And then there would be no stopping the Narodniki, the rulers of the land.
Ryan glanced at Krysty who lay at his side, then turned to look up the valley toward the dam. "Soon," said the man.
Uchitel moved away from his band and stood where the slope began to steepen. Four members of his band slept there, including Barkhat, Krisa and Zmeya, whose skinny frame was almost smothered by the porcine bulk of Bizabraznia. It was time to begin rousing them for the coming day.
Major Zimyanin wiped smears of mud from the hem of his long gray coat, then peered across the valley, squinting at the unusually bright rising sun. It was rare to see it so naked and unveiled, free from chem clouds.
He clapped his hands together, trying to keep warm; it was much colder than the day before. As the officer glanced farther up the valley, he saw a pinprick of silver that trailed orange and red fringed with ragged smoke. Some moments passed before he realized what it heralded. By then the boom of the massive explosion had confirmed his guess.
Chapter Nineteen
Without the usual computer-guidance system, J.B. had been forced to fire the missile on manual sighting. Fortunately the range was less than half a mile, so accuracy wasn't too much of a problem. And the target was some thousand feet long by two hundred feet high.
The explosion came nearly dead center between the middle towers, roughly a third of the way down from the top of the dam.
To J.B. Dix, standing only a little below the level of the reservoir, the effect was spectacular.
To Ryan Cawdor, halfway down the valley, it was stunningly powerful.
To Uchitel and the rest of the Narodniki, at the bottom of the valley, the sight of the explosion was totally, lethally paralyzing.
A mighty column of foaming water ripped through the hole. Immediately great cracks appeared in the main structure of the dam as the pressure began to tell. Within ten seconds a huge hole appeared, destroying the top walkway of the concrete structure. Hundreds of thousands of gallons of frothing, surging water roared into the valley, washing away everything before it.
For a few heartbeats, Ryan thought they'd miscalculated. The reservoir emptied faster than they'd figured it would, and the flood swept by only forty feet below where they hid. The noise was deafening, like the roaring of a thousand enraged animals. At his side, Krysty held her hands over her ears.
The guerrillas' camp vanished.
All but half a dozen of the Narodniki were buried under the avalanche of water, mangled and pulped by the stones that the dam burst carried with it. The corpses bobbed and danced across the plain, slowing as the water began to spread out.
The dead were borne along for a couple of miles until the water became more shallow, and the carcasses snagged on rocky outcrops. The river turned sluggish and gray at its edges, finally solidifying into ice, so the corpses rested, hands and heads sticking out from the hardening slush.
Pechal went farthest of all. Sorrow, the torturer, was on his back, legs broken, hip smashed, but miraculously still living. Only his face and one hand protruded from the ice, which set around him like stone, crushing his chest, slowing his breathing. To the last, his eyes remained open and staring. Uchitel survived.
Bedraggled and freezing, the leader of the killers clung to a rock as the water tore at his legs. He'd climbed away from the tumbling wall of bubbling death, as had three other survivors: Bizabraznia, weeping, naked below the waist from the plucking river; Zmeya, who had climbed highest of them all, wriggling to safety like a skinned eel; and Krisa, the Rat, his red eyes wide in shock.
All the rest were gone all the animals, provisions, guns and ammunition, swept away to destruction. Uchitel looked around, seeing that the river was already dropping fast to its original level. But the land beneath it was scoured clean.
"Damnation take you! Faster, you fumbling dolts! We must get there before they can escape us."
The blowing of the dam had taken Zimyanin by surprise. Until he'd seen the silver missile sprout its fiery tail, he hadn't known then any weapon that could wreak such devastation still existed. As the smoke and spray cleared, Zimyanin made out several of his prey still alive and clinging to the sides of the valley. But he'd also seen movement on the far side, where he believed there might be more of the poverty-stricken American peasants who inhabited the region. It would be as well if he got to his countrymen first.
But so early in the morning, the cavalry were slow and clumsy in saddling and mounting. He heard moans about the cold and about the lack of food, not even a hot drink for breakfast.
But at last they were picking their way along the ridge of the valley, heading toward the final scene of the drama.
"Ol J.B. got the ace on the line," whooped Ryan Cawdor, staring unbelievingly at the chaos below him. The main torrent had abated, and the morning was so bitingly cold that the rocks on both sides of the valley were slick with ice.
"Let's go," said Finnegan, hefting his gray Heckler & Koch submachine gun.
"Watch 'em. They've probably got guns left," warned Ryan.
"Not that fat sow," grinned Henn, pointing at the huge Bizabraznia. "Unless she's got a hider pistol tucked in her snatch."
"Got room for a mortar up there," cackled Finn. Descending with the utmost caution between the tumbled, wet stones, Ryan led them to the river. Each of them was carrying a blaster, ready for action: Hennings and Finnegan with their HK-54As, Krysty with the silvered H&K P-7A 13 pistol, Ryan with his caseless G-12, all covering the helpless Russians.
With the water now returned to its original level, Uchitel and the three other survivors climbed warily down and were now facing Ryan across fifteen paces of fast-flowing river. Slowly, Uchitel raised his hands above his head in the universal gesture of surrender.
Krisa and Zmeya followed. Finally, scowling, Bizabraznia lifted her hands.
"Watch 'em," said Ryan, crossing the jumble of stones and large boulders with care. If he slipped on the ice, the water would carry him to his death.
Once he was over, he beckoned for the others to follow. He kept his eye and the muzzle of his blaster pointed at the captive Russians.
"What're we goin' to do with the fuckers?" asked Finnegan.
"Ice 'em," replied Ryan. "Mebbe try an' talk to 'em first. You got that book?" he asked Uchitel and mimed reading and flicking pages.
Krysty watched a trickle of water flowing over the lip of the ruined dam. "I can see J.B., Lori and Doc near the ghost town," she said.
"They're wavin'," added Hennings.
Ryan was still watching Uchitel, his good eye locked on the Russian's amber gaze. "The book, you bastard," he repeated.
"I can hear..." began Krysty.
"What?"
"Horses. Earth Mother. I can hear so many horses, comin' this way! I couldn't hear before with the noise of the river."
"J.B. is pointin' over that way," said Hennings, gesturing to the west, where Krysty was also pointing.
Uchitel's face was impassive. He had delivered enough death in his time to know that Ryan Cawdor's face showed only the promise of killing. Moving carefully, the Russian reached inside his coat and produced the damp copy of the phrase book, throwing it down in the mud at Ryan's feet.
As he stooped to pick it up, Ryan heard what the girl had detected: hooves pounding on rock, coming toward them. He glanced toward the ghost town, but J.B., Doc and Lori had disappeared.
"Let's kill the sons of bitches and get us the fuck out of here," said Hennings, backing toward the river.