Survivalist - 15 - Overlord (11 page)

Michael reached for the radio at his belt and started to speak as he depressed the push to talk button. “This is Michael —Otto —Maria—come in. Over.”

There was static, then in a moment, the voice of Bjorn Rolvaag who spoke no English.

Michael spoke again. “Bjorn —Maria or Otto. Over.”

Rolvaag’s voice returned and as best Michael could decipher from his meager knowledge of Icelandic, Maria and Otto were not there.

He said abruptly into the radio, “Michael out.” And he cut the transmission.

The horsemen were coming and already, Han Lu Chen and the two (legitimate?) Mongols were opening fire. Michael would have waited to open fire whether advised by Han Lu Chen or not. The range was still well over a hundred yards.

But where were Maria Leuden and Otto Hammerschmidt? Where was Maria? He exhaled, steadying his hands, thumb cocking each of the pistols, ready …

Otto Hammerschmidt’s head hurt when he opened his eyes, and his left eye would not fully open —he assumed the cause was clotted blood. He realized his body was shaking with the cold and he realized the cause. Not only had he been stripped of his weapons but he had been stripped of his arctic gear, down to the lightweight thermal underwear he had worn beneath it. He looked beyond the fire a few meters from where he was —he was tied, he realized, with some sort of rope that felt too smooth to be natural fiber, but bound tightly nonetheless. Beyond the fire, Hammerschmidt could see one of the Mongol-looking men, and the man wearing Hammerschmidt’s stolen arctic parka, but the pants that went with it were nowhere in sight.

Hammerschmidt closed his eyes against the pain —he remembered being struck by a rifle butt.

He opened his eyes suddenly, craning his neck, straining against the ropes which bound him —to the trunk of a pine tree, he realized. Where was Fraulein Doctor Maria Leuden?

The horsemen were in range now and Michael Rourke opened fire, double taps with each of the Berettas, one of the military 9mms in his right fist, the other spitting fire from his left, men and horses going down, but gunfire still pouring toward their position from behind the carcasses of the dead horses, the body behind which Michael and Han Lu Chen crouched rocking with hits from the .30 caliber assault rifles the attackers used. Michael ducked down, Han Lu Chen saying to him, “You are very good with those pistols, Michael Rourke. When I saw you with one in each hand, I thought that perhaps you over estimated your abilities, but in fact you apparently do not.”

There was no need to reload — Michael had only expended eight rounds from each pistol, seven rounds remaining,, having started with full magazines only and not loaded one into the chamber. “Who the hell are you and how come you speak English?”

“I told you my name. But I assume you wish to know more —pardon me!” And Han thrust up and fired a burst from his assault rifle, Michael looking over the flanks of the dead animal behind which he hid, the Mongol attackers retreating for the moment. He doubted it would be a lasting condition.

“They’ll be back, right?”

“You are perceptive, American. Yes —they fight Until they win or die. They are a simple people.” “Who are you?”

“I am a member of the intelligence service of the People’s

Republic of China. I believe our peoples were de facto allies during the Great War of The Nations five centuries ago.”

“They were —you fought a land war with Russia after my country got all but destroyed. But then when the Great Conflagration came—”

“The Dragon Wind—Ahh! It must have been an awesome spectacle.”

“There was death everywhere —I remember watching my father’s face as he watched it happening—”

“You joke, of course, although I see little taste in it.”

“I was born in the twentieth century —it’s a long story,” Michael Rourke nodded grimly. “And I wouldn’t joke about that. Why do you speak English?”

Han grinned, saying, “Because I presume you speak no Chinese,” and he rattled off something totally incomprehensible to Michael, then laughed again. “And apparently I was right, American.”

“But how did you learn it?”

“Before the Dragon Wind, so much of the scientific and engineering literature was written in English, that afterward what survived of it could not be trusted to translation, and ours, though more beautiful, is a more cumbersome language. We have kept your language alive. We knew life still existed in America. We thought, perhaps, that someday — well, and we have met, heh?”

“How many of you are there?”

“Several hundred thousand in our city alone. And in their city, nearly that many, perhaps more.”

“Their city?” And Michael Rourke jerked his head in the general direction of their attackers.

“It is not their city, really, although they live there at times and lived there once long ago. Before the Great War of Nations, we of the People’s Republic had determined that the Soviet Union was preparing for global thermonuclear war. We wished none of this, but desired to be prepared to survive it — “

“You’d like my father,” Michael Rourke grinned.

“Perhaps I would. But we constructed three Underground Cities, as the story goes. But the records of the Third City were lost or stolen and perhaps it is only a myth. When the Great War of Nations began, radical elements—”

“Maoists?”

“You are indeed the student of history—these Red Guards seized the Second City, while the People’s Republic maintained control of the First City. When the Dragon Wind came, it was impossible to venture forth, to contact the Second City. In the five centuries our cities went their separate ways. The First City evolved as had the original People’s Republic before it. We are very democratic now. But the Second City, we learned, had devolved, returned to the domination of radical militants, seeking to return to the Communism of Mao while yet resorting to the tactics of the old warlords who dominated China before the Revolution. They developed in a rigid class society, and these who attack us are of their warrior class, as fierce as the Mongols whom their tradition emulates.”

“What about these guys?” And Michael gestured with the gun in his left fist toward the other two men who had come from the encampment.

“Some soldiers learn that the only way to truly succeed at their craft is to sell their services to those who would pay most highly. Mercenary soldiers, they would be called in English. These men I travel with are mercenary soldiers in the employ of the First City. We were assigned to penetrate the Second City and I was to assassinate the leader of the Second City. His name is taken from his deity —he calls himself Mao, though it is really a much more ordinary name that he was given at birth, no doubt.”

“What about your mercenary pals—just to get you into the city?”

“You have captured the spirit of the endeavor.” “How were you going to get out?”

The smile vanished from Han’s face. He looked up over the back of the dead horse and then returned his gaze to Michael. “We are in a state of war with the Second City, and have been for some five decades. Two years ago, during one of the many invasive commando raids made by the warriors of the Second City, my wife and two daughters happened to be shopping in the central market. A bomb exploded and they were killed. The thought of leaving the Second City after succeeding in killing the one who calls himself Mao had not occurred to me,” and Han smiled again.

“I understand you,” Michael almost whispered. “We are at war with the Soviet Union. My wife and our unborn child — they were — ” Michael Rourke closed his eyes for a moment, then felt Han’s hand touch at his shoulder. Michael opened his eyes.

Han said, “You need say no more, American. But these Russians of whom you speak. We knew of their existence and tried to conceal our own. But how goes your war?”

“It goes, let’s say,” Michael smiled.

“Ahh —” And Han peered up again, over the back of the horse. “Our enemies return, I fear.”

Michael rested spare magazines for each of the pistols on the small flat rock beside which he knelt, worked up the safeties of the twin Berettas, then raised himself up to look toward the attackers. Perhaps ten remained on horseback, a few more crouched behind their dead animals, but the animals the horsemen rode appeared nearly dead with exhaustion, whipped by their riders into a skirmish line.

“The horses. The animal skins —where do they come from?”

“We returned to the surface five decades ago, the Second City perhaps as much as a decade .before that —but they are less cautious, less caring for the welfare of their people than ourselves. Animals of all types were maintained in small zoos within each of the cities, with their habitats such that they simulated wild conditions. The Second City began an

ambitious program of return to the wild, as we did some years later. Wolves, rabbits-, a wide range of species now roam in these mountains, and more are raised in the cities themselves to be added to the wild population. But the people of the Second City prefer to hunt these animals into possible extinction. We do not. It is all a matter of perspective, I suppose. And as to horses, they were raised, at least by ourselves, in the event of their being used should synthetic fuel research prove fruidess, as it has.”

“I know some people who can help you there,” Michael nodded. “Here they come!”

Han opened fire with his assault rifle, Michael biding his time until the attackers came into range …

Maria Leuden told herself she was behaving like a child — but she couldn’t help herself, crying. She had been stripped of her winter gear and all of the clothing beneath it. But she had not been raped. Yet. But she knew it would come, from the way the men looked at her; the man who had knocked her unconscious stared at her and laughed.

She wondered if perhaps she were being saved for someone else.

She was freezing cold, the dirty blankets and animal skins she had been covered with dislodging each time she attempted to move, to restore circulation to her bound wrists and ankles. And it was hard to breathe, something around her neck constricting her. Also, her glasses kept sliding down her runny nose.

She had seen no sign of Otto Hammerschmidt since regaining consciousness. Perhaps he was dead. And Michael—she had fallen in love with him; she knew that. And he had no interest in returning her love, and with the recent death of his wife, she could not blame him. But it was all over now.

She would keep herself alive long enough to get at least

one of these men and kill him somehow. She had learned that from the Rourkes. Life was not taken cheaply.

She stared at the man who had hit her. And she turned her eyes away as he stood up and started to walk toward her. And she couldn’t help herself. The tears came again.

Vladmir Karamatsov stripped away his parka. It was warm in the command tent with the chemical heater going as it was. Beneath it, he wore the shoulder holster with the five centuries old Model 59 Smith & Wesson 9mm which he had vowed to himself he would use to personally kill John Thomas Rourke. The moment was getting close when he would keep the vow.

His field grade officers were assembled and they sat when he bade them to sit and he began to speak.

“For some time I have concealed from you my ultimate purpose in leading our armies to the east. I shall reveal to you much of that purpose. Before the Night of The War, in my capacity with the Committee for State Security, I was privy to considerable information, much of which has helped our people to survive in these centuries since the fire swept our skies.

“All nations prepared for the war which some said was inevitable—” A younger officer cleared his throat and Karamatsov looked icily toward him. “Which some said was inevitable,” Karamatsov continued, “and some said was unthinkable. I believed it inevitable. I devoted considerable energies to ferreting out the plans of other nations for the time when the war came. Our own great people had planned

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wisely with the Underground City, though its leadership has now become corrupted with its own power and would deny the very revolution which sustained it.” None of this was really true, but he had never shared his reasons for attacking the Underground City and the seat of Soviet government with his inferiors and these words seemed as good as any to serve the purpose.

“Other nations, as you all know, had their special plans as well. The United States developed the Eden Project, at once the most daring and the most foolhardy of the scenarios. Five centuries of sleep in space. Our own nation conceived a project of equal daring and with considerably greater chance for success. But more of this when it is appropriate.” He liked to give them a taste and nothing more. Men keen to know were willing to serve. “Our enemies, the so-called People’s Republic of China, planned as well. They constructed their own versions of our Underground City, their spies stealing much of the needed technological information from our own heroic scientists and leaders. Two cities were completed.” A third city was under construction at that time and he had no way of knowing if it had ever been completed and since his data was incomplete, he declined any mention of it to his subordinates.

“In the era immediately before the Night of The War,” he told his officers, “the nuclear strength of the nations possessed of this power was assessed as follows. Both our nation and the United States had roughly over fifty thousand nuclear devices, distributed more or less evenly among the two largest of the nuclear powers. The allies of the Americans had litde more than a thousand between them, exclusive of the Jew occupiers of Palestine, who had nuclear capability of their own which they chose to keep secret. But the so-called People’s Republic of China had some three hundred nuclear devices. Aside from a few dozen which were used tactically during the land war our heroic ancestors fought against Chinese aggression when the so-called

People’s Republic attacked us during our war for Communist liberation of the world, none of the remaining were used. But I know where they are. We go to claim these nuclear weapons and to utilize them against the enemies of the Soviet people if need be.”