Survivalist - 12 - The Rebellion

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Title : #12 : THE REBELLION

Series : Survivalist

Author(s) : Jerry Ahern

Location : Gillian Archives

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The doctor aboard Eden One had done his work well— assessing the situation as soon as he was able after reviving from the criogenic sleep, he had ordered an additional transfusion for Michael and then begun to work on Paul Rubenstein, Sarah acting as his nurse, Rourke’s hands bandaged and unable to physically assist, but aiding the man through consultation. Natalia had initially bandaged his hands and Rourke smiled thinking of it, remembering that she had almost seemed to blush when the doctor from Eden One—Jim Hixon—had told her it was a better bandage than he could have done himself. And Rourke had laughed—as an M.D. himself he knew perfectly well that it was, however sincerely meant, a hollow compliment. Doctors rarely bandaged, and nurses always did it better. But Hixon had undone the bandages and treated Rourke’s hands—rope burns, abrasions and cuts. And Rourke had laughed again, because Hixon had asked Natalia to do the fresh re-bandaging.

John Rourke sat now, the rain stopped long since, on a broad flat rock beyond the perimeter of the camp, his rifle on the rock beside him. He wore the double Alessi shoulder rig with the twin stainless Detonics .45s. With his hands bandaged as they were, however, he doubted he could get to the Detonics pistols with any alacrity. But his CAR-15 would be accessible.

Eden Two had landed an hour after the rain had stopped. The four remaining shuttle craft would be landing over the next two days. Dodd, Lerner, and Styles had, at Rourke’s urging, taken over setting up security details composed of the gradually reawakening passengers. But Rourke, the only living man as best he knew to have taken the sleep twice, well knew the physical state of the revived sleepers. Jim Hixon had several times during the operation on Paul Rubenstein been forced to stop, to sit down, to rest.

The human body was not made to bounce back easily from five centuries of inactivity.

Rourke lit the thin, dark tobacco cigar that he had held clenched in his teeth for more than an hour, tossing the Zippo in his hands, by the moonlight almost able to discern the initials J.T.R. engraved there. He pocketed the lighter, careful of his bandaged knuckles, inhaling the smoke deep into his lungs, then exhaling it. The cigars Annie had learned to make for him were good—and again he wondered if part of the flavor was because his own daughter had made them for him, knowing he would want them when he awoke. But he had determined to cut down his consumption—good health would be even more important in the weeks and months and years to come.

He assessed their situation.

Michael was already stronger due to the transfusions and—Rourke admitted to himself—his own surgical abilities. Paul’s wounds should heal, though Paul too had losl considerable blood. He worried now not seriously about either his son or his best friend. Madison, the girl Michae had saved from the savages which had surrounded Th< Place, the girl whom Rourke was certain even now carriec his grandchild in her womb, would care for Michael, nurs< him as no other could. And Paul—he smiled at th< thought. His best friend would soon be his son-in-law Annie.

The way Rourke had used the criogenic chambers had played strange games with age and time.

Michael was thirty. Annie would soon be twenty-eight— biologically, Rourke was not old enough to have parented either of them.

But Annie would care for Paul—with her life if necessary.

He had not seen Sarah since she had assisted Hixon in the operation on Paul, except that distant glimpse of her from the air. And Natalia—battered, tortured by her husband, her husband a living ghost—had busied herself as well, working with the M-16s and 1911Als of the two landed Eden Project shuttle craft to ensure reliable functioning after more than five centuries of being packed in something the consistency of cosmoline.

It was curious, Rourke thought, that despite the much-heralded changeover that had come before The Night of The War, the pistols packed aboard the Eden Project shuttles had been .45s and not the newer Beretta 9mms. The Beretta had been a superb pistol for the caliber, but Rourke was just as happy the designers of the Eden Project mission had done as they did. He had greater stores of .45 ACP available and personally preferred the large caliber.

He sat, contemplating loved ones, weapons for their defense, and old and new enemies.

The helicopter gunships which had arrived on the scene as he, Sarah, Kurinami, Halverson and Madison had effected Natalia’s rescue had been clearly marked with the swastika. A new enemy, but one from the past. But his old enemy, his worst enemy he realized, still somehow lived.

He would never forgive himself for the carelessness. Vladmir Karamatsov had appeared dead five centuries ago after the gunfight on the streets of what had been Athens, Georgia. John Rourke would never forgive himself for not firing an extra round into the head to be sure.

That Karamatsov still lived was in itself a threat—but

that somehow he had gathered about him a large, heavily armed force with technologically advanced small arms and helicopter gunships of almost undreamed-of capabilities was an even greater threat.

Hence the watch that Dodd, Lerner and Styles had established at his urging. But if the helicopter gunship force of the twisted, unspeakably evil Karamatsov were to return, there would be little defense against it: the helicopter Rourke himself had flown into battle, the one Kurinami had flown and the one Natalia had flown. Three against how many, Rourke wondered.

He watched in the darkness—he watched the sky, still wondering as he had five centuries earlier, did men everywhere destroy themselves with such insanity? And he heard a voice. “You are the one from the radio communications—Rourke ?”

Rourke’s knuckles screamed at him with pain as he brought the CAR-15 up, throwing himself from the flat rock to the ground, swinging the CAR-15 into an assault position toward the voice from the darkness.

“I am unarmed, sir—except for my pistol. And it is holstered,”

Rourke could see no face, but at a distance of perhaps a hundred yards he could faintly discern a figure stepping from behind the shelter of high rocks. “I come in peace to you, sir.”

“Who the hell are you?” John Rourke hissed.

“Your entire encampment is surrounded by my men, and their machines are nearby. If you fire a shot, there will be battle, and gallant men on both sides will die. Let us talk first, and then if you must, use your antique weapon.”

“I said it once, I’ll say it now. I won’t say it again. Who the hell are you?”

Rourke chewed down harder on the cigar, never moving the muzzle of the CAR-15 from the silhouette beside the rocks.

“I am Colonel Wolfgang Mann, field commander of the Expeditionary Forces of the National Socialist Defense Forces. And other than being John Rourke, who are you, sir?”

John Rourke swallowed hard, then answered, “I’m just John Rourke. I’m a doctor of medicine. My family and I are here to help the returning space shuttles.”

“How many of them are there?”

“More than the two on the ground.”

“I like a cautious man—may I approach, sir?”

“Keep your hands where I can see them,” Rourke warned. He wanted to set down the rifle—he could feel the bandages becoming wet with blood at his knuckles.

The silhouette approached—tall, the skirts of some sort of overcoat reaching to a few inches above the figure’s ankles, the stride confident, brisk, a type of peaked baseball cap visible now. A cloud passed from blocking the moon, the ground suddenly bathed in pale gray-blue light. And Rourke could see the figure more clearly. The face appeared chiselled from some rock harder than granite, the eyes deep set and wider apart, their color not discernible. And Rourke recognized the badge of rank on the uniform blouse when the heavy trenchcoat above it flew open. “You said colonel—I see SS standartenfuehrer” Rourke growled.

“Who are you that you recognize such rank?”

“A man who’s seen it before,” Rourke answered, his hands numbing now to the pain, the wetness of the bandage increasing.

“No man has seen this before—no living man. Unless he is one of us.”

“You’re wrong,” Rourke answered softly, easily.

“These space shuttle craft that I have read of in books of twentieth century history—from where do they come?”

“The sky.” Rourke smiled.

“You are making this difficult, Herr Doctor Rourke.”

“You’re a Nazi—I don’t like Nazis.”

“But we Nazis saved your life and the lives of your comrades when we attacked the Soviet base. Where do you come from?”

“The same place, basically—the same time is probably more apt.”

“But that is impossible. You would be almost five and one-half centuries old.”

“Physical fitness, vitamins and regular bowel movements—that’s the trick.” Rourke smiled again.

“A criogenic process, I think. You, you are in truth from—from before—”

“The Night of The War.”

“These others?”

“Except for one of them—the blond-haired girl.Except for her.”

“And the Communists?” the standartenfuehrer asked.

“One of them at least is from my time—perhaps more of them. The rest, I don’t know. And you?”

“It was called Argentina before the final war of the superpowers. We lived beneath the surface—my people— for generations until the earth was once again fit to inhabit.”

“A cradle of National Socialism as it were—nice.” Rourke nodded. “What do you want?”

“Why do you say you do not like Nazis?”

“Six million Jews, millions of Poles and Russians and gypsies, hundreds of thousands of others who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, a war that spawned the military use of nuclear weapons.”

“This business of the six million Jews—it is a Zionist lie I have been taught.

“It is not a Zionist lie. You have been taught wrong,” John Rourke whispered.

“I cannot believe—”

“That you’re descended from inhuman butchers?”

“The sins of the father,” the standartenfuehrer began. “Are to be laid upon the children,” Rourke finished for him.

“This is true—you know this is true?”

“My father fought against your ancestors. When I grew up and became a man I encountered men—crazy men— who fancied themselves Nazis, carrying on some Goddamned comic opera traditions which were just an excuse for racial bigotry, racial hatred. It’s true.”

“Your father,” the standartenfuehrer began. “He fought against the cause of Nazism?”

“It was called World War II—and then when everything ended, that was World War III, I suppose. Yes, he fought in World War II. He was in the OSS.”

“The American intelligence commando raiders.”

“You could call it that.”

“And you?” the standartenfuehrer asked, the confidence that had been in his voice when Rourke had first heard him speak seeming to have drained. “How did you come to fight National Socialism then, if your father—”

“I was in something called the CIA. Have you heard of it?”

“The secret police of the United States for extranational affairs—yes.”

“It was the Central Intelligence Agency,” Rourke corrected. “I was a case officer. Most of the time, I fought the Communists—but sometimes—”

“But the Communists were the allies of the United States until the superpowers came to warring among themselves over the domination of the countries peopled by the inferior races—”

“That’s not quite the way it was,” John Rourke almost whispered. “After World War II there was a long period of distrust and deterioration of relationships. At the same time, the nuclear arsenals grew and grew. The Soviets perfected a system known as particle-beam technology—

they were about to use it. As a defensive system and for offensive use against Western communications-and-intelligence-gathering satellites. The United States government saw installation of the system as a step closer to thermonuclear war. We issued an ultimatum. Somebody pushed a button—them as far as I came to understand it. And everyone died. Except your ancestors in their hole in the ground in Argentina, some other groups—at least one I know of here, a very small group. Perhaps—I guess so— some of the Soviets. Maybe the Chinese survived somehow, I don’t know.”

“Why are we speaking like this?”

“You came to me—if you have us surrounded, outnumbered and have airpower, why haven’t you attacked?”

“My ancestor, generations ago—if your words are true— he was a mass murderer.”

“My words are true,” Rourke whispered. “I’m sorry if you thought otherwise. But the truth is the truth.”

“Where I come from, Herr Doctor …”

“Yes, Herr Standartenfuehrer,” and Rourke exhaled a thin stream of gray smoke that looked white in the reflected moonlight as he watched it dissipate on the air.

“Our leader—the successor after more than twenty generations to Adolf Hitler—there are some of us, who are not SS in our hearts, who wish a democracy where men can govern themselves and the passions of a handful of political zealots do not dictate insanity for all. I have come to offer you an alliance—against our common enemies, the Soviets. And to establish a new order of freedom for my people.”