The Rabid Brigadier

by Craig Sargent

  Stone was glad to be pulled from his dark musings. “Yes, show me everything, Captain. That would be an excellent idea.” And so through the moonless night, driving the tank on infrared video, Stone absorbed everything he could about the Bradley—its computer and radar systems, its ground-to-ground missiles, capable of taking out the side of a building, and all the other extras that made a tank like the Bradley III such a handy thing to drive.

  They made excellent time across the backlands, which for all their desolation and terrible fissured beauty were fairly open and flat. The convoy roared forward through the night, a tail of dust rising high above them that lasted for miles. By the time morning was just beginning to break in a gray waterfall of light from the east, they were there. The force stopped on a plateau overlooking the town of Glenwood Springs about three miles away. Stone climbed the ladder up to the top of the tank and stepped out, taking out his field glasses. He crouched down so as not to make a silhouette against the silver sky and peered through the binoc’s.

  There was something going on down there, that was for damned sure. There were cars, bizarrely armored vehicles everywhere along the streets. Garbage was strewn wildly about and Stone thought he could see some bodies here and there amidst the general filth of the place. They were not just meeting, but having their fun too, as they always did. Whenever Stone had been around these bastards before, there had always been a waste heap of bodies left behind in their wake.

  He gathered the other officers and went over their plans. Stone would go below with one tank; the others would stay here on the hill and get their cannons targeted on the town. If he wasn’t back within twenty-four hours, they were to open fire and then get the hell out of there as fast as possible. Stone didn’t explain the second part. They’d find out soon enough. The crew of his tank were all volunteers—including Colonel Garwood—one of the brass that Stone liked and trusted the least. They all knew the risks going down there, but like Stone they also knew the rewards they would accrue for the successful completion of such a risky operation. Some men will do anything for wealth, or country.

  The guards at the north end of the town—a gang of bikers with their motorcycles parked in a row, blocking movement—stood up and stared with amazement at the tank that came grinding down the road toward them. They knew that more crime bosses were expected, but somehow hadn’t expected any to show up in a tank. The Bradley stopped about ten yards away from the line of bikes and one of the bigger gang members, with black leather jacket and chains draped over his arms like an admiral, walked up to the barricade of motorcycles as Stone emerged from the top of the tank.

  “Name?” the biker yelled out, pulling out his checklist to look for the entry.

  “Name’s Stone, Colonel Stone,” he yelled back from the tank. “But I’m not on the party list so don’t bother looking for me!”

  “Then what the hell do you want, mister? This ain’t exactly the neck of the woods to be fucking around in.”

  “I want to talk to the top bosses,” Stone said coolly. “I’ve got an offer they can’t refuse.”

  “Sorry, mister,” the biker said, waving his hand for Stone to just drive off. “I mean, your tank looks impressive and all, but I got orders not to let no one in who ain’t on the list. So before I send a radio signal for the artillery unit located up there on that building…” He pointed to a church steeple in the center of town from which a steel barrel projected, gleaming in the morning sun, which was just rising over the Rockies.

  “Oh, so that’s where it is,” Stone yelled above the whine of the tank’s idling engine. He leaned into the hatch of the tank and yelled down. “Sight up the top of that church steeple and let her have it.” The entire turret on which he was sitting began turning and the 120mm cannon quickly raised up like the head of a cobra.

  “What the hell are you—” the biker yelled back, his face growing white. But the words were cut off as the Bradley shook back on its treads and the cannon roared with a ten-foot-long burp of fire. The bikers could hear the shell screaming overhead; that is, for the one second before it hit. Then the entire top of the church—used in the last five years for far different purposes than what it had been intended—exploded in a whirlwind of wood and flesh and red spray that spewed out over the whole center of the town. When the immediate storm of dust settled slightly they could see there was nothing left above the second floor. Nothing.

  “Take her forward,” Stone yelled down through the hatch and the Bradley instantly lurched forward. The biker jumped back in horror as the others, who had been leaning against their motorcycles in a bored manner, were suddenly wide awake and clearing a way. There’s not many men who will stand up to the steel face of a tank bearing straight down on them. The Bradley rode right up on four of the bikes, knocking them down and half crushing them beneath it as the treads ground over the vehicles, twisting and crushing them like some kind of mobile car-flattening machine. He ordered the tank to stop just the other side of the barricade in a large square.

  “Need more demonstrations before you go tell them?” Stone asked with a satisfied smile, looking down at about a dozen of the black-jacketed gang, who were cowering back against a brick wall.

  “No—I—I’ll go,” the biker leader stuttered. He ran sideways in front of the tank, keeping his bulging eyes on the huge cannon pointing straight at his head. The others followed suit, like scampering chickens after their mother hen. Stone had definitely made an impression.

  Within minutes he was being led into the main meeting hall of the crime bosses—an old skating rink with an arching domed plastic ceiling that let in streams of filtered light from above. The assembled bosses sat on wooden seats all around the perimeter of where the ice floor had been—now plywood sheets nailed down to make a floor over the rusted gridded piping of ice-making equipment. The general had been right about one thing, Stone saw the moment he walked into the large open space, there were a hell of a lot of the bastards here. His eyes quickly scanned the rows of seats stretching all the way around the place, filled almost to capacity. There were a good thousand of them, from Mafia capos in their double-breasted suits to Guardian of Hell chieftains with golden chains on their shoulders marking their rank; from wild-eyed bandits with belts of grenades crisscrossed around their chests to subhuman mountain men dressed in badly sewn bearskin hides. They were all there. The whole rotten crew had turned out for this one.

  “And what, may I ask,” a voice spoke loudly above the murmur of voices throughout the ex-rink, “may we do for you before we kill you.” Stone saw the source of the words—a man sitting with three other hard-looking fellows behind what looked like some sort of makeshift judge’s bench. They all wore long black robes and were staring down at him with most unpleasant expressions, as were all one thousand of the toughest, meanest and most psychotic looking dudes Martin Stone had ever seen. Colonel Garwood stood behind Stone, almost shaking in his boots. Stone glared at the man for a split second to cool him out. To show fear in front of these bastards was tantamount to committing suicide. That’s why Stone had taken out the church—he knew they respected power above all else, firepower especially. And right now he had the biggest gun in town.

  “I’ll get right to the point,” Stone said, turning slightly as he spoke so most of them could hear him. He wanted them all to get the message, to truly understand just what was at stake here. “There’s an atomic missile targeted on this very building right at this instant. By merely touching a dial on this radio transmitter,” Stone lied, as it would take a lot more than that to get it going, “I can signal for it to be launched. And if you started running the second I pressed the button, you know what?” Stone asked again, looking around at them as two thousand pairs of eyes glared back like glowing knives. “As far as you could run, drive or even fly, it would get you. It would get you and melt you right down to your bones like plastic melting on a toy soldier, and then even your bones would smoke and melt too. And that’s the God’s honest truth.”


  “Who the fuck is this guy?” another voice yelled from the crowd.

  “Kill him! Shoot the asshole now!” another scarred face suggested, rising and pulling out a .45 that looked heavily used.

  “Hold it!” the judge or whatever he was screamed above the din and stood up from his chair with a 30–30 Winchester, holding it high across his chest. “Shut up, you assholes, and sit down!” the head judge commanded them—and with shoulders as wide as a table and a sallow and almost concave face that bore not a little resemblance to Boris Karloff, even the toughest of the tough were persuaded to head back down into their seats and put their firepower down.

  “Go on, Colonel Stone,” the black-robed crime judge said more quietly as he sat again but kept the rifle in plain view. Apparently the gathered criminal elements had their own etiquette when it came to keeping order. “Tell me more.”

  “I’ve been sent under order of General Patton of the Third Army. He has instructed me to tell you that he demands your unconditional surrender within twenty-four hours, or you and everyone within fifty miles of here is radioactive ashes.”

  Again there were numerous disturbances around the arena, and before Stone knew what was happening the judge stood up quickly in his seat and gripped the rifle to his cheek. He pulled the trigger and snapped down the lever, firing again and again in a blur of motion. Some bearded, wolf-hide-covered thug with pistol in his hand went flying from his chair and tumbled onto the plywood floor of the rink. He twitched a few times, riddled with slugs in an almost perfect straight line from nose to navel, as a pool of blood bubbled into a little brook beneath him.

  This time the congregation grew very still and again the judge urged Stone to go on.

  “That’s the story,” Stone said, now addressing just the judges since it was obvious—that at least inside here—they ran the show. “I’m to radio back your reply, and then either take you prisoner… or see us all die in hellfire.”

  “How do we know you’re telling the truth?” the head judge asked. Stone started walking slowly toward the raised judges’ platform about eighty feet away, but five men appeared out of nowhere, each holding an Ingram submachine gun, and stopped him short.

  “No one may approach the judges’ bench,” one of the men said, his face like something that had been left in the blender too long.

  “Then give him this,” Stone said, pulling open the cover of the missile manual and the chart showing damage at different ranges from his jacket. He handed it to the man and stepped back next to Colonel Garwood, who looked as if he were about to shit in his pants under the burning gaze of the rabble. The face-mashed guard took them over to the judges’ bench and the four black-robed men looked at the pages closely, passing them to one another. They conferred for several minutes, whispering back and forth. Then the head judge spoke up again.

  “It is possible, from this evidence, that what you say is true—possible but not conclusive.”

  “Judge, your honor, whatever your proper title is, it’s all true, I swear to you, every word I’ve told you. But though I was sent here to attempt to get you to surrender, the fact is I’m going to help you, show you a way out. I’m going to lead you right back to their camp, and help you destroy Patton and the Third Army.” Colonel Garwood stared at Stone with his jaw literally hanging open as he heard the traitorous words.

  “Why should you do this, Stone?” the head judge asked through his cadaverous-looking white lips. “Help us when all we want to do is kill you.”

  “Because I’ve seen what General Patton really intends for America—a Brave New World of genetically selected sheep ruled by laws and regulations that make Hitler look like a boy scout leader. I was in his inner circle and I know what he has in mind. Don’t get me wrong, your honor, I hate your kind. I’ve spent the last few months of my life fighting scum like you—killing a lot of them too. But I know, just because you bastards are such savages, so greedy in your provincial little ways, that you will always be divided, will always be squabbling to protect your own little fiefdoms. You will never be the threat that he is. And for this one moment, you and I are on the same side. Then we can go about our business of trying to destroy one another. Because make no mistake about it, I hate you, and the anarchy and blood for which you stand. But right now I hate Patton more, because he could do it. He could send America into the Dark Ages that will last ten thousand years.”

  “You fucking traitor,” Colonel Garwood suddenly screamed as he stood alongside him, listening to Stone’s little speech, his face growing redder and redder. “I always knew you weren’t to be trusted from the very start. They should have let you go over the falls, you goddamned Benedict Arnold.” He went for his .45 and had it halfway out when about twenty firearms went off simultaneously. The punctured body did a hideous little shuffle across the floor as if skating on its own blood and then slammed face first into the plywood, dead before its nose crushed into bloody putty on the wood.

  Stone stood absolutely still, his hands raised so they didn’t think he was going for anything. But the guns disappeared again and just the smoke and the scent of blood remained in the air.

  “Colonel Stone,” the head judge said, his face looking even more somber than before. “I think I believe you.”

  CHAPTER

  Twenty

  IT WAS perhaps the strangest army that had ever rumbled across the face of the earth: the tanks and jeeps of Stone’s detachment—minus NAA troops who had been eliminated—in the lead, followed by the Mafia chieftains in their armored limousines, then hundreds of the Guardians of Hell atop their bikes, their battle colors flying, and behind them the countless smaller warlords from the mountains and plains in jeeps, old pickup trucks with swing machine guns mounted on the back, and every other damned thing on wheels that could still get up a head of steam and crank its way down a road. They drove into the descending night in a long stretched-out, ragged line, engines whining and screaming and pounding as a dim web of stars started to light up above, like Christmas lights not quite plugged in properly, through the sheer veil of a high cloud curtain.

  Stone didn’t feel at all good about the whole thing. His stomach felt like it was churning with bitter acids that were ripping him apart. He had sent the radio signal telling Patton that the crime bosses had surrendered and the general had been overjoyed. And now? Now they would all think he was a traitor. Not that it mattered. He did what he thought was right. There were no two ways about it. You chose the side you were on, and then you went all the way. He would take the judgment when it came on his last day. But still, not all of them were bad. If only Patton hadn’t gone over the edge. The general had been so close, so close to the right thing. But he had gone off a cliff somewhere. The cliff of fascist dreams. Why was it always like that? The son-of-a-bitch was a genius, and in many ways a good man, yet he had lost sight of the ball game and his own vainglorious schemes of total conquest had taken over. It was the disease of powerful and great men throughout history. Caesar, Alexander, Napoleon, Hitler, their very successes made them believe everything they did and thought was right. Therefore it should be prescribed for the whole world. Then everything would be better. Everyone would be happy under their totalitarian vision of life. It was simple. Right?

  Wrong! Stone was in the way this time. All he could think of was those women and kids turning into fire, screams frozen in the flames. Faces branded into his mind forever. And there would be more—tens of thousands more, hundreds of thousands perhaps. For with General Patton’s purification-by-fire mode of operation, as the Third Army swept across the center of America they would liquidate all life not to their immediate liking. Killing a man was one thing. Exterminating him was another.

  No, Stone would take the heat. He was on the edge too. The very edge, staring right into the fucking face of death.

  “Colonel, Colonel!” Stone was startled from his dark thoughts as he heard a voice talking to him. It was the head judge, who was traveling with him in the lead tank. “C
olonel Stone,” the crime lord said, his white lips hardly moving as he spoke, “we’ll be arriving at the outer limits of Fort Bradley’s security perimeter within an hour if what you say is true. How exactly shall we proceed?” He was no longer wearing his black robe but a suit of something approaching leather armor from head to foot, and though bent over to fit into the cramped seating of the tank he still took up half the inside of the Bradley. The man was immense. Around his shoulder was an Ingram .45 machine pistol, and around his hips enough knives, pistols, grenades and other assorted implements of destruction to take on an army single-handed.

  “We’ll proceed exactly as planned,” Stone said as he kept his eye on the video monitor of the road ahead. It showed him the infrared and radar readings interpreted digitally and reformatted into visual image—all in the space of a thousandth of a second. The thugs in the tank were all fascinated by the futuristic controls and kept staring around at everything with vastly entertained smiles on their faces. They’d all have some damned good drinking stories to share with their buddies back in whatever swamp or sewer they called home. There was nothing like killing. And high tech killing might be even more fun.

  “We’ll bring the force to coordinate B17-H28, as on this map here.” Stone had the map displayed on a second screen to the left of his viewing terminal. “There you’ll hold while I get inside and finish up a few things I have to do. Advance and firing on the fort shall commence at exactly six A.M., not one second later.” Stone looked at the crime don, wondering if these dudes were going to really be able to use the tanks. He had given each of the judges about five hours of training. Not a hell of a lot. But these were the smartest of the lot, though that wasn’t necessarily saying much by the looks of the crew that were following them. Still, they had been able to follow behind him in the other two tanks without crashing. Christ, the more he thought about this, the less chance it seemed they would succeed. But it was too late now. That was the understatement of the twentieth century.