by Ryder Stacy
Outside, Rock heard the sudden terrifying screams of some woods animal that had been caught in the downpour of the stuff. But the screams didn’t last for long—though the terror in them more than made up for the length of torture. Rock prayed he didn’t go that way—melted, dissolved down to the very bone. It made him hug the ground a little closer, pull Snorter down so he was on his front knees and virtually immobilized. Not that the steed was going anywhere. He’d been with Rockson before on these journeys. If there was one thing the animal had learned, it was to trust its master. And not go out in the acid rains.
The storm seemed if anything to increase in fury, beating at them like a fusillade of artillery shells. And here and there, a slight flaw in the tarping allowed a drop or two of the sizzling liquid to burst through and onto someone’s arm, or one of the ’brids’ hides. The screams would rise a decibel or two and then be followed by whimpering. For the acid kept burning—past the flesh, the muscle, right to the bone. Rock prayed that those afflicted could just hold their ground. If a single man or beast rose—and pulled down a wall—a roof—it would be over for all of them. Almost instantaneously. Not quite, though. Not fast enough.
With a final surge of its poisonous lungs slamming at the tarp tent as it tried to lift it up into the very heavens, the storm suddenly was gone. It lightened outside within seconds, but as the men started forward Rock screamed out for them to stop.
“Let the droplets dry on the ground—or they’ll burn you as much as if you’d been in the deluge.” They stopped in their tracks and waited, slapping their ’brids in the nose when the creatures bit at them from time to time, demanding to know just what the hell was going on. At last Rock gave the all-clear sign and they stumbled out.
The last of the droplets of pure acidity were melting away, their steam rising up into the atmosphere where they would coalesce once more into the droplets of acid, then the clouds and the rains . . . Falling forever. Off to the west, the ten-mile-wide cloud system was wreaking more havoc—burning, melting every damned thing that got in its way. Birds, squirrels, rabbits, foxes . . . men.
They broke down the tarp as soon as they made sure every last bit of moisture had evaporated—which the stuff seemed to do almost instantly, being quite unstable once released as moisture into the air. Within five minutes they were loaded up again and on their way. It wasn’t a pretty picture, what had happened to the creatures that had been caught in the storm’s path. Piles of bones lay in steaming stews of pinks and browns. Guts bubbled like soup cooked too long on the fire, heads sat in the midst of puddles of their own oozing flesh. The acid was merciless and thorough. It left nothing alive where it touched, where it left its wet kiss of death.
Ten
Dhul Qarnain stood on the bow of the immense black oil tanker, staring into the mist-shrouded afternoon sky. His eyes were half closed to ward off the sea spray and cold driving wind that bit fiercely into his desert-toughened flesh.
From his vantage point he could see the entire ship behind him and the surrounding ocean on all sides for a distance of a mile or two. The fog along the ocean’s surface was heavy. As was his heart. He had spoken to Allah for hours at prayer this morning and had heard nothing in return. Was the Great One angry at him? Was there evil in his own heart? He searched himself as he had done a thousand times before, looking for evil, reaching inward to touch his soul, his being.
No! There was nothing impure inside of him, inside of Dhul Qarnain. He felt clean as white desert sand. He lived only for his Master—and to carry out His plans and desires. But he longed for a word from time to time. A sign from Allah that he was on the right track. Yet there had been silence for weeks now, months.
No matter. There was a time for peace and a time for suffering. He had undergone many moments of loneliness and pain in his forty-three years of life and had survived and would continue to survive. At least until this mission was complete. Then he would gladly die. For he would have returned his homeland to his people, a task no other man had been able to accomplish in Palestine’s long, tortured history.
Many times he had seen himself, dressed in his flowing red robes, ascend into the sky, up, up to his God. In the vision, he was bleeding from an arrow or a spear, or a bullet. And his robe was burning bright red with the blood of his life. But it only made the ascension more glorious. To fight His enemies and die for Him. To be taken into the arms of the angels in Paradise.
His visions often lasted hours. Alone in his tent in the middle of the black desert night, Qarnain experienced ecstatic seizures that threw him around the sandy floor of his tent like a rag doll, his body trembling violently, drool flowing from his wide open mouth. He would wake hours later from his fiery dream, burning with the blood of Allah in his veins, tears flowing from his eyes. And he would thank the Lord for showing His humble servant the path.
And now the time was near. The Blessed War was soon to be fought, and he, Dhul Qarnain, was its general—the chosen warrior who would send His holy troops into battle. The Red rulers of the Arab world had grown soft and fat and rotten with their forbidden—to the Arabs, anyway—liquor and women. They had been seduced by the “dead” materialism of the West. They had given in to the Great Satan. He knew the time of judgment was near. He could feel it in his blood and bones, as one feels the approaching storm deep in the nostrils, hears the earthquake in the center of the heart minutes before the ground begins to move and shake like a whirling dervish. He would lead his men to battle—under Colonel Killov—and in return he would be given back the sacred land of Palestine, for him and his people. This the colonel had promised. And though the man was supremely evil and twisted, Qarnain knew he would keep his word. He and Killov had connections extending far back.
Qarnain himself would die—he knew it. He would succeed in his war but his physical body would be destroyed. He would at last join his Master—fly up to the heavens filled with dark-haired angels. He longed for the day. Longed for the moment of his martyrdom, when Allah would see just how deep, deep as blood, his love ran.
Had not the bountiful Allah provided him with everything he needed for the war? Had he not needed money, and had it not been poured on him from his benefactor, the colonel? He had needed an army, and lo, men came, ready to die for him and he had assembled a multitude of strong and ready fighters. He had needed arms to fight the infidels—and his men had hijacked Red helicopters, machine guns, even small ground-to-air missiles, from Red supply ships and convoys.
And had not Dhul Qarnain needed an ultimate weapon, a weapon so strong, so terrible that no nation could stand up to it? A weapon as powerful as the fist of Allah Himself, able to annihilate the armies of the infidel. And the KGB colonel had known just where to procure such weapons from the very clutches of the Russian serpent—a nuclear battle wagon that could turn the world into a pit of fire.
Now the years of preparation were completed and arms filled the inside of the tanker to overflowing. Allah had been supremely generous indeed. Praise be to Allah.
Qarnain was suddenly startled from his reveries by the sharp sound of boot heels clicking together behind him. He turned. It was Colonel Killov. The man looked like Death itself. Hardly more than skull atop a wasting body, a skeletal frame whose flesh was hardly thicker than paper and translucent throughout.
“And how are you today, Qarnain?” Killov asked, saluting quickly, his arm snapping to attention, half in a Russian salute, half a Nazi stiff arm—although that could just as easily have been from the colonel’s arthritis. His body had been wracked for years now, by abuses of so many kinds that he had been shrunken down to his bare essentials—muscle and bone and hide. Like a sewer rat that grows lean and mean, with its slicked-back black hair, its teeth showing dimly in the dark. Thus was Killov himself a survivor who had been forged into compressed but murderous gristle and grime. The colonel smiled thinly, his parted lips revealing yellow teeth, some rotted nearly all the way through. A nasty odor that blew out from between the thin lips made Qa
rnain turn his head for a moment.
“So, Qarnain, our rendezvous is drawing close,” Killov said, standing with his hands behind him, staring ahead into the Atlantic ocean as they headed toward the country he had been chased from. “We must make a final inspection of the armaments, be assured that the technical support teams are all proceeding smoothly in their preparation operations. Do not forget the trouble we had with the main hydraulics. Timing is crucial to this whole operation. There will be no second chances.”
“Yes, yes, Colonel, we shall inspect,” Qarnain said. “But do not for a moment doubt the success of this final Jihad. Allah is with us—and Allah is great. We can only win.”
“I do not, of course, question your Allah,” Killov smirked quickly. “I know that Allah is as you say—great. But I, too, have a few tricks up my sleeves.” He licked his dry, cracked lips and popped a few blue pills into his mouth, drinking them down with several sips of a red liquid from a flask. The man was always popping pills, Qarnain had observed. He hardly seemed to eat a bite of real food. It was as if the act of eating, of digesting, disgusted him.
Sometimes the Arab fighter felt afraid of this man. He knew Killov had no belief in Allah at all—or anything else, for that matter. He just wanted to kill the Premier, seize control of the Red brass—and world power. But that was fine with Qarnain. The Arab would use Killov until it was no longer necessary. But then would come a time . . .
The colonel looked as if he had died a hundred years ago and been preserved with some fluid that slightly tanned his stretched, leathery skin. His hands were long and thin and seemed hardly more than cold bones. The other men, the crew, the commandos, referred to him as “Skeleton Hands” and “He who is dead”—behind his back, of course. When he walked on the deck or through the ship, they always conveniently turned their eyes away, not daring to meet those black pits of fire head on.
The two men walked toward the hold as Arab guards armed with long scimitars, as well as Kalasnikov automatics, bowed deeply, as their leader, the Last Prophet, passed. They walked until they came to a long flight of metal stairs leading down into the guts of the giant tanker. Qarnain led Killov through a honeycomb of metal tunnels painted stark white, until they reached a thick metal door; four men armed with machine guns stood in front of it. The black-robed guards opened the door, pushing it slowly like the ritual door to a secret mosque. They all bowed low as Qarnain and Killov stepped through.
The two men suddenly entered another world—an immense cavern of steel garishly lit by high intensity lamps strung around the superstructure of the tanker’s girders. The huge room hummed and buzzed with activity, the whir of motorized vehicles, lifts and pulleys working and grinding away in the salty air. The smell of exhaust fumes was almost overpowering as they filled the great space with a grayish haze. The hold of the tanker, normally filled with oil, had been ripped free of all bulkheads to make one enormous open chamber for the supplies of Dhul Qarnain’s invasion force.
Qarnain and Killov stared out at their stock of the most modern weaponry of war. The cleared hold was three football fields long, almost a field wide—and seventy-eight feet high. Dozens of Norski helicopters stood in a line on each side of the cargo bay. They had been stolen from a Red convoy to Saudi Arabia, believed to have sunk at sea in a sudden gale. The ’copters sat perched like deadly blue dragonflies with silver wings, waiting to take flight and sting. They still bore the Russian Air Force emblems, big red stars, on their sides. And they would stay painted on. It would just add to the confusion—later. High above hung steel shutters that would, at the right moment, slide back to allow the ’copters to rise from the center of the ship and carry out their mission of death.
In the center of the great metal cavern, which echoed with deep thudding sounds from the waves outside slapping against the hull, stood pile after pile of machine guns, ammunition, and hand-held missiles. All were still in their packing crates and teams of men were busy unloading the contents for their imminent use.
Colonel Killov pulled out a silver timepiece with an engraving on the back, inscribed, “From Premier Vassily. With thanks.” It brought a deep smirk to the KGB colonel’s mouth. How fitting that he would use it to time the mission, to tell the very second that the attack should begin. By this instrument would Vassily’s capture—and death—be counted.
“We are right on schedule,” Killov said, glancing at the date and then back up at Qarnain, dressed in flowing white robes, who stood towering over him. “The missiles should be unloaded at this exact moment.” The colonel was a fanatic for punctuality—and obedience. Qarnain had known that from the start of this whole operation. But he had delivered what he promised as well. Cash, weapons. For the oldest truth was and still is: he who has the hands empty has no friends. Now Dhul Qarnain had all the “friends” he needed. Hundreds of them throughout the tanker, ready to die for him. For Killov. For their sacred joint mission.
The two figures walked across the cold steel decking, passing bunches of men here and there in black jumpsuits that covered them from ankle to chin. They busily ripped at the crates with crowbars, taking them apart and stacking the weapons contained within into rows as others began assembling them. They bowed whenever Qarnain walked by them, then quickly returned to their jobs as he impatiently motioned with his hands for them to continue.
In the middle of the steel cave, the Sukai-II hand-fired missiles were being moved and stacked in piles on six-foot-long metal racks that stretched twenty feet into the air. Their bright red nose cones were the only colors in the room other than the shimmering blue of the choppers. Everything else was black—uniforms, weapons, even the straps that supported the weapons, and the boxes that held the ammunition. All had been painted midnight black.
The tanker had been Killov’s doing. Qarnain had told the KGB colonel what he needed—and Killov had worked out the entire operation down to the smallest detail. Every item, every bit of supplies that was needed was here because he had ordered it. The colonel had paid with gold bullion—he had hidden away such deposits of treasure throughout the world, in the days when he had been able to do such things. Now he was cashing in on just one such stash—dug up from its tomb in Asia. Gold—it had always been the international currency. Even a stinking cannibal in the woods would bite into a piece of gold should he see it, and his face would light up in a toothy smile. Thus they had easily been able to procure the weapons. All purchased on the black market from Premier Vassily’s own Asian Red Army forces.
Killov was pleased with the results. Very pleased. He ran his hands along the smooth backs of the cylindrical four-foot missiles. Each one could knock out a tank, a helicopter, even a low flying jet—if they caught its heat trail. They were as accurate as anything in the Russian armory. He snickered again at the thought. Imagine the pigs providing the weapons for their own destruction. That was the greatest pleasure of this whole attack. That, and revenge.
It had been over two years now since he’d had had to flee the United Soviet States, with Ted Rockson in hot pursuit, ready to send the KGB colonel straight to hell. But Killov had been able to send a missile straight for Century City—and Rockson had had no choice but to go after it as Killov swooped off the other way. But the KGB commander’s jet had been hit—and he had gone down. Crashed right into the Arctic Circle in the center of a flow of icebergs. It was only Killov’s ratlike toughness, his ability to keep fighting in a kind of insane rage that kept him alive through the shock of the crash. He just wouldn’t die. It was that simple. Revenge first—then he would go willingly.
Somehow he had pulled himself from the sinking MIG, managing to grab hold of the survival box inside. Swimming to one of the bergs floating by, he managed to drag himself atop it, inch by freezing inch, using a knife from his jacket to dig into it. The first thing was just to not freeze up. He had hardly any flesh on his thin body to begin with—just bone and gristle like some sort of underfed chicken. The freezing wet pilot’s down jacket, he had to take off. But
he managed to build a little fire inside of a shelter he created with an aluminized tarp—using a can of Instantflame from the emergency pack. He dried the jacket out, put it back on and sat in front of the can of fire.
Killov found some food in the emergency pack and sat back, stuffing candy bars into his narrow mouth, his beady eyes ripping back and forth over the frozen hell he was in. It was not exactly the best situation, even though he had survived. The wind for the moment was down, but he knew that could change at any moment. And as he watched, it did. An Arctic storm picked up out of nowhere and tore into the hundred or so mini-bergs, each about the size of a city block, pushing them all along. The wind and the slamming back and forth of the bergs made Killov feel like he was tied to a ping-pong ball in an earthquake. But he dug in to the sheer, icy back of the thing—grasping hold of two knives he slammed right into the side of the immense frigid mountain and refused to budge.
Thus he rode it south for hundreds of miles as it split off from the rest of the flow and headed almost due south. And it did something else—it started to melt. For as it hit the warmer climes it lost its outer layer, and kept losing it. Until Killov looked down and realized he was on something about as big as a car—and turning into a lily pad fast. He would have prayed but he didn’t believe in God, so he just gnashed his chewed-down, pointed little teeth, and cursed wildly in Russian at the night air.
“Fucking bastards—I want revenge! I, Killov, will not die. You hear me. Try to take me. I spit on you.” The KGB colonel completely lost it for the first time in his life and just screamed, screamed and bayed at the moon like an old rabid hound dog gone completely insane.