river. It’s not antipersonnel, is it?”
They all stood around the launching cradle. Ryan noticed that someone—now long
dead and turned to dust—had scrawled the girl’s name, Cathy, on the live missile
in green paint. For a moment he wondered who she’d been.
IT WAS TEMPTING to do it in the dark. The effect would be more terrifying, the
shock more total. But in the end J.B. agreed with Ryan that it would be best to
wait until first light.
The party split up. J.B. stayed in the narrow valley with Doc and Lori. Ryan,
Henn, Finn and Krysty moved carefully down the track, stopping about one hundred
and fifty feet above where Uchitel and the Narodniki commanded the river
crossing.
“Could hit their horses there,” whispered Finnegan, pointing to the shifting
blur of the Russians’ animals.
“Tell ’em we’re here? No. No fuckin’ way. We just stop here and wait and watch.
We move when the time comes.”
MAJOR ZIMYANIN was also watching the river crossing, His cavalry unit was a
scant couple of miles off on the far side of the valley. He lay on a promontory
of cold rock. The sniper, Corporal Solornentsov, was beside him. The party
didn’t allow muties in the fighting patrols—indeed, they were unofficially being
purged—and Solonientsov’s eyesight was so good that the major suspected that he
must have a mutie strain in him. However, the sniper was valuable to the
militia, and Zimyanin had never mentioned his suspicions to anyone.
“How many?”
“More than four hands and less than five, Major. They crossed the bottom of the
trail.”
“And higher?”
The sniper hesitated, pressing the Zeiss binoculars to his eyes. “Not easy
against the dark rock in this light, Major.”
“But?”
“But I think less than two hands. I am sorry I cannot see more.”
It was enough for the major, and he took back the glasses, smiling. It had been
a long stern chase, longer than he guessed when he first received his orders.
Now he was in America. It lay open before him, begging to be possessed like a
complaisant whore with her legs spread wide. Tomorrow could be the best day of
his life.
THE FIRST PINK FINGERS of light were creeping over the eastern side of the
valley, touching the concrete of the dam. The wind had veered more to the south,
bringing the promise of heavy snowfall. The air tasted foul from the volcanic
sulfur carried from a volcano a few miles toward the sea.
Uchitel had wandered to the river, keeping in the lee of the huge boulders that
dotted the valley. Soon it would be done, he thought. He could take the buggies
of the Americans, and their new weapons. And perhaps learn from them the
location of the secret city of power where such things resided.
And then there would be no stopping the Narodniki, the rulers of the land.
RYAN GLANCED AT KRYSTY who lay at his side, then turned to look up the valley
toward the dam. “Soon,” said the man.
UCHITEL MOVED AWAY from his band and stood where the slope began to steepen.
Four members of his band slept there, including Barkhat, Krisa and Zmeya, whose
skinny frame was almost smothered by the porcine bulk of Bizabraznia. It was
time to begin rousing them for the coming day.
MAJOR ZIMYANIN wiped smears of mud from the hem of his long gray coat, then
peered across the valley, squinting at the unusually bright rising sun. It was
rare to see it so naked and unveiled, free from chem clouds.
He clapped his hands together, trying to keep warm; it was much colder than the
day before. As the officer glanced farther up the valley, he saw a pinprick of
silver that trailed orange and red fringed with ragged smoke. Some moments
passed before he realized what it heralded. By then the boom of the massive
explosion had confirmed his guess.
Chapter Nineteen
WITHOUT THE USUAL computer-guidance system, J.B. had been forced to fire the
missile on manual sighting. Fortunately the range was less than half a mile, so
accuracy wasn’t too much of a problem. And the target was some thousand feet