by Ahern, Jerry
“Most of the people inside the Underground City, Otto are going to be women and children and old people. A lot of soldiers, sure—but a lot of innocent civilians, people who really haven’t done anything to us. A question—because of the totalitarian leadership at the Complex, would it have been fair to the German people to destroy everyone inside the Complex just to get at the leadership?”
“This is a different question, Michael,” Hammerschmidt responded, then stopped himself. He shook his head, “but perhaps it is not a different question.”
For the first time, Maria Leuden, the archeologist, spoke. “Throughout history, warfare has taken huge numbers of non-combatant lives. In World War III, almost the entire population of earth was eradicated as a direct result of the bombing. The question, I think, is should we continue such a policy, or should we say that even if for no other reason than the vastly reduced numbers of our species, each life has value? I have no knowledge of how to win battles—perhaps I
have spoken out of turn.”
Rourke glanced from the woman to his son.
Rourke closed his eyes. “Those women and children and old people—they’re the relatives of Karamatsov’s soldiers outside the Underground City. Knowing the marshal, he probably has some sort of Elite Unit that will obey him no matter what. But no soldier is going to stand by while his commanding officer gasses his family to death. They may be holding the offensive lines, ready to attack because he’s convinced them they will liberate their families, or propel the Soviet people to greatness or whatever. But he hasn’t told them the gas will kill—if we’re right and it is a gas and a lethal one. If we can get proof of what it will do, how would it be if a ranking officer of the KGB, the one-time wife of the marshal, were to inform the Russians at the barricades on both sides that Karamatsov was using them? Hmm?” Rourke opened his eyes.
Natalia smiled—and John Rourke realized the ineffectiveness of any defense he could muster against the blueness of her eyes.
Hammerschmidt declared, “It is worth a try, I think. Yes?”
“Yes,” Rourke almost whispered.
Chapter Twenty-six
John Rourke extended his hands outward, palms upward.
Jea spoke, but as Rourke watched the eyes of Jea’s people in the firelight, he could see that few understood more than a fraction of Jea’s words.
Natalia spoke, trying to explain.
The eyes of the man called Char whom Rourke had fought, alternated from Natalia’s body to the rifle— Soviet—which Jea had slung across his body, hanging beneath his right arm. Rourke had not had time to teach the boy to use the weapon, but no one in the tribal camp would know that, he theorized.
Natalia turned to John Rourke, shadows from the firelight flickering across her face, her eyes masked in darkness. “I told them as best I could. But so few of them understand.”
“Ask Jea if he’s ready.”
Natalia nodded.
Rourke listened as Natalia spoke with Jea, watched the boy’s face. There was no answering nod.
Instead, Jea removed the sling from his body and handed the rifle to Natalia—she took it from him as though accepting a gift.
Jea looked once at Rourke.
Rourke gave the young man a “thumbs up” sign—
there were grunts from the two dozen or so men, women and children of the tribe, as though this were some mystic symbol. Perhaps it was, Rourke mused.
Jea smiled, and then the smile faded as Jea turned to face Char and Rourke watched him in profile. Jea started forward, Char sensing the challenge, in Jea’s body language, Rourke guessed, and Char looked at Rourke. Rourke touched at his own rifle, then let it fall to his side, shaking his head.
Char grinned toothlessly, then raised to his full height, his dirty looking, shaggy hair shaking, his fists bunching at the ends of his outstretched arms, then his elbows curling, his hands beating his chest like some sort of great ape or perhaps there was some racial memory of the fictional Tarzan.
Jea stopped less than two yards from the vastly larger, vastly stronger-seeming Char.
Jea’s eyes—Rourke followed them as Jea stared suddenly left. On the ground at the far edge of the firelight lay an old man, dead.
Jea screamed, “Joe.”
It was a scream beyond humanness.
Jea hurtled his body toward Char, Char’s right fist hammering outward and downward, impacting Jea at the junction of the neck to the left shoulder, but Jea’s right knee smashing up into the groin, Char bellowing, grasping Jea, falling, both men impacting the ground, rolling toward the fire, through the fire, the momentary smell of burning flesh, a scream from Jea, his woven bark covering aflame. Char kicked him as Jea rose, Jea falling back, into the dirt and snow, rolling as Char made to kick him again, the flames gone from Jea’s clothing. Char threw himself half on top of the slighter man, Jea rolling away, his right arm and right leg pinned. Jea’s left hand punched inward, toward Char’s risht ear. Char backhandinff Tea across
the mouth with his own right, Jea’s left arm flailing inward again, this time grabbing at the ear, ripping part of the shell of the ear away, blood spraying into the fire, the fire hissing with it, Char rolling back.
Jea was up, limping, his right arm hanging uselessly at his side. Char was to his knees, to his feet— Char reached to the fire, picking up into his five-pound ham-sized hands an enormous burning log, the diameter at least eight inches, the length at least three feet. He started forward, Jea limping back.
John Rourke swung the M-16 up to hip level, moving the selector to full auto and fired a long, ragged burst, severing the log a few inches above Char’s upraised arms, burning embers falling into Char’s hair and to his clothes, the big man screaming with rage.
Jea lunged for him, Jea’s left shoulder impacting with Char’s chest, the still upraised arms of the larger man leaving him wide open, Char falling back.
Jea was on him, dragging his right arm into action with his left, bunching both fists together, slamming them downward and across Char’s face, then back, then across, then back again, Char’s head twisting right and left and right and left again, the lips cracked, blood spurting from them. Char’s hands grasped for Jea’s throat, Jea still hammering away with both fists, hammering, the hands at Jea’s throat going limp, the fingers dragging across Jea’s flesh, clawing for it, the arms flailing, Jea’s fists hammering the head and hammering at it.
Natalia’s voice—“Jea.Jea!”
Jea’s arms fell limp at his sides, his head lolling forward to his chest, his hands covered with Char’s blood.
Char’s face was unrecognizable as human … The finaers, manv of the bones in both hands, some
of the smaller bones in the wrists were broken. But Char was dead.
“This young man’s going to Iceland whether he knows it or not—maybe as far as Argentina. He’s going to need more than can be done for him in the field. Tell him, Natalia, that he was very brave, that we mourn for the loss of his father, that he will be a good leader for his people—and that we hope he never has to kill again.”
Natalia was cleansing the wounds on Jea’s face. “I think I know what I can do, John.”
“I understand,” John Rourke whispered to her.
And then Natalia began to speak with Jea as Rourke found a suitable injection that would leave Jea conscious but ease the pain in his smashed bones.
Chapter Twenty-seven
Paul and Annie had arrived by the time John Rourke, Natalia, the injured Jea, and six of Jea’s tribe reached the rendezvous point. Hammerschmidt had briefed the new arrivals. By the face of Rourke’s Rolex, it was eight P.M. Common Time and forward observers had indicated that the left flank of Karamatsov’s forces was engaging the entrance to the Underground City.
Some of the climate controlled tents were already up and Rourke, Paul Rubenstein, and Michael Rourke and Otto Hammerschmidt had already begun to change.
One thing had not changed in five centuries—the Germans had
military attire for every occasion.
Rourke began to strip out of his winter gear as he talked. “Two greenhouses are standing, the others destroyed. We’ll split up, Captain Hammerschmidt, Michael—the two of you will take one, Paul and I will take the other.” He was down to his underpants—and the experience reminded him he needed a shower, but there was no time and there were no readily available facilities. He took up the two piece black insulated long underwear, the legs of the underpants more like tights, no foot openings. One of the first places that lonsr underwear failed during strenuous activity in the
field was where the legs stopped and the socks began, the two forever seeming to split apart. The Germans had planned around that. He sat in one of the folding chairs in order to skin into the pants. “As soon as we identify the cannisters, we eliminate Karamatsov’s people before the gas can be put into use.”
“What if you guys have guessed wrong?” Paul asked, trying to get into his underwear, and like all three other men doing it less than gracefully.
“We’re up the proverbial creek,” Rourke answered good naturedly. He stood, pulling up the underpants.
“Ballet anyone?” Hammerschmidt asked.
Rourke laughed aloud. “Thanks, but I was never much of a dancer.” Rourke picked up the upper half of the undergarment, pulling it on over his head, long sleeved, crew necked. He started into the thin, insulated black coverall, the coverall of a stretchy material he learned as he began securing the fasteners to close it. He took to the chair again to secure the boots. Unlike the underwear and the jumpsuits, these were not sized in four general sizes, and were of a synthetic. He had been fitted for them before leaving Hekla. They were as form-fitting to the ankle as combat boots but were soled with something like rubber and rose to mid-calf height. They were ridiculously comfortable and thinly insulated.
He slipped the double Alessi rig across his shoulders like a vest. “This stuff gonna be warm enough?” Michael asked.
Hammerschmidt answered. “Our personnel have designed it, Michael, to withstand a temperature range from a cool evening in the desert to a cool morning in Antarctica—not a cold morning, but a cool one.”
John Rourke buckled on his gunbelt with the Python in the full flap holster at his right side and the
Gerber Mkll fighting knife at his left side. He watched as Michael attached the short sword-sized survival knife that seemed to be Michael’s constant companion since leaving Hekla to the integral equipment harnessed jumpsuit, over the left lung.
Rourke secured the little A.G. Russell Sting IA Black Chrome which he usually carried inside the waistband of his Levis instead into the top of his left boot on the inside of the leg.
Hammerschmidt spoke again. “These utilities are designed not only for warmth and mobility, as you know. They are effective against skin contact with state-of-the-art gas warfare as best our scientists were able to determine.”
John Rourke smiled as he unbagged his gas mask— black—and began checking the filter. It seemed a more sophisticated version of the regulation G.I. issue gas mask he had used five centuries earlier. He has such masks at the Retreat in their basic form. But the flanges of this mask were designed to be used in conjunction with a hood which tightly but comfortably covered the face, head and neck where the mask itself did not extend. As he reclosed the filter capsule, Rourke mused aloud, “What if what Karamatsov has is beyond ‘state-of-the-art’, Captain?”
Hammerschmidt said nothing for a moment, then pulled the toque-like hood over his head. As his eyes and nose and mouth re-emerged, he was smiling, “Then we are dead.”
“Or,” Paul added, laughing, “the situation has at least gotten serious.”
John Rourke just looked at the younger man, then pulled his own hood in place. He adjusted it over his ears. Built into the hood was an earpiece which he fitted to his ear. Built into the gas mask was a radio microphone. He could communicate via this means
with all members of the team or, within a given radius, with a position well behind friendly lines.
Paul pulled on his hood, adjusting it as Rourke had while Rourke watched.
Rourke picked up his M-16, giving it a quick visual and tactile going over, checking the seating of the thirty-round magazine, checking the tape applied to all points where the sling hardware could scrape and cause telltale noise. Hammerschmidt was securing the modern German version of a submachinegun to his chest—Uzi-like in appearance, though somewhat longer, it utilized the same caseless ammo as the German issue pistol. Rourke made a mental note to experiment with these new arms when time allowed, though he had no intention of modernizing his own armament since aside from the gadgetry aspects of the new Soviet and German weapons, they seemed no way improved over his own. Hammerschmidt was already into his pack—Rourke started into his.
Vestlike, the pack secured to the built in harness segments of the upper portion of the jumpsuit. As Michael started into his, Michael apparently realized he had positioned the knife incompatibly and was forced to remove it. Rourke tugged his shoulder holsters through the wide armholes of the vestlike battle pack, the holsters free, his pistols accessible.
He secured the extraction harness built into the vest between his legs, the extraction harness built soundproof.
“What’s the vest made of—Kevlar?”
Hammerschmidt turned to Paul Rubenstein, saying, “I am familiar with the term—but no, this is an advanced material, but I believe the functional principles are the same. The jumpsuit is of the same material as well. I am afraid neither the suit nor the vest will stop a rifle bullet, although the suit in
combination with the vest will considerably reduce the effect.”
The vest contained pouches built for the thirty-round magazines of the German submachineguns, two magazines riding in tandem per pouch. But by removing the separator, it accommodated the curved shape of the thirty-round Colt magazine satisfactorily. He loaded the pouches of the vest, watching as Michael did the same, then as Michael attached his huge knife to the vest. Rourke liked the look of the blade, the evident strength of the steel.
There was a holster built into the vest, for crossdraw carry and Rourke put one of the Detonics Scoremaster .45s into it, no room for the matching Scoremaster except into his pistol belt, between the belt and jumpsuit. He placed the second pistol there.
He looked about the tent.
Paul Rubenstein smiled, saying, “I feel like a man from Mars.”
“Alpha Centauri, maybe—but not Mars,” Rourke grinned back.
“I’m ready,” Michael announced.
“As am I,” Hammerschmidt said.
John Rourke picked up his rifle and his gloves. “Let’s do it.”
Chapter Twenty-eight
Natalia Anastasia Tiemerovna told Annie, “Sometimes, it’s very distressing to be a woman.”
It was dark in the climate controlled tent, dark except for the glow from the electronic panel which served to control temperature, ventilation, and humidity, dark except for the lantern which burned at the center of the table on which Natalia rested her booted feet.
Annie was seated to her right at the small table, crocheting, Natalia assumed, by feel. “We should be with them. If Momma were here, she’d want to be with them too.”
“This is very uncomfortable for me.”
“Me too—but more so for you, I guess.”
“John was worried that if something went wrong—”
“Daddy loves you. He doesn’t want Karamatsov getting his hands on you again.”
“This is important—more important than my life
is.
“What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know, Annie.” The door opened on the inside of the airlock and Natalia looked up, her hands going to the full flap holsters at her hips—but it was Maria Leuden. “Doctor Leuden—come and join us,”
Natalia offered.
“Thank you, Major Tiemerovna—I will.” “My name is Natalia.” “Call me
Maria, please.”
Annie giggled, “Well, Maria Please, it’s nice to see you.
Maria Leuden laughed as she sat down opposite Natalia, Natalia swinging her feet back down to the floor. “I was worried about Michael—and your husband, Mrs. Rubenstein, the Herr Doctor and Otto Hammerschmidt.”
“Annie—everybody calls me Annie. Even my mother’s started to finally. Used to always call me Ann.”
“Ann is a pretty name. It was my mother’s name.”
Natalia had never known her mother, except through those last reminiscences of her uncle, and her uncle had not really been her uncle. She envied people who knew their mothers’ laughter, tears. “We were just saying that we didn’t like being left behind,” Natalia said, lighting one of the German cigarettes with her lighter. She exhaled a stream of smoke which settled about the lamp for a moment, then dissipated upward into the darkness—the cigarettes tasted terrible by comparison to the ones she remembered. She thought of the old saying, “Any port in a storm”—but she hadn’t been that for John Rourke.
“I wouldn’t know what to do,” Maria Leuden said. “I mean—well, I have never been in combat—I—”
“It’s not a heck of a lot of fun, Maria—let me tell you,” Annie volunteered.
“It’s different for the two of you—I mean—”
“A Russian major?”
“Yes, yes—Natalia. But—”
Annie set down her crocheting. “My husband, my father, and my brother are out there—along with a
German Army officer who seems like an all right guy. I’d like to be out there too, to keep them out of trouble.”
Natalia started to speak, but didn’t …
The most dangerous part was coming down the rock wall silently—John Rourke and Otto Hammerschmidt rapelled in tandem, Rourke’s ears pricked for the slightest sounds—and there were many. Small rocks dislodged, in the otherwise almost unnatural stillness of the night, sounding like avalanches.