Watersleep

by James Axler

  In the killing state of mind Krysty had been forced to induce within herself, the sec men who had brought her here and locked her away were now moving in slow motion. Pathetic. The red mist of death swamped her mind. There would be no reasoning with her now.

  No begging.

  No mercy.

  Fade was the first to die. He had managed to shift the broken door from his body and crawl away, scut­tling on his hands and knees to a point where he could spin and pump a full clip of hot ammo into this crazy witch.

  Krysty idly watched him as she might have ob­served an insect seeking refuge from being stepped on. The thought made her body temperature glow even hotter.

  With ferocious velocity, Krysty's right boot shot out, catching Fade in the ear and jaw. Cartilage tore, and the eye socket of the man's skull shattered like a dropped eggshell. The upper part of his jawbone broke and tore away from the connecting tissue and muscle.

  The end result was shocking. To Fade, and to the watching Murphy, she'd moved so fast the kick had barely registered, until the lower half of the man's face went from whole and solid to hanging like a wet burlap sack full of marbles. Unintelligible screams were coming from his throat and out of his ruined mouth and nose, a mix of snot and blood dripping from his nostrils.

  Murphy looked at the scene, at his partner, and his mouth dropped open in disbelief. How hard had she kicked Fade anyway? What the fuck was in the toes of those boots? He'd never seen anything like this in all of his forty-four years of existence. Like some kind of adventure vid player set on fast forward, this woman, this thing, had broken a steel door in two, ripped out the frame and proceeded to kick the shit out of a man who in all likelihood would normally be able to pick her up one-handed without even breathing hard.

  Murphy responded by pivoting in the padded swivel chair behind the desk, tossing aside the deck of cards, rising to his feet and running as fast as pos­sible from the engine of destruction that had erupted in his midst.

  Fade looked on in rage at the lower half of his own face sagging limply into his line of vision, then set his sights on the demon above him. He cursed her in a string of profanities that would have done any man proud.

  But to Krysty, the bleating figure at her feet was merely a distraction. She watched, with a mix of bemusement and pity, as Fade managed to blindly shoot off a single round from the rifle he'd been carrying. In response, Krysty kicked out a second time, and a third, and a fourth, and a fifth—her movements a blur as each blow struck home, catching the join of Fade's chin and neck as if she were repeatedly punting a football.

  Fade's features were destroyed beyond recognition, blood spraying up like the high-pressure contents of a burst water pipe. The lifeless head flew upward at a forty-five-degree angle, hitting one of the ringed silver ceiling lamps with a wet slapping sound. The screeching noise the man had been making before the final blow was replaced with a bellowslike wheeze from the wet hole between his shoulders.

  All of this occurred within a span of mere seconds.

  Murphy was up and running for his life. To Krysty, he was merely walking away at a leisurely pace. A casual follow-me jog.

  The sec man was scared, as scared as he'd ever been in his mercenary life.

  Fuck the navy and fuck Poseidon, too. No amount of jack was worth having to deal with this! Stickies and muties and bands of wandering marauders with killing on their mind was one thing, but this was be­yond even the usual day-to-day madness of Deat-lands.

  "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," came in a torrent from his mouth as he ran.

  Behind him, Krysty stepped on Fade's still-thrashing body and began to make her move.

  Murphy was babbling faster now, praying, begging, gasping as he ran. He didn't look back. He'd seen more than enough, the empty smiling expression on the woman's face coming up behind him was etched forever in his memory. He staggered, trying to keep his balance and hoping he wouldn't fall.

  When he felt her iron fingers bite down on his shoulder and lift him bodily into the air, it was almost a blessing.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The world was concrete, stone hard and cool to the touch. The steps, the walls, even the low ceilings were all made of the same flat blue-gray concrete. Flick­ering fluorescent track lighting showed the path downward, along with helpful painted arrows on the walls. Poseidon, still in full dress uniform, led the way, followed by the tall, broad-shouldered sec man that had previously been keeping watch over Ryan.

  Poseidon had called the man Jonesy.

  Ryan, his hands cuffed behind his back, was third in line. The rear was brought up by a second merc with thick eyeglasses and blond hair who wore civil­ian garb. The man with the glasses hadn't volunteered a name, nor had Poseidon offered one. Ryan dubbed him Specs. The visually impaired J.B. wouldn't have been amused, but Ryan considered his being down an eye to the Armorer's two allowed him to say whatever he wished about anyone with glasses.

  "More hired help," Ryan had said. "Couldn't get him to sign up for the draft, either, huh?"

  "Mercenaries are a necessary evil, as is so much else these days," the Admiral answered. "I buy all of my men's loyalties in different ways, Cawdor. All leaders do. I'm sure you have ways of binding your own people to your allegiance."

  "My 'people' are my friends. There's a differ­ence," Ryan corrected. "But you wouldn't under­stand that."

  "And the woman? I can understand the need for physical companionship. She's one hell of a looker, so I know the sex must be good. But she's your Achil­les' heel, Cawdor."

  "My what?" Ryan asked.

  "Your weakness."

  "Shows what you know. With her, I'm twice as strong as when I'm alone. Before her, I was a man with no direction. Now I know who I am and who I hope to become someday," Ryan said. "I'm willing to risk having an Achilles' heel for that."

  "Then you're half the leader I've been told you were, and a fool."

  Poseidon fell silent, and their trek downward con­tinued. If Doc had been with the four men, he wouldn't have been able to resist comparing the length of their descent into the mass of damp walled tunnels and dimly lit subbasements beneath the naval base to Dante's plunge into the inferno. The only dif­ference was the temperature of the air.

  Cool air. And while it wasn't exactly fresh, it was breathable, just like the air in the redoubts. Ryan glanced up at the join where the walls met the ceiling. Small metal slits were embedded in the concrete. Air ducts kept everything flowing.

  "Nuke gen," Ryan muttered.

  "Beg pardon?" Poseidon said from the front of the line.

  "Nothing."

  "No, Mr. Cawdor, I distinctly heard you mumble something in that monotone you call a speaking voice. 'Nuke gen' were your words, I believe. I just wanted to say your theory is correct. At least, as cor­rect as I have been able to surmise without actual admittance into the hidden chambers below this base."

  Ryan pondered the truth of Poseidon's statement. No wonder the Kings Point naval base had been able to survive as a working facility. Maintenance was much easier with electricity, and the nuclear genera­tors that powered the mat-trans unit inside the gate­ways had plenty of energy to spare.

  If Poseidon was to be believed, and if there was indeed a gateway chamber hidden down in the maze of subbasements they were currently in, then this would be one of the rare instances where a redoubt was housed in a logical locale, as opposed to a lonely facility stuck away in the middle of nowhere or inside a public place like the swamps of Greenglades.

  And then, without fanfare, they arrived.

  Ryan stood before the familiar shape of a redoubt entrance door and frowned. The door looked the same, and yet it was obviously a modification of the standard configuration, probably due to its location. He closed his good eye and reopened it slowly.

  The door was still there, waiting.

  Like Poseidon and his two sec men.

  "Uncuff Mr. Cawdor, but take care," Poseidon warned. "He is supposed to be a master
of hand-to-hand combat."

  Specs unlocked the handcuffs. Ryan rubbed his sore wrists as he stared at the door.

  "Your circulation should be fine," Poseidon said. "Open the door."

  Ryan hesitated.

  "Is there a problem?"

  "Never seen one like this before," Ryan said. "Looks different."

  Still, the vanadium-steel door recessed into the back wall of the subbasement was nearly identical to the other ones Ryan had opened before, except for the color, which was a bright stoplight green, and the shape, which was hexagonal. The controls looked the same—the same numeric keypad to punch in the entry code. Some of the numbers appeared to have been worn down from use.

  "Don't delay, Cawdor. Open the door and let's be done with it. You have my word your woman isn't going to be harmed as long as you do as I say."

  Mental pictures of Shauna Watson, dead in her chair, went through Ryan's mind.

  The word of a madman.

  "What's in here you want so badly?" Ryan said. "The mat-trans units don't even work right, and half the time, they're broken."

  "Still, they are obtainable, and I want them," the Admiral replied. "Plus, I am aware of the massive stockpiles of weapons these redoubts may hold. I need nukes, Cawdor. My submarine needs nukes. Even as we speak, I have a crew on board the Raleigh awaiting my return. If I find what I seek within this hideaway, we shall depart on our test mission as scheduled."

  "What test?"

  "Right now I have a single Tomahawk missile without a true nuclear warhead. I intend to test it far­ther up the coast on that miserable settlement of mu­tants and half-wits that Shauna called home. I'll miss their weekly tributes from the sea, but I'll soon be able to afford whatever cuisine I desire."

  "You'd chill them all as a bastard test?" Ryan asked, knowing that even without the nuclear payload the missile would still decimate the small commune.

  "Well, it wouldn't be much of a test otherwise, now would it?"

  "What if you don't find any nukes in here?" Ryan said, his mind working fast. The odds were slim mis­siles for a submarine were down here, but then again, this was the first time he'd found a redoubt at a mili­tary base. Any kind of stockpiles might be within.

  "No nukes, no test," Poseidon replied. "I hardly intend to use my lone missile until I have more of them. Now, stop stalling and open the door before I have Jonesy start to break your fingers as an induce­ment."

  Ryan had no choice. He reached out and used his index finger to press the proper sequence of keys to open the door to the redoubt.

  "Three-five-two," Poseidon whispered aloud, watching closely. "That's it?"

  "That's it," Ryan said, and there was a rumbling noise from within the wall of the subbasement as the gears within meshed and bit. The door began to rise upward in a swift, steady motion.

  "So simple," Poseidon mused. "Three-five-two, and the door opens. I had come down here before at night and wondered what the right combination might be. I tried an infinite number, each one randomly gen­erated on a pocket comp so I wouldn't repeat my­self."

  The door was now completely open. All eyes but Ryan's were on the mysteries housed within.

  "Now I learn my conjectures were always one number too many. The sec doors above ground throughout the base require a code of four numerals to all high-security sectors. Even if I had indeed stum­bled onto the right pattern unknowingly, I would have always transmitted one number too many."

  "Life's a bitch, ain't it?" Ryan said, then he fell forward, flat on his face as if he had tripped over a hidden wire or string. At the same time, he kicked out hard, smashing a boot heel into Spec's kneecap. A cry of pain and surprise burst out of the injured man's mouth at the same time as his leg went numb beneath him. The weapon he carried was forgotten and dropped to the floor as his hands clutched instinc­tively at his broken knee.

  Ryan rolled to the left, managing to snag the car­rying strap of the fallen AK-47 with his feet.

  The clock was ticking; Ryan had been keeping an eye on his chron. Soon it would be midnight, then he would know if J.B, Mildred and Carter had been more successful in their mission than he and Shauna had been.

  But first things first. The other sec man in front of Ryan, Jonesy, had spun the instant the commotion began, only to find Ryan was no longer standing be­hind him.

  "Go ahead, kill the bastard," Poseidon bellowed. "We're in!"

  The Admiral leaped into the doorway and got out of the way as Jonesy pulled the trigger of his auto­matic weapon and the lead began to fly, digging div­ots in the basement floor as Ryan rolled and dodged, trying to get his hands on the dropped weapon snared by his feet.

  "No! Shit! Wait!" Specs cried before a series of red holes flew up his groin and stomach. Jonesy was keeping his trigger mashed down and aiming by in­stinct, trying to get a bead on the twisting Ryan.

  When he took out the second sec man, Jonesy didn't even hesitate over the accidental killing—but he did when Ryan did a most unexpected thing.

  Still unable to get his hands on the AK-47 tangled in his feet by the strap, Ryan instead hurled the rifle at Jonesy's face with all of the force his lower legs could muster. A desperate act, but an effective one. The heavy rifle flew into Jonesy's unprotected face butt first, knocking out three teeth and causing him to stumble backward falling flat on his backside directly with the door of the redoubt over his body. Momentarily stunned by the blow, the big sec man was dazed.

  Ryan moved at a blur and from a kneeling position sent a roundhouse right into the man's already bleed­ing mouth.

  Jonesy fell back flat, unconscious, his own rifle still in his hands.

  Before Poseidon could step back out, Ryan snatched up the AK-47 and sent a burst of rounds through the door of the redoubt. The Admiral re­treated inside, farther away from the door.

  "Cawdor! What are you doing out there? Damn you!"

  Ryan sprang to his feet and hit the keypad a second time, reversing the code to 2-5-3. The vanadium-steel door began to descend.

  "You wanted in and now you've got it! Enjoy your stay, you cold-hearted son of a bitch!" Ryan roared, firing the rifle through the lowering door until the clip was empty. As the door slid down farther, the hapless Jonesy was caught on the floor at waist level. The door was relentless in its descent as it started to cut the unconscious man in two, his torso on the far side with Poseidon and his legs out in the basement.

  Ryan debated pulling him away from certain death, then shook his head.

  "I owe you for those shots to the kidneys," Ryan said as he turned away, not waiting to see the final bloody splash when the door hit home in the groove in the floor.

  EVEN ON THE BEST OF DAYS and the easiest of mis­sions, J. B. Dix wasn't the most patient of men. Mil­dred once tlid the man he was like a worm in hot ashes—always moving, always on the go.

  Even J.B.'s sleep was restless, with constant move­ment of his leanly muscled arms and legs. Mildred was happy he didn't snore, but he made up for it by waking her up every hour on the hour with a stray limb whacking her in the nose or back or breast.

  After the initial entry into Kings Point at approxi­mately six o'clock, the captured Edgerton had decided to play hero and alert the guard. Before the sec man could press the panic button, J.B. had fired a burst at him through the ob slit in the Land Rover. At the sound of gunfire, Edgerton had hit the gas and taken the wag into a swerve, knocking down part of the guard booth in a crash of wood and glass and causing Ryan to shift in his position in the passenger seat.

  Edgerton opened his driver's side door and jumped to the pavement, legs pumping as he sprinted for safety, screaming for someone to help.

  Ryan cursed as he brought up the SIG-Sauer and fired, catching the fleeing man low in the left leg. As Edgerton fell on his side like a dropped rag doll, three more sec men came out from a second wag that had been parked in a motor pool off to one side of the guard shack.

  The firefight was on.

  Edgerton died in the mid
dle of it, unprotected and alone.

  Ryan and Shauna broke away, diverting the sec men's fire and giving J.B., Mildred and Alan Carter a chance to escape, maybe salvage something from the mission.

  What the trio couldn't know was that Ryan decided being captured alive wasn't so bad. What better way to see the leader up close and personal?

  The other three, who remained free, had been forced to hide until nightfall.

  Under the cover of darkness, it hadn't taken very long to plant their dozen grens, all preset to go off at midnight: a fuel-storage tower, the support beams over wheeled wags. There were many places to create chaos and diversion. Once things started to blow, everyone was to converge on where they had left the damaged wag, which was near the ruin of the gate and the guard shack.

  Ryan and Shauna, if they weren't able to get close to Poseidon, were to abandon their objective and go home if they could. The rest of the squad wasn't to wait, but instead pull out for the commune.

  Not that J.B. and Mildred were even considering that option.

  They would all leave together, one way or the other.

  "What do you think of this place, Millie?" J.B. whispered. "That far end is mighty nice, with the lights and construction and all. Wonder why he hasn't fixed up the rest of the base?"

  "Too busy trying to rebuild that leaky piece-of-shit submarine," Carter replied.

  "He's more vulnerable than I expected," Mildred replied, her beaded plaits clicking softly as she turned her head to look down from the rooftop they were using for hiding and observation. "Lots of empty buildings and not enough men to properly police each one. This base might actually be a threat if Poseidon had the manpower to take care of it."

  "Guess his plan to bring back the military isn't going as smoothly as he figured," Carter noted.

  "I want to take a look inside the base hospital," Mildred said. "Men come in and go out on a regular basis. Must be a reason. They might have supplies we can take back, too."

  "Sure," J.B. said. "We've still got about half an hour before the excitement starts."