by Jerry Ahern
If, however, a man or woman stepped so far outside the human community as to rob another human being of his life or dignity, killing that man or woman was, however regrettable, not something of great moral import, considered in full context.
What was of moral import and cause for great sadness and soul-searching was the fact that a human being could sink to such a level that he or she had to be destroyed because he or she was no longer truly human, only preyed on the human community while pretending to be a part of it.
Michael Rourke’s father had told him once when they were alone in the Retreat, Annie already asleep for the night, “Had the Night of the War never come, Michael, it’s sad to say that the eventual outcome for humanity might have been little different. The economy of the United States, like the economies of other nations, was already severely strained. The possible solutions to ecological concerns, such as the depletion of the ozone layer, global warming, and overpopulation, were staggering even to consider.
“We’ve talked about the issue of global warming before, Son. Did you ever consider what might have happened, say, if there had never been the Night of the War and the scientists who predicted global warming had turned out to be right?”
“I don’t know, Dad. I mean, it would have been hotter everywhere and that would have meant farming problems and like that, and the oceans rising.”
“Take the ocean-level rise, considering only the economic consequences of that one potential result of the global warming hypothesis, should it have come to pass. According to some computer models at the time, a significant rise in global temperature would have raised ocean levels—by the melting of the icecaps and some glaciers—to a point where much of the Eastern seaboard of the United States—not to mention other places—would have been flooded.
“Consider New York City, all right? Before its destruction During the Night of the War, it was the most heavily populated city in the United States. It was the financial capital of the Western World, perhaps of the entire world. Innumerable businesses were run from New York City, financial decisions made there which shaped the future of mankind. Now, how much do you think it would have cost to move New York City? Either that or build a sea wall around it, and all down the rest of the East Coast? To save all the other important cities?”
“I don’t—I don’t know, Dad.”
“Trouble was, Son, if anybody did know, no one was telling. And that was just one of the problems facing humanity. There were diseases, there was poverty, there was international aggression—the catalog was almost endless. And fewer and fewer people wanted to be bothered by the problems. It was better to bury oneself in self-indulgence, shut the mind away in ephemeral pleasures and just wait for the inevitable cataclysm.
“In some ways, Michael,” his father had said, “the last half of the twentieth century was an era of renewed involvement, but only by a comparatively small segment of the population. Some people, out of ignorance or greed, aligned themselves with causes which were deleterious to mankind’s welfare. There were those who supported the abrogation of their own civil liberties and their possible subjugation into serfdom by fighting for the destruction of the Second Amendment. There were others whose translation of a genuine concern for the welfare of animals led them to destroy or interfere with medical research which could have saved human lives. Still others were so narrow-minded in their own religious beliefs and so convinced that their conception of morality was the only correct conception that they fought to have government codify religion and dictate every aspect of human existence, totally denying freedom of choice and individual moral responsibility.
“But, at least, however benighted, self-destructive—dumb, okay?—at least they were doing something, even if it was stupid. And there were many more people, who worked with remarkable diligence in true service to mankind, helping to solve problems rather than make more problems, fighting to alleviate suffering, working to spread freedom of choice. But those who chose to be involved—for good or for bad—were the minority as opposed to the vast majority of people who did nothing at all except kick back. And the minority who worked diligently to inform, to educate, to uplift their fellow man and to enhance human dignity were numerically overwhelmed; but, they kept trying in the face of incalculable odds.
“So, in a way, Michael, it all might have ended anyway. To paraphrase T. S. Eliot, mankind just went out with a ‘bang’ rather than a ‘whimper,’ but in either case the result might just as well have been the same.”
Perhaps, Michael Rourke thought, his hands moving as if with a will of their own as he reassembled his pistol, mankind had a death wish. And, however the events in which he and his Family were embroiled were to turn out, the ultimate destiny of mankind was indelibly written in the fabric of time: the inevitable destruction of all by the many despite the valor and compassion of the few.
Chapter Four
The bullet wound across his left tricep was deep, but Tim Shaw had been able to stanch the bleeding. His right arm, which had numbed as if broken when the Nazi’s knife had cut him, pained him greatly but, not counting the discomfort, the limb was fully functional.
He sat in the little clearing in the high mountain woods beside the already livid body of the man who had tried to kill him. But he didn’t ponder the Nazi’s death. What was done was done and, in this case, of terrific advantage. Instead, he considered his own problems. The loss of blood from his wounds, especially the gunshot, was severe enough to drastically limit his strength and endurance. When he’d first hit the ground from the tree, he’d thought he’d broken his back. Evidently, he had not, but he was sore beyond belief and might have suffered some serious damage.
Every time he moved, Tim Shaw was in pain.
There was always the hope that his son, Eddie, hadn’t paid any attention to him and even now had the Honolulu SWAT Team combing the mountains for him; but, that was a slim chance indeed. And, because of his own stubbornness, he had no means of radio communication.
This fight with the Nazi saboteur who was behind the bloodbath at Sebastian’s Reef Country Day School and so dedicated to mayhem and murder was to have been mano a mano. It had been that. The Nazi was dead, but Tim Shaw didn’t survive the encounter in exactly perfect shape either.
With considerable difficulty, Shaw stood up. He looked down at the dead man by his feet. “Hope the worms don’t get sick on ya, pal.” And then he started to walk.
It would be slow, but he told himself he’d make it …
Thorn Rolvaag’s eyes scanned beyond the hastily erected coastal defense battery and out to sea. Kilauea was still erupting, but the eruptions beneath the sea were what concerned him.
The volcanic vent was widening in an easterly direction, taking it toward the North American plate. Although no computer model could predict with exact certainty what would happen then, Rolvaag was convinced that the odds lay in favor of the vent splitting, going in both directions along the boundary of the plate, slicing through the so-called Ring of Fire, the volcanoes surrounding the Pacific Basin, and precipitating a chain of volcanic eruptions which would be of biblical proportion.
That would almost certainly mean the end of the world.
It would mean the death of his wife, his children, the destruction of everyone and everything which he held dear. And there was only one slim chance that the relentless, inexorable expansion of the vent could be halted. For that, he would need to utilize nuclear energy in a way which had not been discussed since the dawn of the Nuclear Age almost seven hundred years ago.
In those days, propaganda had stressed the peaceful uses of atomic energy. And, indeed, there were many possibilities, few of them used except in medicine and in the generation of primitive fission-based electrical power. But, at the time, “the bomb” was touted as a means by which harbors could be cut with almost surgical precision, the face of the land altered at a fraction of the cost, time or labor involved with more conventional means.
That potential was never re
alized. Yet, if the Earth were to be saved, that potential would have to be harnessed. He could vent the volcanic energy a little bit at a time. He could wall up the rift, diverting it gradually by degrees. He could save the planet from destruction.
Maybe.
But, there would be no chance at all without virtually every nuclear weapon available in the current world arsenal. Unlike the days Before the Night of the War, when thousands of nuclear warheads existed in the arsenals of both super powers, when two thousand nuclear warheads alone could have been found on the Eastern coast of what was then the United States along the Savannah River, there were comparatively few today.
Best intelligence estimates allowed Deitrich Zimmer’s Nazi forces and the forces of Eden a combined total slightly in excess of five hundred warheads. The vast majority of these were, however, low yield, comparatively clean tactical devices, battlefield weapons, ideal for Rolvaag’s purposes. New Germany possessed somewhere around one hundred, almost all tactical. The present-day United States—which largely consisted of Mid-Wake and Hawaii—had approximately two hundred, of these more than eighty percent submarine-launched ballistic missiles within the tactical power range. The only Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles in the U.S. inventory were antiques, converted from captured enemy stockpiles, the vast majority of which had been destroyed under controlled conditions.
No one power, not even the United States and New Germany combined (the only two nuclear powers within the Trans-Global Alliance), possessed sufficient nuclear warheads to get the job done.
The larger weapons in each nation’s inventory would be useless. And, there was no time to build or convert what he needed. Without the full cooperation of Eden and her Nazi allies, there would not be sufficient battlefield-power warheads to stop the volcanic vent from growing, from destroying the planet.
Thorn Rolvaag looked out to sea, powerless unless a miracle were to take place …
Over the course of time, there were many secrets hidden in the Himalayas. More than half a millenia ago, some scientific researchers had felt that a possible missing link between man and his simian ancestors might be found surviving in the icy Himalayan vastness. If a yeti ever existed, or did still, Deitrich Zimmer truly didn’t care.
His secret was more important.
It was here, in the Himalayas, that his most secret and most impregnable fortress lay, its entrances and defenses known to only a trusted few, its location known only to those who had built it and supplied it.
He sat at his desk, his son Martin pacing back and forth before him. “Why can’t we release the clones?”
“For a very simple reason. Physically identical duplicates of John Rourke and his Family would be of no use whatsoever without proper programming and mental conditioning. Sarah Rourke, your mother, was available to us, as was Wolfgang Mann. Your natural father, John Rourke, your brother and sister, Michael and Annie, and the Jew, Rubenstein, and the Russian woman, Major Tiemerovna, have not been available to us. Since we have not recorded them, their clones are useless to us.
“You must have patience,” Zimmer told Martin. “As was once said, ‘All things come to him who waits.’ That is not a bad piece of advice. Our plans progress quite well. And, I did not even have to use my own clone.” It had been a near thing, his pilot barely able to land the command aircraft before falling over at the plane’s controls.
“You used one nuclear weapon. Why not hit hard and fast right now?”
Zimmer smiled indulgently at the boy. “Because, Martin, I want the Trans-Global Alliance to do what I want it to do, not to vanish from the face of the Earth. That is the entire purpose of my plan. And, you know that.”
“What are we going to do with the remains?”
“Ah, yes, the remains,” Deitrich Zimmer said, nodding his head. “We are searching for viable cells even as we speak. They should be obtainable. Then, you will be quite pleased. Sit down, relax. All is well.”
Chapter Five
John Rourke had planned ahead. When he and the Family first left Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, to rendezvous with Deitrich Zimmer in what devolved into an abortive attempt to make an exchange for Sarah Rourke, John Rourke anticipated a wide variety of contingencies and planned accordingly for them. One of those was that he would somehow wind up weaponless.
In light of that, he had visited the Lancer showroom just prior to leaving the islands, one of the purposes behind that visit to purchase (but the management would not charge him, insisted on gifting him with the items instead) two of Lancer’s superlative duplicates of the SIG-Sauer P-228. Natalia already had one of their 226s, and it was faultless to the last detail, identical to the original.
Although never a great fan of the 9mm Parabellum cartridge as compared to the .45 ACP, from an objective basis he knew the ballistic performance was, if the gun were properly loaded, nearly identical between the calibers. From Lancers, Rourke additionally secured a supply of thirteen- and twenty-round magazines, plus a substantial stock of Lancer’s equally excellent duplication of the only 9mm Parabellum load he’d ever really liked, the Federal 9BP 115-grain jacketed hollow point.
At the corporate range in the basement of the facility, Rourke ran two hundred rounds through each pistol, testing the spare magazines as well. As he had come to expect from Lancer replications, just as he would have expected from the original guns manufactured over six centuries ago, performance was flawless.
To accompany the pistols, he secured another of Lancer’s duplications, this a double-rig copy of the special-purpose shoulder holster designed exclusively for the 228 pistols by the designer of the Tri-Speed adjustable shoulder holsters. Made of waterproof black ballistic nylon and lined with waterproof black doeskin suede, the holsters were fully ambidexterous and could be dismounted from the shoulder harness to be worn fully concealed on the belt, if desired. Acquiring two double-magazine pouches as well and packing the rest of the magazines in a black musette bag (if he lived, he would lend the Lancer people one of his Milt Sparks Six-Pack magazine carriers to duplicate), he handed over the guns, the holsters, the magazines and a supply of extra ammunition to Commander Washington, asking the SEAL Team Leader to bring them along for him, just in case.
Although Rourke’s usual weapons were available to him, now was “just in case.”
He dismounted the holsters from their harness, partially removed his wide trouser-belt and threaded one of the two holsters to his left side, one to his right, threading in one of the double magazine pouches between them, twenty-round magazines in place. When they reached the mountain’s summit, if they did, the combat would be close-range and fast, with no time for such luxuries as reloading.
John Rourke, during a class he had taught once in Hostage Rescue Unit tactics, had once been asked, “Aren’t you carrying too many guns, sir?”
In those days, Before the Night of the War, he always wore at least two handguns, frequently three and sometimes four. His twin stainless Detonics .45s were always with him unless he was in an environment where being so armed was physically impossible. These days, the number varied even more greatly. He’d answered the question then, the same as he would have answered it now were it asked. “There are persons who carry guns, and then there are gunfighters. To the gunfighter, who works close in and fast, there is almost invariably a lack of time. Some people called it the New York reload, a second gun. But it could just as easily have been called a Chicago reload or anything else. The old gunfighting lawmen knew that a second gun was essential equipment for staying alive.
“In the days of single-shot pistols, even though the arms themselves were relatively large, it wasn’t at all uncommon to carry several guns because of the time consumed with reloading, even though everyone else had the same difficulty. Even though most gunfights entail fewer than a half dozen shots, there are those rare times when a heavy volume of fire is required in the minimum amount of time.” He remembered making one of his rare attempts at humor, adding, “Besides, all that weight on the body
helps keep you trim.” There had been polite laughter, more than he’d really expected.
The pitons which Wolverton had crafted for them seemed serviceable enough, if only the metal from which they were formed had not become brittle. He’d know when he reached the rock face, if they had.
Natalia’s expropriated Nazi gunship was ready to go airborne, Annie with her.
Michael and Paul flanked John Rourke now as he approached the face they had chosen to climb. Commander Washington was in charge on the ground, two of his SEAL Team personnel, Moore and Jones, along with one of the German Long Range Mountain Patrol commandos, Schmidt, along as well for the climb to the summit.
Rourke was free of armament save for the pistols he wore—six semiautos and the little S&W .38 Special revolver—and his now-customary three knifes. Paul had his German MP-40 submachine gun slung tight to his side, his two Browning High Powers in their usual carries. Michael had his two shoulder-holstered Berettas and his four-inch barreled S&W .44 Magnum revolver, a bullpup-stocked energy rifle slung at his side.
Rourke addressed the five men with him. “Assuming all goes well and we reach the summit, it’s almost certain that we’ll be instantly detected. If for some reason we are not, then so much the better, of course. We should remember that the men topside are Nazis, and we should remember it well because our mission is to kill as many of them as possible as quickly as we can. The more of their equipment which remains intact, the better off we are. We don’t want any of their helicopters getting away, either.
“Are there any questions?”
Jones, a ruddy-faced fellow with a tuft of carrot red hair visible under his parka hood, asked, “Begging the general’s pardon, sir, but how many of them do you think there are up there?”
