by Ahern, Jerry
They clambered over a rock ledge and down, the snow somehow less deep as they neared the treeline, then veered left. Ahead, in the distance, he saw the dull glow of a fire. “I had to risk a fire. She was freezing again—”
“Did, ahh—”
“What?”
“Did she say anything else at all?” “No. In the last few hours she may have become incontinent. It was almost impossible to feed her.” “Then you salvaged some food—”
John Rourke smiled. “The wolves that were said to have been loosed by the Second City people—they’re feral dogs.” And John Rourke patted at the torn sleeve of his parka. “But well-prepared, they provided adequate nourishment with the pine bark paste.”
“Yuck!”
“That too.” Rourke smiled.
They were nearing the fire, a lean-to of sorts constructed out of snowladen pine boughs partially covering the fire as well.
As they stopped before it, John Rourke grabbed his arm. “Whatever, I’m responsible for this. And we have to get her to help. Perhaps the Germans, or at Mid-Wake. I don’t know.” He released Paul Rubenstein’s arm and they entered the shelter, the warmth comparatively stifling to him with the sudden absence of the wind. Something smelled very good and his eyes traveled to the fire which was built in two segments, one
evidently for cooking and more controlled, the other for warmth. On a line made from some sort of vine, a woman’s undergarment—a teddy?—was draped, as well as Natalia’s customary black jumpsuit. He looked at John Rourke, then back to the fire. Over the cooking portion of the fire was a kettle that appeared to be made of paper-thin bark, food simmering in it—the dogmeat? His eyes passed from the fire and the disgusting-sounding but appealing-smelling meal to the shape in the far corner.
Huddled beneath a parka and an emergency blanket was Natalia Anastasia Tiemerovna, her normally pale complexion paler still, her eyelids fluttering, lips parched-looking, pale and drawn, moving as though reciting some inaudible litany.
John went to her, and as he moved her slightly, kneeling beside her now, part of the coverings fell away and Paul could see that she wore John’s gray woolen sweater. And there was a smell of human waste. John Rourke looked up from his knees beside her and Paul Rubenstein looked into his friend’s eyes.
“Paul—” Tears filled John Rourke’s eyes …
He supposed he would have felt more awkward if he were not a married man, but it hadn’t helped him that much. And he was stunned by her physical beauty as he helped John Rourke dress her. She wasn’t more beautiful than Annie, and he told himself that indeed Annie was the most beautiful woman in the world. But each muscle, each limb— In her nakedness, Natalia Anastasia Tiemerovna reminded him of the masterwork of some great sculptor. And, a man of religious feeling, he thought that perhaps in fact she was.
John had bathed her with warm water from the fire and as Rubenstein now began to put out the fire, John buried the emergency blanket. It was unclaimable. The sweater suffered the same fate.
Natalia kept repeating “John… John … John …” And Paul Rubenstein wept as well…
Annie Rourke Rubenstein could not sleep. She was the
logical one to be left behind and she knew that and she respected logic, but she hated its result. Michael, to do what needed to be done; Maria, because of her understanding of archeology and anthropology and her greater familiarity with computer technology; Han Lu Chen because of his Chinese appearance, knowledge of the language and greater knowledge of the Chinese Second City. And she was left to travel alone to the rendezvous.
She closed her eyes tightly as she had when she was a little girl and had been told that it was bedtime, and she couldn’t sleep. And she couldn’t sleep now.
It was almost time to take the Special they’d left her and go on toward the rendezvous. And she was cold, despite the climate-controlled small tent in which she huddled.
Things to do.
Dismantle the tent.
Make it to the rendezvous.
Things to do.
She sat up and suddenly felt Natalia’s pain deep inside her, and there was confusion such as she had never known. And despair …
Sarah Rourke hugged the thermal blanket closer around her, by the light of the lanterns watching the grim faces of Colonel Wolfgang Mann and his officers as they pored over the maps she had spent the better part of the day drawing, her right thumb aching.
A third of the First Chinese Qty was occupied by the Soviet invaders, including the government buildings. And, to make matters worse, while Colonel Mann’s forces had been airborne, dealing heavy blows to the Soviet gunships, Soviet ground forces had attacked the only marginally defended basecamp, killed the men stationed there and kidnapped the Chinese chairman and his party.
The government of the First City was in the hands of the
Soviets, but Chinese forces were resisting valiantly.
Colonel Mann had told her simply, “You may not be through yet with your duties, Frau Rourke, if I may be so presumptuous; I suggest that you rest.”
And, for the baby’s sake, she had rested, thankful that conscious dreaming was something she no longer experienced. The terror of being awake was enough.
And Colonel Mann had sent one of his officers to awaken her with a message: “You are needed, Frau Rourke; please come at once.” His handwriting looked like calligraphy and was very beautiful. She had come.
And at last he turned away from the map table and looked across the tent toward her. “I have, Frau Rourke, spent considerable time in attempting to find a suitable alternative; and I have found no alternative nearly as laden with hope for success as that you should accompany us into the city. Your intimacy with the government complex is beyond that which can be hoped to be achieved from any map. If you say no, I will fully understand.”
“Would your wife say no? Did she when my husband and I and the others helped your city?”
And by the lantern light, she saw a smile raise the corners of his mouth. He clicked his heels as he bowed quickly to her, then said, “Gentlemen—” His officers saluted her and she felt herself beginning to blush …
Kurinami studied the green lights of the control console, calling to his doorgunner without using the radio. “Corporal?”
“All is in order, Herr Lieutenant.”
“Headset on, then—good luck.”
“The same to you, Herr Lieutenant.”
Kurinami adjusted his headset, then spoke. “This is Retribution Leader to Squadron—acknowledge this radio test and stand by. Begin.”
One by one, the pilots of his few gunships responded in
sequence; then Kurinami spoke again. “This is Retribution Leader. We will pass over the foothills and attack the Soviet base from the west as planned. Maintain radio silence except in an emergency until engagement. Retribution Leader out.” And he clicked off. They were not, of course, planning to pass over the foothills and attack from the west. If the Soviet gunships refueling and rearming in the narrow valley to the north did not have the German radio frequencies monitored, he missed his guess. And he would be dead.
He gave a last-minute check to his instruments and got the fast-handling German gunship airborne, light snow still falling but visibility satisfactory.
There was a funnel-shaped canyon which was exceedingly narrow, and it was guarded on both sides by heavy machine guns, as his ground reconnaissance had confirmed before dark. But only two guns on each side. And one missile battery backing up the double machinegun teams on each side. It was obvious why, although it provided direct access into the Soviet staging area: the canyon was considered too narrow and that, added to the natural updrafts such geographic features were noted for, made attempting a raid through the canyon tantamount to suicide. Which, of course, made it the only logical approach.
Akiro Kurinami changed pitches and slipped the machine northward and down, terrain following the dried riverbed which had, centuries before, cut the canyon from granite.
> He looked to right and left, his squadron beginning to take up the attack formation, a single column, following his lead.
He glanced at his wristwatch. In five minutes, the canyon.
Chapter Seventeen
In the distance, muted but unmistakably distinct from the howling of the wind and the creaking of the pines, John Thomas Rourke heard the throbbing of rotors. The Soviet helicopter gunships consumed fuel at a higher rate when they operated in the silenced mode, and their presence in this area near the Second Chinese City was certainly no secret. Tactically, it was obvious they would not waste the fuel needed for silent operation.
He ran, Natalia cradled in his arms like an exhausted and terribly sick child, Paul Rubenstein beside him, Paul evidently hearing the Soviet gunships as well, the bolt of his German MP-40 submachine gun snapping open.
“John!”
“Signal Hammerschmidt to get your Specials out of sight. They won’t spot that rope across the gorge from the air. Pray they don’t spot the shelter I built.” Natalia was just as vulnerable as a child, just as helpless, just as needing of protection. The visibility was so poor now with the increasing snowfall that, when the wind gusted and snow whirled up in its wake, Paul was lost from sight for a few seconds at a time. Rourke didn’t envy the Soviet pilots. Natalia kept moving her lips, dry and parched to the touch of his hand, reciting her now barely audible mantra, his name.
“Rest now—I’m here,” he told her, knowing inside himself that she didn’t hear him and that telling her anything was
merely masturbating his conscience. She seemed so fragile to him, and he had never realized before how really fragile she had always been. From childhood, she had possessed precious little of any true identity; and, in her work for Soviet intelligence as a major in the KGB, so much of her day-to-day life had demanded subordinating real identity to the currently operational lie.
He stopped as he heard the bolt slamming back on Paul Rubenstein’s submachine gun.
“This way—into the trees.” Paul only nodded, his lips moving like Natalia’s, but relaying instructions to Otto Hammerschmidt, Rourke knew. Rourke’s own helmet and Natalia’s clanked against Paul’s side, strung together there, Rourke’s hands and arms filled. “Here!” And Rourke turned into the tree cover, finding the densest overhead he could, then flattening himself against one of the trunks, Paul doing the same just a few feet away. Rourke held Natalia’s head close against his chest.
The whirring of the rotor blades was louder now and the pattern of snowfall changed, driven straight downward, then twisting cyclonically. At least one of the machines was dead overhead.
Rourke clutched Natalia tightly to him, his right fist clenching on the butt of one of the Scoremasters, getting it awkwardly from his trouser band, the hammer down, his thumb poised over it.
He watched Paul Rubenstein’s face. The younger man nodded.
The storm of snow around them increased in violence. The helicopter was dropping to a lower altitude.
Paul raised the muzzle of the submachine gun and for a moment John Rourke thought he was going to open fire, but his faith in Paul’s competence and cool-headedness made him dismiss such thoughts.
Paul only waited.
John Rourke waited, Natalia murmuring agitatedly.
He forced his mind away from this. Once the choppers had gone, he and Paul and Natalia could continue on toward the gorge—himself, Paul, Natalia, just as it had been in the days between the Night of the War and the Great Conflagration, but now a grotesque parody.
Rourke’s eyes followed the rising and falling of her chest, the fluttering of her eyelids.
The helicopter still hovered low above them.
How many gunships?
He forced his mind away from them again. Once at the gorge, some way or another they would rope Natalia across, then cross the gorge themselves, then use the two Specials to reach the rendezvous site. Then risk the radio to signal for extraction. But what if—
The answer to his question came from above: less than a dozen yards from their position, first one, then a second, then a third and fourth rope tumbled from the sky. Down the first rope a man rappeled with marvelous fluidity, his clothes the black battle uniform of the KGB Elite Corps, a Soviet assault rifle in his right fist.
John Rourke dropped to his knees in the snow, putting Natalia down. There was no chance to run, only fight, and perhaps providence had a hand in that.
As Rourke looked up, a second man was dropping, Paul shouting, “Look out!” The submachine gun roared, the second Elite corpsman blown’ from his rope into the snow. John Rourke stabbed the Detonics pistol in his right hand toward the first man as the assault rifle the Russian held opened up, stitching across the tree trunks, snow falling in great globs as the trees were impacted, Rourke thumbing the hammer to full stand, his gloved right first finger touching the trigger, the gleaming full-sized .45 moving gently against his hand, the Elite corpsman’s chin suddenly crumbling, the body rocking back as the assault rifle kept firing, but firing skyward.
John Rourke ran now, Paul beside him. “Paul—stay near her!”
“I will—what—”
But John Rourke’s right hand was already safing the Scoremaster, ramming it into his trouser band, his left hand reaching out for the rappeling rope, the Elite corpsman crawling across the snow, a bloodtrail in his wake, a pistol in his hand. Rourke had the rope and swung up and outward, the toe of his right boot impacting the middle of the face. The Elite corpsman’s head snapped back.
Rourke’s right fist caught the rope, his legs around it, his hands moving, his feet pushing. He’d always been physically strong, enjoyed exercise and good ^health, been a good athlete as a young man—but he had never enjoyed climbing a free rope. Hand over hand now, up, toward the chopper.
A third Elite corpsman Was rappeling down, a look of bewilderment in his eyes, a burst of sub-machinegun fire from the ground, his body jackknifing, then spiraling downward. Rourke kept climbing.
The fourth KGB man on the fourth rope. He slowed his descent, stopped, John Rourke throwing his body weight, catching the Elite corpsman full in the face with the sole of his boot, the man screaming as he lost his handhold, a sickeningly audible crack as the body bowed unnaturally back and death filled the eyes, the back broken.
His rope still swinging, John Rourke kept climbing, his arms numbing, hands aching, but only a few feet to go.
Above him, hanging out of the open fuselage door, an Elite corpsman leveled an assault rifle.
Rourke’s right hand went to the Scoremaster in his belt, already cocked and locked, submachine gun fire coming toward the man in the door from Paul on the ground, the man tucking back, but Paul only buying time. To hit the man, Rourke knew, Paul could only have shot through and not around him. But it bought a second, Rourke stabbing the Scoremaster upward. The Elite corpsman was in the doorway again, firing. John Rourke fired, then again and again and again and again and again, the Elite corpsman’s body twisting, then
tumbling forward, impacting Rourke’s own body as he fell past, Rourke’s left shoulder feeling on fire as he sagged away and hung for a moment suspended only from his left hand. The Scoremaster was still in his right hand. It was let go of it or die. He let it go, shouting, “Look out, Paul!”
Rourke’s right hand slapped upward, grasping for the rope, and as his right hand caught it, the helicopter began moving, violently upward and left, Rourke’s legs impacting the upper branches of a pine, part of his left snowpants leg torn away, a shower of snow covering him.
A second chopper and a third, flanking the machine to which John Rourke clung, were closing fast, mini-guns opening up, great tongues of yellow flame etched across the swirling gray that washed over the night’s blackness. Rourke curled his right leg around the rope, but still the strain on his hands and arms and shoulders consumed him, his teeth clenched against the pain.
The helicopter banked sharply and slipped closer to the treetops now; Rourke�
�s legs and torso slammed into another of the pines, then dragged through it, more of his arctic gear shredding under the impact, branches hammering at his face, tearing the hood from his head. Mini-gun fire again, so close his ears rang with it, the treetop over which he was dragged disintegrating under its impact, a shower of pine needles and snow washing over his face. Rourke averted his eyes, wrenching his right arm upward along the rope, his right fist bunching around it, his feet slamming into more of the high branches, more of his snowpants torn away.
Rourke’s left fist moved along the rope, then his right again and his left.
Mini-gun fire, so close that he felt some of the rounds cutting the air near his face, his teeth clenching, his fists balling tighter to the rope.
His right fist moved, then his left, then his right and his left again, the rope biting into his thighs, his fingers stiffening.
The helicopter from which he swung was going for
elevation, the G-forces against him pushing him down, his hands fighting to keep their hold. And then the gunship dove. Rourke’s face was twisted against the pressure of wind and gravity, but he felt the corners of his mouth rising into a smile; the Soviet pilot’s cleverness would be his undoing. As the chopper dove straight for the treetops, the restraining pressures of the climb were reversed and Rourke could move more easily along the rope now, at times the rope more vertical than diagonal in relation to the gunship. He had nearly reached the top.
And suddenly the machine veered upward and left, the rope whiplashing forward and right, John Rourke’s body with it, the motion so violent his arms were nearly wrenched from their sockets. No longer could he climb. He could only hold on. The machine dove again, the tail of the rappeling rope snagging in the treetops over which the gunship passed, the rope suddenly going taut, vibrating, Rourke’s body pulsing with it, then the rope springing, a massive segment of the treetop tearing away from the main trunk, slamming toward him.
Rourke buried his face against his shoulder, the impact coming, lacerating his back and shoulders and legs. His legs lost contact with the rope and he clung now by his hands only. He was spinning, spinning, his stomach churning, his vision blurring, the muscles in his back and shoulders and neck feeling as if they were on fire.
