The ‘z-z-z-i-i-i-p’ of what Kate suddenly realized were bullets and the rocking of the van under their feet sent the first jolt of fear through her system. Woody pulled Kate down to the flat metal roof as the steady, deeper rattle of heavy guns settled into a rhythm of machine-like killing. ‘We gotta split, Kate!’ he yelled, pushing her toward the edge of the van’s roof.
‘Hey!’ she shouted before tumbling through air onto the heads and shoulders of the fleeing crowd. Kate fell in the darkness through the sea of tightly packed bodies, barely managing to gain her feet at the last second. She looked up in horror to see the force of the horde topple the van onto its side. Woody leapt feet first — camera in hand — into the human tide on the opposite side.
All around her was a crushing press of grunting, snorting panic. Growls and brief shouts burst forth. The men — much taller than her five foot three inches — elbowed and jostled their way toward the narrow exits a half-step at a time.
Kate was terrified. The breath was pressed from her lungs in the crush. Her face was pinned between bodies and she couldn’t even turn her head. There were arms clutching at her legs as screaming people were being trampled under foot.
The bullets splitting the air all around and the booming explosions were now just background noise; a secondary concern. Her life depended upon footing. Upon tiny patches of cobblestone on which to place her next step. For to fall, she knew, was to die.
Kate began to claw and scratch for small openings in the mob. She grabbed onto lapels and sleeves and eventually hair as the crowd lurched this way and that. She maintained her balance as much by the grip of her hands as the placement of her feet. Suddenly, the sea of humanity surged in an unexpected direction. Kate had guessed wrong. She fought for a toehold amid a tangle of legs. She was falling. She fought to grab onto something. An elbow smacked her squarely in the nose — blinding her with a white flash of pain.
Kate screamed as she slipped beyond the point of no return into the darkness of churning knees. The sea swallowed her up in slow motion, and the sounds of the explosions and the gunfire grew distant. There were different sounds down there, underneath the surface. The wails of the dying who lay on the stone pavement echoed amid the forest of stamping boots.
I’m going to die. The thought hit her with the physical effect of a body blow as her knees landed on cold paving stones and the flow of the bodies threatened to press her flat. All her senses abandoned Kate in that moment, the prickly grip of fear consuming her. She pounded her fists against the headless bodies that kicked her ever lower toward the oblivion of the earth. Pain shot unexpectedly through her ribs and she screamed long and loud — her eyes forced shut by the effort.
The pain in her ribs came from a tight grip. Fresh air bathed her face as she twisted and shouted and scratched her way up, up to the surface. To the air. Kate had been pulled from the depths. Someone had lifted her up from the grave. She couldn’t see who it was. She didn’t care. She fought viciously now. She would not fall again. Her jaw was clenched in a sneer. Everybody around her was an enemy, to be pushed and slapped and scratched if advantage could be gained. Everybody but the man behind her. His two hands remained fixed on her ribs.
Slowly, the crushing force of bodies began to wane. As the pressure of the packed crowd fell, the pace of the crowd’s flight picked up. The crackle of gunfire could still be heard in the distance as the demonstrators streamed toward the exits. Kate was swept along. The fighting and jostling of the crowd fell with the lessening pressure of the crush. Still, however, the hands held her.
Kate stopped and turned. A tall man, in his late thirties or early forties, looked down at her in the semi-darkness. He had tired eyes set in a handsome, pale face. His hair was pitch black. He said nothing, turned and disappeared into the masses before Kate could say a word. He wore the black garb of the Russian anarchists.
Huge red flames boiled into the air over their heads as another stunning boom caused all to duck and turn. A second ball of fire shot skyward, and another boom rolled over the square.
The flames from the explosions rose into the air from behind the Kremlin walls — from inside the Kremlin! And then so did a helicopter. In the light from the blazing fires Kate could see the white, blue and red tricolors of the Russian Republic painted on its sides. It was the Russian President’s helicopter. As it wheeled onto its side and hurtled away through the caverns of downtown Moscow, the night was lit by hundreds of burning tracer rounds fired past the fleeing aircraft at tremendous velocities.
‘It’s anarchy, Elaine,’ Gordon Davis said to his wife. The local news reported the downtown killings as a ‘crime.’ But the appropriate words were anarchist atrocity. ‘They have no rules. They’re incapable of feeling empathy for their victims. They’re totally unsocialized. We’ll never go back to the way we were. We’re just going to have to live our lives in a country with wild animals running loose on the streets.’
‘I know you don’t believe that,’ Elaine Davis said into her mirror. ‘I know what you really believe, Gordon. You’re a totally hopeless idealist.’
‘We interrupt your programming to bring you this ABC News Bulletin.’
They both turned to the small television in their master bath. ‘This just in to ABC News,’ the deep-voiced anchor said. ‘A major riot is reported to have taken place in Red Square in central Moscow.’
Gordon saw his wife return to her make-up. Another food riot, he thought, knotting his tie.
‘Western journalists on the scene report that anarchist demonstrators defied Russian Army orders to vacate the square by nightfall. Although it is unknown who fired the first shots, regular army troops had begun taking over barricades from Interior Ministry riot police earlier in the day, and by sunset were massed in the thousands. Estimates vary as to the number of demonstrators present, with some sources putting the number as high as two hundred thousand.’
‘Those poor people,’ Elaine said as she carefully drew a faint line under her eye with a pencil. Gordon had to look away. That process always made him nervous.
‘At this hour, the violence appears to be spreading outward from Red Square, and now seems to have consumed most of Moscow’s center.’ Those words drew Gordon’s and Elaine’s attention, not to the television but to each other. ‘Experts have kept a close eye on the situation in the Russian capital in recent days amid rumors of impending upheaval and worsening political instability. There are numerous unconfirmed reports from Moscow tonight of widespread fighting between security troops and Russian anarchists, but ABC News must reiterate that those reports remain as yet unconfirmed. Please stay tuned to ABC for further word on this breaking story as it develops. We now return you to your local programming, already in progress.’
As the ‘Special Bulletin’ screen replaced the picture of the ABC anchorman, Elaine said, ‘You think Greer will call the Armed Services Committee back into session?’
‘No-o-o. Everything these days is China, China, China. Plus, everybody’s down at the Convention.’
‘Are you guys decent?’ their older daughter Celeste interrupted from the bedroom door.
‘Come on in,’ Elaine said as she powdered her nose at her vanity.
‘Та da!’ Celeste announced, smiling and holding her hands up to present her younger sister — Janet — who wore her new cheerleader uniform. Janet shook the pom-poms and kicked. ‘Doesn’t she look like a complete dweeb?’ Celeste asked. Janet shook a pom-pom in her sister’s face.