by Ahern, Jerry
He oriented himself toward the column of smoke, flew toward it, looking for signs of Paul below him …
At last, Jason Darkwood reached the height of the chimney. He could smell the smoke very strongly. There was something faintly sweet and faintly nauseating about it as he climbed out.
He looked across a barren, volcanic rock flat. “Jesus.” Jason Darkwood could do nothing but stare, his throat tightening as he tried to fight back tears.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Annie Rubenstein sat in a comfortable chair, her legs curled up almost under her. She reached toward Maggie Barrow’s desk, took the small cup, and sipped at her tea.
“Do you faint very often?”
“No.”
“Were you seeing what was going on in Major Tiemerovna’s thoughts, Annie?” “Maybe—I think so,” she told Maggie Barrow. “And that made you faint?” “Yes. I guess so.”
“What was it that you saw, Annie?”
“My father’s face—just coming in and out and disappearing and reappearing—there were flames and—”
“And so that—” Maggie Barrow began again.
“No,” Annie interrupted. “Daddy always wears these aviator-style sunglasses, with real dark lenses. He must have a couple of dozen pair of them at the Retreat He’s very light-sensitive; he always has been. And when the light hits them just right, you can see things in the lenses. Like a reflection. I used to like to look at myself in them when I was a little girl. But this
time, I saw what Natalia was seeing in the glasses.” “What was that, Annie?”
“It was a skull, a skull in each of the lenses. Like death. That’s what I saw.”
Maggie Barrow folded her hands around her right knee as she sat on the edge of the desk, crossed her legs. “There’s a man at Mid-Wake. A very fine man. A great man. His name is Rothstein, Doctor Phillip Rothstein. He’s a psychiatrist, but so much more than that. I saw him do something once. Where he hypnotized somebody. Well, I was thinking, what if he hypnotized you and helped you to clear your mind so you could—well, like you say it—so you could enter Major Tiemerovna’s mind? Unless I miss my guess, as long as she’s so deeply into the depressive stage she’s in that she remains catatonic, unless she can be brought out of it with drugs, how can anyone really help her? But, if you were able to probe Major Tiemerovna’s mind, he could—”
“My mind would be like a monitor for him to use.”
“Doctor Rothstein might not want to—it might be too dangerous for you,” Maggie Barrow said.
Annie Rubenstein looked at her, sipped at the tea. “I’ll try it; she’d do the same for me. If she hadn’t helped my father, none of us would be alive. When can we talk to this Doctor Rothstein?”
Maggie Barrow didn’t answer, just looked through the open office door. Annie’s eyes tracked after her gaze. Natalia moved restlessly in a drug-induced sleep, her body bound to the bed with restraints so she could not hurt herself.
Natalia was unable to do anything for herself, was dead while still alive. Annie told herself that Paul would understand why she had to do this thing Doctor Barrow had brought up. And if Doctor Rothstein at Mid-Wake didn’t want to help, then perhaps Doctor
Munchen could find a similar specialist in New Germany. But just thinking of it, she felt like a thief waiting to strike. The mind was the repository of hopes and dreams, secret longings and nightmares—and they were Natalia’s private things, personal things and did anyone have the right to look at them without her permission? But unless she miraculously snapped out of this, or there were some possible cure Maggie Barrow wasn’t aware of, what then? Leave Natalia to spend weeks or months, years, perhaps the rest of her life like she was now? Or look into those secret things in secret places?
And Annie Rourke Rubenstein shivered, because she knew she would find her father there and Marshal Karamatsov and the Night of the War, all of it in reality and fantasy and in ways she did not want to consider because they frightened her.
Chapter Twenty-Six
There was no sign of Paul from above as Rourke followed the ridgeline toward the summit which was the source of the column of smoke. He followed the terrain with the machine to avoid making it easier for the Island Classer to track him if indeed it had such capabilities at all There was no doubt in his mind that someone from the party of six Marine Spetznas personnel he’d herded together and forced to disarm had alerted the vessel prior to moving in.
As John Rourke brought the gunship over the ridgeline, he saw the source of the smoke. Surrounding it were a group of men, some in black uniforms that could have been Marine Spetznas or Mid-Wake. From the altitude, he couldn’t be certain. But standing with them, clearly, was Paul Rubenstein. They formed a ragged semicircle around the remains of a huge bonfire. But there were no trees anywhere on the plateaulike slab of volcanic rock and to have hauled wood to the center of the barren rock rather than set the fire nearer to the ridgeline where there was timber closer at hand seemed—
John Rourke’s hand froze on the stick, a sudden dry feeling in his mouth. He circled, the smoke dissipating
in his downdraft, Paul Rubenstein waving him in.
“This can’t be,” Rourke almost whispered.
He let the gunship settle over the plateau, slipping to port and down, leaving power to his main rotor.
Walking toward him from the origin of the smoke was Paul Rubenstein, and beside him a tall, lean, dark curly-haired man, but the usual grin on the man’s face gone, his face and Paul’s face wearing almost the same expression.
Rourke hit the release for his seat restraint, went to the fuselage door, opened it, dropped down into the snow, not bothering with a coat, his breath steaming, the wind cutting through his black knit shirt like a knife.
“John—”
“Doctor Rourke—it’s—”
John Rourke bit down hard on his cigar.
He walked ahead, the wind tearing at his hair, his fingers pushing it back from his forehead.
He walked between Paul Rubenstein and Jason Darkwood, toward the bonfire.
“John—”
John Rourke didn’t answer. The smell of the smoke.
Twisted, contorted shapes, still smoldering, blunted curves, upthrusting angles, as if reaching— Paul shouted on the wind. “John—they’re people.” John Rourke turned away from the smoke.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Vassily Prokopiev listened to the clicking of his own bootheels as he walked along the otherwise empty corridor toward the double doors at its end. It was too early for anyone, even in a predominantly military society such as that of the Underground City.
He stopped at the doors, gave a last look to his boots, a last tug to his uniform tunic, then opened the right-hand door, his uniform cap under his left arm.
No secretary sat at the outer office desk and only a single lamp at the head of the desk was turned on, illuminating the green blotter with a yellow wash. He closed the door behind him.
“Major—is that you?” It was the voice of Comrade Colonel Antonovitch, coming from the inner office.
“Yes, Comrade Colonel,” Prokopiev called back, approaching the inner office door.
Here no overhead lights shone either, but two lamps were lit, one on each side of the desk and several feet away from it, one on each side of the picture of Lenin.
“Have you ever been in this office before, Vassily?” The Comrade Colonel’s chair was turned with the back facing toward the connecting doorway in which Prokopiev stood.
“Once, Comrade Colonel.”
“Then you will not blame me for the choice of decor.” As he spoke, the chair swung around 180 degrees and Colonel Antonovitch leaned forward across the Uttered desk, hands locking together as his fingers intertwined. “The Hero Marshal, as Vladmir Karamatsov liked having himself called, had strange tastes. That terrible picture of Nicolai Lenin and yet the frame is plated with genuine gold. And the bar. One would have thought that our Hero Marshal was planning fo
r another five centuries of survival, only this time awake. At least to start with. Come in. And close the door behind you.”
Prokopiev walked across the room, stopped a meter from the desk, and came to attention.
“Stand easy—take a seat. Vassily—” and the Comrade Colonel shook his head. “I don’t really know what to do with you. I mean, I know what I must do. But— I read your report concerning the destruction of the Second Chinese City, concerning the evacuation from their missile silo or temple.”
Prokopiev felt he was not interrupting. “It was both, Comrade Colonel.”
“They are calling me ‘Marshal’ these days.”
“Comrade Marshal.”
“Why did you include the information concerning John Rourke and Michael Rourke and their Jewish comrade, this Rubenstein fellow?”
“I felt, Comrade Colonel—Comrade Marshal. I felt that I should make an honest report.”
Comrade—Comrade Marshal Antonovitch raised his head, smiled. “You have shown me that I am perhaps a better military commander than I might have supposed, Vassily. I desired to pick the best man possible, the best officer available to head the Elite Corps. And, from among the KGB elite corps, seeking
I a truly honorable man can be a frustrating task. But, it appears in you that I have indeed found such a man. But, unfortunately, Vassily, you are also a fool. What would our late Hero Marshal have done to a member of the KGB Elite Corps who had several opportunities to kill John Thomas Rourke and did not?” “I—I do not—”
“You know. Killing would have been too merciful.” And the Comrade Marshal laughed softly. “He might have eaten such a hapless person. Who knows? He was an animal. No wonder his wife left him for another man, if indeed she did. No. I would tear up this report of yours,” and he raised a file folder from the litter of his desktop, fanned it for a moment, let it tumble from his hand to the desk, the papers inside spilling out. “But I cannot because, by now, the Chairman has a copy of this report. He will demand your arrest and trial and execution for treason. And I can do nothing to stop him. But, you knew that when you composed your report.”
“Yes, Comrade Marshal.”
“And still you wrote what you did.”
“Yes, Comrade Marshal. There is a trust I cannot violate.”
The Comrade Marshal looked at him, smiled, shook his head. “I don’t suppose you are the sort of man who would choose suicide? Death before dishonor, certainly but not suicide in a situation such as this.”
“That is correct, Comrade Marshal.”
“And, what will you say at your trial, Vassily?”
“Comrade Marshal?”
“When you are asked why you, a Major of the Elite Corps, its commander, why you allowed this wanted war criminal to go free, along with several other war criminals. Why did you?”
“Comrade—Comrade Marshal,” Prokopiev began,
realizing he was stammering. “He, ahh— His son saved my life. Doctor Rourke is a man of consummate bravery. He could not be the evil person he has been painted tp be. I spoke with him. I fought beside him. He— Perhaps—”
“The Hero Marshal, our courageous, honorable, and always truthful Vladimir Karamatsov lied? See how far you get saying such a thing at a trial.”
“But—”
“Your wounds. You seem fit enough.”
“I will be—” There was no point in saying that he would be fine, recover perfectly. He had known his fate as he had begun the first word of his report, sealed that fate with his signature.
“You will be dead, Vassily. Let me ask you a question. Who do you think is right?”
“Comrade Marshal?”
“I asked, Who do you think is morally right? Ourselves, or our enemies?” “The Soviet people—”
“Now, Vassily—I said nothing about the Soviet people. I meant, based upon your experiences, who do you think is right? Is our side, the side of global Communism, correct. Or—whatever Doctor Rourke’s side could be described as. Is he correct. Is his side correct? What do you think?”
“The Soviet people are—”
”’—the finest and most courageous people.’ Yes, I know that. I speak philosophy, not of the people.”
Vassily Prokopiev felt as if he were twelve years old and confronted by his schoolmaster. “I—”
“You cannot get in any trouble, which could possibly be worse, Vassily.”
Prokopiev nodded, looked at his hands, at his feet, up into the Comrade Marshal’s oddly sympathetic-looking face. “I have come to believe that perhaps
many things told to me as true might well be lies, or distortions of the truth at least.”
“You are remarkably astute. And?”
“Comrade Marshal?”
“Armed with this knowledge, what is your intention, if somehow you should survive?” “I do not—”
“Well, let me enlighten you further,” the Comrade Marshal said, his voice low, strange sounding. “Before what your newfound friends refer to as the Night of the War, The United States and The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics were moving toward mutual nuclear disarmament. There were certain factions within both countries, in fairness, which felt that such a policy was disaster, each distrusting the other, fearing the other, fearing weakness in themselves. And some who lusted for power and saw a war footing as the means by which to preserve existing power and increase their power. The Hero Marshal Karamatsov worked tirelessly, tirelessly I say—tirelessly to bring about global destruction on a scale never before possible. There is a poem you will not have read, not have heard of, by a poet whose name you will not know. He was English. John Milton. The poem spoke of the Judeo-Christian myth of Paradise, and is entitled Paradise Lost. In this poem, the devil—the Judeo-Christian personification of ultimate evil as opposed to God, ultimate good—declares that he would rather rule in Hell than serve in Heaven. And this, apparently, was the guiding principle of the Hero Marshal, back in the days when he was a Colonel in the KGB, when he worked in what was then Latin America, in the Middle East, in the very United States itself.
“Karamatsov,” Comrade Marshal Antonovitch went on, “set about to turn the Earth into a hell over which he could rule. Where there was distrust, he wanted
TiaTrecirWhere there was the potential for violent upheaval, he wanted war. He—and to be fair, others like him—succeeded. Which is why you and I are contemporaries. I served under him in those days, saw his evil, did nothing. After he was shot down by John Rourke, I was one of those who brought him here, used the criogenic sleep as a means of suspending death while all around us for five centuries there was birth and death and deprivation in between.
“I know of what I speak,” Comrade Marshal Antonovitch concluded.
“I knew that you were one of—”
“His original disciples? Yes. I saw something here. A Chairman who seeks war as desperately as Vladimir Karamatsov sought it. A woman who slept with me because she wished to use me as a means of promoting this war. You must understand me,” the Comrade Marshal said, rising and standing behind his desk, looking down on Prokopiev as if for emphasis. “I sought the missiles of the Second Chinese City, I launched the global offensive. But I did all of this and will continue as Marshal of the Soviet Union, because I sought what used to be called a ‘Pax Romana.’ During the reign of Augustus Caesar in the old Roman Empire thousands of years ago, there was almost universal peace because there was almost universal government. My goal was to end war with war, not to risk the end of mankind. While someone else controlled the nuclear arsenal of prewar China, there was the chance that it might be used, as Karamatsov had planned to use it. But now, the Chairman seeks to contact our supposed Comrades beneath the sea, the antagonists of the Americans at Mid-Wake. He wishes to use their nuclear submarines and nuclear missiles. He has authorized the redevelopment of our twentieth century particle beam device with which Karamatsov and
Rozhdestvenskiy after him, when it was thought Karamatsov was dead, intended to destr
oy the Eden Project and establish clearly total Soviet rule. Rozhdestvenskiy, according to documents unearthed by our archaeological teams at Cheyenne Mountain in American Colorado where the Womb, our retreat, our own KGB Underground City was to have been before Rourke destroyed it, personally ordered the deaths of ranking Soviet officials coming to the Womb for their own survival. Rozhdestvenskiy did this in order to assure his own power. The particle beam technology is now so advanced that these weapons can be mounted on armored vehicles, in helicopter gunships, made in any size or power range. Soon, they will be adapted as infantry machine guns. No conventional weapon except nuclear weapons will stand against these. With the nuclear potential of the Soviet civilization beneath the sea and the particle beam technology, all resistance will be destroyed. There will be an Empire of Death. If the Earth is not totally destroyed when the first nuclear weapon is utilized—and the Germans of New Germany in Argentina are developing nuclear weapons for their defense—the Soviet people will be the only people who will survive, but they will survive to live under the most despotic rule in human history. And still, there will be no peace. Will the Chairman surrender authority to the nuclear-capable new Comrades after their enemies at Mid-Wake and our enemies have all been destroyed? I think he will not. Instead, there will be war again. It will never end until the Earth ends.”
Prokopiev watched the Comrade Marshal’s eyes. “Why do you tell me this, Comrade Marshal?”
“You are in a unique position.” And suddenly a pistol appeared in Antonovitch’s right hand, almost as if he had pulled it from thin air. It was very small, and likely very old. “This is a .25 caliber Beretta, in answer