Survivalist - 20 - Firestorm (15 page)

Prokopiev looked tired and weak. His voice sounded very old as he said, “I will need a map, Doctor.”

Annie Rourke Rubenstein had always felt awkwardly unfeminine wearing trousers or pants of any kind and avoided them with a passion; but logic dictated the heavy arctic weight snow pants because of the severe cold. Annie had learned to listen to her own logic, so she wore them. She supposed that, to a large part, the aversion she felt was psychological, with just her brother and herself growing up alone in the Retreat after their father had returned to the Sleep.

John Rourke had spent five years with them in intensive tutoring for their survival and their abilities to educate themselves. Yet mere were other necessities, among these a conscious need to assert her femininity within the larger framework of personality development. There were no girl friends with whom to share secrets and experiences, no older women to whom she could go for advice. She had to construct her own role through trial and error, find a lynchpin for her concept of self. She remembered her father telling them once, “No matter how much you know, you will never fully know yourself; no matter how much you learn, if you ever consider your education completed youll have learned nothing. Learning to know yourself is the ultimate discipline.”

But she had to maintain her own identity separate from that of her brother. And, as a constant reminder of her sex, there were the cryogenically sleeping role models of her mother, Sarah Rourke, and Natalia, tantalizingly near, yet unable to be confided to, questioned, imitated.

Their nights alone in the Retreat-hers and Michael’s-would be spent in various pursuits: books, music, videos, chess, physical fitness. But there were other needs, to make, to do. Michael would work with guns and radios and machinery. Although Annie could detail strip a .45 automatic or a Colt assault rifle as quickly and well as he, and knew basic maintenance for the equipment housed at the Retreat, she had taught herself other things to pass the time profitably: dressmaking, knitting, crocheting, and hence design. The domes she made were not only for herself, but for her brother-a shirt, a sweater. Her father had planned ahead, laying in the supplies women would need to make clothing, for crafts. Sometimes when she thought about it, she smiled, imagining her phis-six-foot father, his twin Detonics .45s under his battered old leather bomber jacket, going into a fabric store and purchasing material, yarn, thread, embroidery floss, even the sewing machine housed at the Retreat (along with, of course, a spare parts kit and detailed maintenance manuals).

They would work their garden plots in the months-precious few-which passed for a growing season during those years. But in the winter months with time in the out-of-doors cut back, her “hobbies” or “life skills” (depending on how they were perceived) became all that much more consuming, and symbolic of her own identity.

As she and Natalia stepped into the frigid blasts just beyond the Retreat’s exterior door, Annie drew the scarf layered over the toque which already covered her face still tighter. And she was glad she’d heeded that little voice of logic again.

It had been hard waiting, doing the necessary things while the voice of the injured man droned on over the radio, begging for help. Internal injuries, dizziness. The cold.

But if she and Natalia were to have any hope of reaching him and any hope of getting back to the Retreat, not to mention insuring themselves as much as possible against the possibility of a trap, the time in preparation had to be spent. While Natalia worked to change two of the walkie-talkies to the appropriate frequency for the downed pilot’s broadcast, with her mother helping, Annie quickly field stripped and cleaned the firearms they would take with them, insuring that the lubrication was sparingly applied, that any gummy residues which could turn to sludge in such cold were scrubbed away with added care beyond the usual. Maria packed for them small rucksacks that contained emergency medical supplies, lightweight insulating blankets, even some food, just in case.

As the main entrance to the Retreat closed behind them, despite

Natalia’s presence, Annie had never felt more isolated, because the darkness was so unremitting, the swirl of snow around them like a giant dust devil or tornado, the wind so strong she could barely stand against it. And she felt as if the very elements surrounded her, shielded her from contact with any fellow human being.

She tried to force the thoughts from her head, telling herself that she should concentrate on the mission, finding and saving this downed German pilot who made such plaintive appeals over the radio for assistance.

But when she thought of the mission, the sense of isolation became comingled with foreboding.

Snow beat almost malevolently against the vision-corrected armored glass. Once it accumulated where the wiper blades could not reach it and to such an extent that the convection heating system wired into the glass itself could not instantiy melt it away, the magnified crystalline geometric shapes were almost touchingly beautiful.

The vehicle, in which they traversed the land that had so often served as inhospitable host to warring armies over the generations, was as yet un-designated, so many changes made in its design dur-mg prototyping and pre-production, yet the urgency of getting into the field so great for the German war machine, that it was merely called die Armored, All-Terrain, Severe Atmospheric Conditions Nfehicle. With the German penchant for complex naming-a helicopter could be called “a machine which screws itself into the air”-John Rourke thought the ungainly name might stick. So Rourke merely labelled it with the equally awkward acronym the first letters of the English translation made-AATSACV. He pronounced it ‘Atsack.”

The Atsack, fitted with all-side sensors and headsup display in the cocoonable windshield for enhanced navigational abilities, piloted well. Because of the truly gigantic (three meters in height), independently suspended tires, the Atsack actually moved more rapidly and smoothly than Rourke would have thought possible for something of such considerable size. It was roughly twice the size of the motor homes made by firms like Winnebago before the Night of The War. No color television or VCR, he reflected, smiling, as he looked over Michael’s shoulder, Michael at the Atsack’s controls. But there was the modern incarnation of a microwave oven, for heating rations.

It buzzed now and Rourke moved along the Atsack’s deck despite

the ruggedness of the terrain, the self-compensating, computer controlled suspension giving him an environment steady and level enough in which delicate surgery could have been performed. With the heat turned to a comfortable level, he and Paul and Michael could move about in shirt sleeves. He took the hot soup from the microwave, setting it on the counter, beginning to consume it as he marshalled his thoughts.

He could frequendy think more clearly while thinking of several things at once, so, while he ate, his eyes scanned the pages of one of the technical manuals for the Atsack, the German, because it was so technical, difficult for him to read, in a curious way almost heightening his abilities to focus a portion of his concentration in other directions.

Namely the Particle Beam technology.

Antonovitch’s remarks to Vassily Prokopiev, however apocalyptic, might well prove to be a conservative estimate of the situation which was emerging. If the land-based Soviets could, through use of this superior technology, make their armies into an all-but-invincible juggernaut and this were backed up by the seapower of the historic enemies of Mid-Wake, with their submarine based thermonuclear missiles as the trump card, the Germans would have no choice but to use defensive nuclear capabilities currendy under development-if there was the time.

But as few as one or two nuclear detonations above ground could destroy the already fragile nuclear envelope, precipitating the end of life on the surface forever, the end of mankind.

All hopes, all dreams, everything.

John Rourke put down the soup spoon.

Natalia Anastasia Tiemerovna turned her face away from the wind and adjusted both the black silk scarves over her face and head and the silk toque beneath them, repositioning her snow goggles as well, then pulling die snorkel hood more tightly closed at die front of her face. It had the effect of tunnel vision, but there was no choice.

As she walked, bent against the wind, Annie beside her, she dug in the climbing staff she carried. After only five minutes, the visibility so terrible, the wind so strong, she had decided that their only safe course of action was to tie themselves together, which they did.

The clothing they wore was such that she could be exposed to the temperature extreme around them for quite some time without feeling ill-effects, at least theoretically. She was beginning to doubt the theory.

The fronts of her thighs, her forehead, her feet and hands were all starting to feel stiff with the cold and wind and, as they walked, she made a decision. lithe downed pilot could not be located within the aext ten minutes, they would turn back.

h would be that or lose their own lives.

She had not yet mentioned her decision to Annie. There had been ao opportunity to speak, normal speech impossible because of the high-pitched shrieking of the wind through each crevice and niche of rocks, through the snow-buried boughs of the pines. To speak and be heard, it would be necessary to push back one’s parka hood and remove at least one facial covering and almost touch one’s mouth to the other person’s ear, then shout.

Natalia kept moving instead.

The road leading up and down from the Retreat’s main entrance was what they followed now and had followed since leaving, logic dictating that if the downed airman’s craft had landed too far away

from the road they would not hear him at all because no craft could have survived the crash.

But there were flatter, more level spaces to the side of the road nearer to the base of the mountain, the places where five centuries ago the Soviet aircraft under the command of Rozhdestvenskiy had landed KGB Elite Corps troops in an effort to locate and destroy the Retreat before the fires swept the sky.

It was here, in once wooded meadows now feet deep with snow, that the downed pilot would have attempted to land, and toward this area that they walked.

They crossed up into a small, more level expanse of the road, the snow less deep here, the walking, by comparison, easier, but the wind stronger and Natalia instantly felt colder.

But she smiled. It felt good to be in action again, although she doubted Doctor Rothstein at Mid-Wake would have agreed.

She looked to her pistol belt, the snow which had accumulated on the flaps of her holsters nearly blown away by the stronger wind here. Annie beside her, she kept walking.

As the road began to angle downward again, she felt Annie tug at the rope. Natalia looked toward her, saw her gesturing out beyond the road. And Natalia’s eyes followed in the direction toward which Annie pointed.

Two hundred yards away, in one of the flat expanses where five centuries ago Soviet gunships had landed, there was a German gunship now, all but burned beyond recognition, merely a skeleton remaining.

Natalia nodded, shifting her M-16 forward, hoping it would still work as they started down from the road, toward the wreck.

Michael Rourke saw the truck, a Soviet half-track, almost wholly buried in snow, wedged against jagged outcroppings of almost black looking granite, the rocks themselves what had saved the truck from being totally obscured by the snow.

He shifted his shoulder beneath bis parka under the weight of the double shoulder holster for his Berettas, his eyes through his snow goggles scanning the ground in an attempt to find a passage at once safe and convenient between his present location above the truck and the truck itself. He could always double back, and was not willing to risk a broken leg or worse simply to save a few minutes in reaching die truck.

But he saw a sort of path, drifted over high with snow, so its actual outline and depth were in doubt. If he were cautious it would be worth a try and there would be minimal risk.

Michael Rourke opened the velcro closure of one of his parka’s side pockets and spoke into die small short-range German handset which he extracted from it. This is Hunter Three calling Hunter One and Hunter Two. Are you reading me? This is Hunter Three calling Hunter One and Hunter Two. Do you read? Over.”

This is Hunter One, reading you loud and clear. Fve just rendezvoused with Hunter Two. Over.”

“Hunter One. I have found the quarry. I say again. Have found the quarry. Do you Roger that? Over.”

“Hunter Three, I Roger that. Good work. Leave your transmission open and we will close with your position. Do you Roger that? Over.”

1 Roger that, Hunter One. Wilco. Hunter Three Out.”

Michael Rourke slipped the radio handset back into the parka pocket and closed the flap, but the radio was still set to broadcast and is signal could be used by his father, Hunter One, and his brother-in-law, Hunter Two, to home in on him.

He shifted the M-16 rearward, positioning it diagonally across his back left shoulder to right hip on its sling now. Both hands might be needed and there was no sign, for as far as he could see, of human life. The four-inch barreled Model 629 was holstered accessibly enough at his waist in a flap holster which completely cocooned it and the knife old Jon the Swordmaker had given him, copied after the Crain Life Support System I, which five centuries ago had been the original basis for the LS-X, was at his hip as well, even more accessible than the revolver.

As Michael started picking his way through the drifts along what he hoped, indeed, was a navigable path, he recalled the story his father had told him concerning the origins of the heroically proportioned Life Support System-X. His father, John Rourke, and the T&feather-ford, Texas knifemaker, Jack Crain, were friends. Not really that long before The Night of The War, while John Rourke completed his work to fit and stock the Retreat, the conversation between John Rourke and his friend took place. They discussed a knife of the same basic design as the Life Support System I, but larger, not just a longer blade, proportionately larger so the knife wouldn’t just be bigger, but of superior strength and mass and serviceability.