The Kremlin Phoenix (20 page)

The station was a giant inner
tube, two kilometers across and spinning fast enough to maintain ninety percent
Earth-normal gravity. The cylindrical
SEIII
was docked in the center of
the wheel’s four spokes, like an axle to the wheel. Its fusion reactor had been
linked to the station’s electrical system, supplementing L-2S’s power supply,
while most of its other systems had been similarly integrated, making the ship virtually
one with the station.

L-2S was Earth’s outer planets
space port, located in the Sun-Earth Lagrange-2 point, a place where the gravitational
fields of the Sun and Earth were balanced, providing a stable deep space orbit
perfectly synchronized to the Earth’s motion through space. It was the point
from which all outer planet missions were launched, and the base from where it
had been planned to turn a handful of tiny research outposts on Mars and
several planet-sized moons into self sustaining city-sized colonies. More than
a dozen ships larger than the
SEIII
had been in various stages of
construction in Earth orbit when the catastrophe had occurred. The war had
raged across the planet, from the deepest oceans to the highest orbit, laying waste
in a few hours to almost all mankind had created in ten thousand years. The
station had avoided destruction because no planetary launched weapons could
reach her, and as she was unarmed and played no part in global strategic
systems, she had no military value.

The
Solar Explorer I
,
recently returned from Uranus, had been in orbit when the war began. Her orbit
was now decaying. In less than two years, she would burn up in Earth’s toxic
atmosphere. By contrast, the SEII had been maneuvering for insertion into
Neptune’s orbit when she’d received the news of Earth’s destruction from L-2S
control. Rather than return to the station, the crew had simply nosed the ship
into Neptune’s freezing atmosphere. Whether the decision had been made by the
entire crew, or was the act of a deranged crew member, no one knew.

Many had given up on Mariena’s
plan to use the station’s tachyon array to change the course of history. The
array could be aimed at precisely calculated points along Earth’s orbit, points
that were based on Earth’s position in the 21
^st
century, not its
current position.

Commander Zikky now stared at a Russian
police report containing a set of unidentified fingerprints, and a picture of
an unnamed victim whose face had been crushed beyond recognition. The station’s
computer had matched the fingerprints to a set taken from Craig Balard’s office
and home by the New York Police Department when investigating the murders of
Goldstein, McCormack and Powell. The Russian investigation had been unable to
identify Craig’s fingerprints, because the successful military coup in Russia
had resulted in a permanent severing of links between American and Russian law
enforcement agencies.

Unable to believe his luck, Zikky
activated the intercom. “I’ve found him!”

Mariena replied immediately.
“Where was he?”

Zikky read the English language
translation of the Russian police report with growing confusion. “Moscow!
Apparently his skull was crushed!”

“I’ll be right there.”

* * * *

Present Day

Craig’s head had cleared by the time he
picked away the last strands of rope tying his right hand to the chair. When
his hand was free, he dropped the syringe and untied his other hand, then began
pulling on the ropes securing his feet. Suddenly, someone stepped in front of
him. He jerked back in the chair, surprised to see Mariena standing almost on
top of him, staring over his shoulder at the wall immediately behind him.

“Craig Balard, move away from the
wall.”

The old stone wall behind him was
windowless and several hundred years old. “Why?” he asked, then shook his head,
remembering she couldn’t hear him. He returned to pulling on the ropes around
his feet.

“You have less than three minutes
before your next time of death.”

Craig gave her a incredulous
look. “Now you tell me?”

“If you stay near the stone
wall,” she continued, oblivious to his reply, “You will be buried alive.”

He glanced at the wall uncertainly,
unable to believe such a solid structure was in danger of collapse. “I guess
you got that one wrong,” he muttered, but started tearing frantically at the
ropes in case she was right.

“We’re not detecting a timeline
reset!” Mariena said anxiously, unaware Craig lay at her feet, clawing at ropes
tying his ankles to the heavy high backed wooden chair. “You will be crushed to
death if you do not move now!”

Crushed by what?
Craig wondered as the ropes began to part.

* * * *

The BTR armored personnel carrier
turned on the spot in the middle of the street until it faced the house. Its
markings indicated it was a unit of the Kantemirovskaya Tank Brigade, a company
which quartered in the same complex as the Parachute Division. The elite unit’s
commander, General Sergei Usilov, was a close personal friend of General
Zharkev’s and, like Zharkev, had been directed to take leave in early August. As
a result of a brief conversation with Zharkev, Usilov had sent instructions to
his subordinates and was now aboard a Ka-27 Helix helicopter flying back to his
headquarters.

The BTR belched black smoke as it
pushed forward to the garden fence, then stopped. Inside, ten paratroopers in
full combat kit under the command of Major Vodin readied themselves. Valentina
and Karmanov rode up front, squeezed into a greasy space between the nineteen
year old BTR gunner and his eighteen year old driver.

“You want me to shoot the house?”
the BTR gunner asked incredulously.

“Yes,” Karmanov said. “Blow a
hole in that wall.”

“The Prime Minister’s informant
said they’re Spetsnaz inside,” Valentina said. The informant, a senior officer
inside the GRU, knew there was a high value foreigner being interrogated inside
the house. While the informant couldn’t determine the prisoner’s identity, he
was known to have been transported from Britain. Valentina was certain, it
could only be Craig Balard. “They’d kill us before we got to the front door. We’ve
got to force them to take cover!”

“Very well,” Major Vodin said. “One
shell.”

“Yes, sir,” the young BTR gunner
said. “Loading Gun! High Explosive.” He pulled the breach back on the fifty millimeter
light gun, slid in a shell, then cranked the gun down to zero elevation. “Ready!”

“Fire!” Major Vodin ordered.

The armored personnel carrier
shuddered and rang with the deafening roar of the gun, then the front of the house
exploded inwards and the roof collapsed.

The BTR driver peered through his
periscope at the pall of smoke and dust, with a satisfied look on his face. “Do
you want us to shoot again, Major?” he asked eagerly.

“That won’t be necessary,” Major
Vodin replied as the infantry door cranked open in the rear of the vehicle.

The paratroopers poured out, firing
concussion grenades into the partially collapsed house, then charged towards
the broken front wall. Valentina and Karmanov were the last out of the BTR, following
behind the paratroopers. Up and down the street, surprised residents came
running out of their houses to discover the cause of the explosions.

Inside the house, the entrance
hall was charred black and small fires burned in several places. Wreckage of
the partially collapsed roof littered the floor, lying on shattered stone
blocks from the front wall. The paratroopers moved cautiously through the
entrance hall, then a single shot sounded from the rear of the house, and one
of them went down clutching his chest. The other paratroopers replied with bursts
of automatic fire, shooting blind towards the rear of the house and hurling
stun grenades into the smoke and dust.

Short bursts of gunfire struck
the walls and fallen timbers, then a paratrooper hurled a high explosive
grenade down the hall. A moment later, an explosion blew the interior walls
apart, then a few erratic shots came from the rear. The paratroopers raked the back
of the house with automatic fire repeatedly until Major Vodin called a halt. When
no more gunfire came from the back of the house, the paratroopers pushed
forward. Amidst the smoke and dust, they found the bodies of Drushkev and
Pieltov, still clutching their weapons.

Karmanov and Valentina followed
them through the house, climbing over fallen beams and broken masonry. Valentina
pried a short black gun out of Corporal Drushkev’s dead hand and held it up for
Karmanov and Major Vodin to see. “What do you think?”

Major Vodin took one look and
nodded. “It’s a VZ61 Skorpion machine pistol. Definitely Spetsnaz.”

Valentina dropped the gun on the
ground as a paratrooper emerged from the rear of the house.

“There’s an older man back there,”
the paratrooper said, motioning towards where Dr Tatska lay dead, partially buried
in the rubble. “Only the Spetsnaz were armed.”

“Major! In here!” One of the
paratroopers called from a partially collapsed room off to the side.

Karmanov and Valentina followed Major
Vodin to where the trooper stood beside Craig’s chair. It had been crushed when
the old stone wall facing the street had blown in. Tattered rope ends and syringes
were visible beneath the heavy stone blocks.

“This must have been where they
interrogated him,” Valentina said.

“No body,” Karmanov said. “He’s
still alive!”

Another paratrooper approached
and saluted Major Vodin . “The house is secure sir. Zanov is dead, Mikovsky’s
lightly wounded. I’ve called for a helo to evacuate him.” The paratrooper
saluted, then returned to tend his wounded comrade.

Karmanov prodded the ropes and
the remains of the shattered wooden chair. “Resourceful man, this Balard.”

“We have to find him,” Valentina
said, “Especially now.” At the back of the room, a window opened onto a narrow
lane outside. “That’s where he went.”

“With no money and no language
skills, he won’t stay free for long,” Karmanov said. “God knows what condition
he’s in.”

“Internal security forces will be
here soon,” Major Vodin said. “Unless you want a full scale battle, we should
go.”

“You go,” Karmanov said. “We’ll look
for Balard. He can’t have gone far.”

“Thanks for the help,” Valentina
said before following Karmanov through the open window to the narrow lane
outside.

* * * *

Craig staggered along a suburban
street lined with two story buildings several blocks from the interrogation
house. His ears still rang from the blast that had destroyed the front of the
house and would have killed him if not for Mariena’s warning. He’d crawled to
the far side of the room moments before the stone wall had exploded, raining
destruction upon the wooden chair he’d been tied to. Once through the window,
he’d picked a direction and ran on rubbery legs still weak from the drug. He
headed towards a busy main road bustling with traffic, hoping to hail a cab,
although he had no clear idea where to go. With no passport, he couldn’t simply
go to the airport and fly out, yet he feared if he went to the US embassy, they’d
arrest him.

He pressed his hands against his
ears, trying to silence the ringing as he staggered towards the main road. When
he arrived, the trucks and cars he’d seen from a distance had strangely
vanished, leaving the highway completely deserted. He looked up and down the
road, confused. Flashing lights of police cars were visible in the distance,
coming down either side of the main road toward him. For a moment his heart
raced, thinking they were after him, then he noticed the thin black haze in the
air behind the cars, and the two streams of light grey vehicles following the
police escort.

Craig drifted into the crowd that
was gathering along the sides of the road. Everywhere, he heard whispers in
Russian, words he couldn’t understand, but their tone betrayed their fear and
confusion. Police cars led two columns of vehicles past at forty kilometers an
hour, followed by hundreds of T-72 main battle tanks and almost two thousand armored
personnel carriers loaded with troops. The soldiers were young and withdrawn.
None waved to the crowd, while the onlookers stared back in solemn silence.

Craig didn’t wait for the armored
division to pass on its way in to central Moscow. He hurried along the sidewalk
until he saw a woman in a police uniform standing in the center of a side
street holding up traffic, giving the tank division right of way. Cars were
banking up in the side streets and their occupants were standing by their
vehicles watching warily.

Craig decided the police woman
was just a traffic cop, so he walked over to her and smiled. “Excuse me,” he
said very slowly, pronouncing each word carefully, “I want to go to the
American Embassy.”

She looked at him with more than
a little irritation, then shrugged and muttered something in Russian.