General Ishmael Varakov buttoned the collar of his greatcoat and pulled the sealskin chopka down lower on his balding head. "Chicago -- another Moscow," he muttered to himself, shivering, standing in the doorway of his helicopter and staring across the sea of mud at the icy, wind-tossed Lake Michigan waters beyond. "Bahh!" he grunted, starting down the rubber-treaded three steps leading to the damp ground. He stared at the massive edifice less than twenty-five yards distant. He didn't bother to look for the name -- it had been the Museum of Natural History, given to the city of Chicago for a world's fair decades earlier and bearing the name of a capitalist, Varakov thought he recalled.
"Put up a new name," he said, turning to his young female aide, watching her legs a moment as the wind whipped at the hem of her skirt. "You are freezing -- come -- inside. But the new name I want should reflect that this is headquarters for the North American Army of Occupation of the Soviet Peoples' Republic -- make a note of this when your hands stop trembling with the wind."
He walked ahead, spurning the blotchy red carpet waiting for him between the ranks of Kalashnikov-armed, blustery-faced troops, crossing the mud instead, his mirror-shined jackboots sinking at times several inches into the mire under the mass of his two hundred eighty-five pounds.
He stopped, standing at the base of the long low steps, scraping the mud from the soles of his footgear and staring up at the building.
"Comrade General Varakov!"
Varakov turned, staring at the major standing at rigid attention on his left. Varakov returned the salute, less than formally and grunted, "What is it, major?"
"General! I have the seventeen partisans ready."
Varakov just stared at the major, then somewhere at the back of his mind he remembered the radio dispatch given him when he had landed at International Airport, northwest of the city, before transferring to his helicopter. He could recall it clearly enough -- seventeen armed partisans had been captured after attacking one of the first Soviet scout patrols sent into the city. The seventeen -- three of them women -- had killed twelve Soviet soldiers. The partisans had survived the neutron radiation when Chicago was bombed, having taken refuge in an underground shelter. They had been armed with American sporting guns.
"I will come, major," Varakov nodded, then stopped scraping the mud from his boots -- looking in the direction the major pointed, Varakov could see there was more mud. The major walked beside him, Varakov's young female aide a respectable distance behind. As Varakov stepped into the mud again, he silently wondered what it had been like here on the lakefront when the waters had so suddenly risen. The planetarium less than a quarter mile away had been badly damaged, the museum -- now headquarters -- barely touched. The brunt of the force of the Seiche that had swamped much of the city, destroying everything in its path like a tidal wave, had hit the northern shoreline. The houses and apartments of the rich capitalists had been there and were now in ruins. Varakov did not smile at the thought. The rich, too, had a right to life.
Varakov stared up from the mud, noticing the major had stopped. Looking ahead, Varakov saw the seventeen -- some of them little more than children, none of them over twenty, he judged. He transferred his stare from the wall where they stood -- hands bound, eyes blindfolded -- and looked to the squad of six men, submachine guns in their gloved hands.
"Would you care to give the order to fire, comrade general?" the major asked.
"No -- no, they are your prisoners." Then, stifling his own emotions, he added, "It is your honor."
The major beamed, executed a salute which Varakov -- again less than formally -- returned.
The major executed an about-face and walked to a position beside the firing squad. "Ready!"
"Aim!"
"Fire!"
Varakov did not turn away as the six-man squad began their steady stream of automatic fire, the seventeen Americans in front of the wall starting to crumple. One tried running, his eyes still blindfolded, hands still tied, and he fell face down into the mud as two of the soldiers fired at him at once. Varakov looked again. The one who had tried running had been a young girl, not a man. As the last body fell, Varakov stared at the wall -- it was chipped with bullet pocks and there were a few dark stains -- either from blood or from the mud that had splashed as the dead people had fallen.
Mechanically -- still shivering -- Varakov grunted, "Very good, comrade major," this time not saluting at all.
Copyright © 1981 by Jerry Ahern
)
Soviet Occupation Forces have landed in America, intending to liquidate prominent Americans, starting with Samuel Chambers, the lone surviving member of the Presidential cabinet. John Thomas Rourke, The Survivalist, continues to search for his missing wife and children. Obstacles include paramilitary armies, brigands, war refugees, and a land gone mad....
