by Jerry Ahern
“It seems like a clear-cut moral choice, if we’ve got the nerve and can get to the heart. John was certain that Dr. Deitrich Zimmer had cloned us all while we were in cryogenic Sleep in New Germany. If John was right, there is at least one duplicate of John Rourke, perhaps several, perhaps dozens, being kept in stasis at Zimmer’s headquarters facility, which Allied Intelligence thinks it knows the location of. In the Himalayas. If we can get in there and back here in under thirty-six hours, with the heart, we can save John’s life. According to the doctors, he’d be up and around in less than a week, still in time to be of major assistance in the tasks to come—defeating Deitrich Zimmer’s Nazis, hopefully finding a way to stop the progress of the volcanic vent as it heads toward the North American plate. He’d be good as new. With the procedures they have for accelerating the knitting together of bones—they have to cut through the chest and lay the rib cage back in order to operate—but they can make the bones heal together, just as they were before. He wouldn’t even have a scar. Good as new or dead. Those are the two options we have.
“Now, kidnapping a clone of John Rourke and bringing him here to murder him won’t sit well with any of us. If there were another choice, I wouldn’t touch this with a ten-foot pole. And I don’t know if I’ll ever sleep the same after this. But, I know I’d never sleep at all if I just let John die.”
“I will do the killing,” Natalia volunteered, Michael just looking at her as she said the words. “All of you believe in an immortal soul, and you taught me to believe the same way. But my soul has a great deal more to answer for than any of yours. I will kill the clone.”
Michael said to the woman who would soon be his wife, “All of us will do what needs to be done, Natalia. And that’s the way it’ll be.” Then turned to Emma Shaw. “Emma will do the driving, getting us out of Zimmer’s facility with the clone or the heart. Whatever.” He looked at Annie, his sister. “We’ll be air-dropping in the mountains. Get us all the equipment we could possibly need, Sis. Explosives, too. We get in there, we destroy the whole damned thing.”
Annie nodded.
Michael said, “Wolf pointed out to Paul and me that there is the possiblity that Mom—Sarah—isn’t the genuine article, is herself a clone, and that our real mother, the real Sarah, may still be alive inside Zimmer’s headquarters in the Himalayas. If she is, we get her out, too. Any questions?”
There were none.
Paul said, “Be ready to leave in two hours, a briefing in one hour. Michael and I have discussed this with James Darkwood and the Intell people both here and in Hawaii and there’s a plan forming. We haven’t ironed out all the kinks, and maybe we won’t be able to. We’ll see.”
“What kind of a plan?” Annie asked him.
Paul looked at his wife, then at all of them in turn. “We can’t storm our way in, kidnap a clone of John Rourke and shoot our way out. That just won’t work. So, we have a lot we’ll have to do in preparation for the actual operation. It’s looking like a two-pronged attack on the facility, from within and without, almost medieval in format.” And Paul smiled. “Considering we don’t know very much about Zimmer’s headquarters in the Himalayas, don’t even know for sure that it’s there, everything’s kind of a shot in the dark for now. We should all know more by the time we get to the briefing.”
“Until then,” Michael said, “get your gear together, everything you think you might need, get ready. After the briefing, it won’t be long before we’re on our way. The main enemy we have right now is time. We have to fight that harder than anything.”
Chapter Forty-Two
James Darkwood—Annie Rourke Rubenstein couldn’t help being reminded of Jason Darkwood, commander of the Reagan more than a century ago—stood at the rostrum at the front of the Paladin’s main briefing room. There were a full dozen Navy SEALs in the room as well. Why some locations aboard a Naval vessel were called cabins and others rooms bemused and amazed her, but she was used to it. One slept in one’s cabin, but inspected maps in the chart room.
James Darkwood began to speak. “In order for the Rourke Family to penetrate Doctor Zimmer’s headquarters near the pre-War city of Katmandu in the Himalayas in such a manner that they will be free to operate within the structure for a time period sufficient to allow them to locate the clone they seek, they cannot enter by force. In order to achieve that purpose, we have a number of people on line to assist them.
“Michael Rourke and Mr. Rubenstein will be in full SS field uniform, wearing state-of-the-art makeup in order to disguise their appearance. I’ll be with them, since I speak much better German.” Darkwood smiled and there was a little laughter. “ And, in the Academy, I always liked being in plays, anyway. At any event, the three of us should be able to walk in with the paperwork being created for us even now. Fly in, actually, as we’ll be utilizing one of the helicopter gunships taken a short while ago in northern Canada when Zimmer’s other base was knocked out. Our faces—Mr. Rubenstein’s, Mr. Rourke’s and my own—will match the faces of three of the officers who were killed or captured during that battle. Mr. Rubenstein will fly in the chopper.
“The rest of the plan is Mr. Rourke’s and Mr. Rubenstein’s. Gentlemen?”
Michael looked at Paul. Paul squeezed Annie’s hand and stood, walking up to the rostrum which James Darkwood vacated. “Michael and I don’t have all the data that we need, yet, and we might not get all we need until we learn it on the ground. But the basic plan is this. The three of us—Commander Darkwood, Michael Rourke and myself—once we’re inside, do what we have to do to get away from the intelligence personnel who’ll want to debrief us after the battle in Canada which we allegedly survived. We plant the seed that a second gunship should be arriving shortly, with wounded and other personnel.”
The SEAL Team Commander, Lieutenant Christakos, raised his hand.
“Yes, Lieutenant?”
“How’d we get there?”
“Doglegging it across Canada to Greenland and so on. More importantly,” Paul added, “you should be asking how any of us knew where to go. This is a top-secret base, known only to the high command and those personnel actually stationed there.”
Lieutenant Christakos laughed. “I’ll bite. How’d we learn about it?”
“From the Allies. We killed an Allied officer, but not before we discovered from him the location of our own base. They can’t argue with that, can they?”
“I guess not.”
Annie was proud of Paul. “At any event,” Paul continued, “when that second gunship arrives, we’ll have all the rest of our people inside the headquarters, we hope. The second party will have as its principal task the taking and securing of the airfield facilities—we hope our intelligence people will confirm the headquarters has them. This is a bastardized way of working out the details for an operation like this, but we won’t have the final intelligence data until we reach the naval base located about a hundred miles inland of what in our day was called Bombay, on the western coast of India. These days, it’s called Darkwood Naval Air Station, after Commander Darkwood’s ancestor, Jason Darkwood.
“At Darkwood Naval Air Station, we’ll get handed to us every scrap of intelligence data concerning the Nazi base in the Himalayas, what used to be Nepal. We already have the two gunships en route to the base by the route that actual survivors from the defeat in Canada would have used, just in case they’re picked up off satellite or high-altitude observation craft. We’ll rendezvous with our respective aircraft in the wastelands in what was once Iran. Then we’re into it.
“Once the second gunship reaches the Nazi headquarters and, with any luck, secures the airfield, Commander Shaw will assign who flies what. All of you SEALs have cross-training in fighters and, if you get your tactics straight from Commander Shaw, and follow her lead, should be able to handle enough aircraft to get everyone out. Everyone who’s able, anyway. Michael and I will get our hands on something that will blow up and use it to destroy the area where the clones are being kept. Once
we rendezvous with the second element, Commander Shaw and Major Tiemerovna will have one function only. Get the clone aboard an aircraft and fly out of there and get back to the Paladin as quickly as humanly possible. The other aircraft will be on their own once we’re airborne.
“But, we shouldn’t have to worry about pursuit. It will be the job of the second element to sabotage anything left behind that can fly, and generally do as much damage to the Nazi headquarters as possible.
“After we’re out, an as yet undisclosed number of Marine Airborne, Navy SEAL and German Long Range Mountain Patrol personnel will attack the base. Even if it weren’t desirable to neutralize the base as quickly as possible, there’s the substantial chance that Deitrich Zimmer might launch additional nuclear missiles as retaliation for the raid. We can’t allow that to happen.
“Any questions?”
Chapter Forty-Three
They went together as a Family, asking her to join them. And, she did.
Annie cried. Natalia did not, but looked like she wanted to. Sarah stared blankly.
Michael held back tears, but it was obvious that he was doing that—holding them back—and Paul, beside him, holding to his shoulder, gritted his teeth, jutted his jaw and stared with glassy eyes.
Wolfgang Mann only stared.
Emma Shaw was cried out.
John Rourke lay, unconscious, on a bed behind the glass of the intensive-care ward. Tubes led in and out of him, and a temporary artificial heart—it was a machine which pumped his blood and interacted with a fresh oxygen supply—kept him alive.
She would do this thing; and, if she had to, she’d help Natalia cut the heart out of the clone with her own bare hands if that was what it would take to bring John back among the living.
The man, Elwood Brooks, was otherwise spotless-seeming in his record. He might have been a Nazi, or perhaps just insane. But a little man with a plastic gas pistol had done what armies of enemy commandos of every description had never been able to do: he had killed John Rourke. If the machinery were shut off, John would be dead in a matter of minutes.
Only their action, a raid on a facility about which they knew next to nothing, against odds they could not reckon, stood a chance of saving his life, bringing him back from the dead. John Rourke had survived over six centuries against every conceivable danger and a madman brought him down, using her to do it.
If Paul Rubenstein hadn’t riddled Elwood Brooks’s body with bullets, Natalia would have found the man in the brig and killed him herself.
Michael cleared his throat. “If we’re to do this thing, we have to go.”
Sarah Rourke said, “I don’t want to lose any of you. If he weren’t already dead, he’d tell you that this is madness.”
Paul, maybe mad, maybe tired, maybe afraid, dropped to a crouch beside the wheelchair in which she sat and looked at her hard. “What are you really saying, Sarah?”
“I know that he tried killing our son. And, I know something else.”
“What, Momma?” Annie asked her.
“That’s an academic point now with him dying, dead already, isn’t it?”
“What are you saying, Momma?” Annie persisted.
“I loved your father, and he loved me. I don’t know what happened to him, but I do know what he did, to me, tried to do to Martin. If I could, I’d tell Dr. Zimmer that all of you are coming, so he could prevent you from getting inside. What you’re talking about is murder. Killing that clone is killing a human being. And, for what?”
“For—for what?” Michael Rourke stammered. “For him, for God’s sake, to save our father and your husband! What should we do? Nothing?”
“John Rourke led a life that will be perceived by everyone as a life dedicated to helping mankind. It should be left at that. With your father dead, Michael, the truth will never have to come out.”
“The truth?” Paul demanded. “The truth! What the hell is the truth, Sarah? Come on! You know something we don’t, you’re saying. What?”
“I know what really happened the night the Nazis attacked the hospital at Eden City, and none of the rest of you do. I know who pointed the gun at my head and pulled the trigger.”
Michael Rourke literally staggered. Annie’s hands went to her mother’s shoulders, turning her around, wheelchair and all. “What are you saying?”
“There’s no reason to soil your memories of him. Believe me, I wish I didn’t remember what happened!”
Natalia, already dressed in one of her black jumpsuits, inserted herself between Annie and Sarah Rourke. “Are you implying that John shot you, Sarah? And, if you are, you’re saying he did it because of me, aren’t you?”
“Infer what you like, Natalia. And, I have nothing against you. Maybe John was seized with some temporary madness. I don’t know. But he killed the clone of Martin, thinking it was Martin. And, if he’d lived, he would have killed Martin eventually or died in the attempt. You know that.”
“Spell it out, Mom,” Michael almost hissed.
Emma Shaw realized that her whole body was shaking.
Wolfgang Mann acted as if he were about to speak, but then turned away.
“Spell it out, damn it!” Michael shouted, his voice echoing off the bulkheads. “Spell it out, Mom!”
“Fine. I remember your father pointing a gun at my head and pulling the trigger, God help me. The last word I said before I almost died that night was to call out your father’s name.” And, Sarah Rourke started to cry.
Natalia, her voice little over a whisper, said, “You were shot with a .38 caliber bullet. The X-rays revealed that. That is verifiable fact. Lots of cartridges—.380, like I carry in my PPK/S; 9mm Parabellum, like Paul carries in his Brownings; .38 Special—have the same bullet diameter. If enough of the bullet that was lodged in your brain was recovered, a ballistician could tell what kind of gun fired it, not just the diameter of the bullet.
“It was probably a 9mm Parabellum. That night, John was carrying his Centennial. If the bullet Deitrich Zimmer took out of your head was a .38 Special, then you’d have proof, or at least a basis for argument, Sarah.
“In those days,” Natalia continued, “the only time John ever carried anything in 9mm was when he used that suppressed Smith & Wesson automatic. And he wasn’t wearing that gun that night. If it was a 9mm Parabellum that Deitrich Zimmer took from your head, the person who shot you could have been Zimmer or one of his people, or perhaps even Commander Dodd or one of his people. Wouldn’t that make sense, since the Nazis were generally using guns given to them by Commander Dodd and the only handguns Dodd had access to were 9mm Berettas, like Michael carries? But, we will never know anything more about the bullet, will we? Will we? Because the man who took the bullet from your head was the man who put the bullet there in the first place and he wouldn’t tell you that if he tried making you think that it was John. Would he?”
“Natalia, you can say whatever you like, but my memories are my memories. I remember John standing over me and firing a gun at my head. That’s the last thing I remember.”
Emma Shaw felt like she was about to vomit.
Finally, without looking at anyone, Wolfgang Mann spoke. “One thing is clear,” he said. “Either this woman is one of the clones of Sarah Rourke, or Deitrich Zimmer was able to program her mind with memories that he created for her. In either event, what she says is not the truth.”
“Damn you, Wolf!”
Wolfgang Mann’s eyes filled with tears.
Chapter Forty-Four
They flew in separate fighter aircraft as they left the Paladin. The V/STOL tore upward, crashing out of the waves with a loud crack as Emma Shaw leveled out, skimming the whitecaps in order to stay under scanning until well away from the Paladin’s actual location.
In the copilot’s seat behind her sat Natalia Tiemerovna. Natalia had requested to be her passenger, and Emma was glad for the company. But, so far, Natalia had said nothing at all. And it would be a long flight without conversation, radio silence necessar
y as well.
They would bypass Hawaii entirely, already too far north, heading toward the Izu and Bonin Trenches and into the Philippine Sea, over what little remained of the Philippines and Indonesia, then around the horn of the Indian subcontinent.
In the first few seconds of going airborne after a submerged takeoff, Emma Shaw had always found it fascinating to watch the action of the slipstream on the water droplets over the canopy. They were gone in seconds, but when circumstances permitted, observing them was like observing living organisms, tiny things in some terrible hurry, condensing, separating, disappearing.
“It is beautiful, what you see each time you do this,” Natalia said through their intraship radio.
“Why did you ask to come along with me?”
“Because you and I have been made allies by circumstance, Emma. Had things been different—and I do not regret my love for Michael—but I would have been John Rourke’s love, as now you are. I was fortunate. So are you. I loved John, realized I could not have him, then fell in love again, with his son. On the other hand, John had matured—that’s the only way I can put it—by the time the two of you began to have feelings for one another. He was willing to sacrifice his entire life for a woman who wanted to divorce him, because to John the mere consideration of such a thing was out of the question.
“He’s changed, but only a little bit. And, you’re fortunate that it was just enough. I love Michael now more than I ever loved John, then. You and John are meant for each other. Don’t believe what you heard.”
“I know John wouldn’t do something like she said,” Emma Shaw responded.
“Sarah knows that, too—the real Sarah.”
“Then she is a clone!”
Natalia told her, “I did not say that, Emma. The woman we spoke with in sickbay might be a clone or might be Sarah. John felt that she was Sarah. If anyone would know, he would, but if anyone could be tricked, he could be. I tend to believe that she is Sarah.”
