Survivalist - 14 - The Terror

by Ahern, Jerry

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  Title : #14 : THE TERROR

  Series : Survivalist

  Author(s) : Jerry Ahern

  Location : Gillian Archives

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  Chapter One

  Paul Rubenstein had begun the diary on the aircraft before it had gone down in New Mexico the Night of The War. He had entered into it faithfully ever since, until the Great Conflagration (which seemed the best of all the names for the morning when the fire filled the skies and extinguished nearly all life on the planet) and since the Awakening from their sleep in the cryogenic chambers.

  He read now, Annie’s eyes closed, her head on his stomach, the sound of her breathing even, the bedside lamplight a yellow wash over his left shoulder.

  “I married Annie Rourke—Annie Rubenstein. The name sounds odd to me, but soon won’t. There was no rabbi. There was no crushing of wine glasses beneath the foot. The man who married us was Lutheran, the religion here. John told me once that people were married in the heart and that words, if they were spoken over vows at all, were no stronger than what was in the heart. As usual, I have found John Rourke to be right as unfailingly he has always been. A week of marriage now and Annie still has not tired of me—perhaps this isn’t just a pleasant dream after all. Married as were we was Michael to Madison; Madison and Michael simply pledging vows formally—like Annie and myself, they were married

  in the heart.”

  He skimmed over what he had written after that, his eyes stopping. “Sarah is pregnant—Dr. Munchen, who has joined the staff of the German base being constructed here near Mt. Hekla, administered the test. John had already gone, but he knew—more as a man than a doctor himself. With Natalia—she seems very lonely now, and I would say depressed, but there is no time in her for that—and with Captain Hartman and a force of Hartman’s men and the aid of the Icelandic police officer, Bjorn Rolvaag (can I ever repay him for saving Annie’s life?). John Rourke leads a scouting party into the heart of what was before the Night of The War, the Soviet Union. They search the Ural Mountains in the hopes of finding the entrance to the Soviet Underground City, the base of power which supports Vladimir Karamatsov, Natalia’s husband and the tormenter of her soul. More than her love for John, which now seems impossible, it is the very existence of her husband which is destroying her. She somehow blames herself for the evil he attempts to perpetuate in this second-chance world. But when Karamatsov is dead, what will become of her? I have asked myself that question many times. She is one of the finest, most human of people I have ever known. And there is a doomed look in her eyes—John once called them ‘incredibly blue’. Now, they are also incredibly sad. They search for the entrance into hell so they can choke off the supply lines to the devil himself.

  “I should be with them. Michael has spoken to me of this. That he and I should follow after them. But John told us to remain here, to help with the building of the base, to serve as liaison between the Germans and the Icelandics. I don’t know what to do? Elaine Halverson and Akiro Kurinami have returned to the

  Eden Project Base. Commander Dodd has entered into the alliance with the government of New Germany, but I fear that Dodd cannot be trusted. He seems at once a weak man and a man obsessed with power. This is unfair to say and I have only shared these thoughts with my wife and with no one else. Nothing Dodd has done has shown him other than conscientious and honest, albeit inept at times. But still—

  “Elaine confided to Annie before leaving that Akiro asked her to marry him, despite the difference in their ages and their races. And that she told him yes. Annie has made me promise that somehow when Akiro and Elaine are married, I will get her to the wedding. I promised and somehow I’ll keep the promise. But it will mean seeing Dodd again and some of the others there at Eden Base and the thought makes me cold because I remember what they tried to do to Natalia, would have done. How they attempted to keep Michael and Madison and myself from going after Annie when that bastard Blackburn kidnapped her.

  “Annie told me everything that happened the night she killed Blackburn. I feel a pride I’ve never known before that she did what she did to save herself for me.

  Paul Rubenstein closed the diary and looked at the quiet, the peace of Annie’s face.

  Neither of them had ever had anyone before and the night of their wedding; somehow, inside him very deeply, he knew that it had never been better for two people. The great religions all spoke of Paradise after death—but here was Paradise in life. He touched his hand to her cheek and the corner of her mouth upraised in a smile. He brushed the hair from her eyes, and she moved closer against him. He set down the diary, switched off the lamp. As he slid down

  against the headboard, Annie whispered, “Go to sleep,” and slid up into the crook between his right arm and his shoulder.

  Paul Rubenstein held his wife very tightly in the darkness and could not sleep yet …

  It was never dark here. It was always warm here. They had made love and neither of them had felt like sleep. Michael had pulled on a pair of jeans and a pair of the leather slippers made here, given him as a wedding present by Doctor Land who seemed, unofficially, to be the closest confidant of Madame Jokli, the President. Madison had whispered to him once that she wondered if Hakon Land and Sigrid Jokli were lovers.

  It was the sort oi thing a woman wondered more than a man, he had told himself, but realized he had considered the question too. As Michael had dressed, so had Madison—still the baby she carried didn’t even show—in nakedness, or in the tight bodiced ankle length dress she wore.

  He had changed guns again—the .44 Magnum Smith & Wesson 629s spoke with authority, but lacked the firepower for prolonged, close range battle. He had seen that when his father had almost single handedly used four .45 automatics to battle and win against the considerable Soviet force which had held Madison, Annie, his mother, and Madame Jokli hostage.

  What four .45s would do, two 9mms would do according to some ballistic theory, equally as well or better. He had tried Natalia’s Walther P-38—and liked it. He had tried the Beretta 92SB-F military pistol Annie had, carried now in addition to her Detonics Scoremaster. The Beretta handled as well as

  the Walther and had approximately double the firepower. Beretta pistols had been among the survival stores of the Eden Project, buried in the first of the underground caches opened. He had asked Dr. Munchen—and Dr. Munchen had brought them. Two pistols, twelve spare fifteen-round magazines, four twenty-round magazines and several cases of 9mm ammunition. The ammunition was not from the storage cache, but manufactured fresh, identical even to the Federal Cartridge Company headstamps, but by the government of New Germany in Argentina, as a favor provided by Colonel Wolfgang Mann. Natalia had needed it for the P-38 she carried occasionally and Michael had gotten Munchen to expropriate some of the 115-grain jacketted hollowpoints for his— Michael’s—use.

  Michael had practiced with the pistols, daily—he had become as proficient with them as with his .44 Magnum revolvers, and then surpassed that level. Leather here was used for boots and scabbards and slippers—like the slippers he wore as they walked along the garden paths beneath the purplish light. But the leather makers were excellent craftsmen and with his father’s help, before his father had left, Michael had designed double shoulder holsters, like those his father wore, but with the addition of a thumb break to the trigger guard break. Just as fast. The harness was different as well—but it suited him. He had gotten the leather craftsmen to copy the Milt Sparks Six-Pack his father used for Detonics magazines, but as a four pack instead. As Madison and he had dressed, he had begun automatically to don the double shoulder holster with the
Beretta pistols, but Madison said to him, “Do you need to?”

  He had smiled, taken her into his arms, left the pistols, instead taking the four-inch 629 and stuffing

  it into the waistband of his Levis under his shirt— armed without appearing armed.

  They had begun their walk.

  The idea of marriage had a little frightened him, but when he thought of Madison, the fright quickly faded into happiness. She was gentle, loving, all that a woman should be, a quick intellect under the natural shyness, courage but of the reluctant kind. They would have a fine child—if a girl, Michael hoped she had her mother’s beauty, the beauty soft, yet classic, subdued yet penetrating.

  He held her hand.

  They walked.

  Her quiet voice. “I’m happy here, Michael. These people—they are so—well—”

  “I know. When I do go to join my father, well—you stay here with Annie and Mom. You’ll be safe here with that German base sitting right outside our door-step.

  “I don’t want you to go, but I know you have to.” And she hugged her arms around his arm, still keeping her hand locked inside his. She leaned her head on his right shoulder. “I was so happy for your mother, Michael—a baby. Like ours,” and she leaned up and touched her lips to his cheek.

  “I love you,” he whispered to her.

  There was movement from the peach orchard on the left of the garden path. Michael’s eyes flickering toward it, his right hand freeing itself of Madison’s left hand, of the web of her arms about his right arm, his right hand grasping past the tails of his shirt, for the butt of the four-inch 629. The movement from the orchard had substance now. Three Soviet soldiers in camouflage fatigues, silenced automatics in their hands, looks of grim determination in their eyes beneath the peaks of their caps. He had the revolver

  in his fist, shoving Madison back, shouting to her, “Run, Madison!”

  He couldn’t tell from sound, or from muzzle flash, because there seemed to be neither, just a clicking sound of a slide moving out of battery and back into battery. Michael dodged right to shield Madison with his body as he fired almost point blank into the chest of the man who had just fired. The roar of the gunshot echoed and re-echoed in the night.

  There was a scream.

  Michael’s body turned cold and chills tracked along the length of his spine …

  Paul Rubenstein opened his eyes. Annie was stirring beside him. He heard a second shot.

  “Holy shit,” he hissed, rolling naked out of the bed, his left hand groping in the darkness on the floor beside the bed for the Schmiesser, his right hand for the robe on the chest at the foot of the bed as he was to his feet, already running. “Annie! Stay here!”

  “No—I’m coming with you!”

  “Get a gun!”

  Paul was through the doorway, realizing his semi-nakedness now, the robe only half on, not closed, the corridor of the dormitory-like structure flooding suddenly with humanity. A woman in a nightgown with a shawl wrapped about her screamed and drew back as he ran past, saying to her, “Excuse me,” and wrestling with the robe to close it over him with his left hand, the German MP-40 submachinegun in his right hand. He shouted back along the corridor, not looking. “Annie—bring me some extra magazines!”

  Running—the boom of another shot. Paul Rubenstein shouldered past one of the Icelandic policemen, taking the steps down from the dormitory two at a

  time, nearly losing his balance, jumping the last four steps, just realizing then that he was barefoot.

  Running—a fourth shot. The caliber was unmistakable—it was one of Michael’s .44 Magnums.

  Clicking sounds to his right, in the direction the shots had come from, along the boundary of the main mall. Paul Rubenstein cut hard right, his feet screaming at him as the naked soles impacted the woodchips there beneath the trees. A uniform—camouflage—a man with a pistol with a longish silencer at the muzzle.

  Rubenstein swung the Schmiesser toward the man, working back the Schmiesser’s bolt. “Hey—Ivan!”

  The cammie-clad man with the silenced pistol wheeled, Paul Rubenstein triggering a three-shot burst, then another three-shot burst, the man’s body jackknifing as it tumbled backward. Paul paused for an instant beside the body, kicking the pistol away in case the man wasn’t quite dead—he stubbed his toe on the pistol.

  The booming of Michael’s revolver again—a fifth shot.

  “Shit,” Paul snarled, breaking from the tree cover into one of the garden paths.

  Michael Rourke, Madison’s long blond hair and long pale blue skirt visible beneath him.

  Michael had the revolver in his right fist, his face a mask of agony, dead Soviet soldiers all around him.

  Paul Rubenstein slowed, calling out, “Michael— it’s me—be cool!”

  He slowed still more, the Schmiesser going out ahead of him like a wand, searching right and left, forward and behind him. He could see Annie coming, running, her long nightgown hitched up to her knees, a shawl half fallen from her shoulders, her hair flying out behind her, a pistol in her right hand.

  “Take it easy, Annie—I’m not sure the area’s clear!” Paul crossed the path, past Michael and Madison, a gathering pool of red blood beneath then-bodies.

  “Paul!”

  It was Annie, and Paul wheeled toward her. She stood on the edge of the path, the hem of her nightgown dropping from her left hand, the shawl dropping from her shoulders, her right arm holding the Scoremaster going limp at her side. She was just staring.

  A half-dozen of the Icelandic police came into the pathway, their swords drawn, two of the men shirtless. He shook his head at the swords—he gestured to the Russians dead there in the path and then into the trees, the policemen breaking off in pairs in three different directions, hunting for more of the Russians.

  Paul walked toward Annie, taking the pistol from her right hand, noticing for the first time the musette bag with his spare Schmiesser magazines suspended cross body from her right shoulder to left hip, the shawl clinging to it. As he took the pistol from her limp fingers, she walked toward Michael and Madison, the shawl finally falling clear to the surface of the path.

  She dropped to her knees, her fists balled tight, the knuckles of her fists against her partially open mouth.

  Michael was crying, the revolver set down, Madison’s head in his lap, her abdomen covered with blood, her pretty eyes stared blindly open into Michael’s face.

  Paul Rubenstein turned away for a moment and he started to weep …

  Annie Rourke shivered, but she had refused to stay

  away.

  The German soldiers and the Icelandic police stood at attention surrounding the gravesite cut through the ice and into the permafrost. Madison Rourke’s body would be perfectly preserved in ice, forever beautiful.

  Annie had gone to the mortuary, had personally dressed this girl whom she realized had been her closest friend, her little sister, an angel amidst the hell of earth. She had dressed Madison in the wedding dress. And this was why Annie shivered—partially why. She too wore her wedding dress.

  They had found material, lace, worked together, made identical dresses—high waisted, high necked, sleeves which puffed at the shoulder and were very tight and stopped just below the wrist, past ankle length, the skirts very full. Over her dress, Annie wore her heavy coat and a heavy shawl. And Madison, inside the now closed casket—Annie had placed on Madison’s head her bridal veil, the veil turned back, and in her hands a crucifix the old man, Jon the swordmaker, had offered for her, and a bouquet of daisies.

  The minister spoke in Icelandic, Madame Jokli, swathed in heavy winter garments, her voice choked sounding, translating. “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust—”

  Annie’s husband, Paul, closed his arms about her and Annie cried. Tears blurred her vision—but through the tears she could see Michael’s face and her brother’s face was a mask of pain, remorse and vengeance …

  It had been too early to tell the sex of the child, and the child
, boy or girl, would forever rest in its mother’s womb. Michael shook uncontrollably, his mother

  holding his left hand in both of hers, weeping. They had not broken radio silence to contact Natalia and his father with Captain Hartman, not choosing to risk other lives.

  He wore the new double shoulder holsters—he would never take them off but to sleep and bathe, until Karamatsov and his Soviet forces were obliterated from the earth.

  His throat was so tight that he could barely breathe.

  He pulled his hand from his mother’s hands and walked to the open graveside, the coffin containing his wife and child not yet lowered.

  One of the Germans played a bugle—a trembling rendition of the Star Spangled Banner. Wind-driven specks of ice blasted at his face.

  Michael Rourke dropped to his knees beside the coffin, beside his dead wife and child. “Madison— sweet Jesus!” He screamed the words at the wind and at heaven.

  Chapter Two

  The Soviet infiltration team had been saboteurs— three bombs had been found and disarmed within the crater of Hekla, a half dozen more about the perimeter of the still-under-construction German base, the cemetery where Madison and their child lay between the site of the base and the cone of Hekla itself. None of the bombs had been nuclear.

  A Major Volkmer, the base military commander, had doubled the perimeter security and Madame Jokli had agreed that German guards with firearms should supplement the traditionally armed Icelandic police who patrolled the boundaries of the volcano base with only their swords. Two of her police force had been found dead, shot, then the throats slit.

  No helicopter had been found—it had been a suicide mission with no means of escape.

  Karamatsov.

  Michael Rourke watched the moisture from his arctic gear steaming as he sat in Dr. Munchen’s office, Munchen having invited him. Munchen entered finally, smiling, saying in his perfect English, “It was good of you to come, Herr Rourke.”

  Michael nodded, saying nothing, studying Munchen’s eyes with his own.