Armageddon Run

Chapter Twenty-One

“Lordy! What in the world is that thing?” Bertha exclaimed in alarm.

Blade, squatting alongside of her behind a low stone wall not far from U.S. Highway 85, recognized the vehicle from photographs contained in several of the military history books in the Family library. “It’s called a half-track,” he told her.

“I ain’t never seen nothin’ like it!” Bertha declared nervously.

“The Doktor’s pulling out all the stops,” Blade commented.

Bertha was gawking at the green half-track. “I think we’d best go get the SEAL!”

The armored half-track was slowly proceeding north on U.S. Highway 85 toward Catlow. Its rear caterpillar treads were clanking and creaking.

At least six soldiers were riding in the open back section, one of them manning a mounted machine gun.

“We’ll try and take it out with our charges,” Blade stated.

Dozens of troopers and G.R.D.’s were following the half-track on foot.

“It ain’t gonna be easy,” Bertha predicted.

“You never know until you try,” Blade declared.

The stone wall was 20 yards to the west of the highway.

Bertha removed a bundle of dynamite from her pillowcase. “It’s kind of far to throw one of these suckers, isn’t it?”

Blade frowned. She was right. The bundles weren’t very heavy, but they were ungainly and would be difficult to pitch any great distance with any degree of accuracy. What else could they do? He stared at the half-track, at least 400 yards from their position.

“I still think we should get the SEAL,” Bertha stressed.

Blade gazed over his right shoulder. A yellow wood frame house was 15 yards behind them. He shifted his attention to the north. There were two more homes between the stone wall and the downtown business district of Catlow, a collection of a dozen or so brick buildings including a small store, a pharmacy, a clothing establishment, and other retail enterprises.

The small store caught his eye.

The structure was two stories tall, with the bottom half devoted to perishable foodstuffs and the upper portion, according to a large sign on the building, a hardware emporium with the “greatest selection in Catlow.” Of course, the sign neglected to mention it was the only hardware selection in Catlow.

“Follow me,” Blade directed. Keeping low, stooped over at the waist and ignoring the agony lancing his left side, Blade ran in the direction of the business district.

“Not so fast!” Bertha complained. “You know I got a bum leg!”

Blade mentally chided his stupidity and slowed.

“That’s better,” Bertha whispered. “You don’t want me to get any madder at you than I already am!”

Blade waited until they were out of sight from the highway and moving down an alley behind the stores before he asked the obvious question.

“Why are you mad at me?”

Bertha snorted. “Don’t play innocent with me, turkey! You knew I wanted to pair off with White Meat! But, no! I get stuck with you!”

Blade grinned. “You have only yourself to blame for not being with Hickok right now.”

They reached the rear of the establishment Blade had been heading for.

“How do you figure?” Bertha challenged him.

There was a wooden door before them.

Blade drew up his right leg and lashed out with his foot, striking the door near the doorknob. The oak splintered and shattered and the door swung open several inches. He pushed the door aside and walked into a dark hallway leading to the front of the building.

“How do you figure?” Bertha repeated.

Blade moved along the hall until he came to a flight of stairs leading up to the second floor. “We’re friends, Bertha,” he said as he started up the steps. “I don’t want to see you killed.”

“Oh? I’d have a better chance of gettin’ racked with White Meat than I do here with you?” Bertha asked, disputing him.

“Yes,” Blade stated frankly.

“How so?”

They reached the top of the stairs and found aisle after aisle of merchandise.

Blade gazed at the ceiling, wondering if the structure would have the feature he required.

It did.

In the middle of the room was a trap door to the roof.

Blade hurried toward it. “Bertha,” he said over his shoulder, “I’ve seen the way you look at Hickok—”

“Brother! First Rudabaugh and now you!” Bertha said interrupting him. “Does everybody know?”

“Probably,” Blade replied. “You don’t exactly hide things well.”

“I don’t believe in beatin’ around the bush,” Bertha said.

“We know it,” Blade assured her. “I can imagine how you feel about him. I don’t think you’ve accepted his marriage, and possibly you never will. But that’s rightfully none of my business—”

“You bet it ain’t, sucker!” Bertha snapped.

“Unless it falls within my province as a Warrior and the head of this mission,” Blade elaborated. “If I sent you out with Hickok, and the two of you came under fire, you’d be so worried about protecting him, about making certain he wasn’t hurt, you’d undoubtedly fail to watch out for yourself.”

“I would not,” Bertha protested, but her tone lacked conviction.

“And I was born yesterday,” Blade cracked.

They reached the aisle under the trap door. A piece of rope about a foot long was attached to a handle in the door.

Blade jumped up and caught the rope in his right hand. He yanked, and the trap door swung open.

“How we gonna get up there?” Bertha wanted to know.

There was a four-foot space between the top of Blade’s head and the opening.

The Warrior glanced around the room and spied a display of stepladders two aisles over. “Wait here.” He jogged to the rack and returned with a six-foot ladder.

“What are we gonna do once we’re up there?” Bertha inquired as he quickly unfolded the step-ladder.

“Play it by ear.” Blade began climbing the ladder.

“I was afraid you’d say that,” Bertha mumbled, staying on his heels.

The roof was flat and rectangular. A large metal antenna was situated a few feet north of the trap door. The surface of the roof was coated with a peculiar sticky black substance.

“What is this?” Blade asked, noting how the coating stuck to his hands and fingers where he touched the roof.

“Beats me,” Bertha responded.

A brick rim, standing about twelve inches high, completely encircled the roof.

Blade, his body crouched over, ran to the front of the building and dropped to his hands and knees.

Bertha joined him, muttering something about “this damn sticky stuff!”

Cautiously, Blade peered over the rim and looked to the south.

The half-track and its deadly entourage were approximately 100 yards from Catlow.

“It’s not too late to get the SEAL,” Bertha remarked hopefully.

“Will you forget the SEAL?” Blade urged her.

“So let me hear your great plan for takin’ that thing out,” Bertha said, watching the rumbling halftrack.

“Simple,” Blade declared. “You light your charge and we drop it on the half-track as it drives by below.”

“What if one of those boys in green spot us and begin blastin’ away?” Bertha inquired.

“That’s the chance we take,” Blade mentioned.

The vehicle was 50 yards from the town and closing.

“Do you have your matches?” Blade asked.

Bertha fished in her pants pockets and withdrew a pack of matches.

“Got ’em.”

“Then get set,” Blade directed.

The half-track had passed the stone wall.

Bertha giggled. “Are they in for a big surprise?”

The half-track was abreast of the intervening homes between the stone wall and the business district.

In the distance, from the west, came the crackle of gunfire.

Bertha shut the noise from her mind, knowing it meant Hickok and Geronimo were engaging some of the Doktor’s forces.

“After you blow the half-track,” Blade was saying, “I’ll let the infantrymen have it.”

Bertha glanced at the half-track, her stomach muscles involuntarily tightening.

“When I give the word,” Blade instructed her, then abruptly exclaimed, “What the—”

One block south of the business district, the half-track took a left on a side street, heading westward.

Bertha couldn’t believe it. “What the hell are they doin’?”

“They’re heading for the town square,” Blade guessed. “Come on!”

Together, they descended from the roof and raced to the rear of the store. Blade peeked out the door, looking south, and saw several of the soldiers pass the mouth of the alley.

Damn!

Blade was angry at himself. Bertha and he had crossed the side street to enter the alley, and it had never occurred to him the half-track might take it instead of using U.S. Highway 85.

“What now, bright boy?” Bertha asked.

There was only one feasible recourse. Turn right up the alley until they reached the next side street, one paralleling the street being used by the half-track. Then they would need to outrace the lumbering vehicle and get ahead of it.

“Is your leg up to some serious running?” Blade questioned her.

“I’ll keep up with you,” she vowed.

Blade smiled reassuringly and bolted from the building, hugging the wall, his eyes on the mouth of the alley to the south as he bore due north.

The troopers and G.R.D.’s were still passing the alley, but none of them gave it more than a cursory examination.

Deep in the alley, partially concealed by the shadows, Blade and Bertha ran to the next side street, designated as Lexington by a street sign. They darted to the left, sticking to the sidewalk, their legs pumping as they gathered speed.

Blade’s left side was aching miserably before they reached the end of the first block. He stoically suppressed the discomfort, hoping his exertions wouldn’t cause the wound to start bleeding again. At the junction of Lexington and Hamilton he paused, prudently inching to the edge of the sidewalk and glancing to the south.

Several troopers and G.R.D.’s were one block away to the south, as they continued their advance toward the town square, now only two blocks off to the west.

Blade frowned, frustrated. There was no way they could outrun the half-track in their condition. They needed to do something to turn the half-track around, to divert it from the town square. He had geared his entire defensive stratagem on utilizing the town square as the penultimate battleground. He wanted to draw the Doktor as far into the town as possible, but not until he was ready.

“What’s the holdup?” Bertha asked. She was bent over, her hand on her injured thigh, and breathing heavily.

“We need to do something to get their attention,” Blade told her.

“Oh? Is that all?”

Before Blade could restrain her, Bertha limped to the middle of Hamilton and, facing south, cupped her left hand to her mouth. “Hey! You ugly bozos! Your momma wears combat boots!”

Bertha giggled and hurried to Blade’s side. “How’s that?”

“Your momma wears combat boots?” Blade repeated, puzzled.

“I’ll tell ya’ later,” Bertha promised. “Right now, we’d best split!”

They began jogging, retracing their footsteps to the mouth of the alley.

As they reached it, Blade peered over his shoulder and spotted four troopers just arriving in the intersection of Lexington and Hamilton. One of the four gave a loud yell, and they charged after the Warrior and his companion.

“What now, big brain?” Bertha queried.

Blade led her down the alley to the back door of the food-and-hardware store.

“We goin’ up on that roof again?” Bertha asked, holding up her right hand. It was covered with the tar-like substance coating the roof. “This icky gunk could ruin my beautiful complexion!”

Blade grinned and hurried into the structure and along the hall. Instead of turning to take the stairs to the second floor, he proceeded straight ahead until he came to a large chamber containing racks of food and other items.

The front door was directly ahead.

“Are we gonna break for lunch?” Bertha joked.

“Nope.” Blade moved to the front door, unlatched the lock, and opened the door. He pointed at a rack of produce to their left. “Get out of sight.”

Bertha limped to the rack, chuckling. “You sure are sneaky, you know that?”

Blade moved behind a rack filled with tin cans. He squatted and verified the Commando was fully loaded.

A minute passed in silence.

From the rear of the building came the sound of muffled voices and the dull tramp of boots on the floor.

Blade tensed, his finger on the trigger of his Commando.

There was a brief commotion at the back of the room. Someone shouted, “Out here! The front door is open!”

Footsteps pounded on the floor, nearing the front door.

Blade waited until he was certain they were clustered close to the front door, and then jumped up, the Commando stock snug against his right shoulder.

Three soldiers were huddled at the door, one of them framed in the doorway as he peeked outside.

Blade shifted the barrel in a short arc as he fired, his bullets tearing into them from a distance of only ten feet.

All three were flung from their feet by the brutal impact of the Commando’s slugs. Miniature bright red geysers erupted from their backs as they were propelled forward and slammed to the floor or, in the case of the trooper in the doorway, to the sidewalk beyond.

Blade caught a motion out of the corner of his left eye, but before he could pivot to confront this new threat, Bertha’s M-16 chattered.

A fourth soldier had just entered the chamber when Bertha’s burst caught him in the head. His eyes and nose disappeared in a crimson spray and he toppled to the floor.

“Let’s go!” Blade directed her. He ran to the front door and stepped out, glancing to his right and left.

At both ends of the block, soldiers and G.R.D.’s came into view.

Blade ducked inside. “Out back!” he yelled.

They were almost to the hallway when the clamor of uplifted voices arose from the rear of the building.

Blade stopped so suddenly Bertha nearly collided with him.

Damn!

The enemy had them surrounded!

They were trapped!