Doomsday Warrior 09 - America’s Zero Hour Read online

  McCaughlin found that they were eager to learn—and lose at poker. At the end of the first few hours they’d all had ten cups of powerful tea each from a samovar. When they began putting a little vodka in it, the game was forgotten. In Russian and English the conversation began to roam all over the place. It got interesting.

  “Freedom, bah,” commented one cynical vodka guzzler, the oldest of the techs. “The government—any government—is only good for taking your money and sending you or your son to war and for blowing up everybody. The revolutions all start out with good intentions, and then power corrupts. I say, back to nature—Chekhov’s ideal of real communal living.”

  The young one said, “No. In modern times, centralized government is necessary. A dictatorship of the workers—that is what Lenin wanted.”

  “And,” said Rock, “is that what you have?”

  “Well, it isn’t finalized yet. There are problems.”

  “You have no checks and balances, kid. The U.S. government always had the Supreme Court, the executive branch, and the legislature—and free press to expose and oppose the power-grabbers. Kept it all aboveboard, whether some politicians wanted it that way or not. All people born equal, but after that . . . they get according to the exertion and ingenuity they put out. From each according to his ability, to each according to his efforts.”

  “In Communist theory,” one of the techs said, “it is: To each according to his needs.”

  “Sounds like a system for slackers,” Rock replied. “Anyway, Communism doesn’t even do that. It’s all a farce. They use slogans: the workers ruling, freedom of the masses, and all that, and then they do just the opposite.”

  “True Communism will come—someday,” the technician answered. “My government promises me that when the wars are over, socialist man will rise—once and for all.”

  “Someday, someday,” said Rock. “In the meantime everyone is a slave.”

  Rock had set up the aircraft-detector grid that Schecter’s people had supplied. It could even differentiate types of aircraft. It was 11:57 A.M. the next morning when the buzzer went off. One plane. Rockson heaved a sigh of relief and went outside where the rest of the team watched the sky. There—a small Ilyushin N-3A twin-jet—streaking like a knife through the orange clouds and descending slowly to earth.

  “Make some more coffee, McCaughlin. And eggs and grits. I’d like to get to know Major Scheransky before we head north with the man.”

  The parachuter hit the center of a field a hundred yards to the left of the radio station. He was helped out of his harness by Detroit who reached him first, as he seemed to be having a hard time. And no wonder—for the man, a ruddy-faced fellow of about twenty-five, was roly-poly like a big lump of jello. Rock frowned. Is this the man they would take into a frozen hell after a madman like Killov? And where was this goddamn tracking device? Then he heard the plane returning, and he watched as a second chute billowed out.

  Scheransky gasped out in near perfect English, “Thanks, comrades! Here comes the antimatter meter.” He pointed to the sky.

  “I suppose that’s the missile tracker?” Rock asked.

  “Yes. It’s forty kilograms. I didn’t want to jump with it. Actually I’ve never jumped before. It’s exhilarating.”

  “Never jumped before? Are you in the Soviet Army?” Detroit asked. “Aren’t you a major?—your insignia says so . . .”

  The man flushed. “Well, I work in the lab. I’m a sort of lab major. Never had any combat experience. You know—got most of these medals here for inventions of a technical nature.”

  Rock said, “I see. Well, you’ll have to experience a little pain on this trip. I hope you have a strong heart because you’ll probably lose a few pounds. Quite a few . . .”

  The device floated down and settled perfectly on a thick pile of weeds. “It looks like a tripod-mounted submachine gun,” said McCaughlin.

  “But it isn’t,” said the major. “See? The barrel is solid—uses measuring scopes. I’ll have a trace on the radiation of Killov’s missiles once you get me to the point they were stolen from—and I can do some initial distance readings.”

  “Well, man, let’s get some breakfast in you and get going,” said McCaughlin. “You ever eat wild boar ham and eggs with grits back in Leningrad, pal?”

  Over breakfast Rockson introduced the men to the Red scientist. He addressed the men: “You probably like bringing the major along as little as I do. Russia and the U.S. are enemies and there will be no truce until they are out of America. If this wasn’t a necessary joint mission we’d be blasting away at each other. But it is a joint mission and I’m sure neither the Premier nor I will go back on our word, at least I won’t. And that means you won’t. Understand—this man is to be protected with your lives!”

  “Yes, sir,” they answered. But they all eyed Scheransky with suspicion.

  Scheransky smiled at them all. “You do as promised—so do I. We find the missiles and deactivate them, send for a team to dismantle them and ship them back to Russia as you rebels agreed. These weapons must be disarmed properly. We can’t blow them up; they’re antimatter bombs. They explode if strongly impacted. You are familiar, I suppose,” he continued, “with the Hiroshima bomb? The one that America dropped on Japan to begin the nuclear terror that still stalks the world?”

  “Yeah,” Detroit frowned. “We dropped it. It ended World War II, buddy. But we didn’t start World War II. Or World War III.”

  Scheransky’s face turned red. He said, “Well, there are many kilograms of antimatter explosive in the missile warhead. Each kilogram of antimatter is ten times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb. They may well be the most devastating weapons mankind has ever produced. Perhaps this blackie can’t understand this, but you can.”

  Detroit started forward, rage in his eyes. Rockson grabbed the black Freefighter’s sleeve and said, “Ease off, man. I want Major Scheransky here to tell us all exactly what the destructive potential of these bombs is. You say one kilogram is like ten Hiroshima bombs, Scheransky? So how many kilograms of antimatter are in each warhead that Killov possesses?”

  “That is a military secret of the Soviet people. I don’t have the authority—”

  Rockson picked up the Red by the collar and lifted him off the floor. “So you know, little scientist. Tell me or I’ll let Archer play punching bag with you.” The Soviet scientist looked at Archer, who sat on a nearby desk, bending its legs under his weight.

  “One hundred twenty,” the lab major shouted out, squirming around.

  Rockson dropped the little man. “One hundred twenty kilograms! That means ten times a hundred and twenty.”

  “My God,” shouted Detroit. “That’s twelve hundred times the power of the Hiroshima bomb.”

  The Soviet smiled. “That is correct. Of course, that is per missile—there are five missiles.”

  Detroit sat down and stared at the table. “How could anyone construct such a deadly thing? Just one of those missiles—could—could—”

  Rockson finished his sentence in a soft voice. “. . . Take out a quarter of the state of Colorado!”

  In a quiet mood, the men uncrated the antimatter meter. It was about four feet long. “Strange-looking thing,” Chen commented.

  “And kind of heavy,” Rock added, “to drag around with us.”

  “Yes, heavy,” Scheransky said, wiping his sweaty hands on his uniform pants, “but a marvel of Russian technology.”

  “Damn. We have to lug that thing all the way up into snow country?” said Detroit. “Why, the thing would take a ’brid of its own just to carry it.”

  “Can’t be helped,” Rock said. “It’s our only way of finding Killov.” The Freefighters gingerly set it down alongside the table. The antimatter meter was turned on by the Russian, for demonstration purposes. The long silver cylinder with rows of buttons and meters on it throbbed and pulsed, and then, to their amazement, it started moving. It was turning like a compass needle. It managed this maneuver bec
ause it had small ball bearings on its lower side.

  “It keeps collecting antimatter traces—meson particles in the air. Normally they don’t even exist. If a Meson-5 missile has come by the area within twenty days, the A-M meter should start clicking like a Geiger counter does for any ordinary radiation.” The Russian made a proud smile.

  “Hey,” said Detroit, “look at what was also in the package.” He held up a pair of red shiny metal boxes about six inches square and perfectly smooth, one in each hand. “There’s more little red boxes out there. Chen’s bringing—”

  “Be careful,” Scheransky shouted in bad English as he stood up, apparently terrified. “Place those down carefully. They are—dangerous.”

  Detroit placed them gingerly on the floor. They looked harmless enough. “What’s in them, Scheransky?”

  Scheransky wet his lips and resumed his seat. “They’re antimatter drains. They have to be attached to the missiles when we find them, inserted near the warheads. They deplete the antimatter. It’s the only way to disarm the warheads. Aside from pulling a few wires in the electrical system, disarming the missiles is child’s play. But we have to be very careful placing these ‘little red boxes’ as you call them next to the warheads. They must be placed in such a way—they are polarized—to reverse the poles . . .”

  “But they can’t explode by themselves, can they? You said they were ‘drains.’ How can a drain explode?” Rock asked.

  Scheransky smiled. “Antimatter drains have that capability, especially if jarred. Creates the explosive force of a hand grenade. The technical explanation is quite—”

  “We’ll handle them gently from now on. Detroit, why don’t you go tell Chen before he starts juggling the last red boxes.”

  “Will do.” Detroit exited with all due haste.

  “Now,” Scheransky said, putting his pale hands back flat on the table, “I volunteered for this mission. I hope you understand there will be—there must be no failure on your part, Rockson, to help me deactivate the missiles. They are not to be merely captured. The agreement is that the missiles will be returned to their owner—the Soviet Empire.”

  “We don’t need or want your fucking missiles. We’re winning without nuclear weapons, or antimatter weapons. Because we have freedom on our side. Vassily knows that we’ll never use weapons of mass destruction. History has taught us that’s a short-cut to hell. We want this planet to survive. My side will go through with the agreement.”

  Scheransky eyed this strange bronze-skinned mutant American. He stared into the mismatched violet-aqua eyes. He had been told Rockson was exceptional—and he was.

  “I will tell you what you need to know to help disarm the missiles, Rockson, just in case something happens to me. We must make haste. If we lose Killov, we might not be able to pick up his trail. We must never be more than ten days behind him. Nine to be safe.”

  “Doesn’t this meson radiation the missiles give out hurt people?” Rock asked. “That might be good to know.”

  “No. It passes right through the body. And it’s likely to imbed itself into the ground or ice below the trucks as they pass. The A-M meter works. I’ve tried it in Siberia, when we lost one of the missiles being transported by air. Led us right to the crash spot.” He bit his lips.

  “So,” said Rockson, “you have more of these babies. Vassily said there were only these five.”

  “No. There was one other, also being transported to Idaho—the Premier was afraid they would explode by themselves, which is theoretically conceivable, though unlikely. He didn’t want them on Soviet soil if . . .” Scheransky trailed off and looked at the floor. “Anyway,” he mumbled, “the sixth missile was damaged beyond repair and deactivated by one of those red boxes over there on the floor.” He looked up again. “I am telling the truth.”

  Now it was the Doomsday Warrior’s turn to assess the man before him. He decided to trust Scheransky—for now. He had a hunch this wasn’t the worst Red he’d ever run into. He was a scientist; his eyes bespoke real intelligence and thought. He lacked the hard eyes Rock had seen so often in Russian officers. But he’d keep an eye on him anyway. Rockson knew that Vassily was likely to double-cross them, if he could.

  Six

  It had been a routine flight from Moscow for the returning Russian President of the United States. With the traces of his last meal having just been cleared away, Zhabnov absentmindedly took a sip of bourbon. The three ice cubes tinkled reassuringly in his glass. His escape flight to Moscow a month earlier hadn’t been so pleasant. He’d warned Vassily repeatedly that Killov was getting too powerful, but Vassily had been preoccupied with his damned books. When the inevitable happened, and Killov’s KGB Blackshirts stormed Washington, Zhabnov had the cunning and foresight to have a chopper pilot on twenty-four-hour alert on the back lawn of the White House ready to carry him to a Mach 5 jet waiting on a hidden runway.

  Even then, he’d barely escaped the jaws of Killov, the Skull.

  A single tear came into each eye as he thought of his loyal palace guards who’d bravely fought the KGB Commandos. He really must raise a monument to them. They’d laid their lives on the line and had been sacrificed so that he might be saved. Oh, how he had wanted to stay in Washington and fight, but it was of paramount importance that he, the logical successor to the pinnacle of Red Power, survive. The twelve men of his field staff that he’d magnanimously allowed aboard his escape jet understood his importance. The long flight back to Moscow had been filled with toasts of his heroism and brilliance in preparing the daring escape.

  But he had been amazed, when he arrived in Moscow, that he didn’t get a hero’s welcome—a red carpet, an award ceremony. No. He’d been met with jeers, been called a yellow coward by Vassily himself. His reward had been pushing papers in the Kremlin under the watchful eye of Vassily’s black servant, Rahallah, whom he loathed even more than the paperwork. For four weeks that voodoo priest had made him feel like a slave, a lackey. Imagine he, Zhabnov, President of the U.S.S.A., doing mere clerical work under a blackie; his mind was meant for greater things. Leadership. Management of the Red forces of the entire U.S.S.A. And with his uncle Vassily lingering on his deathbed, it was only a matter of time before he would run the world. When news reached Moscow that the KGB troops occupying Washington had been defeated by the combined attacks of Red and American troops, Vassily had finally relented and given Zhabnov permission to return.

  He looked out the jet’s window and watched the sun streaming through the clouds, forming canyons as great as those of the Grand Canyon. He marveled that up here he was privy to the sun’s first rays while the earth below was still enveloped in darkness. He loved heights. The ascent after takeoff had been glorious. He’d felt as if he were a bird able to fly with his own wings . . . His wings may have been clipped in Moscow, but now once again he was a soaring eagle. He, Supreme President of the U.S.S.A., was flying to reclaim his birthright, his destiny.

  His reverie was suddenly interrupted by a flashing light above his seat and the sound of the pilot’s voice intoning, “Fasten your seat belt, sir. We’re approaching Washington.” This was the part he hated. Zhabnov squirmed deeper into his specially designed seat, wide enough for two ordinary men, and struggled to fasten the seat belt over his protruding belly. He hated descents. He was always afraid the jet would crash. Over and over he’d been given flying statistics which indicated that fewer accidents happened in the air than on the ground. But al though he loved statistics, he knew only too well how easily they could be manipulated. He hadn’t been above such things himself.

  The two glasses of bourbon were provided for him, as he had ordered. One for each fist. He gulped them both down and his knuckles grew white as he gripped the armrests in his hands. He clenched his teeth and closed his eyes tight like steel doors—so if death came, he wouldn’t have to see it.

  The sun was just coming over the horizon as the Soyuz Stratocruiser landed at Lenin International Airport. The sleek supermodern eight-engine jet,
equipped with the most advanced Russian computerized technology, landed like a living thing. Its wheels seemed to reach for the ground like claws. The pilot lowered the wing flaps and the engines reversed. Zhabnov opened his eyes in time to see the blur outside his window turn into hangars and ramps as the jet slowed to a taxiing speed down the runway. Zhabnov was back in Washington.

  He unbuckled his seat belt. At last he could get its annoying pressure off his stomach. Not only did it bother his belly, but it crushed the jacket of his bright olive uniform. He detested frumpiness. He was a spit-and-polish man. He wiped the nervous sweat off his oily countenance with a handkerchief and smoothed the few wisps of blond hair across his scalp in the reflection of his pocket mirror. He’d have to look his best for the brass-band reception that was surely waiting for him now that Killov had been routed out of Washington; out of the U.S.S.A. for that matter. The thought of Killov being on the run like a hunted animal caused Zhabnov to lick his lips with great satisfaction.

  The plane came to a halt. Zhabnov peered anxiously through his window for the crowd. They must be on the other side of the plane, he thought. He stood up and threw his shoulders back and sucked in his gut. Sticking his cap under his arm he strode purposefully to the exit. It came as a shock when he descended the staircase with four guards that no one was there to greet him. Not a soul.

  Zhabnov put his hand to his eyes to block out the morning sun’s rays and stared off into the distance. Maybe he was early? He dimly perceived a moving object coming down the runway to meet him. It was one long, low black vehicle—the White House Zil limo, with his presidential colors flying. His disappointment was pushed aside by the thought that it must be for his security, national security, that the runway had been cleared, that the crowds had been forced to disperse. Yes, that was it. It’s better that way. Safer.

  No sooner was Zhabnov seated than the door was slammed shut and the driver floored the pedal. The Zil limo with its presidential colors waving madly was off like a shot from a cannon and Zhabnov was thrown back against the seat.