Survivalist - 15 - Overlord (17 page)

“Halt! Who is it?”

There was no answer.

Kurinami licked his lips beneath the toque which covered his face except for the eyes. His right first finger slipped into the trigger guard, his right thumb finding the safety tumbler and moving it into the full auto position. “Who is it?”

It was too early for his relief to come, wasn’t it? He refigured the time, not daring to shift his eyes to his wrist to look at his chronometer. “Who is it?”

Kurinami saw a shape —not definable enough to be certain what it was, and he wheeled toward it, bringing the muzzle of his rifle up, then feeling it as something hammered against his right shoulder and his right arm went numb and the rifle fell from his grasp and he started to fall forward into the snow. But he caught himself, realizing that something had struck him, rolling to the ground, blinking his eyes against the cold wetness of the snow, the sling of the rifle being twisted away from him, a foot suddenly visible

inches in front of his face. He dodged it, losing the rifle, grabbing the foot with his left hand and twisting it hard, seeing someone in a hooded parka and ski toque and white snow smock tumble into the snow near him. Kurinami was up, moving, his right arm still all but paralyzed, another figure lurching at him from the snow, Kurinami wheeling, his left foot snapping out, a double Tae Kwon Do kick to the face and chest, the attacker falling back.

Kurinami reached to his hip for the Government Model .45 there, but his right hand still wouldn’t respond. He now saw the wisdom of the Rourkes, all but Paul Rubenstein carrying two handguns at all times.

The first man—was it the first man, the one he had tumbled into the snow? — was coming for him and Kurinami tried another kick, but felt something—a rifle butt? —sweeping him off balance and down into the snow and then they were on him.

He didn’t know how many there were. His good hand flailed toward faces, punching, his feet kicking. He felt a sudden dullness and then a warmth that he knew somehow was unnatural and the whiteness of the snow which swirled around him was turning to blackness and he thought of Elaine.

“Elaine …”

When his eyes opened — but they didn’t open and he knew he was blindfolded — Akiro Kurinami thought of Commander Dodd and the stolen guns.

He didn’t move, lest he betray that he was awake. It was warm, so he knew that he was inside, somewhere. But where?

They —whoever they were —could not have risked taking him to the Eden Base. What if they were discovered.

And he realized where he had to be. Where the missing weapons and supplies and computer files had been taken. And he knew why he was here — for the duplicate files which showed the locations of the supply caches. He knew why …

Maria Leuden resisted it, but then, as she dressed before the mirror, she tried to search out for Michael Rourke’s thoughts. She was obsessed with knowing if he loved her, she realized. Ever since he had taken her up into his arms and carried her as if she were just some tiny child —

The clothes given her were beautiful to wear. But she

didn’t care about them.

She closed her eyes, thinking of Michael Rourke.

She had not seen him since they had passed through the tunnel, some of the soldiers carrying the stretcher they had placed Otto Hammerschmidt upon, then an electrically powered vehicle of some sort which was like an ambulance coming for him and Otto Hammerschmidt disappearing inside it. She had been given over to a woman named Toy, and facilities for bathing, for washing her hair, fresh clothes, all had been made available to her. She assumed Toy was some sort of intelligence agent, much like Han.

She could not use her mind like Annie Rourke could. And she had forced herself to stop reading Michael’s thoughts. She put on her glasses. Wearing nothing but panties and a bra, she sat on the edge of the rather ornately styled bed. Her glasses had been placed on the small table next to the bed, Maria still utterly surprised that they had survived through her ordeal. She looked at herself in the mirror. A tall, skinny girl in love with a man whose mind she could read. But only when she was with him, really. She feared that she would, as time went by, be able to read his thoughts even when they were separated by some distance, as she had been able to with her father, her friend Elsie who had died. And what she feared most was that, if Michael refused to care for her, that she would be able to feel his thoughts forever, even when he was with another woman.

And that would drive her mad.

She decided to get dressed. The Chinese girl, Toy, very pretty, had promised to wait for her in the corridor outside the room she had been given. Maria Leuden had wondered if that translated to standing guard over her?

But she would dress and then Toy would give her a tour of this petal, because that would be all there would be time for before the dinner that would be tonight and she would need the time to change.

She exhaled. She should have been tired. She wasn’t tired.

She was exhausted in a way she had never been. She stood up and started to dress …

The SM-4 had been completely disabled and they had left it at the energy field barrier leading into the tunnel, Michael having taken up his pack and the spare assault rifle, an M-16, then proceeding through the tunnel and into the city in the company of Han and some eighteen soldiers and an officer. The tunnel had been far less than remarkable except for the smoothness of the joints where it was sectioned.

But once through the tunnel, he had been even more impressed than he had been at his first somewhat distant view of the First City. The tunnel had been steeply down sloping and Michael Rourke had assumed that he would enter the city at its lowest level, but instead they had emerged before a roadway, and beyond the roadway were towering buildings rising to a height he had judged as several hundred feet, the tunnel mouth at the level of their pinnacles. There was something like a train station near the tunnel mouth. He had remembered, when a boy, his mother taking them to Atlanta and parking the car in a large parking lot and then boarding a train at a station like this. She had called it a subway.

But the train, which came to the station and stopped and Michael, Maria Leuden and Han had boarded, after Hammerschmidt had been placed aboard what looked to be an electrically powered ambulance, was a monorail. And as it crossed from the tunnel mouth over much of the petal, as Han had called this wing of the First City, Michael had been amazed.

He had considered it a symbol of friendship that he had not been asked to turn over his weapons, and perhaps also a symbol of Han’s eminence in the city. For that reason, he had elected, after showering, changing to fresh clothes from his pack, to leave the assault rifle and the 629 in his room,

wearing only the double shoulder rig with the Berettas, but beneath his leather jacket so they would not be seen.

Han had been waiting for him when he emerged from the suite of rooms he had been given, the rooms in a large building that seemed at once to house offices yet be some sort of official residence. Han had changed as well, his skin several shades lighter than it had appeared, his stubble shaven away and only the thin mustache remaining, his clothes consisting of a gray suit with a collarless jacket and conventional shoes rather than boots. He looked anything but the Mongol warrior that he had appeared to be when they had first met a day before.

“You appear renewed, American.”

Michael rubbed his face with his left hand. He had shaved and was clean and wore clean clothes. “I suppose I’m renewed. If you can be renewed when you are too tired to sleep.”

Han laughed. “Tired or curious, American?” “Both.”

“Then come and meet our chairman. You are awaited. The pistols under your coat will be acceptable as long as they are not drawn.”

“Five points,” Michael Rourke told him …

None of the new German J-7Vs had been available to speed their flight to Iceland, but one had been available on the coast of Norway and Rourke, Natalia and Rubenstein had transferred from the German helicopter to the versatile aircraft with its dynamically rearswept wings and rear mounted jet driven propellers which allowed it to change from horizontal to vertical flight mode almost at will, as fast as a conventional jet but with the manueverability of a helicopter gunship.

John Rourke had resisted the temptation to ask to be allowed in the cockpit and, when the invitation to do so had

come, he had refused it as well, forcing himself to sleep, knowing that he would need it.

As the J-7V changed flight modes for landing, he awakened, Paul asleep in the seat opposite him, Natalia beside him —Rourke—with her long legs stretched out and feet crossed on the seat next to Paul. She was not asleep.

“We are just going into landing mode,” she told him. “While you were asleep, I went forward. They let me try the controls for a few minutes. These machines fly beautifully. I have to check out on one. It might be a useful skill.”

Rourke looked at her. “Yes. I feel the same way.”

“If Vladmir has finally changed directions, perhaps we can somehow more effectively anticipate him.”

“I hope so. Gotta find out how Michael’s doing, too.”

“Yes. I think our Fraulein doctor likes him quite a bit.”

“Maria Leuden?”

“Yes. It would be good for him. Michael is too young to be alone.”

“Chronologically, he’s older than you are.”

“I think he’ll always be little Michael to me, but he wasn’t little, really. Was he even big as a baby?”

“Nine pounds and four ounces —and not an ounce of flab. Yeah — he was a big baby. Then he hit a growth spurt and it seemed never to stop.”

“What are you and Sarah hoping to have —or don’t you care whether it’s a boy or a girl?”

John Rourke looked away from her and out the window. “So long as it’s healthy, we’ll be happy,” and he looked back at Natalia. “I’m sorry I messed you up. I didn’t mean to do that to you.”

“You don’t mean you and Sarah having the baby —that—” “No —I didn’t mean that. I meant, well —falling in love with you. You loving me. I left you holding the shit end of the stick and I’m sorry. If I could — but I really don’t know what.”

“I always love vou and I realized — realized a long time aeo

I could never have you. I won’t lie and say I’m all perfectly adjusted, John —but I’ll survive. Maybe you did that for me.”

John Rourke touched his right hand to her left cheek and kissed her lightly on the lips. The aircraft touched down …

Captain Hartman seemed weary, Rourke thought. “There have been many developments, Herr Doctor. The gunship which carried your son and Fraulein Doctor Leuden, under the command of Captain Hammerschmidt, has been out of radio contact for some twenty-four hours. We have no idea why. At the last report, your son had determined that the search might best progress on foot and they left with one of the SM-4s, the Icelandic policeman Bjorn Rolvaag accompanying them. The last communication from the SM-4 vehicle was prior to young Herr Rourke, Fraulein Doctor Leuden and Captain Hammerschmidt climbing a high escarpment toward what appeared to be a fire of other than natural origins.”

“Damn,” John Rourke almost whispered. “Not a word since:

“Not a word since, Herr Doctor.”

Rourke felt suddenly warm there inside the command tent, but realized it was not the temperature. “What about the direction Karamatsov’s forces are moving in?”

“That is rather disconcerting—it roughly approximates the direction from which your son’s last radio transmission originated.”

“At his present rate of movement,” Paul Rubenstein asked, “how rapidly would Karamatsov be able to reach that general area?”

Rourke felt Natalia’s right hand finding his left, squeezing it tightly.

Hartman answered. “Approximately seventy-two hours,

were they to stop for two rest periods of six hours each in that time.”

“With no rest periods,” Natalia began, “they would reach that general area in two and one-half days. That is very litde time.”

John Rourke chewed down on the tip of the unlit cigar between his teeth. “Time enough. We’ll take that J-7V if you don’t have any objections.”

“I will dispatch Lieutenant Schmidt to assist you.”

“No —we’ll need a pilot, copilot and a small security team to secure the immediate area where we touch down. Those special items I asked for—have they arrived?”

“Yes —but they have not been field tested, Herr Doctor.”

“We’ll field test them in the field. Get them loaded aboard,” and Rourke turned away from Hartman. “Paul —see to it that we’ve got all the ammo and spare magazines we can carry. Replenish anything that’s running low. Natalia,” and he turned and looked into her face. She stood beside him still —always, he wondered? “Marshal together extra clothing, rations, medical supplies. Let’s be airborne in a half hour—they were already fueling the J-7V when we left the field.” And Rourke turned to Captain Hartman. “That enough time for you?”

“Yes, Herr Doctor.”

“What are the chances of getting reinforcements from the Complex in Argentina to assist us against Karamatsov?”

“Not very good, I am afraid. But I shall endeavor to get what reinforcements I can. It appears we will be fighting soon.”

“We’ll see—I want to let him get where he’s going, and then stop him. That’s the riskiest way of doing it, but the only way. If he has another supply of that gas, or something worse—”

“I will make certain, Herr Doctor, that an adequate supply of masks are available to you. It is my intent to keep moving our main body up behind Marshal Karamatsov’s forces

while still maintaining a defensive posture in the event he turns his army and attacks. I have units monitoring the Soviet forces constantly so we should have adequate warning.”

“Let’s make a pre-arranged transmission schedule,” Natalia said, taking out a cigarette, Rourke lighting it for her in the blue-yellow flame of his battered Zippo, then lighting his cigar. “Every six hours once we’re on the ground. Then if you do not hear from us — ” She didn’t finish.

Paul Rubenstein smiled, then, his voice cheerful, said, “We’re up shit’s creek?”