Survivalist - 15.5 - Mid-Wake (49 page)

As they approached the gangplank leading up to the Island Class submarine, Jason Darkwood whispered to her in Russian, “The language is one of the qualifications for graduation from the Naval Academy at Mid-Wake. And three times each year there’s a proficiency test that has to be passed, and if it isn’t you are sent into remedial classes until you can pass. Good thing, huh?”

She couldn’t answer him, but she wanted to laugh. And she couldn’t do that either.

They were almost at the base of the gangplank, two Marine Spetznas privates on guard there with AKM-96 assault rifles. But both Darkwood and Aldridge wore captain’s rank.

The two men on guard snapped to attention as they detected the approach. Natalia forced her expression into one of sadness instead of one of happiness. She stopped when appropriately prodded by a Sty-20.

Darkwood pushed past her almost rudely and addressed the two young privates. “You are not prepared for our arrival! Where is your officer?”

“Comrade captain,” the nearer of the two men, sandy-haired and pale-cheeked, began, then stammered, “We— we were—were not alerted to your arrival, comrade captain.”

“Consider yourselves alerted now, corporal. Step aside!”

The two privates exchanged worried glances. The one who had spoken before coughed, his voice a little shaky as he spoke. “Excuse me, comrade captain. But we were given specific orders that—that—no one … And this other officer?” The young private was staring at Sam Aldridge’s black skin.

Darkwood smiled and took a step closer to the young private. “This courageous officer standing beside me was the only man to volunteer out of a group of fifteen handpicked officers for a very dangerous assignment to infiltrate Mid-Wake, the success of which was predicated upon his skin being dyed and his features surgically altered so that he could pose as an American of African

extraction. As you can see, the effect is quite convincing. And now as to you, private. You have passed your security inspection well, young comrade.” Natalia was having a very hard time not laughing. His impression of a Soviet officer was very, very good. “I take it the majority of the crew is ashore and for this reason your guard is necessary?”

“Yes, comrade captain,” the young man enthused, evidently pleased with what seemed to be the current turn of events.

“Your zeal in the execution of your duty has earned you a reward, young comrade.” Darkwood said quickly. Both of his hands were cupped together as though holding something, and slowly now he began to spread them slightly apart. The young private who had done all of the talking leaned forward to look. The second private started to lean over to look as well. Darkwood’s right fist caught the sandy-haired boy with an upper cut, Aldridge taking a long-strided step forward and executing a neat left hook across the second guard’s forward jutting jaw. As Darkwood caught the first guard and his rifle and Aldridge and one of the other Marines caught up the second man, Darkwood looked at Natalia. “It works every time—the old curiosity-killed-the-cat thing.”

“Very funny—skin dyed, features surgically altered— shit!”

“What’d you want me to say, Sam—the guy’s eyes were just deceiving him?”

There were no other remarks exchanged, Darkwood shouldering one man and Aldridge the second, two of the U.S. Marines taking the AKM-96s of the guards and also taking up their posts as Aldridge and Darkwood started up the gangplank. Natalia looked around them, worried that someone had seen, but the hour was still early and she saw no sign that what had transpired so briefly had been detected. In the company of the rest of the Marines, she started up the gangplank after Darkwood and Aldridge.

The gangplank linked to the hull of the aircraft-carrier

sized submarine between the forward section of the sail and the missile deck. She slowed her pace as she saw two officers and four enlisted men coming from the far side of the sail.

Darkwood and Aldridge stopped in their tracks. Before either of the two Russian Naval officers could speak, Darkwood began, “It is fortunate you men happened along. My comrades and I are on special security detail and we found both of these men unconscious at the base of the gangplank. This officer with me is in disguise for a special mission which will entail his posing as an American officer of African descent in order to actually penetrate Mid-Wake military command. Is everything in order here?”

The two officers—both junior in rank to the rank Darkwood and Aldridge wore—almost fell over themselves to respond, Darkwood lowering his human burden to the deck, then rising to his full height. He cut off both of the young Naval officers before they could speak. “I am sorry, comrades, but I’m afraid that there is only one thing to do.”

Aldridge had set down the man he carried as well.

The shorter of the two Naval officers finally got a word out. “Comrade Captain, I do not—”

Darkwood raised his left hand palm outward signaling for a cessation to the conversation, then turned to Aldridge and the Marines. “Comrades, show these officers and their men what I mean, please.” Six PV-26 shark guns swept up to assault positions and fired instantly once, then once again, Darkwood standing stock still as the Soviet personnel almost surrounding him took the hits, began to stagger, fall. He looked at Natalia and smiled. “We also take marksmanship training very seriously at Mid-Wake. Good thing too, huh?”

She couldn’t help herself. She started to laugh. Aldridge and his men started hauling bodies out of sight toward the sail… .

Michael Rourke had wrapped the nylon restraint around his wrists, both ends of it secured to thick strips of the blanket and balled inside his fists. He had been shouting for help for what he subjectively considered six minutes, not wishing to look at his wristwatch, which, curiously, they had left him.

And finally, someone was coming.

It was a solitary guard, his only visible weapon holstered at his right side. Michael was kneeling on the floor, and as the guard approached he bent forward, moaning, shouting for help.

The guard spoke to him in Russian and Michael looked up from his knees, resuming his pleading for help just in case the guard did speak English, insisting that he had been stricken with terrible abdominal pains and could barely straighten up.

The guard turned a key in a panel on the far side of the electrified barrier and there was a brief crackle and the barrier was down. The guard drew his pistol and approached, Michael slumping to his side, breathing loudly and rapidly. The guard bent over him, the pistol pointed at Michael’s face.

The guard touched Michael’s head. Michael dodged his head right and rolled his body against the man’s legs. The guard started to stumble and Michael was up, stepping inside the man’s right arm to nullify the potential of the pistol for an instant, his fists wide apart now, the cord twisting around the guard’s neck as Michael threw his body weight against the gun arm, pinning it to the cell wall, both fists tugging at the cord as hard as he could, the guard sputtering, choking, his face purpling, Michael’s right knee smashing up into the groin. He could hear the pistol falling to the floor from the guard’s hand as the body started to go limp.

Michael let go of the cord and let the body slide down along the wall. He hadn’t killed the man. The man had come to see what the noise was about, come into the cell. He wouldn’t repay the man with death.

for spare magazines. There were none. Michael aimed the pistol toward the guard, the man’s normal color returning, moans coming from him. Michael shot the man in the right thigh, the dart pistol making a soft, thwacking sound as the dart impacted. He watched as the guard started to drift off, the head lolling to the side.

Michael checked the man’s breathing as he stripped him of his clothes… .

As they had started into the hatchway beside the sail, the second Marine Corps officer and his divers came over the side, weapons brandished. Darkwood smiled at them. “Right on time—secure the deck here. Those are our men at the base of the gangplank, Mr. Stanhope.”

“Aye, sir.”

Then Darkwood led Natalia and Aldridge and the rest of his Marines into the ship. The scuba gear these men used fascinated her. Wings—called Sea Wings, Darkwood had told her. They were positioned at approximately the balance point of the supine human body and powered by hydrogen extraction from the water, controlled through sensor leads in the diving helmet to respond to the diver’s needs in terms of direction and speed. The wings also eliminated the need for any sort of buoyancy compensator. The helmet was fitted with a hemo sponge, extracting oxygen from the water, the gas transfer accomplished by normal respiration with the aid of a carbon-dioxide exhaust valve in the top of the helmet. No tanks were required, and no regulators either. He had told her that the divers could even talk to one another under water. Their suit was two-layered, one layer designed to constantly remain equal to the pressure of the sea around it, the other to duplicate normal atmospheric pressure. Thus there was unlimited air supply, unlimited bottom time without ever a need for decompression, and diving could be accomplished at depths in earlier eras thought impossible. The wings looked beautiful, almost translucent. She wanted to try this technique very badly if she some

day could.

Natalia had been given back the military pistol and she held it out ahead of her like a wand to ward off death as she followed Darkwood and Aldridge down through the sail and into what she realized had to be the bridge of the Island Class submarine. Electronic gear was everywhere, the bridge itself large enough to be used as a small gymnasium, seating for at least two dozen technicans, computer terminals and communications equipment everywhere.

Darkwood broke into English. “Sam—leave one man with me. Major Tiemerovna will stay here as well to help out. We’ll keep the bridge secure and get things started up here. Toss anybody you find into the brig if you don’t have to kill them. We may need some special expertise. Corporal Harkness?”

“Aye, sir?”

“You’re pretty good at figuring out how to work things. Think if we stayed in contact for consultation you could fire up the reactors so we could get moving?”

“I’ll need a hand, sir—but yes sir, I think so.”

“Let me—my Russian is perfect and I had a lot of technical training five centuries ago. I learned a lot about submarines and nuclear reactors so that I could sabotage them.”

Darkwood looked at her. Then he turned to the young man he had called Corporal Harkness. “Suit you, Harkness?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Major Tiemerovna, Corporal Harkness—welcome to the Navy—stick with Captain Aldridge until he’s secured the engineering spaces where you’ll be working.” He looked at Sam Aldridge. “I can make do with just one man up here.” And now he spoke as he surveyed the bridge. “Everybody—stay armed and stay on top of things. We’re doing this pretty fast and we could miss somebody. Now move out. And let’s find that young Rourke fellow!”

Natalia stuck beside Harkness as they followed Al

dridge and his security detail deeper into the Soviet vessel… .

The ship was nearly deserted, which confirmed Michael Rourke’s suspicions that it had indeed come into port. Moving through the vast, empty vessel from deck to deck reminded him of when he had set out alone from the Retreat, investigating mysterious lights in the light sky which he had thought might be the returning Eden Project. He had only found an old aircraft, its origin still a mystery to him, its secrets dead with its pilot. But the land he had traversed had been barren and lifeless, as this place was. But less frightening. He had dressed in the full uniform of the downed Soviet guard and he kept his pistol holstered in the event that he would stumble onto Soviet personnel, hoping he could fool them long enough to get close enough to take them out. These little dart guns were too slow to take effect and would make a better bludgeon.

He kept moving, a steady low hum attracting him as he came amidships. The reactor, he assumed. As he turned down into another companionway, Michael Rourke came almost face to face with a squad of men in Soviet uniforms. And with them—“Natalia!” She was surrounded by them. “Natalia—run for it!” He drew his pistol, readied to fire it, something that looked like a bigger version of the same kind of pistol being thrust toward him by the nearest of the Soviet uniformed men around her.

There was something that wasn’t right—a Russian officer with black skin?

Natalia screamed. “Michael! No! They’re Americans!

Michael froze, the gun on line, his finger inside the trigger guard almost drawing the trigger back.

The black man spoke. “If you don’t look like your father lookin’ at himself in a mirror.”

“You are American.”

Natalia came forward and threw her arms around him. “Where’s my dad?” He asked her. “Is he—”

“I think he’s fine,” Natalia whispered, just holding him tight.

Michael Rourke looked into the black man’s eyes. “Far as we know, your dad’s on the mend.” “Took a hell of a fall and got himself all shot up. But, far as we know—”

“Thank God,” and Michael Rourke closed his eyes and held Natalia close to him… .

“I understand you are armed, Doctor Rourke.”

“That is correct, Mr. President.”

“What am I to make of that?”

John Rourke had sat down opposite the President’s desk. He was beginning to feel a little tired from all the walking. But his strength was definitely returning. The abdomen hadn’t bothered him at all. He answered the President. “Sir—I take it there has been no word that Major Tiemerovna has been freed.”

“Doctor Rourke—even if the operation had gone off schedule by just an hour—”

“What were the orders for the Reagan?”

Jacob Fellows looked at him frankly. “I imagine you suspect what they were, Doctor Rourke.”

“If contact wasn’t made, pull out. If it was, send a coded signal.”

“Something like that. And we’ve had no coded signal. But we should hear from the Reagan within another hour asking for further instructions.”

“How’s that other ship—the Wayne?”

“Ready to sail, Doctor Rourke. Why?”