"Don't want the whole place going up in smoke," Ryan said, holstering the silenced blaster at his right hip.
"Not yet. Mebbe when we get out of here. After the jump. Be good way to leave it for the Reds. Handful of ashes."
"How's the gateway?" He paused. "And how did youknow there was trouble?"
"I felt it," Krysty said from halfway down the stairs.
"How's the work?"
"Getting there." She walked into the hall and looked into the back room, where the grenade had almost burned out. "Gaia! Seems like you chilled a whole kindergarten in here."
"Them or us, lover."
Zimyanin waited another thirty minutes on the chance that someone might come from the dark bulk of the mansion and tell him what was going on. But in his heart he knew what had happened. Ryan Cawdor and his terrorist gang had been far too good for the wolf pack. He felt no grief for the murderous gang of young thugs.
"They who live by the sword shall surely perish by the sword," he said to himself in English. His 1911 phrase book had a section devoted to popular proverbs and sayings.
"What are we to do, Comrade Major-Commissar? We have collected many local villagers, as you instructed."
Zimyanin tugged thoughtfully at the drooping ends of his mustache. "Time to remove the glove of velvet and use the fist of steel. We will attack in force."
Chapter Thirty-Six
"Not that long to dawn," Doc said, glancing at the sky through the crooked timbers of the roof. Old beams, fire-marked, some with the original shingles, were still nailed in place.
Nearly a half hour had passed since the explosion of the mag-gren and the butchery of the killing pack of teenagers. There'd been no sign of any further hostile activity from the dark fields, though Ryan was certain that there was a sizable force hiding out there. Probably less than a mile away.
Only Krysty remained down in the basement with Rick. The work on the gateway was nearly done. The main wiring had been repaired, and the damaged metal hammered and pressed back into something approximating the proper shape. Some final work remained replacing lock plates and checking the fittings on the main gateway contacts. Krysty could handle that with some guidance from Rick.
Jak and Doc had joined J.B. and Ryan on the upper floors of the rambling dacha, each with his blaster at the ready. Both J.B. and Ryan had fetched their assault rifles, hoping to deter an initial attack before it got too close.
"Light'll help us more than them," Jak said, squinting at the distant village. He was wearing his fur coat, and his white hair floated about his shoulders like living frost in the cold wind that winnowed in from the east.
"Sure. We can pick them off from cover. If they don't use any heavy-ex they'll have to get close to shift us." Ryan glanced at the secret door, knowing that once they retreated inside it, their options became limited.
They could make the jump successfully, surrender... or die.
"Send them in," Zimyanin ordered. "Hold the sec patrols in reserve back by the wags. I want to keep the chillings to a minimum among our men. Tell them to hurry. It'll be first light before long. Then the advantage will lie with them."
"Here they come," J.B. said. "From toward the river. Anything on any other side?"
"Nothing," Jak replied from the rear.
"No." Doc's voice floated from the attic. "Not a creature is stirring. Not even a mouse."
"Nothing this side," Ryan added. "Looks like a one-in, all-in attack then. How many?"
"Around thirty or forty, straggling. Can't see sec men. Most got muskets and old blasters. Don't seem in too much of a hurry."
Ryan walked around to the front and called Jak to join him and J.B., leaving Doc to watch the other sides from the roofless attic.
"Zimyanin's using stupes as a first wave to draw fire, use up ammo. Mebbe take one or two of us out if they're lucky. Cold bastard!"
Zorro, tucked inside Doc's fur coat, whimpered.
The peasants were strung out across the field in a rough skirmishing line. They had proved so reluctant to follow the wolf pack toward the sinister dacha that Zimyanin had been forced to use a handful of his precious trained sec men to push the villagers along with the threat of a bullet in the back.
He watched them begin to advance, then turned to order the heavy wags to warm up their engines and to have the two gren launchers broken out and set up. He suspected that they might soon need them.
"Time to slow 'em," J.B. said. "They're inside six hundred paces."
"Close enough," Ryan agreed.
His Heckler & Koch G-12 caseless rifle bragged a laser-enhanced sniper scope. He pressed the butt into his shoulder and squinted along the barrel, seeing the slow-moving serpent that wound its way toward them. A faint mist was rising from the river, drifting lazily across the fields. It enveloped the feet of the advancing Russians, rising to their waists, so that they seemed to be wading through water.
J.B. fired his H&K MP-7 SD-8, the integral silencer making each round sound like a dainty sneeze. The rifle also had a laser-optic sight that made the targets as clear as day.
Both men had their long-range blasters set on single-shot, not wanting to waste any ammo on triple-burst or full-auto. At less than half a mile, against such passive victims, single shots were all it took.
"By Lenin's tomb! They will kill them all, long before they reach the house."
Zimyanin nodded. "I think so. I hadn't known they had rifles. Such men would be skillful with such weapons. Yes, Comrade, I think you are right. Pass the order."
"To retreat, Comrade Major-Commissar?"
"No. To advance on the double."
"But..."
"But what, Comrade?" His voice was like a steel blade caressing the jugular.
"They are being smoothed away by the blasters of the terrorists."
"Correct. And the terrorists will not have that much ammunition. The more they waste on that stinking offal, the less they will have to shoot at our sec men when they go in. Carry out my order, quickly, will you, Comrade?"
"Yes, Comrade Major-Commissar."
"And bring up the gren launchers. We shall be needing them soon. Very soon."
The bodies flopped to the freezing mud at regular intervals. Zimyanin's planning was partly correct. Neither Ryan nor J.B. had a limitless supply of ammo. Both men found it hard to believe that the Russians kept on coming. Indeed, after a couple of minutes they began to move faster, their ambling walk speeding to a clumsy trot. And they began to return fire with their antique muskets, though none of the shots reached the dacha.
In the first two and a half minutes, firing steadily and taking careful aim, Ryan and J.B. had put down over a dozen of the peasants, most dead before they hit the ground.
"How much longer before they quit?" the Armorer asked as he paused to wipe his glasses.
"I figure we'll chill every one of them before they get close enough to do us any serious harm. Looks to me like the sec men are driving them on."
"Mebbe we should lay them down first?"
"More we chill, the less there are to come at us again. Let them come, J.B., and we'll oblige them with a trip to the coast."
Rick had been sleeping for several minutes while Krysty ran up to the top of the stairs to recce the situation. The freezie woke to the sound of her boot heels clattering on the steps as she came back down into the gateway control room.