The Red Menace #8: The Sky Is Red

By James Mullaney

HISTORY REPEATS?

Governments around the world are shocked when the sleepy South American nation of Manu unexpectedly launches a rocket from a secret jungle base. How could a backwards country, dismissed by every superpower as irrelevant, join the Space Age seemingly overnight and in such spectacular fashion?

As every intelligence agency on earth scrambles to send men to Manu, MIC director Simon Kirk enlists the only two agents who can be counted on in a crisis: Patrick "Podge" Becket and the brilliant Dr. Thaddeus Wainwright.

The MIC boys uncover something far worse than one little ICBM hiding out in the deep, dark jungle. A group of German expatriates, still seething over the collapse of their vaunted Third Reich, have hatched a twisted plot of revenge that soon spreads from Manu across the entire globe.

The world hangs in the balance, and only Podge Becket and Thaddeus Wainwright can stop civilization from tumbling off the cliff and into a thousand-year nightmare!

• Language: English
• Publisher: James Mullaney
• Release date: Feb 18, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224225606

James Mullaney

James Mullaney is a Shamus Award-nominated author of over 50 books, as well as comics, short stories, novellas, and screenplays. His work has been published by New American Library, Gold Eagle/Harlequin, Marvel Comics, Tor, Moonstone Books, and Bold Venture Press. He was ghostwriter and later credited writer of 28 novels in The Destroyer series, and wrote the series companion guide The Assassin's Handbook 2. He is currently the author of The Red Menace action series as well as the comic-fantasy Crag Banyon Mysteries detective series.He was born in Taxachusetts, and wishes he were an only child, save one.He can be reached via email at [e-mail]

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Red Menace 8: The Sky is Red

By James Mullaney

Copyright © 2024 James Mullaney. All Rights Reserved.

THE RED MENACE TM & © James Mullaney. All Rights Reserved.

Cover by Mark Maddox

Editor: Donna Courtois

James Mullaney Books, February 2024

Available in paperback from Bold Venture Press

PUBLISHER’S NOTE:

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior express written consent of the publisher and the copyright holder.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales, is entirely coincidental.

Contents

Copyright

Dedication

The Sky is Red

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

A Note from Jim

About the author

Other Books by James Mullaney

For Robin

The Sky is Red

PROLOGUE

The mouse roared at precisely 10:08 p.m. Eastern Standard Time.

It came from the depths of a South American jungle.

The spectacular roar issued not from the mouth of a stalking jaguar, but from a rocket that lifted off from a hitherto unknown base in the small, unimportant nation of Manu. The fiery bellow quickly shocked the entire world.

The night sky became as day as the trailing flames from what was thought to be a missile rose higher in the air from a secret base at the foot of the Andes.

Nations around the planet went on immediate alert.

A minute into the launch, Washington was first to hear the news.

Is it the Russians? demanded American’s senior intelligence officers, who were not so intelligent that they’d had a clue Manu possessed any kind of ICBM program.

The reply was immediate: Unknown.

For safety’s sake, the president was whisked from Washington on Marine One.

Across the Atlantic and seconds later, the Russians were echoing the words of their counterparts in the United States.

Is Americans do this? asked the leaders of the Soviet GRU, Russia’s Main Intelligence Directorate.

There was much consternation and finger-pointing amongst the lower ranks, since no one wanted to admit to being the individual who had failed Mother Russia by not knowing precisely what was going on in some backward country half a world away.

The profuse sweating and lack of anything approaching candor from the lower ranks could only mean one thing regarding the involvement of the Americans in the launch of the Manu missile: Unknown.

Since it was still not known where the missile was heading scarcely a minute into the launch, the premier of the Soviet Union was spirited out of Moscow for his safety while all eyes in Red Square watched the sky with dread.

In Beijing, the panicked heads of the Politburo demanded to know if the Manu missile had been funded by the Americans or the Russians.

It is not known at this time, was the response.

Mao Tse Tung, China’s General Secretary and Chairman of the Central Military Commission, would have been hustled from China’s capital to a safe location, but for the fact that no one was able to find him. The old man was located in a brothel in the wee hours of the next morning, where he had spent the night earnestly disappointing a thirteen-year-old prostitute.

By the time Chairman Mao had been tracked down, two more missiles had launched from South America.

The launches had been staggered throughout the night.

Capitals throughout the world breathed three successive sighs of relief. The first relieved sigh came once too many minutes had passed and the first missile did not come back down. It was speculated that the guidance system had malfunctioned and it had landed in an ocean or in some unpopulated part of the world.

No reports from any of our listening posts, the Americans said.

No reports from any of our spies at America’s listening posts, the Russians said.

Find Chairman Mao’s trousers, the Chinese said. Look under the bed.

No one had anticipated a second rocket to launch from Manu. The first had been an impossibility. The insignificant little country could not possibly have more than one impossible missile. Such a thing would be an impossibility, times two.

Then the second missile launched.

The world held its breath, waiting for the mushroom cloud.

But again, there was no sign of this rocket coming back down.

What the devil are those maniacs up to? America asked.

How soon can we send delegation to our comrades in Manu to assist in glorious revolutionary struggle against imperial West? the Soviet Union asked.

Forget his pants. Bring the chairman back to the Politburo in his underwear, said the Chinese.

Four hours after the first missile rocketed skyward, the impossible happened for a third and final time.

The Manuans were children with a new toy. They were evidently taking potshots, without a care where their missiles were heading. The world was largely water, with vast areas of unpopulated land. Clearly it was only pure dumb luck that not one of the three rockets had struck one of the world’s great capitals.

God help us all, said the Americans.

May spirit of Revolution guide us through treacherous times, said the Russians.

Shoot the whore, said the Chinese.

Hours after the third missile was launched, the rest of the world decided that there were no more surprises forthcoming, at least for the time being. Whoever the madman was who was firing rockets willy-nilly from the backwater South American country — a country that had been previously known only for exporting iron ores and alpaca fur — he had, for now, taken his finger off the trigger.

The thing not known at present, but about which the world would soon become terrifyingly aware, was that the rockets had not splashed down in the middle of the Atlantic or on some unpopulated stretch of desert. The rockets had, more or less, performed flawlessly, the majority delivering cargo precisely where it was meant to go.

Far above the Earth, two new stars had joined the grand twinkling panoply of the firmament.

And in the silent void of space, the universe’s youngest stars patiently awaited instructions.

CHAPTER 1

The Boston weathermen had predicted a heavy overnight snowfall for southern New Hampshire.

Blizzard conditions for parts of the Merrimack Valley. Higher elevations could see as much as a foot of snow in the hours after midnight.

The meteorologist who’d spoken these prophetic words had been wearing an ugly green plaid coat that looked like he’d mugged it off the tackiest living room sofa in the Sears home department. His equally hideous clashing red necktie was fatter than Shelley Winters, and his balding scalp was book-ended on either cheek with enormous sideburns that were charged with the unenviable task of holding in the few electrical impulses that passed for thoughts within the dimpled dome of his sweaty cranium.

The weatherman had spoken with an absolute certainty and, as was often the case with his creed of Bean Town soothsayers, he had been nearly entirely wrong.

Robin Knell was grateful as he glanced out the grimy window of the decrepit wooden building deep in the New Hampshire woods that the local weathermen had been spot-on with their typical level of inaccuracy.

Good thing they were wrong, huh? a voice commented from behind him. Never take a Boston weatherman to the track. You’ll be broke in ten minutes.

Knell snapped his head around.

A portly man was bent at the waist in order to peer out the window with Robin Knell. The fat man wore a parka, entirely unzipped. The buttons of his dress shirt were strained to the bursting point. His face was a sheen of sweat.

What the hell are you doing stopping? Knell demanded. You know what he’s like. We’re on a schedule. He keeps people to schedules.

The fat man shook his head, which shivered down to his jiggling jowls.

You can’t possibly believe all that stuff about him, Knell, he said.

Knell’s eyes went wide at the mention of his name. His gaze darted beyond the fat man.

Three other men were hustling around tables and shelves in the makeshift lab, hurriedly packing up boxes. Knell had been ordered to leave not a trace of their brief occupation of the building. It would be empty and he and his crew would be gone in less than twenty minutes. Ten, if the bigmouth bastard in the parka would pitch in.

No names, you idiot, Knell hissed.

The fat man raised himself indignantly to his full height of five feet, six inches.

"I’m an idiot? he sniffed. I? I didn’t pick this spot out in the middle of nowhere, you did. And need I remind you, I’m a doctor?"

Knell didn’t need to be reminded of this fact. Dr. Carl Winston seemed not to let an hour go by without blabbing to someone that he was the only member of their small group with an education beyond high school.

"As long as we’re on the subject, you were a doctor, Knell said. Your license was revoked, which is why you’re stuck out in the woods with us morons."

A flash of horror erupted on Carl Winston’s flabby face. Knell had never before brought up the fact that Winston had lost his medical license. Up until that moment, the ex-physician had been unchallenged whenever he lorded his social and educational superiority over the others.

"It was a mistake any doctor could have made, Winston indignantly insisted, dropping his voice so that the men disassembling the work area behind him could not hear. There were all kinds of problems at that hospital. They needed a scapegoat."

In point of fact, former Dr. Carl Winston had known of many instances where surgeons like him had showed up drunk for work. It wasn’t a problem. The assisting surgeons and nurses always took up the slack. It wasn’t Winston’s fault that his staff had dropped the ball on that eight-year-old girl’s appendix. And anyway, the little brat would have been just another death statistic if her father hadn’t been on the hospital’s board.

The flab at Winston’s chin jiggled as his mouth yawned open to mount this exact same defense that had fallen on the deaf ears of the medical licensing board.

Robin Knell cut him off before he could breathe another word.

"Shut up, doctor, Knell sarcastically sneered. And get back to work. He wants us out of here and on a plane within the hour."

That final leg of their journey into the wilds of New England might prove a little tricky. While the weathermen had been wrong about the severity of the storm, it still had begun to snow a half-hour before. There was already a dusting on the ground. Fat flakes continued to flutter past the filthy old window out which Robin Knell trained a wary eye while his men worked disassembling the makeshift lab.

They had set up shop two weeks ago in what had once been the offices of a since-abandoned granite quarry.

The Granite State had been appropriately named, and for over a hundred and fifty years local New England workers had harvested slabs of rock from the fertile ground, to be shipped all around the country. But thanks to environmental concerns expressed by several Massachusetts expatriates who had settled in town, the local government had shut down the quarry. Two hundred men had been thrown out of work. The reverberations from the closure were still being felt by the small community five years later. Alcoholism and drug use was up among every generation of the families directly impacted by the closure. Domestic disputes had risen, a few families whose ancestors had helped found the town two centuries before had been forced to move from the only home they had ever known, and there had been a dozen suicides and accidental overdoses. When the former Massachusetts residents who had changed the entire nature of the community into which they moved needed granite for various construction projects around their new homes — from steps to patios to pools to gazebos — they had imported it from Georgia. The granite had to be brought to the Granite State by an outside trucking company, since the ex-Bay Staters had also shut down the only local trucking company.

From the window of the old Merrimack Quarry, Robin Knell watched the soft snow fall as the men he had personally handpicked for this job loaded boxes.

His men were the best at what they did. They could set up a temporary lab in an hour. Production could begin immediately thereafter. How quickly they could manufacture a final product depended on the complexity of the drug they were making.

The drug this temporary facility had produced was called Splat, and it had made a huge splash nationwide over the past week. But it was never meant to be a sustainable product like heroin or cocaine. It was a designer drug, produced for one client and intended for a specific purpose. Knell had no idea what that purpose had been, but word had come down to him that Splat had done its job, and so now the New Hampshire lab at which it had been produced was shutting down its manufacture forever.

The production of Splat hadn’t been hugely difficult for Knell. Much of the work had been conducted offsite. The mysterious location where the ingredients had been assembled was unknown even to Knell, despite the fact that he had been with the organization for a decade. That was the way the big boss did business. Small cells were unconnected to the larger enterprise. That way, if an operation like the New Hampshire one was compromised, it would be a dead end for anybody looking to find the man behind the curtain: the man known only to Robin Knell as Candy Man.

That’s strange, a voice close to Knell’s ear said, startling him from his reverie.

Former Dr. Carl Winston had, naturally, not returned to helping the others when Knell had ordered him to. The overweight man was peering out the window, leaning in beside Robin Knell until his sweaty cheek was practically brushing Knell’s.

I think— Winston hesitated and peered harder into the falling snow. I think someone might be out there.

The two men nearly jumped out of their skins when a figure appeared immediately outside their window.

The man was clad in black. A rifle was strung over his back, and his hand rested on the holster on his hip in which was tucked a pistol.

Knell exhaled loudly and permitted his shoulders to relax.

That’s one of ours, you idiot, he said.

Knell’s nerves were already frayed. He could have murdered the fat man right then and there for making him jump like a coward at the sudden appearance of one of Knell’s own men outside the window.

There were four armed guards currently patrolling the building. They would make sure that the entire group as well as the supplies reached the local airport unmolested.

The guard exhaled white clouds into the night as he watched the woods that bordered the building that had housed the offices of the old quarry.

No, not him, Winston said, struggling to catch his breath after he’d had the fear of God shocked into his lungs at the abrupt appearance of the guard. "Out there. His eyes squeezed to narrow slits as he peered into the gently falling snow. There, he announced. There is someone there!"

Where? Knell asked.

Are you blind? Right there! It’s like a…a shape of a man. And look! Footprints in the snow! He’s coming this way! We’ve got to get out of here!

When he was sober, as he mostly was now, Carl Winston still had a surgeon’s eyes for detecting the tiniest minutia. Robin Knell was not blessed with similarly sharp eyes, and so he had only glimpsed what had to be a trick of the wind. It had to be the wind. The sticky shapes of footfalls could not be forming entirely on their own in the snow, as they somehow appeared to be. Whatever the cause, they were closing in on the building.

Knell rapped a knuckle on the window. The guard glanced over his shoulder. The young man had done two tours in Vietnam, and his ruddy face was aged beyond his years. He nodded to Knell.

Sir? he mouthed.

Knell stabbed a finger in the direction of the footprints of the ghost that had been heading in the direction of the small building. He drew in his own finger when he saw that they were gone. A gust of wind had swept down from the stone heights of the old quarry, erasing the tracks from the landscape.

Were they ever even there? Of course, they could not have been. Knell shook his head, ashamed that he’d allowed Carl Winston to rattle him.

The doctor was just a drunk. Yes, he had knowledge and a desperate need for cash, which was what had made him valuable to Knell’s employer. But Winston was proving himself a liability. Knell would have to talk to Candy Man about severing their relationship with the flighty ex-doctor, who even now continued to back away from the window toward the center of the room like Scrooge upon seeing Marley’s ghost.

Will you knock it— Knell began.

He was cut off by Winston’s frightened yelp.

Knell spun back to the window...

…and nearly screamed as well.

A sudden splash of color had erupted on the other side of the dirty pane of glass.

A wave of crimson which seemed to hold the rough contours of a human being had appeared as if from the ether. Knell’s guard shouted something unintelligible and grabbed for his sidearm.

There was a brief struggle and the flash of a gun discharging.

The blast of a single gunshot shocked all the men in the old quarry offices.

The barrel had been redirected under the guard’s own chin. The slug took off the top of the young man’s head like a cheap toupee. Blood splattered across the window pane, and the guard slowly sank from sight, the pulp at the rear of his head squeaking agonizingly slowly down the glass.

The slowly sinking body became a slow-motion movie reveal of the man’s killer.

He stood on the other side of the glass. A pair of hollow eyes glaring from within some kind of glowing mask that covered the top half of his face. The thin mouth, the only part of his face clearly visible, frowned condemnation and doom.

Robin Knell was frozen in place. He felt his heart thundering in his chest.

The killer was wearing some kind of strange cloak that glowed like red neon. He pointed the finger of a crimson glove at Robin Knell, and to Knell it was as if the devil himself had come to seek him out in the wilds of New Hampshire.

The figure of death spoke loudly enough through the closed window that his words were as crisp to Knell as was the New England winter night.

Don’t move, smiley, the wraith commanded. "I need your head in one piece."

A muffled voice shouted from outside.

"There! At the window!"

One of the other guards had spotted the figure in red. When the gunfire started, the cloaked figure whirled from where he’d been standing before the glass. Knell swore that the man vanished from sight, as if the earth had opened up and swallowed him whole. But that was impossible.

Bullets zinged through the air outside. One cracked a pane in the window directly in front of Knell, bursting the glass and launching jagged shards into the room along with a swirl snow propelled on icy air.

"Leave it! Leave it all! We have to get out of here!"

The breaking glass and gust of cold air had shocked Knell from his catatonia. He wheeled around to find Carl Winston attempting to wrench a box from the arms of one of the other lab workers.

Calm down! Knell snapped. The plan hasn’t changed. We get everything out. Nothing gets left behind.

A loud pop sounded above all their heads. In the wake of the single gunshot, the men in the room all instinctively crouched when they heard the body fall. The wood ceiling groaned and for an instant they were afraid a corpse might come through onto their heads amid a shower of rotted wood and rusty nails.

The thump from the dropping body was followed by a long, slow roll of what was evidently a lifeless corpse, all the way the edge of the roof. The men in the building knew instinctively it was not the intruder but, rather, one of the guards charged with protecting them. Their guess became fact after they’d followed the sound of the rolling corpse to the eaves and then watched the dead man drop past the window that was still partly decorated with the brains of one of the guard’s deceased companions.

Shit, Knell said.

"I told you, Winston whispered, panicked eyes scanning the ceiling. He was hunching, as if it somehow made him a smaller target. We have to get to the truck. Tell me you have the keys. Tell me one of them out there doesn’t have them."

I have them, Knell said, barely listening to the ex-doctor. Shit.

Knell was no longer paying attention to the gunfire outside, which seemed to be dying out. That made sense, since there were only four guards, and two of them were already dead. There wasn’t much time left.

Knell grabbed a box from under the table where his men had produced their designer drug. It was meant to be the last item removed from the site, and one that he would personally carry, just as he had brought it inside the day before the rest of the men had first arrived. Knell had brought a similar box with him to every temporary lab over the years. This was the first time he had ever been forced to use it.

What the hell are you doing, Knell? Winston demanded.

The head of the lab, who was technically the boss of disgraced Dr. Carl Winston, set the box on a long table that the other men had only just finished clearing off.

Knell didn’t care this time that the fool doctor had used his name in front of the other men. It no longer mattered.

Knell quickly ripped the tape off the top of the box and dug around inside the open flaps. He produced a small portable oxygen tank, which he stuffed in the front pocket of his winter coat. He quickly placed a clear plastic mask over his mouth and nose, wrapping a thick elastic band around his head to hold it in place.

What the hell are you doing, Knell? Winston demanded. "Knell? We’ve got to get the hell out of here. Now."

A few rapid gunshots pierced the night. One of the slugs punctured a hole in the wall near the door, sending a burst of wood splinters across the floor. Through the hole came a groan and the sound of another falling body.

It was the last shot fired. Into the void left by the cessation of gunfire howled the winter wind, rattling the building’s main door.

That’s it! Winston snapped. Give me the damn keys!

He jumped forward and grabbed for Knell’s coat pocket.

Robin Knell didn’t have time to deal with the ex-doctor.

Knell calmly removed an object from the bottom of the box. Winston stopped dead when he saw what the item was.

You can’t be serious, the former doctor said, raising his hands in surrender. Look, let’s all just take a deep breath and assess the situation.

Knell assessed the barrel of the revolver to Carl Winston’s forehead. Dr. Carl Winston’s eyes went wide. Winston didn’t even have time to make a plea for a return to sanity before Knell pulled the trigger.

The dead doctor was collapsing to the floor as Knell returned to the box.

I’m sorry about this, boys, he said to the other men.

Knell had