David Robbins - Cincinnati Run

“You bastard,” Geronimo stated.

With a wicked sneer, the Butcher motioned at the two troopers.

“Restrain his arms.”

The tall soldier covered Geronimo while the second trooper leaned his AK-47 against the wall and gripped the Warrior’s wrists.

“Both of you,” General Stoljarov directed. “Hold him securely.”

“Close your eyes,” the tall soldier ordered Geronimo.

The Warrior complied, and the next moment each arm was seized by one of the Russians.

“Open them.”

Geronimo did, to see the tall soldier’s AK-47 propped against the right side of the table and to find the tall soldier clutching his right arm and the second man his left.

“Position him at the end of the table,” General Stoljarov commanded.

The guards roughly hauled him into place.

“And now the fun can begin,” stated the Butcher. “I want his face in line with the hole.”

Geronimo knew what was coming next. He struggled, striving to break free, but the soldiers forced him to bend over, applying excruciating pressure to his arms. He looked up and stared directly into the hole in the laser.

The Butcher leaned forward, his hands on the table. “And now you will tell me everything I want to know, or little by little, bit by bit, I will burn the flesh from your head.”

Blade never hesitated, never broke stride. He was on the six-man squad in three bounds, ramming the stock of the AK-47 into the mouth of the first soldier and dropping the next with a fierce swipe to the side of the man’s head. Whipping to the right, he smashed his right elbow against the nose of a third adversary, then planted his left combat boot in the groin of the fourth. Only then did he employ the AK-47, firing two shots, one apiece into each remaining Russian’s forehead. He scanned the writhing, groaning figures on the floor and took off.

Where could Geronimo be?

In 20 feet he came to a door with two words stenciled in black letters on the panel. The top word was STAIRWELL, and the one underneath was in another language with strange lettering, undoubtedly Russian. He tested the knob, elated to discover the door was unlocked, and left the corridor. As the door closed he heard a commotion to his rear; General Stoljarov’s men must have found the six-man squad.

Move! his mind shrieked.

Blade took the stairs three at a stride. He reached a landing and continued higher, deliberating his next move. Being separated from Hickok and Geronimo compounded his problem. It wasn’t enough that he had the superweapon and the Hurricane to worry about. Now he had to find his friends. This mission, like most of those in the past, had evolved into a fiasco. No matter how hard he tried, how much he planned, something always went wrong. Always.

Murphy strikes again.

He came to another landing and went higher, wanting to put as much distance as possible between Stoljarov’s men and himself. He expected an alarm to sound at any moment, and once it did everyone in Lenin’s Needle would be on the alert. With his ill-fitting uniform, he would undoubtedly stick out like the proverbial sore thumb. How many people, he wondered, occupied the building after the day shift went home? A skeleton crew?

A third landing appeared, and still he climbed.

What was his first priority? Locating his fellow Warriors was important, but putting the silver spire out of commission was imperative.

There must be a control room, and logic dictated it would be on an upper floor. Wrecking the control room, then, should be his primary goal.

Hickok and Geronimo would have to wait.

Blade was almost to the next landing when klaxons went off, reverberating in the stairwell, creating a raucous clamor. He went to the door and peeked out.

A pair of troopers were walking down a wide corridor, their backs to the stairwell. They halted at a closed door 40 feet away, and one of them cautiously thrust the door inward. Their AK-47’s in their hands, they darted from view.

Blade was out of the stairwell in a flash, running to a door on the left and boldly entering the room beyond to find four rows of long metal tables covered with beakers, flasks, and Bunsen burners. A chemical laboratory?

What use would the Soviets have for a chemical lab? He peered into the hall.

A trooper came into view at the far end, carrying objects and strolling in the direction of the chemical lab.

Blade’s gray eyes narrowed. There was something familiar about the items the man transported, and it took several seconds for the shape of two articles in the soldier’s right hand to register: the Bowies! And there was the Commando, slung over the Russian’s left shoulder. Geronimo’s SAR dangled from the trooper’s right shoulder, and in his right hand he bore the Arminius and the tomahawk.

What was the soldier doing with them?

Resolving to reclaim his weapons at any cost. Blade watched the trooper enter a room 60 feet distant. He was tempted to make a dash to the room, but the thought of the pair of Russians in the other chamber deterred him. He would need to get past them without being detected.

The solitary trooper reappeared and strolled away, exiting through a door on the right-hand side.

One problem disposed of.

Blade patiently bided his time, wishing the klaxons would cease caterwauling. A minute later the duo materialized. They closed the door behind them and walked farther away, to the adjacent room, involved in a conversation Blade couldn’t hear because of the din.

The klaxons.

If he couldn’t hear the troopers, they wouldn’t be able to hear him.

Blade stared at their backs, took a breath, and charged, his long legs flying, covering six feet at a spring, his finger on the AK-47 trigger just in case they turned.

Neither so much as suspected his presence. With a final leap Blade was behind them, clubbing one with the stock, the second with the barrel.

Both stumbled and fell to their knees, and he struck each man again, knocking them senseless. A glance in both directions insured there were no witnesses. Blade slung the AK-47 over his left arm, then crouched and draped an unconscious Russian over each broad shoulder. His massive leg muscles quivered as he rose and hurried toward the room where the weapons had been stashed.

If soldiers emerged from any of the rooms now, he’d be at their mercy.

Blade reached the door and attempted to turn the knob, frowning when he discovered it was locked. He stepped back, clasped the Russians firmly, and delivered a kick with his right boot, his steely sinews snapping the lock, splitting the jamb, and causing the door to fly inward. He entered, groped for a light switch, and flicked on the light, then lowered the soldiers to the floor. As he shut the door he surveyed the chamber, noting a row of metal lockers lined against the rear wall, a rack of AK-47’s on the left wall and, of all things, a blackboard on the right.

What was the reason for the blackboard?

In the center of the room stood two tables piled with weapons and gear, and there, on the top of the nearest heap, were the Bowies in their sheaths.

Blade let the AK-47 fall and crossed to the table. A garment in another pile caught his attention, and he suddenly realized all of their clothing, evidently taken from the jeep, lay in a jumbled bundle.

He looked down at himself, at the ludicrous uniform, and, in a fit of annoyance, took hold of the front of his shirt, his brawny hands bunching the fabric, and yanked his arms outward, popping every button. Working swiftly, he removed the Soviet uniform and donned his green fatigue pants, the leather vest, and his Bowies. Why bother wearing the Russian uniform anymore? he reasoned. Every soldier at the L.R.F. must be aware that the Warriors were on the premises, so the uniform had lost its value as a disguise. Besides, he was tired of feeling cramped and uncomfortable.