Predator Cold War

by Nathan Archer

  Rasche shook his head as he closed and locked the door; was this the best the feds could do? Smithers had recognized Rasche’s name, so he’d probably read up on some of what Schaefer and Rasche had done together. Had he thought that it was all Schaefer, with Rasche just going along for the ride? The hoods on the street had always thought so, which was just the way Schaefer and Rasche had wanted it, but the feds ought to know better.

  It was almost enough to hurt his feelings, he thought as he hauled the moaning, semiconscious Smithers into the chair behind the desk. How the hell did Smithers think Rasche had ever made detective in the first place and picked up his several commendations?

  Five minutes later Smithers was fully conscious again and tied securely into his chair with the cords from his phones and computers. Rasche smiled across the desk at him.

  ”Darn it, Colonel,” he said, “I thought this could be a friendly chat. After all, all I want to know is what happened to my friend.”

  Smithers stared at him.

  ”You’ll go to prison for this, Rasche,” he said. “Assaulting an on-duty federal officer is a felony ...”

  Rasche cut him off. “Yup,” he said, nodding. “It sure is a felony, and a serious one. But are you really going to want to go into court and testify in front of a judge and jury and your superiors about how an over-the-hill small town sheriff caught you off guard and trussed you up like a Thanksgiving turkey?” He smiled again, and that walrus mustache bristled; his eyes narrowed, and he really didn’t look a thing like Captain Kangaroo anymore.

  ”Besides,” he added, “I have a hunch that your boss, my old friend General Philips, really wouldn’t care for the bright lights of a civilian trial, since if it came to that I’d be doing my best to turn it into the biggest media circus since O. J. Simpson.”

  Smithers frowned uncertainly.

  ”Anyway,” Rasche continued, “that’s all beside the point.” He reached under his jacket. “I want to know what happened to Detective Schaefer, and I want to know now.” He drew the .38 Police Special out slowly, and then, moving with careful grace, brought it out to arm’s length and aimed it directly between Smithers’s eyes.

  ”That gun doesn’t scare me, Rasche,” Smithers said scornfully. “I know you’re a cop; you wouldn’t dare pull that trigger.”

  Rasche shook his head. “Yeah, I’m a cop,” he said. “And cops don’t go around shooting people who don’t answer questions-at least, good cops don’t.” He pulled the gun back for a moment and looked at it contemplatively. “So you know I’m a cop, Colonel, but are you ready to gamble your life that I’m a good cop? I’ve had a pretty bad time lately, you know; I left the force here in New York after that mess on Third Avenue, but that didn’t really end it. It’s still bothering me. I almost strangled my dentist the other day.” He aimed the gun again. “I’m not sure just what I’m capable of anymore. I’ve gotta say, though, that I’m pretty sure I’m not that good a cop anymore. Remember that I’m just full of surprises, Colonel-I took you down a few minutes ago, didn’t I?”

  Smithers cleared his throat but didn’t speak.

  Rasche leaned forward across the desk, bringing the .38’s muzzle to just an inch or two from Smithers’s face. “I’ve heard about you military guys who get assigned to the CIA for their dirty tricks,” he said conversationally. “Special training, psychological counseling-you think you can handle just about anything, right? Well, I didn’t have all that. What I had instead was a dozen years on the streets, where I learned all about what people will and won’t do. Maybe you learned some of the same things I did in those fancy classes of yours.” He leaned closer, and Smithers pulled as far away from the gun as his bonds would allow. “I want you to look into my eyes, Colonel,” Rasche said, “and I want you to use that special training to see inside me, to understand exactly what I’m feeling right now and what I’m capable of. If you read my file, I want you to think over everything it said in there-I got some commendations, yeah, I got promoted, but I also got in my share of trouble, didn’t I? Insubordination, brutality ... you think about that.”

  Rasche’s voice had gradually dropped from a normal tone to a whispered growl, and Smithers had begun to sweat. “Think about all the things that make life good, Colonel,” Rasche murmured. “Oreos, moonlit nights, the laughter of friends over a few beers, the soft touch of a woman’s hand. You think about all that very carefully, Colonel, and then I want you to ask yourself a question.” Rasche paused and adjusted his grip on the .38 so that there was no chance it would jerk out of line if he pulled the trigger.

  ”Ask yourself,” he said through gritted teeth. “Do you really want to die today?”

  And Smithers started talking.

  Chapter 22

  Siberia!” Rasche said as he charged out onto the street. “Christ almighty, Siberia?” He looked both ways for a cab, didn’t see any-but when he briefly considered taking the subway the newsstand beside the subway entrance caught his eye. A stack of papers displayed the headline RUSSIANS DENY U.S. MISSILE CLAIMS.

  He’d looked through a Chicago newspaper on the flight east and caught the usual snatches of news from radios and CNN and the like-it was hard to completely miss a major story in a news, saturated American city. Now the pieces fell into place.

  ”Shit,” Rasche said. “Siberia!”

  There weren’t any illegal nukes being moved around, no Russian nationalists or separatists or terrorists threatening the U.S., he realized. That was the cover story, fabricated by someone in Washington to hide another monster hunt-and the Russians weren’t willing to counter it with the truth because they wanted to get their paws on the aliens’ high-tech goodies, too. That stuff could put their economy back on track, make them a real world power again without having to actually teach their people how to run businesses.

  Half a dozen cabs finally appeared, a platoon of bright yellow Chevys charging up Sixth Avenue, vying with each other for position-they still seemed to hunt in packs, Rasche saw, the same as when he’d lived in the Big Apple. He flagged one down; it swooped in toward the curb, spraying Rasche’s pant legs with dirty slush.

  ”Where to?” the driver asked as Rasche climbed in.

  Rasche hesitated.

  The feds weren’t going to be cooperative, Smithers had made that plain. They’d shipped Schaefer off to Siberia to help out their team of monster-hunters, but they weren’t interested in Rasche, or he’d have heard from them already.

  And it was a little late to volunteer, in any case-the mission had gone in. So he’d need to get to Siberia without any help from the feds.

  In theory, he could go back to Kennedy and book a flight on Aeroflot to whatever commercial airfield was closest to the Yamal Peninsula, wherever the hell the Yamal Peninsula was, but what would he do from there? He didn’t speak Russian, didn’t know a thing about getting around there, didn’t know exactly where the alien ship was.

  If he wanted to find this place where the alien ship had landed, he’d need a guide, someone who knew his way around, knew what was going on.

  And he had an idea how to find one.

  ”The U.N.,” he said.

  The cabbie didn’t ask any questions or start talking about Serbians; he just swung east at the next corner and headed downtown.

  Rasche sat in the back of the cab, watching the familiar streets and buildings stream by, thinking over what he was getting into.

  From what he’d heard on CNN and seen in the headlines, Pentagon spokesmen had been making threats, talking about a preemptive strike. The Russians had been countering with warnings of retaliation for any uninvited intrusion. Commentators talked about the sudden chill in U.S./Russian relations, and how even if this particular problem were cleared up there might be lasting damage. The whole world was closer to World War III than it had been at any time since the Soviet Union collapsed.

  And all along, Rasche thought, the people in power, the people making threats and counter, threats, surely knew that there weren’t an
y misplaced nukes involved.

  He used to wonder sometimes what had made Schaefer so bitter, what had happened to convince him that the human race was worthless, what had made it so hard for him to feel, to care about anything.

  At that particular moment, Rasche thought he knew.

  He didn’t give a shit about the politics involved in this mess; he was a loyal American, but that didn’t mean he had anything against Russians, or that he thought much of General Philips and company. Those clowns weren’t fighting for Rasche’s idea of freedom, democracy, or America-they were acting out of simple greed, out of a quest for power. They wanted to have the military strength to tell the rest of the world to go to hell, and they didn’t care how they got it.

  Not that the Russians were much better. Somehow Rasche doubted that Moscow was going to share the alien technology with the peoples of the world, should they happen to acquire it, and if someone like that loon Zhirinovsky ever got elected president over there it could be bad news-but that wasn’t Rasche’s problem. The generals could smack each other around until doomsday for all he cared.

  What he cared about was Schaefer. He was dealing with the world on a smaller, more personal scale than the generals and bureaucrats. He’d always figured that if everyone did that, if everyone minded his own affairs and lived up to his own responsibilities without getting any big ideas, the world would be a better place.

  Rasche didn’t know much of anything about politics, but he did know that he wasn’t going to let anyone-not the feds, not the Russians, not the aliens-mess with his friends or family while he sat by and did nothing.

  He paid the cabbie and marched into the U.N. Secretariat Building.

  ”Where do I find the Russian ambassador?” he demanded at the lobby information desk.

  The guard started to give him the standard brush-off, but Rasche pulled out his badge and went into his “serious problem” speech.

  Ten minutes later he was pounding his fist on a receptionist’s desk, demanding immediate admittance to the inner office.

  ”You can’t barge in on the ambassador without an appointment,” she protested.

  ”Just tell Boris, or Ivan, or whatever the hell his name is, that I know about that thing in Siberia,” Rasche told her. “Tell him that, and he’ll see me. It’s on the Yamal Peninsula at a place called Assyma - I know all about it. I know about the American team that’s gone in...”

  ”Sir; I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the receptionist said. .

  ”But I do,” a deep voice said.

  Rasche and the receptionist turned to look at the grayhaired man standing in the inner doorway.

  ”I heard the commotion,” the gray-haired man said.

  Rasche had expected that; that had been the whole point of being loud and obnoxious in the first place.

  ”I’m sorry, Mr. Ambassador,” the receptionist said. “He was very insistent.”

  ”It’s all right, my dear,” the gray-haired man said soothingly. “Send the policeman in.”

  Rasche smiled.

  ”Oh, and please, Sheriff,” the ambassador said as he ushered Rasche inside, “my name is not Boris or Ivan. I am Grigori Komarinets.”

  Chapter 23

  Ligacheva slid the brimming shot glass across the table to Schaefer.

  ”Here, American,” she said bitterly. “A toast to Yashin’s success.”

  Schaefer stared expressionlessly at the drink. The vodka was Stolichnaya, of course, and the glass was reasonably clean, but he didn’t pick it up right away.

  Ligacheva lifted her own glass and contemplated it. “So eager to engage the enemy, my Sergeant Yashin. So eager to taste first blood,” she said.

  ”They’re all going to die,” Schaefer said flatly. “All those men.”

  Ligacheva paused, her glass of vodka in hand, and stared at him.

  ”Yashin is acting just like those things,” Schaefer told her. “He lives for the fight, the thrill, the blood.” Schaefer picked up his drink and swallowed it. “Hell, maybe we all do.” He thumped the empty glass down on the table. “The thing is, they’re better at it than we are. So Yashin and the rest are all going to die.”

  Ligacheva lowered her drink and set it gently on the table, still untouched. “I thought you Americans were the world’s great optimists,” she said. “You talk of freedom and peace and color television, and you go about your lives happily certain that someday you’ll all be rich...” She shook her head and stared at Schaefer. “So what happened to you?” she asked.

  Schaefer reached for the bottle. “I got a look at the American dream,” he said. “Two-car garage, June Cleaver in the bedroom, one and three-fourths kids-and a Smith & Wesson in the dresser drawer, just in case things don’t quite work out.” He poured. “Except lately it seems the cars are in the shop, June’s on Prozac, the kids are on crack, and the Smith & Wesson’s getting plenty of use.”

  ”I don’t know this Prozac,” Ligacheva said. “And I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  ”It doesn’t matter,” Schaefer said. He bolted the second shot. “Look, you think I don’t care what happens to your men-maybe I don’t. Maybe I can’t care anymore. But that’s nothing. What matters is that nobody cares. The people who put us here sure don’t give a shit. We’re just numbers to them, an allotment, another piece of equipment; we’re low tech and easy to maintain.”

  Ligacheva shook her head and gulped her own first drink. “That can’t be true,” she said. “Some don’t care, maybe-there are always bad ones.”

  ”Nobody cares,” Schaefer insisted. “Except those things out there. That’s why they’re going to win-because they believe in what they’re doing here. Nobody sent them. Nobody ordered them to come. Nobody screwed them out of their jobs, or their freedom, or their lives. They come here because they want to, because it’s fun.”

  Ligacheva frowned. “You seem to believe you have a special understanding of these creatures. You say these things as if you know them.”

  ”Maybe I do,” Schaefer said. “I’ve survived dealing with them once, anyway, which most people don’t. I understand enough about them to know there’s something wrong about their being here, in this place.”

  ”Explain.”

  ”They don’t care much for the cold,” Schaefer told her. “I should know-the last time we met, the only thing that saved my ass was a half inch of summer rain. They like it hot-so what the hell are they doing here? And they come here to hunt, to kill people for fun, to collect our skulls as trophies, well, I don’t see a lot of people around here, do you? Besides, if they were here to hunt us, if they really wanted us dead, we’d have been hanging from the yardarms hours ago, like your friends down the corridor.”

  ”Why are they here, then?” Ligacheva asked. “Why did they butcher Galyshev and the others? My squad-they killed them, too, but maybe we were intruding, getting too close to their base. But what did the workers do? You say they hunt for fun, as we hunt animals-all right, where is the sport in such a slaughter? And why ruin our heating system?”

  Schaefer shook his head. “Those workers were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, would be my guess,” he said. “Whatever they were after, I don’t think the aliens were looking for those men. Hell, I don’t think those things wanted to be here at all. I think this is a detour, the wrong exit, something went wrong and landed them here, and they don’t like this shitty weather any more than we do. They’re in a bad mood, and your buddies got in the way, that’s all.”

  Ligacheva shuddered.

  ”They took things,” she said. “Pieces from the pumps and the wiring.”

  ”Spare parts,” Schaefer said. “Their ship ... maybe something’s broken, and they’re trying to fix it.” He considered the bottle thoughtfully, and then put it down without pouring a third drink. “Must be like trying to repair a Porsche with whalebone and baling wire,” he said in English. He didn’t have the Russian vocabulary for it.

  ”Surely, these th
ings are capable of great ingenuity,” Ligacheva said in Russian.

  ”Surely,” Schaefer agreed. “Aren’t we all?”

  As Ligacheva and Schaefer spoke in the pumping station’s common room, the other Americans sat dejectedly in the military barracks.

  ”This is embarrassing,” Dobbs said. “The Russkies took us down before we could get off a shot! “

  ”I want to know what happened to that lousy cop,” Wilcox said. “We’re freezing our asses off in here while he’s kissing up to that butch lieutenant...”

  ”Shut up, Wilcox,” Lynch said. “All of you shut up.”

  ”Why?” Wilcox demanded.

  ”So we can plan how we’re going to get out of here and what we’re going to do once we’re out,”

  Philips told him. “Did anyone see where they put our gear?”

  ”That storeroom across the hall,” Lynch said. “But, sir, I don’t see how we’re going to get out of here.”

  ”Our orders were to secure the alien ship,” Philips said, “and we sure as hell can’t do that from in here, now can we?” He reached down and pulled a flattened cylinder from his boot-the Russians had taken their packs and had patted them down, but the search hadn’t been very thorough. “So we grab our equipment, we secure the station, and then we head out for that ship. Now, give me a hand with those mattresses ...”

  A few moments later the guard at the barracks door heard shouting and banging. He turned, startled.

  He had had English in school, of course, everyone did. He hadn’t used it in years, though, and he had never actually spoken English to anyone outside a classroom. He struggled to make out words through the locked door.

  One voice seemed to be doing all the shouting. “Hey!” the American called. “You out there! You speak English? Ever seen a Super Bowl? You watch X-Files? What’s the capital of Sacramento?”

  The guard could not follow that. He struggled to remember the words he wanted.

  ”Slow,” he shouted back. “You talk slow, please!”

  ”The door!” the American shouted.