Survivalist - 15.5 - Mid-Wake (18 page)

He set his loaded pistol down beside him, water splashing on it, but the steel of the little Detonics pistols was as rustproof as the case of his Rolex watch. He was shivering, but kept his hand beneath the water. He inspected his forearm—no blisters there, and apparently no contact from the acid. He took the empty pistol from his belt, buttoning out the magazine, taking a fresh one from his musette bag, inserting it one-handed, pushing it home against his left knee. He worked the slide stop with his left thumb and the slide snapped forward. He raised the safety and set the little .45 beside the first one. The empty magazine he dropped into the musette bag. His eyes scanned toward the door. No one yet.

His left hand searched the musette bag. Medical kit. He needed his full bag but that was somewhere on the land above as well.

A B-complex shot—he administered it to himself, first cleaning the skin with an alcohol swab. It was a reusable syringe and he replaced it in the kit. He twisted open the cap on the hollow handle of his knife. He found the German painkillers, taking four of them, because of the pain and because of their weakness, with a mouthful of water cupped from the sink in his left hand. The water tasted processed, but was clear.

There was a cup beside the sink, half-filled with water, and there was no sign of settled sediment. He shook his head. The German spray was both an antiseptic and healing agent. He closed his eyes against what was to come, then sprayed his right hand, a scream involuntarily issuing from him, floaters over his eyes from the pain. He sagged against the laboratory sink top, feeling faint.

Rourke opened his eyes. He had covered all of the blisters.

“Bandage,” he hissed.

From the small medical kit, he took the necessary items and began to wrap his hand, flexing it despite the pain because he would need both hands soon again.

The hand bandaged now, he replaced the remaining elements of the emergency medical kit in his musette bag, picking up his knife again, washing the blade of blood beneath the spigot, then wiping it dry against his trouser leg. He sheathed the knife, securing the safety strap only.

Rourke stabbed one of the twin stainless Detonics into his belt, the other taken up in his left hand.

He started for his original destination, the double swinging doors. He caught up the gym bag in his bandaged right fist, pain again washing over him.

John Rourke lurched through them, the pistol balled tight in his left fist.

When he saw what lay beyond them, Rourke murmured, “Mother of God.”

There were cages, and inside the cages were men.

Some were Chinese, but others were not. White men. Black men, some of them obviously in terrible condition, growths on their bodies, skin rashes covering large portions of their flesh, others with dazed expressions.

And Rourke heard a voice above the moaning sounds, the Russian sounding terrible. “What are you planning for us now, you bastard?”

John Rourke turned toward the sound of the voice. A tall, well-built black man, his clothes some sort of uniform once, but now in rags. The color of his skin was gray, bespeaking poor health.

Rourke called back to him. “Russian is not your first language, and certainly not your best. What is your language?”

“Fuck you!”

Rourke grinned. The epithet had been in English, the accent American. John Rourke started for the cage. “Say that again and as soon as you’re well enough, I’ll kick the shit out of you,” Rourke told him in English, smiling, stopping just before the cage.

“What the hell kinda trick is this?”

“You an American?”

“Damn right I am—and proud of it.”

“Music to my ears, buddy,” and John Rourke began inspecting the lock on the cage as he continued to speak. “Keys? Where are they?”

“You really—”

“My name’s John Rourke. The uniform’s ‘borrowed.’ This bag is filled with Sty-20s and a couple of .357 Magnums. Ever heard of those?” The man didn’t answer. “How about a .45?” Rourke gestured with the Detonics mini-gun in his left hand. “I pledge allegiance, to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation—”

The black prisoner joined him..”—under God, indivisible—”

Another voice joined and then another, some of the voices so feeble-sounding they seemed barely human. “— with liberty and justice for all.”

There were tears in the black man’s eyes. Rourke felt a shiver along his spine.

The black man said, “I don’t know where they keep the keys.”

“Then stand back—take that mattress and cover yourself with it and get in the corner of the cage. I’m shooting the lock. Go on and hurry.”

The man drew back, catching up the mattress, taking shelter in the farthest corner of the cage as John Rourke leveled the Detonics toward the lock and stepped back a few paces. He took aim, averted his eyes slightly against the possibility of flying debris, then fired. The noise was earsplittingly loud, and as Rourke looked toward the lock plate, it seemed heavily damaged. “Come on, buddy— push!” Rourke grabbed a handful of bar and mesh, the man inside the cage bracing his right shoulder against it. “Now!” As Rourke pulled, the black man pushed, the lock snapping and the cage door swinging open, Rourke moving back to catch his balance.

The black man almost sprang from the cage. “Who are you? You’re not from Mid-Wake.”

“I’m not from Mid-Wake—I don’t even know what Mid-Wake is except something that some of these Soviets are afraid of. I’m an American. And there are a few left like me. I can’t take the time to explain it all now. And I don’t feel like wasting ammunition on the rest of these cage doors so if you’re up to it, look for the keys or a pry bar.”

“What happened to your hand—they been experimenting on you too?”

“No—big guy out there. Built like a bear—”

“A bear? How the hell would you know what a bear looked like except out of a book or a vid-tape?”

John Rourke smiled. “I got into an argument with one once. But that’s another story. You need help or can I stay by the door out there and wait for company with this?” And Rourke raised the little Deltonics .45 in his left hand, flicking up the safety.

“I can do it.”

“Figured you could—here …” And Rourke dropped to his knees beside the gym bag. He took out one of the Sty-20s, the man recoiling from it. “Take it—I’ll put the rest out on the floor here. Watch out, though—they’re not all fully loaded and I haven’t found a spare magazine in this whole damn place.” Rourke set the pistols out, caught up the bag in his bandaged right hand and rose to his full height, a little woozy still from the pain.

“Thanks—I think,” the man said. He extended his right hand. Rourke gestured with his bandaged right, then gambled, putting the Detonics in his belt and extending his left hand inverted. They clasped hands.

“You’re welcome, I think.” Rourke grinned.

Then he started through the doors and across the laboratory to guard the main entrance to the lab.

Maria Leuden felt terrified, and tried to evaluate the source of her terror. She was alone in the back of a Russian army truck, hiding beneath a tarp surrounded by containers of synthetic fuel. The truck was surrounded by at least several thousand Soviet troops because she was in the midst of the principal Soviet encampment. Michael Rourke, Paul Rubenstein, and her fellow countryman Otto Hammerschmidt had left the truck shortly after Paul had driven them in, leaving her behind despite the uniform they had stolen for her. And it was even a woman’s uniform. But Michael had told her that now she might be in danger. That she should stay in the truck. She should wait.

She had been raised to believe that women were equal to men in all things, but that women should defer to a man’s judgment when necessary. She had considered it necessary and deferred. She was beginning to regret it.

Her chief fear was for Michael, although she feared for them all. Both Paul and Otto had become good friends since she had first flown from New Germany to Lydveldid Island and joined the pursuit of Vladmir Karamatsov. But Michael had become her lover. His wife had just been murdered, along with his unborn child. And together with Hammerschmidt and Michael she had gone to Egypt in pursuit of some mysterious weapon of destruction, her skills as an archaeologist and authority on ancient Egypt her only qualification.

She was no soldier, no adventurer.

She had learned both the hard way.

She had been drawn to Michael instantly, and moved by the sadness which pervaded every element of his being.

And one night—after many nights when she had fallen asleep thinking of him—he had come to her, made her his.

If this insane war ever ended—

Maria Leuden had no choice but to wait, hope… .

Midday. Annie Rourke Rubenstein stood on the terrace overlooking the First City, listening for the knock at her door.

And at last it came.

She ran to the door, unaccustomed to the higher heels of the Chinese shoes and nearly falling, reaching the door, sagging against it, opening it, smoothing her dress against her thighs, her fingers splayed with tension as she stepped back. The Chairman himself had come again. “Mrs. Rubenstein. I thought that I should tell you personally.” Her heart skipped a beat. “There has been no word from your husband, your brother, or any of the rest of the rescue party, including our agent Han.”

“Then I’m going, sir.”

“I wish you would reconsider, Mrs. Rubenstein. It could be very dangerous.”

She inhaled, lowering her shoulders. “Maria Leuden went with them.”

“Doctor Leuden accompanied them simply because of her reading knowledge of the Russian language. That is the only reason.”

Annie looked him straight in the eyes. “I’m going. Alone if I have to.”

“Not alone then. But it will consume some time in order to mount a second expedition, Mrs. Rubenstein.”

“Not too much time, Mr. Chairman.” He merely nodded and turned back into the corridor. Annie closed the door behind him and flattened her hands against the joint of door and frame, leaning her face against the backs

of her hands. Her father had told her that persistence in the face of adversity was a virtue. And she had read that a virtuous woman was more valuable than rubies.

Olav Kerenin entered the room and she realized she had fallen into sleep, dreaming. “Major Tiemerovna?”

She looked at him. “Would you unbind me? I have to go to the bathroom.”

“Your heroic John Rourke has temporarily escaped death.”

“I assume he would. I still have to go to the bathroom,” Natalia told him. He had drawn the shades or curtains, she realized, and the room was nearly dark.

“I wish to have you for my woman.”

“Apparently you leave me little choice,” and she tugged at the bonds at her wrists and ankles which held her on her back in the bed.

“I would make you take me now, but he will be coming here. If he makes it this far. I have men stationed everywhere. And I will wait for him myself outside this door. So, I am afraid, I cannot unbind you at the moment, Major Tiemerovna. But after he is dead, before I must surrender you to your husband, Marshal Karamatsov, I will have you.”

“And when I tell Vladmir he will have you killed.”

“Somehow, Comrade Major Tiemerovna, that does not matter to me at all.” He opened the door and the light beyond was bright and flooded over her on the bed, and then the door closed and the room was darker than before.

Natalia closed her eyes. “Don’t come for me, John— save yourself.”

He had detected movement at the end of the corridor and the alarms within the prison had stopped sounding.

Rourke heard the black man’s voice coming from behind him. “The alarms stopped.”

“They know I’m here.”

“Then we’re trapped—shit!”

“Yeah—but we have weapons—and we have this.” John Rourke had not been idle while he waited for the man he had released to release the other prisoners held for experimentation.

“We’re not being captured again. Any of us.” “We have this,” Rourke repeated, pointing toward a large plastic container on the laboratory table. “What’s that smell?”

“This.” Rourke smiled. “Know anything about chemistry?”

“Not much.”

“To become a doctor of medicine—that’s what I am by trade—at least in my day you had to study chemistry. So I mixed a few chemicals available here. That’s a firebomb. But it won’t do us much good if there isn’t more than one way out of that corridor out there.”

The man looked toward the doors, then at the container of combustible chemicals. “Just deeper into the prison.”

“How many men in there?”

“You mean … Yeah,” and the man grinned.

Rourke looked toward the swinging doors which led from the room in which he had found this man and the others caged. And now the others were coming, those in better condition helping those in poorer condition, in all almost a dozen of them, each man clinging to some sort of weapon, one of the Sty-20s or a pry bar or simply a bar rooted out of one of the cages.

Rourke peered through the door into the corridor again. “We’ll have to move rather quickly. The men who don’t have anything more than clubs can take charge of the men who can’t move too well. Anybody speak Chinese?”

There were five Chinese among the freed men.

“No—but we learned to talk a little bit among ourselves at nights. I can tell ‘em what you want. You’re a doctor?”

“Yeah—but I used to be with the Central Intelligence Agency—a long while back.”

The black man laughed, but his eyes didn’t. “You’re bullshitting me. I read about the CIA. That’s from before the Great War.”

“Is that what you call it?” Rourke was moving the improvised firebomb nearer to the door. “At Mid-Wake? Where’s that?”

“You get us out of here, you’ll find out. And I’m buying the first drink.”

“You’re on.” Rourke nodded. “But after we clear the prison, there’s somebody else I still have to free.”

“Rourke—that’s your name?”

“How about yours?” Rourke asked, the container in position now, ready to be used.

“Aldridge, Samuel Bennett, Captain, First Battalion, B Company out of Mid-Wike, United States Marine Corps.”