Doomsday Warrior 12 - Death American Style Read Online Free Page B

as if a blizzard had passed overhead. But it was impossible, ridiculous. The paper would rot, would melt in the purifying rains and snows. Nature would take care of Man’s folly.
    By keeping the pace up they made good time through the falling light of the late afternoon. He pushed the ’brids hard. They complained and tried to bite him whenever he got too close. ’Brids just happened to be, aside from being just about the mangiest creatures on God’s earth—the laziest as well. You just had to know how to relate to them. Which Rockson did. “You’re almost home boys. Soon, the feed bag.”
    The bloated orange sun slid behind jagged cliffs, casting up magnificent pink streamers. Rock saw the first of the C.C. forward-observation posts. To an innocent passerby, or a Red search-and-destroy operation, nothing would have seemed amiss in the woods and boulders around them. But Rock knew guns were trained on him from every direction, faces hidden among the twisting shadows of the branches silhouetted in the pinkish rays of the sunset. Rockson knew this particular clump of conifers.
    “Relax boys,” Rock yelled up toward one particular grove of pines where he saw the edge of a gun muzzle dimly reflecting back. “It’s just me—I—”
    “I know who it is,” a voice yelled back. “I kin see, I ain’t blind. But still you gots to give the password. Come on now—or hold in your tracks. Could be an imposter.” A hammer clicked ominously in the growing darkness. Rock slowed the ’brids behind him, who were only too happy for a moment of rest. The redhide grizzly atop them seemed to have doubled in weight over the last few hours. Rockson smiled as he squinted into the branches. He knew the voice. Old Crayson. The man was heading on ninety—but still volunteered for guard duty. Damned guy had been one of the first generation that had been born in Century City after it was founded from out of the rubble, out of the ruins, back in 1989.
    “Rapunzel, Rapunzel let down your flowing hair,” Rock shouted up as Rona came to a stop behind him and looked at the Doomsday Warrior with a lopsided grin. Her face looked shimmering and beautiful as the first tender rays of moon licked along her soft cheeks from the falling night above.
    “Let down your golden hair, your GOLDEN hair,” the cackling ancient voice yelled back.
    “Oh let ’em through, for Christ’s sake,” another voice, apparently in the tree next to the speaker, said with exasperation. They all knew who Ted Rockson was. Everyone in the whole damned city, the whole country for that matter knew the name of the Doomsday Warrior. He had kicked more Russian butt than all the other Freefighters put together. A thorn in the side of the Russian occupiers that wouldn’t go away, that festered and blistered, causing them to sweat, grow feverish. Ted Rockson was their nemesis, the penultimate American.
    “All right, darn it,” Crayson sputtered, his white beard suddenly visible to Rock as the face peered down from a small platform built in the thickest part of one tree. The old man smiled with missing teeth. And Rock smiled back. With feisty antiques like that on his side, how could the Freefighters possibly lose? Men whistled from the darkness all around the returning hunters and their cargo of bear.
    “Damnation, look at that thing,” a voice yelled out from the left, behind a boulder.
    “Gonna make some damn body one hell of a rug,” another gruff voice laughed from a branch-covered foxhole off the side of the path.
    “Guess again, boys,” Rock yelled back. “Shecter and his crew get it. The whole damned thing is bound for the test tube, fur and all. I’ll be lucky to get a tail out of the deal.” Another half-mile down a winding path and they reached one of four entrances to Century City, hidden behind what looked like a solid rock wall—camouflage netting, so closely entwined and well-made that one could pass within feet and not realize the truth. Rock