by Ahern, Jerry
“At present, Comrade Marshal, the weapons must be calibrated by hand and this requires considerable testing. Should one of these overload, it will, of course, explode. We have approximately one hundred of the weapons in operational order, none of these the model designed to replace the machine gun. The power packs
are still a difficulty, but my people are working on it in three shifts throughout each twenty-four-hour period. The solution is forthcoming, I assure you. More of the weapons are being produced daily, and the calibration process is even now being streamlined to meet full production needs.”
He recalled the Americanism about clouds with silver linings. Here was the opposite case, certainly. “These one hundred weapons which are available to mount on helicopters and armored vehicles. They are fully operational and can be relied upon thoroughly?”
“That is the only way they leave here, Comrade Marshal. I have full confidence in them.”
“Where are they?” Antonovitch asked her.
“Ready for you to examine, Comrade Marshal.”
“Tonight?”
“If—if you wish,” and she averted her eyes.
He had known Karamatsov long enough to recognize deceit and treachery. He knew she was practicing both and decided he would enjoy it. “Tell me, Comrade Doctor. Just how deep are your feelings— loyalty to the State?”
“There is nothing I would not do, Comrade Marshal.”
“Svetlana—it is one of the most beautiful of names for a woman. May I call you by your first name—of course, only when we are alone?”
“I am honored, Comrade Marshal.”
He doubted the chief science advisor to the Soviet government was all that terribly honored at the prospect of having a soldier’s boots beside her bed. He was being courted, and not by Svetlana Alexsova. He reached out his right hand and closed it over her hand. “Svetlana. Your beauty has captivated me. But, you must know that. I must be obvious.”
“Comrade Marshal—I—”
“You are overwhelmed,” he nodded, smiling. It was evident that the Chairman wanted him happy, wanted him eager to serve the Soviet interest. And Comrade Doctor Alexsova was to ensure that loyalty, that enthusiasm.
There was no need to provide him with some added incentive to serve the Soviet people. It was his life. He smiled. Comrade Doctor Svetlana Alexsova did not know that. And she, too, was willing to serve the Soviet interest. “You have captured my heart, Svetlana. It is very hard, out there, fighting constantly. One loses sight of what ordinary humanity must be like. The loneliness is intolerable.” He had used that speech several times in the past, and often wondered why some intelligent woman did not simply laugh at him when he used it. Certainly this woman should laugh. She did not. “I want to possess you, Svetlana.”
“Yes, Comrade Marshal.”
He stood, walked to her desk. She stood. She took a step nearer to him. There was little choice, really. Should he not attempt to seduce her, the Comrade Chairman might suspect disloyalty or homosexuality, in either case disaster. And she was so very beautiful.
He did not ask if she had a health certificate. She obviously did as did he. “Do you—ahh—do you stay where the other scientists stay, Svetlana?”
“I have a room there, of course, but I find my apartment in the city more conducive to thought.”
“Umm—I would like to see it very much. Might I do that? See it?”
“Yes, Comrade Marshal.”
“Nicolai, Svetlana—Nicolai,” and he held her hand more tightly. The late-morning meetings would have to wait, as would be expected.
Chapter Thirteen
The cloud cover remained unbroken as John Rourke piloted the German gunship over the Daito Islands, almost a border line between the East China Sea and the Philippine Sea, toward, the Tropic of Cancer. Paul Rubenstein sat beside him. Rourke’s eyes flickered over the horizon indicator. They were in level flight, but visually it was hard to be certain, the gray of the sky and the gray of the sea blending unnervingly in an effect that made them seem one.
It should have been warm here, but the outside cabin temperature at the comparatively low altitude at which they flew was below freezing. Wind-tossed whitecaps formed the only relief from the gray monotony surrounding them, the only possible means of sensual orientation for up and down. In the interests of not attracting Soviet attention, Rourke elected not to send out constant signals which might be picked up by Mid-Wake vessels because they might also be picked up by the Russians. But such radio silence caution didn’t preclude listening.
The cacophony of natural radio emissions coming through the headsets they both wore was maddening,
Paul Rubenstein saying over the whir of the rotor blades, “I’m getting a headache listening to this stuff. And to think all of this is natural radio emission. Wild.”
Paul had been starting fragmentary conversations ever since he’d come out of his sleep period, John Rourke not yet taking his. He’d taught Paul in the first few hours how to hold the machine on course at altitude, which was enough to allow Rourke to catch a few hours’ rest He did not look forward to rest, because it was inactivity and there was too much to do. Paul spoke out of nervousness over the fate of his wife, Rourke’s daughter, Rourke knew. And he tried to keep the conversations going because he, too, was frightened that Annie, and Natalia and Otto Hammerschmidt as well, might be lost.
“That explosive device we have. You sure they’ll pick it up?”
“If we detonate it directly over Mid-Wake,” Rourke nodded, “they’ll pick it up. Might even send a submarine up to investigate. They’d better or we’re out of luck. Once we’re over the Bonin Trench, I’ll tack us almost due south toward the Marianas. That way, we can set her down and do any last-minute checks before we strike out for the open sea between Midway and Wake Islands. Be good to stretch our legs, too.”
“You’re counting on the Americans at Mid-Wake having picked up that transponder signal, aren’t you?” Paul Rubenstein said suddenly.
“I have to. Otherwise, Annie and Natalie and Otto are—”
“Yeah,” the younger man said, looking away to starboard. “They’re dead. Shit. I mean—”
“Why were you and Annie and all the rest of us born into this?”
“Yeah. This weather—I mean—and the Soviets trying to get the Chinese missiles, all of this—I mean, isn’t the world fucked up enough? It should be spring. It’s winter. This should be the tropics. It looks like the Arctic down there. What if we so screwed up the world that it’s never going to go back to normal?”
“‘Normal’ is a very subjective term,” John Rourke observed. “What was normal during the last decades of the twentieth century isn’t necessarily always normal., The Earth hasendured a significant number of climatic variations more bizarre than this, probably.” If Paul retreated from the reality of the single option theory— that Annie and the others were dead if they had not been taken in by one of the submarines of Mid-Wake— John Rourke realized that so did he. If Paul chattered, he found some intellectual triviality and played with it.
“If she’s dead, John—if she’s—if she is, I’d never marry again. And, so help me God, I’ll find every one of Antonovitch’s troops and kill them—hunt down the last damn one and choke the life out of him.”
“What happened to ‘Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord’?”
“What happened to justice, John?” John Rourke had no answer for that…
The snow was still falling. Akiro Kurinami had built a fire to keep from freezing, but built it beneath a rocky overhang, keeping the fire as low and smokeless as possible. Periodically, Soviet helicopters still moved through the gray skies overhead.
As best he could judge, if he could begin to press on within the next hour or so, he would reach Doctor Rourke’s Retreat sometime between dusk and dawn. Once inside, he could contact the Germans outside
Eden Base. And he could turn on John Rourke’s water heating system and indulge himself for as long as h
e wished in the warm water, borrow clothes that were dry and warm, make a meal for himself that was warm.
He rubbed his hands over his modest fire, trying to imagine what warm would be like again.
Chapter Fourteen
He had been learning how to fly the J7-Vs, taking each opportunity he could at the yoke, and he “flew” one now. He hadn’t taken it airborne, nor would he land it, although in a pinch he was confident he could do either, had done both under the watchful eye of various of the German pilots, with the permission of Colonel Wolfgang Mann. Oddly now, Mann was one of the passengers aboard the J7-V, along with Michael’s mother and Maria Leuden and Bjorn Rolvaag and a small unit of German commandos.
The J7-V Michael Rourke flew was one of eighteen J7-Vs, the largest group of these planes Michael had ever seen assembled, which flew a Polar route toward the conflict in Lydveldid Island. Colonel Mann was following his father’s advice concerning bottling up the Soviet Forces in Hekla, then proceeding to throw everything available against the Soviet offensive at Eden Base, but following John Rourke’s plan with a twist. Bjorn Rolvaag, from what little Michael and Maria Leuden had been able to understand, was obsessed with returning to Iceland because his native land was in danger. From everything Michael Rourke
had ever read, the Scandinavian people as a whole were fiercely patriotic and the Icelandics, of course, were descendants of the Scandinavians, of the Viking explorers.
At Rolvaag’s feet sat his dog, Hrothgar, the animal more quiet than his master, sleeping peacefully. Michael had wondered, been unable to ask, if the dog could “hold it” long enough to make the journey. From the First City, they had traveled northeastward over the Sea of Japan and to the Sea of Okhotsk, landing in a remote waste in Northeastern Siberia to make a last-minute check before crossing the Pole. Hrothgar had relieved himself, then returned to stay by his master’s side, Rolvaag looking almost invigorated by the very sight of the barren arctic wilderness. Maria had stood outside, huddling beside him—Michael Rourke—and Sarah Rourke had stayed inside the fuselage deep in conversation with Wolfgang Mann.
Then airborne again, making the jump over the Pole to Greenland.
The twist to John Rourke’s plan was a simple one. Colonel Mann, taking Michael’s mother with him because she and the unborn child she carried would be safer with his force, would travel to Eden Base. But Michael and Maria (although Michael had protested, she had insisted and he had agreed she could stay with him) would join Bjorn Rolvaag and a small group of German commando volunteers in an attempt to penetrate the Hekla community, rescue Madame Jokli, the Icelandic President, and generally do as much damage to the Soviet military position as possible.
The J7-V cruised comfortably, easily beneath his hands and Michael Rourke used the time to survey what lay beneath him. Vast ice fields, as far as the eye could see in any direction. The German maps of the
area showed the previous known boundary of the Ice Cap. Its volume had increased dramatically. Was the Earth entering a new Ice Age?
Or was it entering the last age?
If they met with success in Iceland and Colonel Mann met with success in Georgia at Eden Base, would the war which had lasted for five centuries be closer to conclusion? Or, would the Russians redouble their efforts to gain control of Chinese nuclear warheads and simply use them out of desperation or sheer evil stupidity?
Some scientific opinion was that one more nuclear detonation would end everything forever.
He took his eyes from the ice fields and his instruments and looked back along the interior of the fuselage. Maria Leuden slept in one of the chairs, seatbelted in, head cuddled against the bulkhead, a blanket drawn up to her chin-He loved her, as much as he had loved Madison—still loved Madison—but differently, not more, not less. It would have been nice to say to her, “Marry me and I’ll take you away from all of this. We can have children and they’ll be able to grow up in a peaceful world full of opportunity.” But had anyone ever been able to truthfully say that? Had there ever been peace? And opportunity, he had always been taught, always believed, was made, not just there, waiting to be snatched.
They were man and wife in every way, really. They slept together. She scrubbed his back in the shower, cut his hair for him, cared for him. He would give his life to protect her and she would do the same for him.
Would there ever even be the time to ask her to marry him? Was his father right? Sometimes he could close his eyes and see Madison, see her swollen abdomen and the child there. Would the baby have been
a boy or a girl? And, sometimes, too, he could see the snow-covered mound beneath which she and the baby lay now, Madison wearing her wedding dress.
Michael Rourke realized he was biting his lower lip and there was a tightness in his throat. He forced himself to run an unnecessary instrument check.
Chapter Fifteen
Jason Darkwood broke atmosphere, shaking his head to clear it. Breaking atmosphere, as the Russians called it, was never a pleasant sensation.
One thing that doubtlessly the people of Mid-Wake and their Soviet counterparts held in common was physical addiction to the scrubbed and oxygen-rich artificial environment into which they were born, in which they grew, worked, played (presumably the Soviets played), and lived and eventually died. As a submariner, there was really little difference, the atmosphere content aboard any vessel basically identical to that within the domes beneath the sea. But, as a submariner, or a Marine, there was always the possibility of actually breaking atmosphere, coming out of the sea into the oxygen-depleted surface atmosphere. The shock ta the body was momentarily overwhelming.
Civilians, who never left the domes throughout their entire lives unless involved in some scientific activity, imagined the fresh air of the surface to be unimaginably sweet. Indeed, there were breezes which cooled the skin, invigorated it, but no more so than the water would.
Darkwood often wondered if it would be worth it to ever return to the surface, to live on the land. Beneath the sea, in the moments when thoughts of warfare could be pushed aside, it was very beautiful, clean, rich. The surface was a desert, a cold and inhospitable environment in which oxygen deprivation was so normal that no one noticed it, if the Rourkes were any way typical. Portions of the surface were still so highly radioactive that they could not be entered, might never be able to be entered again.
And yet, at Mid-Wake, there were growing numbers, among the young people especially, who demanded a return to the surface, insisted that they were being manipulated by the government of Mid-Wake and that the surface had returned to some prehistoric Garden of Eden, a Paradise where opportunity was limitless. Tapes of the surface were openly available, showing what it was truly like, but the ones who insisted on a return to the surface insisted equally as militantly that the tapes were specifically shot in arctic and desert waste areas, that the vast majority of the Earth in what, before the conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union had begun five centuries ago, had been the Temperate Zones, was lush garden, fertile farmland.
Darkwood fought the feeling of nausea as calmly as he could.
He looked quickly toward the shoreline. The same white sand beach, the same palm trees, very much stunted, the same splotchy snow in the rocks. Overhead—he looked skyward—snow was still falling. It was an odd experience. As a snowflake touched his face, he drew back from it, then laughed at himself for reacting to something so normal—at least to some people.
What he could see of the lagoon itself and the island
seemed normal—not like before.
And for some reason that worried him all the more.
He took a last long breath to hold him while he adjusted his helmet, then resecured his helmet over his head to his suit, making the hermetic seal, a lightheadedness coming over him for an instant—predictable—as he switched to the suit’s hemo sponge system. And he tucked beneath the surface, opening his wings and describing a cyclonic motion as he propelled himself downward toward where Sam A
ldridge and the Marines were waiting on the bottom.
Darkwood moved into a huddle with them, within the circle they formed, their helmets touching so they could converse. To have used radio would have been to tempt fate. The helmets reliably picked up and transmitted the sympathetic vibrations of human speech, but there was always an eerie, hollow sound to the words, unnerving at times.
“What’s the story, Captain?”
Darkwood turned his head slightly to glance toward Sam Aldridge. “Nothing out of the ordinary is visible on the beach or in the lagoon. Taking the working hypothesis a little further, they could either be waiting for us to break atmosphere or they might have other things on their minds entirely and not even know we’re here. I’m betting on the latter. Which means we get ashore as quietly as we can, ditch our wings and the rest of our underwater gear, then head inland.”
Darkwood could feel Aldridge’s helmet nodding. Then Aldridge said, “All right—you heard the Captain, Marines. Any questions?”
There were none.
Aldridge nodded again. “Sergeant Richwood. Keep two men with you out here until you figure we’re out of the water and deployed, then come in up the middle. Kowalski, Martinez, and O’Brien. Take the west end of
the lagoon. Hyde, Miller, and Luccesi—you guys got the east end. The rest of you come with me and the Captain. When we hit the beach, deploy first, then break atmosphere. Stick to those PV-26 shark guns our Soviet pals are so kind as to keep on giving us, the shark guns and knives unless push really comes to shove. I don’t want any noise. Right? Let’s swim out!”
And Sergeant Richwood—a big, blond-haired guy with oversized teeth that always made him look as though he were smiling—tapped two of the remaining Marines on the helmet, then moved off with them. The two penetration teams Sam Aldridge had designated started toward opposite ends of the lagoon. Darkwood tapped Aldridge on the helmet and Aldridge nodded. Darkwood let his wings fan out around him, beating them slowly, hovering for a moment. He adjusted his chest pack and the central section of his helmet shifted from normal vision to vision intensification, casting a surreal glow over everything on the bottom, the men as well.
