by Ryder Stacy
At the end of their second day on the train, Rock got a call on the train’s intercom. It was Reston, still driving the damned thing without a break.
“What’s up?” Rockson asked.
“According to this computer thingamajig that’s been feeding out our coordinates and speed, we’re gonna be hitting the outskirts of D.C. in about two and a half hours. Just thought I’d let you know. Better start getting things together back there.”
“Will do,” Rock said. “How’s it going up there?”
“It’s going,” Reston answered with a laugh. “Thanks to this mountainman Archer. He seems to like shoveling the coal into the furnace—watching it glow. I gotta slow ’em down so we don’t take off the tracks.”
“All right,” Rock chuckled. “I’ll let you know just what the plans are.”
He got the rest of the team together and went over their options.
“First of all, we gotta get rid of all these Reds here,” the Doomsday Warrior said. “They’re just going to get in the way, to say the least, when we get to D.C.” The Reds’ ears rose at the words and they began clamoring for mercy.
“Don’t worry, boys,” Rock said coldly, “no one’s getting killed—maybe just a fast ride out the door.”
“I got an idea,” Detroit said, not naming the source. “Why don’t we strip ’em and put ’em in mailbags? There’s pick-up hoists all along the way. Might be a fitting farewell to unwanted baggage.”
“I love it,” Rock said. “You want to run the show?”
“Better believe it,” the black Freefighter grinned. “Ah jes loves to send my Christmas packages home early.” He got some of the other men together and, taking the Russian officers five at a time, they prepared their little special deliveries. First they stripped them down to their underwear, then tied them up and squeezed them into the spacious mail and delivery bags that filled the mail car of the train. They found they could pack three of them in at a time, though the accommodations were a bit on the small side. They got the first bag together and rolled it toward the open sliding door of the car.
“There, I see one coming up now,” McCaughlin yelled with gusto. Detroit took the wide hook attached to the squirming package of human mail and reached far out the door, grabbing onto a handhold on the side. The train shot past the hoist at nearly 60 mph, but Detroit was just able to throw it out and over the even larger hook waiting for it. The reinforced nylon bag shot out of the door like an overstuffed meteor, and the Freefighters poked their heads out the side to see it swinging wildly back and forth, nearly ten feet above the ground.
“What a wonderful thing,” Chen said, watching the proceedings with his arms folded across his chest. “And we don’t even need stamps.”
Over the next hour they loaded up every one of the Reds into bags and sent them flying out the side via the Russian postal service. They spun wildly, legs and arms kicking within their confinement. The thought of what would happen when these top brass were found in such compromised situations made the Freefighters break out into laughter again and again. They had probably just ended more Red Army careers than they had in most of their shooting battles.
Rock had decided against taking the train all the way into Washington. Even with uniforms on, the bluff would be too risky. Detroit had found out from the porters that there was a huge junction of tracks from all over the country about ten miles outside the capital, with miles of track and countless wrecked and abandoned trains among which they could hide. Still not wanting the porters’ true natures to be revealed, Rufus slipped Detroit all the information they needed, making him promise every time not to tell where he got it. Rockson was indeed curious about where all their intelligence was coming from, but he took one look at Detroit’s face when he posed the question and didn’t ask again.
With the hand-drawn maps of the juncture, Reston was able to chart his way among a spiderweb of tracks and slowed down to 25 mph, since many of the side rails were old and rusted and groaned beneath the weight of the passing train. At last they found a nice little niche for the Silver Bullet between two mile-long freight trains, their wheels turned to squares over the years, but their basic frames still intact. Names like Southern Pacific, Union Pacific, Southern Rail, and Great Northwest could still be read on the sides of the long boxcars, their doorless insides empty but for insects and mice. They were like ghost trains of eons ago. Days when America was overflowing with wealth and agriculture, days when thousands upon countless thousands of these landbound cargo ships roamed the nation’s rails, bringing her bounty to every citizen. Days the Freefighters, for all the reading they had done, could hardly imagine.
When they were all parked and the engines had been shut off, Rockson called the entire team together and outlined the plan.
“We’ll divide into two units. Ten men will stay here, the rest will come with me. We’re going to need this train to get the hell out of here, so I want it fully guarded at all times,” he told his handpicked men. “And scout around—see if there’s some heavy-duty firepower on the train—something we can use to knock out any Russian posses.” The ’brids and the camels would stay as well. If they were going to bluff their way through the back streets of the city in Red uniforms, it wouldn’t do wonders for their disguise to come riding in on mangy beasts flown all the way from Australia.
“Thank you,” Rock said to the gathered porters. “You’ve been most hospitable to my men and I. Now you’d better all get the hell out of here—’cause within the next few hours, I have a feeling this place could become a battleground.”
“Oh, we knows how to take care of ourselfs, Mr. Rockson,” Rufus said, standing out with the rest of the black staff on the grading. “We lives jes down the rail o’ there.” He pointed a long wrinkled finger off toward row after row of rusting hulks of trains. “Gots ourselfs nice little shacks we done built out of dese ol’ cars here. Ain’t no one wants ’em no how. Ain’t that right, boys?” he said, addressing the black faces of the porters who were standing right behind him, every one of them with their hands clasped. Detroit wished more than anything that they could reveal themselves in their true light. It just wasn’t fair somehow. To suffer so much, devote one’s life to the cause of liberation—and not be able to even have anyone know about it—though he suspected that Rock had caught on somewhere along the way, as his eyes twinkled extra sharp when he spoke to them.
“Now yo’ all take care, yo’ hear,” Rufus said, waving goodbye as Rock and the rest of his attack force headed across the wide railroad yard toward a far highway. “And don’cha hes’tate to come see us again.”
The Doomsday Warrior, wearing a full brown Russian Lieutenant General’s uniform with seventeen ribboned medals stretched across his broad chest, crawled up the side of the embankment that led to the thoroughfare just above. Behind him, the combined American/Aussie forces shifted uncomfortably in their own itchy Red outfits, loosening the tight collars which choked them. A truck engine backfired nearby and Rock jumped up quickly to the road, motioning for Chen to come right behind him—but for the rest to stay. He walked out on the road as the big transport truck came bearing down, spread his feet apart, stood stock still, and held his right arm up. The truck screeched to a halt, stopping only a few feet away. The driver jumped down with his fist raised, ready to punch Rockson—until he saw his ranking. The fist uncoiled and transformed instantaneously into a salute as the man jumped to attention. It was not a good idea to strike a Lieutenant General in the Russian Army.
“Sir,” the man barked out, his body as straight as if someone had rammed a steel beam up his ass.
“Very good, Sergeant,” Rockson said in his best coughing Russian, returning the salute perfunctorily. “I’ll be needing this truck—what’s your cargo?”
“Ammunition, sir,” the man shouted back. “For the frontline forces that are fighting KGB Commandos on the Eastern side of the city.”
“You will please have your men unload it and dump it in the street, Serg
eant,” Rock said as cool as ice. He had learned long ago—when impersonating a Red official—always underplay it. Never command—whisper. Never act agitated—but rather bored, jaded. That was the way they really were—and Rock had it down to a “tee.”
The sergeant didn’t dare question the order. Under State of Emergency Conditions, the general could shoot him on the spot. Knowing somehow he was going to end up being screwed, the Russian turned to four soldiers riding in the back of the truck and screamed out, “Throw it all out in the street! Now!” They too did not dare hesitate, and box after box of machine gun and mortar ammo was dumped like so much garbage onto the tarmac street. They unloaded the entire truck within five minutes and jumped down, standing at attention next to the sergeant.
“Excellent,” Rock muttered, not even deigning to look at the man. The Freefighters jumped in the back, Detroit and Archer bending over at the back of the bunch to avoid being seen. Though with the Reds’ eyes fixed straight ahead, there wasn’t much for them to see. Rock jumped up into the seat, with Lieutenant Boyd acting as his driver, and tapped his fingers imperiously on the dashboard without saying a word. Boyd floored it and the truck shot forward, its huge tires squealing, leaving coats of rubber behind on the road.
“Bloody fucking incredible,” Boyd said, looking over at Rockson. “I once read about something your country had, called Academy Awards—a golden statue they gave to their best movie actor each year. Matey, you just won one.” Boyd drove along the back streets of D.C., following the map drawn on a napkin that Rockson had handed him. They came to several Red checkpoints, but Rockson just gave the guards nasty looks and they quickly opened their roadblocks, letting the transport truck through. There were battles going on all over the city, flames shooting up from every direction. It seemed as if World War III were being fought all over again—without the nukes—here in the nation’s capital. The dogs were finally going at each other, Rockson thought. Killov had obviously thrown caution to the wind. His forces had to be outnumbered by the Red Army a hundred to one. The only way he could have hoped to succeed was through surprise—blitzkrieg—and then take the reins of power before the High Command knew what was happening. If that was the plan, the gamble didn’t seem to be going too well in Washington. They had been fighting for days and the Army seemed to be holding its own. For the first time in his life, Rock wished the Regular Army well. For he knew Killov—had met him personally. And he was not a man Rockson wanted to see holding supreme power here in America. The fat Zhabnov had been a tyrant—but a stupid one. As bad as things were, the Doomsday Warrior knew they would be incomparably worse under his KGB usurper. But what a choice, he groaned inwardly—from the quicksand into the sewer.
At last they saw it—the Octagon, which Detroit had been told by the porters was the most likely place President Langford and Kim would have been taken, as it was Zhabnov’s central interrogation, torture, and imprisonment center—equipped, needless to say, with row after gleaming row of Mindbreakers.
“There, that’s it,” Rock said, pointing to the five-block wide, eight-sided building based on the design of the ancient U.S. Pentagon, which had since been turned into a vast whorehouse for all of the Russian enlisted men in the area—a place where anything went, twenty-four hours a day.
“Now we just gotta get our bloody little nippers in there,” Lieutenant Boyd said, slowing down as they came to a steel mesh gate running the perimeter of the vast ten-story chrome-and-glass structure.
“That’s it,” Rock exclaimed, leaning over and slapping the Aussie on the shoulder. “Get our nippers in. We’ll say we’re bringing in some captured Freefighters—and we’re just aching to get them strapped into one of them Mindbreakers.”
Rock leaned around in his seat and yelled through the rectangular opening just above his head, “Have ten of the men strip back to their fighting clothes. And make it look like they’re tied up.”
Boyd moved slowly around the edge of the fence, giving them time in back. After several minutes, they came to a wide double-gated checkpoint where five guards walked over with submachine guns under their arms. Even seeing Rockson’s stripes, the head guard spoke brusquely.
“There’s a war on, comrade. What the hell are you doing here? We’re closed for the day.”
“Whoever you are,” Rockson said arrogantly, slapping his gloves together as if about to get quite annoyed, “I suggest that first you apologize to me and secondly you open that gate. We have a load of Freefighter prisoners that I’m sure the commander of this fine structure will be quite disappointed to lose.”
“Yes, sir,” the man said, lowering the weapon. “Sorry, sir, I forgot myself in this time of crisis. I hope you won’t report me, sir.”
“We’ll see,” Rockson said with a hiss. “We’ll see.” The guards swung the gates open and waved the truck through.
“You got more balls than a platypus penned up with five duckbills in heat,” Boyd chuckled, shaking his head from side to side. The facility was so immense that arrowed signs filled the sides of the roads that led off in all directions, stating which particular sectors of the fort lay where. At last they saw a PRISONER INTAKE arrow and followed it, coming after several yards to a rampway with more arrows.
“Go ahead in,” Rock said as Boyd slowed at the bottom of the ramp. “We’ll have to play it by ear from here on in.”
“From here on in?” Boyd said with a sharp laugh. “Matey, you been playing it by ear this whole bloody trip.” The ramp opened onto a loading platform with a few bored guards sitting on folding chairs at each end, half asleep. Boyd backed the truck up until it just touched the rubber bumper backing of the platform and turned the engine off. He took the key out and put it up in his visor—just in case. Rockson jumped down from his seat and walked quickly around to the back where he pulled open the thick canvas covering.
“Let’s go, let’s go, out out!” Rock yelled as the Russian-uniformed Freefighters led their would-be prisoners up onto the platform at gunpoint. Rock walked over to one of the seated guards who slowly rose and managed a lazy salute.
“Where’s prisoner intake?” Rock demanded, using a sharper tone now that he was within the walls of the Red citadel. For here the officers would be curt, snappy, not taking any guff from underlings. The sharpness of Rock’s tone made the guard gulp and straighten up slightly.
“That way, sir, through those doors over there.” Rock led the prisoner detail through the tiled floors and walls. Zhabnov had obviously spent a fortune on the building. Great, that’s all America needed, more prisons, Rock thought. They want bread, do they?—let them eat bars. He looked around at his team, their eyes darting everywhere, searching for a trap.
“Keep cool, boys,” Rockson whispered. “Just pretend you’re really a Russian. You’re happy to be home after being out in the wastelands. Smile—but if the shit hits the fan, blast everything in sight.”
They came to another set of doors and pushed them open. It was an intersection of all the main halls on the floor—eight of them, heading off into the eight sections of the Octagon. They must be dead center of the building—in the spoke of the wheel. Rock turned around and around, trying to sense with his mutant ESP abilities which was the right way. But he could feel nothing—not a twinge of a direction.
“Shit, anyone have the slightest idea which way to go?” he asked the rest of them in desperation.
“Perhaps I can be of assistance,” a voice boomed out from behind him. Rock spun around, his shotpistol out from beneath his long officer jacket in a flash. Doors opened everywhere around the Freefighters and from them nearly a hundred elite KGB Death Squad Commandos rushed, their submachine guns aimed straight ahead. Then Colonel Killov himself pushed two of the Commandos aside and stood glaring at Rockson with a look of sheerest hatred on his drug-flushed face.
“Prisoners—yes, we have plenty of accommodations.”
Nineteen
Rockson debated for the sheerest second on whether to go for it. But they d
idn’t have a chance. Outnumbered four to one against submachine guns—they’d be dead instantly. He couldn’t let them all throw their lives away like that. As long as they were alive, there was a way out.
“Throw ’em down,” Rock said firmly, slowly lowering his own shotpistol to the floor. The Freefighters and Aussies stood with pained expressions on their faces, their hands in the air.
“It’s so good of you to drop by,” Killov said, walking a few steps forward but staying far out of range of the Doomsday Warrior. He knew what the man could do—and he had a jagged scar on his cheek to prove it.
“If I’d known you were going to be here, I’d have brought a gift or two,” Rockson said, meeting the fierce gaze of his nemesis. The DeathHead Commander had deteriorated since their last meeting—and Rockson had thought the man skeletal-looking even then. But now—now his skin had taken on the sheen that only corpses have, a shininess without moisture, without blood. It was as if Killov were already dead with only the sheer power of his dark will keeping him going—unwilling to die until he could take all of them with him.
“And we do have so much to talk about,” Killov continued, enjoying this moment of torment with barely disguised glee.
“Langford, Kim? Are they—”
“Oh, I assure you, they are fine. For the moment. You will get to see them—when they are strapped next to you in the Mindbreaker. You shall all get to observe each other’s brains dripping from your skulls. A sight I’m sure—fortunately for you—you will soon forget.”
“You’re mad to attack the whole damned country, you know,” Rock said. “I think you’ve bitten off more than you can chew.”
“Mad—yes, of course I’m mad. They have always called us that. All great men are mad—we have to be. The rest are sheep—without minds, without thoughts or daring. It is only the mad who have the vision to go beyond, to rise to new heights of—”
