“Are you okay?”
Hickok sighed and started reloading his Pythons. “I’m gettin’ a mite tired of all this killing.”
Blade and Geronimo looked at one another.
“You’re getting tired of killing?” Geronimo repeated in bewilderment.
“All we ever do is go around pluggin’ cow-chips,” Hickok said softly while ejecting a spent round from his right Colt. “The baddies attack us, and we attack them right back. They kill someone, and we kill them.
There’s always some varmint out to nail our hides to the wall, and we’re always traipsing around the countryside teachin’ them the error of their ways.” He paused and sighed. “A lot of innocent folks have been killed along the way.”
Geronimo placed his right hand on the gunman’s left shoulder. “What’s wrong? What’s bothering you?”
“I don’t know. I reckon I need a vacation real bad. Or maybe you’ve got the right idea. We’ve been doing this for years. Maybe we should retire, stop being Warriors, and spend more time with our families.”
Blade and Geronimo were shocked, and their features showed as much.
“So if you’re aimin’ to quit, pard,” Hickok said to Geronimo, “I’ll hang up the Colts too.”
Geronimo licked his lips and glanced at the silver spire, noting the flames were spreading. He stared into the gunman’s eve eyes and squared his shoulders. “Uhhhh, I don’t know how to tell you this.”
“Tell me what?”
“I’ve changed my mind about quitting.”
“You what?”
“I learned an important lesson on this run,” Geronimo explained. “My quitting wouldn’t make my wife and son any safer. They might sleep better at night, but I wouldn’t. I’d know there was always someone out there scheming to destroy the Home and our Family. Let’s face facts. Peace on earth and good will among all people will not come about until all the power-mongers and degenerates are eliminated. And as long as there’s a need for Warriors to defend the Home and the Family, I intend to be one.”
“You changed your mind,” Hickok mumbled.
A tremendous roar shook the parking lot as the Hurricane’s engine, a Rolls-Royce Pegasus Three turbofan that could supply 23,000 pounds of thrust, thundered to life.
“Into the VTOL,” Blade shouted, dashing to the ladder and climbing into the cockpit. He took a seat behind Captain Stuart, who was wearing a flight helmet and inspecting the instrument panel. “Are we all set?”
Captain Stuart gave the thumb’s-up sign with his right hand.
Geronimo and Hickok ascended the rope ladder, pulled it in after them, and closed the door. They took seats behind Blade, side by side. The cockpit was arranged with two rows of two seats apiece situated to the rear of the pilot, with a final solitary seat at the very back.
“Take it up,” Blade ordered. “Do you have enough fuel to reach Denver?”
“There’s fuel to spare.”
“Good. Then you can drop us off near the SEAL and fly to Stapleton.
President Toland and Governor Melnick will be glad to see you.”
The VTOL began to rise slowly from the ground, using its vertical-takeoff capability to lift straight up.
Blade stared at the parking lot below, then at the spire.
“I should have known you’d change your blasted mind,” Hickok declared.
“What’s that crack supposed to mean?” Geronimo replied.
“You always were wishy-washy.”
Captain Stuart banked the Hurricane and applied more thrust to the engine. The jet arced into the night sky, soaring high above Lenin’s Needle.
“You know what to do,” Blade stated.
Stuart nodded, winging the aircraft in a circle, and executed a tight dive, the nose angled at the silver spire. “Away she goes!” he cried, and a missile swooped toward its designated target. He pulled back on the stick and the Hurricane responded superbly, heading for the stars.
Blade shifted and gazed at the silver spire. The missile struck the edifice at about the 15th floor, and the resultant explosion blew out three whole stories as a billowing fireball enveloped the spire’s midsection.
Gravity took over, and the structure buckled and tilted, crumpling upon itself, and plunged toward the ground. Lenin’s Needle, a monumental testimony to humanity’s arrogance and passion for violence, crashed to the earth of its own pretentious weight.
“All right!” Captain Stuart declared happily.
Smiling, Blade settled back in his seat and relaxed, savoring the prospect of a peaceful flight to the SEAL and the return to the Home. But he should have known better.
“Hey, Lyle!” Hickok called out.
“What is it?”
“Does Geronimo’s seat have an eject button?”