Survivalist - 20 - Firestorm

by Ahern, Jerry

  The men fought, now, not for the leader, but for New Germany. And New Germany was their home for all the generations since the war between the two American and Soviet superpowers five centuries ago. Their wives, their sweethearts, mothers and sisters, all these lives were theirs to protect or squander and no man Horst Hammerschmidt had known showed any desire to shirk such responsibility.

  His horse trembled beneath him and Hammerschmidt let the animal out into a canter for a few yards, wheeling, clapping him on the neck, whispering reassuringly to it. “Easy, Rommel, easy lad.” The horse’s head shook, as though he understood, and Horst Hammerschmidt would have wagered any man that Rommel did.

  Sunlight streaked through a notch in the granite fortress walls of the mountains, the notch forming a pass in the higher altitudes toward which they would ride mis morning, and the sunlight bathed Rommel’s pale gray coat yellow.

  Horst Hammerschmidt rose in his stirrups.

  Sergeant Schlabrendorff called out, The men are mounted and ready, Herr Lieutenant!”

  Schlabrendorff saluted, holding it as Horst Hammerschmidt glanced along the column of twos. He returned the salute. “Order the men to move out in column of twos.”

  “Yes, Herr Lieutenant.” Hammerschmidt lowered the salute.

  Schlabrendorff did likewise, ordering over his shoulder, “In column of twos, forward!”

  The Long Range Mountain Commandoes, their woodland camouflage uniforms as crisp as to be expected after already spending nine days in the field, their assault rifles slung across their backs,

  their saddles creaking, their horses looking as if somehow they were in a great hurry this morning and did not wish to be bothered moving at such a slow pace, passed him nearly to the last rank. Then Horst Hammerschmidt gentiy kneed Rommel, a slight tug to the left rein and his animal fell in to the column’s left flank moving ahead easily, steam rising from his nostrils, already Hammerschmidt feeling the warmth of the animal’s back through the split in the saddle’s tree.

  Leather boots and leather stirrups dully gleamed, the hoar frost’s gray almost white against the near black of Rommel’s stockinged forelegs.

  Rommel shook his head, setding into the pace of Sergeant Schlabrendorffs big bay mare. “A beautiful morning, Schlabrendorff.”

  “Yes, Herr Lieutenant, very beautiful. But very cold for my old bones, I think.”

  Horst Hammerschmidt laughed and clapped Schlabrendorff on the back.

  There was something in the air today. The animals felt it. So did he. For some reason, he touched at the flap of his belt holster, for the reassurance of his pistol there.

  Chapter Nineteen

  John Rourke stared through the window of the J7-V, a swirling blizzard of snow beneath its vertical take-off jets, the blizzard only slighdy more intense than the storm surrounding Eden Base.

  He watched Sarah.

  Beside her stood Colonel Wolfgang Mann, and at some distance behind them, almost obscured by the snow, was a German gunship, the gunship’s main rotor blades moving almost lazily.

  Sarah was swathed in a German Arctic parka, but she pushed the hood back from her face, her hair catching in the wind, raising her hand to wave to him.

  Although he knew she wouldn’t be able to see him return the gesture, John Rourke returned it anyway. Mann would not leave her side, Rourke knew, until she and their daughter Annie and Natalia and Maria Leuden, Michael’s mistress, were all safely ensconced together in the Retreat. There, at least, they could not be touched by the murderous Nazi Freidrich Rausch who wanted vengeance on Sarah because she had killed his brother while his brother, in turn, had been about to murder Akiro Kurinami.

  And that would buy him the time he needed to find Rausch and destroy him. John Rourke could no longer see Sarah for the tempest of snow, but when he closed his eyes he could see her quite dearly again, her hand raised so gently to wave good-bye.

  A microscope from the Eden Project stores handily solved the problem of reading the markings on the fragment of paper secured within the acid-proof capsule he’d removed from his dead brother’s colon.

  Perhaps Damien had utilized a magnifying instrument of some sort to see to make the markings. Commander Dodd could offer

  no clue and Freidrich Rausch could only guess, never know.

  But on the piece of paper was drawn a map. The markings were very basic, but clearly designed to match with topographic figures from a larger map.

  At the rough center of the most prominent feature-a mountain-there was drawn a star. At the center of the star a solitary letter was written: the letter “R.”

  Chapter Twenty

  The outer door of the Retreat closed and, her mother beside her, Annie Rubenstein crossed through the red lit area between outer and inner doors, then began closing the inner door as well. The shawl she had cocooned about her shoulders against the icy blast of the outside world began to slip to her forearms, her mother saying, “Let me get that,” and stepping past her to finish securing the door.

  Annie let the shawl fall completely away, then, neatiy folding it, holding it against her while her mother completed the task of sealing mem inside the Retreat.

  Her mother, wearing blue slacks and pink maternity style top Anne had made for her, stepped away from the door. “So. Now we’re aO locked up and ready for the pajama party, aren’t we?” Her mother’s lips smiled, but Sarah Rourke’s voice did not. “You’re the only one who really has nothing to setde, here. You’re happy.”

  Annie started to say something, not quite sure what her mother wanted her to say, when she heard Maria Leuden’s voice from the kitchen. “I have the cocoa made, Frau Rourke.”

  “Sarah. Call me Sarah, Maria,” Annie’s mother said, walking past Annie, down the three steps into the Great Room and storting across it

  Annie followed her mother with her eyes, started again to speak but all motion-her own, her mother’s, Maria’s behind the kitchen counter-suddenly stopped when the door from one of the spare bedrooms opened. Natalia Anastasia Tiemerovna stood there, her almost black hair darker-looking somehow, longer-looking too, man Annie had remembered it being. It was illusion, only, a trick of perception, but the illusion was truly beautiful. Natalia wore her hair past her shoulders and as she moved from the doorway, her hair moved, as if, almost, it had life of its own. A simple maroon blouse, open at the throat, full sleeves that ended in long cuffs tight at her

  wrists, the blouse of something that looked like silk, a pale rose colored skirt, very full and so long it came to her ankles, she was a marriage of elegance and simplicity.

  Natalia walked down the three steps into the Great Room.

  Her slender, high waist made her legs look impossibly long.

  Her hair flowed in rhythm with her clothing.

  Her cheekbones-so high—accentuated the deep pansy blueness of her eyes.

  Natalia’s left hand slipped into the slit pocket at the side seam of her skirt, her right hand extended as though touching gendy at the invisible hand of a man who should have been there but wasn’t.

  The effect was very much like that of someone of incredible beauty on her way to a palace ball.

  She was perfect.

  But Natalia was always perfect, had been before her nervous breakdown and was again.

  The permanence of Natalia’s being—her looks, her capableness, everything about her-was something in which Annie had always taken considerable comfort. She didn’t know why, really, but she had. That, almost equally balanced with the genuine friendship Annie felt for Natalia, had determined that she risk her own sanity in helping Natalia to regain hers.

  Natalia stopped at the base of the steps, the toe of her left foot on the bottom step behind her. “I understand we have come here for two reasons. For our safety against the Nazi murderer Rausch and to sort some things out in our personal lives. That seems obvious, doesn’t it? I think I am more or less recovered and the doctors at Mid-Wake tell me that as well. Perhaps a good glass of whiskey after th
e cocoa might be best, hmm?”

  Natalia crossed the Great Room, toward the counter where Maria Leuden stood holding a cup in one hand and a saucepan in the other, as if she were a child playing statue. Natalia swept her skirt under her as she perched atop one of the stools beside the counter.

  Annie crossed the Great Room, setting down the gray crocheted shawl on the arm of the sofa, as if staking a claim to that spot for later. She approached the counter and took another of the stools, at the end of the counter, sat, arranged her clothes, waited. Natalia placed cigarettes and a lighter taken from a pocket on the counter. Like her father’s, the lighter was a Zippo, but slimmer and almost new-looking.

  Her mother went around the counter, took a large glass ashtray from inside one of the cabinets and set it on the counter near Natalia. Maria poured the cocoa. It smelled rich, good. The Germans grew cocoa beans in Argentina and the cocoa was very fresh. Her mother sat down on Maria’s side of the counter, knitting her fingers into a fragile looking tent, staring down at her hands. “I don’t know how long well be here, maybe a few days, maybe a few weeks. So I mink we ought to talk about several things. With John and Michael and Paul away, this may be the only chance the four of us will have to thrash things out.”

  Sarah Rourke moved her hands, pressed her left hand over Anne’s hands which were on her lap. “My daughter here is the only one of us who’s happy, I think ” And she looked at Annie searchingly. “Aren’t you?”

  Annie shrugged her shoulders, her hands still in her lap, her mother’s hand still over them. “I don’t know if happy is the right word.” Cocoa steamed in all four cups now, Maria taking the saucepan to the sink, running water into the pan to rinse it for easier cleaning later. Tm very happy being Paul’s wife, if that’s what you mean. I wish we could have a baby, but we both think we should writ until this is all over. Thafs just our idea, though. Tm happy Natalia’s well and back with us again.”

  She exchanged smiles with Natalia as Natalia lit a cigarette. Natalia exhaled a long, thin stream of smoke through her lips. “I would ■ever have recovered were it not for you, Annie.” Natalia cast her eyes down, picked a speck of lint from her skirt.

  “So, Tm happy about a lot of things,” Annie went on, “but, like all of us, I guess, there’s a lot bothering me. The obvious things though, fm frustrated that this war with the Soviets keeps going on and on and getting bigger all the time. And Fm afraid for Paul and for Michael and for Daddy, especially, because, well, he’s always in the middle of it all and he and Paul especially - when Michael and I were just children-they were risking their lives every day and they still do.”

  “You are worrying, I think, about the odds, aren’t you, Annie?” Maria Leuden almost whispered.

  Sarah Rourke blew gendy on the cocoa in her cup, moving her hand, placing both hands around the cup as she sipped from it.

  Tm worried about the odds,” Annie nodded. “I have three of them to lose. I mean, we all do in a way. Without Paul, Td be dead inside.” She could hear Natalia exhale.

  She didn’t look at her mother, shifted her position a litde bit on the stool, unnecessarily smoothed the gray woolen full skirt she wore.

  Her mother spoke. “When you talk about being dead inside, Ann, I think you’re addressing the problem here. There are three men and four women. Two of the women have a very serious problem that has no solution. One of the women has a problem she may not even be aware of.”

  “Didn’t they used to call these sorts of talks ‘bitch sessions’?” Natalia asked, fucking ashes from her cigarette.

  Sarah Rourke smiled. “I think they did. You and I know our problem. We’ve had it, still have it, will have it. So lef s talk about Maria and Michael for a minute.”

  That is not-“

  Sarah Rourke looked intendy at Maria Leuden, Annie watching her face in profile.

  Maria was very pretty, her auburn hair pulled back, caught up at the nape of her neck with a print scarf tied into a floppy bow, her eyes guarded behind the lenses of her wire-rimmed glasses.

  Annie’s mother said, “Michael is exacdy like his father, all of the virtues and all of the faults. Do you know what John Rourke’s fatal flaw is?”

  Annie didn’t like the word fatal.

  “Any of you?” Sarah Rourke insisted.

  Natalia stubbed out her cigarette, looking into the ashtray as she spoke. “He is perfect, isn’t that it?”

  “Five points for the lady from the Soviet Union,” Sarah Rourke laughed, the laughter hollow-sounding, sending a chill up along Annie’s spine. She hugged her arms over her breasts. “John Rourke is so perfect ifs hard to remember he’s human. I realized that. But I was like Maria is with Michael. It was like being touched by a god or something, being favored by someone from Mt. Olympus. *You have been honored as has no other woman’ Like that. So, I know.” Sarah Rourke looked at Maria Leuden. Annie unfolded her arms and clutched her cup of cocoa, sipping at it. It warmed her, but not enough.-Tell me how you feel, if you can, Maria. I mean, don’t you feel the same way with Michael? Like there’s something so much better about him simply because he is who he is, that ifs a privilege to wash his socks?” Maria Leuden actually blushed.

  “What are you trying to say?” Natalia asked very softly, setting down her cocoa. “And we would have been better off with the whiskey, I think.”

  Tm not trying to hurt anyone,” Annie’s mother said. “All Fm trying to do is get to the core of a problem three of us have, but really four of us are affected by. Who appointed John the protector of the world? And Paul and Michael his deputies? Who?”

  They’re men,” Annie said, not consciously thinking about speaking, just blurting it out. They didnt have to be appointed by anyone.”

  Sarah Rourke laughed, sipped her cocoa. “You watched too many westerns out of the tape library, Annie. Don’t you mean, ‘A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta doT

  Annie wished she smoked. It would give her something to do with her hands besides folding them in her lap. As she looked down at her hands, she realized she was pinching the fabric of her skirt. She shook her head. “I don’t mean that, but maybe it sounds like mat. But the three of them are-“

  “What? If you follow your reasoning, think about it. Shouldn’t Paul almost be pictured as a dove carrying an olive branch and-“

  “Momma! What-I know how you feel, but-” Annie started.

  “No, you don’t know how I feel,” Sarah Rourke whispered, clearing her throat. “I love your father. Natalia loves your father. Neither one of us has a prayer. And Maria’s sefting herself up for the same Bang, the same heartbreaks. You fell in love with a man and you’re happy. None of us did. I guess thafs what Tm saying. Paul rises above himself. He always has, hasn’t he? I mean, even in the after-■ath of that plane crash they both survived on The Night of The Ifa. Who was the one who had the courage to stick with John regardless of his safety, simply because he knew it was the decent ■ing to do? Thafs a man. For your father, Annie, there wasn’t any «|>estion. His nature just demanded it. The pilot and the copilot are dying or dead? Hey, poor guys. Don’t worry, everyone, I can fly ■e plane. You say we’re outoumbered by renegade bikers? No big deal! Remember, Tm here and Fm John Thomas Rourke, doctor of

  medicine, survival expert, weapons expert, CIA trained, rah rah! So, don’t be afraid’.”

  “No!” Annie said. She stood up. She didn’t know what she wanted to say or if she wanted to just stand there, sit back down, or go to the bedroom she would share with Natalia.

  Before she could make up her mind, Maria Leuden stood, began to speak. “I think we need lunch now.” She walked toward the little cupboard on the far wall, opened it, took out a bib fronted apron and tied it over her dress. “I love Michael and I realize he is special, very special. But then, I wouldn’t love him if he were not, would I?” She took some of the fresh eggs Wolfgang Mann had gotten for them-flown in from New Germany-and started placing them on the counter. “Is an omelette all right? I love cook
ing omelettes.”

  “Yes,” Natalia said. “But only if you let me help.” She stood up quickly, went to the cupboard, found an apron, began putting it on. Annie just watched.

  Maria Leuden was talking again, her voice sounding odd. “I don’t know if he wants to marry me or if he still loves his dead wife too much or-” Maria Leuden dropped an egg onto the floor, then dropped to her knees, bringing the apron up in front of her face, weeping loudly.

  Annie’s hands were trembling.

  Natalia went to her knees beside Maria, folding the girl into her arms.

  Annie Rourke Rubenstein looked at her mother.

  Sarah Rourke stood up, went to the counter, took one of the rinse-able German fabric towels-like reusable paper towels-and began to mop up the egg.

  Annie wanted to cry, too.

  She cleared her throat. “Omelettes are fine for little old ladies. Not us. How about steaks? Natalia? Give me a hand. Get out some of those fresh onions. I mean, we won’t be kissing anybody so we don’t have to worry about eating onions, right? Maria? Maria!”

  Maria Leuden-she looked as if she felt hopeless-stared at Annie. She was still on her knees beside where the egg had fallen and cracked.

  “Maria-you come back to the freezer with me. HI need your help. Momma?” Sarah Rourke looked at her, smiling a little. “You pour us all a drink. Make mine some of the Seagrams, please. The stuff Daddy had them make for us.” Sarah Rourke nodded.

  “Mine, too,” Natalia added. “Bring back some of the dehydrated potatoes, Annie.”

  Annie looked at Maria. Maria was standing up now, arms limp at her sides, tears running down her cheeks. Then Annie looked at her mother. “The same for Maria.” And then Annie took the girl by her elbow and started propelling her out of the kitchen, toward the storage room where the large freezers were. “Germans make terrific desserts, I understand. Will you show me how to make something really special, Maria?” The girl didn’t say a word, only sniffed, daubing with the hem of her apron at the corners of the tear-glistening hazel eyes shielded by her glasses.