Survivalist - 19 - Final Rain (2 page)

The Eden Project. That time, he’d almost died. The Soviet gunships under the command of Vladmir Karamatsov’s KGB Elite Corps attacked as the Eden Project space shuttles were making their precarious landings. After five centuries on an elliptical orbit to the edge of the solar system and back, the astronauts aboard surviving by means of the same cryogenic sleep which had preserved the Rourke family at the Retreat in the mountains of Northeastern Georgia, all Karamatsov had wanted was to de

stray them, shoot the weaponless shuttlecraft out of the sky as they landed.

Paul Rubenstein stared at the helicopter gunship’s controls. He could fly such a ship now, not well, but fly it a little. John said he was learning quickly. But then—Paul Rubenstein shivered. It wasn’t .the cold, but the memory. He took that craft up, shot it out with the Soviet gunships. Did his bit, was wounded, his gunship crippled and he wouldn’t have known how to land it even if it hadn’t been.

But John saved his life.

The relationship with John Rourke was a little uneven from the start, but less uneven—a little, at least—as time went by. But no one—not even John’s grown son, Michael—was another John Rourke. There could never be another John Rourke.

Paul Rubenstein turned to the last entry. “Annie’s alive! Yeah! Today, with the help of a group of Mid-Wake U.S. Marine Corps and Navy personnel, we captured the Soviet Island Class submarine Arkhangelsk. Jason Darkwood— he reminds me of John, the way he has of always being right—commands her. The atrocity committed by the Soviet personnel from that damned domed city beneath the Pacific is something impossible to forget. Burning men to death. The message was clear. War. We gave them a message back. If these enemy forces were to combine with the land and air forces under the command of Antonovitch, would we be able to stop them? Would the forces of New Germany, the gentle people of Hekla in Lydveldid Island, the meager numbers of the Eden Project survivors and the Chinese of the First City, combined, have any chance to prevail? And, if Annie and I were somehow to live, where would we go in the face of the defeat of our allies? Find the mythical Third Chinese City, wherever that is? Hide in the Retreat for five more centuries? Then what? The war goes on. Will it ever end? John, although more vigorous than ever, grows weary of it, I know. I think that Natalia’s nervous breakdown (if that’s the right term) is the only thing that has truly frightened John Rourke. It’s there and there’s nothing he can do about it. He can’t find it, fight it, change it. Her condition is there and remedying it is out of his hands. God bless them both.”

Paul Rubenstein took up his pen. “Enroute to Mid-Wake, shepherding the boarded submarine Arkhangelsk under the command of Captain Jason Darkwood, USN, we encountered a totally unexpected weather front. The snow, which at times throughout its course I’d thought would never end at all, ended abruptly. High winds, lightning that in all honesty scared me to death, seemed to appear out of nowhere, on its heels a rainstorm unlike anything I’d ever seen. It surrounds us as this is written, but we are not airborne now. Hopefully, it was only ice which fouled the pitch control for the main rotor. John is outside finding out. I would have insisted more that I work to free the rotor, but he knows what to do. Should the problem be electronic, we will be stuck here. I wonder if we’d ever be able to lift off in these winds, at any event. We might simply stay, wait it out. But, as soon as the storm subsides enough that we can attempt a takeoff, we must. Our helicopter would be a sitting duck for the deck guns of one of the Soviet Island Class submarines.

“John and I have discussed what to do with the machine once we reach Mid-Wake,” he continued writing. ‘The only option seems to be hiding it on some nearby island, if possible, otherwise scuttling it, then traveling below the waves with Darkwood’s crew or, perhaps by then, aboard Darkwood’s own ship, the U.S.S. Ronald Wilson Reagan. Darkwood’s second-in-command, Sebastian, is at its helm.”

He slammed closed the journal, staring into the night. He was amazed at himself, trying to use the naval jargon. He thought he was sounding like a poor imitation of Stevenson or Jack London.

And the scanner had locked onto something.

The unearthly howling sound again.

When the knock came on the overhead, Paul Rubenstein nearly drew the battered Browning High Power from the fabric chest holster in which he wore it.

But it had to be John, the knocking sound. Perhaps just

finishing up the wiring needed for the convection heater. If that was the case, it was a good sign that the problem was not from a lightning tip.

Try the pitch control? Not until John was safely in view, but he began studying the instruments.

What if the pitch control didn’t work?

The microphone was in a wire cradle over the illuminated chart table. “This is the captain speaking. Battle stations. I say again, Battle stations. This is not a drill. I’ll keep you advised.” He tossed the microphone to Aldridge, stepped up the few steps to the command chair and sank into it, his legs stretched out.

They were being enveloped by two Island Class submarines of the Soviet Navy, one of the vessels hailing them on the standard Soviet emergency frequency. There would be a code, of course, and the crew currently manning the Arkhangelsk didn’t know it, of course, because the submarine was stolen.

Jason Darkwood’s fingertips gouged into the arm rest of the Arkhangelsk’s command chair. Lance Corporal Lannigan, not perfectly qualified for the task he had been given, but someone whose abilities Jason Darkwood could trust and as suited to manning a position on the command deck of a submarine as any of the Marine Corps or Naval personnel aboard, looked back from the Arkhangelsk’s sonar array console. “I’m as sure of it as I can be, sir.”

“I’m comforted by your reassurances, Lannigan. Stand by.”

Right arm slung low from the shoulder wound he’d sustained, Sam Aldridge, a Marine captain but filling in as Darkwood’s executive officer, turned from the plotting

console. Aldridge asked, “Then they’re onto us?”

“What about Rourke?” Darkwood stood up, ignoring his own question as if it were rhetorical. But it wasn’t. Under the circumstances, with cyclonic conditions on the surface and two Island Classers closing in, it was the next best thing to rhetorical, at least. “Sam, get over on that weapons console.”

“Aye, Captain,” Aldridge nodded grimly, leaving the plotting table.

Darkwood stood, assuming Aldridge’s station. “Seaman Eubanks, is it?” Darkwood began, addressing the man filling in on the engineering station.

“Aye, Captain!”

“Can you handle this, son? We’re going to be moving fast once we have to.”

“Yes, sir, I think so. I’ve been going over everything in my head.”

“I’m happy, Seaman Eubanks,” Darkwood nodded.

The diode readings were showing the intersecting trajectories of the two Island Classers, time remaining until the Arkhangelsk was totally boxed in under two minutes, unless they or the Arkhangelsk altered speed.

“Engineering.Reactor status?”

“Port and starboard reactors full on line, Captain. There’s a little fluctuation in the starboard unit.”

“Fix it. I’ll need full power when I need it. Weapons.”

“Aye, Captain,” Aldridge snapped back.

A Marine was always a Marine. “Run a check on fore and aft torpedo tubes. Make sure all tubes are loaded and on line. Give me the status on cluster charges.”

“Aye, Captain.”

Darkwood’s eyes narrowed as he studied the forward navigational display on the view screen. He could make out the hulking shapes of the Island Classers as they approached. He had intentionally avoided any evasive action to forestall the inevitable. “Lannigan. Change hats and give me word on their communications.”

“Yes, sir!” Lannigan was ambitious, wanted to be an officer and, if he kept going, Darkwood thought, he’d probably make it. With the relatively static population level of Mid-Wake and a constant war footing, there was always the need for good officers to come up through the ranks and usually ample opportunity. If the war expanded to the land, there would be casualties in the ranks of the officer corps to fill. It was a grim thought.

“They’ve cut out their ship-to-ship communications and I’m getting a personal appeal for a Commander Stakhanov to respond, sir.”

“We could always try telling them he’s in the head, I suppose,” Darkwood said under his breath. His eyes were riveted to the two converging lines, the two Island Class submarines with which he was about to do battle. And somewhere, out there in the storm on the surface, Doctor Rourke and his friend Mr. Rubenstein were likely powerless to move, if they were still alive. He’d summoned up every available piece of data he could find in the Reagan’s computers dealing with aircraft. And, from what he had read, the chances for a helicopter’s survival in conditions like those on the surface weren’t very good at all.

The two lines were closing.

“Give me split screen forward and aft display,” Darkwood ordered, the view screen at the forwardmost section of the bridge splitting diagonally, the Russian equivalents of ‘fore’ and ‘aft’ flashing discreetly but noticeably.

“Captain, I’ve got full capabilities on all weapons panels,” Sam Aldridge announced.

“Hold onto that thought,” Darkwood nodded.

There was open sea in their wake, the two Island Classers, from the looks of it, planning to form a wedge behind the Arkhangelsk, blocking escape back the way the Arkhangelsk had come, even if there were maneuvering room in which to try. “Lannigan. Try to get past their open frequencies and see if there’s any transmission from somewhere up ahead of us, beyond normal range.”

There was a third Island Classer. Inside himself, Darkwood knew it.

And the two whose courses were plotting out on the

display were getting ready to send him straight into number three.

There were several choices. Surrender and death he immediately ruled out as unacceptable. Albeit such a decision narrowed the possibilities dramatically, there were still possibilities… .

T.J. Sebastian swung the captain’s chair left. “Communications. Anything from the Arkhangelsk?”

Lieutenant Mott turned away from his console. “Nothing, Mr. Sebastian. Just the same communications patterns as before, some ship to ship from what sounds like two Island Classers—but that’s getting a lot more irregular and it’s in battle code—and they’re repeating requests to speak personally with this Commander Stakhanov on the Arkhangelsk.”

“Very good, Lieutenant. Keep me advised of anything new which might arise.” He turned toward the warfare station. “Lieutenant Walenski. Status on the torpedo tubes.”

“Forward torpedo status—tubes one, two, three and four loaded with high explosive independent sensing, Mr. Sebastian. Aft torpedo tubes one, two, three and four loaded with HEIS as well, sir.”

“Very good, Lieutenant.” Sebastian stood, descended the three steps from the command chair to the illuminated plotting board at the almost exact center of the area which formed the con. He studied the glowing patterns of diode plots for the two known enemy Island Class submarines and the third line—with which the first two were rapidly intersecting—which showed the course of the Arkhangelsk under the command of Jason Darkwood. “Hmm,” Sebastian murmured. He reached down the intraship communications microphone and spoke into. “This is Commander Sebastian speaking. Now hear this. Now hear this. Battle stations. I repeat. Battle stations. This is not a drill.” The klaxon sounded.

Sebastian replaced the microphone in its nest in the overhead. “Communications. Anything new?”

“Nothing new, sir.Same patterns.”

“Sonar. Still picking up that ghost?”

Lieutenant Kelly didn’t look up from the console. “I’m still on it, sir. It might just be that, sir, just a ghost.”

“Unlikely, I think,” Sebastian said, eyeing the intersecting lines of light on the plotting board.

It was a trap for the Arkhangelsk. That much seemed evident. But he would have to be very careful while aiding the Arkhangelsk lest the Reagan fall into the trap as well.

inhaled, flicking down the cowling, extinguishing the flame.

He exhaled, the gray smoke warming him.

That the German tobacco was non-carcinogenic was certainly heartening, but more important was that it smoked well.

There was no rush with the main rotor pitch control defrosting; because, until the winds died down, only an idiot or a desperate man would have even attempted a takeoff, one with a death wish… .

John Rourke sipped at the coffee, his hands shaking from the cold; Paul Rubenstein at the controls of the still grounded German gunship, activated the main rotor, the gunship vibrating, almost pulsing as the wind and rain buffeted it. The gunship strained at its moorings, Rourke’s coffee nearly spilling all over his hands. He wouldn’t have felt the heat, Rourke realized, his fingers nearly numb.

“I’m getting a little response, John. I think what you did worked.”

“Keep the main rotor idling, Paul. That’ll speed up the de-icing and keep us from running down our batteries,” Rourke said through chattering teeth. With studied effort, he set down the coffee cup, the liquid within an almost perfect study in wave motion, but not quite spilling over the edge. The M-16 needed seeing to, but not until the metal warmed to the touch. There were other weapons to hand. His hands fumbled in his bomber jacket pocket, finding a cigar. It was one of the German ones. The tip he’d already excised.

From the pocket of his pants, the BDUs almost soaked through, he found the battered old Zippo wind lighter. Rourke flicked back the cowling, rolling the striking wheel under his thumb. He smiled. It lit the first time. The tip of the cigar penetrated the blue yellow flame and Rourke

She escaped the debriefing as quickly as possible, the crew of the Reagan already long gone, some sort of message coming in that had made somber Mr. Sebastian and all the rest of them, including nice Maggie Barrow. Especially nice. It was due to the Reagan’s ship’s doctor that she had the clothes she wore now. She had felt awkward walking around in a rankless uniform, and more conspicuous than a sore thumb.