by Ahern, Jerry
The woman shrieked back, “They want to kill me!” And she kept running.
There was a blur of motion and Natalia dodged right, Jes-sup’s motorcycle rocketing past her. Bob Jessup shouted, “You get her! Tm goin’ in, lady!” And he cut the fork of the bike
toward the entrance to the building. There were steps, to elevate the first floor, because of the problem in Opentown with roaches, rats and other vermin mat followed human habitation.
Jessup jumped his machine and took it over the steps, getting the machine up on its rear wheel and using the machine like a battering ram to punch through the door; the door crashing down and part of the frame with it.
And he was gone from view.
The blonde in the tight skirt was running through the parking lot, but not toward the battered electric car, not toward anything, it seemed, just away.
Natalia stood on one foot, catching at her right shoe, then took off her left one, staffing both shoes into her purse as she ran after the woman in earnest. “Stop. I will not hurt you!”
But the woman kept running.
Life as a prostitute, which Natalia was more and more convinced the woman was, evidently didn’t breed physical fitness. The woman was stowing down, running clumsily. Natalia starting to overtake her.
There was gunfire from inside the building, but Natalia was committed to this now, chasing down the woman.
Natalia, her pistol in her right hand, closed the gap. The woman, as if on cue in some American monster movie, fell, sprawling into the dirt, and struggled to get up.
Natalia snouted, “Damn’!” as she jumped, catching the woman at the shoulders and knocking her down again. Natalia rolled past her, came up on her knees, pointing the gun at her. “Stay where you are!”
But the woman started running again, evidently more afraid of what she’d seen inside the domicilary unit, than anything another woman could do to her.
Natalia was up, running, overtaking the woman in a half dozen strides, grabbing at her. The woman shook her off, but Natalia grabbed for her again, hauling her off balance and knocking her to the dirt. Natalia dropped on her, Natalia’s
right knee into her abdomen, knocking the wind out of her. And now Natalia straddled her chest, the muzzle of the suppressor against the tip of the woman’s nose. “What do you run from?! Answer me!” “They killed him.”
“Who was killed? The man in the bar?” “Yes. Let me go!”
“Who killed him? Tell me, or so help me I will take you back inside.” “No! Three men. Nazis, I think.” “Why?” “I do not-“
“Why?” Natalia screamed.
“He was selling information to them and they killed him.”
Natalia stood up, her dress torn at the skirt up the side-seam. She looked at the prostitute. “Get out of here or wait until the police come. Someone will have reported the shots. Your choice.” And Natalia turned away from her and started running back toward the building …
The motorcycle was beside the base of the stairs leading toward the second floor and above. Natalia dropped her shoes to the floor, stepping in them, the bottoms of her stockings ripped through. As she started up the stairs, she heard two things almost simultaneously: the sound of a police siren in the distance and the sound of a pistol shot. Natalia ran up the the stairs, trying to pinpoint the sound, passing the second floor, reaching the third floor and noticing a partially open door midway along the length of the corridor.
She ran toward it, her purse slung cross body and back so it wouldn’t get in the way, both hands gripped on the butt of the suppressor-fitted Walther. She slowed as she neared the doorway, moving along the wall now, listening.
She heard voices. One of them sounded like Jessup’s voice, but there was something wrong with it. She licked her hps,
her lipstick gone and her mouth dry. She took a short breath and turned into the doorway.
Bob Jessup was on the living room floor, a gun a few inches from his extended fingers, blood on his hand and covering the front of his shirt. Two men lay on the floor at the other side of the living room, one of them a stranger, the other Armand Gruber. And a third man, evidendy one of the Nazis, stood over Bob Jessup, a pistol in his hand, his body weaving slightly as he aimed the pistol toward Bob Jessup’s head and said in German, “You will never tell what we have transmitted.”
As he made to fire, Natalia pulled the trigger on the Walther. doable actioning the first shot into his neck, the second shot-single action-into the man’s left eye at an upward angle that would strike the brain.
He swayed for an instant longer, then fell back, knees buckling under him and his pistol discharging into the small sofa, a cloud of stuffing rising around the hole.
Natalias eyes scanned the room. There was a high frequency transmitter in an open suitcase on the small coffee table, still turned on, the frequency diode reader visible. She cornmmed the numbers to memory as she crossed the room. The police sirens were louder now. There was a large ceramic ashtray, pieces of something that had been burned inside it, smoke still rising from it.
Natalia dropped to her knees beside Bob Jessup. He had at least two sacking chest wounds and there was nothing she could have done for him without an emergency room staff standing by. She set down her pistol and raised his head. He coughed blood as she rested his head in her lap. “Bob?”
He smiled with his pretty eyes.
Tm sorry-1-~
He winked at her and her cheeks flushed. She leaned over him, kissed him hard on the mouth. He was trying to say something as she moved her mouth away. She couldn’t hear him. She put her ear beside his lips, feeling his hot breath on
her cheek and neck.
And then his body seemed to stiffen and his head lolled back.
Natalia raised her head.
Bob Jessup’s dead eyes stared upward. She thumbed them closed, gently setting his head on the floor.
Natalia stood up, blood all over her dress and her bare arms. Bob Jessup’s blood.
The police sirens were very loud now.
She wondered if she was a curse to men as she stared down at Bob Jessup.
She closed her eyes, shook her head, turned away and walked over to the ashtray. Natalia took the Bali-Song from her thigh and opened it. What had been burned was clearly a magnetic tape, because within the pile of ashes as she stirred it with her knife, was a cassette.
There was nothing marked on it.
Built into the transmitter was a high speed player for audio tape.
Whatever had been on the tape was broadcast at high speed, then the tape burned.
And Armand Gruber had brought it to the Nazis. But what was it?
Natalia looked at Bob Jessup there on the floor, the pool of blood around him still growing, but slowly.
He’d whispered a single word to her. The word was “Cry.”
There were tears inside her for him, but there was no time to shed them.
Natalia ran from the room, along the corridor, down the stairs to the landing, then down the next flight and into the foyer. She mounted Bob Jessup’s motorcycle, kick-starting it as she wrestled the machine toward the door.
She had rwthing to lose except time if she waited for the police, and time might now be very valuable.
She gunned the machine through the foyer, through the doorway and down the steps, gearing up as she saw the lights
from the slow moving electric police cars coming up near the complex entrance. Eluding the police wouldn’t even be a challenge.
Nine
Dodd disliked horses intensely, but they were occasionally necessary here because there were not enough vehicles to go around and, in some places, a vehicle could not successfully navigate the terrain. Despite his work to spur immigration from Mid-Wake, China and Russia, work which Kurinami heartily approved, Dodd had begun a detailed inventory of Eden stores in all the locations so far opened for use. It was inevitable that Kurinami with his duplicate computer records, would eventually send out parties to ch
eck the stores farther from Eden, near the nuclear no-man’s land that surrounded what was once the course of the Mississippi.
And then Kurinami would discover that the construction materials were missing, as were the salt dome stored fuel reserves, as were the weapons.
And, eventually, although he had not found it yet, Kurinami would discover the location of D.R.E.A.D.
Something had to be done to prevent all of that, and so Dodd had tried to contact Deitrich Zimmer. Almost surprisingly, Zimmer was already in North America and, after several abortive contact attempts, Dodd was told that Zimmer would be contacting him.
Contact was made. So, Dodd borrowed a horse from among
the two dozen or so the Germans had donated for Eden’s use, had it saddled and rode to his meeting with Deitrich Zimmer, about three miles from Eden, in a rocky defile which had once been a river course but was now dry.
Dodd’s rear end was stiff and sore, and he felt like the insides of his thighs would never be the same. Walking along the defile after tying up his horse was almost a pleasure.
And, as he rounded a bend in the path, he saw Deitrich Zimmer, sitting calmly beside a synth-fuel stove, the smell of hot tea on the calm, cool air.
“Have some tea. Commander.”
“You’ve got to kill Kurinami for me, before he keeps us from getting control of D.R.E.A.D.-“
“Defense Recovery Emergency Armed Deterrent-D.R.E.A.D. WTiat a picturesque name. But even if your nemesis Kurinami locates it, he will be unable to deprive you of it. I have not been idle, you see. While you were unable to reach me, 1 have located the missiles which you so desperately want. Commander, and buried them where no one can find them unless I wish them found.”
Dodd dropped to one knee beside the stove, looking Zimmer straight in the eye. “You cheated me, damn you!”
Deitrich Zimmer was oddly quiet.
“Say sotnethingr
“What is it that you wish me to say Commander?”
“I need those nuclear warheads or-“
“Your plans will be jeopardized? But, you see, I have greater plans. And you have a single choice. You will cooperate with my plans, or you will never leave here.”
“You-“
“What?” Zimmer smiled. Dodd licked his lips “Your plan, uhh-” “Why risk annihilation because of impatience when, if all the circumstances are perfect, victory will be assured?” Dodd just looked at Zimmer.
Zimmer laughed. “I wish to hold the world inthralled to
National Socialism, while you merely wish to establish yourself as a dictator. If you cooperate with me, you will have your power and I will have my new world. If you do not cooperate, you will surely die.”
Dodd could see no one else, and there was no sign of a plane or vehicle or even a horse. He could kill Zimmer, perhaps, because Zimmer had only a handgun in view, and this was holstered. Dodd looked at Zimme?s blue eyes and the eyes still held laughter, as if somehow Zimmer knew what he was thinking and found it humorous, amusing. Dodd realized that his hand had been moving toward his belt and he froze. He said, “What do you mean?”
“Great plans require great leaders to bring them to fruition, Commander. If you follow my plan, your troublesome Akiro Kurinami will be dead and you will be forever rid of the yellow man and his black wife. You will control Eden, bring Eden to a position of great power, living out your life in happiness and comfort. But you must do only what I say to do, and only when I say?”
“I don’t understand, Zimmer,” Dodd told him, speaking honestly.
Zimmer smiled still. “There is no reason to suppose that you should. Suffice it to say, were I to have your yellow nemesis, Kurinami, killed, while members of the Rourke family live, you would never know rest until you, yourself, were dead. If the Rourke family is out of the way, however, you will be able to function with impunity in the aftermath of Kurinami’s death, because there will be no one to stop you, provided Kurinami’s death cannot be so obviously linked to you that New Germany or Mid-Wake unilaterally intervenes.”
“What remains, then, is to remove the Rourke family.”
“Kill them? Yes!” Dodd said. But how?, he wondered.
“Killing them would be problematical at best, Commander. They will take themselves out of the picture, as it were, and then we can kill them.”
“I don’t follow you at all,” Dodd said, shaking his head.
Tea?” Zimmer poured a cup of steaming dark brown liquid for himself. “No,” Dodd told him. Zimmer shrugged his shoulders. “How will you get rid of them without killing them?” “By using their sense of family against them.” Dodd didn’t understand.
Zimmer, sipping at his tea, then blowing over the surface of the cup, said, They have a quest, do they not? To see me dead for what I did to John and Sarah Rourke and for killing the child. And, they wish to see you dead, or punished, at least. If I am dead and you are dead, they will do the inevitable.”
“Dead?” Dodd repeated
Zimmer laughed aloud. “No one is talking about killing you, Commander, unless you choose to disobey me. No. I wish for us to appear to be dead. Then you will be able to go on with your work and I with mine.”
“You aren’t making any sense.”
“My medical specialty is micro-surgery, but I always considered myself a devotee of motivational psychology. I perfected a computer model which predicts, with a degree of certainty in which I have full confidence, just what the Rourke family will do when they realize their quest is at an end. They will join John and Sarah Rourke in cryogenic sleep. It may be immediate; k may take as long as eighteen months, according to the model’s most extrapolated predictions, but sleep they will.”
“Why?”
Zimmer lit a cigarette, and speaking through exhaled smoke, said Their very sense of family will undo them. And, if my model is wrong, I will still be able to destroy them.”
Dodd shook his head. “You mean, if, uhh, if they don’t go into cryogenic sleep, you still have a way-“
“Yes. A perfect way. And, the model allows for all or any of them not to take the cryogenic sleep. In either event, they
will die.”
“But, what about-” Dodd was uncertain about this business of appearing to be dead himself.
“There will be an incident. Never mind what. Two bodies will be substituted for our own. I have already prepared my duplicate, a captured soldier of New Germany. Your duplicate will be ready soon.”
“Duplicate?”
Zimmer laughed again, then sipped at his tea. “No, we are not dealing wibh science fiction, Commander,” and he gestured expansively with his cigarette. “Their dental records will match our dental records, certain injuries-your chronic knee dislocation, for example, and the scar tissue built up because of it-will match. No one has performed plastic surgery to make a facial double, quite impossible to be thoroughly convincing at any event.”
“And because they think you and I will be dead-“
“They themselves will die. Then, you will resurface and Kurinami and his wife will be killed and the blame will be put on me. You will proclaim your anti-Nazi sentiments and assume the leadership, carrying out my programs ostensibly as a means of making Eden stronger, which will indeed be the case.”
“And D.R.E.A.D.?”
“I control it. To use nuclear weapons at this juncture would mean the end of all humanity. But, in the future, the threat and judicious use of nuclear weapons backing a conventional force of considerable capability with appropriate leadership, of course, will be a different story entirely. Consider yourself the interim government for a power which will one day realize man’s oldest dream, the domination of the entire planet under one man.”
“Who?”
“That is a very intelligent question, Commander,” Zimmer said, nodding appreciatively to Dodd. “Very incisive. You will not live to know the answer, although I sincerely hope you
live to a very old age. No, that is one secret you will not know.”
“But, you’re older than I am!”
“For the moment,” Zimmer agreed. “Only for the moment, Commander.” And then Zimmer laughed again and Dodd shivered.
Ten
It was the first time she had been to Eden since her outlawry had been declared by Commander Dodd. And, even though many months had passed since Akiro Kurinami’s first act as President of Eden had been to rescind that declaration, Natalia had no desire ever to return. Too many memories, many of them very bad ones. But the current necesssity was inarguable.
The people of Eden had once been ready to hang her, but as she stepped from the J7-V, Annie, a tread above her; a tape began to play the Star Spangled Banner and Akiro and Elaine stood before the entire population of Eden and the people of Eden cheered her return along with Annie’s. Paul and Michael, who recently picked up with a Nazi prisoner in the wastelands, would be arriving soon, as well.
The United States’ national anthem played on as Natalia Anastasia Tiemerovna looked back at Annie, then said to her, under her breath, “Except for Akiro and Elaine, they’re all hi-pocrites.” And she felt Annie’s hand touch at her shoulder …
Michael had grown a mustache. Natalia’s favorite American film star, before The Night of The War, was Tom Selleck. Michael’s mustache was very like his, accentuating the cragginess of Michael’s face, making him somehow look older, yet handsomer, different than she had ever seen him. She imagined what it would be like if Michael were to smile, and she hoped
that he did not.
These the ones?” Michael said, touching at her arm but addressing the question to the young German military doctor who supervised the field morgue.
“Yes, Herr Rourke.”
Michael nodded. She watched his eyes as he looked away from the doctor and back at her, then at Paul and Annie.
Natalia shivered, drawing her coat more closely around her.
They were inside the German base outside Eden. The German doctor drew back the hook and pile-closured flap and beneath the black synth-rubber, there was a face that was barely human. The shape of the head generally matched that of Commander Dodd, she supposed.