Survivalist - 18 - The Struggle (18 page)

“Thank you. Elaine—how is she?”

“Doctor Halversen, at last report, was perfectly fine. You have nothing to worry about on that score, Herr Lieutenant. Can you stand?”

“I—I think so.”

“Excellent. But remember, should you feel faint because of that blow to the head, just sit down again. We will help you. You can easily tell me the combination to the doors and we can open them.”

“All right. But I think I can do it.”

“Good, Herr Lieutenant. I was told to expect a man of singular courage; and, indeed, you are that,” Rausch told him. He helped Kurinami gradually to his feet* two other of Rausch’s eight men supporting the young Japanese naval aviator, still wobbly on his legs.

Kurinami started toward the doors, Rausch’s men helping him. The Japanese moved very slowly. At last, he stopped before the doors, nodded and smiled to the two men and they stepped back a pace. He began to work the combination lock on the left. “Two combinations?” Rausch asked, genuinely curious. “Was this the customary thing in your time, Herr Lieutenant?”

“Doctor Rourke is a very cautious man—Mr. Rausch, was it?”

“Yes.”

“Why isn’t it Captain Rausch or something?”

Rausch smiled. “You are quite astute, Herr Lieutenant. I am a member of a top secret group of intelligence commandos recently formed by Colonel Mann. We carry no military rank,” and he smiled again, “although some of us did. I was, in fact, a—” Rausch hesitated, almost giving his SS rank designation.”—a Major. But we all serve the Fatherland in our own way.”

“Colonel Mann is a fine officer. You are privileged to serve under him,” the Japanese said, apparently finished with the first combination lock, starting on

1 the second.

“He is an officer whose actions will always be remembered,” Rausch said, but not adding why.

“Is your gunship disabled?”

“No. It was forced down, as I said. At least I do not think it is permanently disabled.”

“If we cannot raise your base on Doctor Rourke’s radio, perhaps I can get the helicopter airborne again. I have considerable experience.”

“As I understand that you do, Lieutenant,” Rausch nodded. It seemed that the second combination dial had been turned enough. “Are we ready?”

“Almost. Is Colonel Mann sending in reinforcements?”

“Oh, yes. When the Soviets attack, they will get more than they planned for, assuredly. I would venture to say, if you are feeling up to it, you will be right there among the heaviest fighting at the controls of your own gunship again.” Kurinami would be dead as soon as he got the doors open and passed inside. Once it was clear that there were no passive defense systems within the Herr Doctor’s facility, the Japanese’s usefulness would come to its sudden, inevitable end.

“There.”

“Now, how do the doors open?”

Kurinami looked over his shoulder, reached to the massive handles and jerked them, then pulled the right-hand side door open. “I’ll go through first and get the lights.”

“Yes—a good idea. We will be just behind you, my friend. Just behind you.”

The Japanese disappeared through the open doorway. Rausch reached to his belt for his pistol, nodded to his men. He stepped into the darkness beyond the doors.

There were no lights. “Lieutenant?”

“Move and you are dead!” Kurinami’s voice came from the darkness, somewhere ahead.

“What is this? To repay our kindness?”

“If you are who you say you are, step back outside and pull the doors closed and lock them. You will not freeze outside.” Rausch felt for a wall, somewhere where there might be a light switch. “I will radio for help, confirm your identity and admit you to wait until help arrives.”

“But, Herr Lieutenant, we cannot do that I am afraid. I have specific orders to contact my base as soon as possible.” Rausch’s hand found a switch. As he hit the switch with the tips of his fingers, he shouted, “Kill him!” He flipped the switch and nothing happened, no lights. One of his own men fell against him. There was a gunshot, the sound of a ricochet, Rausch firing toward the flash of gunfire, one of his men screaming in pain. “Bastard!” Rausch threw himself down into the darkness, on what felt like stone, his left elbow impacting too hard, his left arm going numb with pain for an instant.

“Herr Rausch!”

“Stay outside. Cover the entrance so he cannot slip out.”

Kurinami’s voice came out of the darkness, uncomfortably near. “I have visited Doctor Rourke’s Retreat on several occasions. I know the floorplan. You do not. I have shut off all the lights. You do not know where the circuit panel is. Your only chance is to leave here at once.”

“No—” And Rausch rolled onto his back, then rolled again, groping in the almost total darkness with his left hand. The floor fell away. He panicked momentarily, edged forward, felt a step beneath it. “You are the one who has no options, Herr Lieutenant. My eight men—”

“Seven—I hit one, Rausch.”

“Very good!Seven. They have the doorway covered. You cannot leave. If you turn on the lights to get to the radio, to use it, you will be shot. Perhaps, as we exchange shots, the radio will be destroyed. I already have what I want. I have captured you and gained access to Doctor Rourke’s mountain retreat and whatever secrets it may possess.”

“Who are your

Rausch smiled. There was no purpose any longer served by lying. “My name is Rausch. I am still a military officer, but of the SS. My men and I are loyal members of the Party—”

“Nazis?’

“Yes, Kurinami.Nazis. And you and your friends and eventually all our enemies will be crushed. Surrender and I promise you a quick and honorable death. You have my oath.”

“The oath of a Nazi? You must be crazy.”

Rausch was tiring of the little verbal battle.

Rausch was ready to move, inched forward, aimed his pistol into the darkness where Kurinami’s voice seemed to originate. “Lieutenant?”

“Yes?”

Rausch fired, again and again and again, the sounds of glass shattering, bullets ricocheting. Then Rausch threw himself over the edge of the steps, wriggling down them on his belly, the base surprisingly near.

Kurinami did not fire back.

“Lieutenant?”

There was no answer.

“Kurinami?”

Still no answer, but Rausch moved just in case. The only rational thing now was to wait.

She felt embarrassed because his body was so close to hers. “Forgive me, Sarah,” Wolfgang Mann hissed. “In these mountains, I was momentarily uncertain of the origin of the gunfire.”

She nodded, still trying to catch her breath. He had pushed her against the rocks, sheltering her with his body, the three men with them falling into firing positions around them. “No—I’m all right, Wolf.”

The pressure against her already eased.

They looked up the road. “I could almost swear those sounds came from the Retreat. Where else could they have come from?”

Wolfgang Mann’s eyes narrowed behind his snow goggles. In German, he issued rapid-fire orders to his three men, then spoke into his radio. When he concluded, he translated. “I alerted my pilot to be ready for whatever might arise. I also instructed him to order back one of the J7-Vs from my squadron, again to be safe. I would like you to wait here.” Two of his men moved along the trail ahead of them, keeping to either side of it, their assault rifles ready. The third man waited with them. She looked at the third man. “You have not only yourself but the child you carry to

consider, Sarah.”

She didn’t need him reminding her of that. “What if whatever caused those shots requires knowledge of the Retreat to set things right? Even just how to get inside it?” And she reached into the pocket of her parka as she removed her right glove, then extracted the Trapper Scorpion .45 the Mulliner boy had given her five centuries ago. She worked the slide, chambering the top round out of the six-round magazine.

“As you wish, Sarah. But, you must stay beside me.”

She raised the little handmade .45’s safety, clutching the pistol tightly in her hand.

“All right.”

She walked beside him, toward the Retreat…

Akiro Kurinami’s right hand opened and closed on the butt of the Colt. His own weapon had been missing when he awakened, the first clue making him suspicious of his benefactors. But Doctor Rourke had begun to leave a chamber-loaded stainless steel Government Model Series 80 .45 automatic and two spare magazines in a niche just inside the door, Doctor Rourke telling him of this when he—Kurinami—and Elaine had sought refuge there. Doctor Rourke explained how he had removed the magazine springs from all three of the Colt magazines, then baked them in the kitchen oven to properly heat-treat them so they would retain their resiliency fully loaded over protracted periods of time. He had mentioned as an aside that, of course, he had welded the magazine floorplates because .45 ACP magazines were habitually only spot-welded and could come loose from the magazine body at the most tactically embarrassing moments, spilling floorplate, spring, follower, and cartridges and leaving the shooter with an empty gun.

urinami remembered all of that.

The two spare loaded magazines were in his pocket. The .45 was still in his fist. And Damien Rausch, this self-proclaimed Nazi, was still inside Doctor Rourke’s Retreat. He would have to fix that.

Slowly, not even an inch at a time, he crawled toward the kitchen counter. Between the counter and the couch was the narrowest portion of walking space. The kitchen was up three steps from the great room floor, and Rausch would most certainly have come down the steps—Kurinami hoped. Keeping the steps as a guide, he would move ahead. When he came in line with the couch, that would be the killing ground, Kurinami determined.

He kept moving…

The light that could be activated from within the foyer was on. It was red, and as it washed over the blowing and drifting snow outside the open main entrance at her husband’s retreat, it gave everything it touched the color of blood.

She crouched beside Wolfgang Mann, his three men now even with them, the two point men alerting the Colonel that the Retreat’s entrance was open, that there were an undisclosed number of men inside just beyond the open door.

“What do you suggest, Sarah?”

She licked her hps beneath the toque she wore to protect her face from the wind, her tongue inadvertently touching the fabric. “If you could have one of your men get up on either side of the door to cover us, then you and I and your third man—the Corporal here—could come up on the blind side—from the right?” And she gestured toward near the large boulder, rolled away now. “The boulder would give us

cover until just at the very end. We could get to the doorway before they saw us. Either that, or it’ll turn into a standoff and it could go on indefinitely.”

“You could also get shot.”

“I’m aware of that.”

“All right, then.” He nodded and he hissed whispered commands to his men, two of them, the point men from before, splitting to right and left, disappearing almost instantly. But, of course, Colonel Mann’s personal men would have been among the best of his commandos. And she had seen Otto Hammerschmidt at work often enough. Otto— Her thoughts filled with the fear that she had for Annie and Natalia and Otto Hammerschmidt. Were they alive still? She felt tears welling up in her eyes, sniffed them back. “Are you all right, Sarah?”

“Uh-huh.”

Suddenly, Colonel Mann’s two point men reappeared, flanking the main entrance to the Retreat. Wordlessly, she cursed herself for never learning more about the Retreat’s other entrances. She knew how to use them as exits, not how to enter from outside. Even though they weren’t designed for that—“Sarah—we will move ahead now.”

She looked at Wolfgang Mann, nodded silently to him, ran beside him. She told herself the exercise was good for her pregnancy, healthy for the baby. Pregnant women in tribal days would have their children beside the road, falling out, delivering, catching up. This was nothing compared to that. She stumbled, caught herself, Mann’s hand suddenly at her elbow, ran on beside him. They reached the boulder which her husband would roll away to begin the entry process to the Retreat, his home away from home for them as he had called it. She shook her head, a flood of memories of awakening there, suddenly remembering why she lay

in something like a coffin, why there was a smell of gas from within the bedding, why stalagtites hung from the ceiling, why a waterfall raged at the far end of the great room into a pool. And then seeing her son and her daughter, grown to maturity, almost the same age as she. And the feelings she’d had against John. She wondered if she still had those, or had she just given up? Was that why he had gotten her pregnant, to say, “Forgive me?” or was it simply an accident? But with John Rourke, everything was always planned ahead.

She crouched behind the boulder, Colonel Mann beside her on her right, the Corporal on her left. His men, who flanked the doorway, advanced, directly beside the opening now on either side.

Mann was up, running, saying nothing to her, the Corporal beside her still as she started to move. As Colonel Mann neared the door, his two men stepped through, crisscrossing, Colonel Mann’s assault rifle opening fire. Sarah reached the doorway. A man in white snowsmock and holding an M-16 raised the rifle to shoot at her. She ducked left, stabbing the little .45 automatic toward him, bullets from some other source whizzing past her head. She shot him twice in the face and he fell back against the foyer wall, eyes open, dead.

Colonel Mann stepped in front of her—she almost shot him by accident—and sprayed his assault rifle into another man. “Nazis,” Mann shouted …

Gunfire. Akiro Kurinami saw a blur of darker darkness and fired, the .45 belching long tongues of flame in the near total darkness, a red glow from the main entrance all the light there was. A pistol shot came toward him and he dodged left, realized too late he should have moved right, felt sudden heat, then cold in his left side. He fired again and again, heard what

sounded like a groan of pain; but, he couldn’t be certain, so much gunfire from the entrance. He edged behind the kitchen counter, pushed the magazine release button and ejected, the partially spent magazine falling to the floor beside him as he put the new magazine up the well.