Ahern, Jerry - The Nightmare begins

The Nightmare Begins

Jerry Ahern

Chapter One

General Ishmael Varakov buttoned the collar of his greatcoat and pulled the sealskin chopka down lower on his balding head. "Chicago—another Moscow," he muttered to himself, shivering, standing in the doorway of his helicopter and staring across the sea of mud at the icy, wind-tossed Lake Michigan waters beyond. "Bahh!" he grunted, starting down the rubber-treaded three steps leading to the damp ground. He stared at the massive edifice less than twenty-five yards distant. He didn't bother to look for the name—it had been the Museum of Natural History, given to the city of Chicago for a world's fair decades earlier and bearing the name of a capitalist, Varakov thought he recalled.

"Put up a new name," he said, turning to his young female aide, watching her legs a moment as the wind whipped at the hem of her skirt. "You are freezing—come inside. But the new name I want should reflect that this is headquarters for the North American Army of Occupation of the Soviet Peoples'

Republic—make a note of this when your hands stop trembling with the wind."

He walked ahead, spurning the blotchy red carpet waiting for him between the ranks of Kalashnikov-armed, blustery-faced troops, crossing the mud instead, his mirror-shined jackboots sinking at times several inches into the mire under the mass of his two hundred eighty-five pounds.

He stopped, standing at the base of the long low steps, scraping the mud from the soles of his footgear and staring up at the building.

"Comrade General Varakov!"

Varakov turned, staring at the major standing at rigid attention on his left.

Varakov returned the salute, less than formally and grunted, "What is it, major?"

"General! I have the seventeen partisans ready."

Varakov just stared at the major, then somewhere at the back of his mind he remembered the radio dispatch given him when he had landed at International Airport, northwest of the city, before transferring to his helicopter. He could recall it clearly enough—seventeen armed partisans had been captured after attacking one of the first Soviet scout patrols sent into the city. The seventeen—three of them women—had killed twelve Soviet soldiers. The partisans had survived the neutron radiation when Chicago was bombed, having taken refuge in an underground shelter. They had been armed with American sporting guns.

"I will come, major," Varakov nodded, then stopped scraping the mud from his boots—looking in the direction the major pointed, Varakov could see there was more mud. The major walked beside him, Varakov's young female aide a respectable distance behind. As Varakov stepped into the mud again, he silently wondered what it had been like here on the lakefront when the waters had so suddenly risen. The planetarium less than a quarter mile away had been badly damaged, the museum—now headquarters— barely touched. The brunt of the force of the Seiche that had swamped much of the city, destroying everything in its path like a tidal wave, had hit the northern shoreline. The houses and apartments of the rich capitalists had been there and were now in ruins. Varakov did not smile at the thought. The rich, too, had a right to life.

Varakov stared up from the mud, noticing the major had stopped. Looking ahead, Varakov saw the seventeen—some of them little more than children, none of them over twenty, he judged. He transferred his stare from the wall where they stood—hands bound, eyes blindfolded—and looked to the squad of six men, submachine guns in their gloved hands.

"Would you care to give the order to fire, comrade general?" the major asked.

"No—no, they are your prisoners." Then, stifling his own emotions, he added, "It is your honor."

The major beamed, executed a salute which Varakov—again less than formally—returned.

The major executed an about-face and walked to a position beside the firing squad. "Ready!"

"Aim!"

"Fire!"

Varakov did not turn away as the six-man squad began their steady stream of automatic fire, the seventeen Americans in front of the wall starting to crumple. One tried running, his eyes still blindfolded, hands still tied, and he fell facedown into the mud as two of the soldiers fired at him at once.

Varakov looked again. The one who had tried running had been a young girl, not a man. As the last body fell, Varakov stared at the wall—it was chipped with bullet pocks and there were a few dark stains— either from blood or from the mud that had splashed as the dead people had fallen.

Mechanically—still shivering—Varakov grunted, "Very good, comrade major," this time not saluting at all.

Chapter Two

Varakov wiggled his toes in his white boot socks under the massive leather-covered desk at the far end of the central hall. He looked up, for what must have been, he felt, the hundredth time, at the Egyptian murals on the upper walls. "Catherine," he grunted, looking across the room at the young aide rising from her desk and starting across the azure-blue carpet toward him. "Never mind walking here— order lights. This is too dark here. Go!"

She started a formal about-face and he waved her away, looking back to the reports littering his desk, Varakov glanced at the Swiss-movement watch on his left wrist and leaned back into his leather chair. There were ten minutes remaining before the intelligence meeting. He rubbed the tips of his fingers heavily across his eyelids and stood up—he hated intelligence meetings because he resented, distrusted and—secretly—feared and despised the vast power of the KGB. He recalled the "mysterious" crash of a plane carrying top-level Soviet naval officers not long before the war had begun—if it had been nothing more than a crash.

Varakov stood up, looked down to his open uniform blouse and stocking feet and shrugged his shoulders. As commanding general, he had some advantages, he reflected. He left the tunic unbuttoned and walked away from his desk. There were long, low, winding stairs at the rear of the hall leading up to the mezzanine that overlooked the central hall, and he took these, slowly under his ponderous overweight, clinging to the rail as he scaled to the top. There were low benches several feet from the mezzanine rail, and he sat on the nearest of these and stared down into the hall. A massive, life-size sculpture dominated the center, of two mastodons fighting to the death. A smile lifted the corner of Varakov's sagging cheeks. One of the mastodons appeared to be winning the struggle for supremacy. But to what avail—mastodon as a species was now extinct, vanished forever from the earth.

Chapter Three

"I've been meaning to ask you," Rubenstein began, wiping his red bandana handkerchief across his high, sweat-dripping forehead. "Out of all those bikes back there at the crash site, why did you take that particular one?"

Rourke leaned forward on the handlebars of his motorcycle, squinting down at the road below them, the intense desert sun rising in waves, visible despite the dark-lensed aviator-framed glasses he wore. "Couple of reasons," Rourke answered, his voice low. "I like Harley Davidsons, I already have a Low Rider like this," and, almost affectionately, Rourke patted the fuel tank between his legs, "back at the survival retreat. It's about the best combination going for off-road and road use—good enough on gas, fast, handles well, lets you ride comfortably. I like it, I guess," he concluded.

"You've got reasons for everything, haven't you, John?"

"Yeah," Rourke said, his tone thoughtful, "I usually do. And I've got a very good reason why we should check out that truck trailer down there—see?" and Rourke pointed down the sloping hillside and along the road.

"Where?" Rubenstein said, leaning forward on his bike.