Red Equinox

by James Axler

  "They are unhappy, Comrade Major-Commissar. So many lost."

  "They are not lost, you mumbling, fish-fucking cretin! If they are simply lost we can wait until the sun rises prop­erly and burns away the mist. Then they will be found again. They are not lost! They are out there dead."

  "The claims for…" the local commander continued, torn between fear of Gregori Zimyanin and the knowledge that the survivors would probably assassinate him for his part in the massacre.

  "It will come under Industrial and Allied Pension and Personal Injury Claims, Comrade. Arrange for the appro­priate forms to be handed out tomorrow."

  "Yes, Comrade Major-Commissar."

  "And tell the sec patrols we attack in precisely fifteen minutes. I want the one-eyed American in my hands within the hour."

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  "NEXT TIME'LL BE the big one," Ryan predicted.

  "Yeah," J.B. agreed. "Won't be a bunch of kids. Won't be a suicide squad of dirt-poor stupes. It'll be the sec men, and they won't give up easy."

  "I can hear something," Krysty said, leaning against the window, head on one side. Doc had taken her place in the deep basement, checking over the last connections to the gateway. Rick had said that it should finally be ready within the hour. Ryan's worry was that they might not have that long before the Russians broke in.

  "Wags?"

  "Yeah. Four or five. There."

  They could all see them, four wags that had come all the way from Moscow. Three of them had heavy armaplate on the front, protecting the cabs and the beds from ordinary bullets. Ryan guessed that they'd all be packed with armed sec men. They'd drive straight at the front of the house, and there was nothing the defenders could do to stop them.

  "Any armapiercers, J.B.? Or any grens?"

  The Armorer sniffed. "Nope. Not enough to stop them. You?"

  Ryan shook his head. "Nothing. Could take out the tires when they get closer. Pick off one or two when they break for the house."

  "Burn big stairs," Jak suggested, eagerly handling his huge cannon of a blaster. The teenager was frustrated that, so far, he'd been able to contribute nothing to their de­fense.

  "Could. Trouble is, start a few flames in the center of the house and the whole place could go. Last resort, mebbe."

  Krysty touched Ryan on the shoulder. "Didn't tell you what the freezie wants, lover."

  "What?"

  "He's ready for death. Welcoming it. Insisted I gave him a pyrotab, and he's sitting there with the cans of gas. Says that as soon as we jump, he'll blow the whole place. Him­self with it. He means it, lover. I know."

  "Fine. I'm not going to stop him. Couple of gallons of gas down there would come up the stairwell like a blasting nuke. Be a hell of a good way for a man to go." The ad­miration rode high in Ryan's voice.

  "Long as he doesn't light it too soon," J.B. warned.

  "They got a gren launcher," Krysty announced, shad­ing her emerald eyes from the bright cutting edge of the rising sun.

  "Then it's time we moved," Ryan growled. "Get ready for Cawdor's last stand."

  UNLESS THE DENFENDERS had some secret cache of nukes, Zimyanin knew his men couldn't fail to destroy the dam­aged building. They could pound it with high-explosive rounds until it was only rubble. Or they could napalm it and roast the Americans alive. But that would leave vital questions unanswered. Questions that Marshal Siraksi would be asking in the next few hours.

  Who were these terrorists?

  What were their aims?

  Did they have allies within the homeland?

  How did they get into Mother Russia?

  What did the age-old dacha hold that was so important to them?

  Zimyanin's own promotion would depend on how many of those questions could eventually be answered. And if he simply chilled them all, the answers would be few and far, far between.

  He had commandeered the small wag of the local sec commander, and driving the vehicle himself, followed be­hind the line of lumbering armawags. The whole advance would stop at his order when the gren launchers were set up and ready.

  "Instructions requested, Comrade Major-Commissar, for opening fire."

  The voice came crackling from the talkie on the seat next to him, the reception surging and fading as it always did.

  Zimyanin picked it up, feeling a rush of excitement. He waited a moment before pressing the Send button. A phrase from his English handbook came to him. "I have great pleasure in declaring this event to be well and truly open." He pressed the button. "Zimyanin here. I want three roads of low-ex grens from each launcher. Aim at the left and right flanks of the building, the ground floor."

  "Shall we open fire, Comrade Major-Commissar?"

  "Yes."

  "Repeat, if you please, Comrade Major-Commissar. I say again, please repeat order."

  Zimyanin controlled his swelling anger with the greatest possible effort. He held down the Send button with his in­dex finger and kept his voice calm. "Fire. Fire!"

  Two of the grenades failed to explode at all. One only traveled about twenty yards before burying itself in the damp earth, sending a cascading fountain of mud over the lead wag when it finally detonated.

  A third missile sailed high over the dacha, vanishing into the bright morning sunlight and landing on the far edge of a deep swamp, sinking out of sight without exploding.

  One of the remaining pair of low-ex grens clipped the right-hand corner of the building and exploded with a deep-throated roar of noise, bringing down some of the exterior woodwork in a shower of torn splinters.

  The last gren was more successful.

  Ryan and the others spotted the firing of the launchers and had time to throw themselves to the floor, hands over ears, eyes closed, braced for the explosions.

  It was the sixth gren that landed plumb on target, strik­ing the broken window at the lower left corner of the im­posing facade. It bounced across the empty room, and exploded in the back room, where it caused extensive dam­age to the corpses of the wolf pack.

  Chunks of the ceiling fell down in a fog of white plaster. The building trembled under the impact, but it had been solidly built and suffered little structural harm.

  "Worth a few shots at the guys with the launchers?" J.B. asked.

  Ryan considered the chances. The parked armawags partly blocked a clear sight line. The fog was dissipating fast, lying only in a few hollows and covering fewer of the bodies that seeded the field.

  "Not worth it. Figure they'll soften us up from a dis­tance, then send the sec men in under cover of the grens. Our best chance is to hit them, mebbe once, when they're inside. Bottom of the stairs. Fire the place, like Jak said."

  Krysty brushed dust from her hair. "That door to the gateway is real well hidden, lover. How about we try and chill some of the first wave in? Then fire the stairs and pull back into the attic. Close the door."

  "They'll move fucking slow thinking bullet from any­where." Jak grinned hugely at the prospect of more of a firefight.

  "Could work," the Armorer mused.

  "Not sure about burning the stairs. Better leave them a way up and then chill the shit out of them when they try to use it," Ryan suggested.

  "More grens," Jak warned.

  "BY THE HAMMER and the anvil!"

  Gjegori Zimyanin had lived long enough under the Rus­sia ruled by the Party to be aware that not everything worked properly. But one and a half hits out of six grens was devastatingly poor, even by those low standards.

  He grabbed again for the talkie at his side and pressed the button to transmit his orders to the rest of the command.

  "Gren launchers! Three more rounds each. Repeat! Three more rounds each."

  "What target, Comrade Major-Commissar? Repeat. What…?"

  Zimyanin interrupted the speaker, jabbing his finger an­grily on the button. "Just attempt to hit the rad-rotted house!"

  The second volley was marginally more successful than the first.

  Only two grenades eith
er failed to detonate or misfired. Three struck the front of the mansion, exploding with a dull rumble, while the fourth soared skyward in a sweep­ing rainbow trajectory and landed just behind the dacha.

  "They going to wait out there and bring the walls down around our ears?" J.B. asked. "From the noise, they're firing low-ex at us. Take them all morning to shake some­where as solid as this."

  "Still take us all out with a fluke shot," Ryan reminded him.

  "Could circle and hit 'em behind," suggested Jak, still eager for action.

  "No. Triple-no! Best we got's here. Let them come at us. We'll move out to the back room. Should be safest there."

  Ryan led the way, making sure that they could still keep an eye on the stairs. The main door was closed and the hall was in darkness. Anyone who came in that way would let in a flood of sunlight. They all crouched and waited.

  MOVING WITH EXTREME caution, aware of the range of the long guns the Americans had, Zimyanin eased himself around the side of the wag. He surveyed the front of the dacha with the glasses, raking the magnifying lenses from left to right.

  He nodded to himself. "The structural alterations are virtually completed," he said, smiling in a self-congratulatory way at his memory for the English phrases. The far left of the building was devastated, with the corner of the roof tilting drunkenly over the tumbled wreckage.

  "No more grens," he ordered into the talkie. "But stay ready in case I need backup. All armawags engage low gear. Prepare to move."

  His throat was so filled with excitement that he could scarcely breathe. It had been days, and then hours. Now it could only be minutes.

  "COMING," Krysty announced.

  Moments later they all heard the distant rumble of the wags' engines throbbing into life, coming closer through the bright morning.

  Ryan shook his head. "This could be hard. They got enough numbers they can rush the stairs. We get caught in a tight place, we'll never all make it up into the attic and through that door."

  The woman smiled. "You want to play hero again, don't you, lover?"

  He laid his hand gently on her shoulder, smiling into her eyes. "Talk about this later. For now, I'll stay near the stairs. Everyone else down into the basement. Check Rick's ready for… for whatever it is he's going to do. And get the mat-trans on standby. When I come down, there won't be a whole lot of time left. Go to it."

  Krysty kissed him lightly on the cheek then led the oth­ers across the hallway toward the attic. Ryan checked that his blaster was on semiautomatic and hunkered down to wait for the Russians.

  THE EXHAUSTS JETTED great clouds of choking blue-gray smoke into the sunlight, which drifted across the wind­shield of Zimyanin's vehicle. He eased a few yards to his left, trying to keep clear and find a position where he could see the house, now less than two hundred yards away from the lead vehicle.

  He was touched with worry because there had been no further attempt at defensive firing from the dacha. Sup­pose they'd escaped, or been killed by one of the grens? The place was ringed tighter than a goose's ass and the grens had all been low-ex. No, they were in there. Waiting.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  "NOW I LAY ME DOWN to sleep and pray the Lord my soul to keep. And if…if I die before I wake…I pray…pray…" Rick shook his head in desperation. "Can't recall what… Yes. Pray the Lord my soul to take. That's it. It's done."

  Apart from Ryan Cawdor, watching the top of the stairs in the main part of the dacha, everyone else was down in the gateway control room, circling Rick Ginsberg. The freezie lay on his back, furs across his legs, body wrapped in the poor remains of the Stars and Stripes. The pyrotab rested between his trembling hands, and the two large cans of gasoline were at his side.

  Doc Tanner had gone straight to the lock to check that the handle worked. He pumped it up and down, doing everything but close the door to the actual chamber, which would trigger the whole device, assuming it still did func­tion.

  "You have done well, Richard," he praised in his deep, sonorous voice. "Exceedingly well, if I may make so bold."

  "Thanks, Doc. Just don't test it too hard. If it works the once, that's all it—" A coughing fit prevented him from finishing the sentence.

  Zorro kept close to the heels of Doc's worn and cracked knee boots, his belly flat to the floor, head low as though it knew that things were tough and getting tougher.

  RYAN CAWDOR AND HIS H&K G-12 assault rifle, with its fifty-round mag of special 4.7 mm bullets, waited together for the final assault of the Russian sec men.

  It was still cold inside the big house, despite the hard spring sun outside. Ryan sat on the landing, ready to bolt for the steps to the attic. He waited and listened, trying to detect the change in the noise of the engines that would in­dicate the vehicles were about to stop. Then there would be the clatter of opening doors, the thud of boots on the ve­randa and the splintering of wood as the door was smashed in.

  If Ryan fired the blaster on full-automatic the mag would last about one and a half seconds. Great for wiping out a room packed with enemies. Not so great for trying to deter a mass of men charging a staircase. Triple-burst would do that job more effectively.

  The engines slowed and the wag doors banged open. Ryan put his finger on the trigger and took several deep, slow breaths, hoping that Gregori Zimyanin would be the first Russian to appear in the center of his sights.

  ZIMYANIN WAS OUT the door of the autowag and flat against the front wall of the dacha ahead of any of the slower, clumsier sec men. He beckoned them urgently to attack the main entrance and smash it in.

  As they poured through the door, Zimyanin was at their heels, bunking at the sudden darkness. But there was enough illumination coming through shattered windows and skewed shutters for him to immediately see the room at the rear of the building, with its jumble of wrecked corpses.

  It took a handful of seconds to establish that the first floor had been abandoned by the Americans.

  "Up the stairs!" Zimyanin roared, unaware that his lips had peeled back off his teeth in a hideous grin of blood rage.

  Ryan had positioned himself with great care, so that he was in almost total darkness, within two short paces of the steps to the ruined floor above. He had a perfect eye-line down the wide corridor to the top of the staircase.

  There was just enough room for three sec men at a time to come up onto the landing. Ryan took a chance and waited until he saw nine of them, herded nervously to­gether, looking around. They were unable to spot him in the dim light.

  He squeezed the trigger of the G-12 four times, spraying the opposition with twelve rounds.

  Instant carnage.

  Zimyanin, poised at the bottom of the stairs, caught the sound of the muffled blaster and glanced into the darkness of the second story. He hesitated a moment, then leaped backward, down into the hall once more. He narrowly avoided the cascade of bullet-riddled, bloodied corpses. Ryan hadn't bothered to try for a clean kill on any of the sec men, realizing that the effects of the spraying rounds would be devastating.

  Gut-shot men screamed in agony, pulling down others in their shock and pain. Blood gushed from a dozen wounds, making the smooth wooden steps as slippery as ice.

  It was like a madman's charnel house. Only a couple of the sec men were chilled outright by the four bursts of triple-fire. But at least fifteen others were hit with varying degrees of severity, some rounds penetrating clean through flesh and muscle, then ripping into the man behind.

  Zimyanin bit his lip in frustrated anger, trying to avoid the kicking, fighting, panicked tangle of men. A sudden cold terror gripped him, that somehow the Americans were going to pull off some magical vanishing trick and avoid him. Blinded by that fear, he clambered over the dead, dying and injured, his high boots slithering in a soup of blood and brains, snapping bones in his desperate desire to get at Ryan Cawdor.

  If it hadn't been for the Russian's paranoid desire to capture or kill, Ryan would have been able to buy them all a little more time.
>
  But Zimyanin, for all his muscular bulk, was very fast. He reached the second-floor hallway just in time to spot Ryan disappearing up the rickety steps into the attic, sil­houetted against the sun that burst through the exposed beams and rafters. The Russian even managed to snap off a shot from his Makarov, missing the fleeing American by less than a foot.

  "Come on, you lazy bastard dogs!" he screamed at the disorganized rabble of sec men behind him. "Come on, after me!" His voice cracked in his lust to pursue his prey.

  Ryan picked his way between the joists to the door that J.B. had left slightly ajar for him. He slid through and slammed it firmly shut, vanishing into the central stone chimney of the dacha. He then ran down the steep, endless spiral staircase to join the others.

  Zimyanin reached the attic five seconds too late to see the door close, but his keen ears heard the sound of its shut­ting. His eyes pierced the dappled patterns of light, imme­diately spotting that the whole vast roof void was empty. There was nowhere for the American to have hidden.

  Nowhere except…

  "The chimney."

  RYAN FOUND THE OTHERS gathered around the dying freezie, all with blasters drawn and ready. Rick looked up as he heard Ryan's running feet on the stairs, clattering through the main control room. "Hi, man," he whis­pered. "You made it."

  "Yeah. Don't know how long it'll take them to break through up there. Not long. Guess it's time to go."

  "Can you…open the cans? Then I'll take a few with me."

  "You're sure you want it this way, Rick?" Krysty asked.

  "Isn't any other… other way."

  "Okay. Jak, can you…?"

  "Sure, Ryan." The teenager stooped to unscrew the cans of gasoline, his white hair tumbling over his red eyes.

  "One other thing." Rick coughed.

  "What?" They were all conscious of a faint and distant hammering noise above them. Rick also heard it.

  "Know time's racing. Sounds silly but… the flag. Like to hear The Star-Spangled Banner one more time. Just once. Then in the gateway you… and away. If you could manage…?"