Survivalist - 15.5 - Mid-Wake (2 page)

The man collapsed, his body inches from the now-unconscious woman.

Kerenin holstered his sidearm. “One of you—radio, along the coast. Have Captain Feyedorovitch send back a detail. Bags for the dead. A medtech.” He dropped to one knee in the sand between the unconscious man and woman.

He could see their guns, partially obscured by sand kicked over them during the fighting. The handguns looked to be antiques. Kerenin picked up the two knives, the one the size and heft of something vastly more than a knife. He had seen history tapes which told of huge knives called swords being used by rich landowners to hack to death unarmed medieval farmers who protested for agrarian reform. This seemed to be such a knife. The knife the woman had used was little larger than a medical implement. As he inspected the edge, he deduced it would be just as sharp.

He could hear one of the wounded men using the radio and calling for assistance.

Olav Kerenin stood. The man and the woman. Their appearances seemed—he could not give words to his thoughts. They were not Chinese.

But somehow, he could not bring himself to think they were from Mid-Wake either… .

The communication came through his helmet radio on the inter-unit band, the helmet radio passively activated. He whispered into the chin piece. “Detach six men, one of them Nicolai Konstantin.” He dismissed the communique now, the comrade major’s passion for beautiful women something Feyedorovitch had learned to tolerate over the years since his promotion to second in command of the Expeditionary Spetznas, something which this time at least had gotten Kerenin into some difficulty.

It was hard to imagine a solitary woman inflicting such casualties on Alexandre and his six men. He amused himself with the thought that Kerenin’s two personal guards might have joined the battle against her. Perhaps Kerenin himself.

Feyedorovitch spoke into the microphone, which was set into his helmet chin guard, again. ‘First Unit—move out along the perimeter wall. Now!”

He watched the lieutenant move his men forward, crouched, in single file, their AKM-96s close to then-chests. Feyedorovitch looked to his own weapon, tugging at the forty-round magazine to make certain it was properly seated. He eyed First Unit’s progress along the power-station wall, speaking into his helmet radio again. “Second Unit. Begin penetration—now!”

The second element moved off toward his left, racing to the wall, Feyedorovitch watching. The three squad leaders fired their pneumatic L-18 launchers from hip level with a soft whooshing sound, the grappling hooks flying upward to the top of the wall, the ropes uncoiling behind them. As the hooks connected, two men ran forward, deadweighting the ropes, then starting the climb along the wall surface.

“Third Unit—advance on the wall. Penetrate—now!” Feyedorovitch was up, his corporal beside him as he ran, the three squad leaders of Third Unit firing their L-18s, Feyedorovitch starting up the nearest of the three ropes. He could still make a wall faster than any of his men, even the younger ones who were half his age.

Feyedorovitch attained the height of the wall. From this greater elevation, the setting sun could still be seen. He flipped the safety tumbler, his right thumb in the AKM-96’s thumb hole as he started along the wall, Second-Unit personnel already moving along the perimeter. He watched as soundlessly they penetrated the guard tower. Second-Unit personnel were everywhere on the wall now, coiling their garrotes, sheathing their knives, dead Chinese bodies littering the catwalk.

Feyedorovitch stopped beside the guard tower. Two Second-Unit men exited and poled down the skeleton ladder, Feyedorovitch tapping one of them on the shoulder, gesturing toward the open flap of his holster. The Spetznas secured it shut and ran on, unlimbering his AKM-96.

Feyedorovitch checked his chronometer. First Unit would launch the decoy frontal assault on the entrance to

the power-station complex in exactly forty-three seconds. He continued on along the wall and, finding suitable cover, dropped behind it. He took another reading on the time. Then he spoke into his helmet radio over the inter-unit band.

“We open fire on my signal. I fire the first shot.”

He raised the weapon to his shoulder, fixing the integral carrying-handle-mounted optical sight on three white-cov-eralled Chinese standing in the courtyard of the administration building. He was mentally ticking off the seconds.

Feyedorovitch fired a burst, then another and another, gunfire from his men along the wall general now, explosive charges. detonating by the double gates leading into the power-station grounds, First Unit coming over the downed gates as the smoke cleared. Chinese defense force personnel were filling the courtyard, and Feyedorovitch ordered, “Second-Unit and Third-Unit demolition teams—move out!”

Three men from each side of the wall hurled ropes over the wall, then rappelled at high speed into the courtyard, First-Unit personnel drawing back toward the main gates, sucking the majority of the Chinese defenders after them. Feyedorovitch magazined another forty rounds up the well of his AKM-96. Light machine guns had opened up on both sides of the wall, firing into the courtyard now, Feyedorovitch moving along the perimeter to better observe the demolitions teams. As two men from each team put down suppressive fire, the third laid out long gray ropes of Synthex along the ten-meter-high walls of the domed powerhouse, setting detonators.

But Feyedorovitch’s eyes were drawn away from the demolition teams—three men near the gates, one dressed in the effeminate style of Chinese leisure attire, and two others in faded, light-blue, close-fitting trousers, military-looking boots, and ordinary shirts. The Chinese was wielding what looked to be a captured AKM-96, one of the other two men, his forehead high and his hair obviously thinning, firing some sort of antique firearm that looked like a hybrid of an assault rifle and a pistol. But he

fired it with devastating effect. The third man was the tallest of the three and the other two men flanked him, black pistols in either hand, firing as the three cut then-way toward the powerhouse. The man with the two pistols—his thick hair blowing in the heat wind from the fires which burned near the gates—looked extraordinarily fit, lean yet powerfully muscled.

The pistols in the third man’s hand had apparently been expended of ammunition. He stuffed them into the wide belt at his waist and drew another handgun, this unlike anything Feyedorovitch had ever seen, yet its nature unmistakable. It gleamed in the light from the fires and when it fired, a tongue of flame perhaps fifteen centimeters in length licked from the barrel, the muzzle of the pistol rising as if from the concussion of the shot. Feyedorovitch realized the pistol had to be of immense power because, even with his AKM-96 on full-auto mode, its muzzle rise was minimal. And neither of the two men with the Chinese were Chinese.

The taller of the two non-Chinese men, the one with the fantastically powerful handgun, was nearing the demolition teams now.

Feyedorovitch spoke into his helmet radio. “Demolition teams—what is apparently some special defensive unit is closing with you.” Feyedorovitch raised his AKM-96 to his right shoulder, finding the tall man with the spectacular handgun in the rifle’s optical sight. As Feyedorovitch squeezed the trigger, the tall man vanished from his scope and a member of one of the demolition teams took the burst.

Feyedorovitch cursed under his breath, finding the tall man again. He could see him, staring up at the wall. As Feyedorovitch readied to fire, he recoiled, a tongue of flame leaping toward him as if through the scope itself. A chunk of the wall beside him ripped upward as he fell back.

Feyedorovitch, on his knees now, hands shaking as they grasped his rifle, saw the tall man, a knife in his right

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some sort of mighty hammer as he attacked the demolition team nearest him. His knife hacked into one man’s throat, the butt of his pistol lacerating another man beneath the lip of his battle helmet. The Chinese and the man with the thinning hair joined him now, closing with the second demolition team.

Feyedorovitch shouted into his helmet radio. “Unit Two and Unit Three—concentrate all fire on the three men attacking the demolition teams by the walls of the powerhouse I” But as he said it, Feyedorovitch realized it was too late, Chinese defense forces seeming to rally from their impending defeat, pushing Unit One forces back through the gates, other Chinese defenders taking up positions of cover and concentrating heavy automatic weapons fire on the walls.

Feyedorovitch looked once more to the Chinese man and his two unorthodox companions. They had AKM-96s now, firing at isolated groups of Spetznas still inside the compound, the effect of their fire devastating. With a dozen men like these, Feyedorovitch realized, he could do anything.

He spoke into his helmet radio. “First Unit. Withdraw to the assembly point and control the main entrance into the compound to cover withdrawal of Second Unit and Third Unit from the wall. First Unit—break off now!”

Feyedorovitch began moving toward the outer edge of the wall. Three men had turned another easy victory in the long history of lightning raids against the Chinese coastal deployments into the first defeat suffered at Chinese hands since the raids had begun.

He looked back once, saying into his helmet radio, “Second Unit. Disengage now! Third Unit—support Second Unit’s withdrawal with suppressive fire into the compound. Move out, Second Unit!”

Feyedorovitch hurled his rappelling rope over the wall, planting the Scatter Frequency Detonator, flipping the lock, setting the timer for three minutes, activating the detonator switch, then flipping back the lock into the closed position.

“Third Unit—disengage now! Move out!” He locked the carabiner on his utility belt into the modified figure-eight descender and started over the wall, slinging his rifle onto his shoulder to free both hands. He was over the side, his left gloved hand feeding rope, his right controlling the rate of descent. As he reached the ground at the outside base of the wall, he unsheathed his knife and cut himself free of the line.

A glance at his chronometer told him two minutes and eighteen seconds remained until the Scatter Frequency Detonator activated.

“First Unit—cover withdrawal of Second Unit and Third Unit until you receive my signal. Second Unit. Third Unit. Withdraw to beach. Move out now!” Feyedorovitch broke into a dead run, gunfire from the walls raining down on him now, the Chinese defenders having retaken positions along the wall, he realized.

He kept running.

Each Spetznas wore an explosives pack on his equipment belt, hard-armored against any known projectile. Within the pack was a micro-receiver tuned to receive a specific three-band combination signal. Feyedorovitch had activated a Scatter Frequency Detonator only once before, years ago during his first cycle of Surface Training when he had been recently commissioned as an officer of Spetznas. But during training, no one had died as the result.

When the Scatter Frequency Detonator activated, anyone of the Spetznas living or dead within a two-hundred-meter radius would be vaporized.

He kept running, a minute left. “First Unit—remove belt packs^I say again—remove explosives packs. I have activated a Scatter Frequency Detonator which will initiate demolition in fifty-seven seconds.”

He kept running. But he had at least given First Unit a chance. The ground rose sharply and Feyedorovitch and his Spetznas followed the rise, the smell of the sea beyond powerful, seductive, his eyes darting back to his wrist and thp diodp. count on his nhmtinmptor

As they cleared the rise, he knew they had more than the required safety margin. And he heard the first of the explosions, coming then with machine-gun rapidity. He kept running, seeing the ocean now, beckoning to him… .

Translucent wings. Bulbous heads. It was a dream. The creatures flew through the water. He saw them through his window. He had not dreamed since the Sleep, really. But this was a nightmare. He could not move. He could not wake up. Natalia was somewhere in the nightmare and he couldn’t remember where. He watched the creatures, their movement through the water which seemed to surround him—but he wasn’t wet—like birds through the air. There had been birds. But these birds were at once monstrous and graceful. His mouth was dry. His head ached so badly that he wondered if, when he awoke, it would still ache. The light in the water was not natural light, but lights emanating from the winged creatures’ heads and hands and—There were things like huge sausages that bubbled through the water. These too had lights. He decided to try to move his head and perhaps the dream would go away. He moved his head and could see more through the little window, and in the distance there was a great, black shape, substance out of shadow. He had seen something that big in the water before. But why was an aircraft carrier deep in the water here?

The creatures with the translucent wings seemed to be lining up, like some sort of bizarre military formation, and he tried moving his head again to see better through the window. He laughed at himself—this was one hell of a dream, he thought. Perhaps his perceptions of such surreality were so realistic because he hadn’t dreamed since the Sleep, not consciously anyway. His mind making up for lost time, he told himself. The creatures with the translucent wings and bulbous heads were definitely slowing now. The aircraft-carrier-sized thing was in fact a submarine, but of such monstrous proportions that in

itself it was a more fantastic element of the dream than the winged creatures. It seemed so long as he floated closer to it that he could see neither stem nor stern. An Ohio Class Trident nuclear submarine—he searched for details—was 550 feet. He shook his head and it hurt, badly. No, 560 feet. That was it. This was easily twice that length and— The beam of the vessel. They were starting under it, the winged creatures extinguishing their lights as a yellow light flooded the water now, Rourke squinting his eyes against its brightness.

The winged creatures were hovering near the light—and they did look like giant insects, more than birds, he thought, flying around the light for its warmth and brightness. He doubted he would remember the dream, had never really made a conscious effort to remember a dream. Dreams had nothing to do with reality, he had long ago convinced himself, and because of that, they were of little concern except that they sometimes ruined a valuable sleep cycle.