by Ahern, Jerry
He had learned something else from his father, and his mother too —to trust his own powers of reason.
John Rourke whispered to the night surrounding him, “My God.”
Chapter Fourteen
“We have received a radio communication from the Underground City, Comrade Marshal Karamatsov.” “Sit down.”
Krakovski sat down, placing his hat on the table, Antonovitch looking at him.
Krakovski spoke again. “Most peculiar, really.”
Karamatsov stared at the young major —there had been no colonlecy for either Krakovski or Antonovitch, Rourke turning what had seemed undoubted victory into a rout. It had to have been Rourke. The yellow light of the lamp made shadows on the wall of the hut, the West Texas wind howling loudly enough that Karamatsov could not get it from his brain, listening to it. “What is so peculiar?”
“A distress beacon, Comrade Marshal — identical to that of our gunships. Triangulation was made, fixing its position —I have the coordinates — but near the southwest coast of Iceland.”
“Iceland?”
Krakovski looked at Antonovitch, “Yes, Comrade — Iceland.”
Antonovitch murmured, “Perhaps one of the gunships lost to the Eden Project fleet. But why Iceland?”
Karamatsov had never concerned himself with technology. “Could the distress signal have been triggered
accidentally?”
“Highly dubious, Comrade Marshal —no. But who would have sent it?”
“From the tone of your voice,” Karamatsov hissed, “you apparently have a suggestion, Major.”
“Yes, Comrade Marshal —I do. Iceland was a Western Ally, of sorts at least. Perhaps the Americans stored equipment there, or weapons. Iceland, according to one radical theory, may have been spared the global destruction when the sky caught fire.”
“What are you talking about? Why was I never told this?”
“Comrade Marshal —it is a radical theory, only. But the basis of it, in layman’s terms, was that there was a shift in the Van Allen belts, and the charged particles which caused the ionization effect that burned away the bulk of the atmosphere would have been decreased by the solar winds. That in effect, the normal atmospheric mixing would have been blocked, and what amounts to a shield would have been present to insulate Iceland and some other polar regions against the destruction of its immediate atmosphere, preserving an atmosphere there.”
“What?”
“That is the theory, Comrade Marshal,” Krakovski smiled, shrugging his shoulders, “But of course, no life would have survived. The extreme cold of those days. In the polar regions, the temperatures are believed to have dropped by as much as — “
“I don’t really care. You believe the Americans might have valuable equipment stored in Iceland, having foreseen this thing with the — “
“The Van Allen belts, Comrade Marshal —and yes, the possibility exists.”
Antonovitch shook his head. “Such a theory might account for the more rapid reforestation in the north
ern portions of what was Canada —this we have observed—not all the oxygen was perhaps burned away. And with the polar shift —the temperature in our own northern lands have been warmer than corresponding areas in Canada in similar latitudes.”
Marshal Vladmir Karamatsov considered, staring away from Krakovski and Antonovitch into his tented fingers. “These Van Allen belts —I have heard of them, of course. But exacdy how could they have such an effect, Krakovski? I make no pretense to scientific knowledge in any groat depth. In the field, there was little time for reading scholarly journals.”
Krakovski cleared his throat. “Of course, Comrade Marshal. Basically,” and he exhaled loudly, “the theory propounded suggested that the essentially equatorially-based Van Allen radiation belts were artificially expanding as more and more charged nuclear particles were shifting from artificial radiation belts caused by the various thermonuclear explosions into the fields of the established belts. The belts are distorted in the normal course of events by the pressures of the solar winds. It is likely that protons and electrons from the solar winds reacted with the charged particles in the belts. The theory is that some portions of the earth were spared by virtue of the peculiar inequities of the magnetosphere. Only on rare occasions during freak magnetic storms — such as occurred the morning of the devastation — would the proton density of the lower belt be altered drastically, while normally the electron population of the outer belt would be affected significantly by such storms. The magnetic anomaly took place.” Krakovski shrugged his shoulders and smiled, surrendering his hands, palms upward. “Just as this served to destroy life on earth, the bow shock wave may have been so powerful —one mustn’t forget the interaction with the auroral zone —that this … shield, as it
were, was established. No vacuum was formed, of course, when the oxygen was burned off, but rather the space occupied by the oxygen was filled by gases resulting from the general conflagration that consumed the surface. In essence, a portion of the earth’s atmosphere was positively charged, another negatively charged, and a portion of the atmosphere was very warm, another very cold. There was no mix —or so the theory goes. I too am a military man, and have little knowledge of scientific matters. Perhaps I could arrange for a dispatch to be sent from the Underground City explaining the potential for the anomaly?”
Vladmir Karamatsov studied Krakovski’s face a moment, having understood next to nothing of the man’s words. But he made a decision. “Major Krakovski — you will take a small but adequate force and travel by the most expeditious route toward this set of coordinates in Iceland. You will report to me immediately concerning your findings. If by some means the Americans have taken possession of a cache of weapons or other strategic material, you may be called upon to destroy these items or seize them.” Karamatsov still studied Krakovski’s face. “Should by any chance the American Rourke be involved —or my wife —you will take whatever steps needed to ensure their elimination if necessary, their capture if possible, but their neutralization at any cost.”
Krakovski stood to attention, saying, “My forces await, Comrade Marshal!”
“How nice,” Karamatsov murmured. “How very nice.” And he looked away, hearing Krakovski exit the hut. Krakovski was a very ambitious man —very.
Chapter Fifteen
John Rourke had removed his backpack in order to lash the snowshoes more properly to the pack to prevent incidental noise. He was perched on a ledge of black volcanic rock, clouds of steam surrounding him. He made a decision, his eyes searching the semi-darkness here —he found a niche in the rock and started toward it, hiking the pack into his left hand.
He set the pack into the niche, opening it. He unzipped his coat, slowly opening the velcro storm closure over the zipper to reduce noise. He shrugged out of the coat, seating himself in the niche, unblous-ing his snow pants, zipping open the leg closures and doffing them quickly. His leather jacket was back aboard the German helicopter. But it was warm here.
The faded blue Levis were light for the work ahead, but would have to do. He left the gray crewneck sweater in place, comfortable enough with it. He pulled off the SAS Headover, stuffing it into the sleeve of his coat, his gloves beside it, only the thinner gloves that he normally used still with him. From the top of his pack, he took the full-flap holster for the Python, buckling it on, checking the cylinder, closing the cylinder, holstering the Python. He had left the Scoremasters with Natalia and Sarah, but besides the Py
thon and the M-16, for which he had only three spare magazines, he had the twin stainless Detonics mini-guns in the double Alessi shoulder rig over his sweater. There was no need to check them —he knew their condition of readiness.. From the pack, he took the Sparks Six-Pack for the little Detonics magazines, threading it into its customary position on his pants belt, reclosing the belt. He patted the Gerber knife on his pistol belt, felt for the little A.G. Russell Sting IA black chrome on his right side, inside the pants. His sun
glasses — he took the case and checked the glasses inside, then dropped the case into the musette bag with his spare M-16 magazines. He grabbed up his cigar case, putting it with the sunglasses and the magazines.
He closed the pack, shoving it back further into the niche, lashing his coat and snowpants to it. He might have to leave in a hurry. Some emergency medical supplies were in the musette bag—they would have to do. With them an unbroken box of fifty rounds of Federal 185-grain jacieted hollowpoints, a few spare Detonics magazines, and his compass. The compass was next-to-useless here.
He stared down through the steam. He remembered something now. The map had referred to this mountain as the dormant volcano Mt. Hekla, and he remembered something he had read years ago concerning Iceland—that Mt. Hekla was surrounded once in legend, thought to be one of the gates into hell.
Dimly, through the great clouds of white steam, he could see lights. Something was down there, inside the volcano. And Paul Rubenstein’s tracks had ended here, as had Annie’s tracks, the tracks of the wolf or dog—a hound of hell? he smiled to himself—and the tracks of the man with the staff, perhaps a devil with an inverted pitchfork.
John Rourke didn’t really care if it was hell or
something else.
He started down into the volcano —to find his daughter and his best friend, the M-16 tight in his right fist, tensioned against its sling …
There was a standard rule of thumb with Icelandic-or Hawaiian-type shield volcanoes — the base diameter was generally approximately twenty times the height of the volcano. Hekla, if he recalled data from the topographic maps, seemed to be four-fifths of a mile high, making the base diameter approximately eighty thousand feet—just shy of sixteen miles. The craters of shield volcanoes characteristically had slopes angling between three and eight degrees, the crater steep-walled and the base flat, the result what was termed a pit crater.
Rourke had scaled the sides of the pit for some twenty minutes, perhaps fifteen —he had lost track of the time, obsessed with staring beneath him. There would be regular paths, of course, a vastly simpler means of descending, but regular paths might be traveled even late in the evening. He kept to his course, the harder way but the surer way.
A community —he was reminded of the small, seemingly untouched community in Bevington, Kentucky, where he had nearly lost his life.
The clouds of steam were less dense as he descended—a warm air source, and as the steam rose it grew more dense with the cold, he surmised. He could see clearly at times, and now, as he stopped on a spit of volcanic rock, stripped away the double Alessi shoulder rig, then peeled away the crewneck sweater, he studied what appeared below him.
Gardens.Trees. Pathways rather than streets. Flowers in what from the distance appeared as well
manicured beds.
Dwellings. The houses were square —symmetrical, really —with peaked roofs slanting off pyramidally downward. Solid-looking; gray, white, or tan in color, it seemed. Electric arc lamps illuminated the pathways in purple lights — giant-sized grow lights. The entire image seemed somehow terrarium-like.
It was not hell.
He tied the sweater around his neck because there was no other place to put it, his double shoulder rig back in place. He kept descending. No people seemed evident along the paths, but with the intermittent breaks in the steam clouds his windows to the world below, it was impossible to speak with certainty, he knew.
He kept going, downward, the ambient temperature into the upper sixties or lower seventies in degrees Fahrenheit, he speculated. He stopped again, rolling up the sleeves of his blue chambray shirt to just below the elbows. He kept the gloves on to protect his hands against the rock. He kept going.
John Rourke continued the descent for another ten minutes —this time he had made himself consciously note the time. He stopped again, less than a hundred yards above the flat expanse that stretched before him. He glanced at his left wrist, to the Rolex there —it was already after nine p.m. He had missed the signal contact with Natalia, and he would miss the next signal and the one after that — unless he climbed up out of the volcano’s crater.
And time might be precious. He would rely on Natalia and Sarah to take whatever logical course of action presented itself.
He continued downward, more slowly now, cautious lest he dislodge a rock and make some betraying noise. Such a place would surely have at least minimal
security. His mind raced as he descended, his eyes squinting against the purple light of the pathway lamps. A human habitation, warmth, almost subtropical lushness of vegetation — but in, at the least, a subarctic region.
The presence of geothermal energy was obvious — the hot water that vented steam into the crater. Natural geothermal wells could have provided heat, steam to power the turbines for electricity, the heat sufficient to convert the entire crater base into an uncovered greenhouse. The grow lights would be used throughout the Arctic night with its total absence or paucity of sunlight. When the grow lights died, they would be replaced, geothermal energy again harnessed to power the factory that made them. At the far side of the crater he had glimpsed larger structures — perhaps the factories, perhaps government buildings.
A rationale for the present existence of the community unfolding before his eyes was perfectly within the realm of the possible, but where had the people come from who’d built and maintained it? As he drew closer to the volcano floor, it was clear that the flower beds were worked regularly, the grass into which they were set regularly cut. Plant debris could be used to create alcohol, another fuel source —for additional machinery.
But how had people come to be here?
John Rourke froze, his left foot in air only, his right hand and right foot perched on a ledge of rock some twelve feet above the flat surface below. It was clear the surface had been engineered.
And it was one of the engineers now that he saw, heard. He drew back, slowly, up onto the ledge.
A man.Another a few steps behind him, at each man’s left hip a sword hilt and scabbard. One man’s hair was red, his beard red. The other’s, long and
bearded as well, had a straw-blond color. They wore leather-looking nearly-knee-high boots, green pants bloused above the boot tops, sleeveless tunics extending to their knees, the tunics green, beneath the tunics shirts with baggy sleeves, green also. The fronts of the tunics were cut low to the waist, the sword belt cinching the tunic, the green shirtfront visible beneath the tunic.
Except for the absence of horned helmets and shields and their spotless-seeming cleanliness, they looked like movie-lot Vikings.
Policemen? Rourke wondered.
The men were walking past him, almost directly below him. The red-haired man was at least six foot two and the blond-haired was an inch or so taller, both of them well over two hundred pounds, but apparently well-muscled beneath the theatrical-looking costumes.
He could call to them —but chances were that they spoke Icelandic if they spoke anything recognizable, and though, as he recalled, Icelandic bore interesting similarities to Old and Middle English, he doubted they would understand him or he them.
No guns —at least none visible.
Rourke considered calling to them merely to get their attention and aiming the M-16 at them —but if they lacked the concept of guns, they might not apprehend his meaning.
And it might be unwise and at this point most probably purposeless to kill.
John Rourke unslung the M-16 and his musette bag as quietly as he could, setting them back behind him on the spit of rock outcropping on which he was crouched.
The men passed beneath him —Rourke jumped, his hands and arms reaching out, grabbing at both of the green Vikings, bulldogging them to the ground, the
blond coming up in a roll, the red-haired man flat on the flagstone pathway, Rourke to his knees, dodging left as the blond-haired man lunged for him, Rourke rocking onto his left knee and hand, his right foot shooting up, avoiding the groin, going for the solar pl
exus, the blond doubling forward, dropping to his knees as Rourke fell away from him. To his feet now. The redhead snarled as he tried to stand up, Rourke’s gloved right fist hammering outward and upward, arcing through a classic uppercut, the knuckles of his right fist screaming at him when bone contacted bone, the redhead’s head snapping back, the body going limp, sprawling into the grass. Rourke’ wheeled, the blond coming at him again. Rourke feigned another savate kick, rotated one hundred eighty degrees, and made a double tae kwan do kick to the right ribcage and right upper arm of the charging blond. . The redhead was up, reaching for his sword. Rourke hurtled himself toward the man, a martial-arts attack that was impossible to wholly defend against, both fists hammering toward the man, the right knee poised for a smash —but concurrent with it was the chance of getting hit. As Rourke’s left fist smashed against the redhead’s right cheekbone, his right knee impacting the abdomen just above the testicles, the green-clad Viking’s right fist backhanded off the sword hilt, catching Rourke along the right side of the jawline, the redhead stumbling away, Rourke falling to his knees. He rolled as the redhead recovered faster than he—Rourke —did, a sweeping kick coming toward Rourke’s face. But Rourke caught the foot in both hands, throwing his body weight into the leg, then down, the redhead screaming. If he had a weak knee, it was dislocated. Rourke was up on his feet, the redhead screaming at him in something wholly incomprehensible to Rourke, his right hand with the sword half out of the sheath.
Rourke wheeled half-right, his left foot snapping out, impacting the base of the redhead’s jaw with the toe of his combat boot. The green-clad redhead slumped back, eyelids fluttering. Rourke wheeled full-right, the blond coming at him, the sword in a downswing.
Rourke hurled himself across the redhead, grasping for the sword.
He rolled as the blond’s sword cleaved air above him.
To his feet, but now Rourke had the redhead’s sword and stood with its ornate hilt in both fists, poised. The blond took a step back, then lunged.