Doomsday Warrior 08 - American Glory (9 page)

“Why don’t we just take all of them goddamned KGB butchers and the Red armies—all at once?” a voice shouted from the crowd. Ordinarily Rath would have scowled “Out of order!” Like Randolph, he was a decorum freak—but even he recognized that the times called for speed, quick debate, and total comprehension of the situation.

“We can—but I’m sure we’d lose,” Rath said slowly and deliberately. “As I say, it’s a peculiar situation. Killov’s forces are outnumbered by up to fifty to one in some cases. But you see, the very thing that The Skull is master of is intimidation. He rules by fear and confusion. Most of the regular Red troops probably don’t even really understand what’s going on. The KGB—by decree going back to before the 1989 nuke war, has the freedom to go into any Russian military fortress in the world to search for traitors, saboteurs, blasphemers of the Communist orthodoxy. In the last few years, Killov apparently used this power more and more frequently, giving the Reds a chance to get used to it. To hate it, yes, but to accept it as an ongoing occurrence. This time, the KGB madman moved in a blitzkrieg, sending in commando teams by paradrop, at all the larger fortresses. Before they could even respond, the officers, the munitions—everything that controls the power within a fortress—were in KGB hands. The ordinary Red soldiers are being ‘re-educated,’ and commanded now by a combination of KGB officer staff and those Red Army commanders who have come over to what they see as the winning side.”

“Get ’em all, kill ’em all,” another voice shouted from far in the back.

Rath shook his head. “We might take on the actual KGB units in a fort,” Rath said, “but realistically, with the number of men we’ll be able to raise and have combat-ready in the field within two weeks, we wouldn’t stand a chance against those caged-up army units. Just their sheer number would overwhelm us like carpenter ants over a grasshopper. We have no choice, gentlemen—whether our stomachs like it or not—but to get those fortresses back out of the hands of the KGB. Otherwise it won’t matter what you think—not when Killov gets control of enough nukes to start blasting all over the damned place. This country will be deader than a doornail within months if that happens. You all know that. You all know what would happen to the little bit of life that has been able to force its way back if a hundred A-bombs were scattered around spitting out yet more poison.” He paused and looked around. “Let’s use whatever strength we have to prevent Killov from winning the Red Civil War. Let them,
help them
destroy themselves. Then we move in when they’re weak.”

“I don’t like it,” a deep voice growled out from one of the rear chairs.

“I don’t like it neither,” another, then another cried out in a chorus of negation. Within seconds the place was roaring with yells, protests, and anger. The fighters could hardly believe what they were being asked to do.

“Please, please!” Rath yelled out, his hands raised high as the place threatened to erupt into bedlam. Already some of the less sophisticated Freefighters were standing on their chairs, their fists clenched, ready to take on any man in the joint.

Suddenly a figure rose from the seats and jumped on the stage. He walked past Rath and to the front of the platform. Without a word, he stared down at them, a palpable fire of fury burning in his mismatched violet and aquamarine eyes. Slowly, under the gaze of Ted Rockson, the crowd stopped moving and came to a hush.

“That’s better, much better,” Rockson said, as if addressing a class of twelve-year-olds. “Now please be seated. Not only is the president of your nation watching this debacle, but you are also guests of Century City and therefore of mine. And we don’t allow anything but sport-fighting here. And we also consider it quite rude for people to yell when others are talking. You will all get your chance to be heard, I promise you. But you’ll do it
our
way. Okay? If anyone wants to yell or fight, come up here on stage, right now, and we’ll settle it—you and me, personal style.” He looked around the audience of tough, hardened fighters, but not a one would take up the challenge. For they had all heard of the Rockson, the Ultimate American—even those in straw-strewn pigsties, out in the middle of nowhere. And not one had the desire, or the inclination, to tackle the job. He had made his point.

“Good,” Rockson said softly, his every word cutting like a bullet through the suddenly silent air. “Now if you thought that Rath’s idea was bizarre and unappetizing for your gourmet palates, try
this
on for size: I suggest that not only do we carry out the plan for liberation of the Red Army from KGB forces, but that we contact Premier Vassily in Moscow—and have him ally with us to fight Killov the common threat.” There were gasps of shock from the fighters—but not one yelled out. “Because to be perfectly honest with you all, I don’t think we can carry this thing out without additional, heavy-duty help. And from the lack of discipline demonstrated by many of you, I feel more convinced that my preconceptions were right.”

Even Rath seemed shocked by this idea and looked at Rockson in confusion. “But—how, Rock? How could we possibly pull something like that off—and even if we could, how do we have any guarantee that the Reds wouldn’t immediately turn on us as soon as the KGB had been vanquished? It’s like fighting a wolf by swinging rattlesnakes in both hands.”

“I’ve met Vassily,” Rock said, addressing both Rath and the audience. “He’s a tyrant—but he’s neither a madman nor a fool. Whatever he
does
want—he
doesn’t
want the world destroyed. I know that. I think we can strike a deal.”

“So what are you suggesting?” Rath asked, his face slowly draining of blood as he realized that Rockson was 100% serious.

“I propose that I contact Premier Vassily and set up a situation for him to have Russian forces fight
alongside
American forces. And in exchange for that aid—we get the withdrawal of all nuclear weapons in America.” Rockson stepped back, looked at Rath with a poker face, and let the intel chief take over.

“I open the floor to debate,” Rath declared, setting an avalanche of questions and oppositions in motion. The often raucous meeting lasted for hours with every possible point of view being expressed. But as the debate yelled its way on, slowly it dawned on even the dimmest-witted of the fighters that in reality, they didn’t have a hell of a lot of options.

As the city’s largest clock, mounted halfway up the wall of the northern side of the square, hit 6:00
A.M.
, council president Randolph decided it was time for a vote.

“We’ve been over and over all the major proposals for hours now,” he said, wearily addressing the throng. “I think it’s time to decide—or it will be decided for us. Basically, as I see it, it comes down to three plans. Number One: we don’t do a thing—let them fight it out. Continue to monitor the situation.

“Number Two: we attack the KGB, not the Red Army. But
no
attempt to ally ourselves with Vassily.

“And Number Three—Rock’s plan: we arrange a temporary alliance with Premier Vassily, and fight alongside his soldiers to defeat Killov, our common enemy.

“Who votes for plan one?”

A smattering of hands went up.

“Plan two?”

This time a good quarter of the audience threw up hands and cheered mightily.

“And plan three?”

The vast majority of Freefighters raised their arms and let out a roar of victory. They voted for it because it was Rockson’s plan and the man had worked miracles countless times—and because they were bone tired and could think of nothing finer than heading off to the rows of air-mattresses the people of the city had thrown together in the large gymnasium, and laying their heads down and sleeping.

Rath, who voted for Plan Two, was aghast. He thought when it comes to choosing between the higher intellectual faculties of man and indulging his baser animal instincts—the growl is mightier than the thought.

He would work to undo Rockson’s mad scheme.

Seven

“R
ead it to me again, Rahallah,” the shriveled Premier of All-the-Soviets said as he sat, eyes closed, in his wheelchair on the veranda of his office within the Kremlin, looking out over the Red Square.

“But Excellency, I’ve read it five times now,” his black servant, dressed in full white tuxedo and gloves, answered, leaning forward and adjusting the blankets around Vassily’s shoulders and lap. The premier looked ill again—very ill. But then Rahallah could hardly remember the last time the man had been vigorous, red-cheeked. He hovered between being able to work and meet with officials for three or four hours when he was at his best, and slipping into a semi-coma where he just slept, not responsive to stimuli, at his worst. Somehow the affairs of a world empire dragged on, run at the very top by a frail old man, his face dotted with age spots, his hands trembling, barely able to sign the documents that kept it all going.

“Yes, read it once more—that will be the last time,” Vassily said, hardly moving his lips as he spoke.

“Very well then, sir,” said Ruwanda Rahallah, descended from African princes. He opened the book in his hands, the proscribed Holy Bible, to the page he had been reading and rereading to Vassily.

“And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black and the moon became as blood;

“And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs when she is shaken of a mighty wind.

“And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places.

“And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every freeman hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains.

“And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne.

“For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?”

Rahallah finished and closed the brittle rare book gently, thinking that Vassily was dozing since his eyes were shut as tightly as ancient crypts. He stood up, slid the glass door open, closed it, and walked to the edge of the stone-walled Kremlin terrace and looked down over the bundled commissars heading home in the slowly falling Moscow snow, making them look blurred, the colors of their clothing bleeding together as if in a 19th-century Impressionist painting.

“Do you know who the ‘He’ is in those passages, Rahallah?” Vassily asked, startling his African servant who had been deep in somber thought. The aged man had wheeled himself over to the glass door and opened it.

“Why, I would think it’s—it’s God, Excellency,” Rahallah, turning replied. Theoretically no one could even read the Bible any longer—it was an outlawed “lie,” as were countless thousands of other books. But Vassily was himself above all the laws for the common man. He was the leader of the world and had to have knowledge from every source to make the proper decisions. It wasn’t that he believed in God, although as he grew older and sicker and closer to death, he was beginning to wonder—but more that he
did
believe in the ability of ancient humanity to divine the future. For many of their prophecies, those of Nostradamus and of the
tertons
of Tibet, had come to pass.

“It’s not God, my faithful servant,” the premier said with a long sigh. “It’s Killov. I know it is. And those words you read to me are predicting the destruction of the earth. My fool nephew President Zhabnov was unable to keep control of the U.S. capital, even outnumbering the Dark One a hundred to one.” Vassily coughed violently as he grew angry at the fat president of the United Socialist States of America. His blood pressure began rising dangerously. He coughed spasmodically.

“Grandfather,” Rahallah gasped, rushing to him. “You mustn’t strain yourself, mustn’t grow angry or—”

“Why does it not stop, Rahallah?” the premier cried out in anguish. “Why is there no rest—for me—but always war, blood, and more blood? I am growing tired of it all, my only friend. I don’t know how long I can keep things going, keep this decrepit old body from crumbling into dust.”

“Grandfather,” Rahallah said sternly, shaking a long white-gloved finger at the old man, “don’t even talk like that. Half of life is wanting to live,
desiring
to stay alive, to see the next day, another sun, another flower. You must want to live—or surely you will die. And both of us know,” the tall, strikingly noble-featured black man went on, “what your death will mean—for me, for Mother Russia—for the world.”

“I
do
know,” the premier said angrily. “You think I don’t? That is why I continue to live when my flesh calls me to the grave. I feel the weight of the responsibility like a ton of bricks on my back. And it only adds to the weight, Rahallah. Only makes this frail flesh carry a heavier load than it can stand, until my back feels as if it were literally cracking and my legs as if they were made of gruel and water, not muscle and bone. I would have welcomed death long ago—were it not for the bastard Skull.” Vassily threw his right hand over his face as if he were about to cry.

“Wheel me to the wall,” he barked out suddenly, trying to distract his own emotions from consciousness. Rahallah complied instantly, pushing the elaborate stainless-steel wheelchair with reading lights, radio, drugs, hypodermic needles, and other paraphernalia onto the infra-red-heated terrace, over to the low wall with its troll-like gargoyles surrounding, as if guarding it from attack. Vassily stared out over the spires of Moscow, the thousand little funnels of smoke sweeping up out of the chimneys as women cooked the evening meal for their husbands and children. Between the momentarily breaking clouds, the setting sun sent golden arrows, cascading off the ancient Tsarist buildings that seemed to withstand the hands of time, the hands of different economic systems, different dictators. Even the prevalent radiation didn’t seem to bother them.

At first, when he had grabbed the reins of power many decades before, the job had seemed thrilling, the fulfillment of his destiny. He had taken to running the world as a fish takes to water. His iron will, coupled with his inherent charm and sense of style and diplomacy, made him perhaps the most effective and benign ruler of all the Soviets since the nuke-war. Not that his subjects, spread around the world in their muddy little towns and villages, realized it. But he knew that in relation to what had been—and what could be—he was probably the best. And yet—now it all seemed in vain. All his efforts to loosen things up—if just a little. To stop nuclear weapons from ever being used again. It had all been just a holding action while Killov bided his time.