by Ahern, Jerry
Thetechnician told the two guards they could release Rourke’s head now, the other technician making slight adjustments to the bands which now almost touched at the center of Natalia’s forehead, then giving similar instructions to the guards who held her. Rourke could not move his head, the blocks apparently locked magnetically to the table. Kerenin’s voice sounded almost casual. “You are perhaps not familiar with the use of ultrasonics. Research began centuries ago into the processes by which high-frequency sound waves could be utilized to control the human mind and body. Simply by adjusting frequency and target area in the brain, we can make you do anything we wish. For example. You will now lose complete control of your kidneys.”
Kereninnodded. Rourke remembered how to say “Fuck you” in German and shouted it as the pain in his head started, then fiercer pain still in his back on either side of his spine, Rourke feeling the wash of moisture between his legs, the female translator turning her face away in disgust.
Rourke’sbody was shaking. “The woman you call your wife—why don’t we see how responsive she is to direct sexual stimuli, hmm? Translate, lieutenant!”
Thefemale officer haltingly tried to translate as Rourke, at the edge of his peripheral vision, saw Natalia’s body begin slowly to move. Her eyelids fluttered. Her
lowertorso began moving rapidly now, her back arching. Kerenin laughed. He gave a gesture with his hand.
“Humiliationis even more effective than pain. But we can cause pain.” The female officer translated, the sound of Natalia’s breathing still heavy. Kerenin pointed to both Rourke and Natalia, Rourke barely able to see him. “Hopefully, you both have strong hearts.” Kerenin nodded. This was a well-practiced routine, Rourke realized.
Andsuddenly, he felt it, a terrible headache behind his eyes and then something like a vise beginning to clamp ever more tightly around his chest. They were giving him a coronary occlusion. He tried to control his breathing, to tell his mind that this was all—“Aagh!” Rourke’s body lurched as the vise tightened and his lungs could no longer suck air, his left arm numb with pain. Natalia screamed, her body going rigid, Rourke wanting to shout to them that he was a doctor and that in seconds, he knew, Natalia would die. Her normally pale skin was ashen, her mouth wide, gasping for breath. Rourke’s body shook. He was telling himself these men who were doing this knew their jobs and would know just how far to go before death became inevitable. He was losing consciousness, the numbness in his left arm replaced with pain almost more intense than the pain in his chest. Natalia was screaming. Rourke started to speak—he could only gasp for breath.
Andsuddenly, the pain was gone. His body sagged downward. He sucked air, feeling himself start to hyper-ventillate, a green wash replacing his vision. Was this natural or something induced by their machinery? he wondered fleetingly.
Kerenin’svoice, the no-longer-under-control voice of the female officer translating. “I could have let both of you die, or just one of you. Now—let us see what fears can be dredged out of your minds. I wish to see both of you consumed with fear.”
Thetranslation ended.
Rourkefelt a sudden relaxing of his body, almost a calmness in his brain … He wondered if he were dead. He had read of out-of-body experiences of persons who
hadtechnically died on the operating table. And this was—He was over the chamber where he and Natalia were being tortured. He could see himself, see Natalia, see Kerenin standing almost directly under him, see the frightened and nauseated female translator, see Feyedorovitch in the far corner. Rourke could see the dark stains which covered the thighs of his faded Levis. There was a look of calm on his face, a look that somehow seemed very strange to him. Natalia was screaming, her body twisting, writhing, her face contorted in agony. John Rourke tried to move, to reach down to touch her. He could not move.
Whateverthey were doing to him had stopped. Kerenin suddenly had a blowtorch in his hand. How did he get it? He was walking toward Natalia there on the table. He started moving the blowtorch toward her face. Rourke tried to shout. He couldn’t shout, couldn’t make a sound. He tried to close his eyes for an instant, to think. His eyes would not close, he could not think.
Kereninmoved the torch closer. Natalia screamed and the blowtorch touched at her eyes, and their incredible blueness was gone, flames licking upward, tongues of yellow and orange but tinged still with the blue of her eyes. And suddenly her face was consumed with flames, with flames, and Rourke felt tears welling up in his eyes. And now there were tables beyond the one on which Natalia had—had—had died. He could smell her flesh still burning as Kerenin moved on to the next table. Rourke’s wife, Sarah, was there, her abdomen swollen with the baby he had given her. Kerenin brought the blowtorch toward her and then her clothes were gone and she was lying there on the cold table naked and he could feel her coldness and Sarah screamed as Kerenin touched the blowtorch to her abdomen. Rourke was trying to scream. He could not. Sarah’s body was aflame and he could see the baby, on fire, the fire spreading over her body now, consuming her, consuming her screams. On the next table he saw his daughter, Annie, and her husband, Rourke’s best friend, Paul Rubenstein, this table wider,
theirbodies lashed to it together but their bodies not touching. Paul cursed at them, fought at his bonds. Annie was crying that her mommie and daddy were dead. Rourke’s son, Michael, writhed on the next table, blood pouring from his wrists and ankles as he fought the shackles which held him to the table.
Rourkewas paralyzed. He commanded his legs and arms to respond but they would not. He realized that if he spoke the truth, at least Annie and Paul and Michael would be saved. But he couldn’t speak. A single phrase in English would do it and Kerenin, who was bringing the torch nearer and nearer to Annie’s long, dark, honey-blonde hair, would stop the slaughter. Annie. She was shouting at Kerenin now, her eyes focusing on his face, a hardness in her eyes that he had never seen and Rourke could feel his daughter’s mind, feel her cursing Kerenin with her dying breath, feel her mind assaulting Kerenin’s mind. Kerenin’s torch drew nearer and nearer, the sound of the gas jet as loud as a drum beating now—and as incessant.
Rourketried to shout.
Annie’svoice filled his head. “My body might die, you bastard, but you’ll never kill my mind and my mind will destroy your mind, eat away at it until all you can do is whimper!”
Kerenindropped the torch. The floor caught fire.
Kerenin’sbody was suddenly a living torch and Kerenin had three hands, Rourke’s two knives and Natalia’s Bali-Song hammering down toward Annie’s face.
Butshe wasn’t afraid.
Rourkecould finally speak. He shouted, “Annie!”
Everythingstopped, frozen, and the flames became the mists which enshrouded the edges of the lagoon where the submarine had surfaced and John Rourke’s body was drenched in sweat.
Natalia’sscreaming had stopped.
JohnRourke opened his eyes.
Kereninwas saying to Feyedorovitch, “At least we know that Anna is really the woman’s name. He called to her in
hisfear.”
“Should—shouldI—”
“Donot translate, lieutenant. Sit down over there.”
“Yes,Comrade Major Kerenin.”
“Comrademajor,” Feyedorovitch began. “You have gotten nothing except provoking this man to call out his wife’s name. You do not even know she is his wife. Utilize the drugs, I suggest.”
“Ido not wish to utilize the drugs, captain. You are dismissed.”
“Asyou wish, comrade major.”
Andover the sounds of his own breathing, John Rourke could hear Feyedorovitch’s boot heels on the floor, hear the door shut closed.
Kereninspoke up. “The ultrasonics are having little effect. They are both very strong, very much alike. We will weaken then, however. Clean up the man. He smells.”
Therewere murmured answers. Rourke found Natalia at the edge of his peripheral vision. Her eyes were closed and her body was still. But her breasts ros
e and fell as she breathed and John Rourke closed his own eyes now as he felt them removing the blocks from the sides of his head… .
Kereninspoke to her and the physically ill-looking woman translated. “I admire your stamina, your courage. But this will be used to bring about the ends I desire. The man—you see him clearly?”
JohnRourke, stripped of his clothing, wrists bound, was suspended from a large hook at the center of a two-meter-diameter capsule, the capsule of something like plexiglas. Natalia’s own hands were bound behind her and she felt them trembling. She nodded that she saw him. Three quarters of the capsule’s circumference were bounded by the sea. Distorted by the plexiglas-like substance, she could view sea creatures, bizarre in shape, some almost transparent, some almost luminous. She realized that this Soviet underwater complex had to be at
sometremendous depth.
Kerenin,through the translator, went on. “That is a decompression chamber, of sorts. You may be familiar with some of its uses. But we have a special use for it. We will slowly begin to equalize the air pressure to the pressure of the sea outside the wall of the capsule. As we do, your husband or whoever he is will be crushed to death. We utilized the ultrasonics to render him unconscious so he could not resist us when he was placed in the chamber. But now …”
Natalialooked at Kerenin. Kerenin gestured to a technician. The man stepped inside the open airlock of the capsule, approached John Rourke’s naked body suspended there, and wiped John’s left upper arm near the tricep. He placed a gun-shaped object against the muscle. She imagined it was something like adrenalin, to revive him. Blood trickled from the tricep and the technician wiped it away neatly, then left the capsule. The airlock was sealed.
“Nowhe will revive in order that he may be aware of his death agonies. But you have the power to stop this. We will increase the pressure by ten percent and you can watch his torment. We will then increase by two percent at a time. He is very strong, despite the ordeal you have both passed through. He could suffer for hours. But he will eventually reach a point that, even if the capsule is gradually depressurized to normal atmosphere, too much internal damage will have been done and he will inevitably die, or perhaps only be paralyzed. But, if you tell the truth to me in time, he will live. At least for now. Undamaged. Without pain. And if, after the use of truth drugs, I am satisfied with your story, even if he is executed, he will die quickly. I give you my word as an officer.”
Kereninsignaled the technicians beside the airlock. And for the first time, Natalia saw the controls for the capsule. One of the technicians began adjusting a diode readout, then pressed a button.
Therehad to be microphones inside the capsule, be
causeshe could hear John Rourke scream over the wind sound of the inrushing air… .
NataliaAnastasia Tiemerovna, Major, Committee for State Security of the Soviet Union, had ceased to weep. No more tears remained to her and her eyes only burned and her head ached. She had been forced to stand perfectly erect and perfectly still for what she judged internally as at least an hour, watching as slowly the pressure on the body of the man she worshipped was increased. And he had long since stopped screaming with the pain.
Buthe was conscious, his face contorting in agony, his body suspended by his wrists, twisting, twitching, as if being hammered at by invisible fists. His hands were swollen and purpling and the veins in upper arms and forearms were distended, purpling as well. The third finger of his left hand would be the first to fully die because of the constriction from the ring he wore as a symbol of his marriage to Sarah Rourke.
Sooften, she had cried herself to sleep at night wishing that the ring had been worn because of her.
Kereninwhispered beside her, the translator taking up his words. “He is stronger than I had thought. But as we increase by another two percent, I think you will see something spectacular.”
Sheclosed her eyes.
Shewanted to cry but there was nothing left in her. The fears that their ultrasonics had engendered in her—she had seen John Rourke dying at Kerenin’s hands, at Vladmir—her husband’s—hands. She had been totally alone in the world, everywhere she looked John Rourke dying; and then she had seen herself, as a very old woman, totally alone. And her loins had still ached for him.
Shewatched now as she knew she must, John’s body twitched and blood began trickling from both his nostrils and his head lolled back. Kerenin spoke. “He will die or worse soon.”
Sheanswered Kerenin in Russian. “I am Major Natalia Anastasia Tiemerovna of the Committee for State Security of the Soviet Union. I am the wife of Marshal Vladmir Karamatsov, leader of the rebel armies of the Soviet State and operating now in China as part of a continuing war against the few surviving Americans, the government of New Germany in Argentina, and other allied democracies. My husband would sacrifice anything to get me back.”
Kereninspoke not at all for a moment, then, “He loves you.
“Hewishes me dead because he is like you, an animal who feeds on pain, evil incarnate. And I chose to fight for what was right and reject the lies I had been taught from my birth. I am the niece of a true Hero of the Soviet Union, General lshmael Varakov, Commanding General, North American Army of Occupation, following the Night of the War. I am the most valuable prize you will ever obtain. But I will find a way to kill myself, no matter how well you guard me, if you do not release him at once and give him the necessary medical attention.”
Kereninlicked his lips. “You will freely submit to drug therapy?”
“Yes—butonly if you release him immediately and see to his injuries.”
“Whois this man if he is not your husband?” “Release him, now!”
“First—whois he? Or there is no arrangement, Comrade Major Tiemorovna.”
Nataliaclosed her eyes. She would focus all her mind on one lie only. And perhaps she could save him. “He is a German officer of intelligence. His name is Wolfgang, Colonel Wolfgang—” She searched for a name. She remembered the American soup. “Wolfgang Heinz.”
“Bringthe pressure to safe entry level and attend to the German officer, quickly. See to it that he is given the best medical attention!”
Kerenin’shands went to her shoulders, his finger tips gouging into her flesh beneath the fabric of her black jumpsuit. “If you lie to me, Major Tiemerovna. his death
andyours will be more horrible than anything you could possibly imagine.”
Thetruth was always the best lie, she had learned—at too early an age. She watched John Rourke and now the tears came again.
Chapter Nine
TheGerman J7-V aircraft’s subtle droning had lulled her to sleep and she had dreamed.
AnnieRourke Rubenstein sat staring out the window now, the J7-V coming in for its final approach at the boundaries of a strange city. It was called the First City, she knew, and was the disputed capital of China.
Herhands were balling tightly over her shawl and she stared at her hands. She released the shawl, folded it neatly, and placed it on the seat beside her. She crossed her legs, arranging the ankle-length full skirt. It was so dark a gray as to be almost black. She stared at it now. In her dream—and since the Sleep her dreams were not normal dreams, were increasingly more vivid when they occurred—she had seen her father, John Rourke, and Natalia Tiemerovna. They had been found on tables that were of some shiny metal and they were being hurt. She had felt pain. She had felt Natalia in a terrible, unending loneliness.
Andwhen she had awakened from the dream, Annie had known that her father and Natalia were in the greatest danger of their lives and that death was very near to them, almost touching them.
Shewanted Paul to hold her very tightly, very badly, very long.
Hewould not be waiting for her after she disembarked from the German aircraft. There would only be strangers, strangers told to treat her well, to protect her. Paul, her brother Michael, and some small force would be searching
forher father and Natalia.
Shehad to contac
t them, tell Paul and Michael about her dream.
Sheclosed her eyes, her hands clenched tightly in her lap.
Hermother had been having tea with Madame Jokli, the President of Lydveldid Island. She had asked to see her mother privately. Sarah Rourke had gone with her into the little garden off the library.
“Whatis it, Annie?”
Beforethe Night of the War, her mother had called her Ann, never Annie.
“Italked to Paul through a radio link the German commander set up for me. Daddy and Natalia—they’re missing.” She folded her mother into her arms, her shawl falling from her shoulders.
SarahRourke stammered, “What—ahh—”
“Idon’t know much about it, Momma—but there were signs of a fight, I guess, and they’re just gone. Paul and Michael and some of the Chinese are going looking for them. I said I was coming—if you don’t need me here?”
Hermother held her at arm’s length, and Sarah Rourke’s eyes were tear-rimmed. “If you think you can help. I—ahh—”
“Youcan’t go, Momma—not with the baby.”
SarahRourke’s fingers splayed over her abdomen. She took Annie into her arms.
Annielooked out the window, the J7-V into vertical mode, nearly touched down. She picked up her shawl from the seat beside her. It wasn’t one of the ones she had crocheted herself during the long years alone with Michael in the Retreat. It was one of the heavy ones, like the women in Iceland used when it was necessary to venture out of the protected environment of Helka or one of the other communities. She placed it on her lap. Beneath the shawl was her pistol belt, the Detonics Scoremaster .45 in one holster, the Beretta 92F military 9mm in the other.
Theaircraft touched down.
Sheundid her safety belt and stood up, taking up the
pistolbelt and securing it just below her natural waist. Annie raised her left foot to the level of the seat and hitched up her skirt and slip. When her father had returned from the Retreat he had brought her a present. He had told her it was one of the finest and most practical knives made before the Night of the War. He had given her a special sheath for it, pattered after the Bianchi Leg Holster but designed to carry a knife rather than a gun. It was secured both above and below her black-stockinged left calf, a Cold Steel Tanto. She let her skirt drop as she lowered her, leg.
