by Jerry Ahern
Rourke waited for another volley of shots from Schmidt and Jones, and, as they fired, threw himself into as rapid a run as he dared over the ice, launching himself toward the yellow service vehicle, hitting the ice-coated tarmac behind it and sliding. Kneeling behind a wheelwell, the engine block and as much of the vehicle’s body as possible between him and enemy fire, Rourke caught his breath as enemy small-arms fire tore into the vehicle’s coachwork, energy bolts rippling across the hood, arcing as one bolt after another struck, the vehicle crackling with electricity.
Michael and Paul should be nearly into position.
Rourke pushed himself up into a crouch, both rifles fully loaded, selectors set to auto. He disliked burst control mechanisms on automatic weapons, preferring to rely instead on his own sense of touch.
He inhaled, exhaled, inhaled again, then darted from cover behind the service vehicle toward another, identical vehicle closer still to the enemy position. This time, he didn’t wait for harassing fire to cover his movements because, over the cacophony of gunfire, he’d heard the hollow sound of a mortar being dropped down its firing tube. Fewer than five yards from the service vehicle behind which he’d initially taken cover, the mortar struck, Rourke thrown to the tarmac, fiery debris raining down around him as a secondary explosion—the service vehicle’s synth-fuel tank—went up.
Rourke rolled onto his back, momentarily stunned, energy bolts weaving through the snow-filled air toward him, impacting the icy tarmac.
Rourke shook his head to clear it, got to his knees, his feet, ran, gunfire and energy bolts impacting the tarmac near his feet, gunfire rippling across the hood of the second service vehicle as Rourke dove to cover.
He could hear small-arms fire originating from behind the enemy position now. It would be Paul and Michael. Because of the mortar, they might have been forced into opening fire prematurely in order to divert attention away from him. Rourke looked toward the vehicle’s cab above him. And, as he looked, he could see its ignition key still in the switch, a fob with a swastika dangling from it.
Rourke clambered up, into the yellow service vehicle’s cab, safing the two assault rifles as he moved. Crouching as low as he could behind the dashboard, Rourke turned the key. The engine groaned in the cold, not catching. Rourke pumped the accelerator, then tried turning it over again. And, the engine caught.
John Rourke’s gloved hands moved over the controls, searching for the forklift controls themselves. He found them, the fork rising. Rourke cut the wheel into a hard right as he released the emergency brake and geared up, the vehicle hesitating, its tires breaking free of the ice, then gaining momentum, rolling ahead.
Bullets whined over the body, energy bolts flickering across it, the entire interior of the cab bathed in bluish-white light. For an instant only, his mind was drawn back to the memory of the cryogenic chambers, the gas used inside them of the same, almost ethereal color.
The enemy fire was intensifying. A mortar was launched, exploding only a few yards from the vehicle Rourke drove, its concussive force nearly overturning it. Rourke drove on, stabbing one of the assault rifles through the still-open door, firing, spraying out the magazine in three- and four-round bursts.
A rifle grenade struck the hood, bounced away, exploded, as Rourke was cranking the wheel left and away from it.
He was within mere yards of the enemy position now, the Nazi commandos on their feet, firing almost point blank. His windshield, long since shattered, totally collapsed, showering him with shards of safety glass. Rourke didn’t swerve. A man had a hand-thrown grenade ready to toss, but a burst of gunfire from behind cut him down.
One of the Nazi commandos ran toward the cab, jumping toward it, half in through the open doorway as Rourke stabbed the now-empty rifle’s muzzle into the man’s face, driving him back.
Rourke was surrounded now, emeny personnel on all sides. And, it was time to exit the vehicle.
Rourke wedged the butt of the remaining Nazi assault rifle against the accelerator pedal, then jumped, hitting the ice-slicked tarmac hard, rolling. A man lunged toward him with a bayonet. Rourke rolled away, drew one of the ScoreMasters and fired point-blank, then again and again, the enemy commando going down dead.
Gunfire surrounded Rourke on all sides as he drew the second ScoreMaster. The yellow service vehicle was still going, plowing forward through the enemy position, overturning the enemy defenses, enemy personnel running from the blades of the forklift. Rourke fired out the pistol in his right hand, putting down one of the Nazis who was trying to board the vehicle.
Stabbing the spent full-size Detonics into his pistol belt, Rourke drew one of the two SIG-Sauer P-228s from beneath his sweater. Then, he advanced.
Paul and Michael were closing from the far side of the enemy position, their weapons firing at point-blank range into the Nazi defenders.
Rourke kept moving, putting down a man who was attempting to dismount an energy machine gun from its carriage. Rourke went on, firing a succession of double taps from the SIG into one of the commandos who was firing toward Michael, killing the Nazi.
As Rourke turned toward another target, the man threw up his hands in surrender.
Rourke aimed the SIG at the Nazi’s head, ordering, “On your knees, hands clasped behind your head. You will not be harmed.” The few surviving personnel were following this man’s lead, laying down their weapons, raising their hands. Gunfire had ceased. And, John Rourke suddenly thought: Was there a Geneva Convention anymore? No matter, men of honor did not need rules of morality imposed upon them.
Chapter Seventeen
The Nazi personnel were moving into position on this level more rapidly than Annie would have anticipated, almost as if they were being chased.
The smell from the explosives still permeated the air around her, slightly sweet and slightly sickening in the confined space.
Dead Nazi commandos, dressed in SEAL Team uniforms, were placed at strategic locations about the main corridor, to further enhance the notion that the explosion was an accident and that these were its victims. Annie, Commander Washington beside her, lay prone inside an air shaft overlooking the level’s main corridor. If she moved at all, the ductwork would reverberate like a drum being beaten, so, despite the fact that her legs were beginning to cramp a little, she remained perfectly still, as did Washington.
All told, sixteen persons—all of them men except for herself—mostly SEALs, some members of German Long Range Mountain Patrol units, were secreted about the level, waiting for Commander Washington to trigger, by radio signal, smoke bombs which had been planted at strategic locations throughout the corridor and in some of the larger rooms.
The level seemed to be utilized for planning, military and otherwise. There were maps, wall-mounted vid screens, even tables with fully fleshed terrain segments set upon them. The contents would be a treasure trove of intelligence data, once this level and the top floor just above were secured.
Thoughts of her father, her husband and her brother came to her and she pushed them away, telling herself that if any of them were in truly mortal peril she would have felt it. She did not confide this to Commander Washington, merely telling him just before they’d taken hiding, “Don’t worry; I’m sure my father and husband and brother are all right. They’ll probably have the helipad secured in short order.”
“I hope you’re right, Mrs. Rubenstein,” was all Washington had said in response.
Now, all they could do was wait until enough of the Nazi personnel were in position to give this ruse some chance of working.
Chapter Eighteen
His weapons freshly loaded, John Rourke looked up. He sat in the cockpit of the only one of the Nazi helicopters which had so far been cleared of potential demolitions. None were found. Natalia’s gunship had ferried Moore to proper medical attention below and brought back with it a small force of Commander Washington’s SEAL Team personnel and some of the German Long Range Mountain Patrol commandos. Natalia and these men filled the fuse
lage section of the chopper, along with Paul, Michael, Schmidt and Jones. Natalia, like John Rourke, sat. She was massaging her left thigh.
Rourke addressed the assembly. “We have to assume that Commander Washington has some plan in the works. This problem we’re having with radio communications isn’t helping matters. The interior of the structure is almost impossible to work with, absorbing almost all radio signals. And, a considerable amount of our radio equipment was fried during the electromagnetic pulse, as we discovered. Thank God the Nazis had these helicopters wired against it.
“The fact remains,” Rourke went on, “that Commander Washington may well need our help; but our very assistance could screw up his plans beyond measure. The horns of the proverbial dilemma, Natalia, gentlemen. How’s Wolfgang doing?”
He looked at Natalia as he spoke. She answered, “The last time I checked—about a half hour ago—he was responding well. We should have him back on his feet in another few hours at most, perhaps considerably sooner.”
“Good, but we could use his military background now. Any suggestions?“ Rourke asked.
“Herr Generaloberst, I request permission to speak.” John Rourke granted it with a wave, the pomposity of such military formalities something he found silly but realized he would never be able to change. “The remote video probes aboard these machines, Herr Generaloberst, they are capable of quite precise manuevering. Such probes could be launched at lowest speed on manual control and sent down inside the structure, thus perhaps providing us with the necessary intelligence data upon which a plan of action might be based, Herr Generaloberst.”
“Brilliant idea, Schmidt. You’re in charge of it and get it underway immediately.”
“Yes, Herr Generaloberst!”
Rourke nodded. He looked at Natalia, asking, “How bad is that leg now?”
“I’m fully capable, just not fully comfortable, John. What do you have in mind?”
“Paul, you assist Schmidt with the video probe. Michael, you and Jones take charge of getting together a small party of men to follow us down into the stairwell. Cobble together shields from the scrap materials around here. There are helicopter parts stored up here, I think, for service. See if there are any body parts. Those could serve as shields against most small-arms fire and deflect energy bursts, at least to a degree. Natalia and I will make what used to be called a soft penetration down into the structure below.” He looked at Paul again, asking, “Can you wire us up something that would work like a field telephone?”
“I think so.”
“Good. The remote probe goes ahead of us. If it spots anything terribly unfriendly, let us know. If we spot anything it doesn’t, we’ll do the same.” And, Rourke looked at Natalia. “You sure you’re up to this?”
“One of the movies on videotape at the Retreat, with John Wayne and Ward Bond? Do you remember it?”
“They made quite a few together.”
“Based on the Louis L’Amour novel? The Western? Ward Bond is driving a wagon and everyone is being chased by Apache Indians. When John Wayne asks Ward Bond—”
Rourke smiled, telling her, “I know—you were born ready. All right, let’s get this operation moving, people.”
Chapter Nineteen
She would normally have been the last one down, shepherding her squadron through the landing, but the damage sustained by her aircraft had made such a choice impossible.
Hauling back on the yoke, bringing up the V/STOL fighter’s nose, she brought the machine into the hover mode, still uncertain whether or not she had full operational capabilities for the portside engine. But, she had no choice other than vertical landing, with machine gun bullets pockmarking the wing, damaging her flaps and the field itself so littered with fallen aircraft that, even had her plane been in perfect condition, there was no place for a conventional landing.
Emma Shaw’s aircraft was partially crippled, all her armament gone except for the pistols that she carried (of absolutely no use to her while she was airborne), the surviving members of her squadron circled the field while she made her attempt. If she failed, the ground-crew personnel would be getting her out of the wreckage with a vacuum cleaner, she realized.
Too many of her people had gone down, lost, but all thirty-six of the enemy fighter planes were destroyed in the air, and so preoccupied that they never had a chance to do most of their intended damage to the airfield.
Her aircraft shuddered and bucked, starting to go out of trim, at last the questionable engine was coming around in full rotation. And, she started down, half holding her breath.
Touchdown.
As quickly as she could, she hit the release and started her canopy rearward. She punched the seat restraint release, was up and clambering out of the machine, the smell of burning insulation a harbinger of fire. She jumped from the cockpit to the wing stem, then down to the tarmac, running.
Fire and other emergency vehicles were closing on her craft.
Emma Shaw pulled off her helmet, bending forward slightly and shaking free her hair. “Oh, shit, I never want another day like this one!” She turned back and looked at the just-landed V/STOL, foam already being sprayed over the damaged wing, technicians starting to pour across the machine. The crew chief was slowing up, already starting to climb out of his tow vehicle as she ran toward him. “Chief, signal whoever the hell’s running that electronic semaphore out there and get my people down.”
“You got it, Commander. How you doin’?”
“I’ve been better,” she told him honestly. She was starting to dig into the pockets of her flightsuit for cigarettes and a lighter, found both and lit up, coughing after being so long on oxygen. She shook her head again, turning her eyes skyward. Light snow was falling. She could hear the chief on his radio. Apparently, the service and emergency equipment radios were still functional, as were ship-to-ship communications between the members of her squadrons. She inhaled again, letting the smoke out through her nostrils, the light-headedness starting to pass.
The wind was icy cold, but she loved it, the sensation of feeling that she was still alive. And, Emma Shaw thought about John Rourke, wondering if he were alive. She loved him, which was insanity, but her family was given to mental aberrations she thought, smiling. Right now, her dad was probably chasing crooks down some alley in Honolulu …
Tim Shaw just shook his head. “The bastard couldn’t play it straight, even once.” Moving through the woods which covered the slope were three heavily armed men. Shaw recognized their type, Honolulu street punks. They weren’t out enjoying the wonders of nature, either. The Nazi Fifth Columnists utilized local street thugs as “soldiers,” he had learned, and these men were obviously some of them. Whether the man Shaw had defeated one-on-one had brought them along as backup or whether some Nazi superior had thought of it, didn’t really matter. They were here, between him and where he had to go.
His right arm was feeling pretty good, really, all things considered. On the down side, his left tricep was still hurting like hell and his back—Tim Shaw didn’t want to think about his back at all, because he might have done significant damage. When he turned the wrong way, hit a bump on the slope or breathed too deeply, he was in pain such as he had never known before. These days, of course, medical science had licked cancer, the crippling diseases such as muscular dystrophy and multiple sclerosis, congenital diseases such as Epstein-Barr and sickle-cell anemia and organ transplants and reconstructive surgery were so advanced that virtually no one alive was forced to spend life in a wheelchair or on crutches, but all of that notwithstanding, the prospect of having to face radical surgery just in order to be restored to his former generally good health was not only daunting, but pissed him off.
The Nazi child-killer would get his revenge.
Meanwhile, the three men approaching had to be dealt with.
Unlike the paranoid times about which he’d read—the days Before the Night of the War—when one saw a man or woman carrying an assault rifle these days, it was a sig
n of good, common sense, not some omen of evil intent as such had been perceived in that bygone era. Everyone who chose to be was armed, and most of these carried firearms concealed, occasionally openly. That was only good sense as well.
Certainly, there was crime, but that was a part of the human condition. Yet, there was less crime per capita than ever in human history, and violent personal crimes, such as muggings and rapes, were lower still by comparison. There would always be the unscrupulous who wished to prey upon the weak, but because people were armed for their defense, the weak were fewer and farther between, prey harder to come by.
Toward the last days Before the Night of the War, according to what Tim Shaw had read, every media source imaginable was finding some way or another to brand firearms ownership as being tantamount to madness. That there seemed to be some almost deliberate program to disarm the American people in those wildly misguided days appeared obvious through the twenty-twenty hindsight of history. For what purpose, Tim Shaw could not hazard a guess.
These three men approaching him did not fill him with misgivings because they were armed, but because of the way they moved, carried themselves, their overall demeanor. He had been a street cop all of his adult life, and he had learned that although it was morally wrong to make lasting judgements based upon appearance and the subtleties which could not properly be put into words, such temporary character assessments were, in reality, subliminal cues for staying alive.
As if they wore flashing electronic signs, these men bore the words “punk” and “criminal” and “badass” just as surely.
The immediate problem was how to deal with them. He could not just sit someplace and wait for them to pass in hopes that they would remain ignorant of his presence, nor could he take potshots at them when they passed. The former ploy would be naively dangerous, the latter morally unacceptable just in case he was misreading the subliminal cues.