by Ryder Stacy
FREEDOM’S CHAMPION
Nearly a hundred years have passed since Russia’s nuclear first strike on an unprepared United States. As America struggles out of the radioactive rubble, a leader emerges to guide the American rebels in their most desperate hour. He is the ultimate soldier of survival, the Doomsday Warrior himself, Ted Rockson.
But even Rockson can’t evade the clutches of the brutal Soviet invader. Captured and tortured by the KGB, Rockson manages to escape into the searing western desert where, hungry and delirious, he is suddenly swept into the whirling vortex of a violent post-nuke mega storm . . .
. . . and awakes in the time-trapped streets of 20th Century Salt Lake City—a city held prisoner by the hallucinatory powers of a demonic tyrant called The Chessman. Whether real or imagined, the Doomsday Warrior has no choice but to battle The Chessman in the most dangerous game of all—the game of life and death. At stake is the survival of an American city . . . and the future of the free world!
DOOMSDAY
WARRIOR
TUNNELS INTO TIME
They appeared on the horizon, twin pillars of black tornado funnels over 100,000 feet high.
From his hiding place, wedged between three large boulders, Rockson shielded his face against the stinging wind and witnessed an awesome phenomenon.
The sands of the Utah desert, billions upon billions of tons, were rushing into the eye of the storm—a spectacle on a universal scale of Nature gone mad. The air was filled with lightning. And then, in the flash of an instant, a massive vacuum formed and collapsed. Desert and polar winds collided and the dynamic forces converted into a massive implosion-explosion.
And Rockson felt himself being sucked up from his hiding place into the wild blue yonder . . .
ZEBRA BOOKS
are published by
Kensington Publishing Corp.
475 Park Avenue South
New York, N.Y. 10016
ISBN: 0-8217-2021-X
Copyright © 1987 by Ryder Stacy
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
First printing: March 1987
Printed in the United States of America
One
The vulture soared high above the slowly moving dot that its keen eyes tracked far below. It waited, circling endlessly, moving forward every so often to keep directly above the figure on the broiling sands of the desert. For three days the vulture had watched this solitary creature stagger across the sands below. The figure was moving more slowly now; the vulture sensed it was near its end. The bird of prey flew closer to the ground, knowing its long wait was nearly over. Soon the two-legged creature would stop forever—the vulture’s keen dark eyes shone with something approaching anticipation. Its beak opened slightly. Soon . . . soon it would eat.
The dark bird flashed before the white-hot face of the sun, sending down a bit of shade. The solitary man stopped and looked up at the sky. He grimaced. The vulture, his companion, his funeral director, was still with him—only closer.
“Not yet, old friend, not yet . . .” said the man. For three days now, Ted Rockson had trekked the Utah desert. He was tired and thirsty. And though the tawny-skinned mutant warrior of twenty-first-century Free America was a special man whose physique had been shaped by mutated genes that inured him to great hardship, he was near his end. His genetic inheritance made him stronger than any man of the last century . . . but still a man needed water and food.
On he walked, not daring to stop for an instant. His bleeding kneecap poked through his torn pants. It still hurt—as did his wrenched shoulder—from the ordeal he’d been through: the mission to the far north. He had managed to set down his stolen Soviet jet in a canyon, only to see it crushed by falling rocks. Then he had begun the long walk, with a small gourd filled with stream water—long ago consumed.
He had to hang on. Had to get across the broiling wastelands to his hidden underground home base—Century City—headquarters of the Freefighters of America. He must live, fight on with all his might. For even now, over a hundred years after the surprise Soviet nuke attack that had devastated America, the battle raged: freedom versus totalitarianism. Ted Rockson, a.k.a. the Doomsday Warrior, still battled to wrest liberty from the Soviet occupiers. As the symbol of American resistance, his death would be a blow to freedom.
God, he was hot in his sealskin parka. But he dared not remove it. It was his only protection from the white-hot sun that beat down unmercifully, threatening to bake him alive. Besides, at night the temperature in this desolate area dropped to twenty degrees below. Not that he’d see another night. It seemed pointless, but nevertheless he’d go on.
He placed one foot in front of the other, vowing that he’d not give up. The vulture would have to wait some more . . . But twenty minutes later, he fell to his knees. He looked around one more time. And in his burning, painful, nearly blinded eyes he spotted something: a long sinewy green rope winding down from a sandy hillock. What the hell?
Unable to stand, he crawled closer, on hands and knees. He was about to touch it when he realized what it was—vegetable matter, living vegetable matter. A root of some kind that might secure a plant to the shifting sands. It could be dangerous to touch it, if it belonged to the plant he suspected lay at its end.
He crawled on, after a minute reaching the top of the sandy hill, and saw that at its very summit, sitting like a sentinel in the heat-rippling day, was a squat, cabbage-like plant of the desert—the bloodfruit plant. It was a very special plant. The bloodfruit’s juicy fruit, at the core of the odd spiky plant’s curled leaves, was bitter but nutritious. A godsend to a desperate desert traveler. He scrambled up the sand dune to reach it.
He was elated, for here was both food and water. He eagerly approached the plant—and was relieved to see that no scavenger of the desert had come before him and shorn it of its prize—its single bulbous central fruit. He was careful not to disturb the bloodfruit plant’s long tendrils which splayed out like spider’s legs on the sands. Rockson knew they would twist around an unwary animal’s body and entrap it. Then they would bring the eater into the plant’s mouthlike organ, hidden in the sand—and devour it with acid juices. The plant was carnivorous. It could even kill a man who was weak after days of desert wandering. Knowing this, he leaned carefully over the plant’s starlike core, and taking his knife out of his belt, he cut the red, ripe fruit out of the plant’s center. When he’d scrambled a sufficient distance from the feeler-tendrils, he stuck his knife into the fruit so that he could drink of its essence.
Ah, it was so good, so fresh and juicy, and not even bitter. A good pint of sap. Filled with pulp.
Rockson relaxed a bit. Things were looking up. He even sprinkled a few drops of his fevered brow.
He ate of the thick pulp, cutting the remainder into narrow strips that he tied to his belt for eating later.
Refreshed, he walked onward. The sky began to cloud over; the temperature dropped to a tolerable level. The earth’s atmosphere, thinned by the nuke holocaust of a century earlier, let in more sunrays in the daytime. Cloud cover moderated that; and cloud cover tonight meant he could expect temperatures in this desolate area of Utah to drop to just below freezing. Too cold for an average man, but he was a hardy mutant. The white streak down the center of his black mane of hair, his lack of beard, his keen but mismatched dark blue and aquamarine eyes, attested to that. Given a chance, he’d survive the trek now, he’d make it.
But something happened. Just when it all seemed possible again, just when he was sure he’d make it—a pain r
ose in his gut. Then another pain that nearly doubled over the brave Freefighter the Soviet enemy called the Ultimate American.
His strength was no match for the poison—he realized that’s what it was. The bloodfruit must have been a different species from those near Century City. It had some sort of toxin in it. Shoving his fingers into his throat he tried to puke it up, but to no avail. The poison had been absorbed by his moisture-starved body.
Retching, he collapsed on the sands. Soon, weird images danced in his fevered brain. He lay in a fetal position through the freezing night—hours of torture, then dawn.
He felt slightly better as the temperature rose abruptly. Perhaps, he thought, the worst might be over—perhaps he’d ingested a nonfatal dose. He was feeling odd, but much better. He got up, started off again. He felt a cool shift in the air; a change in the weather was coming. His burning eyes searched the sky.
There. Due east—a darkness sweeping over the desert. A cloud, some sort of storm. It could be a dust storm, or only rain. If it was rain, it might be brief. The desert would soak it up; he’d be left only with what he could gather in his hands. And he’d soon be thirsty again. Man needs a pint of water a day. If he could put his parched lips below a runoff, or find a hole that collected water in a rock outcropping, he’d drink to his content.
If it was a dust storm coming, he’d most likely die. The granular particles, moving at a hundred miles per hour, would do him in. Dust storms out this way lasted for days.
He saw flashes of distant lightning—that didn’t tell the story one way or the other. Lightning was a part of both types of storm.
He moved onward, looking for a boulder, an outcropping, anything that might hold precious water if and when the rains came. The rolling clouds cast phantasmagoric shadows on the sands.
And before him suddenly he saw not a pile of rocks but a verdant oasis, palms waving in the cool breeze. The scene wavered slightly in a heat ripple. It was beautiful, serene.
How far? It was hard to tell—it could be a hundred yards or less. With an exclamation of joy, he ran toward it.
In a hundred feet, he knew the dreadful truth. The oasis evaporated. A mirage. Damned mirage.
He laughed. He fell down on his knees, laughing. The first drops of rain from the sodden sky hit him in that position.
Water. Rock opened his mouth, took in a few precious drops. Quick, he told himself take off your shirt, make a bowl of bunched material. It will soak up some, but maybe, if the rain is hard enough . . .
The ground grew darker, absorbing the big drops that now fell. His laughter at his folly turned to joy; peals of joy. The cupped fabric of his shirt started filling with water. The sky was dark now, the lightning brilliant, terrifying peals of thunder ripping at his ears. The wind was whipping up.
He drank, rubbed the wet shirt over his sunburnt face, cupped the material again, filled it, drank again. He was feeling better. He looked up. The line squall was already passing, but there was a strange, distant roar—constant, low, but there. A huge storm was brewing. High winds and mega-lightning. But for now the rain let up. His vision was better, his heart beat more regularly. You could now see for a dozen miles—and Rockson, sweeping the far horizon with his gaze, detected a plateau glinting like gold below an arching rainbow. It was over a thousand feet high if an inch. And it was unmistakable. The Glower’s Plateau! He had passed this way years ago, while on a mission to secure a new super-weapon for the Freefighters. The mica-filled plateau was an unmistakable landmark. He knew his way now, for sure. He’d try to live on just the water he had imbibed, if he could. Another day, maybe two, of hard trekking and he’d see his mountains. He’d be home at long last. He watched the sun setting behind the plateau. Let’s see, he knew that the sun set in the southwest this time of year in North America, and if his memory didn’t deceive him, the plateau was near the old site of Salt Lake City, which had been blasted to dust in the nuke war. To reach Colorado, he’d head off at a ninety-degree angle to the left of the plateau.
If he could just avoid hypothermia—extreme loss of body heat—tonight . . . Perhaps he would have to cover himself with the red dirt he now trod over. That would keep some heat in—a dirt sleeping bag.
There was a noise—mechanical—a vehicle. Rockson dropped to the ground, flat. Shit! It was a jeep! Over to the west. He hadn’t seen it, because it was coming out of the glare of the setting sun.
Voices—Russian words. Reds. A patrol. They were only a few hundred yards away. Had they spotted him?
He was unarmed, except for the knife. If they had spotted him, he was probably a goner.
A tall Soviet officer with a gold left eyetooth glinting in the sunlight stood laughing and pointing in the lead jeep. Pointing at Rockson. He was saying something about “follow the poor bastard, until he drops, but do it slowly . . .” He was saying something about taking bets on how long the solitary man would last—Rock knew enough Russian to understand that much.
Maybe, the Doomsday Warrior thought, just maybe I can smash that gold eyetooth down his foul-breathed gullet. Maybe I’ll see if he laughs then.
It was a tall order, for the jeep contained six men, all armed with Kalashnikov submachine guns. And there was another jeep coming up behind it.
Two
Lieutenant Lev Streltsy of the Soviet KGB was an ambitious and clever young officer. The descendant of an ancient Russian family whose ancestors had enjoyed privilege and favor from the tsars, Streltsy considered himself a rising star, anxious for opportunity. Little did he expect that the strange fugitive his squad had spotted and were now pursuing could be just that opportunity.
Most of the men stationed at the remote Petroff Fortress in the Utah desert considered their assignment odious. Not Streltsy. Proud and opportunistic, he found the nearly forgotten post ideally suited to his long-range secret dream: to lead a coup against the Soviet hierarchy in the West and establish himself as a modern-day star with North America as his personal domain and kingdom. Fort Petroff would serve ideally as his base of operations. Not only was it isolated beyond the watchful eyes of powerful administrators, but the garrison force of 1200 KGB operatives and young trainees provided a ready collection of misfits and nonconformists from which he could mold a cadre of loyal personal guards to support his counterrevolution. Since the leader of the KGB, Killov, had fallen from power, this had begun to be more than a mere dream.
The officers’ corps at Petroff also suited Streltsy. Comprised primarily of aged, unimaginative senior officers, Streltsy had quickly consolidated his position. The base commandant, Lieutenant General Fydor Dommsky, was more than willing to let the able young KGB officer assume the burden of command at his frontier post while he idled away the days with strong drink and sleep.
Streltsy had won the affection and loyalty of the garrison by appeasing their meaner instincts. He had regular shipments of vodka and other luxuries dropped at the base by cohorts in the Soviet Air Force. These he distributed freely to the men and they soon formed a jolly company of swashbuckling musketeers, devoted to their leader. Growing irreverent and bold in their isolation, the men openly mocked the military establishment that had banished them to this remote and desolate duty. On more than one occasion, during their drunken revelries, Streltsy had hinted at his grand schemes, and found his men receptive to the idea of rebellion.
To further activate their taste for blood and avarice, Streltsy had built a secret torture chamber. The “Bastille,” as the men called their playground, was a remarkable collection of medieval and modern torture devices that would have made Ivan the Terrible envious. Located deep underground in an abandoned missile silo several miles from the base, the Bastille served as a secret headquarters and pleasure palace for Streltsy’s band. Unwary travelers picked up by his men in their foraging patrols usually ended up screaming in agony in the Bastille. Many of the prisoners were kept alive as servants to the marauding KGB squads. Streltsy made sure his men were provided with mistresses and slaves to wet their
appetites for the new order he envisioned.
To Rockson, a Russian was a Russian: scheming, clever, disgruntled, ambitious, or whatever . . . they were all poison to him. And, despite his fatigue and nausea, he intended to do his best to avoid joining the “jolly company” of KGB’ers coming after him. He knew from the uniforms that these were Killov’s sickboys and he was sure that their welcoming committee had more than tea planned for him when he finally gave out.
In any case, the game was on—Rockson now walking slowly through the maze of sand dunes and boulder fields that dotted the broad desert plain, while the Soviet jeeps tailed him from a distance, taunting him. Under normal circumstances, that much negligence on the part of the enemy would have been more than enough of an advantage for Rockson to secure his escape, or even destroy them. But the bloodfruit he had eaten was affecting his mind as well as his body. He was fighting to maintain control. But the nausea and fatigue, coupled with the burning desert sun and dehydration, were taking their toll. His eyes burned and his temples pounded with pain. The weight of his arms pulled them down limply as he shuffled along barely able to grasp the knife in his right hand, his only weapon.
He searched the landscape for a break in the terrain, a place to hide just for a minute, enough to pull his heaving stomach together and rest his aching legs. There . . . just ahead . . . about fifty yards. A narrow defile thick with leafy undergrowth . . . perhaps an escape hatch. He renewed his effort, expending his final reserve of energy, his mind racing with anticipation. Bullets were suddenly unleashed, short bursts from automatic rifles kicking up sand around his feet. They were missing on purpose. If only he could make the defile. Closer and closer . . . another ten steps. He dove for the cover, landing in a belly flop on a stretch of salt flat, the lush green foliage disappearing as the wisp of mirage it was. Rock spat a mouthful of briny sand.