Survivalist - 21 - To End All War

by Ahern, Jerry

  German Intelligence overflights had hinted strongly at three Soviet vessels positioned offshore, and going on that assumption Dr. Rourke had elected targets for each of the teams air-dropped from the J7-Vs designating the Island Classers simply as numbers one through three, number one being the vessel farthest south, number three the vessel farthest north.

  And each team was given a predesignated rendezvous time and location.

  Two minutes and forty-three seconds remained until the three teams designated to assault Island Classer number one, Darkwood’s one of the three, were to rendezvous beneath the main diver access hatch.

  And where was John Rourke?

  Darkwood, a Soviet Sty-20 pneumatic in his right fist, his helmet on vision intensification, swam ahead.

  If a single flipper tip touched prematurely against the Island Classer’s hull, the mission would be blown. If a random video scan caught them, and the operator were observant or the scan were computer linked, they would be equally undone. Fish, of course, would graze against the side of a submarine on station keeping speed, essentially hovering in the water in neutral buoyancy. But each such touch meant an automatic video scan of the hull. And the hulls of Island Classers, like something out of Jules Verne, could be electrified. Any living creature touching the hull would meet instant death.

  If intruders were detected—of the human kind—there were various standard options within the Soviet Navy, the most potentially deadly among them the release of what American naval personnel had dubbed Claymore Clusters, clusterlike charges similar to those used defensively in the United States Navy by attack submarines like the Reagan, of which Darkwood was captain. But, unlike standard duster charges, which were high explosive, these antipersonnel cluster charges employed by the Soviet Fleet were similar in nature to the Claymore Mines of the Vietnam War more than five centuries ago.

  When the Claymore Clusters were triggered, a comparatively small explosive charge propelled thousands of nearly microscopic fiberglass darts in all directions. The darts were not strong enough to penetrate or even stick to the hull of the Island Classer from which they originated, but were amply strong to penetrate the suit of a diver.

  Darkwood had seen men—twice—who had fallen victim to Claymore Clusters. Very litde recognizable as human had remained of them.

  He swam on… .

  John Rourke’s litde white spot was merely a spec now, and thoughts of his wife and daughter and son and Paul and Natalia—the only people in his adult life that he had ever loved—seemed much more important to him now than trying to recall what it was he could do with the explosive charge the German commando had secured to his utility belt.

  And, even if somehow he were able to stop the flow of the current, how could he ever find his way back to the rest of the attack force going against the Island Classers? Time eluded him completely now, and minutes or hours or anything between might have passed since he’d fallen victim to the current.

  Indeed, Rourke smiled within his helmet, stopping the flow of the current would be as likely as stopping the flow of time itself.

  And his arms were weary of holding the German, but he would not let go while the will to try to save the man was still with him.

  He would hang on.

  And, soon, the darkness would eradicate even that one tiny white speck remaining to him.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Sarah Rourke held her daughter’s head against her breast. Annie whispered, not as the needle—Sarah had inquired and it was an injection of a mild sedative—had punctured her arm, but afterward, as the sedative began to take its effect, “He’s dying-dying-Daddy!? He-“

  “Jesus,” Sarah whispered, her lips touching at Annie’s hair, her hands caressing her daughter’s face. Annie was experiencing her father’s death. John.

  Without him, what would there be?

  Sarah shivered.

  Natalia’s voice beside Sarah Rourke was calmer than she ever would have expected it to be. “He’s more than mortal. How can he die?”

  And Natalia began to cry.

  Sarah Rourke’s left arm moved toward Natalia as the woman dropped to her knees beside them. Her arm folded around Natalia and she drew her head to her shoulder, holding her.

  Annie’s voice, strange, detached, came again. “One litde spot.”

  Annie’s gift of the mind, as Sarah Rourke had always thought it to be, was the most horrible of curses. Annie was, mentally, experiencing her father’s death as surely as if somehow she were inside him, as if she were her father.

  And Sarah Rourke wondered, when the actual moment came, would Annie die, too?

  Natalia cried. Sarah kissed Natalia’s forehead. “We’re in this together, all of us; and nothing will change that.”

  Natalia started to pull away.

  Sarah held her. “You don’t have to be strong now.”

  And Natalia’s arms went around Sarah, her body heaving with heavy sobs.

  Annie whispered, “… stopping the flow … stopping the flow … the …”

  Sarah Rourke held her daughter and her rival, held them as tighdy as she could.

  And tears filled her eyes.

  The platform shook. Another missile had struck. Dust from the cavern ceiling streamed down on them, Sarah averting her eyes. Perhaps Annie’s curse was a blessing in disguise. Because if the missiles successfully destroyed the mountain and the cavern ceiling were to collapse on them, Annie might be so consumed by her father’s death that she would be spared the experience of her own.

  Sarah bit her lower lip, holding on to these two women, both of them closer to her than any sisters could ever have been. And as she looked away for a moment, she saw Maria Leuden, hands cupped in front of her, eyes downcast, for all the world looking like some woebegone litde girl who had done some terrible thing and now expected to be punished.

  Sarah tried to speak. She couldn’t. She cleared her throat. “Maria, come kneel beside me.”

  And Maria Leuden, haltingly, hesitandy, came forward, dropping to her knees. Sarah’s right hand reached out to Maria, taking the girl’s hand and holding it tighdy.

  “…the flow.”

  Chapter Thirty-three

  John Rourke’s litde white dot began to close over, but as it did, the flow of blackness was halted. “… the flow.” The explosive charge.

  John Rourke fought against the blackness. “… the flow.”

  If he could stop the flow of time … no. Time wasn’t what he needed to stop. The current.

  If he could stop the flow of the current …

  The white dot began to grow, pushing back the blackness. At the edge of the white dot, there had to be a portion of clinical reasoning remaining, because he realized that it was a new adrenaline rush pushing back the blackness.

  But the adrenaline wouldn’t last that long.

  The explosive charge.The flow.

  The walls of the abyss shot past him. No. That wasn’t right. They were massive sheets of rock, stationary. He was moving past them, spiraling round and round and round. The blackness was closing in again. He fought it back.

  Use the charge.

  Activate the timer.

  Set the charge.

  Stop the flow.

  Time?

  No. Stop the flow of the current. The walls of rock.

  John Rourke began flexing the fingers of his right hand, moving them down the German commando’s ribcage and to the explosive charge attached to the man’s utility belt… .

  They touched helmets, Jason Darkwood, Sam Aldridge, and the commander of the second team. They hovered beneath the primary hatch. Sam Aldridge said, “I should do it. You’re beat already, Jase.”

  “Captain Jase, Sam, hmm? No. You guys wait, I’ll lock the missile hatch.”

  “And what if you don’t swim fast enough, Captain? You’re dead, then, and you’re the only one of us qualified to take command of this friggin’ Island Classer once we’re inside.”

  “I swim fast enough, S
am.” And Darkwood holstered the Sty-20, then took the bar that was taped alongside Sam Aldridge’s right thigh. Sam was right, of course, but as they’d swum their way aft, Darkwood had come to the realization that John Rourke was likely dead and wouldn’t have been if he hadn’t let the doctor talk him out of the dangerous thing, just so he could get inside the Island Classer.

  He wouldn’t cost another man his life this day if he could help it.

  Sam Aldridge was holding onto the bar. “Let it go, Sam. That’s an order.”

  His lifelong friend let go of the bar. “You get killed, I’m pissed, Jase.”

  “Well, we wouldn’t want you ticked off, would we, Sam?” And Aldridge pulled back from the huddle, let his wings flex, and rolled, then started swimming up along the submarine’s starboard side hull and toward the missile deck… .

  John Rourke’s right hand fumbled for the timer control on the explosive charge. If he took the charge from the German commando’s belt, he wouldn’t have enough hands to get the job done. The white dot was larger now, holding its own, but with difficulty.

  The charges had been preset for two minutes, but the diode timers could be changed. He desperately wanted to lower that time now, but there was no way to see what he might be doing to the timer until he removed the charge from the utility belt. And he would have a second or less to attach it before the current swept it from him. Not enough time to even begin to alter the timer.

  He found the control that activated the timer. He memorized its position.

  Now Rourke’s hand moved from the charge to the belt, determining how best to release the charge from the utility belt. The Germans used a modified version of the Bianchi clip, which had replaced the Alice clip in the days before The Night of The War. Rourke’s fingers found the rolled ends of the clip, freeing one of them so the clip was only half secured to the belt.

  Now his fingers moved back along the shape of the charge to the rear of it, where the timer interlock was positioned. He activated the switches in sequence, his fingers almost too thick for the controls.

  He flipped the last switch.

  Two minutes.

  Was there room inside the white dot to count seconds?

  He abandoned the idea, because if the plan worked, he might just live. If it didn’t, he would surely die.

  His hand moved toward the clip, his fingers prying at the second rolled piece. It didn’t want to budge. John Rourke almost laughed.

  Now at least he knew how he would die. He would blow himself up and take the German commando with him.

  “Damnit,” Rourke rasped into his helmet.

  His own voice sounded very odd to him, tired but familiar… . His gloved fingers tore at the clip and he popped it loose, the charge nearly torn from his grasp as he grabbed for it.

  But he had it.

  Spiraling.

  Where was the wall?

  Now was a good time to think about that, he told himself.

  Grasping the charge as tighdy as he could, John Rourke pushed it away from his body, forcing his eyes to focus in the almost total blackness surrounding him. Was that a crack or a shadow?

  It was gone.

  He forced himself to watch more carefully. How many seconds remained?

  He had no idea.

  He laughed. “Do or die!”

  A crack, nice and wide.

  John Rourke punched the charge into the crack, his right hand nearly torn away, part of the outer layer of the glove ripped away, he guessed.

  How many seconds?

  Together, both arms wrapped around the body of the man, they spun downward, deeper and deeper.

  And behind John Rourke, there was a roar.

  And the roar grew and grew, Rourke’s body and the body of the German slamming against the wall of the abyss. They stopped. Nausea swept over him.

  The current.

  “…the flow.”

  A wall of rock tumbled toward them, blocking the flow of the current as it was sidetracked around. But John Rourke knew on the most primitive level of intelligence that if he stayed where he was, the rock would crush him, and if it did not, then the current would grab them again.

  Rourke held the German in his left arm and reached out with his right, praying that his wings still functioned. He flung himself and the German commando away from the wall and into the black water beyond, tons of rock crashing around them, the already nearly nonexistent light further obscured as loose dirt and debris dislodged by the avalanche formed a cloud around them. A current eddied across the void, Rourke twisting his body to escape it, dragging the German with him.

  The water churned around them.

  Rourke held the German commando to him.

  And as the last of the rocks tumbled away into the deeper reaches of the abyss, Rourke hovered there in the water with the German still in his arms.

  And there was nothing but silence and darkness.

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Annie had fallen quiet, and Sarah assumed the sedative had taken its full effect.

  Maria Leuden held Annie’s hand as she knelt beside her.

  The bombardment continued, Natalia’s hair and the shoulders of her black jumpsuit streaked grey with dust. Sarah shook her own hair carefully, dust falling from it onto her BDU blouse and black pants. Natalia had stopped crying now, and she knelt back on her heels and began to speak calmly. “If he dies, even if we win, I cannot help but feel all of this was for nothing.”

  “No. Don’t say that. Look at you.”

  Natalia almost laughed. “I am covered with dust. I’m trapped where my only real skills are valueless. Look at me, indeed.”

  “No,” Sarah insisted. “Look at who you were and who you are, what you’ve survived and triumphed over. You were on the wrong side, but instead of a devil, you were only a slighdy tarnished angel. And John helped you to realize that. You even went through a nervous breakdown and survived that … triumphed. You’re a better person today than you ever were.”

  Natalia did smile this time. “Isn’t it odd, you and I being friends?”

  Sarah looked down at her abdomen, smiling. “Yes. We both love the same man. I guess that gives us a lot in common. And Fm glad you’re my friend. And despite things, I think we always would have remained friends.”

  “Fil stay with you and the others until your baby’s come, if you like. You’re pretty good at protecting yourself, but for a while you might need a protector.”

  “A friend,” Sarah corrected. “And Fil need a friend always.” “Look!”

  It was Maria who spoke and Sarah turned toward the girl, who was staring at Annie. There was a look of peacefulness on the face of her daughter, which Sarah Rourke had not seen before.

  “Do you think—” Natalia began, her voice catching.

  “Yes. Maybe. He’s hard to kill, the man we love.” And Sarah Rourke took Natalia’s right hand and squeezed it tighdy… .

  Jason Darkwood hovered by the rail of the Island Classer’s missile deck, vision intensification off but the missile hatches close enough that he could see them clearly at the depth. The filtered sunlight overhead and the face of his wristwatch agreed. Mid-morning now, nearly as bright as it would get at the depth. Mid-Wake Naval Intelligence knew very litde about the Island Class submarines’ missile launching procedures, but Sebastian, first officer of the Reagan, was one of the two smartest men Jason Darkwood knew. John Rourke, likely dead now, was the second. And Sebastian had calculated a computer program on the launch sequence system of the Soviet Island Classers’ missiles. As Darkwood surveyed the missile deck now, matching closed by contrail-blackened hatch areas, Sebastian’s program seemed to be holding.

  “It is relatively simple, Jason, to a point. Admiral Severinski’s chief of staff, as we well know, is a devotee of chess and piano, both devotions much to his credit, may I add. In chess, of course, there are thirty-two pieces, sixteen major and sixteen pawns.”

  “Tes, Sebastian, thirty-two pieces. So what?”


  There are forty missile tubes, Jason.” And Sebastian had cocked his eyebrows, Darkwood getting the distinct impression that his tall, lean, muscular, and extraordinarily intelligent black first officer expected him—Jason Darkwood—to draw some marvelous conclusion from the relationship between the numbers thirty-two and forty. Darkwood took a stab at it. “The missile deck incorporates one-fifth more

  tubes than the number of men on the chessboard.”

  “Actually, the chessboard incorporates four fifths of the number of missile tubes, Jason, but indeed, fifths are the key.”

  “Fifths? You mean, like fifths of whiskey?

  Sebastian had smiled, not indulgendy (thank God), but as if sharing Darkwood’s joke, which hadn’t been intended as a joke at all. “Yes … well, the Soviet Fleet Grade officers have been known to imbibe a bit, I suppose, although vodka is their usual preference. But I refer, of course, to the interval of five diatonic degrees, or the tones of the standard major and minor scale to the exclusion of the chromatics. So, if the forty missile tubes were viewed as forty keys on the piano, where, of course, there would normally be eighty-eight, then we proceed from the point of origin by whole steps. Therefore, whichever missile tube were fired first would serve as the starting note, but would, of necessity, be a whole step. Further, assuming the progression would begin to approximate Middle C, which would most closely approximate the number of tubes as opposed to the number of keys remaining on the piano, then the missiles would fire in sequence of the sixth, the thirteenth, the eighteenth, and so on. Once that progression is exhausted, I confess to being totally befuddled. The program within the computer of the Roy Rogers”—the name given the captured Island Classer Sebastian currendy commanded—“is so deeply encoded as to be currendy indecipherable. So, dependent on whether the reference point were fore or aft, the sequence would involve firing the sixth, then the thirteenth, then the eighteenth tube, moving on to the twenty-fifth and then the thirtieth, etc. Once the firing possibilities were exhausted, unless the program were devised by someone who wished his logic to be almost diabolically obtuse, one might readily assume that the progression would be begun again, run until the battery were fully exhausted, but this latter is, I’m afraid, mere supposition, Jason.”