Survivalist - 21.5 - The Legend (31 page)

“You-“

“What?” Zimmer smiled. Dodd licked his lips “Your plan, uhh-” “Why risk annihilation because of impatience when, if all the circumstances are perfect, victory will be assured?” Dodd just looked at Zimmer.

Zimmer laughed. “I wish to hold the world inthralled to

National Socialism, while you merely wish to establish yourself as a dictator. If you cooperate with me, you will have your power and I will have my new world. If you do not cooperate, you will surely die.”

Dodd could see no one else, and there was no sign of a plane or vehicle or even a horse. He could kill Zimmer, perhaps, because Zimmer had only a handgun in view, and this was holstered. Dodd looked at Zimme?s blue eyes and the eyes still held laughter, as if somehow Zimmer knew what he was thinking and found it humorous, amusing. Dodd realized that his hand had been moving toward his belt and he froze. He said, “What do you mean?”

“Great plans require great leaders to bring them to fruition, Commander. If you follow my plan, your troublesome Akiro Kurinami will be dead and you will be forever rid of the yellow man and his black wife. You will control Eden, bring Eden to a position of great power, living out your life in happiness and comfort. But you must do only what I say to do, and only when I say?”

“I don’t understand, Zimmer,” Dodd told him, speaking honestly.

Zimmer smiled still. “There is no reason to suppose that you should. Suffice it to say, were I to have your yellow nemesis, Kurinami, killed, while members of the Rourke family live, you would never know rest until you, yourself, were dead. If the Rourke family is out of the way, however, you will be able to function with impunity in the aftermath of Kurinami’s death, because there will be no one to stop you, provided Kurinami’s death cannot be so obviously linked to you that New Germany or Mid-Wake unilaterally intervenes.”

“What remains, then, is to remove the Rourke family.”

“Kill them? Yes!” Dodd said. But how?, he wondered.

“Killing them would be problematical at best, Commander. They will take themselves out of the picture, as it were, and then we can kill them.”

“I don’t follow you at all,” Dodd said, shaking his head.

Tea?” Zimmer poured a cup of steaming dark brown liquid for himself. “No,” Dodd told him. Zimmer shrugged his shoulders. “How will you get rid of them without killing them?” “By using their sense of family against them.” Dodd didn’t understand.

Zimmer, sipping at his tea, then blowing over the surface of the cup, said, They have a quest, do they not? To see me dead for what I did to John and Sarah Rourke and for killing the child. And, they wish to see you dead, or punished, at least. If I am dead and you are dead, they will do the inevitable.”

“Dead?” Dodd repeated

Zimmer laughed aloud. “No one is talking about killing you, Commander, unless you choose to disobey me. No. I wish for us to appear to be dead. Then you will be able to go on with your work and I with mine.”

“You aren’t making any sense.”

“My medical specialty is micro-surgery, but I always considered myself a devotee of motivational psychology. I perfected a computer model which predicts, with a degree of certainty in which I have full confidence, just what the Rourke family will do when they realize their quest is at an end. They will join John and Sarah Rourke in cryogenic sleep. It may be immediate; k may take as long as eighteen months, according to the model’s most extrapolated predictions, but sleep they will.”

“Why?”

Zimmer lit a cigarette, and speaking through exhaled smoke, said Their very sense of family will undo them. And, if my model is wrong, I will still be able to destroy them.”

Dodd shook his head. “You mean, if, uhh, if they don’t go into cryogenic sleep, you still have a way-“

“Yes. A perfect way. And, the model allows for all or any of them not to take the cryogenic sleep. In either event, they

will die.”

“But, what about-” Dodd was uncertain about this business of appearing to be dead himself.

“There will be an incident. Never mind what. Two bodies will be substituted for our own. I have already prepared my duplicate, a captured soldier of New Germany. Your duplicate will be ready soon.”

“Duplicate?”

Zimmer laughed again, then sipped at his tea. “No, we are not dealing wibh science fiction, Commander,” and he gestured expansively with his cigarette. “Their dental records will match our dental records, certain injuries-your chronic knee dislocation, for example, and the scar tissue built up because of it-will match. No one has performed plastic surgery to make a facial double, quite impossible to be thoroughly convincing at any event.”

“And because they think you and I will be dead-“

“They themselves will die. Then, you will resurface and Kurinami and his wife will be killed and the blame will be put on me. You will proclaim your anti-Nazi sentiments and assume the leadership, carrying out my programs ostensibly as a means of making Eden stronger, which will indeed be the case.”

“And D.R.E.A.D.?”

“I control it. To use nuclear weapons at this juncture would mean the end of all humanity. But, in the future, the threat and judicious use of nuclear weapons backing a conventional force of considerable capability with appropriate leadership, of course, will be a different story entirely. Consider yourself the interim government for a power which will one day realize man’s oldest dream, the domination of the entire planet under one man.”

“Who?”

“That is a very intelligent question, Commander,” Zimmer said, nodding appreciatively to Dodd. “Very incisive. You will not live to know the answer, although I sincerely hope you

live to a very old age. No, that is one secret you will not know.”

“But, you’re older than I am!”

“For the moment,” Zimmer agreed. “Only for the moment, Commander.” And then Zimmer laughed again and Dodd shivered.

Ten

It was the first time she had been to Eden since her outlawry had been declared by Commander Dodd. And, even though many months had passed since Akiro Kurinami’s first act as President of Eden had been to rescind that declaration, Natalia had no desire ever to return. Too many memories, many of them very bad ones. But the current necesssity was inarguable.

The people of Eden had once been ready to hang her, but as she stepped from the J7-V, Annie, a tread above her; a tape began to play the Star Spangled Banner and Akiro and Elaine stood before the entire population of Eden and the people of Eden cheered her return along with Annie’s. Paul and Michael, who recently picked up with a Nazi prisoner in the wastelands, would be arriving soon, as well.

The United States’ national anthem played on as Natalia Anastasia Tiemerovna looked back at Annie, then said to her, under her breath, “Except for Akiro and Elaine, they’re all hi-pocrites.” And she felt Annie’s hand touch at her shoulder …

Michael had grown a mustache. Natalia’s favorite American film star, before The Night of The War, was Tom Selleck. Michael’s mustache was very like his, accentuating the cragginess of Michael’s face, making him somehow look older, yet handsomer, different than she had ever seen him. She imagined what it would be like if Michael were to smile, and she hoped

that he did not.

These the ones?” Michael said, touching at her arm but addressing the question to the young German military doctor who supervised the field morgue.

“Yes, Herr Rourke.”

Michael nodded. She watched his eyes as he looked away from the doctor and back at her, then at Paul and Annie.

Natalia shivered, drawing her coat more closely around her.

They were inside the German base outside Eden. The German doctor drew back the hook and pile-closured flap and beneath the black synth-rubber, there was a face that was barely human. The shape of the head generally matched that of Commander Dodd, she supposed.

Natalia wanted to took away, but would not allow herself the luxury.

“We have checked all the dental records, Herr Rourke,” the German military doctor-a young, severely expressioned man-began. “But, in the case of such men, dental records were not enough. The American, Dodd, had several times dislocated his knee. The right one. Logic infers there would have been considerable scar tissue and cartilege. We found both in the post mortem. An appendix scar, such as was the common result before the advent of modern surgical techniques, was also expected to be present. I had never seen one before, of course, but consulted with medical records at New Germany. And, of course, I verified surgically during the post mortem. The appendix is missing. Other small scars on the body, as noted in his records, were all present as they should be. The general shape of his bone structure, his musculature, all matches. There was no DNA typing five centuries ago, so there was no means by which to make a comparison. However, I am confident this is the corpse of Commander Dodd.”

“What about firigerprints?” Annie asked.

They were checked, of course, and they match. But fingerprints of themselves are not a valid technique for identification, Frau Rubenstein. With current techniques, they can be altered comparatively easily. There is a type of laser surgery on cloned

human tissue, where new fingerprints are grown and the old skin at the fingertips is merely removed, the new skin grafted in place, giving a new fingerprint. Again, a laser technique-there are no discernible scars if the procedure is performed competently.”

“What about the other body?” Paul asked.

“Ahh! A much more positive identification, Herr Rubenstein,” the young doctor said enthusiastically. He let the flap of the body bag fall back over the charred face of Commander Dodd, then moved along to the next drawer.

Natalia’s breath steamed and for some reason, that at once thrilled and frightened her, she wanted Michael’s arm around her.

She forced herself to stare at the next body as the flap of the bag was opened and drawn back. The face, only half burned, was much more recognizably human, and matched photographs she had seen of Zimmer.

Annie, who had seen Zimmer in the flesh, said, “My God, that’s him.”

The German doctor-his name was Belzer-added, “Indeed it is, Frau Rubenstein. We were able to check his retinal print, something unavailable in the case of Commander Dodd. As you can see, one eye was destroyed, the right, but the left is intact. Even with the most sophisticated techniques, retinal identification cannot be-what is the word?”

“Faked?” Michael suggested.

“Yes, faked, Herr Rourke. This can be no other than Deitrich Zimmer. Body scars, everything matches. DNA typing agrees one hundred percent. As, of course,” and he smiled a little condescendingly, “do the fingerprints.”

“So they just fell out of the sky?” Michael asked. “This is almost too convenient.”

“The report is considerably detailed, Herr Rourke, but in summary, as I understand, the gunship on which both men flew-President Kurinami had ordered the arrest of Commander Dodd for expropriation of strategic materials and Herr Doctor Zimmer was aiding in the Herr Commander’s escape

the gunship Herr Commander Dodd and Herr Doctor Zimmer used, developed mechanical difficulties of some sort and there was an explosion. These bodies, as you may already know, were assembled from parts. I was at the scene of the crash. Finding the sufficient number of teeth in order to check dental records was challenging in the extreme. Herr Doctor Zimmer’s head, for example-” And Doctor Belzer drew the bag back farther.

Natalia looked away in disgust. There was a difference between doing it in combat and watching it afterward, the clinical thing about k coldly, frightening.

Deitrich Zimmer’s head rested over the shoulders where it belonged, but it was not attached to the body …

She stood alone, apart from Michael and Annie and Paul. The morgue which had been set up to store the bodies was a small pre-fab building at the far end of the German base’s airfield.

The wind blew strong here. Natalia was cold.

And she feh hollow, because it was all over. Vengeance, albeit of an rmpersocal kind that was not satisfying, was finally theirs. Yet, no vengeance could compensate for the loss of John and Sarah and the baby.

One

Natalia laughed as she thought about it, that women only glistened and never perspired. Would that it were true. After helping with moving chairs and pairmng scenery and washing dirty children all day long, the moisture on her body was nothing more or less than sweat. “AD right,” she said, raising her voice to the children. “How many of you want to be shepherds?*

Not one of them raised a hand.

“What’s a more or less atheist doing casting a Christmas pageant?” she asked herself under her breath. But that really wasn’t true; she’d once been an atheist, simply because everyone around her was; but she was one no more.

After she’d seen the bodies of Dodd and Zimmer buried, she left Eden, telling herself she would never return. By the grace of Colonel Mann’s J7-V, she’d flown to Lydveldid Island with Paul and Annie, staying with them there for several weeks and, while she was at it, studying Grristianity under one of the country’s many clerics. It was a way to pass the time and focus her mind on something else. And religion, Christianity and Judaism, hadn’t seemed to have hurt the only real friends she’d ever had.

In the end, she said good-bye to Paul and Annie and told them to contact her in Europe as soon as Annie was pregnant. And she had herself baptized, but not without realizing there was never going to be any philosophy, religious or secular, which she would ever fully embrace, any but her own. Nor did she intend to conduct her life in any manner other than the way in which she had conducted it ever since she had abandoned the KGB and begun to aid the Rourke Family, in the fight for freedom.

She didn’t delude herself that now, somehow, she would have a better chance of prayer being heard (she was convinced that someone

was there to listen, but not that the likelihood of being heard was at all enhanced by water and the sign of the cross, only by the sincerity of one’s intent; if God was Love, then God, unlike men, could not turn a deaf ear simply out of dislike for the petitioner). She prayed, whenever she thought to do so, however, for John and Sarah to recover.