And he was military too."

Tuskin exchanged a look with Hawkins. "How do you know that?"

"He knew too much. He played me well. He knew exactly what he wanted and he knew that I would do it. It is someone who knew me but who never let me know who he was."

Tuskin frowned, lowering the knife slightly. "How did he do that?"

The general had his chance. Pulling out of Hawkins's relaxed grip, he impaled his throat on the knife. Tuskin cursed in Russian as he tried to stop the flow of arterial blood.

"He's gone," Hawkins said, grabbing the other man. Reluctantly, Tuskin pulled his hands away as the general's life ebbed out onto the floor.

"We have nothing," Tuskin said bitterly.

"We have it that the buyer was a Russian. And that he was military. That's a start," Hawkins said.

Tuskin stood. "What now?"

"We go to South Africa," Hawkins said.

"South Africa?" Tuskin asked.

"We talk to the ones who bought the Vredefort bomb from the Russian. Maybe they know who he is."

"You think this Russian still has the other bomb?"

"Yes."

"Do you know where these Africans are who bought the bomb?"

"Yes. I did some checking before I came through. The South African police have picked them up. A man and a woman. The man's name is Nabaktu. He was part of a radical splinter group of the Xantha party. He was assisted by a woman named Lona. They sent one of their members into the mine on a suicide mission with the bomb."

"There was no intelligence on that from my people," Tuskin commented.

"The South African authorities are keeping it quiet. They want to interrogate and then terminate them. They certainly don't want to have a trial. They have enough bad publicity as it is. The CIA picked up this info from a source they have in-country."

Tuskin could understand that reasoning. "You know where they are being held?"

"Brandvlei. "

Tuskin whistled. "That's the home of their Para Commandos!"

"Yep," Hawkins commented as he rolled the general's body out the ramp door.

"They won't be as easy to take down as these slobs were." Tuskin led the way to the pilot's compartment.

"No, they won't," Hawkins agreed as he leaned over the control panel and worked with the controls.

ANSWERS

The Other Side

"What’s going on?" Fran asked, her eyes mesmerized by the massive image of Ayers Rock in front of her.

Pencak grabbed her arm. "There's not much time. We need to go back down." She pressed the horizontal button and the armor plating resealed around the glass capsule. She punched the down button and they began their descent. The elevator came to a halt at a different level from the one they had gotten on at.

Fran tried to clear her head. "What about Debra?"

"Debra will find out on her own," Pencak replied succinctly, "if she hasn't already."

"And Don?"

"We're going to him now," Pencak impatiently answered. "There's not the time to explain things twice."

She nudged Fran forward and they stepped into the corridor. A door at the end slid open into a brightly lit chamber with white walls. Don Batson was seated on a bench and leapt to his feet as the two appeared. "I wondered when I would see you again," he said as he stepped forward to Fran. He turned his gaze to Pencak. "So what now? Have you let her in on your secret?"

"I saw Ayers Rock, Don," Fran said, the shock evident in her voice. "It's above us. But it's not the same."

Don shook his head. "I know. The only mistake I made was telling the wrong person that I knew," he said, again staring hard at Pencak. "You're one of them, aren't you?"

Pencak nodded impatiently, as if that was not a serious matter. "I apologize for locking you up, but we couldn't allow you to tell the others. We didn't take into account your background when we brought you through."

"Tell the others what?" Whatever patience Fran had had was long gone now.

Don was still staring at Pencak. "It shouldn't surprise you that a geologist would recognize his own planet. When I saw the wall of the cavern below us, I knew exactly where we were-after we'd been cutting through the same sandstone feldspar for the past several days."

Fran blinked. "But I don't understand. How can we be back at the Rock? Where are all the people that we left? And the sky--it was . . ." She paused and then plaintively asked, "Where are we?"

Pencak sighed. "Not where, my dear. When is the key question." Pencak grabbed her shoulder. "There isn't time right now to answer all your questions. Things are happening and we're losing control--not that we had that much to start with."

The old woman suddenly staggered and Fran and Don watched in amazement as she seemed to fade slightly and then come back into focus. Pencak gripped her cane fiercely and regained her balance. "We have to get you two back to the right time while we still can."

"But I don't--"

"Trust me." Pencak cut off Don's question. "I'll explain all shortly."

A door on the side of the room slid open and three robed figures strode in. As they stepped forward, they pulled their hoods down, revealing faces as disfigured as Pencak's. The first one had no eyes at all; a thin metal plate was wrapped around his forehead with wires leading out of it directly into the back of the skull. The second's head was completely smooth--no ears or nose protruding. The eyes were recessed farther than normal and glinted with a strange color Fran had never seen before. The third held his--her?--head at a cocked angle, a twisted cord of distended muscle bulging out on the right side and disappearing into the robe.

The little glimpse that Fran had of their hands showed deformities such as missing fingers and melted skin. The lead figure's scarred face twisted in a sad smile as he wrapped his arms around Pencak. "Good-bye for the second and final time, Lois."

Fran watched as they hugged the old woman, paying no attention to either Don or herself. Done with their parting words, the three stepped back and another door opened to the side. Inside it gleamed the black Wall of a portal.

"Let's go," Pencak insisted, grabbing Fran by the arm again. As she stepped forward with Don toward the shimmering black, Fran was surprised to see tears flowing out of the old woman's one good eye.