by Ryder Stacy
Rock could scarcely believe his ears. His face turned red and it took all his self-control to stop from screaming at the “soft-liner” Council member. As was the rule of the Council, the next speaker presented an opposing point of view. George Sheckle, a man Rockson knew and trusted, walked quickly to the podium, dressed in his ever-present tweed sports jacket, threads hanging from the sleeves, arms swinging loosely around his tall, thin body. Sheckle stood almost six foot, ten inches and was easily the tallest man in Century City, but at a weight of just under 165 pounds, he was like a walking scarecrow, all bone and tendon.
He looked around at the Council members slowly, waiting for a modicum of silence, and then began. “You have all listened to Mr. Rostas, who we all respect and who often has presented valuable ideas to this chamber. But tonight, I believe he is making a grave mistake. Number one, those men are ours. They’re about to be tortured beyond anything any of us here can even imagine. Secondly, if they do talk, and from what I’ve heard of this new Mind Breaker machine they will, all of Century City could be lost—smoking ruins like Westfort. We would be cast back out in the wastelands, those of us who even managed to survive, savages again, like our ancestors after the war, But thirdly, and most importantly, I must take serious disagreement with the idea of accommodating the Russians. There is no accommodation possible with murderers. Good Lord, man,” the lanky Sheckle said, staring at Rostas in his seat, some forty feet away, “they’ve already destroyed most of our country, enslaved all the Americans around the Red forts, and just bombed Westfort, our closest neighbor with more atomic weapons. Something they vowed in those leaflets of theirs they’d never use again.”
He looked down at the floor, his eyes bright and burning with belief. “No, I don’t trust the Russian barbarians. I never have and I never will. We must respond with an attack. Now, I may not agree with Rock’s impulse to send out a team tonight. I think it must be a well-organized force of perhaps two hundred men. We could make a plan over the next twenty-four hours and get a well-equipped Attack Force together—with a much greater chance of success.” He smiled sincerely at the Council members and left the podium.
The debate raged on for almost two hours with nearly every speaker getting his or her views in. The arguing grew increasingly raucous with members booing each other and yelling out insults. The Council chamber had rarely witnessed such explosions of feeling. But then they were debating the very future of their city, their lives.
As the highest-ranking military officer of Century City, Rockson was given the opportunity to speak last before the vote was taken. He rose from his seat, where he had been taking it all in and stepped to the platform, behind the podium. He looked down at the floor for a moment, gathering his thoughts, knowing that this could well be the most important speech he would ever make, and began.
“You are the democratically elected representatives of the citizens of Century City and I must respect each and every one of you. For the tradition of democracy and debate is the one feature of our society that enables us to be a million times stronger than the Soviets could ever be. But I can scarcely believe the things I’m hearing here tonight. Are those of you who are opposed to saving our men’s lives, those who want to deal with the Reds on a rational basis,” he spat the words out, “so naive as to think that they would really live up to their word? Or even want to try? Their aim is total and complete destruction of all Free Americans. We are antithetical to their very nature—their very essence of being, which is master and slave. They want one thing: a nation of slaves, of mindless vegetables, of backs to carry their loads and feed their society. As a soldier, a fighter who has spent his entire life battling against the Red murderers, I have seen what they are really like. I have seen them wipe out whole villages, have watched them as they lined up women and children and shot them point-blank in the face. I’ve seen them rape and bayonet and take American lives as if they were so many ants to be stepped on.”
He stopped for a moment to catch his breath and let his emotions which had built to the boiling point, calm down. “Believe me, please believe me, there is no way in hell to work out an accommodation with the Russians. The only thing that we must work for, that my whole life has been devoted to, is to drive out the invader. Every last one. Dead or alive!” Again, he paused, his blue and violet eyes narrowing, the white streak of hair down the center of his head reflecting the ceiling lights like a mirror.
“But it is beyond that. You have been debating a lot of philosophical Mumbo Jumbo. The bottom line is this.” His voice became cold, sharp. “They have taken five of us prisoner. In the past, with our mind blocks, these men would have been able to stand up to any torture the Red beast would have inflicted on them. If five men were to die? Well, they gave their lives as any of us would do. But the situation has changed. The Reds now have the Mind Breaker. We still don’t know a hell of a lot about how it works, but one thing we do know—it does work. They captured Preston and Preston was a good tough man. I knew him, worked with him several times. They had him for just hours and Westfort was reduced to a city of corpses. That’s why we can’t delay. At this very moment those men could be in one of those hellish devices spilling their guts. It’s not a question of courage or betrayal. Whatever the Russians have, works.”
He looked at the rows of eyes peering up at him, hanging on his every word. They all knew the importance of tonight’s decision. “Ladies and gentlemen,” Rock continued, slowly, “Century City is in grave danger. We can’t wait even one extra hour. There’s no need for a large force. I propose going in there with just eight men. Surprise them. Christ, they’re not expecting an attack on their biggest fortress in the region. A two-hundred-man force would just get bogged down in a battle for days—a battle that we would lose. No! It must be a surprise with a small group of the best fighting men of the city. And it must be tonight!” He stopped speaking and surveyed the Council who were still silent, listening to the man who, they knew, knew the enemy better than anyone. Rockson met every eye, made them feel his anger and his burning guts and then walked from the podium.
Council President Arcades rose and quickly called for a vote.
“All those for Rockson’s plan, please raise your hand.” Thirty-nine voted for it, eleven against. “The plan is passed,” Arcades said with a thin smile, turning to Rockson. “It’s up to you now, Rock, and God help you.”
Seventeen
MS-12 and MS-13, two Soviet choppers from the small base of Volgograd Station in Utah, were making their weekly run with rad reports and lists of casualties to Red Army Control in Stalinville. They came through the high mountain pass at Wilkerson, their crews of eight exhausted from the dangerous twists and turns down the narrow, rocky canyons behind them. But now at least it was safe from rebel gunfire. There hadn’t been any attacks on the Wilkerson route, if for no other reason than that there was no really good cover for miles. Just mountains, mountains filled with medium-sized boulders heaved there nearly a hundred years ago by an A-blast forty miles south at the SAC headquarters in Garden-of-the-Gods.
They flew on automatic low pilot, the two choppers moving in a line about eight hundred yards apart for safety. There was a slow turn in the pass a mile ahead, a lazy turn that the auto would handle. But there was one thing they hadn’t considered. Not flying close to one another, the helicopters would be out of sight of each other for about a minute on that long turn.
Rockson and his eight-man Attack Force were camouflaged, huddled into round shapes like small boulders, their Liberator rifles under them equipped with grenade launchers. Rock would have given his right eye for a pile of chopper-popper missiles. But all of those had been used up in the past ten years even though the supply of the old missiles that had been found by one of the salvage teams at a SAC crater had seemed inexhaustible. The Freefighters had used each one well, making every shot count. But now they were gone. Now they’d have to shoot fast from directly in front and underneath the passing Red choppers in the dawn’s early
light.
Rockson pulled his watch up in front of his eyes. Any minute now and the regular run from Volgograd would roar by. All eight Freefighters and Rock would jump up when the first one had passed and, he hoped, blast the second one to kingdom come. Then would the first chopper, not realizing what had happened, come back to look for its friend? He hoped so. For everyone’s sake.
The helicopters were a few minutes overdue, adding to the strain of each hunched-over fighter. Gnawing seconds of doubt. Had they been detected by the RPV that had passed overhead ten minutes before? Was the copter run cancelled? Were there—worst of all—hordes of Blackshirts coming over the far ridge this very moment? Each man was lost in his own private hell, until faintly, the whirr of the copters started vibrating in the wind. They were coming low and dead-eyed, meaning the autos were on. Good, the crews were probably half-asleep in the back.
One quickly flew over, about a hundred feet above the hidden American warriors, its blade cutting the air in the glare of the quickly rising sun. As its drone died out the men all stood up, cocked their grenade launchers and waited as the drone of the second chopper grew louder and louder.
“Titov, you cheated,” snarled Dregnev. “How can you have an ace when I have four?” The two Russian soldiers had been playing the American game of poker stretched out in the cargo section of the MS-13, the second helicopter. Bored by a year of card games and the hellish isolation of the remote outpost, they were edgy. Titov jumped to his feet and pulled out a Tokarev .32, standard—and archaic—issue for the regular Soviet army. The KGB all had the Tokarev .65 clip-loaders, but these soldiers weren’t elite forces. They were crass, uneducated Georgians, sons of manure-loaders and plowmen. Life was cheap to them. Especially here in this Godforsaken country.
As Titov went for his gun, Dregnev fired—and the whole chopper burst into flames as four of the eight grenades launched from below made helicopter interception. Titov’s head smashed into the curved steel struts inside the chopper and popped open, a ripe grapefruit splattering blood. Dregnev screamed wildly as the chopper tipped upside down and headed for the hard earth.
Rock and his men cheered the orange ball of death as it erupted one hundred yards down the canyon. They ran closer, until they were within thirty feet of the burning wreckage. They pulled the boulderlike camouflage cloths over their bodies again, panting from exertion. They made position just in time. The first of the Red copters now drifted slowly back along the pass, searching for its lost companion ship. The gun turrets were occupied but surely the Reds hadn’t seen the trap. They would suppose that the unstable MS copter—only the KGB had the new MK-30s—had gone down of its own accord. At least that was the idea.
The Reds spotted the wreckage and carefully descended almost dead center of the camouflaged Americans. Norton had to roll slightly out of the way to avoid being crushed by the chopper’s metal skids. Rockson could scarcely see through the tiny slit in the canvas opening as the four, then five and six Russians climbed down. Their rifles were dangling over their shoulders; evidently they weren’t suspicious.
“Freefighters—now,” Rockson shouted as the nine messengers of truth stood up and revealed their message in a burst of concentrated lead that cut down the men like bowling pins blasted to splinters. Six dead Red soldiers. Rockson bounded through the open hatch and, as the pilot twisted frantically in his seat with the Tokarev spitting pellets of red death, chopped the seat in half with the Liberator on automatic fire. Sizzling pieces of flesh exploded against the cockpit window.
Rock heard a clicking sound behind him and whirled, blasting a bloody body on the floor that was drawing a bead on Rock. The slugs from his Liberator tore a jagged hole in the Red’s chest, throwing him several feet to the side where the lifeless body lay draped sideways, three little fountains of blood pouring gracefully from the wounds. The old “dead Russian” trick didn’t work on Rockson. Now it was no trick.
Rock jumped into the co-pilot’s seat and put on the earphones, immediately hearing Russian transmissions from planes and helicopters throughout the region, all transmitting information and asking for flight instructions. The rest of the Freefighters piled in, kicking the two dead Reds out into the blood-muddy dirt. Rock set the rotors on full and nuzzled back the control stick. The Red chopper took off sweet as a bird into the rapidly brightening morning sky, faraway green clouds dappling the stratosphere.
The crew of nine sat around the center of the chopper, talking over final plans for the raid. Rock had picked what he considered the eight best all-around fighters in Century City, each one a seasoned Red killer as well as an expert in some area of warfare. Norton and Sanford—explosives; Smith and Jergins—computers; Detroit and McCaughlin—cover, Pasqual—decoder, and a damned good medic just in case the captured Freefighters required immediate medical attention; and Chen—fighter par excellence. Chen had demanded that Rock bring him along. “My honor is at stake, Rock,” Chen had said quietly. “Of course,” Rock had replied. “Come.” All that Chen carried were two steel-tipped nunchakas, his deadliest weapon.
Rock headed the Red helicopter down the mountain canyon that the Russian pilot had been bearing toward before being so rudely interrupted. Once they had built up air speed, he set it back on auto. Now the damn thing would fly them right to the gates of Stalinville and in. And that’s where the trouble that Ted Rockson was bringing on a silver platter would be spooned out.
Detroit sat in the tail gunner’s position and made sure the barrel was clean—it wasn’t. “Sloppy crew,” he muttered. He found cleaning implements in a box under the gunner’s seat and quickly disassembled and cleaned each part of the .50mm machine gun. He was a master at Russian equipment maintenance—and use. Over the years Century City had built up quite an arsenal of captured Red booty. And nothing was more satisfying than using the stuff back on them.
McCaughlin walked around the inside of the chopper and took inventory of the cargo: computer dumps of stats, reports on agricultural collections, five boxes of steak, one box of vodka and three sacks of turqoise stones—prized back in Russia and probably dug up by the soldiers to make a few extra kopecks for their brief vacation at Danver Spa. Denver Spa, where the less attractive American women, after the KGB had picked out the ripest and juiciest ones, were employed as “hostesses” for horny second-rate Red troops. The hard life in the harsh outpost of Volograd was over for these simpletons, and some American women would be spared their pawings. How Rockson wished that the Freefighters could move en masse against the occupied cities and free the people. But not yet. Secret cells of opposition existed, of course, in the heart of the Russian forts. When the signal was given, they would swing into action, committing mass sabotage behind Red lines as the Freefighters advanced, guns blazing.
Rock stared out as the desert melted away beneath him. In another five minutes they would be picked up by the Red defensive radar screens of Stalinville and they would demand the signal . . . or else. Pasqual was their decoding expert. He frantically tore the Russian code book apart, trying to come up with the complex sequence of codes to prevent their being shot right out of the sky. The city came into view over a ridge, down below in the distance. Static began coming in over Rock’s headphones, followed by a bored Russian voice asking for identification. Rock’s hand felt sweaty on the stick as he pretended not to hear.
Pasqual ran over, the book flopping wildly in his hands. “Got it,” he said triumphantly.
The radio squawked more insistently now. “Identification. I repeat, identification on helicopter coming in on Vector Five East Stalinville!”
Pasqual read off numbers to Rockson from the book. “1-23-23-14,” Rock repeated them into the helmet mike, mumbling into the mouthpiece in sharp Russian. There was a wait of about three seconds.
“Acknowledged. Proceed to scheduled landing site, KGB Center.”
“It’s a good thing the Reds have to write the damned things down for their peasant-brained troops,” Pasqual cracked, breaking the tension on
the chopper.
Stalinville grew and grew until it loomed below them, the Russian military fortress taking up nearly half the city area. The rest was the run-down American sector, which even from the sky they could see was filthy and crumbling. About a mile off, Rock saw the KGB Rocky Mountain Control building, a thirty-story, brown X-shaped structure without a single window in the place. The landing pad was on the roof; above the helipad, coming from the center of the X, stood a tall, thin control tower. Rock and the other Freefighters had gone over the smuggled plans again and again—the emergency stairs at the far end of each wing. But stolen plans were vague as to what exactly was on each floor. He knew that the interrogation area was on the west arm of the X, on one of the bottom three levels designated A, B and C. And he knew as well that about one hundred yards off the east wing was a low brick bunker, nearly four hundred feet long, that resistance intel had pinpointed as a main armory for both Red army and KGB munitions for the fort. The only other—but potentially most valuable—info was that the computer room which controlled all the functions of the building, plus the sensitive alarm and intercom systems, was on the H-level—the sixth floor—east wing. This much of a picture of the KGB building that ran the operations for the northwest sector of the U.S.A. would have to serve them well. A half dozen cleaning personnel had been killed over the years sneaking it out.
As near as Rock could figure it, Stalinville was on the location of the old American city of Cheyenne, Wyoming. Someday, when they took the land back from the Reds, it would be called Cheyenne again. But for now, the plan was to destroy everything they could, while rescuing the prisoners, and Rock meant to carry out the mandate of the Council even if it meant his death.
