Survivalist - 15.5 - Mid-Wake Read online

  The sharks which were utilized as a living defense system against enemy divers and controlled by electronic signals to their brains were also monitored by means of electronic signals. The sonar net which blanketed the lagoon beneath the surface of which the Soviet submarines, both Island Class and Scout, would dive when leaving, and from which they would surface when returning, could not be desensitized to the electronic emissions coming from the sharks, the emissions powered by the electro-chemical energy produced by the creatures’ brains and unable to be turned off. The emissions emanated from the sharks at a frequency which would duplicate the sonar shadow of an approaching enemy vessel and consequently activate the Soviet alarms and defensive systems.

  For that reason—as Jason Darkwood had learned the hard way—there was a “tunnel” inside the sonar net through which the sharks were moved by their programmers, leading in and out of the lagoon.

  Jason Darkwood, Sam Aldridge, and the others of the commando team sent to rescue this five-centuries-old Russian woman from her Russian captors hovered near the

  No radio transmission could be trusted here and they huddled together now in a circle, their helmets touching, wings cocooning about them, the helmets able to sympathetically pick up the vibration of human speech and allowing them to confer, although the hollow sound of human speech heard this way was maddeningly strange, like voices heard while the ears were adjusting to the sound of an explosion and had automatically compensated by reducing volume level.

  Jason Darkwood spoke. “The sharks travel through this area to leave the lagoon and to enter it again. The width of the ‘tunnel’—which is really just an open space within the Soviet defense grid—is about six feet wide as best we can estimate it. So—if you and a shark bump into one another, use his body position as your reference point and give yourself eighteen inches or less on either side of him as still being sonar-clear. If one of them attacks you, there is no advice I can give. Get out of its way if at all possible. Now this is just a hunch, but I would venture to say that the tight control on them while they travel back and forth through the tunnel is unpleasant for them—maybe gives them a headache.” He laughed. “But at any event, they probably want out of there quickly and would be little inclined to giving a fight. When I originally discovered this ‘tunnel’ I asked the same question you’re probably asking yourselves now: how do the Soviet technicians keep the sharks within the parameters of the tunnel? And the answer is simple. When the sharks stray from the tunnel and into the sensor net the sharks are given a painful sensation. When they reenter the ‘tunnel’, the pain is turned off and pleasure centers of their brains are stimulated. Any sharks we do encounter will probably be so well-trained by now, the last thing in the world they want is to stray into the sensor net and get the pain turned on. It’ll be up to us to stay cool if we bump into them. Any questions?”

  Sam Aldridge spoke. “The Captain tells me we’re following this tunnel right up to two hundred yards from the

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  intelligence data can tell. We follow Commander Darkwood—no matter what. Any questions?” There were none.

  Without the vision-intensification capabilities of their helmets, seeing at this depth would have required the aid of artificial lighting, which could have betrayed them.

  Darkwood tapped Sam Aldridge on the shoulder and spread his wings, starting into the invisible tunnel. His wingspan gave him a safe clearance of only a foot one either side and he kept dead center to the tunnel, the incoming sonar readout on his chest pack giving negative readings. If his wings or his flippers touched into the sensor net, the readout would go off the scale.

  As Darkwood moved ahead, he hoped that didn’t happen ….

  Alexeii Serovski stood beside the comrade marshal there at the height of the path leading down to the hydrofoil launch which would take him and the same six Elite Corps personnel he had detailed to accompany the Hero Marshal to the submarine. The Hero Marshal spoke. “Serovski, I am entrusting you with a delicate mission. I will confide to you freely that I am quite interested in a potential alliance with these new comrades. Yet, as a wise commander must, I have my trepidations. You must keep in mind that the ultimate goal of your mission is to bring back my wife, Major Tiemerovna. Ideally, alive. But, should something occur which would preclude this, then I wish her dead despite the fact that her death would forever deprive me of the pleasure I would derive from delivering her to death myself. Is that understood?”

  “Yes, comrade marshal.”

  The Hero Marshal smiled. “Good. Now—I have given the Colonel Feyedorovitch coordinates for what I have called neutral ground. I do not believe he quite understands the capabilities of our helicopter gunships, and that is excellent, all to the better. We will rendezvous …” And

  he habitually wore on his left wrist. “We will rendezvous at a small island of some historical significance near the twenty-fifth parallel, Chinmen Tao. Although the level of the sea has risen, a portion of it remains above the water, but the depth surrounding it would likely be such as to preclude their submarines getting very close. Are you a student of history?”

  Serovski thought for a second. “Comrade marshal— only insofar as such study may advance the cause of Communism.” Serovski wasn’t certain how the comrade marshal had taken that, but the comrade marshal continued to speak.

  “In the American Presidential campaign of 1960, two small islands became focal points. One of them was named Matsu Tao, which quite literally means ‘ugly.’ The other is Chinmen Tao—it was then called Quemoy. If the final undoing of the forces of so-called democracy is to be negotiated, this seems like a fitting place. Be there in twenty-four hours. I have become, recently, very distressed with Colonel Antonovitch—his succumbing to the gambit of the Rourke family, his loss of my prisoners and my gas. I would like to be confident that a qualified replacement awaits, captain. Do I make myself clear?”

  Serovski drew his shoulders back. “Yes, comrade marshal. I will neither fail you nor the Soviet people!”

  The Hero Marshal smiled. “Just see to it that you don’t fail me and you will do well, Serovski. Very well.” The Hero Marshal turned and walked back up the path.

  Serovski looked down toward the sea.

  He would not fail the Hero Marshal or the Soviet people—or himself. He called to the six men who stood some distance away. “Follow me!” And he started along the path ….

  Rectifying the colostomy had been neither as onerous nor as complicated as his own medical experience had caused him to predict. Utilizing a methodology which seemed to combine local anesthesia and accununcture. he

  had been awake and felt no pain, yet had been aware of movement and able to follow with his own eyes, as he had requested, what was, to a physician of his training five centuries in the past, wizardry. A small incision, a specialized surgical instrument he had never seen before, and the use of something that looked more like a twentieth-century band-aid.

  Remquist had told him, “This is synthetic tissue. Unlike the real thing, it cannot be rejected. There would have been no need for the bag at all if this hadn’t been emergency surgery. I appologize for that inconvenience, Doctor Rourke. But the snythetic tissue must be typed to your own and then cultured in a rapid-growth medium. You’ll have to see the lab where it’s done. I find it rather mundane, of course, but I’m certain you’ll find it fascinating. It is self-adhering and will grow together with your own tissue, and they will become as one. Six weeks from now, if I were to open you up again, I wouldn’t be able to tell where the artificial had been and the real was without consulting my surgical diagrams and X-ray scans. I’d keep off rough food for a few days—sometimes these operations can cause a bit of, shall we say, over-enthusiastic response in the GI track. And, of course, you should rest for a few more days. Other than that …” And Remquist, the unabashed doer of wonders and miracles, had only smiled.

  John Rourke sat in the chair from which
Ellen, the pretty black nurse, had helped him to stand. The IV was still in his left arm. His Rolex was on the table near his chair beside a glass of fruit juice. He sipped at the fruit juice and looked at his watch. He pushed the call button for the nurse, and after a few moments Ellen came in again. “You work every shift?”

  “Sometimes you get a special patient—you know how that is. What can I do for you? Wanna run the mile today?”

  “Tell President Fellows that he seemed eager for information. I’m eager for it too and I’d like to see him.”

  And she laughed.

  John Rourke didn’t laugh. “Get the hospital administrator to do it.”

  “You’re not kidding, are you?”

  “No—I’m not.”

  Ellen dug her hands into her uniform pockets, flaring out the skirt a little as she seemed to balance her decision and her body on the balls of her feet. Then she very quietly said, “You’re the doctor,” and walked from the room ….

  Michael Rourke, stripped to his underpants, pushed his head above the surface. It was choppy, the wind that touched his skin like a finger of ice. The Soviet submarine was dead ahead and amidships there was a ladder—he imagined for use with the launch, because the ladder fed into an open berth of approximately the same size as the hydryfoil launch. He saw movement on the foredeck and gulped air, then tucked down.

  With his knife, Michael had cut holes into the duffel bag so it would not hold water, then used the uniform belt from his stolen uniform (the rest of which he had buried in the sand near where he had entered the water) to make a drag for the perforated bag. Because of its weight, the bag compensated naturally for its own buoyancy and hung almost dead in the water beneath him, secured cross-body as he swam now, nearing the dark shape of the Soviet submarine’s hull, his knife in his right fist clenched tight.

  He had found himself thinking of Maria Leuden and of Annie and of his mother and of Paul—that he would never see any of them again. But what recriminations he had felt for the selfish decision to satisfy his own desire for vengeance against the man responsible for the death of his wife and child had vanished once he had seen the submarine and realized that here might be the one clue to his father’s and Natalia’s whereabouts. His father had risked life and limb often enough for him.

  Tt was time for renavment. althouch full renavment was

  something he could never accomplish and, strangely, would never want to. His father was unique and no one could match him. Once he had realized that and accepted that, Michael knew, he had felt better about both his father and himself.

  He was beside the hull. If the skin of the submarine had sensing equipment, he doubted it would be so sensitized as to detect his presence. Otherwise, every good-sized sea creature which came near it would set alarms ringing. He hoped. He broke the surface and looked right and left and then above. There was no sign of anyone.

  Michael Rourke moved laterally along the hull toward the berth for the launch and the ladder which serviced it—on closer inspection he was convinced that was the purpose now. He reached the ladder, then tucked down, slitting open the duffel bag at the top, reaching inside and extracting the large poly bag which held his weapons and his clothing. He had the bag now and used his knife to free himself of the harness, the duffel bag sinking away. He smiled as he surfaced his head and took in air. He had packed a rock into the bag so it would sink away. Like his father, he had planned ahead.

  He reached out for the ladder now, moving the poly bag against the lower rungs to make sure that it was not electrified. It was not. The copy of the Life Support System I old Jan the swordmaker had crafted for him after the centuries-old pattern was ill-suited to carrying in the teeth—because of its weight, certainly, but more importantly because of the saw teeth that ran along the blade spine. But, carefully, he brought it to his mouth and clenched his teeth to the steel. The bag with his belongings in his left fist, he started up the rungs.

  He heard motor noises behind him and looked to his left—around the prow of the vessel he could see the launch coming. He quickened his pace, reaching the deck and sliding his nearly naked body through the access in the deck rail, the knife back in his fist again.

  Michael looked to right and left. All that he knew about submarines was from videotape movies and books and the

  story Natalia had recounted of her and his father being taken aboard a U.S. submarine for what was to have been a special mission to the West Coast of the United States, but had turned out to be an attempt to seize control of an unfired U.S. nuclear weapon. There was a series a hatches here on the deck—for missile-launching? He ran toward the sail, nearly slipping in his bare feet. As he neared the massive sail, two uniformed men came from around the other side.

  They saw him, shouted. . Michael’s guns were inaccessible to him. He charged toward them as they went for pistols in holsters at their right hips. If he dove into the water, they’d get him and any chance at reaching his father would be gone.

  He dove for them, impacting both men at once, the knife gouging into the chest of the man nearest his right hand, Michael and the two Russians impacting the deckplates. He rolled clear, wrenching his knife from the chest of the man he had stabbed, the second man going for his pistol, Michael slashing the knife diagonally upward across the man’s right forearm and abdomen as the gun started moving from the holster, the gun—some peculiar-looking automatic—clattering to the deck. The man’s eyes opened wide in pain or fear or bewilderment, Michael wasn’t*sure which as he brought the knife back and across, ripping open the man’s throat.

  The poly bag with his guns—it was too many steps away and Michael dove for the fallen automatic pistol, finding what he hoped was the safety as more men came from around the sail now. Michael stabbed the pistol toward them and fired, the pistol making a strange “plop” sound each time he fired, men swatting at points of impact, still coining for him. What kind of pistol was this? he thought. He emptied it toward the men, then body-blocked into one of them near him who was charging for him just as the man went for his own gun and Michael simultaneously realized his peculiar pistol was empty.

  They rolled across the deck, the man’s hands going for Michael’s throat, Michael’s right elbow snaDoine out and

  back, finding something hard and suddenly yielding as the man shouted words in Russian that were unmistakably a curse. And then Michael was clear of him, to his knees. The men Michael had shot with the odd pistol were starting to stagger and drop. Michael threw himself toward the bag as another of the Russians came at him. Michael had the bag, rolled, slashing outward with the knife, which was now in his left hand, catching the man across the shins, the man screaming. To his knees now, to his feet. Michael started for the rail. It was time to abandon the plan in favor of withdrawal.

  As he neared the rail he felt it, in the small of his back, then another and another, like pinpricks across his back and shoulders, and he lurched forward, nausea sweeping over him in a wave, and he reached out toward the rail, the knife falling from his hand and clattering to the deck plates.

  He staggered.

  His eyes were washed with green, and suddenly the cold of his nakedness was replaced with cold sweat, and he reached for the rail with both hands—where was the bag?—and …

  Paul Rubenstein froze. As he had finally reached the beach—the Russian guard had climbed back into his truck after defecating in a neat pile beside it—Paul had seen the fight. It was Michael, clearly. And he saw Michael Rourke shot down.

  There had been no sounds of gunfire—pistols with integral silencers?

  He started into the surf, the Schmeisser in his right fist. And he looked hard at the submarine, its immensity. He looked at the gun in his hand. He dropped to his knees in the water.

  “There has to be a way!” he shouted into the wind. And as he looked up, there were more men flooding onto the Soviet submarine’s deck, and he could see several men in the uniforms of Karamatsov’s KGB Elite Corps and

  som
e of the others—not Elite Corpsmen but men of the submarine crew presumably—were carrying Michael’s naked-looking body between them like a sack of something.

  He could swim out to the craft. He could try to board it. Even if Michael were … Maybe his father still lived.

  Paul Rubenstein‘8 breath was coming hard. “You damn fool!” Paul shouted into the wind. He knew no one heard him. “God bless you.” He prayed someone heard him.

  Paul got up from his knees. He ran back into the rocks, stripping off the Schmeisser and the musette bag full of spare magazines for it and the High Power. He pulled the High Power from his waistband. He looked up and down the beach. There would be no better place and the rocky promontory overhead could serve as a marker if he ever came back for them. He stripped away the Soviet uniform jacket and wrapped the Schmeisser into it, stuffed the High Power into the musette bag, and shoved the bag and the submachine gun into a niche in the rocks that he hoped was above the high-tide line.

  He pulled off his boots and threw them on top of the guns. All he had was the Gerber Mkll knife.

  It would have to be enough.

  Paul Rubenstein started into the surf. With the confusion on the sub’s deck, he told himself, his chances were vastly better for sneaking on board.

  He threw himself over a breaker and started swimming, swallowing water, choking on it, spitting it out. He kept going. Should have stuck with the YMCA classes longer, he told himself. He kept going. Once he boarded the submarine, if it didn’t start out before he reached it or he didn’t drown in the attempt, he had no idea what he would do.

  “One thing at a time,” he said aloud, swallowing water again and spitting it out. He kept going.