by Ahern, Jerry
“Why?” Rourke asked him.
“There are many who would free Deiter Bern, Herr Doctor. But none can. Because Deiter Bern is confined in a most special way. He is not behind bars. There is a shackle about his neck, electrical current running through the shackle and through the chain which connects the shackle into the wall. If the electrical current is disrupted in any way, an electronic impulse will be emitted, and the impulse will trigger a capsule which is attached to an electrode, the electrode disintegrating the capsule. Inside the capsule is a synthetic form closely approximating the ancient drug known, I believe, as curare. Once the synthetic curare is released, Deiter Bern will be dead in under four seconds. There is no antidote with which he can be previously injected. The capsule is located in the carotid artery near what my own medical specialist tells me is something called a venus fistula—you know of this?”
Rourke nodded. “You speak English well.”
“Tne officer corps has stringent language requirements. But to further diminish any chances of Deiter Bern being freed, the entrance to and from the section in which he is confined—the only means in or out and my best commandoes have confirmed this—constantly broadcasts an identi
cal electronic impulse. Should the current at the entryway be disrupted, an effect occurs similar to that of the claymore-type mines used prior to the warfare between the superpowers. Thousands of tiny needles the size of slivers which have been positioned at strategic locations throughout the walls and ceiling and floor of the room are released, traveling at such high velocity and of such infinitesimal size that they will penetrate up to a six-millimeter thickness of armor plate.”
“Quarter inch,” Rourke murmured.
“Each needle is tipped with the synthetic derivative of this ancient drug curare. Three penetrations of the needles would be adequate to kill an average-sized man in under thirty-eight seconds.”
Rourke sat back on the rock, setting the rifle down—his hands, the bandages blood-soaked, pained him. “So, let me ask you. The shackle about Deiter Bern’s neck—is it such that it can be slipped away from the location of the implant?”
“This is my doctor’s opinion—yes,” the standartenfuehrer nodded.
“So then the only means to free Herr Bern is to penetrate The Complex, reach the detention area and somehow perform the surgery right there on the spot while he is presumably still under guard and shackled to the wall, without disrupting the current.”
“That is the only way. I understand that once men believed in a being known as God—”
“Some men still do,” Rourke answered unbidden.
“That prayers were offered to this God. It is as if you came in answer to such a prayer. I observed the great daring you displayed there at the Soviet encampment, and later in rescuing the man from the burning helicopter.”
“Paul Rubenstein is my friend. At the encampment, my wife, my daughter, a woman whom I have very much feeling for, a girl who carries my son’s child, two
friends—”
“This is a man who seeks liberty, Herr Doctor—someone with whom I should think you might have a great deal in common. My legions pursue the Communists regardless of your decision, and I personally have no desire to make war upon you. But if Deiter Bern is executed, the leader’s armies will sweep over the earth. Such weapons as you might possess will be useless against us.”
Rourke laughed. “I know—don’t tell me. We’ll be powerless to resist.”
“Yes, but I suspect you might resist at any event. If the Communists have a substantial force and are well entrenched, two corps will not be sufficient to undo them. It is your choice—to aid a potential ally for peace, or to combat and eventually succumb to what I feel is an old enemy and what I fear would be a new one. And then to contemplate with your last breath that these two enemies will fight each other to the death, perhaps until this time all life on this planet is indeed destroyed forever.”
John Rourke lit another cigar, weighing the battered Zippo wind lighter in his hand. “I can’t speak, Herr Standartenfuehrer, for the Eden Project—”
“This Eden Project—”
“The Eden Project—you guessed correctly—was a doomsday mission. That was the code name given it. But I can’t speak for the men and women of the Eden Project. But for myself, Herr Standartenfuehrer—”
“This SS rank—I am a colonel, and proud of that. I am not SS—a party member. I have read the forbidden books.”
“No book should be forbidden except by individual taste or preference.”
“You remind me, Herr Doctor, of some of the men whom I have read of in these forbidden books.”
“Colonel, why don’t you tell those two friends of yours— the one with the assault rifle about ten degrees north
northwest and the other one with that thing that looks like a LAWS rocket—why don’t you tell them to stand down? You keep your pistol—principally because I’d like to see it. And go for a walk with me.”
“It, like your rifle, my pistol is an antique, a Walther P-38. There is a man in The Complex who makes the ammunition. It—the ammunition of those days—is very expensive. But this Walther was carried by my father and his father and his father before him and for generations.”
“It should be quite a pistol.” John Rourke smiled. And he gestured to the twin stainless Detonics pistols he wore. “These are five centuries old themselves—but I wouldn’t call them antiques just yet,” and Rourke slid off the broad flat rock where he had again seated himself—it was damp there anyway. His back was stiff from the weight of Paul Rubenstein when he had gotten Paul out of the burning helicopter. And he was generally sore and stiff from the exertion. It hadn’t been daring, as the German-accented colonel had called it, Rourke thought. It had been necessary. John Rourke extended his right hand. “The name’s John, Colonel.”
The colonel took his hand—the grip was firm, like a man’s grip should be, Rourke thought absently. “I am Wolfgang—I am called Wolf by some.”
“Wolf,” Rourke said quietly.
They released each others hands.
Rourke smiled at the man. “Don’t forget your pals— they could get awfully lonely out here while we’re talking. Or, if some of Dodd’s security people—”
“Dodd?”
“The Commander of Eden One and the overall Eden Project commander. But if some of his people should decide to stray out past the perimeter, well, somebody could get awfully dead too, I suppose.”
Wolfgang Mann’s face beamed with a smile as he called out in German, “Wait for me at the edge of our perime
ter—hurry!”
“P-38’s a good gun, you know,” Rourke began, walking beside the colonel toward the perimeter of the encampment which had clustered around the two returned Eden Project shuttles. “There’s this woman with me—you’ll have to meet her. But we were in this place recently—in fact it was called The Place. And of all the guns stored there, she picked only one additional handgun. A P-38. I was never much of a 9mm man myself—but somewhere back at The Retreat—that’s where I live, you know—well, I’ve got a Walther P-38K. Hell of a good gun, despite the caliber. And in the old days, of course, before The Night of The War, sometimes when I was in the field I couldn’t always get a .45. You know how that can be,” Rourke said quietly. “And so a couple of times, I used a Walther P-5—ever see one of those?”
“No.”
“Shame,” Rourke murmured. “I bet you would’ve liked it.” He stopped walking a moment. “Oh, I’m not trying to be presumptuous. But someone who speaks of freedom and peace—well. Don’t go calling yourself a Nazi anymore. You’re a German.”
Wolfgang Mann didn’t answer.
Chapter Two
The helicopter had barely landed. Despite his injurec left arm and the field dressing which was soaked througl with blood, Karamatsov jumped through the fuselage door way to the sandy west Texas earth. He ducked his head but too late, the wind of the rotor blades snatching awa his cap. He
dismissed the event, walking on. One of hi subordinates would pick up the cap and bring it to him Antonovitch was beside him in an instant, the cap in hi hands—Karamatsov did not take back the cap immed ately, shouting over the whir of the rotor blades an squinting against the storm of sand which they generate and blew at him, “There is no time to lose, Nicolai. Yo will carry out the following orders.”
“Yes, Comrade Colonel Karamatsov!”
Vladmir Karamatsov altered his course slightly, towar the prefabricated shelter which had been erected as h headquarters. Aircraft landed along the runway his persoi nel had nearly completed carving from the sand in h absence—they would carry men, supplies, synthetic fue “I am abandoning plans for the destruction of the Ede Project at this time. I have never told you,” Karamatsc said, slightly breathless—it was the change in humidi which affected his breathing, he knew. Part of his left lur had been cut away. He began again. “I have never to; you, Nicolai—but I have an agent among the complemei
of the Eden Project—”
“An agent, Comrade Colonel?”
“Yes—placed there five centuries ago in the event that the Eden Project proved to be the insurance against doomsday which I had always suspected. And I was right of course.”
“But, Comrade Colonel?” Maj. Nicolai Antonovitch began. “When you ordered the destruction of the six Eden Project shuttle craft, your agent was aboard—”
“My agent knew the risks. But we shall see what my agent is able to precipitate that may hasten the Eden Project’s destruction. I wish activities of the Eden Project monitored by high-altitude observation craft—see that this is begun, and quickly. Meanwhile—” and he took his cap from Antonovitch, not bothering to replace it on his head, but carrying it in his left hand, slapping it against his left thigh as he walked toward the prefabricated shelter. “Meanwhile, you must see to it that Major Krakovski and his units which prosecute our efforts against the Wild Tribes of Europe are recalled immediately. Immediately. I wish for Krakovski and his forces to join me at once. We mount an attack force against these Nazis which have so brazenly interfered with our strategies.”
“It is the Nazis, Comrade Colonel, who are the source—”
“The source of the high-level technology our observation aircraft have uncovered in South America. You, Antonovitch, you will take a small force and the necessary equipment.”
“Yes, Comrade Colonel?”
Karamatsov stopped now, before the entrance to the prefabricated shelter. Men and equipment moved everywhere about him—more and more of the supplies he required were being flown in from The Underground City in the Ural Mountains. “You will take your small force and gather what intelligence you can without being detected
concerning the Nazi headquarters base—its makeup, its defensive capabilities. You will ascertain as best as possible the size and composition of their reserve forces. As soon as Krakovski’s forces arrive, if not sooner, I shall personally lead the bulk of our force against the Nazi stronghold. Once we have destroyed their headquarters and source of supply, it shall be easy enough to destroy their expeditionary force.” “But …”
Karamatsov stopped—he had begun to walk inside the hut. He waited.
“But, Comrade Colonel—what of—”
“Rourke?” Karamatsov whispered. “What of Rourke and his family and my wife?” And Karamatsov allowed himself to laugh. “I have in the most likely event caused the death of his son. The Jew, Rubenstein—he is most assuredly dead. The Nazis which attacked us are at Rourke’s doorstep. I have hurt Rourke—now let him suffer for a time. In a way, things have worked for the best. Rather than a quick and merciful death, he and my wife can now contemplate the inevitability of their fate. It would be impossible for the Eden Project to stand against us. But let him plan—and when we have dealt with this matter of the Nazi homeground, then destroyed what remains of the Nazi force, we shall very slowly close our grip on the Eden Project—very slowly. We shall destroy him, destroy her—destroy them all. And then Krakovski shall return to what used to be Germany and France and Italy—he shall destroy the wild tribes or subjugate them for use as our slaves.” Karamatsov smiled. He clapped Antonovitch on the right shoulder with his right hand. “And I shall be master of this earth—or there will be no more earth.” He left Maj. Nicolai Antonovitch—knowing the look in the man’s eyes without having to see it.
Chapter Three
Ivan Krakovski watched the shadow of his machine skim across the broken ground—it was like a shadow of death, he thought. He tried to find poetry in all things because poetry had always been his first love. He knew, for example, that had he been born in a different era, he would have been one of the great Russian poets. He still indulged in verse and planned that someday after he had aided the Hero Colonel, Vladmir Karamatsov, in his conquest of the reborn earth, he would write the definitive history of the period and sing the sOngs of triumph in verse. And that someday in the distant future men and women would praise not only his heroic efforts on behalf of the establishment of communism as the world order, but praise also the heroic words with which he immortalized the efforts of his leader.
The shadow of death. It seemed almost to lovingly idle with the things which ran before it. The things were not men, were not women. He composed this in his mind, how he would tell it. The Wild Tribes of Europe had long ago ceased to lay claim to humanity. The French attempt at surviving the global holocaust had failed—and dismally so. They had been ill-prepared, unprepared to endure centuries beneath the ground. They had emerged too soon. Radiation had taken its toll. There were still, indeed, massive hot spots on the planet, where the background radiation was of such high level that the land would not be
habitable for perhaps a hundred thousand years, perhaps twice that time. But the hapless French had ventured forth before the atmosphere had restored itself to a point where plants would grow again in any abundance. Starvation, likely cannibalism, the genetic mutations of radiation—yet thousands of them had survived. Nearly naked, their skin leathery tough, no language that could be discerned, they roamed the plains of Europe scavenging for what vegetable material could be found, huddled in caves from the cold by night, their meager, poorly designed fires barely able to warm them. The death rate among them was staggering, he knew. But yet they survived.
The shadow. It brushed at one of them and the thing—a woman only because she had dirty pendulous breasts and an infant clung to the left one—gazed skyward.
The shadow of death. Krakovski prided himself on being with his men, doing what they did, enduring their hardships, eating the same food as they. And now as he spoke into the teardrop-shaped microphone before his lips—“Fire at will”—he did the same.
He lightly touched the triggering mechanism on the throttle, activating the machine guns. And the woman and the child, neither of whom were human any more, collapsed beneath the shadow of his machine, a ragged stitch of brilliant red blood bursting across the two bodies that at her breast were one.
The shadow of death.
Krakovski wrote in his diary—of his emotions, of his appreciation of what had transpired. “As many as one hundred of the members of what is perhaps the largest of the wild tribes were liquidated this day by my own hand and the hands of my corps of loyal pilots. These one hundred were herded away from the bulk of the group which we encountered on a routine search-and-destroy
mission in southern France. The remainder of the group— some forty-eight men and adult women—were less deformed and or physically ill than their fellows and were taken under our care to be employed usefully in whatever capacity will most advance the cause of global communism.” The forty-eight men and women were currently penned inside the portable titanium alloy fences which reminded him of the corral structures he had seen in videotapes of the American western movies from five centuries earlier. The fence was, of course, electrified. He considered this as he closed his diary and stood, walking to the flap of his tent and opening it, looking out t
hrough the rain and watching them, the forty-eight. Sparks flew as raindrops would touch the fence rails, the forty-eight huddled together like an impossibly large litter of puppies or kittens against some invisible mother.
He thought of the Hero Colonel, Vladmir Karamatsov. Krakovski was personally disgusted that Karatmatsov used women from among the Wild Tribes for sexual purposes. Because they were not really women, only roughly in the shape of women. Morally, it was like having sex with an animal. But perhaps it repulsed Krakovski as well, because the Hero Colonel would beat the Wild Tribe women to death afterward—or during. Ivan Krakovski was not quite certain which, nor did he care to find out.
“Comrade Major!”
He looked again through the tent flap. Running across the mud flats from the communications tent he could see Brasniewicz, a yellow message blotter in his upraised, waving right hand.
“Comrade Major!”
Krakovski stood his ground beneath the protection of his tent—Brasniewcz was wet already and wasn’t even an officer. Krakovski waved the man forward and then turned away from the rain and the forty-eight huddled bodies exposed to it within the confines of the electrified fence. He
walked across the floor of his tent and sat down at his portable writing desk.
After a moment, he heard Brasniewicz at the tent flap. “Comrade Major?”
“Come in, comrade,” Krakovski called out.
Brasniewicz appeared, his hatless head dripping water, his uniform soaked.
“You look most unmilitary, man—you should be reduced in rank for your appearance were there any rank lower than that which you already possess.”
“Yes, Comrade Major. I apologize, Comrade Major.”
“You have a message on that pad. What is it—read it.”
