Survivalist - 15.5 - Mid-Wake (39 page)

“We come, comrade marshal, from the great Soviet State beneath the sea.”

“Welcome to my earth,” Karamatsov told him.

“Hail to the Hero Marshal!” The chant went on.

“Comrade marshal. I have a present for you. A small token of our friendship to you.”

“Where is this token?” He had heard the admonition to be wary of Greeks bearing gifts, but his curiosity was oddly piqued.

Colonel Feyedorovitch snapped the second finger and thumb of his right hand and a third of these Russian strangers marched forward, carrying in his hands a casket roughly the size of a typical doctor’s bag. The man stopped at rigid attention beside Feyedorovitch. “If I may, comrade marshal?”

“Please, colonel. Open it.”

The officer dropped to one knee in the sand, Feyedorovitch turning to him, opening the lid of the casket.

Vladmir Karamatsov drew in his breath so deeply he realized it must have sounded like a gasp.

Inside the casket were three items he well recognized.

Two brightly polished stainless-steel .357 Magnum Smith & Wesson Model 686 revolvers, the four-inch barrels

flatted anA r\n the riarht harrel flatc rkf aaph hrtth niatstla

positioned in the velvet-lined casket with the muzzles pointed in the same direction, American Eagles. And beneath them, partially opened, a skeletonized, handled butterfly knife.

“Those are my wife’s custom revolvers and her Bali-Song knife.”

“I understand, comrade marshal, that you are most interested in the fate of Natalia Anastasia Tiemerovna, Major, Committee for State Security of the Soviet Union. And one Doctor John Rourke.”

Karamatsov stepped closer to the casket, taking the revolvers from it and holding them up before his eyes.

“Major Tiemerovna is held in our city awaiting your pleasure. The American, John Rourke, is presumed dead, his body taken away by our enemies, also Americans. The major is yours, of course, and my superiors would like to propose an alliance in order to better prosecute our separate wars against our common enemies.”

Karamatsov swallowed hard, closing his eyes. Antonovitch had reported that John Rourke had been responsible for the breakout at the internment camp. But there had been no sign of Natalia.

And these were indeed her weapons.

Vladmir Karamatsov opened his eyes. “John Rourke has been seen here only hours ago. He appeared well.”

“That—that is impossible, comrade marshal. I—I shot him in the head and witnessed his body fall seven levels down to the ground. He had already been seriously wounded in the abdomen and there was considerable blood loss. His body was dragged away by his American and Chinese accomplices.”

“And Natialia? Where is she?”

“In a detention cell at our city beneath the domes, comrade marshal. She is unharmed and awaits you.”

“With eagerness?”

“No, comrade marshal. With great fear, I think. And she too believes as do I that this Rourke is dead.” “And you bring me these weapons so I will come with

“Yes, comrade marshal. I can assure your safety. You would be our honored guest, a true Hero of the Soviet Peoples, comrade marshal.”

Vladmir Karamatsov studied the revolvers in his hands. They were undoubtedly hers. The knife still partially opened in the velvet-lined casket—it was hers as well.

But was that all that was velvet-lined?

Was it a velvet-lined trap as well… .

Michael Rourke could see Vladmir Karamatsov clearly through the German field glasses. And he could see the revolvers in Karamatsov’s hands. “Natalia’s?” he whispered into the wind. And—in the box … Was it a knife? Natalia’s knife? The Bali-Song she always carried and used with such great deftness?

If these men from the submarine had brought these weapons to Karamatsov, why? As an enticement? A peace offering?

He closed his eyes. “Think, damnit!” he ordered himself.

The raids from the sea spoken of by the Chinese.

Mysterious commandoes. He had seen them himself at the power station. These Russians?

His father and Natalia had been walking by the sea when they had vanished. Signs of a fight. “Think,” he whispered into the wind. These Russians?

He had to know.

They had rendezvoused at the campsite Han had used and now all of them had returned except one.

“Where the hell did he go, man!?”

Paul Rubenstein looked at his wife and then at the Chinese soldier. Ma-Lin approached. “Mrs. Rubenstein— may I perform some service by translating your question to this soldier?”

Paul looked at the Chinese girl. “I think my wife wants to know what happened to her brother, Michael Rourke.” He looked at Annie. “Isn’t that right?”

“Yes,” she almost hissed.

Paul looked at the Chinese girl. “Yeah—that’s what my wife wants to know all right.”

The Chinese girl nodded and proceeded to interrogate the Chinese soldier. Paul Rubenstein looked at his wife. She had said nothing about the fact that the Russians evidently knew nothing concerning the whereabouts of her father and Natalia, which could well mean they would never be found. He would personally refuse to accept that as finality until his dying day, and he knew that both Annie and Michael would do the—

“Miss—quickly. What’s the soldier saying?”

The Chinese girl turned to face him, smiled politely, maddeningly, slowly. “Young Mr. Rourke ordered this man to retard the progress of the vehicle which he drove so that he—young Mr. Rourke—might exit the vehicle successfully. This soldier last saw young Mr. Rourke moving with apparent haste toward the coast and the encampment

of the Soviet Army.”

“Holy shit,” Paul snarled, breaking into a run, Annie right beside him, running for the half-track truck Maria Leuden and Michael had used, Paul shouting to Annie, “You’re not going!”

“They’ve got my father and now they’ve got my brother—the hell I’m not!”

Paul Rubenstein stopped, grabbed Annie by the upper arms, and almost threw her off her feet, shaking her for an instant. “And what the hell good is it going to do if all of us get killed or captured, huh? Tell me that! Would your father want that? Would he want that son of a bitch Karamatsov to win just because there wasn’t anybody left to fight him? And what about your mother and the baby she’s carrying? Tell me about how she’s gonna do if your father is really dead and if they get Michael and then they get you? How the hell is she gonna do, huh? You are not going—not—not at all! You will wait here, guard those damned trucks with Karamatsov’s poison gas, and then get them back safely to the First City. You’ll take charge because somebody’s got to. Understand me, Annie!” He was shouting. He was screaming. He didn’t care. He loved her too much to let her run off and be a fool and die—like he was planning to do.

“If you die—you’re hurting my arms—I love you—hold me, Paul.” Paul Rubenstein took his hands from her and stared at his hands for a long minute, then folded her gently into his arms and touched his lips to her hair.

“I won’t die—I promise,” he told her, having every intention of not dying but feeling somehow that he was lying and that the last thing he would ever tell her he didn’t want to be that—a lie. “I love you,” he told her, raised her face, and kissed her mouth lightly, softly. Then he started for the truck, slinging his Schmeisser forward and extracting the magazine and giving it a good swat on the spine into the palm of his hand. He reinserted the magazine.

He looked back at Annie once, then climbed aboard the

and cut the wheel sharp left and stomped the accelerator hard.

The last thing he had told her hadn’t been a lie… .

John Rourke had decided that things could not wait for tomorrow and he had called the nurse, a pretty black woman in her early thirties with long hair that fell into gentle waves at her shoulders. “I’m getting up and walking today. Now—you can call Doctor Remquist or you can call anybody you like, but I’m walking. So—either help me or when I fall on my face you can say you were a good nurse and didn’t help me because you were following orders. What’s it gonna be?”

“Are you really the John Rourke I read about in the history books—the guy Gundersen spoke of?”

“I guess I am.”

“You could cost me my job.”

“Tell them I intimidated you.”

“Did all men look as good as you back then?”

John Rourke didn’t know how to answer that one and he just smiled.

“You just put both hands on my shoulders and I’ll get you to stand up and then we try it with your arm around my shoulders. If I get fired, I’m gonna enjoy it, Doctor Rourke.”

“What’s your name?” She wore no name tag. “Ellen‘11 do.” “Ellen. Thank you.”

“You let me know how that surgery feel once you stand up and we’ll see if you’re thanking me.” She leaned over him. Her hair smelled like perfume. “Now—hold onto me.”

“If you say so.” He smiled. “It’s a tough job but—” Ellen laughed as he stood up and almost fell against

her. “I know—somebody’s gotta do it. Come on—stand

up.

John Rourke stood to his full height. His abdomen

tin r+ Knt nAt ovtrarwd in a^il\ crv *’ ^C<-––- 1^<> ^ f” — « ” -

Ellen.”

“Why don’t I take you for a walk, Doctor Rourke?” “Good idea.” He started to walk—the first step almost killed him. But the second step wasn’t quite that bad.

Paul Rubenstein abandoned the half-track when he thought he had gotten too dangerously close to the Soviet encampment to risk using it anymore. And then he started to run.

Several times he was forced to stop, to hide in the rocks and wait as a Soviet patrol passed by or a Soviet helicopter gunship passed overhead. And then he moved on.

At last he reached the overlook, Karamatsov’s encampment below and beyond that the sea. Michael would have come here first to assess his chances, then moved down into the camp. To get Vladmir Karamatsov. And Paul had reasoned that from this vantage point he too could perhaps assess his own chances of finding Michael Rourke before it was too late—or backing up Michael Rourke after it was too late.

“Why did you die, John?” Paul Rubenstein said, looking skyward as he approached the edge of the precipice in a low, crouching run. It would be up to him now, he realized. Michael, certainly, but Michael would need a friend if he lived. And if Michael died.

Paul Rubenstein had always prided himself on personal honesty—even more than in his interaction with others in his assessment of himself. He was not the man John Rourke was, could never hope to be. Much that he had learned he had learned from John Rourke. His father and mother, God rest their souls, had raised him to be a decent and caring man, someone who could not only survive in the day-to-day world of the twentieth century,

but could achieve, do. But John Rourke had taken over his education when so much of what he had learned suddenly no longer had a place in the world. John Rourke had taught him at once to be strong enough to survive in a world that had reverted to barbarism, and taught him too how to retain the compassion and humanity his parents had considered so vital.

As he edged now on knees and elbows toward the lip of the precipice, he swore silently that when someday he and Annie had children, he would tell them everything he remembered about John Rourke so they could carry John Rourke with them always and know their heritage.

He moved forward the final yard or so, the Schmeisser in both raised fists.

Paul Rubenstein slumped forward.

It was the size of an aircraft carrier, or larger. But it was a submarine.

He knew his mentor’s son well.

The submarine. The raiders who had attacked the Chinese power installation, like the raiders the Chinese had spoken of who came from the sea and mysteriously returned to it.

If John and Natalia were alive, whoever controlled this submarine knew their fate.

He didn’t look for Michael, because he knew where Michael was or would soon be if such were possible. And he had to be there too.

Paul Rubenstein twisted round and began crawling back from the lip of the precipice, and as soon as he felt he was far enough away, he raised up to his feet and, crouching, ran, the Schemisser still in his fists. If John Rourke were still alive …

Vladmir Karamatsov sipped at his vodka.

“Tell me how you know that these weapons belong to my wife, colonel, and what convinced you that you had killed John Rourke.”

Colonel Boris Feyedorovitch, his hat removed, his short, curly black hair still bearing its impression, had not touched his vodka after the toast. Karamatsov wondered, perhaps, if vodka were no longer a cultural artifact of Soviet civilization where this man came from.

“I was leading a raid against a Chinese power installation along the coast and when I returned, this man and woman were prisoners.”

“How did the raid go?”

“It—ahh—it went badly, comrade marshal—it went … Of course!” Feyedorovitch jumped to his feet, his chair falling over with a loud cracking sound behind him, Karamatsov’s guards storming through the hermetic seal and into the tent.

“Leave us!” And Karamatsov looked into Boris Feyedorovitch’s face.

“At the power facility, comrade marshal. There was a man who was all but physically identical to John Rourke. He carried two pistols, but not the shiny little automatics like John Rourke. And he dressed identically to John Rourke. He—he had a revolving-cylinder gun as well. He and another man who was shorter than he but fought very bravely—”

“The other man—describe him, colonel. And sit down,

please.”

Feyedorovitch picked up his chair, righted it, and, almost as though his mind were totally consumed with something else, sat down. “The other man—yes—he— ahh—he was not as tall or obviously muscular as this twin of John Rourke, but he was a very courageous fighter. He—”

“This other man’s appearance. Was his hair thinning?”

“Yes—John Rourke and this man who looked just like him had high foreheads, but hair as thick as yours, comrade marshal, or mine. But this other one—he dressed very much like the man who was John Rourke and this other man he fought beside. But his hair was much thinner. Ahh—”