Survivalist - 22 - Brutal Conquest (2 page)

Without shelter, he’d start losing some of the women to exposure in half that time. The women, having been kidnapped by the Land Pirates from communities throughout the Wildlands, were already malnourished, and were dressed in litde better than rags, ill suited for survival in the sub-freezing temperatures.

John Rourke’s parka, along with those of the others, was already gone, as were the Eden uniform parts worn by Paul and Annie and Natalia. The snow pants were given over to be used as best they could for jackets.

The last of the serious wounds attended to, John Rourke stepped out of the four-man shelter and into the blast, only a heavy military-style sweater over his ordinary clothing.

It was late morning, the sky grey and threatening, but the storm that had almost literally shot them out of the sky was gone.

Rourke rubbed his hands over his upper arms for circulation.

Annie, back in her own clothes but minus her parka, stood shivering, holding a gun on Martin Zimmer.

Martin Zimmer. John Rourke took one of the thin, dark tobacco cigars from a pocket beneath his sweater, the end already cut off, then clamped it between his teeth. He walked toward Michael and Paul, who were sorting the gear from the aircraft into relatively equal loads. They even had the door gun and two boxes of link belt cartridges. He joined them, his son and his best friend. Martin Zimmer. It was clear now that Deitrich Zimmer, the brilliant micro-surgeon and geneticist, had planned very well, up to and including faking his own death as well as that of the newborn child he had kidnapped.

Zimmer had a brother Jurgen, a confirmed neo-Nazi like Deitrich himself, dedicated to establishing a new world order. However dedicated Jurgen Zimmer had been, though, John Rourke seriously doubted the man had volunteered himself as a corpse to substitute for Deitrich. But it had to have been Jurgen Zimmer’s body that, along with a look-alike for Commander Dodd, had

been discovered in the wreckage of a helicopter crash.

Unlike Dodd, Commander of the Eden Project shutde fleet, who was born in the Twentieth Century before the process really progressed out of the experimental stage, there was a genetic fingerprint of Deitrich Zimmer. Genetic identification could not be rigged, but the genetic print between close members of the same family was identical.

But it wasn’t that simple. There was also the question of retina prints to be resolved. Yet, for someone ruthless enough to murder his own brother and skilled enough as a surgeon, that was easily rectified, just as it was for someone dedicated enough to sacrifice an eye.

It seemed clear that what Deitrich Zimmer had done was to have his own left eye surgically removed, then transplanted into the socket of his brother. His brother would have had to have been alive, of course, for the process to be done convincingly, and John Rourke did not want to consider the ramifications that that suggested.

But what had Deitrich Zimmer done to the baby he kidnapped?

Deitrich Zimmer had actually stolen two children, the newborn son of Lieutenant Martha Larrimore, born in the morning, and the newborn child Rourke’s wife Sarah had delivered, probably only moments before Deitrich shot Sarah in the head.

Deitrich Zimmer kept the child of Martha Larrimore alive specifically for the purpose of killing it, to make everyone believe he had murdered the Rourke baby instead.

Then Zimmer arranged to fake his own death and that of Dodd; arranged for the abortive attempt at destroying the cryogenic chambers in which John Rourke and the rest of his family slept; arranged for the successful assassination of Akiro Kurinami, first elected president of Eden, and Akiro’s wife, Elaine Halversen.

Then Dodd miraculously returned, claiming leadership of Eden, saying he himself was the victim of a neo-Nazi plot, exposing the body that was attributed to be his as that of a Nazi sympathizer in league with Deitrich Zimmer, who had really died.

But, clearly, Deitrich Zimmer did not die.

What had he done to this man now called Martin, who was born of Sarah and himself? Rourke wondered.

Psychologists had perennially batded oyer the effects of environment versus heredity, but could the environment Deitrich Zimmer provided have wrought so much? Martin was clearly evil, not just misguided.

John Rourke reached for the helicopter’s first aid kit in the same moment that Michael did. And he looked at his son.

Rourke considered himself luckier than most men. Michael was fine and good and strong, courageous. And Annie, his sister, was the epitome of aU that was worthwhile in a woman—courageous, resourceful, loving. John Rourke had two children in whom he took great pride.

They stood beside the skeleton of the helicopter that had brought them here. Still smoldering, it provided a modicum of needed warmth.

Annie was helping the women who had been rescued from the Land Pirates prepare for the arduous journey that lay ahead. The women now found themselves plunged into a survival situation more potentially deadly than their previous captivity. Natalia, perhaps suffering from a mild concussion but under the circumstances well enough to travel, kept an eye on Martin.

That she would use a gun, if necessary, to stop Martin from escaping was something John Rourke did not doubt for a moment.

Rourke’s cigar was nearly burnt out now.

The cold was intense.

Michael and Paul, stripped down to ordinary pants and heavy sweaters, like John Rourke, had surrendered coats and snow pants to the women in an effort to prolong stamina and guard them against exposure.

When they presented their plan, John Rourke realized they had evidendy worked this out in advance and were ganging up on him.

“This is potentially suicidal, Michael,” John Rourke declared, watching his son’s eyes.

“You got a better way of buying time, Dad?” Michael retorted blundy.

“You can’t do it, John,” Paul declared. “You don’t have much grey in your hair, but you’ve got enough. Michael now looks basically like you did when we first met on The Night Of The War. And that’s exacdy what Martin Zimmer looks like. That flesh wound Michael picked up in his left thigh is the only thing, and he figures he can fake his way around it.”

“No, damnit,” John Rourke told them both.

“At least hear me out, Dad,” Michael said, still adamant. “If I can make them think Martin’s been shot up a litde and is all pissed off, they’re not going to press by giving me some kind of identity quiz. As soon as they get me, give me medical attention and everything, I can order them to get me back to Eden so I can coordinate efforts to nail you guys … or something like that. I’ll have to make it up as I go along. But I can convince them, make them believe I’m Martin. Once I reach Eden, I can slip away and meet you guys at the safe house.”

There was a safe house, set up by Allied Intelligence, on the outskirts of Eden City. Just how safe it might prove to be was another question.

“The leg wound won’t cut it; too many people saw you get hurt Michael.”

“Exactly, but that’ll work, Dad. Somebody shoots me in the leg again. Michael took one round, that’s assuming any-onell remember. Zimmer can have two bullet wounds. I tell them the aircraft crashed—they can see that with their own eyes—and that I stole a gun and took a couple of rounds before I was able to escape. With the helicopter gutted, I can tell them the fire started as soon as we hit the ground and that’s how I was able to pull it off, in the confusion.”

“You can’t make them think you’re Martin, Michael,” John Rourke insisted.

“All I’ve gotta do is be surly, right? Somebody asks me something I can’t answer, I complain about my leg hurting or the head wound, and tell whoever it is to shut up. That sounds like my brother.” And he looked toward where Natalia kept Martin at gunpoint. “I can aim the search and de

stroy teams in another direction, buy you time. Otherwise, the best we can hope for is a standoff as soon as the Land Pirates and the Eden armed forces catch up with us, with us holding Martin while those women we freed die of exposure. What choice do we have, Dad?”

John Rourke looked at Michael, looked at him hard, then stared at Martin Zimmer, who was some distance away.

“I don’t like it either, John, but it’ll work,” Paul said. “I don’t like it a bit.”

“If you can hold on to Martin” Michael said, “then you can use him as a bargaining chip with Deitrich Zimmer, maybe force Deitrich into operating on Mom to get that bullet out of her brain. That’s why you want Martin. You’re not going to kill him, no matter what he is, because he’s your flesh and blood and Mom’s flesh and blood, just like Annie and I are.”

“You think you’ve got this whole thing psyched out,” John Rourke said, nodding his head. “You … and you, Paul. Gang up on me, right?”

“It’s logic, John.”

John Rourke looked at Paul Rubenstein, then nodded his head. Without looking at his son, he said, “YouH need to swap clothes with Martin. Well have to measure exactly where that first bullet went in in relationship to Martin’s left trouser leg, so we can put a bullet hole there that will correspond. Then well have to smear some of the blood from the fresh wound onto the old hole.”

“Natalia already said she’d fire the shot,” Michael said.

“Ohh, you got her in on this, too, huh? Is Annie in on this thing as well?”

Paul looked away and Michael just smiled. …

His chest was bigger than Martin’s. His biceps were also larger, and his triceps were better developed. And, when they exchanged clothes, he noticed something else: Martin was not circumcised. At the time that Michael Rourke was born, popular wisdom held that it was sound medical practice to circumcise all boys. So he had been circumcised.

Martin, of course, had warned him, “With that Jewish thing that they did to you—I have read about the practice, don’t be fooled—the first time anyone sees you—”

“Well, tell me, brother Martin, you run around in the nude a lot in front of your soldiers? Didn’t think you were that kind of a-“

“Laugh while you can, Michael. Laugh while you can.”

Michael looked down at himself. The clothes were a decent enough fit, he supposed, but not to his liking. The trousers weren’t too sturdy-looking. The shoes, rather than boots, expensive-looking but not too practical. And the shirt, which had litde dots in the material, looked more like something a woman would wear. “You know, you may look like a Rourke, Martin, may have the same genes, the same blood, the whole thing, but do you know what a real Rourke would have done?”

Martin said nothing for a moment, then shrugged his shoulders as he buttoned on Michael’s shirt. “No, what?”

“You don’t want this impersonation to succeed, right? So you should have done something to make these clothes of yours unwearable.” Michael grinned at him. “Here’s a good Twentieth Century word for you, Martin—chump.”

“What’s a chump?”

“Somebody who acts stupid, Martin. Like you, buying all this Nazi garbage from Deitrich Zimmer. Why don’t you—”

“—straighten out, Michael?” Martin asked, then laughed. “You and Dad and sister Annie and that disgusting Jew she’s married to would—”

Michael Rourke took a step closer to Martin Zimmer. “Annie’s husband is the best friend I have in the world. He’s more of a brother to me than you’d ever be, asshole.”

Michael grabbed up his sweater before Martin could put it on. Let Martin freeze. The sweater could help to keep one of the women a litde warmer. Michael Rourke knew a bit more about Martin now, having listened a litde more closely to how Martin talked… .

“Ill do it,” Annie said to her.

“I am fine. My eye is steady, and so’s my hand,” Natalia declared.

Then Natalia looked at Michael. He was standing there, waiting, just a few feet from her. He started to laugh, saying, “This is great, just great.”

“What’s great?” Annie asked him.

Natalia just looked at him.

Michael Rourke said, “The girl I love and my sister. What are they doing? Arguing over which one of them is going to get to shoot me!”

Natalia closed her eyes, then opened them, took a deep breath, released it, and said, “Stand perfecdy still, Michael.” She inhaled again, releasing only part of the breath this time. Then she steadied the gun between her knees, her elbows pressed outward as she sat on the ground, her eyes almost level with where she was going to put the shot.

Her .380 caliber Walther was the lightest caliber of any of the guns they had. She cocked the hammer, then slowly started the trigger squeeze.

When the gun went off, her ears rang and Michael fell down into the snow.

If the enemy didn’t show up reasonably quickly, he would freeze to death, Michael Rourke decided.

He walked as best he could, to keep the blood circulating in his feet. But the two leg wounds, Natalia’s shallower than the first, were hurting badly and walking was becoming increasingly more difficult for him. His head wound, unbandaged, ached. His father had examined it, pronouncing it superficial. But it didn’t hurt less because of that.

Michael Rourke took some litde consolation from the fact that if he died, until enemy medical personnel were able to take a retinal print and check his DNA, he might very well have everyone convinced that Martin had died instead. Unless someone who knew better noticed his circumcision. Such a deception, even in death, would slow up the search for his father, his sister, Natalia, and Paul. He’d considered that possibility before but had never mentioned it to anyone.

It had been hard enough as it was, getting his father to agree to this potentially suicidal charade.

He’d been talking to himself as he walked and waited, trying to think like Martin Zimmer and talk like Martin Zimmer. Fortunately, the former proved impossible, but he convinced himself he was really getting the hang of the latter. Martin’s voice, essentially identical to his father’s and his own, was just a litde nasal, and he strung words together almost as if he had learned English as a second language, however well. Before his father and mother became so criti

cally injured that their only hope for survival had been cryogenic sleep, Michael had learned a good bit of German.