David Robbins - Capital Run

The soldier’s face creased in perplexity.

“So you can speak English,” Hickok said.

“Please,” the soldier remarked, “what is ‘palaver’?”

“It means to shoot the breeze,” Hickok explained. “Sling the bull. You know. Idle chitchat.”

The soldier seemed even more confused. “I know English, yes. But I do not know many of the words you use.”

Hickok took a few steps toward the soldier, acting innocent. He grinned. “That’s because I’m partial to Old West lingo I picked up in books in our library.”

“Does everyone where you are from talk like you do?” the soldier asked.

“Nope,” Hickok acknowledged. “I’m the only one.”

“Most strange,” the soldier commented.

Hickok nodded in agreement and moved several feet closer to the soldier. “That’s what my friends say too.”

“Then why do you do it?” the soldier queried.

“I reckon my momma must of dropped me on my noggin when I was six months old,” Hickok said. He took two more steps nearer to the soldier.

“You will stay where you are,” the guard warned.

Hickok shrugged. “Whatever you say, pard. But I’ve got a question for you.”

“A question?”

“Yeah. Do you mind if I ask it?” Hickok inquired.

“What is your question?” the soldier wanted to know.

“I don’t reckon there’s any chance of you letting me walk out that door, is there?” Hickok ventured to request.

The soldier laughed. “You are not serious, yes?”

“Deadly serious,” Hickok gravely informed him.

The soldier shook his head. “Nyet. I can not allow you to leave this room.”

“What would you do if I tried?” Hickok asked.

“I would shoot you,” the soldier soberly responded.

Hickok sighed. “And I don’t suppose there’s nothin’ I could say or do that would change your mind?”

“I will shoot you,” the soldier reiterated.

“Well, you can’t say I didn’t try,” Hickok said. He half turned, looking at the White House. “I can always spend my time counting the cracks in the walls.”

The soldier shifted his attention to the decaying structure. “A most fitting fate for the decadent warmongers,” he stated, quoting from a course he’d taken in Imperialist Practices and Fallacies.

“Speaking of fate,” Hickok said slowly. He suddenly whipped his lean body around, his right hand flashing up and out.

The silver knife streaked across the intervening space and sliced into the soldier’s right eye. He shrieked and clutched at the hilt, but the blood spurting from his ravaged eyeball made the handle too slippery to clasp.

His trigger finger tightened on the trigger of his pistol, but before he could pull it he started to tremble uncontrollably. Spasms racked his body. His facial muscles quivered as he arched his back and staggered into the metal table.

Hickok knew the man was in his death throes.

The soldier’s fingers involuntarily relaxed, straightening, and the pistol dropped to the floor. He gasped and sprawled onto the table, on his stomach, blood dribbling from the corners of his mouth, his nostrils, and his punctured eye. His good eye locked on the gunman, and with a whining wheeze he expired.

Hickok walked to the wooden stand and retrieved his Pythons. He stared at the gleaming pearl-handled Colts, feeling complete again. What had they done with his Henry? he wondered. He hoped they’d overlooked it in the dark and it was still in the woods near the SEAL.

The SEAL.

How the blazes was he going to return to St. Louis? He needed to come up with one humdinger of an idea.

Voices, speaking in Russian, came through the closed wooden door.

It was time to hit the road.

Hickok quickly checked the pythons, and it was well he did. Someone had unloaded them while he was unconscious. He slipped the necessary cartridges from his gunbelt and reloaded both Colts.

Now let them try and stop him!

The gunman eased to the door and cautiously opened it. He found an amply lit corridor with brown floor tiles and white walls.

None of the varmints were in sight.

Hickok took a deep breath and stepped out of the medical room. He closed the door behind him and hurried to the left, searching for a place of concealment, somewhere he could get his bearings.

A door directly ahead abruptly opened and a tall woman in a white smock emerged.

Blast!

The woman spotted the gunman, her face registering utter bewilderment. She recovered and said something in Russian.

Hickok bounded forward.

The woman was opening her mouth to scream when the gunman slammed the barrel of his right Colt across her jaw.

The woman stumbled backward, bumping into the wall.

Hickok slugged her again for good measure.

She sagged to the floor in a disjointed heap.

Hickok ran now, knowing he had to get out of the building before the alarm was given. He hated being cooped up inside. Once outdoors, the odds of eluding his captors were infinitely better. He reached a fork in the corridor and bore to the left again. He was thankful he was on the ground floor; at least he wouldn’t need to contend with finding the right stairs.

Two men, both in military uniforms, one armed with a holstered pistol, another with a machine gun— an AK-47, if Hickok remembered the gun manuals in the Family library correctly—appeared at the end of the corridor. They reacted to the gunman’s presence instantly, the one with the pistol grabbing for his holster and the other soldier sweeping his AK-47 up.

Hickok was 30 feet from them. He never broke his stride as he leveled the Colts and fired, both Pythons booming simultaneously.

The two soldiers each took a slug between the eyes. The one with the pistol simply fell forward, but the trooper with the AK-47 tottered backwards, crashed into the left-hand wall, and dropped.

Hickok slowed as he neared the soldiers. He holstered the Colts and leaned over the soldier with the AK-47. “I need this more than you,” he commented, scooping the gun into his arms and continuing to the end of the hallway.

Bingo!

Wide glass doors were on the other side of a spacious reception area. A woman at an oaken desk was frantically punching buttons on an instrument of some kind.

Hickok was abreast of her desk before he recalled the name of the contraption she was using: a telephone. They had used them before the Big Blast for communications purposes.

The woman started yelling into the receiver.

Hickok gripped the barrel of the AK-47 and swung it like a club, striking the receptionist on the left side of her head.

She slid from her chair to the floor, the telephone plopping alongside her.

Move!

Hickok ran to the glass doors. He paused, confused. The dang things didn’t have any doorknobs! How was he supposed to—

The doors unexpectedly parted with a pronounced hiss.

What the—

Hickok raced outside. Never look a gift horse in the mouth! he always said. He scanned the scenery before him. From the position of the sun, he knew he was heading due south. In front, a park with trees and grass and couples strolling arm-in-arm and kids playing with puppies. To the right, a parking lot filled with vehicles. To the left, a sidewalk and a hedgerow.

Which way?

Hickok bore to the left, making for the hedge. He could hide and take a breather while he-Four soldiers pounded into view, coming his way, jogging around the hedgerow on the sidewalk.

Someone in the park had seen the gunman and was shouting at the top of his lungs.

In the parking lot, three troopers hopped from a jeep and raced toward him.

Behind him, the glass doors hissed open, disgorging three more soldiers in hot pursuit.

Hickok crouched and raised the AK-47.