by Ahern, Jerry
The younger man nodded, pulling on his helmet to use the radio headset more conveniently, John Rourke walking slowly toward Natalia, his palms open as though approaching a threatened animal. And at once she stopped laughing, pulling her knees up close against her chest, her arms hugged around them, her face angled away from him, almost as if she somehow anticipated he would strike her. “We have to go and get Annie and Michael now. Isn’t it great to see Paul? Did he tell you Michael was all right?”
But Natalia, still hugging her knees, only began laughing again …
John Rourke sat at the controls of the Soviet gunship, Paul Rubenstein beside him, Natalia’s laughter all but subsided, a sedative from the medical kit of one of the Specials quieting her.
“What are you going to do, John?” Paul Rubenstein asked him.
Rourke clenched one of the thin, dark tobacco cigars unlit in his teeth, terrain-following with the Soviet helicopter, his left hand searching his pockets for the battered Zippo windlighter. But he remembered it was without fuel. “You don’t have a match, do you?”
“You?”
“I don’t like using Lifeboat Matches just to light a cigar. And
these Russian choppers don’t come with a cigar lighter.”
“Otto?” Rubenstein began, twisting around in his seat, calling across the fuselage, “got a light for John?”
“Certainly!” In the next moment, Hammerschmidt was leaning between them, a cigarette going in his mouth as he cupped a lighter in his hands, John Rourke thrusting the end of the cigar just above the flame, drawing it upward into the tobacco.
“Thank you,” Rourke murmured.
“How much longer until we intersect their line of travel, Herr Doctor?”
Rourke smiled. As often as he told Hammerschmidt to call him “John” or just “Rourke” and as often as Hammerschmidt would, the German commando captain more often reverted to formal address. “I think we’ll hit it in another fifteen minutes if the winds don’t pick up or the storm doesn’t worsen.” The windshield wipers clicked and clacked back and forth relentleslsy and snow was wedged where it had some protection against their slipstream, the wedges growing.
“If you do not need me, I shall try to sleep a bit, then.”
“Go for it,” Rourke nodded, exhaling a thin stream of gray smoke through each nostril.
As Hammerschmidt moved away, Rourke looked at Paul beside him. “I don’t know what I’m going to do about Natalia. I know she can’t go without more help than we can give her. And with everything around us falling apart, there’s a limit to where I can safely take her. Mid-Wake, maybe. Or maybe New Germany. I’m going to check with Dr. Munchen as soon as we get out of here and see what he recommends. He was very impressed with Mid-Wake’s medical technology and he knows what New Germany has to offer. And I trust him. You agree?”
“Yeah. What, ahh—”
Rourke smiled, but inside he felt burned out, hollow, and from the reaction evident in Paul Rubenstein’s eyes, it showed. “Do I have a prognosis?”
“Yes—a prognosis—I guess.”
John Rourke’s eyes returned to the storm, consulted the windshield, then the terrain-following radar, then the windshield again. “Doctors don’t use crystal balls, and as far as this is concerned I’m little more qualified to hazard a guess than the average layman. I’ve got some training in recognizing symptoms, I’ve got the vocabulary, I don’t have the skills. And if I did, I’m too close to her. And I’m the cause of the problem—”
“That’s bullshit, John—”
“No—but thanks.” And Rourke exhaled smoke through his nostrils again, the smoke dissipating on the streams of air from the forward ventilation blowers. “You know exactly what I mean. More than anybody besides Natalia and me, you know.”
“So—what?You saying that because you’re an honorable man and you wouldn’t cheat on your wife, you did something wrong? I mean—my God!”
“I’m saying that what happened wouldn’t have happened if it hadn’t been for me. That’s what I’m saying. I broke it, and I’m going to fix it.” And he intended to do that, no matter what it meant.
Chapter Twenty
Gunships rose ahead of him, a black wall only brought into existence, Kurinami realized, to give the appearance of impenetrability. It gave that appearance indeed.
“Retribution Three—this is Retribution Leader. Status report. Over.”
‘This is Retribution Three, Retribution Leader. Crew of Retribution Four safely aboard. Doorgunner sustained minor injuries. We are coming up behind you. Over.”
“Prepare to execute Attack Plan Three—I repeat, Attack Plan Three. Do all other elements copy? Over.”
“This is Retribution One, Retribution Leader. I copy. Over.”
“This is Retribution Two, Retribution Leader. Copy that. Over.”
“This is Retribution Three, Retribution Leader. Affirmative. Attack Plan Three. Over.”
“This is Retribution Leader,” Kurinami whispered into the teardrop-shaped microphone just before his lips. “Execute—I say again, execute. Retribution Leader out!” Kurinami changed main rotor pitch and banked the machine sharply to starboard, coming about ninety degrees and climbing, the phalanx of Soviet gunships breaking up into a less than imaginative-looking evasive plan if he read their maneuver correctly. “Retribution Two—on your tail. Do you copy?”
“I copy, Retribution Leader. Over.” Retribution Two
rotated a full one hundred eighty degrees and fired missiles from port and starboard forward-facing weapons pods, the Soviet gunship that had come up under it vaporizing in the instant the missile contrail crossed.
Strafing fire crossed the nose of Kurinami’s machine at the level of the chin bubble, Kurinami banking to starboard and climbing again, coming about one hundred eighty degrees and firing his starboard mini-guns, the enemy gunship’s tail rotor spinning away from its mounting, the Soviet machine rotating uncontrollably on its axis, climbing and diving. If the Soviet were a good pilot, he might be able to land it, but the machine was out of action.
Kurinami ignored the gunship. Killing was for assassins.
He banked his machine to port and dove, Retribution Three coming down into a hover at the center of the enemy gunship pack, rotating on the axis of its main rotor and firing fore and aft missiles, then changing pitch and diving to port, Soviet mini-guns firing into their own machines, others of the Soviet machines exploding.
Kurinami redlined his craft, banking to port, firing forward missiles from both pods. Another two of the enemy gunships were gone.
At the edges of his peripheral vision, he saw them coming, aerial mines hurtling downward on small parachutes from a Soviet craft above him. If one should contact even the tip of a rotor blade— Kurinami dove, changing pitch, banking to starboard, under two of the Soviet gunships, machinegun fire etching across the bubble, disabling one of the wiper blades.
The corporal who was his drafted doorgunner was firing, stitching machinegun fire into a Soviet gunship coming off the west rim of the canyon. A hit into the fuel system, the gunship exploding, consumed now in a black and orange fireball, the fireball rising in the canyon updraft.
Kurinami’s German gunship rocked as one of the mines contacted one of the Soviet machines.
Kurinami’s vision through the bubble obscured now, snow
icing over it, he started to climb, another of the Soviet gunships taking a hit from one of the aerial mines, its tail section blowing in two, the machine plummeting downward leaving a tail of fire.
Retribution One was coming down out of the low-hanging snowclouds, firing aft-facing missiles, two Soviet gunships in close pursuit. Kurinami banked to starboard and dove on them, saying into his radio, “Retribution One—Gunther! They are on you!”
One of the Soviet gunships exploded, a direct hit to the underside of the fuselage, the other aft-firing missile from Retribution One sputtering away, lost in the cloudbank. But Retribution One was on fire. The secon
d Soviet gunship was closing.
Kurinami checked his weapons status. Most of his remaining missiles were aft-firing. “Damnit!” Kurinami banked to port and interposed his own machine between Retribution One and the Soviet gunship. As Kurinami fired, the Soviet gunship fired as well.
“Gunther—get down and away from your machine!”
Kurinami felt the vibration rattling through him, heard the rattle of his corporal’s doorgun, saw the fireball behind him as the Soviet aircraft took the missile hit and exploded, felt his ears ringing as there was a scream, then the scream was cut off in the loudest sound he had ever heard.
Kurinami looked back.
The dporgunner—“My God!”—was impaled, a shrapnel fragment through his chest and throat, eyes wide open beneath his goggles, fire starting in the tail section, spreading forward as the open fuselage door fanned it.
Kurinami started down, already losing some control from his tail rotor.
Retribution Three flew past. Kurinami’s radio came alive. “This is Retribution Three, Retribution Leader. I will follow you down.”
“Negative! Negative! Follow Retribution One down. We
have them on the run. But there is no time for both of us. I know this countryside. I will be all right. I have the portable radio and survival kit and I am armed. You have your orders.”
There would be barely time to get Gunther and his doorgunner from Retribution One, barely time before the Soviet gunships reassembled, then counterattacked.
The ground was coming up fast.
Kurinami felt for the Beretta in the holster at his side, his bag with the heavy coat strapped to it. His eyes flickered up— the fire extinguisher, his only way out. The fuselage wall-mounted survival kit. He knew its contents. German survival knife, emergency food, first aid kit, fire starting and signaling devices. A solar battery radio.
Kurinami had lost ninety percent of tail rotor control, and the fuel line off the main tank was spraying now, the part of the bubble he could see through because the wiper blade still worked slicking over.
The fire—he could smell it—advancing. But there was no time to look around.
The ground.
Kurinami banked, the machine responding slowly. He was crashing toward the canyon wall. He cut tail rotor power and immediately the craft began to spin.
He changed pitch radically, the gunship slipping away from the canyon wall at a sickening angle.
He braced himself.
Impact.
Akiro Kurinami shook his head, hit the quick release on his seat restraint, reached for the extinguisher.
Flames gushed toward him as he fell against the control panels, aiming the extinguisher at their base, spraying. The fire retreated a foot or so.
He reached for his bag, had it. The survival kit. Had it.
Kurinami sprayed the base of the flames again, running, hurtling over what he realized was his doorgunner’s burning body, his right shoulder impacting the door flange, his left
jumpsuit leg aflame.
He shot out the last of the extinguisher’s contents against his leg as he half fell, half jumped from the machine. He rolled across the snow, heaping whole handfuls of it over his left trouser leg.
He was up, slipped, grabbed the bag and the survival kit and ran, feeling the heat rush and the slap of air pressure against him, his footing going. The explosion roared through his head as he fell.
Chapter Twenty-One
Sarah Rourke somehow felt better about herself. It was always better to be useful. And, with the borrowed German Battle Dress Utilities (the coat open) she barely looked pregnant. As much as her daughter, Annie, favored skirts and dresses, she herself had always taken every chance she could to get into a comfortable pair of Levi’s or something similar.
She remembered her high school days. Like all the other girls she went to school with, she had longed to be able to wear pants in the winter and shorts when the weather was warm, but the dress code—no pants, no shorts, skirts or dresses so much below the knee.
There had never been a dress code for Annie, and maybe that was why. And for Annie, for all she had known then the only female actually living on the surface of the earth (she, Sarah, and Natalia were in the Sleep), attire had become a means of identity.
Sarah Rourke picked up her German gunbelt. The holster was a big fit for her Trapper Scorpion .45, but a safe carry. She buckled the belt on, and even with the bulge the baby made, the belt was a comfortable fit.
She walked to the entry flap of the tent, opened it and passed through the airlock.
Colonel Wolfgang Mann and a dozen German commandoes, men like Otto Hammerschmidt who she wished was going to be with them, waited for her.
“Frau Rourke. If I may say so,” Colonel Mann began, bowing slightly as he smiled, “our field uniform looks most appealing on you.”
“Thank you. I’m ready now,”
“Very well, Frau Rourke.” And Mann turned to address his men, doing so in English out of respect for her, she realized; but since all of the men seemed to be either officers or senior noncoms, it was wholly likely their knowledge of English wasn’t being strained. “Frau Rourke will guide us after we penetrate the section of the First Chinese City which is now controlled by the Soviets. It is reasonable to assume that some chance exists that the chairman of the Chinese Republic was taken there after his capture. Other friendly force personnel may be held prisoner there as well.” He removed a cigarette case from beneath his uniform blouse.
“We must assume,” Mann went on, lighting a cigarette after offering one to her that she declined, “that our adversaries will not hesitate to execute hostages, most particularly the chairman himself. Since the Herr Chairman was under German protection at the time of his capture, his capture is indeed a German responsibility. This condition must be rectified. Once inside the facility, Frau Rourke will conduct our tour, as it were, until we confirm the location of what hostages may be present and have correlated the needed details to effect their rescue and to retake the facility. There are questions?”
There were no questions.
He turned to her. “Frau Rourke—if you would be so good as to accompany me then. I believe our aircraft and a small force of Chinese soldiers await.”
She took his offered arm, feeling ludicrous doing it dressed as she was.
But she also felt excited.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Annie Rubenstein stopped the Special and gazed skyward toward the sound she had thought she’d heard. She pulled her helmet off, her hair cascading to her shoulders, wisps of her hair blowing across her face in the stiff, icy cold wind. She shook her hair and the wind caught it, taking it away from her face.
Through the swirling snow, she saw the black shape.
A Soviet gunship.
“Shit!”
Catching up her hair and packing it into the helmet as she pulled it on, she glanced back once again.
From the rifle boot on the Special, she pulled her M-16, worked the charging handle, set the selector to safe, then rammed it back into the boot, securing the cover only so she wouldn’t lose it.
Her hands gripped the handlebars and she gunned the Special, starting off across the windswept side of the defile, the snow vastly less deep here and more navigable.
The helicopter was fully audible now.
With an earsplitting crack, it raced over her, momentarily darkening the pre-dawn gray to black.
The helicopter turned a full one hundred eighty degrees, hovering over the trail. Annie accelerated, nearly fifty miles per hour now, the gunship following over her.
A voice came over the helicopter.
Annie looked up.
“Stop your vehicle!” The words were in Russian and she’d learned a little of that from Natalia, studied it more in Lydveldid Island.
She gunned the Special ahead, over sixty now, the bike handling well but not made for speeds like this on terrain like this.
“Stop or be fired upon!
” She kept going.
The helicopter passed her, hovering so low over the ground she couldn’t pass under it, snow swirling around it in great clouds, cyclonically. She veered the Special right, toward the higher ground, less snow there still. But the side of the defile was shaley, the Special slipping laterally, her feet out, bracing the machine. She kept going.
“You will stop your machine or be shot!”
She reached to the rifle boot, almost losing the machine, but kept it going.
The Soviet gunship skipped over her, so close the slipstream around it nearly ripped her from the saddle.
A roar like that of some sort of wounded beast back in the days when there were beasts besides those which masqueraded as men. She kept going, the roar louder, mini-guns gouging across the path over which she took the Special. She had to veer from the path, twisting the fork hard left, almost losing control. But as she gained full control, her right arm passed through the sling of the M-16, her right fist closed over the pistol grip of the five-centuries-old Colt assault rifle, her thumb working the selector to full auto, her right arm thrusting upward. She fired into the underside of the Soviet gunship’s fuselage. It was armored, she knew. But she wasn’t about to die without firing a shot.
The gunship banked sharply and disappeared over the ridgeline.
Annie knew she’d bought time.
She safed the M-16, letting it fall to her side on its sling as
she had seen her father do so many times. She wanted to shout for him or for Paul—she thought of her father, of Natalia.
She increased her speed, seventy-five now, the machine bumping and twisting over the rough terrain.
The gunship. “Damn you!” She raised the M-16, almost losing control, stabbed it toward the Soviet gunship’s chin bubble, fired out half the magazine. Still the gunship came, coming right at her.
The mini-guns plowed furrows on both sides of her. She let go of the M-16, the rifle slapping against her right thigh.