Countdown

by Jerry Ahern

  James Darkwood said aloud, rather than across the intraship radio, “I understand that Jason Darkwood played it a lot by the seat of his pants.”

  Paul laughed. “He did indeed, James. He was an interesting man. I seriously doubt he did anything by the book in his life. That was why Jason Dark-wood and Sebastian made such an interesting pair. Sebastian was his direct opposite, Jason Dark-wood’s. Sebastian researched every detail, whereas Jason Darkwood just sort of winged it as he went along. In some men, that’s brilliance. It was that way with Jason Darkwood. John has often said that Jason Darkwood was possibly the most talented tactician that he’d ever met. All tactics is, is advanced problem solving. When you couple that with innovation, you have the brilliance I mentioned. He had that, Jason Darkwood.”

  “He’s been a tough act to live up to,” James Darkwood admitted.

  Michael laughed, saying, “Well, no one could accuse the three of us with tactical brilliance with this plan. God help us, because that’s the only way we’re going to even come close to pulling this off.”

  Paul Rubenstein said, “May He help us indeed,” as he started their stolen Nazi gunship into the tunnel mouth; or, Michael thought, was it the valley of death?

  Chapter Fifty-One

  The door to the takeoff and landing bay was about one hundred feet high and three times that across. It slammed shut, the reverberations echoing along the entire length of the enormous, vaulted room.

  James Darkwood’s eyes followed the door as it closed. Someone would have to get to the controls for the escape and make certain that the doorway stayed open until they were through.

  The landing bay generally followed the largely guesswork diagram which Emma Shaw had originated via Darkwood Naval Air Station’s computer. So far, so good. The takeoff and landing bay was cut from the natural rock, the ceiling uneven, piping, conduit, even a passenger and freight monorail moving across it from side to side, emerging from far smaller cuts in the living rock, perhaps passing from one takeoff and landing bay to another. They would have to investigate that.

  The technique for the cutting of the chamber was something which would have been unknown in the days of the Rourke Family’s past. The enormous retreats of the old mountain civilizations had been blasted and hacked into existence, originating around natural caves and fissures. This would have been lasered from the living rock, much faster, much more precisely and, almost certainly, more economically.

  Darkwood stepped down from the gunship’s portside fuselage door and onto the tarmac, straightening his uniform blouse beneath the arctic parka as he did so, careful not to dislodge his weapons. For compatibility with Paul Rubenstein and Michael Rourke, he left behind his familiar .45 automatic and opted, instead, for borrowing two 9mm Parabellum Lancer reproduction SIG-Sauer P-226s from Darkwood Naval Air Station’s armory. The SIGs were carried by high-altitude observation pilots as part of their personal-defense weapons package. He had no chest holster for either of the two guns, so they were tucked into his waistband.

  Paul Rubenstein and Michael Rourke emerged from the gunship, taking up positions slightly to his rear in their roles as junior officers.

  An armed SS detachment—an officer and four men carrying assault rifles—approached them where stood. The officer, only an Untersturmführer, analogous to an ensign in the Navy or second lieutenant in the Marine Corps, stopped several paces away from them and saluted, saying in German, “Good afternoon, Herr Obersturmbannführer. On behalf of Herr Dr. Deitrich Zimmer, allow me to welcome you and the other officers to the facility. I am Untersturmführer Wilhelm Leitz, at your service.”

  Darkwood returned the salute. “I am Obersturmbannführer Rudolph Gessler. Allow me to introduce Sturmbannführer Liebnitz,” and Darkwood nodded toward Paul Rubenstein, “and Hauptsturmführer Gerber,” or Michael Rourke. “As you no doubt are aware, Untersturmführer Leitz, these officers and myself have undergone quite an ordeal. We must, as quickly as possible, be debriefed. But, I fear, we first require the opportunity to, ah—” and Darkwood gestured across his uniform. The trousers were wrinkled, the boots no longer gleamed. He rubbed his left hand down along his cheeks to his chin, the universal symbol for needing a shave.

  “I quite understand, Herr Obersturmbannführer. Such preparations have already been made. A formality, first, however, Herr Obersturmbannführer.” Untersturmführer Leitz held out his right hand, gloved palm up.

  “But, of course,” Darkwood responded, producing his papers from beneath his tunic, holding out his left hand palm upward for Paul Rubenstein’s and Michael Rourke’s papers. He passed all three sets over to Untersturmführer Leitz.

  “I shall return these as quickly as it has been established that they are in order, Herr Obersturmbannführer.”

  “Very good, Untersturmführer. And now, we wish to refresh ourselves.”

  “But of course, sir.”

  The Untersturmführer fell in beside and a half pace behind Darkwood, directing him as they walked along the portion of the takeoff and landing bay’s enormous length, toward a caged elevator. The makeup Darkwood wore in order to match the appearance of the man in the papers whom he was replacing was a little itchy. The reference he had made to shaving was, indeed, becoming necessary, but his beard under the makeup was the problem, and one which could not be remedied …

  Michael Rourke’s palms sweated within his gloves as the elevator began to rise. He spoke and understood German rather well, but not well enough to get away with more than a few phrases without being detected as a non-German. He was in the heart of the enemy operation and sooner or later—probably sooner—the fact that he was not who he claimed to be, that all of them were impostors, would be discovered.

  As the old aphorism went, time was—indeed—of the essence …

  Paul Rubenstein followed James Darkwood out of the elevator into a small corridor, the corridor nothing more than a guard station and two parallel banks of elevators. Beyond and to the left were tunnels, stations situated there for accessing the monorails. Paul’s German was not very good, but he could follow along generally with the sporadic shots of conversation exchanged between Darkwood and the young Nazi officer who was their guide. The four stormtroopers accompanying them, with assault rifles held at port arms, were what really worried him.

  If his identity were discovered, he would be dead, or else soon be wishing that he were. Among the SS, as he had heard through intelligence sources, he was considerably talked about. It was rumored that somehow, single-handedly, his survival after the Night of the War had reintroduced Jews into the world population. And, although these days the Nazis had more pressing interests, their lack of fondness for Jews had not diminished.

  They would never take him alive if he could help it, and he would take as many of them as he could with him. Killing Nazis was, after all, a service to humanity. Paul forced himself to relax a little, to stop fantasizing about drugstore stands against hordes of SS men bent on his destruction.

  There was the matter of kidnapping the clone who would become the donor of a new heart for his progenitor, John Rourke. The matter of killing a living human being in order to make the heart available was a difficult one. And, he had determined that, as much as the thought of cold-blooded murder repelled him, he was the one who should do it. He’d live with what guilt there would be, better by far than living with the thought of his best friend’s death on his conscience or inflicting the murder of the clone on someone else. That was the sort of guilt he could not endure.

  Their guide, Leitz, waved them past the guard station, into another bank of elevators.

  Paul kept his hands as close as he could to the pistols beneath his tunic, just in case. Officers in the Nazi army rarely carried anything but a pistol, so he had no assault rifle. The Nazi pistol at his belt would be the first thing looked for if a trap lay in store for them.

  They entered an elevator, the four guards taking a second car.

  James Darkwood said in German, “There will not
be a better chance.”

  Untersturmführer Leitz started to turn around.

  Paul already had the full-sized Gerber knife out from under his tunic. He stabbed the knife into the throat of the SS second lieutenant, Michael catching the man with one gloved hand going over the fellow’s throat.

  Paul stood shoulder to shoulder with James Darkwood as the elevator stopped, lest anyone standing on their destination floor by the elevator doorway should see the body.

  But, the corridor was empty.

  This was clearly a residential section to which the car had brought them.

  “Guards are fifteen seconds behind us,” James Darkwood advised.

  Michael already had his knife from beneath his tunic. Darkwood’s hands were busy screwing a suppressor onto the muzzle of one of the SIG-Sauer 226s. Paul Rubenstein positioned himself on the far side of the doors for the second elevator car, Michael switching off the elevator they had just vacated.

  The doors for the second car started to open.

  James Darkwood stood in the corridor, hands behind him, feet spread apart, looking the archetypical SS officer in every way.

  As the first of the four guards—a young, red-haired Rottenführer—exited, James Darkwood said in perfect-sounding German, “There has been an accident. Quickly! Attend to your officer!”

  The Rottenführer and a Sturmmann right beside him started into the first car.

  As the two remaining guards left the car, Paul grabbed one, Michael the other, Paul’s knife hammering down into the man’s chest over the heart.

  There were two muted pops, like the sounds of suppressor-fitted pistols in twentieth-century movies. But these were live rounds being fired and not blanks and the suppressor really worked.

  As Paul lowered his dead man to the floor, he glanced into the first elevator car. The other two guards were dead, each with a bullet in the neck.

  Michael was talking rapidly as he dragged his dead man into the first car. “They’ll be wise to us the second somebody looks into this elevator car. We could leave the bodies somewhere else, but the bloodstains would betray what happened anyway.”

  “Agreed,” Paul said.

  James Darkwood was holding the second elevator car for them. “Back downstairs. I caught what level it was where we entered. Best shot at finding the area where they keep the clones.”

  Paul glanced at the Nazi-issue wristwatch he wore. “In about ten minutes, the others should be arriving. We’ll have to keep these bodies out of sight until then.”

  “I’ll stay with them. I’m the logical choice since my German’s next best. Meet you guys when the shooting starts,” Michael said. “Be careful.”

  Michael was taking the greatest danger onto himself, because he would have to babysit the dead men until the second chopper arrived, assuming it was allowed to land. Michael passed back their identity papers, presumably taken from the dead Untersturmführer’s body.

  “Agreed?” Darkwood asked, looking at Paul.

  “What choice do we have?” Paul responded, grabbing two of the assault rifles, one for himself and one for Darkwood. As made sense, the rifles were energy weapons, considering the enclosed area in which the guards worked. But, they would have to do.

  Michael switched on the first elevator car, looking down at the five dead Nazis, saying, “We’re all going for a ride, guys! Now, no talking huh.” He shot a wave toward Paul and James Darkwood as the doors closed.

  “Shit,” Paul observed, resheathing his knife as he entered the second car and James Darkwood worked the elevator buttons, already starting to fix a suppressor to his second pistol. Paul, in addition to his High Powers, had borrowed Natalia’s suppressor-fitted Walther PPK/S. The suppressor was recently refitted with current, state-of-the-art baffles which, unlike the original suppressor’s, never needed replacement or cleaning. The decibel rating was such that the most noise came from the operation of the slide, she’d told him.

  He was, evidently, going to get the opportunity for grueling field testing of it.

  The energy rifles were both slung to Paul’s right shoulder. How he would explain them to anyone was another matter, but if anyone started to seriously question them, that person would have to be silenced at any event. In the final analysis, the presence of the energy weapons really didn’t matter.

  The elevator stopped and the doors started to open.

  Paul Rubenstein took a deep breath and tried to think in German.

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  James Darkwood stepped from the elevator, Paul Rubenstein beside him. The guard on duty there looked up at them.

  Darkwood told the man, “We are personal agents of Herr Dr. Zimmer. You must obey my instructions to the letter, Rottenführer, if you value the future of the Reich and your own life.”

  “Yes, Herr Obersturmbannführer!”

  Darkwood looked at Rubenstein, nodded, then walked closer to the guard. “There is a plot against our fuhrer’s life. Various Allied agents have infiltrated themselves into this complex for the express purpose of assassinating Deitrich Zimmer, even at the cost of their own lives. They could only have succeeded in reaching this facility and penetrating it successfully, as they have already done, with the cooperation of certain key officers within the staff here. We alone know the identity of the leader of this group of saboteurs. Tell me, Rottenführer, as you undoubtedly have great familarity with the facility, what is the most expeditious route to the laboratory where Herr Doctor Zimmer performs his biological experiments, but a route which would be least subject to scrutiny for a team of armed men?”

  The young corporal thought for a moment, then looked up into Darkwood’s eyes. “The monorail would be the best way, Herr Obersturmbannführer.”

  “The controls for the monorail system are—?”

  “Each car is independently controlled, Herr Obersturmbannführer, and can take the appropriate siding.”

  “Which siding would these men exit from, so they would be nearest to the laboratory facilities?”

  “Siding fourteen, Herr Obersturmbannführer.”

  “Is there anything else of which we should be made aware, Rottenführer? Remember! Your name will figure heavily into my personal report to the führer. Think, man!”

  “There are always two guards posted at the laboratory doors. Herr Obersturmbannführer. It would be impossible for such men as you describe to pass these guards. I have been assigned to that post many times, and the standing orders are to shoot to kill anyone who is not recognizable as a member of the laboratory staff, Herr Obersturmbannführer.”

  “Yes, one would think such precautions would be adequate. But! They are not! Some of the conspirators are, in fact, involved in Herr Doctor Zimmer’s laboratory experiments, Rottenführer.” Darkwood started walking the corporal toward the monorail station, over his shoulder noticing that Paul Rubenstein was in a perfect position to command fire over both elevator banks and the service elevator from the takeoff and landing bay below them. While Darkwood had this cooperative young man at his disposal, he wanted to verify the monorail controls, make certain that he could operate the gondola. “You must remain vigilant here, and refuse to be taken in by contradictory orders, Rottenführer. That is clear?”

  “Yes, Herr Obersturmbannführer!”

  The wonderful thing about the Nazis was that their system was founded on paranoia, and appealing to this paranoia—secret plots, hidden agendas, classified orders—was invariably a way of getting cooperation. The dumber the Nazi, the more cooperative. He would almost feel sorry to kill this seemingly good-natured man, but when one served the cause of an evil totalitarian government, one had to expect to be counted among the enemy.

  Overlooking the gondola controls and satisfied that the machine was powered up and could be used, Darkwood slipped one of the suppressor-fitted 9mm pistols from beneath his tunic, placing it against the Rottenführer’s chest, then pulling the trigger.

  The corporal collapsed to the floor. Darkwood hissed, “Come
on!”

  Already, Paul Rubenstein was running toward the gondola.

  Together, they hauled the dead man into the gondola with them, pulling down the gullwing-style canopy opening. The gondola automatically powered up.

  Darkwood sat at the control panel. “Station fourteen it is.”

  Paul Rubenstein was already going through the dead man’s pockets for anything useful—maps, papers, general orders.

  Soundlessly, the monorail gondola glided away from the station, pausing automatically as another car passed on the main line, then switching onto the main line.

  They came out of a small tunnel, passing through free space. Below them, the true vastness of the takeoff and landing bays could be seen. Darkwood judged that the one through which they had entered the complex was the furthest west of the three, this the center one. What he saw before him on the control panel only served to confirm that.

  There was an illuminated diagram, or map, set into the control panel, the panel itself merely consisting of emergency controls, the operation of the gondola entirely automated it seemed, once the destination station was entered into the memory. Station fourteen was beyond the third bay. A lighted diode moved along the representation on the control panel, showing their position relative to the monorail route.

  The gondola entered a small tunnel, traveling past a station identical to the one at which they had boarded, then leaving the tunnel, passed over the third takeoff and landing bay. As in the one through which they had entered the facility and the one over which they had just passed, there were more V/STOL fighter aircraft here than James Darkwood had adequate time to count.

  Behind him, Paul murmured, “About a hundred planes or so.”

  “Yeah, more or less. And we’ve gotta figure a way to keep them from getting airborne after us.”