The base had been, according to Pete Critchfield, a recording company warehouse. The security system in use when the facility had stored the latest country western albums was the security system in use today. Only the manpower composition and numbers had changed. Two older, retired policemen had been the security guards on the day shift— this according to Jim Hastings, the cop with the Thompson. Now, however, there were thirty-six Russian infantrymen with KGB
supervision who patrolled the facility's fenced perimeter with guard dogs.
It would be Jim who would give the signal— waiting until a truck marked as carrying explosives would enter the compound. Jim would throw a fragmentation grenade— between the nineteen men, there were only four grenades. The battle would start.
Bill Mulliner watched now, a motorcycle escort rolling along the street ahead of a U.S. two-and one-half-ton truck, the truck over-painted with a red star on the door side, he could see. The motorcyclists were talking to each other, one of them gesturing to an abandoned Mercedes parked half across the sidewalk. The second cyclist laughed. A joke about capitalist Americans, Bill guessed.
His palms sweated, as much as they had sweated when Jim Hastings and Curly had smuggled themselves into the compound inside a garbage truck, then jumped from the truck— he had seen one of them barely at the far corner of the warehouse.
The deuce-and-half made a sharp, fast right— Bill Mulliner thought he would never drive that way carrying explosives— and turned into the driveway leading into the warehouse area, stopping in front of the fence, the guards there approaching the fence and opening it. The motorcyclists started through, the truck's transmission grinding audibly, black smoke belching from the muffler, the truck beginning to lumber forward.
Automatically, Bill Mulliner moved his selector from safe to full auto, then glanced to his right. He could see Jim Hastings starting to get up in the ditch, his right arm hauling back, then snapping half-forward. There was a small dark object— Bill watched it fascinated as it arced toward the truck through the late morning air.
The grenade fell— he could hear the noise it made hitting the concrete. It rolled, and he watched it, waiting for it to explode. Waiting.
The explosions were something that made his ears ring and his head ache, the first tiny explosion of the grenade swallowed by the roar and blast of the truck itself, a black and orange fireball belching skyward. He started to run from behind the van, the heat of the fireball searingly hot against his face as a wind seemed to generate from the fireball above and surrounding the explosives truck.
He was at the main gates— what was left of them, jumping from a fallen motorcycle, loosing a three-round burst from his M-16 into the already half dead cycle rider, the man's clothes and flesh burning as he rolled, screaming, on the ground. The tarred surface under Bill's feet stuck to his shoes, the tar melting from the heat of the fireball as he ran. He glanced behind him once—
he could see Pete Critchfield coming with the van, the van's front end specially reinforced, the van jumping the curb, across the sidewalk now and ramming through the chain link fence, a seven-foot-wide section of the fencing pulling away from the support posts— these bent almost in half— and stuck to the reinforced bumper, pushing ahead of the van, sparks flying from the fencing as it swept the concrete.
Bill kept running, seeing a sentry coming toward him, the sentry's guard dog bounding ahead. Bill pumped the M-16's trigger, the dog still coming. He pumped the trigger again, the dog going down. The sentry still firing, his AK47 hammering slugs into the warehouse wall beside which Bill ran, the concrete block powdering, chips of the concrete and a spray of fine dust powdering Bill's face.
Bill fired the M-16, hearing the heavier rattle of the Thompson submachine gun, seeing Jim Hastings running to intersect him. The Soviet guard went down.
Bill ran forward, jumping the dead guard, firing his M-16, two guards coming around the far corner of the warehouse wall, one guard going down, a long burst of automatic weapons fire hammering into the wall again, the second guard tucking back. Bill heard the scraping of the chain link fence section, the roar of the van's eight-cylinder engine, saw the blur of grayish white as the van cut past him and toward the corner of the building. There was a scream, the sound of tires screeching and a power steering unit being pushed too hard, then the blur of gray-white again, the van backing up. The fence was still stuck to the bumper, and hanging from it now was a body— the Soviet trooper, his hands flailing, his legs twisted at odd angles.
Jim Hastings— less than a yard from Bill now, raised his Thompson to his shoulder, firing a short burst, the Soviet guard's body stopping its thrashing— he was dead.
There was assault rifle fire all around him now as he reached the corner of the warehouse, the van already by the loading dock, some of the Resistance fighters there too, M-16s, pistols, riot shotguns— gunfire.
Bill threw himself against the loading dock, ramming a fresh magazine into his assault rifle, then looked up, across the loading dock, throwing his body up, rolling, coming to his knees and firing as two Soviet soldiers started across. Both Soviets went down.
He pushed himself to his feet, Jim Hastings and Curly already opening the sliding door into the warehouse itself.
Hastings and Curly disappeared inside, Bill running to the truck, Pete Critchfield jumping out, his bastardized M-16 in his fists.
'So far so good, Bill.'
Bill Mulliner looked at his leader. 'Yeah— so far so good.'
The butterflies were gone from his stomach and he was still alive— so far, so good.
Chapter Thirty
The airfield in the shadow of Mount Thunder was busy— as busy, he supposed, as airfields had appeared during the Berlin airlift the Allies had conducted when his own government had shut off West Berlin from West Germany years ago. Planes of any description that could carry cargo were landing, being off-loaded and refueled simultaneously and taking off again as quickly as possible.
Rozhdestvenskiy walked the field now, an aide running to his side, the aide falling in step, shouting to him over the roar of the engines. 'Comrade Colonel— a communique from the southeast.'
'Read it to me,' Rozhdestvenskiy nodded. Probably another complaint that some item of supply could not be found, he thought.
'Central southeastern supply depot, reference Womb, penetrated by heavily armed, numerically superior Resistance force. Heavy casualties and theft of strategic material and supplies—
preliminary casualty report and loss report to follow— signed—'
'Never mind— I know the fool's name!' He took the note, crumpled it, started to throw it down to the runway surface— he stopped himself. His temper— he was losing it, and thus showing a weakness before a subordinate. 'He is a fool,' he sighed, by way of explanation, 'in that he allows himself such a situation to come to pass— to —'
'Yes, Comrade Colonel!'
He studied the subordinate's face. There was little apparent differences in their ages— yet this man was a captain and he was a colonel. The face, however, showed the difference. Moonshaped, fleshy, ingratiating— weak.
He was not weak.
'You will radio immediately to the commander of the supply depot in Nashville— he is to place himself under arrest and surrender command to his senior ranking subordinate. You will radio Chicago that I am to be met at the airport and there must be a helicopter to fly me to headquarters on the Lake. You will also radio to General Varakov, supreme commander, that it is a matter of the utmost urgency that I should have an interview with him immediately. Make all necessary travel arrangements, contact my valet here and have my things packed for a short stay. Move out.'
'Yes, Comrade Colonel.'
The man ran off, across the field— like a dog more than a man, Rozhdestvenskiy decided. There was the difference.
He would go to Chicago, request that General Varakov commit his military forces to crush the Resistance so the stocking of the Womb could continue. He would request Varakov's help in resolving the matter of the American Eden Project— He felt himself smile. If Varakov did not cooperate— Colonel Nehemiah Rozhdestvenskiy watched the planes as they landed, as they took off again— for at least a few moments.
The efficient, orderly use of power. It would calm him.
