by Ahern, Jerry
There would be guards arriving at any instant, even if the prison were largely automated, as he suspected. The gunshots would have been heard. He broke into a run. His stomach growled and he tried to remember when he had last eaten. But he keDt runnimr… .
Olav Kerenin, his head pounding with pain, his left arm, like his head, bandaged, but the arm the result of a brush with death from one of the sharks, leaned heavily against the side of the Gullwing he had commandeered, his own stolen, since found, crashed. “Where is he!” He hammered his good right fist against the vehicle’s roof, Boris Feyedorovitch beside him, talking into a communicator. “Well?”
Feyedorovitch’s voice was calm. “Olav—you should rest. I can settle this matter.”
“What did you learn?”
“Very well—gunshots. Live ammunition. As you suspected, he has evidently penetrated the security complex.”
“I increased the guard—how could—”
“There have been several personnel found already whom he has shot with sedative darts. There is substantial reason to believe he is dressed as one of us.”
“But—how substantial?”
Feyedorovitch almost groaned. “Three of our personnel were found in the hedges not far from Monorail Station 17, two of them stripped of their uniforms, the third—”
“Two?”
“One of the Spetznas stripped of his uniform is a male of approximately the same height as this Wolfgang Heinz or whoever he is. The other guard was a female. Approximately the same size as the female prisoner. I checked. May I suggest—”
“What?” Kerenin snapped.
“May I suggest, comrade major, that security be asked to put out search teams. We do not have enough Marine Spetznas personnel available to us to cover all three domes—and if he has already left the security complex, we will not know for several minutes more.”
“No,” Kerenin said simply. Then he started under the Gullwing, telling Feyedorovitch, “Coordinate from here. I go to my quarters. If he plans to attempt to free the woman, he will come there.” Kerenin could not bring in
security. If it were learned that he in fact knew this Wolfgang Heinz to be the American John Rourke—if the triumvirate were to discover this … Kerenin shouted to his driver. “My quarters! Quickly!”
Chapter Nineteen
John Rourke heard the new alarms starting, his left hand on the door handle for the room marked “Medical Research.” The plexiglas in this door was frosted over. He pushed the door inward, letting it swing. He could see a typical laboratory beyond and, with one of the Detonics pistols in each fist, stepped through, dodging left. But no one appeared to be inside. The lights were on. There was a strong smell, like acid.
In Russian, he called out, “Is anyone here?” He heard muted sounds from the far end of the laboratory beyond what looked to be more or less standard double doors, the kind that swung open and closed. Rourke started toward the doors, passing ranks of large plastic cabinets of the type in which his and Natalia’s weapons had been kept.
He was almost to the double doors, thinking that perhaps he had made a moral misjudgment of the Russians. He heard it an instant before it happened and started to dodge, something enormously heavy impacting his left arm and throwing him down to the floor, the cocked and locked .45s skating from his hands across the smooth hard floor. As he rolled right, he saw it—a man, huge by any standard, lunging for him. Rourke started for the Sty-20 in his holster, the man’s ham-sized hands on him, wrestling him up from the floor, shaking him so violently that Rourke couldn’t reach the Sty-20. Rourke’s right knee smashed up, impacting the man’s crotch, the grip on Rourke’s upper arms loosening, Rourke falling away from him, skidding back across the floor.
John Rourke drew the Sty-20, fumblingly, his arms tingling from the man’s vise-like grip. He was at least six feet six, and the chest was so large Rourke couldn’t estimate it. He had seen adult black bears in the Georgia mountains that looked smaller and less formidable—and friendlier. John Rourke pushed himself to his feet, the Sty-20 finally in his right fist. The gym bag had fallen to the floor. The big man—in white tunic and white pants, a laboratory worker perhaps—had a beaker in his hand and threw it, Rourke ducking, the beaker shattering against Rourke’s right hand, the Sty-20 falling as Rourke’s flesh started to burn.
Acid.
John Rourke lunged toward the laboratory sink inset at the center of the table that ran the length of the room down its center, with his burning right hand hurtling a double of rack of test tubes toward the man as the charged, the man swatting them away. But Rourke had the water turned on, his right hand beneath it now, flushing off the acid. The man’s body slammed into him, Rourke’s abdomen taking the impact against the lab table top, Rourke’s left elbow smashing back, hammering into the bear-sized man’s abdomen, a rush of sickeningly sweet breath against Rourke’s left cheek and the left side of his neck. Rourke’s left leg snapped back, the heel of his liberated Marine Spetznas boot contacting bone as Rourke slid between the man’s body and the counter top.
The flesh of John Rourke’s right hand had stopped smoking, but the pain was killingly intense. He backed away.
The big man turned toward him. He reached to a rack running down the center of the laboratory table, taking down first one, then a second hypodermic, the syringes of huge proportions and opaque, the needles themselves several inches long. He gave each needle a test squirt, opaque liquid geysering from the needle tips. As the liquid contacted the floor, the floor started to burn.
John Rourke reached to his belt for the Life Support knife.
The giant charged, the needles plunging toward Rourke’s face, Rourke dodging left, the skin of his right hand blistering now and one of the blisters popping, Rourke involuntarily sucking in his breath against the pain. But in his right fist he held the knife. There was no opening and Rourke edged back. A solid jab from one of the needles and he would be dead.
The man came at him again, surprisingly agile for someone so massive, and clever too. Because as John Rourke feigned with the Crain knife, the man anticipated him and stabbed outward with the hypodermics, Rourke swatting at him with the knife just to keep him away.
Rourke’s eyes found his guns on the floor. He edged toward them, nearly tripping over the Sty-20 that had been bathed in acid along with his hand. The gun was partially melted away. But it was some type of plastic for the most part, he told himself. His right hand was blistering more now.
The big man charged and Rourke threw himself left, onto the floor, skidding across it, his left hand grasping one of the twin Detonics stainless pistols, his left thumb sweeping behind the tang, dropping the safety, sweeping back as he rolled, the big man diving for him now. John Rourke fired, then fired again, the man’s body lurching, but still coming. Rourke fired again and again, then emptied the two remaining rounds into him, the man staggering. Rourke shoved the pistol into his belt, the slide still locked open over the empty magazine, both hands going to the haft of his knife. Some of the blisters on the back of his right hand burst as Rourke swung the steel, just sidestepping one of the acid-filled hypodermics, the knife’s primary edge contacting flesh, Rourke’s full body weight behind it, the momentum of the huge man who wanted him dead pushing against it. The head severed, blood spurting in a red wash, Rourke turning his eyes away from it, his fists still locked on the knife. Rourke fell to his knees. The head rolled past him on the floor.
Rourke hauled himself to his feet. His second pistol. He crossed the room, nearly losing his footing in the blood.
He picked up the second pistol, giving it a quick visual examination. It was undamaged. He clenched it tight in his left fist as he moved toward the still-running sink, immersing his hand beneath the jet of water, tears welling in his eyes from the pain.
He set his loaded pistol down beside him, water splashing on it, but the steel of the little Detonics pistols was as rustproof as the case of his Rolex watch. He was shivering, but kept his hand beneat
h the water. He inspected his forearm—no blisters there, and apparently no contact from the acid. He took the empty pistol from his belt, buttoning out the magazine, taking a fresh one from his musette bag, inserting it one-handed, pushing it home against his left knee. He worked the slide stop with his left thumb and the slide snapped forward. He raised the safety and set the little .45 beside the first one. The empty magazine he dropped into the musette bag. His eyes scanned toward the door. No one yet.
His left hand searched the musette bag. Medical kit. He needed his full bag but that was somewhere on the land above as well.
A B-complex shot—he administered it to himself, first cleaning the skin with an alcohol swab. It was a reusable syringe and he replaced it in the kit. He twisted open the cap on the hollow handle of his knife. He found the German painkillers, taking four of them, because of the pain and because of their weakness, with a mouthful of water cupped from the sink in his left hand. The water tasted processed, but was clear.
There was a cup beside the sink, half-filled with water, and there was no sign of settled sediment. He shook his head. The German spray was both an antiseptic and healing agent. He closed his eyes against what was to come, then sprayed his right hand, a scream involuntarily issuing from him, floaters over his eyes from the pain. He sagged against the laboratory sink top, feeling faint.
Rourke opened his eyes. He had covered all of the blisters.
“Bandage,” he hissed.
From the small medical kit, he took the necessary items and began to wrap his hand, flexing it despite the pain because he would need both hands soon again.
The hand bandaged now, he replaced the remaining elements of the emergency medical kit in his musette bag, picking up his knife again, washing the blade of blood beneath the spigot, then wiping it dry against his trouser leg. He sheathed the knife, securing the safety strap only.
Rourke stabbed one of the twin stainless Detonics into his belt, the other taken up in his left hand.
He started for his original destination, the double swinging doors. He caught up the gym bag in his bandaged right fist, pain again washing over him.
John Rourke lurched through them, the pistol balled tight in his left fist.
When he saw what lay beyond them, Rourke murmured, “Mother of God.”
There were cages, and inside the cages were men.
Some were Chinese, but others were not. White men. Black men, some of them obviously in terrible condition, growths on their bodies, skin rashes covering large portions of their flesh, others with dazed expressions.
And Rourke heard a voice above the moaning sounds, the Russian sounding terrible. “What are you planning for us now, you bastard?”
John Rourke turned toward the sound of the voice. A tall, well-built black man, his clothes some sort of uniform once, but now in rags. The color of his skin was gray, bespeaking poor health.
Rourke called back to him. “Russian is not your first language, and certainly not your best. What is your language?”
“Fuck you!”
Rourke grinned. The epithet had been in English, the accent American. John Rourke started for the cage. “Say that again and as soon as you’re well enough, I’ll kick the shit out of you,” Rourke told him in English, smiling, stopping just before the cage.
“What the hell kinda trick is this?”
“You an American?”
“Damn right I am—and proud of it.”
“Music to my ears, buddy,” and John Rourke began inspecting the lock on the cage as he continued to speak. “Keys? Where are they?”
“You really—”
“My name’s John Rourke. The uniform’s ‘borrowed.’ This bag is filled with Sty-20s and a couple of .357 Magnums. Ever heard of those?” The man didn’t answer. “How about a .45?” Rourke gestured with the Detonics mini-gun in his left hand. “I pledge allegiance, to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation—”
The black prisoner joined him..”—under God, indivisible—”
Another voice joined and then another, some of the voices so feeble-sounding they seemed barely human. “— with liberty and justice for all.”
There were tears in the black man’s eyes. Rourke felt a shiver along his spine.
The black man said, “I don’t know where they keep the keys.”
“Then stand back—take that mattress and cover yourself with it and get in the corner of the cage. I’m shooting the lock. Go on and hurry.”
The man drew back, catching up the mattress, taking shelter in the farthest corner of the cage as John Rourke leveled the Detonics toward the lock and stepped back a few paces. He took aim, averted his eyes slightly against the possibility of flying debris, then fired. The noise was earsplittingly loud, and as Rourke looked toward the lock plate, it seemed heavily damaged. “Come on, buddy— push!” Rourke grabbed a handful of bar and mesh, the man inside the cage bracing his right shoulder against it. “Now!” As Rourke pulled, the black man pushed, the lock snapping and the cage door swinging open, Rourke moving back to catch his balance.
The black man almost sprang from the cage. “Who are you? You’re not from Mid-Wake.”
“I’m not from Mid-Wake—I don’t even know what Mid-Wake is except something that some of these Soviets are afraid of. I’m an American. And there are a few left like me. I can’t take the time to explain it all now. And I don’t feel like wasting ammunition on the rest of these cage doors so if you’re up to it, look for the keys or a pry bar.”
“What happened to your hand—they been experimenting on you too?”
“No—big guy out there. Built like a bear—”
“A bear? How the hell would you know what a bear looked like except out of a book or a vid-tape?”
John Rourke smiled. “I got into an argument with one once. But that’s another story. You need help or can I stay by the door out there and wait for company with this?” And Rourke raised the little Deltonics .45 in his left hand, flicking up the safety.
“I can do it.”
“Figured you could—here …” And Rourke dropped to his knees beside the gym bag. He took out one of the Sty-20s, the man recoiling from it. “Take it—I’ll put the rest out on the floor here. Watch out, though—they’re not all fully loaded and I haven’t found a spare magazine in this whole damn place.” Rourke set the pistols out, caught up the bag in his bandaged right hand and rose to his full height, a little woozy still from the pain.
“Thanks—I think,” the man said. He extended his right hand. Rourke gestured with his bandaged right, then gambled, putting the Detonics in his belt and extending his left hand inverted. They clasped hands.
“You’re welcome, I think.” Rourke grinned.
Then he started through the doors and across the laboratory to guard the main entrance to the lab.
Chapter Twenty
Maria Leuden felt terrified, and tried to evaluate the source of her terror. She was alone in the back of a Russian army truck, hiding beneath a tarp surrounded by containers of synthetic fuel. The truck was surrounded by at least several thousand Soviet troops because she was in the midst of the principal Soviet encampment. Michael Rourke, Paul Rubenstein, and her fellow countryman Otto Hammerschmidt had left the truck shortly after Paul had driven them in, leaving her behind despite the uniform they had stolen for her. And it was even a woman’s uniform. But Michael had told her that now she might be in danger. That she should stay in the truck. She should wait.
She had been raised to believe that women were equal to men in all things, but that women should defer to a man’s judgment when necessary. She had considered it necessary and deferred. She was beginning to regret it.
Her chief fear was for Michael, although she feared for them all. Both Paul and Otto had become good friends since she had first flown from New Germany to Lydveldid Island and joined the pursuit of Vladmir Karamatsov. But Michael had become her lover. His wife had just been murdered, along
with his unborn child. And together with Hammerschmidt and Michael she had gone to Egypt in pursuit of some mysterious weapon of destruction, her skills as an archaeologist and authority on ancient Egypt her only qualification.
She was no soldier, no adventurer.
She had learned both the hard way.
She had been drawn to Michael instantly, and moved by the sadness which pervaded every element of his being.
And one night—after many nights when she had fallen asleep thinking of him—he had come to her, made her his.
If this insane war ever ended—
Maria Leuden had no choice but to wait, hope… .
Midday. Annie Rourke Rubenstein stood on the terrace overlooking the First City, listening for the knock at her door.
And at last it came.
She ran to the door, unaccustomed to the higher heels of the Chinese shoes and nearly falling, reaching the door, sagging against it, opening it, smoothing her dress against her thighs, her fingers splayed with tension as she stepped back. The Chairman himself had come again. “Mrs. Rubenstein. I thought that I should tell you personally.” Her heart skipped a beat. “There has been no word from your husband, your brother, or any of the rest of the rescue party, including our agent Han.”
“Then I’m going, sir.”
“I wish you would reconsider, Mrs. Rubenstein. It could be very dangerous.”
She inhaled, lowering her shoulders. “Maria Leuden went with them.”
“Doctor Leuden accompanied them simply because of her reading knowledge of the Russian language. That is the only reason.”
Annie looked him straight in the eyes. “I’m going. Alone if I have to.”
“Not alone then. But it will consume some time in order to mount a second expedition, Mrs. Rubenstein.”
“Not too much time, Mr. Chairman.” He merely nodded and turned back into the corridor. Annie closed the door behind him and flattened her hands against the joint of door and frame, leaning her face against the backs
