Earth Fire

by Jerry Ahern

  “Like my own life, sir—more than that.”

  “I trust you and you alone with the greatest joy of my life.”

  Rourke nodded, almost whispering, “I know that, sir.” Their hands were still clasped.

  “We Communists are taught that there is no God to be­lieve in—like Marx spoke of. But in the event we have been wrong all these decades since we attempted to liberate man from his chains, then I wish that God—if He exists—bless you all and protect you.”

  “We capitalists are taught,” Rourke smiled, “that hedging your bet is never a bad thing, General. May God bless you, too.”

  The old man nodded, his eyes lit with something Rourke could not read, but something somehow Rourke could un­derstand. They released each other’s grips.

  Varakov folded Natalia into his arms, speaking to her in Russian. “I love you—you are the daughter, you are the life I never led. Kiss me good-bye, child—forever.”

  Rourke closed his eyes, opening them as Natalia moved into her uncle’s arms, then turning away.

  He heard her voice behind him, in English, saying, “I’m ready, John.”

  Rourke turned back. Varakov stared, past him. Rourke looked behind him. Captain Vladov and Lieutenant Daszrozsinski stood at stiff attention, right hands raised in salute.

  As he looked back to Varakov, the old man, his uniform tunic open, his shoes unlaced, his shirt collar open, re­turned the salute sharply. “God—if He hears me and if He is there to begin with — God speed.”

  As Rourke drew Natalia to him, he said only one word. “Sir.”

  Chapter Nine

  Across the profile of Vladov’s AKS-74 assault rifle, as John Rourke looked at him where they stood beside the massive brass doors, Rourke could see tears rimming the Soviet Special Forces captain’s eyes.

  Rourke looked at Natalia—she was staring behind them, and Rourke looked back then once. Varakov, his secretary Catherine beside him, stood at the balcony of the mezza­nine, only staring.

  Rourke rasped, “Let’s go—our best tribute to him is to do what the general called us here for—Captain?”

  “Agreed,” the man nodded, licking his lips.

  “Natalia?”

  She stared at him, her blue eyes awash with tears. Then she nodded, “Yes,” and pushed through the crack between the doors, Rourke right behind her.

  The sun was higher over the lake than Rourke would have supposed, but it had been a long time since he had seen a Chicago sunrise. Thunder rumbled in the sky to the east as Rourke, a step behind Natalia, his M-16 in his hands, raced down the museum steps, diagonally, and toward the lanes of Lake Shore Drive which cut between the museum and the aquarium and the planetarium beyond, the click of the So­viet Special Forces troopers’ boots on the stone steps loud and oddly reassuring. Rourke shot a glance at his Rolex, the cuff of his bomber jacket already rolled back—it was eight forty-two. At eight forty-five for some reason Varakov had not specified, there could be trouble.

  Natalia sprinted ahead, toward Lake Shore Drive, no traffic there—nothing as she ducked under the horizontal safety lines and into the street. Rourke followed her, hear­ing Vladov snap from behind him, “Look there, Dr. Rourke—from the south!”

  Rourke drew up to his full height— coming up Lake Shore Drive now from the south was first one, then another, then another, and he imagined still more behind—trucks. “KGB,” Vladov murmured.

  Rourke looked ahead— Natalia was nearly across the drive. Rourke broke into a dead run behind her, rasping, “Come on, Vladov!” His M-16 at high port, the CAR-15 banging against his side as he ran, Rourke reached the far side of the drive, Natalia still sprinting ahead, crossing be­yond the sidewalk and onto the grass, heading toward the lake side of the spit of land beyond the aquarium, roadway, parkway strip, then roadway and more parkway, then fi­nally the lake to Rourke’s right. But the shelter of the rocks was beyond the aquarium. “Come on,” Rourke shouted. “Hurry— follow Major Tiemerovna!” Rourke picked up his run, glancing once to his right and behind him—the trucks, KGB personnel on motorcycles flanking them—he could recognize them by the green tabs of their uniforms. He hit the grass, running alongside the aquarium now, Natalia dis­appearing behind the aquarium, Rourke running after her.

  Rourke reached the back end of the building, taking a quick left behind it, running. Ahead the ground dropped off, Rourke reaching the edge, remembering what lay be­yond well enough not to jump for it. But he flipped down, picking his landing spot in the instant before he moved, missing an eight-inch wide crack between the slabs of tan colored natural rock and chunks of concrete which formed the low sea wall against the Lake Michigan waters. He ducked down, Natalia already there, one of her M-16s up, ready.

  Vladov was the first of the SF-ers down, then Lieutenant Daszrozinski and like something choreographed, one after the other, the remaining ten Soviet SF-ers.

  “What do we do, Comrade Major?” Vladov asked, sounding slightly out of breath. Rourke couldn’t be certain, but the pounding in his own chest led him to the conclusion. “Do we wait here or proceed?”

  “Those trucks,” Natalia panted. “They—they are heading for Meiggs Field?”

  “Yes, Comrade Major. Each day the KGB have been ship­ping out supplies by nine-fifteen — we do not know what.”

  “How big are the planes they use?” Rourke interrupted.

  “They are American Boeing KC-135Bs.”

  Rourke nodded, thinking. “There were steel mills beyond the bend in the shoreline—could be billets of steel—maybe Rozhdestvenskiy wants some laid in at the Womb to handle early construction after the awakening.”

  “Perhaps,” Natalia mused. “There were also automotive assembly plants — perhaps engine parts.”

  “Whatever the hell it is, what do you think?” Rourke asked her, his voice low. “You know the KGB better than any of us.”

  He watched her eyes. “My uncle has the boats waiting just beyond the planetarium. Some of the GRU men he trusted are with them, but they are not insane. If we wait and do not make our rendezvous—” and he saw her eye the gold ladies Rolex she wore on her wrist for an instant— “they will leave and we will be stranded here.”

  “No choice for it then,” and Rourke turned to Vladov. “Have your men keep low and have ‘em watch their footing. We’ll follow this out all the way to the land’s end—”

  “Agreed,” Vladov nodded, saying to his men, “As the doctor has said—keep low—be careful of your footing among these rocks—we follow the major and Doctor Rourke.”

  Natalia started up from her knees, Rourke grabbing at her right forearm, looking at her for an instant. “I’m sorry—sorry this had to happen. All of it—except meeting you.”

  “I as well—except for that,” and she pulled away from him, breaking into a crouching run along the rocks, Rourke after her.

  Chapter Ten

  Sam Chambers, president of U.S. II spoke slowly. “This is butchery—pure butchery—”

  Reed closed his eyes, inhaling on his cigarette, slowly say­ing to the president, “It proves what I’ve been saying, Mr. President—a major Soviet offensive directed against us. They’re softening us up. That’s why they did this. Demoral­ize us. For the last two weeks at least, there’ve been all the signs. Airborne reconnaissance shows units of the Army and KGB units too massing in east Texas and in central Lou­isiana. They’re going to bite us right between ‘em—”

  Reed looked at Chambers—it was better than surveying the bodies in the elementary school driveway, better than watching the few surviving medics working with those who weren’t quite dead yet. Chambers’ helicopter’s rotor blades beat slowly, rhythmically at the far side of the drive. Then Chambers spoke. “Your efforts to contact the reorganized Texas volunteer militia—”

  “I don’t know, sir. I sent Lieutenant Feltcher out three weeks ago—we haven’t heard from him since. If he did make contact, they could have killed him as a spy—I don’t know. Since the death
of Randan Soames, the leadership has changed at least a half-dozen times—could have been infiltrated with more of the Communists—we don’t know. And there were the rumors some of the larger brigand bands had formed some sort of alliance with the militia. We just don’t know, sir.”

  “But they’re the only hope we have, aren’t they, Reed—”

  Reed nodded, dropping his cigarette to the gravel, heel­ing it out. Suddenly the nausea passed over him again—stuck to a piece of the gravel near his boot was what looked like a pink piece of human flesh, burned at the edges. He breathed deeply, to make the feeling pass, then tried to an­swer. “If they come and link up with us before the Russians strike — somehow — then we can beat this Russian force. If they get caught up with the Russians in east Texas, then we can take on the Russians in central Louisiana. If they don’t come at all, it’s either surrender or be crushed. It’d be a slaughter.”

  “We won’t surrender,” Chambers said firmly.

  “I didn’t think we would, sir,” Reed told him. Because there were other members of the civilian cabinet nearby, and some younger officers as well, Reed didn’t add that all surrender would mean was a firing squad or worse. It was better to die standing up, fighting for what you believed in.

  Reed lit another cigarette—where the hell was Feltcher, he thought. Had he reached the Texas Volunteer Militia or just died trying?

  Chapter Eleven

  They had reached land’s end, the lapping of the waves loud against the rocks beneath them; Rourke peered round the rock border along which they had moved, seeing three six-man Avon rubber boats, the kind divers sometimes used. All three boats, fitted with impressively large out­board motors, were moored to the rocks, a solitary man holding an AK-47 standing guard beside them, using the wooden buttstock of the AK to push the boats away from the rocks when the waves forced them too close. Two other men stood further in on the rocks, away from the Avon in­flatables, AK-47s at the ready position.

  Rourke turned back to Natalia, using hand signals to re­veal his findings. She nodded, murmuring the three letters, “GRU.” Rourke nodded. Natalia peered around the edge of the rocks for a moment, then looked back at Rourke. She repeated the three initials, “GRU,” then stood up, the rocks shielding her from view further back along the land.

  He watched as she stepped—slowly—from behind the rocks, her voice a low whisper, “I am Major Tiemerovna, gentlemen. You wait for me.”

  Rourke followed after her, the Soviet SF-ers behind him. The GRU man beside the three rubber boats didn’t even turn around, but one of the other two did, the man nearest them. He brought his AK-47 to present arms, “Comrade Major Tiemerovna—it is an honor.” She only nodded, her hair caught up in the wind now off the lake, her left hand, unconsciously it seemed, but gracefully pushing the dark, almost black strands back from her face.

  “You are ready for our departure?” she asked, Rourke leaning now against the rocks, partially blocking her from the GRU man who had saluted and spoken to her. It was still difficult to trust a self-proclaimed Soviet agent. Yet he realized the absurdity of it—he trusted Natalia with his life.

  “Yes, Comrade Major—but the outboard engines—they are loud. If the KGB should hear they could open fire at us—these are only rubber boats and not bullet resistant.”

  “I’ll take a look,” Rourke interjected quietly. He handed over his M-16 to Natalia, pushing the scoped CAR-15 back further along his body, starting up the rocks to get his head even with the level of the land above. It took only a few seconds for Rourke to reach the level of the land above. Slowly, he raised his head to peer across the spit of land. The trucks were in full view now, the motorcycle personnel attending them parked at the perimeter of the airfield to his far left.

  But driving slowly along the spit of land was a vehicle, coming toward the planetarium.

  He didn’t know why.

  He ducked back down, clambering down from the rocks, standing beside Natalia again, rasping to her, “There’s a car coming—they’ve got a radio antenna—one of the converted Chicago PD cars—”

  “That is a patrol—this area is patrolled regularly—we have waited too long,” the GRU man who had spoken ear­lier declared. “We are trapped here. There will be three men. There always are—usually they are only two man patrols but by the lakeside they use three. They will exit the car and come down here to look—one of them always urinates over the side of the rocks.”

  “Wonderful,” Rourke barely whispered.

  “We cannot run the outboard motors— they would hear us—”

  “Then we kill ‘em,” Rourke shrugged. “Before they can use their radio and get any of the troops by the airfield over here.”

  “But there is no time,” the GRU man said. “Soon, the planes from the field will be taking off. If we are not well away from here, we will be spotted by one of the cargo pi­lots. And we cannot hug the shoreline—the coastal watch­ers.”

  “Sounds like a marvelous plan you guys had,” Rourke commented drily. “Then we take those guys out quick — get everyone away in two of the boats and leave the last boat for those of us who take out the three KGB patrolmen.” He looked at Natalia. “I’d like to say we’ll do this together, but one of the two of us has to get away—otherwise there’s no chance for Sarah and the children, for Paul—”

  “I will stay,” Natalia announced. “I will stay.”

  “I knew you’d say that,” Rourke nodded, his right hand flashing up, the knuckles catching the tip of her chin, his left arm scooping out, catching her as she sagged back limply, her eyelids fluttering, then closed.

  “You struck the major!” the GRU man snapped.

  It was Captain Vladov who interceded. “He struck the major in order to save her life.”

  “Doesn’t matter how tough a woman is,” Rourke com­mented, sweeping Natalia up into his arms and starting to­ward the nearest of the three Avon inflatables, carrying her. “Almost always count on ‘em to have glass jaws—”

  “A jaw of glass?” the GRU man asked, puzzled sounding.

  “Old American expression,” Rourke told him. Then he looked at Lieutenant Daszrozinski. “Lieutenant, get some of your men down into this boat so I can hand the major down to you. If it’s all right with Captain Vladov, he and I can stay behind with one other man and take out those KGB patrolmen.” And Rourke looked at the only one of the three GRU men who had yet spoken. “One of your guys stays be­hind to keep the boat ready—and as soon as we do what we have to do, signal the other two boats to start their engines and make time.”

  “Make the time?”

  “Go fast,” Rourke explained.

  “I will stay,” the GRU man said.

  “Good,” Rourke nodded. Daszrozinski and two other men had already climbed down from the rocks into the nearest of the Avon rubber boats—and Rourke began handing Natalia into Daszrozinski’s and a second man’s arms. “When the major wakes up, well, tell her not to be mad at me, huh?”

  Daszrozinski’s very Slavik, red-cheeked face showed a grin. “I will try my best, Dr. Rourke.”

  Rourke nodded, “Right.”

  He turned to Vladov—already Vladov had one of the men beside him—a corporal. “Corporal Ravitski will assist us, Dr. Rourke.”

  Rourke nodded

  “May I suggest a plan, Dr. Rourke?”

  “Certainly, Captain,” Rourke agreed. Already, the first of the rubber boats was pushing off, the second loading. Rourke looked once more after Natalia.

  Chapter Twelve

  She knew what he had done as soon as she opened her eyes, the light hurting for an instant as she squeezed them closed against it. He had done it so expertly that aside from a little tenderness as she moved her jaw, there was no pain. Her teeth felt fine.

  The spray pelted at her as she sat up, Lieutenant Daszrozinski smiling at her, “Comrade Major, the doctor and Cap­tain Vladov and one other man are seeing to the KGB patrol—one of the GRU men waits with them with the third b
oat. He will signal when we can start our engines.”

  She didn’t say anything, but sat up, feeling slightly ridicu­lous that Rourke had—she remembered the expression, the Americanism—”cold-cocked” her so easily.

  “What is their plan, Lieutenant Daszrozinski?” she fi­nally asked him.

  “I do not know, Comrade Major, but the comrade gen­eral has told Captain Vladov that Dr. Rourke is extremely competent in these matters, and, of course, Captain Vladov himself is a veteran of many such missions and—”

  “Yes—enough, Lieutenant,” and she dismissed listening to him. She could make out the police car, the red star em­blazoned over the lakeside door, the door open. But detail beyond that from where she sat in the boat was impossible. If the plan were going well, or going badly, she could not tell.

  She could only sit in the rubber boat and wait while the enlisted Special Forces personnel paddled the boat against the lake swells. At any moment, the occupants of the police car would look out onto the lake and see her craft and the companion vessel, she knew. They would start shooting. Better than two hundred meters offshore, she realized their marksmanship would have little effect. Maximum effective range of the AKM—what the KGB patrols were armed with—was three hundred meters on full auto, four hundred meters semi-automatic mode. But it took an exceptional marksman to be effective at such a range. Had the men been exceptional marksmen, they would have been assigned other duties. Hence, logically, she was in no danger.

  But Rourke—the man she loved, all she had left in the world now after making her final good-byes to her uncle— Rourke was much closer than four hundred meters, or three hundred meters. He could very easily be killed by even an indifferent marksman. She realized she was wringing her hands. She turned to one of the enlisted men near her, tell­ing him in Russian, “Move aside, I wish to help to propel the rubber boat,” and she took the paddle from him before the man could protest.