Doomsday Warrior 10 - American Nightmare (21 page)

As he slipped across the mall surrounding the Tower, he clung to the slightest cover. A bush, whose shadow he blended with, contained a spiderweb-fine trip-wire that would have triggered an alarm—if someone without his ninja-sense had passed that way. But no wires, no mere mechanical trap, was subtle enough to outsmart his warrior psyche. Even as he left his comrades for the solo climb that would spell the difference between success and failure on this night, he could feel himself sinking deeply into the killing-survival instinct. Every cell in his body went on emergency alert. As his inner ear and mind’s eye swept the surroundings, he became aware of the slightest wind, the smallest scurrying sound of the tiniest creature. Only tuned to every moment of the fine line of life and death could he hope to survive the Chessman’s sinister strategies. For this was no ordinary opponent. This was a man—if one could call the despicable mind-twisted evil, whose mental reach outstripped all others, a man. This was a man who could peer into his enemies’ minds like a psychic scourge and rip out their will power. Rockson knew that he would have to be a shadow, a formless wind of death. Only then could he slip through the traps and ploys that he knew must lie between his lethal hands and the Chessman’s ultimately vulnerable pale throat.

The Doomsday Warrior slipped along the shadows, taking advantage of the gentle roll of lawn to hide his muscled, bronze-hard body. He came upon a hollow in the land deep enough to afford him good cover, and close enough for him to scan the Tower and plot the details of his assault.

The ancient masters of war have always stressed that knowledge of the enemy is worth more than legions in the field. Rockson knew that he must clearly fix the
gamesman
consciousness of the Chessman in his mind before he took his step. For once the game of life and death began, the Doomsday Warrior knew, there was only will and instinct. The hands of the Doomsday Warrior were ready; they would not fail him. There was no thought that could break their grip. The futureman tuned his awareness into the rest of his body, steeling every organ, every molecule, into a carefully unified force. He must plunge deeply into the powerways that the Glowers had taught him, to make up for the lack of equipment. Only with the mind was the impossible accomplished; only with inner calm could the river of potential be unleashed.

The compound gun was in his grip. It was puny by comparison to his futureworld’s weapon of choice, the Liberator rifle, but was as lethal a weapon as he could fashion with the backward technology of this time.

He snapped the beech open, pulled out the clip. Everything A-OK—a full magazine of flesh-destroying .50 caliber rounds; a smooth, well-oiled action. The gun would work for him, though to use it meant to violate the principal strategy that would keep him alive—stealth.
Ninja-stealth.
“You must enter like an invisible wind, cut down your enemies, and disappear into the night,” Master Chen had taught once. “Only that way is there any hope for a lone ninja to truly succeed.”

Rockson knew that if he got the Chessman and destroyed his equipment, his lackeys would then be unable to dominate and enslave the inhabitants of Salt Lake, even if he, Rockson, should die.

And with the Veil, the force field, shut off, all could flee.

His chronometer showed that the minute of power-cut was nearly over. Fifty feet to go. With all possible speed the Doomsday Warrior combat-ran to the wall of the Tower. He touched it, examined its surface with his night-keen mutant’s eyes. He picked with care the fine cracks and crevices that led up to the open bell tower at the top. Too easy—an open invitation—this way would be full of traps. He moved to the south face.

He let his eyes start at the base of the Tower and move upward. A mere thirty feet off the ground they came to rest on an arched, elaborate stained-glass window. It could easily be reached, if one simply threw a rope over the horned-dragon gargoyle directly above the window and pulled himself up. Too easy—a trap. The low window was obviously going to be the most heavily protected. If he sent out an alarm by crashing through it, he knew that he would never make it to the Chessman’s lair.

He circled swiftly to the east face of the Tower. It was smooth, barely a fingerhold anywhere.
This
was the way.

He searched out the first fingertip holds of the path to the Tower window high above. He’d have to trust that Chessman believed this wall unscalable. It wasn’t—
quite.

He began his ascent, steeling his mind against fear. Slowly he pulled himself, one finger and toehold after another, up the nearly sheer face of the silent Tower. The rhythm of his climb melded with the breeze that wafted above the city. He was a speck of dust, a fly; a white bird. He only looked at the minute granules of sand frozen in the surface of the concrete, the fine edge of life and death that he now held in his steely fingertips. His focused mind’s KA power, its inner instinct, was at one with the process of climbing.

Climber and the Tower became one, perfect. Unable to fall.

He at last came to the overhang of the ledge just beneath the bell-tower opening. He grabbed it just as his concentration faltered. There were noises below—people talking! He froze, looked down. The Runners weren’t to expose themselves unless Rock was spotted. What had happened?

But it wasn’t the Runners. He heard a pleading female voice among the heavy footfalls. A rookie squad entering the grounds of the Tower, a blond woman in their midst.

Kim.
And the two children were with her.

Sixteen

K
im! Oh, God! She wasn’t really his wife, she was not the
real
Kim—and the kids weren’t really his. But he couldn’t let them suffer or perish at the hands of the Chessman. They hadn’t done anything wrong—they couldn’t be held responsible for him. They were innocent!

Rockson watched them disappear into the maw of the Tower far below him. The children were wailing, and Kim was crying and pleading with the police.

One of the policemen shouted at them as he prodded them with his stick, and his voice drifted up to Rockson.

“Quiet!” the officer bellowed. “Save it for the Chessman! Shut up and show the proper respect for the Holy Ground!”

So—Chessman himself wanted to see the “Rockman Family.” The holy man would get more than he bargained for.

Rockson huddled under the ledge just below his goal, the Tower window, huddling to avoid being spotted. He clung to the sheer face like a human fly.

He saw the figures below enter the portal of the Tower and heard the heavy door shut.

Scattered shooting and screams erupted below as the Runners were discovered by the guards and thought police. A burst of machine-gun fire peppered the Tower just above Rockson, causing him to duck even lower. Damn! Couldn’t the resistance people get the upper hand? If they couldn’t hold out, he would soon be outnumbered and outgunned by reinforcements. They had to hold the Tower hostage.

Rockson dodged another spray of bullets. Then, with the compound gun thrown over his shoulder as a counter-weight, he pulled himself up onto the ledge. In a quick, darting movement, he slammed the butt of his gun into the pane.

It was made of some sort of shatter-resistant material, and did not break. Cursing, he leveled the muzzle of his gun at it and let loose a short blast, hating to waste bullets on a window.

The window was not strong enough to deflect the point-blank bullets. It cracked into a web and then fell in a shower of jagged shards. Rockson knocked loose a few remaining pieces and hurled himself through the opening just as a volley of machine-gun bullets spit into the Tower around him.

He tucked and hit the floor inside on his right shoulder, rolling with the impact, holding the compound gun close to his body. In a flash he was on his feet, weapon ready to fire. But no enemy confronted him. He was alone—for the moment.

Rockson quickly sized up his surroundings. He was in a dimly-lit hallway that curved around the perimeter of the top of the Tower. Below, through the broken window, he heard sounds of fighting. Wild screams of death, the whoosh of flames.

With his back to the wall and his finger on the trigger, Rockson slid around the hallway, ready to pump lead into anything that jumped out at him. Rockson kept sliding and sliding along the smooth wall, wondering when he would hit a door or an interior window, hoping he had not struck a dead end—that the Chessman was on another level.

Then he saw it—a small, steep metal staircase that went up to the very tip of the Tower’s spire. It had to lead to the Chessman’s lair!

In the same instant, a black blur shot out from around the curvature of the hallway, coming head-on at Rockson. It was a guard, and he opened fire on Rockson with his submachine gun on full auto.

Rock took a chestful of lead. He cried out in pain. The impact sent him flying backward off his feet, crashing into the opposite wall. His head slammed into concrete. He saw stars and sank to the floor.

For a wild, crazy moment, he thought he was dead. The front of the white suit was ripped and burned, but there was no blood. The jacket had stopped the bullets—saved him from death. All he had suffered was a bruising from the powerful impact of the gunfire. The “White King’s” clothing was bullet-resistant!

Click click. Click.
The guard was firing again at Rockson, the barrel of his gun leveled at the Doomsday Warrior’s head, but nothing was happening. He was out of ammunition. Cursing, he fumbled in his belt for another clip.

Rockson pushed himself up and swayed to his feet, steadying himself against the wall. He lifted his own weapon and fired in a tight arc. The guard’s arms jerked, and he dropped the clip and gun. He staggered backward, screaming, but the scream was abruptly cut short when bullets tore into the man’s throat. Blood burst form the severed neck like water under pressure. The guard collapsed in a heap.

Rockson wiped away the dead man’s blood that had sprayed into his own eyes and went to the body. He took one remaining clip from the ammunition belt, and the emptied pistol which was still warm.

The guard wore the insignia of a knight. “Bad move,” Rockson muttered as he stepped over the corpse. He leapt onto the staircase and began climbing up.

A series of rapid shots came at him from above. Bullets pinged and richocheted off the steps. Another guard was at the top of the staircase, dodging into view just long enough to squeeze off shots from his submachine gun, then ducking back out of sight.

Rockson was a vulnerable target, pinned on the stairs. Thank God, this guard was unaware of the use of ricochets, or he would be confetti by now, white suit or no.

There was nothing for him to do but go forward and up. Rockson jumped up the stairs, holding his finger down on the trigger of his gun. The noise was deafening. Bullets zinged everywhere, in careful patterns and angles.

The bullets hit home, blinding the man. As Rockson reached the top of the staircase, he quit firing and flipped the gun around to jam the stock into the midriff of the blinded man.

The man grunted as the breath was knocked from him, and tried to push his own weapon into Rockson’s face. With a deft slice of his hand, Rockson snapped the guard’s arm back; the gun clattered down the stairwell. Something else fell loose and banged down the stairs—the extra clip of bullets Rockson had taken from the dead soldier.

The guard unsheathed a knife and began jabbing wildly at Rockson. Rock twisted his face to avoid the razor-sharp blade, but not fast enough—the edge caught him on the cheek and raked a bloody trail from temple to jaw. The wound was superficial, but it hurt like hell and bled profusely.

Dropping his gun, he struggled with the guard for control of the knife. The man had incredible strength, and Rockson’s muscles strained to keep the knife-point out of his throat. Blood was running from the man’s shattered eyes.

He grasped the guard’s wrist and twisted his hand around until the blade was pointing in toward the man’s body. He made a hard thrust. The twisting knife pierced the man’s side, and he screamed. Rockson hit him in the throat with his fist, causing the guard to lose consciousness. He slumped to the floor. He would be out for at least an hour.

The guard had been the last line of exterior defense for a single, unmarked door. The Chessman’s door, Rockson surmised. There was no knob; the door opened by handprint. The print-reader was imbedded in the wall to the right.

Rockson’s chest was heaving as he tried to catch his breath. The wound on his face was still bleeding, the warm blood trickling down his throat. He wiped at it with the back of his hand.

In a sudden lull in the noise around the Tower, Rockson heard voices from within the Chessman’s chamber. A woman’s voice—Kim’s! The guards must have taken her and the children inside through some other stairwell. A man’s voice—no doubt the Chessman’s—was speaking to her in an angry tone, but the words were indistinguishable. He had to get in!

There was only one way to get the knobless door open. Rockson raised his compound gun and fired.

The door was made out of a super-strong alloy that could deflect most machine-gun fire, but the compound gun was no ordinary weapon. The bullets tore into the door. Rockson concentrated his fire along the right side of the jamb where the locking mechanism should be mounted. He fired until the metal was blasted and smoking.

The gunfire broke the door’s seal. Rockson finished the job by kicking and shoving until he had an opening big enough for him to squeeze through.

He stepped inside, the hot, smoking machine gun in his hands.

“Teddy!” screamed Kim. She was backed against the right wall, cowering, clutching her two children to her. Her face was streaked with tears, her hair wild and disheveled.

But Rockson only took fleeting notice of her. Directly in front of him stood a tall, thin man in a blinding red outfit that flashed like a starfield. It hurt Rock’s eyes. His face was concealed in a white mask from forehead to chin. A shock of silver-gray hair flowed above the mask.