Survivalist - 12 - The Rebellion (16 page)

Rourke watched the man’s eyes, then followed the direction of Sergeant Heinz’s gaze with the searchlight. The left leg—it seemed like a simple fracture at first glance.

Rourke reached to his belt, drawing the long bladed Gerber Mkll from its sheath, inserting the blade at the pulled up trouser cuff which he had simultaneously drawn up from inside the jackboot.

The jackboots were made of a synthetic that looked and felt like leather. He preferred the real thing. He began working the blade along the trouser seam of Heinz’s BDU pants. There was no redness visible as he laid back the material to study the skin. The fracture had not penetrated the skin.

He shone the light back toward Heinz’s face. Heinz had passed out.

But still slung from his left shoulder crossbody were two of the German assault rifles.

Rourke checked for pulse and breathing—Heinz had simply passed out and seemed in no immediate danger.

There was no possibility of doing anything substantial with the leg. Not until they reached safety. Rourke had not assumed and did not now assume that their presence had been detected beneath the fissures—the sentries were shooting because they had heard the noise of rock slides

and were looking for the excuse to break the boredom of sentry duty. The shots seemed haphazard and not in sufficient volume to indicate that something was actually suspected.

Rourke—as gently as he could—unslung the two assault rifles, removing the magazines and quickly inspecting the weapons themselves to ascertain the method of disassembly. The completely assembled rifles would be too heavy and awkward to utilize as splints, but the plastic stocks would be ideal.

He found what looked like a dismount latch, working the actions first to check that no round was chambered in either weapon. Then he turned the dismount latch. For a rifle, it was surprisingly like a pistol, using the basic system pioneered in the Walther P-38. But the dismount latch served to release the bolt carrier. He lifted this away. Beneath the trigger guard housing at the very front of the guard. A knurled piece—he tugged at this, the trigger housing group falling out with only slight pressure. John Rourke shook his head. Simple, yes, but not so sturdy an arrangement as to be found with Colt, Ruger or earlier civilian or military police/assault/sporter rifles. Another latch—beneath the front handguard and inset to be recessed. It latched downward under finger pressure. The barrel and receiver freed themselves from the one-piece stock. He threw the metal parts aside, no longer concerned about noise.

He reached up to the sergeant’s waist, undoing the brown web belt threaded through the man’s trouser loops. Positioning one of the plastic stocks on either side of the shin, the belt beside the nearer one, Rourke grasped the leg.

As he pulled, he pressed firmly, setting the bone.

He felt Heinz’s body twitch. Rourke had no time to look. Methodically, he positioned the impromptu splint and bound it to the leg with the belt.

He moved the light, shifting along on his knees to the upper body. Gingerly, he touched at the twisted and misshapen arm. It was not a break, but rather a dislocation of the shoulder, no apparent damage to the elbow.

Rourke checked Heinz’s breathing. Even. The German sergeant’s unconsciousness would make it easier. After a time following dislocation, the muscle which had been parted by the outward force of the bone being dislodged from the socket would form to close the gap. Without the body being relaxed, either through anesthesia or some other means, reduction of the dislocation was made that much more difficult. He felt at the shoulder, grasping the arm firmly, drawing it out straight. He began to work the arm in a circular motion, twisting it through the gap between the muscles. He could feel the pop. Gently, he rested the forearm across Heinz’s chest, bending the arm slowly at the elbow.

If he were forced by circumstance, Rourke knew, he could remove his own belt to secure the arm to Heinz’s chest—but there was gear on his belt that then would have to be pocketed. He shrugged his shoulders, picking up his knife. Rourke bent across the body, cutting away the left BDU sleeve at the seam where it mated with the shoulder. He wrenched the sleeve down along the left arm, then using the Gerber again sliced it open along the seam. He halved the sleeve and used the Gerber again. Resheathing the knife, closing the scabbard retainer to secure it, Rourke tied the two sections of fabric together. He gauged the length—more than adequate. Sliding the tail of the material under Heinz at the small of the back, Rourke worked it up along the torso until it was in position, secured the arm just below the elbow, then bound both sections of the sleeve together with a simple square knot, securing the arm tightly enough to the chest that it wouldn’t slip down.

The rope had been a possibility—but he had nearly been to the end of it and did not want to risk excising length he

might need in order to safely secure Heinz for the journey up along the rock face.

And he began to do this now, working a cradle of rope around the unconscious German’s body, avoiding the dislocated shoulder, securing the right leg to the injured left leg for added firmness.

Trussed securely, Rourke dragged Heinz back along the spit of rock, after cursorily examining for neck or back injury—he found no evidence of either. The head wound seemed superficial, bleeding already stopped.

The light—he secured it to his own belt, shutting it off as he tugged solidly on the rope.

There was an answering tug.

And he guided Heinz’s body toward the rock face, shining the light on it as soon as his hands were free. Heinz was being lifted upward.

He still could not hear and as he turned away from the light, all he could see was the blackness of the abyss.

According to the luminous black face of the Rolex Submariner, it had consumed twelve minutes for Heinz to make the journey upward, the rope to be undone and dropped back toward the spit of rock and then Rourke to rappel back to the ledge.

Securing Heinz’s arm more sturdily, they continued movement along the ledge, first Wolfgang Mann and then after fifteen minutes, John Rourke taking the still-unconscious young soldier over their shoulder in a modified fireman’s carry. The ledge was too narrow for him to be carried any other way.

After what Rourke judged as perhaps an hour, on his second tour with Heinz over his shoulder, Rourke could perceive the effect of the gunfire’s amplified sound in the whispering gallery to have at least slightly diminished. The shooting had stopped—he could not tell precisely when.

But he could hear the breathing of Heinz over his shoulder, hear the breathing of Sarah ahead of him along the ledge, hear his own breathing.

He had mentally gauged it as ten minutes since they had left the pale yellow light of the last vent and now had returned to the total darkness of the abyss, the darkness broken only in the cones of light from the lanterns carried by Natalia and Sarah and Mann. But beyond the effective range of the lanterns, the darkness was total or seemed so.

They kept moving.

The ledge had widened and, almost suddenly, what had been shadow became substance, the ledge gone and a cavern wall less than a dozen feet beyond the wall along which they had travelled.

Beneath their feet was solid rock. Rourke once again took the burden of Sergeant Heinz, Natalia carrying one of his assault rifles and his musette bag, Sarah with the second M-16 and the canteen. They walked in ragged formation four abreast, the going easier as well because the passageway slanted slightly downward.

Mann—his voice audible but a hollow roar like the sounds of the sea heard in a shell taken from the beach almost obscuring it to Rourke’s ears—spoke. “We are at last out of the whispering gallery. Can any of you hear me/

“Yes.” Rourke nodded, shifting Heinz’s weight on his shoulder. His neck ached and his back ached from the strain as well.

“I hear you—but it sounds funny,” Rourke heard Sarah telling Mann.

“My ears—they are ringing. I can’t stop it, but it doesn’t seem as bad,” Natalia announced.

“I think Heinz may wind up the luckiest one, at least in

that department. With his unconscious state, his auditory functions might have been better able to compensate for the noise level. How much further to the entrance of The Complex?”

He was debating whether to stop and give Heinz a more thorough examination now that space allowed, or continue until they reached the entrance.

“Another ten minutes—if that—and again it would be wise to be silent since we are so close.”

Mann had resolved the question.

They walked on, Rourke refusing that Mann spell him with carrying Heinz—the distance remaining was so little.

The passageway narrowed as it turned sharply right and the angle increased—downward. Rourke broadened his stride—the end of the journey through the underground was near. He raised his left hand to his ear—too faintly, he could make out the ticking of his Rolex. But at least hearing was returning.

The passage took a sharp bend left and leveled off and Mann ran ahead, raising his right arm in a signal to halt.

Rourke stopped, Natalia on his right boosting Heinz’s body slightly to ease the weight burden. Sarah started forward, behind Mann, one of the three assault rifles she carried—two of her own and one of his—pointed along the rock corridor.

Mann was feeling his hands along the surface of the rock at the end of the corridor. It seemed like a dead end from the distance as Rourke observed him. But then suddenly the rock beneath Mann’s splayed hands shifted, outward. Mann drew his pistol and moved to the right side of the rock panel, then disappeared, stepping through.

Rourke watched Natalia’s eyes for an instant—then-incredible blueness. She smiled at him.

He heard a sound and looked up. Two German soldiers

had appeared at the far end of the corridor—Sarah was raising the assault rifle. Natalia wheeled toward the opening.

But then Mann was there—he waved a hand to signal that all was as it should be.

The two German soldiers, their assault rifles slung at their sides, ran the length of the corridor, past Sarah, stopping beside Rourke, immediately starting to take Heinz from him. In German, Rourke’s voice a rasped whisper, he cautioned, “There has been a break in the left leg at the shin and the right arm is dislocated from the shoulder. Be careful how you carry him.”

“Yes, Herr Doctor.” The taller of the two men nodded.

Rourke flexed his tortured shoulders, walking ahead, taking one of his assault rifles from Natalia. Mann beckoned for them to come through the passageway as Rourke took the second rifle from Sarah. He took the eight-hundred-round box of .223 Sarah carried and picked up the box Mann had set beside the exit from the rock corridor, and then, ahead of his wife, ahead of Natalia, ahead of die two German soldiers carrying the injured sergeant, he passed through the cut out in the rock.

He was inside a vast power plant, pipes of enormous diameter all but obscuring the low ceiling and the roar of turbines drowning out at least temporarily the roaring inside his head which lingered on after the whispering gallery.

He looked to right and left and could see no end to the corridor formed on one side and overhead by piping, beneath his feet and on the wall behind him concrete slabs.

Mann stood a few feet away, his arms enfolding a tall, slender, patrician-looking woman who was by any standard exquisitely beautiful.

Rourke noticed that Sarah and then Natalia flanked

him.

He remarked to both of them, “I can see why Mann kept going.”

In the five centuries of survival beneath the earth, the Germans had perfected a system of fusion-based hydroelectric power. In four unused drums of the type usually utilized for the transport of liquified byproducts, John Rourke, Sarah Rourke, Natalia Anastasia Tiemerovna and Col. Wolfgang Mann were transported from the power plant and through The Complex. There were five of the containers, but the fifth container was empty. Because of his injuries, it had been impossible to cram Sergeant Heinz inside one of the barrel-shaped units. So he remained at the power plant, but only after conferring with a military doctor had satisfied Rourke. The power plant, like anything conceivably defense-related, was under the direct control of the army and the officer corps was entirely SS. But, like Wolfgang Mann, a substantial portion of the officer corps was SS in uniform and rank designation only. The power plant was controlled by Mann’s people.

Cramped in the drum with his weapons and gear, Rourke had felt the jostling as the trucklike vehicle which he had seen before being placed inside the drum had ferried them. At a loading dock for what Mann had hastily identified as the New Fatherland Printing Office, Rourke, his wife, Natalia and the standartenfuehrer had exited the drums and switched to a van-like vehicle, their assault rifles hidden beneath floorboards, enlisted rank uniforms

provided for all of them. Rourke had always admired German precision—and the uniforms were near perfect fits, Natalia’s and Sarah’s women’s uniforms however well fitting, terribly unflattering. The windowless van had stopped at the rear of a tall building Rourke had been able to observe by looking forward through the windshield. Once stopped, they had quickly exited the van. Waiting for them in the below-level parking area, Rourke again saw Frau Mann.

As they ran from the van—at her urging—to join her near what appeared to be a service elevator, Wolfgang Mann answered Rourke’s unasked question. “High ranking members of the officer corps and other ranking officials are permitted private vehicles. The air-scrubbing system can only take so much here in terms of emissions and electrically powered vehicles such as the van and the private cars are in limited supply—intentionally so to prevent traffic problems.”

They reached the service elevator, Frau Mann stepping inside, Natalia and Sarah following her, Natalia pulling off the khaki uniform cap and stuffing it in the pocket of her skirt. Both Natalia and Sarah carried their individual weapons in large shoulder bags.