Survivalist - 20 - Firestorm (19 page)

Nazis, she presumed.

As a Russian, she had been raised to have no fondness for them, thought Stalin a madman in the privacy of her own mind, for ever having allied with them only to reap the wrath of their betrayal. And, history aside, these Nazis were no bitter memory spoken of by survivors of a previous generation.

They were flesh and blood and death.

Eight of them.

One of her.

She would have to lower those odds.

Annie Rourke Rubenstein touched her fingers to the young man’s throat beneath the blankets swathed around him. His pulse was very weak.

She made a decision, quickly opening her parka, then parting his blankets, sliding beneath them, holding the dying man’s head to her chest, drawing his body close to hers, her own parka partially around him, then pulling up the blankets to cover them both. He had lost considerable blood and the cold, if nothing else, would kill him.

The young man groaned softly in pain and delirium and she drew him closer to her, her M-16 beside her, her eyes on

Otto’s brother lived.

Perhaps miracles did happen, Jason Darkwood mused, watching as Wolfgang Mann, a cigarette freshly lit at the corner of his mouth, exhaled then said, “They are waiting for us, I think. Otherwise, they would have killed the young man.”

“I agree.”

“I do not think that we should disappoint them, do you?” And Mann’s left eyebrow curled upward, something like a smile but without the lips.

“No. I think they’re very deserving and it would be a crime to let them get away from here without us touching base, so to speak, showing them a little of your country’s hospitaUty, which I, of course, look forward to myself.”

“Do you like streudel?”

“Yes-lthinkldo.”

Mann nodded, as if some great question were now resolved. “My wife made wonderful streudel. But it can be had in the commercial bakeries, not quite as good.” And he looked away, all trace of a smile gone. “So much evil,” he said. The snow fell in large, almost gende flakes, the size of the silver Eisenhower dollars Darkwood had seen in the pre-war coinage display at the New Smithsonian at Mid-Wake. Everything was gray, and Darkwood supposed the scenery reflected the mood.

There was a crunching of snow and Darkwood turned around, Otto Hammerschmidt still beside his brother as a tent was erected around them, but Sam Aldridge (who had been with the Hammerschmidt brothers) approaching, coming to attention, saluting, Darkwood letting Colonel Mann return the salute.

“Colonel, Captain-young Hammerschmidt confirms, as best he can, that it was some sort of energy weapon. I have no idea what.”

“Very good, Captain Aldridge,” Colonel Mann nodded, slipping back from his apparent reverie. “Then we should start at once. To find it, and the men responsible for using it.”

Sam Aldridge snapped, “Very good, sir. Should I order the men to mount?”

“Leave an adequate force to defend the temporary camp. Captain Hammerschmidt can be placed in command of the defense.”

“Begging the Colonel’s pardon, sir, but Captain Hammerschmidt requested specifically to accompany any punitive expedition.”

Darkwood watched Colonel Mann’s eyes. They seemed to beam. “Select a junior officer, then. Would you concur, Captain Darkwood?”

“I would, Colonel,” Darkwood said emotionlessly. Colonel Mann turned to face Sam Aldridge. “You have your orders then, Captain.” “Yes, sir.”

“We leave in three minutes.” “Yes, sir!” And Aldridge saluted.

Mann returned it, Aldridge jogging off, “Listen up Marines and you German Commandoes, too! We’re moving out! Lieutenant Klein!” Aldridge’s voice gradually diminished as the distance increased, but Darkwood still was able to hear the interchange between Aldridge and the young officer he had picked for taking charge of the defense.

“Yes, Herr Captain!”

“Pick eleven men. Youll need two machine guns. Set up a defensive perimeter for one hundred yards surrounding the tent and the remaining horses. Hobble the horses. Then set up a fallback line with secondary defensive positions at twenty-five yards. Be ready for anything. Keep your mortars behind the twenty-five yard limit.”

“Yes, Herr Captain!”

“He adapts to surface warfare well,” Colonel Mann began. “Walk with me.” And they started toward the horses, snow crunching under their boots. “I had read prejudiced accounts of American Marines, of course, as swaggering blowhards.”

“They can be that,” Darkwood laughed. “But you shouldn’t try solkiting fair comments about the Marines from the Navy.”

“I think the accounts I read were grievously in error.”

The Marines have always been tough and adaptable. They used

to be called ‘Leathernecks’,” Darkwood smiled. The story goes that during the early post Revolutionary War days, they wore uniforms with leather collars. And that’s probably true, but I personally feel they’re leathernecks because they’re damned near indestructible. At least if the Marines of Mid-Wake are anything like the Marines before the war.” And then Darkwood reached out his hand and touched Colonel Mann’s forearm. Mann looked at him, quizzically. “But, do me a favor, Colonel, never tell a Marine I ever said that. There’s the honor of the Navy to be upheld.”

Colonel Mann allowed a smile and brief laugh, then they continued moving again through the snow toward the horses, Sam Aldridge’s voice bellowing orders behind them still…

The eight men had clearly lost track of her. She watched with curiosity as, still careful of their defensive posture, they had obviously conferred, arrived at a decision, then acted upon it.

They split into four two-man groups to search for her.

Natalia Anastasia Tiemerovna, Major, Cornmittee for State Security of the Soviet, retired (five centuries ago, she smiled inwardly), watched such a two-man team now.

They had come up into the rocks after her, not knowing she was in the rocks, of course, but merely following their part of the search pattern. She promptly moved deeper into the rocks, leaving the security of her pre-selected niche, tightening the sling for her M-16 since she could not employ it without alerting the other six she had seen. And, doubtiess, there were more of the Nazis lurking about near where she had left Annie with the injured helicopter pilot who had been used so mercilessly to bait the women from the Retreat.

Gunshots might trigger action there that could result in danger to Annie.

Natalia moved as rapidly as prudence allowed there in die high rocks, with narrow ledges, ice-slicked and snow-covered, the climbing stick her only means of testing a surface before trusting it for a footfall.

And she was outdistancing the searchers easily …

Sarah Rourke tromboned the action of the Remington 870 police

shotgun. She had been exposed to a sufficient number of guns since the Night of the War that she knew - in spite of herself-volumes of the Utile details which comprised much of the knowledge of the firearms cognoscenti. The fore-end of the twelve gauge, for example, was from a Pachmayr kit, while the black synthetic pistol gripped buttstock was from Choate. The leather shell carrier (apparently modified to fit the slender wrist of the buttstock) was from Milt Sparks. She tried to remember its model name-“Cold Comfort,” Sarah Rourke said aloud.

Marie Leuden looked up from the book she was reading. “What did you say, Sarah? Cold comfort?”

“I was thinking out loud. But, I guess a gun can be cold comfort, can’t it? What are you reading?”

“Michael told me I should read the works of Ayn Rand.” She held op one of die philosopher and novelist’s most famous-and longest-works.

Ten hundred and eighty-four pages in paperback,” Sard) said suddenly. “What?”

“I read that in paperback. I didn’t agree with it. John asked me to lead it. I suppose I’d agree with it more now. I think he grew up on mat book, die Boy Scout manual and GUNS & AMMO magazine. And, come to think of it, there were a lot of times out there-” and she gestured toward the entrance of die Retreat” - after the Night of the War, before he found us, I wished I’d read those.”

The Boy Scout manual?”

“Sometimes more of GUNS & AMMO,” Sarah smiled.

She began loading the 870’s extended magazine with the German-made clones of Federal 00 Buck loads John kept for the shotgun. If something went wrong and someone who shouldn’t got into the Retreat, it would be a shotgun job.

Experience had taught her that.

Experience had taught her a lot of things …

As the nearest of the AV-16’s rolled past them, John Rourke, only his face partially out of the snow, spread his arms, slewing snow away from his body, half falling as he broke into what passed for a run in nearly chest deep snow-more a combination of lunging,

falling, swimming and trying to stand-toward the nearly cruise-ship-sized Soviet tactical missile launcher.

He glanced left, and Paul Rubenstein was just beside him.

Soviet vehicles -the tmfty-five-foot long armored personnel carriers, the impossibly huge T-91 tanks and more of the AV-16 missile launching platforms - surrounded them totally now. With the somewhat disorienting effect of the snowscape, the only thing that confirmed to John Rourke that the Atsack and Michael hadn’t been found on Soviet sensing equipment or collided with by mere chance was that there was no enemy fire, and all of the Soviet batde vehicles moved onward across the plateau, as though nothing could stop them.

Up close, Rourke almost wondered if anything could.

They kept running, falling into the snow, picking themselves up, running again, the AV-16 almost past them. Its treads were his immediate goal, so broad and so deeply ridged and so rugged seeming that his plan just might work. And it was the only option they had.

Rourke drew the Crain LS-X knife.

A shaft of yellow from one of the AV-16’s running lights bathed the snow around them, the tight glinting eerily on die twelve inches of blade steel of the LS-X.

Paul drew the knife sheathed to his belt.

John Rourke had planned ahead.

The knife in Paul Rubenstein’s hand was the replica of the five centuries ago Crain LS-I old Jon the swordmaker had given to Rourke’s son, Michael.

The AV-16 mobile missile platform towered over them now, its enormous gray bulk tike a mountain moving along on tank treads. Rourke swam his way out of a snowdrift so high it was nearly to his throat, a storm of snow more intense than anything natural lashing around them, churned into a whirlwind by the movement of the AV-16s, the tanks and the armored personnel carriers. Rourke threw himself toward the rearmost segment of the AV-16’s left side forward track, shouting to Paul, “Now or never!” There was no way of telling if his friend could have heard him.

The LS-X in both gloved fists, John Rourke hammered the blade outward and forward into the massive tread, the blade steel biting deep, Rourke’s entire body vibrating with it, his arms and shoulders nearly wrenched from his body as the tank-like tread continued rotating, huge clots of snow flung upward in its wake, half burying Rourke as he was lifted upward. Rourke’s chest, the entire front of his body was slammed against the tread, his breath going in one giant, involuntary exhalation, the upward pressure on his arms collapsing his diaphragm, making it impossible to breathe. The effect was like drowning, snow literally burying him as he was dragged upward, lungs burning.

He was prone on the tread, moving forward with such rapidity that-In microseconds, he would be dragged downward, crushed beneath the tread as it bit into the snow.

His knife.

Rourke shook his head, trying to clear it, gulping air, his mouth filling with snow.

He pushed himself up, the tread rotating downward. He looked to his right. A massive fender-like appendage partially covered the tread and it was his only chance.

With all the strength he could force from his wearied muscles, John Rourke wrenched the LS-X free of the tread and jumped. His body slammed against the ice-slicked armor of the tread fender and skidded forward, Rourke inverting the LS-X in his hand and punching the skull crusher buttcap into the ice, wedging it against the armor plate, his elbows locked, arms rigid.

His body slammed to a halt.

“Paul,” Rourke rasped.

Through the swirling snow, John Rourke could not see him.

Natalia slipped the heavier outer glove into a side pocket of her parka, only the skin tight silk glove liner remaining. Immediately, she began flexing her fingers to keep die circulation going.

Years ago -centuries ago - when she had adopted the Bali-Song as her personal edged weapon, she had realized that the ability to make it move as though it were some sort of living entity could be a vital asset in close combat. Because of her ballet training, she had been taught to play die piano, to develop her appreciation and sense of music. She had never felt herself very good at it, but when she’d first begun to use the Bali-Song, or “Butterfly Knife” as such a knife was sometimes called, she had returned to the piano in earnest, but wearing gloves, like the post-World War Two night club entertainer Hildegarde had. For the Bali-Song to move quickly, it had to be barely touched, almost fly through the fingers. And it was this deprivation of normal tactility she had sought to perfect with the piano.

Scales, that bane of all pianists, then die metronomically demanding works of Chopin. When her fingers would be so stiff and weary that they could barely move, wearing silk gloves again, she would work with the Bali-Song. At first, she kept the primary and false edge taped, still cutting herself at times. Eventually, die tape came off. Only after she could manipulate it fully while wearing die gloves did she remove them.

Her piano playing had improved markedly, although she would never play for anyone to hear, too self-conscious, too aware of her pathetic shortcomings on the instrument. But the knife. It moved almost as though it possessed a life of its own.

To touch bare metal with bare flesh in these temperatures would be insane.

The glove liners, as skin tight as the silk gloves with which she had practiced all those endless hours. The knife was in her right hand.