Doomsday Warrior 04 - Bloody America (6 page)

Even the Russian factory system had fallen apart. Little was being produced anymore—other than military equipment and ammunition. The world was slowly falling back into a primitive mode of existence. Industrial technology had been forgotten in the empire over the last century. Each decade the ability to build new machinery, tools, cars, computers, electronic components had fallen farther behind. The Reds had let their high technology at the time of the Great War go fallow, using the vast armaments they had already stockpiled with which to rule. A huge class of “servicers,” as they were called, had been able to keep most of the machinery going—constantly oiling the equipment, cleaning the immense factories, replacing worn parts from a dwindling stockpile. But this could only go on for so long.

Only the immense Satellite and ICBM Control Complex on the outskirts of Moscow was kept at peak efficiency—a budget of nearly two billion rubles a year was required just to keep the huge military installation from falling apart. Two fifty-story buildings sat on each side of a steel/magnesium, plastic-coated dome nearly eight hundred feet high that controlled the spy sats, the killer sats, and the guidance system for the armada of remaining Red missiles. The satellites that had shot down the American missiles from the skies as they streamed toward Mother Russia like so many tin ducks in a shooting gallery. Laser beams and particle beams arcing down from the dark heavens like bolts of white-hot lightning, disabling the U.S. weapons so they plummeted into the sea and sank to the depths of the ocean floor.

The giant control center really wasn’t needed any longer—as Red intelligence confirmed that no other country on earth had any remaining nuclear weapons. All the nukes were within the Red domain now—an ace in the hole in case the rebels around the world got the upper hand. Not that Premier Vassily wanted to use them. The planet had been poisoned enough already by radioactive pollution. The fertile regions within Russia had been cut to nearly a quarter—and the same was true everywhere. Vast deserts now stood where once fields of crops had danced in the clear sun. But now the sun was sickly and pale as it tried to beat its way through the dust and strontium clouds that continued to circle high above the earth.

Sometimes he felt so tired. Vassily ruled a crumbling empire and deep inside he knew it, though he would never admit it, even to himself. Somehow he had to buy time, to work out accommodations with the rebels so the Russian Empire could at least remain dominant if not in total control. Nearly twenty million Red troops were dispersed around the earth—the largest occupying army in history, and the supplies needed for the bureaucratic backup to support such a force was immense. And things were getting worse, not better. The empire he had taken over in bloody purges in the Kremlin nearly thirty years before was falling apart. Half of southern Asia was no longer in his firm grasp. The war lords there—Asians and rebellious Russian army officers—had created their own little fiefdoms where they ruled with even more of an iron fist than the regular army. China was on fire, under the control of the fanatical
Muabir,
the Flame of Allah. His armies of horse riding, religious zealots were only too willing to die to reach paradise. They attacked huge Russian convoys now, losing thousands of their men in the process, but causing increasing damage as they armed themselves with stolen rifles and even heavy artillery. Indochina was exploding in a renewal of Buddhism, as monks burned themselves and roused their people to rebellion. How could you kill people who killed themselves?

Premier Vassily felt another one of his migraines coming on and pushed the button on the small wireless transmitter affixed to the side of his electric wheelchair. America—that was the worst of all. The freefighters, as they called themselves, were growing bolder by the day—and now they apparently possessed some new secret weapon that had destroyed several Red convoys—if destroyed was the word. He had received reports that nothing but fused metal had been left of nearly a two thousand man, thirty tank force. His scientists couldn’t even discover what the technology behind the weapon was. How was it possible that rebels living in caves could produce such miracles of death. Unless? Unless the American fighters were far more advanced than either Killov or Zhabnov realized.

And Killov himself—ready to battle it out with Vassily for control of the world. No longer content to play his role behind the scenes, the KGB commander was directly challenging the Red Army. It was too much—too much. Somehow he had to make a move. If only he could make peace with some of the rebel rulers in each country—buy them off. Or even—he hated the word—make some sort of
concessions.
If he could get the legendary Ted Rockson to join forces with his and Zhabnov’s regular army in the U.S.S.A. they could defeat the mad KGB colonel once and for all.

The headache slammed into his skull like howitzer shells. Suddenly a soft cultured voice spoke up just behind him.

“Sir, I have your brandy and some of the pain killers that seemed to help last week.” It was Ruwanda Rahallah, Vassily’s black African servant whom he had taken to trusting and confiding in more and more these days. Vassily was surrounded on every side by spies and assassins. There were so few men he could trust. But he knew the tall, black ebony African was one of them. Vassily let his grim face relax and he smiled.

“Ah, thank you my friend. You are always here when I need you.” Rahallah, once an African prince of the Masai Tribe of East Africa, snatched by Reds when just a child to become a slave back in Russia—now the aide and confidante to the most powerful man in the world, handed the premier two opium pills and then his glass of afternoon brandy. Vassily swallowed the tablets down instantly with a slug of the rich golden brandy. Within seconds he felt the headache diminishing. Rahallah stood still, resplendent in his stiffly creased white tuxedo and white gloves, attentive, awaiting his master’s any request. His strong sculpted face with high cheekbones reflected the setting sun’s greenish rays as they pierced the twisting storm clouds overhead. He looked almost frightening, like some war mask from times long ago. Vassily shuddered slightly, whether from the cool evening air or the vision of Rahallah’s primitive past—he couldn’t tell.

“What do you think about?” Vassily asked the African. “Beneath that calm exterior, what goes on in that black mind of yours? I know you’re a smart man, probably more intelligent than my entire staff. What? What, tell me!” The premier was agitated. Tonight everything seemed threatening, ominous.

“I think only of how I can serve you, sir,” Rahallah said with a stony face. “I’ve been with you for many years. And I’ve come to know you for what you are—a good man—trapped by the exigencies of history. You’ve done well. As well as you can with what you have.”

“But don’t you ever grow afraid? Angry? Vengeful? After all, your people are still subjects. Work hard—die young. Don’t you—” For the first time ever, Vassily suddenly had the terrifying image of Rahallah’s strong black hand coming in to kill him in the middle of the night—a knife, a razor.

“Sir, you have promised me that someday my people will be free. My tribe. We have been enslaved by one race or another for centuries. We have learned to be patient, to move with the changing seasons, ride the ever-shifting winds of time. I have been given the opportunity by the gods to come and work for you. Influence you. I speak to you of peace—always. When you ask me for aid in your musings, I whisper peace. In your sleep I whisper peace. Peace for the world—for all mankind—so that we may return to the paradise that this green planet once was. That is my anger, my vengeance—to influence you, sir, to create peace.”

Vassily looked very thoughtful for several moments, then glanced up sharply. “Peace—if only it were so easy. I know I’ve promised you freedom for your tribe. I wish things were calmer. I’ve been waiting until the empire was firmly in control before I give more power to my subjects. In the midst of revolts is not the time to give in. It is a bad sign. They would be emboldened. I’m sorry, Rahallah—it is not yet time.”

“I know you will do what is right,” Rahallah answered with a calmness that almost angered Vassily.
He
didn’t feel calm. He felt his own anger rising—at always being inundated with requests, favors, crop failures, uprisings. The world was spinning around him like a gyroscope out of control.

“I feel tired tonight, Rahallah. So tired. I’m growing old and there is still much to do. I must leave the planet a safer place. Not more dangerous. But I fear that is what is happening. With this madman Killov making his bid for power. I am the only one who can stop him. My fat fool of a nephew, Zhabnov, is incapable of fighting the cleverness of
The Skull.”

“You are still strong, sir. I know your time has not yet come. I have spoken with the spirits of my ancestors—they have never failed me, never lied to me. Death knocks but cannot break down the wall to your soul. It is my duty to give you what comforts a man, to calm your mind and heart so that you can better deal with the battles of your rule.”

“Thank you, Rahallah. Your words always give me comfort. Wheel me in now, I grow cold.” The black servant, descended from a warrior race, slowly pushed the wheelchair of the ruler of all the worlds—a frail old man who hardly weighed more than a child. A rotting body, nothing now but skin and veins that seemed they must surely explode out with his life’s blood. But the eyes were clear. Clear as the stars that glittered on the stage of the Russian night. And in his mind those eyes were focused on the body of Colonel Killov. Might his death come soon.

The commander of all KGB forces in America stared out from the eightieth floor of the Monolith—the headquarters of the dreaded Blackshirts in the U.S.S.A. Located dead center of what had been Denver, Colorado, the huge black, glass and steel structure was a constant reminder to the American workers for miles around that their pitchforks and axes were nothing compared to the power of the KGB. The Monolith was a monument to death as its two hundred-foot-wide circular frame pierced the morning sky like a dark spear. The veiny red rays of the sun slowly cracked across the vast cobalt blue sky above the Rocky Mountains.

Colonel Killov popped another Benzedril, his twelfth that night. He had been up for nearly four days now and had hardly eaten a bite of food. His sustenance had been reduced to two glasses of vegetable juice pumped with megadoses of vitamins each day. His gaunt skull-like face, cheekbones popping out like bones through rotting flesh, stared back at him from the blue-tinted bullet-proof floor-to-ceiling glass that surrounded his entire eightieth floor suite of offices and living quarters. His flesh had the ghastly color of decayed dough, almost greenish. Killov’s eyes were wide open, straining in their sockets like black marbles reflecting the tentative beams of American sunlight that tried to slice into the room.

Killov slammed his thin hand hard against the thick glass and cursed out loud. “Damn that bastard, I know he’s out there,” the Blackshirt commander said bitterly, grinding his yellowed teeth together. “That slime could be right up on those ridges at this moment,” he mused aloud, staring the ten miles or so up to the lower slopes of the arching Rocky Mountain peaks, ice tipped and shining in the dawn. Killov fingered the long scar that ran across the side of his face from just below the right eye to his lower jaw. A gift from Ted Rockson, who had kicked a glowing hot metal rod into his would-be torturer’s face just when he himself was about to be branded. The wound was still red and throbbed at times, sending a streak of pain through Killov’s central nervous system.

But the pain was good. For the colonel was a master of pain. And the burn scar, nearly an inch wide and a jagged eight inches long was a constant reminder of the power of pain. It made sure he would never forget. Someday he would get the “Ultimate American” as the rabble called him. It might take years, decades even, but he would
find
him—he would torture the man with the most exquisite pains the human body could experience. He wouldn’t let Rockson die. No, death would be a kindness. The torture would be slow, days, weeks perhaps if his doctors could keep the rebel leader alive down in the subbasement of the Monolith filled with every pain-producing device known to man—even the new mind-breaking machine. Killov could picture the twin laser probes ripping into Rockson’s skull. The sickly odor of the burning brain tissue—then the screams.

But first things first. It was Vassily and his idiot nephew Zhabnov whom Killov must deal with now. There had been two assassination attempts on the KGB commander’s life within the last month. Both had failed. He was too clever, too quick for even the most highly trained assassins. But the Blackshirt leader knew there were more, and it added to his increasing paranoia. Everywhere were spies—no one was to be trusted. Anyone who entered his suite of rooms was searched and then had to walk through two detectors: one an x-ray device to pick up guns or knives; the other, an elemental spectrometer, to detect poisons and gases.

Killov rarely left the eightieth floor anymore. When he did, it was by helicopter which was stationed on the landing pad on the roof of the Monolith. But soon he wouldn’t have to hide like this—like a cornered rat. They thought they had him now with their combined forces. But Killov knew he was a thousand times smarter than either of them. Already his own plots of counter-assassination were being planned.
They
would die—not he. Anyone who opposed him would be destroyed. He would rule. It was his destiny to be emperor of the planet, and then things would be done his way—as servant of the
Lord of Death.

Six

“J
esus, Rock, look!” McCaughlin said, half tripping as he looked up toward immense clouds, each as big as a city, that flew quickly across the thick sky promising a downpour of rain over what had been the state of Montana. But it wasn’t the clouds that had caught the Scotsman’s eyes—it was the black dots that were approaching rapidly. Red choppers from the formation and speed—and they were coming right at the freefighters. Rockson, President Langford, Kim, and the rest of the Rock team had been moving carefully across some sparsely treed slopes to get the president back to his headquarters. They had traveled mostly at night to avoid the spy drones that now seemed to be everywhere. The Reds were still frantically searching for any survivors of the convention.