Deep Star
Page 20
“Roger, Blue One out.”
Kuriname turned to his team. “Let’s go off of suit air, conserve it. Hold here; let Blue Team dock before we go any further. This is...” He thought for a moment. “This is damn weird... damn weird and I don’t like it. Eyes and ears open!”
Chapter Eighty-Seven
Sarah had checked Eddie’s temperature three more times; each time it kept climbing, 102 now. “Emma,” she called. “Have you made contact with the doctor yet?”
“Yes,” Emma said as she walked back to Sarah. “He said it is not normal for a temperature to be climbing that quickly. Give him to me and grab your purse, we’re going to meet him at the ER.” Emma had called her father, and told him what was going on. Tim contacted the Secret Service agents parked outside; they moved down to the Rourke home to provide an escort to the hospital.
Fifteen minutes later, Blue Team’s MANTA had docked at the other airlock. Five minutes later, Michael Rourke keyed his throat mic. “Red One, this is Blue One, over.”
“Go ahead Blue, over.”
“We are inside Deep Star, so far... not seeing anything. Moving toward you, over.”
Kuriname checked the panel on his left wrist, a display with two red dots showing. The stationary dot marked his location, the other was moving. “Roger, Blue One, out.” Five minutes went by, Kuriname and his men had not encountered anyone or anything. They had heard no shots or sounds of attack on the other team. “Blue One, this is Red One, over.”
“Go ahead, Red One, over.”
“Looks like we are right in front of you, around the next corner, over.”
“Roger, we’re watching for you, out.” A mirror flashed around the corner and the two teams linked up in the deserted passageway.
“Did you see anything, Michael?” Kuriname asked.
“Nothing.” Michael shook his head. “Did your people?”
Kuriname shook his head. “Nothing.”
“Is it possible this place is deserted?” Sanderson asked.
“Could be, or they are still hiding,” Kuriname said.
Sanderson keyed his throat mic. “Chief Reynolds, what do you think about turning on more systems and see if you can get us a location on any personnel locations? Over.”
Reynolds said, “It’s alright with me, what do you think Flores? Over.”
“Might as well, I’m not getting anything; let’s switch on and see if we can find them. Over.”
“Roger that, activating sensors, now.” Quickly scanning his monitors, Reynolds added, “Nothing... I’ve got nothing here. Flores, you see anything? Over.”
Flores fiddled with a couple of dials. “I’m not sure, give me a minute... I’ve got something but I can’t tell for sure what it is. Blue One, there is something on the opposite side of the bulkhead in front and down to the right of you; can you see anything? Over.”
Sanderson gave the signal for his men to shift positions; he pulled his mirror and checked in both directions. Nothing, he readied his rifle and stepped around into the next passageway. Thirty feet down the passageway was another airlock hatch.
Peering through the small portal, Michael said, “Holy crap!”
Chapter Eighty-Eight
The lead Secret Service car cleared a path through traffic with it lights and siren. Sarah followed closely, driving Emma’s car while Emma rocked Eddie, wiping his face with a wet rag. Emma looked at Sarah. “Hurry please, he’s burning up.” Sarah kept her eyes on the road ahead but nodded... and said a silent prayer. Please God, not the baby... not the baby, too.
At the emergency room door, Sarah slid to a screeching stop behind the lead car; doctors and nurses with a gurney rushed the car. A nurse took Eddie from Emma, saying, “Please, let me have him, we have to hurry.” Emma ran to follow her.
Sarah, flanked by the two Secret Service agents, hurried after them as she dialed Paul’s number. “Paul, this is Sarah. We’re at the hospital, it’s Eddie. You better get everyone here.” She heard another screech of tires and turning saw Tim Shaw running for the entrance, his car rolling slowly forward into a large concrete planter. He had forgotten to put it in park.
Chapter Eighty-Nine
Michael tried the hatch but it seemed locked from the inside. He motioned to one of the Dog Soldiers. “Can you just get the hinges off?”
The man named Allensby, looked at the hatch and said, “Sir, it won’t do any good; even with the hinges gone, the bars dogging the hatch will still hold it in place. But...” he said, tapping the bulkhead, “I can cut a hole in this.”
“Do it,” Sanderson said. “Everybody on suit air, we can’t be sure what the atmosphere is on the other side.” Allensby pulled packets from two pockets on his assault vest, unrolled and connected two coils of something that looked like silver play dough, stretching and sticking them in a large rectangular pattern on the bulkhead. From another pocket he pulled out a switch with a wire hanging from it. He stuck the wire into the play dough. “Turn you heads and close your eyes, this is going to get hot and bright.”
With a click and hiss, the silver play dough ignited, burning with incredible light, melting the steel of the bulkhead. When the cut was made, Allensby stepped back; a front kick sent the section of the wall across the inside of the room. Then he inserted a gauge, pushed a button and told Sanderson, “Air’s good Sir.”
Michael nodded, they switched off suit air and he stepped through the gaping hole, into a nightmare.
Paul and Annie arrived first, they were sitting with Sarah when Natalia came running in. Sarah stood and held out her arms, Natalia took her in hers. “What... what happened, Sarah?”
“Eddie,” Sarah said. “We noticed a fever, we kept checking it, but it started climbing. Very quickly. Emma called the doctor and we came right over. Tim is with Emma, they have Eddie in the pediatric ICU. Natalia, I’m scared; I’m scared it might be that plague. That God-awful, damn plague.”
Chapter Ninety
“How is this possible?” Michael asked. “I saw bodies through the portal, complete bodies. Not this.”
Kuriname said, “I suspect that they died long ago, a very long time ago. Nothing disturbed them until we gained entrance. It may have been a slight change in air pressure, the cutting flame or even the panel when it crashed in. When the vibrations reached the bodies, they disintegrated.”
“How long do you think they’ve been dead?” someone in back asked.
Kuriname shook his head. “Maybe as far back as the Night of the War.”
Michael examined the remains, now nothing more than dust and disarticulated bones. With a gloved hand, he swept an area near one of the bodies and picked up something; a metal identification tag, Russian. Natalia had taught him to read a little Russian. “Gentlemen, meet Colonel Lennart Schuback, commander of this facility.” Moving from one pile of dust to another then another, he gathered other tags, “And meet Commander Bengt Rudberg, Senior Arms Specialist; Commander Emil Avsukjevitj, Section 1 Marine Spetsnaz; Colonel Anatoilij Michajlovitj, Communist Party Political Officer; and lastly, Subaltern Officers Pavel Besedin and Vasilij Savtjenko, junior officers. These identification tags were issued upon their posting to Deep Star, in 1979 for a tour of two years. The Night of the War beat them out of going home.”
Michael turned to Akiro Kuriname. “I think we will find more of these people but few answers. We won’t find what we came here for. He was never here. Where the hell is my father?”
Epilogue
“We’ll find him Michael. We will find John Rourke, if we have to scour the entire planet. And we’ll bring him home.”
Michael looked at his friend, his very new friend who had once tried to kill or capture him. He thought of the original Akiro Kuriname, an old friend who he had fought alongside so long ago. The man this one had been cloned from.
Michael smiled and nodded but said, “What if we can’t? What if we can’t find him, everyone thought he’d be here. No one had another plan or possibility. Now we’re back t
o zero; zero clues, zero options. What if we do find him and he’s dead?”
Akiro recognized the strain in Michael’s voice, now tinged from fear and anguish. “Then we will fight on, Michael. We’ll fight for several things: to live, to be free, to make our own decisions and to pass on a better world than we found to our children. I asked your father once, what was the last line of freedom’s defense? He smiled and said, ‘Why, it is all of us.’”
Tim Shaw walked slowly out into the waiting room; Paul saw him first and stood. Tim moved slowly almost like he was in a trance and he looked so incredibly... old. Halfway down the hallway, he looked up at Paul; at first he didn’t see him and when he did... he didn’t recognize him.
Recognition came to Shaw’s face and he looked into Paul’s eyes, slowly shook his head, turned around and went back to be with a grieving daughter. He mumbled to himself, “Never had a chance. Never had a chance, poor little angel. Never had a damned chance; damn plague.”
Paul turned to Annie; tears ran down both cheeks as she held Sarah who simply, delicately sobbed. Paul looked at Natalia; she couldn’t hold his gaze and turned away. For the first time in a long time, Paul felt alone... alone and as afraid as he had been that day so long ago when he first met John Rourke.
He thought, John... John where are you? Where the hell are you? Rourke’s words came to him: “Sometimes, Paul, you have to do something, even if it might be wrong.” Paul dialed his cell phone. “Otto, please come to the hospital. We need you... I need you to come.”
Fifteen minutes later, Croenberg walked into the waiting room; he stopped, “Gott im Hemmel; what has happened?” Then he walked slowly to Rubenstein, nodded then knelt in front of Sarah. She looked up and smiled, one brief, painful smile, before the sobbing started again.
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