Doomsday Warrior 05 - America’s Last Declaration (12 page)

“But how do I know?” Killov wondered for the hundredth time in the last twelve hours, popping another morphine tab to calm himself down. “How do I know for sure that it’s not directed against me?” He knew that the premier had considered
him
the foremost threat to the empire and had vowed to destroy Killov before his own death. Yet now it was Rockson who incurred his wrath. Killov could believe that the Grandfather would be angry enough. It almost made him smile, or as close as the steel-lipped mouth could come to curving itself out of its eternal grim line. The colonel pictured Moscow burning, the Coliseum reduced to rubble, gladiators strewn like pieces of butchered beef. Fuck them all. Moscow was just filled with a bunch of fat army bureaucrats.
He
would rule over them all someday. Would bring his brand of order to the planet Earth. The rule of the death’s-head, the rule of blood.

He had to be cleverer than them. Had to prepare himself. If it was a strike against Rockson—so be it. But if they suddenly veered toward him and the Monolith . . . He laughed suddenly, a mad shrill noise, through vocal cords unaccustomed to such a sound. He was ready—far more ready than Vassily or his fat nephew, Zhabnov, could imagine. He picked up his phone suddenly and tapped a button on the computer auto-dial. It was 5:30
A.M.
but all of the colonel’s staff knew he didn’t relate to the nine-to-five routine.

“Yes,” a sleepy voice at the other end said, sounding somewhat annoyed.

“Wake up, fool, this is Colonel Killov.”

“Yes, sir,” the voice fairly screamed in panic.

“Wake up Eighth Wing Commander Petronin. I want the entire squadron on twenty four-hour alert. You understand, idiot? This is a mode blue status.”

“Yes, sir, immediately, sir,” the voice stuttered back.

“Have Petronin call me within fifteen minutes.” Killov slammed the phone down with a bang and had begun dialing another number when he heard the dimmest of knocks on his door.

“Come in, come in,” he screamed, letting the receiver fall back in its cradle. The door opened a crack and a hesitant, terrified elderly servant, pale as a ghost with but a single clump of hair in the center of his white scalp, peeked in. He had drawn the unlucky lot among the servants to wait on the colonel tonight. The slightest misstep, the dropping of an egg, the spilling of a glass of water, had in the past meant death when Killov had been in a nasty mood. The servant started in, moving as slowly as a turtle, so as not to drop his tray or disturb anything in the room.

“Y-your v-vegetable juice,” he said softly. “Your doctors told you—”

“Yes, yes, bring it here,” Killov barked. “Quick, don’t move like a mutant—move like a man.” The servant rushed forward, nearly slipping and spilling the entire contents of a pitcher of twenty five vegetable and fruit juices fortified with massive doses of vitamins B and C. This liquid meal was all that the colonel had consumed for months now. Even he knew he had to drink the stuff—or he would die. But so filled with drugs was he that the idea of consuming anything healthy, wet and wholesome filled him with a terrified repulsion. He grabbed the jug from the servant, tilted his head back and drank down as much as he could without vomiting. The thick greenish liquid trickled down over his face and chest, splattering the black leather jacket and pants and boots that came up nearly to his knees. At last when he could stand no more he flung the plastic jug halfway across the room. The servant ran and picked it up.

“Out, out, leave me alone,” the colonel yelled, trying to burp and keep the vitamin essence down. The nearly bald servant rushed from the room and quickly closed the door. Killov sat alone staring straight ahead. He could see his reflection in the glass window about eight feet away.

God, I look mad, he thought. He could feel the maniacal energy flowing, blazing from every pore of his face. Yes, but madness was a kind of genius. And he was a genius of death, terror and betrayal. He stared deeply at the blue-hazed reflection of his glowing skull-shaped face until he could bear it no longer—the fused ugliness, the darkness of hell itself rippling in dark purple circles that spread out from beneath his eyes like radar blips. He turned back to the reports, twisting his hands together, wondering whether he was somehow being outsmarted. He would have his neutron bombs ready—five of them, his entire system of antimissiles, and ground-to-air defenses which were brimming with nearly two hundred projectiles surrounding Denver and his Monolith headquarters. His spies were planted in the German army and even among Vassily’s top military staff. Oh yes—he had his finger in every pie, and when it was time to take his slice, he would get
all
of it. He stared at the reports over and over, searching for the one vital fact he might be overlooking—the difference between ultimate success and total destruction.

Ten stories below the musings and rantings of the KGB commander, a black-cloaked figure moved steadily up the smooth glass-sided outer surface of the Monolith. On each of his hands and knees were attached large rubber “suckers” that stuck firmly to the wall when he planted them there. Then he carefully lifted the next—but slowly, always have three planted—two were not enough. There was all the time in the world to kill Colonel Killov. The assassin stopped and looked down for a moment. He was already seventy stories up. The grounds, the gates far below that surrounded the immense circular building, the guards making their regular rounds—all looked as small as bugs, mere insects incapable of even seeing him up here in the darkness. He loved it like this—the harsh ninja training had all been worth it. The years of strict and esoteric regimen in Russian camps on the Chinese border where ninjas had been taken prisoner and forced to teach all the tricks of their trade. Thus, had Illyich Durzevsky been transformed from a regular army commando into the “Hard Faced One,” as he had come to be known. For he had chosen as his attack suit, a many-pocketed multi-weaponed black nylon ninja suit and cape—and the black opaque face mask, shaped like a Kabuki demon through which only his bottomless brown eyes showed. He had been one of the best and had killed many men already. But now, President Zhabnov himself had commanded him to destroy “The Skull.” He was one of a group of five assassins sent out on the mission. Two had failed already. But the Hard Faced One would not.

He edged up the side of the building seeing the roof just above. He was at the eightieth floor. Careful—Killov was almost certainly in there. He would be alone, any sound would jar him in his drugged-out nervous paranoia. He must be fast and instantaneous in his attack. Killov was far tougher than he appeared. The Hard Faced One’s masked eyes rose slowly up to window level and peeked in. There—he could see the KGB commander sitting at his table just a few yards away. His back was turned toward the window as he bent over, looking feverishly at some papers. The ninja edged along sideways keeping the colonel’s back just in eye range. He moved a good fifty feet along the side of the building until he was past a wall and facing another section of the top floor suite. The clouds rolled by just over his head, a few hundred feet up. The night was black and harsh, streaked only with lines of even darker mists spiraling down from the poisoned lungs of the Earth’s atmosphere.

The Hard Faced One reached up with his hands and a diamond-edged blade snapped out into his right hand from a wrist-spring beneath his wide-sleeved silk jacket. He began cutting a circle in the glass, moving slowly, so as not to make a sound. The cutter was powered by supersonic waves along the blade edge, enabling the diamond teeth to cut quickly and deeply into even inch-thick glass without a sound. Within minutes the ninja removed the oval piece of cut glass with a sucker and rested it against the six-inch-deep metal ledge that ringed the building. He hoisted himself up and through the hole moving one joint at a time, making no sound. He had trained in all the martial arts, in yogas, in meditations so esoteric that no normal man could even comprehend them. And now he was able to move like a gymnast, a spider, a warrior—all in one black-garbed body.

He stepped down on the floor of the room. Killov was within reach, just on the other side of the wall. From underneath his robe the ninja pulled it out—the weapon with which he would destroy “The Skull.” It was a simple device, a piece of wire with a two inch blade at the end, attached to a motorized metal handle. The ninja grinned beneath his black demonic mask and pressed a button on the side of the handle. The steel blade began spinning at the end of the steel whip which shot around in a circle in front of the ninja’s chest. He pressed another button and the wire fed out another two feet. A whip of blood and death.

The Hard Faced One walked through the door and toward the colonel, stepping light as an ant, moving as he had been trained to walk across rice paper without tearing it. The cutting wire swung around and around reaching toward the colonel’s neck, reaching to slice through bone and sinew like blades of grass. One more second and . . .

Killov felt a tingle run up his curved spine. He didn’t move a muscle. Something, something. Yes, a breeze, but all the windows in the Monolith were closed, locked, incapable of being opened—all the air was filtered and fed through a duct system. The colonel leaped to the side suddenly, knocking his chair over. He felt something whiz just by his head and slice into the table. Killov struggled to his feet, scrambling on the Persian rug that filled the center of his office floor. He turned and stared wide-eyed at the black-cloaked figure that suddenly jumped atop his desk, whirling the bizarre weapon in front of him.

“Very good, Colonel Killov,” the voice said in a hoarse whisper from beneath the mask. “They said you were fast. But not fast enough.” The ninja leaped forward with a powerful spring of his muscular legs, landing nearly alongside Killov. The spinning razor wire ripped toward the KGB commander who fell back, receiving a deep slice in his upper arm. He slammed his hand over the wound and looked at it for the barest second. He could see the flesh opened up in a bloody V and in to the wet white bone below. He stepped back as the assassin slowed down, taunting Killov, wanting to enjoy the hunt.

“Colonel—don’t you want to die?” the assassin goaded him. “Come now, you are the master of death, aren’t you?”

“Whoever you are—I don’t care—let me live. I’ll pay you ten times whatever they’re giving you.”

“Colonel, I have enough money, women, food to last me ten lifetimes.” The ninja laughed contemptuously. “You see, I’ve trained my entire life to kill you. This is my fate—the completion of my ninja destiny. Once your death is mine—I will not even care whether I live or die.”

As Killov listened to the assassin’s words, he slowly walked to the front of his desk. If he could just lure the killer onto the section of carpet in front of the center of the desk. For there he had a little surprise. The ninja was talking too much, Killov thought to himself. Forgetting the truth of murder: when you can kill—kill. Don’t fuck around.

“And now, Colonel, that you have felt the sharp tongue of my spinning friend here, perhaps a few more cuts and then your head.” The ninja jumped into the air, slicing down at the colonel’s thigh. But Killov, in his desperate drug-crazed state, was hypersensitive and jumped, half screaming as the spinning blade tore down the side of his leg, slicing a deep piece of the outer thigh as if it were a cut of roast beef. The skin flapped down, hanging only by bloody veins, as red gushed down the trembling leg. Killov lurched back, wincing in pain. Yes, yes—come forward just a little more my stupid friend, he thought behind his dark blue eyes. The ninja advanced, sensing the end. He raised the whirling strip of death to cut the KGB leader for the final time.

Killov timed himself. Just as the arm moved he fell forward and pushed a hidden button just below the inch-thick edge of the table. A metal plate covered by the rug on which the ninja was standing suddenly whirled to life as a million volts of electricity shot through it. The metal plate secreted in the ceiling above took the charge and huge snapping bolts of white electric spears shot back and forth between the floor and ceiling. The body of the assassin jerked wildly as the cracking streaks shot through him. He was now a human conductor. The bolts ripped through his feet and legs, through his groin and his skull—a thousands ripping knives of burning infinite pain. The Hard Faced One screamed and screamed again as his body began smoking, his eyes and brain bubbling in a streaming pink porridge made out of sockets and earholes.

Killov, his hand wrapped over his leg wound, walked back behind his desk and sat in his chair watching the burning, spasming creature before him. It was already dead, the colonel was sure of that. Its outer skin was already turning black and charring as the head burst into flames from the inside. Tongues of fire shot from the dead thing’s mouth, licking out nearly a foot. Still, it jerked back and forth caught between the electric fires. Amazing, the colonel thought as the corpse smoked, how much flesh and parts there are in a human body to make fuel. Perhaps someday . . .

He watched until the ninja was just smoldering bones and lumps of fused charcoal on the singed rug. Then he pressed the red button on a control panel just inside his drawer. The current stopped, leaving a mist of bloody flesh and charred tissue floating thickly in the air like the leftovers of a hurricane spewing red rain. The colonel pressed his Emergency button and within seconds two of his bodyguards ran from a side room, where he usually kept them, out of sight, not being able to stand the presence of another human being for very long. The guards looked at the smoking thing with horror as they began stammering out apologies for not having stopped the would-be killer.

“Shut up,” Killov barked. “Call my doctors. Tell them to meet me in operating room three.” He felt his mind beginning to spin, growing weak from the loss of blood. But he would live, he knew that. His surgeons would sew him up again and fill him with the blood of others. He was too tough to die. None of them understood his duty here on earth—or who he served. For nothing could defeat his Master—nothing.