Survivalist - 14 - The Terror

by Ahern, Jerry

  Michael Rourke mentally shrugged. Hammerschmidt was to take the lead—and Michael could see Hammerschmidt’s SM-4 disappearing over the artificial horizon of a ridge of sand.

  Already, the sergeant was cutting the wheel to follow.

  Michael licked his lips, dry with the dusty wind. Karamatsov’s forces would be airborne now, pursu

  ing Milton Schmidt. But only a token force once Schmidt’s withdrawal was apparent. Karamatsov would be making his way toward the site of whatever it was he had buried in the desert—and fast. Michael hoped.

  Chapter Ten

  They had covered the SM-4s—four of them—with camouflage tarps to avoid detection from the air by ordinary observation. More sophisticated techniques involving electronic surveillance would spot the machines, but they were far enough off the probable line of travel to the coordinates located by the transits that the likelihood of more sophisticated sweeps of the area were remote. Karamatsov was noted for ruthless-ness—not thoroughness.

  The mini tanks were lost to him after the single sighting on the breakneck drive across the desert, but he knew their position would be five miles to the opposite side of the site, or approximately eight minutes travel time.

  Three men were to be left behind with the SM-4s, men from Schmidt’s detachment, Hammerschmidt and his sergeant and the five enlisted personnel gearing up as Michael dismounted the rise of sand, satisfied that Karamatsov was doing as anticipated. As he skidded down to the base, he called out in a low voice, “He’s on the move—about five minutes travel time to the site. Those earth movers are slowing him up. Now here’s what we’ll do—as we planned it, Sergeant Dekker—you’ll take three men and the Fraulein Doctor and cut to the south. Captain Ham

  merschmidt and the two remaining men and myself will cut to the north.”

  “We are ready here, Michael.”

  Michael Rourke nodded, his keffiyeh back in place against the strength of the sun, his M-16 caught up from beside the SM-4, where he had rested it. Mechanically, he checked the condition of readiness, working the bolt, setting the safety tumbler to safe.

  Sergeant Dekker and each of his men had the German equivalent of LAWS rockets with them, each man with two of the weapons slung over each shoulder, their assault rifles in one hand or the other, their webbed gear festooned with grenades, fighting knives, communications devices and each man armed with a pistol as well.

  Hammerschmidt’s detachment was equipped much the same, Michael taking up a double brace of the rockets, slinging them as did the German soldiers.

  He would learn Karamatsov’s secret and perhaps have the opportunity to kill Karamatsov—Michael wondered somehow if learning the man’s secret might somehow be a greater punishment.

  But it wasn’t that punishment Michael was most interested in …

  John Thomas Rourke had erected one of the climatically controlled shelters while Natalia had kept the big man covered—the big man was called Char. And Jea—John Rourke’s French was not good enough to make sense of the man’s speech—had told Natalia that Char had pursued him because Char was the chief’s son, and Char wanted the gun.

  Char was unconscious still—John Rourke had assisted in that with a powerful sedative from his medical kit, compromising on the dosage between the

  man’s apparent bulk and what it would take to put a normal-sized man out.

  The tale that Jea told, related through Natalia— she had skinned away her coat now and despite a still apparent need for sleep seemed to have regained her strength—was a tale that to John Rourke seemed at once believable and horrible.

  Among Jea’s people there was no oral tradition, and no written tradition. Only Jea and his father and few others, most dead, could read at all or speak. But it seemed obvious, Rourke felt, that these people, like the exiles of Madison’s home, the Place, were the result of being barely able to survive.

  “Ask him a question for me,” John Rourke began, lighting one of his thin, dark tobacco cigars, watching Jea’s eyes, watching Jea’s body language as the flame flickered from the battered Zippo. “Ask him where he got the rifle. 1 know he took it from Char’s father, but where did Char’s father get it?”

  Rourke studied the glowing tip of the cigar as Natalia translated, going over it again and again, simplifying it into something Jea could finally understand at the end of the distillation process.

  And then Jea began to speak—gestures of hands and arms and face accompanied each tortured syllable, Natalia interrupting frequently, trying to clarify meaning, then more gestures on Jea’s part, more of the garbled French. Natalia nodded, patting Jea on the shoulder—Jea smiled, half the visible teeth in his mouth gone or broken.

  “Our friend tells us that there are many tribes like his tribe, and that the ones in the black clothes and the helicopters—”

  “How did he learn about helicopters, or are you—”

  “Embroidering? No—I should have mentioned it. He spoke of a special book that his father used to

  learn to read and speak with, and Jea has read it too. It was a comic book—Spiderman? Here—” And she opened the metal box Jea had set beside him.

  John Rourke started to laugh—he glanced over toward Char, the huge one’s body starting to stir slightly—but that was normal for the action of the sedative. Across Rourke’s lap was the Python, to use as a club or to use to end Char’s life, whichever, if either, was necessary.

  “At any event, the ones in black, I assume forces from the Underground City, have slaughtered his people for years. The really healthy ones are taken away.”

  “Forced labor—or experimentation?”

  “Probably both, but I’d tend to opt for the experimentation—there would be little that forced labor of Jea’s training and background could provide a technologically advanced culture.”

  “Agreed—what else?”

  “The gun,” Natalia nodded, taking out one of the German non-carcinogenic cigarettes and Rourke lighting it for her. She had not actually returned to smoking—it was the third cigarette he had seen her smoke since leaving the Hekla community, and all things considered less a threat to health than his cigar. “Some of the ones in black came and one was killed with a rock. Char’s father stole the rifle. The ones in black killed a considerable number of Jea’s tribe and took only the younger of the women away. Jea’s people are called the Blacks by the tribes to the south and west of here. Those tribes are naked most of the time, but Jea’s people, because of the harsher climate here, wear the bark strip clothing, but the pigment in the bark darkens their skin—hence, the blacks.”

  “Artificial race—how marvelous,” Rourke observed.

  Natalia only nodded.

  “Why did Jea steal the gun from Char—and run away? Are they inter-related, cause and effect or what?”

  Again, John Rourke waited as Natalia labored over the translation, trying to find the simplest words and images to convey Rourke’s thoughts to the trembling Jea. Natalia interrupted her work, digging in her pack, finding one of the thin, insulated blankets— similar to the Thermos Sportsmen’s blankets of five centuries ago—and placing it around Jea’s shoulders. Jea at first drew back, but characteristic of the blankets were the almost instant warmth they afforded. Jea stopped shaking, hugging the blanket around himself. Rourke doubted the origin of the tremors were body temperature. The bare fact of the man’s survival here nearly naked under such unremitting cold indicated a hardiness of nature beyond that of conventional men.

  Again, Natalia took up the translation.

  John Rourke watched Char—the big man’s stirring had not increased—the sedation was doing its work.

  Finally, Natalia turned from Jea, her incredibly blue eyes seeming to mirror the light of the lantern set in the middle of the shelter floor. When Rourke had lit the lantern, Jea had to be restrained from flight.

  “Char and his father have been becoming more and more brutal in their treatment of the rest of the tribe. Jea’s father realized that the
re was something more, beyond their tribe, and that to improve his lot in life, Jea must find it. Jea took the gun to spare the rest of the tribe the potential of Char or Char’s father using it. And as a means of defense since he was venturing out from the tribe and might encounter the ones in black. I gather Jea has no idea how to use the gun beyond the fact that it runs out of firepower after a

  time and the magazine needs to be replaced.”

  “He’s a pretty sophisticated fellow, actually,” Rourke observed.

  “You are right,” Natalia agreed. “We should be able to teach him his own language—French—or English without much difficulty.”

  “Ask him if he has any idea where the Underground City is, or where the tracks of the Russian APC were going in such a hurry.”

  Natalia nodded, then returned to interrogating Jea.

  People—people who had reverted to primitivism, but John Rourke already held a certain admiration for them. Jea showed no evidence of cannibalism and there were sufficient plants here that it was conceivable that a tribe which spent the greatest part of daylight hours on the prowl for berries, nuts and other edible plant materials could subsist. The reason for Char’s superior bulk seemed obvious as well—as the chief’s son, he shared in the royal share of what the tribes scrounged for food. While others like Jea barely had enough food to survive. The healthier ones of the tribe would out of love or respect for age care for those who could not as easily fend for themselves as long as that were practical.

  Rourke studied Jea—it seemed that the young man was in his early to middle thirties, but Rourke realized Jea was likely only in his teens. People would die quickly here.

  A survival attempt that had gone wrong.

  Natalia spoke. “It took a great deal of circumlocution. He knows the general location of the Underground City. And if the ones in black were moving quickly, he supposes they were going to the valley of the helicopters.”

  “Valley of the helicopters?”

  “I asked him about it—and apparently it’s some

  sort of base away from the Underground City and large numbers of helicopters, tanks and equipment— at least I think he meant tanks—are gathering there. Some sort of staging area. But that doesn’t make any sense, does it? I mean—wouldn’t Vladmir be—ahh— well, from what Jea tells me, the Underground City is reasonably close. Within a day’s travel. I doubt Jea would run it—he doesn’t look to have the stamina. But we can’t be talking more than twenty miles.”

  John Rourke studied the tip of his cigar.

  “We have to see this place Jea talks about. As soon as we can. If it’s a staging area, we have to find out for what. We can leave here in a little while, once I’m certain Char’s sedative is wearing off properly. Once he’s starting to revive. We can’t leave the man to freeze to death and it would be like a calling card to leave the shelter here. You get some sleep—tell Jea to do the same. I’ll stand watch over our friend. You’re sure Jea isn’t just bullshitting because we sound interested?” 1 m sure.

  John Rourke only nodded—he’d gone for longer periods without sleep.

  Char was still stirring on the floor of the shelter.

  Chapter Eleven

  Michael Rourke edged forward, the dunes having given way to ruins that he judged were millenia old, a temple-like structure with cracking columns thrusting skyward only to be broken, jagged, crumbling, their debris littering the sandswept stones of the flooring beneath his feet.

  He worked his way ahead a column at a time, Hammerschmidt in the lead on the opposite side of the ancient walkway, one of Hammerschmidt s enlisted men dogging Hammerschmidt a column behind, the other doing the same behind Michael.

  Michael crossed to the next column, a hot wind playing with the edges of the keffiyeh he wore, the twin Beretta 92SB-F 9mm military pistols in his fists, the safeties swung up into the fire position.

  He felt the muscles at the corners of his eyes tighten as he peered from beyond the column.

  Karamatsov’s perimeter security had been arranged oddly and the only means of penetrating the site of the dig—the only means which had immediately presented itself at least—was through the temple corridor. Guards were stationed at the far end, the Animov-60 assault rifles held leisurely enough, but at the ready all the same. Four guards—it translated to one each for Michael, Hammerschmidt, and the two

  enlisted men, Hammerschmidt’s commandos.

  But Michael looked beyond them now—beyond the guards to the excavation site, no careful archeological dig here. Earth movers gulping huge amounts of sand, then disgorging the sand into heaps between the temple from which Michael observed and the pit they dug itself.

  Perhaps a supply of nuclear weapons.Perhaps something worse. But it might be the chance to kill Karamatsov and at the very least to confound the “Hero Marshal’s” plans. He’d thought at times since the death of his wife what he would say to his father, if his father in fact still did not know, as was likely the case. My wife is dead—your grandchild will never be born. He had thought of saying it that way, of saying it dozens of other ways. But he wanted, for his own sanity and the sanity of his father, to say, but I killed Karamatsov.

  A half dozen columns remaining separated Michael and Hammerschmidt across from him from the four guards at the end of the temple walkway. The guards stood in the shade, their black uniforms, battle dress utilities, looking insufferably hot here.

  Michael glanced across the aisle to Hammerschmidt, Hammerschmidt nodding as Michael worked down the ambidexterous safeties of his pistols, then one at a time holstered them beneath his arms and the folds of the jellaba.

  As his right hand re-emerged, he held the Life Support System II knife, ready. Another glance at Hammerschmidt and Michael stepped into the walkway, edging quickly forward now, but careful of his footing lest he twist an ankle on the rough surfaced walkway, lest he dislodge a chunk of paving and make a betraying noise.

  From the corner of his left eye he could see Ham

  merschmidt moving similarly forward, one of the German bayonets in his left fist, a fighting knife of smaller proportions than the knife Michael held, clenched tight in Hammerschmidt’s other hand.

  He could hear the telltale scratching sounds of shifting sand behind him—the enlisted man who was his shadow.

  Four against four—but silently.

  Michael moved ahead, taking long strided steps, making certain of the footing with each movement.

  He had to refocus his thoughts—he was thinking of the man who would be his target and who would somehow betray him, he knew. Why, he did not know.

  He thought of Madison—and his stomach tightened, his throat tightened—hatred for these men who killed like blunt instruments, who assaulted the innocent.

  He kept edging forward, seeing now as the commando who was his shadow fell in beside him, to his left, the commando with Hammerschmidt to that man’s left, Hammerschmidt at the far end. They had discussed it briefly, planning it like a ballet.

  Choreography.

  The choreography called for all four to strike the four guards at the end of the temple at once. If one of the guards turned around, got off a shot—Michael kept moving, the knife kept at chest level lest somehow the movement, the rustle of the fabric of his jellaba alert the guards.

  Michael Rourke kept moving. Six feet to go and Michael nodded, raising the knife. He focused his concentration on the knife rather than the man—a design unchanged in five centuries, a faithful duplicate of the handmade original. He wondered if his father knew Jack Crain. A man who made a knife like this sounded like the kind of man his father would

  have counted a friend. Three feet—one long step.

  Michael took it, his left hand like a claw, swinging across the body plane of the guard on the far right, over the mouth, the knife raking hard across the throat and slitting the windpipe. On the backswing, Michael twisted the blade downward, stabbing into the chest in the general area of the heart. The man was already dead as Micha
el dragged him into the deeper shade of the temple.

  For the first time, he glanced to his left—Hammerschmidt and his two enlisted men had claimed their targets as well.

  Michael wiped the blade of his knife clean against the Soviet guard’s black BDU blouse and resheathed it, snapping the Beretta pistols from the leather.

  He approached the edge of the temple where the guards had stood, the two enlisted men propping up the guards against the temple columns near to where they had originally stood, using long pieces of rigid steel cable coils slipped down the rear of the dead men’s uniforms. From a distance he supposed the appearance that the dead men stood under their own power would be satisfactory.

  He dismissed the idea, scanning the approximate quarter mile of desert which separated him from the dig site. It was imperative to know exactly when the Russians had freed whatever they searched for from the sands.

  He could hear the hiss of the rope snaking upward and he glanced behind him—the pneumatic powered rapelling rope launcher had fired. There was a telltale click and his eyes instantly returned to the desert. There was no sign the sound had been heard. He could see Karamatsov, strutting near the equipment that was doing the digging—near but not too near.

  Others officers with Karamatsov, as though guarding him, shielding him. Had he his father’s Steyr-Mannlicher SSG, he could have killed Karamatsov if he timed it right for movement. Had he his father’s eye, he could have taken Karamatsov with one of the iron sighted German assault rifles. But he had neither the sniper rifle nor his father’s peculiar gift. He considered himself as good as his father with a handgun, albeit not as experienced—he doubted anyone was quite as good a rifleman. His father seemed to be able to turn off impatience, turn off anger, focus total concentration to the task. Michael strove for this, but had not yet attained it. He smiled at the thought—but being a Rourke, he had the confidence to be certain that some day he would.

  Sand, the sound of bits of rock showering down—he looked back into the temple—one of the two enlisted men was already rapelling along the height of the column, field binoculars suspended in air space behind his back, the second enlisted man holding the first man’s rifle.