by Ahern, Jerry
“Oh.”
Jason Darkwood eyed what should, following Sebastian’s mathematical progression, be the next tube fired. If it fired as he approached, he was dead. If, after he accomplished his bit of sabotage, the tube were still fired, they’d all be dead, because the submarine itself would explode. If a second tube were fired, simultaneously with the first, the result might be either his death alone or the destruction of the submarine, hence the death of all of them.
“Fraught with peril,” Jason Darkwood muttered into his helmet.
And he swam forward, with the precisely turned crowbar-shaped rod in his right fist.
He crossed over the missile deck, careful lest a flipper inadvertendy touch against its surface, his eyes riveted to the next tube Sebastian’s reasoning suggested would fire. There was no movement of the hatch, nothing but Sebastian’s second-guessing the Soviet computer programmer to make Darkwood select this very hatch.
And, at last, he hovered over it. Carefully, he let himself down over the hatch, hoping the hatch lid was not sensitized, hoping, too, that video observation would not detect his presence.
He bent over the hatch and inserted the rod between the double hinges, effectively—he hoped—locking the hatch in the closed position.
As his hands moved away from the rod, the hatch moved, started upward, Darkwood swimming away, using wings, flippers, and hands. As he glanced back, the tube hatch had reached a height of approximately two inches off level from the deck. And it raised no farther. Darkwood quickened his pace, because the first reaction of the launch crew would be to get a visual fix on the nature of the problem.
And, with any luck at all, once it was realized the hatch was jammed, a frogman team would be dispatched to manually open it.
And they would come through the main diver lock near which his attack force waited—with any luck.
Chapter Thirty-five
John Rourke pushed the body of the German commando into a natural cavelike niche in the wall of the abyss. There was finally time now to check the man, to see if he were alive or dead.
Free from the overwhelmingly powerful current that had driven them downward, John Rourke realized there was no time for any other consideration but to escape the current before it could reclaim them. The chances of two such powerful currents—essentially underwater rivers—being so terribly close to one another within the walls of the abyss into which they’d been pulled were exceedingly remote. Yet, they would never escape this current or a similar one if captured again, so any chance was too great a risk.
He judged they had traveled upward for more than, a hundred feet before finding the litde cave. Inside it now, Rourke first examined the German to determine whether or not the man still lived, which, indeed, he did.
Exhaustion and relief tempted John Rourke to lean back against the cave wall and rest, but because the German was alive now didn’t mean the man would survive. Carefully, Rourke began the difficult task of examining the unconscious but regularly breathing German commando through the dry suit. He found evidence to suggest that the man had suffered several cracked ribs, but none of them seemed broken; and, as best Rourke could ascertain under the circumstances, neither lung seemed punctured. His initial examination for obvious head or back or neck injuries complete, Rourke began to examine the man in greater detail. His eyes were closed, and there was no way to check pupillary reaction without compromising the protection of the dry suit and killing the man. His breathing was still regular, but in the beam of
Rourke’s flashlight the man’s color seemed pale, even for a blond-haired German.
Shock, obviously, but the suit would aid in keeping the man supplied with breathable air and warm at the same time; and, evidendy, Rourke’s own manipulation of the body while holding on to the man had aided in keeping him respirating.
The important thing was to get the man to the surface, where proper medical treatment could be administered—to the surface or into a submarine.
John Rourke felt a smile cross his lips.
He worked the chest pack, punching up coordinates and trying to determine his position in relationship to the Soviet Island Classers above.
As best he could tell, he was a mile away from the original Island Classer and another hundred feet below it. How far he and the German had traveled while stuck in the current was impossible to determine, because his heads-up readout indicated more than seven miles traversed. It seemed impossible to consider that the current had wound so intricately within the abyss.
In any event, Rourke decided, the best option was to go straight up, reassess his position, then try to rejoin Darkwood and the rest of the attack force. By now, they might well have penetrated the Soviet vessel. But if they had, why were there missiles still firing?
Like distant claps of spring thunder, John Rourke could hear them.
He checked his and the German’s suits, then eased the man into his arms, like an adult would carry a child. Using wings and flippers alone, Rourke launched diem from the lip of the cave mouth and into open water again, starting upward… .
They sheltered in the coral and rocks about fifty yards off the Island Classer’s main diver lock, just aft of the Island Classer’s towering sail.
When the second and diird Island Classer—Darkwood
was reasonably certain there were only two more—had fired their missiles, another storm of violent currents, rock particles, and silt had washed toward them in a fast-moving wave. But they survived, and now, with the hatch opening, missile firings from the other two vessels would logically be halted while friendly divers were in the water.
There was a broad shaft of yellow light, piercingly strong, and the hatch was fully open. The Soviet divers began exiting in order to repair the hatch over the missile tube, security with the rifle versions of Sty-20 shark guns guarding the hatchway.
Jason Darkwood and the men clustered around him on the rock shelf waited.
At least, the bombardment of the German mountain city was temporarily ended.
How much devastation the missile strikes might have wrought was anyone’s guess, and clearly, even given his limited experience in surface warfare, the missile attack was merely the softening up prior to a full-scale assault.
There were literally thousands of Soviet personnel in the field, their armor obviously superior, their air power virtually a match for the German air power from everything Jason Darkwood had heard.
The only significant German advantage—aside from right being on their side, which as an American, Darkwood had always taken as a definite plus—was that the Germans fought from a strongly defended home base, with easily accessed lines of supply.
If that advantage were to be neutralized, right being on the side of the Allied cause or not, the Germans stood an excellent chance of being defeated.
And Darkwood’s only possibility of being able to reverse that potential for disaster was a hatch opening about six feet wide, some fifty yards away.
He waited… .
the elements of his chest pack to reassess his position based on the heads-up display within his helmet visor. A mile or a litde better from at least one of the Island Classers, which one being another question entirely.
So, again, John Rourke took up his injured comrade. He shook his head as a siHy thought crossed his mind. He remembered the pop song of the 1960s. If only the German had been his brother, at least according to the song’s lyrics, he wouldn’t have been heavy.
Using wings and flippers only, John Rourke swam on.
At the height of the abyss, John Rourke lay down his burden—the German commando—and once again worked with
Chapter Thirty-six
Annie rested comfortably. Natalia at last left her side, telling herself that John had to be alive, that the peaceful, almost joyous look on Annie’s face in repose meant just that.
In the restroom facility, she brushed as much of the dust from her hair as she could, waited for an empty stall—it seemed like half the wom
en there had to use the bathroom at the same time—and did what was necessary. She rezipped her jumpsuit, took her gunbelt and shoulder holster from the hook on the inside of the door, and redonned them. She left the stall, returned to the mirror, ran a brush through her hair again for good measure, then took one of the black silk bandannas from her purse. She tied it over her head, knotting it under her hair at the nape of the neck.
“Babushka,” she smiled, taking a last look at herself in the mirror, then walking out.
Annie would have been a valuable ally in this, but she would be sedated for another several hours.
The bombardment had stopped, which meant one of three possibilities was the likely scenario. Either John’s commando force had succeeded, the city had already fallen, or the bombardment had merely been suspended to allow elements of the Soviet land force to attack.
In either of the last two scenarios, being trapped in this underground vault meant certain death or capture. But, outside of it, there were possibilities. One determined person could make a difference with the necessary skills to back up that determination. Other persons could be found, resistance offered.
In any event, here she was useless.
She walked past Sarah and Maria, the former mouthing a silent “Good luck” and the latter smiling. Annie rested between them on an inflatable mattress.
Some of the other women in safe storage here looked at her oddly as she moved past them, some whispering, some smiling, some casting looks of disapproval.
Many women considered it unfeminine to go about in sturdy high boots and black batde dress and openly quite heavily armed. But Natalia Anastasia Tiemerovna had never considered doing the right thing unfeminine. Let them watch her, let them remark that she was being a fool or forgetting her place—whatever that was—or anything they liked.
Natalia approached two of the female German officers standing off some distance from the female enlisted guards in the vauldike doorway that sealed the Leader Bunker in which they waited.
As she approached the officers—both lieutenants—they came to attention, the evident senior of the two addressing her as “Fraulein Major!”
“Lieutenant, I wish to leave the Leader Bunker to go to aid in the fighting in the city above us.”
The woman looked nonplussed. “But, Fraulein Major, it is impossible to—”
Natalia shrugged her shoulders, her right palm opening, a click-click-click sound and the Bali-Song exposed, the tip of the Wee-Hawk blade at the woman’s throat. “Have the door opened now, and I wish an assault rifle and twelve loaded magazines. After I have passed through, you will secure the entry, allowing no one to pass in or out except as relates to your existing orders. Any attempt to stop me and you”— Natalia looked the woman straight in her startled cornflower-blue eyes—“die. If you know my reputation, then you know I do not indulge in idle threats, Lieutenant.”
“But-” Natalia let the point of the Bali-Song touch the skin of the woman’s throat, not enough to puncture, but just enough to be felt. “Yes, Fraulein Major!”
“You,” Natalia told one of the door guards, “hurry with the assault rifle!”
Chapter Thirty-seven
Inside the elevator, she checked the assault rifle, the action smooth enough and the firing pin in place, everything as it should be. Periodically, squatted on the floor as she inspected the rifle, she looked at the female German officer whom she had brought along as elevator operator, insurance against getting the power cut off from below, stranding her.
Natalia had the woman on her knees in the opposite corner, hands behind her head, face into the corner, like some bad child being punished in school.
“Fraulein Major?”
“Do not talk, Lieutenant. This is a short enough ride, and then you can resume your duties.”
“But, you cannot—I would like to fight as well, but there are orders, Fraulein Major.”
“I am not in your army, Lieutenant. And there are imperatives higher than any orders.” Natalia was satisfied that the rifle was acceptable to her needs. She inserted a forty-round magazine up the well, a second forty-round magazine of caseless ammunition clipped to the first. As Natalia started to her feet, the German officer wheeled and threw herself across the elevator cabin, tackling her. Natalia’s body slammed against the wall, her breath lost for a second. The German lieutenant’s right knee smashed upward as her left hand slapped outward. Natalia pivoted slighdy right, taking the knee smash in the fleshy portion of her left hip. But the slap caught her, and Natalia’s head snapped back with its force.
The German’s right fist punched into her abdomen, Natalia starting to double over with it but bringing her right hand from above her head downward quickly, backhanding the woman across the right cheek with her knuckles.
As Natalia sank to her knees, the German lieutenant fell back.
But the German woman was quick. She pushed away from the wall, throwing herself toward Natalia.
Natalia let herself fall the rest of the way forward and left, rolling, her left foot snapping out as she took her weight on her right hip, her foot catching the German officer in the rib cage just under the right breast.
The German sucked in her breath in something like a scream, but not loud enough. She was up again as Natalia rolled to her feet and she charged, both hands going for Natalia’s throat and face, her nails like claws.
The principal reason why many women did not adapt well to hand-to-hand combat was that so many of them fought instinctively like women—scratch and claw and gouge and tear and twist and pinch.
Natalia did not fight that way, although she could when the situation called for it.
She wheeled right into a three hundred sixty degree pirouettelike turn on her left foot, her right back-kicking at the German. But the German was quicker than Natalia judged her to be, and Natalia’s foot caught the woman on the right shoulder instead of the right side of the head as the woman dodged back. But there was not sufficient force in the kick to break her collarbone or dislocate her shoulder, because Natalia had no desire to kill an ally who was just trying to do her duty as she saw it.
The woman rocked back.
Natalia feigned another flying kick as the woman charged again, but she halted in mid move, letting the German officer dodge the kick. As the lieutenant moved to block the kick that wasn’t coming, Natalia’s balled left fist hooked upward and right, catching her on the right side of the jaw and knocking her down. Natalia threw herself onto the woman, the heel of her right hand impacting the German officer just below the left ear, knocking her out.
“Sorry,” Natalia almost whispered, looking up from the floor to the elevator level indicator. Nearly there. Natalia got
to her feet, retying the bandanna, which had fallen round her neck, under her hair. She grabbed up the assault rifle, the magazine carrier, and her black bag, then racked the bolt of the rifle.
The elevator stopped.
The doors opened.
Natalia ran, twisting the key for the level of the Leader Bunker, slipping between the doors an instant before they thwacked shut.
She was in the sub-basement of the National Defense Headquarters.
And she stopped.
Around her, there was nothing but silence.
Natalia Anastasia Tiemerovna let her rifle fall to her side on its sling, took her black gloves from her bag—the knuckles of her left fist hurt a litde-and pulled them on.
She eschewed any more elevators, running for the stairs.
Chapter Thirty-eight
The swimmers were returning to the airlock hatch.
With hand and arm movements, Jason Darkwood signaled the others to be ready. Michael Rourke, Paul Rubenstein, and Sam Aldridge crouched beside him.
Darkwood tapped Sam Aldridge and Michael Rourke on the shoulder and at the far right edge of his peripheral vision he saw young Rourke pass the signal on to Paul Rubenstein. Then the four of them were moving, fanning out from cover, swimming as fast as they coul
d toward the airlock, the divers—except for the security personnel — already entering, most having nearly disappeared inside.
In Darkwood’s right hand he held the identical duplicate of the Randall Smithsonian Bowie his ancestor Nathaniel Darkwood had brought with him to Mid-Wake five centuries ago. He glanced at Aldridge first, then at young Rourke, then at Rubenstein. Aldridge carried his copy of the Ka-Bar United States Marine Corps Knife, Rourke the Crain Life Support System I made for him at Lydveldid Island by a swordmaker known as Old Jon, after the design of the Crain knife from five centuries ago. Rubenstein’s knife was the only genuine antique, a five-century-old spear-pointed Gerber Mk II fighting knife, a design conceived during the Vietnam War.
They moved on the shark-gun-armed security team.
There were seven of them, and the two nearest Darkwood, Rourke, Rubenstein, and Aldridge turned suddenly, as if somehow—even though it was impossible—they had heard something. As one of the Soviet security team personnel raised his shark gun to fire, Paul Rubenstein’s body slammed against him. Sea Wings cocooned around Rubenstein’s body, his knife powering forward into the Soviet Marine Spetznas’s
throat. The water around them was clouded dark with blood.
Darkwood was nearest the second of the two already-alerted men, his left arm moving to block the shark gun, his right arm pistoning into the Soviet’s chest.
As Darkwood drew out the knife, Aldridge was already locked in combat with two of the Marine Spetznas, Michael Rourke finishing another of them with a swipe of his fighting knife across the man’s throat. Darkwood moved toward the hatchway, the airlock door closing as the remaining two Marine Spetznas guards moved to seal it.
Darkwood raked his knife across the lower back of one of them, hoping to catch the spine, a cloud of blood obscuring his vision. The second of the two men stroked upward with the butt of his gun, Darkwood twisting away from it, losing his balance, rolling over and right.
