Survivalist - 17 - The Ordeal (4 page)

“Yes—inevitable. But we must forestall the inevitable. I have instructed that headquarters in New Germany be concerned and emergency reinforcements and supplies be dispatched to us at once. But at the very least, we are looking at eighteen precious hours, perhaps as long as thirty-six hours until reinforcements arrive. New Germany itself has been attacked, but the Soviet force was easily repelled. More a harassing action, it appears. Soviet forces are attacking the First Chinese City, the Herr Colonel personally supervising the counterattack. A significant concentration of ground forces is attacking our base outside the Hekla Community in Lydveldid Island. It seems, however, that this area is critical to the Russians. Therefore, we cannot allow it to be overrun. Another attack like this one might be more than we can sustain. Certainly not a third. I need you to volunteer.”

“Volunteer?” Kurinami echoed.

“I believe it advisable to dispatch a small force of gunships and ground troops to the north. If possible, locate the Soviet staging area and counterattack, something logic dictates they will not suspect us capable of. As they advance, fight holding actions designed to delay them as much as possible. If you choose not to volunteer, I will not think any the less of you. But, logic again—I am told you are the best pilot available and you have some significant experience versus our adversaries which my other officers lack. It may prove a mission from which you will not return.”

“When was there any other kind of mission?” Akiro Kurinami almost whispered.

“Then you will do it?”

“Will I have time—” Kurinami began.

“Your Fraulein Doctor is helping with the wounded, Lieutenant. The appropriate machines should be ready within

the next fifteen minutes.” And Bremen glanced at his chronometer.

“The man who was my doorgunner—he’s just a technician, but I’d like him along as doorgunner again. He’s a good man.”

“Consider it done, although I must go through the formality of asking. By its very nature, this is a force of volunteers you will lead.”

“I understand,” Akiro Kurinami nodded …

“I don’t understand!” Tears flowed from her pretty eyes as she spoke. Kurinami took Elaine Halversen into his arms, holding her close against him, trying to blot out the moans of the injured just beyond the gray curtain that separated the tiny alcove in the main hangar building’s annex from the hastily set up field hospital. “I don’t—why do you—”

“Why are you here, helping the wounded? Why aren’t you doing something easier?”

“I—damn your logic!” And she buried her head against his chest. “Don’t die—please?”

He wanted very much to promise her that he wouldn’t. Instead, he only held her and touched his lips to her forehead, rocking her in his arms.

Paul Rubenstein braked the Super, Otto Hammerschmidt, beside him, doing the same. Paul spoke into his helmet headset. “John—do you read me? This is Paul. Come in, John. Over.”

Paul Rubenstein looked at Otto Hammerschmidt, the German commando captain’s face shield pushed up, his light-colored eyes clearly visible, the worry that was etched on Hammerschmidt’s face evident there in his eyes as well.

There was no answer to the radio call.

Rubenstein repeated it, then again. And, then, again.

They had left Annie and Michael and Maria and Han Lu Chen and the Russian officer in the overhang of the cave, Michael still not coming around. They had ridden the Supers some fifteen miles closer to the Second Chinese City, dangerously near the battle lines, nearer, Rubenstein hoped, to wherever it was John and Natalia were in hiding, within their radio range.

He tried the signal again, Hammerschmidt monitoring on his own helmet set.

There was no response.

The wind blew cold and there was the smell of synth fuel heavy on the air—the origin of the odor perhaps some modern equivalent of napalm in use by the Russians against the Second City.

“What if they are dead?”

The voice didn’t come through his headset radio. And it was Hammerschmidt’s voice. Paul Rubenstein removed his own helmet, as Hammerschmidt had done, ran his fingers through his thinning black hair, settled the helmet over his console. “They aren’t dead.”

“You mean that you refuse to accept the concept that they might be dead.”

“I mean they aren’t dead. We’ll head north, maybe come on some sign of them, maybe get into their radio range.”

“Perhaps encounter some Soviet gunships along the way. What about your wife? What about Michael? Let me go on alone. There’s no one waiting for me. That’s the best way for a soldier, I think.”

“Maybe it is. But no. I’m going on. I’d be glad for your company. But I’m going on anyway.”

And Otto Hammerschmidt laughed. Paul Rubenstein looked at him quizzically. “We are strange creatures, I think. As men, I mean. You will search until you find John Rourke and if you do find this man who is your best friend, you will shake his hand, and if you embrace him, you will feel self-conscious and then you will laugh and he will laugh. I had a close friend named Fritz when I was a boy. We used to like to climb in the mountains near the Complex although heights were never my favorite thing. But of course I would not admit that. The rope became snagged and in trying to clear it, the rope frayed and with both our weights, snapped. Fritz fell from sight. I clung to the ledge, eventually got myself to safety and tried roping down to Fritz. I could not. I called to him and there was no answer. I began to cry and I sniffed back the tears and I ran for help. I found a patrol on some sort of compass course, brought them to the scene and they roped down for Fritz. He was unconscious. He revived in the hospital and eventually was fully restored. Fritz was like my brother then. And when I went to visit him in the hospital, we shook hands very briefly. I told him a dirty joke I had heard, something about a Jew, oddly enough.” And Hammerschmidt looked at Rubenstein embar

rassedly. “But we were taught to think that way and only some of us learned otherwise in those days. But I never told Fritz how frightened I was that he had died, that we might never climb together again, or share secrets with one another. I never even told my father that I cried when I thought Fritz might be dead. No wonder women think we are crazy. They are right. We are.” Otto Hammerschmidt pulled his helmet on over his close-cropped blond hair.

Paul Rubenstein put his helmet on as well. “John—do you read me? This is Paul. Over.” There was no answer …

The shivering was stopped and once he was certain of it, he wrapped Natalia in everything warm there was available to them. Clad only in his still damp light blue cotton shirt and his underpants, John Rourke crouched in the rocks beside her, the small fire between them, his hands busy at disassembling the radio set in his helmet. His jeans and his bootsocks, along with her clothing and her underwear, were drying beside the fire. He had risked it because the need for dry clothing outweighed the potential hazards of such a small fire being detected.

Shelter and food were the next concerns, but the radio might solve much of that. Night would be coming quickly here in the high mountains, and with it bitter cold.

He felt her arctic gear. Nearly dry. His then. It was nearly dry as well. Soon, very soon, dry enough that body warmth would do the rest.

Light would be critical to evaluate and possibly diagnose, then repair one of the radios if repair were in order. But perhaps it was only a problem of range, or some Russian jamming. He couldn’t be sure. The differences between these helmet radios and any radios he had extensively worked with five centuries before was analogous to the differences between a personal computer unit and one of the giant defense department mainframes he had seen, the complication and sophistication so vastly greater. Given time, he was confident

he could deduce the nature of the problem and, if it were correctable, correct it. It had to be something related to the helmets taking the dousing they had. It was the only commonality that might explain why both helmet radios would not function. If not that, then a problem of range or Soviet jamming. The former he might correct. The latter was beyond his control.

He looked around him. Rocky. Barren of vegetation. No caves evident and no depressions of suitable size for a protracted stay.

It was clear that their first order of business was to move on to a more suitable location.

“Damn the thing,” John Rourke almost whispered, replacing the guts of the radio in the helmet in reverse order to his removal of it.

From his musette bag, Rourke removed a small tool, unfolding the screwdriver blade of closest appropriate size. He had already cleaned the twin stainless Detonics .45s, leaving the more difficult job of cleaning the N-Frame Smith & Wesson revolver until last. Carefully, after verifying its empty condition, he removed the crane screw, forwardmost of the sideplate screws, setting it down on a smooth rock near him, then opening the cylinder and sliding cylinder and crane off the frame. He set them aside, then using the same screwdriver bit removed the two remaining screws in the sideplate. Using the haft of the Life Support System X knife, wrapped in his bandanna handkerchief, he tapped the frame and dislodged the sideplate, lifting it free of the frame.

The lockwork showed accumulated moisture. Meticulously, he began to disassemble it, setting out the small parts in the order in which he removed them.

There was no time to make a proper bellows, nor were there appropriate materials readily at hand. He removed the face shield from his riding helmet and used the shield as a fan to force hot air to the interior of the frame after first using the bandanna to dry out obvious moisture.

His thighs were covered with gooseflesh, but his Levi’s weren’t yet dry. He kept working, his hands shaking a little with the cold.

The German replication of the Break-Free CLP lubricant he applied to the inner surface of the frame, to the small parts. He reassembled the lockwork, then carefully replaced the sideplate, replacing two of the screws as well.

He removed the cylinder from the crane, unscrewed the tip of the base pin/ejector rod, and removed the star ejector.

If Natalia could be made to walk, he judged they could make it perhaps as far as three miles down before she would be exhausted. Within another mile or so, there would be trees. That meant easily fabricated shelter. He reassembled the parts, slid the crane back into the frame and closed the cylinder, then turned in the third and final screw. He began replacing the Pachmayr grips.

The ammunition he had he would have to trust until proven otherwise. If the specifications derived from analysis of the federal 185-grain JHP .45s and 180-grain JHP .44 Magnums were followed to the letter when the Germans had fabricated these lots, he would assume the ammunition reliable despite the dousing in the river. He hoped.

He returned to the river, still trouserless, washed his hands of the oil and powder residues with sand and water. Across the river, war raged. Somewhere across the river, Michael and Annie and Paul and the others had to have survived.

To take Natalia back into the river was unthinkable. And at any event, there was no likely place to cross safely. Downriver, perhaps a natural crossing point existed or a bridge of some sort could be fabricated.

And, once across the river, they would only be nearer to the battle between the Russians and the Chinese of the Second Qty.

Rourke stood to his full height, as he continued planning commencing a light routine of calisthenics to heighten muscle tone and circulation. He was beginning to feel warmer, and his

clothes would be adequately dried soon.

Han Lu Chen spoke of wolves set loose by the Chinese of the Second City, but Rourke considered them more likely to be large feral dogs. And, if such a population survived, the Chinese had to have released other animals upon which these wolflike canines could feed. Rabbits and other small game, perhaps game as large as deer, might be found. The thing to do, of course, was find the tracks of the feral dogs and assume that their range took them near the most abundant game population. In the lower elevations there would be edible plants until he could find meat, if this lasted that long.

He walked back from the river’s edge, squatted on the end of the arctic parkas he had thrown over Natalia and took his socks from near the fire. Stiff, but warm and dry. He rubbed them in his hands to relax the fiber content and wiped the soles of his feet clean, then put them on.

The jeans were slightly damp near the seams, but otherwise satisfactorily dry. He skinned into them. His boots and belts and holsters he had attended to earlier, utilizing the leather dressing compound from his musette bag. He got into his boots, feeling warmer already.

He threaded on his belt, a one and three-quarter-inch 11-12 ounce cowhide strap, like his gunbelt and holster originally produced for him before the Night of the War by Milt Sparks. He secured the Sparks Six-Pack and the sheath for the Crain LS-X and finished threading, closing the solid brass Garrison-style buckle.

He looked at Natalia. She was sleeping, but had to be awakened.

Rourke holstered the Model 629 Smith & Wesson, securing the six-inch in the full flap holster. It was a fine revolver, but would never have the feel of the Python which had been mutilated on the rocks beneath the Retreat. Someday, Rourke promised himself, he would restore the Python, carry it once again.

He picked up his parka and pulled it on over the double

Alessi rig in which Rourke habitually carried the little Detonics .45s.

Rourke dropped to his knees beside her. “Natalia—wake up, now.”

Her eyes opened, so suddenly, with so startled a look in them that for an instant she reminded him more of a wild animal. She said nothing, only stared at him. “You’ll have to get dressed. We have to walk on a little while and then you can rest again. All of your clothes are dry.”

He reached beside the fire and took her underwear for her, putting it under the covers for her. She made no move to put anything on. “Natalia? Please?”

But she wasn’t even looking at him, was looking through him as though he weren’t there. And, Rourke thought, perhaps to her he wasn’t. “You must get dressed. You have to. I left you my nice gray woolen sweater. Remember you said it always looked so warm? Well, it’s just for you now. You can wear it and be warm. I’ve had it very close to the fire for a long time. It’ll keep you warm, Natalia.”