Doomsday Warrior 12 - Death American Style Read online

  They saw men and women carrying everything from live, squawking chickens to rows of piglets, tender and juicy, for the President’s week of feasting. Men carried pots and pans, silks, watches—every damned thing that could be dug up, stolen, grown or made. Rock rolled up his collar over his neck and chin and let his hands dangle sort of stupidly at his sides as the others seemed to be doing. Archer had folded up his collapsible crossbow and had it stashed in a long pack around his shoulders. The two men tried to blend in as much as possible, with Archer actually half bending at the knees and hunching way over forward to try to get rid of a few inches of his height.

  It almost worked. Then a voice yelled out.

  “Will you look at that one—is it a man or an elephant?”

  “Hold it there, you ugly fellow,” another voice yelled out, and suddenly two guards had stepped in front of the Freefighters and were looking hard at the big one, although they seemed more amused than alarmed, their faces set in smirks as they thought of ways to publicly humiliate him. There’s nothing an oppressor likes more, especially a coward, than to humiliate his victims in public, so as to make himself feel like a man, a mental state that, paridoxically, these two would never know.

  “And just what is it you’re selling?” asked one of them, a pimply-faced teen, with stuff oozing out of his pitted, boil-ridden excuse for a face.

  “He’s a strongman,” Rockson spoke up quickly, feeling the weight of the .12 guage hot on his hip. But there were guards everywhere around the entrance. He and Archer would be cut to pieces. He’d have to play it slow and careful. “We’re here for the President, his Excellency’s shindig.” Rock was bowing his head forward as he spoke, so that they couldn’t get a good look at his face. Since his visage was on the top of all the wanted lists in the Russian offices, post offices and police stations around America, it was not exactly smart to go around showing full profiles!

  “Big shindig, he gonna be having dis day soon,” Rock spoke in the sort of semi-retarded pidgen English that he knew many of the lower levels of his countrymen spoke. It was a horrible fact, but many had mental defects from the radiation, the poison in the air—unprotected as they were, unlike the Russians with their breathing masks, purified air in their homes and workplaces. Everything filtered. But for the American workers, farmers, there had been no protection—just loss of IQ, of memory, of much that was part of their human potential.

  But Rockson’s half-mumbled words and his semi-groveling demeanor seemed to put the guards at rest. This was how they liked to see Americans act, after all. Even a big, strong man. He had to grovel before them, too.

  “How strong is that huge hairy ape, anyway?” one of them said, poking at Archer with the muzzle of his rifle. Rock saw the big fellow’s eyes start to bulge the way they always did when he was about to blow a gasket. But the Doomsday Warrior saw and spoke up loudly, catching Archer’s attention before he bit off the head of the prodder.

  “FRIEND,” Rock said loudly, staring at Archer’s eyes. “Why don’t you show them how strong you are.” Rock looked around, and saw a discarded rifle stock, rotted at one end, no use to anybody. He picked it up and handed it to the giant. Archer grabbed the thing like it was something he might eat, looking at it closely in front of his eyes, trying to understand just why Rockson had given him the thing.

  “BREAK,” Rock said, making a snapping motion with his hands. Archer’s eyes lit up like headlights and he gripped both huge hands around the stock and flexed. It wasn’t even as if it required any strength. The stock just snapped in two—three inches of walnut, hard as they came, broken like a toothpick. The giant laughed, showing a set of teeth that the Reds didn’t want to think about, then he threw it down at their feet and folded his arms in satisfaction.

  Both of the Russians’ faces turned a little pale as they stared at the scraps on the street. Then one of the troopers exploded in anger.

  “It’s rotted—that’s what,” the pimply-faced one exclaimed. He reached down and picked up one of the bigger pieces and hefted it in his hands with a look of “I’m going to expose your trick, asshole.”

  Gripping hard, he bent with all his might. Not a thing happened. For the wood wasn’t rotted—not an inch of it. He threw it down again and looked furious, but waved Archer and his smaller companion on through.

  “Bah, get the hell out of here, you mutants. Go do your trickery for the President.” Knowing he could do nothing, he spat down toward Archer’s feet, just missing one of the near-mute’s immense moosehide boots. Again, Archer’s face began turning red in the cheeks—like perhaps he might just take the fellow’s neck and turn it into scrap like the rifle stock. But Rock grabbed him by the arm and quickly led him forward, so that they were through the wide entrance of the gate before the troopers had a chance to start wondering. Once within the crowded city walls, Rock moved fast through the rivers of people carrying their wares everywhere.

  The place was a goddamned megalopolis. Rock had always taken a certain pride in Century City’s size and modernity, particularly compared to what had befallen so many of America’s towns and cities. But compared to this urban center, they were just smalltown boys out in the sticks.

  Archer stared around with jaws open, wanting to reach out and touch, grab, eat—everything around him. He walked along, turning, gaping, getting a smile on his face every few seconds as he saw some particularly colorful or bizarre object that intrigued him. The near-mute was like a kid in a toy store, and Rockson had to keep a constant eye on the giant to stop him from wandering off, or grabbing a handful of something passing by.

  The Doomsday Warrior wasn’t even sure what it was he was looking for. The whole Peace Conference seemed a farce. He had heard those words before—Americans and Russians working together, hand in hand. He and Vassily had met in Moscow several years earlier. The Premier had spoken of the same desire for peace—but the actual terms he had presented Rockson had been nothing short of legalized slavery, of institutionalizing the murder and abuses and third-class status of America’s true citizens. Ted Rockson would never put his signature to such a document. If he did, he would surely go down as the greatest villain in American history—selling her away. Far worse than Benedict Arnold or any other of her past traitors. Rockson had barely escaped from the Russian capital with his life. So, to say the least, he was on his guard.

  There were basically two possibilities as far as he could determine: Either the Premier really was having a change of heart—and was willing to make at least a few concessions toward the Freefighters—not that it would be enough, but at least worth checking into. If nothing else, Rock might gather valuable insights into the Russian empire’s deployment of forces, problems they were having, facts that would help the Freefighters and their contacts in other countries to better confront the Russian bear. Or it was a trap—an elaborate set-up just to snare Rockson and perhaps some of the other top rebel leaders.

  He assumed for the moment that the second was the case. Dragging Archer through just about every street in D.C., the Doomsday Warrior scouted out the town, searching for signs of trouble. They went past the monuments that still stood from America’s old days—the Lincoln Memorial, the Reflecting Pool, the Vietnam Memorial—all had been rebuilt by Zhabnov himself after their destruction in the Soviet Civil War several years earlier. They looked pretty good as far as Rockson could tell—maybe an arm drooping too much on Lincoln, Washington’s face broader than it had once been, with Russian characteristics . . . They came to the factory part of the city, where goods were produced twenty-four hours a day by slave labor. The chimneys of numerous long, windowless buildings, four to eight stories high, were churning out products for the Red Army, for shipment to Moscow—or for Zhabnov’s personal use. Clothing, small machines, prefab housing and dozens of other simple to produce goods were all being made. The smoke from the stacks was foul, filled with by-products, chemicals that smelled like they would do great damage to the lungs over a few years.

  Then
they passed through the whorehouse section—blocks of broken down buildings, although these were in better condition than much of the regular slave quarters, if only because many of the Russian troops and officers frequented at least the higher class of the establishments. Women, from 16 to 60, paraded their wares in doorways and windows, promising all sorts of unusual treats at very reasonable prices. Most of the females looked terrible, like something out of nightmares—bloated, pale, their faces all made-up and old. Even girls of 18 or 19 looked like 50 year olds, had already seen hell. They came on to the two men as they walked by, yelling out at them, exposing various parts of their bodies, performing little grinding dances that left nothing to the imagination. Rock again had to keep pulling his companion back from diving into the arms of one or another of the pathetic sirens. But he couldn’t blame the man. In his simple-mindedness, Rock knew, the near-mute probably thought they all were reaching out for him—wanted him. And it was only his responsibility to give them what they wanted.

  Then Rock and his companion were in the slave quarters of the city—the northern quadrant, designated for the hovels of the American workers. Block after block of ruins, of buildings with their windows missing, with walls half collapsed. On the street lay men and women in various states of consciousness and decomposition. Drunks, drug addicts, and just plain sick and maddened citizens who had had enough and had just lain down against the curb and waited to die. For although the Reds had elaborate medical facilities for their own, the American workers were left to their own devices. Virtually no aid was given to them. To get sick in the slave sections, with any sort of serious illness or wound, was to die. It was that simple. The weak, the unfortunate, all didn’t last very long.

  Seeing the way his own people were being treated made the bile rise up in the Doomsday Warrior’s throat. If the bastards were serious about making substantive changes, they’d have to start here right in their own fucking backyard. But it made him equally as furious to see Americans allow themselves to sink so low, even in the face of the toughest of circumstances. He had seen Freefighters who were poor all over the country. In fact, many of the rebel cities were extremely poverty stricken. And yet never did he see anything less than complete pride and self-worth in every man and woman. For they were fighting for what they believed in. Their souls, their energies were burning like low candles within them. While these—these miserable wretches had just given up, had sunk down into wormlike states where anything that was done to them was permissible. They lay stinking in their own foul excrement as streams of urine and feces ran along each side of the street. Rock had to suppress his own rising emotions to kick the bastards awake and right down the street. Every one of them. No man should live or look as they did.

  Within about five hours they had made a complete circuit of the city. Whatever sort of trap Rockson was searching for, he didn’t find it. There were none of the telltale signs. No muzzles poking down from rooftops, no Red Army faces squinting from behind curtains, from cracks in basement doors. The bastards weren’t that good—or that careful. If they were there, he would see them. Someone would make a mistake, show himself—a glint of steel somewhere. But he couldn’t find any. And soon, coded messages from Chen and Scheransky, sounding like static, nothing more, crackled on his walkie-talkie. The message stated that they, so far, had found nothing unusual.

  After going over the evidence in his mind, after checking the intuition of his mutant’s unconscious—Rock made a decision. He led Archer back toward the south end of the town, where things again got nicer and cleaner by the block. Then they were at the gates that separated the Red part of the city from the rest of the American riff-raff. Here guards were posted everywhere, with machine-gun posts in place around the White House, the Capitol Building. “We’re now delegates, Archer. You and me!”

  Rock walked right up to the Red who appeared to be the commanding officer of the front lines, as Archer gulped nervously and kept trying to pull at his sleeve, certain that the Doomsday Warrior didn’t quite understand what he was doing—walking right into the enemy’s clutches. Rockson stopped a few feet from the nervous Red who was already starting to reach for his service revolver.

  “I want to see the President—and Premier Vassily,” Rockson said firmly. “I’m Ted Rockson, the Doomsday Warrior. I believe they’re expecting me.”

  Eighteen

  If Archer’s eyes had been bulging at all the goodies he kept wanting to snatch in their circumnavigation of the city of Washington, they were positively ready to pop as he and Rockson were led down a long red carpet that ran from the front gate all the way to the White House door. The guards had alternately not wanted to believe he was Rockson—or had believed it and wanted to shoot him on the spot. But when Zhabnov’s aide de camp came hastily out from the White House and smiled at Rockson, he reprimanded the Officer of the Guard for not being more polite to “our guests from the West.” He commanded the officer to call him or his assistants when any Freefighters showed up seeking entry. Otherwise—it would be his head.

  Rock still wasn’t sure whether the whole thing was being done to lull him into a false relaxation—or whether the crazy bastards were on the level. But whatever the case, he could see that they had spent a shitload of ruples to do it. For, the moment they walked in the front door of the White House, they were greeted with blasts of horns by several dozen men wearing Revolutionary War outfits—American Revolutionary War uniforms. Rockson could barely suppress the laughter welling up inside him. The Russian troops looked ridiculous, their big beer bellies protruding out of the half-rotted blue uniforms that looked as if they’d been dug up out of some dank basement somewhere. They lifted their long brass horns to their red faces and blew out a chorus of “America the Beautiful” with quite a peculiar Russian back beat to it.

  The two Freefighters walked between the rows of elite Russian guards on each side of a long marble staircase. Rockson looked out over the vast Ceremonial Room filled with both Russian brass and American Freefighters who had come from around the country in answer to the Russian call for peace. The place was a whirlpool of color and sound as the delegates mingled and tried to act friendly. At the bottom of the stairs, waiting for their “guest of honor,” stood the two men who controlled the destiny of all mankind—Zhabnov, with his fleshy jowls virtually exploding out from around his ultra-tight collar, and Premier Vassily, sitting motionless in his wheelchair, his servant Rahallah, who Rock had also met before, standing right behind him, attired in a spotless white tux, his hands resting on the back of the chair, ready to wheel—or kill to protect—the Grandfather. The whole gang was here.

  They all wore false smiles atop their freshly pressed, razor-creased uniforms. Zhabnov had a bizarre combination of Russian eighteenth-century czar-style outfit, mixed in with a little George Washington-type ruffles and brass buttons. He looked quite grotesque. Vassily, on the other hand, wore what he always did—his gray suit, with a fur throw over his lap and chest. He was always cold. Never did his frail, slowly dying body feel warmth.

  “Ah, Mr. Rockson, so good of you to come,” Zhabnov said with puffed red lips, extending his manicured hand toward the Doomsday Warrior. “We were becoming afraid that you weren’t going to come to this historic meeting.” Rock took the hand with a look of disgust and shook it. The President’s grip was loose, hardly able to squeeze, like shaking hands with a balloon filled with dough.

  “Mr. Rockson,” The Premier said with a softer, subtle smile as he held up his trembling, liver-spotted hand. Rock shook this hand with slightly more respect. Although he hated the man, he did respect him. He was a dictator, but at least not a thief or a liar like the fat man by his side. Rock held out his hand as well to Rahallah, who looked surprised at the gesture, as did the two others. But Rockson believed in the freedom of all men, black, white . . . Besides, he liked the black African prince, having talked with him when he had been “invited” to Moscow.

  Rahallah’s eyes seemed to flutter for a moment like a
television slightly out of focus, and then a broad smile came on his face and he took the hand and shook it with strength.

  “Well, tell me—why didn’t you take one of our planes or helicopters?” Zhabnov asked, clapping his hands together like it was all a big pajama party or something. “The others did.” He gestured around at the milling crowds of delegates, nearly a hundred of them, who had formed in groups around the immense marble floor.

  “I didn’t take your offer,” Rock said coolly, “because frankly I don’t trust any of you worth a damn. Besides, I like to take the scenic route—get to see what you Reds have done to my country. See it in intimate detail. What the others did—that’s their business. That’s one of the nice things about being a free man—you can do whatever the hell you want.”

  “Come now, Mr. Rockson,” Vassily said softly, coughing slightly as he spoke. “Let’s not start off this ultimately important meeting with unfriendly words. My offer to you—to all the Freefighters—is sincere. I assure you. Do you think I would come all the way from Moscow, risk my health—my generals trying to overthrow me back home—just to capture you? I assure you—you are but a snag in a vast machine turning throughout the world.”

  “I distrust because the last time I saw you,” Rock said icily, “the offers you made to me were insults—nothing more than an official agreement that Americans agree to be your slaves.”

  “I promise you, it is different this time,” the Premier replied, starting to look a little angry. He saw himself as a benign man—but he was also a total and autocratic ruler. He was used to having his own way, and in his world no one ever dared question him. Here was a filth-coated rebel challenging him in front of his stupid nephew, in front of his officers. But he swallowed it and somehow forced a smile from his pencil-line-thin lips. “I learned from the last meeting—and thought. I ask only that you give my ideas a fair hearing. Isn’t that what ‘free men’ do—weigh things without prejudice, give all ideas a chance?” He said the words “free men” with a certain sarcasm, but Rock relaxed just a little.