Survivalist - 22 - Brutal Conquest (7 page)

Natalia came through the doorway, her assault rifle her hands. “You fire a shot?” Rourke asked her. “Wolves around here. I had to kill one.” “Me, too,” John Rourke told her.

Gunther Hong started the interactive digitized display into motion, stopping it occasionally to make a comment, using a light pen to manipulate images.

It was a map of the western hemisphere, its easternmost point the Brazilian coastal reentrant into the South Adantic, its westernmost point the Hawaiian Islands.

There were targets marked on the map.

Michael Rourke recognized most of them. And he presumed Martin Zimmer would recognize all of them. The charade was wearing thin, but to attempt to leave during Gunther Hong’s briefing to the staff—officers, both Eden Forces and Nazi (although not uniformed), and some civilians as well—would be a dead giveaway. The Nazis were obvious, however, both by the swastika-emblazoned party pins in the collars of their turtleneck sweaters and their undeniable military bearing.

The intelligence data Michael could collect here might prove invaluable.

“The one problem area,” Hong said, halting the display and working some knobs on the control panel, “is here.” The Hawaiian Islands expanded across the screen, filling it. The light pen touched at Oahu, over New Honolulu. “The United States Fleet. Mid-Wake, as we know, was able to utilize the basic Soviet submarine designs of better than a hundred years ago and improve upon them. The

resultant craft are capable of highspeed underwater and surface navigation, with aircraft and missile launching capabilities. Some of those missiles have recently been armed with nuclear warheads. We have to knock out Pearl Harbor totally before we strike at our other targets.”

Michael Rourke didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry. If Admiral Yamamoto had suddenly walked into the underground briefing complex, Michael wouldn’t have been surprised.

Hong went on. “Pearl Harbor is on low-level alert status and has been for several months. Which means, of course, they’ll be a litde sloppy about it by now. Before we strike, we intend to soften them up a litde. Gruppen-fuhrer Croenberg will fill us in from here.”

Croenberg. In the first instant Michael entered the room beside Gunther Hong, his eyes were drawn to the man. Croenberg somehow seemed to exude intelligence, discipline, competence—and evil.

Bowing slighdy toward Michael as he stood, Croenberg began to speak. “To recap, gentlemen, the National Socialist movement has placed agents in key positions within the Hawaiian chain over the last two years. Our agents report that they are ready to undertake their assigned tasks when the order is given for them to do so.”

Croenberg extended his hand toward Hong, receiving the light pen and nodding curtly in return. With the light pen moving over the console’s monitor, its motions repeated on the screen which filled a third of the area of the far wall, he pointed to various locations one after the other. “At the designated moment, such acts of sabotage will be committed as to produce long-term disruption of power and communications facilities, defense sensing and imaging installations,
etc.
And, of course, once our agents are away, preset bio charges will detonate. The result should be temporary decapacitation of nearly ninety per cent of the island’s population, including those military personnel not operating within a hermetically sealed environment.

“Controlled EMPs will be executed over Pearl Harbor itself,” Croenberg went on, clearing his throat. And “EMP” Michael knew, was an Electromagnetic Pulse, derived from a nuclear explosion. “We will be utilizing low-yield devices, of course. Specially trained and equipped SS units will then depart Staging Area Alpha, here on Molokai… .” The image shifted on the screen so rapidly that watching it was almost nausea inducing. “They will seize control of their respective areas, and barring the unforeseen, Pearl Harbor and an estimated sixty-seven percent of the American naval fleet will be under our complete control.

“Those vessels affected by the EMPs—ones well out to sea, I should add—will be powerless to resist once our forces are in place. Only vessels in deep water will be operational, and that will comprise a minuscule percentage of the whole. Individual commanders refusing to surrender could be neutralized easily.”

There was silence, and everyone looked at him. Michael Rourke realized it was suddenly incumbent upon him to speak. But the slightest error could cost him his life. Carefully, he composed and asked his question. “The likelihood of having to neutralize these independent commands, what is it?”

Croenberg seemed satisfied. “The Americans are strong-willed. Our best estimates are that more than ninety percent of those who were operational would resist, either by attempting to launch a counterattack on their own initiative or by fleeing to Mid-Wake.”

Michael Rourke merely nodded… .

Paul Rubenstein climbed the only high outcropping of rock within sight. Doing so got him some twenty feet

above the plain. Using a pair of German field glasses, he looked first toward the rift valley.

Along the horizon line to the east, he saw no spotter or attack aircraft. But, as he intensified his focus and turned his glasses to the south, he saw a snow trail, the sort that would be made by a vehicle moving at reasonably good speed. He watched it for almost a minute. Its vector was taking whatever made it straight toward their position.

Paul Rubenstein cased the field glasses and, carefully lest he slip on the rock face, started down.

They would have to move—and quickly, too… .

Mary Ann was still sobbing. She had called him a murderer.

If he lived to be a thousand years old, John Rourke would never understand why or how a woman could love someone who treated her with such obvious contempt. And, apparendy, Mary Ann had loved her “old man” very much.

When the three of them entered the stable, they found a dozen horses and an equal number of crude saddles and attendant tack.

Natalia suggested, “Why don’t we do as planned, John? One of us goes for help, while the other takes the rest of the horses back for Annie and Paul?”

John Rourke nodded. “There aren’t enough horses anyway, so the loss of one more won’t matter. You link up with Hilda, Dan, and Margie. Take a spare animal with you just in case—”

“John, you’re better on horseback than I could ever be. And you’re going to tell me I’m lighter, so the horse won’t tire’as easily. But you’re still better, which makes your reaching help much more reliable a proposition.”

John Rourke looked at her and smiled. “If there were ever a person with the power of logical persuasion, it’s you. Fine. What do we do with Mary Ann? Can’t leave her here for those other three or whoever else is around to come back and harm her.” “I’ll take her with me.”

John Rourke nodded, starting across the stable floor and looking into each of the crudely carpentered stalls. None of the animals was outstanding, all of them seeming malnourished and mistreated. But the largest of the animals—about fifteen hands—seemed satisfactory. He was a grey, and John Rourke was partial to that color in an animal. But he looked to be the strongest of the horses as well. “I’ll take him and one other.” The grey was a gelding. “That mare,” Rourke decided, pointing to a smaller-statured bay who looked like she might be a good runner. “And I’ll take the best saddle.”

There wasn’t much to choose from in that regard, all of the saddles basically crude seats and nothing more. They were most reminiscent of poorly crafted copies of the saddles the German Long Range Mountain Patrols of a century-ago utilized, similar in design to the old United States Cavalry McClellans.

With what appeared to be the most solid of the saddles selected, John Rourke set it aside, then began saddling the other animals that Natalia would be taking back to Annie and Paul and the women. There were not enough horses for everyone to mount, but resourceful use would still be of aid to the group.

And he looked at Mary Ann, standing in the middle of the stable floor, still weeping. …

John Thomas Rourke had the stirrups lengthened as much as he could, but they still weren’t comfortable. His knees higher than he liked them, he swung his mount and looked back along the street running between the seven buildings of the unnamed town. There was not the time

to bury Mary Ann’s “old man”, or any of the others. Those of their weapons that might prove even modesdy serviceable were with Natalia and Mary Ann now, the others sufficiently dismanded as to be inoperable.

The three men who had run still worried him a litde, but there was no time to do anything about them. Holding the reins for the second animal, John Rourke dug in his heels to the grey, urging the beast ahead to the north. …

The injured woman on a litter between Paul and Martin Zimmer, Annie Rourke Rubenstein urged the twenty-two other women onward. “If you don’t hurry, they’ll catch up with us and some of you could be killed, and the rest of you will be returned to the Land Pirates. Hurry!” She felt like someone’s mother, warning a poorly behaving child to be good lest the bogeyman come.

One of the women called back to her, saying, “We was better off with them, the Land Pirates.”

Annie didn’t know what to say in reply.

Martin Zimmer’s balcony looked out from Eden City’s highest tower, over the city itself and the vast expanse of Georgia that lay toward the north.

The atmosphere was richer now than it had been a century and a quarter ago, largely due, of course, to German-led, efforts in regreening the South American rain forest lands. And, although the population of the earth had doubled and redoubled many times over, there was still comparatively little industry and the air was very clean.

The result was, as the sun began to set, that Michael Rourke could see so far into the distance he could almost fantasize seeing the mountain where The Retreat, the only home he had ever really known, was located.

He knew that was physically impossible, however.

But a thought of home, even though that home was now a museum controlled by enemy forces who wished to kill him and his entire family, was still of comfort, however ephemeral. And he thought, specifically, of Natalia. His father had taken the news of his and Natalia’s liaison so well it was almost scary. But his father was, after all, John Rourke. Natalia. To lose Natalia was something of such import Michael Rourke could not comprehend it, nor did he try. Perhaps John Rourke had never thought

of Natalia in that way, never considered her “his woman,” therefore … therefore, what?

Michael Rourke missed Natalia more than he could ever have thought possible after the death of his wife, Madison.

And he would never see Natalia or anyone he loved again if he did not get out of here.

Michael assessed the situation. He was still being viewed as Martin Zimmer. That would not last. He had the uncomfortable feeling that Croenberg, the SS major general, already saw through him.

If Deitrich Zimmer were to suddenly arrive, that would be it.

To get away from the building, he could overpower a guard and steal a gun, or he could just walk out. After all, as Martin Zimmer, it was his building to command, as were the guards. And the information he had in his head concerning the impending attack on Pearl Harbor as a prelude to war was vital. That information had to be transmitted to Allied Intelligence so the attack could be foiled and, hopefully, the war forestalled.

Michael Rourke had the uncomfortable feeling that history was repeating itself, but at a much accelerated pace. A World War II-like beginning to what might be World War Last ….

James Darkwood walked alone along the street, the buildings surrounding him like towering mountain pinnacles. He had been born in Mid-Wake, raised and schooled in the Hawaiian Islands, only returning to Mid-Wake for the Naval Academy and his specialized Naval Intelligence training.

A place like Eden, now the oldest surface city on Earth, still amazed him. There were a comparative few tall buildings in New Honolulu, but not this obsession for a terrestrially bound aggregation of synth-concrete slabs to reach into the sky.

He thrust his hands into his jacket pockets. He was alert to any sounds in the gathering darkness that might be at all out of the ordinary. His face was not known here in Eden City, nor was there any reason to suppose that anyone might take even the briefest second look at him, but he was still operating in enemy territory.

There was considerable pressure exerted, even at the Naval Academy, for him to enter the submarine service. He was even offered a berth aboard the new Reagan.

The United States Nuclear Submarine Ronald Wilson Reagan, Jason Darkwood’s ship, was the most decorated vessel of the Mid-Wake fleet. There were two submarines to bear the ship’s name in the intervening one hundred twenty-five years, none of them (because it was peacetime) approaching her glorious record.

This latest vessel, James Darkwood feared, might have the chance to prove herself … and quite soon.

She was, officially, a “Submersible Carrier Vessel Navy,” an aircraft carrier with the ability to operate above or below the surface, like a spacecraft of the ocean, enormous, fast, and deadly if need be.

If he ever became anything but a landlocked sailor, he’d love to serve aboard her.

But uniformed duty was a luxury he could not afford now. The importance of on-the-ground intelligence gathering in these dark days could not be measured. And, although he was only a small part of a large operation, each fragment of information acquired had the potential to be a breakthrough.

War was coming.

If the when and where of it could be determined, its toll might be less telling.

As he rounded the corner, he saw a tall, almost impossibly long-legged silhouette against the lights of the early evening traffic. It belonged to Manfred Kohl, his partner for the last two years.

“James,” the figure said, stepping back into the shadows.

“Manfred,” Darkwood nodded. Kohl lit a cigarette, the downturned corners of his mouth and the worried look in his eyes visible for the briefest instant in the momentary flaring of his lighter. “So?”