by Ahern, Jerry
“Yes. They intercepted a communication — Russians here, they think, in Iceland.”
“Ohh, Jesus,” she whispered, sitting up, coming into his arms, Rourke smelling her hair as she leaned her head against his chest.
His fingers touched at her hair in the darkness. “Do you want to come?”
“I’ll get dressed.”
“Hold me a minute first,” John Rourke almost whis-
Chapter Twenty-six
No one sat —there were too many people filling Madame Jokli’s library for that. Madame Jokli herself was still in her nightgown, a massive-seeming shawl almost completely enveloping her as she stood by the fireless hearth.
“It appears that our earlier deliberations were for no purpose. The decision for involvement against the Soviet forces has been made for us if Captain Hartman’s information is accurate.”
“It is, Madame President,” Hartman nodded, bowing slighdy toward her.
“In that case? I am open to suggestion.”
John Rourke stood beside Hartman. “I spoke with Captain Hartman, ma’am, a moment before your arrival. I think he should share with you his latest data.”
“Yes, please,” Madam Jokli nodded, her face forcing into a smile.
“Certainly, madame. When the radio transmission was discovered” —Hartman shot his cuff, glanced at his watch — “almost an hour ago, I dispatched one of my officers and three enlisted personnel toward the source of the transmission, prevailing upon Herr Rolvaag of your police force to guide them. There was an undue pause in the transmission, and by acting quickly, the corporal monitoring the radio was able to get another man to one of our helicopters and monitor the transmission there as well, thus forming a crude but effective triangulation. I have just received a coded signal on an ultra-high frequency band the Soviet forces do not seem
to utilize. And the message was, in fact, a code as I indicated. It was merely a breaking of an open frequency with a fixed pattern, and thus should be impossible for the Soviet forces to understand even should it have been intercepted. And that condition seems unlikely. Soviet personnel were found. A small force. My men are returning. We should know more within the hour. The message intercepted was en clair, or appeared to be so. A distress call from a certain Captain — ” and Hartman flipped quickly through the pages of a small notebook held in his left hand. ” — A certain Captain Kutrov. References were made to one man of his party having frozen his feet …”
“My God,” Madame Jokli whispered.
“Quite, madame—and still another man having broken a leg and sustained possible internal injuries. We assume some sort of scouting force. And the possibility exists for electronic surveillance. In previous encounters with the Soviets, some abandoned equipment examined appeared to be remote-sensing devices which might be sufficiendy sophisticated to alert a nearby base camp of our presence here. For this reason, I have taken the precaution of keeping activity about the machines to the semblance of normalcy.”
“Is there another way out of here?” Rourke turned toward the voice — Natalia’s voice. Like Madame Jokli, she wore her nightgown, a shawl cocooned about her shoulders.
Dr. Hakon Lands spoke. “There are tunnels created during one of the eruptions many centuries ago. The tunnels have been explored for quite some time and they are mapped.”
Sarah, the only one of the women dressed in other than nightclothes, stepped forward, shoving her hands into the pockets of her jeans. For some reason she reminded John Rourke of some image of Peter Pan —the
hair pulled back in a ponytail, the T-shirt out of her pants, her upper body thrust slightly forward, legs taut, spread wide apart. “I think I know what Natalia — Major Tiemerovna—is driving at. Reconnaissance at the least and possibly a surprise attack.” Sarah looked back over her shoulder, past John Rourke, toward Natalia, Rourke following her eyes with his.
“Precisely. If some of your people, Madam President, could be persuaded to guide us, a small force might be able to gain valuable intelligence without alerting the enemy that their presence is suspected. And, if the physical situation permits, sabotage, a preemptive strike, perhaps something that could be coordinated with a full-scale strike by Captain Hartman’s forces.”
“Doctor Rourke?”
Madame Jokli was staring at him as Rourke turned toward her voice. “Ma’am?” “Your opinion?”
“Such a small force could be readied pending the return of Captain Hartman’s personnel. Unless their information should preclude the use of such a force, I see it as the most logical course of action. I have only one request —if the gentleman will be up to it, I would appreciate our guide being this Bjorn Rolvaag—it would be the opportunity to meet him and personally thank him for saving my daughter’s life. And I understand him to be a wonderfully competent fellow.”
“Yes. Will you, Dr. Rourke, take charge of this expedition?”
“Certainly, ma’am,” Rourke told her. Rourke felt Paul Rubenstein’s elbow prod at his right arm, heard Paul groan.
Chapter Twenty-seven
Rourke had showered, re-dressed, and gone to talk with Hartman —the scouts were still not back, but were expected shortly. Walking with Hartman toward the steps of the presidential mansion, Rourke stopped. He had expected Paul to be there, and Paul was, in full battle gear, his Browning in its tanker holster on his chest over his left lung, the German MF40 submachine gun slung beneath his right arm, his winter gear bunched to a backpack and on the pavement beside him. But Paul was not alone. Natalia, no Victorian-style dress this time, but her “work clothes” —a black, almost skin-tight jumpsuit, high black boots, the black, full-flapped double Safariland holster rig, her hands resting at just below waist level on the flapped holsters that covered the butts of her twin stainless Metalie Custom L-Frame Smiths. Beneath her left armpit, the Null shoulder holster with the silenced stainless Walther PPK/S. The side of her pack, on the ground near her feet, had sheathed to it the massive Randall Bowie knife she had liberated from Madison’s former home, The Place. Beside Natalia, staring at Rourke now, stood Sarah, a sweater over her T-shirt, her hair bound up in a blue and white bandanna handkerchief, the little Trapper Scorpion .45 poking out from beneath the sweater at her waist, a Bianchi UM-84 military flap holster set up cross draw on her webbed pistol belt. The rusty, but still perfectly functional, Colt Government Model .45 would be there.
Sitting on the steps, Annie, a heavy-looking dark-materialed skirt, combat boots, a high-necked dark sweater, and as she stood, Rourke could see the pistol belt —they had returned her Scoremaster to her and the Beretta 92-F military pistol that she had told them had been part of Blackburn’s survival gear. She wore two holsters now, both pistols. Madison was with her, a rifle leaning against Madison’s coat and a backpack, there on the steps. Beside Paul stood Michael, his two mismatched barrel-length 629 .44 Magnum revolvers holstered at his hips, a grin on his face. Michael called out as Rourke neared, “Didn’t think we’d let you and Paul go it alone, did ya?”
Rourke stopped walking. “You’re not — “
“Well enough to travel, Dad? Wanna bet? Whose son am I anyway?”
“And whose daughter am I —daughters are we?” Annie laughed, hugging an arm around tall, thin Madison.
“It was our idea,” Sarah added, looking at. Natalia, then back at John Rourke.
Paul shrugged his shoulders, “Don’t ask me.” John Rourke simply nodded …
Inside the community hospital’s emergency room, medics attended the frostbite and injuries of the three Russians, two of them corporals, one a captain. Rourke observed as the man with the frozen feet was examined, saying to Hartman, “In my day, this would have meant amputation.”
“Yes, Herr Doctor —but as I understand, not today—our own medics and the Icelandic doctors seem to have made remarkable strides.”
Rourke nodded, walking from the man with the injured feet to the table on which the Soviet captain
was being examined. The man
’s eyes stared wildly, unbelieving. Rourke began speaking to him in Russian. “Captain —you and your men will come to no harm. Why were you out there on the ice?”
The eyes flickered from side to side, met Rourke’s eyes, darted away. The medicinal smell here behind the emergency room curtains was one thing that hadn’t changed in five hundred years, still ever-present, still mildly nauseating. One day, Rourke hoped, an agent could be found that would properly sterilize an emergency examination room yet not smell disgusting. Medical science as yet had not come that far. “You can’t hope to escape — you’re too weak. And you don’t have the look in your eyes of someone who would abandon his men and save his own life.”
The Soviet captain began to laugh —not the laughter of hysteria, but the laughter of bitterness, it seemed somehow. “Others do these things,” the officer said in English.
“What do you mean? You were abandoned out there?”
“It would have betrayed our position to bring in gunships for us.”
“I can see that reasoning — hard reasoning, but valid perhaps. Why not a foot patrol? Even considering the weather …”
“Yes,” the captain smiled, but the eyes were angry. “I don’t know.”
“Will you give us information?”
“You spoke of things of honor, and you ask for information? Torture me if you like. My men know nothing. All responsibility is mine.”
“Nobody’ll torture you,” Rourke whispered. “Your men —I understand they should be well. I’ll have someone keep you informed as to their progress. I think you should do all right too.”
The man cleared his throat, the eyes less dilated-seeming. “I do not —do not understand.”
“Youll be detained here for a while. But you’ll live and be treated humanely. Don’t fear —for your men.”
“Thank-thank you.”
“You bet,” Rourke smiled, looking away from the man, finding Hartman, Hartman watching as the third Russian’s broken leg was being set. Rourke placed a hand on Hartman’s shoulder and started walking him away from the three Russians toward the emergency room doors, saying, “Have someone who speaks English keep the Soviet captain informed of his men’s progress. I promised they would be treated decently.”
“And they shall, Herr Doctor —under the Leader, when there was SS —it would have been different.”
“I understand that,” Rourke nodded, clapping Hartman on the shoulder.
They passed through the emergency room doors, Hartman raising his voice slightly now that they were out of the Soviet trio’s earshot. “Not far from where those three were found, a rectangular container which my officer was able to identify as one of the Soviet long-range sensing devices was discovered. Wisely, it was not tampered with. From the positioning of the sensor leads, it was presumed that the activities of my scouting group went unobserved. But what is also presumed, based on our testing in New Germany of similar equipment devised by our own scientists, is that such apparatus would be able to clearly show any military activity whatsoever. Because it uses optical fibers and similar types of sensing leads rather than lenses and microphones, it should not be so sophisticated as to detect minor movement and activity. We hope,” Hartman concluded, a thin smile crossing his lips.
“All right. Fit us out with radios like your men used in the scouting expedition. We’ll signal what we find — and be ready to move in case the opportunity for a strike presents itself. What are you doing about the coner
“In conjunction with Madame Jokli’s law enforcement personnel — they are rangers, I think, as the word is in English …
“Yes-I agree.”
“But in conjunction with these men, Herr Doctor, we are moving small units of men with light equipment up toward the cone. We are utilizing the location of the first sensor as our focal point, since we do not know where additional sensors might be positioned. They will work through cover to reach positions that will enable them to guard the cone against ground attack. It will be slow going. Any attempt to discover the locations of additional remote sensors might betray our knowledge of their presence.”
“I agree,” Rourke nodded.
They walked across the emergency room lobby and into the lavender light outside. Akiro Kurinami and Elaine Halversen were there, as were several German troops and the German officer who had brought back the three storm-battered prisoners. The officers and enlisted men snapped to attention as Hartman approached, Hartman putting them at ease. Another man —one of the green-clad law enforcement officers — was with them, as was Dr. Hakon Lands.
“Dr. Rourke —you wished to meet Bjorn Rolvaag, the man who saved your daughter’s life.”
Rourke approached the man, Rolvaag a near-giant. Tall, muscularly built, the china-blue eyes visible beneath his flowing hair and above his flowing beard looking as though he laughed at some secret joke. Rourke extended his right hand to the man, Rolvaag
shifting his six-foot steel staff to his left hand and clasping Rourke’s right hand solidly, firmly. Strength seemed to exude from the man.
Rourke looked at Rolvaag, speaking. “Dr. Lands — please tell Mr. Rolvaag that I am forever in his debt and have no words that could begin to thank him for saving my daughter from death out there on the ice.”
“I will, certainly,” Lands said, then began speaking in Icelandic, Rourke and the green-clad Rolvaag still clasping hands, Rolvaag’s eyes brightening more.
Then Rolvaag spoke, his voice at once thunderous and gentle. Rourke could not understand more than fragments of words where Icelandic and English shared some vague commonalties, but even before Dr. Lands began to translate, Rourke knew the meaning through the look in Rolvaag’s eyes, the sustained handclasp: “I was pleased that I was able to help the fine young lady. You are a fortunate man, sir, to have a daughter who is at once so feminine yet so resourceful and tenacious.”
No more words were necessary now, and Rourke nodded to the man. It was understood.
They released hands, Rourke turning to Akiro Kurinami. “I wanted you here for a reason. You’re very good with edged weapons. So are the personnel of the police force here. But they have no practical experience. I’d like you to try to correct that. If Dr. Lands will help with the translations for you,” and Rourke looked at Lands, “you could release a significant number of Captain Hartman’s personnel from having to serve as an interior guard.”
Til do it-yes, John.”
“Good,” Rourke nodded. And he looked at Elaine Halversen. “I’d like you to work with Madame Jokli. If Soviet troops get inside the crater, we’re going to have to be ready to evacuate all noncombatants to some central area down here where last-ditch defenses can be
set up. With Akiro coordinating things with the police, and a couple of machine-gun teams from Captain Hartman, we should be able to set up something pretty efficient if the need arises.”
Til see to it, John. What about you and Sarah and-“
“We’re going —with this gentleman, I hope.” And Rourke gestured to Bjorn Rolvaag.
Dr. Lands nodded, saying, “All has been arranged. I can provide an interpreter if you wish.”
“I think we can get along on hand signals,” Rourke answered after a moment. Then he looked back into Elaine Halversen’s dark eyes. “We’ll be attempting to hit the Russians before they hit us. That storm outside — have you spoken with Captain Hartman’s people as I asked?”
Elaine looked to the young officer, telling Rourke, “Lieutenant Baum told me there are moderate winds and the snow is falling almost perpendicular to the ground. From the flake size he reported, considering the wind activity and the direction of the fall — this is only an educated guess because I don’t have anything else to go on —but it sounds as though the storm could be of long duration.”
“And hopefully they won’t go airborne until the storm starts to break,” Rourke nodded. “All right —you and Akiro and Dr. Lands get started. Good luck.” Rourke returned to Hartman. “You can provide the pers
onnel and machine guns?”
“Yes, Herr Doctor —of course.”
Rourke looked at Bjorn Rolvaag. He gestured a “thumbs up” signal. Rolvaag laughed, nodded, and gave a tight jerk to his right thumb, upward.
Chapter Twenty-eight
It was like walking on water, but in some suspended moment of time, John Rourke mused. Waves, but of liquid rock, frozen, the tunnel surface beneath their feet uneven, alternately rough or smooth and slick as ice.
Carrying a torch —why that instead of a light, Rourke did not know —Bjorn Rolvaag, and his huge dog, Hrothgar, marched silently ahead of them, his staff in his right hand, the torch upraised in his left, his heavy outer garments lashed to his pack, as were snowshoes that seemed to Rourke to be better by far than the improvised snowshoes he had fabricated with the help of Paul Rubenstein.
Behind Rolvaag, Rourke walked abreast of Paul, Michael and Madison behind them, and behind Michael and Madison, Sarah, Annie, and Natalia.
There was no talking, nothing to say and, Rourke imagined, a self-consciousness about speech anyway, since Rolvaag would have been excluded from any conversation because of the language barrier. The tunnels were like what he imagined tunnels inside an anthill might be like. Cylindrically-shaped, their angle surprisingly regular for a time then suddenly taking an erratic bend. The rock that surrounded them was a dark gray, the torch smudging the overhead black, Rourke using his own flashlight with the German batteries in it, others behind him using flashlights as
well.
He was as heavily armed as practical — the twin stainless Detonics mini-guns, the two Scoremasters, the Python, the Gerber knife and the little A. G. Russell sting IA Black Chrome, an M-16 slung on each side of his body, musette bags brimming with spare thirty-round magazines for the rifles, his Levis pockets packed with loose .357 Magnum rounds for the Python.
Bjorn Rolvaag, although Rourke had offered through Dr. Lands to teach the man the basic operation, had rejected an automatic rifle, carrying only his sword and his knife. Rourke had not pushed the offer of the lightning marksmanship training, because a poorly trained armed man was sometimes at greater disadvantage with a firearm than without it, sometimes as well a threat to those around him. But, somehow, he thought Rolvaag would take well to this. There would always be time later—perhaps.