by James Axler
Zimyanin had eyes as sharp as a hunting falcon's. He spotted the exchange of glances between the two mud-caked men and wondered what it was that they'd seen. It also crossed his mind that they seemed unusually well muscled and healthy specimens of the local peasants. And they dug in a measured, professional way. It was odd to see them so nimble on their feet when they'd been falling over each other a few minutes ago. It was almost as if they'd—
Aliev came slinking in from the drizzling rain and plucked at his sleeve, making him lose his train of thought.
"What? Soon. I know the rain will make it difficult to follow them." He edged a few steps away from the tracker. It was appalling enough having to share the warm, damp wag with him.
Dawn wasn't too far off and already the weather had hamstrung his plans. They would have been right on the trail of the Americans, but the stolen wag had broken through the barricade and was gone. One thing still plucked at his mind. The statements of the patrol had all insisted that the wag had kept moving, not stopping while still in sight. Which meant that the gunman, or men, might have remained behind, planning to follow on foot and join the wag later.
"Another few minutes at the most, Comrade Major-Commissar," the young noncom said, thinking what a relief it would be to see the taillights of the sec wag vanishing over the horizon.
"DONE, Comrade Major-Commissar. It's wide enough for your wag if you drive ahead with care. Good luck in the chase." He snapped a smart salute to Zimyanin.
"Thank you, Comrade Corporal. The Party thanks you and your men for their efforts. Give those diggers a five-ruble food voucher each."
"Yes, Comrade Major-Commissar." Another crisp salute. "And good riddance, you pox-faced murderous-eyed bastard," he muttered.
Aliev hopped into the back of the wag and Zimyanin climbed into the driver's seat, shouting orders to the redheaded officer in charge of the other military wags in the convoy. The exhaust spouted plumes of blue-grey smoke as the engine revved up.
"Going," J.B. whispered out of the corner of his mouth.
Ryan watched the vehicle, hearing the gears crashing. It jumped and jerked its way along the repaired embankment for nearly a hundred yards before it stopped in a squeal of brakes.
"SIT STILL, may your eyes rot! Don't keep touching me like…! What?"
Zimyanin stamped so hard on the brakes that the old autowag slewed viciously sideways and nearly slipped into the muddy river.
The tracker was out of the vehicle before it had skidded to a halt. He paused at the top of the embankment, level with Ryan and J.B., and pointed down at them with a clawed finger.
Zimyanin joined the tracker and drew his Makarov pistol, holding it negligently in his right hand. He called down to the Americans in his best English. "I should have been able to guess the truth. Too nimble to be so clumsy. That is the word? 'Clumsy'? Yes. Come and join me, gentlemen, or I shall perforce pepper you with lead."
Ryan threw down the shovel. "No need. You got us cold. Pleasure to meet you again, Zimyanin. Real pleasure."
Chapter Thirty-Two
AS THEY PICKED their way up the slippery slope of the embankment, Ryan whispered a single word to his friend, which was barely audible.
"Soonest."
That was all.
But it was enough for J.B. to understand Ryan's appraisal of the situation. They were about to be locked tight in the sec cage, and once inside, it would be close to impossible to get out.
It was soonest or it was never.
ZIMYANIN CLENCHED his fists in delight, so hard that the crescent nails drew tiny semicircles of blood from his palms. The squall of driving rain didn't bother him, and everything around him seemed to have receded into a gray blur. Aliev, the sec men, his wag with its engine still running, the watching workers… everything had faded away at his moment of supreme triumph.
American spies. Comrade General Josef Siraksi would come fawning around, begging for the chance to press his tongue against Zimyanin's ass. The Party would rise as one and applaud his brilliance. No decoration would be refused him, no medal with oak leaves or platinum circle would be withheld from Hero Gregori Zimyanin.
Supreme Marshal Zimyanin.
The small matter of his wife's unexplained disappearance would not be discussed. It would be something to be swept smilingly beneath the bureaucratic carpet.
First Secretary Zimyanin.
The two Americans were nearly on the road. The teeming rain washed the mud from their faces, revealing the dark pit of shadow where the taller man had lost an eye.
Party President Zimyanin.
"NEARLY DAWN," Jak announced, easing the stiffness from his narrow shoulders.
"Rain way off to the north, falling from the gray bellies of those low clouds. Ryan and J.B.'ll be getting wet. Again." Krysty brushed a stray tendril of curling red hair behind her ear. In the room beneath them, Doc and Rick were both sleeping—the sleep of the elderly and the sleep of the terminally ill.
"Soon be time get freezie working on broken door," Jak said.
"Leave him a while longer. He doesn't have that many more mornings left."
Jak sighed and leaned on his elbows. In the opalescent glow of the dawn, the albino teenager looked absurdly young and innocent. And in dire need of sleep.
"Wish Ryan was here," he muttered.
Krysty smiled at him. "Me too, Jak. Yeah, me too."
"I AM DELIGHTED to make your acquaintance again, gentlemen. I am Major-Commissar Gregori Zimyanin. And you are… ?" He paused as the book on conversation and etiquette had advised him, holstering the unnecessary blaster.
"I'm J.B. Dix."
"Ryan Cawdor."
"We will have so much to discuss. I trust you will be able to accept my hospitality?"
Everyone was standing around in a puzzled, frozen tableau, puzzled at the way the sec officer seemed able to communicate with these saboteurs in their own drawling, gobbling language, frozen at the ease with which the major-commissar had penetrated their cunning disguises.
The shorter of them was pulling out a pair of glasses and placing them carefully on his nose. The other was tying a patch over the socket of his missing eye. Neither looked to be very dangerous.
"Pride comes before a fall," Zimyanin stated, delighted at his own linguistic cleverness, half bowing to the man called Ryan Cawdor.
"And the man who laughs last gets to laugh the longest, Major," Ryan replied, drawing his blaster in an unflurried, undramatic way. He leveled it at the sec officer's stomach. "Get in the fucking wag, Russkie. Now!"
J.B.'s Steyr AUG filled his hand, the muzzle weaving like the head of a cobra, seeming to menace every man there. He had moved in close to Zimyanin, using the sec man's stocky body as cover. There was a still moment, such as when the crystal goblet seems to hang for an eternity between the careless hand and the implacable flagstone.
"Tell them to move away and not try anything stupid, Gregori," Ryan ordered.
"Nyet."
"Da. Tell them or we all die."
Putting it that way, Ryan removed the only card that the Russian could have played.
"They do not have the gift of the English language as we do," Zimyanin objected, keeping an icy calm that concealed the blazing oven of his rage. To have them safe and then for this to happen! He wanted to turn on them and rend the flesh from their effete American faces.
"Russian then. Tell them to back off. We three take the wag. We'll watch behind us. First sign of a chase and you get a bullet in the belly and one in each knee and elbow. Make sure your passing's the pain you deserve. Understand?"
Zimyanin understood enough. The words were fast and harsh, but he could catch the gist of it. The muzzle of the powerful, silenced SIG-Sauer pressed uncomfortably hard into the flat, muscular wall of his stomach. The American's finger was white on the narrow trigger of the blaster.
Speaking slowly, voice raised so that everyone could hear him, Zimyanin did what Ryan had told him to do. More
or less.
"They can not escape for long," the Russian told his forces. "But if we take them now, many will die. I will go with them in the wag. You must not follow close or they will begin shooting. Wait until we are out of sight. Then follow. In time, we will catch them and they will pay the final price for their acts of hatred and of blood."
"He preaching a sermon, Ryan?" J.B. asked. "Best shut him up."
"Yeah." Ryan jammed the pistol harder into the stomach of the Russian sec officer, making him gasp in pain and end his flow of instructions.
"I have done everything that you wished," the Russian grunted, struggling for breath. He privately promised himself the pleasure of slowly executing the tall, curly-headed American.
"Then get in the car. Front passenger seat. I'll drive. J.B., cover from the back seat."
"Sure."
It was going to work.
The men standing knee-deep in the sludge at the river's edge were hardly likely to risk interfering. They'd already been plucked off the streets and from their nearby homes to do a filthy job for the Party, working at gunpoint. It didn't matter that much to them who was behind the gun.
The sec men out in the rain, and those who still lurked in the heavy eight-wheel wags behind, wouldn't risk doing anything that would jeopardize a senior officer such as Zimyanin. Their discipline and their lack of independence made that certain.
And Gregori Zimyanin, with the barrel of a 9 mm pistol shoved hard against his abdomen, was going to be very cautious before he made any sudden moves.
And that was all.
All but one.
Tracker Aliev had been sheltering in the lee of the auto-wag, trying to protect his ruined face from the chilly rain. Now he saw his beloved master being taken away at gunpoint. If Zimyanin was taken, then Aliev knew his shield and protection would be removed.
"In the wag," Ryan repeated, eye raking the watchers, making sure nobody was going to try anything particularly stupid or dangerous. He kept his free hand lightly on the Russian sec officer's shoulder, feeling the tightness of the man's muscles, ready to detect even the slightest movement.
Zimyanin looked as if he were going to cooperate, but Ryan was surprised and impressed by the rippling power he could feel in the man's upper body.
J.B. was halfway in the vehicle, holding the door open against the rising wind when Aliev came out of the darkness.
He attacked on Ryan Cawdor's blind side in a snuffling, howling, sideways shuffle, reaching out with his horn-tipped fingers to tear the face off the man who threatened his master.
"Ryan!" the Armorer yelled, hampered from shooting by the door of the wag.
But his shout of warning was enough, giving Ryan the edge of time that he needed. He spun around and put a bullet through Aliev's face, a couple of inches above the sodden rag that covered his missing nose and jaw.
The little man's feet skittered out from under him and he slid in the dirt, rolling twice by Zimyanin's feet. He ended up staring sightlessly into the driving rain that bounced off his blind eyeballs. Death gave Aliev a serenity that he had never enjoyed in life.
The sound of the pistol was muted by the silencer, and it was some moments before everyone realized that Ryan had shot and killed the Mongolian tracker. Then there was a burst of angry chatter. The sec men looked at one another, nervously fingering their rifles. They glanced at Zimyanin in case he was somehow able to give them some fresh orders.
"Tell them to be careful, Major," Ryan warned.
"I am sorry to have lost the poor dumb beast. He was always steadfast, loyal and true," the Russian said sadly.
"Tell them!"
Zimyanin called out to his men. "Do what I told you. Don't attempt anything foolish."
"Didn't want to chill the little guy, Major," Ryan said, easing Zimyanin backward toward the wag.
"He was very wretched. It was always hard to find enough rubles to pay a woman of the streets to lie with him. Such is life."
"Move it. Drop that blaster in the dirt before you get in. Good. Watch him, J.B., while I get in."
The engine sounded rough as Ryan revved it, and he was worried that the ceaseless rain might make it stall. But it picked up as soon as he trod on the gas pedal a few times.
Zimyanin sat quietly as they drove away. The wheels slid sideways toward the river, and Ryan corrected the drift. J.B. kept his pistol at the Russian's nape, glancing through the rear window to make sure there was no pursuit.
"You told them to start after us as soon as we're out of sight, Major?" Ryan asked.
"Your assumption is correct, Mr. Cawdor. Indeed I did."
"Black dust!" J.B. exclaimed. "The Russkie speaks more like Doc Tanner than Doc Tanner does!"
"Is my English less than impeccable? Must I apologize for its deficiencies?" Zimyanin asked.
"You speak good, Major, Better than me or J.B., and that's the truth." Ryan checked the mirror, unable to see anything in the rain.
"How come you're in Moscow, Major?" J.B. asked. "You were in Alaska."
"I hated the coldness, and I never relished the life with horses."
"Don't blame you," the Armorer agreed.
"And now you will transfer me to the choirs ethereal?" the Russian asked.
"How's that?" Ryan asked, swerving to avoid a raggedy child leading a patient donkey along, the side of the road.
"I shall be going to a far, far better place than I have ever known. You see that I am familiar with the work of your Mr. Dickens."
"Oh. You mean you think we're going to chill you?" Ryan said.
"Of course."
Ryan hadn't honestly given it that much thought. His main purpose had simply been to escape from the work gang and get back to the dacha to help fix the gateway and make the jump, if all went well, with the others.
But now that he did think about the problem of the prisoner, it seemed that the easiest thing would be to put a bullet through his brain and dump him by the side of the road. A dead enemy would never come after you in the dark hours of the night.
Then again, he didn't actually have any personal animosity against Major-Commissar Gregori Zimyanin. He was a Russian, but that didn't necessarily mean that he was an evil person.
And bullets cost jack.
"I reckon not," he said eventually. "What d'you figure, J.B.?"
"I figure bullets cost jack. There's nobody behind us, Ryan. Mebbe the major's ridden far enough with us right now."
"Yeah," Ryan agreed. "So long, Gregori. Guess we won't ever meet up again."
"You will not cause me any dying?"
"No." Ryan slowed the wag to little more than a walking pace and peered through the windshield seeing that they were coming to an area of dense forest on both sides of the blacktop.
"You wish me to disembark?" Bewilderment was evident in Zimyanin's voice.
Ryan couldn't avoid a smile. "Yeah, Gregori. We want you to disembark. Right now would be a real good time."
Zimyanin opened the car door, letting in a gust of damp, fresh air. He glanced behind him at J.B., then across at Ryan as though he were making sure that their faces were well fixed in his memory. Then he jumped. Despite the puddles and the mud, he succeeded in keeping his balance, running a few steps, then standing still.
J.B. gave a casual wave out of the back window of the wag, but Zimyanin didn't respond. He knew that some of the sec-troop wags would be along shortly, but he didn't look around for them. He stood and watched the spot on the highway where the Americans and the stolen wag had vanished.
His face showed no expression at all.
Chapter Thirty-Three
RYAN AND J.B. eventually reached the ravaged mansion in the early hours of the evening. Both were soaked to the skin from the rain, which had continued to pound the countryside throughout the morning and afternoon. As they'd gotten closer to the dirt-poor ville, they'd decided to abandon the wag so that they wouldn't attract unwanted attention.
Krysty greete
d them at the open front door, hugging Ryan with a sudden strength that took his breath and made his ribs creak.
"Fireblast! You'll snap my spine, lover." He kissed her on her warm cheeks with his cold, wet lips.
"Good to see you again, lover. Gaia! But it's so good."
"How about me, Krysty?" J.B. grinned and eased himself out of his sopping furs.
"Hell, I knew you'd make it. Uncle Tyas McCann used to say it was often the runt of the litter that survived."
"How's Rick? They made it safe?"
"Yeah. Jak was beat. Nearest to the line I've ever seen him. Slept ten hours straight through. He's up now with Doc, looking at the gateway and trying to figure out how those tools can help us."
Ryan let go of her and took a half step back. "You still haven't said how Rick is, lover. Guess that must mean bad."
She nodded. "Bad. I've tried using the healing skills that Mother Sonja taught me."
"No good?"
"No."
"He's not dead?" J.B. asked after pushing the door closed, having taken a good look around the dusk-gray fields.
"Close. Doc wondered about trying to help him down those stairs so he could talk us through the repairs."
"He conscious?"
"Some of the time." She hesitated. "Not all of the time."
"How long?"
Krysty shook her head. She, too, looked close to exhaustion. The flaming crimson of her hair was dulled and coiled flat against her head, not tumbling free and fiery over her shoulders as it usually did. There were dark rings beneath her startlingly green eyes.
"Way I see it, it's coming down to hours, lover. Only hours. The muscles are all failing, like a machine where every part quits at once. He's having a real hard time swallowing."
"Best go see him."
"In there." She pointed across the hall to the main shuttered chamber.
Rick's eyes were open as Ryan, Krysty and J.B. walked in on him. He was lying in a corner of the room, under piles of furs, barely visible.
"Hi, guys. You made it." His voice was slurred and slow.
