by James Axler
"First shot, Jak, you lay the metal flat. Aim for the middle and keep your head down. See you later." Ryan and J.B. slipped away into the streaming darkness.
The pounding rain drowned out any possibility of the sec men hearing the cautious approach of the two men. Conversely it meant that they might not hear any sec men moving their way.
Ryan took the lead, his reloaded SIG-Sauer drawn and ready. Water streamed down his face, seeping behind the patch covering his left eye and flooding the socket. His coat was sodden and heavy, trailing around his knees.
J.B. trudged along at his heels, head down, cursing the rain for covering his glasses, making it hard for him to see where he was going.
Ryan picked a route that took them around the rear of the nearest house, then along an alley that paralleled the road. When he judged they were close to the sec block, he cut through into the overgrown, dank front garden.
"There," he said.
"Rad-blast this dark-dusted weather! Couldn't see a stickie at five paces! Wait, Ryan. Gotta clean my glasses or we're chilled meat."
The battered and much-traveled fedora that J.B. always wore had reappeared from under the furs that he'd been wearing, and now clung to his head like a wet sponge.
Ryan waited, peering out through the dripping yew bushes that stood between them and the group of sec men.
"Ready?" he asked.
"Sure. Now that I've cleaned my glasses, we'd better start shooting fast before I go blind again."
A vivid claw of purple lightning tore the sky apart a mile or so to the north of them, followed by a stunning peal of thunder, the sound rolling on and on. Ryan chewed at his lip, realizing that an electrical storm would make it difficult for Jak to see when they started blasting.
But the single flash wasn't repeated, though the rain pelted them with a redoubled ferocity. The air seemed full of water, and Ryan had the illusion that if he tipped his head back he might drown.
Both men were soaked through to the skin, and cold water had trickled down their legs to fill their boots. Ryan had read some books about old-time battles, when they had flintlocks and matchlocks. Rain like this could wash out two entire armies. Despite the streaming weather, he had every confidence that his blaster wouldn't let him down.
A wooden gate, hanging by a single rusted hinge, opened onto the leaf-covered, rain-slick sidewalk. The lights of the wags used to form the roadblock glittered through the spangling rain, and they could see the sec men now, all wearing bright yellow oilskins. Somehow the slickers made them less menacing, more human.
Ryan shook his head to try to clear his hair from his eye, then glanced at J.B. to check that his friend was ready to start the party.
J.B. nodded his agreement. And the shooting began.
ZIMYANIN SPIT on the ground near one of the corpses. The rain had washed away the blood that had gushed from their slit throats, leaving the wounds like bulging white mouths in the bleached skin.
"Too late," he muttered, fighting to maintain his calm in front of nearly a hundred sec men, several of whom were senior officers.
"They took a wag," his corporal informed him.
"Ah, I hadn't considered that possibility," he replied with a ferocious quiet. "I had believed that the American eagle had flown in from Newyork and picked them up in its beak."
Nobody else offered the major-commissar any helpful suggestions.
Aliev stood waiting, panting slightly from his exertions, waiting for further orders. Normally he would have been able to follow the wag without any difficulty. But the cloudburst had washed away the tire tracks and swilled the air free of any scent. It was a cruel blow.
"A stolen truck can't be that difficult to trace," Zimyanin said. "Contact every roadblock we have out and tell them to watch out for…" The Captain Third Class who he was speaking to suddenly held up a hand and bent his head to listen to the faint crackling of the talkie clipped to the lapel of his oilskin.
Everyone watched intently, looking for some clue that the news might relate to the fleeing Americans—and maybe get them off the barbed hook of the major-commissar's wrath.
The junior officer nodded, muttered something then listened. He asked for clarification, listened to the response and signed off.
Zimyanin had managed to contain his impatience by turning his mind to different and happier thoughts, like the contents of the garbage bags that he'd seen off the premises of his apartment. And his dear wife, Anya, and her sudden decision to go on vacation. A vacation that Gregori guessed might be somewhat extended.
"Well, Comrade Captain?" he finally asked.
The young man smiled, revealing a mouth of the most rotten teeth Zimyanin had ever seen. "Yes, Comrade Major-Commissar. The main roadblock southwest at Nik-lino reports being under attack. They say they are returning fire."
"The stolen wag?"
"They said…" His transceiver began to squawk and hiss again and he listened to it, head cocked to one side.
When he turned back to Zimyanin the smile had disappeared as though struck from his face by lightning. "Bad news, Comrade Major-Commissar."
"LIKE TAKING JACK from a blind mutie," J.B. said as he and Ryan ran through the deserted gardens, keeping the swollen river on their right side. The thunderous rain had abated to a steady, gentle drizzle.
The plan had worked perfectly.
The sec men had no idea what was hitting them. All they knew was that they were being picked off, one after another. Two or three made a halfhearted attempt to defend themselves, kneeling by the parked wags and firing a few hesitant rounds into the blackness.
Ryan didn't want to waste too much ammo on a pointless blood-letting. That wasn't the idea. All they needed to do was deter the sec patrol from stopping Jak and Rick in their own armored wag.
Four hundred paces up the street, Jak could make out the sudden confusion and panic among the sec men as the bullets began to cut them down. He engaged a low gear, raced the engine and pushed down on the gas, feeling the heavy wag shudder as it built up power and speed. It roared through the streams of rainwater toward the gap at the center of the sec block.
"Holy sheeet!" Rick screamed, squinting through the reinforced windshield.
Jak's hair streamed behind him like a crazed magnesium flare, his red eyes fixed on the two wags dead ahead. As they closed within a hundred yards he realized that the space wasn't quite as wide as it had appeared from down the road—it was barely the width of their wag.
Only one of the sec men braced his legs and tried to shoot at them, managing to get off three or four ill-aimed rounds from his Kalashnikov before he was hit simultaneously through the chest by bullets from Ryan and J.B.
There was a grinding sound and a burst of sparks as the wing of the thundering wag caught one of the sec vehicles, slewing it sideways in a tangle of torn metal. But the armored truck's greater weight and speed carried it clear through and away, on down the road into the southwest, away from Moscow and toward the dacha and safety. Leaving Ryan and J.B. behind to make their own way out.
"HOLD IT, RYAN," J.B. said.
"What's up?"
"Glasses again. Sweat and rain don't mix well. Won't be…" The words disappeared as he bent his head over the spectacles.
"Reload now," Ryan suggested. "Can't hear any pursuit."
They were a mile past the roadblock, following the winding, heavy river. Its sullen rumbling was the only sound they could hear, though there'd been sirens and a scream a few minutes back.
It was looking good.
"Reckon the kid should get the freezie on through," J.B. said, checking his reload then snapping the mag snugly into place.
"Sure. Jak's good. Better than he knows. Those damaged wags'll block the road off for their own vehicles. He can get close enough to go in on foot. Help Rick where he needs it."
"This rain could stop. Make tracking them easy over the last mile or so."
The Armorer had a fair point. It was one of the r
easons that time was vital.
"Yeah. Could be we travel in the light. What d'you reckon?"
J.B. shook his head. "No. Too many eyes and ears about. We'd stand out like a knife in an eyeball. No. Do what we planned. Make some miles. Stop around dawn."
At one point the route out of Moscow ran along a narrow embankment. All around there were signs of the devastating nuking of a century earlier, and the old track lay buried beneath a vast, stinking swamp. The heavy rains had washed away one edge of the road.
It was close to dawn, and Ryan and J.B. waited on the ville side of the levee, deciding whether to cross it now or wait for the next evening. They could see that a gang of men was already at work repairing the rain damage. But there was a sinuous mist oozing from the morass on either side, and it was difficult to make out any details. The diffused glow of a bank of arc lights made it even harder to see what was going on.
Ryan stood with J.B. in the shelter of a clump of young conifers, weighing the odds. Behind them, they could hear the noise of several wags laboring up the rise toward their hiding place.
"Farther out we get before first light the better," J.B. reminded his friend.
"Yeah. If they've found the bodies where we lifted the wag, they could have an ace on the line for us if they got a good tracker. I say we risk it."
J.B. nodded. "Yeah. Looks like they're all kind of busy out there. Walk steady and keep moving, blasters hid."
As they neared the center of the raised causeway the mist cleared a little, and they began to appreciate that it might not be so easy. But they were committed, and behind them they could now see the lights of a half-dozen sec wags. They had to keep going.
At least fifty men worked at repairing the earthslide, using shovels and iron buckets, most of them already slimed in thick mud. And a dozen or more armed and alert sec men kept them company.
"Fireblast!" Ryan whispered. "Best get ready, J.B. This could be a bad one."
They kept walking until they were level with the first of the guards. Then they stopped.
Chapter Thirty-One
JAK DUMPED the stolen wag among the trees. He helped Rick out and supported him as they crossed and recrossed the narrow river twice. They eventually reached the big house a little after four in the morning. The boy was close to exhaustion, barely managing the bag of tools and the dying freezie.
Doc Tanner saw them coming. He'd been dozing on the second-floor landing, and had been awakened by the excited barking of Zorro.
Krysty moved quickly to open the sturdy main doors, running out across the sodden turf to where Jak was struggling with Rick. Doc strode along at his best pace and between them they managed to get the sick man into the house. On the threshold Rick elbowed them aside, standing unsupported for a moment. He reached inside his mud-stained coat and unfurled the torn flag.
"Good to be back in the land of the free and…" He slipped to the parquet floor, deeply unconscious.
RYAN AND J.B. STOPPED. Just as they thought they'd succeeded in slipping past the work patrol, one of the sec men turned around and spotted them. He leveled his rifle and called out.
"Don't draw!" Ryan ordered. "Better prisoners than chilled in the dirt. Fake deaf."
He smiled at the Russkie, shrugged his shoulders and shook his head. The man shouted again and gestured with the muzzle of the elderly 7.62 mm Tokarev.
Both Americans managed a nervous smile for the sec man, trying to convey their willingness to do whatever it was he wanted, without actually having to do it.
The Russian stepped closer and lifted the butt of the rifle in a menacing gesture, pointing to a pile of picks, and forks and spades that lay in the trampled mud.
Ryan nodded, walked forward and picked up one of the shovels, followed by J.B. Just for a moment their apparent resistance had turned the heads of several of the other guards. Now, seeing their obedience, they went back to watching the members of the subbotnik work group, laboring to restore the roadway.
Ryan risked provoking more anger from the stocky guard by glancing behind him, over to the ville side of the embankment where the group of wags had stopped. He wondered if this was the pursuit from Moscow. If it was, then it looked like their freedom was going to be measured in racing heartbeats.
He and the Armorer had both pulled up their hoods as they tried to pass the work gang, concealing their faces from the sec man who'd first stopped them and ordered them to start laboring.
At J.B.'s elbow, as they made their way to the bottom of the slippery path, Ryan talked quickly and urgently.
"I think Zimyanin could be close. These shit-dippers didn't spot us. Pocket your glasses and do whatever I do."
It was a long and desperate shot.
Ryan paused for a moment, then reached up and slipped the leather patch from his left eye, wincing at the unfamiliar feeling of cold air and rain on the puckered, empty socket. At his side, J.B. palmed his glasses and dropped them into one of his pockets.
The mud beneath their boots was slick and greasy, making the descent difficult. Several of the local Russians pressed into the work detail stopped for a moment to watch the two newcomers making their delicate way down to join them. Ryan had noticed that the mud at the edge of the river was particularly deep and noisome.
Behind him he heard the screech of brakes as one of the pursuing wags came skidding to a halt at the earth-fall. Doors clicked open and slammed shut again. There was a loud, confident voice, sounding as though it was used to command.
"HOW LONG HAS this road been blocked, Comrade Corporal?"
"Just over an hour, Comrade Major-Commissar. We have a work unit pressed into repairing it."
Zimyanin tugged at the dripping ends of his mustache. This was a holdup he couldn't possibly have anticipated, but it could prove a massive hindrance to his plans to capture the Americans.
"You know about the stolen armawag?"
"Yes, Comrade Major-Commissar. It has not passed along the road since we have been here. The blockage would have stopped it. Since then nothing has gone past us. Indeed, I said to my friend here, who also happens to be the sister of my wife's second cousin and—"
"Your mouth, Corporal. Close it."
"Yes, Comrade Major-Commissar."
Zimyanin's attention had been caught by a couple of local peasants, who he assumed were the latest "volunteers" for the subbotnik. They were trying to get down to the bottom of the earthslide, toward the surging and swollen river. The way they kept staggering, it looked as though at any moment they might go tumbling into the sticky mud.
BRACING HIMSELF, and holding his breath, Ryan deliberately allowed himself to lose his footing. He waved his arms, dropped the shovel and uttered a great bellow of shock and terror. He contrived to snatch at J.B.'s arm, bringing him down with him.
The water was bitterly cold and he rolled into it, immediately becoming soaked to the skin once more. There was a great splash as the Armorer also slid into the freezing water. He heard the delighted roar of laughter from the other workers, and most of the sec men.
Half turned from the group on the road and avoiding the glaring arc lights, Ryan struggled to pull himself out, succeeding only in toppling facedown into the clinging, stinking ooze.
The waves of laughter were overwhelming, almost deafening.
Gregori Zimyanin didn't laugh as he watched the two clumsy men staggering about, both eventually falling face first into the mud, though he permitted himself a momentary thin smile.
As they emerged, the roars of amusement from the other workers and the sec guards were redoubled. They were like the clowns who occasionally appeared with their crude street theater around the streets of the ville—until Internal Security had them removed for labor training and education.
The taller of the two had thick curly hair, but it was matted to his skull with the mud, his face totally vanished behind a slimy mask. Only the whiteness of his teeth as he grinned sheepishly at his own discomfit
ure broke the dark image. And his companion, the shorter man with cropped hair, was no better.
"Comrade Corporal," Zimyanin said quietly, finding to his mounting irritation that he needed to repeat himself, this time with a snap of anger in his voice. "Comrade Corporal!"
The man saluted, merriment vanishing from his face like butter off a hot knife. "Yes, Comrade Major-Commissar?"
"The joke is over, Corporal. Get them back to work immediately. This road must be opened again so that we can pursue the American terrorists and saboteurs. Immediately!"
"Yes, Comrade Major-Commissar. Immediately, Comrade Major-Commissar. Whatever you say, Comrade Major-Commissar."
The note of panic was clearly audible to Ryan and J.B., who stood only a few yards away from the sec men and Zimyanin.
"Sounds like a brown pants job there," whispered the mud-caked J.B.
"Sure does. Guess we best start doing us some digging."
"Yeah."
The main object of the exercise was to avoid any attention. Don't dig too slowly and don't dig too fast. Don't do anything else to attract Zimyanin's eyes.
Ryan worked away, putting his back into the labor, shoveling up loads of the thick, wet earth. He threw it up the bank where other men moved it higher, filling the gap in the road—a gap that had already been narrowed nearly enough for the leading wag to squeeze on by. He noticed that the first vehicle was a passenger wag that looked like the front half of an old Mercedes with creative welding adding some unrecognizable parts onto the rear.
He paused for a moment to wipe sweat off his face, careful not to disturb too much the coating of mud that hid his empty eye socket.
The back nearside door of the wag opened and a bizarre figure came scuttling out, shambling along the trail to stand near the pacing Zimyanin.
The mutie was very short and had a filthy length of cloth wound around his lower face. Ryan was sure he recognized the man from Alaska.
He glanced at J.B. and saw that the Armorer had also noticed the small man, nodding at Ryan's unspoken query.
