Survivalist - 15.5 - Mid-Wake (46 page)

Darkwood looked at the men clustered around him and Aldridge. “We’ll be passing right under the heart of their military establishment and we’ll come out right in the middle of it. We find the woman and we get her back into the tunnels and we run like hell. If we get separated, rendezvous is dockside at six hundred sharp. We’ve already synchronized chronometers and each of us has a death capsule. If live capture seems imminent, use the capsule. I don’t like advising any man to take his own life under any circumstances, but if they learn that we know about the sensor tunnel into the lagoon, any future strategic value the tunnel could have would be lost. And someday, that could make the difference, the critical difference, for the survival of Mid-Wake. It’s our only access. Any questions?”

There were no questions.

Darkwood looked at Aldridge. “We’re moving.” Aldridge nodded, then gestured to his Marines. Darkwood gave one last glance back, then started into the tunnel, the 9mm Lancer Caseless 2418 A2 tight in his right fist… .

Natalia Anastasia Tiemerovna, guards in a semicircle behind her and on both sides, stood before the triumvirate in the great marble hall.

The Chairman spoke. “In a few moments, you will be presented to the delegate of Marshal Karamatsov. You will be pleased to know that we have just received word that the marshal himself, although he could not come, was spp.minsrlv nuite enthused at the DroSDects of vour

reunion, major.”

“I am certain that he was,” Natalia responded.

“Do you know a Captain Serovski of what is called the …” The Chairman seemed to consult notes before him on the three-man desk. “The KGB Elite Corps?”

“I do not know a Captain Serovski. But if he is an officer of the KGB Elite Corps, I know what kind of man he is. Evil. I will say this only once, but if you truly value the interests of the Soviet people here beneath these domes whom you represent, you will not trust Marshal Karamatsov. He has no interest in the welfare or future of the Soviet people or of anyone—other than himself. He is a ruthless, perverted butcher. I am not pleading for my life. I am simply making a statement. Despite what I have revealed concerning my defection from die KGB and my assistance to the American cause, in my soul I will always be a Russian. I left the KGB because I realized that in working to serve their interests I was working to perpetuate war and toward the eventual undoing of all people everywhere, the Soviet people most particularly. I have nothing to gain by telling you this, because you will turn me over to Serovski and he will convey me to my husband and my husband will inflict upon me the most hideous of tortures and eventually, mercifully, I will die. My cares will be over forever. But the Soviet people must not die. The Soviet people must help to rebuild our devastated world, and all people must learn to live together as one people and work for the common good. If you and your fellow members of the troika trust Vladmir Karamatsov, he will lead you only to destruction. John Rourke is dead, and with him went my will to live. John Rourke was a man like no other. But killing John Rourke will not alter the inevitability of right over wrong. There are other men—his and my friend Paul Rubenstein, his son Michael. There are women. His wife, Sarah, and his daughter, Annie. There are thousands like them, comrades. Germans, Icelandics, Americans—Russians too. They will continue to work for a day of freedom, and many who now serve mv husband’s evil will realize, that what thw Hn

serves no one but my husband and they will join with the forces that fight him. You stand at a moment in history, one that is critical to your survival. If your decision is based on the personal lust for power, your heirs will revile that decision and curse your folly. It is not too late for you. But once you have sold your souls to Vladmir Karamatsov, it will be. I have said what I wished to say. Thank you for the opportunity.”

The eyes of the Chairman were unmoved.

As Natalia had known they would be.

But conscience had forced her to try.

They waited in silence, Natalia standing almost at attention, the men of the triumvirate shuffling through paperwork on their desk, her guards unmoving, the muzzles of their weapons unmoving as well. Her chance would come for death, she knew. But perhaps her death could serve a higher purpose. She had gone weaponless to her husband once in order to buy freedom for the people she loved. He had nearly killed her. This time she would not be weaponless. The razor blade in her boot, sewn in for her by one of the German craftsmen, could slice open the artery in her husband’s neck before it cut open her own. Perhaps she would not die totally in vain.

She heard the click of boots in the hallway and turned her eyes toward it. She recognized Boris Feyedorovitch of the Marine Spetznas. He now wore colonel’s rank. Perhaps because he was the man whose bullet had ended John Rourke’s tenuous hold on life. And walking beside him, as though the senior officer, but wearing captain’s rank, was a tall, thin, blonde-haired man in the black dress uniform of the KGB Elite Corps. The uniform had always reminded her of the SS of Hitler, and so had the men who wore it. His knee-high boots shone with polish, as did his pistol belt and the holster, which sagged just slightly by his appendix. His cap was at the perfect angle, uniformly correct yet jaunty. As he neared her now and their eyes met, she could see the blue coldness there.

He walked right past her, came to rigid attention, saluted the troika, and announced, “Captain Alexeii

Serovski, Elite Corps, Committee for State Security of the Soviet Union, comrades. I have the pleasure to bring compliments and greetings from our glorious leader, Hero Marshal Vladmir Karamatsov, to the government and people of this Soviet State.”

Since no one in the triumvirate, although all three dressed alike, was in military uniform, he lowered the salute without waiting for it to be returned.

The Chairman responded. “Greetings, Comrade Captain Serovski, and on behalf of the Government of the Soviet People I welcome you and heartily accept the wishes of your military commander, Marshal Karamatsov. And here, comrade captain, is his prize.”

It was the most animated she had seen the Chairman as he gestured expansively toward her with a sweep of his left arm.

“Thank you, Comrade Chairman.”

Serovski performed a snappy right face and took a pace closer to her. Natalia watched his eyes. “Major Tiemerovna!” He saluted, but had not called her comrade. “The Hero Marshal’s compliments, madame. Please kindly consider yourself under arrest on behalf of the People of the Soviet state for your various crimes against the State, among these high treason, espionage, sedition, and murder.”

“Do you speak English?”

His eyes sparkled a bit. “Yes, major. I do.”

“Good.” Natalia smiled. “Go to hell.”

If the submarine had stopped, Michael Rourke could not be certain of it. He had tested the barrier and found it was electrical energy of some sort, but that it traveled in waves and was not solid. By utilizing a strip of blanket from the meager bedding in the cell, he had found where the energy was concentrated and where it was not. If the plastic cord at his wrists could not be tugged apart, rubbed apart on the frame of the cot or the edge of the toilet seat, it would have to burn apart. Utilizing more strips of the blanket he had constructed small fuses which he would put between the plastic cord and the flesh of his wrists using his teeth.

He knew that at any moment he could be discovered, but there was nothing to lose and everything to gain.

With several of the blanket fuses—which did burn—in place, he dropped to his knees, bent forward, and got his wrists as close as possible to the electrical field, swishing the long, thin fuses of blanket into the edge of the electrical field so they would catch fire. Apparently, disruption of the electrical field triggered no alarm, at least on the small scale which the fuses of blanket produced. Three of the fuses began to burn, getting closer to his wrists.

Gently, he blew on them to make them continue to burn. One went out. The two others continued to burn, one of them already causing the plastic cord which bound

his wrists to smolder and smell disgustingly bad. A second fuse went out. The third one still burned, Michael closing his mind to the pain the fire caused his flesh. The odor of the plastic was getting worse and he hoped it wasn’t toxic The plastic cord smoldered and went out. But, as he craned his neck and twisted his wrists to better see, he could tell that a small portion of the plastic cord had actually burned. He turned around, still on his bare knees and began tearing out more strips of blanket, slightly wider this time so the flames would be higher by the time they reached the cord.

If he could get his hands free, when they came for him and expected him still bound, there might be a chance, lb do what, Michael Rourke wasn’t certain… .

Serovski had ignored her, turned back to face the three leaders. “You may have already have been informed, Comrade Chairman, that just as your excellent undersea vessel was about to get under way, your men and my own had the good fortune of jointly capturing Michael Rourke, the son of the infamous John Rourke, whom the comrade marshal had been informed was killed by Comrade Colonel Feyedorovitch after a protracted gun battle with your late Colonel Kerenin.”

“We were so informed, captain. I take it you wish to discuss the fate of this prisoner.”

“Yes, Comrade Chairman. He is an infamous war criminal. He is wanted by my government so he can account for his crimes.”

“Michael’s only crime is holding my husband responsible for the death squad that caused die death of his wife and their unborn baby!”

Serovski didn’t even glance at her. The guns leveled at her were pushed closer to her. Natalia remained where she was.

The Chairman spoke. “I was also given to understand

that your Marshal Karamatsov had some doubt as to this John Rourke’s death. Will presenting Marshal Karamatsov with this second Rourke assuage his concerns?”

“I cannot, Comrade Chairman, speak in that context on behalf of the comrade marshal. Yet it would certainly serve, I believe, as a further symbol of trust and the desire for harmonious relations between all the Soviet peoples.”

“What about the Soviet people in the Underground City in the Urals that Karamatsov tried to use his poison gas on?” She kept her voice calm, low, even. If she started sounding like an hysteric, they would likely remove her.

“I understand,” the Chairman said softly, “that there is indeed some debate as to the exact nature of Marshal Karamatsov’s leadership function.”

“You have been fed insidious lies, Comrade Chairman, by this wretched woman. Whom do you believe? An officer who serves the Soviet Union, or an unfaithful wife who betrayed the trust placed in her so innocently by the Soviet People?”

Natalia licked her hps. -

The Chairman said, “You may have the other Rourke as your prisoner. There is refreshment available. I understand that your rendezvous with Marshal Karamatsov on the island of Chinmen Tao in the Formosa Strait is scheduled for some twenty hours from now. That allows you considerable time to refresh yourself before the return trip.”

“Thank you,” Comrade Chairman. I request that the woman prisoner be transferred immediately to the custody of my KGB Elite Corpsmen and taken aboard the vessel which shall be used for the return trip.”

“I understand your interest in her safety. But I assure you, captain, all our interests will best be served if she is allowed to continue her confinement in the detention area below us. At any event, I am afraid you must indulge me.”

“I shall report this to the Hero Marshal.”

“Then you shall. Please—join us now for a brief re

freshment despite the hour.”

“It will be my pleasure, Comrade Chairman.”

The Chairman, without looking at her, said, “Return the major to her cell.”

The tunnel narrowed, more so than the swim-by chromatic heat scans had indicated it would, Darkwood moving on knees and elbows now, the temperature from the steam which traveled through the pipes all around them insufferably hot. But there was no choice remaining. It would have been impossible to turn around in the tunnel even had they wanted to, and crawling backwards through the tunnel would have only been more time-consuming, and they would still have faced finding another means of entering the detention area beneath the military office complex.

Aldridge was right behind him, and behind Aldridge the dozen Marine raiders.

But ahead of him now, he saw the tunnel take a bend and, if the chromatic heat scans were accurate, beyond it would lie the entrance into the detention area. Darkwood quickened his pace, reaching the bend in the tunnel, awkwardly moving around it, not envying the Marines behind him. Each man had a Soviet AKM-96 assault rifle and a backpack loaded with ammunition and explosives, and the men had some distance back given up on worming their way through the tunnel with their gear in place and now just pushed it along ahead of them. The AKM-96s were selected for the mission because the Soviet and American assault rifles were, of course, incompatible and, although the American rifle was better, the Soviet rifle was good and would allow possible ammunition resupply from

oqntnnul uMannns in the field

Darkwood was around the bend now, the low-level lighting in the tunnel making it hard to tell for sure, but he thought he saw a ladder ahead. He quickened his pace as best he could, the knees in his penetration suit, despite the padding, all but gone, as were the elbows. The 2418 A2 was still tight in his right fist.

He could see it now, rubbing sweat from over his eyes with his right sleeve—a ladder. Darkwood kept moving.

The ladder went up through a wide-diameter pipe and he couldn’t see as of yet where the ladder finally ended up. He kept moving, taking his flash from the pouch on his left upper arm, setting it to lowest level only, and moving ahead.

He stopped at the base of the ladder. There was a hatchway that looked as though it were taken off a submarine. And it was indeed fortunate that this John Rourke hadn’t tried coming this way, or the man would have been trapped. There was no access wheel on this side of the hatch.