Survivalist - 22 - Brutal Conquest (16 page)

The woman looked up at the ready room’s ceiling, as though she were consulting a notepad. Then she looked back at him. “The mission is being handled by a United States Naval officer. A Commander Shaw.”

“Well, I hope this Shaw’s a good guy.”

“I am sure, Herr Rourke, that our American allies would have sent the best pilot they had available to head up the mission.”

Michael nodded and stood up. The smiling man offered his hand and Michael took it.

The woman opened the door. “Have a safe flight. Until we meet again, then.”

Michael walked past her, echoing, “Until we meet again.” 27

He saw to the horses first, as he’d promised, not trusting Hilda or either of the two others to do as thorough a job of rubbing down the animals as was required. And he fed and watered them, seeing to it that their shelter was adequate at least.

Then he washed his hands and face, sat down, and consumed two packets of field rations and a glass of whiskey.

Then he slept.

By the black face of the Rolex on his left wrist, he had slept for an hour and twelve minutes when Hilda awakened him. “I have just received a transponder signal. The planes are coming, Herr Doctor.”

“Good.”

John Rourke sat up. He rubbed his hands over his eyes.

“Will you want those awful blankets again?” Hilda asked him.

He touched Hilda’s forearm. “I think not. Thank you.” What he wanted was a shower but there were no facilities, and had there been, there was no time.

He crossed the snow to the little outhouse, watching for the first sign of the aircraft as they came overhead. Nothing yet. He entered the little outhouse. It was

cold enough that the place didn’t smell. There was no need to defecate. He’d done that less than six hours ago, during one of the periods while he’d rested the horses. But he urinated.

As he started to close the fly of his pants, he heard three sonic booms, one after the other.

When he stepped from the outhouse, he saw three matte black aircraft, two just coming over the horizon and the third landing in V-stol mode.

She touched down, Marie Hayes and Wally Theodore flying a low subsonic patrolling pattern that would cover a radius of fifty miles in all directions. If any Eden tanks or APCs or Land Pirate fortresses were around, Marie and Wally would put them away.

Interceptors did not have energy cannons, simply because of the weight, but the missiles on their pods could kill or cripple any Eden armor made —she hoped. At least that was what the instruction booklet that came with the missiles said.

She locked down, leaving her engines running, using the excuse of touchdown to unbuckle and stand up. Interceptors had comfortable seats, but nothing was comfortable to sit in without moving. Emma could just as easily have popped her portside hatch remotely, but she didn’t, choosing instead to walk back along the length of the fuselage as she removed her helmet and shook her pony tail free.

She hit the manual controls and the hatch started to open.

There was a man walking toward her, a pack on his back, pistols in his belt. He wore nothing more than a heavy military sweater, slacks, and combat boots.

He was tall.

He was lean, but from the way he moved he was also well muscled and athletic. His face was thin, too, with not an ounce of fat on it, the bone structure solid and strong. His mouth was wide, with lines at the corners that looked like enormous dimples as the sides turned down.

His hair was dark brown with a little bit of grey, in patches, which became more noticeable the nearer he got. His hairline was strong, although his forehead was high. He looked like he was normally clean shaven but wasn’t now.

She could not see his eyes. Sunlight glinted on the snow and he wore old-style aviator-type sunglasses, presumably against the glare.

He looked handsomer than he did in all his pictures, in all the statues.

This was John Rourke… .

John Thomas Rourke neared the fuselage door.

There was a tall, thin, beautiful woman with auburn hair and incredibly long legs standing in the open doorway.

He reminded himself that this was the future, so to speak, and it was wholly possible for a woman to be the copilot or navigator on a military fighter aircraft. Women generally had better reflexes than men and made excellent pilots.

He started to shrug out of his pack as he walked, catching it up under his arm as he neared the doorway, then throwing it inside as the woman looked down and said rather formally, “General Rourke, this k a true privilege.”

He looked up at her, saying, “If you’ve gotta call me anything besides John, Dr. Rourke’s better. Okay? But I really prefer John.” She wore no rank or unit insignia, so he fell back on, And you’re Miss — ?

“I’m Commander Emma Shaw, sir. I’ll reiterate. This is a genuine pleasure, sir.”

She had a pretty voice, a nice soft alto, definitely feminine but with a good touch of authority to it.

As he started to climb aboard —she reached out a hand and he took it —Rourke asked, “Can I see the pilot, Commander? We have to make some time.”

She pulled back and he was inside, standing face to face with her. She had pretty grey-green eyes, but they weren’t smiling. “Sir, I hope you are not displeased, but I am the pilot. In fact, I’m the mission commander.”

John Rourke started to laugh.

Now the pretty eyes looked downright hard.

He shook his head, saying, “No, Commander, I’m not laughing at you. 1’ni laughing at me. I must look pretty stupid with egg all over my face. Or do they still use that expression?”

“We still use it, sir.” And now the eyes smiled, the lips smiled, the whole face smiled, in fact. She was very pretty in a comfortable sort of way. “And, yes, sir, I do see a little egg there, now that you mention it.”

Rourke extended his right hand to her, saying, “How about John, okay?” “Emma.”

“Emma. I think I can guide you to the others. You have medical supplies, food, warm clothing aboard?”

“Your son—John, your son contacted the Navy through Allied Intelligence. We’re fully—”

“Michael’s all right?”

She smiled, nodding and saying, “As far as I know, sir. But I’m fully briefed. Except for the identity of your prisoner.”

Good for Michael, John Rourke thought, alive and keeping Martin Zimmer in the bag. Or perhaps the information was only withheld from her. There was no way to tell. John Rourke decided that it was the right moment to show some trust. He told Commander Emma Shaw, “Our prisoner is Martin Zimmer. He’s the leader of Eden, and he was born exactly a hundred and twenty-five years ago, even though he’s only thirty. He looks like me but more like my son. Michael was impersonating him.”

“Holy shit, sir.”

“Precisely, Commander,” John Rourke told her. “Precisely. Now, maybe we should get airborne and find the rest of the people you’re supposed to rescue. Hopefully, the cold will be their only problem.”

She looked at him hard and even, saying, “Whatever the problem, sir, short of the entire Eden Air Force, you don’t have anything to worry about. We got in, we’ll get ‘em, and we’ll get out. Then I fly you and your family and the freed female prisoners to my ship, which is anchored off Port Reno, Nevada, drop off the freed prisoners, then fly you and whomever else you direct to come along to Hawaii.”

“Hawaii?”

“Your guess is as good as mine, sir.” “How old are you?” “What, sir?”

“Please,” Rourke insisted. “Thirty, sir.”

“Please stop calling me ‘sir,’ because I was born over

six and a half centuries ago and feel old enou; okay?”

She laughed.

Deitrich Zimmer had several choices.

The segmented geodesic dome above him sheltered an array of plants, ranging from those once found in abundance in tropical rain forests to those of the northern tundra. The plants were coming back, but not yet as before. He had never seen “before,” but he had read, watched tapes, and studied all he could about them. He had always considered himself a Socratic man.

Sometimes, his greatest lament was that life was not long enough to learn everything. If only it had been possible to acquire knowledge while he’d taken cryogenic sleep. He could have known all there was to learn of human knowledge, but then he still would have been merely scratching the surface.

There was so much yet to learn.

He chose the tropical rain forest segment of this domed paradise. As he walked in the rooftop garden, he considered his alternatives. This was a moment of history, and whatever decision he made would echo through the vaults of the future. So that decision must be a good one, the wery best.

Martin was, most likely, still a prisoner of the Rourke family. John Rourke would not kill his own son, of course, and even if he entertained the thought, Martin would be safe as long as Sarah Rourke hovered between

life and death and the only person who could free her was Deitrich Zimmer. Sooner or later, John Rourke would get word to him, suggesting a trade of sorts, Martin in exchange for certain services.

So Deitrich Zimmer dismissed thoughts of Martin, although he could not dismiss the anxiety he felt. Because Martin was his son, regardless of whose loins he sprang from.

He considered the immediately pressing matter of the attack on the United States fleet at Pearl Harbor.

The great preponderance of United States sea and air power was to be found at Pearl Harbor. Michael Rourke had sat through a briefing, so presumably Allied Intelligence knew of the plan or soon would, in as much detail as was divulged-Four choices, then, lay before him.

He could cancel the attack, postpone the attack, accelerate the attack’s timetable, or go ahead as planned with the attack’s existing timetable.

If he went ahead as planned, the Trans Global Alliance would never have sufficient time to prepare, regardless of knowing that the attack was coming.

And so much was already in motion to turn plans and contingencies into reality.

He paused, considering a hibiscus.

Lovely.

What about Croenberg?

The fight with Michael Rourke in Martin’s suite—there was something odd about it. Deitrich Zimmer had survived all these years by never trusting anyone or anything. And just because they shared similar political, philosophical, and racial beliefs didn’t mean he trusted Croenberg and this current crop of SS. Croenberg’s people knew nothing of science and reality.

More than a year ago, Croenberg had enthused wildly over the absurd pseudoscience that was popular within the Third Reich. The universe, Croenberg said, was made of fire and ice, and only the earth combined the two.

But did Croenberg believe this nonsense, or was he merely trying to disarm fears for his—Croenberg’s—intellectual abilities?

Once the war was begun and had its own momentum, the time would be right to cleanse the party of persons he did not trust, persons who might work against Martin’s inherent superiority.

Croenberg and his fellows had a fondness for the history of the Third Reich. Deitrich Zimmer wondered how well they remembered The Night Of The Long Knives in 1934, when Hitler rid himself of his brownshirts.

Perhaps Croenberg recalled it all too well.

Perhaps Croenberg sought to prevent history from repeating itself, by destroying his Fiihrer before he could destroy him. If that were the case, then Croenberg and his entire SS were potentially deadly enemies, more to be reckoned with than the military forces of the Trans-Global Alliance that stood against Eden’s destiny.

There was time, because the beginning of the war would consume all energies, consume all minds.

Deitrich Zimmer walked on, entering the segment where there was desert plant life. A barrel cactus flowered amid the sand. The air here was so dry compared to the humidity of the rain forest segment that his sinuses began to react.

He would leave the dome and return to Martin’s suite. There was to be a meeting with Croenberg and the others.

Deitrich Zimmer’s decisions were made—about the attack on Pearl Harbor, about Croenberg’s eventual fate, and even about what he would do when John Rourke presented him with the inevitable offer.

He would accept.

John Rourke’s honor would not allow that a truce be violated. Martin would be safe for the moment and Rourke would find even greater sorrow, because his wife would be restored to him but her mind would be gone. While extracting the bullet, Zimmer would see to that. From the medical records he had studied of the incident, with his skill and his instruments he could extract the bullet, leaving Sarah Rourke unimpaired and fully restored.

But as he removed the bullet, it would be very easy to allow his instruments to slip, a bit this way, a bit that way.

Deitrich Zimmer would see to that. What better punishment than to give John Rourke a drooling imbecile to care for while the world around him collapsed into defeat for everything in which he believed!

He had won against John Rourke one hundred twenty-five years ago, and he would win against him now again.

Life could be greater punishment than death, and so it would be with John Rourke. When this war was won, let Rourke live, lock him away with a wife without a mind, let his mind and all he was dissolve to dust.

That was true revenge.

“I know this is a silly question, Dr. Rourke, but how does it feel to be you? I mean—”

John Rourke was more interested in studying the cockpit of the Interceptor or possibly in some sleep. But instead he was studying the terrain zipping by beneath them. The last thing he wanted to talk about with this young woman was himself. But he tried to be polite and truthful with her. “I just happened to be in the right place at the right time … or the wrong place at the wrong time, depending on one’s perspective, Commander.”

“Please … Emma.”

He’d all but given up on trying to get her to call him by his first name. “Emma,” Rourke repeated.

“But, I mean, you must be aware of the pivotal role you played. Without you, at least according to what the history books and the movies all say—”

“Movies,” Rourke repeated.