Survivalist - 21.5 - The Legend (16 page)

“So. What are we supposed to do? Let mom be brain dead and dad just die?” Michael said slowly.

But before Doctor Munchen could answer, Wolfgang Mann and Commander Dodd, an odd pairing to be sure, Michael thought, appeared in the outer office. Munchen turned toward them.

“Colonel?”

“Commander Dodd wishes to speak with all of you; I thought it best to accompany him, under the circumstances.” Dodd entered the inner office, stood just inside the doorway,

Colonel Mann, worn looking, sad-eyed, stood in the doorway just behind him.

Dodd put his hands on his hips.

“What is it mat you want?” Natalia asked.

“I came to express my condolences on your bereavement. What a fine and brave family to endure such terrible emotional hardships. Doctor Rourke and his wife will be sorely missed.”

Michael cleared his throat. Otherwise, the room was as silent as the grave.

Dodd went on. “I have a responsibility to the citizens of Eden which, however onerous, must be carried out.”

“What?” Annie asked him, the hatred for him ill-disguised in her voice.

“There has been a crime. The person or persons responsible must be apprehended if society is to continue, if there is to be civilization here rather than chaos.”

“I agree. We need to take the killer and kill him, hard,” Michael said, standing, looking at Dodd, taking a step toward him.

Dodd stood his ground. Td never thought a Rourke would feel differendy. That’s why I must do what I must do.”

“And what the hell is that?” Michael Rourke snapped.

“To thoroughly investigate this crime, we need evidence. And, as far as I am able to ascertain, Doctor and Mrs. Rourke died intestate.”

“They are not dead,” Natalia hissed, standing, throwing her shoulders back.

“Their deaths are a matter of time, if I properly understand their conditions. Therefore, I am officially requesting Colonel Mann that their bodies be released to me so that at the instant of death, Eden’s resident physician can conduct a proper autopsy on each of them to assist in accumulating evidence.”

“Against whom?” Annie asked him.

“That is another reason I have come.”

Wolfgang Mann spoke. “He has six armed men of Eden

with him. He intends to arrest the Fraulein Major oa npi—

cion of murder.”

Michael Rourke jumped toward Dodd, hands going far Dodd’s throat, Michael’s right knee smashing upward into Dodd’s groin, hammering the man to the floor, Michael was atop him now, fingers closing more tightly around Dodd’s neck.

Dodd’s pudgy face was starting to discolor.

Michael felt hands on his arms and shoulders, his eyes so tightiy focused on Dodd, willing the man to die, that he saw noone else.

“Mike!”

He looked up.

Into Natalia’s eyes.

She knelt beside him, her hands on his arm. ‘Not now.”

The only person who had ever called him ‘Mike’ was his father, and only a few times, in their too short lives together.

Michael looked to his left. Annie and Doctor Munchen held his other arm.

Michael looked back at Natalia.

For once in his life, his father had misdiagnosed, thought she was dead, but had ‘planned ahead’ as he always did, in the event that he was wrong-getting her from the fire, protecting her from additional smoke inhalation in the process. If she had not gotten instant care, the cyanide gas would surely have claimed her. She had saved herself, and had to have turned away the instant death that came for her, or otherwise the amount of the gas would have been such, she would have (bed on the spot, in that very instant.

And he realized something else.

Whether his parents lived or died, he had the mantle of fus father’s responsibility now.

Lieutenant I^arrimore and her baby were burned to ashes, a few of Lieutenant Martha Larrimore’s bones likely all that would be found. The other patients, all of them German, were dead.

But the child to whom his mother gave birth only seconds before she was shot in the head, might still live.

He had to find that child, and find the killers who assaulted the hospital.

If he murdered Dodd now, who could not possibly have been physically responsible for what occurred (although doubtlessly was in whole or in part behind it), he might sever the last possible link to the actual culprits, to his just born brother.

He released Dodd’s throat and stood up from the floor.

Dodd lay there, Munchen examining Dodd’s throat briefly, taking Dodd’s pulse, then rising, saying, “You appear well, Herr Commander.*

Dodd looked up from the floor, into Michael’s eyes, but never quite holding Michael’s gaze. “I wasn’t going to bring this up now, but I will. With your father and mother near death, and no clear will-“

“Wilir Annie repeated

“It is my duty as leader of Eden to impound the Retreat and its contents until such time as proper legal proceedings can be established to dispose of the estate.”

Tou can fuck off and die before you get my father and mother into your hands to kill them,” Michael Rourke told him. “And the Retreat doesn’t belong to you. And you don’t know the way inside, you schmuck.” It was Yiddish for prick, that word, something he had picked up from Annie, whom Michael assumed had, in turn, learned it from her husband.

Colonel Mann cleared his throat, then said, “Commander, you may or may not have the right to seize the possessions and property of the Herr Doctor and Frau Rourke, but this base constitutes the embassy of The Republic of New Germany in Eden, and as such cannot be subject to your civil authority. You cannot remove the Rourkes, nor can you arrest Fraulein Major Tiemerovna. John and Sarah Rourke will be flown away from here as soon as Doctor Munchen considers it medically advisable, then to New Germany or Mid-Wake

where they will be given the finest care to be had ■ the hopes of their full and complete recoveries. And, although t is not my place to comment, once Akiro Kurinami bets you s a free election, were I you, I might think of where on the small Earth of ours to hide from the wrath of God and man-“It is you, Herr Commander, and Nazi conspirators whom I think must be responsible for what has happened here this _ night. Once that is proven, you will be the sworn enemy of every free man and woman. Enjoy your moment, for it will be your last.”

Dodd was on his feet now, starting for the door. And Wolfgang Mann interposed himself within the doorway between Dodd and the outer office. “I personally, Hen Commander, count Frau Rourke as one of the finest persons I have ever known. That you authorized or ordered or even condoned what was done to her is beyond despicable. Were I a private citizen, I would kill you now, you disgust me so.”

“Where’s our brother, Dodd?” Michael Rourke’s hands trembled with rage, his fists balling closed, opening, balling closed again.

“I am not responsible to you.”

Wolfgang Mann said, “Once you leave this facility, Hen-Commander, I would walk quickly, and I would never keep myself alone, nor be without a weapon in instant reach, and avoid dark places.”

Dodd looked at Natalia. “Will you chose to surrender yourself to me for trial?”

Natalia lit a cigarette, blew the smoke in his face. “I am not religious, but I am struck by the Biblical story of Eden, Commander Dodd. There was a tempter. There were the tempted. But you have simultaneously offered the apple and eaten it yourself. Perhaps, if I were to cut off your arms and legs, you could then crawl on your belly as you should.”

Wolfgang Mann stepped aside.

Dodd walked out.

Michael Rourke looked out the office window. Perhaps there

was symbolic meaning behind it, although he doubted that. But, the sun definitely rose.

“Paul should be well enough to travel in a few days,” Annie said emotionlessly from behind him.

Natalia asked, “Doctor Munchen, what is their fate?”

Michael Rourke closed his eyes, no longer wishing to see the sunrise.

Munchen’s voice came to him through the darkness.

“To prevent John’s condition from further deteriorating, and to keep Sarah alive until, someday, there may be a procedure by which she can be saved, there is only one choice, a gamble at best.

“But they are man and wife, and at least they will sleep together.”

“The Sleep” Michael Rourke said, not opening his eyes.

Two

Wind swept over the field, light snow falling, driving hard against them.

The J7-V which would transport them was waiting at the center of the field. Three more of the craft circled overhead, waiting as escort for the flight and now as sentries against the unexpected.

Jason Darkwood and Margaret Barrow would accompany John and Sarah Rourke to Mid-Wake, where German doctors were already waiting to consult with their American colleagues. A Russian specialist from the Underground City had volunteered his services as well.

Paul and Annie, Paul’s hands swathed in bandages and a large patch bandage on his left cheek, stood at the edge of the pad; Annie’s long skirts blowing in the wind.

And Natalia looked suddenly at Michael Rourke who stood beside her when he reached out and took her hand. She let him hold her hand, not knowing why she let him do so nor why he wanted to.

Beneath hermetically sealed half-cylinders, John and Sarah were brought out onto the field. Doctor Munchen walked beside them.

Natalia could see their faces clearly, despite the fact that the left side of Sarah’s face was heavily bandaged.

She looked asleep, and so did John.

Colonel Mann-had he secretly Men in love with Sarah? NaMa wondered, saddened at the thought as the honor guard was called to attention.

A tape was begun, the Star Spangled Banner.

As the United States national anthem played, John and Sarah were wheeled across the field. Colonel Mann ordered present arms.

Rifle salutes from the men and women ranked on three sides of the field.

Colonel Mann rendered a hand salute.

Tears flooded Natalia’s eyes and she cursed her sex for the emotions being so close to the surface, sometimes so hard to control. She needed to be hard, more than ever before, to avenge the terrible act which wrought this, to find John and Sarah’s missing child.

But her heart was ripped from her, and she could barely stand.

Michael’s arm went around her and she leaned her face against his chest and wept.

Michael whispered to her, “Let it go. Let it go.”

Her tears flowed more freely now than she could ever remember having cried before, even as a little girl. And she felt more alone than she had ever felt in her life.

But Michael held her.

Twenty-one persons, men and women of Mid-Wake and of New Germany; ranked behind the flags of the United States (and Mid-Wake) and of New Germany, fired their assault rifles skyward as Natalia looked.

“I swear to your God, John and Sarah, I will never rest until we find the child and kill the men who did this.”

Beside her, Michael, his voice hoarse, tight, tears running down his cheeks, his body shaking, whispered, “Amen.”

Three

The election would be in a matter of days, the election for leadership of Eden, a mere handful of persons deciding the future of what was once the United States, to follow Akiro Kurinami, who stood for honor and courage, or Dodd, who was vile and despicable.

Annie Rourke Rubenstein, her eyes burning with exhaustion and tears, dressed herself for the ordeal now facing them, where climate, as much as anything else would be the adversary. Chinese silk tights, heavy and black, like her spirit. A cream colored silk teddy, of the kind Natalia always wore, also Chinese. Then, over the tights, heavy stockings, of coarse black wool, elasticized at the thighs to stay up. She stepped into a heavy silk slip, elasticized at the waist, the garment coming to mid-thigh level.

If-when-they found-What exactly were these people? Killers? Certainly, but not of her parents, not yet, because her

E

arents both lived in a strange, horrible way. Was life like that etter than death?

It would be a matter of a few days only before the decision would have to be made to put her mother and father into cryogenic sleep, the same procedure which had saved all their lives, allowing them to sleep for five centuries while the Earth became at least slightly habitable again, while they waited for the return of the Eden Project.

What irony, she thought, that the humans for whom she and her brother-especially her brother-had watched in the night sky each and every night, well over a decade, should return to

bring them this horror.

She buttoned her blouse, white, long sleeved, heavy cotton, buttoning it fully to the neck.

Annie stepped into her skirt, nearly ankle length, moderately full, charcoal gray-lined wool. Smoothing the tails of her blouse beneath the waistband, she zipped and buttoned it at her side. She pulled on her sweater, long-sleeved, crew-necked, charcoal gray like her skirt. She pulled the little round collar of her blouse from beneath the neck of her sweater.

The logical starting place was Dodd, of course. It had to be Dodd.

Akiro had volunteered to return, as had Elaine, but Michael and Paul had insisted that they should not, not until the eve of the election, and only then if he kept as close as possible under German security.

She stepped into her boots, began completing the lacing.

The first step would be Commander Dodd, learning from him who had her unnamed brother, where they hid him.

Between them-herself. her husband, her brother, Natalia-they had not yet decided what to do about Dodd. Kill him?

Or let the election throw him out, ruin him, reveal him. Let the new laws which would be made, bring him to book.

Her boots tied, she began to don her weapons.

The little cold steel Mini-Tanto. Sheathed in the special rig made for her in Lydveldid Island, she secured it to the inside of her left calf. She buckled on her gunbelt, the Detonics Scoremaster .45 in one holster, the Beretta 92F she’d taken from a man who had kidnapped her and tried to rape her, in the other. Spare magazines for both pistols-two for each-were arrayed in pouches on the belt, the rest of the magazines for her handguns, along with other miscellaneous gear, in a leather musette bag she carried, which doubled as a purse, with her hairbrush and other necessities.