Survivalist - 18 - The Struggle (11 page)

Jason Darkwood looked at Sam Aldridge, figuring Aldridge would take the lead, make the first move since his chosen target was the man to get. Aldridge flexed

Aldridge took his pick) and left the remainder of the men under his Sergeant. Still more bizarre, Darkwood had said nothing, simply gone along as one of the six. Six Americans, five of them Marines, versus six Soviet Marine Special Forces personnel was taking unfair advantage—if you believed in the joke.

Three of the Marines moved up a dozen yards or so along the trail, Aldridge and Lance Corporal Lannigan staying in position beside Darkwood, flanking him. The palms of Darkwood’s hands sweated inside his gloves as he grasped the AKM-96 more tightly.

Six against six, or seventy-two lying in ambush for six—if you believed the joke.

He peered between two snow-laden leaves, the sounds of snow crunching under the booted feet of the Marine Spetznas detail. He’d read in books about the sounds of snow crunching under boots, not noticed the sound beneath his own boots or those of Aldridge’s Marines, noticed the sounds now. He could see the face of the lead man, not necessarily the leader because of his position in the file, but obviously the leader because of his rank. He was a Sergeant.

The remaining five men were younger, not as experienced-looking, not as tough-looking either. Sam Aldridge tapped Darkwood on the shoulder, pointed toward the Sergeant, then tapped himself on the chest and nodded. Darkwood shrugged his shoulders and eyebrows. If Sam Aldridge felt he had to brace the toughest-looking one of the six, good for him.

Coming.

They didn’t seem to like each other, either that or they were tremendously disciplined, each man’s face set in a neutral expression, no idle chatter, no laughter.

Jason Darkwood looked at Sam Aldridge, figuring Aldridge would take the lead, make the first move since his chosen target was the man to get. Aldridge flexed

bis fists over his rifle and sprang up from his crouch, hurtling himself through the foliage and down into the trail in a cloud of suddenly displaced snow, moving as if his legs were made of coiled springs, landing on his feet in the center of the trail less than a yard from the Soviet Sergeant.

The Sergeant froze. Aldridge snapped the butt of his AKM-96 across the jaw of the Russian and the Russian fell back. “Now!” Aldridge shouted. Darkwood jumped through the foliage, not nearly as gracefully^he realized, his body impacting the body of one of the Marine Spetznas as the man turned toward him, Darkwood sprawling across him as they fell across the trail, the Russian behind Darkwood’s man tripping, falling over them as Darkwood rolled away, hammering a right cross into his target’s jaw.

Lance Corporal Lannigan was locked in combat with the man who had tripped over Darkwood and the Russian. As Darkwood reached for his man, he saw something he realized he’d never forget for the rest of his life—however long or short that might be. The Marine Spetznas Sergeant hadn’t fallen down, simply stood there, Sam Aldridge in freeze frame with his body poised for a forward butt stroke. The Marine Spetznas Sergeant threw down his rifle and drew his Marine Spetznas-issue fighting knife, in Russian saying something Darkwood translated as roughly equivalent to “Eat Shit, American black bastard cocksucker!”

Darkwood couldn’t take his eyes from Sam Aldridge and the Russian. Aldridge threw down his rifle, drew his knife. Sam Aldridge was descended from one of the first Marines at Mid-Wake, the man a Marine officer and deep diving specialist. Sam Aldridge’s knife was a copy of that five-centuries-old Ka-Bar U.S.M.C. fighting knife Aldridge’s ancestor had brought to Mid-Wake as a personal weapon when the colony had begun, identical to the one taken from Aldridge when he was captured by the Soviets. The knife was fabulously expensive, Parkerizing (phosphate coating) almost a lost art, the leather for the washered handle rare. Aldridge snarled—in Russian—“Your mother, man!”

Darkwood saw his man moving at the far right edge of his peripheral vision and he rolled away, the Marine Spetznas throwing himself at Darkwood, his issue knife in his fist. For the first time, Darkwood realized he’d lost hold of his rifle. He was Navy, not a Marine. In the Marines they taught you to hold on to your rifle like a lonely man might hold on to his organ on a long night. In the Navy, a rifle was something you learned to shoot, then said, “That’s nice” about and forgot.

The Marine Spetznas lunged. Darkwood came to his feet, a handful of trail gravel, rotted leaves, and snow in his left fist. He hurtled the mixture toward his opponent’s face. As the man recoiled, Darkwood’s hand moved his knife from its sheath. Many of the custom knives made at Mid-Wake and all of the production knives from Mid-Wake’s one knife factory were like Sam Aldridge’s knife, copies of knives from the past. Darkwood’s knife was at once totally different, yet no exception. When Nathaniel Darkwood had come to Mid-Wake, he’d brought with him the experiences from a lifetime of adventure, and this lifetime’s trophies. Nathaniel Darkwood’s weapons collection and other collections resided in the New Smithsonian. Jason Darkwood, heir to the Darkwood “estate,” still owned that collection, borrowed the knife which Darkwood had truly used from among the dozens which Darkwood had possessed, had that knife copied by Mid-Wake’s finest custom knifesmith. As the Marine Spetznas lunged, Jason Darkwood stepped

back, pivoted, caught the man’s knife against his.

The Marine Spetznas fell back.

Jason Darkwood’s eyes focused on the Russian’s eyes. The Russian’s eyes flickered and Darkwood lunged, the blade in Jason Darkwood’s hand an identical duplicate of his ancestor’s Randall Smithsonian Bowie. The tip of Darkwood’s blade crossed the inside right forearm of the Marine Spetznas and the knife fell from the Russian’s suddenly limpened fingers, a scream of pain issuing from his mouth, wide open in shock. Darkwood stepped inside the Russian’s suddenly vanished guard, with the butt of his knife impacting the base of the Russian’s jaw. Darkwood’s left knee smashed upward. As the Russian’s head snapped back, the Russian’s body jackknifed forward. With a chop from the Bowie’s primary edge or even the blunt impact from the butt of his knife across the back of the Marine Spetznas’ neck, the man would have died. Instead, Jason Darkwood let him fall.

Mechanically, Darkwood looked around him, the other Marine Spetznas personnel subdued, all except for the Sergeant who fought Sam Aldridge. And Darkwood’s eyes riveted to them. They moved in a classic knife fighter’s circle, testing each other’s reaction times with feigned lunges, withdrawals. The Soviet Sergeant held his blade easily, as though he weren’t really holding it at all, as though it were simply part of his hand.

Darkwood wiped his own blade clean across the back of his enemy’s uniform, sheathed it quickly as he reached for his AKM-96. Darkwood rose to his full height as he brought the AKM-96 up, holding the rifle by the barrel near the front sight. Darkwood swung, the butt of the assault rifle impacting the Soviet Sergeant across the shoulder blades in midswing, Darkwood following through, a groan of pain from the

I Soviet Sergeant as his body crumpled, then spilled forward into the virgin snow by the side of the trail. As the man rolled onto his back, his face contorted into a mask of pain, Darkwood had the rifle inverted, the muzzle almost touching the tip of the man’s nose. In Russian, Darkwood told him, “You guessed correctly, Comrade. There is no wish to make noise with a gun. In your case, there can be an exception. Try me.”

The Marine Spetznas Sergeant raised his hands, his knife falling from his fingers into the snow.

Damien Rausch’s right first finger touched the rear trigger of the Steyr-Mannlicher SSG. The 7.62mm sniper rifle was one of only two in the strategic supply cache, the location of which he and his men had discovered through the cooperation of Commander Christopher Dodd. The M-16 rifles, although, like the sniper rifle, five centuries old, had decidedly greater potential for his overall purpose. But sniper rifles could be useful. Now, for example, he thought. His finger snapped off the rear trigger, then eased forward along the edge of the guard, just beside the front trigger, now set to go with the very slightest pressure.

The German vision intensification scope, conveniently enough mounted to the Austrian-origin rifle with only a slight machining modification to the rails on the receiver, showed Dodd’s yellow nemesis clearly enough—this Akiro Kurinami. Kurinami was only a Lieutenant, a very young man, yet Dodd perceived Kurinami as his arch rival for control of the Eden Project. Once there was an appropriate lull in the battle between the Soviets and their growing list of allied enemies, Dodd was convinced free elections for the leadership of Eden Base would be demanded. And

Kurinami, as Dodd told it, would run against him, would win. But, if Kurinami were out of the picture, there would be no clear rival to Dodd’s leadership. If elections did come, Dodd envisioned himself the easy victor in the absence of the Japanese Naval Lieutenant.

Kurinami moved along a steeply rising road, toward the face of a mountain. Was this actually the entrance to the survival retreat of the infamous Doctor John Rourke?

Rausch wondered.

And what things of interest might this place contain?

All things might be of value in the struggle to restore to power in New Germany those who followed the philosophy of The Leader, specifically himself. If he shot Kurinami, who according to Dodd knew the secret entrance to Rourke’s mountain retreat, the secret would die with Kurinami.

Rausch wondered.

He released the SSG’s five-round magazine, only four rounds remaining in the rotary feeding box. He worked the bolt, ejecting the chambered round, catching it in midflight.

He closed the bolt and snapped off the front trigger with the chamber empty.

Damien Rausch rolled onto his back in the snow. Beside him, one of his men began, “But, Herr Rausch—”

Rausch only smiled as he remagazined the loose round. “Watch him.” He put the magazine back in place, then gave it a firm slap …

Akiro Kurinami’s bones ached him, as did every muscle that wasn’t numbed from the cold. He kept walking, Elaine’s face in his thoughts, her face and the knowledge that the Retreat’s main entrance was just a

little farther away all that kept him going, had kept him going as he walked on and on. The snow fell more heavily and there was little Soviet helicopter traffic, especially since nightfall. If somehow he were attacked, he wouldn’t be able to activate the controls of the pistol at his side.

He kept walking, not thinking about moving his feet, not thinking about anything except the woman he loved and the warmth and food of the Retreat. But first the radio, of course, to contact the German command outside Eden Base, warn them that an unprecedented number of Soviet gunships was gathering for an all-out attack on Eden Base and their own airfield.

Perhaps Colonel Mann could be contacted, divert some of the forces of New Germany in time to do something.

That was the only hope.

He ran the procedure through his mind for opening the entrance to the Retreat, almost fearful to do so because, he realized, if he made the picture too real in his mind perhaps his mind would withdraw to that and he would he down in the snow and die while fantasizing he was opening the entrance door.

But he would have little time to open the door when he finally reached the Retreat, little time because all of his will and momentum would be drained.

The rock. He would have to move the rock. Two rocks. Like some ancient Egyptian tomb or something. The large boulder that could be pushed away easily enough by a strong man. Then the squared-off rock. Pushing against that was considerably more difficult. There would be a rumbling that seemed to come from deep within the mountain itself, and the granite on which he stood would begin to lower, and as it did, a slab of rock within the side of the mountain would move away, inward.

And then rest.

Akiro Kurinami kept walking…

Damien Rausch and three of his men moved along the trail on foot, keeping just far enough behind Kurinami that if the Japanese naval aviator were to begin to turn around, they could duck out of sight.

“The injection kit is ready?”

“Yes, Herr Rausch,” the man beside him panted, breathless-sounding from the exertion.

“He is not to be killed.”

“Yes, Herr Rausch.”

Damien Rausch felt a thrill he rarely experienced. As a youth, he had studied archaeology with a passion, that passion only secondary to his passion for the Fatherland, his devotion to The Leader.

Five centuries ago, a man who still lived, the man chiefly responsible for the deposing of The Leader with the aid of the traitorous Wolfgang Mann and his officers, had built this place to weather the inevitable coming storm. And, inside it, he and his family and a Jew and a Communist had survived, slept much like the Eden Project personnel had slept in their criogenic chambers aboard the space shuttles.

What mysteries did this place hold? Greater things than he could obtain from the Eden Project stores, greater wisdom than he could avail himself of from the Eden Project computers. Here was not an outline of the past; here was the past, perfectly preserved just as it had been when it was placed here.

Once Kurinami stopped and began to open the secret entrance, they would strike. And the thoughts of what lay beyond that entrance tantalized him.

Paul Rubenstein sat at the controls of the German helicopter gunship. Snow fell heavily. At the south center of the island of Iwo Jima, there was smoke, a lot of it, rising skyward in a heavy column, so heavy that the column reached considerable height before fully dissipating on the strong crosswinds. They finished the circle of the island, John Rourke aware of the fact that his friend was having trouble keeping the machine under control, ready to seize control if needed, but letting Paul get the experience. They flew only close enough that Rourke could get some perception of detail through the powerful German binoculars, but hopefully not close enough to draw attention to themselves from the ground.