Survivalist - 15.5 - Mid-Wake (36 page)

Colonel Antonovitch spoke. “Where are your legions of followers? But perhaps more to the point, Doctor Rourke, where are your son, daughter, and wife—and where is Major Tiemerovna?”

It was Michael’s ball, Paul knew.

Michael ran with it. “I suggest, colonel, unless we bring this situation to a conclusion rather quickly you will very soon find out where the rest of the Rourke family is. Suffice it to say, colonel, they know where you are.” And Michael smiled.

“You suggest an impasse, then, Doctor Rourke?” Antonovitch called back.

Paul was having the feeling this man wasn’t easily bluffed.

“I suggest nothing,” Michael called back to him. Paul’s eyes drifted to Michael. Michael was slowly opening his tunic. To get at his guns? Paul felt a shiver run up his back. “We came for the three trucks of gas and to effect the release of the people you have incarcerated in your little death camp, colonel. We intend to leave with the three trucks and to secure the release of your prisoners. We can do that in one of two ways. Either you and your men step aside and let us get to the trucks and then you order the internees released, or you die and we get to the trucks anyway and we simply release the internees. Either way, you’ve lost.”

Pauls’s feet were sweating inside his boots.

And then he heard his wife’s voice. “You heard my father!”

Paul’s eyes snapped toward the sound. Annie. A pistol in each hand, stood on the other side of the quadrangle fence, flanked on one side by a Chinese woman armed with one of the Chinese Glock-17 pistol, on the other side by Bjorn Rolvaag and his dog, Rolvaag’s staff in the man’s mighty fists. A few paces away from them were two Chinese soldiers, armed with assault rifles.

And now he heard another familiar voice. “I suggest, colonel, that you take Doctor Rourke’s words seriously.” The voice was Han Lu Chen’s. “The Chinese army takes very unkindly to Chinese citizens being interned under any conditions, certainly by you.”

Paul called out, “Hi, Annie!”

“Paul …” Her voice sounded as though she were suppressing terror.

Hammerschmidt spoke. “My men are in position, as well, Han?”

“They await your orders to fire, Captain Hammerschmidt.”

There were no Germans unless this was a bona-fide miracle.

Michael spoke again. “I’m moving to the trucks. If you attempt to stop us, well—I wouldn’t, if I were you.”

Paul heard Annie call out. “Daddy—Ma-Lin and I are ready to drive the trucks out of here. And Maria’s with us too.”

Paul turned his head toward the fence—Maria Leuden had joined them there. How Annie had found her—but Annie seemed capable of virtually anything, Paul reflected. She and the Chinese girl Paul assumed was Ma-Lin and Maria Leuden, who had just stepped into the corona of light, started toward the gate leading into this smaller compound, Annie’s pistols still in her fists, the Chinese girl still armed, Maria Leuden with one of the Beretta 92Fs. Paul swallowed hard.

Michael Rourke started walking slowly toward the trucks, not drawing any weapon. And Paul knew why. There was a substantial chance that Antonovitch would know what guns John Rourke carried and somehow make the connection that this was Michael rather than Michael’s father John. And what John Rourke could get away with, perhaps no one else could.

“John,” Paul called out. “Otto and I are right behind you.” Very slowly, so it wouldn’t appear to be the opening move in a gunfight, Paul extracted the battered Browning High Power he had carried almost since the Night of the War. He kept it tight in his right fist, beside his right thigh, as he started walking. Otto Hammerschmidt shifted his assault rifle forward.

“Colonel—tell your men to allow the ladies inside through the gates and to leave the gates open.”

“You will never escape here alive.”

Michael stopped walking, turned, stared at Colonel Antonovitch. “I won’t?” And he started walking now

straight for the KGB Corps colonel. Paul stopped, the High Power still at his right thigh, his eyes going to the gun Antonovitch held. Perhaps Antonovitch was one of the Elite Corps personnel who survived the Sleep with Karamatsov, or perhaps the Russian only had a fondness for more substantial-looking weapons than were made today. The gun in his right hand was some kind of Smith & Wesson double-action revolver, dully gleaming, stainless steel.

Michael stopped a yard from Antonovitch. “You have six shots. Maybe you’ll get me with them before I kill you. But I seriously doubt it. Now—order your men to drive whatever rolling stock they have to just outside the gates of the main compound and then assist the internees to board the trucks. Order your men to get whatever blankets or warm clothing they have and provide these to the people as they board the trucks. Annie and the other two women will be driving Karamatsov’s gas outta here, right between those trucks with the internees and you. Anything goes wrong, Annie and the other women will make the gas tankers blow, and every man within a couple of square miles will be a homicidal maniac as soon as he gets a whiff of it. If you and I aren’t dead already, we will be. But most importantly to you, Karamatsov’s whole army might be destroyed. Now the question you’ve gotta ask yourself is this: would the Hero Marshal be less unhappy losing a bunch of unarmed people he was going to kill anyway and a couple of truckloads of his precious gas, or losing his whole army?” Michael hesitated a moment. Antonovitch said nothing. “Well? What’s it gonna be?” Michael asked, his voice low.

Antonovitch began barking commands in Russian over his left shoulder, Paul Rubenstein tensed. He didn’t understand and neither did Michael, but posing as John Rourke, Michael was supposed to understand. When Antonovitch finished, a junior officer and two noncoms breaking off from the ring of men surrounding them, Michael said, “Why don’t you join me in helping the ladies aboard the trucks.” Annie had already reached the

center of the compound, Maria and the Chinese girl with her. Paul fell in beside his wife, Annie smiling up at him. They kept walking, Michael and Antonovitch just ahead of them.

The ring of armed men opened and they passed through. Annie said under her breath, “He’s pretty good.” “What are you doing here?”

“Looking to help my husband and my brother. And looks like I got here just in time. We found Maria and the truck when we were coming down for a closer recon, and she told us about you and Otto playing Russians and about Michael going off to check this place out. We realized there wasn’t any electronic security around the perimeter here, and we crept in just close enough to see and hear and not so close we’d get caught in the light. You guys are lucky.”

Paul Rubenstein wanted to kiss his wife very badly, but there would be time later—maybe.

They kept walking.

Michael and Antonovitch were beside the furthest forward of the three trucks, Michael speaking again. “Now—if your people follow us, that’ll be a bad move. The Chinese and German forces are in position to cut you to pieces. And if it gets too heavy, the ladies will break off in three separate directions with the trucks and blow them. Not a one of you will live. Do you understand?”

Antonovitch could say something directly to Michael in Russian, and Michael would not be able to respond and the whole thing might be blown, Paul knew.

“You have won the day—or should I say ‘the night’? But your time will come, Doctor Rourke.”

Michael stepped onto the running board at the side of the truck cab. “You keep believing that.” Then he called over his shoulder. “Paul—Annie! This truck. I’ll ride with Maria. Otto—you and the Chinese woman—let’s move!” As Paul and Annie started for the first truck, Michael called out, “Paul—Otto—we’ll leave these trucks and take some of the other Soviet rolling stock as soon as we get through the gates.” Michael turned toward the fence.

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I “Han—get enough people onto those trucks the Russians will be loading. Have Captain Hammerschmidt’s men keep the colonel and his people in their sights until we’re well away. You and the rest of the people by the fence, climb on board those other trucks with us.” “Yes, Doctor Rourke!”

Paul glanced toward the fence, Han disappearing from the light, calling out orders that could only be partially heard. He wondered if the Chinese had any of their spiritous liquor with them. If they made it out alive, he wanted a drink… .

Vladmir Karamatsov had been watching the newly promoted Captain Serovski for some time. When Ivan Krakovski had been murdered by John Rourke and his band of killers, Karamatsov had promoted Serovski and given the young man provisional charge of Special Operations for the KGB Elite Corps.

Karamatsov studied the maps on his desk, then threw down his pen in disgust and exhaustion, the yellow light of his lamp giving him a headache.

They had been so close. Krakovski and the Elite Corps had seized control of … He took up the journal in which Ivan Krakovski had written, the journal left in Krakovski’s helicopter and brought back by one of the survivors.

“I have taken personal charge of navigation for the fleet of six helicopter gunships, trusting no one with the coordinates given me by the Hero Marshal.

“For a short while, the fleet of gunships has passed under the teeth of the blizzard, but now, the snow swirls around us maddeningly, crusting over the bubble. I am taking the controls of the gunship for a time to relieve the strain. The windshield wipers race crazily, but cannot compete with the rate of snowfall and wind-driven snow as it lashes against the machine, the five other machines barely visible even by their running lights.

“The Hero Marshal has told me that the cache of some

thirty Chinese weapons is near the city once called Lushun, in what had once been a mine, the interior of the mine shaft reinforced with concrete and steel and capped like something the Hero Marshal calls a ‘well.’

“It is cold, and colder still from the feeling of fear which, I admit, consumes me. The machine is buffetted by winds I estimate at gale force, and the controls must be manipulated with the greatest of precision, not just to keep on course, but to keep from being thrown into an uncontrolled spin with the machine destroyed.

“I have ordered all pilots by radio to transfer controls to their copilots for periods of at least thirty minutes while they rest from their ordeal.

“I will find the coordinates, but if the storm intensifies, I doubt we shall be able to take off. And the Hero Marshal and the destiny of the Soviet people depend on me… .

Krakovski had fought to the end aboard the train on which he had loaded the Chinese nuclear weapons. This Karamatsov knew. And Krakovski and the train and all aboard it had been hurtled into the sea, the weapons lost forever. The sea there was very deep, Karamatsov thought.

There was a knock on the pole of his tent and Karamatsov closed Krakovski’s journal. “Who is it?”

“It is Captain Serovski, comrade marshal.”

Karamatsov leaned back in his chair. “Come in, Serovski.”

Serovski entered through the hermetic seal, snapped to attention, and saluted. Karamatsov nodded, saying, “Why do you disturb me?”

“Forgive me, comrade marshal, but—but there is something very strange happening.”

“A problem with the prisoners?”

“No, comrade marshal. None of which I am aware. But the base radar is picking up something coming in almost beneath the level of the waves below us.

“What?”

“It must be some sort of aircraft, yet it is too massive unless some sort of squadron—”

Karamatsov was up, moving, grabbing the shoulder holster for the old Model 59 Smith <& Wesson in his right hand, his parka in the other, running past Serovski, the younger man at his heels now as Karamatsov exited the tent.

He glanced to the east, toward the sea, the sun beginning to rise there. And as he looked, he blinked. A dark shape was blacking out the sun… .

Annie Rourke kept the Soviet truck’s accelerator as close to the floor as she dared now, to the east a gray line which she knew would be dawn, no lights of pursuing vehicles present in the sideview mirrors at all. Had this Russian colonel, Antonovitch, given up?

She kept driving ….

Tanks were moving into position along the coastline, the dark shape clearly visible now. But impossible. It was the sail of a submarine. But no submarines existed and none so large as this. It towered as high into the air as a small office building. And the whitecaps that were crashing off its bow as it drew nearer bespoke a length that was impossible.

Vladmir Karamatsov stood beside the turret of the most centrally located of his tanks. A voice startled him, breaking his concentration.

“Comrade marshal!”

He looked down. It was Serovski. “You are to be with the Elite Corps, captain—why are you here!”

“Comrade Marshal—word from Comrade Colonel Antonovitch at the test site.”

“Test site—the camp?”

“Yes, comrade marshal.”

“I cannot be bothered with such as that now! Later— rejoin your men.”

“But, comrade marshal—”

“Later—rejoin your men! Do not illustrate to me that I

have been mistaken in advancing you to greater responsibility. Go!”

Karamatsov returned his gaze to the sea.

The black shape which fully broke the water line now was something no power on earth could possess.

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Michael Rourke had jumped from the truck when he had ordered it to slow. Armed with his Beretta pistols, the knife old Jan the swordmaker had crafted for him, and one of the Soviet assault rifles, he had run off into the night.

It was the one chance.

If John Rourke’s whereabouts were unknown to the Russians, then John Rourke might be lost forever. And their only chance at victory over the Russians would be to kill Vladmir Karamatsov.

The snow was largely beaten down here by the truck traffic, and where it was not and had drifted high, the going was slow. He had stopped to urinate once, then continued on, consuming a high-energy snack that he had stashed in a pocket of the Soviet uniform he still wore. When he slowed to navigate difficult terrain, the cold consumed him. But he kept moving.