by Jerry Ahern
Over the centuries of mankind’s existence, battles were fought with bones and clubs and swords of all descriptions and guns ranging from the Single-Action Army or the Winchester lever-action to the M-16 and AK-47. The reason for the battles never changed. There were good people and there were bad people and sometimes violence growing out of the conflict between them was an unavoidable necessity.
The trick of it was for the good guys to shoot straighter than the bad guys.
Tim Shaw shot straight. Now, all he had to do was wait for the chance.
Chapter Twenty
The nearest of the hermetically sealed tents appeared to be the command post. Michael Rourke’s right hand held the copy of the Crain knife old Jon the Swordmaker had made for him more than a century ago at Lydveldid Island. In his left hand was one of the two Beretta 92F 9mm pistols from his double shoulder-holster rig.
There was an advantage to thinking on a level that was more low-tech than what was considered state-of-the-art. When someone wished to know what was going on inside a military tent these days, all sorts of electronic gadgetry could be utilized. Why bother to physically approach the tent, perhaps go inside, risking life and limb? Therefore, such direct physical action was little guarded against.
Michael hesitated. If he sliced through into the tent, he could avail himself of whatever classified materials might be inside; provided they were en clair, he would have useful data. On the down side, however, he would—in relatively short order—alert the enemy that something was afoot.
As he’d moved along the perimeter of the encampment which surrounded the aircraft in which Natalia, Annie and the crew were waiting, he’d detected several anomalies. First, although there were quite a number of vehicles and tents, there seemed to be very few personnel. Either guarding the aircraft was suddenly a low-priority task or this was just a show. With all the equipment Natalia and Annie had reported seeing, flying east, Michael Rourke now wondered if the mission to the east were some sort of emergency, or preplanned. If preplanned, why have two operations going simultaneously when, it appeared, there was a shortage of personnel? Or, was that planned, too?
His father and Paul had flown east, in their attempt to fulfill Deitrich Zimmer’s bizarre demand in exchange for performing the required operation on Michael’s mother. Was this some elaborate trap to capture his father and Paul, but then why not all of them, himself, Annie and Natalia included? And, he—Michael—was supposed to be Martin, in cryogenic Sleep, part of a trade for Sarah Rourke’s life. Was it that Deitrich Zimmer just didn’t care about Martin, that this was all a sham? Or, was this casual attitude toward Martin all part of a plan as well? Did Deitrich Zimmer know that Martin was dead? Then, why the charade?
Michael Rourke reached a decision: He was damned if he entered the tent to steal information, yet might be damned if he didn’t. Glancing from side to side, double-checking his earlier assessment that he’d bypassed the tent’s rather lackluster intruder defense system, he stabbed the knife into the fabric and, just as in the old videotapes he’d watched at the retreat, cut his way into the Arab/Indian tent.
There was a pneumatic hiss as the point where the knife penetrated the fabric, a rush of warm air wafting toward Michael’s few centimeters of exposed skin—he wore no goggles. Quickly, Michael lengthened the cut and stepped through, squinting his eyes against the brighter light. There was no one about in this compartment and, as rapidly as he could, Michael sealed the rift in the tent’s outer wall with the modern equivalent of duct tape. Like his father, Michael Rourke planned ahead.
He waited near the tent wall for several seconds, until his eyes were fully accustomed to the brighter light. He listened for the slightest sounds. There was the clicking of a computer keyboard from the next room. There was the low hum of music, perhaps from an audiodisk player. There was no other sound, except the barely noticeable whisper of the environmental conditioning, which heated the tent and circulated preheated air.
Michael pushed back the hood of his parka. Beneath it, he wore a black toque, the hoodlike garment masking his face completely except for the eye holes. He left the black hood in place. If he were discovered, there was no sense in advertising his identity.
Opening his coat against the warmth, a pistol in one hand again, the knife in the other, he crossed the small room—it was used for storage of message blanks, coffee, innocuous things like that. There was also a box of grenades. Michael already had some of his own.
He reached the doorway leading to the main section. His ear to the doorway, he could only hear the keyboard clicking louder, the music more recognizable. There was a nostalgia craze in Eden these days, he’d heard, and evidently this was something the Nazis were not immune to, either. The song playing was an electronic arrangement of one of Elvis Presley’s big hits. At the retreat, there was an original record (a big black vinyl disk) with the song. Annie was always a big Elvis fan, as was Michael’s mother.
There was no other sound.
Michael stuffed the Beretta into the waistband of his trousers, his sweater pulled up enough that he could grab the pistol’s butt if need be. He turned the knob as slowly as he could, listening for the slightest squeak, attentive to any alteration in the rhythm of the keyboard clicking beyond.
If the computer console were oriented to face this doorway, Michael would be forced to use the gun. If not, he might be able to do what he needed to do silently. The door open now about six inches, Michael peered through.
The computer operator’s back was to the doorway. There was no one else in the main compartment.
Three desks, a radio set, various monitors, a second computer console and a stack of assault rifles were all that remained in the compartment. This was a typical field command post, communications equipment, data processing, all instantly portable. Michael was beginning to wish he’d brought Natalia along. She was good with computers, just like Paul. He was not more than adequate, but learning.
He continued opening the door, widening it at last until he could slip through.
The snow had already melted from his boots. The floor of the structure was a carpetlike material. If he could approach silently enough, there was at once the chance that he could do what he came to do unmolested and that he would not be forced to kill the man sitting at the computer keyboard.
Michael Rourke, the knife in his right fist in a sabre hold, started moving, walking slowly toward the Nazi.
During the five years in which his father had left cryogenic Sleep and joined Michael and his sister, many things were learned. One of the skills his father taught them both had to do with the versatility of the knife as both a tool and a weapon. “You know how much I’m into guns, guys, right? But, if I had to choose one weapon only, I’d choose a knife. The reason for that is because a good knife, that isn’t abused, can be used over and over again. But, eventually, especially with semiautomatics which shuck empty brass everywhere, you’ll eventually run out of ammunition. Even if you have the facility to reload your own, eventually the cases will become unusable. A flintlock rifle, probably the most practical survival weapon you can have—you can make your powder, your shot, mine your flint—will cease to function under conditions of extreme dampness, can’t be used in water at all, needs to be reloaded between shots.
“A good knife, on the other hand,” their father went on to say, “doesn’t run out of ammo, can be used regardless of weather conditions, won’t fail you unless you use it improperly. You know I like big knives for some purposes. One of the reasons is that with a really large knife, you don’t always have to use it as a knife in antipersonnel work. You can use it as a club.”
There were two ways of doing just that (although a third way was to keep the knife sheathed, but this was dangerous in that if the knife were needed as a knife, time would be wasted ridding the steel of the leather or fabric). The first of the two ways would work well with a single-edge knife absent sawteeth. One utilized the spine of the blade. The second method worked wi
th any large knife.
It was the second method which Michael Rourke was about to employ. He was fewer than four feet from the man at the computer console, still keeping his concentration on things other than the man himself. Whether it was some sixth sense only activated in times of mortal peril, or just coincidence combined with superstition, there was an old rule in sentry removal, applicable here: don’t think about the target.
Michael rotated the knife slightly in his hand, primary edge out. As, very quickly now, he closed the gap between himself and the Nazi who was typing away at the computer, Michael Rourke’s right arm raised, then arced downward, crashing the left flat of the blade downward. Steel contacted skull and, with his left arm, Michael caught the man as the Nazi slumped, unconscious, from his chair.
Michael lowered the fellow to the floor. From the pocket of his parka, Michael withdrew the modern equivalent of Flexcuffs, binding the Nazi computer operator’s wrists behind him, then the ankles. With a piece of the duct tape he’d used to close the cut in the tent wall, he closed the man’s mouth, first checking with his gloved fingers for any obstructions to the air passage, dentures (uncommon these days) or the like.
Michael left him beside the chair, then went to the tent’s main entrance.
There would be guards outside, but there was nothing to indicate they had been roused. This was almost too easy, and perhaps it was that way because it had been planned to be. Had Michael killed the man working at the computer console, it would not have bothered a man such as Deitrich Zimmer at all.
Regardless of whether or not this was some elaborate setup, Michael set about his work.
The music disk was playing the Kurt Weill/Bert Brecht song from Three-Penny Opera about a fellow named Mack who was well known for his blade work. Michael sat at the computer console, exploring the program in which the now unconscious man had been working. The program revealed forces strength data, and from what Michael was able to determine, the Nazi headquarters some five miles distant was severely undermanned.
That made even less sense. Michael printed out the data which seemed most interesting, after the file was loaded into the printer’s memory buffer, beginning to search the hard disk for additional data. At last, he was able to access another file. This contained information which, by all rights, didn’t even belong in a system the primary purpose of which was expediting a military operation. Why was it there? The data concerned Dr. Zimmer’s experiments with cloning human beings.
Zimmer had, the file related, successfully discovered the means by which to record the electromagnetic impulses of the human brain. He could probe through the brain—probably not very pleasant for the subject—and extract data. This was of considerable value to his military intelligence operations. No longer were torture, drug therapy or any other technique for the extraction of information against a subject’s will required. Zimmer’s probe replaced all of that. Michael realized, as he disgested the information, that the main fault intrinsic to Zimmer’s new technique was the sheer volume of information which would be obtained. There was no one specific area of the brain which held “memory.” There were, instead, cells throughout the brain, billions of them, and within these were subtle electrochemical connectors which strung together.
When one saw a tall, four-legged animal with an odd sort of chair on its back, myriad receptors processed and interpreted the data which instantly allowed the identification of the creature as a saddled horse.
The volume of data which would be extracted by, in essence, recording the brain was enormous, too much for even the most sophisticated of computers to process. Hence, the cloning. Zimmer had available a “bank” of living human beings kept in a state of suspended animation (probably cryogenic Sleep) whose sole function was the reception of such data.
Trans-Global Alliance Secret Agent X was captured, the electromagnetic impulses within his brain recorded, the information downloaded into one of cryogenic sleepers awakened for the specific purpose of receiving the information. The cryogenic sleeper, according to the data, had previously implanted within his or her brain an electronic device which could be utilized to stimulate pleasure or pain.
Should the human being receiving the downloaded information be endowed as well with the original subject’s will and concurrent desire not to release the data, it was a simple matter to manipulate these pleasure and pain centers in order to convince the human receptor that answering all questions and divulging all information was the correct thing to do.
Michael instantly wondered why Zimmer went to all of the trouble. Why not simply place such a device in the brain of the interrogation subject? As Michael Rourke read on, that question was answered. Recovery from such an operation was estimated at a rate of seventy-five percent. What if the subject died? Then, the intelligence data would be lost forever. And, it was possible that while performing the operation the subject would be “damaged.” That could mean specific areas of memory loss, tiny details which might prove vital—gone.
Michael regretted his meager German, because much of the data was in vocabulary which was well beyond him. Natalia, on the other hand, had perfect German.
The first file was printed and Michael set about printing this one. The notes beside the computer console dealt with forces deployment, specifying guard rosters and the like for the encampment surrounding the aircraft.
It was obvious to Michael Rourke that the information—in the file—was intended for him or one of the others from the family to see, to use. But, why? Was there some secret ally within the Nazi headquarters? Or, was it Deitrich Zimmer, manipulating them to his will?
Michael Rourke scanned through the rest of the files, finding few things of any real interest.
As soon as the file concerning Zimmer’s cloning experiments and the other data pertinent to them was printed, he would be on his way.
Chapter Twenty-One
The night was moonless because of the cloud cover, but through the vision-intensification binoculars, John Rourke was able to survey the encampment surrounding the aircraft clearly.
The rear cargo doors were open, and figures huddled there in the darkness behind a barricade, one of them using glasses similar to his own. They were the two women, he decided, Natalia and Annie. Near them, the cryogenic chamber in which Michael was ensconced was visible as well.
It was time for a very important decision, that being whether he would divide his force and simultaneously infiltrate the headquarters complex and attack the encampment here, or quietly penetrate and overtake the encampment, then move on with his full force to the headquarters, that force supplemented by Natalia and Annie and, if possible, an awakened Michael.
Through the glasses, John Rourke studied guard deployment, apparent strength. The encampment was grossly undermanned for its size, and this struck him as extremely odd. Once he had awakened from his last session of cryogenic Sleep and ascertained that the world was, once again, at war, he had studied everything he could get his hands on concerning this new enemy, only to find that it was an old enemy which should have been extinct by all rights. The philosophy of racial superiority as an excuse for state-sponsored terrorism was not only vile, but insane.
In all that John Rourke had digested concerning the Eden Defense Forces and their Nazi allies, he had never found reason to accuse the enemy of poor generalship. Yet, here it was. The position could easily be overrun by a platoon of ordinary soldiers with a good plan behind them, or roughly a third that many men who were possessed of specialized training and the right amount of determination.
He had those men, and the determination was self-evident in their dedication; one did not become a United States Navy SEAL or a German Long Range Mountain Patrol commando without it, much less survive past one’s first mission. And, the men with Rourke were seasoned veterans.
Added to this, Rourke knew the position taken by Commander Washington’s Hawaii-based SEAL Unit. Once he felt sufficiently confident that he could contact this unit without betrayin
g the presence of his own team in the area, he would have an additional thirty-six battle-hardened men under his command.
There was something wrong. Perhaps it was a trap. He said as much to Paul Rubenstein who lay beside him just behind the lip of the ridge of ice and snow. “Looks like it to me, John. What’ll we do? Bite?”
“Maybe. Dispatch two men—make it three—to make contact with Commander Washington’s force. Have Washington and his men move up to along that ridge and then fan out on either side.” Rourke gestured to the opposite edge of the ice field. “There and there. Tell them to be in position by—” And John Rourke rolled back the cuff of his snow smock and the storm sleeve of the arctic parka beneath it. The luminous black face of his Rolex Submariner read nearly 2:30 A.M. “Have Commander Washington get his people in place and ready to move by four on the dot. They’ll attack openly using fire and maneuver elements and a lot of small-arms fire. At a few minutes before four, you’ll take half of the team and infiltrate from the far side, over there,” Rourke said, pointing to the north.
Paul, peering through his own night-vision binoculars, volunteered, “That outcropping of ice would be a good point.”
“Agreed. I’ll start the rest of the team from here. We meet in the middle of the camp. Get as far as we can before Commander Washington’s people get everyone’s attention focused on them, then we finish what we’ve started. Have the messengers impress upon Commander Washington that we’ve got to strike so rapidly that the Nazi Headquarters won’t be alerted. It’s far enough away that even in this clear, cold air, the gunfire won’t be picked up. Make sure the messengers get it memorized. Nothing written down.”
