Survivalist - 12 - The Rebellion (13 page)

And then she turned to Paul, walking to the opposite side of the tent. He smiled at her and she kissed the origin of the smile. “And how are you today?”

“Dr. Munchen came by—says I can walk if I take it easy. Gave me another zap of that spray, and God does it itch.”

Annie laughed, finding a purchase at the edge of the cot, sitting there.

“You look like you’re ready for winter,” he told her.

“You stick your head outside this tent, Paul, and then you’ll see why I look like I’m ready for winter. And that’s exactly what you’re going to do. You can walk, but you have to take it easy. Fine—you can walk over to Eden One with me. Plenty of nice soft rocks along the way you can sit on to rest. And then you can help me fool with that damned computer. I was working on it until midnight last night. Everybody’s perfect—we’ve gotta figure out some different questions to ask the machine.”

“The secret of life,” Paul quipped.

She kissed his cheek. “We already know that.” She stood up. “Now, do I help you get dressed Paul or do Madison and I wait outside?”

“I can dress myself—but I don’t think I bend right yet—”

“Yes, I’ll get your boots—men seem so obsessed with having women help them on and off with shoes and boots. You just like seeing us on our knees.”

She grabbed Madison by the hand and propelled the younger woman through the tent flap ahead of her.

At Annie’s request, Captain Dodd had started putting a guard on the hatchway of Eden One. She had told him, “If there is something in the computer that can help us to find our murderer, then the murderer might try murdering the computer.”

Paul Rubenstein’s body tensed against her as they started for the entrance of Eden One—the man standing guard (but actually sitting) was Forrest Blackburn, the one who had hit Paul over the head with the wrench, whom Annie had subsequently shot in the thigh. Dodd still had his no-guns policy in effect and she personally thought that was rather stupid—a man on guard at a sensitive site with no weapon to back up his words.

But Captain Dodd hadn’t asked her advice.

“That son of a bitch,” Paul Rubenstein murmured beside her.

“Hey, when you’re all well—I’ll call him a—what you called him—and then when he goes to punch me out, you can punch him out instead and look all gallant and everything. But right now, you’re in no shape for a fight,” she cautioned.

“He’s still a son of a bitch,” Paul hissed through his teeth.

They were nearly within casual earshot of Forrest Blackburn, the wind whipping up cold from the northwest, her skirt billowing with it, her hair blown in front of her face and partially obscuring her vision like a veil. She brushed

it back, smiling at Forrest Blackburn. “How are you, Mr. Blackburn?”

“Miss Rourke. Mr. Rubenstein. Leg’s stiff when I walk, but no big deal.”

Paul stopped walking—she couldn’t tell if it were because he was tired or because he was planning something. “Blackburn, once I’m back in shape—you and I have something to settle.”

“I’m sorry you feel that way Mr. Rubenstein—it wasn’t anything personal the other night.”

“Bullshit.”

Annie said nothing.

Paul started ahead, Annie still clinging to his arm, the wind fiercer now somehow in its intensity.

Blackburn stepped in front of them at the base of the stairway leading up into Eden One. “I understand Captain Dodd is allowing you to use the onboard computer, Miss Rourke. But there’s nothing in my orders about allowing Mr. Rubenstein aboard. I’m afraid he’ll have to stay here.”

Paul started to speak, but Annie cut him off. “Look, smartass. You can waste everybody’s time by making me hunt up Captain Dodd or you can let both of us in right now. There’s a killer loose around here, regardless of what you and some of the others might think. And if we don’t find him or her, then when Karamatsov and his people come back, every one of us is going to have to spend more time looking behind us than ahead of us. Now, do I get Dodd to pull your plug, or do you let us both inside?”

She was gambling that Blackburn was trying to provoke Paul and at the same time just trying to be obstinate.

She waited.

She could have straight-armed him in the Adam’s apple—her father had taught her how. But that would only have provoked things still more and caused relationships between the Rourke family (she lumped Paul, Natalia and Madison, even Kurinami and Halverson, under this classi

fication mentally) and the Eden Project people to further deteriorate.

She waited still.

After a long moment, Blackburn stepped aside. He smiled. “I used to be pretty good with computers myself, Miss Rourke. And I have some training on this one in particular. I could help. I can guard this thing just as well from the inside as the outside. I’m sorry—I was only trying to do my job. The other night and now.”

And Forrest Blackburn stuck out his right hand.

Her eyes flickered to Paul’s eyes—she watched something that looked like a momentary flash of disgust pass across his eyes, and then he took Blackburn’s hand.

Annie let out her breath in a long sigh. “I’m freezing out here, guys.”

Blackburn laughed. “Both of you—go ahead, please,” and he even reached out to help Paul start up the steps. Paul had only rested twice and Annie herself was worried that he might be overdoing things.

She walked ahead of Paul, waiting just inside the bulkhead, taking his arm and leading him to the cockpit seat, helping him into the chair where Captain Dodd would have sat.

He closed his eyes—weariness, she surmised. But he opened them and smiled. “I’m really not an old man—I just feel like one.” He grinned.

She kissed his forehead, her hands lingering against his face and neck.

She turned around to look at Forrest Blackburn. “Now, just what are you trying to find out—and maybe I can help. Like I said, I’m pretty good with computers.”

Annie looked at Paul—Paul nodded.

Annie began, “We’re trying to find whoever has the most perfect dossier of any of the personnel aboard Eden One or Eden Two—so far everybody looks perfect, just from scanning their files.”

“Do I look perfect, too?” Blackburn asked her, smiling.

“Yes. But no more perfect than anyone else.”

“So your theory is that if you find the one with the most spotless background, it’s obviously the Russian agent you believe is among us.”

“That’s right,” Paul answered for her wearily. “So, if you believe we’re wrong and Natalia is the killer, the best way to prove your point is to help us.”

Annie looked at Paul—he was smiling.

Forrest Blackburn told them, “Well, I think I can ask the computer to sort through the personnel data files itself, and then determine from those, maybe in ways more subtle and logical than we could, who the killer is—who’s the most perfect.”

He started across the cabin to the seat Annie would normally have taken, then sat down. “I mean—if you guys don’t think I’m interfering,” Blackburn added, looking first up at, her and then across to Paul.

“It can’t hurt,” Paul nodded.

“Fine—try it,” she said.

Three hours had passed—she wondered just how long Blackburn’s tour of guard duty was supposed to be. Blackburn was ^programming the cataloguing of the personnel files—and it seemed to be taking too long a time, she thought.

She sat perched on the armrest of Paul’s chair, just about to make some mention of the time factor, but as she was about to open her mouth, she heard gunfire.

“What the hell?”

She glanced at Blackburn, who had spoken, then to Paul. Blackburn was up, racing to the fuselage door, Annie behind him.

More gunfire now, and the sounds of small explosions. Machine guns, she guessed, and the lighter sounds of

assault rifles.

Annie looked skyward, over Forrest Blackburn’s massive shoulders—he was a tall man, darkly good looking and well muscled it seemed. “Nazis,” she whispered.

Blackburn turned to face her. “Get back.”

Annie drew back inside the meager protection of Eden One. The shuttle crafts themselves from her brief view did not seem to be the object of the attack—but a half dozen helicopters, some men on foot, they were attacking, it seemed, the main portion of the camp.

“What the hell’s goin’ on?” Paul began, starting to rise.

“It must be the rest of the Nazis—with Colonel Mann gone, they must have found out why he’s gone and they’re attacking.”

“Gotta get out there,” Paul told her.

She started toward him, to try to keep him from getting up. But she heard Forrest Blackburn’s voice behind her and turned.

In his right hand he held a pistol—it was Paul’s battered Browning High Power. “I oughta thank those guys.” Blackburn smiled.

“What the—”

“Shut up, Rubenstein. The two of you—stay nice and still. No sense wasting energy with this computer. I can give you the information you need.”

“You,” Annie whispered.

“See, I don’t know if the computer would show me up as the most perfect background or not. But it might show that I knew Mona Stankiewicz. And it’d show that I went to college in West Germany. So the two of you might put two and two together and figure that while I was in West Germany, I got involved with the East Germans. Which I did. And that got me involved with the KGB. Which I did. But this—this is just perfect. With what I did to the computer’s personnel files these last couple of hours, nobody‘11 be able to really figure out anything. And if they

do, it’ll be too late. See, confusion is always the best ally. Your gun for example, Rubenstein. It’s a 9mm Parabel-lum. Some of the Germans, I noticed—some of the officers—they carry 9mms, maybe sentimental about the good old days five hundred years ago, huh, when they were killing Jews.” “You mother—”

“Shut up, Rubenstein. Initially Dodd and the others‘11 figure you and Miss Rourke were killed by the Germans. By the time anyone finds your bodies out there dead from fighting beside them, I’ll be long gone to the other end of the camp.”

“To report to that bastard Karamatsov,” Paul snapped.

“No, not really. I didn’t kill Mona for that—just to keep my identiy from being discovered. She was gonna fink on me. She didn’t care that she’d get herself in hot water. I guess you could count this as wartime—so that means I coulda been shot. Naw, I’m not running to Colonel Karamatsov.”

“Why did you frame Natalia?” Annie asked him. “It can’t hurt to tell us.”

“No special thing against her. She never met me—but I hadda kill Mona and Major Tiemerovna was the logical person since she was a KGB major and everybody knew it. The hatred was already there—it was easy for me to whip people up into a mob without them even knowing I was the one who’d done it. But I don’t owe any allegiance to the colonel. Karamatsov was willing to shoot me down with the rest of the Eden Project. I got other plans.”

“What?” Rubenstein snapped.

“Well, Captain Dodd—he dies during the attack here, see, and I become the leader. The leader of the Eden Project, for openers. My plans are flexible. Who knows after that? Now—both of you, outside.”

“Fuck you,” Annie snarled.

Blackburn reached out and grabbed at her, dragging her

against him, Annie hammering at him with her fists, but the muzzle of Paul’s gun raised toward her face. “It’s easier for me if you die outside,” Blackburn rasped. “And look at it this way—we all go outside, maybe I’ll stop a stray bullet, or you can jump me, Rubenstein.”

She watched, Paul starting slowly up from his chair— and then he threw himself forward as Blackburn shifted the muzzle of the pistol away from her face. Annie stumbled, falling backward toward the door. Paul and Forrest Blackburn were grappling over the pistol. Annie reached under her clothes for the derringer, drawing it, forcing her thumb down against the spring pressure of the hammer to get the pistol cocked.

Blackburn’s right arm was upraised—he slammed the Browning down against Paul’s head, Paul falling back. Annie stabbed the derringer forward—but Blackburn’s right foot snapped up as he wheeled toward her. The pistol flew from her hand.

Blackburn jumped for her, Annie throwing herself across the cockpit floor for the pistol, Blackburn on top of her now, twisting at her left arm. But she was reaching for the derringer pistol.

For the last twenty minutes by the luminous black-faced Rolex Submariner on Rourke’s left wrist, they had progressed in single file through a tunnel roughly the height and width of a sewer pipe, but uneven, bending, and at some times partially blocked by mounds of dirt and rocks. There was no light—Rourke thought of films he had seen over the years or watched by means of his VCR: in the darkest tunnels and labyrinths, somehow there was always a light source, and it was never totally dark.

But here it would have been, except for the synth-fuel-powered lanterns which Rourke, Sarah and Natalia carried. Two spares, as yet remaining unlit, were carried by Colonel Mann and Sergeant Heinz.

Rourke led the way, Mann behind him directing their course each time they came to a portion of the tunnel which segmented.

Rourke attempted, all the while, to memorize the rights and lefts they took—just in case the tunnel would be needed for their escape and Mann were not available to guide them. With his Gerber, he scratched arrows into the tunnel walls to mark the path, but placing the arrows to be intentionally misleading—marking the wrong passage rather than the correct one. Where there were more than two choices, he would mark the correct passage instead.

He hoped the result would be thoroughly confusing if

anyone attempted to follow.

At times, the air was close and foul-smelling, and at times it seemed as though there would be no air at all and the lanterns themselves would flicker.

But then the lights of the lanterns would steady, and their breathing too would ease and they would heighten the pace and continue on.

As Rourke checked his watch, he noted that the overall time so far spent in the warren of tunnels and caverns and cut shafts had been three hours.

As Rourke stepped out of the tunnel and into less confining space, a massive cavern opening, before them, he called a halt. He was on a tongue of rock which extended over a yawning precipice, the cavern ceiling perhaps some hundred feet overhead. At the base of the drop—perhaps a hundred feet below—a silver ribbon of stream gleamed dully as Sergeant Heinz flicked the single battery-powered search lamp from the cavern ceiling downward.