Highway To Armageddon (49 page)

           
“What’s wrong, my dear?” Rasputin asks, patting Boom Boom on her back. “I
figured you would be ecstatic to return to our Homeland.”

           
Boom Boom clears her throat and forces a smile. “Oh, I am, Mikhail. It’s just…
I’m overwhelmed by the pure scope of your plan.”

           
Rasputin is about to respond, but a secret service agent rushes into the room
and whispers something to Klaxton. I can tell by her reddened cheeks that it’s
not good news.

           
Klaxton unleashes a feral grow, causing us all to jump back in our seats.

           
“There’s a spy in our midst! Goddamn it, Rasputin, you swore to me all of your
soldiers were loyal!”

           
Rasputin raises his bushy eyebrows. “They are loyal, Angela. What do you mean
there’s a spy?”

           
Klaxton waves at the holographic TV screen hovering over our heads. The screen
flashes to an image of all of us in the dungeon. Our meeting is being steamed
live over the internet.

           
“WHAT?!” Rasputin shrieks, leaping to his feet.

           
“Which one of you is the traitor?” he snarls, pointing at all of us.
Electricity crackles from his fingertips. “Reveal yourself so you can be
disemboweled alive!”

           
Rasputin focuses on Igor. “Is it you?! Is it one of your men?!”

           
Igor turns white and backs away from the table. “No, Rasputin, I swear on my
mother’s grave I had nothing to do with this. My life is devoted to the Purple
Dragons.”

           
Igor turns to me and scowls.

           
“Vladimir! He must be the spy! And Arkady! And Ruby!”

           
Rasputin glares at Boom Boom. Through clenched teeth he hisses, “Is this true,
Ruby? Did the Chinese send you here to compromise our mission?”

           
Boom Boom backs away from the table. Arrow and I do the same.

           
“No, Mikhail, it wasn’t us, I swear!” Boom Boom cries.

           
“SILENCE!” Rasputin bellows. He points his glowing hands straight at Boom
Boom’s chest.

           
“You may have revealed our plot to the entire world, but you will not live to
enjoy your triumph!”

           
I whip out my sword and press a button on the handle. A crackling current of
electricity washes over the blade. Arrow whips his out as well.

           
“Leave her alone, you dirty midget!” I shout.

           
Rasputin cackles as dozens of guns swing toward me. All the Russian mobsters
and secret service agents have me, Arrow, and Boom Boom in their crosshairs.

           
“You are brave, boy,” Rasputin says admiringly. “Stupid, but brave. Any last
words before you are executed in front of the entire world?”

           
I never get to say anything because throwing stars whiz into the room and imbed
into three of the agents’ skulls. Yin and Yang backflip out of the passageway
and hurl more throwing stars. Everyone ducks for cover.

           
“Yin! Yang!” I shout gleefully. I never thought I’d be happy to see them again,
but boy was I wrong.

           
My excitement increases when someone else barges into the dungeon: Pitbull.
Except it doesn’t look like the Pitbull I remember. This Pitbull is wearing a
metallic helmet that covers his entire head. His new, glowing red eyes shine
through the helmet’s eyeholes. A small opening at the bottom of the helmet
reveals his snarling mouth. Both of his arms are now robotic, and so are his
legs. The rest of his body is covered in black armor. He truly is more machine
than man now.

           
“P… Pitbull?” I stammer.

           
“Miss me, kid?” he says.

           
Pitbull then swings his machine gun toward President Klaxton, who is kneeling
under the table. Klaxton’s eyes widen in fear when he levels his gun at her
chest.

           
“So you wanna start a world war? Allow me to fire the first shot.”

           
“Pitbull, wait!” I shout.

           
My screams are drowned out by gunfire as Pitbull assassinates the President of
the United States in front of the entire world.

Chapter
Eighteen: Boom Boom

           
All hell breaks loose as gunfire erupts all through the dungeon. Light bulbs
explode and mirrors shatter, spraying glass everywhere. Lance, Arrow and I leap
behind a tattered old sofa in the rear of the dungeon. Since we don’t have any
guns we can’t really contribute to the fight.

           
I peek over the edge of the sofa as Pitbull rips Klaxton’s secret service
agents to shreds with automatic machine gunfire. The agents try and shoot him
back, but the bullets simply bounce off his robotic limbs and body armor.

           
Yin and Yang bounce around like Chinese acrobats, chucking what seems to be an
unending supply of jagged throwing stars. Russian gangbangers and secret
service agents drop like flies from the merciless assault. I yelp when I see
Winston’s brains splatter against the wall, courtesy of a headshot by Pitbull.
I sort of had a soft spot for they guy, even if he was a gangbanger. Soon the
dungeon floor is covered in a shallow sea of blood.

           
“Holy crap, I can’t believe Pitbull just killed the president!” Arrow shouts.

           
I glance at Klaxton, who is still lying under the table. I can only imagine how
the rest of the world is reacting right now. All of America is probably gripped
in hysteria while China is getting ready to launch on invasion. You can’t
really blame them if that’s the case. Our president just admitted on live
television that she wanted to assassinate the empress and start a world war.
Then again, they just did watch Klaxton get shot. Maybe Pitbull did the world a
favor by killing her. Hopefully China will wait for all the facts to come out
before lobbing missiles at us.

           
My head starts throbbing like crazy again. All the flashes of gunfire aren’t
helping matters. Neither is the fact I’m still trying to wrap my mind around
the shocking revelation that our president is a genocidal lunatic. And, oh
yeah, she was just shot! My brain is suffering from information overload.

           
“I just wanna know how Pitbull found us again!” Lance shouts over the gunfire.

           
Almost on cue Pitbull leaps behind the couch with us to change out his
ammunition cartridge. Gunshots rip the sofa to sheds, forcing us to flatten to
the ground.

           
“Don’t just sit there like you’ve got nothing to do,” Pitbull growls as bullets
nick his metallic mask. He tosses us all handguns from his utility belt. “Kill
some Ruskies!”

           
The boys and I grab the guns and return fire. The agents and Ruskies duck
behind bookcases and overturned tables.

           
As we hop up and down behind the couch like whack-a-moles, trading shots with
Rasputin’s goons, I try to figure out exactly what the hell’s going on.

           
“Seriously Pitbull, how do you keep finding us?” I shout.

           
Pitbull cackles, his metal mask glowing orange from his muzzle flashes. “I bet
that’s been driving you crazy all week, huh? We found you the first time when I
chucked a GPS chip in Machete’s car outside Detroit. The second time I shoved a
tracking device down Arrow’s throat while I was choking him during our skirmish
in the woods. You know, when you guys set me on fire the
first
time.”

           
“Er, sorry about that,” I say. “It wasn’t anything personal.”

           
Pitbull grumbles some unflattering obscenities before saying, “The tracking
device was this new version that attaches to the lining of a person’s stomach.
We’ve been tracking you punks for the past several days.”   

           
“If that’s the case, why did you wait until now to come after us?” Lance asks.

           
“Because you damn twerps caught me on fire a
second
time at that Wild
West Settlement. Then you shot me in the damn eye, sending me plummeting over
100 feet into a river!”

           
“Er, sorry about that,” Arrow says sheepishly. “It wasn’t personal, just
business.”

           
“Yes, well anyway, I had to stop to get some work done. I couldn’t very well
come after you brats with charred, rotted flesh hanging off my body.”

           
“That wouldn’t be recommended,” I say as I blast an agent in the chest. I duck
when one of his buddies takes aim at my head.

           
“As I was hanging from your car, I overheard you twerps say something about
coming after Rasputin,” Pitbull says as he blasts poor Fred in the leg. “After
Yin and Yang found me washed up on the river bank, they took me to the hospital,
where I had all this wonderful work done.”

           
Pitbull tapes his helmet and his new robotic arm in case I’m too stupid to
figure out what ‘work’ he was talking about. “After my procedure we decided to
switch our target from you guys to Rasputin. After all, his bounty is $15
million more than yours. We continued to track you dorks, but only so you would
lead us to Rasputin. The plan was to rush in at the last minute and steal him
from ya.”

           
“Sounds like someone else we know,” I say, nudging Arrow in his side.

           
Pitbull fires off a burst of gunfire before crouching back down to trade out
another ammo cartridge.

           
“We trailed you to this cabin and sent a mosquito in after you. I wanted to
televise Mikhail’s apprehension on the internet so the government couldn’t
screw us out of the bounty. They’ve been known to do that with ones that are
seven and eight figures. Never in a million years did I think we’d uncover a
conspiracy to assassinate the empress. I figured I’d better put a bullet in
Klaxton to placate the Chinese. You know General Kang’s probably over there
eager to lob a few missiles our way.”

           
So I was right. Pitbull took Klaxton out with the hope the Chinese wouldn’t
overreact. He’s truly smarter than I give him credit for.

           
Rasputin emerges from an overturned table and sends a bolt of lightning
hurtling our way. It slams into the sofa, igniting it in flames. Pitbull,
Lance, Arrow, and I jump out into no-man’s land and continue trading shots with
the secret service and Russian gangbangers. Matters are further complicated now
that Rasputin is releasing bolts of electricity. I jump back and forth, doing
my best to avoid the bombardment of bullets and electrical blasts. Rasputin
stops his indiscriminate firing when his bolts zap two of his own bodyguards.

           
I aim my gun at Rasputin’s head and fire off a shot. He deflects the bullet
with his armored forearm and fires another bolt of electricity. I barely duck
in time. It comes so close that my hair stands on end.

           
Machete suddenly bursts into the dungeon and fires two handguns simultaneously,
sending Rasputin scrambling for cover.

           
“Machete!” I exclaim. I’ve never been so excited to see someone in all my life.
We sure as hell can use her help.

           
“I saw everything on the internet,” Machete shouts as she takes down two secret
service agents with insanely accurate headshots. “Dorothy and Krystal are
waiting outside. Let’s kill Rasputin, grab his body, and get the hell out of
here!”

           
Before any of us can act, President Klaxton staggers to her feet.
    

           
“You’re alive!” I cry in disbelief.

           
“Of course I’m alive you wretched girl.” Klaxton tears off her bullet-riddled
shirt, revealing an armored exoskeleton similar to Rasputin’s.

           
Klaxton points her arms at us. Two pistols protrude out of her computerized
wrists and release quick bursts of gunfire. Machete and I dive for cover.

           
I land hard and roll onto my back. Rasputin rushes over to Klaxton and ushers
her toward the passageway.

           
“They’re getting away!” I shout, scrambling to my feet.

           
Machete is still on the ground, groaning in pain. She must have hurt herself
when she landed. I glance at Lance, Pitbull, Yin, and Yang. They’re on the
other side of the dungeon, continuing to wage war against the secret service
and Russian mob. I don’t see Arrow anywhere.

           
That means it’s up to me to take down the world’s most wanted man and the
world’s most powerful woman. Fantastic.

           
I lumber after Rasputin, who has just reached the doorway.

           
“Stop!” I scream, firing a shot at his head. I miss and merely clip his armored
upper back.

           
Rasputin twirls around and snarls. He looks like a possessed lion with his
matted mane of hair and clenched teeth. He raises his gloved hands and points
them at me. Blue electricity flickers in and out of existence.