David Robbins - Boston Run

Damn!

The Warrior dashed to the second door, but as he grabbed the knob he heard a gruff voice on the other side.

“Who the hell turned on the lights?”

Blade jerked the door wide and stepped into the sleeping quarters.

There were ten bunk beds, five on each side of the room. Only two beds were empty, the two apparently belonging to the pair he’d slain, leaving 18 occupied bunks where there should be only 16 and no time to contemplate the reason for the discrepancy because the commandos were coming alive.

“It’s Blade!” the man in the bottom bunk to the Warrior’s left shouted, scrambling from under the covers.

“Get him!” chimed in another.

The Warrior sent a half-dozen rounds into the bigmouth to his left and saw the man pitch to the floor, and then he brought the barrel higher to catch the commando in the top bunk, the heavy slugs flinging the supersoldier from his roost, screeching in anguish. Blade took two strides into the room, trying to watch all of the commandos at once, and as he moved he noticed the black footlockers at the foot of each bunk. Set out neatly on top of each locker were two camouflage uniforms, except for the footlocker near the empty bunk and the footlocker next to the first bed on his right. On that one were brown uniforms. At that moment he also made a chilling observation. Leaning against the post at the foot of each bunk, with the exception of the first bunk to his right, were assault rifles, and hanging from the upright posts were holsters.

All this Blade perceived in the span of three seconds while the men and women in the bunks struggled to shake the sleep from their eyes. And then, in a terrible moment of savage action, the battle was joined.

A woman three bunks down on the left clawed at her AK-47.

Blade shot her in the head, the rounds spraying her brains and pretty red hair all over the footlocker and the floor. He strode farther into the room, squeezing the trigger, Firing a steady burst, killing the commando in the bunk above her, then reversing direction to blast the two men in the second bunk on the left. Oaths and shouts and screams filled the air. The super-soldiers were all going for their weapons.

A woman in the fourth bunk on the right got hold of her pistol.

His lips a thin, grim line. Blade let her have several rounds in the chest.

He spun to the right and shot the two men in the second bunk on his right. They thrashed as they were hit, crimson geysers spurting from their ruined torsos. He swung around, aiming at the commandos at the back of the barracks, when the unexpected occurred.

The AK-47 went empty.

In a twinkling he realized there should have been more rounds in the magazine, and he realized he’d inadvertently used the same weapon he had employed at the hospital. He tossed the assault rifle to the right and unslung the AK-47 over his right shoulder, but even as he did other guns boomed and chattered and he leaped behind the flimsy cover of the bunk bed to his left. He’d lost the advantage, and as soon as he showed himself he was dead. The concerted enemy fire would be overwhelming.

Unless.

Unless he met their superior firepower with concentrated firepower of his own.

Bullets were thudding into the bunk above him.

Blade twisted onto his stomach and crawled frantically to the head of the bunks, then turned to the left and squeezed between the next bunk and the wall. The commandos were pouring their shots into the bunk he’d left, unaware of his move, giving him the gift of a moment’s breathing space.

He quickly unslung the third AK-47, took hold of one in each brawny hand, then rose, firing as he straightened, shooting underneath the top bunk, downing several supersoldiers who were caught by surprise. But he couldn’t stand still, not even for an instant, so he darted to the center of the room again, firing as he ran, and he continued to fire once he was in the aisle, sending a burst into a nearby woman, then taking the forehead off a stocky man who lunged at him from the right, and still he fired, swinging the barrels from side to side and up and down, always firing, firing,firing, always in motion, spinning and ducking and weaving. He fired as some of the commandos rushed him. He fired as they sniped at him from behind the bunks. And he fired at the few who attempted to flee out of the rear door. Only the fact that both magazines went empty almost simultaneously stopped him from firing.

An awful silence enveloped the barracks.

Blade threw the assault rifles to the floor and grabbed yet another leaning against a bed to his right. Acrid smoke hung heavy in the room.

Bodies were sprawled in the aisle, on the bunks, and near the back door.

Blood flowed copiously. Someone groaned.

No one else moved.

But there were two men still alive.

Blade swung toward the first bunk bed on the east side of the room and covered the men who were lying in a state of transfixed terror, the same men who owned the brown uniforms.

Scowling, he stepped over to the bunks. “You don’t belong to the HGP

Unit. Who are you?”

The dark-haired man in the bottom bunk winced at the raspy, threatening tone in the Warrior’s voice, while the man in the top bunk regained his composure, glared defiantly, and crossed his arms.

“I’ll never tell you a damn thing!” the defiant one declared.

“Then who needs you?” Blade responded, and shot him.

Startled by the sudden demise of his companion, the dark-haired man held out his arms, as if to ward off a hail of lead, and cried out, “Don’t kill me! I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”

“Do you know who I am?” Blade asked.

“Yeah. The Warrior we picked up in Minnesota.”

“Who are you?”

“Captain Jim Nezgorski, Soviet Air Force.”

“What are your duties?”

“I’m a pilot. I fly the unit wherever it has to go.”

Blade nodded at the corpse in the top bunk. “Was he a pilot too?”

“Yeah.”

So elite units usually included specialists within their own ranks? Blade reminded himself of his earlier observation, and shook his head, bemused by his inaccurate insight.

The pilot misconstrued the motion. “I’m not lying. Frank was a pilot.

We shared the flight duties.”

Blade leaned forward. “I believe you. Now get out of bed.”

Jim Nezgorski blinked a few times. “What? Why?”

“That helicopter I saw outside is fueled and ready to take off, isn’t it?”

The man hesitated, as if he was about to lie, but he decided, after a glance at the carnage the giant had caused, to tell the truth. “Yeah.”

“Then grab your uniform and let’s go. Someone was bound to have heard all the noise. Reinforcements will be arriving in less than five minutes. I want us in the air in two.”

“Two?” Nezgorski said, and scrambled from bed. He wore a pair of white boxer shorts. Nervously moving to the front of the bunks, he snatched a brown uniform from off the footlocker and went to put it on.

“You can do that after we’re airborne,” Blade told him, and wagged the AK-47 at the front door. “Move it.”

“My shoes,” the pilot declared. He knelt to pull a pair of brown shoes from under the bed.

Blade covered him, then gestured impatiently when Nezgorski straightened. “Now get your butt in gear. If we’re caught, I promise you that you’ll die before I do. You have one minute and fifty seconds to lift off.”

The pilot hurried toward the entrance. “What then? Where am I taking you?”

“After we’re up, you’ll destroy the hangars—”

“I’ll what?” Nezgorski blurted out, and stopped.

Blade prodded him with the barrel and the man hustled to the door.

“You’ll destroy the hangars and all the aircraft in them so your Air Force pals won’t be able to use the other choppers to come after us. Is that helicopter outside one of the modified jobs?”