Doomsday Read online

  Bodies dropped, thud after thud.

  “Sweet Odin,” Soren breathed. He had practiced with Mjolnir but not on living foes. Only two were still alive, and they came for him, their hands outstretched. Revulsion swept through him. He crushed the skull of the first and reduced the face of the second to splintered pulp.

  Soren moved among them, making sure. Some had burn marks. Some were giving off smoke. He swallowed and looked at Mjolnir, felt the familiar tingle down his spine. “So much power,” he said in awe.

  “What in hell did you think you were doing?” Slayne and Montoya had come out of the Hunster, and Slayne wasn’t happy. “You could have been killed.”

  “I couldn’t just sit there. I had to do something.”

  “They were no threat to us. We could have gone on by. Get it through your head that you can’t go taking needless risks.”

  “I did what the son of Odin would do.”

  Slayne held his temper. “Just because we call you Thor doesn’t make you Thor. Damn it, Anderson. You have a responsibility to the Family. You can’t go throwing your life away on a whim.”

  “I do what I must,” Soren insisted.

  Montoya stared at Mjolnir. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” he said in awe. “I want one of those.”

  Soren reverently held the hammer to his chest. “Mjolnir is the only one of its kind.”

  “How does it work?”

  “I don’t understand all the science,” Soren admitted. Richter and Allan had told him that the higher the power setting, the higher the current it induced, and that it was the current more than the volts that killed. But then they had also told him that it was the volts that could blast limbs from bodies.

  Slayne scanned the bleak landscape. “Get in. There might be more of those monstrosities around.”

  They gave Billings a wide berth. Later, twice, they spied antelope, but always at a distance. Once they came upon a dog moving stiffly at the side of the highway. Montoya wanted to stop until he saw that most of its hair was gone and it was covered with sores.

  Between Bozeman and Butte, as they crossed a barren flat, Slayne braked and got out the binoculars.

  “What do you see?” Montoya asked.

  Slayne pointed. “You tell me, Ricco.”

  To the north was a cloud. Not in the sky, but on the ground. It was green, bright green, so bright it seemed to glow, and it was moving, crawling across the ground as if endowed with a will of its own.

  “What is that?”

  Slayne didn’t know. It wasn’t much bigger than the Hunster and was heading east, away from them. He resumed driving and commented, “Welcome to our warped new world.”

  Roadblocks had been set up around Missoula. A National Guard unit, judging by their uniforms and equipment. Slayne spied them from half a mile out and decided to go around.

  The Bitterroot Mountains of eastern Idaho were a pristine wonder. Except for areas of scattered fallout, the Bitterroots were as they had always been. Or so Slayne thought until it occurred to him that there should be more signs of animal life.

  They were east of Wallace—and only twenty miles from Smelterville—when they rounded a curve and a crudely made billboard warned Checkpoint Ahead.

  Slayne quickly stopped. Several hundred yards down the highway were concrete barriers topped by barbed wire. Heavily armed men moved about behind the barricade. They weren’t in uniform.

  “What do we have here?” Montoya wondered.

  “To the right of the roadblock is a sign.” Slayne gave him the binoculars. “It explains a lot.”

  Montoya read the sign out loud. “WARNING. YOU ARE ABOUT TO ENTER THE FREE ARYAN NATION. WEAPONS ARE SUBJECT TO SEIZURE. NO DRUGS OR ALCOHOL ARE ALLOWED BEYOND THIS POINT.”

  “Read the fine print at the bottom.”

  “NO PERSONS OF COLOR ADMITTED.” Montoya lowered the binoculars. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  “Northern Idaho was an Aryan stronghold before the war. From here to the Washington border must be their territory now.” Slayne pondered for a few moments. “A lot of them were survivalists. They mobilized at the outset of the war and I would guess that it was Ben Thomas’s bad luck to run into them.”

  “Do you think they killed him?”

  “Who knows? The important question is what have they done with the SEAL? We’re not leaving without it.”

  Montoya nodded toward the barrier. “Before we can leave we have to get in. And I’ll be damned if they’re confiscating my weapons.”

  Slayne shifted into reverse. “They don’t appear to have noticed us yet.”

  He backed around the curve and made a U-turn. “Thor, you’re being unusually quiet. What’s going on in that crazy Norse head of yours?”

  “A man is more important than a machine.”

  The forest bordering the highway was thick, the under-growth heavy, but Slayne managed to find a rutted track that suited his purpose. He went far enough to ensure the Hunster couldn’t be seen from the road, then stopped. Climbing out, he slid his blue trench coat from over the back of his seat and shrugged into it.

  “A little warm for that, isn’t it?” Montoya said.

  “I like to sweat.” Slayne hadn’t told anyone the real reason he always wore it. The trench coat was custom-constructed to his specifications. Woven from the newest Kevlar weave, it was so soft and pliable a person would swear it was cotton or wool. Yet it was impervious to small-arms fire.

  Montoya went to the rear of the Hunster and swung its back door up. He donned a backpack and a helmet, then passed wafer-thin headsets to Slayne and Anderson. He didn’t need one; his helmet came with an internal com link. He switched it on and tweaked the gain. “Testing. Testing. Are you picking up?”

  “Clear as can be,” Slayne said.

  Soren adjusted the clip around his ear and nodded. “I hear you.”

  Slayne reached in and brought out the MP5. “Listen up. We go in, we find the SEAL if it’s there, and we get out. We avoid contact as much as possible. We don’t want a firefight if we can help it.”

  “What about Ben Thomas?” Soren wanted to know.

  “More than likely he’s dead by now. We have to focus on getting the SEAL back now.”

  Soren frowned.

  Slayne slung the MP5 over his shoulder. “From here on out only use code names. When I say Alpha Triad, it means both of you.” He headed back down the track toward the highway. “Single file,” he snapped into his mouthpiece. “Ten-yard intervals. Ricco, after me. Thor, you bring up the rear. Stay frosty.”

  “Yes, sir,” Montoya said.

  “Thor?” Slayne prompted when there was no response from him.

  “I hear you.”

  “Then say you do. We’ve been through all this, Anderson. Strict military procedure, remember?”

  “I’m not really a soldier.”

  “You better start thinking like one. You’re a Warrior, damn it. Get that through your thick Norwegian head. Our lives are on the line here. I don’t know about you but I want to make it back to the Home.”

  “As do I. I have a lovely wife and two fine children. Don’t worry. As the son of Odin does his duty, I’ll do mine.”

  “The who?”

  “The real Thor. The defender of Asgard and protector of Midgard. The bringer of the storm, the lord of the thunder and lightning.”

  “Spare me the mythological garbage and concentrate on the mission.”

  “As you wish.”

  When they reached the highway they crossed to the other side and paralleled it until they neared the barricade. Flattening, they crawled within earshot.

  Slayne counted nine Aryans. Two had SMGs, the rest high-powered rifles.

  Several were playing cards. One man was writing on a sheet of paper. No one was paying much attention to the highway. They were sloppy, this bunch. He could drop half of them before they knew what hit them, but he didn’t. He was about to crawl on when a short bundle of sinew with a neatly trimmed goat
ee said something that perked his interest.

  “When do you think Croft will give the word to move on Spokane?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine,” another Aryan answered. “Hardin thinks it will be a couple of weeks yet. The scouts haven’t come back and we don’t want to go up against more than we can handle.”

  “The Aryan Nation can handle anything.”

  Slayne whispered into his headset, “Alpha Triad, on me.” He continued crawling. Once it was safe, he rose into a crouch. “We have a long way to go yet. We’ll double time a few miles.”

  “Lead the way, Solo,” Montoya said.

  “Thor? Acknowledge, damn it.”

  “As he said, lead the way. The son of Odin will not fail you.”

  Slayne didn’t like the sound of that. Anderson was taking the whole Thor business much too literally. But now wasn’t the time or place to bring it up. Slayne began to jog.

  The gray sky cast the woods in somber shadow. Normally the wilds were alive with the warbling of birds and the chittering of squirrels but it was graveyard quiet save for the rustling of the wind.

  Slayne relied on a GPS unit. From a slope south of Wallace they surveyed the town. Save for a lot of armed men— and women—it could have been any town in prewar America.

  A flag flew above a church. The flag’s background was blue and red, with a gold crown atop a sword and what looked to be a horizontal Z through the middle.

  “What does that stand for?” Montoya wondered.

  “You’d have to ask them,” Slayne said. “Not that they would answer you. To them you’re one of the mud people.”

  “The what?”

  “Anyone who isn’t white. As a Hispanic you’d rate above a black but below a Jew.”

  “I sure would like to waste a few of these bigots.”

  The next town was Osburn. An Aryan flag flew over a church there, too. Kellogg, farther on, had half a dozen flags, but then it was twice the size of Osburn. The Warriors saw children playing and laughing, and heard someone singing.

  On a normal day the sun would have been blazing the western horizon red, orange, and yellow when the Warriors reached a rise above Smelterville, but on this day there was only the perpetually gray sky. Slayne raked the town from end to end with the binoculars. He spotted four tractor-trailer rigs. One was parked on the main street. Two others were in residential areas. The last one, the one that interested him the most, was in the lot of a run-down factory. “Gentlemen, take a gander.” He passed the binoculars to Montoya and pointed.

  “How do you want to handle this?”

  “We separate and go in from different directions. Stay in touch at all times. Remember not to engage hostiles unless you absolutely have to. Understood, Ricco?”

  Montoya grinned. “I’m good to go, Solo.”

  “And you, Thor?”

  “I and Mjolnir are at your disposal.”

  “Then let’s do this.”

  Warrior World

  Compared to the other towns, Smelterville was strangely quiet. It bothered Slayne. It was always the unforeseen that sent a combat op south. On the plus side, the few people on the streets were moving about in a leisurely fashion, and he saw no evidence of checkpoints or any Aryan militia.

  Slayne came to the edge of the forest. Beyond lay a side street lined by frame homes. “Solo is in position.”

  “Almost to mine,” Montoya said.

  Thor said nothing.

  Slayne was beginning to have his doubts about the man. Anderson had performed admirably during the firefight at the Home, but he had been acting erratically ever since the Armorer had modified his hammer. Slayne wasn’t a psychologist like Professor Trevor, but Anderson was acting more and more as if he thought he was the real Thor, and that was just plain psycho.

  “This is Ricco. I’m in position.”

  “The son of Odin is where he should be.”

  “Use your code name from now on,” Slayne said brusquely. He moved out from the trees. “All right, Alpha Triad. Converge on the truck. Low profile is the key phrase here.”

  Slayne’s idea of a low profile was to sling the MP5 over his shoulder and stroll along as if he belonged there. An old lady sat in a rocking chair on a porch, knitting. He nodded at her and she nodded back.

  From somewhere in the distance Slayne thought he heard subdued voices.

  Montoya was supposed to come in from the east, Anderson from the west, and Slayne was approaching from the south. He had figured that one stranger, walking alone, was less likely to stand out and draw attention than three strangers together.

  On the next street some boys were throwing a football. Slayne walked close to the curb. One or two glanced at him and went right back to their game. He was almost to the end of the block when a small dog came out of a yard and yipped at his heels. A woman called, “Here, Sweet-iepie!” and the mutt scampered off.

  The factory was set well back. Its parking lot had enough parking spaces to accommodate a hundred cars. The sign out front was faded. Slayne guessed that the place had closed years if not decades ago. A chain-link fence surrounded the lot but the gate was open and hanging lopsided.

  The muffled voices grew louder.

  As Slayne entered the parking lot, he realized why; the voices were coming from inside the factory. Some kind of meeting was going on. He made for the semi. “Alpha Triad, report.”

  “This is Ricco. Almost there.”

  “This is Thor. The same.”

  “Hold your positions once you reach the target,” Slayne reminded them. They were to cover him from the perimeter and be ready to render aid if he needed it.

  The truck was a regal mechanical beast with the words Semper Fi painted on the doors. The dust that covered it showed it had not seen recent use.

  Slayne walked the length of the trailer. He looked around to verify no one was watching. Gripping the handle, he wrenched on the rear door. To his surprise, it opened right up. And there it was: the SEAL. He was surprised the Aryans hadn’t tried to get it out. But maybe they had tried, and couldn’t do it. The locks were ingeniously designed to thwart even the best lock pick, and the windows and body were proof against anything short of a bazooka. “It’s here,” he announced. “Baby is here.”

  “Roger that, Solo.”

  “I’ll see if I can get the truck started. Hold your positions.”

  “Will do.”

  Slayne closed the door and hurried to the cab. The door was unlocked. He climbed in but left the door open. The key wasn’t in the ignition, as he’d hoped it might be.

  He checked behind the visors, in the glove compartment, and under the seat.

  He debated trying to hotwire the truck.

  “What the dickens are you doing in there, mister?”

  The Aryan was short and stocky with close-cropped hair and a beard streaked with tobacco stains. He held a shotgun in his left hand, muzzle pointed at the ground.

  “Looking for the key,” Slayne said. “You wouldn’t happen to have it, would you?”

  “What? No. I’d guess Mr. Croft or Hardin has it. Mr. Croft seems to think that van in the back is special. He gave orders that no one is to go near it without his say so.”

  “Where can I find them?”

  The man bobbed his chin at the building. “At the meeting. Where else?” He blinked. “Wait a minute. Who the hell are you?”

  Slayne smiled. “You can call me Solo with your dying breath if you want.” He whipped the MP5 up and around and triggered a three-round burst into the Aryan’s chest. A moment later his earpiece crackled.

  “Solo. I saw that. I’m coming over.”

  “Hold your position, Ricco. No one has noticed. We’re still good.”

  Slayne climbed down. Bending, he slid his hands under the dead man’s shoulders and dragged him toward the trailer, intending to shove him underneath and out of sight.

  “Solo! You have five unfriendlies coming up on the other side. They’re almost on top of you.”
r />   Slayne peered under the trailer and saw boots and shoes. He had no time to hide the body. Unfurling, he turned just as the Aryans came around the end of the trailer. He triggered two bursts and the first two men fell. The others darted back. He backed up, too, toward the cab.

  “This is Ricco. I’m on my way.”

  A head popped out. Slayne fired, but the man ducked from sight. He saw Montoya racing from the east end of the parking lot, and it hit him that he hadn’t heard from the other member of their Triad in several minutes.

  “Thor, do you copy?”

  There was no answer.

  “Thor, answer me.”

  Still no response.

  Slayne swore, and almost didn’t hear the patter of running feet coming around the front of the cab. He whirled and let the Aryan have a burst full in the face.

  “Solo!” Ricco reported. “One of them has a walkie-talkie!”

  Slayne could guess what the man was doing: alerting those inside the factory and requesting reinforcements. The situation threatened to go from bad to FUBAR.

  “Hurry, Ricco.”

  “Almost there.”

  Just then double doors at the front of the factory burst open and out spilled a swarm of two-legged hornets.

  Slayne’s immediate thought was: This is bad.

  Soren Anderson reached the west side of the parking lot. He stood at the fence for all of thirty seconds and then did what he wasn’t supposed to do. He wedged Mjolnir under the power belt, jumped up, and caught hold of the bar at the top of the fence. Another moment, and he was up and over and crouched on the other side.

  Hundreds of yards away was the truck. Slayne was almost to it.

  Soren unlimbered Mjolnir and headed for the factory. He noticed a side door, but when he got there it was locked. Farther on was a window. Someone had cracked it open a few inches. Raising it all the way, he slipped over the sill and found himself in a small office. He moved to a door and listened. All he heard were voices from deeper in the factory.

  Soren eased out the doorway. A dark hall led to a stairwell at one end and toward the voices at the other end. He chose the stairwell. At the landing he hesitated. Should he go up or down? His gut said to go down.