Survivalist - 15.5 - Mid-Wake Read online

  Natalia shrieked, “You cannot do this to me! You searched us with your machine. We have no weapons! Please!”

  The translator, his balding head glistening sweat, paraphrased Natalia in Russian, but emotionlessly.

  “First the woman, then the man,” Kerenin said evenly, the translator not bothering to do his job this time.

  “Who are you? I demand to see your superior!” John Rourke shouted.

  This time, the translator translated.

  Kerenin approached Rourke, hands easily on his hips, his mouth smiling but his eyes deadly. “I am Major of Spetznas Olav Kerenin. Since our last visit, a force of commandoes under my best officer has returned to this vessel through another airlock and I have learned they have suffered significant losses largely due to two other men dressed as you are and armed, as you were, with antique cartridge firearms. More Germans? More explorers searching for signs of life on the barren earth? We shall see. And during the attempt to subdue yourself and this woman you claim is your wife, several of my own men, including a member of my personal staff, were killed or seriously injured. Is this, perhaps, part of what they teach at the academy for German explorers? Hmm? Translate, Vznovski! Every word of it, man!”

  “Yes, comrade major!” And the balding man began the translation, Rourke ignoring him. trving to think of some

  thing to say or do to gain some time. The bonds at his wrists and ankles were of some type of nearly translucent plastic, tubular and approximately a quarter inch in diameter, and, so it seemed, as impossible to snap as they had been to work loose or bite through.

  Kerenin walked to the center of the compartment. From an equipment rack, he picked up the three knives he had just put down. One was Natalia’s Bali-Song, another the little A.G. Russell knife, the third Rourke’s Crain Life Support System X.

  As the balding translator concluded, Kerenin began to muse aloud. “I find the firearms hopelessly primitive, regardless of what aesthetic appeal they might once have had. But these knives I find quite interesting indeed. Each unique in its own way. One is marked ‘Bali-Song’ with ‘U.S.A.’ appearing beneath it. And another—a picture of a stick-legged bird and what is apparently a name and then words which use the Roman alphabet. And this little black knife—a very strange-sounding name for German, I think—Russell? Translate this, Vznovski, as they begin to examine the woman for explosives and hidden devices.”

  The balding man began to translate, the woman who looked as though she was going to enjoy it grabbing Natalia by the hair and snapping Natalia’s head back. Rourke said in German, “I must tell the commander something. Please?” And he looked beseechingly toward the translator, Vznovski.

  Vznovski smiled for the first time, his shoulder drawing back as he began to translate.

  A look of amusement entered Kerenin’s face. “Wait with the woman—for a moment only. The man’s tongue has perhaps loosened.”

  Rourke could see Natalia’s eyes as Vznovski translated.

  Rourke cleared his throat. Kerenin leaned closer toward him. Rourke eyed the knives, but neither the Crain nor the Russell was unsheathed, and if Kerenin had never seen a knife like Natalia’s Bali-Song, he wouldn’t be able to get it into action fast enough.

  Rourke’s voice low, almost a whisper, he began to

  speak. “Ahh—I suppose that you have us at your mercy.” With each word, he lowered his voice, Kerenin, despite Vznovski’s running translation, leaning closer. “And, ahh—well—I don’t know exactly how to say this, but you smell like shit—”

  Kerenin’s head was very close now and John Rourke threw his weight forward, his head snapping toward Kerenin’s face, Rourke’s head missing the nose as Kerenin dodged. But Kerenin didn’t pull back quite quickly enough, the crown of Rourke’s head impacting Kerenin over the right eye. The Russian screamed and fell back, blood oozing between his fingers the instant after his hands dropped the knives and went to his face.

  Rourke saw Vznovski reaching for him from the left edge of his peripheral vision, hurtled his weight back against the two men who supported him, their hands banded at his biceps, hammering the one on his left side into Vznovski, the balding translator impacting the bulkhead near the watertight door.

  Rourke’s balance was going, Natalia a blur of motion as she launched her bound body against the woman who had grabbed her by the hair, their bodies impacting the other two medical personnel.

  Rourke toppled forward, trying to drop to his knees, his knees taking most of the impact but his body continuing to move, slamming against the steel plates of the compartment floor. He rolled onto his back, one of the two who had held him coming for him, Rourke snapping both legs up, his feet hitting the man in the chest. He rolled across the floor, his left fist finding the little A.G. Russell Sting IA, closing over it.

  He saw Kerenin’s foot and tried rolling away from it, but now an explosion in his already aching head, and, Rourke slid across the floor from the impact. He still had the knife, snapping it free of the sheath, the sheath sliding over the plates, Rourke twisting the knife to work it against the bonds at his wrists.

  Kerenin moved across the compartment in two swift strides, the bie Crain survival knife in his riarht fist.

  hacking downward. Rourke tried to roll clear, but Kerenin moved faster, the primary edge of the Life Support System X flashing past John Rourke’s face, Rourke feeling it against his throat, sucking in his breath.

  Kerenin didn’t speak. Kerenin didn’t shift the knife. John Rourke didn’t breathe… .

  Michael Rourke slipped off his parka as he entered the security bunker of the power house. Han, already there, had changed from his traditional Chinese attire to the black battle-dress utilities of the Chinese Army. Paul Rubenstein stood beside him. Michael threw down his coat and joined them by the illuminated map table.

  Paul looked up. “I got Lieutenant Keefler airborne and then I contacted Captain Hartman with German field headquarters. Hoffman puts Karamatsov’s position as about four hundred kilometers from us at what used to be Tientsin.”

  “Yes—Tienjin, across Bo Hai. Before the Dragon Wind,” Han added somberly.

  “It’s almost twice that distance by land, though,” Paul said.

  Michael looked at him, then back to the illuminated map table. “Could he have had a seabase here all along that we just didn’t know about?” He looked at Han.

  The Chinese smiled, then seemed to shrug his shoulders. “Possible, but highly dubious, Michael.”

  “Before the Night of the War,” Paul began, “there was a gigantic Soviet Naval base at Cam Ranh Bay. What if part of it survived, somehow? And what if Karamatsov was looking to get those nuclear warheads and somehow get them to Cam Ranh Bay and be able to use them from there. I mean, there might still be hardware there that might be able to be restored. Hell—I …”

  Paul Rubenstein fell silent.

  Michael Rourke stared at the map, trying to think. They were at Lushun. At one time it had been called Port Arthur. Almost at the same latitude across a bay

  almost large enough to accommodate a nation the size of Greece before the Night of the War, the Hero Marshal, Vladmir Karamatsov, and a Soviet force numbering into the thousands, waited.

  With an expeditionary force of Karamatsov’s personnel KGB Elite Corps, there had been a bold attempt to expropriate a vast portion of the pre-War nuclear arsenal of the People’s Republic of China, the Soviet Union and China engaging in a devastating land war following the Night of the War—the all-out thermonuclear exchange between the United States and the Soviet Union. Then came what the Chinese called the “Dragon Wind”, or Great Conflagration, when the ionized atmosphere had caught fire and extinguished the majority of life on earth, and forced those who could survive underground to wait until the planet had sufficiently restored itself to the point where life could be supported on the surface.

  And Karamatsov seemed intent on the acquisition of more nuclear weapons with which to obliterate all life on earth forever. But h
is greatest passion, his ultimate motivation, was simpler and very clear. Karamatsov wanted the death of Major Natalia Anastasia Tiemerovna, who, in name only now, was his wife. And Karamatsov wanted the death of John Thomas Rourke, whom Karamatsov blamed for taking Natalia from him and whom, in this latter case rightly, Karamatsov blamed for once before destroying his plans to be master of the earth.

  Why had Karamatsov taken his armies to Tientsin? From what base of operations did those who had kidnapped Natalia and Michael’s father, John Rourke, originate?

  Had the five centuries while earth restored itself to sufficiently sustain life merely been an interlude between the first battle and the last in a war that would forever end war by forever ending life?

  “I’m going to Tientsin. If Karamatsov’s got them, they’ll wind up there,” Michael declared, not taking his eyes from the illuminated map table.

  “I’ll go with you, Michael,” Paul Rubenstein, his

  friend, his sister’s husband told him.

  “I think the government of China needs to be represented as well.” Han smiled. “Perhaps my meager skills may be of some service, Michael.”

  Michael Rourke reached across the table to both men, a hand to each man’s shoulder. There was nothing to say.

  Chapter Four

  They had forced him to his knees, the LS-X knife to his throat, his head pulled back with a fist knotted into his hair. They had made him watch as Natalia had been made to undress, ordered to do so if she did not wish to see her “husband” with his throat slit.

  Natalia, naked, in the center of the compartment beneath the massive grappling hook, had assumed the pose of the classic, startled nude. Her open right hand covered her vaginal area, her left forearm covered her breasts. But her head was raised and there was determination in her eyes, not resignation.

  Instruments had been passed over her body, for detecting explosives or electronic monitoring devices, Rourke deduced. But there had been no actual physical search. As he had bitterly suspected, Kerenin had ordered her to disrobe as a means of demoralizing her, showing his power. And from the look on Kerenin’s face, because he liked looking at her naked.

  After some time, Kerenin standing very close to her, assaying her, not touching her, she was allowed to dress and was then rebound. New restraints were used. The plastic was apparently only removeable by cutting. Then she was forced to her knees and a knife placed at her throat, her knife this time. And John Rourke was released, his bonds cut. It was as if Kerenin, whose right eye was blackened and who was blood-encrusted over the eyebrow, were challenging him. Kerenin, despite his obvious fascination with Natalia, would kill her,” Rourke had

  decided. And because of that, John Rourke had no choice but to cooperate.

  He stood at the center of the room and undressed, handing over the battered brown-leather bomber jacket, the empty double Alessi shoulder rig, the light-blue snap-front cowboy shirt, his combat boots, the faded blue Levis—the belt already taken when his knives and the Sparks Six-Pak and a half-dozen spare magazines for his pistols had been confiscated, sometime before he had awakened.

  As he tugged off his socks, threw them to Kerenin’s men for examination, he said in German, “I hope they smell.” He took off his underpants. He stood with his hands at his sides. One of the two women—the one who hadn’t looked sexually aroused when Natalia had undressed—was staring at him. Natalia closed her eyes.

  John Rourke stared at Kerenin. While there was life, as the expression went, there was hope. But the possibilities were rapidly diminishing. Which, of course, created a situation in which there was nothing to lose at all. Rourke continued to stare at Kerenin. And as the instruments which were to determine if his bodily cavities concealed explosives or electronic monitoring devices passed close to his body, he saw Kerenin’s eyes flicker. Recognition in his eyes, John Rourke knew, recognition that if there was a way, Major Kerenin would be a dead man… .

  The ship’s brig lay a hundred feet or so forward of the compartment where they had initially been held and interrogated. It was facing the starboard torpedo room. There were no bars, but rather a bank of shimmering blue lights at the top of the en try way and at the bottom. As Kerenin’s men had left, one of them had thrown one of the cut-off plastic restraints into the opening between the bands of light. The air in the opening had crackled with electricity, the plastic cord smoldering, then bursting into flame, the ashes which accumulated in the lower bar of blue light crackling.

  The man had walked away.

  John Rourke turned to Natalia Tiemerovna. She smiled strangely, then came into his arms, in German, whispering, “You should say, ‘Look at the fine—’ “

  He hugged her tightly against him, knowing the rest, Oliver Hardy’s famous line to Stan Laurel—and a fine mess it was this time.

  Rourke glanced at his shoulder, saying to her, “I think we can safely discount trying to walk through the doorway.” The ashes of the plastic cord were nearly gone.

  “Do you have any idea where we’re going?”

  Rourke simply shook his head, drawing her close to him again, his lips against her left ear, barely whispering. The brig would be bugged for sound and, though she had detected no evidence of cameras, he guessed some type of visual coverage was also working, perhaps advanced fiber optics. “We need names, a solid cover story. Thank God I left my wallet with the rest of my gear. I still carry my Georgia driver’s license and concealed weapons permit.”

  Her lips touched at his right cheek, then brushed against his left ear. “Anna—I used that name once.”

  “All right,” he whispered, elaborately kissing her neck. “Michael used to always joke that we should have named him Wolfgang—he won’t mind if I borrow it for a while.”

  “Will—we won’t, will we?” And she buried her face against his neck. “I dream at nights sometimes that somehow I am your wife—that you would call me your wife—but—like this, it’s—”

  She was crying. He held her tightly.

  “We’ll get out of here. This is a tough one, but we’ll make it out of here,” he whispered, he lied.

  Chapter Five

  Otto Hammerschmidt had taken the train. The “Special” as it was called. He had no true frame of reference for the concept of a train, and especially something which moved so rapidly over land. When there were short distances to cover, he had always walked. Slightly longer distances and he had used a synth-fuel-powered internal-combustion-engine vehicle. Greater distances still and a helicopter or fixed-wing aircraft. Aside from a few forays on horseback over the years, some elementary training in the higher elevations of New Germany with cross-country skiing, and, as a youth, a bicycle, his concepts of transportation had been well-defined.

  But a vehicle which moved on rails at enormously high speeds, faster than some small aircraft, and was powered by what seemed a ridiculously small reactor—fusion reactor, no less—stretched his powers of credulity.

  There was a healing salve which he still had to apply to portions of his arms and legs and back—that was the difficult part—where the burns had been the worst, but other than that and the almost incessant itching of new skin, he was as fit as ever and better rested than he had been in years. The Chinese ran fine hospitals.

  He had, upon release, asked to rejoin Michael Rourke and Paul Rubenstein, and of course Herr Doctor John Rourke and Fraulein Major Natalia Tiemerovna, at what he deemed was the potential “new front,” Lushun, like a stubby Chinese thumb thrust into the Yellow Sea.

  He had been told that the onlv wav to eet there, the

  Chinese being without air transportation, was to take the train.

  So, he had taken it.

  When he had left the train at the conglomeration of prefabricated huts, military tents, and a massive and apparently explosion-damaged fusion-power station, he was met by a slightly built Chinese. The man spoke no German but excellent if odd-sounding English. His name was Wing Tse Chau and he was a captain of the Army, attached to Her
r Han and Michael Rourke and their expedition to Tientsin. He handed a letter to Hammerschmidt.

  Hammerschmidt unfolded it, struggling a bit as he read it, his reading knowledge of English once vastly better than his spoken knowledge of the language, until the advent of the Rourke family; now the spoken aspect was much better practised.

  “This will take me a moment, Captain Wing.”

  “Certainly, Captain Hammerschmidt.”

  Hammerschmidt nodded, lighting a cigarette. A stiff wind blew, nearly extinguishing his lighter. And it was cold and damp here. He supposed he noticed it more after the sterile, temperature-controlled environment of the hospital. He realized that he was moving his lips as he read.

  Otto,

  My father and Natalia are missing. We have strong reason to believe that they were taken after encountering a superior force of Soviet commandoes who were part of an attack force on the power station at Lushun. Our only hope of effecting their rescue is to go to where they are likely being held now or will soon be brought: Karamatsov’s Headquarters at Tientsin. If you are well enough, we could use your help and experience.

  It was signed simply, “Michael.” Hammerschmidt folded the letter and placed it in an outside pocket of his

  Wing, I will require your assistance to re-equip.”

  “This has been provided for, Captain Hammerschmidt. Welcome, sir.” And Wing extended his right hand. Hammerschmidt took it, released it, then followed him off the platform toward a waiting electric car… .

  Michael Rourke had learned of Otto Hammerschmidt’s release from the hospital from Han after the Chinese intelligence agent had contacted the First City to notify his superiors in the government, and the Chairman in particular, of the decision to set out for Tientsin. He had learned also that Hammerschmidt would be arriving on the next Special from the First City. For that reason he had decided to wait. It meant a delay of lift-off time amounting to approximately eighteen minutes if Wing Tse Chau made good time from the train depot. Considering Hammerschmidt’s abilities, he had considered the delay justified.