Countdown

by Jerry Ahern

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Paul and Michael and a dozen fresh men from Washington’s command entered the corridor within sixty seconds that seemed like an eternity. The fighting ended within another sixty seconds, the Nazi personnel trapped between the survivors of Commander Washington’s original force and the reinforcements.

  Washington himself was alive, but comatose, severe loss of blood putting him in serious risk of his life.

  The unit’s medic—an M.D. with skills more modern than John Rourke’s own—was caring for him even as Rourke sat down to reload his weapons, Annie crouched beside him.

  “Thank you.”

  He looked at his daughter, realizing how she had meant what she said, but chastising her nonetheless. “That’s the sort of thing you never have to thank me for. You and Michael and your mother—and Paul, too—you’re my life. You know that, so thank me if I hold your chair or help you with your coat, but don’t thank me for saving your life. Do you understand?”

  “Yes. I love you, Daddy.”

  Rourke put down the freshly loaded SIG-Sauer P-228 and folded Annie against him within his right arm, touching his lips to his daughter’s hair, then to her forehead. “And, I love you, too, little one.”

  Annie kissed his cheek. Rourke held her for a long moment that was, when it ended, far too short. He’d always laughed at the men who felt it was macho to lament having daughters in favor of sons. He counted himself blessed that he had one of each.

  A daughter, unlike a son, was never too old to kiss her father, or hug him, never too self-possessed to hide tears which needed to be shed, never too much a woman to still be a little girl when needed. “I love you very much,” Rourke whispered again, his voice suddenly hoarse sounding to him. He let go.

  Michael approached, loading a fresh magazine into a Nazi assault rifle as he said, “Mom’s on the way back here. We’re secured. Colonel Mann—I mean Generaloberst Mann—”

  “You might start calling him ‘stepfather,’” Natalia supplied, standing beside Michael, supporting herself against him as she elevated her left foot and rubbed at her recently wounded left thigh.

  John Rourke just looked at her, saying nothing.

  Michael went on. “Wolfgang Mann is up and around, seems—literally—himself. There’s no way to tell, of course, if he’s another clone or what, but I spoke to him on the jury-rigged field telephone system with the ground level and he really sounds like the old Wolfgang Mann. Know what I mean?”

  “I hope you’re right,” John Rourke said, nodding his head. “We’re going to need him if we have to hold out here, and he could be enormously useful in terms of countering Deitrich Zimmer. They knew each other, and Wolf, of all of us, is the most qualified to outguess Zimmer if anyone is.”

  “Commander Washington’s radio man says he thinks he’s picking up something, but doesn’t know what, yet. Could be Allied traffic, could be enemy, but at this point in time just to know that there’s something on the air after an electromagnetic pulse is encouraging.”

  “Agreed. Have him keep you posted on progress with interpreting the traffic.” Rourke looked past his son, seeing his friend Paul marshaling the Allied commando unit to see to the SS prisoners. Rourke looked back at Michael, saying, “You and Paul make certain we’ve got whatever defense posture we can muster, just in case.” He turned his attention to Natalia, telling her, “You’ve got the air force, Major,” and he smiled. “Get us ready to get the hell out of here if we need to or if we have the open option. Those helicopter gunships should be as well fitted as we can make them, and have all the fuel aboard they can carry.”

  “I’ll see to it, John,” she answered, smiling. “And why don’t you take five minutes and rest, hmm? Just a suggestion, ‘General,’ but one I think you should consider.”

  “Suggestion noted, Natalia,” Rourke smiled …

  Tim Shaw smiled. Although the snow from the broad-leaved jungle ferns all but covered him and he was no longer merely in pain—with his back and his other injuries—but he was cold as well, and he was in the best possible position to do what he had to do to the three men coming up the mountainside.

  To have yelled out, “Police!” and expect anything but answering gunfire, if these men were allied to the Nazi saboteurs, would have been insane. Instead, he would play it by ear, waiting to see if the men would miss him entirely. He had left a subtle trail, not something easily followed. If they tracked him, he had decided, they were bad guys. Good guys wouldn’t be looking for a trail, wouldn’t bother tracking him. If they were bad guys, they’d die, or he would.

  That was the way of it.

  Even though he was surrounded by trees and rocks, this was just like the city, and what would happen here if they were bad guys would go down the same way that it would on the street. Live or die, the easy way to measure success or failure.

  The .45 Government Model in his right fist, the little snubby .38 Special Centennial in his left, his back screaming at him, his left tricep hurting like a burn, his teeth gritted, Tim Shaw waited …

  There were six V/STOLs in all, five of them still airborne, the sixth completing a perfect landing despite the ice spicules and snow driven on the relentless, merciless wind.

  John Rourke waited in the wind, the hood of his parka up, an assault rifle across his back, gloved hands in his pockets, his right hand beside the butt of the little Smith & Wesson revolver he had taken to carrying as a hideout. Three truly perfect hideout guns were created during the twentieth century, the American Walther PPK .380 ACP, the Seecamp DA .32 ACP and the second edition Smith & Wesson Centennial .38 Special, all three stainless steel and all three carrying the maximum cartridge for the minimum package. He had used them all and liked them all, but always a revolver man despite the practicality of the autoloaders he habitually carried, he had chosen the Centennial when he’d determined that even in the situation of open combat a small hideout gun could make the difference between life and death.

  But he doubted he would need a gun now. No enemy personnel were in range of the mountain’s “liberated” sensing equipment (as well as it worked) and he already knew who would be exiting the aircraft.

  The canopy slid back.

  A helmeted head rose from within the bowels of the machine.

  John Rourke unzipped his parka.

  He had made his decision.

  His life was changing, and he would change with it.

  The figure from within the aircraft stepped out onto the wing stem, then dropped easily to the snowy ground. At first hesitantly, then as he opened his arms, very quickly, the figure ran to him. The helmet was tugged away, brown hair cascading from within it, instantly swept up in the wind, brushed back with a gauntleted hand.

  John Rourke’s hands went to his coat and he opened it wide.

  The pilot of the aircraft came into his arms and he closed both arms and coat around her. “I’ve been thinking, Emma Shaw. That I love you.”

  “John,” she murmured, barely audible over the keening of the wind as his mouth came down over hers and silenced all speech with a kiss …

  Tim Shaw had made his decision. The three men were, indeed, following his tracks in the snow and gravel, were searching for him, were bad guys.

  By way of rationalizing killing them, he reminded himself that there were three men and he had only one set of handcuffs and no flex cuffs with him.

  It was a job for the .45, the .38 in his left hand, there for “just in case.”

  His right first finger squeezed against the .45’s trigger as the sights settled on the throat of the furthest away of the three men. It was always better to shoot the one furthest away with the shot that had the longest preparation time, the best potential sight picture. He shot the man in the thorax, the man’s body flopping back into the brush, assault rifle spraying air.

  One of the two remaining men wheeled toward the sound of the shot, a riot shotgun coming up fast, but not faster than Tim Shaw could swing the muzzle of the .45 on
line with the man’s center of mass and pull the trigger. This wasn’t bull’s-eye marksmanship, and squeezing the trigger would have been at once unnecessary and too slow. The second man spun ninety degrees left, hands clasping his chest as he tumbled, the shotgun falling to the ground.

  The third man was firing. But Tim Shaw was rolling left, following the natural, downward contour of the ground, the third man’s bullets tearing into the brush and rocks behind which Shaw had only a split second before taken concealment and cover. Shaw fired, a double tap, at least one of the two bullets catching the man in the throat, near the carotid artery. The man stumbled to his knees, but kept firing, spraying his weapon across the ground.

  Shaw tucked down as low as he could, bullets whining off the rocks near him, dirt and gravel kicked up, pelting his face and hands, making further shooting impossible.

  The gunfire stopped.

  Tim Shaw raised his head a few degrees and peered toward the third man. The man still knelt, the gun in his hands, but resting across his thighs. His head was bent forward.

  He was dead.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Emma Shaw could hardly concentrate on what she had to say, because John Rourke had told her that he loved her.

  She started to light a cigarette, consciously steadying her hands, but John beat her to it with his battered old Zippo windlighter. She watched his eyes across its blue-yellow flame for an instant longer than needed, then forced herself to look away as she exhaled. The plotting table in the captured Nazi briefing room was the only source of light now, casting shadows on all the faces, masking all the eyes. What did Annie Rubenstein think of her? And Natalia Tiemerovna, for God’s sake?! Was she the scarlet woman in their eyes, the homewrecker?

  But, Emma Shaw didn’t care.

  As John had held her in his arms, he whispered to her, “If Sarah’s alive, she’ll be leaving me. I don’t have any right to ask you to love me, and I’m not made to cheat, so we can’t—not now—”

  “I understand,” she’d told him, just feeling him holding her, his arms and his coat all wrapped around her, making her feel little and vulnerable like she hadn’t felt since she was a very young girl. She didn’t understand, not really, except that John was possessed of an inner morality which was more than a personal code; it was the very fibre of his being. As such, it was inviolate. And, she would abide by it, even if she’d had another choice.

  Now, she wanted him lying beside her, holding her, coming on top of her, penetrating her; she didn’t want to be talking about wars and airplanes and all the things around which she’d built her life.

  But, she had to.

  “The remaining aircraft in my squadron are landing, one at a time, for refueling. The Nazi fuel is a little rich, but we can handle it. The availability of fuel reserves increases our potential for operational capability considerably. Our mission was initially designed for a punitive strike against enemy forces here as a backup to your ground operation. If that proved unnecessary, for either of the obvious reasons, we were to hit the enemy, if such still existed and return to base or assist however we could in evacuation of this facility. For that purpose, we have a V/STOL cargo lifter accompanied by four additional fighter aircraft which should be landing within the hour. The evac will be to CSVN 84211, the USS Paladin.

  “The Paladin is a Geronimo Class submersible carrier, with nuclear strike capabilities, should such be required. It’s as safe as church, so to speak. And, her flight deck is large enough, when surfaced, to accept the cargo lifters one at a time.”

  “What about this facility, Fräulein Commander?” the German liason officer, Gefen, asked. Commander Washington was predicted to survive, Emma Shaw had been told, but at the present was unable to fulfill his duties. Gefen, as the next highest in rank, was assuming Commander Washington’s command function concerning the Allied commando unit.

  “This facility, considering that it has been taken by Allied forces and that there are enemy prisoners with which we have to deal, must be held. As it was explained to me, control of this facility could provide some significant strategic advantages for our forces against Eden forces located in the western portion of the continent, where, as we all know, some of the enemy staging for attacks against Hawaii will take place. Colonel Elizabeth Fullerton—” Emma Shaw consulted her watch “—should be hitting the silk over this site in another six hours and ten minutes with two companies of Marine Airborne. We intend to keep this little spot, destroying it only if the tactical situation dictates that we must.

  “Until Colonel Fullerton’s personnel arrive, however, those who will be left here will require all the help they can get in the event of attack by a strong enemy force. My squadron, under my second-in-command, will remain at ready in order to reinforce your position here in just such a contingency. The enemy gunships can be utilized as well; we’ve got enough people to man them, I understand. I’m operating under very specific orders as concerns prioritizing the evacuation of certain key personnel from this facility.” And, she looked at John Rourke directly.

  “I can be of more use here,” he told her, his voice very low, almost a whisper holding a hint of anger.

  “Allied Command doesn’t think so, John. Your value isn’t in dispute. But, you’re too important a prize to the enemy, dead or alive.” John said nothing and she went on. “That goes for the entire Rourke Family. If found alive, my orders were to evacuate to the Paladin. From there, I don’t know.”

  John stood up, looked down at her and said, “I’ll have to see to Sarah, that she’s well enough to travel. Annie?”

  His daughter stood up, joining him as he almost marched to the door.

  Emma Shaw stared after them for a few seconds, then resumed her briefing.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  “I don’t like it! He’s too good, Father!”

  Deitrich Zimmer had always thought that a sense of humor was important to the overall well-being of any individual, and he allowed himself a few seconds of laughter now. Finally, he told his son, “You worry too much, Martin!” Laughing still, he added, “This is all part of a plan I have refined over many years in waiting. Now, it can be fulfilled. This plan upon which we have embarked is the most desperate gamble in all of human history, my son, so you should feel that you are a part of history. Because, whatever the result, the world will be changed forever, whether we win or lose. And, if we win, we will realize the dream of Alexander and Caesar and Hitler, be sole masters of the planet. Such a prize is worth such a risk.”

  “My mother’s programming will not be strong enough to overcome her natural instincts,” Martin said definitively. His son was terribly single-minded at times, Zimmer reflected. Martin went on, saying, “All her adult life, she has not only been John Rourke’s wife, but, until the Night of the War, been committed to the principles of nonviolence. And you expect her to kill her husband!”

  Deitrich Zimmer’s hands rested on his desktop and he stood up, then began to walk across the broad expanse of the low-ceilinged room that was his laboratory office. Beyond the blank walls where no windows could be cut because of the demands of security, there lay one of the most spectacular views on the planet, the Himalayas. This was, indeed, the eternally snow-covered roof of the world.

  He was at once its master and its prisoner. With his armies moving across North America and his naval and air forces poised for the death blow against Hawaii and Mid-Wake beneath the sea, all that remained to consider was New Germany itself and the comparatively inconsequential civilizations of Europe, Australia and Lydveldid Island. New Germany would be a formidable opponent, but with the power of the Trans-Global Alliance effectively neutralized, New Germany would fall.

  Unless, of course, the nuclear detonations which would invariably ensue did, indeed, precipitate the final destruction of the planet itself.

  “You have not read Milton, have you, Martin?”

  “Milton who? You know I don’t like to read.”

  Deitrich Zimmer cou
nted himself a failure in the raising of his son, but soon the process of genetic altering could begin. The remains of Hilter, recovered from deep within the mountain community in what had been upstate New York, were even now being brought to him. Still, Martin would always be a disappointment. But, Zimmer loved the boy. “I meant the poet,” Deitrich Zimmer said finally, smiling indulgently. “John Milton. His most notable work is entitled Paradise Lost.”

  “So?”

  “Like Satan, I too would rather rule in Hell than serve in Heaven, Martin. Do you understand that?”

  Martin didn’t answer, but that was as Deitrich Zimmer had expected. He said, “Martin, consider the following. With the medical technology that I possess, you and I are essentially immortal. When these bodies which we wear,” and Zimmer gestured across his own body, “begin to decay, they can be replaced by cloned bodies already waiting for us in cryogenic sleep. The electrochemical impulses which inspire our minds with what is called memory and thought, are constantly recorded, so even a sudden death will not bring death. The dream of immortality is ours, yet we are not its slaves. Should either of us at some time in the distant future truly tire of life, we can leave it. This is the ultimate freedom, the ultimate power. We will be like the ancient gods, Martin, but unlike them we shall not fade from memory, shall not perish except by our own hands, by our own wills. This I have given to you, and you doubt that I realized that your mother would almost certainly so resist her programming that she would not kill your father? It was even more obvious to me than it is to you, and I do not share her genes. She will go so far as to attempt the act, and your biological father, John Rourke, will be forced to kill her and thus be destroyed or be forced to submit to me so that I will free her.

  “ And, his submission will be total, Martin! Total! John Rourke will be the slave of my will, of your will. Think, lad! He will be the visible leader of the Earth until the time is right that he should be replaced—by you, son! Trust to my plan.”