Extreme Instinct. Don Pendleton

hard to stop. Then again, it really didn’t make a difference. Once Westmore had them strapped down to a surgical table and then began to remove pieces of their internal anatomy, they’d talk.

      Everybody always did.

      CHAPTER FOUR

      Podbanske Base, Slovakia

      When the Communist government fell, the Russian soldiers assigned to the Czechoslovakian missile base simply turned off the equipment and went home. Naturally, they took along everything they could in lieu of pay, but all of the big machinery stayed intact and fully operational—including a mainframe computer and all of the big thermonuclear weapons. Only the tactical nukes had been carried away, which was why General Novostk had been forced to trade a Euro-Russian hydrogen bomb for a Chinese tactical nuke. That trade was the key to get the much more useful T-bombs.

      In every way possible, the Soviet missile base was superior to the old headquarters of Saris Castle in the badlands of the Carpathian Mountains where even the goats found nothing to eat. Easily half of the crumbling ruins were inhabitable during the winter, with the water pipes freezing solid, the toilets backing up and the electricity fading away for no apparent reason. Then the soldiers had been forced to become extremely proficient with their handguns to eliminate the staggering rat population. One section of the cellar they had declared a demilitarized zone, and simply nailed the door shut in surrender.

      But here at Missile Base Nine, the Slovakians had lights, heat, food, weapons, vehicles, everything needed to wage war on the hated Russians. Of course, the general had known about the base for decades, but even when it had been abandoned, there was no way to get past the massive armored door at the entrance. Then, like a gift from God, some crazy American billionaire had hired them to steal a T-bomb, and offered full technical support, including an American criminal who was an expert at opening bank vaults. Once the Slovakians got past the door, the general discovered the nuclear weapons in storage, and a bold new plan was made, with Lindquist eagerly on board from the very beginning.

      Prompted by a blast of the Russian truck’s horn, a dozen soldiers rushed out of a tinted-glass office on the loading dock to assist with the unloading of the T-bomb.

      Masking his impatience, General Novostk waited for the unloading to commence. On their way to Slovakia, Colonel Lindquist and Lieutenant Vladislav had been dropped off at a small island in the Black Sea to proceed on their individual assignments, recruitment and misdirection. This would allow the general to concentrate on the real mission: revenge and mass destruction.

      “Good to have you back, sir,” a corporal shouted to Novostk, giving a stiff salute. “May I take it that the mission went well?”

      “More than well. We have acquired seven of the weapons,” Novostk replied, returning the salute. Normally, soldiers did not salute a superior officer while inside a building, but the entire Red Army base was underground, and so technically inside, so he accepted one if offered, but did not push the matter. These were patriots, ready to die to serve their nation. Novostk would not begrudge them some minor blurring of the rules of military etiquette.

      “Seven,” the corporal gasped. The word was repeated several times by the unloading crew. “That’s grand news, sir. We’ll smash the Russians for sure now.”

      Did that mean he had harbored doubts before? Novostk wondered privately. That was disquieting, but then soldiers always grumbled, even patriots.

      Just then, an electric crane rumbled into life, the arm swinging out over the truck, heavy chains jingling as they descended. The soldiers were scurrying to attach the chains to the precious T-bomb.

      “Handle them carefully, gentlemen!” the general bellowed in his best parade-ground voice. “If you set one off, I will be most displeased.”

      That made the soldiers crack smiles, and they redoubled the work efforts, the previous tension massively eased.

      “I’m always impressed how you do that, sir,” the corporal said in clear envy, resting a hand on the Rex pistol holster at his side. “I’ll never make much of an officer until I learn how.”

      “You will learn in time,” General Novostk said, walking out of the way of the busy workers. “Now, is there anything to report on your end? How is the house cleaning progressing?”

      The corporal flashed a toothy grin. “Complete victory, sir. We got rid of all the bats by using a flamethrower and roasting the little bastards alive.”

      Slowly, the general raised an eloquent eyebrow. The hull of an ICBM was just strong enough to withstand launch, and keep the fuel tanks attached to the engines long enough to reach the target halfway around the world. There had been ten missiles snug in their silos. All of them had been damaged in some way from sheer neglect, but by cannibalizing parts for one to fix another, he had hoped to get three, maybe four of them, into working order.

      “Son, did you just tell me,” the general asked in a measure voice, “that you used a flamethrower to clean out the colony of bats inside the launch tube of a thermonuclear ICBM?”

      That caught the corporal off guard. “Why…yes sir. I mean, no, sir. I mean…”

      With a gentle thump, the first decahedron was placed on the loading dock, and men swarmed to remove the chains to go for the next.

      “Were the missiles damaged in any way?” Novostk demanded, every trace of humor and patience gone from his demeanor. Suddenly the friendly old man in a uniform was gone, replaced with “Iron Ivan,” the terror of the Carpathian Mountains.

      “No, sir,” the corporal replied hastily, giving another fast salute. “Well, a little, but during the course of fighting the blaze we found a sealed tunnel that led to a cave on the surface. It holds ten SS-25 Sickle missile trucks, sir. Each of them in prime condition, with no work needed at all to make them ready for combat. Well, aside from charging the truck batteries.”

      The general squinted. “Ten of them?”

      “Yes, sir, ten.”

      The second bomb was placed alongside the first.

      “Indeed,” the general murmured, deep in thought.

      The quartermaster records had only listed one such truck on the premises, and the soldiers had never been able to find the vehicle. The natural assumption was that it had been stolen along with so much other equipment when the staff departed. But now the general could see that report had meant one wing of the deadly missiles. True, they had nowhere near the range of the monster ICBMs in the silos, but those needed a lot of work to get working once more, while the SS-25 Sickles were ready to go. As the old saying went, a copper in your hand was better than a bag of gold in your dreams.

      Ten missiles and seven bombs, with one of those held back as a reserve and Colonel Lindquist using another to divert the world’s attention. If the technicians could not crack the defenses of the weapons, he would launch all ten missiles, one live and a dummy toward every target. That would double the chances of the T-bomb getting through the air defenses of each city chosen: Beijing, Paris, London, New Delhi and Washington. Millions would die in the volley, quite possibly a lot more. Which would guarantee the start of World War III, and the end of Russia. The war might spread to other nations, but the Slovakians would be fine, and that was all that mattered.

      “That is excellent news, Corporal,” Novostk said, repeating the man’s rank to let him know he could keep it, for now. “Make me a list of every major city they can reach, along with flight times.”

      “Here you are, sir,” the corporal said, thrusting out an envelope. “Population numbers, size of military, any known antimissile defenses, distance in kilometers and miles and estimated flight times. Once we install the bombs in the warheads we can launch in five minutes.”

      Waving the fellow away, Novostk read the report while the rest of the bombs were laid down as gently as Christmas eggs.

      “Sir, the six bombs are unloaded,” Sergeant Melori reported with a casual salute. “I already have some men hauling one down to the