Countdown

by Jerry Ahern

  “Let’s go!”

  “You’ve got Martin Zimmer’s clone, here. He’s our shield.” At least, Paul Rubenstein hoped so.

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Natalia Anastasia Tiemerovna fired over the barricade toward the Nazi position, energy machine-gun fire from that position getting increasingly heavy. The Nazis were massing for an attack, she realized, and in a matter of two minutes, if she and all the rest of the assault force were not in their aircraft, ready to go airborne, they would never clear the takeoff and landing bay before the explosions started.

  There was enough aircraft-grade synth-fuel here to incinerate them.

  And, there was still no sign of Michael. Her stomach cramped with the thought, and her palms sweated within her gloves. She loved Michael like she had loved no other man in her life, even his father.

  If she lost him to death, she herself would crave death.

  But she would not accept it. She would go on, dead only in her heart and her soul.

  Beside her, Lieutenant Christakos told her what she already knew. “About two minutes, Major Tiemerovna, then if we’re not out of here, we’re not getting out.”

  “I know that. Order your pilots to fall back. You and I can hold this position for as long as we’ve got left.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Pilots! Fall back to your aircraft. We’re getting out of here!”

  A cheer rose for only a second, and then the eight SEAL Team personnel began crawling away behind cover, until it was safe for them to make a break to their planes.

  Where was Michael Rourke?

  There was an explosion on the near wall, between this takeoff and landing bay and the next one over, massive chunks of granite flying up into the air toward the cavern ceiling, and all electrical power went out. The only light came from emergency, battery-operated units placed at intervals along the walls and from the open doorway at the mouth of the takeoff and landing bay.

  There was an enormous amount of concentrated automatic-weapons fire, a few bursts from energy weapons, a few isolated automatic bursts from projectile weapons, then several puffs of smoke from gas grenades.

  She was about to fire as a figure vaulted over the enemy’s barricades, but the shape of the body beneath the uniform and the hooded CBR mask stopped her. “Michael? Michael?”

  “I’m on my way,” she heard him shout.

  And, Natalia was suddenly mortified, and at once grateful that she wore the CBR mask. Because her eyes filled with tears …

  James Darkwood looked at the watch on his wrist. If they were not in Landing Bay One in a little over a minute, they would be done for. And there was no electricity and the monorail line, even if someone hadn’t blown it up (and someone probably had), wasn’t running because there was no power.

  Paul Rubenstein still carried the clone of Doctor Rourke.

  The only light was from their small flashlights, the rest of the corridor near the monorail station in total darkness.

  James Darkwood pointed one of the suppressor-fitted pistols he carried into the face of Martin Zimmer’s clone. “So, how do we get out of here to Landing Bay One? Or, do you prefer to die? If we’re not there rather quickly, die is exactly what you’ll do.”

  “I’m just a clone! I don’t—”

  “You know everything the original knows.” Darkwood thumbed back the pistol’s hammer for dramatic effect.

  “There’s a way. I just thought of it.”

  Darkwood smiled. Too bad Martin Zimmer’s clone couldn’t see it.

  Chapter Sixty

  Paul Rubenstein’s right shoulder was alternately numb and throbbing, depending how he moved, but he could not have changed the position of John Rourke # 11 if he had tried. The metal-runged ladder down which they climbed through a tube about the diameter of a twentieth-century manhole cover would not have allowed it, nor did the time.

  Paul was ticking off the seconds. Even at a dead run, they would not reach Landing Bay One in time.

  Martin Zimmer’s clone had told them as they started down into the tube that this was a waste-disposal chamber below them, designed to accommodate water and synth-fuel runoff from the landing bays. There were gratings built into the landing-bay floors at regular intervals. Once they were beneath one of the ones with a ladder access, all they had to do was climb up and they would be in Landing Bay One.

  If Martin Zimmer’s clone lied, Paul had already decided—he would kill the man himself …

  Emma Shaw sat in the cockpit of her aircraft, counting the seconds remaining. She had always resented the term “cockpit,” but there were more important things on her mind.

  She spoke into her radio on the ship-to-ship frequency as she watched the timepiece’s secondhand sweep to the twelve position. Emma glanced over her right shoulder, seeing Lieutenant Christakos firing a signal flare, calling off the SEALs who were holding the control center, signaling that they should evacuate to their assigned aircraft.

  Emma Shaw said over ship-to-ship, “This is Evac Leader to all Evac personnel. At your assigned time, commence takeoff. My aircraft will not—I repeat—will not be taking off. Out.”

  But Annie ’s voice came back to her. “I’m not leaving either. I’m waiting for Paul. I tried talking my pilot out of it, and the other one, but—hell—Over.”

  “We can’t get everybody killed. You and your pilot stay, then. I can fit two in the co-pilot’s seat and so can you. Evac Three—do you copy that? Over.”

  “I can stay, Evac Leader.”

  “Negative.”

  “This is Michael. Come in.”

  “Before you say it, Michael,” Emma Shaw responded, “if we don’t get out of here, Paul and Annie and myself with that clone, then someone’s going to have to do whatever else can be done to save your father’s life and take care of your mother. You and Natalia seem like the ones who’ve been elected. You’re flying out of here. I command this end of the operation and you’ll damn well do it. Out!”

  Emma Shaw looked at her watch. In seventy-five seconds, if they weren’t in the air or the next best thing, none of them would have to worry. “This is Evac Leader to all Evac personnel except Evac Two. Get out of here. We’ll meet at the rendezvous. I say again, get out of here. Airborne. Now! Out!”

  Aircraft started moving across the runway, the nearest to the open doorway picking up speed. V/STOL aircraft could get airborne at slower speeds than standard fixed-wing craft.

  Natalia’s voice came over the ship-to-ship frequency. “Emma, good luck to you.”

  “And to you,” Emma answered. The SEAL pilot who waited with Annie Rubenstein waited because he was a hero; SEALs were trained for that. Annie waited for her husband out of love. Emma Shaw waited because she had nowhere else to go. If the clone couldn’t be brought out alive, John Rourke was dead. And there was no sense going on living if that happened.

  It was better by far to die in combat.

  They were past the safe takeoff point.

  At fifteen seconds before detonation, she would order liftoff. They wouldn’t make it, but at least it wouldn’t technically be suicide.

  Forty seconds.

  As her eyes scanned over the airfield, she thought she saw movement …

  James Darkwood pushed up just behind Martin Zimmer’s clone.

  The grating opened into the center of Landing Bay One.

  He looked at his watch. Even though there were two planes on the runway—and just two—there shouldn’t have been any.

  Darkwood told Martin Zimmer’s clone, “Find yourself a place to hide in about the next thirty seconds. This place’ll be a firebomb in forty.”

  Zimmer’s clone ran for the wall, stopped, stood there, started running in a different direction.

  There was no time to worry about him.

  James Darkwood leaned down to help Paul Rubenstein out of the shaft with the clone of John Rourke.

  Paul struggled to his feet. “Let me take him.”

  “No time,” Paul insisted, starting to run,
his body stooped under the weight of the man he carried.

  James Darkwood saw Emma Shaw, out on the wingstem of her aircraft, heard her shouting, “There’s no time! Hurry. The other plane, Darkwood!”

  “Right!”

  He ran, toward the second aircraft, Annie Rubenstein waving him on. He looked to his right. Emma Shaw was on the tarmac, helping Paul Rubenstein with the barely conscious clone of John Rourke. The man had mumbled incoherently, but his mind was a blank page.

  Involuntarily, James Darkwood shivered.

  He reached the Nazi/Eden V/STOL, clambering up toward the cockpit.

  “We’ll have to squeeze together,” Annie Rubenstein told him.

  “No disrespect meant to you or your husband, ma’am,” he told her, dropping down beside her as she struggled with the safety restraint—it would never make it for both of them.

  The cockpit cowling was already closing, the aircraft already in motion, engines revving. “Like I said,” he began again. “No disrespect to either you or your husband, ma’am, but the opportunity to share a seat with you is the nicest thing that’s happened to me all day!”

  Behind them, James Darkwood heard what he thought was an explosion …

  Emma Shaw throttled out the V/STOL. If she blew the carburation systems for the engines, she and Paul Rubenstein and the clone of John Rourke would be dead, but if she didn’t get up speed they’d be dead anyway. “Hold on to something, Paul!” Emma Shaw ordered.

  The other plane was just starting to clear the open doorway into the icy air above the Himalayas. She would not make it in time.

  Unless—“I’m firing—aw, never mind. Hang on!”

  She flipped the arm switch and in the next instant the firing switches for the aft-firing missile racks, hoping that the added thrust would get them out the door and airborne in time.

  The roar from the missiles firing within the enclosure was deafening, the aircraft was vibrating, shaking so badly she could hardly control it.

  The helicopter in which they’d flown exploded, the charges there detonating on time to the second.

  She looked back through the canopy, across the fuselage, toward the rear of the takeoff and landing bay. A massive fireball was growing, black and orange and yellow, consuming everything in its path, moving faster than her aircraft.

  “Oh shit!”

  Full throttle, she had to risk going airborne before the marker.

  The nose came up, the wheels off the runway. She retracted landing gear.

  The fireball was closing on them.

  “Have we got a problem here?” Paul Rubenstein called to her over the radio.

  “Maybe—tell you in a second.” If they lived that long.

  The fireball belched toward them and involuntarily she ducked her head as the canopy skimmed only inches beneath the highest point of the door frame.

  She looked back, the fireball totally obscuring the face of the mountain now as she climbed the V/STOL into the clouds. “No—no problem, Paul. Why’d you ask?”

  Chapter Sixty-One

  Paul Rubenstein walked beside the gurney on which the stabilized body of John Rourke #11 rested.

  Sedated.

  About to die.

  Natalia walked on the other side of the gurney, her eyes shifting from the body to the people surrounding the gurney.

  They had not spoken about how the clone of John Rourke would die.

  The Paladin’s chief medical officer had met them as soon as the primary landing bay in which they’d touched down was evacuated of water and pressure equalized.

  “There is one very big problem, Major Tiemerovna,” he’d told her.

  “I know. Trust me,” she told him. “It will not remain a problem.”

  They were on the medical level now, just clear of the elevators. Emma Shaw walked beside Natalia, Annie beside Paul, Michael behind the gurney, nearest to John Rourke #11’s head.

  The chief medical officer—a Commander Tierney—had gone on ahead. From what Natalia understood, once the heart was available, the operation could get under way in a matter of minutes.

  Natalia had her knife to hand. She would cut the femoral artery on the inside of the right thigh of John Rourke #11, completely severing it so that some misguided person could not somehow save John Rourke #11’s life.

  This was evil. This was murder. She was fully prepared to do the act.

  She touched her fingertips to the butt of the Bali-Song in the pocket along her jumpsuit’s right thigh.

  She caught Annie’s eyes. Then Paul’s.

  Paul still had her suppressed Walther PPK/S. Was his hand reaching for it under his sweater?

  The pre-op area lay about twenty-five yards ahead, the nearest thing to them a vacant intensive-care ward, the door open, the beds turned up and empty.

  Natalia watched John Rourke #11’s chest as it rose and fell.

  John Rourke was a mind, not a body, the body merely the instrument by which the mind could function. She was not killing anything that was even a part of John Rourke.

  She started to remove the knife from the pouch on her thigh.

  There was a blur of motion from her right, through the doorway of the vacant intensive-care ward.

  Sarah, some kind of knife in her hands.

  Paul reached for Sarah.

  Annie shrieked, “Momma, no!”

  Natalia threw her body toward the gurney, trying to protect the heart of John Rourke #11 with her own body.

  But the gurney was shoved forward.

  Michael was reacting.

  “No, Michael!” Natalia screamed.

  The knife hammered down in Sarah Rourke’s hands, Paul and Annie were grabbing her, wrestling her back.

  “I destroyed the heart!” Sarah screamed.

  Annie clutched Sarah to her, half fighting to hold her.

  Sarah looked over her shoulder, eyes wide, streaming tears. “I had to before he—”

  “Shut up!” Natalia shrieked.

  And she looked down at the body on the gurney.

  John Rourke #11 was dead.

  When Michael had moved the gurney so suddenly, Sarah missed. The knife had impaled the clone through the left eye on an upward angle into the brain.

  Emma Shaw was already starting to shove the gurney toward the pre-op section, the two uniformed nurses running after her, Emma shouting, “Doctor Tierney! We’ve got the heart!”

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