David Robbins - Capital Run

Lex replaced the magazine in the Commando.

“Will we be there soon?” Rikki asked.

“Pretty soon,” Lex replied.

The sound of many voices in turmoil abruptly came from behind them.

“What’s that?” Lex whispered.

The turmoil was growing louder.

Lex motioned for Rikki to follow. They raced along the passage until they reached a branch, and she took a right.

The voices weren’t far off.

Rikki drew Lex into the darkest shadows.

“—tell you I saw them!” a woman was bellowing angrily.

“Sure you did,” another woman responded.

“But I did!” insisted the first. “About two hundred yards back. I saw them pass a junction.”

“Then where the hell are they?” demanded yet a third woman.

“If we haven’t seen them by now,” chimed in a stud, “we’ll never catch them.”

“If they were ever there,” griped one of the women.

“I saw them, damn you!” insisted the first woman.

There were eight of them, five sisters and three studs, and they reached the fork in the tunnels and stopped. None of them ventured into the branch concealing Rikki and Lex.

“So where do we go from here?” inquired one of the sisters.

“I’m tired of looking,” said another. “Why don’t we grab a bite to eat? I’m starving!”

“Will you listen to yourselves?” snapped the fifth woman. “They would hear us coming a mile off.”

“So what do we do?” asked a stud.

“Let’s try this way,” suggested a sister, and entered the right branch.

A whirlwind in black, wielding a scintillating blade, pounced on them from the shadows. In the three seconds they required to react to the onslaught, four of them were dead. A stud whipped his pistol from its holster, but that streaking sword was lanced through his right eye and into his brain before he could fire. The sister responsible for initially glimpsing Rikki and Lex successfully pulled her revolver, but the katana bit into her forehead, slicing off the top of her head, hair and all, and she uttered an uncanny death cry as she fell.

Hidden in the shadows, Lex watched in dazed fascination, dazzled by Rikki’s prowess with the katana. His sinewy body was a twisting, flowing dervish of destruction. To her untrained eye, it seemed as if he executed his movements without conscious deliberation, as if he and the sword were one.

Thirty seconds after they entered the right branch, the eight Leather Knights were dead.

Rikki cleaned his katana on a stud’s pants and rejoined Lex.

Lex stared at him with unconcealed admiration. “I’m beginning to wonder if anyone can kill you,” she said by way of a compliment.

“Anyone can kill me,” Rikki stated. “We all die, sooner or later. It’s the technique for translating our souls from this world to the next.”

Lex wanted to reach out and touch him, to smother his lips with fiery kisses. Instead, she chuckled. “You’re all right, you know that?”

“I do now,” Rikki replied, smiling. Then he turned serious. “We must reach Blade as quickly as possible.”

Lex nodded. “Come on.”

They jogged along the tunnels, sometimes taking a right fork, sometimes a left.

“How far underground are we?” Rikki asked once.

“I don’t know,” Lex responded. “But Grotto’s room is the last one we built.”

“It would be,” Rikki remarked.

After a series of winding hallways, Lex slowed and pointed to a wall ahead. “That’s it.”

“A dead end?” Rikki queried, perplexed.

“Not really,” Lex said. “The door is hidden in the wall. It’s one of our secret retreats in case the Reds ever invade St. Louis.”

Rikki ran to the brick wall.

Lex checked to verify no one was in pursuit, then joined him.

“How do we get in?” Rikki whispered.

Lex groped over the wall, seeking the false brick, the one covering the latch for the door. “It should be here somewhere.”

“I pray nothing has happened to Blade,” Rikki said anxiously.

“I bet he’s okay,” Lex said optimistically.

A tremendous roar shook the wall, emanating from the other side.

“I can’t find the latch!” Lex wailed.

Hickok crouched in the high grass bordering the former East Potomac Park and surveyed the airstrip. He knew this area had once been the East Potomac Park because he’d stumbled across a faded, weather-beaten sign at the side of Buckeye Drive, a sign replete with a miniature map of the Tidal Basin and the tract east of the Potomac River.

He’d been lucky so far.

Real lucky.

Hickok had been able to keep the helicopter in sight as it flew from the West Potomac Park, over the Jefferson Memorial, and landed at the airstrip. Traveling undetected from the West Potomac Park to the airstrip had been painstaking and arduous. Fortunately, the Jefferson Memorial had been leveled during World War III; all that remained were several shattered columns and the cracked and ruined dome lying on the ground.

Hickok was glad the structure had been razed. Otherwise, he might have encountered large crowds similar to those near the Lincoln Memorial. He silently thanked the Spirit as he crept toward the airstrip, using every available cover.

Once, as he was nearing Buckeye Drive, a squad of soldiers had tramped past his position. They were marching toward the Washington Channel.

Hickok had crossed Buckeye and hidden in the grass, and now he was only 15 feet from the northwestern perimeter of the strip. He parted the grass in front of him for a better look-see.

The airstrip was loaded with helicopters. Huge helicopters. Small helicopters like the one the SEAL had engaged. And medium-sized helicopters. Some had single rotors. Others, especially the immense ones, had twin rotors, one above each end of the whirlybird. Technicians and flight personnel crowded the airstrip. Several tanker trucks, evidently conveying fuel, arrived on departed at periodic intervals.

After he had observed the proceedings for a spell, Hickok’s interest was aroused by one particular copter. It was one of the largest on the airstrip, and the hub of intense activity. Hickok deduced they were preparing the helicopter for takeoff. A red tanker truck had pulled up, and three men were involved in running a hose from the tanker to the copter. Other men were engrossed in loading supplies onto the helicopter. One of the items Hickok saw rang a mental bell.

What was it General Malenkov had said?

“Our helicopter will use a winch and a sling and fly it here.”

Hickok was familiar with winches. The Family Tillers used small winches to store bales of hay and other perishables in F Block. So when he saw a gigantic winch mounted above the bay doors on the huge helicopter being serviced by the tanker truck, a surge of excitement pulsed through him.

What if it were the one they were planning to use to transport the SEAL to Washington?

Several minutes later, his hunch was confirmed. Two events took place.

First, a steel, sling-like affair was placed aboard the copter. And secondly, Lieutenant Voroshilov drove up in a jeep.

Now what would General Malenkov’s pet flunky be doing here?

Lieutenant Voroshilov carefully inspected the tandem helicopter, apparently guaranteeing the ship was airworthy. To Hickok, it seemed as if the lieutenant spent an inordinate amount of time involved in the task.

Voroshilov even climbed a ladder to examine the rotors. Wouldn’t that task normally be a job for one of the noncommissioned types? the gunman asked himself, if so, why did Lieutenant Voroshilov devote so much energy to the work?

A troop transport approached the helicopter from the direction of a building situated along the Washington Channel. The brakes squealed as the truck stopped. Six soldiers emerged from the rear of the transport and formed a line.