Free Doomsday Warrior 09 - America’s Zero Hour by Ryder Stacy Page A

Bears.
    Detroit was the finest example of an intelligent, skilled soldier of freedom, and was a real gentleman, as well as the most loyal of friends. The mangling of his arm a few months earlier had made Detroit even more ready to fight America’s enemies.
    “Maybe we’re starting to get a bit too old for this sort of thing,” the black Freefighter said with a laugh as he looked over at Rockson, seeking a rise. He didn’t mean it.
    “C’mon dude. We’re never too old for a battle. May as well die with our boots on,” Rock replied, winking.
    “I like my battles in warm weather.” Detroit laughed.
    “Say, how’s the arm?” Rock asked. “I know the docs said it would take some months to come into full use, but I was hoping . . .” Detroit’s arm had been operated on in Century City’s hospital, replaced with a bionic counterpart.
    “Better than ever,” Detroit said, raising it and twisting it around. “I was having some difficulty with the elbow for a while. Needed oil! Feels great now. I’ve been working on my grenade chucking and I’m already past my old status. Fastballs at 135 mph. Grenades heaved over five hundred feet.”
    Detroit, besides being armed with the Liberator automatic rifle that Century City manufactured and shipped out to other free cities, always carried fifteen to twenty grenades in bandoliers strapped across his massive chest. Grenades armed to explode, to send out waves of burning phosphorus or stun gas. The ebony Freefighter was a one-man army toting his own portable arsenal.
    The two compatriots rode on quietly for a while, enjoying the early-morning breezes and arias of winter birds singing their happy greetings. The world could be beautiful at times. The tall ice-coated prairie-grass stalks glowed silver in the slanting sun. The manes of their steady steeds caught the same light and reflected it gold or tan.
    But Detroit was uneasy. “Will we get Killov, finally?” he asked.
    Rock was thoughtful for a moment, then answered, “He’s human. We’ll get him. Never think otherwise, Detroit.”
    The easily visible tire tracks through the prairie took them to the 49th parallel—the old dividing line between the U.S. and Canada. The temperature fell, the sun was blotted by clouds of snow swirling in the bitter winds. The Geiger counter was clicking a bit—residue radioactivity from the silos in north Idaho that were hit a hundred years earlier by incoming Red missiles. Rock knew that was why nothing grew here except crabgrass—spiky sharp spines jutting from the thickening snow.
    Upon Rockson’s command, the tracker was set up again and it beeped and spun. Scheransky said excitedly, “Killov has come through here five days ago. The reading is quite definite!”
    “We’re gaining on the bastard,” McCaughlin said, with some joy. “And just look at the hills ahead—great for animals but hell for a convoy of heavy trucks.” Though the trucks’ thick ruts were now obscured by the deepening snow, the A-M tracker showed the way. A marker sign dangled to the side, barely legible: W ELCOME T O C ANADA , it offered. Rockson set his face against the wind. His ’brid stepped over a rusty line on some concrete pavement. Rock saw a collapsed booth. A checkpoint—with nothing to check anymore.
    The team headed into Canada. The way was more gullied now. Occasionally they could see the snow-muted tracks of the big wheels of Killov’s trucks, like the preserved tracks of some creature from the Pleistocene Era.
    Rockson had that old feeling again: the mutant’s sixth sense. It told him that they were being watched.

Eight
    T hat same afternoon, exhausted from his rounds, Zhabnov was propped up on his featherbed in the master bedroom of the White House. “Take this down,” Zhabnov ordered. Gudonov, who was standing by, reached for the gold pen, dangling by a thin chain from his lapel so that he wouldn’t lose it. He grabbed his pad, similarly attached, ready to add to the already