by Ahern, Jerry
“The Urals —they are so beautiful.”
“Do you have a girl?” Natalia asked.
“Yes —she is — ” His eyes, the lids all the way back, the eyes themselves suddenly looking at nothing. Rourke closed the eyes. Natalia kissed the boy’s forehead and gently lowered his head to the ground.
Kurinami had come running up. Word from Dr. Munchen. During the Nazi attack, Forrest Blackburn had proven to be the Soviet agent, kidnapped Annie by helicopter. Paul and Michael and Madison were in pursuit by truck.
“I need a helicopter,” Rourke had said slowly.
Kurinami answered. “Colonel Mann has dispatched one —fighters are waiting to take us back to Eden Base, and Dr. Munchen will have helicopters fueled and ready with reserve fuel supplies, food. Colonel Mann ordered him to commandeer additional ammunition for our weapons. A helicopter will be here in minutes to take us back to the Complex. Sarah and Elaine are already waiting.”
“Annie,” Rourke whispered, staring skyward …
John Thomas Rourke studied the whiteness beyond the black shadow of the German helicopter, Natalia Anastasia Tiemerovna beside him in the copilot’s seat, Sarah his wife, taking the open side door of the fuselage, a large bandage on her left forearm all that spoke of the flesh wound she had sustained. Sarah couldn’t fly, Natalia could —hence Natalia sat beside him, Sarah using the binoculars to scan beyond what was possible for peripheral vision within the confines of
the cockpit.
‘John! I see something to your left!”
Rourke shouted back to his wife. “All right, hang on!” He started banking the machine to port, his eyes squinting behind the dark-lensed aviator-style sunglasses he habitually wore, his teeth clamped tight on the thin, dark tobacco cigar, the cigar unlit. Without the aid of the Bushnells his wife used, he could see the faint etching of tire treads in the snow now. “I see the treads,” he shouted back.
Beside him, Natalia shouted —they used no headsets — “John — that dot —that black dot on the snowfield! There!”
Rourke increased rotor speed —he had been barely above stall for the last half-hour, the blowing snow beneath them having drifted over the tire tracks they had spotted hours earlier. “Hang on again, Sarah —I’m taking her down.” Rourke brought the machine out of the bank, starting to descend, the dark spot taking more definite shape now —a pickup truck. His pickup truck. Michael. Madison. Paul. In search of Annie. He picked up his radio headset. “Kurinami — this is Rourke — over.”
“John —Akiro here. Do you see them? Over.”
“Actuating my tracking signal now.” Rourke hit the toggle switch that would start the radio signal. “We see them. Rourke out.”
Rourke increased speed, Sarah shouting forward, “The pickup’s hood is up.”
Rourke felt the tendons in his neck hardening, tightening —there was no sign of the Russian helicopter Forrest Blackburn had stolen, used to kidnap Rourke’s daughter Annie. He put down the radio headset. The chance that somehow his son Michael, Madison who carried Michael’s child, and his friend Paul had successfully closed with Blackburn, recovered
Annie —the chance was slimming to a reality of nonexistence, he knew.
Bleak, like the landscape they covered.
The black shadow of the German helicopter seemed to race ahead, forever tantalizing out of reach of the machine. But the black dot that was the truck was gaining each instant in resolution, the woodland camouflage pattern obvious against the white of the snow. The snow that had fallen throughout the early morning was still falling now, blowing in great white clouds as Rourke glanced back, icy spicules blown wavelike in the helicopter’s wake.
Beside him, he heard the bolt of Natalia’s M-16 being worked. Rourke reached under the left side of his battered brown bomber jacket, ripping one of the twin stainless Detonics .45 s from the double Alessi shoulder rig, leaving the hammer down, putting the gun beneath his right thigh, starting to bring the chopper down.
Sarah shouted over the roar of the slipstream through the open fuselage door. “I see Paul, John —he’s waving to us.” Rourke’s breath steamed as he exhaled, his flesh cold —from the temperature of the open aircraft and from trepidation.
Rourke too could now see the stick figure beside the truck, too far for accurate observation with the naked eye. But if Paul was waving, signaling to the helicopter, then at the least Paul was alive. Rourke’s hands seemed to have a mind of their own, wanting to throttle out, but his mind controlled his hands and he held at a safe speed.
Annie —if Blackburn had harmed her —he licked his lips, starting the machine into a wide pass over the truck, as he banked toward the truck now seeing the figure beside it —Paul, his face turning away from the swirling rage of snow that was engulfing the pickup,
and inside the cab, he could see Madison, Michael as well.
“I see them,” Sarah shouted. “But-“
Rourke looked at Natalia, closing his eyes once, then started out of the loop, letting the helicopter spin on its axis a full 180 degrees as he started touching down, the snow obscuring everything around them now — but no Annie.
The helicopter lurched once and glided forward and settled, Rourke punching the release for his seat restraint, Natalia doing the same. Sarah was already jumping clear as Rourke ducked his head, moving quickly along the length of the fuselage, Natalia jumping out —Paul ran to the women, Sarah hugging him, then running from him toward the opening door of the pickup’s cab, Natalia embracing Paul, kissing him.
Rourke jumped to the snow, his little Detonics going from his right fist into the right hip pocket of his Levis. Natalia stepped away, Paul turning to face him. “John —we couldn’t find her —tracks where it landed, stayed a while, then footprints. We followed them and lost them. We did a pattern search, found another landing spot — and a hole — ” Rourke’s eyes tightened at the corners. “He’s dug something up-^techael theorized some kind of weapons cache or survival gear left before the Night of the War for him.”
“How many sets of footprints?”
“Just one —a man’s …”
Rourke looked into the snow at his feet, shaking his head. He raised his face, took a step forward, and embraced Paul Rubenstein. “We’ll find her —so help me God.”
Blackburn had kept the Soviet helicopter airborne
throughout the night and the following day — and Annie Rourke had-neither closed her eyes nor spoken throughout the night, nodding off in the warmth of the sunlight when it had come. Blackburn’s right hand had sometimes come to rest on her still-bare left thigh during the night. She had felt her kidneys would burst, but to have asked him to stop the machine and touch her, to undo her bonds, might have invited what her greatest immediate fear had been to come true. He had let her urinate while he had stored his long-buried cache of supplies but watched her across his gun barrel. She had barely been able to do it. And that had been a half-day ago.
The tightly sealed fuselage of the helicopter smelled faintly of gasoline —the hermetically sealed cans still unopened that filled the rear of the aircraft not the cause, but rather the half-filled can remaining from Blackburn’s gassing of the helicopter at the site where his survival gear and weapons had been buried. She had tried to calculate airspeed versus time to get an approximate idea of position as they had flown. They had crossed a great body of water, either a large lake or a bay of some sort, and when dawn had come, the whitecapped water had given way to vast snowfields over which they had since been flying for what seemed like hours.
Blackburn finally spoke to her. “I’m setting downtime to refuel again. I’ll untie you so you can piss and fix us some food. Don’t do anything stupid, Annie. We’re almost at seventy degrees north latitude on the eastern coastline of Greenland. Ice and snow —not a thing else. No one lives here anymore. Ahead of us, a hop to Iceland —we’ll stay the night there and then cross into the Scandinavian Peninsula. I need some sleep. But there’ll be no help for you —not
hing at all.” The helicopter was starting down. She looked at him —
his dark eyes, the smile on his lips, his voice coming through her headset microphone. “If by some quirk of fate you were able to kill me, Annie, you couldn’t know how to fly a helicopter. So all you’d be doing is sentencing yourself to freeze to death here or die of exposure. If you tried flying the chopper, you’d crash and burn to death —if you were lucky.”
The helicopter settled, Blackburn wrenching open his door — the icy blast of wind across the snow made her involuntarily shiver, her head aching with lack of sleep and not urinating, and now the cold racking her body. He slammed the door closed, her naked thighs goosebumped. After retying her, the first refueling finished, again he had bared the lower half of her body. Blackburn walked around the front of the helicopter, stopping beside her door, wrenching it open, the cold again, the wind.
His hands rested on her naked thighs —his hands were colder than the cold — “You remember what I said now —and what I told you before, Annie. Tonight — you’ll be good, you’ll want me —if you don’t, well, maybe I won’t take you to the Underground City and let them play with you. Maybe I’ll just leave you —in Iceland. Take your coat —take your boots —it’d only take you a few hours to die, but it’d go on forever,” and he smiled, reaching up, wresting the headset from her, the teardrop-shaped microphone hitting the tip of her nose, the headpiece catching in her hair, tearing some strands out, tears involuntarily flooding her eyes.
He undid the bonds at her ankles, at her hands, then released the safety harness. He stepped back, Annie trying to move her fingers —with the sides of her stiff hands forcing her skirt down over her legs. The wind howled, snow blowing, but like tiny needles of ice, stinging her cheeks, the backs of her hands, the sensation seeming to revive her hands. She began
moving her legs, a little, the movement only making the desire to urinate all that much more intense, her feet tingling as if asleep. Pain. He climbed past her— her eyes saw the bayonet on his equipment belt, but her fingers —she tried to flex them —she could not reach out for it. And he was right —if she killed him now, she would be trapped here and die. She couldn’t fly the aircraft —she had watched him closely, but knew enough about flying to know that watching wasn’t enough. And wind currents would be tricky here, engine temperatures critical.
She could hear him moving the containers of gasoline, the smell of the gasoline more intense. She licked her dry lips, saying, “I need to go to the bathroom.”
He laughed, saying, “Well, I don’t think youH find one out here. Have to do it outside again —and don’t get your legs too wet this time ” and he laughed again. “Might be cold later. Might freeze,” and he laughed once more. “Don’t go too far—in this blowing snow, visibility could go in seconds.”
“I know that,” she whispered, moving her legs, reaching out to the open doorframe, drawing her hand back as it touched metal. The gloves in the pocket of her coat. She pulled her coat around her, buttoning it, easing up in the seat, getting her panties up, her slip and her skirt down, tugging up her stockings. The shawl that was roped around her neck—she undid the knot, straightening the shawl —she had made it with her own hands—and put it over her head, wrapping the ends of it around her neck and back across her shoulders. Her gloves —she took them from her pocket. “Is there anything like toilet paper in that stuff you found?”
“There is toilet paper,” he answered. She turned her head, looking back to him. She had used the only tissue she had that last time. He was digging through a
knapsack, then reached something out —it was olive-drab. He said, “Here, catch,” and threw it —she caught it fumblingly, basketing it as it fell into her lap. She put it in her coat pocket and started to try to get up again, her legs stiff, wobbly —she tried to remember the last time she had eaten. She stepped down, almost falling, into the snow. She heard Blackburn calling after her over the howl of the wind, “Remember — don’t get lost. Because I won’t come looking for you.”
She was starting to cry, sagging against the fuselage of the Russian helicopter. She thought of Paul Rubenstein—she loved Paul so hard. She thought of Michael—and of Madison, who had become like a sister to her, sharing secrets, hopes. She thought of her mother, Sarah Rourke. Of her father, John Rourke.
And she thought of Natalia — Natalia who had saved her own life by letting a man get very close to entering her, making him think that somehow she could no longer resist him, then taking his knife and killing him.
Annie started to walk, squinting her eyes against the snow, pulling the shawl up to cover her mouth and nose, protect her face from the needles of ice as much as possible. She tried to tell herself that perhaps Natalia had told her the story once —but Natalia hadn’t, Annie knew inside herself. It was the Sleep —it had somehow expanded something in her.
Through her squinted eyes, snow already encrusting her lashes, she could see a hummock of snow, perhaps rock beneath it, and she leaned into the wind, fighting her way toward it.
She would urinate. She would return —like a good girl —to the helicopter, fix Blackburn his food, force herself to eat. Despite hunger, she had no taste to eat. She would survive. And this night —even if it meant her eventual death, she would kill Blackburn before she would let him take her.
It was very cold as she passed to the other side of the rock, squinting her eyes against the tears and ice, beginning to hitch up her clothes …
They sat in the helicopter, eating from the rations they had brought, John Rourke listening as the others spoke. “The radiator hose just went. I replaced the hose and we melted snow and gradually refilled the radiator, mixing it with the antifreeze you had stored in the toolbox in the back of the truck.”
Sarah clapped Paul on the thigh. “Well, as John would say, it pays to plan ahead.” And she looked past Paul into Rourke’s eyes. “What else do you have in that truck?”
Rourke let himself smile. “You might be surprised.”
“Father Rourke —when we found where the helicopter had landed —we thought —”
John Rourke folded his arms about his de facto daughter-in-law’s shoulders. “Madison — you’re very sweet.” She rested her head against his left shoulder.
Michael spoke. “We have to get Annie back. I’m well enough to travel —I saw that look in your eyes, Dad. I mean, it’s not as if I’ll be walking.”
Rourke nodded. “I’ve been thinking about this. Wherever Karamatsov and his armies and his machines come from, wherever his machines were built — “
“The Underground City,” Natalia supplied. “The dying boy on the battlefield.”
Rourke nodded slowly, “Blackburn is the Soviet agent. That’s where he’s gone. There’s no other reason why he’d fly north rather than south to link up with Karamatsov’s forces. That must have been part of Blackburn’s deal. When the Eden Project shuttles returned, he had a place to go. Only a fool or a patriot would have done what he did, infiltrating the Eden
Project, risk his life, give up his present life —only a fool or a patriot would have done that without an escape clause.”
“I don’t think he’s either,” Natalia murmured.
“Neither -do I.” Rourke nodded. “So he’s got a destination, and evidently took Annie as insurance in case we caught up with him before he reached his destination. And …”
“Say it,” Paul said slowly. “He took her —because after five hundred years, just in case —in case — “
“Because she’s a woman,” Elaine Halversen whispered. Kurinami, silent, eating slowly, nodded.
“Yes,” Natalia nodded. “For that.”
“If he touched her —I’ll rip his fuckin’ heart out,” Paul said softly.
John Rourke only nodded, then, “With a helicopter, he’s going to avoid crossing long expanses of water unless he has to. So it’s evident what he’s doing. Cross Canada to Greenland, then cross Greenland and make the hop to Iceland, then Scot
land or Norway — pretty much equidistant. But I’d say Norway. More direct route to get him into the Soviet Union.”
Natalia was opening and closing the Bali-Song, slowly, not with her usual blink-of-the-eye rapidity. “An underground city in the Urals.”
“Yes,” Rourke nodded.
“But how would we find it?” Kurinami asked through a mouthful of food. “We don’t have any observation craft that can get high enough to search for variances in the infrared… .”
“Colonel Mann’s people. His fighter plane’s’ll also outdistance these helicopters, Blackburn’s or ours. Where’s an SR-71 when you really need it” he said, shaking his head.
John Rourke stretched his legs, “But even though Mann’s spread thin, he can get a few fighters up. He
lost a third of his available forces in the battle for the Complex, lost a lot of his equipment and disabled men and equipment in the fight against Karamatsov. Between guarding the Complex, the small force he has following Karamatsov’s retreat to pinpoint him, and the beefed-up security at Eden Base, we can’t rely on him for much more than reconnaissance. But right now that’s what we need.” Rourke leaned forward, rubbing his hands together. “All right —here’s what we’ll do unless somebody’s got a better idea. We’ve got plenty of fuel aboard both choppers. If I’m right that Blackburn’s somewhere in Canada heading to Europe via Iceland, he’d probably be in Greenland by now, unless he stopped. He might stop in Greenland. But he’s going to have to stop — six hundred miles or better to the nearest landfall once he leaves Iceland and he’s the only pilot. He wouldn’t try that on no sleep unless he’s an idiot, and he’s not. There’s no guarantee he’ll stop in Iceland, but I’m betting he will and right now that’s the only option we’ve got. With the speed those two machines have, we can cover a reasonably thorough air search of Iceland —he can’t hide the chopper and there’d be no way to effectively camouflage it. We should be able to see it miles away. Iceland, if my geography is correct, is about the size of the state of Georgia, maybe a little smaller. If there’s snow this far south, Iceland should be covered with snow and ice. The helicopter’s black. Should stick out like a sore thumb. The missile-targeting equipment aboard our gunships is heat-sensing —we can leave that running and possibly pick up a fire source, maybe even engine heat if we get near enough just after they land. If we miss them, Colonel Mann’s fighter planes can be cutting a zigzag pattern northeast from La Havre — where it used to be —and out along the Norwegian coast up to the Barents Sea, then back. If we miss the
