Survivalist - 23 - Call To Battle

by Ahern, Jerry

  Sirens could be heard in the distance, growing louder. Shaw didn’t say anything.

  “I don’t know where the hell them Nazis is, man!”

  Shaw didn’t move the .45, didn’t say a word. The sirens were loud now. As Shaw figured the time from the sound, the first fire truck would be coming around the corner in about forty-five seconds. “Yuri, look, I’ll wait on the curb, huh?”

  Yuri visibly filled his pants.

  Tun Shaw stepped up onto the curb. “Where are they, Yuri? And if it doesn’t sound like the truth, you got the choice of a bullet or a fire truck.”

  “Stayin’ with Stroud, over in immigrant village, in the condos Stroud owns. There’s twelve of them and they got a special assignment, ain’t tied with none of the other commando groups. All they do is terrorist shit, man. Got guns, explosives, all the good shit. Heavy hitters. The big building on the corner across from the fish markets. I don’t know no address, man. Lemme up!” Yuri was screaming in order to be heard over the wailing of the sirens.

  There wasn’t time for Shaw to let Yuri get to his feet. At the far left edge of Shaw’s peripheral vision, there was a blur of motion, a streak of red. Shaw was already jumping from the curb, grabbed Yuri by the shirt collar and dragged him back. The first fire truck rounded the corner almost in the same instant, its slipstream ripping the black fedora from Tim Shaw’s head, the sound of its siren momentarily deafening.

  Yuri was crying, screaming, holding onto Shaw’s leg.

  Tim Shaw shook him loose. Yuri stayed there, on his knees, eyes turned up toward Tim Shaw’s face. Shaw held the muzzle of the .45 inches from Yuri’s right eye. Despite the evening’s breeze, the smell from what Yuri had done to himself was almost overpowering. Shaw whispered, “Go and sin no more; or next time ya die.”

  Tim Shaw upped the safety on the .45 and walked the few paving squares to where his hat had landed, picked it up, struck it against his thigh a few times and snapped down the brim. He looked back at Yuri and told him, “Sorry I messed things up with you and the babe.”

  35

  It was ultramodern here. There were no bars, but if he attempted to pass through the ordinary doorway leading from his cell-it was more like a very small apartment-he would be stopped. There was a powerful electrical field there that would shock, stun, or kill, depending on how one interacted with it. A touch, a shock. A partial body contact, a stun. If he threw himself through the field, the voltage would likely stop his heart permanently.

  The power of the field was demonstrated to Martin Zimmer when he was “locked” in. An old tennis ball was used. After passing through the plasma energy field, it was half disintegrated, what remained of it blackened, crisped.

  Martin Zimmer was adequately convinced. He stayed where he was put. Since he was a VIP, the accommodations, however Spartan, had some amenities. There were books (he hated reading), there was radio (he found music boring) and there was television (the news bored him and he hated most of what was broadcast, particularly the westerns, which seemed to dominate dramatic programming).

  He played solitaire and watched soap operas throughout the day. After dinner-filling but bland-he continued playing solitaire and paid halfhearted attention to a documentary on the life of Nathaniel Darkwood, scientist and explorer, one of the founders of Mid-Wake. Martin Zimmer cared not a whit for Darkwood from a biographical standpoint, but the underwater photography was diverting enough.

  When it came to the part about how, through the efforts of

  Darkwood and others, Mid-Wake the underwater scientific research station became Mid-Wake the city state, surviving the holocaust of the surface, Martin Zimmer, despite his dislike of music, turned to MTV. As far as he was concerned, it would have been better if Mid-Wake had perished on The Night of The War. There would have been no United States, no Pearl Harbor Naval Base, no jail cell in which to be incarcerated.

  Martin Zimmer suspended his game of solitaire; he couldn’t find a red nine without prying beneath the rows of face down cards and that took concentration in order to do it artfully. And his favorite group was on television with their latest video, Gimme Head and the BJs doing “Deep Penetration.” He read all the fanzines from New Germany, the United States and Australia-books were a waste of time-and he knew everything there was to know about Gimme Head and the BJs. He’d been planning to have them do a private performance at Eden City before all this with the Rourke Family had come up; and, someday he’d still have them.

  This particular video was filmed inside an atmospheric insertion jet specially rigged out with all the seats removed so when the jet intentionally went to zero gravity-that was unnecessary in atmospheric insertions, of course-they could all roll around and play their guitars at the same time. And the girls with them in this video were so gorgeous-looking that Martin Zimmer got an erection just looking at them and fantasizing himself with Gimme Head and the BJs and the girls weighdess and flying naked.

  When the video was over, he started searching for his red nine …

  The radio transceiver was exceedingly artful. It was hidden inside his left cheek where, if he’d still had a wisdom tooth, that would have been. It slipped in and out easily. Natural acids within his saliva powered the battery. Voice quality for the receiver was always poor, however, since much of actual speech occurred in combination with tongue, teeth and lips. But, when one whispered carefully, the transmitted speech was intelligible. Sound, when receiving, was transmitted along the jawbone direcdy to the inner ear. Built into the system were compensators which would prevent a sudden high-decibel incoming noise from stunning the ear.

  The members of the commando team were in place, some by the guard station at the helipad serving the Fleet Admiral’s base headquarters, others near the brig, still others near the motor pool synth-fuel dump located on the far side of the base.

  His driver-young Rauph-beside him, Croenberg, his Naval Commander’s dress whites sparkling, approached the two fatigue-clad Marines who stood guard at the doorway to the Pearl Harbor brig.

  They saluted.

  Croenberg returned the salute and started for the doorway.

  “Begging the Commander’s pardon, sir, but I’ll have to ask for a palm print check, sir!”

  Croenberg had not expected this, because it was not usual base security procedure, nor had this practice been instituted as litde as two hours ago.

  Croenberg started to move his right hand toward the palm print identifier panel, set like a plaque beside the doorway. The young Marine Lance Corporal stepped back. Even though Gruppenfiihrer Croenberg had not anticipated this, he had planned ahead for the unexpected.

  The concept of a weapon carried up the sleeve of a garment was nothing new. Nor was the principle of mechanically assisting the retrieval of such a weapon. In most cases, to actuate some sort of spring-loaded device, some sort of arm movement was required. The inherent difficulty and danger, of course, was that somehow such movement would be performed inadvertently and the weapon released; conversely, to prevent such from happening, one might even subconsciously avoid a certain range of movement, thus attracting the attention of the curious or detail-minded.

  The device Croenberg wore, in order to guard against both such contingencies, required two rather irregular movements to be performed in sequence. As he moved his right arm now, as if to touch his hand to the panel, Croenberg cocked his right wrist back to maximum extension, thus performing the first motion and moving his hand out of range. Croenberg wheeled toward the nearer of the two Marines, rotating his arm downward and outward, then up and in.

  At the instant he completed the rotation, the 7.65mm single shot pistol-it was about the size of an ordinary carpenter’s mechanical tape measure, the barrel just under six centimeters in length-fired. The bullet struck the young American Marine at the bridge of the nose, glanced along the bone and into the left eye. The barrel was surrounded by sound baffles, absorbing the expanding gases, muffling all sound above that of a light cough.

&nb
sp; At the same instant, Croenberg heard the sound of Rauph’s knife ripping fabric and flesh and the second Marine started to fold.

  Croenberg grabbed the body of the man he’d shot before it fully hit the level of the small synth-concrete porch. Rauph was already trying the door as he clutched the second dead man’s body against him.

  The door swung open. Croenberg shoved the body through the doorway and drew his pistol. Then Croenberg stepped through the doorway after the dead man.

  As expected, there were no guards in the antechamber between the exterior and interior doors. Croenberg shoved his dead man in the nearest corner, relieving the body of its energy rifle. Rauph had already done the same. One of them on either side of the interior doorway, Rauph turned the knob.

  As expected, it opened.

  There were two guards on the other side, both of them seated at desks, one on either side of a narrow, sterile-looking green corridor. They started for their sidearms but never made it, Rauph firing his suppressed pistol, Croenberg doing the same, Croenberg and Rauph firing across each other.

  Both Marines went down, the one on the left whom Rauph had shot slamming into the wall, slipping down along its length leaving a blood trail from the bullet’s exit wound at the back of his neck. The one Croenberg shot-a neatly placed bullet above the right eye-fell against the wall, then jackknifed forward over his desk.

  Croenberg rasped, “We are inside. All is well. Hurry.” The others, posted near the brig, would follow them in. But Croenberg and Rauph did not wait, crisscrossing as they passed through the doorway, momentarily taking cover behind the two desks.

  As expected, there was no resistance. They started down the corridor, toward the VIP cell block where Martin Zimmer was housed …

  Ordinary solitaire was too easy, and after several hours of playing it Martin Zimmer tired. He wasn’t ready for a nap, and nothing else of interest presented itself. He took up the cards again and shuffled them well, then dealt twenty-five cards face down. He set the remaining twenty-seven aside, then picked up the twenty-five.

  Fanning these out in his left hand, he started picking cards, deciding to try to form full houses first, then work back from that. The game was called by various names, his father Deitrich Zimmer who had taught it to him had said, but most commonly “poker solitaire.” The object-statistically almost impossible and in actuality difficult to perform-was to make five pat hands in poker, straights, flushes, straight flushes, full houses.

  When he was in practice, which he was not, Martin Zimmer could do it about one in ten times. Getting four pat hands was almost absurdly simple, but then breaking up those hands and re-ibrming them in order to produce a total of five was the frustrat-ingly difficult part.

  As he started building a diamond flush, the plasma energy shield could be heard to crackle on the other side of the door.

  Martin looked at his digital wristwatch. It was too early for the evening security check and he’d already had dinner (terribly bland). 3 The door opened.

  Martin Zimmer dropped his cards to the floor and stood UD Croenberg!” v’

  “Martin! We have come to rescue you from these enemies who wrongfully imprison you.” Martin Zimmer started to laugh.

  36

  There was a detailed physical profile of each of the prisoners in the Pearl Harbor brig and the closest physical match to young Martin happened to be a black man with the first name of Adolph. The whole idea appealed to Croenberg’s dark sense of humor. To get Martin out of the brig without a major battle erupting the moment someone happened to spot him, they would disguise him as this black man who was serving time in the brig for running a dice game.

  A digitized photographic representation of Adolph Langley was obtained and enhanced into three-dimensional perspective, then a life mask prosthesis constructed, as well as hand coverings.

  Martin Zimmer protested, of course, but Croenberg-very respectfully-pointed out, “This is the only way to get you free, Martin. I know it is a sacrifice to disguise yourself as this person, but you make this sacrifice for the greater glory of National Socialism. It is the lot of the hero to give of himself.”

  That last remark apparently convinced Martin.

  With Rauph and two others helping-Croenberg elected to watch the corridor rather than help dress Martin-Martin Zimmer was ready to travel in seven minutes, except for one detail. As they brought Martin to the door, Croenberg reached into the case from which the clothing had been taken and produced the restraints. “I am afraid you will have to wear these, Martin, in order that this should look convincing.”

  “The things I do for my people,” Martin said, shaking his head, smiling.

  From Croenberg’s detailed analysis of Martin Zimmer over the years, including sexual habits, he doubted seriously that Martin was anything but excited by the prospect of being in chains. The belly chain was locked at the back, then Martin’s wrists put into the cuffs, holding his hands at waist level. Croenberg wanted to say something, but didn’t. Instead, he directed Rauph with a nod to lead Martin away.

  As the last man exited Martin’s cell, Croenberg reactivated the plasma barrier …

  The only thing Tun Shaw liked about electric cars was that they ran silentiy. Three cars had already pulled up behind the fish market, the only noise they made the soft humming of their tires over the pavement.

  Ed and most of the rest of the Tac.Team had energy rifles. Fortunately, although every once in a while he heard rumors that the Germans were working on developing one, no one had yet to invent an energy shotgun. Like the rest of Tim Shaw’s firearms, the shotgun he held in his right hand was a Lancer replica, this of the Remington 870 police shotgun from six hundred and twenty-five years ago. Like all Lancer replicas, it was faithful to the last detail, even using ordnance steel that was blued as opposed to stainless. In the climate in the islands, that meant more care, but the 870’s smooth action made it all worthwhile.

  Beside him, Ed said, “The three cars behind the condos are in position. The only way they’ll get outa there is if they can fly.”

  “Don’t be too cocky” Tim Shaw advised his son. He turned away from staring at the condos and looked at the twelve men. “All right. This is kind of a funny operation. We don’t have a warrant, don’t have probable cause beyond an informer’s tip-and my ass’d be in a sling if anybody knew how I got it-and the idea isn’t so much to arrest these bastards as to stop ‘em. If we can take ‘em alive, terrific; well get good information out of ‘em. But if it’s a choice between killin’ the mother fuckers and lettin’ one of ‘em get away, we kill. Any questions?”

  There were a few grins from the Tac Team guys, but there weren’t any questions.

  Ed would run things tactically because he was better at it, so Tun Shaw told his son, “Give ‘em the word, Eddy.”

  Ed gave the word …

  Aside from Croenberg and Rauph, dressed as officers, the other men of the squad infiltrated to Pearl Harbor Naval Base were uniformed as enlisted personnel. The two with them, as they entered the car now, wore Shore Patrol armbands.

  Martin was sandwiched between them in the rear seat of the sedan, Croenberg sitting in the front passenger seat, Rauph driving. An enlisted man behind the wheel would have looked better, but that would have necessitated a fifth man for this element of the operation and that would not have worked.

  Rauph started the electric car out of the slot marked “Visitor” and turned the wheel into a hard right, cutting across several of the vacant slots as the vehicle angled toward the street.

  There was a considerable amount of traffic, but as yet no alarm was raised. “Nice and slow, well within the speed limit, Rauph,” Croenberg ordered. The more easily they reached the Fleet Admiral’s personal helicopter, the better …

  After attacking the Sebastian’s Reef Country Day School, the plan was to drive to the opposite end of Honolulu and carry out a similar operation against one of the City of Honolulu’s largest public schools where children from the imm
igrant community and the children of other of the island’s poorer elements attended. Because of the short span of time between reaching the island and pulling the first raid, however, there had not been sufficient opportunity to prepare the required number of explosive charges.

  Hence, the container which housed more than seventy-five percent of the team’s detonators was brought along. For safety, the explosives were kept in one van and the detonators in the other. The van which was intercepted was the one carrying the detonators. The second assault was scrubbed and now Wilhelm Doring faced a critical shortage of proper detonators.

  While he mentally kicked himself for the price of his haste, Wilhelm Doring’s eyes never left Marie as she spoke with the old woman at the lunch counter. The other six men who had accompanied them were watching the street, two from the opposite side, two at either end of the block on the same side as the restaurant. The transceiver in Doring’s mouth would alert him should there be any potential trouble.

  At last, Marie’s seemingly interminable conversation with the old woman ended and she-Marie Dreissling-started back toward the doorway where Doring stood, waiting. “Well?”

  “Willy, she-“

  “Do we have the detonators or not?”

  “Her husband did not tell her. He said he would be late and we should wait here for him.”

  That infuriated Doring, that a local Nazi sympathizer would assume that an officer of the Reich should be kept waiting for a mere nobody. Partly because of the positioning of the radio device within his mouth and partly because he was angry, Wilhelm Doring all but growled, “The girl and I have to wait here. Keep your positions. I will be in radio contact as necessary. Doring, Out.”

  “She suggested we come and sit at the lunch counter, Willy. She will give us free food and coffee!”

  He could have strangled Marie for her complacency concerning the detonator shortage and her enthusiasm over the offer of coffee and food. Instead, Wilhelm Doring smiled at her, saying, “That sounds pleasant enough.” He took her elbow and started toward the counter with her, careful that the tips of his fingers didn’t crush her arm.