by Jerry Ahern
Off the coast of what had once—centuries before—been Egypt, as natural global cooling had progressed, helped by the nuclear winter in the aftermath of The Night of the War, sea levels dropped. Rourke’s briefing on the jars had included reminders that, had sea levels risen or even remained the same, the vessel and its contents might never have been discovered, the treasure contained there lost as it had been since 48BC, when Julius Caesar—either by design or by chance—had burned the Library of Alexandria, the greatest repository of knowledge in the ancient world. Rourke had always hoped the library had not been put to the torch, but that the library had become part of the conflagration during the resultant fire storm. Some estimates put the number of books lost at around forty thousand, each of these taking up several Papyrus scrolls, originals of some of the works great literature and others shrouded in the mystery of time. Apparently, as the wine and olive oil jars suggested, someone with a passion for the contents of the library sought to safeguard as many works as he could, either saving them from the flames or sending off originals or copies in the fire’s aftermath, as a hedge against future loss.
Emma followed the rope downward, pennants marking depth attached to the rope. One other item John Rourke had left topside was his Rolex, good to a ridiculous depth to be sure, but the SEAL issue chronometer’s digital readout was easier to see and the unit’s additional functions potentially useful.
Below, barely visible through the gently swirling clouds of sand, Rourke made out the vague outline of a ship’s hull. Ever so slightly, Rourke quickened his rate of descent.
As one of only six living people who had survived The Night of The War to live in the present day, John Thomas Rourke was always being contacted for one thing or another. Responding to these requests for his time or insight kept him busy, at times busier than he liked. The formula for Coca-Cola had at last been cracked and the legendary beverage could once again be available. He tried it. Paul tried it. Natalia tried it. Sarah flew in from New Germany and tried it. The would-be entrepreneurs went back to their chemistry labs to substantially tweak the formula. Somehow, John Rourke and those members of “The Family” who had been adults before the Night of The War, where considered “experts” on the past.
When the invitation to join the marine archeological unit had arrived, it was from the Chief of Naval Operations, addressed to “Doctor General John Thomas Rourke.” Rourke wouldn’t have refused if he thought he could.
Emma stopped a few feet above the wrecked vessel’s remains, swimming effortlessly from port to starboard over the ship, forward to aft, the gracefulness of her movements reminding Rourke of a butterfly, flying almost languorously over a garden.
The contents of the jars first brought to the surface by the archeological team, some scrolls in a language totally unknown, were obviously rescued from the destruction of the World’s Library.
“John.” Emma’s voice came to him as clearly as if she were whispering beside him.
“What, sweetheart?”
“These years we’ve been married; being your wife has let me see and do some cool stuff. But, this has got to be the coolest, John. I mean, history we never even knew existed is going to be unfolding before our eyes. Civilizations we never...”
“Don’t get carried away. Okay, we’ve found a language no one can read. I’m sure we’ll find some more enigmas. So far, this has significant potential; but, we don’t know if it’s Earth-shattering.”
“Aren’t you enthused?”
“Yes, I am, Emma—only I’m five hundred years older, technically, so that may tend to weigh on my enthusiasm.” Actually, he was just as excited as she. It was like finding and opening a novel written by one’s favorite author, a novel never known to exist. What was inside could be magnificent—or, perhaps, disappointing.
Rourke joined his wife over the ship, the archeological team using things like great vacuum cleaners to move aside the sediment and reveal the presence of more jars. Some, of course, lamentably, were shattered, their contents destroyed. Could the bits and pieces of that jar or that one have held within it the cure for cancer—albeit cancer was inoculated against these days and, what few cancers that did manifest themselves were easily cured. The “cure for cancer” was a 20th Century man’s way of describing a longed for medical miracle. The cure for the common cold—that was it, Rourke thought, smiling. Although most rhinoviruses were easily treatable these days, there was no actual “cure.”
Rourke and Emma moved closer to the archeological party. Several more jars were being freed and jars uncovered from the sediment earlier were carefully cocooned within padded nets and were being hoisted to the surface, to go aboard the “Desperado,” where they would be carefully opened under controlled conditions of temperature and humidity and subjected to initial examination. Rourke, Emma following him, slowly swam over the wreckage site, then started to the surface, going quite slowly as an added—and essentially unnecessary—precaution.
There was very little marine life, the ongoing activity at the archeological site discouraging all but the occasional school of fish whose size would have made them eligible for the dubious honor of being designated “sardines.”
“Are we still going to stay around for a few days?” Emma asked.
Rourke glanced below him along the rope they followed for the ascent. “I was thinking we would. Work for you?”
“You know I’d ...”
Emma’s voice cut off. Rourke was still looking at her. Nothing seemed different. He looked up. One of the SEALS who rotated through guarding the operation from the water was floating dead, his suit torn open in a long gash, his intestines hanging out. There would be an entrance wound in the back, Rourke thought clinically as he drew the Lancer smart pistol. He saw a dark figure moving through the water, wearing a type of environment suit different from anything Rourke had ever seen, what had to be a weapon attached to the wearer’s right wrist. One of the SEALs was interposing himself between Emma and the strangely attired armed figure. The SEAL fired and Rourke could see the smart rounds literally bouncing off the environment suit. Emma fired, her “bullets” doing the same. There were several men in the strange environment suits, Rourke realized some swimming toward the Desperado itself.
The man who’d likely killed the first SEAL aimed his wrist and the device attached to it at the second SEAL, the SEAL going for their attacker with his knife, but too far away before another shot could be fired. Rourke was already in motion, ordering his wife, “Get close to me. We’ve got to go topside,” as he body slammed the man in the environment suit in the split second after the attacker shot the second SEAL. Rourke had the issue knife in his right hand, the smart weapon on his right hip useless against whoever the attackers were. As the attacker turned the weapon strapped to his wrist toward Emma, Rourke was on him. Somehow, because of the strange environment suit, the smart bullets bouncing off it and the energy weapon on its wrist, Rourke had expected something more than a man.
It was a man. Rourke’s knife blade skittered off the environment suit, Rourke feeling the energy emanating from the suit. What had stopped smart bullets was working against Rourke’s knife. Rourke shifted the knife to his left hand, grabbing the smart pistol from his holster. Rourke didn’t waste time trying to fire it. He turned it in his hand and beat at where the face would have to be within the environment suit. Each blow Rourke hammered made Rourke’s hand and arm almost going numb, the energy shield doing its work. Rourke kept at it, his eyes scanning the environment suit as his enemy was bringing the energy weapon up.
The energy weapon was about to fire point blank, Rourke dropped the useless smart pistol and shoved the energy weapon and the wrist to which it was attached left and away from Rourke’s body plane. As he did so, the weapon fired. But, John Rourke had planned ahead, realizing that the energy field would need to be timed to the shots from the wrist device, in order to keep the energy pulse from shattering the very bones to which it was attached. Rourke stabbed the knife into t
he attacker’s right forearm and drew the knife’s tip upward, cutting along the suit, through the flesh beneath it, along the upper arm, across the shoulder and the right clavicle, into the carotid artery.
Rourke pushed the dead man off the knife, glanced toward where he hoped Emma would be and found her there. “We have to get to the conventional weapons we have on board the Desperado.” Easier said than done, John Rourke reminded himself. He gestured away from the guide rope and, after glancing about them, found one of the quadrants surrounding the Desperado that seemed devoid of any of the attackers in the strange environment suits. Emma followed him; Rourke’s swim roughly following the mid-line of the Desperado’s hull.
Aft was as good a place as any to board the Desperado, Rourke dodging the vessel’s twin screws. Another dead body, then another and still another floated past, only to crash into one another or bounce off the stern. Timing would be everything. He glanced at Emma, her knife in her right hand. Rourke needed a better knife, as well as real guns. Once free of the water, Rourke’s and Emma’s own environment suits would need to be breached within a few minutes at most, any longer than that potentially damaging to the lungs.
The knife clenched in his right fist, Rourke broke surface, glancing quickly to right and left, finding the stern ladder and starting up. He reached the top of the ladder, surveying the scene on the main deck of the Desperado. Far forward, there was some actual hand-hand-fighting, the surviving SEALs apparently choosing to fight-on despite the fact their pistols and submachine guns were useless against this enemy. Rourke noticed, too, that the attackers could apparently wear their environment suits in the water or out, a technology well in advance of anything Rourke knew to exist.
Rourke flipped the rail, his lungs already starting to tell him he had to breach his suit. As Emma came over the rail, Rourke tore the hood and hemo-sponge regulator away. Rourke’s wife did the same. In a low crouch, his knife in a rapier hold, Rourke edged away from the rail. They might have only seconds. A Navy SEAL was locked in mortal combat with one of the attackers. Rourke grabbed the man’s face with his left hand, feeling the suit’s force field pushing his hand away. Rourke held on, the knife in his right hand pushing and pushing toward the enemy’s throat, the young SEAL broke free. The SEAL took his knife and stabbed at the attacker’s right arm as the arm and the weapon on the wrist came into line with the SEAL’s body.
Rourke gave up on slitting his enemy’s throat. The force shield was too much. But, with all the strength he could summon to his right arm, Rourke stabbed the double edged SEAL knife toward where the Adam’s apple should be, hoping the blade would not be deflected by the field. Rourke felt contact, penetrating the environment suit and the throat within it. Rourke ripped the knife right, cautioning the SEAL, “Watch for the blood spray, son. Not quite sure what we’re fighting,” Rourke added as he let the body drop. Rourke half-vaulted down into the companionway, hoping Emma was right behind him. He started forward, toward the cabin they shared, kicked open the door—his key was with his regular clothes, topside.
There was a small closet in the cabin. “Emma,” Rourke rasped.
“Right behind you.”
“Arm up, Emma.”
There was a large leather bag in the bottom, zippered shut and closed with a combination lock. Rourke spun the combination, unzipped and took a double Alessi shoulder rig from inside, slipping it over his shoulders. The twin stainless Detonics CombatMaster .45s were in pouches built into the bag. There was no time to check the pistols. They’d been chamber loaded when he left them and there had been no sign of tampering. There was a wide Milt Sparks belt, two Milt Sparks Six-Packs—everything a Lancer copy—on the belt, for twelve spare magazines in all. Rourke closed the belt around his waist.
Emma’s taste in ordnance was her own, eclectic to say the least. From Lancer’s archives, years earlier, when the children were younger, she’d chosen a brace of Third Generation Smith & Wesson autos, actually seeing their magazine safeties as a plus with kids around. They were 5906s, fifteen plus one capacity, all stainless steel, weighing two pounds thirteen ounces loaded with 115-grain Jacketed Hollow Points. For that reason, her gun belt was only set up for one pistol and a Milt Sparks Six-Pack. As she buckled the cross draw holstered Smith to her waist, he noticed her taking the second pistol from her case and shoving it under her belt.
Rourke reached into the closet and took the long, zippered case. Before The Night of The War, his friends at Century International Arms had told them of their plans to produce an all-American made AK-47, with a receiver machined from eleven pounds of 4140 ordnance steel. Things went so quickly in those last months; the world situation growing worse and worse, Rourke never knew if the gun was ever produced. Thinking it a magnificent idea, Rourke had shared every detail he could remember of that conversation with the designers at Lancer and inside the case was Lancer’s latest rifle, the Century Arms Centurion 39, all USA made semi-automatic only 7.62X39mm AK-47.
Rourke pulled the rifle from the case and extracted three thirty-round magazines from outside pouches. These he stuffed into a mussete bag from the leather case. Slinging the mussete bag cross-body, Rourke was out the cabin door, Emma behind. He estimated they’d spent about forty seconds arming up. A lot of people could have been killed in forty seconds.
Rourke started the magazine into the Centurion 39, the lip catching. Rourke rocked it back into the seated position.
Emma right behind him, Rourke started up the companionway steps.
One of the attackers, still fully clad in his environment suit, was on the way down. The man raised his wrist and fired his energy weapon, blowing out a hole in the bulkhead not far from Rourke’s head. Rourke noted, “You missed; I won’t,” holding the Centurion 39 to his shoulder. He fired once, the enemy’s body going rigid as the 123-grain Full Metal Case bullet—thank God, Rourke thought—penetrated the energy field around the environment suit, into the chest. Rourke fired again, putting the second round into the attacker’s head. “That’s reassuring,” Rourke smiled.
Cautiously, but quickly, Rourke stepped up onto the main deck, reminding Emma, “Stay close and fire double taps with that 9mm of yours.”
“Gotcha,” she answered.
Rourke suddenly thought of the gorgeous combat pilot he’d met years ago, falling in love with her in spite of himself; and, a different sort of smile crossed his lips.
Rourke searched for a bad guy, found one just starting to aim his wrist mounted energy weapon. Rourke snatched the Detonics CombatMaster from under his left arm, thumbed back the hammer and fired at the attacker’s head. The body went rigid, staggered a moment, and then collapsed. So far, so good.
It was late afternoon, long shadows on the main deck as outnumbered SEALs, whose weapons were essentially useless, fought unrelentingly against their attackers. Rourke handed off the Centurion 39 to the SEAL Team Commander, handing him the mussete bag with the spare magazines, as well. “Don’t lose it; I like it. It’s semi-auto only and rounds penetrate the suit. One or two per bad guy should be all it takes.”
“Thank you, sir!”
Rourke handed Emma the CombatMaster from his left hand. “Let me borrow one of your 5906s. It’s an experiment,” Rourke advised.
She handed him the pistol from her belt. Rourke was already hearing well-spaced, single shots from the Centurion 39.
Rourke found another target, unable to go for a full-frontal shot. He fired the Smith & Wesson, a double tap to the throat of the attacker. The man spun right, turning toward them, then spiraled to the deck.
Rourke told his wife, “Find two lucky SEALs, loan them your pistols and split your spare magazines between them. Advise double taps. You keep my Detonics and I’ll supply the magazines.”
Rourke drew the second CombatMaster from beneath his right arm, shifting the .45 to his right hand. After a moment, Emma was back beside him and Rourke started forward, clearing the main deck. Rourke had no idea of the fight’s duration thus far, but from that m
oment onward, everything was done in under a minute. A half dozen of the attackers getting away, at least a dozen more dead on the main deck or elsewhere were aboard the Desperado. The SEAL Team leader, a Lieutenant Torquelson, made to return Rourke’s rifle. Rourke advised, “Keep the weapon for a while longer. You’ll need to make sure no enemy personnel are lurking aboard the other vessels, or still in the water, waiting to strike. You’ll want to check for explosives, electronic eavesdropping gear and the like. We’ll check the Desperado.”
Some of the marine archeological personnel were coming up onto the main deck, some of them armed, but with smart weapons only. They, of course, were useless. Rourke was reminded of the great lack of success the model 1894 .38 Colt had experienced against the Moro tribesmen during the Philippine Insurrection. History was repeating itself, it seemed.
Emma organized parties of archeological personnel to carefully check every inch of the vessel, while Rourke sat down on a tool box beside the body of the man he’d shot with Emma’s 9mm. Rourke began examining the portion of the suit which covered the attacker’s head. There was no access seam. The first way into the suit that he found was along the left rib cage, from just below the armpit to the pelvis. Rourke opened the suit, finding naked flesh—a little pale seeming, but otherwise normal—beneath.
It was several minutes before Emma re-joined Rourke. He had, only a moment earlier, gotten through the portion of the suit which covered the face. Rourke sat there staring at it. Emma dropped to her knees on the deck.
After a long seeming silence, John Rourke spoke. “Emma? Remember my speaking about the Eden Project’s return?”
“You kind of skimmed over some of the more dangerous parts—at least the way Paul tells it.”