Special Purposes: First Strike Weapon

CHAPTER TWELVE

1142 Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) -4, 17th November 1987

The Dietrich, North-West Atlantic

WEAPONS HAD BEEN collected. Princess and New Boy had been installed in the crew quarters, given the smallest berth to themselves. After consultation with Captain Schiller, Vadim and the dead Spetsnaz had taken up quarters in a half-empty container towards the bow of the ship, much to Gulag’s vocal disgust. Vadim, however, wanted them as far away as possible from the living passengers and crew. It was cold, but they didn’t really feel that, and Mongol was of the opinion the cold would slow down the rot as their bodies started to putrefy.

They had all gone through pallor mortis, becoming pale and drawn. Algor mortis also: Mongol had checked their body temperatures and they appeared to match the ambient temperature. Rigor mortis, the stiffness of the limbs, fortunately did not seem to affect them. Vadim had, however, noticed that much of his lower body was covered in patches of purple and red, as the blood started to settle. The agent that they had been infected with seemed to have slowed down the stages of death a little, but decomposition seemed inevitable.

He was making his way aft past the containers towards the bridge castle, accompanied by the Fräulein, for a task that he wasn’t looking forward to. He’d managed some rest and even drifted off to a fitful sleep full of red dreams. He’d been jerked awake by the motion of the ship. There had been a moment’s disorientation, and then he remembered what he had become and what he’d done. At least sleep hadn’t caused him to give into the mindless hunger, however.

Out in the Atlantic, the weather was much worse: gone was the radioactive humidity of New York, to be replaced with driving Arctic winds and rough seas. The sun hadn’t come up, either. The thousands of tonnes of dirt, dust and ash thrown up into the sky by the nuclear detonations were blocking it out. If he concentrated, he could just about make out a dull glow above the solid, dirty cloud cover. Then it had started to snow. The snow was as black as the ash had been.

Vadim and the Fräulein entered the bridge castle. It smelled of vomit, brought on by seasickness, and food odours from the overworked galley as it tried to cope with all the new passengers. Vadim was thankful that the stench made him considerably less interested in feeding on any of them. People were sleeping in the corridors, the crew having done the best they could to supply them with blankets, or at least some kind of cover, and something soft to lie on. The refugees stared at Vadim and his second-in-command with expressions ranging from naked terror to borderline fury. He couldn’t blame them.

He mounted the stairs to the second level, where more refugees lying in the corridor, struggling with the motion of the ship, had to move out of their way. He hammered his fist against the door of the cabin that Princess and New Boy had been assigned, and then opened the door. They were both in there, sound asleep.

“Wake up,” Vadim called. Tired eyes opened, hands moved towards convenient weapons.

“You need to lock this door,” the Fräulein told them. She didn’t need to say it was in case the refugees turned on them. The wooden door wouldn’t stop them, but it might give them enough time to grab weapons.

“I thought I had,” a sleepy New Boy said.

“Can you speak English?” Vadim asked him. He knew Princess could, from her time on the VIP squad, but of the two of them, New Boy was more diplomatic. Princess liked to keep communication to a bare minimum, where possible.

“Not well, boss,” he said shaking his head.

“You’d better not just be wanting extra time in bed,” the Fräulein snapped.

“I swear,” he told her.

“Princess, get up, get dressed, you’re coming with us. Sidearm only, we don’t want to scare them any more than we already have,” Vadim told her. He and the Fräulein were only carrying their Stechkins and knives. Princess grumbled, glared at New Boy and then started to drag her clothes on.

VADIM AND THE Fräulein stood at the front of the room. A bored, sleepy-looking Princess sat on a table pushed against the wall in the cramped mess area. Captain Schiller was there, along with a crew member that Vadim didn’t recognise. The Dietrich had been docked at Red Hook in Brooklyn, and the majority of the refugees came from there. There was no place on the ship large enough for them to assemble, so Schiller had asked them to choose representatives to speak with the Spetsnaz commandos on their behalf. Vadim wasn’t surprised to see Officer Harris among them.

“My name is Captain Scorlenski—” he managed to begin.

“We are citizens of the United States of America, you have no right to hold us against our will.” The speaker was a slightly fleshy man in a rumpled, oversized suit, with glasses and an odd, floppy haircut.

“Commie bastard,” added a large, red-faced man dressed in rugged clothes and boots. Possibly a dock worker, Vadim decided.

“Look that’s not going to help—” Officer Harris started.

“Yeah? You already gave up your weapon,” the red-faced dockworker said. “What are you, a collaborator or something?”

“Fred, let them talk.” This from a Hispanic woman, in her late twenties or possibly early thirties, dark-haired, with an accent so thick Vadim struggled to make out what she was saying. A young girl of about seven or eight, presumably her daughter, clung desperately to her.

“Why don’t you leave this to the menfolk, Maria?” Fred suggested. “Maybe do something useful, like go and help out in the kitchen?” Princess laughed and earned a glare from Fred, which she gave no indication of having noticed.

“You need to turn this ship—” the man in the suit started.

“Shut up!” the Fräulein snapped, in her drill-sergeant voice. Even Vadim was tempted to obey it. The little girl jumped and started to cry. Maria tried to comfort her.

“Thank you,” Vadim said. “I’m afraid there are some undeniable realities to your situation here. America has been subject to both a nuclear and chemical attack. To all intents and purposes it has been rendered uninhabitable. Even if the ship had the fuel to take you back and still carry us to our destination, it would be kinder for us to just put a bullet in your head and throw you overboard. Kinder to you and easier for us.”

“You bastards!” Fred shouted.

“If he does that once more, I’m shooting him,” Princess said in Russian.

“What did she say?” Fred demanded.

“Why don’t you ask her?” the Fräulein suggested, not bothering to hide her irritation.

“Have you radioed the navy, the coast guard?” the man in the suit asked Schiller.

“This is Eric,” Schiller gestured to the other crewmember, a thin, nervous-looking man, although everyone looked nervous at the moment.

“Short-range radio communication is problematic due to the effects of” – he swallowed – “nuclear detonations. Currently long-range communication is impossible.”

“If you attract the attention of the navy, then we will have to fight, and nobody wants that,” Vadim pointed out.

“So we’re a human shield, then?” the man in the suit asked.

“That’s what I figured,” Fred snorted. “These guys are pussies, not capable of a stand-up fight. They just wanna pick on civilians.”

“I suspect that the navy and the coast guard will have more pressing issues to attend to,” Schiller interjected, possibly to try and forestall a confrontation.

“You are responsible for this?” the man in the suit demanded of Vadim.

“We took part in the attack, yes,” Vadim told him. Maria looked up from comforting her child. He had their attention now.

“You monsters,” the man in the suit said. Vadim said nothing.

“We’re going to nuke you back to the Stone Age,” Fred told them.

“There’s no ‘we,’ to do the nuking,” Vadim explained.

“You won’t get away with this,” the man in the suit said.

“Obviously we didn’t,” the Fräulein muttered.

“Why?” Officer Harris asked his voice trembling.

“I could speculate, but we’re not part of the decision-making process, as I’m sure you can imagine.”

“Fucking communists!” Fred spat.

“So now what?” Harris asked. “You taking us to Russia so we can all become good Marxists?”

“I can assure you that we’re not going to Russia,” Schiller told them. “We don’t have the fuel.”

“The UK,” Vadim told them.

“England?” the man in the suit demanded. “My family and I aren’t going to England, that’s ridiculous. Canada, take us to Canada, they’ll have an embassy. We can find out the truth of all your commie terrorist propaganda!”

Vadim turned to look at the man. “What is your name?”

“Why do you want to know?” he asked suspiciously.

“Tell him your fucking name!” Princess snapped, losing her patience and making him jump.

“Carlsson, Davis Carlsson,” he told her.

“Well, Mr Carlsson,” Vadim began. “The only question you need to ask yourself is whether or not you wish to survive. It’s that simple.”

“Hey,” Fred said. Vadim ignored him. “Hey, I’m talking to you!” Vadim looked up. “When the US military catches up with you, they’re going to hang you high, you understand me.”

Vadim crossed to the big man. Part muscle, part fat. Vadim knew the type, using his size and strength to intimidate and bully. The longshoreman blanched at his approach, going almost as pale as Vadim was himself.

“Would you like to check my pulse?” Vadim asked quietly.

“What are you going to do with us?” Maria asked. Vadim looked over at her, and Fred backed away.

“We have no interest in you,” Vadim told her. “We wish you no ill.”

“Yeah?” Fred demanded. “Tell that to Will Foster, and that other poor kid.”

“Not to mention the two crew members they killed,” Carlsson added. Vadim glanced at Schiller, but he remained impassive.

“The crew deaths were unfortunate—” Vadim said.

“And in self-defence,” the Fräulein added.

“Foster?” Vadim asked.

“The two wounded that you killed in cold blood,” Maria told them.

“They were wounded?” Princess asked. Nobody answered. The sniper chuckled.

“They were infected…” Vadim started.

“With the same thing you have?” Maria asked. Her little girl was staring at Vadim.

“Yes,” Vadim admitted.

“Gonna do us all a favour and kill yourself?” Fred demanded.

“Give it a break, Leary,” Harris told the longshoreman. Vadim figured they had history.

“Fuck yourself, collaborator,” Leary snapped. Vadim tensed, ready to intervene, but the police officer just sighed.

“I’m not collaborating, I’m listening,” Harris said. “Y’know, so I can learn stuff.”

“Can I shoot the big loud man?” Princess asked in Russian.

“No,” Vadim told her.

“What did she say?” Leary demanded. “Why doesn’t she speak American?”

“Because there’s no such language,” Vadim pointed out. “And she asked if she could shoot you.”

“What did you say?” Leary sounded a little worried.

“That I hadn’t decided yet,” he said, and then to Maria: “As far as we’re concerned, you just happen to be on the same ship as us. We’ll even help you survive. But if anyone acts against us, they will die. If all of you act against us, then you all die.”

“Has England been occupied?” Carlsson asked.

“My honest answer is I don’t know,” Vadim told him.

“And if you were to guess?” Officer Harris asked.

“Probably.”

“So you’re going to have us enslaved by your commie masters, then,” Leary spat.

“I don’t know what you think communism is about…” Vadim started.

“What about the… disease. Is that in the UK?” Maria said.

“We don’t think so,” Vadim told her, thinking longingly about military life, where people just did what you told them without having to discuss it. Well, except for Gulag.

“Except you… we’ll be bringing it,” Maria said.

“We’re not contagious,” the Fräulein told her, though Vadim had no way to be sure it was true. From what he had seen and what Gulag had theorised after initial infection, the virus, or whatever it was, was transmitted by bite.

“That’s it, isn’t it!” Leary shouted, and Vadim sighed. “You’re going to keep us alive to infect us and then release us on England!”

Princess was looking at him. He shook his head. “There would be much easier ways,” he pointed out.

“We need to speak to people, okay?” Harris said. Vadim nodded. The officer cast a glance at Leary, trembling in impotent fear and rage, and then left. The others followed until finally only Maria and her daughter were left.

“Fred had family in Red Hook,” Maria told him. Vadim nodded. She seemed to be deciding whether or not to say anything. “Gloria was with me in the office,” she told him. “I couldn’t get a babysitter. If she hadn’t been with me, I wouldn’t have gotten on the ship.” She made for the door but stopped again. “Maybe the US military will catch up with you, or maybe things are as bad as you say; but one thing I do know. God will judge you.”

“I’m afraid I don’t believe in God,” Vadim told her.

PRINCESS HEADED BACK to her room and Vadim exchanged a few words with Schiller before leaving with the Fräulein. As he made his way downstairs he heard more and more crying, presumably as word of the reality of their situation circulated. Tear-filled accusatory eyes watched them as they passed.

On the main deck level of the bridge tower, he saw Carlsson arguing with an angry-looking woman and a well-fed teenaged boy that Vadim took for his wife and son. A young girl probably a little bit older than Maria’s daughter was looking on, tears in her eyes. As he watched, Mongol came in through the door on the port side, at the opposite end of the corridor from where Vadim stood. The girl turned at the sound of the door opening and let out a scream, and her mother swept her up into her arms.

Mongol squeezed by. Dead or not, he was visibly devastated at the child’s response.

The big medic reached Vadim at the bottom of the stairs, glancing up at the Fräulein a few steps up from the captain.

“You okay?” Vadim wasn’t sure what made him ask this. It seemed ridiculous, in the circumstances. Mongol glanced back at the family.

“We’ve done all sorts of bad things, I can’t tell if it was for the right reason or not anymore.” He turned back to Vadim. “But none of that mattered when I got back home. That” – he nodded back towards the Carlsson girl – “is how my nieces, my nephews, my younger cousins are going to look at me, if we ever make it back. That’s assuming the shamans don’t just have me killed out of hand.” He pushed past Vadim and the Fräulein, heading up the stairs.

“Worried yet?” the Fräulein asked when she was sure the big medic was out of earshot.

“Proud of yourself?” a woman all but shrieked. Vadim looked back along the corridor to see Mrs Carlsson cradling her crying daughter and staring at him.

“This is a powder keg,” the Fräulein said in Russian. Vadim turned to look up at her.

“Do you want to kill them all?” he asked.

She didn’t answer.

“Give me an alternative.”

“Gulag is supposed to be on patrol with Mongol,” the Fräulein told him. Vadim just closed his eyes. It was a problem he was going to have to deal with sooner or later. For a moment he wondered why he couldn’t have just died when the transit cop had shot him beneath Grand Central.

THE SEA HAD grown ever rougher and they had to cling to the rail on their way back along the main deck. White-capped waves broke across the ship, sluicing water all over the deck. They would have to be careful to protect their weapons from salt-water corrosion; Vadim wasn’t sure how long their gun oil would last.

He was pleased to discover that, in his newfound condition, he no longer suffered from seasickness.

They could hear Gulag shouting before they reached the container.

“There is no God!” he screamed. Vadim and the Fräulein exchanged glances. At a guess, the Muscovite was trying to pick a fight with Skull. Vadim wasn’t sure that anyone had ever done that before. The Fräulein hauled the door to the container open. Electric lights provided dim illumination, pallets kept them and their weapons off the wet floor. Their beds were made of packing material. Vadim had no idea where Skull had found the prayer mat. Gulag was standing over the sniper as he performed the Zuhr afternoon prayer. “You’re a fool!”

“Gulag!” The Fräulein sounded genuinely angry. Gulag looked up at them both.

“What? Aren’t we fucking communists?” He pointed at the ruins of his face. “I think we know for sure that God doesn’t exist now.”

Vadim was less sure of that. The virus may have been created as a weapon, but it made no sense in terms of what little he knew about biology. If ever there was proof of the supernatural, this horrible disease would seem to be it.

“Leave Skull alone,” Vadim told him as he stepped into the container. Gulag pointed down at Skull as he bowed down, chanting the words of the prayer.

“Isn’t that against army regulations?” Gulag demanded. Vadim marvelled that Skull could ignore all the shouting.

“Since when did you give a fuck about regulations?” the Fräulein demanded. “When did any of us, for that matter?”

Gulag screamed, startling Vadim, simply because it hadn’t been what he expected. The Muscovite turned away and banged his arms against the side of the container.

“Does this not seem fucking mad to you?” he demanded. “I mean, now, in this situation?” Vadim and the Fräulein were staring at him.

“Skull’s always prayed,” Vadim finally managed.

“The world’s ended,” Gulag said much more quietly. He said it as though he were looking for understanding.

“So what do you want to do?” Vadim asked.

“Other than not attend to your duties and support your comrades?” the Fräulein muttered.

Gulag threw his hands up in the air. “Something,” he managed and turned away, pacing like an animal in a cage. If Vadim didn’t know better, he’d assume that Gulag had taken some kind of stimulant.

“We have a purpose,” Vadim reminded him. Gulag swung round to face him again.

“You have a purpose!” he snapped.

“We have a purpose. The captain has said that you do not have stay with us if you do not wish to,” the Fräulein reminded him through gritted teeth. She’d clearly had more than enough of Gulag.

The Muscovite looked affronted. “See that?” He pointed at her. “You accuse me of disloyalty – have I not been loyal ever since you found me in that pile of corpses, Vadim?”

“You have been loyal in your own insubordinate and deeply aggravating way,” Vadim admitted.

“Exactly,” Gulag said.

“So what is troubling you so much you feel the need to scream at Skull as he prays?” Vadim asked.

“What are we doing?” he asked.

“Could you be more specific?”

“With these people, on this boat? One of them shot me.”

“We’ve all wanted to do that,” the Fräulein pointed out.

“Think about what we’ve done to them! We’re the architects of their misery. They’ll turn on us, and the absolute best we can hope is that we waste a lot of ammunition on them. That’s assuming they don’t catch us with our guard down.”

“For example, when we’re supposed to be patrolling the ship?” the Fräulein asked.

Gulag ignored her and stared at Vadim, who was still trying to work out where the Muscovite had picked up a phrase like ‘architects of their misery’.

“So you want to kill them all?” Vadim asked. It was a stupid question; of course he did.

“No,” Gulag said. Vadim almost missed it over Skull’s prayers.

“No?” Vadim asked, surprised.

“We need to feed on them,” he told them. “For our own good.”

They both stared at Gulag. Skull continued his devotions. Vadim was impressed that the Muscovite had somehow managed to find something worse to contemplate. They had done so many things in the service of their masters, even before the atrocity in New York, and now here was Gulag trying to outdo that. Vadim was tempted to deal with him now before he did something awful. He could, after all, do a lot of damage on his own.

“Our own good?” Vadim asked instead. It was difficult to get the words out of his suddenly very dry, dead throat. He felt the Fräulein tense next to him. Skull still seemed oblivious.

“We need the crew, I understand that. The rest of are just so much meat. We aren’t people anymore! We’re denying our own nature. Nothing good ever comes of that, it’s moral cowardice.”

Vadim laughed, and Gulag’s face hardened. The Fräulein’s hand inched towards her sidearm, and suddenly Vadim wished he’d taken one of the G3s with him to the meeting. He could see them leaning against the container. “We’re something new,” Gulag continued. “Something perfectly fitted for this world. You want to have revenge on those that have done this, and I understand that, but we could do whatever we want. We could carve out kingdoms in our own image.”

“With you as the king?” Vadim asked. Gulag smiled and shook his head.

“Oh, I don’t want the crown,” he said. He pointed at Vadim.

Vadim started laughing. He was a little worried that he wouldn’t stop. It was so absurd, the bloody imperial fantasises of a petty, violent thug. Revenge might not have been any better, but at least there was a sense of natural justice to it, in Vadim’s mind.

“Don’t laugh at me,” Gulag said, which just made Vadim laugh harder. “Don’t laugh at me!” he was screaming now. “We’ve burned villages! How is this different, except we won’t be doing it for masters no better than the psychopaths who run the Bratva!”

“Has it occurred to you that if we feed, then we end up on a ship full of the mindless dead, which at the very least narrows our chances of keeping the crew alive?” the Fräulein asked, while Vadim managed to get himself under control. Gulag just glared at her.

Something occurred to Vadim. “Princess and New Boy?” he asked.

“We bite them,” he said. “Princess is strong enough, she’ll be one of us. New Boy is weak. I can crack open his skull with my saperka if you want.”

At the mention of Princess, Vadim had felt the Fräulein stiffen next to him.

“So you’ve thought it all out, then?” she said with low menace.

“Do you know how I know Allah is real?” Skull asked from his knees. All three of them turned to look at the sniper as he stood up. “It is because I have become a creature of Shaitan, a ghūl. How can there be an adversary if there is no God?” He turned to Gulag. “To deny our base nature is not moral cowardice, it is far from weakness, it is what separates us from animals. We are at war between our savage selves and our higher selves. That is why I carry a Koran as well as a rifle. I hope that one day I may redeem myself to the point that I will be allowed back into His presence.” Gulag opened his mouth to retort, but shrank back as Skull leaned towards him. “And if you attack one of us you attack all of us; even you, my friend.” He straightened up and turned to Vadim. “With your permission, I’ll go and find Mongol.” Vadim nodded. Skull grabbed a G3 and made to leave the container, but paused. “I apologise if my praying bothered you, Gulag. I shall endeavour to do it out of your presence in future.” He turned back to face the Muscovite. “If, however, that is not possible, do not ever try and disturb me again, do you understand?” Gulag stared at the sniper. Skull staggered to the rail of the violently pitching boat and started making his way aft.

“You want to go your own way when we get to Britain, you may do so,” Vadim told the Muscovite. “Carve out your kingdom if you want. Start here and we’ll ki – destroy you.” He locked eyes with Gulag, and the other man broke contact first. Then he staggered out of the container and headed aft as well.

“He’s going to do something bad, isn’t he?” Vadim asked. The Fräulein nodded. The problem was he was still one of them until he wasn’t.

“Or Skull is,” the Fräulein said slowly.

Vadim turned to stare at her.

“He’s changed. He scares me.”