Jerry Ahern - Survivalist 09 - Earth Fire

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THE SURVIVALIST #09.

EARTH FIRE.

by Jerry Ahern

Chapter One..

Reed jumped from the Jeep before it had fully stopped, shouting to his driver, "Get up the road to

the high school and warn headquarters and tell 'em to pull out fast, use Emergency Plan Three, got

that, Corporal?"

"Yes sir, but, "

"Just do it, move out, "

"What about you, Colonel, "

Reed started to run toward the grammar school building that had been converted to a field hospital

, the wounded needed to be evacuated before the Soviet choppers struck. "I'll get transportation,

now boogey, soldier!"

"Yes, sir!"

Reed hit the steps, taking them three at a time in a long strided run toward the front doors of

the school building which more resembled an elaborate courthouse in some rich Eastern states

county.

The guard just inside the door was clambering to his feet, getting his rifle up to present arms,

Reed snarling, "Can it, soldier, get into the administrator's office, fast, tell him we're

evacuating, we're using Emergency Plan Three, on the double, boy, "

"Yes, sir, "

Reed left the man gaping, punching through the inside doors and into the main corridor, the

classrooms had been converted to laboratories and wards, the largest of the wards the lunchroom

itself. But it was one of the smaller wards he ran toward, the only ward which housed the few

female patients being treated. He sprinted along the corridor, shouting to one of the medical

technicians, "We're evacuating, Soviet Air Cavalry unit five minutes away, maybe six, get some of

these patients ready to travel, soldier!"

"But, Colonel Reed, "

"No buts, do it," and Reed sprinted on, reaching the end of the corridor, a nurse there, rather

than white uniformed wearing clean but ragged fatigues that looked at least two sizes too big for

her. "Nurse , start getting the patients ready," Reed snapped, dragging the woman toward him for

an instant by the shoulders of her uniform. "We're movin' out fast, Russian choppers five or six

minutes away!"

He didn't wait for an answer, taking the bend in the corridor left, running toward what had been

one of the kindergarten rooms, skidding to a halt on the worn heels of his combat boots, twisting

the doorknob and pushing inside.

There was space for three beds, but there was only one bed, a white-haired woman lying in it,

sitting on the edge of the bed beside her a white-haired man. The man's face looked carved from

stone, pain etched around the eyes, the jaw set. An IV tube ran between a half empty bottle and

the woman's arm. Reed walked across the room to the bed. The man stood up. "Colonel Reed, "

Reed saluted, despite the tattered civilian clothes the man wore rather than a uniform. "Colonel

Rubenstein, sir, there's a Soviet Air Cav Unit on the way, we don't have much time. Mrs.

Rubenstein has to be moved."

Reed watched the older man's eyes flicker. "You're active duty, I'm just a retired Air Force

officer. This is your show. But she can't be moved. You move the other ones, Colonel, my wife

stays here. And I stay with her, "

"Sir, they're gonna, "

"I know what they're going to do, Colonel Reed , but she can't be moved. She's dying, she knows

it. I know it. I'm not going to take the last few hours she might have left away from her, anymore

than can't be helped anyway. If the Russians come, then maybe we'll both die together, "

Reed shook his head. "No, no, what about your son, "

"Paul would understand, Colonel, "

Reed shook his head again. "No, he wouldn't, if I were Paul Rubenstein, I wouldn't understand ,

you've got an obligation to live, sir. Your wife'd be the first one to tell you that, she'd, "

"That's enough Colonel, get out of here, let Paul's mother die in peace and maybe I can die with

her, "

Reed balled his fists together along the outside seems of his fatigues. He opened his fists,

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turned around and found the doorknob, twisted it and stepped into the corridor. He wasn't seeing

too well and he closed his eyes, leaning against the door for a moment as it closed. His own

mother had died of cancer, and Paul Rubenstein's mother was doing the same.

"Shit," he snarled, hammering his fist against the wall. "Damnit it to hell!" He pushed away from

the door. As he started running back along the bend in the corridor, he could hear the voice of

the hospital administrator over the intercom, he was announcing the evacuation, that there was

nothing to fear if order could be maintained. Nothing to fear, to Reed, since the Night of The

War, there had been nothing but fear. Some little fear at times for his own safety, but when there

was a job to do that required intelligence gathering against the enemy, there was no time for

personal fear. But fear, that the War would never end, fear that the Russians could never be

displaced from the power they had seized in North America, fear that the guy you shared a smoke

with was someone you'd never see again. After the evacuation of the Florida peninsula before the

mega-quakes which severed it from the continental U.S., he had come to know the Rubensteins like a

second set of parents, suffered with them both when it had been learned Mrs. Rubenstein was dying

of bone cancer and nothing could be done to save her. He had come, in the precious little time

since the discovery of the rapidly progressing disease, to accept her death as inevitable, but not

the death of her husband who had become, even more since the nature of Mrs. Rubenstein's illness

had been revealed, a close friend.

He reached the end of the corridor, starting to thread his way through the evacuees and toward the

doors leading to the outside.

Reed checked the Timex on his left wrist, the Russian gunships would fill the skies at any moment.

From the battered flap holster hanging at his right hip, he drew the 1911A1, working the slide of

the .45, jacking a round into the chamber, leaving the hammer at full stand and upping the safety.

He pushed through the inner doors, his left hand helping ease a wheelchair patient through the

doors. He reached the outer doors; the guard there was directing the flow of traffic , wheelchair

patients to the ramp, ambulatory patients down the steps.

Trucks were pulling up in front of the school, men pouring from the trucks to aid in the

evacuation.

Above the din, the shouts, the blaring of the PA system, he heard the thrashing noise in the air.

In the distance, he could see their outlines, like huge, dark insects, like a swarm of mechanical

locusts coming to devour all in their path.

He closed his eyes an instant, hammering his left fist against his thigh. Inside the improvised

field hospital , Reed almost prayed Mrs. Rubenstein would die now so that her husband, his

friend, might take the chance to live.

But he knew inside him that it wouldn't happen that way.

Reed stared at the helicopters, they were coming closer. He ran the fingers of his left hand

through his hair. He shouted toward the sky, toward the Soviet force, "God damn you all to hell!"

But he wondered if hell could be worse than the War.

Chapter Two.

Rozhdestvenskiy stood beside Comrade Professor Zlovski, lighting a cigarette despite the fact that

posted everywhere throughout the laboratory were boldly lettered signs Kureetvaspreshahyetsa.

Colonel Nehemiah Rozhdestvenskiy realized he was someone for whom signs which arbitrarily gave

orders no longer possessed the slightest meaning.

He watched; the coffin shaped object's blue light seeming to flicker, the swirling clouds inside

it parting, as did clouds before the dawn, he thought. And in a very real way, Rozhdestvenskiy

considered, it was a dawn, the dawn of a new age for Earth.

If the man had survived.

Rozhdestvenskiy looked at Zlovski, noting the man's chin trembling slightly from the oscillation

of the spear point of his little beard. "When will we know, Comrade Professor?"

"Comrade Colonel Rozhdestvenskiy, we, we shall know in a matter of seconds. The cryogenic chambers

are designed to stimulate the occupant toward awakening, yet not abruptly. We, we shall know in

seconds."

Rozhdestvenskiy only nodded, turning his attention back to the coffin shaped cryogenic chamber. It

was one of the Soviet made chambers, but had been altered to match function for function those

twelve chambers of American manufacture which had been confiscated from the ruins of the Johnson

Space Center along with the ninety-six three litre bottles of the nearly clear green liquid which

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was the all-important serum. The subject of the cryogenic suspended animation test,

Rozhdestvenskiy had memorized the man's name as a courageous hero of the Soviet Union, whether the

man survived or not, had been injected with the correctly calculated amount of the cryogenic serum

based upon body weight. The volunteer's name was Corporal Vassily Gurienko.

"Corporal," Rozhdestvenskiy called out. "Do you live, Corporal? Vassily?"

Inside the chamber, as the clouds of the blue cryogenic gas dissipated, there was movement.

"It could only be a reaction of the body, an autonomic response, Comrade Colonel," Zlovski

cautioned.

"Vas-sil-y!"

"Comrade Colonel!"

"Vas-sil-y!"

Slowly, the body inside the chamber rose, like a figure in a child's nightmare sitting up from a

coffin, the covering, the lid of the chamber elevating in perfect synchrony with the form inside.

Slowly, the torso bent until Corporal Vassily Gurienko sat fully erect. The man was naked save for

a light blue cloth covering over his legs, this partially dropped away, his private parts

unconsciously displayed now.

Rozhdestvenskiy walked toward the cryogenic chamber. "Corporal?"

The occupant of the cryogenic chamber, his lower jaw dropped. "Comrade Colonel, I, what is, I

feel, "

Rozhdestvenskiy spoke slowly. "You were born where, Corporal?"

"Minsk, Minsk, Comrade Colonel."

"Three times nine is how much?"

"Twenty-seven," the man answered after an instant's pause.

"What is the mathematical equivalent of pi?"

"Ahh, three point one four one six, Comrade Colonel."

"What are you doing here?"

"Comrade Colonel, I volunteered to serve the State,

Comrade Colonel, "

"How?"

"To test, Comrade Colonel, to test the cryogenic chambers which will carry ourselves of the

Committee For State Security Elite Corps and the selected female comrades and the support

personnel five hundred years into the future to reawaken, to reawaken and to conquer the planet

and to destroy the six returning United States Space Shuttles with our particle beam defense

systems before they are able to land, Comrade Colonel, and to, "

"Never mind," Rozhdestvenskiy whispered. Rozhdestvenskiy took a half step back, bringing his heels

together, raising his right hand to his forehead, "I salute you, Comrade Corporal Gurienko, as a

Hero of The Soviet Union."

Rozhdestvenskiy dropped the salute, turned to look at Professor Zlovski. "Well?"

"I have told you, Comrade Colonel , there is no proper test of so short a duration and , "

"The indications?"

"They are all good, Comrade Colonel, the corporal, he must be subjected to extensive medical tests

before we know more and , "

Rozhdestvenskiy made a slicing motion through the air with his right hand, dropping his cigarette

to the laboratory floor and heeling it out. He picked up the red telephone on the edge of the

nearest lab table. "This is Rozhdestvenskiy. Give me Communications." He waited, while the

connection was made, a ringing sound once, then a voice beginning a formal answering procedure.

"Never mind that, this is Colonel Rozhdestvenskiy, send message seventeen. I repeat, message

seventeen. Send continuously until there is response. I am in the Cryogenics Laboratory and shall

be returning to my Command Center." He hung up.

"You are not curious, Comrade Professor?"

"About what, Comrade Colonel?"

Rozhdestvenskiy felt himself smiling. "Message seventeen, what it is?"

"I was not listening, Comrade Colonel, I would not presume, "

"It is a coded signal to the Kremlin Bunker, it is only one word. 'Come.' Sometimes," he nodded,

starting to walk away, "one word is all that is needed. I shall wish to peruse the medical

findings of the corporal's condition personally, and have you available to me all the while for

consultation. See to it, Zlovski." Then Rozhdestvenskiy stopped, lighting another cigarette, he

would have five centuries to break the habit. "The corporal is to be treated with the dignity

which would be accorded a hero of his stature." And he smiled at the professor. "Comrade Professor

Zlovski , thank you very much, a most worthwhile entertainment, most," and he walked away,

listening to the click of the heels of his Italian loafers on the hard laboratory floor.

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All but like the gods of Greco-Roman myth, he was immortal now.

Chapter Three.

John Thomas Rourke slipped the Low Alpine Systems Loco Pack's straps over his shoulders, watching

as Natalia prepared herself, at least physically, for the ordeal which remained ahead of them. The

twin stainless L-Frame Meta-life Custom Smiths had never left her throughout the conference with

her uncle, General Varakov, in the mummy room of the museum by Lake Michigan, nor had the shoulder

holster, he had found out it was a Ken Null SMZ, with the special silencer fitted stainless

American Walther PPK/ S. But she was slinging her two M-16s to her body now, as Rourke watched

her. And there was Captain Vladov, the Soviet Special Forces Leader. One of his men had brought

forth Vladov's additional gear. Other than the Smith & Wesson stainless Model 659 9mm he had worn

earlier, Vladov now carried a second handgun, identical to the first. Still a third Smith & Wesson

9mm pistol he carried in what appeared to be a handmade tanker style holster, this gun the almost

black looking 469, called the 'Mini' Gun before The Night of The War. The factories which produced

American small arms had been occupied and in some cases made to continue production, mostly

assembly from existing parts, Natalia had told him.

Rourke turned to the face of the man who had changed his destiny, or perhaps helped him to fulfill

it, if indeed there were destiny at all. General Ishmael Varakov, Supreme Commander North American

Army of Occupation of The Soviet.

The general still sat on his backless bench, his secretary Catherine standing beside and behind

him, her left hand resting gently on the massive old man's equally massive left shoulder. The

second Soviet Special Forces officer had arrived, with his men as well, a Lieutenant Daszrozinski.

General Varakov spoke. "The assault which I propose, Dr. Rourke, is the only means by which the

KGB can be prevented from fulfilling its goals. But I feel a guilt that I send you all to your

deaths despite this knowledge."

John Rourke checked the Gerber fighting knife he had added to his gear before leaving for Chicago.

As he sheathed the black handled MkII, he spoke, "Captain Vladov has five men and Lieutenant

Daszrozinski has five men, a total of twelve Russians, plus Natalia of course. If there were only

thirteen Russians," he smiled, "an assault on the Womb to recover the cryogenic serum or destroy

it and knock out the particle beam weapons there might be doomed to failure, I agree. But I'm an

American. That'll make the difference." He watched Natalia's eyes grow wider as he spoke, their

incredible, surreal blueness brighter somehow in the contrast of the dim light of the mummy room.

"And, if as you proposed, General Varakov, I can get the help of U.S. II in this, well," and he

laughed, "even just two or three more Americans added into, " and he paused, gesturing toward the

Soviet SF-ers around him, knowing they were his allies now against the KGB, but finding it still

hard to realize fully, "this assault force, well. You know what they always say. One American can

lick any couple dozen people from anywhere else in the world. So, a thousand of Rozhdestvenskiy's

Elite KGB Corps, the thousand women he has there to perpetuate the KGB, all the support personnel,

the thousands of American small arms stored there, the millions of rounds of ammunition. All of

that, well, if mankind survives somehow after the ionization effect begins and ends, well ,

history will probably show that this, " and he gestured again to the even dozen Soviet Special

Forces troops and then to Natalia and himself, "this assault force just took advantage of those

poor misguided KGB people."

Natalia Anastasia Tiemerovna began to laugh, hysterically, doubling forward with it, holding the M-

16s back on their slings, falling to her knees. And suddenly, Captain Vladov, whom Varakov himself

had labeled the best soldier in the Soviet Union, began to laugh, Lieutenant Daszrozinski joining

him, the sergeants each man had, the enlisted personnel laughing, too.

Catherine, Varakov's secretary with the too-long uniform skirt, smiled. Varakov, his face seaming,

began to laugh, a laugh that sounded like a child's dream of Santa Claus as it rolled sonorously

from his massive body.

John Rourke began to check one, then the other of the twin stainless Detonics Combat Master .45s

he wore, it was the first time in his life, he smiled, that he had ever been funny. And in view of

what lay before them, he thought, most likely the last time as well.

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Chapter Four.

Dawn came, the world had not perished by fire as it would, perhaps the next sunrise, or the next.

It was an indefinite sentence of death , sometime, some sunrise within the next seven days at

best, because of the electrically charged particles which had been thrust into the atmosphere

during the bombings and missile strikes of The Night of The War, the total ionization of the

atmosphere would take place. The atmosphere would catch fire, the fire spreading as the

electrically charged particles were acted upon by the sun. It would be the last sunrise for

humanity. As the earth rotated and the sun eventually rose throughout the twenty-four hours, there

would be twenty-four hours of death, the sky itself aflame, the surface of the earth destroyed,

the atmosphere all but completely burned away, much of the ozone layer destroyed. Humanity and all

the lower life forms would be obliterated, forever.

And General Varakov had held out one chance, that in a hermetically sealed shelter such as

Rourke's own survival Retreat in the mountains of northeast Georgia not far from the town of

Helen, his wife Sarah, his son Michael and his daughter Annie could survive, and that he, Rourke,

could survive as well, and so could Natalia and Paul Ruben-stein and any others the Retreat could

accommodate. All through the use of the cryogenic chambers originally developed for deep space

travel, in use with the six craft of the Space Shuttle Fleet somewhere on an elliptical voyage to

the end of the solar system and back. The cryogenic sleep chambers, coupled with the almost

mystical serum which allowed the human brain to be awakened from the life sustaining, unaging

sleep, could allow Rourke's family to survive the scorching of the earth and the sky, to survive

the centuries while the lower plant forms gradually rebuilt the atmosphere to a level comparable

to the highest altitude mountain atmospheres, but liveable. The chambers and the serum without

which the chambers would be a perpetual living death from which there could be no awakening would

allow his family to awaken five centuries in the future to a world, once again and however

marginally, habitable. And to awaken to the hoped for return of the Eden Project survivors, an

international corps of deep space astronaut trainees recruited because of their skills and their

physical perfection from all the western aligned nations. To return with their microfilm libraries

of the accumulated knowledge of mankind, their cryogenically frozen embryonic life forms, domestic

animals, livestock, even birds to sing again in the air if indeed there were air.

An Ark.

But Colonel Nehemiah Rozhdestvenskiy, successor to Vladmir Karamatsov, the husband of Major

Natalia Tiemerovna whom John Rourke had killed in a standup gunfight engineered by Natalia's uncle

General Varakov, had assembled the one thousand finest of his Elite KGB Corps. With one thousand

handpicked perfect Soviet female specimens, with the secret of life sustaining cryogenic sleep

stolen with the American cryogenic serum, they would survive the global holocaust to use particle

beam weapons already installed at what once had been NORAD Headquarters at Cheyenne Mountain,

Colorado, they would survive in what Rozhdestvenskiy had dubbed "The Womb" to destroy the

returning Eden Project before the last survivors of the world democracies could land, could

reclaim the purged earth.

It was this that was his mission, John Rourke realized, sitting in the semi-darkness at the height

of the mezzanine steps, but in shadow from the first floor of the museum itself. He could see the

two figures of mastodons fighting. Natalia had told him how her uncle watched these without cease.

He understood the reason, and like the mastodons, he was now prepared to fight unto extinction

because the circumstances of his own life had issued him no choice. It was his mission, above the

saving of his wife and children, beyond saving Natalia and Paul and even himself for a world five

centuries from now, it was his mission to prevent the KGB Elite Corps from utilizing the cryogenic

serum, destroy the particle beam weapons, prevent the ultimate Soviet domination of the entire

earth, the ultimate victory for evil.

It was an involuntary nerve response, a paroxysm, the shiver which ran along his spine, as a

doctor he could think of a multiplicity of medical related reasons for it. But the truest reason

was within himself and what he had to do.

Chapter Five.

Sarah Rourke, wearing a borrowed sweater, Natalia's things fit her almost perfectly, and her own

blue denim skirt, the only skirt she owned, sat on one of the high rocks not far from the Retreat

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entrance, her pistol in its holster on the ground beside her. On the next rock, Paul Rubenstein

sat, an M-16 across his lap, some kind of submachinegun slung diagonally across his back, a

pistol, she recognized it as a Browning High Power, in a shoulder holster that positioned the

pistol half across the left side of his chest.

"Are you sure you're well enough, "

"It was only my left arm, Mrs. Rourke, I shoot with my right, "

"I didn't mean that -and it's Sarah, "

"Sarah," he nodded, pushing his wire-rimmed glasses up off the bridge of his nose with his right

index finger. "Anyway, the fresh air's good for me."

"Do you think the children, "

"I left a note on the pillow next to Michael, he can read it, know we're just outside, I just, "

And he looked at her. "Why'd you come out here? John tell you to keep an eye on me with my arm?"

She shook her head, it was such a good feeling to have clean hair, to wash it with seemingly

limitless hot water. She suddenly wondered, shivering , what it would be like when all the

supplies stored in the shelves and cabinets of her husband's Retreat were depleted. She had looked

through the library, there were books which showed how to weave cloth, books which showed how to

make soap from animal fat. Would they someday wear rags? Live by the light of homemade candles

because the supply of light bulbs and fluorescent tubes had been depleted, she laughed at the

irony. Limitless electricity from the hydroelectric generators her husband had installed, but

electricity was useless without lights. She laughed , out loud, "I'm sorry, "

"What is it?" Paul Rubenstein asked her.

"Nothing, I was just thinking, how stupid I'll feel someday running around in rags or animals

skins cooking wild rabbit by candlelight on a microwave oven."

Paul Rubenstein started to laugh and she laughed with him. It was nice to have something to look

forward to, after all, Sarah Rourke thought.

Chapter Six.

He had taken an M-16 from a soldier killed in the first pass the helicopters had made across the

school grounds. As the machines banked, their guns opening up again, plowing waves in the dirt on

both sides of the disabled, already burning truck behind which he had taken cover, Reed leveled

the assault rifle toward the bubble dome of the nearest of the machines, they were American Bell

209 Huey Cobras, taken over by the Russians, a red Soviet star emblazoned over the American

markings. Reed squeezed the trigger, firing, emptying the M-16's magazine, the helicopter's 7.62mm

multi-barrel Minigun still firing, the helicopter unswerving, unaffected.

"Shit!"

He tucked down, the ground on both sides of the truck erupting as another of the machines made a

pass, the sound of bullets ricocheting off the metal of the truck body. Screams , not all of the

patients had been successfully evacuated from the building and those that were, were still pinned

down in the trucks, some at the far end of the road, others still in front of the school.

The sound of a missile firing, Reed looked up. The contrail, then one of the two and a half ton

trucks at the far edge of the driveway seemed to bounce upward for an instant, then was consumed

in a ball of flame. Men, women, their clothes and hair afire, fell from the back of the truck.

"Bastards!" Reed screamed at the machines as they finished the pass. They were coming back.

For some reason he turned around, he had never believed in a sixth sense beyond the uneasy feeling

one sometimes got in combat. But Colonel Rubenstein had left the school building. The man stood

there. He screamed, "My wife is dead!" His hands tore at the collar of his shirt, ripping it.

Suddenly, Reed was conscious of Rubenstein being a Jew and Reed seemed to remember that the

rending of some article of clothing was a tradition for the death of a loved one.

Reed started to shout, "I'm sorry." But then the school steps vaporized in a ball of flame and

Colonel Rubenstein was gone.

Reed stabbed the M-16 skyward, firing it out uselessly, screaming the word again and again,

"Bastards!"

He pushed himself to his feet, out of magazines for the M-16, running toward the nearest of the

trucks which could still move, shouting toward the cab, "Driver, get us out of here!"

As he started to climb aboard, hanging on to the stakes that surrounded the truck bed, he realized

the truck's engine was not running. "Driver!"

His .45 in his fist, Reed jumped to the ground. Screams of the wounded and dying were drowned out

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by the rattle of machinegun fire, the long staccato pulse that sounded like a solitary drone of

some huge wasp as it beat its wings. The truck beside him was hit, Reed throwing himself to the

dirt and gravel of the driveway, a shower of the material of the driveway raining down on him.

Flames engulfed the truck beside him, screams, bodies on fire hurtling themselves from the

vehicle.

A missile impacted the front of the school, flames now belching from the roof as he pulled himself

to his feet. He climbed up into the truck cab, the windshield was peppered with spiderwebbed

bullet holes, the driver's eyes were wide open in death, the front of the fatigue blouse dark and

wet with blood.

Reed shoved the body through the driver's side door, "God bless you, son," he murmured, starting

the deuce and a half. "Hang on back there," Reed shouted behind him. "Hang on!" The sick, the

wounded, he didn't want to add them to the ranks of the dead.

He pumped the clutch, stomping the gas pedal, letting the truck start rolling forward, the

gunships coming through for another pass. One of the helicopters was coming right at him as he

upshifted, cranking the wheel hard left and out of the driveway. Reed ducked, machinegun fire

blowing out the window, he was losing control of the truck, losing it. As he moved on the seat, he

could feel the shards of glass falling, hear the tinkle of glass as it fell from his clothes,

breaking, feel the crunch of it under and around him. He fought the wheel, trying to get control.

A tree, he cut the wheel hard right. He felt it as he threw himself down, the lurch, the tremor of

the truck cab around him, the shuddering of his own body as he slammed forward and rolled from the

seat, his right elbow hitting the driveshaft hump, his head striking the dashboard.

With his left hand he felt for the door handle, twisting at it, his right hand clutching for the

cocked and locked .45 which was back in his holster. He found it, half falling from the truck cab

to the ground, steam rising in a whistling column from where the nose of the deuce and a half had

struck the tree.

Reed staggered, falling to his knees, still clutching the .45.

He looked skyward, the Soviet marked gunships were breaking off, disengaging.

Reed looked around him now, the school was awash with flames, all but two of the trucks burning or

otherwise disabled.

Bodies lay everywhere about the driveway, moans of the dying filling the air as the beating of the

helicopter rotor blades died on the air slowly.

Reed got to his feet. His left hand was bleeding, he realized, and his head ached badly.

He staggered toward the rear of the truck, ripping back the tarpaulin cover there.

"Jesus." He turned away, feeling the thing in the pit of his stomach, gagging as the vomit rose in

him, falling to his knees as it poured from his mouth onto the ground.

The twenty or so people in the back of the truck were all dead.

He set down his pistol just to the side of the puddle of vomit, his left elbow aching as he moved

the arm, both hands finding the lapel of his fatigue blouse. For Colonel Rubenstein, for Mrs.

Rubenstein, for all the dead. It was hard to tear the fabric, but on the third try, it ripped.

Chapter Seven.

Natalia Anastasia Tiemerovna, Major, Committee for State Security of The Soviet, felt the warmth

and strength of her uncle's arms around her, a warmth and strength she had felt and loved since

she was a little child, something she would never know again. She tasted the salt of her own tears

mingled with the salt of General Ishmael Varakov's tears as her head rested against his chest.

"All, all of it, in the letter to John Rourke, about my real parents, my real mother, it, it only

made me love you more, Uncle Ishmael, it only, "

"I told all of those things in the letter because I thought perhaps, child, that I might never see

you again, and you had the right to know these things. How goes it with the American Rourke?"

She still let her uncle hold her, there in the quiet darkness of the mummy room. "He has found his

wife and children, Uncle, "

"What of you, child?"

She closed her eyes so tight she could see red and green floaters in them.

"What of you, child?"

"She knows , his wife knows that I love him. And that he loves me, he actually loves me."

"A man does not have two wives, at least not a man like this Dr. John Rourke."

"We, we, "

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"Perhaps he thinks of the Jew, Rubenstein, of him for you should the Eden Project not return, "

She kept her eyes closed. "I love Paul, but like he were my brother, Uncle, like that only. I

would rather go on loving John Rourke and have him never touch me than to lie that I could love

someone else."

"She is older than you?"

"She is thirty-two, perhaps thirty-three, I think, there is only four or five years of difference

between us, "

"Then you will both outlive him if you somehow survive this holocaust."

"I would not want, "

"To live if this Rourke man were dead?"

"Yes, I would not."

"You are skilled in many ways, child, "

She closed her eyes still tighter, like she had when Karamatsov had beaten her before Rourke had

killed him. "I could never, it would, it would be, "

"I know that you could never," and she felt his body shudder as he laughed. "The efficient KGB

killing machine, you were called that once and I never told you. A killing machine in skirts and

silk stockings, a member of the Politburo spoke of you that way when you and Karamatsov worked

together in Latin America before The Night of The War. But I knew that what the Politburo member

said was wrong. Your heart, it has always been the heart of your real mother, did I tell you in

the letter that her name was Natalia as well?"

"Yes, yes, Uncle," she whispered. "You told me that, "

"An old man forgets, child. But there are some things, some things that an old man can never, "

He ceased to speak.

"Forget," she whispered for him.

"There are some things, and perhaps for you John Rourke is such a thing, would that she had so

worshiped me as is evident you worship this Rourke, "

"He is, "

He released his arms from her, turning up her chin with the tips of the fingers of both his

massive, spatulate hands.

"He is a man, "

"He is more, Uncle, he, "

"I am not a religious person, but it is wrong to speak of such things, I think. For a man to

worship a woman, or a woman to worship a man, this can be. But , but he is not your god. Perhaps,

child," and she looked into his eyes, tear-rimmed, large, loving seeming to her, ", perhaps,

child, neither you nor I can have a god. And if in the hour of my death, I should discover one, it

will be the same one that someday perhaps you shall discover, and Dr. Rourke shall discover too.

And your John Rourke, he will not discover his god by staring at his own image in a reflecting

pool and being deceived. It is in this Rourke's eyes , that he is not this sort of man. If you

love him so, then respect him also for what he is and what he is not and would never pretend to

be."

She closed her eyes again, hugging her arms as best she could around her uncle's chest, and it was

something unchanging since she had been a little girl, her fingertips would not meet no matter how

hard she tried, how tightly she squeezed . . .

Chapter Eight.

If free will were in its exercise an intrinsic good, then those who would consciously and totally

abrogate the exercise of free will for the bulk of mankind for their own purposes were, by

contrast, intrinsically evil.

Good. Evil.

Rourke considered these as he stood at the height of the mezzanine steps, staring down at Varkov's

figures of the mastodons which dominated the museum hall. John Rourke looked at the Rolex

Submariner on his left wrist. Varakov indicated they would have to be clear of the museum by eight

forty-five at the latest. It was almost eight-thirty. But the thought of rushing Natalia's last

farewell to her uncle, though it entered his mind, was something Rourke instantaneously dismissed.

He had removed his pack again, placing it on one of the benches at the rear of the mezzanine, his

M-16 beside it, only the CAR-15 slung cross body from his left shoulder under his right arm now.

He looked back, hearing footsteps.

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It was Natalia, walking slowly beside her uncle.

Rourke turned back toward the great hall, whistling low, once, Vladov's man beside the brass doors

leading to the outside turning, acknowledging.

Rourke turned back to stare at Natalia. As he did, he spoke to Vladov, on the mezzanine beside

him. "Captain, looks like we're ready."

"It would appear so, Dr. Rourke."

"How do you feel about this, going against other Russians like yourself?"

"At the Womb?"

"Yes, at the Womb?"

"They are other Russians, but they are not like myself."

Rourke looked at the man. "Fair enough," Rourke nodded deliberately. He turned back to Natalia,

watching. Varakov, beside her, stopped as he reached the edge of the mezzanine.

Rourke listened as the old man spoke. "It is time, child."

Natalia only nodded, her face turned down, as if staring at her uncle's feet or her own.

Rourke stepped forward toward them, his left arm folding around her shoulders. He extended his

right hand. "General Varakov, I think we could have been friends if all of us hadn't been so bent

on butchering each other, sir."

Varakov took his hand, the grip was warm, firm, exuding strength. "I think that you are quite

correct, Dr. Rourke. You will care for her, "

"Like my own life, sir, more than that."

"I trust you and you alone with the greatest joy of my life."

Rourke nodded, almost whispering, "I know that, sir." Their hands were still clasped.

"We Communists are taught that there is no God to believe in, like Marx spoke of. But in the event

we have been wrong all these decades since we attempted to liberate man from his chains, then I

wish that God, if He exists, bless you all and protect you."

"We capitalists are taught," Rourke smiled, "that hedging your bet is never a bad thing, General.

May God bless you, too."

The old man nodded, his eyes lit with something Rourke could not read, but something somehow

Rourke could understand. They released each other's grips.

Varakov folded Natalia into his arms, speaking to her in Russian. "I love you, you are the

daughter, you are the life I never led. Kiss me good-bye, child, forever."

Rourke closed his eyes, opening them as Natalia moved into her uncle's arms, then turning away.

He heard her voice behind him, in English, saying, "I'm ready, John."

Rourke turned back. Varakov stared, past him. Rourke looked behind him. Captain Vladov and

Lieutenant Daszrozsinski stood at stiff attention, right hands raised in salute.

As he looked back to Varakov, the old man, his uniform tunic open, his shoes unlaced, his shirt

collar open, returned the salute sharply. "God, if He hears me and if He is there to begin with ,

God speed."

As Rourke drew Natalia to him, he said only one word. "Sir."

Chapter Nine.

Across the profile of Vladov's AKS-74 assault rifle, as John Rourke looked at him where they stood

beside the massive brass doors, Rourke could see tears rimming the Soviet Special Forces captain's

eyes.

Rourke looked at Natalia, she was staring behind them, and Rourke looked back then once. Varakov,

his secretary Catherine beside him, stood at the balcony of the mezzanine, only staring.

Rourke rasped, "Let's go, our best tribute to him is to do what the general called us here for,

Captain?"

"Agreed," the man nodded, licking his lips.

"Natalia?"

She stared at him, her blue eyes awash with tears. Then she nodded, "Yes," and pushed through the

crack between the doors, Rourke right behind her.

The sun was higher over the lake than Rourke would have supposed, but it had been a long time

since he had seen a Chicago sunrise. Thunder rumbled in the sky to the east as Rourke, a step

behind Natalia, his M-16 in his hands, raced down the museum steps, diagonally, and toward the

lanes of Lake Shore Drive which cut between the museum and the aquarium and the planetarium

beyond, the click of the Soviet Special Forces troopers' boots on the stone steps loud and oddly

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reassuring. Rourke shot a glance at his Rolex, the cuff of his bomber jacket already rolled back,

it was eight forty-two. At eight forty-five for some reason Varakov had not specified, there could

be trouble.

Natalia sprinted ahead, toward Lake Shore Drive, no traffic there, nothing as she ducked under the

horizontal safety lines and into the street. Rourke followed her, hearing Vladov snap from behind

him, "Look there, Dr. Rourke, from the south!"

Rourke drew up to his full height, coming up Lake Shore Drive now from the south was first one,

then another, then another, and he imagined still more behind, trucks. "KGB," Vladov murmured.

Rourke looked ahead, Natalia was nearly across the drive. Rourke broke into a dead run behind

her, rasping, "Come on, Vladov!" His M-16 at high port, the CAR-15 banging against his side as he

ran, Rourke reached the far side of the drive, Natalia still sprinting ahead, crossing beyond the

sidewalk and onto the grass, heading toward the lake side of the spit of land beyond the aquarium,

roadway, parkway strip, then roadway and more parkway, then finally the lake to Rourke's right.

But the shelter of the rocks was beyond the aquarium. "Come on," Rourke shouted. "Hurry, follow

Major Tiemerovna!" Rourke picked up his run, glancing once to his right and behind him, the

trucks, KGB personnel on motorcycles flanking them, he could recognize them by the green tabs of

their uniforms. He hit the grass, running alongside the aquarium now, Natalia disappearing behind

the aquarium, Rourke running after her.

Rourke reached the back end of the building, taking a quick left behind it, running. Ahead the

ground dropped off, Rourke reaching the edge, remembering what lay beyond well enough not to jump

for it. But he flipped down, picking his landing spot in the instant before he moved, missing an

eight-inch wide crack between the slabs of tan colored natural rock and chunks of concrete which

formed the low sea wall against the Lake Michigan waters. He ducked down, Natalia already there,

one of her M-16s up, ready.

Vladov was the first of the SF-ers down, then Lieutenant Daszrozinski and like something

choreographed, one after the other, the remaining ten Soviet SF-ers.

"What do we do, Comrade Major?" Vladov asked, sounding slightly out of breath. Rourke couldn't be

certain, but the pounding in his own chest led him to the conclusion. "Do we wait here or

proceed?"

"Those trucks," Natalia panted. "They, they are heading for Meiggs Field?"

"Yes, Comrade Major. Each day the KGB have been shipping out supplies by nine-fifteen , we do not

know what."

"How big are the planes they use?" Rourke interrupted.

"They are American Boeing KC-135Bs."

Rourke nodded, thinking. "There were steel mills beyond the bend in the shoreline, could be

billets of steel, maybe Rozhdestvenskiy wants some laid in at the Womb to handle early

construction after the awakening."

"Perhaps," Natalia mused. "There were also automotive assembly plants , perhaps engine parts."

"Whatever the hell it is, what do you think?" Rourke asked her, his voice low. "You know the KGB

better than any of us."

He watched her eyes. "My uncle has the boats waiting just beyond the planetarium. Some of the GRU

men he trusted are with them, but they are not insane. If we wait and do not make our rendezvous,

" and he saw her eye the gold ladies Rolex she wore on her wrist for an instant, "they will leave

and we will be stranded here."

"No choice for it then," and Rourke turned to Vladov. "Have your men keep low and have 'em watch

their footing. We'll follow this out all the way to the land's end, "

"Agreed," Vladov nodded, saying to his men, "As the doctor has said, keep low, be careful of your

footing among these rocks, we follow the major and Doctor Rourke."

Natalia started up from her knees, Rourke grabbing at her right forearm, looking at her for an

instant. "I'm sorry, sorry this had to happen. All of it, except meeting you."

"I as well, except for that," and she pulled away from him, breaking into a crouching run along

the rocks, Rourke after her.

Chapter Ten.

Sam Chambers, president of U.S. II spoke slowly. "This is butchery, pure butchery, "

Reed closed his eyes, inhaling on his cigarette, slowly saying to the president, "It proves what

I've been saying, Mr. President, a major Soviet offensive directed against us. They're softening

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