Survivalist - 12 - The Rebellion (15 page)

“She shall recover, I think, Herr Captain,” Munchen proclaimed. “You had best listen to Herr Rubenstein. What he has to say could affect us all.”

Dodd looked over his shoulder. “If you’re so concerned about Miss Rourke—well, remember. If she—”

“Shut the fuck up,” Paul Rubenstein snapped, his adrenalin rising, something he could feel.

“You—”

“No! Annie—she flushed him out. And now Blackburn’s got her. And if Captain Harwood hadn’t seen them, Blackburn was gonna kill her—Annie. Gonna kill me. Gonna kill you. It’s time you grew up, Dodd!” Rubenstein raised his head, his neck aching with the pain from his head. “I want help in getting after Blackburn.”

“This Blackburn,” Munchen interrupted. “He evidently stole one of the Soviet gunships.”

“Couldn’t get more than a hundred miles in it if he did. Then what’s he gonna use for gas, huh?” And Dodd turned to Paul Rubenstein. “And much north of where St. Louis used to be is mostly ice and not much else. I’m sorry about Miss Rourke. And I guess I owe all of your family an apology, Mr. Rubenstein—and Major Tiemerovna most of all—maybe. But we got a battle to win, got dead to bury, got defenses to prepare. I can’t spare a pilot or one of the few helicopters we’ve got. Or any fuel for it. The survival of the rest of the Eden Project could mean the survival of civilization, of democracy. Especially if Dr. Rourke should

fail with Colonel Mann. Once we’re done here,” and Rubenstein was suddenly more conscious of the gunfire, the shells exploding near the main portion of the camp, “we’re getting to one of the underground supply caches— and getting fortifications built. We could have the rest of the Germans, the Russians—everybody down on us. No, I’m sorry about Miss Rourke, Mr. Rubenstein—but I can’t spare anyone to go after her.”

Paul Rubenstein pushed himself up to a standing position, swaying as he spoke. “You son of a bitch.” And he fell over and closed his eyes.

They were entering the whispering gallery.

He could tell by the sound of his wife’s breathing. She walked ahead of him, perhaps six feet, but her breathing sounded as loud and labored as a patient on a respirator. Rourke’s own breathing—it seemed almost deafeningly loud.

Footfalls on the rock ledge now, the sound of small rocks cascading from the surface of the narrow ledge into the blackness below. And like a dull growl in the blackness, the stream which crashed along below them out of sight, concealed in the darkness.

In a cone of yellow light, he could see Natalia’s feet as she edged along just ahead of Sarah.

Rourke heard a loud scraping sound as the zipper of his bomber jacket—it was open—scratched against the rock.

He stopped moving, slowly and as soundlessly as possible linking the two base pieces of the brass zipper, then starting to zip the jacket closed a few inches at the waist— the zipper sounded impossibly loud, like an animal somehow. He moved on, both rifles slung at his right side and lashed together so they would not bang against one another and issue a betraying sound. His musette bag and his canteen hung at his right side as well, lashed together as well, the musette bag a buffer between the rifles and the canteen. He had used a spare pair of combat boot laces to

do the tying.

He could hear Wolfgang Mann’s footfalls loudest of all, because Mann as the trailblazer encountered the largest number of loose rocks and silt and sediment.

They kept moving.

Natalia’s lantern swung up and for an instant he could see Natalia’s eyes—fear in them. And then Sarah’s face and hair—a resoluteness in her face that he had seen since reuniting with her just before the fires had consumed the air, a resoluteness he had never seen there in the time they had spent together before The Night of The War.

The lantern swung away, and he could only see their feet and his own and the progressively narrowing ledge.

John Rourke could feel more than see that they were edging steadily upward at what at least for now seemed a gentle angle.

And now the angle seemed more visually apparent— because Mann’s lantern which was shone ahead of their file was higher than Rourke’s chest and should not have been.

John Rourke’s right foot slipped and he splayed his arms against the wall which backed the ledge, his left knee buckling slightly before he caught his weight—rocks fell, small ones he knew, but the noise they generated sounding like boulders rolling down a cliff.

He caught his breath, regained the proper footing and moved on.

The angle of the ledge became steadily steeper; the ledge itself suddenly narrowed.

Shafts of yellow light, but paler than the yellow light of the lanterns, filtered down through clouds of airborne dust as he looked ahead, the light still too distant to illuminate the path.

As they moved forward and upward, Rourke could gradually discern the origins of the light—the fissures of which Wolfgang Mann had spoken, through which the

sentries posted above would be able to hear them.

John Rourke no longer walked the ledge, but rather edged forward a few inches at a time, his guns and gear hanging pendulumlike from the front of his body. It threw his balance slightly off, but there was no other way to traverse the ledge.

Rourke watched as Wolfgang Mann’s body penetrated the nearest of the downward ranging shafts of light. And it was then that Sergeant Heinz slipped from the ledge and fell away to be lost in the darkness.

Rourke caught his breath—the sound of the rockfall was like the roar of thunder. In the arc of Mann’s lamp, Rourke could see Natalia stooping over the abyss, swinging her lantern downward.

And then the gunfire from above began, from the fissures in the rock.

The noise of it vibrated through his entire being, Rourke opening his mouth wide to equalize pressure with his eardrums. As he edged forward along the ledge, Sarah ahead of him, Rourke could see Sarah’s hands clasped to her ears, her mouth open in a soundless scream as Mann swung his lantern upward.

Natalia was to her knees along the ledge, her mouth open wide as well, but her left hand purchased precariously against the wall of rock behind her, her right arm swinging the lantern down into the darkness.

Bullets whizzed past Rourke’s head, ricochetting about the cavern and along the ledge, rock chips and rock dust spraying against his face and his bare hands as he inched ahead.

Mann too was to his knees, his lantern swinging down into the darkness. Rourke touched a hand to his wife’s shoulder, drawing her back against the rock wall, gesturing with his other hand in the shaft of yellow light which now cast a pale glow around them.

Sarah understood, flattening herself against the rock

wall, Rourke swinging out his right leg over the abyss, his combat-booted right foot scratching against the rock wall beyond where Sarah stood, groping for the ledge. He found it, his right arm flailing out around her, his right hand brushing against her left breast in the darkness. He felt her left hand grab at his wrist, holding him.

Rourke edged around her from the portion of ledge where he had been standing to a narrow spot just beyond her, his hands clawing for a purchase against the rock surface, her left hand on his right wrist still, his. left foot swinging into the abyss.

But he had the ledge.

He edged slightly forward, his rifles scratching against the rock wall, any noise they would have made, he realized, drowned out in the reverberating roar of the gunfire from above. And this he could barely hear over the hollow wailing sound which filled his ears. Another few minutes, and he and the others would suffer permanent hearing damage, and a few minutes more and it would be permanent hearing loss, he knew.

A spray of rock chips pelted at his face, Rourke’s eyes already squinted, shutting tight against it.

He opened his eyes into narrow slits and edged ahead.

He was beside Natalia now, staring down into the abyss where Mann’s and Natalia’s lanterns shown, scanning the fringe of light and darkness for some sign of Sergeant Heinz.

And then Rourke saw it—his eyes squinted shut against it for an instant, against the comparative brightness.

As he peered downward again, the light shone again and Rourke averted his eyes. It was Heinz—still alive and signaling with his powerful battery-operated hand-held searchlight.

Rourke looked to Wolfgang Mann—the climbing rope about Mann’s torso, draped diagonally, left shoulder to right hip.

Rourke thought bitterly that they should have lashed themselves together—and perhaps saved Heinz. But it might also have meant that if Heinz had still fallen, he would have pulled the rest of them after him and off the ledge.

Rourke gestured to Mann; Mann nodded. The German colonel slipped the coiled climbing rope from his frame and handed it to Rourke.

Rourke found the plastic sealed end and shook out several feet of the rope, passing it back to Mann. Mann wound the rope into a harness behind his shoulders and bound over his chest, knotting a double square knot into it. The knot would be satisfactory, Rourke considered, but it was evident that the Youth of which Mann had spoken once aboard the aircraft while en route to Argentina would never replace the Boy Scouts.

Rourke began uncoiling the remaining portion of the rope. But first passing the coil behind Natalia. She understood his intent as well, standing to her full height, securing a loop into a knot with the rope, anchoring herself to it as well.

Rourke shook the remainder of the rope down into the darkness.

The light flashed—evidently in some sort of signal code which Rourke could not comprehend. Three long flashes. Two short. Then a long and a short.

Rourke looked to Wolfgang Mann.

Mann stabbed his left forefinger downward toward the flashing light of Sergeant Heinz. And then Mann shook his head.

Rourke tugged at the rope—it was either held by Heinz or caught on a rock. It would not budge.

He looked again to Wolfgang Mann. Had they been able to speak … but they were not. A spray of rock chips and dust pelted Rourke’s face and he squinted against it.

Mann gestured downward with his left index finger.

Natalia started unknotting her rope—Rourke grabbed at her hands, then tugged at the hitch in the rope bound around her shoulders and chest.

Sarah—John Rourke unslung his assault rifles and passed them beyond Natalia and into Sarah’s hands. She took the rifles, slinging them crossbody beside her own weapons.

The musette bag and the canteen. Rourke passed these to Wolfgang Mann.

Rourke’s fists closed over the rope and he gestured to Natalia and then to Mann—he was going down. He found his bloodstained gloves, pulling them on.

His ears pained him now. Swallowing, keeping his mouth open—nothing seemed to ease it.

He started downward, holding to the rope, rappelling, his feet against the rock surface beneath the ledge, his hands locked to the rope.

He realized suddenly that perhaps the gunfire had briefly stopped—because he could dully discern the sounds of more discharges from above but had not heard them in the last few moments. His hearing was not as far gone as he had thought.

Rourke looked below him. The searchlight flashed again in what was to him a meaningless signal. If there had been time—he could have noted the system of long and short flashes and perhaps deciphered it. There was no time.

He kept moving downward, the rocks beneath his feet dislodging, his body swinging outward and then slamming against the rock face. He swung there, the pendulum motion momentarily bringing on a wave of nausea.

He swung his feet right and left, at last finding a purchase, kicking against it to be certain that it was steady.

The flashing of the light again.

Rourke started downward once more, all auditory sense nearly gone, the noise penetrating his consciousness and blocking thought.

But it was no longer conscious will, but instinct which drew him toward the light.

The light—he keep shifting his weight downward, ever nearer to the light.

Downward, the roaring in his ears unceasing now, no discernible sound at all, just a steadily growing cacophony which somehow seemed inside his head.

They were shooting downward through the fissures, Rourke knew—because as he moved along the rock surface, he could feel sprays of rock and dust pelting at his face and neck and the exposed skin at his wrists where his gloves ended and below where his sleeves began.

The light seemed impossibly bright now, Rourke averting his eyes as he swung himself left on the rope, zigzagging downward over the sometimes slick, sometimes rough, sometimes knife edge sharp rock surface. He could feel through his gloves—and he could feel that his gloves were cutting.

The light—Rourke pressed his feet against a wide ledge, straightening his legs, locking his knees, his body hanging outward.

The light—he edged along the ledge now, flattening his body against the rock surface, reaching out with his left hand toward it.

The light—Rourke’s right hand tightened on the rope, his left hand closing over the face of the searchlight, the light illuminating pinholes in his gloves, backlighting the hairs on his wrists.

The light—John Rourke tugged at it. Something behind the light tugged back. Heinz.

Rourke edged further out along the ledge, in the glow of the light now seeing that he was on a narrow peninsula of rock surrounded on three sides by the abyss. He sagged to his knees, crawling forward, his right hand locked to the rope, his left hand groping into the darkness that he would not suddenly fall because he could not see the far edge.

He sagged forward—against something which gave slightly at his touch. It was Sergeant Heinz.

John Rourke grabbed again at the searchlight, twisting it free, turning it toward the shape he had found in the darkness.

Heinz’s left temple dripped blood and his right arm was twisted at the elbow, almost back against itself.

Heinz’s eyes seemed oddly clear. The German sergeant attempted a smile.

And the German sergeant gestured with his left hand downward along the length of his body.