Survivalist - 21 - To End All War

by Ahern, Jerry

  He kept holding her hand, telling her that everything would be all right soon, that she’d suffered no permanent damage—he hoped—and no disfigurement, something he’d learned to do with female patients back in his emergency room days just out of school, which was a vital reassurance.

  And he waited.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  One of the Nazis was under the doctor’s knife now. Natalia watched the German doctor’s eyes over the rims of his eyeglasses. “The bastard has a bullet so close to his heart … I should not try this.”

  Natalia looked at him. “If you wait, he will die.”

  “If I try to get that bullet out, he could die, too.”

  “That’s why they call you a physician. What can I do to help?”

  The young doctor looked at her.

  “Damn you, Fraulein,” he whispered, then began to roll up his sleeves.

  Natalia smiled as a thought crossed her mind. In her ruined evening gown, she had no sleeves to roll… .

  “Close him, nurse.”

  She hadn’t been addressed by that tide for five centuries. Sarah Rourke looked at the doctor whom she assisted. He was an older man, appearing to be past retirement age, but his hands had been steady when he removed the bullet from the young Chinese officer’s neck. He was already turning to the next patient, too, so she had no choice.

  She began closing the wound.

  “You were very good, Frau Rourke,” the old man called to her, then turned to his new patient.

  Sarah Rourke’s back was killing her from standing, even though she’d kicked off her already-low-heeled shoes. She shook her head, keeping at the suturing… .

  John Rourke emerged from the hole, Michael helping

  him out. Through the mask, Michael’s voice sounded odd, hollow. “You all right, Dad?”

  John Rourke nodded. His back ached from being bent over for so long and, despite the mask, he still coughed, an unnerving enough experience in itself inside the gas mask.

  The blocks and tackle were already nearly set. From inside the hole, the young German doctor who had replaced him a few moments ago shouted, “I am staying down here with her while the hole is opened. I cannot leave her alone.”

  John Rourke looked into the darkness below and thought, “Good man.”

  Chapter twenty-two

  It was four in the morning New Germany time and he was exhausted, but the canned air of the city would not suffice for him now.

  In his plaster-coated black trousers and dirt-stained white shirt, his jacket hooked over his shoulder and one of the captured Berettas in his waistband, John Rourke left the hospital where he had been working nearly nonstop for the last six hours. He had saved some fives but been unable to save others. Such was the physician’s perennial lament, and he wondered as he walked whether or not that, just as much as other reasons, had been why he’d left medicine in the first place.

  He wanted to smoke a cigar, wanted to very much. But to smoke would have been counterproductive, since the purpose of his walk was to get fresh air. Military personnel were everywhere despite the hour, reserve units called up by Wolfgang Mann. And latest word had it that calling up the reserves was not at all unwarranted, nor was it premature. The Soviet submarine fleet was no longer merely on station but was maneuvering off the coast. Soviet presence in the Falkland Islands, a staging area used by the Soviet Forces for the past several weeks, was increasing by the hour.

  Rourke neared the main entrance, the enormous blast doors closed and secured. He approached the young first lieutenant who had the guard. The man saluted, “Herr Doctor General!”

  “At ease. Fd just like to use the litde access door over there and go outside for a breath of fresh air.”

  “But, Herr Doctor General! It would be very dangerous to do and—”

  “Lieutenant, isn’t there a considerable presence of the

  forces of New Germany on the other side of those doors? Armor, infantry, even Long Range Mountain Patrol units?”

  “Yes, Herr Doctor General, but—”

  “Then how could I be any safer? Open the door, and please listen when I knock to return. Should we have a code knock?”

  “I will—I will be able to see you, Herr Doctor General, on the video monitoring system.” “See, Fil be safe as church.” “As-“

  “As church.Church, synagogue, temple, mosque … all means to the same end.”

  “To the same end, Herr Doctor General?”

  “Yes. Ill pass through that access doorway now, please.”

  “Yes, Herr Doctor General!” And the young man saluted.

  Rourke nodded.

  He followed the man toward the doorway, and the young officer directed his subordinates—of which there were many—to open the door so the Herr Doctor General could pass. Rourke was beginning to worry that this tide, ungainly and embarrassing as it was, might stick.

  Then, at last, as he stepped over the flange and into the night, he could breathe proper air again. As he filled his lungs with it, he experienced an almost giddy sensation. It was cool, impossibly fresh and, because of the jungle vegetation so near, heady by comparison.

  And he realized that he had not been so starved for real air, he would likely have sniffed synth-fuel residue, because outside the blast doors that protected the interior, German armor and other vehicles were everywhere.

  The German armor was very good, highly mobile, fast, but so vasdy smaller than the Soviet armor that Rourke doubted the German war machines would have much of a chance against their Soviet counterparts.

  The batde which, for some time, John Rourke had considered inevitable, was nearly at hand.

  As a boy, because it was there and deserved to be experienced, he had read the Bible in the King James Version. He recalled now, “And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon.”

  Enough fresh air consumed, he decided he could have that cigar now. He removed one from an interior breast pocket of his coat, the tip already excised as was his custom. He lit the cigar in the blue-yellow flame of his battered Zippo, inhaled the smoke slowly into his lungs, flicked the lighter’s cowling closed, then dropped it into his pocket.

  As he exhaled, he began to walk, officers passing him, saluting him, Rourke nodding in return. He’d never been a military man and would not affect that he had.

  At any moment, the sky would rain death.

  He knew that.

  And, so, he enjoyed the moment of quiet and peace like that exquisitely rare and wonderful thing that it was. There might never be another.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  The air raid sirens did not waken him as much as Sarah’s movement in bed beside him. “John?”

  He sat bolt upright, his right arm around her, his left hand pressed against her abdomen. He kissed her lighdy, then hard on the mouth.

  The telephone beside the bed rang.

  He let it ring, holding her.

  Finally, Sarah reached for it. “Yes, Wolf. He’s here.”

  Rourke squinted as Sarah turned on the light and the grey darkness dissolved into a yellow wash. He was very tired. “Colonel?”

  Mann sounded as tired as Rourke felt. Rourke looked at the Rolex Submariner on his wrist. He’d gotten to bed at five. It was almost, but not quite, two hours later than that. “The Soviet Fleet off our coast has ceased movement. Bombardment seems imminent.”

  “Where can Sarah go for safety?”

  “John!”

  “Don’t argue.”

  “John?”

  “No … not you, Colonel.”

  “There is the bunker built by the Leader some years ago. It is several levels underground and well stocked. Dieter Bern goes there now.”

  “Send a small unit for my wife, my daughter, Dr. Leuden, and Major Tiemerovna.”

  “John!”

  Rourke looked at his wife, held her close. “Where should I join you, Colonel? Itll take me about five minutes.”

  “I will sen
d a driver along with the personnel to accompany your wife.”

  “Very good. You’ll contact Michael and Paul, then. See you shortly.” Rourke handed his wife the telephone receiver. She hung it up.

  “Go ahead,” Rourke told his wife. “Tell me how a woman who’s pregnant should be out there at the front, wherever the hell that’ll be.”

  “John … I love you.”

  “I know.” And John Rourke drew his wife’s body against him. Why wasn’t there ever time? He held her, telling himself, as each second passed, just one second more… .

  Michael Rourke slipped his feet over the side of the bed and stared at them under the wash of light from the lamp.

  Maria put her arms around his neck, her face against his back. “I want to be with you, Michael.”

  “You can’t.”

  “I won’t get in the way!”

  “I didn’t say that you’d get in the way. But I just want you safe, that’s all.”

  Michael tried to stand up, but she held him more tighdy. “If you die, I want to die, too.”

  “Maria, I’m not going to die.” His left arm ached, felt stiff, and the left cheek of his butt hurt from the tetanus/ antibiotic cocktail with which he’d been injected. “I’ll function better knowing that you’re safe. Colonel Mann said that Natalia and Annie and my mother would be with you, taken to safety. That’s where you belong.”

  Maria began to cry.

  Michael started to get dressed… .

  There was no time for a shower, and he’d showered less than two hours ago, anyway, so John Rourke merely stood under the water, trying to come fully awake. He’d survived on less sleep and likely would again. And, en route to the coast, he might be able to grab a few winks, he hoped.

  Sarah was talking to him, and from the sound of her voice he could tell she was brushing her teeth. “Can I get anything out for you, John?”

  “A pair of black BDU pants, one of those black knit pullover shirts, socks, underpants … like that.”

  “Take a sweater?”

  “Sure. Sarah?”

  “Yes?”

  “I love you.”

  “I know that,” his wife told him… .

  Annie stormed, “Being a woman is perfectly fine, but the way men perceive women sucks.”

  “Annie,” Paul tried to counter, half into his pants, just looking at her. “I can’t—”

  She was stepping into a slip and pulled it up to her waist, then looked at him. “It’s Daddy, isn’t it?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I should be beside you and we both know that, but Daddy thinks-“

  “Annie, for God’s sake! I want you with me, but I love you too much to put you into—”

  “—danger? Be real, Paul.”

  Paul finally had his pants up. “I don’t—”

  “—know what to say?” And she came into his arms, her own arms going around his neck and kissed him hard on the mouth. “I love you and Fil obey you, but the obey part doesn’t mean I have to like it, or I forfeit my right to bitch.”

  “Ohh . . “

  And he held her so tightly she started to laugh, then said in a throaty voice he could almost taste, “I can’t breathe!” He kissed her… .

  In one of her black jumpsuits, her revolvers buckled to her waist, Natalia Anastasia Tiemerovna just stood there. “This is your doing, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “I am not someone to be shunted off and—” “Yes, you are. If you should die, I’d-” “What, John?”

  “Damnit.” John Rourke turned and walked away. Colonel Mann’s driver and the security unit that would usher the women to the bunker were already coming up the corridor.

  John Rourke had the taste of Sarah still on his lips, the feel of her on the flesh of his hands. The door opened.

  *

  Chapter Twenty-four

  John Rourke had planned ahead.

  A south wind shrieked across the landing pad set atop the mountain, lashing men and aircraft with a strength that was almost humanly vicious. Sets of lift tubes were positioned at the four cardinal points and men of the Allied commando force spilled from them, running, heavily laden with weapons and gear, toward their waiting aircraft. Within minutes, the aircraft would be airborne and more aircraft would take their place, and more men would hurry toward them, fill their fuselages, and the process would cycle through again.

  Rourke had his face turned into the wind, relishing its freshness, his eyes still burning from lack of sleep. And he would need alertness. He turned his head to the right. The sun was still low on the horizon.

  Colonel Mann approached, accompanying Jason Darkwood. Rourke massaged his hands as he looked away, then back toward them. There was the low whine of another J7-V taking off vertically, then reorienting and streaking away toward the east.

  Over the sounds of aircraft, and the booted feet and sofdy clinking equipment of running Allied Commandoes, Wolfgang Mann said, “Field Intelligence indicates a large Soviet force is positioning itself for attack on the Complex, John. We have very litde time.”

  Rourke only nodded.

  Jason Darkwood said, “If we’re successful in achieving our objective, Colonel, any Soviet ground attack can be all but neutralized.”

  “And, if we are not,” John Rourke almost whispered… .

  Natalia—perhaps the tight black jumpsuit she wore enhancing that image, Sarah thought—paced like a caged cat. Sarah Rourke looked from Natalia to Annie. Annie stood by the bunker doors, rocking on her boot heels. As she rocked, her skirt swayed in rhythm to her motion, back and forth. Sarah dug her hands into the pockets of her BDU pants and looked down at her body. The BDU blouse was very fully cut, but her abdomen was very fully swollen. And, over her abdomen’s greatest extension, the closures were very tighdy stretched.

  She walked across the room. It was actually more like a cave above their heads, at the very edge of upward penetration of the light. The highest point of the ceiling was perhaps sixty feet overhead, but a mere twelve feet overhead was stretched an interlocking network of beams, similar beams rising from the floor to meet them, the floor really a platform set over the cave floor itself. The platform, its perimeter defined by these upthrusting beams, was like a vast proscenium stage.

  As she reached the nearest of the edges, she looked down. The cave floor was some six feet below, and when she craned her neck, she could just make out support beams beneath the platform. These, like the beams crossing overhead and those rising out of the platform itself to mate with the overheads, were all fitted with devices resembling huge automobile shock absorbers like those she’d seen five centuries ago in late night TV commercials when waiting up for John to return home.

  She had read, in science magazines of the period, about the work being done to earthquake-proof skyscrapers and public buildings. And, indeed, it seemed as if this platform that formed the living and working area within the bunker was constructed to withstand all but direct collapse of the granite cave surrounding them, regardless of what the earth beneath them should do.

  She looked back along the platform. And she could see, very well defined, the partitioned-off living quarters, office space, storage areas, and the like. There was more storage, the young German officer who had accompanied them had recounted, this deeper within the bowels of the qave itself, these storage areas laser cut from the living rock. Food, water, medical supplies, weapons, and ammunition … everything necessary to survive for an extremely protracted period of time without ever returning to the surface. Air scrubbers, as well as a small greenhouse area under artificial lights, would keep the oxygen supply fresh.

  It was so much like The Retreat, she suddenly realized, and maybe that was why she shivered here… .

  John Rourke pulled on the trouser portion of the one-piece dry suit, already wearing the issue black Mid-Wake surface suit beneath it. The J7-V flew onward toward the coast. In less than fifteen minutes, they would be bailing out, joining personnel a
lready on the ground.

  Rourke stood up, taking die double Alessi shoulder rig with its twin stainless Detonics pistols from the seat beside him, shouldering into it. The litde stainless autoloaders were chamber empty now, as was his custom with a Colt/ Browning style auto during an air drop. Without removing the guns from the leather, one at a time he pulled the magazines, checked that they each carried six rounds, then reinserted them up the butts. Clipped into one of the pockets of the surface suit was the little A.G. Russell Sting IA Black Chrome. Rourke now pulled the dry suit the rest of the way up, over the surface suit’s integral SAS-style leg holster, one of the Detonics ScoremastePs secured there. The second Scoremaster was in a water-and pressure-proof pouch in the small pack he would don with his underwater gear. No room this time for his revolver, what additional room there was taken up by spare magazines for his pistols.

  He pulled the dry suit all the way up, closing it at his throat and rolling over the collar.

  Around his waist, he secured the Mid-Wake issue combat belt, a Soviet STY-20 dart gun on one side, his fighting knife on the other, various medical and survival and repair pouches attached across the back and front. He carried his Crain Life Support System X knife with the twelve-inch blade in the sheath he’d had fabricated for him at Mid-Wake, the sheath made from the same material as the ones Darkwood and the other Mid-Wake personnel used for their own knives, many of these custom knives like his own.

  Darkwood’s knife was of particular interest, Rourke thought, an identical duplicate of the Randall Smithsonian Bowie Darkwood’s ancestor had brought to Mid-Wake five centuries ago, the original on display at the New Smithsonian at Mid-Wake.

  Rourke looked across to the opposite side of the fuselage where Paul and Michael geared up. Each checked the other’s equipment. As Rourke started into his, Jason Darkwood came up, offering, “We can check each other, Doctor.”

  “Fine.”

  Darkwood nodded, picking up Rourke’s kit. “I know this in theory, but frankly, jumping out of one of these flying machines scares the shit out of me.”