by Ahern, Jerry
The building’s fire alarms were sounding.
John Rourke tentatively stepped into the corridor, the little .38 Special revolver tight at his right hip, the knife in a rapier hold along the outside of his left thigh. Gunfire tore along the wall near him, a submachine gun from the sound of it, and he ducked back.
Who had fired that first shot?
But the more important concerns now were his wife, their unborn child, Natalia, Lieutenant Larrimore and her baby and
the other patients.
To deal with those concerns effectively, he had to get out of the room, capture a more effective weapon if possible, and at least neutralize the attackers sufficiently, that he could act.
There was a bedpan, stainless steels wrapped in its sanitiza-tion seal, on the sliding table near the foot of the hospital bed. John Rourke turned toward the patient room’s window and fired the Smith & Wesson, twice, the synth-glass taking the bullet holes but not shattering, merely spiderwebbing around them.
But the webs of fractured synth-glass interwove and Rourke seized up the bedpan, the Sting IA clamped between his clenched teeth; his left fist, the bedpan armoring it against the glass, punching through the window between the two bullet holes, making a hole roughly circular and about eighteen inches in diameter. Rourke let the bedpan fall through the opening, drew his hand back inside, shoved the Hip-Gripped revolver into his waistband and tore the pillow off the bed.
Icy wind licked through the opening, chilling Rourke instantly, but his mind was elsewhere. Using the pillow like a giant padded mitten, he reached into the hole, closing his eyes and averting his face as he pried back, a huge chunk of the synth-glass snapping inward. He threw it to the floor, grabbing the next piece, prying again, the razor sharp wedge splitting free.
Rourke threw it down and the pillow as well, grabbed the visitor chair from the foot of the bed, put it beside the window, stepped up and clambered through the opening, jumping down into the drifted snow beside the wall.
The cold thoroughly numbed him now, but Rourke started moving nonetheless, opening the cylinder of the little five shot .38 Special, dumping its contents into his hand, discarding the two spent cases, pocketing the three live rounds, in the same movement recovering the Safariland speedloader. He rammed the five 158-grain lead hollow points into the charging holes, the speedloader releasing as its center piece, contacted the
ejector star. He dropped the empty loader into his pocket moving along the side of the building wall, the fully loaded revolver tight in his right fist.
More gunfire, but no sounds of fire or emergency equipment (German origin) from Eden Base.
“Dodd,” Rourke rasped through his teeth, the knife still clamped there, ready for use and helping to keep his teem from chattering together.
Beside the corner where the outer walls met, Rourke stopped, belting his revolver again, taking the three left-over rounds, inserting them casehead first into the speedloader, then pressing the bullets against the wall while he turned the locking knob to secure the rounds in the loader.
At least now he could reload quickly, but with only three rounds.
The revolver still in his belt, the knife back in his left hand, Rourke peered around the corner.
Four men with submachine guns, German issue, all four swathed in arctic gear. The men stood near the flames licking from the doorway. They were taking grenades from their web gear.
There was a fifth man, apparendy standing watch, some distance back toward Eden’s single street.
Rourke dropped to his knees and elbows, taking advantage of the high drifts of snow as concealment, crawling away from the corner and along the driveway toward the fifth man.
This was his logical target, the fifth man carrying an M-16.
Instinct told him that this gun’s serial number would match up with the list of those M-16s missing from the Eden Project stores.
Dodd, again.
Rourke moved as quickly as he could, fingers stiffening, his ears numbing; a scream from inside the hospital making him quicken his pace beyond what he’d thought was possible.
He was at the end of the driveway now, roughly parallel to the man with the M-16, still about ten yards from him.
It would have been an easy shot, even with his hands trembling slightly from the cold. But the shot would be heard despite the crackle of the orange flames which now licked across the hospital roofline.
Instead, Rourke raised up from his knees into a crouch, rolled over and moved partially through the snowdrift, coming up to his full height.
There was no time for finesse or some exercise in technique.
He threw himself into a dead run, the knife in his right hand now, his quarry starting to turn around. Rourke jumped toward him, his left hand grabbing the man over his ski-toqued mouth, his right rairiming the knife into the man’s carotid artery.
As they fell to the frozen ground that formed the driveway surface. Rourke moved his left hand, grabbed a handful of the parka hood, snapped the man’s head back and slammed his face into the ground.
Tearing the knife from the dead man’s neck, Rourke raked it across the M-16’s sling, tearing the Colt assault rifle free of the body, wheeling the muzzle around as his thumb found the selector, moving S to full auto.
Rourke fired, cutting down the first of the four men near the hospital’s main entrance just as the man lobbed a grenade through the flames, two of the others doing the same. He fired as the men started to turn toward him to return fire, but too late.
He caught the second man along the spine and in the left kidney, swinging the muzzle left, catching the third man in the neck, fighting the M-16’s muzzle down, another short burst into the man’s groin.
Explosions rocked the hospital, a portion of the north wing’s roof collapsing.
Rourke fell left as assault rifle fire tore into the snowbank beside him, rippling across the driveway surface toward him. The M-i6 stitched a pattern from abdomen to face on the
fourth man, the fourth man’s gun firing out full auto into the snowy darkness above. The rifle was empty.
Rourke threw it down, already to his feet and running for the flaming entrance to the hospital …
More explosions were coming from the hospital, earlier sounds like grenades or small bombs, these were somehow different, perhaps the flames reaching combustible liquids.
Annie fell to her knees, Paul wheeling toward her “No! It’s momma-she’s having the baby. I can feel it. And she’s in pain! Hurry! I’m coming.”
Paul was already running on.
Annie knelt in the snow, her hands clasped to her abdomen and her groin, the empathic pain she experienced as real and devastating as if it were her own.
Flames rose from the hospital roof, licking hungrily skyward.
Sarah Rourke, her pistol clutched in her right hand, fought against the cramping which seized her, consumed her, dragging herself along the floor now, into the corridor, dragging herself because she could not walk. The first of the explosions had knocked her to the floor.
On her knees beside the corridor wall, she sagged, felt the movement of the baby.
It had to be a boy, racing to the sound of battle just like bis father had always done, but not now!
She tried to get to her feet but could not rise.
Smoke filled the corridor, acrid smelling, filling her lungs and the baby’s blood stream, too, she knew.
But the back door to the hospital, the emergency entrance, was only a few yards away, she told herself, only a few yards.
Where was John? Natalia? Where was Natalia?
And Sarah Rourke shivered, because if neither John nor Natalia had come for her, that meant they were perhaps in greater danger than she …
Michael Rourke started to slow down as he neared his sister, shouting to her, “Annie?”
Tm all right. Mom’s having the baby. Help Paul! Go on!”
Michael Rourke, hands clutching his pistols, arms out at his sides, chest thr
own forward, ran full out toward the flames …
“John! Don’t! Don’t go in-” But it was too late. John Rourke ran into the flames, into the burning hospital.
And Paul Rubenstein, his eyes flooding with tears knew why and kept running toward the building, to do the same …
Deitrich Zimmer went from right to left through the doorway, his two lieutenants already through ahead of him. The fire was spreading more rapidly than he had supposed it would.
But his mission was clear and could not be sacrificed for concerns of personal safety.
Seventeen patients had escaped through the emergency entrance, but escaped only to death. They were all followers of Deiter Bern and, as such, unworthy of life.
The woman, Sarah Rourke was not among them.
It was for her now that he searched …
Smoke so thick he could barely breathe or see, John Rourke stumbled over a body in the corridor just inside the doorway. A woman’s body.
He felt for a pulse.
There was none, not even a weak one that he could detect And, as his hand drifted along the wrist, he felt the race of a watch, the shape of which was quite familiar.
“Natalia!”
She was dead.
His eyes already streamed tears from the smoke, but as he swept her up into his arms, more tears came. There was a gun locked m her hand. He already had it free, the hammer dropped. Pulling her coat up over her as much as possible to protect exposed skin, he started back through the fiery doorway, just in case there was a chance she still lived.
Near the doorway, he could see Paul, starting through.
Rourke shouted to his best friend, “Stay back!” And Rourke was through, dropping to his knees with Natalia, Paul kneeling beside him. “I think she’s dead, but don’t give up on her. Try CPR. Don’t give up.”
And John Rourke started to his feet, doubling over and gagging—
Paul Rubenstein grabbed at him. “You can’t go in there, John! You can’t!”
John Rourke shoved Paul’s hands away.
Paul grabbed at Mm again, trying to turn him around. John Rourke straight-armed Paul in the chest, sending him sprawling, then vaulted through the doorway again, into the inferno …
Deitrich Zimmer followed the sounds of the screams. For a moment, as he stepped through the doorway, he thought he had found Sarah Rourke.
A woman with a hospital gown up past her Mps huddled in the far corner, clutching an infant to her breast.
But the woman was not Sarah Rourke.
She appealed to him in English, “Please help us!”
Something moved Deitrich Zimmer. Not compassion, but inspiration …
John Rourke was nearer to the room occupied by Lieutenant Larrimore and her infant son than he was to his office, and Sarah was mobile, had probably escaped already.
He started toward Lieutenant Larrimore’s room.
There was a terrible scream and the sound of a shot.
John Rourke, staggering from the effect of the smoke, ran toward the sounds.
As he neared Lieutenant larrimore’s doorway, three men wearing gas masks and oxygen breathing apparatus emerged, the third stepping back inside quickly as the other two turned toward Rourke. Rourke already had his revolver in hand, firing, then firing again, putting down one of the men with a double tap into the throat and head.
As Rourke wheeled on the second man and fired, the second man lobbed something toward John Rourke.
Rourke’s shot struck and the man went down, Rourke throwing himself forward to escape the grenade, but the explosion starting, the walls around John Rourke, already smoldering, crashed down around him in flames as he fell into darkness…
There was an explosion and the forward central section of the hospital caved in on itself from both walls, then the ceiling collapsing.
Michael Rourke stripped away his parka, throwing it into the snow, shrugging out of his shoulder holster as well, Paul already packing snow over his own parka.
Annie knelt beside Natalia. Natalia dead.
“Daddy is dying! He’s-“
“We’re going in. Keep up the CPR until help comes. Maybe we can save her,” Paul shouted, throwing his coat over his head and neck and shoulders.
Michael Rourke did the same, both Berettas in his waistband
now.
Paul Rubenstein beside him, they dashed through the scant break in the wall of flames …
Wolfgang Mann stomped the accelerator of his staff car, anting the wheel into the turn, easing the gas as he downshifted, upshifting and accelerating as he turned out of the curve.
Beside him, Munchen gasped, “Look at the flames, Wolff
The night sky was orange, where the hospital walls had been, only sheets of flames were now.
Mann’s hands clenched the wheel more tightly. The only emergency sirens which could be heard over the crackling of the flames were those of the vehicles following him.
Nothing was coming from Eden Base …
Sarah Rourke leaned with her back against the wall, her legs squatted beneath her.
On one level of consciousness, she told herself that American Indian women-African women, women for centuries had delivered their own children this way.
But that level was very small and very far away.
Her fingernails gouged into the wall and she shrieked her pain to the flames around her, the smoke making her cough and gag, but the baby’s head crowned, blood oozing along her thighs, her flesh ripping.
“John!”
The baby.
Something enormous was pushing through her, tearing at her, sending waves of pain through her body no matter how she tried to regulate her breathing.
“John!”
More pain than she had ever known, and then it was gone, and blood and fluid dripped from her, but her baby’s head *as out. She bore down with her shoulders, her rib cage, her pei
vis, pushing as hard as she could, unable to move her hands to help herself lest she tall.
She drew herself in and pushed down.
Movement.
i A shoulder. It had to be. She pushed. And she could feel her child alive and moving and she let herself slide down along the length of the wall as her hands grasped for the baby, drawing the childher child, John’s child-the rest of the way from her body. As she raised the new life toward her-a boy-he simultane-| ously screamed and urinated. “Very impressive, Frau Rourke.”
Tears filling her eyes, she looked up toward the mechanical sounding voice, i It had come to her through some sort of mask.
Her baby’s body was slick and at the same time sticky, the umbilical cord still attached, blue and pulsing.
The man who had spoken to her had a gun in his hand. “This is for your crimes against National Socialism, Frau Rourke.”
She screamed, “John!”
She saw a flash from the muzzle of the gun …
Michael Rourke beside him, Paul Rubenstein fell back from the flames, collapsing to his knees in the snow. Michael slumped in the snow as well. “We have to get in there!” Paul coughed.
“Around to the back.”
Annie was screaming incoherently, her face buried in her hands, body doubled over, head nearly in her lap; Natalia’s body in the snow beside her.
Paul Rubenstein wanted to take his wife into his arms, but instead pushed himself to his feet, starting to run along what remained of the burning north wall of the building, to reach the rear entrance, realizing every second lost could mean
death
The Rourke child wrapped in the dead woman’s coat and carried under his left arm, screaming into the night, its umbe-ical chord still attached, Deitrich Zimmer ran through the snow. A helicopter would be waiting over the rise.
Inspiration was what differentiated some few men from their inferiors.
And this child, taking this child of Fate, was inspiration oc the grandest scale …
There were dead strewn everywhere near the entrance, patients in hospi
tal gowns and robes, bodies stitched with bullet holes, slaughtered.
The rear entrance was clear. Both Berettas in his hands, Michael Rourke ran toward it, Paul ahead of him.
Through the doorway, the air inside unbreathable, but going on, anyway.
A body.
The smoke swirled in a vagrant current of fresh air from the open doorway. Michael saw her.
His mother lay in a pool of blood, blood between her legs, blood covering her face, a bullet wound by her left temple. Michael Rourke fell to his knees beside her. She had had the baby. The baby was gone.
Paul shouted, “God damn them! Ill look for your father!”
Michael thrust his pistols into his waistband, then lifted his mother into his arms and wept as he carried her from the burning building …
Paul Rubenstein, despite the saturated parka to filter the air
he breathed, coughed, his eyes streaming tears, but not all the tears because of the smoke. Sarah.
She was dead.
After all of this, Sarah and Natalia in one night.
And his hands shook, with rage, because if John had not prevented what happened to Sarah, that meant that John was—
Paul Rubenstein kicked away a burning sheet of plaster board, his trouser leg catching fire. He tore the coat from his head, holding his breath against the heat and smoke, beating out the flames, then running on, dragging the coat over him again.
The corridor took a bend and he was at John’s office. The door was open. There was no one inside.
The woman and her-” Paul leaned against the office wall, trying to get a breath.
John would have gone to find Lieutenant I^arrimore, whose baby he had just delivered this very morning, drinking that Sarah could make it out herself, perhaps.
Paul moved along the corridor, trying to orient himself, toning to his left.
The corridor walls and ceiling were collapsed and there was a wall of flame between him and the debris.
“John! John! Where are you? John!”
The walls and ceiling creaked. In seconds, Paul Rubenstein knew, the bidding would be entirely collapsed.