Survivalist - 21.5 - The Legend (17 page)

Annie Rourke Rubenstein looked at herself in the mirror.

She always felt slightly ridiculous suited up for the wilder

ness or tor battle, and usually both.

Since her girlhood, when their father had awakened them early from the cryogenics chambers, to which both her father and mother might soon return, perhaps forever, she had teft compelled to express herself as female in a world where, then, the only two other humans were male, father and brother.

Desire had become habit and on those few occasions, when the extremes of climate demanded, she had to wear trousers, she felt terribly uncomfortable, unnatural almost.

For the first time since the attack on her parents, she almost laughed, seeing herself in the mirror, skirt and combat boots, peter pan collar and gunbelt.

She sat down in front of the mirror and put on her earrings …

“You will be killed.”

“So?”

“So?”

“So.”

“Colonel Mann can organize-“

“Colonel Mann can’t do what needs to be done. He knows it and so do I.” “But, Michael, the war is over.”

“Only a major engagement, Maria; that’s all that’s over. The wars never end. There’s an occasional truce, a lull in the fighting, and sometimes a shifting of alliances. But the war goes on forever, if you think about it.”

“What are you telling me, Michael?”

“That you love me and I care a great deal for you, but I don’t know when Fll be back, or even if. And I think you’d be better off without me.”

“Michael!”

Tm sorry, but not for what I am.”

Michael Rourke did not kiss Maria Leuden, simply looked

at her one more time and left the room, walked along the corridor, taking his gunbelt from his shoulder and cinching it at his waist.

He could hear his father’s voice inside his head: “You behaved like an asshole toward her, Michael; she loves you.” He didn’t love her.

And that was a fact he could not escape.

And Michael Rourke wondered what his father would say if he could see just what was in his son’s mind and heart right now, at this very instant.

He doubted very much that John Rourke would like what he saw very much at all.

Four

Natalia Anastasia Tiemerovna set down the receiver of the radio telephone. Frau Bruner had put Jea on the line. “Natalia?” “Yes. Did they tell you?” “No like.”

“You help Frau Bruner, okay?” “Yes, no like.”

“Are we friends, you and I?” “Yes.”

“Would you help me?” “Yes.

“Then, help me now. And understand why I help my other friends, okay?” “Yes. Love much.”

And he had handed the receiver back to Frau Bruner. They spoke for several minutes about the school, about Jea. about when Natalia might be back. “I do not know, Frau Bruner. I may never be back.” ‘But, Fraulein Major!”

“I have asked you to call me just Natalia, or Frauieic Tiemerovna, or whatever you like but that.” But, why argue that now? “Anyway, Frau Bruner. You can run the school not just as well as I, but better. And we both know that, don’t we?”

Frau Bruner was silent for a moment, and Natalia almost began to think the transmission was broken. But then her voice came back. “I will miss you, Natalia.”

Frau Bruner said Natalia’s name with great deliberance, great care.

“I will miss you, Clara. You are my good friend. Bless you.” And Natalia hung up.

She stood now in front of the mirror, just looking at herself.

Natalia Anastasia Tiemerovna was back in the world where she belonged, doing what presumably she was born to do, if one believed in Fate.

She took the gunbelt John had searched so hard to find for her, securing it around her waist just over the hips. She picked up the twin stainless steel Smith & Wesson L-Frame .357 Magnum revolvers with their American Eagles engraved on the right barrel flats, holstering them both, the loads already checked after she had completed cleaning them. Then washed her hands several times to rid herself of the odor of the lubricant’cleaner that accumulated beneath her nails.

She took the Null shoulder holster from the back of the vanity chair, slung it on. securing the crossover strap to her gunbelt (more comfortable than attaching it to the loop sewn into the waist of the black jumpsuit she wore). The PPK/S, which John had rescued along with her from the fire, was already holstered, its suppressor in place. Finally, she picked up the Bali-Song from the small table the Germans had provided her.

Her right thumb flipped up the lock, and she wheeled the knife in her hand, steel moving like something alive. She desperately wanted to use the knife, to kill Commander Dodd.

She closed the Bali-Song, securing it inside the sewn-in pouch, along the jumpsuit’s right leg.

Natalia caught up her black purse which converted to a day pack, and her parka, too. Black fabric-the lining of the jacket and the hood-synthetic fur as warm and soft and real feeling as the sable of the once glorious coat which was now stained with and smelled of smoke from the fire.

She looked at herself one more time in the mirror.

Had she not averted her face and held her breath, she would have inhaled enough of the cyanide gas that she would be

dead now. Five centuries ago, she would never have survived in any event.

She wondered if she was better off now or would have been better off then…

Michael Rourke, his pack set on the synth-concrete beside him, stomped his booted feet against the cold.

The night was nothing but stars, no cloud cover, no precipitation, no moon amounting to anything more than an obscure sliver, the blackness like velvet. He remembered the nights before the Awakening, watching the stars with his father and his sister. Then Annie would go to bed.

That was his time, to sit with John Rourke, the hero, the legend, the demi-god, his father.

It was precious time, because in a short while his father would return to the Sleep, to rejoin them once again in what was then a distant future time.

And the future never was nor would it be something one could count on.

“Why do you watch the stars, Dad?”

“Well, beats looking at you, right?” And then his father would laugh, hit him on the the arm or hug him to him and sometimes kiss his forehead. That gesture was embarrassing then, because they were both guys.

Michael Rourke longed for it again, now.

“I like to try to guess what’s up there, Michael.”

“You mean like the Eden Project?”

“No. They’re just men, like ourselves.” That sounded pretry good at the time. “I just kind of wonder, that’s all.”

“So do I.”

“What do you wonder about, Michael?”

“What’s gonna happen in the future.”

His father laughed, puffed on his cigar. “Nobody can tell that. And that’s probably a good thing. If we knew all the happy moments and all the sad ones, we’d be so busy trying

to rearrange everything, we’d never get anything done and before you knew it all the happy times would be gone.”

“What will the happy times be like, Dad?”

“You’ll know them, Mike, and the sad times, too.”

Michael Rourke took his father’s battered old Zippo lighter from his pocket, pulled off his outer glove and the liner. In the light from the airfield, he could just make out the steam rising from the palm of his hand as he shone the lighter on them.

The lighter was the one thing of his father’s that he had. But, that was a lie.

The lighter was only a tangible possession. He had many things of bis father, he told himself, intangible things that were more important than anything physical. Memories, love, learning.

No Commander Dodd, no assassins, no living death in cryogenic sleep could ever deprive him of such things as these.

He held the lighter very tightly in his fist.

He heard footsteps and looked around, but slowly.

It was Annie, looking for all the world like someone off for a walk in the countryside, yet somehow dressed for battle, too.

Paul, his hands still bandaged under his gloves, Michael knew.

Natalia, beautiful Natalia.

And the last two members of their group, Bjorn Rolvaag, the Icelandic policemen, and his wolf-like dog, Hrothgar. Natalia said something to him and he nodded, smiled. Annie gave him a big hug.

Paul made a gesture that was something like a salute.

And everyone looked at him. His eyes met Natalia’s eyes, and they held each other’s eyes for an instant, and then she cast her eyes down.

And, in that moment, Michael Rourke realized that, for better or worse, he was the leader because he was John Rourke’s son and John Rourke could not lead them now.

His rifle held easily in his left hand, in his right hand dm was inside his pocket he held his father’s lighter as he said, “Once we step off the base we’re no longer under the protection of New Germany. According to that asshole Dodd, Natalia’s wanted. That means we’re her accomplices, if I understand that sort of thing correctly. So, it’s likely anyone who’s in league with Dodd will have orders to shoot us on sight, as criminals.

“Once the election takes place and Akiro is installed in office,” Michael Rourke went on, “well have the Eden government on our side. But, until that time, we’ll technically be criminals. Assuming those were some of his neo-Nazi pals who did the actual dirty work, we’ll have them to contend with them, too. Dodd will know that the first place well come is after him.

“So, let’s not disappoint him.” Michael concluded.

“Will we need anything from the Retreat, Michael? I mean, eventually they’ll just blow the doors off if they have to, won’t they?”

“Annie’s right, Michael,” Paul nodded. “Now or never for the Retreat.”

Michael looked at Natalia again and smiled. “They’ll have to work at getting inside, but I agree that they will penetrate the main entrance. We can use one of the escape tunnels to get in or out until they do. If there were the time, yeah, I’d say go in, take what we need, then destroy the rest so Dodd can’t get his hands on anything, but there isn’t the time to do that and find the baby.

“Priorities,” Michael added.

“Agreed,” Natalia said. “Anything we might need, the Germans can make for us.”

Michael Rourke looked toward the fence. They were going to cut it (with the full knowledge and permission of Colonel Mann) in order to exit the facility, knowing that Dodd would have the entrances to the base watched for their exit.

There were irreplacable family photos at the Retreat, but

i memories were more than physical objects could ever be, and I this was what his father and mother would want them to do, find the baby.

And that was what they would do, or die in the attempt…

Natalia slipped out of her backpack, drew the Bali-Song from the pocket of her jumpsuit, then looked at Michael Rourke. How much like his father he was, she thought.

He was already out of his pack, a Gregory, like his father wore at times.

And he nodded toward her.

Together, they started along the edge of Eden Base, leaving Annie and Paul and Bjorn and his dog, ready to cover their exit if it came to that.

She reminded herself that most of the citizens of Eden would not know what to think. They had been told Dodd’s lies, that somehow she was responsible for the fire at the hospital, the deaths of seventeen patients outside the building, the death of Lieutenant Larrimore and her newborn baby and two night dun nurses inside, and the near deaths of John and Sarah.

And, she knew the story Dodd would tell, that finally she couldn’t take it any longer, her jealousy so intense that she lost her mind (after all, she had recently had a nervous breakdown, hadn’t she?) and she did all of this in order to get John for herself and Sarah out of the way, unaware that John was nearby and would himself be perhaps fatally injured.

The bullet that was buried in Sarah’s brain would doubdessly be a 9mm Browning Short, otherwise known as .380 ACP. It would not have been difficult to find a Walther PP series pistol at New Germany, so many of the people who lived there, possessing firearms from the World War Two period, which had been carried by their ancestors, and the museum at New Germany featured an extensive arms collection, from both prior World Wars and the post-War period.

It was good to have friends, who trusted and could be trusted.

As she and Michael dropped into concealment beside a massive piece of earthmoving equipment, she whispered to Michael, “Thank you.”

“For what, Natalia?”

“Believing in me. It never crossed your mind once that I might be lying, that Dodd might be right, did it?”

“No. It never did.” And his bare right hand closed over her gloved right hand. “Let’s go.”

They were up and moving again, Michael in the lead. And that seemed very natural.

After navigating a deep, partially dug out ditch where sewer piping was to be placed, they paused behind several sections of the pipe, Natalia looking to right and left, searching for some sign that they had been observed.

There was no such sign.

She carried the Bali-Song locked closed, mtending to use it only as a striking instrument unless circumstances were forced otherwise. These people of Eden might believe Dodd, but stupidity was not an adequate reason for killing.

And she suddenly wondered. What if Dodd were able to somehow turn this situation so to his advantage that he defeated Akiro Kurinami for President of Eden?

People could not be that stupid.

To vote in a free election and determine the fate of a nation was a responsibility and a privilege, and she could not fathom people misusing this wonderful gift, this freedom.

They were moving again, Michael’s four-inch barreled Model 629 .44 Magnum in his right hand, ready for use as a bludgeon if need be.

They reached the far edge of the solitary street which traversed Eden end to end. To her right, the still smoldering ruins of the hospital, and the sight sickened her.

Inside those ruins were human remains, of people who were not victims of war or anything so involved as that, simply

murdered because a man lusted for power.

To the left stretched the street, some considerable distance away a few lights from some of the tents, the shell for the permanent structures well beyond still, not visible from here.