Earth Fire

by Jerry Ahern

  “Yeah. But the Russians don’t use women for details like this—and besides, dressed like a woman you’re too recognizable to the KGB.”

  “Maybe I should take my eyebrow pencil and paint on a mus­tache.”

  “Do you use eyebrow pencil—”

  “Not very often,” she laughed. “But a woman needs to have one just in case.”

  “You shouldn’t have ridden in the front truck in the convoy.”

  “I didn’t have any choice,” she laughed. “I wanted to be with you—and besides, you’re the only man here I’d undress in front of.”

  “I don’t know if that’s a compliment or not,” he told her, looking at her for an instant. She had stripped away her jacket and her black jumpsuit and her boots—she looked bizarre, a silk one-piece undergarment that somewhere at the back of his mind he recalled was called a “teddy” or some other ridiculous sounding name and black boot socks. “That’s a kinky outfit.”

  “Hmm—I saw you when you were changing into your uniform—boot socks don’t go much better with jockey shorts.”

  Rourke laughed. “If we get out of this—we can get the cryo­genic chambers we can steal and the serum—we can get it to the Retreat—maybe get Vladov and some of his men there and Reed and some of his men. We could accommodate more than the six of us. And you can get things ready—I can go after your uncle and Catherine and try and get them out—”

  “No—”

  Rourke looked at her as she pulled on her borrowed uniform pants. “Why don’t you—”

  “Because you’d be killed—it’s as simple as that. There are three people I care for in the world. I’ve resigned myself to los­ing my uncle. But I wont risk losing either of the other two— yourself, Paul. If you go, Paul will go, too—you know that. When I looked at his wound I realized he’d be at full capacity in another few days—by the time we get back—if we get—when we get back, you won’t be able to stop him. You might morally excuse punching a woman in the jaw for what you considered was her own good, but you couldn’t morally excuse doing that to Paul. No, I love my uncle—he’s the only real parent I ever had—but I won’t let you die trying to bring him back. He’s ready to die—he feels he’s lived his life. I don’t accept that, but I respect it. You’d never get him out alive. If we pull this off, if we destroy the Womb’s capabilities to survive the holocaust, if we steal the chambers, steal the cryogenic serum we need and de­stroy the rest, if any of Rozhdestvenskiy’s men survive, they won’t rest until they hunt you down or the fire consumes them. You’d never reach Chicago, you’d never get out of the city if you did. I won’t let you go—if I have to shoot your kneecaps to stop you, I won’t let you leave me.”

  Rourke didn’t know what to say to her.

  Chapter Thirty-six

  The concrete barricades were just ahead.

  Vladov had read the orders, then given them to Natalia— the trucks carried plastique, C-4 explosives. Rourke watched Vladov through the windshield, aboard the right flanking M-72 motorcycle combination.

  In the second truck, Lieutenant Daszrozinski was wear­ing the uniform of the dead KGB major. In the third truck, Corporal Ravitski wore the uniform of the slain lieutenant of the KGB. The Americans were hidden in the trucks, be­hind the cases of C-4—not a convenient place to be in the event of a gunfight, Rourke thought. C-4 was quite stable as an explosive, but there was always the chance—

  Natalia beside him, in male drag, the uniform of a corpo­ral, said, “What do you think?”

  “About what?”

  “Will we make it inside, I mean?”

  Rourke shrugged. “Tell you one thing, keep your mouth shut beyond a yes or no, you’ve got girl all over your voice. And watch your eyes — squint or something. They see those they’ll figure something’s wrong.”

  “Why don’t I just hide in the back of the truck,” she said sarcastically. “These clothes are uncomfortable anyway.”

  “Because if there is a fight, you’re better than anybody else.”

  “Except you, maybe.”

  “Maybe,” said Rourke glanced at her and laughed. “My ego will be bruised.”

  “Your ego is too big to bruise,” she laughed.

  “Touche,” he nodded.

  There was another convoy in front of them and Rourke slowed the truck, then stopped, the two M-72 motorcycle combinations stopping as well. Already, in the sideview mirrors, he could see Daszrozinski and Ravitski climbing out—to do the impatient officer routine while the convoy was forced to wait. Rourke felt Natalia’s left hand against his right thigh, groping for his hand—her palm sweated.

  “That’s another thing that’ll blow your disguise,” he mur­mured. “Holding my hand.” And she started to take her hand away, but Rourke held it tight. “But I’ll tell you when it gets dangerous and you have to stop.”

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  “We’ve gotta assume that Lieutenant Feltcher never made it through to contact the TVM, so we’re in this thing against the KGB and the Army units under their control all alone.”

  Sam Chambers studied the faces of his officers and his senior non-coms. He looked away from them, up into the barn rafters for a moment, trying to search for the right words. He turned his face back to his men. “I—I don’t know what to say. I was never a politician—I was a scientist basically—I guess that was all I ever wanted to be. As your president, I should be able to say something consoling, something inspirational to you at this time. The Russians are closing in from both flanks, we have enough aircraft to evacuate some key personnel, but there isn’t any point to it. A dawn today, I considered the fact that God had given us another day of life. By dawn tomorrow or the next day or within a few days after that, the world will be ending. As a scientist, I had no means at my disposal to confirm or deny any of the hypotheses formed for post-war scenarios. But the Supreme Soviet Commander, General Varakov, had ac­cess to scientific data. High altitude test flights were still available options to the Soviets, as a means of confirming the level of ionization and the rate of buildup. As a scien­tist, it might be a pat answer for me to say that I blame my­self and other scientists for developing weapons systems and delivery systems which were capable of bringing about the destruction of our planet. Or I could shift the blame to the military for weapons build-ups. Or to the citizens of the various nuclear powers for letting their governments go on a headlong path to destruction.

  “But the truth is,” Chambers continued, “that I don’t know who to blame. I blame myself as an individual matter of conscience. And maybe each of us should do that. And you can’t say that the anti-nuclear people were right and somebody else was wrong. Because they never gave us an alternative to nuclear defense as a deterrent to warfare. But of course we never gave them an alternative to warfare as a way of solving problems. But I don’t think we were put here— however we were put here—to lie down and die. And I don’t think we were put here to compromise our beliefs and principles in order just to cling to life for a little while longer.

  “So,” he nodded, “God gave us this extra day. It’s clear our Soviet adversaries don’t know of the coming holocaust. I think it’s up to us to use this day—in the defense of an ideal that somehow, even after all mankind is dead—some­where there is a spark that won’t die. I’m talking about lib­erty. That’s all I have to say besides God bless us all.”

  It started with one man, then another and then still an­other—hands clapped to applause, but Samuel Chambers, first and last president of United States II, realized the ap­plause were not for the words he had uttered, but for the feelings the words echoed from the hearts of the Americans he stood before.

  Unashamed, as he stood there beneath the rafters, Sam Chambers wept.

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  The convoy ahead of them was moving up, the traffic officer near the concrete barricades waving them ahead. Rourke duti­fully waited for Daszrozinski, disguised as the KGB major with the convoy, to gesture for him to move
out. Rourke double clutched to get the old transmission into gear, easing up on the clutch, letting the truck barely more than idle forward, toward the barricades, the M-72 motorcycle combinations falling in at the front of the convoy, just ahead of Rourke—he could see a dark stain near the small of the back on the uniform Vladov wore—blood. He hoped no one else could see it. It wasn’t the sort of spot one cut oneself shaving.

  Natalia whispered, “Like they say in your American mov­ies—dark of the moon.”

  “Yeah,” Rourke nodded, letting out a long sigh, letting the vehicle roll ahead without feeding it much gas.

  He knew where Natalia had her Bali-Song knife—inside the right front trouser pocket. Her hand rested over it. She had laughed when she had placed it there, saying that by moving the pocket lining to the side, with the knife there she might convince a casual observer she had something between her legs that really wasn’t there.

  Rourke hadn’t found the remark amusing.

  The M-72 combinations were flagged to a halt just past the sentry box, between the first and second fence.

  Rourke braked the deuce and a half.

  In the sideview mirror, he could see Daszrozinski walking up toward the head of the column, Ravitski, still disguised as a KGB lieutenant, walking beside him and slightly behind at his left side.

  The guard sergeant from the sentry box snapped to and sa­luted Daszrozinski. Smartly, but not too smartly, Daszrozinski returned the salute. Through Natalia’s open passenger side win­dow, Rourke could hear as Daszrozinski and the guard sergeant spoke. “Comrade Major—your papers, please.”

  Daszrozinski was playing it to the hilt, removing one glove very casually yet very definitely, gesturing with a nod of the head to Ravitski to produce the papers.

  Inside himself, Rourke waited for Ravitski to make some sort of mistake, show some sort of deference to the guard sergeant who in real life outranked him, Ravitski only a corporal.

  But Ravitski, a studied air of surliness about him, handed the papers to the sergeant.

  The sergeant saluted and moved off with the papers.

  Daszrozinski lit a cigarette, offering one to Ravitski. Ravitski lit up as well.

  Rourke eyed Natalia, shifting his focus from the two men just beyond her, outside the cab—she was licking her lips. He didn’t know if in need of a cigarette herself or simply from ner­vousness.

  Her hair was pulled back and up, stuffed under her garrison cap—the cheekbones would give her away, the set of the mouth.

  Rourke shifted his gaze to Daszrozinski, the counterfeit ma­jor checking his watch anxiously.

  He heard Daszrozinski telling Ravitski, “Give the men per­mission to smoke, Lieutenant.”

  “Very good, Comrade Major,” Ravitski nodded, bowing slightly.

  Ravitski approached the cab of the truck, leaning up toward Natalia, under his breath murmuring, “The lieutenant believes they are taking too long with the papers, I think—be alert, Comrade Major.”

  Natalia nodded almost imperceptibly, Ravitski concluding as he stepped down from the running board, “But watch how you extinguish your cigarettes—these are explosives we carry—re­member,” and he walked on toward the next truck.

  Natalia took out a cigarette—Rourke slapped his hand against her left thigh hard, eyeing the cigarette case—one of the type that looked like a smaller version of a woman’s handbag. Quickly, she took two cigarettes, putting the case under her tu­nic. She raised her eyebrows.

  Rourke lit her cigarette, taking one and lighting it for him­self—a Pall Mall. He put away the Zippo, tempted to laugh as he watched Natalia posturing to smoke a cigarette like a man did rather than a woman, intentionally trying to make her hand look less than graceful when she held it, keeping her right wrist stiff, holding the cigarette between her thumb and first finger rather than between the first and second finger as she usually did, fingers extended.

  She started to pluck a piece of tobacco from her lower lip— Rourke slapped her against the thigh again and she nodded, moving her hand away.

  Rourke turned his attention to Ravitski who had rejoined Daszrozinski.

  They still waited the papers and the return of the guard ser­geant.

  Rourke glanced to his left. Guards were there, but not seem­ing to pay particular attention to him. Rourke had purposely selected a slightly over large uniform tunic—both Detonics Combat Master .45s were under it in the double Alessi shoulder rig. In the times before The Night of The War, in discussion of survival, often he had been asked why as his primary sidearms for survival use he had selected the Detonics rather than a larger pistol. His answer had always been that in a survival situation, the need for concealment shouldn’t be entirely discounted. And no other pistol, as he had told them then and still believed now, could be so counted on for trouble free reliability, maintenance free utility, and the combination of compact size and big caliber. There were too many buttons on the uniform to reach the pis­tols as quickly as he would have liked, but it felt good to him having them there.

  He looked past Natalia again, inhaling the cigarette smoke deep into his lungs, wishing he had a cigar instead, but the im­age was too capitalistic for a supposed Soviet soldier.

  Daszrozinski and Ravitski still waited, but from the sentry box now, Rourke saw the guard sergeant and an officer, a ma­jor, coming forward. Like the guard sergeant, the major was KGB.

  Daszrozinski and the major from the sentry box exchanged curt salutes, Rourke overhearing as the new major informed Daszrozinski, “I am sorry for this regrettable delay, Comrade, but the experiments inside the Womb reach a critical stage now—in another week, security can be lessened I am sure and future shipments will be less delayed.”

  Rourke felt a smile cross his lips—the impending ionization effect, hence the real purpose of the Womb, were being held secret from those not part of the project. Would that there were a way of capitalize on this, Rourke thought. But he could see none.

  Daszrozinski asked, “Then we are free to move ahead, Ma­jor?”

  “You certainly are, Comrade—but because of the security re­strictions, I’m afraid your shipment must only be taken beyond the primary doors to the receiving area. From there, Womb per­sonnel will take over the vehicles. We have arranged a rest area in a tent near the airfield while your cargo is being unloaded. For the enlisted personnel there is some of this American con­coction known as Cold-Aid—”

  “Kool-Aid,” Rourke corrected under his breath, smiling.

  “And for the officers, vodka or hot coffee, whichever one might wish. “You will find other convoy personnel there and the wait should not be that terribly long until your trucks are re­turned and you can move down the mountain again.”

  “Excellent, Major, then we shall proceed?”

  “Yes, Comrade, very good,” the KGB major nodded, again giving a curt salute, Daszrozinski returning it smartly. Daszro­zinski turned toward Rourke, waving him forward, calling something Rourke didn’t catch to Vladov and the other motorcycle driver. Their machines started. Rourke could hear the KGB major telling Daszrozinski, “Major, there is no need for your motorcycle escort to enter the facility—”

  Daszrozinski—Rourke barely able to hear as he started the truck—turned abruptly to face the KGB major. “Major, my or­ders explicitly state I am to provide security for the cargo of explosives we carry, security until the cargo is transferred to the KGB personnel inside. I shall follow my orders, thank you, Comrade.”

  The KGB major nodded his head to the side, shrugging, wav­ing the trucks and the two M-72 motorcycle combinations for­ward.

  Rourke let up the clutch, Daszrozinski jumping to the run­ning board on Natalia’s side. Under his breath, the Soviet SF lieutenant rasped, “What is the American expression?”

  “So far so good,” Rourke whispered, letting the truck roll for­ward past the sentry box.

  The M-72 combinations passed under the lintel of the bomb­proof doors, Rourke involuntarily ducking his head
a little as the cab of the two and one-half ton truck passed under it after them.

  Inside, beyond the doors, he could see a vast horseshoe shaped turn-around, at the far end loading docks and beside these, the vault door leading into the Womb itself. The vault door was open as it should be.

  Rourke whispered to Natalia and Daszrozinski. “Watch Vla­dov, he’ll have caught your conversation, Lieutenant, so I think he’ll make the first play.”

  “Yes, Comrade Doctor—”

  Rourke looked at him, Daszrozinski saying, “I am sor—”

  “In what we’re doing, we are comrades in the real sense of the word—no offense taken, Lieutenant.”

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  There was not an AK type weapon to be seen—as if Kalashnikov had never lived—the KGB personnel all carried M-16s and those few personnel who carried side arms wore .45s, the “U.S.” symbols on the flaps of the holsters bizarre, Rourke thought. Natalia, as Rourke drove the vehicle into the horseshoe, mur­mured, “According to my uncle, they have standardized here on American weapons totally for the logistics of supplying the Womb and in the event that at some future date any buried weapons and munitions caches which would have survived the holocaust untouched might be found.”

  “Interesting,” Rourke noted. “So the AKMs outside are just for show, just like the dodge about experiments—lying to their own people—”

  “Yes—yes, they are,” she answered softly.

  Ahead of him, a sergeant wearing white gloves and a white cap cover was directing traffic, Rourke following his lead, aim­ing the nose of the deuce and a half toward the loading dock area, breaking off from the main horseshoe of the driveway.