Survivalist - 17 - The Ordeal (20 page)

There was no pulse. “Paul!”

Rourke’s hands hammered down against the lower portion of the sternum, then again and again and again and again.

“Paul!” Rourke shouted the name, his throat raw with it. “Paul!”

Again and again and again and again and again and— A pulse. The eyelids fluttered. A cough. Another. John Rourke collapsed to the floor beside his friend …

The roaring awakened him. Michael Rourke opened his eyes. He was cold.

There were faces looking down on him. Chinese faces. The lips moved and he could hear nothing except the sound which was always there.

He moved his head and spasms of pain fired through his head and his neck and his limbs. He was naked.

And one face stared down over his.

It was the woman who liked to see men die, the woman he’d met two days ago in the dungeon while the Russian sergeant was being slaughtered.

She was laughing at him …

Sarah Rourke listened as Wolfgang Mann spoke. It was nil radio now, whispered so low that speech was barely audible. “The Chinese are not coming. We cannot get out of here. The Russians control more of the First Gty than we suspected

originally. Only six of us, including Frau Rourke and myself, are fit to go on. Our only hope is to find the chairman and free him and then—to borrow an expression the Rourke family has used a time or two, one alien to us in the days of the Leader and the Nazism he preached—‘pray.’ Pray that the chairman can somehow marshal his people to repulse the invaders. Or otherwise, not only is the First City doomed, but so are we all. I cannot leave our injured unattended. I want two volunteers to stay with them. There is no cowardice in volunteering to stay behind. Perhaps it is the braver act than going forward. We, at least, will have mobility. Two volunteers and this God they speak of—may He go with you.” Mueller volunteered.

A young commando who looked barely old enough to shave volunteered as well.

Sarah Rourke looked at Wolfgang Mann’s face, then at the faces of the two other men, Rheimenschneider and Franc.

“Divide up the ammunition evenly among us, one-third to those who stay behind, two-thirds to those who go on,” Mann said quietly. “If we survive and are able, we shall return. And, if we are too late—your families will know. And”—Wolfgang Mann smiled a smile she had never seen on his face before—“if somehow you should survive and we do not, then to our families. Tell them that we tried and that no matter what happens, the freedom we have won after so long shall not be sacrificed.” And then Wolfgang Mann did something which thoroughly frightened Sarah Rourke.

He went to Mueller and took out his cigarette case and handed it to the commando, and she heard him whisper something to Mueller about “Frau Mann” and she recognized the German word for love and Sarah Rourke’s eyes welled up with tears …

Soviet gunships were everywhere now and Annie Rourke

Rubenstein wanted to scream, but Natalia Tiemerovna still slept, her eyelids still moving, the dreaming unending. Madness. Annie was crying and made no attempt to sniff back her tears.

Otto Hammerschmidt shouted, “I have fired my last missile, Annie.”

In desperation, they had flown toward Lushun, fuel running low, the weapons systems nearly depleted, the First Qty surrounded by Soviet gunships.

In Annie’s pocket was something given to her by her father. “If you are near the sea, and there are no other options, then open the cover and flip the toggle switch. And then pray a lot.” And he had kissed her and hugged her harder than he had since she was a little girl.

It was before they had boarded the Specials to go out and search for Michael.

And now she understood what it was that he had given to her.

The liberated Soviet gunship Otto Hammerschmidt inexpertly but satisfactorily flew shuddered. “We have been hit, Annie!”

She sniffed back her tears. More calmly than she thought her voice could sound, she called forward to him. “Otto— ditch in the sea. In the open sea.”

“But—”

She had seen the place from which the signaling device came when all of them had gone there and been given the special medical examinations. But it was still like a dream.

Submarines.

An America of Americans of all colors and religions who fought the same war only against different enemies.

Annie looked at Natalia. Annie had already put Natalia into a life vest.

Perhaps it was all fate.

Fate that they should come here.

The engines which powered the main and tail rotors were

screaming like souls in torment, the very fabric of the machine creaked and twisted and shivered.

Smoke filled the fuselage. She coughed. Her eyes streamed tears.

Otto Hammerschmidt shouted, “We are going down!” Annie Rubenstein felt a certain feeling of peace.

The rifles were damaged beyond use. Paul Rubenstein’s right hand and arm were burned and the fingers of his right hand did not close properly.

The muscles of John Rourke’s chest and shoulders almost seemed to cry out to him each time he moved, cry out for him to rest.

They walked ahead, the Detonics Scoremaster .45s in Rourke’s fists, Paul’s left fist clenched on the pistolgripof the submachine gun he still called a Schmiesser.

Paul could call it whatever he wanted, John Rourke thought, smiling to himself.

Whether or not either or both of them had received a lethal dose of radiation, Rourke had no way of telling.

The alarm went on without end and, by now, John Rourke was barely aware of it.

There was only one purpose now.

The meltdown was under way.

It would be the last act of human folly.

John Rourke and Paul Rubenstein had spoken no words about it as they had crawled to their feet and started to walk. No words were necessary.

The one purpose was to find the temple, or wherever it was the religious zealots of the Second City had initiated the program, and to stop it.

If the program which began the meltdown was unstoppable,

no other purpose mattered. All life would end.

“You’re the best friend I ever had,” Paul Rubenstein John Rourke.

“Brothers,” John Rourke told him. “Yes. Brothers.” “Yes,” Rourke whispered. They walked on. Together.

There had been a design for a “safe” fission reactor, modular in construction and built for low output in the eighty-megawatt range, designed to be used in series with reactors of the same size, all geared to prevention of meltdown. Meltdown at the least would take the core material down through the earth beneath the reactor and into the underground water table. But some theories had held that a meltdown of sufficient size and heat would be unstoppable, punching through the earth from side to side.

If such were possible, a reactor complex of the size which powered the Second Chinese City would be capable of it.

They at last reached the end of the Plexiglas wall. There were metal stairs winding upward in a spiral toward a set of double doors, also of metal, these located some hundred or so feet above the floor.

“Just what I needed—steps,” Paul Rubenstein said.

John Rourke looked at his friend for a moment, then said, “Stairs, actually. The general syntactual rule of thumb is that steps are on the outside of a structure and stairs on the inside.”

“Just as hard to climb,” Paul smiled thinly.

“Hmm.” Rourke nodded, agreeing, then starting upward, the .45s barely grasped in his hands. Every muscle in his body ached and he imagined it was worse for Paul, falling in behind him.

The electricity began again, sparking along the metal

framework for the wall of Plexiglas, uncomfortably close considering what had happened, but of no danger to them now. Rourke imagined there was some sort of irregular time schedule, all part of the master program which ran the facility, this a defense system for the reactor complex. Perhaps some of the burns endured by the bear they had fought had been a result of being too close to the Plexiglas wall when the electrical charges were emitted, but the major disfigurement still was something Rourke put down to intentional mutilation.

A third of the way up the stairs, Paul called up to him, “Can we rest a minute?”

Rourke nodded, then sat on the stair nearest him. He had considered that the stairs might periodically electrify, but since they were the only way up and neither of them was in shape for a marathon, he had taken the calculated risk. The rubber treads, largely rotted away, had supported his theory that they were not.

“What do we do when we get there?”

Rourke looked down at the younger man. “Bluff our way through. Or maybe Maria can do something with the computer once we gain access to the program. If we can find Maria and if we can find the computer and if we can access the program. I don’t know. The best we can?”

Paul Rubenstein looked up at him and smiled. “The best we can. Which, I suppose—”

“Right.“And John Rourke, his back spasming with pain, stood, Paul grabbing to the railing and standing as well now. They started upward again, the electrical display winding down, the alarm still blaring but something Rourke was no longer more than passingly aware of.

At the height of the stairs, the doors seemed more massive close up than they had from the base and Rourke and Rubenstein stood before them, assessing them. “Could be electrified,” Paul observed. “Once bitten, twice shy.”

“Probably not an alarm unless this is some taboo area, and that wouldn’t make sense because our Mongol friends outside

had to have come this way since there doesn’t appear to be any other way. Unless they came from the outside, and even then, somebody has to get down here with the sacrifices for the bear. And the hinges aren’t lubricated but they aren’t corroded as much as the rest of the metal, either. Which indicates they’re opened and closed with some degree of frequency. They may be locked from the other side, however.”

John Rourke tried the doors first by touching the muzzle of one of the Scoremasters against it to test for electrical shock, his hand only in contact with the rubber Pachmayr grips. No evidence of shock. “So far, so good,” Rourke observed.

He rammed both pistols into his gunbelt and put his hands to the door handles. They twisted, the doors giving slightly toward him but not opening. “I bet they have a simple brace on the other side of the doors, just a crosspiece.”

Rourke dropped to his knees, his muscles screaming in protest. He carefully inspected the seam where the doors met. There was a large rubber gasket on each door, but the gaskets were seriously frayed. On impulse, John Rourke drew the Crain knife from its sheath, gingerly inserting it between the doors, the gasket material falling away in chunks to the floor, some of the chunks powdering. With patience, he got the Crain knife’s twelve-inch blade between the doors, well below the handles. He’d scratch the knife a bit, but it couldn’t be helped. Slowly, he raised the knife until the saw-toothed spine of the blade encountered something solid. “I think I’ve got it.” Rourke got up into a crouch, his back muscles locking up. He stood, waited a moment until the pain subsided a bit, then crouched again, this time more carefully. Steadily, he began to raise the knife, both fists molded to the handle, pushing upward, he hoped on the crosspiece.

There was a sudden increase of pressure, but only for an instant; then the pressure eased and there was a loud thudding sound heard from beyond the doors.

Rourke eased his knife from between the doors. It was a little scratched, but otherwise undamaged. He sheathed the knife,

Paul ready with the German MP-40 sub-machinegun in his left hand. John Rourke drew both doors open and stepped back, his hands snatching the two Scoremasters from his belt, thumbs jacking back the hammers.

A piece of wood about four by four in thickness and three feet or so in length lay on the floor.

The doors opened to a long corridor, the corridor well lighted and about midway along its length ornamental murals and lamps in evidence.

“The back door of the temple?” Rubenstein suggested.

“The back door of the temple,” Rourke agreed.

Both men started into the corridor, not leaving the doors opened behind them, Rourke stopping to replace the wooden crosspiece. If someone were behind them, a proposition he doubted but refused to dismiss, he’d hear the crosspiece fall for some distance.’

“Ready?” John Rourke asked.

Paul Rubenstein answered. “Yeah.”

One of the Detonics Scoremaster .45s in each fist, the twin Detonics mini-guns under his jacket in the double Alessi shoulder rig, the 629 holstered at his right hip, John Rourke started ahead …

To be unable to hear was maddening.

Michael Rourke could see Maria Leuden, see her mouth opening and closing as she screamed, but he could not hear her. Han Lu Chen was shackled to the far wall, not bound to opposite sides of the massive altar as were Michael and Maria. And Han was being beaten across the back with a wide strap by the black-garbed executioner Michael had seen in the dungeons. On the floor between the altar and where Han Lu Chen was being whipped, the unconscious body of Vassily Prokopiev lay, discarded as though it were a child’s doll no longer found amusing. The back of Prokopiev’s head was blood-smeared.

Perhaps the sheer force of the sound had driven the Elite Corps commander to madness, or perhaps despair that all was lost when the chamber through which they passed had proven to be a deathtrap.

Strange feelings, Michael realized, but he respected the man and knew that under more normal circumstances, Vassily would never have fired a weapon in such a noise-expanding passageway.

The high priestess or whatever she was—very beautiful, very evil-looking too—was moving across the room. It was some sort of temple. With the long robes she wore, she seemed to float rather than walk. His eyes tracked her.

At the far wall of the temple, young women in white dresses paid obeisance to— It was a ballistic missile. Michael’s stomach knotted.

Like a separate altar before the missile was the largest computer console Michael Rourke had ever seen in reality, like the controls for one of the old mainframe computers he’d seen in the occasional movie from his father’s videotape collection at the Retreat.