by Ahern, Jerry
She felt her cheeks flush with embarrassment. “And I’m not usually the fainting type. It’s just that—I thought—”
“I understand you and Doctor Rourke have been close for quite some years, major. If you thought he was dead and now you know he isn’t, well, the reaction’s purely understandable. You up to travelling? I think we need to get out of here.”
Sam nodded. “That’s for sure.”
“Both of you—all of you.” She looked at the two officers and die twelve men, most of them clustered near her, some guarding the entrance to the detention cells. “I can never repay you.”
“That kiss was good enough for me.” Darkwood smiled. She felt herself blushing again. “How about you, Captain Aldridge?”
“Good enough for me, too, Captain.”
She sat up. “Easy, ma’am.” Sam—Aldridge, that’s what it was—warned her.
“I’m—ahh—fine, really.”
“I wasn’t sure what kind of person to expect. We don’t usually go around rescuing Soviet officers. And if you’re five centuries old, well I’ve just gotten a new insight into older women.”
“Please, commander—or should I say captain?”
“My rank’s commander, my position is Captain. Call me Jason, major. Makes it easier.”
“Jason—Sam. Please. I am Natalia.”
“All right, Natalia. I think we have to get going.”
He helped her to her feet. Then he handed her a pistol like the one she had seen him holding. She looked at the flat of the slide. “U.S. Government Model 2418 A2, Cal 9mm L.C.” It had an ambidextrous safety, an ambidextrous slide release, and balanced well. “How many rounds?”
“Thirty with that extension magazine, plus one in die chamber, 9mm Lancer Caseless. Maximum effective combat range seventy-five yards, if you’re good.”
“I’m good.” She smiled.
“If you’re that good, take these.” And he handed her a shoulder-slung black bag. It was a magazine case, and as she draped it cross body she could tell by feel there were six magazines in it. “Is there a pocket in that thing you’re wearing?”
“Yes.”
“Here—the standard magazine. Fifteen rounds.” Darkwood handed her a standard-length double-column magazine and she Docketed it.
“Are we going to get Michael or is there another team out?”
“Who’s Michael?” Aldridge asked her.
Her heart sank for a moment. “He’s John Rourke’s son. They have him prisoner aboard the submarine which just came in.”
She saw a worried look enter Jason Darkwood’s pretty eyes. “A little boy, huh?”
“He’s thirty years old.”
“Then how old is Rourke?” Sam Aldridge asked her. “He looks like he’s in his middle to late thirties.” “He is.”
“Then how can he have a thirty-year old son?” Darkwood asked.
“Trust me—there’s no time to explain.”
Darkwood looked at her. “All right, we try for the son. But we still have to get out of here.”
“The tunnel, Captain?” Aldridge asked.
Darkwood looked at him. “Gonna have to be.” He looked at Natalia. “Were they taking you with Rourke’s son?”
“Yes. I was supposed to be a peace offering to my husband. He’s the commander of the Soviet forces on the surface. He has a very powerful army and is trying to obtain nuclear capabilities. He’s an evil man. If this Soviet state allies with Marshal Karamatsov—”
“Your husband?”
“Yes,” she told Aldridge. “If there is an alliance, there will be a nuclear war again. I’m sure of it. And the atmosphere on the surface couldn’t take it, and I think it would mean the end of everything this time. For good.”
“Our friends under the domes have nuclear capabilities and have strong interests in conquering the surface, it appears—has appeared for some time,” Darkwood told her. “You might be right about that alliance.” He exhaled loudly. “You’re saying that without you as a gift to him— a peace offering—and without Rourke’s son, the alliance might go in the dumper for a little bit?”
“It would be impeded—yes.” She nodded. “And for
God’s sake …” There was an odd look in Darkwood’s eyes. “What did I say?”
“It just sounded odd for a Soviet officer to invoke God.”
“If it looks like things are going bad …” But she really didn’t know what to say.
“I get the idea.”
She wondered if he did.
“We’re leaving, major—stick close.” Darkwood called to Aldridge, who was already starting further back into the detention-cell block. “Sam—have your security stick about two minutes behind us and have ‘em pick up any weapons.”
“Will do—security team—you have the word?” “We have the word, sir,” a young voice sang back. Darkwood was already moving. Natalia fell in after him.
Chapter Fifty-three
John Rourke looked at the Rolex that was back on his left wrist, mentally making the adjustment to Mid-Wake time. It was five o’clock in the morning. He had risen an hour before, slept out with almost eight hours, restless to begin the day. He had showered, bandages replaced the previous evening, after Jacob Fellows had left, by waterproof spray-on material which protected the wound, yet was flexible enough for greater ease of movement and sufficiently porous to advance healing of the skin beneath. Biodegradable, it would eventually disappear of its own accord.
He felt good.
Ellen had been in the room by the time he had exited the shower, and had chided him as he had returned to the small bathroom to dress. It was too soon for him to be moving around so much. He had no business getting dressed in street clothes (he had asked for and received them the previous night), and where did he think he was going anyway?
As he left the bathroom, Ellen turned around from the window. “Don’t you ever sleep?”
“I told you. Some patients are special.”
“So are some nurses,” Rourke told her honestly. He was starting to pull the black-knit top over his head and when he raised his arms he had a surge of pain.
“What is it?” She was beside him.
He smiled. “Not my operations.” The forearm wound was nearlv healed, as was the head wound, he had
noticed. “Just a muscle. I’m a little stiff from inactivity. And I think I took kind of a beating when I fell off that balcony.”
“Got shot off, you mean. Here—you let me do that— nice and easy.”
She had adopted him, he decided. But he let her help get the shirt over his head and help him to ease his arms through the sleeves. As he pulled it down, she started buttoning the plaquet front. “All dressed up like some kind of damn commando—where do you think you’re going?
“If by six A.M. your time Mid-Wake hasn’t heard that my friend Major Tiemerovna is free, I’m going after her myself.”
“They just gonna give you a submarine?”
“Hopefully. Otherwise, I’ll have to take one. Relax—I bounce back quick and this twenty-fifth-century medicine is great. I was accessing some stuff off the bedside computer. You work miracles nowadays—I do feel like a witch doctor.”
“Well, it’s just stuff. I mean, a doctor’s a doctor. You’d pick up on it.”
He smiled at her. “Ill never be able to repay you.”
She turned away from him and walked back toward the windows. “Look—ahh—I know you’re married. I heard that. And I know about this Russian lady major.” And she turned around from the window very suddenly and came toward him. “But you can always use a friend, can’t
John Rourke walked toward her and folded her into his arms and she leaned her head against his chest. “Always, Ellen,” he told her… .
Michael Rourke’s wrists were blistered but, as he tugged at the nearly burned-through plastic cord, the cord finally snapped. He saw no one in the companionway outside the brig, already massaging his wrists despite the blisters to get full feeling
back into his fingers, hands, and
forearms. The cord could be turned into a garrote and, if he could steal a weapon, even one of those dart guns, he might have a chance. If his father and Natalia were alive, they could be aboard the submarine. If they weren’t aboard the submarine, they might be wherever it was headed—if it hadn’t gotten there already. There were possibilities.
And anyplace was better than here.
Chapter Fifty-four
Sebastian sat in the command chair of the Reagan. He consulted the digital timepiece inset in the armrest and looked away from it. The timepiece readout was most distressing. Doctor Margaret Barrow stood beside him. “Well? Are you or aren’t you, Sebastian?”
“Margaret—I have orders. Not only do I have orders, but the orders are indisputably correct. Allowing for the maximum amount of time for all facets of the Captain’s plan, allowing for additional delays that might never be foreseen, a return by six A.M. Mid-Wake time is certainly an appropriate deadline. We cannot rely on our sonar-drag array and the Pillars of Woe “themselves masking our presence here forever. Not only is it my responsibility to await the Captain’s return, but it is also my responsibility to provide for the safety and the lives of the rest of the crew—yours included. At the appointed time, I will follow orders and head for the open sea, and as soon as conditions of proximity permit, I will communicate with Admiral Rahn in order to request further instructions—if Commander Darkwood and his party have not returned. Some time still remains, may I remind you.
“Barely enough time for them to make the swim.” “Jason is quite resourceful, as is Captain Aldridge and T iontonant Stanhone. PerhaDS thev will avail themselves
of some other means of transportation.”
“Sure,” she snapped, he thought a bit sarcastically. “Maybe they’ll steal an Island Class Soviet sub!”
He hardly thought so… .
“Well have to steal it.” “An Island Class sub?”
“Sure—it’d look terrific over my mantelpiece anyway.” Darkwood smiled.
Aldridge didn’t smile. Darkwood shrugged. “Look,” and Darkwood studied the Russian woman’s eyes a moment—they were very pretty and unbelievably blue—and then he looked back toward the Island Class sub. “If we board that vessel, alarms are going to sound and in general all hell is going to break loose, right? We may have time to get aboard, but we won’t be able to get back off and into the water and swim out—without getting ourselves killed. And if there’s a general alarm, the sharks might roam free in the lagoon too. We’d never make it out alive. And we have no idea what condition this Michael Rourke is in, and we might also sustain some casualties ourselves. That’d slow us down even more. But if we take command of the sub, we can shoot our way out.” He looked at the Steinmetz on his left wrist. “And the most telling argument of all, gentlemen, major, is that we are flat out of time. We could never make the swim-out to the Reagan in time to intercept it before Sebastian follows his orders and heads for the open sea. But even if they send an Island Classer against us, we’ll still have a little jump on them and can link up with the Reagan and fight our way home if we have to. Plus, it might be nice to see just what’s inside the tubes on that missile deck. Agreed?”
No one said they disagreed.
“Good—Sam, you go take that submarine for me.” Darkwood grinned.
Aldridge started to speak, then shook his head, trying to hold back lamrhtp.r.
“All right—here’s what to do,” Darkwood said seriously. “Tom—you and the two guys already in the water and two more men swim up to the Island Class and come aboard from her starboard side by the hydrofoil-launch berth. Use the PV-26s unless you feel more force is the only way to achieve the objective. I’d rather we avoid making any more noise than we have to.”
Stanhope nodded.
Darkwood weighed his pistol in his fist. “Those people on board should be expecting our charming companion to arrive sometime shortly. So what if she arrives a little early, huh?” And Darkwood smiled… .
Colonel Harley Wilkes, the ordnance expert, arrived in uniform this time. By Rourke’s Rolex, it was exactly five-thirty A.M. here, meaning that in a half hour the immediate disposition of Natalia’s fate would be known— either this Jason Darkwood had succeeded or failed.
“Thank you for coming at such an ungodly hour, colonel.”
“It’s not bad if you’ve been up all night, indulging a whim, doctor.”
Rourke looked the old Marine in the eye. “I apologize for the inconvenience.”
“You should sir—and the apology is accepted. I believe I have your special ammunition, although for the life of me I cannot see why our own pistols wouldn’t suffice for your needs.”
“As a soldier, colonel, you should know that a man fights better with a familiar weapon.”
“Very true.” The ordnance man nodded. “True.” He opened a small box-like attache case, took from it a red plastic ammunition box, and handed it to John Rourke. Rourke opened it. There was no headstamp and the brass was a little off color. “There is your ammunition, sir.”
“Looks good—how does it shoot?”
“We all but perfectly matched the velocity figures you
ffflup lie. Th*»n>‘fl IACC nrtwdAr rtAASlllfiA niir rwvun^Are aitt
mixed differently and our priming compound is more powerful. Chamber pressures seem to be quite reasonable and recoil is not as pronounced as I would have thought this old caliber should be.” “Can I try them out?”
“There’s a rifle and pistol range in the academic complex across the way. I anticipated your request. I’ll call for a nurse and a wheelchair.”
John Rourke stood up. “That won’t be necessary, thank you, colonel.” He judged another twenty-five minutes remained until the moment of truth… .
The walk actually felt good, Rourke’s perception of his overall fitness level pleasantly surprising to him. The air here, despite the fact that it was canned, felt fresh against the skin, and he almost thought that he detected a breeze, although such would have been all but impossible. The black BDU pants and the black knit shirt were comfortably cut, the •Mid-Wake-issue combat boots with their deck-style soles made for almost effortless wear, and at his waist he had a brass-buckled web belt, identical for all intents and purposes to the military-issue belts of five centuries ago.
The educational complex was imposing, and as they entered it Rourke began a dialogue with Colonel Wilkes. There were grammar schools and high schools servicing each of the primary living areas (of which there were two separate from this) in addition to the educational complex which they were now entering. In this complex were housed special elementary and secondary schools for the gifted, as well as the university and the Naval Academy. The Naval Academy was the one and only military academy and turned out naval and Marine officers. The closest thing to an Army was the Marine Corps (and there were also security police, for which no degree but considerable specialized training was required). To have had an Army when there was no land on which they
rchlllrl ficrtlt iA7Tnlf KflW Kwin as ailKr aa Kairintv an A t»”
Force when there was no air through which they could fly, Rourke realized.
Here also were Mid-Wake’s specialty schools for doctors of medicine and dentistry, the hospital (Mid-Wake’s only medical facility aside from smaller clinics) conveniently located to mesh with the integrated program of the teaching facilities. Nursing was as respected a profession as ever, Wilkes confirmed when Rourke questioned him, the requirements in nurses’ training nearly as stringent as those for medical doctors.
Here as well were the research centers which provided much of the scientific base for Mid-Wake’s technology.
The range was one of several located throughout Mid-Wake, civilian marksmanship encouraged and each man and woman, in the style of the twentieth-century and pre-twentieth-century Swiss, a citizen soldier and required to qualify biannually. The private ownership of firearms beyond the issue military weap
ons was encouraged, and most businesses and social organizations had rifle or pistol teams. Crime was almost non-existent, and Rourke was reminded of the often quoted remark of the twentieth-century literary futurist Robert A. Heinlein that an “armed society is a polite society.”
The range facility was extraordinary in its completeness and integration of computerization. Targets were controlled by computer and could be used in preprogrammed drills or individually programmed. Hits were immediately posted on a computer screen near the firing positions, as well as velocity at the muzzle and at point of impact. Specialized programs were available to measure reaction time, the effects of perceived recoil, etc.
Rourke and Colonel Wilkes were met by a female captain, Wilkes’s chief assistant in the ordnance section. She had his pistols and when she gave them to him, John Rourke immediately field-stripped the twin Detonics .45s and inspected them. They had been indeed well cared for. The skillful combination of subtly different stainless steel alloys used in their production had not only withstood the test of five centuries, but the test of salt water. He was
told by the woman, a Captain Harriet Bowles, that there had been a few minor rust spots found on the one of the two pistols inscribed with his name, along the slide top strap, which was slightly matted to reduce glare. These had been quickly removed and, despite their saltwater dousing and their age, the guns looked—she sounded amazed—brand new.
Rourke was not amazed and had expected no less.
With mild trepidation, Rourke loaded four of the six-round magazines and fed them up the wells of the two reassembled pistols. Dry feeding was faultless. He felt encouraged. Harriet Bowles programmed the computer to individual combat.
At a flashing-light cue, the computer-controlled electronic targets rotated into position and Rourke, a Detonics .45 in each hand, engaged the various targets, the program telling him that he had 1.5 seconds to reload. He had one pistol reloaded and firing and reloaded the second as he continued the string.
He looked at the computer screen. All twelve shots from the first strings and eleven out of the subsequent twelve shots had registered in the K-zone. The twelfth shot had registered just beneath the K-zone and, on a human target, would have been a kill.
