Survivalist - 18 - The Struggle (17 page)

Bjorn Rolvaag was a man who was driven, clearly. Every instinct in Rolvaag’s body must have been telling him to press on, to find this tunnel whether it existed or not, penetrate the tunnel, reach the interior of the Hekla cone and rush to the rescue of his country’s leader, Madame Jokli.

Every instinct. Michael hoped they were real, rather than delusion.

Maria Leuden was shouting something and Michael could not distinguish the words. He pushed his hood back on the left side, a sudden shock of cold as he opened it, leaned his toqued and scarfed head toward her completely covered mouth. He thought he made out the words, “I will die, Michael!” He held her more tightly, kept moving. Turning back would have been pointless. Where was back?

Michael kept moving, slamming into what felt like a wall. It was Bjorn Rolvaag, swathed in his furs, Hrothgar bounding back and forth in the cone of Michael’s flashlight as, once again, he turned it on. There was no chance that the Russian occupation forces might have had sentries at the height of the cone who could have seen the light. Visibility was nearly measurable in inches, certainly only in feet.

Rolvaag pointed into the darkness beyond the snow which swirled in Michael’s light, then started toward— what? Michael saw nothing. Rolvaag kept moving, Michael in his wake, dragging Maria now almost, ready to take her up into his arms and carry her because

j he realized she could go no farther, really. If they were attacked now, even assuming they could tell from which direction, he doubted his M-16’s bolt could be cleared of ice quickly enough to fire back. His other weapons were beneath his parka, hopeless to get to, his hands numb and stiff.

Michael Rourke kept walking.

Rock— He slammed into it, stumbled, dragging Maria Leuden down into the snow with him. But as he reached out, there was nothing there. He swept his hand right and left. To the right, there was solidness.

Michael pulled himself to his knees, to his feet, spoke to Maria, knowing she couldn’t hear him over the keening of the wind. “I think it’s the tunnel, Maria.”

He pulled her to her feet, feeling the forward pressure of Rolvaag’s rope tugging him ahead.

He took a step, then another and another, then another and then—then the snow stopped and the howl of the wind was like the howl of the sea in a shell. He’d heard that as a little boy.

One of the lanterns was lit, moved. In the light from it, he could see Rolvaag’s face. There was no snow around his face. They were inside the tunnel.

Bjorn Rolvaag’s great lionine face seamed with a fine smile.

Since it was Colonel Mann’s personal J7-V, the aircraft was furnished rather differently from the others in which she had flown, Sarah Rourke observed. His J7-V, for example, although a fighter craft, had a complete radio room in the rear of the fuselage. She gathered it was for more than ordinary radio. More likely, sophisticated electronic intelligence equipment racks.

He emerged from that room now, his face looking sad. She liked him very much as a person, as a friend. He treated her as a person and friend. And she liked that very much.

“Frau Rourke—Sarah.Your friend, Lieutenant Kurinami. He is now listed as officially missing in action and presumed dead. The men whose lives he saved have personally conducted an air search, had to turn back because of the storms raging in the southeastern United States and because of significant and growing Soviet presence. Nothing was seen of him. I hate to be the bearer of such news, Sarah.”

Sarah Rourke stared out the cabin window of the J7-V.

“Wolf—would you try something? For me?”

He sat down opposite her, leaning toward her, his hands near her coffee cup. “If I can, of course.”

“When Akiro and Elaine Halversen—his fiancee? When they escaped from Commander Dodd before, they went to the Retreat. I wouldn’t feel as if everything had been done if somehow we didn’t go there, make an aerial search of the surrounding area if possible, go to the Retreat itself. He could be there, perhaps injured or dying. It’s worth a chance, isn’t it, Wolfgang?”

Wolfgang Mann nodded, slowly, then said, “Yes—it is worth a chance. The aerial search may prove impossible. But we can try. And if the pilot is not willing to try a landing, I will—unless it would mean the deaths of all aboard. Yes.” And he looked at his watch. “We won’t be over northeastern Georgia for better than forty minutes. Then we will know. So sleep, now. I can get a blanket for you.”

“Thank you,” she nodded, her eyes very tired. “Where are we now—about, I mean?”

“We passed over the St. Lawrence River not long ago. I imagine we are somewhere near where your New York City once was.” She looked into the darkness, imagining they were flying over New York City. Her New York City. That made her smile. But there would have been lights, beautiful lights. She was sure she could have seen them through the snow she knew was falling below them. She was sure.

But now, there was just darkness.

She turned her face more toward the window so he wouldn’t see her cry, her fingers massaging at the life in her abdomen. A little boy. Another John? Another Michael? More fodder for a history likely no one would ever survive to read?

The tears flowed freely now and she hadn’t thought that Wolfgang Mann was still watching her, but he whispered, “May I?” As he placed his arm around her

shoulders, held her tightly enough to be reassuring, comforting, not tightly enough that it would be misinterpreted. Sarah Rourke realized what she was. A widow with a living husband. And she was very lonely.

When she closed her eyes tightly against the tears, ! she could see the lights.

Vassily Prokopiev knew the Underground City. He was born there, raised there in the communal center for boys who had shown aptitude for military service. At age fourteen, he was transferred from the general military studies program to the special program, which of course was for the KGB. With the special program came a special school.

The curriculum was very demanding, from code-breaking skills to marksmanship to interrogation improvisations to chemical composition of poisons and explosives. And always, physical training. But, if studies went well and discipline was maintained, each boy had his day.

Prokopiev always applied himself to his studies, whether he perceived the specific subject matter as boring or exciting, useful or absurd; and one afternoon and early evening each weekend was his.

Sharp looking in his gray uniform, black boots, and black belt and his cap, he would move about the Underground City, watching of course for pretty girls, hoping they were watching back. The prettiest girls seemed to be those from the musical studies or dancing, but sometimes a surprisingly pretty girl would be found

in the oddest place—loading sacks of grain, learning how to artificially inseminate one of the precious farm animals, driving a delivery truck.

Some of the boys at the academy where he studied were not at all interested in girls. At school, at night, it was sometimes necessary to watch out for them. He had studied hand-to-hand combat ever since he’d first shown military aptitude, but it was one night when he was still fifteen that he was in his first real fight. Some of those boys who did not like girls had decided that they were interested in him. He was not interested in them. Four of them. Only him and his boyhood friend Ivan against them. Ivan died years later during a training exercise when he was still very young. Ivan had never been strong, really, but that night, Ivan fought well.

He and Ivan had taken their afternoon off and gotten chocolate with money both of them had saved, then strolled about the streets of the Underground City. Everything always looked the same, but it was something to do, of course. And there were always the girls to look at, who never looked the same, like beautiful flowers somehow growing out of a slab of concrete.

But then Boris and his three friends came upon Prokopiev and his friend Ivan in the service alley behind the Cultural Arts Center. He and Ivan always cut through the service alley because it was quicker to the Youth Hall where there were always girls. Apparently, Boris had calculated their path and decided to lay in wait there with his three friends, all of them like Boris, all of them.

The attack came so quickly. Poor Ivan was struck in the throat with a paving stone and fell to the street, gasping for breath. Prokopiev himself was hit, but only in the arm, not so badly as Ivan certainly.

And Boris and his three friends swarmed over them, metal truncheons in their hands, really verticals pried out of the fence surrounding the Youth Hall. Prokopiev struck Boris twice in the face with his fists and Boris began to shriek with pain. Two of Boris’s friends brought Prokopiev down. Boris was holding his bleeding nose and screaming at Prokopiev, calling Prokopiev every obscenity a fifteen-year-old could possibly know, waving the steel truncheon.

But suddenly, there was Ivan. Ivan kicked Boris in the groin and Boris fell to his knees. Prokopiev finished the job by kicking Boris in the face. And then Ivan fell on one of the two who held Prokopiev down, Prokopiev hammering his fists on the other boy. The fourth boy, face bloodied by Ivan, hit Ivan across the kidneys with his truncheon. Prokopiev grabbed the arm with the truncheon and broke it at the elbow.

And then he grabbed Ivan and ran.

It was the first time he had ever entered the city’s sewer system.

To call it a sewer system implied something medieval. It was so spotlessly clean, one could have eaten off the tunnel floors except for the fact that maintenance personnel walked there. The tunnels only served as access to the sewer pipes, interconnected throughout the entire area of the Underground City’s primary level.

With Ivan, he had worked his way nearer to the school, escaped the tunnels, gotten inside the school without the headmaster seeing them and without a further encounter with Boris and his friends.

Ivan had blood in his urine for the next three days, but neither of them was visibly bruised. The collar of Ivan’s uniform covered the discoloration on his neck from where the paving block had struck him and, during physical training, Ivan was able to evade

suspicious looks or cover the area with a towel.

Boris and his three friends were not so lucky.

Of course, to have told the headmaster would have been worse than anything.

So, they remained silent.

During a training exercise, not long after Ivan’s death, Boris attempted to cut the rapelling rope of one of his men, a very good-looking young corporal who had apparently resisted the advances of his unit leader. But Boris only partially severed the rope and the young Corporal did not die. Everyone among the Officer Corps—junior officers at least—knew about it. Someone apparently decided that Boris was more a liability than an asset to the Elite Corps and when his rapelling rope was cut, it was cut all the way through.

There had been an inquiry and the death was officially listed as accidental. Walking quickly through the sewer system now, memories were Vassily Prokopiev’s only companions. What would Ivan have thought? Prokopiev carried film given him by Marshal Antonovitch which could be used by enemies of the State, but for the good of the Soviet people. Would Ivan have called this treason? He didn’t think so. Would Ivan have done the same thing? He thought so.

The pack he wore was heavy, but he had carried heavier. The weapons left for him were of the best quality. A vintage CZ-75 pistol, one of those which Antonovitch himself had likely ordered preserved in the gummy petroleum-based preservative known as cosmolene. Since these guns were still carried as prized possessions by many of the Officer Corps, handed down from father to son, their 9mm X 19 cased ammunition was still manufactured in limited quantities. Why had Antonovitch given him such a pistol? Was it some sort of symbol? If it were, Prokopiev could not quite fathom its meaning. The knife was one of the

handmade fighting knives usually carried by officers who had never fought and never would, but finely crafted in the American Bowie pattern. The assault rifle was standard issue. For both the rifle and pistol, he was provided extra magazines and what almost seemed like too much ammunition. Perhaps the Comrade Marshal had assumed that he—Prokopiev—would have to fight his way out of the Underground City. And such a scenario was certainly possible because the sewer system only went so far and then he would have to exit the system and attempt to leave by one of the lesser-used entrances.

There would be guards. He outranked them, but they would wonder why he was in battle uniform and wearing field equipment and all alone. He would attempt to bluff his way through, that he was on some special mission. If that worked, he would be out without blood being shed. If it did not work, they would ask for his papers. Comrade Marshal Antonovitch had provided no such papers, could not have without implicating himself. Then it would come to a fight.

As he walked on, listening to the sounds of his breathing, the clicking of his bootheels on the flooring beneath him, he wondered if he could shed Soviet blood.

He knew he might have to find out.

I

i

Akiro Kurinami opened his eyes. “Welcome back to us, Lieutenant,” Damien Rausch said, smiling. “You had us all very worried.” “What—what happened?”

“You were apparently followed by Russian personnel. When you attempted to gain entrance to Doctor Rourke’s mountain retreat here, you were struck a blow to the head.- Colonel Mann sent us here, anticipating that you might come here. He sent us so that we could help you. It was very fortunate for you indeed that we arrived when we did.”

“Where—ahh—were they?”

“The Russians? One of them escaped, the other going over the edge of the roadway and falling to his death at the base of the mountain. Can you sit up? We need you to open the inner doors to Doctor Rourke’s Retreat so that we can utilize his radio and send for help. Our helicopter was forced down in the blizzard and our radio was destroyed. The Russian who got away has most probably already called for assistance. There is little time to lose.” Rausch leaned over Kurinami, gently putting his hands to Kurinami’s upper arms. “Let me help you to sit up.”