by Ahern, Jerry
He thought of Sarah Rourke often since the terrible night of death; but, he had thought of her often before that night, too.
Wolfgang Mann realized that he loved her.
Sixteen
The blue light flashed and the synthetic concrete that looked identical to the rock surface of the mountain shimmered, then cracked, fragmenting everywhere with a sound louder than the detonation of a hand grenade.
Natalia Tkmerovna stood in the doorway of the German gunship. stripped of her black arctic parka, shivering in the wind, as her hands, gloved in black leather that was thin and strong, secured the strap for the sheath which lay across her back.
In the Chicago Espionage School deep within the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, five centuries ago, she had immersed herself in the martial arts as she had once in ballet, and for the same reason, its physical release and its beauty. More than any of the other forms, she had come to love kendo, the use of the sword, perhaps because of its total lack of potential for use in the field-or so she had supposed.
As an officer in the Committee for State Security, she had come quite often to rely on a knife. And, to her surprise, she found that utilization of a knife in the same manner as a sword took an opponent totally by surprise and was marvelously effective.
When the War came to an end and she went to Europe to work with the children of the Wild Tribes, her body still craved movement and beauty. She returned to the sword. Bjorn Rolvaag led her to Lydveldid Island’s finest swordsmith and she spoke with the man, drew out her desire on paper, and watched as he gave it dimension in wood. They talked, she
tested the length of blade and handle. He refined it beyond anything she had ever dreamed possible when, in the fiery orange glow of his forge, he transformed an idea into steel.
It was the perfect sword for her height and weight and strength, and most of all for her style of fighting. Had someone told her at the Chicago School, that as a woman born in the twentieth century she would be going into combat five centuries later with a medieval style sword as one of her weapons, she would have considered the idea madness.
But in desparate close quarters combat, when a gun was empty or failed, a massive and intimidating blade could not only buy precious seconds in which to act, but neutralize an opponent totally. Although she was strong for a woman, a short-sword-sized knife such as John carried, his Crain Life Support System X, required more physical strength than she possessed, at least to use it to its full potential.
She shivered. With John’s knife and a ferocity she never realized she possessed, she beheaded her husband, Vladmir Karamatsov, as he was about to kill John Rourke. To behead a man with an edged weapon that was anything short of an axe. required either phenomenal strength or great luck because the blade had to pass between the vertebrae.
A true sword, on the other hand, had a longer reach and its mass was distributed in such a manner that it was actually easier to deliver a more powerful blow, the blade itself accomplishing what strength alone would have to do with a mere knife.
The gunship banked and Natalia, secured to a safety line, kept her balance despite her extreme angle to the open doorway.
More of the gunships were firing toward the seemingly innocent mountain summit, but with each shot as the dust settled, the mountain’s innocence was stripped away, revealing the Nan redoubt within.
Their antiaircraft defenses would be opening up in seconds, but hopefully not soon enough. Her sword looked like something from a barbarian fantasy.
Its blade of D-2 tool steel was a full thirty-six inches in length, spear pointed and double-edged, flat ground from the median line of stock three-eighths-inch thick.
The handle, designed to accommodate both her hands and full tanged for strength against snapping, was covered in leather wrapped over black linen micarta. There was a broad double quillon guard of steel reinforced brass. The sword’s pommel was a large, spherical skull crusher, also of steel.
But now was no time for swords. Once inside the redoubt, perhaps, but not now. Her M-16 was in her right hand instead, her left hand grasped to the security strap. Natalia Anastasia Tiemerovna stood ready to jump. Now was a time for guns.
Annie Rourke Rubenstein had a Remington 870 12-gauge taken from the Retreat just before she left for Lydveldid Island. She knew full well that some persons five centuries ago, who weren’t really that knowledgeable concerning firearms, had abortively attempted to push the idea that the most shotgun a woman could handle was a .410. Annie laughed at the thought as she tromboned the action of the shotgun her father had always said was the finest American made pump to be had. The Remington was a 12-gauge.
Paul Rubenstein let the Colt assault rifle slip back on its sling, drawing back the bolt of the Schmiesser submachine gun he had carried into combat with a Rourke beside him for more than five centuries …
Michael Rourke leaned against the bulkhead beside the open doorway of the German gunship, the icy wind tearing at his face, clawing at his hair. He gave a goodluck tug to the two Berettas under his arms in the shoulder holster over the German flak vest.
His rather hadn’t liked the 9mm cartridge except for special purpose use, but had always told him that was personal preference only. Once wedded to the .45 ACP, always. Michael Rourke, on the other hand, liked the 9mm Parabellum cartridge a little better and preferred the larger capacity magazines.
There were many fine large capacity 9mms, of course, the foreign guns that had been imported before the Night of The War-the SIG-Sauer P-226, the Walther P-88, the TZ-75, the excellent Taurus PT-92 and PT-99 and many others-and even one American large capacity 9mm, the third generation Smith & Wesson 9mms, could be ranked as a world class gun. The Berettas, excellent, were also available.
He liked them.
Michael shouted to Paul and Annie and Natalia, “Gas masks up!”
Then he pulled his own mask over his face, popping the cheeks to make the seal.
He charged the chamber of the Colt M-16, and his right fist clenched around the pistol grip, trigger finger along the outside of the guard, ready.
Seventeen
Somewhere, there was pain, and words that were only vague rememberings brought pictures to him of Sarah, of fire, of death. And rhe pictures were terror because they were glimpses, like something seen between the blinkings of the eye.
The pain became a dullness, but it was there, above him, holding him down, relentless. On a level of consciousness he did not know he possessed, he knew that he was dreaming, and that there could only be one reason for dreaming. And both the reason and the realization held him in their grasp that was fear. And the dream began and although he tried to hold on to the realization that it was a dream, the dream took stronger hold of him and the awareness of unreality vanished, exchanged for a new reality …
Michael Rourke vaulted the few feet to the granite surface of the mountain. The wind from the German helicopter gunship’s downdraft combined with the winds which scoured the rocks of all snow and ice; its intensity near the equivalent force of a gale. In pockets, where the rock formed natural shields against the high altitude blasts, there was snow that was feet deep at least, crusted over in shimmering ice crystals which caught the sunlight and threw it back brighter and more concentrated than before. He came down in a crouch, his M-16 in his hands.
Natalia and Annie and Paul jumped from the German gunship and surrounded liim.
There was a hole in the rock surface a few yards from them and Michael Rourke started running toward it. On all sides. German Commando and Long Range Mountain Patrol personnel were reaching the mountain top, some jumping as Michael and the family had done from gunships hovering only a few-feet above the surface, others rapelling from choppers hovering at higher altitude. The mountain redoubt’s antiaircraft defenses were coming into action, flak exploding in black, heavily textured bursts in the air all around the J7-V’s coming in from both the north and the south, converging on the redoubt.
Contrails of surface t
o air missiles, gleaming white, streaked across the deep cold blue of the sky, some of them exploding in mid-air because of German counter measure weapons.
Flickers of pale blue flashed across the sky as well, originating at the muzzles of the helicopter mounted energy weapons, terminating against the rock surface itself.
Avalanches began, great chunks of rock and ice and tons of dislodged snow cascading down the mountainside into the cloud-shrouded valleys below.
Michael Rourke reached the opening, not knowing what lay beyond except in a general fashion from his study of the redoubt’s blueprints. From a pocket of his battle vest, Michael took a handful of ground readers, as the Germans called them. They were flat, rectangular pieces of plastic, at the longest edge less than an inch, with sensors built into them that, when he activated their control unit, would cause them to detonate a harmless high-pitched noisemaker charge if they hit a solid surface. Michael flipped the lock, then the toggk switch on the control and tossed them though the opening. There was a high-pitched whistling sound that indicated they had struck a hard surface and he wouldn’t be jumping through the hole into air space alone. Michael lobbed a gas grenade, then another through the orrening, Natalia doing the same.
Paul flanked him on the right. Michael Rourke hurtled himself through the opening, stopping just inside and dodging
right, firing a burst from his M-16 high over the head of any human target, since the gas was temporarily so thick anything beyond a few feet was obscured to him and for all he knew, he might have accidentally entered the redoubt in the same portion of the structure where his newborn brother was being kept.
Paul was through, then Annie and Natalia as Michael and Paul edged their way along the wall surface behind them. He could hear Paul speaking through the headset built into their gasmasks. “I can’t see a thing, Michael!”
“Keep moving along the wall.”
Natalia’s voice came to him. “Annie and I will cross the room to the tar sides. Watch out for us! Starting now.”
Michael Rourke snapped the muzzle of his rifle high and awav. saving into his headset, “Let us know when you’re there!”
Tm seC Annie’s voice came back.
“So am I.” Natalia said.
“Paul, up the middle. Should be a doorway.”
“Moving now.” Paul came back.
Michael Rourke was running, the gas cloud dissipated to the degree that there was a modest amount of visibility. The room was a storage chamber of some sort, crates—possibly foodstuffs-stacked everywhere.
They reached the doorway almost simultaneously, Annie and Natalia joining them in the next instant. The door was closed and locked, similar in appearance to the watertight doors on submarines. Natalia dropped to her knees before the wheel lock, setting a strip of the new German plastique to it, then a detonator. “Fifteen seconds! Get back!”
Michael Rourke ran back, turning his face away and shielding his bead with his left arm against possible flying debris.
There was a crack, a pop and the sound of metal striking the wall surfaces.
As Michael Rourke looked back, the door was swung part way inward He ran for the door, calling to Paul, “Crisscross through the door, Paul, Annie. You and Natalia use gas gre
nades, right and left.” At the doorway, Michael took one flank. Paul Rubenstein the other, Annie behind Paul, lobbing a grenade through the opening left to right, Natalia behind Michael throwing her grenade right to left.
“Go!” Michael snapped, and he was through, Paul crossing near him in a blur, both of them taking up positions on the other side of the door.
There was an air evacuation system in operation, the gas being sucked out through vent holes in the upper portions of the wall, but still intense enough to cause an unmasked person discomfort and produce some disorientation.
But there was no time to lose.
A staircase at the far end of the corridor, nearer to the center of the mountain, looked like the obvious choice. “The stairwell. Hit it. Annie, cover!” “Right, Michael!”
Michael Rourke ran along the corridor, nearing the stairwell.
It was circular, winding, metal, going down into the bowels of the mountain itself. The corridor behind him was filling with more German personnel who had attained it through other holes blown into the exterior of the structure. Michael switched frequencies, linking up to Otto Hammerschmidt who led the ground forces. “Otto? Any resistance?”
“No, my friend.”
“Send some men to cover us, then bring the rest with. We’ve gotta go down.” “Agreed!”
Michael crouched near the height of the stairwell, peering downward, the stairs seeming to go down forever. Natalia dropped to her knees beside him. She tapped him on the shoulder, and Michael nodded, telling Hammerschmidt, “We’re switching to your frequency now.”
Michael changed frequencies, telling Natalia and his sister and brother-in-law. “Switch to Hammerschmidt’s frequency.”
He switched, then Natalia’s voice came on. “I started to tell you, this stairwell gives me a bad feeling.”
“I know. Thafs why ITl go first.”
Then, Fm second,” she responded.
He looked at her, would have smiled except that the mask he wore wasn’t really conducive to it.
The gas masks they wore would not be enough if the Nazis were flooded the interior of the mountain with nerve gas, but it would have been impossible to function with total effectiveness in full chemical-biological-nuclear gear and it was hard to imagine even the Nazis using nerve agents as an intruder defense system, when it would be just as deadly to their own personnel.
Michael glanced over his shoulder, Hammerschmidt and two dozen or so German Commando and Long Range Mountain Patrol personnel ready and waiting. Michael Rourke’s gloved left hand on the pipe bannister, his M-16 in his right, he started down the stairs. Natalia so close behind him she was almost beside horn …
His twin stainless Detonics CornbatMasters were in his hands and he stood in a vast hall, the walls covered with mirrors.
He started walking.
In one of the mirrors, he saw a flicker of movement, but it wasn’t his own reflection. Yet, it was.
He began walking again, toward the mirror where he’d seen the movement. .And he saw his own image, but there was something wrong.
And the nnrrors were gone and there was blackness surrounding him. but his guns were still in his hands. Light, brilliant and bright, and within the light as he moved forward to be closer to it, he saw Sarah. She sat in a rocking chair, a babv in her arms.
“Sarah?”
“Is there trouble, John?
He looked down at the guns in his hands, then back toward the light and she was no longer there. The light was growing
stronger and he wasn’t walking toward it anymore, but k was surrounding him. His eyes squinted against it. “Sarah? Where are you?” There was no answer.
He turned around and the light became desert and a sum. hot and glowing, glared down at him like some malevolent eye from a sky that was a brilliant blue.
He looked down and his guns were still in his hands.
He started walking.
Somehow, his sunglasses were on and the light was less bothersome to him because of that. This was a strange desen. because it had all the heat and desolateness of a desert, ba there were houses ranked on sand covered streets and there were sand dunes everywhere. But sometimes, poking through from inside he could see parts of automobiles and trucks and airplanes.
But, there were no people.
“Sarah? Are you out here?”
He looked at the house on his right, saw movement from behind a porch window.
John Rourke started toward the house, the sand very deep here and the going slow. He was on the steps, the treads mounded with sand and piles of ash. He stepped onto the porch.
In the window, the same window, he saw movement.
It was his own reflection, but there was something wro
ng with it. “What’s going on?”
Only his own voice echoed back to him, that and the loneh keening of a hot wind.
Eighteen
Each time there was an air strike, the staircase vibrated, and it vibrated regularly, meaning the J7-Vs, under the command of Wolfgang Marin, were doing their job well.
At a mid point in the stairwell, there was a landing, and leading off from it a corridor shaped like a large pipe, tubular and of gleaming metal.
Til check it out,* Paul volunteered
Tm going with him,” Annie said.
“All right, Paul, but be careful,” Michael cautioned, the tube a perfect place for a trap. “Well send a dumbass first Otto?
Harnrnerschxradt nodded, already ordering one of his men to unlimber his pack. The pack’s seams were composed of a hook and pile fastening material, the pack body stripping away easily. The interior of the pack was foam formed, configured to the shape of the object within. That was a dumbass, a robotic device specifically designed to attract every possible danger, sparing the human operators behind it, the experience.
The dumbass was started along the tube. About fourteen inches high, with a telescoping mast and built in video relay capabilities, it hummed along on miniaturized tank treads.
Harrmiersdmiidt, before Paul and Annie could start down the tube after it, ordered two of his men in a safe distance back from the dumbass, one of them the operator. Four more of Hammerschmidfs personnel fell in behind Paul and Annie, one of the Commandoes carrying an energy weapon.
Michael and Natalia at the lead, Harrrnierschmkk took Ae rest of the column down through the stairwell, continuing toward the bottom where there seemed to be some sort of vat stone hall.
“How’s it going for Paul and Annie and your men?”
Hammerschmidt nodded toward a man just above them ox the stairwell, the man-one of the Long Range Mountain Patrol people-monitoring a video display about the size of t twentieth century audio cassette. “All is in order, Herr Major.* the corporal volunteered.
