David Robbins - Capital Run

“You ain’t there now, are you?” Cardew teased the Warrior. “You’re here. And what Terza says, goes. If you give her any lip, you’ll never see your wife again. No man has ever refused her. Am I getting through to you yet, asshole?”

“Loud and clear,” Blade responded. He watched the Knights lowering Lex to the ground. How were they going to get out of this fix? Would Terza want to be alone with him? If so, would it be to his advantage to escape while Rikki and Lex were still being held? Terza might execute them out of sheer spite. He closed his eyes and sighed. At least Hickok was free. He hoped he could rely on the gunman’s customary impatience. Let’s see.

Hickok had agreed to stay with the SEAL for three days. But would the gunfighter wait that long? Highly unlikely. One day, definitely. Two, possibly. But never for three. Hickok would come looking for them, but not for another day and a half, minimum.

A lot could happen in a day and a half.

Blade opened his eyes and stared at Cardew’s leering expression.

Yes, sir.

A whole lot.

And none of it good.

“Not now, honey,” Hickok mumbled. “I’m plumb tuckered out.” He rolled over and started to fall asleep again, but Sherry wouldn’t leave him alone. She was insistently shaking his right shoulder. Funny thing about wives. Before the marriage, they were all over your body and couldn’t seem to get enough. Then it was “I do,” and “Whoa, there, buckaroo!”

“Not tonight! I’ve got a headache!” Except when they were in the mood.

Then the man had best be able to get it up, or it was cold stares and leftovers until the woman decided the man had repented enough for another go. Contrary critters, those females! Sherry was shaking harder now.

Hickok eased onto his back and opened his eyes.

Uh-oh.

It wasn’t Sherry standing over him. It was three men, all wearing brown uniforms with red stars on their collars and other insignia.

Hickok suddenly remembered everything in a rush, and he automatically reached for his Colts. But his fingers closed on empty holsters.

They’d taken his Pythons!

One of the men, a burly man with sagging cheeks, a protruding chin, and bright blue eyes, held the Pythons aloft in his right hand. “Are these what you are looking for?” he asked in clipped, precise English.

Hickok started to rise, but the other two men had already drawn automatics from holsters on their right hips.

“Please,” said the first man, evidently an officer, “don’t do anything foolish. We have no intention of harming you.”

“Then what am I doin’ here?” Hickock demanded. “And where the blazes am I?” He rose on his elbows and scanned his surroundings, finding himself on a metal table in a well-lit room. Four overhead lights provided ample illumination. A row of equipment-medical equipment, if he guessed right—was lined up along one of the walls.

“We will ask the questions,” said the burly officer. “What is your name?”

“Annie Oakley.”

The officer’s blue eyes narrowed. “That is a woman’s name.”

“Would you believe Calamity Jane?”

“Another woman’s name,” the burly officer remarked. “What kind of game are you playing?”

“Poker,” Hickock said.

One of the other men began speaking to the burly officer in a foreign tongue.

Hickok listened intently, but couldn’t make hide nor hair of their babble.

“Ahhh. I see,” the burly officer said in English. “Lieutenant Voroshilov informs me you refer to a period in American history hundreds of years ago. Is this not true?”

Hickock glanced at Lieutenant Voroshilov, a youthful officer, in his 30s, with green eyes and crew-cut blond hair. “Don’t tell me. Voroshilov is partial to readin’ about the Old West!”

The burly officer shook his head. “Not exactly. But Lieutenant Voroshilov does have what you call a…” He paused for a moment.

“Photographic memory. He read a book once about the history of cowboys and Indians, or some such silliness, and never forgot what he read.”

“Photographic memory, huh?” Hickok said. “Then he should have smarts enough to know who you jokers are and where the dickens I am.”

Burly Butt smiled. “Please forgive my rudeness. I should have introduced myself. I am General Malenkov.”

“Malenkov. Voroshilov. With names like that, it’s a cinch I ain’t in the Civilized Zone,” Hickok quipped, alluding to the area in the Midwest and Rocky Mountain region occupied by the remnant of the U.S. Government after World War III.

“Are you from the Civilized Zone?” General Malenkov asked.

“Didn’t you ever hear about what curiosity did to the cat?” Hickok countered.

General Malenkov’s facial muscles tightened. “I have tried to be polite, but you will not cooperate. If you will not supply the information I need willingly, then I will use other methods.”

“Give it your best shot,” Hickok taunted him.

General Malenkov smiled. “I will.” He barked a series of orders at Lieutenant Voroshilov. That worthy wheeled and stalked to the row of medical equipment. The third, unnamed, soldier kept his pistol trained on the man in buckskins.

“What are you aimin’ to do?” Hickok inquired nonchalantly.

“We will inject you with a substance our chemists developed for recalcitrant subjects,” General Malenkov answered. “What’s it do?”

“It is a truth serum,” General Malenkov explained. “Once injected, you will divulge everything we want to know.”

Hickok watched Voroshilov remove a hypodermic needle from a glass cabinet. He didn’t like this one bit. It didn’t take a genius to figure out who these bozos were. He’d attended the history classes in the Family school, and he knew about the Russians and the part they’d played in the Big Blast. Who else could these clowns be?

Voroshilov was filling the hypodermic from a small vial.

Hickock calculated the risks. If they injected him with the truth serum, he’d probably spill the beans about the Family and the Home and the whole shebang. But if he went along with them for a spell, he might be able to withhold information crucial to the safety of the Family and essential to the Freedom Federation.

Lieutenant Voroshilov had finished filling the hypodermic needle. He turned and returned to the metal table.

“You don’t need to go to all this trouble on my account,” Hickok said.

“It’s no trouble,” General Malenkov assured him.

“I’ll answer your questions,” Hickok declared.

“Why have you changed your mind so quickly?” General Malenkov inquired.

“I’m fickle,” Hickok responded. “Ask anybody. They’ll tell you I never know if I’m comin’ or goin’.”

General Malenkov smiled, but the smile lacked any trace of genuine friendliness. His eyes were impassive pools of indeterminate intent. He said something in what Hickock assumed was Russian to Voroshilov. The lieutenant retraced his steps to the glass cabinet and replaced the hypodermic.

Hickok trusted the general about as far as he could toss a black bear.

He instinctively sensed the general was up to something, but he didn’t have the slightest idea what it might be. General Malenkov had acceded too readily to not using the truth serum. Why? What did the tricky bastard have up his sleeve?

“Tell us your name,” General Malenkov demanded.

“Hickok.” He abruptly realized Malenkov wasn’t holding his Colts.

Lieutenant Voroshilov interjected several sentences in Russian.

General Malenkov frowned. “Why do you persist in these games?”

“I told you the truth,” Hickok said. “My name is Hickok. I know it’s a name from the Old West. That’s why I took it. It’s the name of an old gunfighter I admire a lot.”