Red Equinox

by James Axler

  It was one of the longest speeches they'd ever heard Richard Neal Ginsberg make.

  Ryan noticed that a slender woman in a green uniform was looking at them, head on one side, as if something about them rang some kind of bell for her. It was enough.

  "Let's go," he said quietly, hand dropping automati­cally to the butt of the SIG-Sauer blaster.

  They trailed on into the depths of the vast, rambling building.

  OUTSIDE, Zimyanin had left his wag and walked briskly through the watery spring sunshine, up the stairs to the en­trance of the museum. He showed his sec pass to the woman on the doors and explained his mission to her. She switched on her lapel voice-trans and passed the message about the three outlanders the sec force was to look for.

  "One-eyed man, red-haired woman, one other male. Orders from—" Zimyanin interrupted her, and she altered what she'd been about to say. "Do not apprehend. Notify main sec control at front entrance."

  "How many other exits, Comrade Sister?" he asked her.

  She pointed them out to him on a faded map, beneath a worn sheet of clear plastic. Zimyanin looked carefully at it and nodded, snapping out orders to have all the exits cov­ered.

  "It will take several minutes, Comrade Major-Com­missar," she replied.

  "Quick as you can. I do not think a few seconds one way or the other will make very much difference."

  Which was one of the rare mistakes made by the stocky, pockmarked sec man.

  ABOUT A HUNDRED YARDS AWAY, Ryan and the other two were staring disbelievingly at some glass cases in one of the halls.

  Rick glanced around them, but nobody seemed very in­terested. Dust lay thick on the shelves, smudging the outlines of what was on them.

  "Tools," Rick breathed. "Hell's bloody bells! Every­thing we could need."

  "What's the notice say?" Krysty asked.

  "Just that these were found in the imperialist's dacha in the country, and that they were used for purposes of espi­onage."

  "Espionage?"

  "Spying, Ryan. But they're mat-trans tools, just what we need to fix the doors. That movable wrench and those there, and that and that."

  "Wouldn't like them all, would you?" Ryan whispered sarcastically.

  "No. Just those five I pointed at."

  "Attracting some attention, friends," Krysty whis­pered. "And I'm getting a bad feeling. Better move on. We could come back and lift this after dark. No sec locks anywhere."

  "Who'd want to steal this old junk?" Rick asked, eyes wide with delight. "Just us."

  They were near the end of the unguided tour, and they could actually taste fresh air after the humidity and stink of sweat and damp clothes. There seemed to be just one more room to visit. It had a large notice at its entrance, and they had become aware of a new liveliness among the Russians, all wearing smiles of anticipation.

  "What's it say, Rick?" Ryan asked.

  "Don't know."

  "Guess?"

  "It's something about a place where feelings can be shown, and patriotic anger demonstrated for the Party."

  "Oh, Gaia!" Krysty breathed, first in line into the vast room, which displayed only a single glass case at its center.

  The sides of the glass were slick with a torrent of human spittle, almost obscuring what rested inside the case—a tattered Stars and Stripes.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  THE SCENE HAD NO REALITY. Ryan recalled a dreadful nightmare that the Trader had once shared with him.

  "When I was a knee-high brat, I was in this shack in some frontier pest-hole ville. Looked out the window and I saw myself. But I was a real old man, stooped over and bent. White hair. Lined face. Dribbling eyes. What was so bad was that I had this vision that one day I'd be an old man, just like that. And I'd be outside a house in some frontier pest-hole ville. I'd look at the shack and see some­one at the window. A young kid's face, scared and horri­fied beyond any believing. And it'd be me."

  Ryan had never forgotten that story, with its frightening and bitter flavor of unreality. That moment in the Moscow museum had that same appalling taste.

  There was an armed guard at each corner of the case, watching each man and woman as they filed past. The line ran between faded crimson ropes that were hooked over metal stands, but it was moving fast and eager, jostling in the push and hurry to get to the front and have the mo­ment.

  One by one they would pause in front of the scorched and ragged flag, hawking up saliva as they got ready, then spitting it out so that it splattered against the filthy glass, hanging there before sliding toward the shallow metal trough that ran all around the case.

  "No," Rick said quietly, looking around for some means of escape.

  "Yes," Ryan hissed. "Us getting chilled won't help Old Glory."

  "Can't," the freezie insisted.

  The one-eyed man reached out and gripped him by the arm very casually, fingers tightening like chromed steel clamps.

  Rick whimpered, legs weakening, and he nearly fell. Only Ryan's hand held him upright. "Please," he begged.

  "We go and we do it. Do it good. Then we get out. And we think of some way of getting back in here, Rick. Un­derstand?"

  "Yes, yes. Just let go of… Oh, that was real shitty."

  "Saved three lives, friend. And one of them was mine."

  "But not the flag," the freezie muttered. "That's the bottom of the fucking tube, Ryan."

  "When we come back after the tools, lover," Krysty suggested, "mebbe we could collect the flag at the same time."

  "Could be." Ryan nodded.

  With the narrowed eyes of the guards scanning every­one's face, there was no way of cheating. Ryan swallowed hard as he neared the head of the line, feeling the dryness in his mouth. He eased Krysty ahead of him, staying close to Rick in case the freezie lost his nerve at the last mo­ment. If that happened, he'd already decided to push him aside, grab Krysty and make a run for it.

  But the line moved so fast that the moment had come and gone almost before they realized it.

  Ryan concentrated on looking at the flag. There was a large card notice, barely readable, which he assumed told the Russians where the Stars and Stripes had come from. By the burn marks along one ragged edge he guessed it could have been from the ruins of the U.S. Embassy in the ville.

  Ahead of him, Krysty snarled, hawked and spit vigor­ously.

  Rick hesitated for a cold fraction of a second, then managed a creditable amount of spittle. Ryan performed blankly and unemotionally, moving to follow the others across the hall toward what he guessed must be an exit.

  Out of the corner of his eye he noticed one of the guards take the small black voice-trans from his lapel and press it against his ear, obviously finding some difficulty in hear­ing what was said in the center of the echoing building and speaking urgently into it. He listened again, then snapped his head around, eyes raking the crowd.

  Ryan knew.

  One of the reasons he'd lived as long as he had in the Deathlands, on the sharp edge, was that he never ignored a hair-prickling feeling.

  He moved a few steps ahead, collecting Rick with one hand, bumping into Krysty, brushing aside the angry mumbles from the people in the line.

  "Think they got an ace on the line at us," he whispered. "'Out. Fast."

  ZIMYANIN TAPPED his gloved fingers gently against the edge of the desk, his voice deceptively soft as he talked to the quivering official in charge of the museum.

  "One minute, you say?"

  "No more, Comrade Major-Commissar. I promise you of that."

  Zimyanin nodded. "And your people are sure? Sure of these three?"

  "Oh, yes. Yes indeed. Yes, there is no doubt of it, Com­rade Major-Commissar."

  "My own patrols were on the streets. Threw up blocks. But no sign. Perhaps they are still in here? No?"

  "No, Comrade Major-Commissar. We closed it imme­diately and it has been searched from top to bottom and from bottom to top and from side to side and from…" His voice faded and died as he
realized he'd run out of op­tions.

  "I believe you, Comrade."

  The official was more terrified than he'd ever been of this bald man with the long mustache and eyes like chips of river ice who strutted in his office, his voice caressing like a silken whip. The room seemed too small, the air too thick and choking. The man wanted desperately to go to the rest room, but didn't dare to mention it.

  Zimyanin ticked off the points. "Tough-seeming outlander. One eye. Tall woman with very red hair. A third man. Nobody noticed much about him. One woman said she thought he nearly fell over, and two of the visitors said they thought they heard the outlanders talking in—" he glanced down at his notes, "—ah, yes. Talking in a strange way. And they've vanished like smoke. Such a shame your communication system worked so slowly and so badly, Comrade. Such a great shame."

  "Indeed, yes, Comrade Major-Commissar. I shall make sure it's improved."

  "No."

  "No?"

  "No."

  "But it is not good and you…" The words again drifted into stillness. The pressure on the official's bladder was becoming intolerable.

  "You have good furs, Comrade?"

  Was this a trick question? "I think so, Comrade Major-Commissar," he replied cautiously.

  "Good. The winters out on the Kamchatka Peninsula are cold, Comrade. The summers are also cold. But the win­ters… ah, they are very cold."

  "Why would… you don't surely… ?"

  "It's bleak work scraping frozen shit out of the middens of the mutie camps, Comrade."

  "But…"

  Zimyanin rarely indulged himself in anything approach­ing a joke, but he was feeling good, certain now that his intuition had been correct. There were Americans in the ville. He would find them and capture them.

  "Yes, Comrade, the middens. But you must look to the bright future."

  "The future? Bright, Comrade Major-Commissar?"

  "Yes. After ten years of good behavior they will allow you to use a brush."

  It was only as the sec officer walked from the room that the official realized he had pissed himself.

  "CLOSE ISN'T THE WORD, Ryan." The freezie panted, dou­bled over against a tumbled brick wall, fighting for breath.

  "Then what is the word?" Ryan replied. "Don't see your problem, Rick. We got away with six or seven seconds to spare. Roadblocks came down and we were at least ten yards up the highway from them."

  "How'd they get on the trail, lover?" Krysty asked, pushing back an errant fiery curl from over her right eye.

  "I don't…" Ryan rubbed his finger along the side of his nose. "I just saw, when we were outside the main en­trance…1 could have sworn on heart's blood that I saw that Russkie again."

  "Who?"

  "His name was Zimyanin, Gregori Zimyanin. Mean-eyed son of a bitch. Met him once. I'll tell you about it, Rick. Put you in the picture. If it was him, then it could mean trouble. He knows me, and he was some kind of sec offi­cer. Best hide up till dark. Make us some plans. Then move at night."

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  "BALD-HEADED CRETIN!"

  "True, dear Comrade Sister Anya. I can't deny it."

  "Pock-faced imbecile!"

  "No doubt at all, Comrade Sister Anya. Your vision is as sharp as ever."

  "And stop agreeing with me!" Her voice was so shrill that Gregori Zimyanin feared that the window panes in their apartment would shatter.

  "Whatever you say, Comrade Sister…"

  The cheap mug his wife held, crudely painted with the words A Happy Memory of Leningrad, shattered against the wall a few inches from his head, splinters showering him. He winced away from his wife's raging fury.

  "That was a gift from old Uncle Fyodor," he protested. "He would be so upset to think that we didn't treasure his kind present to us."

  "Fuck Uncle Fyodor!" she screamed.

  "If you wish me to, Comrade Sister Anya, though I think the old man might vigorously resist my advances."

  For a wonderful moment he thought that his wife was going to fall stricken to the threadbare carpet. A vein throbbed at her temple, and she actually slapped herself on the forehead in her anger.

  With a valiant effort of will Anya controlled herself. She stood staring him down, hands on her heavy, peasant's hips, eyes narrowed deep in the sweating slabs of her face.

  "Gregori Zimyanin."

  "Good." He gently clapped the tips of his fingers to­gether. "After barely six weeks you have mastered my name."

  "Six of the worst weeks of any woman's life. They have worn me to a shadow."

  Despite the cold anger that surged through his body, Zimyanin couldn't help smiling at his wife's words.

  "A shadow. A shadow that weighs the same as a loaded sec wag, wouldn't you say, Comrade Sister Anya? Huh?"

  "My mother warned me."

  "Ah, yes, your mother. The prize sow of Terechevo! You should have heeded her warnings, my dear wife, should you not?"

  Anya Zimyanin owned a polished .32-caliber blaster, thrown together in one of the small industrial units around the back of the Museum of the Peoples' Struggle. And he'd even taught her how to use it. His own 9 mm Makarov was in its holster, which hung on the back of the door. But he had a slim-bladed skinning knife sheathed at the small of his back.

  The woman made an obscene gesture to her husband, using the little finger of her left hand, curving it as an in­dication of what she thought of his sexual prowess.

  He replied in kind, carefully placing the tips of his mid­dle fingers together as well as the tips of his thumbs, creat­ing a large circle.

  "Like a tunnel, dear Comrade Sister," he mocked.

  "Better than a peeled shrimp, Comrade Brother Gregori."

  It was stalemate, a Kiev Standoff as they called it in Russia.

  He shook his head and turned away, intending to take a shower—if there was any warm water in their heater—when his wife delivered her parting salvo.

  "You're a failure, husband, a failure and a shit-stinking coward." He turned to face her, eyes blank and emotion­less. Anya took a clumsy, stumbling step away from him, holding up a hand to ward off a blow that hadn't even been threatened.

  "Slut," he whispered, his voice so quiet it barely dis­turbed the dusty air of the apartment. "Slattern. Whore. Bitch. There are many things that your tongue can slide to that I can ignore. But not coward. No, not that, dear Anya."

  "I did not… Please, husband…" Her mouth was working in terror, her face becoming distorted with her own fear. Anya had been pleased enough when the sec officer had appeared in her social circle, less than two months earlier, with a reputation for bravery against undesirable social elements in the far, far east. Despite his slightly odd appearance, he had a definite charisma, an aura of some­thing different in the safe world of Moscow petty official­dom. She had set out to bed him and then wed him.

  It had seemed a good idea at the time.

  Not now.

  A thin-bladed knife glittered in Zimyanin's long, strong fingers, held point upward.

  "Not coward, wife."

  "I beseech you, husband."

  He nodded. "I have had many men—and women—beg to me." His eyes were gazing into some far-off time and place. Anya Zimyanin was more terrified than she had ever believed possible, knowing with an utter certainty that he was going to kill her.

  "Anything?" she whispered, throat dry.

  He paused. "What?"

  "Anything."

  "I don't hear you, Comrade Sister Anya. Say it again."

  "Anything, Comrade Brother Gregori. I'll do anything if you don't cut me."

  "I've been offered a lot of things, wife. But I've never been offered anything. Let's stand a while and think about that."

  The dusk gathered strength outside their windows. In­side the apartment the husband and wife stood, six feet apart, time crawling past them. Zimyanin was calmer now, completely in control of himself and his surging tide of an­ger. He was certain now that he wouldn't butcher the large, ungain
ly woman in front of him.

  Anya felt the tension slipping away and her breathing began to return to normal. But her husband checked it once more when he took a half step toward her and spoke.

  "Anything?" She nodded cautiously, fearful that her neck might snap if she moved too vigorously.

  "Good. My men will call here if there's any news of our three visitors, so we have plenty of time. You and I have all the time in the world, my dear Anya. We can make a start now."

  "A start, husband?"

  Gregori Zimyanin smiled at her, very patiently. "Go into the kitchen, Anya. Put a large pan of water on to boil. Bring me the potato peeler, the roll of strong cord, your best darning needles, the short scissors with the serrated edge. I have my own knife."

  "Then?" Tears bunched at the corners of her eyes.

  "Then you may come in here. Remove all of your clothes." He paused. "And kneel down just in front of me. And then we shall begin."

  For Anya Zimyanin, the night was both long and memorable.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  FOR RYAN CAWDOR, the night was both busy and memo­rable. After their razor-edged escape from the museum, their flight had taken the companions around the rear of one of the single-story industrial units only a couple of blocks away. With the wails of sirens already ripping at the air, Ryan hadn't hesitated in setting his shoulder to the bolted door, springing the lock and knocking it back on rusting hinges.

  It had only taken moments for all three of them to slip inside, wedging the door closed again. There, in the cold, damp darkness, they waited until they were sure the search had passed them by.

  "Move at around one in the morning. Lift the tools and then—"

  "And the flag."

  "Sure, Rick. And the flag. If we can get away with it. Return here. They'll be looking for us to make a clean break. Might not search this close. Best plan I got. Then a couple of days later we lift a wag and head out for the gateway. You fix the door, Rick, and we all make the jump. How's that sound to you two? Good?"

  "Better than good, lover," Krysty agreed. "If it works it sounds miraculous. If it doesn't, we all get to buy the farm together."