by Ahern, Jerry
Semicircles were formed near the cargo doors, the doors opening now. Junior officers were everywhere, shouting commands, running from one squad to the next, Paul, Hammerschmidt beside him, joining the rest of the men in their squad in fixing bayonets, then going to high port.
The cargo doors opened.
Men. Women. Children. They were all Chinese. They
were all naked. They were all pushed through the cargo doors and into the snow.
Paul Rubenstein felt tears welling up in his eyes.
He now knew what the camp they had passed reminded him of.
Inside himself, under his breath, he whispered, “God of Abraham, let this not be so.” But he knew that it was.
More orders were shouted, Hammerschmidt’s elbow prodding him, and Paul advanced on the naked people, their bodies shaking in the cold like leaves in the wind. Rifle butts were hammered into naked backs, kicks were leveled against naked legs, spittle was fired from the mouths of some of the Soviet soldiers into the startled, frightened faces. And the naked people—there were hundreds of them, some of them crying, some of them talking as though they were trying to say this was all some terrible mistake, some of them as saucer-eyed as an epicanthically folded eye could be—were prodded forward across the snow, the helicopter crews shoveling human excrement from the insides of their machines. Women held infants, the infants’ bodies blue-tinged with the cold, some of the infants trying to suckle.
Gradually, the naked people were all herded together as they marched on, close to one another, Paul realized, for warmth. A woman fell, dropping her baby, and Paul started toward her to help her, stopped, realizing what he was doing, another of the guards running toward her, kicking at her, brandishing the bayonet toward her baby. The woman caught the baby in her arms and ran stumbling into the herd.
“God of Abraham,” Paul said again under his breath. He was a Jew marching naked human beings through a snowfield toward a death camp.
And his body shook with rage… .
“What are you doing, Boris Feyedorovitch!?”
As Feyedorovitch jumped inside the Gullwing, he
shouted back to the KBG head, “I am using my brain instead of waiting for orders! Try it sometime, comrade!” And he shouted to his driver, “The submarine pens. Now!”
The Gullwing started ahead, bumping across the greenway and over the curb, just missing one of the armored personnel carriers Feyedorovitch had ordered to the pens as well.
He spoke to his driver, but he was really thinking out loud, he knew. “We have been tricked. That radio communication. This Wolfgang Heinz or whoever he is—he speaks Russian, I would wager. And he tricked us. Curse him!” And Feyedorovitch started to laugh. Whoever he was, this tall, lean, courageous man had so far outsmarted all of them. And Olav Kerenin would be hard put to explain it all away. “Faster!” And the Gullwing moved ahead… .
John Rourke stepped through the doorway from the People’s Institute for Marine Studies and onto the walkway. Alarms were sounding, even more loudly, it seemed, than before. The street between the walkways was jammed with fast-moving Gullwings, most of the Gullwings—they had running boards*—with armed men hanging from either side of them. And many of the soldiers carried AKM-96 assault rifles. He tucked back into the doorway. “What the hell do we do now, Doctor Rourke?”
He looked down at Lisa and smiled. “Join all the happy people. Come on.” Rourke left the doorway, crossed the walkway to the street.
As the first likely-looking Gullwing passed, he jumped for the running board, his assault rifle slung under his right arm, shouting, “Come on!” to Lisa. But there was no time to look to see if she was coming. As he reached the running board, his right hand grasped the right ear of one of the men clinging to the Gullwing there, just beneath the level of his helmet. Rourke snapped his right arm back, his right hand alive with pain but still func
tional. The man fell away, the Gullwing bouncing as the vehicle careened over the man’s body, a stifled scream, then no more sound. Beside him, another of the soldiers was grabbing for him.
As Rourke turned to struggle against him, he saw the woman Marine. She was clinging to the soldier’s back, her fingertips gouging into his eye sockets. “Grab onto something else!” Rourke commanded. She obeyed. Rourke’s left elbow moved, impacting the hapless Russian in the face, the man’s body falling away to the road surface.
Lisa clung to the Gullwing’s roof with both hands now. On the opposite side, the driver’s side, one of the three Russians who clung there was trying to level a Sty-20 pistol, Rourke ducking as it fired. Clinging to the Gullwing with one hand only now, Rourke’s battered right hand found the butt of the little Detonics pistol beneath his left arm pit, ripping it from the leather, his thumb working back the hammer. As the man with the Sty-20 readied to fire, Rourke fired first, the top of the Russian’s forehead suddenly a mass of ugly red; and then the Russian was gone. One of the other two men jumped, landing just behind the Gullwing, to his knees. The AKM-96 that had been slung across the soldier’s back came up, firing. Glass or whatever it was that formed the rear windshield of the Gullwing shattered, the third Russian soldier taking part of his comrade’s burst, falling away. Rourke shouted to Lisa, “Duck!” He stabbed the little Detonics toward the man, bracing it on the roof. As he readied to fire, the soldier with the assault rifle was struck, another Gullwing crashing against him.
“Doctor!” Rourke looked toward the woman, hands grabbing for her from inside the Gullwing, Rourke’s right hand punching downward with the Detonics. As he swung back and out, he could see inside the Gullwing. A half-dozen armed men and the driver. This was no surprise. Rourke opened fire through the window opening, killing the man reaching for the woman Marine with a single shot into the throat, the man’s eyes going wide open as his body snapped back. Inside the Gullwing, an AKM-96
opened up and there were screams, the glass of the front windshield exploding outward.
Rourke emptied his little pistol into the Gullwing, Lisa beside him, hanging on one-handed as well, the muzzle of her liberated AKM-96 stabbing through the shot-out glass near her, firing short bursts into the vehicle. The Gullwing was swerving erratically now, sideswiping other vehicles in the roadway, Rourke changing handholds and grabbing Lisa, pulling them both tight against the Gullwing now, the passenger vehicle just missing an armored personnel carrier by inches. The driver was still alive—Rourke could see him. The pistol Rourke had shoved into his belt was empty. But the second one under his right armpit wasn’t. Rourke drew it with his left hand, thumbed back the hammer and fired through the open side window, the Gullwing driver’s right temple dotted red, the head snapping away, impacting the raised glass on the driver’s side with a slapping sound, blood smeared there as the head slid away.
Rourke shouted to Lisa. “Get that door handle beside you! Quick!”
She had it, the Gullwing rising, the driverless vehicle accelerating now, heading straight for the rear end of an APC dead ahead of them. Rourke looked back and Lisa was gone and for a moment he thought—the Gullwing was slowing. He heard the woman Marine shouting, “I made it!” She had slid through the opening. Being small could be an advantage.
The Gullwing doors were almost completely open now and Rourke swung inside, bodies of dead Russians littering the seats and floor. “Turn us around! We’re going the wrong way!”
“Yes, sir!” Rourke nearly lost his balance as the Gullwing, the doors still closing, U-turned in the middle of the street, sideswiping another Gullwing. Gunfire was coming toward them now, assault rifles, bullets pinging off the bodywork. Another window shattered.
Rourke grabbed up an AKM-96 from the hands of a dead Marine Snetznas noncom and rammed the rmiw.le
through the shot-out rear windshield. He crouched in the seat, ready. A burst of automatic weapons fire. Rourke pegged the source. The open top hatch of the APC they had nearly crashed into. Rourke fired back. “Step on it, huh?”
“These things don’t ha
ve any guts, doctor.”
“Pretend they do—put it to the floor and drive, lady!”
He fired out the AKM-96, the APC slowing, the top hatch closing. He wanted one of those. “Think this thing would keep rolling if we knocked the doors off, Lisa?”
“Knock the doors off?”
“Hit the door controls—do it!” Hurriedly, Rourke began to relieve the dead Marine Spetznas personnel of their weapons. Two more AKM-96s, six Sty-20 pistols. But most importantly, spare magazines for the AKM-96s. He stuffed as many of these as he could into the magazine carrier beside his musette bag, then took a second magazine carrier from one of the dead men and began filling it for Lisa.
He looked over her shoulder as he knelt behind the driver’s seat. “Those two APCs with the third one behind them—the one with the hatch open?”
“You’re not—ohh, my God.”
“I’m glad to see religion has survived with your culture. Now, thread the needle right between those first two. If the doors go, they go. We need to be able to clear out of this fast. Got any idea how many guys they have inside one of those APCs?”
“Too many, I bet, doctor.”
Rourke felt himself smile.
She was threading the needle. “Take your right hand off the wheel for a second,” he ordered, crouched beside her now. When she did it, he slipped the shoulder strap for the magazine carrier over her hand, along her arm, and over her head. “Just a little something for you. Many happy returns,” Rourke told her, eyeing the two APCs. “Close your eyes when we hit and step hard on the gas,” Rourke told her. Almost—now, and Rourke’s left arm passed across her back, sheltering the woman Marine as
best he could with his own body, his right arm going up to protect his face.
The open Gullwing doors were being torn away. He could feel it in the vibration of the vehicle, hear it in the sound of metal or something like it against something even harder. And he could smell smoke. As the doors went, Rourke opened his eyes, shards of the glass-like substance all around them. Lisa was screaming. “Are we out of it?”
“Step on it—right for that third APC, then cut left and just do what I do.” The Gullwing was on fire somewhere and he couldn’t tell where. Rourke rammed fresh magazines up the butts of his pistols, lowered the hammers, holstered them, checking the trigger-guard breaks that held them in the leather especially carefully. A spare AKM-96—he slung it cross-body behind his back like the first one. He grabbed up two of the Sty-20s, no time to check them, just safing them as he rammed them under his belt.
They were almost to the third APC, Rourke shouting, “Cut the wheel left—now!”
The Gullwing swerved hard left, Rourke coming up out of his crouch, almost losing his balance, but holding it. He was beside the ragged aperture where the rightside Gullwing door had been, jagged metal or whatever it was all that remained. “Close as you can to that APC, Ma-nne!
The Gullwing swerved right and Rourke jumped, his hands reaching for one of the handholds along the side of the bodywork, his right hand finding one, his right arm almost wrenched from its socket. But he held, Lisa jumping out after him, Rourke’s left fist knotting into some of the rags she wore as she started to fall away, holding her for the extra instant it took while she found a handhold. She had one and he let go. He started for the top hatch, praying it was still open.
As Rourke reached the top of the APCs superstructure, the top hatch was closing. He threw himself toward it, both hands going to the exterior hatch opening, his body weight throwing back and awav from the direction in
which it was closing. “Lisa! Get some fire in there now!”
Assault-rifle fire, short bursts again and again, and suddenly the pressure on the hatch was gone, Rourke almost skidding back across the top surface. To his knees now, the APC bumping and jostling, over the curb, sideswiping a doorway, bouncing away. Rourke threw himself over the open hatch cover, ripping both pistols from the leather. “Ohh, for a grenade,” Rourke rasped, stabbing both pistols down the open hatchway and firing them out, screams from inside, the sounds of bullets impacting metal and whining away as richochets.
“Gimme room, doctor!” Lisa knelt beside him now, her AKM-96 pouring death into the APC below them. Rourke rolled onto his back. Bullet impacts clanged off the superstructure. They were being fired on from one of the other APCs, its top hatch open.
Rourke thrust both empty pistols into his belt beside the Sty-20s he’d taken along just in case. He swung one of the AKM-96s forward, rolling onto his stomach, firing a couple of fast bursts toward the source of enemy gunfire, the other APCs hatch closing.
He edged toward the fully open hatch lid of this APC, taking a deep breath. He stabbed the AKM-96 down the hatchway and fired a short burst, tucked back. There was no answering fire and Rourke swung his legs over the hatch and down. “Wish me luck, corporal.” He dropped, through the hatchway, his head banging against something, both hands going for the Sty-20s at his belt.
He fell to his knees. The interior of the APC was rigged for red, but in what light there was he could see nothing but dead bodies and unmanned control panels. “Get inside and close it and lock it after you!”
Rourke moved forward, nearly banging his head again, shoving a body from behind the wheel, the machine rolling, twisting under him, around him as he sank behind the controls. There was no steering wheel, only levers. And at the center of the control console was a video screen. Rourke started working the levers, the machine aimed dead on for another of the APCs, Rourke moving
the levers frantically now, sideswiping it, the APC stalled for an instant, then moving again. He found the accelerator with his foot. He found what he thought was the brake and tapped it gently. The APC slowed. He stomped the accelerator and the vehicle surged ahead. “You in, Lisa?”
“Right behind you, doctor,” he heard her answer.
“Hang on.” There was a curve ahead and Rourke punched aside a Gullwing on his right and went half over the curb and onto the walkway. He needed rearward visibility. “See if there’s some way of seeing what’s behind us.”
“Yes, sir.”
Rourke started slowing down, playing the levers until the APC started arcing. “Rear controls, doctor—there’s a video screen. Just a bunch of Gullwings and some APCs. I think this is the biggest they got that goes on land.”
Rourke only nodded, working the levers and making the arc now, slamming aside another Gullwing, one of the APCs suddenly looming up in his path. “How we doin’ behind us?”
“Just Gullwings.”
“You wouldn’t know how to find reverse, would you?” “No—what—ohh my—”
Rourke hit the lever that had been arcing him left all the way now, shouting, “Hold on to something—tight!” as he stomped the brake, the APC skidding, the rear end fishtailing right. Rourke stomped the gas again, feeling the impact as he saw it on the video screen, his APC sideswiping the oncoming vehicle. But his APC was still moving and in the right direction now, toward the military command center.
And suddenly he experienced a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach, rising into his throat. What if Natalia weren’t there? Or, what if she were—He shook the thoughts away and stepped on the accelerator hard.
Chapter Twenty-seven
The German aircraft which had brought her carried them now, Annie seated with Ma-Lin, the only two women, the only two who spoke English.
“This Mr. Rolvaag—you have great affection for him?”
Annie looked at the Chinese girl and told her, “He saved my life. Yes. I have great affection for him.”
“I see,” and the girl fell silent. She was about Annie’s own height, and their figures, as best Annie could tell, were not unalike either. Ma-Lin’s hair was almost as black as Natalia’s hair, and her eyes were a deep brown. She had high cheekbones like actresses Annie had seen in her father’s videotapes at the Retreat always had, like she had never had.
“Do you want me to tell you about it?” “It woul
d be rude of me to—”
“Not if I volunteer to tell you. It wouldn’t be rude then. There was this man. You know we’re fighting the same war we fought five centuries ago. Well, there was the Eden Project. It started out as a group of people from all of the democracies, men and women of all races. One hundred and twenty, in all. It was a doomsday project.”
“Doomsday?” Ma-Lin repeated, as if searching for meaning for the term.
“When the end of the world came. Like your city.”
Ma-Lin nodded.
“They left on the Night of the War, as we call it, when the missiles were already falling. And then the crew, the commander, all of them—they opened their sealed orders. Aboard the six space shuttles—reuseable spacecraft,” An
nie amplified. “But aboard the six space shuttles there were cryogenic chambers and there was a supply of cryogenic serum. The majority of the people aboard all six space craft were already in cryogenic sleep. They’d thought it was just another practice drill for deep space travel, all they were ever told it was supposed to be. But the sleep chambers they were in—” “Cryogenics?”
“Ageless sleep, I guess you could say,” Annie told her.
“Like your famous father and yourself and the others.”
“Yes—like my famous father,” Annie agreed.
“I understand,” Ma-Lin said softly.
“So,” Annie told her. “The sleep chambers were already programmed, just like computers, to awaken the crew automatically in a little under five hundred years. I’m surprised nobody went insane when they realized what was happening. Are you one of the Chinese Christians?”
“Yes. I am Christian,” Ma-Lin affirmed.
“Then you know the story of Noah and his Ark. It was like that. One hundred and twenty nearly perfect people with a vast library of the earth’s knowledge and principal species of use to mankind cryogenically frozen as embryos, to be revived and allowed to develop. Everything they needed to start a new world. And five centuries later, they returned.
“But the old world was still around,” Annie whispered. “Karamatsov—the Soviet KGB commander. He had wanted to rule the world. He had worked to bring about World War III. A lot of people—good people—a lot of Russians and Americans and everybody else had died because of him, and he was still around. He had his army and his helicopters waiting for the Eden Project when the shuttles started back into their landing sequences. My father and my husband—my husband almost died.
