Survivalist - 24 - Blood Assassins

by Ahern, Jerry

  “She pulled me off rescue duty for two days. Told me I needed the rest. I tried talking myself back up, but she wouldn’t go along with it.”

  A massive rescue effort was going on now to evacuate the population of the island of Hawaii, because of the ongoing eruption.

  “The admiral said there’d be plenty to do in two days. Even if the evacuation was completed, medical stuff and supplies and everything would have to be ferried out to the camps that are being set up. And Eden’s forces are still massing for what looks like an attack. Admiral Hayes said I’d get plenty of flying in then.”

  “Rest,” John told her. “You need it. And thank you, from all of us, Emma.” John extended his right hand to her. She took it. They shook. She released his hand.

  She glanced at all of them briefly. She left the room. John spoke again. “I think all of us need a rest. There’s a lot to be done. And I have to do some thinking, alone. All of you, I—” And John’s voice cracked as he rasped the words, “love you,” then stormed out of the room.

  Emma Shaw heard the footsteps in the corridor behind her and turned around. She started to speak. John Rourke’s eyes streamed tears as he walked past her, not looking at her, saying nothing. “Ohh, God help him,” she whispered, closing her eyes.

  Three

  John Thomas Rourke stood on the summit of the mountain. When he looked to his left, he could see the ocean, limitless, the sun rising far off the windward coast. When he looked to his right, the darkness was not fading, the smoke and ash of Kilauea dominating the sky.

  But the sunrise was beautiful, beyond his descriptive powers. He had never been a man of many words. Beauty and darkness would soon meet above him.

  He felt almost evil, wasting ammunition, but he truly had plenty and weapons in the calibers he used were not in the strategic inventory of the Trans-Global Alliance. And, he had come here to do this at any event.

  He drew one of the little Detonics CombatMaster .45’s from beneath his left armpit. He examined the gun closely. It was the one with his name on it, otherwise essentially identical to the gun beneath his right arm.

  How often had he used this and its mate? How many lives had he taken in what he perceived as a good cause? And, for what?

  His life was now nothing but ashes, like those at the tip of the thin, dark tobacco cigar he smoked, like the ashes spewing forth out of the volcano so far away, yet close. To have tried to sleep would have been an exercise in futility. He had killed his son, Martin, as surely as if he had shot him. And he had sealed his wife’s doom, because without Martin there was no way in which he could coerce Deitrich Zimmer to utilize his almost magical surgical procedures to save Sarah’s life. So, in one fateful instant, he had killed his son and effectively killed his wife.

  And John Rourke had never felt loneliness more intensely in his entire life. Even Natalia was totally gone from him; she would be happier with Michael anyway.

  This was a good place. A shot would never be heard, would disturb no one’s predawn sleep. John Rourke hefted the pistol in his right hand, then cocked the hammer as he took one last drag on his cigar…

  It was Admiral Hayes’s voice on the telephone. “Yes, Admiral.”

  “Mr. Rubenstein, I felt it best to speak with you concerning a very recent development. I’m afraid it’s too tragic to discuss over the telephone, and I’ll confess I don’t think I have the courage to tell either your wife or your brother-in-law, or, for that matter, Major Tiemerovna.”

  “What is itr

  “I’ll be waiting in my office.” The line clicked dead. Paul Rubenstein looked across the room. Annie lay on the couch, an afghan she had crocheted herself

  covering her. She was sleeping, but mumbling incoherently, tossing her head every few seconds. Was she seeing something?

  A shiver passed along Paul Rubenstein’s spine. He was tempted to wake her.

  Instead, he scribbled a note on the pad beside the telephone and told her he was going out to speak with Admiral Hayes about something, would be back shortly. Where to place the note if she awakened? He set it on the coffee table, beside the couch, bent over his wife, touched his hps lightly to her forehead as he drew the afghan up closer around her.

  She was seeing something, because her eyelids were fluttering and, once one returned from the Sleep, one did not dream. But Annie did, if she were in the empathic state. And that only came upon her, he knew from past experience, when someone she cared for deeply was in danger.

  He went back to the telephone, took it off the table, walked about the room with it in his hand for a few seconds. Even if Michael and Natalia slept, he would wake them. He dialed their apartment at the BOQ. Natalia answered. “Yes?”

  “Me, Natalia. You and Michael okay?”

  “Tired. We cannot sleep. And you and Annie?”

  “Fine.Same way. Where’s John?”

  “Michael checked. John took a car from the base and drove up into the mountains. I think he wanted to be alone.”

  “You guys get some rest,” Paul said, then hung up.

  He stuffed his battered old Browning High Power into his trouser band and left the apartment, electing to walk the two blocks to Admiral Hayes’s office. It was

  just past dawn, cool, damp, the air fresh and clear, his lungs still rehshing that, after the hell of the volcano.

  What was it that Admiral Hayes could not relate over the telephone? Could not tell Annie or Michael? Paul Rubenstein quickened his pace. Something about John? His walk became a jogging run, one block down, another only to go. There were extra guards on duty near the Admiral’s headquarters complex, and as he narrowed the distance to the building to under a half-block, the guards nearest him already came to alert. “Relax. Paul Rubenstein to see Admiral Hayes.”

  “Yes, sir!”

  Paul jogged past the Marine who’d spoken and the other man standing guard with him. He reached the front door in another few seconds.

  Paul slowed his pace as he entered the building, catching his breath. The combination of Admiral Hayes’s cryptic yet frightening telephone call and Annie’s obvious dream state ate at his nerves. What had happened that was so terrible that only he could be told, that was too terrible for a veteran line officer like Thelma Hayes to relate?

  Paul Rubenstein could see Admiral Hayes now. She stood at the end of the corridor, waiting for him, her uniform jacket off, her sleeves rolled up, her hands lost in the pockets of her skirt. Behind her glasses, the muscles around her eyes seemed bunched, tight, her smallish mouth’s corners turned down.

  Paul Rubenstein stopped walking. He stood a few feet from her. “What is it you couldn’t tell me over the telephone, Admiral?”

  Her hands came out of her pockets, a lighter in one, a solitary cigarette in the other. She lit the cigarette, exhaling smoke through her nostrils as she said, “Some things cannot be said very easily, even less easily when you can’t see the face of the person you’re talking to, Mr. Rubenstein.”

  “What happened?” There was a sick feeling in Paul Rubenstein’s stomach, a cold sweat in his palms.

  “There has been a death,” she said, simply, quietly.

  Paul Rubenstein felt the tendons in his neck go tight.

  Four

  She could not sleep. She didn’t try. Maybe she would run over to the other side of the island after a while. A friend of hers owned one of the larger cattle ranches there and would lend her a horse. A ride really wouldn’t help, but it was something to do.

  Emma Shaw stood on the front porch of her little house, changed out of her flight suit into a loosely woven long-sleeved grey pullover sweater and a midcalf-length full skirt, rose colored—cotton, like the sweater—with deep side seam pockets, her hands buried in them. She wore no stockings and only wore flat sandals on her feet. And, she was a little cold. Wrapped about her shoulders was her one handicraft, the shawl she’d crocheted and practically hung under John Rourke’s nose in order to impress him with how domestic she could be.

&n
bsp; It was just past dawn.

  She’d washed her hair twice as many times as usual in order to get the volcanic ash and dust out, turned up the hot water between showers and soaked under it for

  more than fifteen minutes, trying to get the stuff from the pores of her skin.

  “Almost blew it this time, Emma,” she told herself. As she took her cigarettes and lighter from the porch railing, lit a cigarette, exhaled, she remembered what her portside engine air filter had looked like by the time she landed at Pearl. It was very much like a sandbox.

  She’d flown back to Pearl Harbor on forty-percent engine power.

  By the book, that wasn’t enough with her weight load. But she made it anyway, by the seat of her pants. And that was the best way to fly, even in this era of computers and autopilots and everything else.

  If Admiral Hayes had brought her up on charges, if she’d been tossed out of the Navy, it would have been worth it. She started to cry now, just thinking about it. “I am stupid!” Emma Shaw said to the morning, to any wild creatures which might be listening, but most of all to herself. Women were stupid, she thought. Risk everything for a man she was nuts about who saw her as a war buddy. But, as she sniffed back her tears, she knew she would have done it again.

  Emma Shaw was in love for the first and maybe the only time in her life. Two days from now, she’d be back in the air, and at any minute the forces of Eden and their Nazi allies would launch an attack against the United States and the rest of the Trans-Global Alliance. And, she’d be in aerial combat. And, maybe she would die. Takeoffs and landings from a carrier in rough seas were dangerous in and of themselves, not to mention other aircraft and ground batteries and everything.

  Cigarettes weren’t like they used to be in the days when John Rourke was growing up. Tobacco was now totally noncarcinogenic. So, unless one smoked to excess and contracted emphesyma or injured the heart, smoking was okay. Under the circumstances, as she lit a fresh cigarette from the butt of the one burned down between her fingertips, she would have smoked anyway, even if there hadn’t been noncarcinogenic cigarettes and even if cancer weren’t curable. Life like this was nothing to lose.

  Annie Rourke Rubenstein sat up, screaming.

  The afghan fell from her body to the floor.”

  “Dead?” What had she seen? She could not bring it back from the dream. There was a note on the coffee table. She picked it up and read it. Paul had gone off to see Admiral Hayes about something.

  She stood up.

  She looked down at her clothes. The wrinkles would fall out of her skirt. She straightened her blouse. She walked to the window and looked out. It was raining, huge drops streaming down over the panes of window glass like tears, like tears down a cheek.

  And, without warning, the memory of her dream flooded over her and Annie screamed as she fell against the window frame.

  Five

  Paul Rubenstein sent Natalia over to keep his wife Annie company, not telling Natalia what Admiral Hayes had told him. He could not tell her, but knew that soon he would have to, tell Annie, tell Michael, too.

  He borrowed an F.O.U.O. car, its Tracer unit tuned to the frequency of the F.O.U.O. car which John had taken when he drove off the base. The Tracer unit allowed one F.O.U.O. vehicle to home in on another, a very simple thing since each of the vehicles emitted its own signal code from the moment it left the base until it was returned (unless the solar cells ran out of energy first).

  This signal was strong.

  Paul followed it out of the city and into the mountains, along a highway that a few hours from now would be well travelled during the rush hour, but now was all-but-deserted. He passed through small suburban Honolulu communities, climbing with the road, his eyes occasionally drifting down to the automatic

  controls which drove the car instead of him. He didn’t trust them, kept his hands very lightly on the steering wheel even though he didn’t have to.

  What Admiral Hayes told him, in the aftermath of Martin’s death, was almost beyond absorption. Tears still came to his eyes when he thought of it, and he would then focus his attention all the harder on the automobile’s automatic controls, as a means of forcing reality away from him.

  They—he and the car’s computer—were out of any trace of real civilization now, and Paul Rubenstein, a New Yorker centuries ago, breathed more easily. Now, cities compressed his spirit, were slightly maddening to him.

  It—the computer—kept driving, turning the car off onto an unpaved side road now.

  The car drove at a “safe” speed, neither so fast as to enable him to get this over with soon, nor so slow as to postpone the horrible inevitable.

  Instead, at what was the perfect speed, the computer drove him calmly toward what would be the worst moment of his life.

  His left arm was a little sore, still.

  But exercise was the best thing. He flexed his fist and put his hand into the borrowed glove. Michael Rourke took the ball from inside the glove and hefted it. His baseball experience was limited to distant memory and the occasional game of catch with his sister in the years when they were growing up alone at the Retreat.

  He took the ball and threw it against the concrete wall, and the ball rocketed back toward him. Michael dashed left, barely getting his glove on it. But he caught it. He threw the ball again, caught it more easily this time. He could get a baseball and glove of his own. If he stayed here at Pearl Harbor long enough, he might get involved with one of the teams. Every unit had its own, and there were several teams from among the ranks of the civilian employees, too.

  Michael Rourke had discussed this with Paul. “You mean you really played on a team?”

  “Well, it wasn’t as if I played for the New York Yankees, Michael. I just played with some teams on the Air Force Bases my dad was assigned to. It was kind of fun.”

  “Can you teach me to hit?”

  “You serious?”

  Michael told his brother-in-law that he was serious.

  Paul agreed to teach him to hit.

  Michael nearly missed the ball—but only nearly. As a boy, his father had played catch with him, swatted flies with him, done all the father-son stuff. But his true boyhood ended the morning after the Night of the War when he saw his mother about to be molested and, rather than stand there, or cry, he took the boning knife out of their hastily put-together cache of supplies and killed the man who was about to hurt his mother. He put the knife in the man’s kidney. He hadn’t known anything about where to place a knife for killing, and he doubted that instinct was working upon him—more like dumb luck.

  But, childhood ended.

  If this was his second childhood, it would really be his first

  He kept playing with the ball, getting generally

  better at getting his borrowed glove on it each time. He was worried for his sister. Paul had said she was upset, restless, dreaming. That did not bode well. But, Michael supposed, Natalia was the best to keep Annie company, take care of her, comfort her if Paul himself could not be there.

  Paul had not said where he was going.

  And, that was odd, very unlike Paul.

  Michael stopped throwing the ball, took off his glove, just stood there. He decided to go see Natalia and his sister after a quick shower.

  Six

  It took a moment before Paul Rubenstein was able to see John Rourke. John lay against a rock, as if asleep.

  Tears filled Paul Rubenstein’s eyes as he forced his legs to move along the narrow, rocky trail.

  It was full daylight now. Admiral Hayes had offered to detail some men to accompany him, but he had told her simply that some things had to be done alone. First Martin, now this, one life that was evil and vile by any judgement, another that was noble and good, yet both lives shared the same genes. And, how would he tell Annie? He’d have to tell her; it was only right that he did. He was as used to being orphaned as anyone ever got to it, Paul Rubenstein supposed. But how did one tell someone that a parent, a loved one, so
meone who had become quite literally larger than life because of circumstance, was dead?

  Paul reached the top of the rise, the end of the path. He stooped over to pick up a spent brass cartridge case. It was from a .45 ACP, one of the German production

  rounds, of course, but headstamped as if it were made by Federal Cartridge, John’s perennial brand of preference.

  Paul stared at John Rourke. Paul sniffed back a tear.

  He started to walk closer to him and the rock against which his friend lay. Why had this had to happen? It wasn’t right.

  “It’s not like you to come up so quietly, Paul. What’s up?”

  Paul Rubenstein breathed. There were more yellow brass cartridge cases on the ground near Paul’s feet. He crouched, began picking them up.

  “Came up here to think. I haven’t shot for anything but self-defense in longer than I can remember. I can police up that brass. I just hadn’t gotten around to it.”

  “Gives me something to do,” Paul told his friend. “Uhh—”

  “What?”

  This was needless cruelty to John, prolonging it to save himself. “The cryogenic facility in New Germany was hit by Nazi commandoes. Blew it up. Sarah and Colonel Mann are both dead.”

  He’d said it.

  He stayed there, crouched over the pieces of empty brass. John said nothing.

  “I didn’t know how to tell you. Annie and Michael and Natalia don’t know yet. But, I’ll tell them. I’m sorry, John. She was a magnificent woman. I don’t know what else to say.”

  John lit a cigar, but his hands shook and, as he exhaled smoke, John coughed, sounded for an instant as if he were choking. He just dropped the cigar and lowered his face into his hands. And Paul could hear the sobbing, see his friend’s face as John’s fists hammered down into the dirt on either side of him.

  “Jesus!” John exclaimed. John stood up, walked to the edge of the drop, stood there, beating his right thigh with his right fist. “After all—all she—she went—went through, God!” And John Rourke raised his voice into a cry across the valley beyond “Sarah!”