Survivalist - 20 - Firestorm Read online

Paul’s voice came from behind him. “John-to your right.”

  Rourke swung the beam from the flashlight and the gun simultaneously, sidestepping.

  The light swept toward one of the cots.

  On the cot lay the partially clad body of a woman, Maritza Zeiss, her throat slit ear-to-ear, eyes wide open, very little blood across her chest and naked breasts. Blood flow decreased rapidly and coagulation was enhanced under extreme cold. Rourke’s breath made steam, the lit cigar in the hand that held the flashlight.

  Lying beside her, half on the cot, half off, coat off, pants pulled down to the ankles, lay Jason Darkwood.

  “Paul, check the rest of the tent. Dodd, stay with him.”

  Tm going for-“

  “You’re doing just what I say unless you want to get planted right on your ass,” Rourke told Dodd emotionlessly, already crossing the tent, dropping to his knees beside Darkwood. There was a dark bruise at the base of Darkwood’s skull just at the hairline.

  John Rourke felt for a pulse. It was there, a little weak, but he’d felt weaker ones. Breaming was shallow but regular. Darkwood needed treatment quickly, but a few seconds, under the circumstances, wouldn’t make mat much difference.

  Rourke stood, took several steps back, then gradually began moving the flashlight over the two bodies, almost an inch at a time, trying to photograph the scene in his mind. There was a small cut, the blood flow almost negligible, at the left corner of her mouth by the lower lip. A red mark was faintly visible on the left side of her throat, noticeable only because her hair was back, across the pillow, almost arranged that way, it seemed. The red mark appeared to be some sort of abrasion.

  The wound itself was a thin line across her throat, either a very sharp knife or something like a straight razor apparently having been used.

  Her left nipple was partially torn, but there was no blood visible. Rourke cursed his stupidity for walking to the tent still smoking the cigar. “Paul? Paul!” “John?”

  “Go over by the bodies and exhale several times, then get as close as you can or you’re comfortable with and tell me what you smell.”

  The younger man nodded grimly. Rourke drew back toward the tent seal, keeping his cigar as far away from Paul as he could. “It’s, ahh-either semen or bleach.” Paul Rubenstein stood up. John Rourke approached the cot again. He shot the flashlight around the tent interior. “Paul. Grab me that inflatable pillow. I don’t need the pillow, just the pillow case.”

  “Right.” Paul Rubenstein took the pillow of the next cot, stripped the pillow case from it, handed it to John Rourke. Rourke set down his pistol and flashlight, by the light from Paul’s light placing his still gloved hand inside the pillow case, wrapping the pillow case around his hand several times. Slowly, he slid his hand between Darkwood’s body and the edge of the cot. Rourke’s swathed hand moved over Darkwood’s naked abdomen, across the hair at Darkwood’s crotch. Then he withdrew his hand.

  He held up the pillow case. “Paul. Sniff it. Sorry, the cigar”

  Dodd snapped, “I don’t have to watch-“

  “I agree. Close your eyes,” Rourke advised.

  “I don’t smell it.”

  Rourke moved his hand back, this time Darkwood’s inner thighs. Again, he held up the pillow case. Again, Paul said, “I don’t smell it.”

  Rourke brought the pillow case once more under Darkwood’s body, this time along the shaft of the perns and into the area on either side of the testicles.

  Even with the cigar, the semen smell was easily detectable. “Smell it now?”

  “Yeah,” Paul nodded, his eyes darting right and left.

  “Give me the plastic inflatable pillow you took this off.”

  The younger man handed him the pillow. Rourke carefully folded the pillow case to keep the material with the semen sample inside. Now he placed the pillow between Darkwood’s genitalia and the edge of the cot, moving the pillow across the perns. When he withdrew the transparent plastic pillow there were small whitish streaks on its surface. “Keep an eye on that.”

  “All right.”

  Rourke took up his flashlight again. He searched along the floor. Beside Darkwood’s right hand-the fingertips were blood-smeared-was a Mid-Wake issue bayonet. It was blood smeared, too, very likely the murder weapon, regardless of who wielded it. Also on the floor, as if it had fallen from her partially open hand just above it, was a three D-Cell re-chargeable flashlight, of the type in the strategic stores tapped into by the Eden Project personnel. Rourke wasn’t concerned about fingerprints.

  “Get me another pillow case. Rip this one in half or something so it’s easily identifiable.”

  “Right.” In a moment, Paul was back with another pillow case, ripped in half. “What are you going to do?”

  “What I have to do,” Rourke said hoarsely. Wrapping the pillow case around his hand, he used it to take a semen specimen from the dead woman’s genitalia. “Keep an eye on this one, too. Well get the two specimens typed. Odds are, they match. Then we check that against Darkwood after he provides us with a sample. If Darkwood’s sample doesn’t match-“

  Dodd stammered, “Just a damn minute, Rourke! Just because this man is a friend of yours, you’re denying obvious evidence of a rape and murder?”

  John Rourke looked over his shoulder at Commander Dodd. Tm having a hard day. Don’t push.”

  Chapter Six

  It was like giving a urine specimen, only worse; and his head ached and his neck ached and when he moved his head his entire body was seized with pain and stiffness. In the end, Jason Darkwood mentally reconstructed an evening more than a year before that he’d spent with Maggie Barrow. Unlike a great many of the officers at Mid-Wake, she had an apartment of her own which she shared with another woman, a Marine Corps officer whose duty schedule was such that she and Maggie rarely even saw one another, one ashore while the other was at sea. Most unmarried Mid-Wake officers, constantly at sea, stayed in available officers quarters when they were ashore.

  Maggie had baked lasagna-she was a terrific cook-and there was a bottle of wine and a videotape of some romantic movie from before the war. But they’d only made it about a half-hour into the movie before they’d spontaneously decided to make a romantic tape of their own, but no cameras running.

  Making love with Maggie was like nothing he’d ever experienced. She responded to him as if she were a part of him, their hands knowing what to do to each other as if-And then what Darkwood needed to do was done and he felt drained for a moment and there was no sensation of the pain for at least fifteen seconds, but when the pain returned it was more violent than before.

  He leaned back in the hospital bed, his face feeling hot, but he took care of the thing.

  It wasn’t that he hadn’t been very tempted with Maritza Zeiss and, maybe, had she lived-He didn’t know. Now, he never would.

  He rang the nurse call button aid, after a moment, the tent of curtain around his bed parted and a German medtech, a young man of about twenty, entered the cubicle. He spoke excellent if somewhat stilted English. “You are finished, Herr Captain Darkwood?”

  Jason Darkwood didn’t quite know what to say, but nodded, the prophylactic closed at the open end with a rubber band and inside a small beaker of tepid water. It floated around like a communications buoy. “Here.”

  The Herr Doctor Rourke would wish to speak with you, Herr Captain.”

  *Teah, sure,” Darkwood nodded. He shouldn’t have nodded. The pain. The German medtech disappeared and, after a moment, there was a knock on one of the support posts for the curtain. “Come in.”

  It was John Rourke. “Doctor Rourke-“

  “Don’t stand up, Jason. How are you feeling?”

  John Rourke stood beside the bed, his parka absent, his double shoulder holster with his little stainless steel guns visible, worn over a black long sleeved military sweater. “In no special order of importance? Well, stupid, embarrassed, like I’m up shifs creek-was that a real place?-and in a lot of pain.”
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br />   John Rourke smiled. “I couldn’t have you given anything really strong. Because of what you had to do. It’s quite important that we have a sample right away. What happened?”

  Jason Darkwood shifted position and his head ached all the more, so he fidgeted back. “Okay,” and he cleared his throat, a spasm of pain consuming him. “I took her back to her tent, like we agreed. Sure, I thought she was attractive, and maybe I would have tried something with her, but not that way. What’s she saying, anyway? I mean, I figured out why you wanted the test.”

  John Rourke pulled the solitary folding chair around and straddled it as he sat down. “No one’s told you, then. She’s dead.”

  Jason Darkwood felt his eyes open wide and the headache worsened instantly. “She’s-Now wait a minute.”

  “What do you remember?”

  Darkwood closed his eyes against the pain, and he thought maybe it would help him to remember. He remembered waking up in the hospital bed. He was told he’d been hurt and that it was urgent that he give a sample of ejaculant. He remembered things very fuzzily before that. “I can’t tell you.”

  “Can’t?”

  “I don’t remember, I mean. I took her to her tent arfd we went inside. Bang. What happened to my head?”

  “What do you mean, “bang”?” Doctor Rourke pressed.

  Darkwood shook his head, the pain consuming him. “I, ahh-We went inside and I don’t remember anything after that.”

  “What did you mean earlier when you assumed you suspected the reason we needed an ejaculant sample?”

  Darkwood licked his hps. His mouth was very dry. “I assumed something happened and she said I did something to her. I mean, what would you think if you woke up and your head felt ten times too big and somebody wanted you to jerk off into-“

  “Were you thinking about her sexually? I mean, at the moment you entered the tent?”

  “I don’t know. No. I was thinking I was cold. What the hell’s going on? What do you mean she’s dead? I’m a little slow today, but-“

  “Someone murdered Maritza Zeiss and then went to a great deal of trouble to make it appear you’d raped her. The way-“

  “I what?” Darkwood sat upright and his head felt as if it would explode and he blinked his eyes against the pain.

  Doctor Rourke began again. The scene, as it appeared, was that you had fought with her, raped her. Her mouth was bleeding. One of her nipples was partially torn off-“

  “Oh, God, Doctor-“

  Then, as it was supposed to appear, you slit her throat with a Mid-Wake issue fighting knife-” “I don’t even carry one of those.”

  Rourke smiled. “I know that you carry a duplicate of a Randall Smithsonian Bowie. Paul knows that, too, as of course, do your men, etc. The killer, or whoever put him up to it, didn’t. Just as you raked the knife across her throat, with her last ounce of strength she made a valiant effort to kill you, hitting you at the base of the skull with the butt of her flashlight. Evidently, you were opposed to be dead, too. Either the killer was in a hurry or he was either too stupid or too incompetent to tell that you were alive. Your pulse was weak and your breathing was shallow. I tend to dunk he was in a hurry, which would correspond with another ob-Krvation, one I made before we came on the scene. There was ejaculant on your-“

  “Aww, shit,” Darkwood hissed, the pain so intense now he almost didn’t care.

  “I^had the Germans test it. It matches what was found in her vaginal area. The only way to prove your innocence is to compare that to the specimen you just provided us. Unless the killer’s your identical twin brother, it won’t match. I know you didn’t do it; you know you didn’t do it. Maritza Zeiss was popular to begin with, a lovely and talented girl and someone the Eden personnel were counting on a great deal, once the weather moderated enough to try crops. That’s why you’re in the German field hospital, not the one staffed by Eden personnel. There was an attempt at mob justice here once before, under surprisingly similar circumstances, when Natalia was suspected of aiding the Soviets. I didn’t want to see history repeat itself.”

  “What about Sam Aldridge and Lillie St. James and the rest of the Mid-Wake personnel?”

  “You mean, do they know about this?” Rourke mquired “Yes. I put them on alert, just in case. Whoever our killer was, he eliminated Doctor Zeiss and tried to eliminate you and, at once, discredit the Mid-Wake officer corps.”

  “ThisH have to be-” Darkwood started, his tongue feeling thick, the pain extremely intense.

  “Reported? I’m your CO., remember? Brigadier General Rourke? Once the lab tests are back, there won’t be any charges brought, nothing will go on your record. Your president and your admiral want me to cooperate; well, they can cooperate with me, then. There’s a more serious concern than you.”

  “Oh, I’m glad to hear that.”

  “I thought you would be, Jason. No, there’s a murderer loose and he’s working in complicity with Commander Dodd.”

  “What?” He moved and he shouldn’t have.

  That’s another reason I wanted you here. I didn’t want a mysterious embolism popping up or something. Now, rest.”

  “Doctor-ah-“

  John Rourke reached under his sweater, glanced toward the curtains, then turned the palm of his hand toward Darkwood. In it was Darkwood’s own 2418 A2. He’d scratched his initials into the right grip plate years ago. “I cant put it under the pillow. Disrupt hospital routine, and anyway, guns are damned uncomfortable to sleep on. Roll over a little, if you can.”

  Darkwood rolled over right, felt the mattress being lifted

  slighdy, then lowered. “Where’d-“

  “Between the mattress and the cot frame. If you need it, youll have to get out of bed for it. Sorry. But, on the plus side, it’s chamber loaded and ready to go. Remind me to see if I can find you a .45. You’d like it better. Trust me.”

  And John Rourke smiled, then walked out between the curtains. Jason Darkwood lay back. The curtains opened once more. It was Doctor Rourke again. Trust this medtech. He’s one of Colonel Mann’s unit. He’s got an injection for you. Pain killer. Make you sleep. By the time you wake up, everything should be worked out. Rest well.”

  The curtains closed, Doctor Rourke vanishing, the medtech approaching the bed. It was the same man who’d taken the sample from him. In his odd but perfectly pronounced English, he said, “It would be better, Herr Captain Darkwood, to administer this injection in your buttocks.”

  “Just what I needed,” Darkwood groaned, rolling over.

  Chapter Seven

  There were only three still standing modules in what had been the German headquarters complex at their facility outside Eden Base. John had asked that the samples be flown there because Doctor Munchen, the German physician both she and John counted a friend, still had laboratory facilities there, however rudimentary.

  Sarah Rourke’s eyes narrowed.

  John looked through the powerful electronically enhanced microscope. She had just looked through it at the two specimens and seen nothing different between them and that worried her. Jason Darkwood had seemed like such a very nice young man.

  John was saying something in medicalese to her, but sometimes he forgot that she had been a nurse and he was a doctor, that she had given up on keeping up with her field after she married him, that he kept up on everything.

  He looked at her and, she supposed, realized she wasn’t following. “We’ve got a match.”

  “Oh, no.”

  “Relax,” her husband smiled. “These are the separate samples I took from Jason Darkwood’s genitalia and from Maritza Zeiss.” “Now what?”

  Doctor Munchen smiled cheerfully. “Now, Frau Rourke, you can see for yourself that the sample taken from Jason Darkwood does not, in fact, match either of these.”

  He gestured for her to cross the room again.

  She did so, stepping up to the microscope, fingers on the adjustment knobs. “I don’t see a difference.”

  Touch th
e button at your left, Frau Rourke,” Doctor Munchen advised her. She touched the button. And, suddenly, she saw. As Sarah looked, Munchen continued speaking. The slides were diffused with purple light. “Semen identification techniques have changed little over the centuries, I think. Your husband kindly lent me several books dealing with forensic science. The main difference is the instrumentation with which we are able to examine. A combination of acid phosphatase and ultraviolet light gives us the answers. As you should be able to see, there are subtle differences in the spermatazoa. Fortunate for us, it was so cold that the samples taken from the body of the woman and from the American Captain Jason Darkwood were still viable.”

  There were subtle differences in shapes, subde but clearly different.

  Sarah looked up from me microscope. Then this is conclusive proof,” she said.

  John said, “In two ways. Whoever*s semen this matches is the killer, almost unquestionably, unless there were two men, one who did the murder and one who raped her afterward.”

  Sarah looked at him. “Afterward?”

  John nodded.

  Munchen said, The torn nipple. There was no bleeding, which meant, of course, that circulation had stopped, conclusive evidence, of course, that Fraulein Doctor Zeiss was already dead. We have not only a murderer to deal with, but a necrophile as well.”

  A necrophile was someone who had intercourse with the dead.

  She shivered.

  John’s next words made her want to throw up. “Records taken from the leader’s private files at New Germany indicate mat Freidrich Rausch was into necrophilia. Don’t ask for the details. And he’s the man whose brother you shot to death, Sarah. Hell be after you.”

  Someone who raped dead women wanted to kill her. Sarah Rourke shivered again and John folded her into his arms…

  Christopher Dodd was freezing. He kept walking for two reasons: He had to see Rausch’s brother and, if he stopped walking, he might freeze to death.

  The sling of the M-16 over his shoulder rattled. It was the only sound amid the silence of the still increasing snowfall except for his own rather labored breathing.