Hickok glanced back at the alley, then at the chopper. He grinned and leaned forward slightly. "I know all Russian soldiers are supposed to be able to speak Russian and English, right?"
Major General Ligachev squared his shoulders. "All of our troops are bilingual. Why?"
"I want to be sure you'll get my drift when I give you our answer."
"Which is?" Ligachev snapped impatiently.
"Get stuffed."
Chapter Seventeen
Blade executed a flying dive, his hands grabbing for the Falcon and the Beretta in midair. He came down hard on his elbows and knees, his body prone, and pointed the pistols at the three Soviet troopers.
The trio tried to bring their AK-47's to bear. Impulsively, the foremost Russian elevated his barrel and fired from the hip, the blasting of the AK-47 being added to the wail of the klaxons. In his haste he missed.
Blade squeezed off a shot from the Falcon in his right hand, and he saw the round catch the soldier between the eyes and send the man stumbling backwards into one of the other troopers. The unaffected soldier raised his AK-47 to his shoulder, apparently foolishly intending to take the time to aim, but in the interval of less than a second that it took him to lift the assault rifle, a slug from the Beretta bored into his brain and burst out the rear of his skull.
The second Russian dropped.
Leaving only the third, who had shoved the first man aside and was bringing his AK-47 to bear on the giant when the Falcon and the Beretta both boomed. As one, the twin shots ripped through the soldier's head and he spun around into the wall, then collapsed, leaving a crimson stain where his head made contact.
Blade heaved erect and sprinted to the three men. He wedged the pistols under his belt, then claimed two of the AK-47's for his own, slinging one over his left shoulder and cradling the other. Moving fast, he walked to the door, glanced at the small sign that read STAIRWELL, and shoved the door wide. He entered the stairwell and paused on the landing.
The stairs continued upward, but there was no reason for him to ascend them. He started down at a brisk pace, taking three steps at a stride, thankful the blaring klaxons weren't as loud in the stairwell. Two floors passed without any problems arising, and then a Russian soldier appeared on the next landing, hastening toward the Warrior.
The trooper's eyes were on the steps.
Blade halted and leveled the AK-47. "Freeze," he barked.
Startled, the Russian looked up. He made a desperate attempt to train his AK-47 on the giant.
The Warrior sent a short burst into the soldier's chest, and the impact hurled the man rearward to crash onto the landing with his arms outflung. The trooper's AK-47 sailed over the edge of the landing and plummeted to the bottom of the stairwell, clattering noisily when it hit the bottom.
Blade took the steps four at a time now, dominated by an urgent feeling to get well clear of the hospital before more reinforcements than he could handle arrived. He grinned when he saw the final landing below, and he dashed to the door and pressed his left ear to the panel.
Just as someone barreled into the door from the far side.
The door struck the Warrior in the temple and he threw his left forearm against it in sheer reflex, stopping its movement.
"What the hell!" someone blurted out on the other side.
Blade grabbed the edge and heaved, yanking the door open as he side stepped, aiming the AK-47 at the stocky figure in front of him.
Another Soviet soldier, a young officer armed with a pistol in a holster on his right hip, gaped at the giant. "You!" he cried.
"Me," Blade said, and blasted the Russian at near point-blank range.
The man crumpled in a disjointed heap.
Somewhere a woman screamed.
The Warrior stepped over the officer and hurried down the corridor.
Unlike the sixth floor, this floor was crammed with people: nurses, doctors, patients, visitors, and other hospital staff, most of whom decided to make themselves scarce. They darted into rooms and slammed the doors. Those too scared or astonished to gather their wits simply flattened against the wall and watched him with wide eyes.
A man dressed in a white smock, a notebook in his left hand, stood his ground defiantly in the center of the hall and blocked the Warrior's path.
"Who the hell are you?" he demanded angrily. "What do you think you're doing? You're not going anywhere!"
"Bet me," Blade responded, and planted his left fist on the man's mouth. Teeth crunched, blood gushed from flattened lips, and the fool tottered rearward and fell, whining and gurgling.
A different woman screeched in terror.
Blade increased his speed, running as fast as he could, dodging people, carts, and wheelchairs. Thirty feet ahead he spied glass doors. Beyond the doors, beckoning him with the implied promise of freedom and hope, was sunlight.
A nurse built like a tank, over six feet in height and almost as wide, endeavored to intercept him. She moved to the doors and faced him with her hands on her broad hips. "Stop!" she shouted.
The Warrior slowed and motioned for her to step out of the way.
"You' re not leaving, you son of a bitch!" she growled. Then, incredibly, she charged him.
Blade shifted the AK-47 to his left hand and halted, his right fist clenching tightly, amazed at her behavior, amazed that an unarmed nurse would needlessly risk her life trying to stop him. Unless, as with Milton and Krittenbauer, the nurse wasn't as she seemed.
She assumed a boxing posture and waded into him swinging, her punches controlled and demonstrating a practiced rhythm.
Successfully dodging the first few blows, Blade was jarred by a clip on his jaw. He set himself and retaliated with a sweeping right to her nose.
The nurse clutched at her face and straightened, roaring in pain but still on her feet.
Blade frowned and went to skirt her, but her right hand flicked out and snagged his right forearm. Seething at the delay, he gripped the AK-47
and whipped the stock into her head with all of his might. She let go and wobbled to the right, her eyes fluttering. He promptly raced to the glass doors and pushed through to the outside, blinking in the bright sunshine, and inhaled the odorous city air gratefully.
He was out!
Below the concrete steps leading to Kruschev Memorial, running from north to south, was a bustling street packed with pedestrians and traffic.
A few of the passersby stopped to gawk at him as he emerged, but the majority were too involved in their own affairs to pay him much attention.
That all changed a moment later.
Blade headed for the sidewalk, and he was only halfway down the steps when a man attired in a blue uniform, a policeman, materialized off to the right.
The policeman took one look and clawed at his service revolver. "You there! Halt!" he yelled.
Growing increasingly perturbed by the constant obstacles to his escape, Blade crouched and swung the AK-47 around to bear on the officer.
"Don't!" Blade warned, but his shout went unheeded. He saw the service revolver begin to clear the holster and he squeezed the trigger. The AK-47
chattered and a half-dozen rounds thwacked into the policeman and flattened him on the spot.
Pedestrians shrieked and clamored in alarm. They pushed and jostled one another in their haste to vacate the vicinity of the concrete steps.
Blade cleared the remaining steps in three leaps and alighted on the sidewalk. The traffic in the street flowed at a slow pace because of the congestion and the fact that a few of the drivers had witnessed the death of the policeman and then braked to stare at the Warrior in dumbfounded shock. Off to the north a siren blared, and Blade could see a flashing red light in the distance, coming closer rapidly.
He needed to get out of there!
But which way?
Instinct more than anything else made him suddenly whirl toward the hospital entrance. He hadn't heard any unusual sounds. He hadn't detected any motion out of the corners of his
eyes. He simply sensed that there were adversaries to his rear and the short hairs at the nape of his neck prickled his skin. His instincts served him in good stead.
Coming through the glass doors were four soldiers. The foremost trooper opened fire the instant he stepped into the sunshine.
Blade threw himself to the left and bruised his elbows on the concrete when he landed. A hail of lead zipped through the space he'd just occupied and pinged into a car parked at the curb. He tilted the AK-47 upward and cut loose. Hit in the torso and flung rearward, the foremost trooper smashed into the glass doors and dropped.
Undaunted, the three remaining soldiers joined in the battle.
Blade knew they would slay him within seconds if he stayed put, so he moved, he moved to the right, reversing direction, rolling over and over, keeping his body always on the go. If he stopped he was dead. So he rolled and rolled with the bullets striking the sidewalk all around him until he came to the end of the steps and a stone wall three feet in height temporarily sheltered him from the troopers. He rose to his knees, astonished he didn't have so much as a scratch, and aimed at the three soldiers, who were rushing down the stairs toward the wall. One of them snapped off a few hasty rounds, and then Blade fired a sustained burst, sweeping the AK-47 from right to left, mowing the trio down. They thrashed and convulsed as the rounds perforated their bodies, and one of them vented a scream of primal terror at his demise.
Move! Blade's mind urged.
The Warrior rose and stepped to the curb. The flashing red light to the north was much nearer. He scanned the cars and trucks in the street, most of which had braked, the drivers regarding him in horror as if he was some kind of monster.
A yellow vehicle caught his eye.
Twenty-five feet to the south, stuck between a cement truck, was a bright yellow car, looking as if it had been recently washed and waxed. On the doors were the words YELLOW CAB, on the roof a plastic sign bearing the word TAXI. The vehicle attracted Blade's attention for three reasons.
First, there was only one occupant, a portly man behind the wheel.
Second, the yellow car was somewhat smaller than most of the cars in sight. Third, and most important, eight feet separated the cement truck from the taxi.
More than enough space.
Blade ran to the south, then cut between the cab and the black sedan behind it. He walked warily to the driver's door and poked the barrel of the AK-47 in the open window. "Out of the car," he commanded.
The heavyset driver, who had been about to talk into a square microphone in his right hand, looked around and gasped. His jowly features quivered and his brown eyes became four times their normal size.
"What?" he asked in disbelief.
"Out of the car," Blade repeated.
"What for?" the driver asked anxiously.
Blade yanked the door open. "I don't have time to explain. Out. Now."
To his surprise, the man mustered the courage to refuse.
"No way, mister. This is a company cab. If you wreck it, they'll dock my pay. I've got six mouths to feed."
The Warrior glanced to the north. The red light was several hundred yards off.
"So go ahead and shoot," the taxi driver was saying. "Or pound me to a pulp if you want. But I'm not turning this cab over to you."
Blade frowned and moved to haul the man from the cab.
"I can drive you wherever you need to go," the driver said quickly. "I can always tell the police you forced me to take you."
"Drive me?" the Warrior stated, and the idea appealed to him. He slammed the door shut and dashed around the front of the cab, the AK-47
trained on the driver with every stride, and slid in the passenger side.
The man licked his thick lips and blanched. "What are you doing?"
"You wanted to drive," Blade said. "Start driving."
"Me and my big mouth," the man muttered. He slid the microphone into a slot on the dash and looked at the cement truck. "Where am I supposed to go? The traffic is standing still."
"Use the sidewalk."
"The sidewalk? You're kidding."
Blade jammed the barrel into the man's side to demonstrate his sincerity.
"Okay. Okay. I can take a hint," the driver declared, and smiled wanly.
"My name is Harold. What's yours?"
"Drive," Blade ordered harshly.
"Anyone ever tell you that you have a one-track mind?" Harold asked.
The AK-47 dug deeper into his ribs. He looked down, gulped, and pressed on the gas, angling the cab to the right, onto the sidewalk, the tires bumping over the curb. He drove between the cement truck on the left and a wall on the right, the cab barely negotiating the narrow gap. Ahead were more vehicles, eight or nine, stopped in the street, the drivers all staring back at the hospital. Pedestrians on the sidewalk scurried for cover.
Blade spied an alley on his side, less than 50 feet off. "Into the alley."
"It's one way. It's illegal to enter from this direction."
"The alley!"
Harold glanced at the giant. "Hey, you want to go down the alley, we'll go down the damn alley. I learned a long time ago not to mess with guys who can bench-press a skyscraper."
"You wouldn't let me take the cab," Blade noted, constantly scrutinizing the street, the sidewalk, and the nearby buildings.
"I told you why. If you damage this cab, the bastards will make me pay for the damages. I can hardly feed my family as it is. If they take any more money out of my pay, we'll be out on the streets."
"You're devoted to your family?"
"Sure. Why the hell wouldn't I be?"
"Die-hard communists don't believe in the sanctity of the family," Blade mentioned to test the driver's loyalties. "Karl Marx wanted the family abolished."
Harold's lips compressed. He concentrated on the alley, and waited until he performed the turn before responding. "I can't believe you're a KGB agent."
"I'm not."
"You never know. The bastards are everywhere," Harold stated.
"I get that impression."
"You don't look like a run-of-the-mill criminal," Harold mentioned.
"I'm not."
"Who are you? Where are you from?"
"I'm from outside the Soviet territory."
"Outside!" Harold exclaimed, flabbergasted. In his excitement he inadvertently caused the cab to swerve to the left, almost colliding with the rear wall of a brick building.
"How long have you been driving?" Blade quipped, hoping the conversation might help the man to relax. His goal would be achieved much sooner if he could persuade Harold to assist him, wittingly or not.
"Are you really from the Outlands?"
"I never said the Outlands. I'm from outside the Soviet-controlled territory. That's all I can tell you."
"I'll be damned," Harold said. He braked as they came to the end of the alley and stared at the intersecting street. "I've never met anyone from the outside. All I've heard are stories." A break in the traffic flow permitted him to pull out, and he took a sharp right, nervously scanning the street for police cars. "What's it like out there?"
"I'll ask the questions."
"Oh. Sorry."
"First things first. Do you know where Gorbachev Air Force Base is located?"
"The old Hanscom Air Force Base? Sure. It's about fifteen, maybe twenty miles from here."
"Take me there," Blade directed.
"Okay."
Blade reached out and tapped the microphone. "What do you use this for?"
"To keep in touch with the dispatcher. If somebody needs a cab, they'll phone the company and the dispatcher will tell me where to pick up the fare," Harold explained, and chuckled. "Haven't you ever ridden in a cab before?" he asked in jest.
"No."
Harold did a double take. "You're putting me on."
"Can your dispatcher monitor the cab in any way?"
"How do you mean?"
"Does the dispatcher know where you are at any given
moment?"
"No, man. It's just a two-way radio, is all. Like a CB. You've used a CB
before, haven't you?"
"No."
Harold looked at the giant. "Where are you from? The moon?"
Blade smiled. He twisted and gazed out the rear window, checking for pursuit. "Life outside the Soviet zone is much different. Except for a few organized factions, the standard of living is about the same as it was during the Middle Ages. Functional cars and trucks are rare. Indoor plumbing is a luxury. The people are lucky if they eat one square meal a day." He paused. "Ironically, the standard of living in the Soviet territory is more like the life-style in the prewar United States than that in almost every other area, despite the Communist system the Russians have tried to impose."
"I get the impression you know a lot about the Soviets."
"I've dealt with them before."
A voice suddenly squawked from a small speaker. "Fifty-four. Pick up a woman wearing a green dress at the corner of Harvard Street and Walk Hill."
"That's me," Harold said.
"Ignore it."
The speaker crackled again. "Fifty-four. Are you alive? Did you copy?"
"Boy, will he be ticked off," Harold remarked, and twisted a dial to kill the speaker.
"How much trouble will you get into for driving me to the base?" Blade inquired.
"Not much. I saw what you did at the hospital, and I was about to let the dispatcher know I was stuck there when you commandeered my cab.
The police will believe me when I tell them I didn't have a choice. I don't think they'll punish me," Harold said.
"Good."
Harold looked at the giant. "Say, do you mind if I ask you a question?"
"Not at all."
"Why, exactly, do you want to go to Gorbachev Air Force Base? You're on the run, aren't you? The authorities are after you. Going there doesn't make sense. There are military types all over the place."
"I know."
"Then why go there?" Harold queried, and the giant's reply almost prompted him to tramp on the brake.
"I plan to attack it."
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