by Ahern, Jerry
His mind raced faster than his legs. Why would Karamatsov—“Damn,” he hissed. There was only one reason he could fathom, and it fit Karamatsov’s personality, fit the whole idea of the construction of the Womb which Karamatsov had initiated and Rozhdestvensky, Karamatsov’s successor in KGB when it had been thought Vladmir Karamatsov was dead, had continued.
Rourke quickened his pace. A mechanical noise, suddenly loud, growling almost directly behind him.
He looked back—an armored snow tractor, but the armor would be light to prevent its getting bogged
down in drifts.
He scanned to right and left—rocks to the left. He veered off at an oblique angle, starting for them, the snow tractor almost on top of him, machinegun fire from a turret atop the vehicle, the snow rising up in waves around him. But there was no sense shooting back.
The rocks—less than fifty yards remained. John Rourke reached to his right exterior pocket. He had planned ahead.
One of the German high explosive grenades from his backpack.
He detested the habit, but had only one free hand, baring his teeth and biting down hard on the ring for the pin, ripping it free, his left fist holding the rifle, his right fist holding the grenade’s spoon tight against the body. He jumped and wheeled, lobbing the grenade more like a bowling ball than a baseball which would have better matched its size.
The left tread of the snow tractor started to veer right.
The grenade—Rourke hurtled himself to the snow, the concussion dislodging mounds of snow along the rock face near him, his body instantly showered with it, his ears ringing a little as he pushed himself to his feet.
The snow tractor was overturned.
He slung the SSG across his back, no time to grab for the M-16, his left hand working the fasteners at the front of his parka, his right hand to his mouth, biting away the overglove he had replaced after firing the Steyr counter-sniper rifle. His right hand flashed under his jacket to the little Detonics .45 under his left armpit, his left hand between his knees, tearing away the other glove. As the little stainless .45 broke from the leather, he shifted the pistol into his left
hand, his right fist popping the closure for the flap holster at his right hip, finding the butt of the Python where subconscious memory told him it almost always was.
He had it, his left thumb flicking back the .45’s hammer, his right fist closing on the Pachmayr gripped butt of the Metalifed and Mag-Na-Ported Python as it cleared leather.
From the nearly inverted top hatch of the snow tractor—Rourke shuffled left, getting clear for the shots. A man—an Animov-60 assault rifle in both fists—Rourke made the little Detonics do a double tap, the man’s body collapsing, half hanging out of the turret, then suddenly being thrust clear. Rourke threw himself to the snow as assault rifle fire broke the air, bullets chewed into the snow and rocks beside him.
He rolled onto his back, firing the Python overhead toward the turret, by feel only, the sights useless to him this way—he double actioned the Colt .357 twice, the assault rifle still now.
To his stomach, the revolver and the self-loader thrust ahead of him. To his feet. Rourke glanced to right and left, then advanced on the snow tractor. There was no more movement and he judged it likely there had only been two men. But he had grenades to waste. He shifted his left thumb behind the Detonics mini-gun’s tang and upped the safety, then shoved the pistol under his right armpit.
The grenade from his left pocket.
He did the thing with his teeth again—he’d known men to break teeth doing it and had no desire to join their ranks. But he pulled the pin, spat the ring and pin into the snow and tossed the grenade through the hatch, grabbing his pistol, running a few yards and throwing himself down as the concussion came again,
but not so loudly, the shell of the snow tractor muffling it.
Onto his back, chunks of burning debris raining down, much of the undercarriage of the snow tractor blown outward in jagged, teeth-like shapes.
He pushed himself up to his feet, stuffing the little Detonics .45 into his left outside pocket.
Rourke’s eyes scanned the ground—he started back toward his gloves. Mentally, he noted to check the Steyr for damage from the rolls he’d taken with it on his back. But it was a sturdy weapon. If anything had sustained trauma, it would be the scope. He could shoot the SSG nearly as well with the iron sights anyway.
Both gloves in his left hand, he started back toward his original path.
The choppers would be coming very quickly now and he still had to catch up with Natalia and Jea. He kept the Python, four rounds still in the cylinder, tight in his right fist as he moved ahead …
Maria sat with her knees tight together, the jellaba folded over her legs, her hands folded in her lap despite the jostling of the SM-4 across the desert.
The attack had been cancelled—Captain Hammerschmidt had given specific orders to Sergeant Dekker and she didn’t know anything specific about them—but the attack was cancelled and Michael Rourke and Otto Hammerschmidt had vanished, promising further radio contact.
Then there had been the two remaining elements of Hammerschmidt’s Commando force—she had sucked in her breath so loudly that it had sounded like a scream, she knew.
Michael Rourke and Otto Hammerschmidt had
substituted themselves for two of the guards on the massive truck which had taken the cannister away across the desert.
Dekker—the older man had taken her aside. Had it shown that much, she wondered?
“Fraulein Doctor—doubtlessly the Herr Captain will activate the tracking device in his radio and we will know where they are. This will lead us perhaps to the Soviet Underground City. The Herr Captain— and the young Herr Rourke, too, I think—they are good soldiers, Fraulein.”
She had leaned her head against his chest and murmured thanks to him, then climbed aboard the SM-4 again.
And she sat there now, letting her body sway with the rhythm of the vehicle.
She realized that she was falling in love with someone who couldn’t return ber love. And if time were, as it was put in books, to heal his wounds, would there be time enough?
She pushed the coarse wool shawl down from her head, running her splayed fingers back through her hair, letting the desert wind catch it.
She had removed her glasses and she closed her eyes now, telling herself that the stinging felt in her eyes was the stinging of the wind only.
Chapter Fifteen
There had been more men in decontamination suits waiting at the desert airfield and the truck had been driven directly up the ramp of the huge airlifter and the hatchway sealed, Michael feeling it in the pit of his stomach as the aircraft had left the ground— feeling the sensation of movement, feeling the sensation of being close to death.
Hammerschmidt had whispered as Michael and the German commando leader had drifted into seats on long benches which flanked the truck on either side, that though his Russian was adequate, he assumed his accent to be terrible, and five hundred years out of date.
This hadn’t built Michael’s confidence.
Michael Rourke kept his arms by his sides, to cover the telltale bulgers of his pistols beneath the decontamination suit.
When he thought no one was looking, he would glance at his Rolex—not too often but often enough to figure the duration of the trip.
His mind was assessing possibilities. There were sixteen other men—some of them could have been women but it was hard to tell with the decontamination suits—aboard the craft, plus the aircrew in the sealed compartment forward, perhaps some security
personnel as well.
In theory at least, it was possible to kill all the others in the decontamination suits without reloading his pistols, giving two shots each. In theory, Hammerschmidt’s training would enable him to land the massive aircraft. But where?
And in theory, he had no theory as to the contents of the cannister. The decontamination suits could have been safety precaut
ion alone, or potential necessity.
His father had told him once, “Don’t make a plan and then throw yourself into it just because you have nothing else to do. The key to a successful plan—in life, in combat, in a survival situation, even in a fistfight—the key is knowledge of the situation, as full and complete knowledge as you can ascertain. And use this knowledge to formulate your plan, then act upon it. In the meantime, hang back and keep out of range or out of trouble or whatever. Patience Michael—it’s more than a virtue. It’s a necessity.”
It was pleasantly comfortable inside the decontamination suit—but he was still perspiring.
One of the men beside him began to talk to him, the voice muffled sounding through the headgear.
Michael closed his eyes for an instant—and he made a mental note that if he got out of this alive, he’d get Natalia to work more with him on vernacular Russian …
Annie Rubenstein started at the helicopter two hundred yards from the tent through the plastic window, a snowstorm lazily sweeping the German forward base in what had been Finland. But the snowstorm’s ferocity was not nearly so intense that they could not have gone on, would have been
grounded by it.
But there was no way to find her father and Natalia and Captain Hartman. They had been inserted deep into Soviet territory and the helicopters or whatever had brought them had left, awaiting recall by radio and there was no radio transmission. There was no way to locate them.
“Shit,” she hissed, thrusting her hands into the pockets of her skirt and turning back to face the interior of the tent, to face her husband.
Paul played poker for cartridges with the German pilot who had brought them here and the lieutenant who oversaw the forward base, the other half dozen personnel and the other pilots sleeping through the storm, only a radio officer and the perimeter guards otherwise awake.
She looked back through the tent window to the helicopters and fighter planes further out from the tent. She could see the radar masts when the snow cleared for an instant, see the radar dishes searching the skies. The skies—more rare to see—were gray.
They had arrived and been informed that there was still no word from Hartman and that they would have to wait here.
Paul had changed out of his arctic gear and she had changed out of the pants she had worn beneath hers. Paul had laughed at her seeing her in pants—and she realized it was the first time he had ever seen her in pants, she wore them so infrequently.
Annie began to move about the tent. The living quarters given over to herself and her husband were at the far end of the circus-sized tent. She debated going there, resting—but she couldn’t rest.
It was impossible to consider the tent as a conventional structure. It was a seemingly one piece and totally sealed structure with an airlock-like entryway,
completely climate controlled. She was almost too warm with the sweater she had thrown across her shoulders.
She had played poker for a while and been winning—when Paul had realized why he had whispered to her, “You shouldn’t do that.”
“I can’t help it—I’m nervous,” she had responded, folding her hand and getting up to go stare out the window. She had noticed that at times of heightened stress her peculiar mental abilities were also heightened. Without trying—in fact trying consciously not to—she had been reading everyone’s hand at the table. She had won almost five hundred rounds of the German caseless assault rifle ammunition.
The ammunition was only a means of keeping score—but she supposed it was cheating anyway.
No—she couldn’t go back to the poker game.
She took a folding camp chair on the far wall of the tent, away from the poker game, her bag beside the chair from when she had first left their living quarters. She opened the bag, taking out her embroidery, checking the tightness of the hoop, smoothing the material within the circumference of the hoop and examining the design. It was based on one of her mother’s paintings that had been used to illustrate the childrens books her mother had written before the Night of The War. A tiger, his eyes gleaming as he sat very quietly and protective beside a lop eared rabbit. The rabbit almost vanished between his massive front paws.
She had dozed on the helicopter flight from Iceland to here—and she had dreamed, this time of Michael. She had asked the radio officer if Michael could be contacted, but again told that strict radio silence was the safest course of action.
The interior of the airlock like doorway from the
outside opened, the radio officer entered the room.
Paul stood, throwing his cards face down on the camp table.
The radio officer—who spoke excellent English— announced, “We have just had a short radio message in code from our troops in Egypt, Frau Rubenstein, Herr Rubenstein. It appears the young Herr Rourke and Captain Hammerschmidt have hidden themselves among a Soviet unit and are at this moment somewhere en route to the Soviet Underground City.”
Annie dropped the embroidery hoop to her lap, both her hands going to her mouth.
In the dream, Michael and Karamatsov had been so close they could almost touch—and somehow Michael had been in terrible danger.
She began to cry and after a moment noticed that Paul knelt beside her, his arms around her and she leaned her head then, against his shoulder …
Vladmir Karamatsov paced the fuselage of his private jet, eyeing Nicolai Antonovich’s decoded message.
Ivan Krakovski cleared his throat.
Karamatsov looked at him, stopping his pacing. “You wish to know the contents of your rival’s message.”
“Comrade Marshal—I—”
“Never considered him a rival for your colonelcy? He is a better officer, a better leader, a more sensitive person than you. Which is why he is not your rival, why he is holding a small force in waiting to attack the Eden Project and why you are here with me. For my purpose, you are the better man. And my purposes are all that concern me, Ivan.” It was the first time he had ever called Krakovski by anything other than his
last name or his rank and he watched Krakovski’s face—the significance was not lost on the junior officer.
“Comrade Marshal—I—” and Krakovski stood.
Krakovski was very military, his uniform footgear polished to mirror brightness, the creases in his BDU trousers and jacket seemingly razor sharp. Karamatsov found himself smiling—no doubt the bore of his pistol was spotless as well.
“Sit down, my friend—and I shall tell you many things.”
Krakovski almost sagged into his seat.
Karamatsov peered out the window—there was open ocean beneath the aircraft now, wisps of white cloud beneath them as well. He turned his eyes— squinting—away from the sunlight and to the message in his hands. “Antonovitch tells us that the Eden Project base has been reinforced by several hundred German troops, German troops with tanks and other heavy equipment and large numbers of helicopter gunships. I find all of this excellent. I have succeeded in dividing my enemy’s forces—Iceland, Georgia, Argentina, and as we learned during that useless little attack they made at the site of the Great Pyramid, in Egypt as well. Meanwhile, the Politburo believes our troops are equally divided—massing for attack on the new German base outside Mt. Hekla in Iceland, massing for attack against the German headquarters in Argentina. In reality, Antonovitch’s small force in Georgia and his few spies outside the German Argentinian headquarters represent the smallest fragment of my army. Our purpose in Egypt has been achieved—” and Karamatsov stared out the window again, lowering his frame to see at level with the mighty cargo lifter which carried the precious cargo he had invaded Egypt to obtain. Surrounding the cargo craft and his
own jet were other cargo lifters, helicopter gunships, tanks and other equipment and personnel inside them. “So—we no longer have forces in Egypt. At last report, our staging base outside the Underground City had not yet been detected. Were it to be detected even at this moment, it would be too late. The power is now mine,
and I shall need a man who is possessed of as little scruple as am I to assist me in my endeavors. That, Ivan Vassilivich Krakovski, is why you are with me now. See that you stay with me and your future will be assured. Even I cannot rule an entire planet unaided.”
“Comrade Marshal—the cannister extracted from the sand there beside the temple—”
“The world five centuries ago was a place, Ivan—a place you cannot imagine—at least to me. Everywhere, there were the seeds of revolution. The leadership of the Party was falling into the decadence they themselves decried, and yet—yet—the millions flocked to Communism, Ivan. And I realized that through Communism, I could achieve greater ends than any man had achieved before. Through my agents, carefully structuring the intelligence data presented to the Kremlin leadership, I was able to advance the cause of war, bring World War III closer, closer. And then it came—my dream. My opportunity, Ivan. And I prepared for every eventuality. With my planning for the Womb which Rozhdestvenskiy let slip through his fingers, with my involvement with the Underground City. And with the cannister which so intrigues you. Tell me—what do you think it contains?”
Karamatsov turned away from the window—he could see only dark spots in his eyes until he squinted, having stared so long into the light. But now he could see Ivan Krakovski.
“I—nerve gas, Comrade Marshal—perhaps that.”
Vladmir Karamatsov shook his head, allowed himself to smile.
“More deadly. And I shall use it to make myself the master—of all that—” and he gestured expansively toward what lay beyond the windows of his private aircraft. It was the world.
Chapter Sixteen
They had hidden under rock and overhangs—Jea knew the territory well. And after many hours, Natalia sleeping fitfully, Rourke still not allowing himself the luxury, the skies had cleared of helicopter gunships and again they had pressed on through the snow, the sun declining rapidly now.
Hartman would have to be notified—but first to locate the Underground City, the intelligence report complete then.