Doomsday Warrior 13 - American Paradise (21 page)

The broad avenue leading toward New Mount Fuji was cleared of cars meanwhile. Rockson entered the Mack semi on the right side of the broad well-paved street and used the CB to shout out instructions to the other truckers: Chen, Detroit, Murf, Scheransky and Morimoto.

“Okay, let’s keep it
even.
Keep alongside each other. Easy does it—five miles per hour!”

No one knew just how much the crystal weighed—maybe ten tons—but it was heavy. They had their accelerators halfway down, and the truck wheels started to slip and smoke; but it started to move.

To the immense cheering of the crowds lining the way and waving at the drivers, they headed toward the volcano’s slope, five miles away. It was then another five miles, Rock knew, up to the summit’s wide crater. He didn’t have
any
idea how they were going to manage the ascent to the top at all. But putting first things first, Rock decided he’d get to the slope, and
then
figure it out.

Rock hoped the cables would hold, and that the KGB that were left in the city would keep in the woodwork like the roaches they were. Without Killov to rally them, they might
never
reappear. Yet some instinct told Rock the battle was
not
over.

It took two hours, but the trucks finally pulled the crystal to the end of the avenue. Ahead, the road became a steeply ascending, winding narrow road, a pilgrims’ path, leading to the sacred volcano’s crater 10,000 feet up. Rockson, put his truck in neutral, using the CB to tell the other drivers to do the same.

He slammed on the handbrake and opened the door, stepping out. He stood scratching his head, looking into the mists above.
No way
was this baby going to get the hell up there!

Leilani, who had been following the crystal at the head of a huge crowd, now came up to Rockson. She touched his sleeve. He turned and started to smile. Then Rock saw that her countenance again wore a strange empty expression. The look in her dark eyes was far away. Leilani’s voice was soft and melodious again as she spoke: “I, the crystal, have a way to . . . the summit. Detach the cables, except the one to your truck, Rockson. Start pulling again; I will transmit my power to the truck.”

“Leilani?” Rock asked, moving his right hand back and forth in front of her face. She just stared straight ahead, unseeing.

“I will come with you . . .” Leilani intoned. She started around the semi’s cab and got in the shotgun seat.

“Okay . . .” Rock said to no one in particular, “I guess I will just play it that way!”

He ordered his men to detach four of the pull cables from the crystal, then got back in the driver’s seat. He took one quick look over at Leilani. Her eyes fluttered; she turned, smiled at him and said, “How did I get in here?”

“I’ll explain later; we have to take a little ride.”

Before he could touch the gears, the truck shifted into first and revved forward powerfully without his foot touching the accelerator. The handle of the twelve-gear shift suffused with a dull blue glow and started to move itself. The truck began to climb at about fifteen miles per hour, pulling the crystal with ease. How the hell the wheels didn’t spin out under it, Rockson couldn’t imagine. Maybe the crystal was putting pressure
down
on the truck too, to keep it from skidding.

Rockson steered for all he was worth as the truck tore ahead. Twenty, thirty, forty miles per hour it gained speed, screeching around each hairpin curve. Through the rearview mirror Rock could see the crystal whipping around the curves at the end of its tether behind him. And way down the slope, moving much more slowly, the other trucks followed.

In no time at all, they had made the steep climb and screeched to an engine-steaming halt at the very edge of the crater.

They were parked so close to the precipitous drop to the bubbling lava pool at the bottom of the crater that Rock and Leilani had to get out her side.

Leilani had that glazed-eyed look again. “This is the best way—I wish to die. Please push me over the edge—both of you.”

Rockson, feeling
very
eerie, unhitched the cable. With Leilani assisting, once she came out of her trance, they put their combined shoulders to the crystal. It was ridiculous to think they could move an object that could bend in the pavement of the parking area,
but they did.

Slowly, they edged it to the lip of the crater and poised it there. With tears in her eyes, Leilani pushed. Then she stepped back and watched the crystal slowly lean over the edge and fall. It
slid
for a while down a pumice incline, then started tumbling, gathering speed, then bouncing, like a ball. It was heading directly for the molten pool of red hot lava cradled in the center of the volcanic crater.

The crystal glowed red, white and blue alternately. Bounding once more, it fell into the red molten pool, splashing lava a hundred feet into the air. Sparkling and sizzling, the crystal slowly sank, sending lightning bolts streaking into the clouded heavens.

The other trucks pulled in beside Rockson’s now, and the drivers jumped out. The backs of the trucks were filled with citizens. All came hesitantly to the crater’s edge to watch the bubbling magma of the volcano slowly take in the crystal.

“Well,” Rockson started to say, “it’s over—”

There was a dull thud-thud-thud in the air. “A chopper!” Detroit yelled. “Coming in from the west!”

Rock sighted a sleek, black wasp-shaped military helicopter heading directly at the gathering. It was coming in low and was armed with racks of rockets slung under its stubby wings. It—looked familiar!

“
Killov’s
chopper,” Rock gasped, recognizing the silhouette against the blue sky. “He’s alive! Everyone direct fire at the chopper!”

The Freefighters set their Liberator submachine guns on full automatic. They could see the tracer shells hit the heli—to no effect.

“It’s heavily armored,” Chen lamented. “We can’t—” He didn’t finish his words, for a set of six rockets was fired at them in a spread pattern. Rock knew they had mere seconds to live.

“Quickly,” he shouted, “get into the crater. There’s a steep slope before it drops off vertically. Hang on as best you can.”

Not everyone managed to get over the lip. The rockets hit, shaking the ground, sending up plumes of metal fragments and flame. Those that had made it in slid down the loose pumice, clawing for a hold.

Several Japanese citizens and one Surfcomber—Knudson—got caught in the explosions. Knudson tumbled into the crater, his body aflame. He tumbled past Rockson’s desperate grasp and over the edge of the drop, then fell screaming into the lava. There was a hiss as he hit the 5000-degree molten pool.

Archer had caught a bit of the blasts and his coat of fur was afire. He rolled over and over to put the flames out successfully.

The chopper meanwhile zoomed over their heads and started to turn back for another shot.

“What do we do now?” Chen, who had landed next to Rock asked.

“Maybe—pray.”

Suddenly Archer shouted out. It was more like a battle roar. The man had thrown off his half-burned bearskin and had reached into his quiver. He extracted a harpoonlike home-made arrow and notched it into his bowstring. Pulled back by the heavy musculature of the giant near-mute’s arm, the immense arrow turned upward. Archer bent the titanium alloy bow to its maximum, so that the metal string sang when its unbelievable power was unleashed and the arrow let fly. Whistling, it soared upward like a missile and hit the tail rotor of the deadly sky machine. The tail rotor shattered and the craft spun out of control, trailing smoke.

As everyone cheered, the heli barely cleared the far volcano rim and disappeared from sight.

“That’s
what we do,” Rock said, standing up and brushing himself off.

“Is Killov really dead now?” Leilani asked.

“I doubt it. He has more lives than a cat!” They all scrambled up the pumice slope and back onto the pavement.

And just in time, for the earth trembled beneath them. In the crater, the lava pit erupted violently. It was a powerful blast, like a giant molten hot
burp.
A geyser of steam and fiery magma shot up over the crater, threatening to rain down on them.

“Everyone off the volcano,” Rock shouted, but they needed no encouragement. As small steaming rocks fell all around, the crowd surged back down the slope.

Rock called out to his men. “Freefighters! Follow me! We circle the rim and go get Killov. Slap some more mags in your Liberators, and let’s finish the bastard off.
For Knudson!”

Twenty-Nine

K
illov, his face blackened by flame, his uniform in tatters, staggered from the badly damaged heli, assisted by the pilot, Major Smerdskov. The gunner, his teeth smashed in, blood oozing from his lips, also managed to get out. Then the craft blew up. Killov sat down on a slag rock. The colonel was at a loss as to what to do or where to go.

Only these two men were left from his entire 500-man KGB death-force! They had three machine pistols and a few rounds of ammo. That was all that stood between Killov and the awesome vengeance of the Doomsday Warrior.

But Killov’s face animated with determination; his black eyes flickered with passionate resolve. He hadn’t hidden for two years like a night-rat in the Moscow Library eating the chewing gum readers had stuck under the tables, devouring crusts of sandwiches left behind,
to die now!
He hadn’t plumbed the alleyways in the slums of that immense Imperial city searching for and gathering desperate men to join him,
only to die now!
He hadn’t journeyed the steppes of Siberia in the dead of winter, crossed the world’s largest ocean and suffered so much,
to accept defeat now!

“Never,” he
shouted.
“Never
will I be defeated! We go into the crater,” Killov said. “There are no doubt many natural passages—old lava tunnels—that we can hide in—”

“But,” Smerdskov protested, “we can’t go into an active volcano. What if—what if the tunnels we seek suddenly fill with lava? Or steam?”

Killov’s small eyes narrowed, “No guts eh? How about you, Derminkovsky?”

The gunner, who had been dabbing at his teeth with a torn piece of his shirt, looked at Killov standing there. All the officers had known that Killov was rowing with one oar out of the water, but what he now proposed was not perverted or violent—it was sheer
madness.
Derminkovsky decided he would shoot Killov—and maybe Smerdskov too, when he got the chance. Then he’d strip off his uniform and try to get lost in the island’s population. Derminkovsky thought it was the best idea he’d ever had! He was swarthy, and his eyes were rather almond shaped—like his Ukranian grandmother’s eyes. He could pull it off! But it was best to play along—for now.

He shrugged. “We might as well try the volcano, Colonel. Or our enemies will surely be here any minute.”

“Thank you,” Killov said, “for your confidence.” Killov pulled his pistol, spun and shot Smerdskov point-blank in the face. The man slumped to the dirt, spraying blood from the hole where his nose had been. “Let’s go,” Killov said. “We don’t need a
quitter!”

Killov made Derminkovsky go first into the crater. The man might be okay, he thought, but then again, he could be faking allegiance. They ran downward at an angle, descending rapidly, slipping on pieces of slag and the sandy pumice. Before them, thousands of feet down, the lava bubbled and steamed. You could feel its heat on the winds.

A hundred yards along, they were suddenly knocked from their feet by a violent tremor. They slid more than fifty feet farther through the steam and flames, almost fell over the precipice, before they could arrest their descent.

“Onward,” Killov yelled, waving his pistol at the gunner who was wild-eyed in fear now. “Just keep going.
That way!”

Killov was nearly exhausted when he saw a bump in the dark soot about a hundred yards ahead. “There, Derminkovsky! I think that might be what we’re looking for. We head in that direction. It’s got to be a fissure—or a tunnel!”

Indeed, they came to a dark opening, circular, nearly high enough for a man to stand upright in. “Well, what are you waiting for! Get in there!” Killov snarled. He wanted the gunner in front of him to serve as a guinea pig. There might be deadly odorless gasses in the dark tunnel. Or there could be a sudden drop-off.

In a few moments they were both groping in the darkness. The gunner tried to go slow, but Killov stuck his machine pistol into Derminkovsky’s back. “Keep moving,” he insisted. They continued along, winding slowly through the sinuous tunnel until they saw a dim red flickering light ahead. The air was heavy and sulphurous, and there was a low roar, like steam issuing from a pipe.

“My God,” yelled Derminkovsky, stopping in his tracks. “I won’t go any farther. There must be molten lava close ahead!”

Killov stepped back and pulled up his left sleeve. He didn’t want to fire his machine pistol in the tunnel. It could send the whole mountain down upon him. But he’d had enough of quitters! Killov fired twin steel spikes tipped with poison into the coward’s back.

Screaming in pain, Derminkovsky slammed to the tunnel floor. Killov stepped over his twitching body and continued walking down the pipelike tunnel.

It grew brighter and brighter ahead as he walked. The rational part of his mind told Killov he was walking to his doom, but Killov had a wild hunch that he should go on. Or maybe it
wasn’t
a hunch after all. There was
something
about that noise, and that red glow . . . that
beckoned!

Thirty

T
he Doomsday Warrior and his squad came upon the wrecked helicopter and found the body of one uniformed man. Rock bent over the man and observed the wide, bloody face. “Not Killov!”

“Look,” Chen said. “Footprints!”

They followed the set of bootprints away from the wreck, until they came to the lip of the crater. Rockson took his binocs out and scanned the vast pit below. Yes, Killov and a companion had fled into the crater itself. He could see their long sliding boot steps continuing for hundreds of yards downward. And then there was a long solid trail, as if the two men had slid out of control—probably when the tremor had struck. The slide marks ended at the vertical drop-off. It was obvious that Killov and the other man had run like fools to their doom.