by Ahern, Jerry
Michael. How like his father he seemed, growing more like John every day. And not just in looks—Michael Rourke had his father’s eyes, the high forehead and healthy shock of brown hair, the lined, lean face—but in his manner and his growing maturity.
John. John smoked a cigar, after first ascertaining that his smoking would not offend. He seemed unchanged—except for a litde grey—from the way he had looked when she’d first opened her eyes and seen him staring down at her in the Texas desert five centuries ago, unchanged from when she’d seen him that very first time in Latin America when he was still active CIA.
That very first time, he’d worn a white dinner jacket, looking ridiculously handsome. In the West Texas desert, he’d worn a light blue chambray shirt and faded jeans. This time, he was dressed in black—black knit shirt, black BDU pants, black lace-up-the-front boots.
And now John spoke, and the eyes of every man in the room —she was the only woman—settled upon him. These were tough men, hardened fighters, German Long Range Mountain Patrol commanders, German Commandos like Otto Hammerschmidt, men like First Chinese City Intelligence Commando Han Lu Chen and Icelandic policeman Bjorn Rolvaag.
“A portion of our force under the command of United States Marine Captain Sam Aldridge will attack Gur’yev from the northern shore of the Caspian as a separate element, but that attack will not commence until our job at the base has been taken care of. When Aldridge and his force—they’re all Mid-Wake Marines and skilled at diving procedures and have trained as much as time has allowed in lightning-fast penetrations against shore-based targets—but when they hit, they’ll knock out the anti-aircraft emplacements along the shore itself. Our task is two-fold.
“Major Tiemerovna, Paul Rubenstein, my son Michael, and I will penetrate within the base itself. Meanwhile, Captain Otto Hammerschmidt—ohh, I’m sorry, Major Hammerschmidt of late,” and John nodded deferentially toward Otto Hammerschmidt, recendy promoted. “Major Hammerschmidt and Mr. Han, meanwhile, with the assistance of Officer Rolvaag, will lead an attack against the second of the two primary anti-aircraft facilities, this to the north of the Gur’yev base. Their task will be relatively similar to that of Captain Aldridge—to knock out the anti-aircraft defenses so that after Natalia, Paul, Michael, and I have done our work, German paratroops can hit the main portion of the base itself, under the command of Major Hartmann, also recendy promoted.” And again John nodded, this time at Hartmann, de facto field commander for the German forces in Europe. “As Major Hartmann’s personnel strike, Colonel Mann will personally lead a force of J7-Vs and helicopters against the base.
“Just as important as knocking out the anti-aircraft facilities is preventing as many Soviet aircraft as possible from scrambling, getting airborne. That is the task Natalia, Michael, Paul, and I will undertake. From the Soviet prisoners taken during the fighting in New Germany, we’ve been able to assemble uniforms. From Soviet ID and orders, technicians at New Germany have been able to produce identical duplicate identification and cut new orders that will cover the four of us getting into the base. We hope.”
There was a hint of subdued, very forced laughter.
John went on. “Natalia’s Russian is perfect and mine is good. If we were going against the Soviet underwater complex, we’d have greater problems because the progress of the Russian language there over the centuries since The Night of the War has been considerably different and the Russian spoken there is a distincdy different-sounding dialect. Both Paul and Michael have acquired a sufficient amount of Russian to carry on basic conversations, and both of them understand more than they command as a spoken vocabulary. So we should be all right in that department as well. With uniforms, ID papers, orders, and the language, unless we are recognized by some other means, we’ll make it onto the base.
“Once into the base, we’ll proceed to the airfield.” John reached into a musette bag on the table in front of him, opening a jewelrylike box and taking from it what appeared to be an ordinary issue Soviet military wristwatch. “Each of the four of us will have one of these, in the event we are separated or something else unforeseen arises to keep us from functioning together as a unit. Once again”—and John nodded toward Colonel Mann—“we can thank German technological ingenuity. These are Soviet wristwatches on the outside, and like their more normal counterparts they tell time—not too well.” There was laughter, John smiling. “They indicate temperature, barometric pressure, and background radiation readings. Unlike the actual issue watches, however, each of these is equipped with a onetime-only use radio transmitting device.”
John demonstrated, removing his Rolex Submariner, then placing the Soviet watch on his wrist in its stead. As he took the watch away from his wrist, he turned it so the segment of the band with the locking clasp was upward. “The band itself looks synthetic, like those used on the Soviet issue watch, but is, rather, a metal alloy. It will serve as a projection antenna for the radio signaling device which is actuated by pulling the stem outward past the set position and then winding it.”
There were blank looks on the faces of everyone in the room except for Paul and Michael. “In the days prior to battery-operated watches,” John explained, “watches were mechanical. My watch, for example, is what was called ‘self-winding.’ Merely picking up a Rolex once a day will keep it running. But more basic watches required that at least once in every twenty-four-hour period the stem of the watch—as the Soviets use here merely for setting—had to be rotated back and forth until spring tension was such that the stem could be rotated, or wound, no further without forcing it. ‘Winding.’ We will wind the watch until it achieves maximum tension, and when that tension releases, the radio signal will have fired. That signal, from Natalia’s or Michael’s or Paul’s or my Soviet watch, will be received—we hope, again—by Colonel Mann’s forces. At that time, a drone J7-V will overfly Gur’yev field and bomb it. The drone will be shot down, most likely, but whether it is or isn’t, the resultant dislocation should provide cover for us to reach our primary objective with the explosives we’ll be carrying. Then we have to blow up a bunch of aircraft.”
“How will you escape the base, Doctor?” Han Lu Chen asked.
“We will take up the best defensive position available and wait it out until Major Hartmann’s paratroopers reach the field. We will then don armbands—blaze orange ones—by which means we will hopefully be distinguishable from enemy personnel. And, if all goes even moderately well, we neutralize Gur’yev base and move on to the Underground City for a coordinated strike timed to coincide with Mid-Wake’s submarine and commando attack on the Soviet underwater complex in the Pacific.”
Natalia lit a cigarette, not bothering to ask if her smoking would bother anyone. If John’s cigar hadn’t produced that result, her cigarette was certainly safe.
The moment she’d been waiting for for so long was nearly at hand.
This sole obstacle—Gur’yev—was all that remained before a final confrontation that would end it, one way or the other.
She exhaled, watching the smoke from her cigarette drift upward toward the ceiling of the environmentally controlled tent.
And she was suddenly very lonely, because however this turned out—whether she lay dead in some anonymous mass grave or survived to be free—to be alone was her destiny forever.
Chapter Forty-six
He was a major of the KGB Elite Corps, according to his borrowed black uniform, the bullet hole that had been in the chest of the last man who’d worn it rewoven in New Germany by removing a patch of material from the crotch of the uniform trousers and replacing it with a similar, but not identical piece of fabric.
If one of the guards at Gur’yev got close enough to cheek for the patch in the crotch, its discovery would be the least of John Rourke’s worries.
To disguise his appearance, he’d shaved away most of his sideburns. Anticipating such a penetration into the Soviet sphere of influence, he had not shaved his upper lip for the last two weeks, the resultant
mustache—a litde grey—serving to draw his features downward, making his already naturally long face seem that much longer.
Beside John Rourke, the only one of the four of them wearing appropriate rank, sat Natalia. She was uniformed as a female major of the KGB Elite Corps, which she had been— KGB, at least.
Despite the severity of the uniform—knee-length black A-line skirt, heavy stockings, and sensible shoes under an open ankle-length greatcoat—she looked exquisite, as was normal for her in any event. Her almost-black hair was covered with a blond wig, considerably shorter than her own hair beneath it, so short it was almost the length of a man’s hair.
In the front seat of the Soviet ATV staff car, on the driver’s side, Paul was uniformed as a senior sergeant. Beside him, hair dyed blond and fake mustache added to divert the casual observer from the obvious physical similarities between son and father, Michael was uniformed as a lieutenant.
As Paul slowed the staff ATV to take the deliberate right angle onto the roadway leading toward the main gate, John Rourke checked under his uniform blouse. With some skillful tailoring by quartermaster personnel at New Germany, he was able to conceal his twin stainless Detonics CombatMas-ters in the double Alessi shoulder rig, a supressor-fitted 6906 in a specially designed inner pocket of his greatcoat and the two Scoremasters in his belt.
The litde Centennial was in the outside pocket of his greatcoat, ideal for that application because the hammer was completely enclosed and there was absolutely nothing to foul in the pocket lining if the gun were to be discharged.
And he smiled now as he remembered the words of his old friend, master gunsmith and consummate martial artist Ron Mahovsky, concerning his lifelong addiction to the revolver. “Six for sure.” The Centennial was only “five for sure,” but the principle was the same.
“We’re going to be stopping in a minute or so for the first gate check,” Paul advised.
“Remember the Soviet Communist Weltanschauung,” Natalia said, lighting a cigarette and exhaling a thin stream of smoke through her lips. “There is a terrifying, often paralyzing fear of authority. Constituted authority is the father figure, and in conflict with such a father figure there is always the risk of being disciplined. If we establish ourselves instantly as authority figures with which to be dealt and of which to be afraid, we can ride in easily using our cover identities and altered appearances.” v
“Once we’re inside,” John Rourke cautioned, “no matter what happens, one of us has to get to the airfield. If all hope of sabotaging a sufficient number of the aircraft themselves is lost, then we blow the synth-fuel dump. At least that will keep them from making too many sorties and tie up a lot of their ground personnel.”
“If we can make it through the gates, we can make it to the airfield,” Michael concluded soberly.
Rourke caught his son’s eyes in the rearview mirror, their color having been altered with contact lenses and nearly the color of Sarah’s eyes now. “I’m glad you’re so confident. Often confidence—not overconfidence, which can net just the opposite—is the key to success.” The staff ATV began slowing.
There were heavily armed sentries on either side of the roadway, deflection barriers behind them. Sandbagged machine gun nests flanked the road on the outer side of the first segment of the security gauntlet and beyond the deflection barriers, between the outer and inner guard stations.
The gates themselves were made of solid metal, titanium Rourke guessed, twelve feet high, topped for another two feet above that by the perennial favorite, barbed wire.
The wire would be electrified when the gates were closed, to make the contact, Rourke surmised.
And the gates stayed closed now as the guard sergeant approached the staff ATV, saluting as Paul lowered the window and Michael produced the orders.
The sergeant said not a word, merely inspecting the orders. Natalia rolled down her window and flicked ashes from her cigarette toward the ground, beginning to speak to Rourke, as though picking up a conversation in midstream. “I disagree that the Germans have any sort of chance against us, Comrade.”
John Rourke lit a cigarette —Soviet officers never smoked cigars in public, because it was still considered a capitalist affectation—and exhaled smoke as he told her, “Yes, Comrade Major, but as much as I agree and believe in the superiority of our forces, the fact remains that the German war machine, augmented as it is by the Americans and the other allies, is too strong to be ignored.”
Natalia laughed, saying, “But too weak to be a threat?”
The guard sergeant cleared his throat, Natalia looking at him, saying, “Yes?”
“Comrade Major, it is necessary to see—”
“-papers,” Natalia preempted, reaching into her purse and shoving the ID toward him through the open window. “We are in a great hurry.” She looked away, snapping her cigarette out the window toward the guard sergeant’s feet.
Rourke handed across his papers, as did Michael and Paul.
Michael cleared his throat, in what John Rourke knew was his son’s best Russian, saying, “Be quick about this, Sergeant, or there will difficulties.” Michael didn’t explain what the difficulties might be, but the already slightly nervous-looking guard sergeant’s eyes widened a little as he returned Natalia’s papers. “Thank you, Comrade Major.” He saluted as he spoke.
Then the guard sergeant passed back John Rourke’s papers, beginning the same short speech, but Rourke waving a hand toward him, dismissing him as he continued speaking with Natalia. “You may be right that I have expressed too much caution, Comrade, but to be cautious is better than to be reckless.”
“I grant you that, Comrade,” Natalia smiled.
Michael’s and Paul’s papers were returned, and as the guard sergeant began to salute again and the deflection barricade began to lower, Paul began to drive. John Rourke released his grip on the Smith & Wesson Centennial inside the pocket of his great coat—five for sure… .
An ice-edged wind blew across the parade ground fronting the airfield at Gur’yev, the ice field extending in all directions as far as John Rourke could see. Far to the west was the Ural River, all but a centralmost channel ice-encrusted.
As Rourke exhaled, his breath turned to steam. He helped Natalia from the car.
“Boy, is it cold,” Paul murmured, stepping back as Natalia exited the vehicle.
“Try bare legs except for these miserable nylons,” Natalia told him.
Michael stepped out, all four of them walking toward the front of the staff ATV. Warmth radiated from the engine that was still running, rising in visible waves off the low armor- plated hood.
John Rourke stared toward the gate leading onto the field. Security here was less in evidence, but it was a given that the base would be on full alert after the debacle the Soviets had suffered in New Germany.
A few yards from the entrance to the field was posted a sign, the notice reading, “Only Service Vehicles Beyond This
Point.”
There was a low fence of seemingly ordinary chain link, high-strength synthetic most likely, surrounding the field. Beyond this fence, and beyond the snowdrifts and massive chunks of upthrusting ice, were the runways. To the west, nearer to the river side, were the hangars, a tower, and the administrative buildings, all of these prefabricated structures and all of seemingly considerable size.
John Rourke pulled the synthetic fur officer’s cap from his head, ran the bare fingers of his right hand back through his hair, and replaced the hat. He re-gloved as he spoke. Those cars on the other side of the deflection barrier past the guard post are evidendy to take visiting personnel to their destinations, then return them to the parking area. That obviates allowing any potentially large amounts of explosives onto the field.”
“I’d thought you were overestimating the difficulty level,” Michael observed.
“If you noticed —I did—when we parked before the inner guard post by the main entrance,” Natalia said, “there was a pressure plate under us
. Likely the car was scanned for explosives.”
“Our guns, too?” Paul asked her.
“No. The machine wouldn’t be sensitive to firearms or sensitive enough to detect explosives carried on our persons; otherwise, it would register an alarm every time a vehicle passed. If we’d had explosive loaded in the ATV, we would have betrayed ourselves.”
John Rourke cupped his hands and lit another cigarette, using his Zippo this time rather than the Soviet battery-operated lighter he’d used in the car, its blue-yellow flame moving with the wind. As he snapped the cowling closed and exhaled smoke through his nostrils, he said, “I think we’d better get about our business. Remember, no guns until the last possible second. And if it’s a shooting situation, let’s try our best for Natalia to handle it with her suppressed weapon or for me to do it with mine, right? Let’s go.”
Natalia fell in at John Rourke’s right side, Paul at Michael’s right side, and they started toward the airfield gates in twos.
The guards evidendy noticed them—three officers and a senior noncom drew themselves to attention, and the guard sergeant made a rifle salute. “Comrade Major!”
John Rourke returned the salute, saying, “Sergeant, we will require transportation to the main hangar area at once.” With that, Rourke handed over his identity papers, adding to Paul Rubenstein, “Sergeant Kerensky, the orders.”
“Yes, Comrade Major!” Paul offered the guard sergeant the orders, the man taking them, already returning John Rourke’s identity papers. Natalia and Michael had their papers ready, Paul getting his.