Red Horseman

by Stephen Coonts

  When they had gone about half a kilometer the colonel told the soldier to stop and put down the kickstand. Then he shined the flashlight into the soldier’s eyes and shot him while he stood blinking helplessly.

  The man went down without a sound. The colonel dragged the corpse off the road into some weeds.

  With his gun in one pocket and the flashlight in another, he climbed aboard the motorcycle and eased the kick starter down until he felt compression. Then he raised himself up and gave a mighty kick.

  No.

  Again.

  Nothing.

  Again.

  The fourth time the machine chugged once, but he fed it too much gas and it died.

  This time he got all of his body weight into the downstroke of his leg and the machine gurgled into life. As he sat astride the saddle and waited for the engine to warm, the colonel used the flashlight to check his wristwatch. Almost an hour gone. One hour of darkness left.

  Carefully he disengaged the clutch, popped the transmission into gear, and eased the clutch out. The engine almost died but he caught it with the throttle and let the clutch engage. The sound the engine made was well-muffled since the machine was fairly new.

  The colonel brought it to a stop a hundred meters short of the gate to the reactor facility. He walked from there.

  Two of his men were waiting by the door.

  “We thought we heard an engine a few moments ago,” one told him.

  “You did. A car. I parked down the road in case someone comes by. Are the detonators set?”

  “Yes, sir. All you need to do is set the timer. Do you want us to go on down and sit in the car until you come?”

  “Okay. I need maybe ten minutes. I’ll send the others along.”

  When these two were about twenty-five feet away with their backs to him, he used the silenced submachine gun.

  It wasn’t fair, but there it was. He had transport for one. The reactor had to be destroyed. After he had shot them he walked over to where they lay and put a bullet into each man’s skull.

  One of his men was in the control room. “I’ve got a car parked down the road out of the light,” he said. “Go sit in it until I get the device armed.”

  “How much time are you going to give us?”

  “What’s the maximum possible time?”

  “One hour.”

  “Then that’s what we have.”

  “That would be a lot if we had a helicopter,” the man objected reasonably, “but we don’t. What if we have a flat tire or this car breaks down?”

  The colonel wasn’t in the mood. “We take our chances. Where’s Vasily?”

  “In the reactor space checking the wires and detonators one more time.”

  “Go wait in the car.”

  Just before the man reached the door the colonel took the submachine gun off his shoulder and shot him. As he was lowering the weapon the door to the reactor clicked shut.

  He heard a noise, running feet. Damn! Vasily.

  The colonel popped the magazine from the weapon and replaced it with a full one. After he had checked to ensure it was seated properly, he opened the heavy, lead-lined door to the reactor space and slipped in.

  A bullet smacked into the wall.

  What else can go wrong? Sweat broke out on his face. A more dangerous place for a gunfight would be hard to imagine. One stray bullet could sever a critical wire or punch a hole in a pipe carrying molten sodium or water or steam or…

  He was inside against the wall, the door on his right side. Another bullet whapped against the wall.

  The silenced pistol was in his left hand, the submachine gun in his right. Where was—

  A bullet caught him in the hip and half turned him around. He tossed the submachine gun and fell heavily on his face, his right hand palm up at an odd angle.

  The trick was old and hoary and he was a fool to try it. If he had had a moment to think he wouldn’t have. If Vasily kept his wits about him or used a smidgen of sense… But he didn’t. He didn’t even shoot the colonel a second time, a mistake the colonel certainly wouldn’t have made.

  The colonel lay like a sack of very old potatoes. He felt the catwalk vibrate from Vasily’s footsteps and he even got a glimpse of one foot. Still he lay absolutely motionless, muscles slack, scarcely breathing, his left hip on fire as the numbing shock of the bullet wore off. When he heard the door begin to open beside him he moved—rolled and instantly triggered the pistol into Vasily’s foot, then his leg, then as the man fell, into his body. He fired again and again as fast as the pistol would work. When it was empty he stopped shooting.

  Vasily sighed once as the spent cartridges tinkled on the concrete far below. He didn’t inhale again.

  The colonel got slowly to his feet and examined the location of the bullet hole in his clothing. Blood was oozing out. The catwalk where he had lain was smeared with it.

  He put his weight on the injured hip. Well, the bone wasn’t broken, although the wound hurt like hell. He looked at Vasily to ensure he was dead, then popped the empty clip from the automatic and inserted a full one from his jacket pocket. When that was done he retrieved the submachine gun. He hung it over his shoulder on its strap.

  He made his way along the catwalk and descended the ladder onto the top of the reactor shield.

  Thank God the charges were there, still properly installed and wired up. He got out his dirty handkerchief and wiped his face and hands as he examined the timer mechanism.

  One lousy hour.

  He pushed the test button on the battery, verified that the green light came on, then released the button.

  One stinking, tiny, miserable little hour.

  For it came to him then that his luck had gone very bad. Everything had gone wrong. All of his experiences in life had taught him that luck runs in cycles—sometimes good things happen for a while, then bad. And he was deeply into the bad just now. Was this hole in his hip the last of the bad things, or only the next to last?

  He was not a religious man. Nothing in his forty-four years of life had even suggested possible resources other than his own skill, courage and endurance. Yet just now as he stared at the detonator he sensed that his own resources probably weren’t going to be enough.

  He twisted the knob that turned the needle on the clock face. He turned it to the maximum reading, sixty minutes. He consulted his watch.

  Now he looked about, again tested his weight on his injured hip, savored the sharp edge of the pain, wiped his hands one more time.

  This was necessary. They would not have sent him if it weren’t.

  Oh, hell. Everyone has to die sooner or later and he wasn’t afraid of it. Dying is the easy part, like going to sleep. Getting to that moment can be a real bitch, though.

  He looked again at the sweep second hand on his watch. When it swung by the straight-up position he pushed the button to start the timer on the detonator. Exactly one hour from now, at 5:07 A.M. If this clock keeps good time.

  He watched it tick for a few seconds, then crossed to the ladder and went up it, favoring his bad hip only a little.

  In the control room the colonel scanned the dozens of gauges and dials. With a sure hand he reached for the master control and began inching the rods out of the core while he kept a careful eye on the temperature gauges. Another five minutes passed before he was satisfied with the new stabilized readings. The reactor was now at almost 80 percent power.

  When he left the building he removed the wooden doorjamb and let the outside door close and lock.

  Fifty-three minutes.

  He limped past the bodies sprawled near the gate and turned right on the road. The breeze cooled the sweat on his face but he didn’t notice as he hurried along.

  He got on the motorcycle and checked that the fuel was on. When he tried to shift his weight to his left hip and push up to get some leverage for the kick start lever the pain was so bad he almost fell over.

  Gritting his teeth, he tried again. This time he managed t
o kick the bike through but it didn’t start.

  Again with no luck.

  The third time it fired and he gave it just enough gas to keep the engine going. He almost collapsed onto the seat. His leg was wet with blood. How long before he passed out? He fumbled for the headlight switch. There. But the headlight didn’t come on.

  He hadn’t checked the headlight. Burned out, probably.

  Somehow he got the bike into motion.

  This road led off to the northwest, he remembered, upwind, so he stayed on it. When he went by the gate to the reactor facility he got a fleeting glimpse of his watch from the light on the pole. Forty-one minutes to go.

  Riding a motorcycle on a rutted dirt road on a dark night takes intense concentration and high physical effort. The colonel found that even at a slow speed he was always on the verge of losing control. Still, with every minute he gained confidence. When his eyes were fully adjusted to the darkness he could see the road easily enough, so he eased on more throttle and shifted to a higher gear. This meant he was going faster when he fell. The nose wheel hit a rut, the handlebars twisted violently and he was instantly flying through air.

  The impact with the ground stunned him.

  When his wits returned he levered himself upright and groped for the motorcycle. He had to put some miles between himself and that reactor. He tried to see the hands on the watch but it was impossible. He felt for the flashlight. It didn’t work. Broken by the fall.

  The submachine gun on his shoulder was gouging him, so he took it off and threw it away into the darkness.

  Getting the bike upright took all his strength.

  Kick. No start. Kick again.

  He lost count of the number of times he tried to start the motorcycle.

  How long had it been? How much blood had he lost?

  Flooded. He had probably flooded the damn thing.

  He sat wearily on the bike gathering his strength.

  Are you beaten?

  No!

  Throttle off. Kick, a real high arch off the bad hip so all his weight would come down on the kick lever under his right foot.

  The engine caught. Slowly he twisted the throttle and brought the engine up to a fast idle. Now the shift lever.

  He kept the bike at a slow pace, maybe four or five miles per hour. The wind in his face was the only bright spot. If he could just get a little distance and get behind something solid, some earth perhaps, he could survive the blast. The wind would carry the radioactivity in the other direction.

  He was climbing a hill. He could tell by the amount of throttle necessary. And the sky was getting lighter to the northeast. He realized then that he could see the road and the ruts better, so he eased on more throttle.

  How much time?

  Couldn’t be much. If he could just get over the hill. There on the other side, with the hill between him and the reactor, there he would be safe.

  Every bounce, every jolt was another second past.

  How many more did he have? He took his left hand from the handlebar and tried to see the watch. The bike swerved dangerously and he grabbed the handlebar again.

  How far had he come? Was he far enough…?

  The shock wave almost knocked him off the motorcycle. Then intense heat. He felt intense heat on his neck, on the back of his head, even through his jacket. And he wasn’t under cover, wasn’t…

  Behind him a cloud of dirt and debris blown aloft by the explosion formed in the darkness above the reactor. In seconds it began to glow. The radiation intensified. The sensation of furnace heat was the last thing the colonel felt as a virulently radioactive ball of fire rose from the melted remnants of the steel, lead and concrete shielding.

  In seconds he was dying even as the motorcycle continued away from the blast, dying like the sleeping soldiers at the army base on the other side of the reactor, dying like every other mammal within four miles of the now-glowing nuclear plant. Four miles, that was how far the colonel had traveled. The motorcycle continued upright with his dying weight for a few seconds, then the front wheel kicked against a rut, and the machine and the corpse upon it skidded to a stop in the road.

  The engine of the motorcycle choked to a stop as a mushroom cloud formed over the reactor and the wind on the ground strengthened markedly as air rushed toward the intense heat source.

  People and animals a few miles farther away from the reactor had several minutes of life left, amounts varying depending on the amount of material shielding them from the runaway nuclear inferno. By the time the sun came up in the northeast only a few insects were still alive within seven miles of the plant. Other people were also dying as a cloud of ferociously intense radioactivity drifted southeast on the prevailing wind.

  11

  As Jack Yocke dressed the following morning his mood was gloomy. The euphoria he felt last night had completely evaporated. He had managed only two hours sleep and spent the rest of the night tossing and turning.

  At about four in the morning the implications of being sought out by Shirley Ross finally sank in. Why Jack Yocke? He wasn’t a famous personage, not a known face. And how had she known to find him at the Metropolitan? Now the significance of her evasion of that question grew. Maybe this was a setup.

  He was in way over his head, chasing an impossible story. He didn’t speak the language, he didn’t have an ongoing professional relationship with a single, solitary soul in this goddamn hopeless Slavic morass. He was a foreigner in a country deeply suspicious of all foreigners. He didn’t know the politics in a capital where politics was the staff of life, played for blood and money. Nobody would talk to him. Nobody would trust him to tell the truth. Nobody.

  Except Jake Grafton, and he didn’t count. He wouldn’t know beans about the Soviet Square killings. Even if he did and were willing to share it, Yocke couldn’t print it. He needed something he could publish.

  Gregor was standing beside his battered tan Lada when Yocke came out of the hotel. The sixty-degree morning air was heavy with pollution and the sky looked like rain. The best the reporter could manage in reply to Gregor’s cheerful hello was a nod. He sagged onto the passenger’s seat and stared morosely through the windshield at a beggar woman arranging herself for a day on the sidewalk while Gregor got himself situated behind the wheel and coaxed the car to life.

  “Sleep well?” Gregor asked.

  “Not really.”

  “Where would you like to go this morning?”

  Yocke sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. “Police headquarters.” No, on second thought, the district attorney was the place to start. What did they call the prosecutor over here? “Make it the public prosecutor’s office.”

  “No interview with Yeltsin? Well, maybe tomorrow.”

  “Boris will have to wait. Tomorrow we do Gorby’s proctologist.”

  “Procto…?”

  “Can the corn and drive.”

  The foyer was crowded with reporters. Yocke’s heart sank. He looked around for Tommy Townsend, the Post’s senior correspondent, and didn’t see him. At least a dozen people from the international press crowded around the desk man, who was grunting surly Russian and scowling. A television team had lights on and a camera going. What a way to start a day!

  Gregor elbowed his way to the desk, and in two minutes came back with the word. A press conference in fifteen minutes. Jack Yocke stared at the TV reporter putting the final touches on his hair and nodded. If Townsend showed up, Jack was going to have to make a critical decision since the Soviet Square Massacre was now Tommy’s story. Should he share the Shirley Ross tip with Tommy?

  Thank heavens he didn’t have to. Tommy never showed, even though the press conference started late, as do most things in Russia. It went about as Yocke expected. In the glare of the television lights the prosecutor’s spokesman made a statement about the ongoing investigation—no leads yet on the identities or whereabouts of the killers that could be announced publicly, no arrests imminent, the Russians had asked for Interpol a
ssistance. The questions from the floor were asked in a respectful tone, merely for clarification of the spokesman’s points. No one asked about anything he had not mentioned. Yocke edged toward the door behind the podium and pulled Gregor along.

  When the farce was over he buttonholed the spokesman on his way out, a husky man who tried to breeze by.

  “I need to speak with the prosecutor for one minute.”

  Through Gregor came the answer: “He is busy. He cannot see you.”

  “The Washington Post has a story about why the police left the square that the prosecutor needs to confirm or deny.”

  The spokesman eyed him suspiciously. “Wait,” was his answer.

  Yocke waited. The other reporters drifted out, the television crew packed up lights and extension cords and cameras and departed, Gregor lit a cigarette and lounged against the podium. Yocke looked at his watch.

  Fifteen minutes had passed when he looked again. Gregor was on his third cigarette.

  The prosecutor bustled into the room. “Washington Post?”

  “Yes.”

  “What is your story?”

  Yocke took a deep breath and stared the man straight in the eye. He had but two lousy bullets to fight the war with and here goes shot number one: “The police were pulled out of Soviet Square by a transmission over the police radio system.” He paused for Gregor to translate.

  The prosecutor’s eyebrows knitted, but that was his sole reaction.

  Yocke continued: “The police left because three KGB agents appeared in police headquarters and demanded that the police be removed from the square.”

  Now the prosecutor’s eyes widened in surprise. He spewed Russian. “Where do you get this story? We announce nothing. Who talk to you?”

  Yocke had counted on the man being a novice at dealing with Western reporters. He was new at the game, all right. Yocke decided to try a shot in the dark.

  “Why have you relieved the police chief from his duties?”

  The attorney’s face darkened a shade. He chewed on the back of his lower lip while his eyes scanned Yocke’s face. The reporter tried to remain deadpan, but it was difficult. “We are investigating,” the prosecutor finally said.