Survivalist - 21.5 - The Legend (21 page)

Deitrich Zimmer lit a cigarette as he stood up, turning away from the computer console, leaving his desk and crossing the room toward the window. The window could be shuttered in the event of attack, the shutters bombproof steel alloy molded and colored to resembled the surface of the mountain itself, in which the Redoubt was set.

But now, the shutters back, the view was breathtaking, peaks ranked one after the other toward the north and the south, the very spinal cord of the continent. A glint of early monring sunshine could be seen in the crystalline snows, making what was white, gold against the gray of granite.

He inhaled on his cigarette.

The only problem was to get Heimaccher to agree, of course, because one could not perform such testing without the knowledge of the subject. But for all his shortcomings-he could never lead them, now or ever-Heimaccher did have a sense of history and the very idea of the exercise might just appeal to that sense. The baby had been examined by the very best doctors, was sound, perfect, as fine an example of humanity as one could wish to find.

Zimmer recalled the data concerning the Rourkes.

John Rourke’s I.Q. was nearly off the scale, his physical prowess, stamina, dexterity and agility all better than the best of athletes. A physician, a true Socratic man-what a fine party member, what a magnificent commander in the SS, be would have made, embodying all that was perfection.

Sarah Rourke was more ‘normal,’ of course, but in her way equally as perfect. The baby was the living proof of that.

The child had her eye color, rather than that of the father, but facially the resemblance between the child and the father was otherwise hauntingly close.

If the child had his father’s genes, his father’s intelligence, his father’s athletic abilities, then the child could be molded, to attain still greater heights, to lead…

Jason Darkwood shut off the pocket viewer. The news video fiche clicked out and he withdrew it from the viewer, crumpling it in his hand, then looked about for a place to discard it. There was a trash neutralizer on the far wall and he stood up, pocketing the viewer in his uniform and leaving his hat on the sofa.

Mid-Whke Todays banner headlines carried news that medi

cal specialists from Mid-Wake, New Germany, Lydveldid Island and even the Soviet Underground City were working round the clock in an effort to save the lives of John and Sarah Rourke.

Jason Darkwood already knew that, and all the other facts the paper had not gotten to print.

Sarah Rourke’s condition, although near death, was stabilized. John Rourke’s condition was worsening by the hour. He was slipping away and, at least to the degree that Darkwood could understand the information Maggie Barrow passed on to him, there was virtually no hope.

Admiral Rahn had relieved him - Darkwood - of regular duties until there was a change, for better or worse, placing him in charge of security, but Tom Stanhope was actually handling the details with his Marine guards.

The flags of Mid-Wake flew at full mast, but details stood by to lower them to half-staff at a moment’s notice. A friend who worked for one of Mid-Wake’s television stations had told him that video obituaries were already fully assembled, merely awaiting update when the time came. There would be security camera footage seized from the Soviet Underwater Complex, footage contributed by the Soviet Underground City that actually showed some scenes from The Night of The War.

The President was already planning to ask Congress-a mere formality-for a national day of mourning to be declared, a statue to be built, all the customary things mat were done when a figure or figures of heroic stature, died.

Darkwood pushed the video fiche into the neutralizer, then walked toward the windows.

He could look down from here over much of this sector.

Women in dresses pushed baby strollers.

Rowers grew.

Life went on.

Without John Rourke, there would have be none of that ever again.

Nine

Michael Rourke set down the radio telephone receiver. “Well?” Annie insisted.

He looked at his sister, then at his brother-in-law, then at Natalia. “Mom’s stabilized. Dad is slipping away. The doctors are still trying, but nothing seems to work. Whatever damage was done to his brain when all that rubble fell on him is the cause, but nobody seems to know what to do about it.”

Annie just looked away, apparently no tears left.

Natalia closed her eyes, leaned her head back, the pulse in her long, graceful neck visibly moving.

Paul, leaning on Colonel Mann’s desk, held to the desk top so tightly his knuckles were white with it.

Annie, without looking at them, asked, “So. Are we going after our brother, or going to Mid-Wake to be with them when he-uhh-when-when.” She looked at Michael now, and Michael knew he had been wrong. There were still tears.

Annie had ceased sensing anything from their father, hours before, as if his mind were simply turned off.

Natalia said, “It is your decision, now, Michael.”

“She’s right,” Paul nodded, his voice hoarse, strained sounding. “What do we do?”

Michael Rourke had tried his father’s cigars once or twice over the years while his parents and Paul and Natalia had slept. He went to Natalia, reached to the desk top where her cigarettes were, took one, and lit it with his father’s bartered old Zippo. He inhaled the smoke, remembering why peopk

did such a stupid thing as to take smoke into their lungs intentionally. It was a diversion.

From reality, for even just a microsecond.

“Mom and Dad, given the options we have, would tell us to go after the baby. Our being at Mid-Wake-” and he forced himself to say it, his throat so tight he thought he would choke. It wasn’t from the cigarette. “Our being there when he dies won’t make any difference to him or to mom, but if there’s an afterlife and somehow he can know, well-” The tears came and he couldn’t speak, his chest tight, his body shaking.

Natalia stood up, put her arms around him and let him hold her…

“The Rourkes are vicious animals. I’m not talking about John Rourke, God bless that valiant man. Nor Sarah Rourke, the heroic wife and mother. No! I’m talking about Michael Rourke and Annie, bis sister, and Paul Rubenstein and the Communist woman. Major Natalia Tiemerovna of the KGB.”

The people of Eden sat in the hall where only a short while ago, the yellow man had married the black woman. The thought of this made Dodds skin crawl. But a substantial portion of the people of Eden were of ‘other’ races, so he said nothing, would say nothing, concerning his truest thoughts.

“All of you have seen me, seen the way the Russian woman tried to mutilate me the other night with that terrible knife of hers. And why? m tell you why. They beat me, killed heroic German nationals who were aiding me in combatting Wolfgang Manns Nazi plots. They threatened my life-all of that so I would not stand here before you today, to tell you the truth.

“Wolfgang Mann is a Nazi. John Rourke and Sarah Rourke were taken in as his dupes, thinking they were deposing a Nazi regime in New Germany when, in reality, they were only aiding Wolfgang Mann in his power struggle to control the Nazi Party of New Germany. Paul Rubenstein, as a Jew,

someone who should have been loyal to the United States because of the United States’ unflinching loyalty to the state of Israel in Palestine, is no more a loyal American, than I am a man from Mars. Before the Night of The War, he was a member of the American Communist Party, cleverly assuming the identity of an Anti-Communist in order to better infiltrate American intelligence to bring about the destruction of the United States, by means of a surprise, sneak attack against the United States from the Soviet Union.

“Rubenstein-his real name may never be known-played his role very, very well, feeding information on America’s defense secrets to the Soviet KGB through Major Tiemerovna. When Doctor John Rourke and Paul Rubenstein met on that airplane-we’ve all heard the story-Rubenstein was really on his way to Atlanta for one purpose only: Rubenstein intended to board a waiting private aircraft which would have flown him to safety in Communist Cuba where he could have sat out the misery and death in comfort, eventually returning the the United States after its conquest as head of the North American Division of the KGB.”

There were sounds from the audience, gasps, whispers, even some persons laughing.

Dodd continued, hands gripping the podium. “Both the so-called Rubenstein and Communist KGB Major Tiemerovna realized that they must maintain their charade, only hoping for the day their own ideology would be victorious. Major Tiemerovna and Paul Rubenstein at last realized that Communism had lost. The Communist Rubenstein had and still has some strange hold on the daughter of John and Sarah Rourke. Whatever that is, he swayed her into believing that fighting against the constituted authority of Mid-Wake was the right thing. Somehow, between them, Rubenstein and Tiemerovna hoodwinked Michael Rourke as well.

“How callous could they be?” Dodd asked rhetorically. “Major Tiemerovna was personally responsible for what amounts to the murder of Sarah Rourke, because Major Tiemerovna could no longer control her lust for John Rourke. To cover

this horrible act, with Rubenstein’s help, she set fire to the hospital and killed all the patients and staff, among the dead our own Lieutenant Martha Larrimore and her newborn baby. What kind of heart must a woman have to murder an infant that is less than a day old?”

There were more whispers from the audience, some heads nodding, others shaking in obvious incredulity.

“I have the cartridge case recovered from Major Natalia Tiemerovna’s gun, the gun she struts about the camp wearing, the gun she used to shoot Sarah Rourke after Sarah Rourke had just given birth to John Rourke’s child, a child she wanted to bear”

Commander Dodd held up a small plastic bag, a piece of .380 brass inside it (he had gotten it from Zimmer who carried a gun similar to Tiemerovna’s to use for the assault on the hospital). “Here is the proof! Anyone can examine it!” Still holding the bag with the brass case inside, he shouted, “But the Communist KGB Majors plans to kill Sarah Rourke and seduce John Rourke failed when one of her own explosive devices claimed John Rourke!”

More murmurs from the audience, heads shaken in disbelief.

Dodd played his ace. “I realize this is hard for you to believe. I could not believe it. But, in order prove this to you, in order to do my duty as a citizen of Eden, I hereby resign the race for the Presidency of Eden and throw my support to the heroic pilot and war veteran, Akiro Kurinami!”

Dead silence, then cheers.

Dodd raised his hands above bis head and everyone in the room stood up and applauded-for him.

Ten

Maggie Barrow looked very tired, but as always very pretty.

She wore civies, and as she sank down beside Jason Darkwood, on the couch in the waiting room, her pink print sundress rusded and she shrugged out of the white sweater that had been across her shoulders, just leaning her head on his shoulder. “It’s going to have to be the cryogenics, Jase. But the medical team is agreed that they doubt Doctor Rourke will survive the process of going under. I think they’re doing it just to do something, so they can tell themselves they just didn’t stand there and let him die.”

Jason Darkwood didn’t say anything, just put his arm around her. As medical officer of Darkwood’s ship, the Reagan, Maggie was unmatched, her skills ideal. But as a ship’s doctor only, she was hopelessly out of her league here. She’d told him that from the first. Just as he had been assigned to security, she had been assigned as liaison between the international medical team and the government of Mid-Wake, both jobs only for the sake of keeping the two of them nearby to people who had, over what was really a very brief time, become friends forever.

Maggie kicked out of her shoes and put her feet up on the corner of the coffee table, ankles crossed. “This is just-” “What?”

“All they went through, and the first chance they would have had to be together, to be happy, just to live a normal life, this shit happens. I mean, I mean-“

“Shh,” Darkwood whispered, touching his lips to her hair.

He knew exactly what she meant. Where was the sense of any of it? To go through all that they had gone through, then to die after the war ended because a group of terrorists firebombed a hospital, just so a tin-plated martinet could become the leader of a hundred or so people?

And perhaps control a nuclear arsenal, D.R.E.A.D?

“Why do I have the uncomfortable feeling that peace isn’t really at hand, Maggie?”

“I don’t think there can ever be peace,” she answered, shaking her head. “Not ever. Not ever, ever, ever.”

“When? The freeze, I mean?”

“Tonight. And then-Hell, I don’t know.”

“Marry me?” Darkwood asked.

And she looked up at him. “What?”

“You beard me. Marry me.”

“You. uhh-you-“

“Yeah. I mean it”

“You mean it.” she repeated.

“Damn right. I love you and I don’t want to waste any more time,” Jason Darkwood told her.

“All right, because I love you, too,” she said, “and that’s the only reason. You realize I gotta resign my active duty commission?”

“Yeah. But vou can stas’ in the reserves.” “When?”

“Maybe we can do it tonight, or-“

“Look, if rm marrying you,” she told him, looking up at him unwaveringly, “then we’re doing it right. Long white dress, the whole shot.”

“I don’t have a long white dress,” he laughed.

“Ohh. shut up. Whatchya got going on Saturday?”

Tm getting married,” Darkwood told her, turning her around, drawing her chin up, kissing her hard on the lips. It would be forever, he realized, and he was happy about that, the forever part.

Eleven

Michael Rourke wondered if his father could somehow have foreseen such a crisis, or if it was merely another case of his father’s planning ahead?

Extensive notes, well organized, almost book length, existed regarding use of the existing cryogenic chambers and so did extensive chemical analysis of the serum, without which the cryogenic chambers were merely eternal tombs for the living, living who could never be awakened.