by Ahern, Jerry
the building’s collapse didn’t get her as well.
She safed the German batde weapon, pushing it behind her back on its sling. Instead, she drew the suppressor-fitted Walther PPK/S .380 from its inverted shoulder holster. The Walther clutched tight in her gloved right fist, Natalia Anastasia Tiemerovna began creeping forward to attack the Elite Corps, a unit begun five centuries ago by the husband who had tried to kill her, who had become the symbol to her of everything that was evil and vile, equally a traitor to Communism and to humanity in every form.
There was an open space of about ten feet to cross until she reached an overturned public shuttle behind which she could take cover and concealment. She ran now, keeping her body low, the Walther out ahead of her like a talisman against death.
And she started to murmur under her breath, “Fuck you, Vladmir,” but the mere thought of the meaning behind the common vulgarism made Natalia shiver.
Chapter Forty-one
There was gunfire amidships now as John Rourke, Michael Rourke, and Paul Rubenstein climbed through the access tube toward the Island Classer’s science bay.
The walls of the tube gleamed bright like burnished gold but were merely stainless steel or some modern equivalent, reflecting the beam of John Rourke’s flashlight.
As he spotted a small hatchway ahead, Rourke hissed to Michael and Paul below him, “I think we’re there.” But what they would find “there” was uncertain. Had he commanded the Island Classer, John Rourke knew, he would have stationed one armed crewman at each access tube hatch throughout the aft portion of the submarine, to guard against just such a tactic.
He hoped now, as he approached the hatch, touching a gloved hand to the locking wheel, that the Soviet commander did not have such foresight.
One man with a litde skill and imagination and the proper weapon could hold off twenty or more men trying to squeeze through the smallish access hatchways, merely picking them off one at a time.
Rourke secured the flashlight, one of the Detonics Scoremasters in his right fist, his left hand on the wheel. “Be ready* he rasped to his son and his friend.
John Rourke’s left hand began to move the wheel, which squeaked in response. “Damn,” he hissed. But John Rourke had planned ahead. From one of the pouches on his belt, he took a tube of lubricant. Belting his pistol for a moment, he notched the end of the tube with his knife. Resheathing the knife, he applied the lubricant liberally to the hub of the wheel.
Rourke waited, the distant sound of gunfire unabated.
It was hot inside the gas mask, but he could take no chances with the Island Classer’s intruder defense system, gas weapons at the very minimum.
Rourke convinced himself that sufficient time had elapsed for the synth lube to penetrate. He drew one of the Scoremasters and again tried the wheel.
No squeak.
The wheel turned quickly, and as it neared the end of its rotation, Rourke gave it a hard twist, released it, then drew his second Scoremaster. The wheel stopped.
The door opened slowly under Rourke’s hand pressure, the second Scoremaster held loosely in his fingers.
John Rourke peered out into the science labs. There was no one immediately in evidence and he swung his body around, getting his feet through, then jumped, coming down in a crouch, the hammers of both Scoremasters rolling back under his thumbs.
Behind him, he heard the sounds of Michael and Paul exiting the access tube, the scuffing of feet, the creaking of equipment, the cocking of the hammer on Paul’s battered Browning High Power.
The compartment into which they’d entered was long and narrow, on second glance quite clearly an interior corridor connecting sections of the science labs to each other, watertight doors on either side. These were closed. John Rourke signaled Paul and Michael back, approaching the nearer of these two doors, the one on his right.
Rourke flattened himself against the interior bulkhead. He extended his right leg, then gently nudged his foot against the jdoor. It held fast. Rourke signaled to Paul and Michael, but they were already coming up, taking positions on either side of him. Rourke touched at the wheel of the watertight door, the second Scoremaster safed and slipped into his belt.
The wheel spun easily. Anyone on the other side of the doorway would realize the door was being opened, so there was no need for perfect silence.
As soon as the lock cleared, Rourke redrew the .45 and kicked against the door, stepping back and right.
Through the open doorway, he could see no one. Paul and
Michael went through the doorway, Paul crossing left to right, Michael right to left. Rourke followed them, dodging right as he entered.
The laboratory was deserted. At its far end was a winding metal staircase, connecting, Rourke deduced, science to medical above.
“Let’s go,” Rourke almost whispered, starting for the stairs. …
There was another high-pitched whistling whine. Another missile would be striking the mountain at any second. The National Defense Headquarters would collapse, or at least partially so, and the three men who were her targets — she was kss than fifteen feet from them—would run for their lives.
She waited, although it was hard for her to do so. But Natalia waited for the whine of the incoming missile to be at its loudest.
As it crescendoed, she rose from her position of concealment behind the overturned transport, the Walther PPK/S American in both fists. She fired once, into the axial vertebrae of the farthest of the three Elite Corpsmen, killing him in-■tandy, his body slapping forward. She swung the suppressor-fitted muzzle of the Walther and fired again, into the left ear of the man second farthest from her. The third man was turning around, bringing his assault rifle up. Natalia shot him in die right eye. She wheeled back to the second man, putting another bullet into his head.
The missile impacted, Natalia thrown to the ground by the Aock wave, huge slabs of building material crashing downward, the street in front of her buckling upward, a water main rapturing.
Natalia pushed herself to her feet and ran, jumping the I widening crack in the street and coming down in a roll. She I §ot to her feet again, running as the crack widened toward I’fer.
I She reached the smallest of the three dead men, grabbed his [ body by the collar of his BDUs, and dragged him after her, the [ crack splitting the street wide open, one of the two bodies fall
ing into it, the water spray covering everything now… .
At the height of the stairs, the medical complex was not on alert, and there were six med-techs involved in day-to-day routines. As Rourke came out of the stairwell and trained both Scoremasters on them, he called out in Russian for them to remain just where they were and they would not be hurt.
Six sets of arms were raised at once.
The most humane thing was to use one of the gas grenades, which could either be fired from a grenade launcher as before or merely thrown. Rourke cautioned the six to lie down as comfortably as possible and breathe deeply.
Within seconds, all six were unconscious and, aside from colossal headaches, would be none the worse for wear when they awakened.
Rourke went to a supply cabinet, found a large plastic bot-de of Soviet acetaminophen tablets, then set it on one of the tables near where the six lay.
Rourke looked at Paul, who was checking the German MP 40 which, after all this time, he still called a “Schmiesser.” Michael was substitudng twenty-round magazines in his Beretta 92Fs. John Rourke shrugged his shoulders under the weight of the double Alessi shoulder rig’s harness, then checked the litde Centennial .38 he’d brought along.
He picked up both Scoremasters—cocked and locked— from the table nearest him. “Gendemen?”
“Ready,” Paul nodded.
“Ready,” Michael almost whispered.
“I’ll get the door,” Paul volunteered, then broke into a jog trot across the medical complex toward the watertight door at the far end.
Beyond it, there should be a companionway, which would
likely be guarded at the other end, because it led directly to the Con at the heart of the Command Deck.
Rourke started across the medical section, his son falling in beside him… .
The man’s clothes fit Natalia well enough but, like many Russians of her own day, he had not bathed frequently enough and had covered his body odor with cologne, from which the clothes now positively reeked. What blood had begun coagulating on the collar of the BDU blouse she was able to rub off easily because the dead Elite Corpsman’s clothing, Bke her own, was soaked in the spray from the ruptured, still-spouting water main.
Her wet hair at last satisfactorily stuffed under the Elite Corpsman’s BDU cap—she’d checked for head lice and found none—Natalia crawled out of the shadow of the pile of building rubble, the Soviet assault rifle in her hands.
Fires burned around the city, she guessed as the result of electrical disruption. Grey-blue trailers of synth fuel hung fceavy on the air.
The Elite Corps front line was now a ragged crescent, and after the last missile strike, small arms fire had erupted between the Soviet and German units closest to each other. The German tanks held their line, and as yet there was no Soviet armor rolling through the Soviet-held main entrance to the German capital.
Of machine gun emplacements on the Soviet side, she saw «nly five, this reinforcing her opinion that the Elite Corps ■nit’s commander had decided to hit fast, traveling light. Glancing toward the main entrance again, she could almost visualize their strike. Evidendy, one or more of the missiles had wiped out much of the German defense immediately our-akk the main entrance. While that was being reorganized and with the missile attack temporarily ceased, this unit—only a few hundred men at most—had been sent in.
“Idiot,” Natalia murmured in English, shaking her head. The sort of field commander who would send in that many ■en with so few heavier weapons to back them up against a fcrtified position such as this displayed total lack of concern 4Y the lives of those men.
What she needed to do was reach one of the machine guns, preferably the most rearward of them, and hope that once she •Urted using it the Germans would counterattack. If she «ould hold out long enough … Natalia licked her lips, wish—
ing for a cigarette.
She pulled the visor of her cap lower over her eyes. She looked down her front, making certain the purse she had stuffed in over her chest to disguise her figure was where it should be. That the material from which the black bag was made was also bullet resistant was at least a litde comforting.
Holding the rifle in both hands, she started running forward in a low crouch, to join the comrades attacking New Germany… .
The watertight door opening onto the main upper deck companionway was along the leg of the companionway, an L-shape, not direcdy opposite the watertight door leading to the Island Classer’s Con.
John Rourke, with Paul and Michael just behind him, edged along the interior bulkhead, past more medical facilities, no time to worry about who might or might not be working inside.
At the terminus of the Es leg to the main section of the companionway, John Rourke stopped.
Among Paul, Michael, and himself, there were eight gas grenades remaining. Rourke popped one grenade free from his equipment belt, Michael doing the same. He signaled Paul to save his remaining two.
John Rourke edged closer to the corner where the two segments of companionway met and drew the small mirror from the breast pocket of his surface suit. Angling it, he could see along the companionway toward the watertight door. As he’d suspected, the door was guarded, four men with assault rifles and a two-man machine gun team.
All six men wore gas masks.
Sporadic gunfire could be heard coming from at least one deck below.
Rourke replaced his gas grenades, useless now. “Hold off on the gas,” he hissed through his mask. “Sound and light first, then guns. They’re wearing masks. Paul, lob two sound and lights. That’ll leave you one. I’ve got one and so does Michael.” Paul nodded, snapping two sound and light grenades from his equipment, pulling the pin on first one, then the other. Michael positioned himself with both Berettas to cover Paul.
John Rourke checked the mirror one last time. “Now,” he whispered.
Paul Rubenstein snapped both sound and light grenades down the companionway, pulling back, Rourke bringing both hands up to his ears as the machine gun opened up, Michael drawing back as his father closed his eyes against the flash.
As the whine of the grenades died, Rourke stabbed both Scoremasters around the corner, firing three shots from each, up and down and side to side, Michael firing both Berettas from shoulder level as he dodged into the companionway, then back.
Paul Rubenstein had the submachine gun up, hosing it empty down the companionway, making a fast tactical change with the magazines, the second one already ready. He nodded.
John Rourke stepped into the companionway, both pistols ahead of him, firing at everything that moved. Crouched beside him, Paul fired the submachine gun from the shoulder, the stock extended. Michael moved slowly forward along the companionway, both Berettas firing.
One of the machine gun team was still moving. John Rourke fired the last round from the Scoremaster in his right hand, putting the man down.
At point-blank range, Michael killed the last of the six men, then framed himself against the bulkhead to the right of the watertight door.
Rourke, his friend beside him, ran the length of the companionway, changing magazines in the Scoremasters, Paul changing magazines in the German MF40.
The watertight door would be locked and it made no sense to even try it.
While Paul and Michael scrounged weapons from the dead, John Rourke took the magnetic mine from the pack on his son’s back and clamped it near the locking mechanism.
Paul, the Soviet light machine gun leaned against the bulkhead near him, started the rope of plastique-like explosive, feeding it out of its protective tube as Michael molded the
substance into the juncture of watertight door and flange.
John Rourke had two of the Soviet assault rifles now, fresh forty-round magazines loaded. He moved back along the companionway, gas spraying from small jets where the bulkheads on either side of die companionway met the overhead.
The gas was grey as fog and billowed downward in thick clouds.
Michael shouted, “Ready!”
“Now!” John Rourke called back.
Michael and Paul raced back along the companionway, drawing into shelter in the leg of the “L” beside Rourke as the first explosion came, the second one—louder—just after it.
The manner in which the explosives were set would result in a Misme-Chardin effect with the watertight door, propelling it inward and across the Con. But John Rourke had planned ahead. The same explosion from beneath the Con level or from forward would have destroyed most of the submarine’s instrumentation, but from aft it would knock out the actual Con itself, along with the periscope array—he hoped.
Otherwise, he had just made a derelict of the Island Classer, one they might not even be able to surface.
John Rourke stepped into the companionway, breaking into a run for the doorway opening, a jagged maw now, smoke rising around it still. And Paul was beside him, firing the Soviet LMG in controlled bursts, high through the doorway opening.
• Paul neared the doorway, firing the LMG up and down, right and left. Michael fired a burst from each assault rifle he held.
Rourke reached the twisted flange and jumped it, one of the Soviet rifles in each fist. Crew personnel lay everywhere, bodies twisted and torn. Small arms fire emanated now from the height of a circular stairwell just beyond the command chair, the Soviet commander lying dead in his seat.
Marine Spetznas holding off Darkwood’s people below, John Rourke returned fire, Paul edging right to maximize on the LMG’s effect and minimize equipment damage, Michael moving forward beside his father, their assault rifles spraying controlled tjursts into the st
airwell. Gunfire from below the level of the command deck increased. There was the sound of a gas grenade exploding, purple translucent fingers off gasex-tending upward within the stairwell.
John Rourke let one of the assault rifles fall to his side on its • sling, tearing one of the sound and light grenades from his gear, shouting through the mask he wore, “Egg!” He pitched the grenade down the stairwell, averting his eyes, doing the best he could to protect his ears from the sound, the whine painfully loud. As it began to subside, his ears still ringing from it, Rourke moved ahead.
A Marine Spetznas, obviously temporarily blinded, ran out of the stairwell, firing an assault rifle, spraying bullets everywhere. Rourke got him with two short bursts from one of the Soviet rifles, putting him down dead.
Shoulder to shoulder now, John Rourke, flanked by his son and his friend, advanced across the Con. From below, he could faindy hear Jason Darkwood ordering, “Follow me!”
Chapter Forty-two
Natalia huddled from German small arms fire in the midst of a dozen Elite Corpsmen. Fewer than ten yards separated her from the nearest of the five Soviet machine guns. From the gear of the three dead men, one of whose uniforms she wore, she had three grenades.
The dozen men surrounding her were the problem now— the men and the time. The missile bombardment had apparendy ceased, and if this were indeed a signal for the full-scale Soviet ground attack, in a few more minutes all would be lost unless the main entrance could be retaken. She pushed away thoughts of what had happened to Sarah and Annie and Maria and the other women in the aftermath of the collapse of the National Defense Headquarters, and what fate might have befallen John and Paul and Michael and the others who had gone to assault the Soviet submarines laying the bombardment.
She focused her thoughts now on killing the twelve men surrounding her and reaching the machine gun emplacement. She had one assault rifle only, and even had she two of the weapons, she could not hope to take out all twelve men before at least one of them opened fire and killed her.
And then a smile crossed her lips.
