The Prophet ts-7

by Jerry Ahern

  "But couldn't we use that stuff ourselves?"

  "I'm taking a fighter bomber, Paul— leaving the cargo area completely open. Before I take off, Natalia and I'll load some M-16s, some .223s, maybe some grenades and explosives— some medical supplies, too. Get it all aboard the craft. Just leave room enough for our bikes if we can get 'em back off the submarine."

  "That's gotta be one hell of a big airplane," Rubenstein began, starting to try and stand— not making it, slumping back, holding his head.

  "You rest for a while longer— but yeah, it is a big one. But not so big I can't land and take off again in a field if I have to. The FB-111HX should be perfect for that."

  "I can still help you guys loading," Rubenstein began.

  "He's right," Natalia said suddenly. "We can help him over to the plane, get him aboard and he can shift cargo— he won't have to stand for that. Except for the ammo nothing should be cased— and the eight-hundred-round ammo boxes won't be that hard to lift from a sitting or kneeling position."

  "Agreed," Rourke nodded. He leaned down to Paul, starting to help the man up. He glanced— as he did— at O'Neal. "Remind me, Natalia— to check 0' Neal in about twenty minutes—"

  She nodded, already starting from Paul's other side to help Rourke get the younger man to his feet...

  Rourke climbed aboard the fighter bomber. Rubenstein was already back watching 0'Neal and Natalia was already preflighting the first of the two functioning army helicopters. He glanced at the Rolex— an hour had passed, Paul stronger seeming, the moderate exercise having apparently helped him.

  Throwing his dead stump of cigar out the cargo door, Rourke inspected what they had liberated. Twenty eight-hundred round metal containers of .223, twenty M-16 A1s, modest quantities of conventional explosives apparently used in war games— no plastique— and first aid and medical supplies. He'd also taken fifty cartons of cigarettes— for Natalia. Most of the conventional explosives had been left behind— to destroy the arsenal and the ammo dump. He had also brought Teal's sniper rifle, personal belongings— clothing, mementos, family photos—

  and done this in the hope that he might somehow be able to rescue his old friend still alive. It was a faint hope, but the added gear took little space.

  Rourke closed the cargo door, securing it, then starting forward— he was very tired of it all. But life had left him no choice.

  He strapped himself into the pilot's seat, starting to turn on the electrical systems.

  Calmly— a forced calm— he watched for the oil pressure gauges to start to rise.

  Chapter Twelve

  He had lastly checked the radio— Natalia would receive him, he hoped. There was a somehow louder-sounding rush as the craft went airborne, Rourke hitting the landing gear retraction switches on the small console to his left, the lowering sun hitting him full face, Rourke squinting behind the dark-tinted visor of his flying helmet. He reached further to his left, adjusting the throttle controls, then the oxygen vent airflow controls— he closed his eyes for an instant, then opened them, reaching to his right, setting the air-conditioning controls to keep the cabin slightly cooler, the systems inside his suit cooler as well— he was tired, could not afford drowsiness. He glanced to his right and forward, satisfied with the fuel quality indicator. He checked the target designate panel to his left, the combat maneuver panel directly before him, feeling the throbbing of the aircraft-imagined because a throb would mean a problem with the airframe— as his right hand gently, easily— he was still feeling the controls of the unfamiliar aircraft— clutched the control stick.

  "All right," he whispered into his helmet, the visor fogging slightly as he spoke.

  The infrared seeker confirmed what visually he was beginning to detect— crosses with bonfires burning beside them, at the edge of the valley surrounding the base as he swept over at mach point five. He rolled the plane into a steep right bank, pulling up and climbing, arming his weapons systems— Sidewinder missiles and the gun. Leveling out, he switched the seeker system from infrared to television, setting his weapons-control panel off computer and to manual— it was somehow something that would be more personal when done himself, by hand.

  He kept his speed down, cutting off his climb, leveling out, then starting to dive, the television camera below him in the fuselage behind the nose on maximum resolution, picking up what appeared to be at least a thousand of the wildmen, perhaps more, massing. There were sticks in their hands— sticks, but at the distance only. They would, close up, be spears, assault rifles—

  whatever other weapon the wildmen could find and use.

  By feel— he had taught himself that— he released the arming safety switch— ready.

  He had flown an open bi-wing once— he imagined now the feel of the rush of wind, wind at this speed that would have ripped and torn at his flesh, cold that would have killed. But the freedom of it. Soaring out of the skies, away from the troubled land. In the far distant east as he swept down toward the valley he could see a purpleness that would be twilight. The sweep of horizon suddenly, profoundly, amazed him— the curvature.

  He was reaching down to the earth, penetrating it— with death. He smiled to himself— in his old age— his mid-thirties— he was becoming a poet.

  "Go—" his voice was quiet, low, whispered, addressed to the wildmen as his finger poised over the Sidewinder launch button, the steam from his breath fogging his visor again, "to—" the aircraft of which he was a part, which cocooned him, leveled— "hell!" He worked the button.

  There was a rush, a roar, a buzzing sound and a contrail of smoke, the Sidewinder from portside at the fuselage rear firing, tracking into the crowd of insane non-humans.

  Rourke pulled up the nose, the explosion belching white smoke beneath him. He started the craft to climb, leveling off then and banking into a roll, hearing some of the cargo slightly shift but not move, leveling out, arming the next missile— he started down.

  They were running— he could not see faces, and it was just as well, he thought. Their faces were meaningless, an abnegation of sanity, of the thousands of years of civilization that had raised man to a point where he was capable of self-destruction.

  He fired the second Sidewinder, rolling the plane, three hundred sixty degrees, almost saluting them on the ground, climbing, arcing back and rolling over, his stomach feeling it, his back aching near his kidneys, the plane leveling off, his machine gun armed, his right hand squeezing against the joystick, working the machine gun's trigger as he swept the valley. The bullets seemed to explode upward from the dirt, men and women running, falling— lost to him as he skimmed the ground low.

  He set the lock, disarming his weapons systems as he climbed, another rollover, then leveled off.

  He exhaled hard, the helmet visor fogging again. Mentally, Rourke calculated the casualties to the wildmen on the ground— two-thirds losses, minimum. Fuel, his two remaining Sidewinder missiles— all needed to be conserved to get himself, Natalia, and Paul— to get them home. To the Retreat, to find Sarah and the children.

  He could allow it for an instant. He closed his eyes, inhaling deeply. He opened them and the television monitor for the seeker unit no longer showed the wildmen— gone.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Nehemiah Rozhdestvenskiy walked, cold slightly in the mountain chill, alone now.

  He had never faced death before. There had been danger, sometimes mortal peril. But never certain death. Times locked in combat with superior enemies, times in dangerous lands with men and women he did not trust— but never such a certainty.

  He looked skyward, feeling his jaw set. "No!" He screamed it, hearing it echo in the hills and gorges, in the mountains, on the chill air.

  The volunteer— the man inside the coffin-like machine with the blue cloud of swirling gas and light. He had done worse than to die. His body lived. His mind did not.

  The Americans had the answer— it was a foregone conclusion they had possessed it on the Night of The War. Otherwi
se, what they had done would have been not even a gesture of fatalism. Karamatsoy, his friend— he had known the Americans had the answer. He had searched for it.

  Rozhdestvenskiy stopped walking, standing overlooking a valley, not seeing the mountain beside him that was to be the Womb.

  One ingredient was lacking— the vital ingredient. He had taught himself to live— without the company of a woman to love, but rather with many women. Without the security of a position where responsibility was not demanded— but rather one of ultimate responsibility. He had labored.

  He stared at Heaven. If God was there, Rozhdestvenskiy now wanted Him to hear. "I will not die!"

  Chapter Fourteen

  "That's Rourke— or Major Tiemerovna, Cole— only ones who could fly— and they'll be after you."

  Cole turned to face Armand Teal, backhanding him across the nose and mouth, blood spurting from beneath Cole's knuckles as Teal's upper lip cracked and the nose broke.

  "You fuckin' bastard," Teal snarled, his words sounding thick, mispronounced.

  Cole laughed. "Yeah— well, colonel— you tell me what I want to know or you'll learn what a bastard I can really be."

  Cole watched Teal struggling against the military issue handcuffs on his wrists, locking his wrists behind him around the trunk of the pine tree. Cole heard an insect buzz, swatted at it and looked over his left shoulder to find the source of the annoyance.

  He heard Teal laugh. Loud.

  "Maybe I'm not gonna get out of this— but neither are you, captain—"

  Cole didn't turn his head, still staring, saying, trying to control the tension he could feel, he could hear in his voice—"Armitage— shut up the colonel there— ram your fist into his mouth if you gotta."

  Cole didn't look back, facing the rise behind them.

  Wildmen, standing almost shoulder to shoulder. Mentally, he began counting them— he stopped when he reached fifty, estimating the remaining numbers combined with these to equal at least two hundred.

  As he watched, the sun low, the insect still buzzing him but not daring to move his hands lest it provoke the wildmen into attack, he saw a cross, then another and another and another— four in all. They were being erected on the rise.

  He heard Teal laugh, realized he was losing his control, wheeled and rammed the butt of the M16 he held into Teal's abdomen, Teal doubling forward against the tension of his arms, stumbling to his knees, his face white, vomit spurting through his cracked, bleeding lips.

  Captain Cole turned away, staring toward the rise, a bonfire being lit, a chant beginning—

  strange sounding— deadly sounding. He felt a chill, a paroxysm race along his spine.

  Cole licked his lips. "I wish to speak with your leader—"

  "Take me to your leader— bullshit." It was Teal's voice, laughter tingeing it, as well as pain.

  Cole began again, shouting louder this time. "I want to see your leader. I can offer him power—

  immense power. More than he's ever dreamed of. Nuclear power— the power of life and death—

  power!"

  The bonfire began to crackle, audibly, as he heard his voice echo back. No one answered, no one called back to him from the rise. But there was no attack. The sun setting, he stood watching, hearing the light breeze, the moans of Armand Teal as pain began to take over bravado, and the buzz of the insect.

  His palms sweated as he held his M-16.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The camouflage nets had been difficult to get into place, on his own, but as he stepped back now from the aircraft, he was satisfied. If any of the wildmen or anyone else approached to within twenty-five yards of the craft— in daylight— it would be noticeable. But from the air, or from a greater distance than twenty-five yards on the ground, it would never have been seen. The small hand axe in the pilot's survival kit had been adequate but arduous in chopping away saplings and large branches. Leaves, dead grass— he had heaped it artistically in place. He found himself smiling—"artistically." His wife— she was an artist— a good one, her children's' book illustrations were prize-winning. He wondered if she still lived, if the children lived.

  When the business with Cole was done— he froze, hearing the sound of helicopter rotors slicing the air, the thrumming growing louder as he turned. An army helicopter— it would be Natalia, answering the radio signal. His flight suit and helmet packed aboard the plane as were the flight suits and helmets for Natalia and for Paul, he reached to the ground, snatching up his brown leather bomber jacket— a few added scrapes and scratches in the leather from crossing the barbed wire fence when he'd first reached Filmore Air Force base, but no rips or tears. He shrugged into it, grabbing up the flap holster with his Python and the CAR-15. Not bothering to buckle the holster to his waist, he started to run further into the clearing. The draft from the helicopter's rotor blades could disrupt his camouflage job— he couldn't let that happen...

  Rourke opened his eyes, shaking his head, looking at Natalia at the controls of the helicopter, saying into his headset microphone, "How long have I been asleep?"

  "About twenty minutes, John— have you ever listened to a man snore to you through a headset radio?"

  He laughed, saying, "As a matter of fact, I have— sorry."

  "We'll be touching down in about ten minutes— I have some good news for you. If I'd told you earlier, you wouldn't have slept— you'd have been too busy planning."

  "What's the good news?" he asked, stretching, trying to get comfortable in the seat. "The Soviet Union surrendered?"

  "I would hardly call that good news, John."

  "Sorry— couldn't pass it up."

  "We do still have our ideological differences, don't we?"

  "They seem to matter less and less, though."

  She looked at him and he watched her smile, her eyes in the small dome light and the dull green light of the instrument panel gauges looking so deep a blue that he wanted in that instant to drown in them. "That's right," she smiled. "They do matter less and less."

  "So— what's the good news?" he said, cutting her off.

  "I used my skills and saved us a great deal of time— I decoded some dispatches from the security vault safe. They alluded to periodic maintenance for the missile silos and then I backtracked to earlier dispatches, and then I found the coordinates."

  "You've been busy."

  "Colonel Teal had apparently preflighted these before— after repairing them. It was easier than I'd thought it would be. And Paul, I discovered, has a natural talent for sabotage. I showed him how to set explosives for the ammo dump and the armory as well— and you should see the very neat way he crosswired the master generator control panels and landing gear panels in those aircraft. We could have used him in the KGB."

  "Wonderful— wonderful for him," Rourke nodded, laughing. He couldn't quite see Paul in the KGB— nor Natalia, either, as he considered it.

  "By the time we get on the ground, Paul should be through. Sabotaging was something I took a course in," she laughed.

  Rourke looked at her— he said nothing. And he loved her...

  Chapter Sixteen

  O'Neal moved slowly, weakly, Rourke doing what he felt to be the logical thing— leave Paul with O'Neal, using the disadvantage of Paul's head injury, headache still bothering him, as an advantage to shepherd the submarine officer.

  Natalia beside him now, the bomber jacket zipped against the cold of the evening, his right fist holding the CAR-15 by the pistol grip, Rourke started toward the bunker.

  "There would have been a crew here— wouldn't there?" Natalia almost whispered.

  Rourke didn't look at her, peering into the darkness as he walked. "No— these missiles were off line as far as I could tell— which is why they're still here and not in a billion pieces somewhere inside the Soviet Union. Cover the right."

  "Yes," he heard her answer.

  He heard her feet stop on the dirt and rocks across which they walked. Now he looked at her, looking at him. "You
realize— I worked with Vladmir in an attempt to steal the plans for these missiles once. We learned something about them, John. The warheads cannot be dismounted from the missile bodies without totally disarming the warheads— totally. Do you know how complicated that is?"

  "When I was in Latin America," he rasped. "I controlled an agent who was smuggling information on Soviet missiles out of Cuba— I know."

  In the moonlight— there was always moonlight when it wasn't needed, wasn't wanted— he saw her eyes sparkle, her mouth upcurve with laughter.

  He smiled at her, then turned away, walking— slowly, steadily, toward the bunker.

  Rourke glanced behind him once— Paul with the Schmeisser and O'Neal carrying his .45

  Government Model— were bringing up the rear.

  Rourke stopped at the steel door of the bunker.

  Natalia's voice: "There should be a conventional locking arrangement, then a second door inside with a double combination lock."

  "Can you work the combinations— I did poorly at that in spy school."

  She laughed. "On the other hand, I was very good at it— a woman has a naturally more sensitive touch— I can, but it would take perhaps a few hours without mechanical assistance— I don't think the stethoscope from your medical kit would help a great deal with the types of doors they have."

  "You're well-informed," Rourke told her.

  "Yes," she called back.

  "Yes," he murmured, mimicking her. He turned around, shouting, "Paul— if these locks will keep us out, they'll keep anyone else out except Cole— or Teal. You and Lieutenant O'Neal— I want you—"

  "John!" Natalia screamed, Rourke wheeling, from the top of the bunker where it was partially mounded over with earth, one of the wildmen lunging for him, a double-headed axe, the handle cut to hand-axe size.

  Rourke took a half step back, hearing the shots from Natalia's M-16, the wildman spinning out in midair, crashing down, Rourke starting to raise his CAR-15, something hammering at him from behind. He stumbled forward under its weight, the Car-15 falling from his shoulder. He twisted his face right, jerking his head left, a Bowie pattern knife— long-bladed, cheap looking but deadly enough, he decided— hammering, stabbing, biting into the ground beside his face. Rourke jabbed his right elbow, the arm already extended, back, the elbow connecting with something solid, Rourke feeling the weight sag from his back, rolling, snatching the Detonics .45