Читать книгу Dark Star - Don Pendleton - Страница 14

Outer Siberia, Russia

The two Dark Star agents shuffled their feet on the frosty ground and shivered in the morning breeze.

The crisp, clear air was bitterly cold, and carried a faint acidic taste of rock dust. Reaching from the dark mountains to a jagged cliff, the desolate landscape was barren and rocky, like the far side of the moon. There were no plants in sight, no grass or trees, not even the slightest touch of green to brighten the otherwise sterile vista.

The man and woman knew there were parts of Siberia that were lush and green, covered with dense forests and fertile fields of wheat, the cities bright and lively with commerce, music and laughter. But not here. Then again, less than a decade ago this section of Russia had been forbidden for anybody to even discuss, much less visit, unless you were a KGB agent, a privileged member of the Presidium or a slave.

Steadily losing the arms race against the prosperous West, the old Soviet Union had been overjoyed to find a motherload of pitchblende in such an isolated area. Hundreds, then thousands, of innocent people were arrested on false charges and sent to the area to slave in the hastily erected mines, many of them freezing to death before starving.

Which was just as well, Colonel Zane Southerland thought humorlessly, stomping his sneakers to maintain circulation. Because the acid fumes used in the process that extracted tiny flecks of uranium from the tons of pitchblende was slowly destroying their bodies. He considered it a much better fate to die from the cold, rather than coughing out bloody chunks of what was once your lungs.

When the mine became exhausted, the Soviets had started to convert the labyrinth of tunnels into an underground fortress, then the government ran out of money, and then out of power. These days, the barbed-wire fences were long gone, the one road smoothed until it once more merged with the shifting dust of the desolate landscape as a modern Russia tried to erase the crimes of the old USSR. Abandoned and forgotten, the uranium mine had been thoroughly wiped from the pages of the history books.

Which should have made it the perfect location for a refueling cache, the colonel raged furiously, buttoning closed his collar. Except that the expected tanks of liquid nitrogen and hydrogen were not there!

Less than an hour earlier he had been warm in South Africa bombing the capital building. Now he was freezing to death, but he knew the attack had been well worth the price. Formerly the head of Internal Security, Southerland had been thrown out of power when Mandela led the revolution. Now a wanted criminal around the world, the colonel stayed constantly on the move, always one jump ahead of Interpol and their ridiculous charges of war crimes. Bah, he had been merely protecting his homeland. He was a hero, not a monster!

Glancing over a shoulder, the colonel stepped closer to the hulking transport, savoring what little heat there was coming off the rapidly cooling engines. In spite of the hostile weather, Southerland was dressed in only a lightweight, camou-colored ghillie suit and sneakers, with a Webley .44 revolver strapped about his waist, but no spare ammunition. Although they operated at maximum efficiency, the X-ships consumed fuel at a prodigious rate, and weight was a matter of prime concern. His teams carried only what was necessary for their next mission, and nothing more.

Although a relatively short man, Southerland was solidly built, appearing to be made of only muscle and bone, similar to a closed fist. His hair was cut in a severe military style, and there was a long scar on the left side of his face that marled the left eye to a dull white orb. Long ago, while questioning a traitor, Southerland had felt pity and offered the chained man a glass of water. It had been gratefully accepted, then smashed against the stone wall, the jagged edge slashed across his throat and face.

Knocking aside the makeshift weapon, Southerland had grabbed the prisoner around the throat and squeezed until the bones cracked, killing the man on the spot. Which was probably exactly what the rebel had hoped for in the first place—escape from the brutal torture to reveal the location of a hidden weapons cache. The doctors at Johannesburg had offered to repair the scar, but Zane refused, preferring to keep it as a grim reminder to himself to never again offer another person mercy.

“If only we had some fuel,” Southerland muttered, scowling into the distance. “Where are those fools?”

“Just arriving now, sir,” Sergeant Davidson said over the comm system. The pilot had stayed in the control room of the X-ship to monitor the pressure in the fuel tanks during refueling.

“And look what the idiots are carrying,” Major Theodora “Zolly” Henzollern drawled, lowering her binoculars.

Standing well over six feet tall, the major was a Nordic beauty with soft, curly blond hair that cascaded gently to her shoulders. Diagnosed as a sociopath as a child after burning her parents alive, Henzollern was sent to an insane asylum, but escaped as a teenager and roamed the streets robbing rich tourists, until being caught and forced to join the army.

In boot camp, her special talents were soon discovered, and the young woman was promptly put to work in the underground torture rooms for the Ministry of Defense, then into the field as a counterinsurgent for the Ministry of War, and finally recruited as a personal bodyguard for the legendary Colonel Southerland.

Seemingly impervious to the cold, Henzollern was also wearing a ghillie suit and sneakers, but carried a wide assortment of weaponry. A coiled garrote hung from her shoulder epaulet, an Italian stiletto was sheathed at her hip, an American switchblade knife tucked up a sleeve, and a French police baton was holstered at the small of her back. Holstered directly in front of her stomach was a brand-new, Heckler & Koch MP-7 machine pistol. Larger than a standard Colt .45 automatic pistol, the superfast HK could fire 950 rounds per minute, creating a wall-of-lead effect, the oversize clip containing 4.5 mm rounds of highly illegal, case-hardened steel penetrators that were capable of going straight through NATO-class body armor.

“Air tanks,” Southerland stormed, clenching his fists. “Those are conventional air tanks, not liquid air containers!”

“Yes, sir, they are,” she replied, brushing back her riot of curls with stiff fingers, her hand brushing against the coiled, plastic garrote on the way down. “It seems that O’Hara was right. He said not to trust these people. Guess the little bastard was correct.”

“So it would seem,” the colonel stated, forcing open his hands and clasping them behind his back in a martial stance.

Bouncing and shaking at every irregularity in the rough ground and coughing blue smoke, the battered old truck came to a rattling stop only a few yards from the colonel and major, smack in the shadow of the huge X-ship. Turning off the sputtering engine, the incredulous driver was unable to look away from the gigantic ship, but the fat man in the passenger seat seemed unimpressed. A missile was a missile; they were all the same. Big, noisy and expensive. Merely toys for governments, and not a proper weapon at all. Ivan Kleinof had made his fortune in the mean streets of Prague, Minsk, and finally Moscow with only an ice pick, nothing more. Even the old KGB had been afraid to cross the path of Icepick Ivan, the red czar of the Soviet underground.

“Greetings, my friends!” Kleinof boomed in a deep bass voice as he climbed down to the ground. “I have your shipment. Where is my money?”

“Inside my ship,” Southerland said woodenly. “But I don’t see my shipment. Is it hidden among those useless tanks of compressed air? Or perhaps it is lashed under the bed of that…well, let’s call it a truck, shall we?”

The smile vanished from Ivan’s face, and the driver behind the wheel put his hands out of sight below the dashboard.

“What are you babbling about, old man?” Kleinof shot back. “That is exactly what you ordered, a hundred thousand yards of oxygen and hydrogen, and right on schedule, too!”

“No, you’re over an hour late,” Southerland replied, bending his head slightly forward like a bull about to charge. “I order a hundred thousand gallons, not yards, fool, and those are compressed air cylinders, not liquid air tanks! Don’t you know the difference?”

“Bah, all oxygen is the same.” The man snorted, waving a hand to dismiss the claim. “My people stole these from a hospital. It is the very best oxygen and hydrogen. I should charge you more, so such quality, but a deal is a deal, eh?”

Pursing her lips, Henzollern noted the numerous splatters of blood on the outside of the air tanks, but that did not concern her. How these people got the fuel was not important. Only that they had brought the wrong stuff.

“As you say, a deal is a deal,” Southerland said, turning sideways. “And you have reneged on it completely.”

“What? I don’t know that word…renig?”

“Renege. It means to fail,” Southerland said calmly, turning his head slightly. “Zolly, please kill these idiots, but don’t hurt the truck. We may need that later.”

Suddenly grinning, Henzollern whipped forward the MP-7, the weapon firing into the cold ground, it stitched a path of destruction straight into Kleinof and up his body. Caught in the act of pulling an ice pick, the criminal’s face took on a strange expression as he broke apart and toppled to the ground in segments, wisps of steam rising from his internal organs.

Snarling a curse, the driver jerked up a pump-action shotgun and fired, but Southerland and Henzollern had already separated, and the hail of buckshot rained harmlessly off the hull of the X-ship.

As the driver worked the pump, Southerland came out of the roll on one knee and fitted the Webley, a foot-long lance of flame stabbed from the barrel. A hole appeared in the windshield of the truck, and the driver jerked backward as he sprouted a third eye. Moving his mouth as if talking, he convulsed, and the shotgun discharged, blowing a hole in the floorboard. A rush of pink gasoline chugged out of a severed fuel line, the cool liquid hissing as it hit the hot exhaust pipe. Southerland and Henzollern retreated quickly as there came a whoof from under the truck, and a few seconds later flames engulfed the vehicle, setting the corpse ablaze and licking out from around the hood. Keeping their distance, the man and woman waited until the shotgun shells cooked off from the heat, the random spray of buckshot finishing the job of shattering windows, flattening a tire and blowing off a door before stopping.

“Pretty,” Henzollern whispered softly, watching the growing conflagration.

Casting a glance at the killer, Southerland holstered his weapon and touched his throat mike. “Davidson, did you see?”

“Yes, sir,” came the crisp reply. “And I’ve already worked out the calculations. We can travel about fifty miles on what is remaining in the auxiliary tanks and fuel lines. But after that we’re dead on the ground.”

Unacceptable. Whipping out a cell phone, the colonel tapped in a long number, then listened carefully for eight clicks as the call was relayed twice around the world via satellites.

“Yes, Colonel, was there trouble?” Eric O’Hara said as a greeting.

Southerland detected a faint sneer in the hacker’s voice and accepted the unspoken reproof. He had been wrong, O’Hara right. He couldn’t fault the man for feeling smug. That was only human. But if the hacker had said anything out loud, he would have killed him.

“We need an alternate source for fuel,” Southerland stated bluntly, looking over the barren landscape. There was nothing in sight but mountains and rocky desert. “Is there anything we can use within fifty miles?”

“No,” came the prompt reply. “But I’ll guess that Davidson did the calculations for a crew of three. If only two of you go, that’d extend the range to a hundred fifty miles and…” There came the pattering of fingers on a keyboard. “Okay, there is an air processing plant only seventy miles away. Here are the coordinates.”

As a string of numbers flowed across the screen, Southerland tapped a button to lock them into storage.

“They will have enough liquid oxygen and hydrogen to fill the main tank halfway,” O’Hara finished. “I’ll divert the local police, and do what I can to pave the way. But expect some resistance.”

“Understood.” Southerland snapped closed the lid of the cell phone. Tucking it into a pocket of the ghillie suit, he touched the throat mike. “Davidson, come down immediately. You will stay here while I do an emergency fuel run.”

“Sir?” came the puzzled reply.

“The ship can’t fly far enough to obtain fuel with all three of us, and I go nowhere without the major.”

Still watching the fire, Henzollern stood a little straighter at those words, but said nothing out loud.

“Of course, sir,” Davidson replied hesitantly. “I’ll…come right down.”

As their earbuds went silent, Henzollern rested a hand on her MP-7. “Sir, will we be returning for Davidson?”

“Yes,” Southerland retorted sternly. “Dark Star never leaves a man behind.”

Nodding in agreement, the woman tore her attention away from the burning truck as there came a metallic clang and the hatch swung open to reveal Davidson. The pilot paused uncertainly for a moment, then put his back to the others and climbed down the ladder to the ground. The blackened soil was soft around the great ship, but as the man got farther away it started crunching under his sneakers.

“We won’t be gone more than thirty minutes, an hour at the most,” Southerland said, patting the man on the shoulder. “The fire should keep you warm for that long. But even if it dies early, stay in plain sight and wait right here for us. We’re already behind schedule and I do not wish to waste time hunting for you among the rocks.”

“Yes, sir,” Davidson replied, snapping off a salute. “And if Interpol, or NATO, should arrive before you return?”

Already starting toward the ladder, Southerland stopped to turn and stare hard at the pilot. “Throw yourself off the cliff,” he ordered in a perfunctory manner. “People often flinch at the second when shooting themselves in the head, and are only wounded. The bastards must not learn anything of importance from you. Understood?”

“Yes, sir! Hail the Motherland!”

Placing a sneaker on the bottom rung, the colonel gave a grim nod. “God bless South Africa,” he said in reply, starting to climb.

“Sir!”

At the top of the built-in ladder, Southerland climbed into the X-ship and dogged shut the hatch. Heading directly to the control room, he found Henzollern already strapped in and adjusting the dials. “Preburners on,” she announced, flipping a switch. “Reaction chamber is reaching operational levels…ready to go, sir.”

“Launch,” Southerland commanded, strapping on a safety harness.

There came a deafening roar and crushing acceleration slammed the man into the cushioned seat. He watched the world drop way below them, then move sideways as the X-ships descended from the mountains. Keeping a sharp watch on the fuel gauge, Southerland was starting to become nervous when the mountains finally gave way to rolling foothills and then a jagged coastline.

Minutes later a small factory town came into view on the monitor. There were row upon row of small wooden houses laid out in orderly streets. Thick black smoke poured out of tall brick chimneys of the main plant, and the dockyard was busy with cranes loading and unloading cargo from a fleet of vessels.

“Busy place,” Henzollern commented. “What is it called?”

“I could not care less,” Southerland retorted, studying the monitors for their goal. “All I am concerned with is…there! See it there, just to the west?”

“Yes, sir,” she replied, working the joysticks. “Starting descent now.”

The air plant was situated off by itself, well away from the town and public roads in case of an explosion. The building was long, the flat roof edged with hundreds of small windows in an obvious effort to try to control the damage of a blast, and off to one side were some bare steel exhaust vents covered with ice and surrounded by white mists.

The colonel started to point at them, but the woman was already heading in the correct direction. The legs extended, a red light began to flash as the X-ship landed on the pavement, the material cracking from the tremendous weight.

“We must have had a lot less fuel than O’Hara figured,” she reported. “We barely made it here, sir!”

“Good thing for him we did,” Southerland said dryly, rising from the chair. “If I die on a mission, he dies.”

Licking her lips, Henzollern ached to ask how it was arranged, but restrained herself. The colonel would not be the man he was without taking any, and all, necessary precautions to safeguard his return. He will make a fine king of South Africa, she thought.

As the man and woman undogged the hatch, they found a crowd of astonished workers gathered around the vessel. Without hesitation, Henzollern began to sweep the people with the MP-7. A dozen workers died before the rest registered the slaughter then scrambled away, screaming in terror.

Ignoring the rabble, Southerland and Henzollern climbed down the ladder and stepped over the twitching corpses to enter the plant. There were no divisions or walls inside the structure, the entire building one single massive room. Hundreds of tall steel bottles were lined up neatly, the bronze nozzles attached to pressure lines. Somewhere big pumps were thumping, steadily forcing two-thousand square feet of gas into the six-square-foot cylinder. While constructing the X-ships, Southerland recalled seeing an oxygen tank fall over, the bronze nozzle snapping off against a concrete block. Instantly, there was a hurricane as the volumes of gas inside rushed out and the cylinder shot along the floor, then up into the air, zooming about madly like an unguided missile, smashing apart men and machinery, until punching through the cinder-block wall and disappearing into the distance. Surrounded by so much explosive material, there was a sudden tingle in his gut similar to the rush of combat.

“Watch the feeder lines,” the colonel directed, pointing. “Green is oxygen, red is hydrogen. We need the insulated tanks. Those will hold the liquid gases.”

There came the sound of running boots and several burly men in denim jumpsuits appeared from around the row of air tanks, brandishing long wrenches and iron bars. One fellow in a suit was holding a fire ax. Obviously, that was the owner of the plant, or at least the foreman. Knowing to discharge the Webley this close to the charging lines might blow them to hell, the colonel pulled out a knife and jerked his wrist.

Across the floor of the plant, the man dropped the ax and staggered backward, the handle of the knife jutting from his throat. As red blood began to gush between his spasming fingers, the workers lost heart and ran away frantically, casting aside their makeshift weapons.

“Cowards,” Henzollern sneered, pressing the release button on the French police baton. The coiled sleeve of steel extended to a full yard, and locked into position. Eagerly, she tapped the deadly bludgeon against her leg, looking for prey. But there was nobody in sight, only the jerking hoses and thumping machinery.

Retrieving the gory blade, Southerland saw a side room full of refrigeration tanks and heavily insulated conduits. Opening the door, he was hit with a bitterly cold wave that chilled him to the bone. “This is it!” Southerland cried, reaching for a pair of safety gloves lying on a convenient table.

Having done something similar hundreds of times before, it took only a few minutes to run a pair of flexible hoses to the X-ship and start the pumps. In short order, the refrigeration tanks had been emptied, and the Dark Star operatives disconnected the lines to simply cast them aside. Returning to the control room, Southerland took command this time and started the engines, frowning deeply as the fuel gauge only registered a quarter full. Damn, just barely enough.

The colonel sent the X-ship soaring skyward, the fiery exhaust igniting the feeder hoses, the flames rushing back into the plant as they climbed high into the sky.

Streaking back toward the mountains, Henzollern saw the huge explosion rip the plant apart. As a roiling fireball covered the building, hundreds of black shapes began darting around within the blast, punching through the walls, and roof, then spiraling off into every direction. Mother of God, those had to be the air bottles!

Like a salvo of missiles, the steel containers dispersed randomly, a handful reaching the town to smash through buildings, spreading a wave of destruction throughout the homes and factories, and even reaching the cargo ships moored at the wooden docks.

“Our next stop will be Tasmania,” Southerland said, working the joysticks. “After that, we go back to home base.”

“But, sir, what about Davidson?” Henzollern asked uncertainly.

The man grit his teeth. “Unfortunately, we don’t have enough fuel for three, so he must stay behind.”

“I’ll take care of it, sir,” she said, pulling out the MP-7 and checking the clip.

“No, a commander must handle such things himself,” the colonel countered, gliding sideways toward the old uranium mines. “It is a matter of honor.”

“I’m sure he would appreciate the gesture.”

“Oh, I doubt it highly,” the man chided. “But as a soldier, he would understand the necessity, and that is enough.”

The dark plume of smoke rising from the burning truck made an excellent guide back to the landing site, and the X-ship hovered over the area for only a few seconds, before streaking upward into the starry black of space.