Red Equinox

by James Axler

  Fast.

  "Help me, Ryan!" Rick shouted, floundering on the floor, becoming tangled up with the body. "There's a dead man down here."

  In the passing stillness Ryan caught the faint click of a blaster being cocked again. He hurled himself across the building, aiming at where he knew the small blond man was waiting for him. It wasn't a situation for a cunning and subtle approach.

  The long-bladed panga made contact, a yelp of pain and shock exploded from the darkness. But the feel of the blow was enough to let Ryan know he'd delivered only a glanc­ing wound.

  He rolled over on one shoulder in a breakfall, coming up in a classic knife-fighter's crouch. His lips creased in a mirthless smile. Now he could hear his opponent clearly, quietly sobbing to himself less than a dozen feet away. Ryan's night sight was way behind Jak Lauren's, but it was still better than most men's. Now he could see the dark sil­houette of the intruder.

  "Ryan?" Rick whined. "I'm scared, Ryan. Help me."

  Outside, Ryan heard the rumble of a convoy of large transport wags moving along the road. The lights of the first vehicle shone coldly through the frosted glass, bounc­ing off the far wall of the workshop, providing enough il­lumination for Ryan to see the wounded Russkie. He did indeed bear a passing resemblance to Jak Lauren. Slight of build with a shock of blond hair that glowed white in the reflected glow of the wags' headlights, the youth had a narrow, pinched face, with hollowed cheekbones and deep-set eyes. He was holding a crudely made zip-blaster, not much more than a .22 caliber. It was in his left hand, pointing toward the floor. Dark blood flowed down his right arm, from a deep stab wound near the elbow.

  "Nyet," he said, seeing Ryan at the same moment. He shuffled a couple of steps to his left, away from the one-eyed man with the panga.

  Rick saw them both at more or less the same time, open­ing his mouth to yell, then closing it again.

  Ryan considered throwing the panga, but it was a crude weapon for accuracy. The little gun continued to hang to­ward the dusty concrete, almost as if the young Russian had completely forgotten that he was holding it.

  "Nyet, nyet. Druk." He pointed to himself, trying to convince the terrifying specter that he was a friend, which was a real uphill battle.

  But the begging tone was unmistakable. Ryan shook his head, smiling gently at the terrified boy. "Nyet," he repeated, closing in on him, never taking his eye off the blaster.

  The noise of the passing line of trucks was almost deaf­ening, and their lights made the interior of the building as bright as day.

  The blood changed from black to brown to red as the lights hit it, trickling steadily down the youth's forearm, over the wrist and plopping off the tips of the trembling fingers.

  "Nyet," he stammered.

  "No." was one of the handful of Russian words that Ryan had learned from Rick. One of the others was "Yes."

  Now he was within reach. "Da," Ryan whispered.

  He opened the Russian's throat with the singing edge of the butcher's knife in a forceful backhanded cut. The gun fell, bouncing off the young man's foot, so that it landed almost soundlessly. Ryan moved back quickly to avoid being dappled by the spray of blood that gushed out of the hewed gash across the pale throat.

  A voice from near the door broke the stillness in the room, rising above the noise of the passing wags. The voice of J. B. Dix.

  "Knew you were a mean son of a bitch, Ryan," he said.

  Ryan laughed. "Good to see you, J.B. And you, Jak. Good to see you both."

  Rick stood up, very unsteady on his feet. "I'll sec­ond… that, Ryan. I'll second…" And he fainted.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  "SO," RYAN CONCLUDED, "that's the situation we got here. Rick's heading west. Only a matter of a few days at best."

  J.B. glanced across to where the freezie now lay sleeping quietly. The fainting spell had slithered into another spas­modic fit, with Rick's fingers clenching, his arms and legs jerking convulsively. The three of them had managed to hold him still and tried to make him relax. Rick had been seized by a frightening attack of coughing and choking, as though he weren't able to swallow properly, something that Ryan figured was probably another aspect of the muscular illness running its course.

  "He reckon he's closing in to the last round?" J.B. asked.

  "Yeah. Needs help walking more than about a hundred yards."

  "Steal wag," Jak suggested.

  "Sure," Ryan agreed. "Takes firepower. Three of us might pull it off." He glanced across the empty room, past the two corpses to the window. Dawn was lightening the sky. "Not now. Tonight." He whistled between his teeth. "Don't like the waiting. The Russkies know we're around the ville. Longer we stay the better chance they got of find­ing us. Good tracker might find us."

  "Must be ways of stealing food around a ville like this," J.B. said.

  "Patrols everywhere. Gangs of murderous kids. Hard, J.B., very hard."

  "You got food and drink?" Jak asked. "Need for gettin' out."

  "Try this evening. There's a market spread out around the top of a big flight of steps. Must date way back before sky-dark. Hundreds of stairs. Market closes at dusk. Reckon I could get in there and try and buy us something when they're all ready to close up. Any sec men around could be relaxing then."

  "Buy?" J.B. asked.

  "Yeah. Got us some local jack. Whole area's on triple-alert. Could be easier to buy than steal. We'll know in a fistful of hours."

  "And on the road in a few hours more," J.B. added.

  As Ryan had good knowledge of the maze of side streets and alleys around the building, it was agreed that he should go out alone to buy the provisions they'd need.

  The day wore on with a slug-footed weariness. At Ryan's suggestion they posted a watch in case the two dead thieves had friends. While not keeping guard, the others slept most of the day. J.B. spoke to Ryan about the risks of staying in the dacha and the problems they'd been having in stealing food. He also mentioned the sec patrols that they'd seen as they made their way through the outskirts of the ville.

  "Someone's pushing in some plugs around the place," J.B. concluded.

  "Remember that Russkie in the snow?"

  J.B. nodded. "Sure. Pocked face, mustache, a stocky guy, well-muscled. Carried a Makarov PM blaster. His name was…?"

  "Zimyanin."

  "Yeah. Captain in their sec regs. Looked a good man to have on your side from what I recall."

  "I got a feeling he's not on our side this time around."

  "You've seen him?" the Armorer asked, surprised. "Here? In the ville?"

  It was Ryan's turn to nod. "Yeah. Long way from home, isn't he?"

  "Thousands of miles. You sure it was him you saw? I mean he—"

  "Sure enough. And if it was him, it could be he remem­bers us. They must have dozens of eye-calls on us. Me and Krysty… You see us and you remember us. Know what I mean?"

  ZIMYANIN OPENED the window of his office, leaned out into the late-afternoon sunshine and drew several deep breaths. Having Tracker Aliev in the same room was a test for anyone's stomach. Though the officer had known the diminutive Mongolian for several years, he had never managed to get used to the stench of rotting flesh that seemed to cling to him.

  At least he could now look him in what remained of his face without wincing and turning away. Aliev was very sensitive about his looks and was easily offended by any insult.

  There was obviously a strong mutie strain somewhere in the background of his breeding stock. That accounted for the fact that he'd been born with no lower jaw and no nose. He habitually had a scarf wrapped around what was left of his mouth, though the material was always ragged and sodden with stinking threads of green mucus. Aliev couldn't speak, but Zimyanin had learned how to com­municate with him, managing to interpret his snuffles and grunts.

  "So! There was nothing left for you to track? The fools had run around and trampled any sign of the Ameri­cans?"

  Aliev nodded vigorously, his slant eyes fixed on Zim
yanin's face.

  "Don't worry, my old friend," he said, steeling himself to move close enough to pat the man on the shoulder. "They must eat. Our young wolf packs are all on double-red watch."

  The tracker clapped his gloved hands together and made a hideous gurgling sound deep in his throat, which Zimyanin knew indicated enthusiasm.

  "We'll be there fast, Tracker Aliev, you and me. And then we'll see. Yes, they have to eat. Someplace, sometime."

  THE DAY WAS nearly done.

  Despite the intensive blanket nuking of the center of Moscow, a few cherished remains of the old Kremlin still stood. The smaller dome of the Archangel Cathedral glit­tered in the distance, its silver roof tinted crimson by the sinking sun.

  Ryan had slipped out the door of the abandoned work­shop, pulling the fur hood up over his tangled mane of curling black hair, trying to keep his face concealed. As he'd hoped, everyone was preoccupied with getting home before darkness closed in. They bustled along the muddied sidewalks—women dragging bawling children, old men and women, clinging arm in arm, weighted down with loaded shopping baskets of provisions.

  Ryan checked his pocket, making sure he still had the handful of silver and copper coins. It had crossed his mind to leave the SIG-Sauer with J.B. and risk being able to bluff his way through a stop-search. If they found a blaster like that, then his meager cover was instantly blown. But, on balance, he figured that his chances of passing a check­point were minimal. Without a handgun, they were a big zero.

  The streets buzzed with sec patrols, but they were ob­viously bored and tired, waiting for the end of their shift. The day was over and the stalls of the raggle-taggle market were closing down. Ryan had timed it right.

  To his left he saw the long descending flight of wide steps that he'd noticed on a previous recce. A few feet away, near the top of the steps was an elderly woman pushing a rick­ety baby carriage, with a red-faced baby nearly buried un­der a heap of dried, crusted turnips. The woman was deep in conversation with another old woman wearing round-rimmed glasses. A group of sec men were lounging on the steps, near the bottom, their blasters resting against their knees. It was precisely the scene that Ryan had hoped to find.

  He went straight to the nearest stall, which sold smoked and preserved meats of all kinds, piled in a variety of plas­tic tubs that looked as if they'd been around since sky-dark. The man in charge was a cripple who hopped around on a pair of crutches, already beginning to scoop up the con­tents of the tubs and pour them into larger bins. He looked up as Ryan approached him, not even bothering with a smile or a word of greeting.

  Ryan pointed at his own mouth and then to his ears, hoping this simple mime would indicate he was a deaf-mute. He pointed to what he thought looked like strips of jerky, cupping his hands together to try to show the sort of quantity he wanted.

  The Russian looked at him suspiciously, and Ryan felt his own fingers itching for the butt of his P-226. To his dis­may, his ruse had worked too well. Believing him hard of hearing, the stall-holder raised his voice in a bull-like bel­low. Ryan shrugged his shoulders, aware that he was al­ready becoming the subject of some interest. The Russkie tried again, this time rubbing thumb and forefinger to­gether. It was a gesture that Ryan recognized, and he hast­ily held out his hand with the money. This time he received a grudging nod from the man.

  One thing Ryan hadn't thought about was bringing something to carry the food. He took the handful of dried meat and shoved it into one of the coat pockets. Ignoring the stall-holder's attempt to convey how much he owed, he simply held out the money and allowed the man to pick what he wanted, knowing from the foxy grin that he was being robbed blind. As long as a few coins were left, he didn't mind. There wasn't much that he could do about it.

  He turned on his heel and moved away, walking toward the top of the steps, eager to finish his shopping and get away from the watching eyes. Behind him he heard a shout from the man in the meat stall, and a ripple of laughter from the people around him. He guessed that the joke was aimed at him.

  Ryan quickened his pace. When a hand tugged at his sleeve he glanced down, expecting to see a beggar. Instead, he was confronted by a skinny girl of about thirteen, backed by a dozen more children of similar age. All wore red berets with a single silver circle.

  Ryan's stomach tightened with an unfamiliar feeling. Of fear.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  HE REALIZED IT WASN'T the same gang that they'd watched a few days earlier butchering the limping man in the sub­urban side street. But they came from the same mold: pinched faces and glowing, excited eyes; chapped lips and red tongues that kept flicking out like lizards'. The whole body language of the junior wolf pack was taut with the desire to maim and to kill.

  The girl held Ryan by the arm and stared intently up into his face, screeching something and waving at him with her free hand. She gestured for him to throw back the hood.

  Ryan hadn't the least doubt that the sec forces would have circulated his description throughout the ville. Any one-eyed man would be suspect, and once they had him…

  The two women by the carriage had stopped their chat­tering to look across at him. Ryan saw in the veiled eyes the certainty that he was dead.

  The whole marketplace seemed frozen. All conversa­tions had ceased, and the small groups gathered in the dusk watched the drama of the stranger and the children in si­lence.

  Ryan guessed that the sec men would also be beginning to show some interest in what was happening at the top of the steps.

  The girl tugged at him harder, surprising Ryan with the vicious strength of her ragged-nailed fingers. He looked down at her, seeing nothing in her sluttish blank eyes, nothing but a smoldering excitement, sure that she'd picked right.

  The frozen second of time was followed by thirty sec­onds of desperately frenetic activity.

  Ryan half turned and pulled the girl closer to himself, partly shielding what he was doing from the rest of the pack. He drew the SIG-Sauer and pressed the muzzle into the girl's neck, close under the angle of the jaw. She felt the touch of cold metal and started to recoil from it.

  He squeezed the trigger.

  With the built-in silencer, and with the end of the barrel rammed into the teenager's throat, the explosion of the blaster was no louder than a muffled belch.

  The girl's body jerked as though she'd been kicked. The 9 mm bullet tore out the back of her neck, and exited at a slight angle, hitting a metal lamp support and whistling off the cobbles. It eventually struck one of the women by the carriage in the fleshy part of her thigh.

  She screamed and fell over, knocking the brake off the carriage and allowing it to roll slowly toward the top of the steps.

  Ryan pushed the dying girl away from him. As she fell limply to the stones, a small part of Ryan's brain registered what fell from her open hand—a short length of narrow, stained rope, with a knot at each end.

  "Murderous bitch," he breathed.

  As soon as he moved away from her body, everyone saw the pistol, and all hell broke loose.

  The SIG-Sauer P-226 carried fifteen rounds. Good quality 9 mm bullets were hard to obtain in the Deathlands, and Ryan normally tried to use them sparingly.

  But not this time.

  He fired six spaced shots, sending everyone around div­ing for cover. Four of them killed members of the gang of young killers, each going down with a clean head shot. One took out a stall-holder who'd popped up holding a wire-bound scattergun. The sixth round chilled a sec guard who'd been walking near the top of the steps.

  The woman with the leg wound was screaming hysteri­cally, grabbing at the skirts of her elderly friend, prevent­ing the woman from snatching the chromed handle of the carriage, which rolled to the brink of the wide stone steps. It paused a moment at the edge.

  Eight rounds remained in the heavy blaster.

  Someone threw a large green cooking apple at Ryan. The aim was good, and it dealt him a glancing blow on the left arm. He looked sideways and saw the
thrower staring at him, mouth open to cheer his own skill. Ryan shot him through the open mouth, the bullet striking the young man's mother, who was hiding behind him. One round, chilling two.

  Seven left.

  A revving engine caught his attention and he spun around to see a small open wag roaring toward him, weav­ing between the abandoned stalls. A sec man hung on to the passenger seat, trying to balance and aim a Kalashnikov rifle.

  Ryan paused, steadying his right wrist with his left hand. He snapped off two more bullets and watched as the wind­shield of the wag starred into diamond splinters. The sec­ond shot plucked the uniformed sec man out of his seat and threw him onto the cobbles behind the lurching, reeling wag. Ryan didn't wait to see the vehicle finally crash.

  Five rounds remained.

  Though he'd cleared the area immediately around him, Ryan had hardly moved from where the girl had snared him. It was way past time to get his legs working.

  The market square held at least a hundred Russians and beyond them lay the tangled web of small streets and al­leys. Normally Ryan would have tried for that, but the odds were too high against him to risk being trapped and run down.

  The only other alternative was down the stairs.

  As he sprinted toward them, the unwounded elderly woman tried to snatch at his legs. But he clubbed her across the ear with his pistol, smashing her glasses into her eyes.

  Five bullets were left in the gun. He had another couple of mags in his capacious pockets, but to stop and reload would be to go down.

  The carriage began to bounce and jolt down the steps, the baby bawling at the top of its lungs. The load of tur­nips skittered out at every stair.

  The sec patrol on the stairs had been alerted and had formed a line across the steps, rifles ready, prepared to tackle the solitary intruder. The toppling carriage appear­ing over the dark skyline threw them into some confusion. One or two men began to ready themselves to try to catch it, while others were obeying the bellows of the bearded sergeant for them to stand firm and ignore it.