Doomsday Warrior 10 - American Nightmare Read Online Free Page A

jeep for a few miles. The apt punishment for cheating.”
    Rockson had had only faint hope that the Soviet would keep his word. Streltsy had given it freely only because he was convinced he couldn’t lose. But now, to cover up his fallibility to his men, or just because he was a bastard—it didn’t matter—he was going back on his word.
    They tied Rockson’s hands together and led him up the spiral stairs to the surface. He had to hop because they tied his ankles too.
    Once up on the desert, Streltsy jumped up into the back of a jeep. “Ivan, attach a rope to Mr. Rockson’s hands. Tie the other end to the rear bumper of the jeep.”
    There were a half-dozen Kalashnikovs trained on Rockson. Now, unfortunately, was not the time to make a move. They started to drag him.
    Rockson twisted and spat as the gathering desert winds kicked up a powerful blast of sand, almost blinding him.
    “It looks like a storm building up,” one of the Russian soldiers said to Streltsy. “Perhaps we should head back to the silo.”
    “Nyet,” Streltsy barked. “This is my pigeon. I won’t turn over a prize like Rockson to that sloth General Dommsky. Why let him get credit for the capture? Don’t you see what we have here, you fool? If he collaborates with us, we can use the information to our own benefit. If he is foolish enough to resist, I personally will turn his body over to Premier Vassily. Start the engine.”
    The jeep thrust forward with Streltsy standing in the rear and Rockson skidding painfully over the rugged desert floor. Rockson was in a near-delirious state. He had never fully recovered from the effects of the poison fruit he had eaten, and the succession of torture and drugs his body had endured had only increased his distance from reality.
    But it was cooler, much cooler. The storm!
    He saw a glimmer of hope in the burgeoning storm that was beginning to encompass the entire horizon. The wind was growing fiercer by the minute, reducing visibility and improving his chance for escape—if he could loosen the rope.
    The jeep moved slowly at first and Rockson managed to position his body so that the ropes on his wrists scraped the surface, wearing the fibers thin and allowing him to hope he could break them.
    He bounced painfully across the sand as the jeep detoured through beds of cactus and rocky outcroppings wherever they appeared. Rockson twisted and writhed in pain, but could see that the Russians were becoming preoccupied with the gathering storm. He pulled himself up to where the rope attached to his wrists and began gnawing at it, sliding along on his side.
    Streltsy, standing in the back of the jeep, could barely see his victim through the sandstorm. Rockson, dragging some sixty feet away, had successfully reversed himself and grasped onto the rope with his hands. He tugged frantically at the fraying fibers, pushing fist against mighty fist.
    The storm was cooperating divinely now, providing an effective screen between Rockson and his tormentors. As the jeep struck out along a rocky road leading up an incline, Rock searched through the blinding, whirling sands. Visibility was no more than twenty or thirty feet, and he figured they would soon stop. Then he saw what he was looking for: a large boulder along the side of the road. Nearing it, the jeep made a swerving turn. Rockson, with his last strength, snapped the rope at the worn knot between his hands. He was free.
    His body rolled with the force of his momentum, tumbling over the edge of the road and down the steep incline.
    The jeep disappeared up the road and into the sandstorm. He quickly freed his ankles from the remaining rope.
    Then, his clothing shredded into rags, his body burned and raked with bruises, his mind delirious, the Doomsday Warrior staggered toward the eye of the storm.

Three
    T hey appeared on the horizon, twin pillars of black fire that Moses himself would have been proud to conjure. An eerie chill swept across the desert plains. It seemed