Survivalist - 17 - The Ordeal

by Ahern, Jerry

  And suddenly, Annie Rourke Rubenstein was seized with panic. What if the signal had worked and, instead of summoning help from Mid-Wake, it had summoned the Russians they fought beneath the sea?

  She looked around, the surface of the sea churning slightly, definitely less calm than it had been. What if—

  The raft was all but totally deflated and she supported the weight of Natalia and Otto almost completely, her arms weary with it. What would she do when she could no longer support them both? How would she choose who was to die?

  She was crying.

  “Help!”

  But no help came …

  Sarah Rourke kept the .45 against Colonel Antonovitch’s temple as the elevator doors opened on the upper level of the government building where the chairman’s apartment was, where the rooms she and John used and all of them used were located.

  In a strange way, it was like returning home.

  “You will never escape here alive,” Antonovitch said with surprising calm as she pushed him out of the elevator and into the corridor.

  “What happens to us, happens to you,” she advised, wondering how long she could keep this up.

  KCB Elite corpsmen began running toward them along the main corridor.

  “This is where you decide to live or die,” Sarah Rourke whispered to Antonovitch. His eyes flickered toward her. “Tell them to lay down their arms and use the elevator, then send it

  back for the next batch of your guys.” His men were closing rapidly, Colonel Mann and the two German commandoes armed with their own weapons and Soviet weapons taken from the men they had disarmed, ready to open fire. “You’ll die first. I swear it!”

  Antonovitch shouted something in Russian and the Elite corpsmen slowed, stopped, waited, their rifles at high port, ready to swing on line and fire. “After everybody’s out of this building,” Sarah Rourke said hastily, “and Chinese troops have retaken this section of the city after your men evacuate here and all the rest of the city, then withdraw beyond the mountains. You have my word as a Rourke that you’ll be freed, unharmed, allowed to rejoin your men outside the city. We’ll even give you free transportation.” She just realized she had never disarmed Antonovitch of his pistol. But it was too late to try that now.

  “The German—he will listen to you?”

  She shouted to Colonel Mann. “I told him—”

  “I heard what you told him, Sarah.” And Wolfgang Mann looked directly at Antonovitch. “I will honor Frau Rourke’s pledge, Herr Colonel. You have my word as a German officer.”

  Antonovitch started to say something, apparently thought better of it.

  “Bring out the chairman. And if somebody puts a gun to his head, you die,” Sarah told Antonovitch.

  “This time, it appears that you win. It is too bad that history has dictated that the Rourke family should be the intractable enemies of the Soviet people. Otherwise, but—”

  “History didn’t dictate anything,” Sarah Rourke told him, the pistol still at his head. “Men like Karamatsov and you, just ordinary thieves and killers until you put on uniforms and tell yourselves you’re heroes and what you’re doing is for the good of some crazy historic destiny—men like you made the choice. And this time, you’ll live. Next time you won’t. Bring out the chairman.”

  Antonovitch barked orders and an officer from among the

  corridor guards put down his rifle, issued more orders, and the men around him, slowly at first, put down their weapons. The officer and two other men disappeared along the corridor and, for a moment, she forgot she had to urinate because she thought that maybe Antonovitch had some trick up his sleeve.

  The seconds seemed to wear on forever.

  One of Colonel Mann’s commandoes began offloading the Soviet weapons from the elevator, then began gathering up the weapons the guards had put on the floor.

  Her head ached. Her hand felt stiff holding the pistol so rigidly. Her knees were locking because Antonovitch was taller than she was and she had to stand as tall as she could to keep the gun at his head properly.

  And then, his robes mud-splattered, hair uncombed, the chairman of the First City was brought into the corridor. He glanced once to either side of him and the Soviet guards left him. With his customary dignity, he walked alone down the corridor, past the Russian troops who had held him prisoner.

  He stopped before Sarah Rourke, bowed slightly and smiled. “How good of you to come, Mrs. Rourke.”

  Sarah Rourke wanted to laugh and cry at once—and she still had to go to the bathroom—but she held the pistol to Antonovitch’s head while his men started filling the elevators.

  Chapter Forty-One

  Han Lu Chen, Michael and Paul holding him up, leaned forward in the chair before the console. “That button on the keyboard. Try that button.” His voice was so weak that it was barely audible.

  Maria Leuden pushed it and the monitor screen flickered, a mixture of Chinese symbols and English words appearing. Immediately, Maria began accessing the program.

  Vassily Prokopiev’s voice came from behind them. “I apologize for killing the woman. It is likely she knew the program you seek to invade.”

  “Likely,” John Rourke said without turning his head to look back. “Prokopiev?” And now Rourke did look back.

  “Yes, Doctor Rourke?”

  “I notice that this computer seems to be set up for guidance systems monitoring.”

  , Prokopiev, head bandaged heavily but face alert-seeming, leaned against the wall beside the doors, a brace of Clock pistols on the floor beside him. In the last several minutes, there had been the sounds of concerted hammering on the doors. Mao’s guards, Rourke imagined, trying to retake the temple. At mention of monitoring the missile while in flight, Prokopiev sat up straighter.

  “Would you and Paul,” Rourke began again, “be able to convert the monitoring system so you could contact your forces outside the city? Alert them to pull back in the event we

  can’t stop this—although, in honesty, that wouldn’t do much good for them, just buy them a few moments, perhaps. But—” And he followed Prokopiev’s eyes as they moved upward along the length of the missile. “I could call down a gunship to land near the opening through which the missile would launch.”

  “You could, yes. But I don’t exactly relish the idea of getting killed by the KGB any more than dying here.”

  Prokopiev smiled. “Certain death is always the poorer option.”

  “Get Paul to help you. He’s good with electronics. Then go call your friends. And I’m going to need Paul as soon as you have it set up.” And John Rourke looked at Paul Rubenstein.

  There was an odd look in Paul’s eyes.

  Maria Leuden spoke. “I accessed a monitoring program. The missile will launch in eighteen minutes. I don’t think I can stop it.”

  “What about the meltdown?” Rourke asked her. He sat beside her, as calmly as he could, fresh loading the magazines for his pistols.

  “I do not know yet,” she answered, her voice low.

  ‘Try that line—with the character that looks like a tree,” Han advised.

  Maria began working the keyboard again …

  Annie Rourke sank below the surface, realizing instantly that she had passed out or fallen asleep, and as she forced her head above the water, she gagged, her eyes scanning the water for sign of Natalia or Otto. She held to the deflated life raft. She started under the surface again, though, coughing as she gulped air.

  Otto Hammerschmidt. She saw him, reached out to him, dragged his head toward the surface. She coughed water as she screamed, “Natalia! Natalia!”

  And the water suddenly began to foam and hands reached

  out for her, figures in black clothing and helmets. She almost lost her hold on Otto Hammerschmidt as she reached for her little knife, but a hand like a vise caught her wrist.

  The helmet of one of the figures surrounding her. It was pulled off. The head ducked below the surface and reappeared all wet, curly hair ma
tted over the forehead. “I’m Jason Darkwood. And you must be Annie Rubenstein, the five-hundred-year-old man’s daughter. Anybody else in the water?” He had a handsome face, even all wet.

  She realized she was dead and this wasn’t happening. Annie Rourke Rubenstein said, “Natalia,” anyway.

  The man who called himself Darkwood nodded and began talking again, but not to her. “Sebastian? How’s Major Tiemerovna? We got her?”

  Nothing for a moment, then, “Good. Prepare the Reagan to surface. Mark on our transponders. Put out a raft for us. In just another second here, repeat that last part to this charming young lady I’ve just found. I suspect she’ll be an interested listener.”

  And the man with the flippant attitude and the pretty eyes passed over something to her that looked like an ordinary earplug, putting it beside her jawbone. And she heard a voice in her ear, deep, resonant, cultured. “I have been instructed by Commander Darkwood to inform you that Major Tiemerovna has been brought in by two of our divers who immediately administered a hemo sponge so she would be able to breathe. We have every reason to suspect that Lt. Commander Barrow will be able to bring through Major Tiemerovna most satisfactorily. Thank you.”

  She was holding the little thing against her jawbone and she dropped it, Darkwood fishing it out of the water, then pushing his hair back from his forehead. “You’re the one my father talked about!”

  “The smart ass—that’s me, I’m afraid.” And Darkwood smiled at her, then held the little plug against his jawbone and spoke. “Lieutenant Stanhope—talk to me.”

  And he put his head beside hers with the earplug-like thing between them and she could hear, too. “Captain—this man’s been seriously wounded, but I think he’ll make it. Over.”

  Darkwood looked at her.

  “Hammerschmidt,” she said. “Captain Otto Hammerschmidt. He’s a German commando. He’s my friend.”

  “I know the name,” Darkwood told her. And then he spoke through the little earplug thing again. “Tom—that man’s an officer with the forces of New Germany. Make sure-he makes it. Darkwood out.”

  She almost screamed as a massive black monolithic shape began to rise out of the water about twenty-five yards from them.

  “That’s my submarine, the U.S.S. Reagan. You’ll love it. Trust me.”

  Somehow, she did.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  In case what they planned worked, with Michael helping, John Rourke had dragged the bodies of those Maidens of the Sun (as Han had called them) who had been left behind down the corridor and beyond the steel doors leading to the staircase, just above the reactor room. Bound with parts of their own clothing, but loosely enough that once they regained consciousness they could eventually work themselves free, at least there they would have a chance to survive the back-blast of the missile firing.

  Prokopiev, with Paul’s help, had contacted the Soviet force outside the Second City, established his identity and ordered up a chopper with a volunteer crew, then ordered the rest of the Soviet force to the mountains well away from the Second City.

  John Rourke wished Natalia were there. But, by combining Paul’s and Michael’s and Prokopiev’s skills with his own, the barely conscious Han Lu Chen assisting Maria Leuden as best he could while she worked the keyboard for the main portion of the computer, there was, at least, a chance.

  Prokopiev and Michael, Prokopiev with considerable difficulty, had climbed the gantry and were, John Rourke hoped, having some success with the onboard guidance system. It should be a matter of gyroscopic adjustment only, Rourke hoped. To attempt to sabotage the entire guidance

  system might only have the opposite effect and precipitate premature firing.

  John Rourke knelt beside Paul at the rear of the massive computer, Paul rewiring the interior of a large gray panel, the covering off. “What I hope I can do and what Maria says might work,” Paul began, “and what would be a hell of a lot easier if my right hand weren’t so stiff, is to set this sucker up so we can keypunch new guidance coordinates into the system. Maria said it and she’s right. There isn’t any time to get into the memory tapes and fool with them. I saw systems like this, hybrids. Transitional types of computers, half keypunch and half not. We can fool with the keypunch, like Maria’s doing now, but we’ve gotta make it talk to the other part of the system. Get a handshake, like they used to say.”

  Six minutes remained before launch, six minutes before the meltdown of the reactors would be beyond recall.

  It was a doomsday machine, crude, but of the highest order of lethality.

  The missile was programmed to launch and return to point of origin upon re-entry, the radioactive core material of the myriad reactors already punching through into the earth as the missile struck. The largest explosive device ever conceived. And the most deadly.

  “How much time, John?”

  “Just under six minutes.”

  “Shit—”

  Rourke stood up, walked quickly to where Maria Leuden was working the keypunch. “How’s it going?”

  “I think I’ve got the new coordinates set. But if we only figured them right.” They had punched up a master program of guidance coordinates and improvised. All that remained was to feed the new coordinates into the system.

  “So—all I have to do is put the card under that sliding pressure plate—”

  “And push this button—I think,” Maria told him.

  “You start up the gantry.” “What about Han?”

  Rourke looked at the Chinese, half unconscious now, head resting on the work surface before the master console. “I’ll take care of Han. Promise.”

  He took her by the elbow and walked toward the gantry. “Paul? Almost?”

  ‘ ‘Almost—maybe.”

  They stopped at the base of the gantry. John Rourke looked upward, shouting toward Michael. “How’s it going?”

  “We have realigned the gyroscopic and inertial navigational controls—we think,” Vassily Prokopiev called down.

  “Then get up by the hatch so you can get out as soon as the final firing sequence begins and the hatch opens. Maria’s on the way.”

  “What about you?” Michael shouted down.

  “Don’t worry,” Rourke said uselessly. He helped Maria to the gantry ladder, stayed there as she started up, then returned to Paul.

  Paul didn’t look at him as he spoke. “This thing’s either going to work, or cook off all the wiring in the system and fire the missile without altering the trajectory. So.” With some difficulty, Paul stood up. “How much time?”

  John Rourke glanced at his Rolex. “Three and one-half minutes.”

  “Now what?”

  John Rourke reached out his right hand. Despite the injuries to his right arm, Rourke knew, Paul did the same. They clasped hands.

  “I mean—if this is it, hadda be a real handshake,” Paul said quietly.

  “Help me with Han.” “I’m staying.”

  “What about Annie?” John Rourke asked quietly.

  “She’d stay, too. You’ll never make it up without me with Han on your back. Who you kidding?” Paul grinned.

  John Rourke nodded and their hands parted.

  Rourke moved quickly toward the keypunch console, picked up the card. He placed it under the pressure plate in the card hopper. “She said to push this button,” John Rourke said.

  “Then I guess we’d better push it.” Paul smiled.

  John Rourke felt the corners of his mouth rise in a smile. “Then I guess we’d better push it.”

  John Rourke pushed the button.

  Nothing happened. But what was supposed to happen? It was a gamble. And life was the only game he’d ever gambled in.

  “Help me with Han.”

  Paul slung his sub-machinegun behind his back, then helped John Rourke to get the injured Chinese into a standing position, Rourke bending forward, letting Han Lu Chen collapse over his left shoulder.

  Rourke stood there a moment, settling the man’s weight as b
est he could. Then he looked at Paul. “Let’s go.”

  Together, they started for the gantry.

  “You first in case you need a push with that extra weight, huh?” Paul suggested.

  Rourke nodded, put his left foot to the first rung, then started to climb.

  The missile, mere feet from them, began to vibrate noticeably. They kept climbing. Rourke glanced at his watch as he moved his left hand toward the next higher rung. Less than two minutes.

  Exhaust smoke began to exit from the base of the missile. A low, rumbling sound began. One minute even, now.

  The missile began to shake, the gantry ladder shaking too now.

  Forty-five seconds.

  The hatch was open above them, the gray sky visible, Michael looking down through the hatch opening. John Rourke wanted to shout up to him to get away. But Michael would not have gone.

  Climbing.

  Thirty seconds.

  The very fabric of the mountain seemed to shake.

  If the reprogramming worked, the meltdown procedure was aborted, the trajectory of the missile changed.

  If. Fifteen seconds. The missile started to lurch upward.

  Retaining cables on all sides of the missile snapped away.

  John Rourke reached upward toward the hatch. Han’s weight—

  Michael’s hands reached down.

  John Rourke could feel Paul pushing upward on Han’s body.

  Michael grasped Han by the hands and raised him upward, and then there were other hands, black uniform blouses, KGB Elite corps commandoes.

  Rourke climbed through the hatch, reaching back, with Prokopiev pulling Paul through. A Soviet gunship was ready to lift off just a few yards from the open hatch in the top of the mountain.

  One of the Elite corpsmen reached for John Rourke’s guns. John Rourke’s hands moved. Prokopiev shouted in Russian. “No time. To the gunship!”

  Claxons sounded.

  The mountain shook.