Survivalist - 15.5 - Mid-Wake (4 page)

Michael was examining the sand near her feet and, suddenly aware of him, she took a halting step back.

“What is it, Michael?”

“Heel mark from a Vietnam-era combat boot. See?” And he gestured with his right index finger to some ridges in the sand that seemed barely distinguishable in the beam of his flashlight from ordinary patterns in the sand. But she assumed Michael Rourke was right, as he invariably proved to be, as his father always was.

Paul Rubenstein and Han, the Chinese intelligence agent, each dropped into a crouch, flanking Michael. As she looked down at them she had the silly thought that some uninformed observer might think that three men were proposing to her at once. As a little girl she had read forbidden books that her mother had stored in a trunk in the hall closet, the books so old and musty-smelling that their memory was almost physical to her. And in these books men would sometimes drop to one knee to profess their love and sue for the hand of their lady.

Michael Rourke stood to his full height and suddenly she was looking up at him, into his eyes, his face intermittently in shadow and in light from the flashlight beams which played over the beach. The surf was loud, the wind louder, but as Michael spoke again she had no difficulty discerning his voice. “It appears he was alone. Now why would Natalia have left him?”

She wanted to tell Michael that she thought she knew why—Natalia loved Michael’s father and Michael’s father was married to Michael’s mother^Sarah, and they expected a baby, and Natalia felt useless and afraid inside. It was the way she herself had felt after the death of Michael’s wife had made him “available” and she had found herself insanely in love with Michael and he had refused all affection in his all-consuming sadness and lust for revenge. But then Michael had come to her in the night and made love to her and she had known that it would somehow … She didn’t know what. “I don’t know, Michael,” she told him, because she really didn’t know why Natalia would have walked away from John Rourke here on the beach. She would not have walked away from Michael.

Han’s radio was making static sounds and she heard a voice that would have been one of the defense force people speaking through it to him. He answered in Chinese and then announced in English; “Your friend, Mr. Rolvaag— he has found something.”

Michael, Paul in step with him, took off down the beach. Maria Leuden, hugging her coat around her, both hands in her pockets now, ran after him, her modesty be damned. Han was shouting orders to his men as she ran past him. The wind felt good in her hair, despite the cold and damp. She had felt more alive since she had left New Germany than she had ever felt there, and the only way she would return to it would be if Michael took her there, because she would always be with him. She kept running, breathless by the time she stopped. Rolvaag was stooped over, peering into the sand, his huge dog sniffing, whining, sniffing, moving between Rolvaag and some spot in the sand further along the beach, running, skidding in the sand on his hind feet, running again.

Michael was crouched beside the red-haired, red-bearded man. Maria heard occasional snatches of what Michael called “pigeon” English and Icelandic being exchanged over the heightening wind and the encroaching surf. About a battle or something.

Michael clapped Rolvaag on the shoulder, grabbed a handful of Hrothgar at the scruff of the neck and petted the animal vigorously. He looked up at Maria. “Bjorn seems to think there was a fight here. Several men with strange-looking footgear—I think they must have been wearing scuba gear.”

“Scuba?”

“Self-contained underwater breathing apparatus. For diving.”

“Ohh, yes.” She nodded, recalling the term now. “But what would these scuba swimmers be doing here?”

Michael stood. “Logic supported by the physical evidence dictates that for some reason Natalia and my father split up further down the beach—back where I found that heel print. And then they got involved in some sort of

fight here with these persons in flippers.” ” Flippers—ohh, flippers.’”

At some time in the interim, Natalia and my father must have gotten together again. But then, there are these deeper ridges in the sand as if something was dragged into the water.”

“Your father and Natalia?” she asked, frightened for them.

Paul Rubenstein answered her. “No—not heel prints or anything like that. Heavy objects, almost appearing cylindrical in shape. Most of the impressions are gone now, wiped away with the tide coming in, Maria. Looks like big tanks or something.”

Michael hugged her to him and she rested her head against his right shoulder, his parka feeling rough against her cheek. She liked the feeling and she felt warmed now. “Must be Karamatsov,” Michael whispered.

She stared up into his face, visible only partly in the light of Paul’s flashlight. When Paul spoke, she still watched Michael. “If Karamatsov’s been behind these raids Han’s been telling us about—”

Maria Leuden shivered.

“Your Soviet nemesis.” Han said slowly. “Perhaps he was preparing for some time to penetrate China in search of his nuclear weapons. And if he has seapower…” The Chinese let the thought hang.

Maria Leuden could see Michael’s eyes now, narrowed almost to slits. “If he has seapower,” Michael said slowly, “then he’ll be using his divers to go after those missiles, to recover them from the train wreck.”

“Either a submarine or—shit,” Paul Rubenstein snarled, slamming his open left palm against his submachine gun, making the metal parts rattle like something cheap. “An island, maybe—ahh—”

Han spoke. “Surely Doctor Leuden’s friends in New Germany would have detected such an island. Or, for that matter, could they not have detected a submarine? Hmm? This is most baffling.”

Michael said, “You’ve been experiencing these raids for

some time now. And never an inkling of the source, Han?”

She nuzzled closer to Michael, burying her nose in the front of her coat. “This is the first defeat—the first true defeat that these seaborne invaders have encountered at our hands. They strike with uncanny quickness and withdraw into the sea, below the surface where we cannot follow them. And then at sunset!” And he threw up his hands in disgust.

Maria spoke. “They just exploded bombs attached to their own people—that is barbaric. Would even this Karamatsov…” And then she fell silent, because Maria Leuden knew Karamatsov seemed capable of any evil.

“We have encountered these personal explosive devices before. They prevent the taking and interrogation of prisoners, the inspection of equipment to determine origin. I believe the English word is ‘insidious.’ “

“Could be,” Michael Rourke whispered. When he talked she could feel the vibration in his chest. “Maria?” And Michael looked down at her, touching the tips of his fingers to her chin, raising her face. “Do you have any idea what your country might have in terms of under-ocean capabilities?”

“Our commandoes have no training in undersea operations, as far as I know. But they don’t tell archaeologists everything.” She smiled.

Michael nodded. “All right—open to suggestions.”

Paul Rubenstein spoke, his gloved right hand brushing at his nose. “We have to find Karamatsov’s headquarters, Michael. And then get inside.” Paul’s wife, Annie, had told Maria that Paul had once worn glasses and sometimes, when he was tired or “uptight” as Annie put it, he would still brush against his nose as though pushing his glasses in place. When Michael had kissed Maria when she had joined him in the courtyard of the power station after the attack was repelled, he had made her glasses fog.

“If these men who attacked the power station took my father and Natalia and took them alive, then once these guvs realized who thev had, they’d get them to Karamat

sov as quickly as possible. Promotion time. So, if they survived the fight and were somehow immobilized or so outnumbered that they had no choice, Natalia and my father’d still be alive. If one of Karamatsov’s men captured a Rourke and didn’t bring his prize to Karamatsov for disposition, he’d be in such deep trouble that he’d wish he had never been born. No—if whoever these troops were took them alive, they’re still alive. And if they were killed—if they were killed, there would have been no sense in taking off the bodies. Their presence was already detected if this took place after the raid, or soon would have been if it took place before the raid.” Michael looked up and down the beach, then out to sea. “It seems likely they were using this as some sort of staging area and spotted my dad and Natalia by accident. Shit.”

“I’ll get Lieutenant Keefler and his people airborne. Maybe—aw, hell.” Paul Rubenstein stomped off across the sand into the night, the beam of his flashlight bouncing up and down as he cut over a dune and toward the rocks beyond. Then even his backlit silhouette disppeared.

Han said, “I regret that harm may have befallen such a fine man as your father and such a noble woman as Major Tiemerovna, Michael. I speak on behalf of the Chairman, I am sure, and certainly on my own behalf. Whatever can be done—er—I am truly sorry,” and he walked away along the surf. Rolvaag, perhaps because he was unable to understand English, had drifted off already, Maria seeing him now for an instant along the beach, then losing him as he passed behind some rocks.

She was alone with Michael. He just held her, didn’t speak.

It was hard to consider the possibility of John Rourke’s death, and when she tried, it frightened her more than anything she had ever known. Because to consider the mortality of the father was to consider the mortality of the son, and without him she would wither and die.

“Michael?”

He turned toward her and she felt his arms encircle her, and she took her hands from her pockets and inched them

under his coat and around his waist. His left hand reached to her face and plucked away her glasses. She touched her lips to his fingers. He brought his mouth down over hers and she sank against him.

In the short time since they had become lovers, she had found that sometimes there was a desperation in him, and she felt it in him tonight.

He had crawled toward Natalia, and Natalia toward him. At first they sat back to back to work at loosening each other’s bonds. Then finally, in desperation, Rourke dropped to his chest behind her and tried to work at the restraints with his teeth. After a few moments, he realized that perhaps a rat could have gnawed through them, but no human could.

Then the door opened.

And it began again.

The tall man carried Rourke’s knives and Natalia’s knife in his hands, holding them as if his palms were somehow the baskets of scales as he spoke. “Translate.”

The balding man responded to the direct order. And John Rourke learned that their inquisitor was named Kerenin, was a major. And non-Naval rank here aboard this undersea vessel only compounded the mystery.

“Strip her and search her,” the tall man ordered.

John Rourke could not react to the words because they had been spoken in Russian. He felt his neck and shoulders tense, saw the muscles around Natalia’s eyes tighten.

The translator began his work.

At the appropriate word, Rourke started to shout at Kerenin, “You bastard—you cannot do that!”

Apparently there was no need for translation, intonation and facial expression sufficient to convey meaning. Kerenin set down the edged weapons, then stepped toward him and slapped him backhanded across the mouth, Rourke letting his head sag away an instant before impact

to diminish the effect of the blow.

When Kerenin had reentered the compartment, aside from the men who had originally accompanied him and the conventionally uniformed translator, there were three others, two of them women, all three of them wearing white coveralls with something that could have been medical insignia emblazoned over the heart—a similar insignia worn like a shoulder brassard—all three of them dark-haired, nearly Kerenin’s own height, the women included. And all three of them looked simultaneously unpleasant and bored. The boredom in the eyes of one of the women seemed to wane now as she approached Natalia.

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.”