by Jerry Ahern
Tim Shaw summed up his thoughts in a single word, “Shit.”
Chapter Twenty
There was no light, except for the smoky, grey haze below, this from the tactical deployment of gas and the aftermath of fires, these likely originated by the explosions of gas cannisters and shells as well. There was a faint hum—from the video probe which flew ahead of them—and this and the sounds of his own breathing were all that could be heard. When one wore a gas mask, one was very aware of one’s breathing, rather like wearing scuba gear, Rourke thought. Or, at least, he was.
There was a substantial possibility that the “bad guys” might win this one. Not the battle, because at this juncture its ultimate resolution was in little doubt. Instead of losing the battle, the “good guys” might lose the war. If Thorn Rolvaag were correct, and every nuclear warhead which could be had was needed to counteract the growing fissure beneath the Pacific Ocean, there was a substantial chance that such weapons might not be available, and the world would end.
If, by some miracle, those warheads in the arsenals of the Trans-Global Alliance might be enough to save the planet, then no threat of nuclear retaliation would remain against Eden and the Nazi forces; and judicious tactical use of such nuclear weapons by the enemy, if indeed it did not precipitate the destruction of the planet, would neutralize resistance.
He smiled, laughing silently under his breath. Natalia, beside him, asked, “Were you laughing?” He wore a bone transmitter along his jawbone, the limited-range device unaffected by the problems they’d been having with some other forms of more conventional radio communication.
“Yes, I was laughing,” Rourke whispered back.
“At what?”
“At the madness, Natalia, the sheer madness. We’ve been at this same war, essentially, for six hundred and twenty-five years, and we’ve come full circle, but the irony of it all is that the nuclear weapons which once destroyed the planet are now the only things which might save the planet. But, if we use them to save the planet, we stand a very real chance of losing the war and all we’ve fought for.”
“Do you ever wish things had been different before?”
Although the reference was, on the surface, a bit obtuse, he understood her remark perfectly. “But we would have been on opposite sides.”
“I hope you and Emma Shaw find a way of being together. She not only loves you, she worships you.”
Rourke was also tired of forcing himself to hold in his feelings, as he had always done, for some “higher purpose,” whatever that happened to be at the time. But, for what he promised himself was the last time, he said nothing.
One level of his consciousness, indeed, began to focus on Emma Shaw. Natalia was wrong. Emma did not “worship” him, and he would have rejected such had it been evident. But, she genuinely loved him and, more than any woman he had ever met, seemed also to genuinely understand him. He’d met a number of men over the years who had confided, “My wife (or girlfriend) just doesn’t understand me, so I’m leaving her.” What adults of either sex did with their personal lives was no business of his, and he’d always tried to avoid the ofttimes formulaic descriptions of why relationships fell apart.
There was nothing formulaic about his relationship with Sarah. They had always loved each other, always would, he knew. But they had never liked each other as friends. With maturity, John Rourke had realized that there was no real love simply having love without the friendship.
Sarah, if indeed this woman he had carried from a hospital cell was Sarah and not one of Deitrich Zimmer’s insidious clones, would leave him. She was in love and friendship with Generaloberst Wolfgang Mann, as was Mann with her. The death of Martin, his and Sarah’s third child, even if it had not really been Martin, but another of Deitrich Zimmer’s clones, would be the catalyst, but not the reason.
He was reminded of the story about the young student in a world-history class asked by his professor to discuss the causes of U.S. involvement in World War II, responding by discussing the attack on Pearl Harbor and official U.S. desire to support desperately besieged European nations. Of course, the causes of World War II could be traced with ease to the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, and the attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese directly linked to anti-United States sentiment engendered by Theodore Roosevelt’s pro-Russian mediation of the peace following the Russo-Japanese War of 1905. Although the Japanese militarily won, their victory was negotiated away and the resultant bitterness was the seed from which the Pearl Harbor massacre eventually sprang.
Martin was his and Sarah’s “December 7, 1941”; their divergent philosophies and the bitterness these bred were their Franco-Prussian and Russo-Japanese wars.
Rourke and Natalia neared the base of the stairs at the first landing, the probe hovering above the landing, returned from a foray well ahead of them. Paul’s voice was coming through the cord-supplied radio receiver in Rourke’s other ear. “John, I’m pulling back the probe. You and Natalia freeze. There’s a Nazi force massing in the stairwell leading to the next level down. Michael and I’ll follow you down.”
Rourke switched to the second microphone, this one hook and pile attached to the borrowed flak jacket he wore. “No, Paul. We’re just checking things out. Keep the probe where it is, and you and Michael stand by, get some other personnel ready, too. But nothing until you hear from Natalia or from me, or haven’t heard from us for a long enough period of time that you think we’re in trouble. All we want is intelligence at this point.”
“You guys be careful, huh?”
Rourke smiled in spite of himself, “Well, we were planning on being reckless, but since you insist—just hang in there.” He put the microphone back, then spoke into the unit which connected him to Natalia. “Could you get most of that?”
“Uh-huh—so? We keep going?”
“Maybe a little faster. Let’s stay sharp.”
She only nodded as Rourke looked at her.
Rourke reached the landing, glanced upward toward the video probe and shot a wave to Paul and Michael, then started down the stairwell, one of the captured Nazi assault rifles in his right hand, the second slung at his left side.
He moved with the classic methodology he had practiced so often when teaching special weapons and tactics, all motion deliberate, each footfall calculated for position, the body coiled like a spring, ready for response, his rifle locked tightly to his side, head moving side to side. Behind him, when he caught a glimpse of her, he could see Natalia, performing her own function within the “two-man” team, her focus of attention the stairwell behind them and side to side, even though there was virtually no chance of difficulties in those directions. Her weapon was held at a ready high port.
They reached the base of the second flight, Rourke quickly taking up position on the right side of the doorframe, not having to cross in front of the opening in order to do so, merely vaulting over the rail to the flight below, then moving back up to the landing. Natalia was half on the stairs and half on the landing, to the left of the door. The door was fully open. Rourke leaned near it, edged toward the opening.
Natalia took a mirror from one of the utility pouches on her flak jacket, silently extending the deployment handle that was integral to it, adjusting the angle, locking the mirror in place, then manipulating the mirror. This consumed several seconds, and she studied what she saw in the mirror for several seconds more. With any luck, she would have a reasonably clear view of the far end of the floor which they were about to enter, Rourke knew. The other side of the doorway would be up to him.
She shook her head, beginning to disassemble the mirror.
Rourke dropped to his knees, Natalia bringing her rifle to an assault position. He set down his rifles, went prone and edged forward on knees and elbows, slowly, only an inch or so at a time, at last getting his head into position where he could see the far wall of the corridor on Natalia’s side. Dead bodies, some smoldering debris, casings from gas bombs, these in jagged fragments, strewn among the
dead who lay on the floor or collapsed over desks, slumped against walls. The dead wore Nazi uniforms, which was encouraging.
Rourke edged back, stood, retook the assault rifles and flattened himself beside the open door.
It wasn’t necessary to tell Natalia, “Cover me.” He merely nodded and she nodded in return. The rifle which was in his right hand, muzzle up, was flush along the right side of his body, the rifle in his left hand, muzzle down, flat against his left thigh and calf. Rourke edged still closer to the opening. His back to the door itself, but not touching it, he nodded once more to Natalia as he flexed his knees, then on the count of three, took a half step into and through the opening on his right foot, the muzzle of the rifle in his right hand snapping downward, the rifle in his left hand rising forty-five degrees, snapping downward again as he pulled back.
He saw only the same.
He spoke into the bone contact microphone. “Dead Nazis.”
“The same. But there’s some activity near the center of the corridor. I caught a glimpse in the mirror of someone disappearing into what looks like a second stairwell.”
“What Paul was talking about. All right. I’m out first, you cover, then we leapfrog it.”
“Right,” Natalia responded, nodding.
Rourke jumped through the open doorway.
Chapter Twenty-One
The first shots came unexpectedly, but Annie Rubenstein had learned that lesson in her first gunfight a very long time ago: enemy fire always came unexpectedly, no matter how long anticipated it was. She was up and moving before the next burst, Commander Washington beside her. Her M-16 spitting short bursts, she picked a quadrant that she could easily cover and started killing everything in sight wearing a Nazi uniform.
And, there were numerous targets from which she could choose, the corridor suddenly full, the Nazi personnel who had passed by seconds earlier rushing back into the exponentially growing fray.
No gunfight was without incredible danger, but this sort of fight was the most dangerous of all, bullets and energy bolts flying everywhere, much of the firing at near point-blank range, living targets almost impossible to miss with each shot or burst that was fired. Annie drew back, retreating as the superior numbers of Nazi personnel swarmed forward. Commander Washington beside her was struck, she did not know where, but doubled over, nearly falling.
Annie shifted her assault rifle to her left hand, her right arm going out around Washington’s back. “Lean on me!”
“No, leave me, ma’am!”
“Lean on me, damn it, Commander!” His left arm draped wearily across her shoulders. His rifle had fallen to the floor, but in his right hand he held a pistol, firing the weapon in double taps.
They were caught in a crossfire, the Nazi personnel who had been entering the corridor pushing them toward the Nazi personnel who had already passed by. Annie’s rifle, held awkwardly against the sling since she’d shifted firing hands, was empty and she let it fall away between her body and Washington’s. She grabbed the Beretta 92F from the holster at her left hip, thumbed the safety up into the firing position and fired point-blank into the face of an SS trooper thrusting his bayonet toward her chest.
She twisted left, the pistol extended at the end of her arm, her finger twitching twice against its trigger, a double tap into the chest and thorax of one of the SS officers. He fell over dead at her feet as she backed along the corridor, Washington still at her side. He was changing magazines in his pistol, awkwardly done one-handed.
An energy bolt rippled across the corridor wall beside her head. Involuntarily, she averted her eyes. Something clubbed her left arm, numbing her to the bone, the Beretta falling from her grasp. Commander Washington snapped, “Avert your eyes, ma’am!” She twisted her head away, her eyes closed for an instant, floaters of blood from the pain in her arm washing over them, Commander Washington’s pistol firing, then again and again.
As she opened her eyes, Washington let go of her. She slumped back against the corridor wall. Her left arm, useless, pressed across her abdomen, Annie Rubenstein drew the Detonics ScoreMaster from the holster at her right side. She thumbed back the hammer, her right first finger snapping back against the trigger as an SS trooper charged toward her, one round from the .45 putting him down to his knees, his body twisting back. Nazi personnel were everywhere, many of Commander Washington’s people down, the rest of them bottled up as were she and Washington.
And, Annie Rourke Rubenstein realized quite suddenly that in all likelihood, she would never have Paul’s baby, never grow old with him, never do anything beyond what could be done with the seven rounds remaining in her pistol, that she would be dead in the next few seconds.
Chapter Twenty-Two
John Rourke went through the doorway leading into the alternate stairwell, two flights below him on the next level’s landing a half dozen SS personnel, all trying to crowd through the doorway into the next level, the sound of gunfire and energy bolts emanating from the space beyond.
Natalia almost screamed into the bone transmitter, “I am right behind you, John!”
He didn’t answer her, talking instead into the wire-connected transmitter which linked him to Paul Rubenstein and Michael. “There’s a firefight down here! Get in behind us fast, but watch out for us because we might be in the middle of it. Use the video probe to guide you. Bring all the personnel you can. We underestimated remaining enemy forces. Hurry!”
Rourke tore the wired radio system from his ear and from his vest, useless to him now, then flipped over the railing onto the next lower flight, dropping into a crouch as he did so, his left hand letting loose the second rifle, reaching out for one of the gas grenades from one of the musette bags at his side. Albeit that positioning grenades on the vest made them fast into action (not to mention looked macho), there was enormous danger potential, should one of the grenades, attached only by its pin, pull loose. He preferred the slower but surer way. Ripping the pin from the grenade Rourke flipped it into the midst of the men gathered near the doorway, shouting simultaneously, “Heads up!”
As the men wheeled toward him, Rourke was already fisting his assault rifles, arcing them upward on their slings, thumbs flipping ambidextrous safeties into full auto position, index fingers touching triggers.
He sprayed the assault rifles into the knot of men, their bodies falling into the rising cloud of gas. Natalia flipped over the railing from above and landed beside him, a little less than graceful. “The damned leg wound,” she said as he glanced toward her.
He said nothing in response.
Rourke ran down half the flight’s length, then jumped into the cloud of gas, coming down in a crouch, both rifles’ safeties flipped back into the auto mode the instant his feet touched the floor of the landing.
He reached the doorway, Natalia beside him, shouldering past him. “More gas, John!” There were grenades in each of her tiny, gloved fists, and she flipped them simultaneously into the corridor beyond, one to the right, one to the left. Rourke was into the corridor in the next instant, just beyond the doorway a small war was in progress, gunfire—both cartridge arms and energy weapons—everywhere. A blue-white energy bolt streaked past his face and Rourke wheeled toward its origin, firing a short burst from the assault rifle in his right hand in response.
And he heard something which chilled him. “Daddy!”
Natalia streaked past him, dropping to her knees and skidding along the corridor floor as she sprayed out her assault rifle into a veritable wall of men in SS uniforms. “John!” No radio now, just a scream. Natalia went flat, Rourke firing over her into another phalanx of SS personnel. The first shout he’d heard was from his daughter, and as some of the SS personnel fell back, some dead, others wounded, still others retreating, Rourke could see Annie.
She was wrestling against a man in Nazi uniform perhaps one and a half times her size, the man holding a pistol, just as she did. But the slide of her pistol was locked open, the gun empty. Commander Washington lay sprawle
d on the floor beside her, dead or unconscious.
Natalia rolled toward the left side of the corridor, a fresh magazine in her assault rifle. John Rourke’s guns were nearly empty, and he shouted to Natalia, “I’m going past you! Watch out!” Rourke threw himself into a headlong lunge along the corridor, past Natalia, knowing that he was neutralizing any effectiveness her fire might have had, but having no choice. He emptied the assault rifle in his right hand into two SS men lunging for him with fixed bayonets. He let the weapon fall to his right side, already reaching for a pistol.
An SS officer fired an energy weapon from Rourke’s left, the energy bolt missing Rourke’s face by inches. Rourke returned fire, zipping a ragged swath of bullets across the man’s abdomen and chest. This second assault rifle was empty as well.
The first of the two SIG-Sauer P-228s was in Rourke’s right hand, a twenty-round magazine loaded, the second coming into his left.
He didn’t shoot, instead hurled his body mass into the man fighting with his daughter, Annie. Rourke’s right arm curled around the man’s neck and, as Rourke literally tore the SS man away from his daughter, Rourke bulldogged the man to the floor, the muzzle of the pistol in Rourke’s left hand less than an inch from the man’s left temple as Rourke pulled the trigger.
Involuntarily, despite the eye protection afforded by the gas mask, Rourke averted his eyes against the spray of blood and brain and bone. “Get out of here! That way!” Rourke shouted to his daughter.
“Commander Washington is—”
“I’ll get him. Run!” Rourke wheeled away from her, expecting (under the circumstances) to be obeyed unquestioningly. As his feet settled, elbows locked to his sides, a pistol in each hand, John Rourke opened fire into every man that he saw wearing a Nazi uniform.
He was not fighting, he realized on a very basic level deep within him, only killing. And he had learned that well in more than six centuries.
