Survivalist - 22 - Brutal Conquest (22 page)

“And?”

“We’re going to try for a repeat performance, only this time with backup. We’re going to let it out that Martin is on the island and has escaped. The people we’re after will try to pick him up … will already be on alert for him, possibly.”

“Who are these people?”

“Saboteurs sent by Eden, some of-them or all of them SS personnel; Martin’s government works hand in fist with the Nazis. These guys’U be tough, well set with weapons, and not afraid to use them. We know where theyVe at … the old Trans-Global Alliance estate on Sebastian’s Reef.”

“That place is built like a fort.”

“Exacdy why we need an inside man … my son Michael. He’s agreed to do it, perhaps a litde too readily. But he’s a game guy. The idea behind the raid is to nail these saboteurs before they can do their jobs. There’s an attack planned on the island in general and Pearl Harbor in particular. We don’t know when, but likely it’ll be soon. So, we want whatever documents, computer disks, anything that’ll be of intelligence value, just as much as we want the men themselves. I don’t know if there’s a drug problem these days; I’d assume there isn’t… .”

Tim Shaw laughed bitterly. “It’s called ‘Starlight.’ It’s a fast and dirty synthetic hallucinogenic, highly addictive. Guess where it’s made?”

“Eden,” Rourke suggested.

“You got it.”

“My point is,” John Rourke went on, “I see this thing like a drug raid, all right? No good to get the guys if you don’t get the stuff, too. Unless the law has changed a lot.”

“I don’t know how much it’s changed or not, Doctor, but if we don’t nail ‘em with the shit on them, we don’t have a case.”

“Then you know exactly where I’m coming from,” Rourke nodded. “I’m sorry to hear that drugs are still a problem … or a problem again, however you look at it. But we have to get in there, hopefully get some of these guys alive—another reason I’m looking for a police-style raid rather than a military assault. We’ll have Lieutenant Commander Washington’s SEALs… .”

“Grant’s a good man. His guys and our guys train together sometimes.”

That’ll be good,” Rourke said. “Let’s go in.”

“Should I look surprised when you—”

“No,” Rourke smiled.

He could sleep later, he told himself. And just in case he did die, a good memory would be better than a good rest. Michael slipped between Natalia’s thighs, her arms enfolding him. “I love you, Michael,” she whispered.

His lips touched her throat, her head leaning back, her hair—it was such a dark brown that it was almost, in defiance to nature, a true black—longer now than it had been when she was a grown very mysterious woman, and he was a very confused litde boy.

She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, counting living people, ones in videotaped movies, better than anyone.

And now, because of the way his father had manipulated the cryogenic chambers, even though she was born nearly two decades before him, he was a nominal two years older than she. He had understood, as he grew to manhood in The Retreat, his sister his only companion, the nature of his father’s plan. This woman was for him, from the elemental, practical consideration that the human race, should no life survive outside The Retreat, would require perpetuation and healthy babies did not come from a confined genetic pool. Natalia was for him, as Paul was for Annie.

In Paul and Annie’s case, there was genuine love—from the first time they saw each other as adults and before. Michael would watch his sister as she watched Paul. It was

more than his father’s planning. She loved Paul then, even before they had ever met as adults.

He, on the other hand, had rejected loving Natalia.

And then, suddenly, a wife, later a mistress, it happened. Instead of coming to Natalia as a boy who, by design, had grown into manhood, he came to her as a widower, a man who had been with two women, fathering a child—who died—by one.

•He simply realized he loved her … had all the time.

And she loved him.

At first, he had wondered if he were a mere substitute for his father, John more rigidly moral than he, perhaps, but certainly committed to a wife.

And then, John Rourke was n^ar death, gone from them for what could have been forefer, and—not because John Rourke was no longer on the iscene, but because of their commonly felt loss—he and Natalia were drawn to each other.

And it happened.

As her thighs closed tightly around him and her body moved beneath him, something else happened. “I love you,” Michael Rourke told Natalia Tiemerovna as his body collapsed over hers.

It might be the last time he ever had the chance to say it… .

John Thomas Rourke had tried the two new firearms on the base range, and he was satisfied that these replicas were so close to the originals on which they were based as to be identical. He realized he did not even think of them as replicas, but rather as what they were intended to be.

The H-K 91 was always his preference in a semi-automatic rifle, but in the days Before The Night Of The War, he had chosen the CAR-15 because of ammunition, magazine, and parts compatibility with the military issue M-16. That was no longer a consideration.

The H-K 91 was no match for the Steyr-Mannlicher SSG as a sniper rifle, but for practical accuracy in a batde rifle, it was as good as any and better than most. He had no desire for the selective fire version. In the field, in the absence of supply trains, automatic weapons ate up too much ammunition.

The little twelve-inch-barreled Witness Protection 870 was a gun he had used—really only borrowed—on several occasions in the past. Nearly small enough to conceal as well as a long-barreled handgun, it was ultimately deadly in the proper hands at close range.

He had chosen these two firearms to add to his permanent battery, based not only on his needs for the impending raid, but on a future that—if he lived long enough—he knew would take him back to Eden, perhaps even to Eden City. To restore real life to Sarah, he had to get to Deitrich Zimmer.

His motto had always been “Plan ahead,” and yet, beyond the moments when Sarah was restored and he executed Deitrich Zimmer and Martin Zimmer, eradicating their evil, he did not plan.

He knew his wife well. She would never accept as fact that Martin, the baby she had borne and nearly died over, was irredeemable and per force had himself to die. And she would never forgive him.

And he thought—he tried not to—about the other sleeper and why he slept: Wolfgang Mann… .

Annie dressed for her part. Costuming was not elaborate. But she didn’t like it.

Longer skirts were comfortable. The wind could do what it liked, one could sit however one wished. But she was supposed to look unnoticeable, a woman’s principal advantage in this work, as Natalia always said, so she had to dress the part. In these times, the typical woman of her age wore what she was wearing now.

She looked at herself in the mirror. Paul stood behind her and she didn’t want to look at his face, just in case he laughed at her. She wore a grey sleeveless dress with a round collar, but its skirt barely covered her crotch. Her stockings, textured to produce a pattern of rosebuds, were black. Her boots, rising toward her shins, were white, high-heeled, plastic.

The only place she could hide a weapon was in her purse … and only one gun and a knife. She chose the Scoremaster .45 for the .45 ACP’s authority over the larger capacity of her 9mm Beretta.

“You look sexyyPaul said from behind her.

She turned to^face him, not knowing what to say.

“But I like yu better the way you normally dress,” he added.

And Annie put her arms around him and kissed him… .

Natalia’s hair was loose, past her shoulders.

She wore a red sleeveless top, low cut in the front and back, a black miniskirt, and black high-heeled vinyl boots, which rose to her thighs. Her stockings were black fishnet.

“What do you think, Michael?”

“After this, you wear that only for me.”

He was already dressed, in fatigue pants, a T-shirt, and a windbreaker. And he was weaponless, except for an energy pistol identical to those carried by the guards who were watching Martin Zimmer… .

John Rourke looked at himself in the mirror and laughed. Six centuries ago, he wouldn’t have been caught dead in an aloha shirt. Flash had never been his style.

He slipped the double Alessi rig for the twin stainless Detonics mini guns on over it.

John Rourke still didn’t like the way he looked.

Natalia Tiemerovna tapped the toe of her right boot, her eyes set on the exaggeratedly large face of her cheap plastic fashion watch.

She was down to three weapons, her Walther PPK/S with its suppressor down the small of her back, tucked into the waistband of her skirt. Her knife, the Bali-Song, was between her breasts. In her purse was the SIG-Sauer P226. She’d tried it at the base range, putting two hundred 115-grain jacketed hollow points through it almost as fast as she could pull the trigger after she’d tested the pistol for accuracy.

The SIG—she thought of it as that, not a reproduction— worked.

She’d watched John, methodically testing his rifle, then the shotgun.

She still loved him, but not in the way she loved Michael. She’d never loved anyone that way.

If she died, she’d experienced the best of life.

And she waited now outside Pearl Harbor’s security headquarters. For Annie.

So they could go for a walk together. …

Michael Rourke had never driven an ordinary car. A truck, yes, various tanks, and even staff cars that had all-terrain capabilities. But never an ordinary passenger car.

This one was electric, which was what most private ownership vehicles were these days.

He drove the car down a wide, palm-lined street, toward a place that was named after a dour-faced black naval officer from one hundred twenty-five years ago.

Maybe Mr. Sebastian, if there was a Heaven, would watch out for him in this place that bore his name … maybe …

The windbreaker was slighdy long, but it had to be to accommodate the Witness Protection shotgun.

John Rourke waited as he saw the helicopter gunship coming in toward the pad.

As the machine neared, he recognized the pilot who was at its controls.

Emma Shaw.

He would never tell her, but he liked her, too. A lot.