Survivalist - 15 - Overlord (25 page)

the time and manpower and fuel merely to rescue men under his command.

Lights burned in the gunships, and she knew from observation and from analysis that the Soviet field commander would have left the flight crews and perhaps some few additional personnel to guard the gunships until weather conditions moderated to the point where they could lift off. Insurance in case the front stalled and the weather cleared from the south.

She had lived with her husband, worked with her husband, been taught by her husband and knew his thinking, knew the way he expected his subordinates to think, because once she had been chief among them.

Natalia Tiemerovna made a decision. “Lieutenant. I will need you to accompany me. Corporal, you must wait here, guard the Specials as they are called and monitor the position of the six gunships. Should that position change, notify the commander of the J-7V immediately that he may relay the information to Doctor Rourke. Your role is vital.” She looked away from his young eyes and told the lieutenant, “Work your way to the right, I’ll work my way to the left. We’ll rendezvous by the switching tower.”

“Yes, Fraulein Major,” and he said a word in German to the corporal, then started working his way along the ridge and down.

“Fraulein — why—”

She looked at the corporal. “Live, instead, hmm?” And she smiled at him. He was a very pretty boy, she thought, and some girl would surely be waiting for him and though the girl would never know, Natalia had just saved his life.

She touched his arm with her left hand, then started past him into the storm …

The lieutenant’s last name was Keefler and she huddled with him from sight of the men who guarded the train tracks

behind one of the drifts that had molded itself to the conformation of the tower supports.

“There is a ditch there, Lieutenant — you see?”

“Yes, Fraulein Major. What do you suggest?”

She had gestured toward the very rear of the train and what appeared to be an open drainage ditch some fifty yards further back at the very end of the track section before it bridged into the switching yard proper. “I suggest the only alternative. We must get aboard the train. It is guarded from all sides, but not from the rear. If we can get aboard, we can perhaps sabotage it.”

“I have explosives, Fraulein Major.”

“Explosives might cause one or more of the nuclear warheads to detonate. We cannot risk that” She spoke with him comfortably in German, easier for him and not really considerably more difficult for her than English, English and German her primary languages during her course of studies at the Chicago espionage school, Spanish learned more rapidly and less grammatically perfect when necessity had demanded it. The other languages with which she was familiar were the result of happenstance and spare time and opportunity.

“When I give the word, we move out separately toward the ditch. You will cover me, then I will cover you. Once we have reached the ditch we will move along its length until we reach its furthest extent, then make for the train.”

“Yes, Fraulein Major.”

She slung both M-16s forward, trying to wait for the split second that seemed better than the last and perhaps better than the next. But the guards, despite the cold, seemed immutable in their positions. She pushed herself up from behind the drift and ran now, her tiny fists balled on the pistol grips of the M-16s.

The snow made movement feel sluggish, slow, awkward, but she reached the ditch, throwing herself down into it after a glance, the snow so deep here that she almost smothered in

it, the snow crusting over her eyelashes as she blinked it away.

She set one of the M-16s on safe, thrusting the second one over the lip of the ditch as she waited for Lieutenant Keefler. Most of the Soviet personnel were boarded on the train, and she saw among them an officer, in high collared greatcoat rather than a parka, his black uniform denoting to her, even after five centuries, her husband’s KGB Elite Corps. He rose to the steps of the lead car. She could barely see him now. He seemed to look along the length of the train front and back. Though she could hear nothing over the keening of the wind, she realized he had issued a command, his form disappearing inside the car, the guards which flanked the train on both sides peeling off and clambering aboard.

Keefler was coming, in a dead run, his German assault rifle in both hands, his body vaulting into die ditch beside her.

“They prepare to move, Fraulein Major.”

“Yes,” she nodded. “And so do we. Catch your breath.”

Her heart sank, a guard armed with an assault rifle appeared in the rear door of the rear car, yellow light backlighting him for a moment, then the light gone, but the guard remaining. There was nothing for it but to do as planned. Natalia moved the second M-16’s selector to safe, telling Keefler, “I will go ahead of you. I have a weapon for the job at hand.” From under her parka, not bothering to reclose it, she extracted the silenced Walther PPK/S .380. She pushed herself up, running through the snow toward the rear of the train car, the Walther tight in her right hand, the thumb safety off.

Forty yards. Then thirty. Then twenty. The guard turned. He tried to move his rifle. She threw herself to the snow and fired, the Walther’s sound barely audible as the sounds of the train increased, the squeak of wheels, the groan of metal against metal. The man’s body lurched back, then flopped forward as she shot him again, the body falling over the side

and into the snow.

To her feet, running, the train starting to move. There was no time to look for Keefler. If he made it aboard, he did. If not, she was alone. It was a natural state for her.

Natalia Tiemerovna would have no choice but to enter the rail car. And the German, Keefler, had not made it aboard, the train picking up speed so rapidly that it reminded her of one of the Japanese bullet trains from before the Night of The War. As she entered the car, slowly, her silenced pistol in her left hand, her M-16 in her right, she had no plan. Only to live long enough to accomplish her mission of stopping or slowing the train so that John Rourke and the Chinese military force that was accompanying him could reach it and prevent the nuclear warheads from falling into her husband’s hands.

Realistically, she doubted the warheads would be serviceable as they were, no matter how carefully they had been stored. But the plutonium used in them would still be usable in freshly constructed weapons and this was obviously what Vladmir Karamatsov sought.

She had seen only two of the Elite Corps enter this last car, the car’s purpose uncertain to her. As she entered the car, she realized its purpose. Two men on each side of the car crewed one light machinegun respectively, each mounted on a tripod and aimed to the flanks of the railcar, the windows in front of the muzzles closed but easily enough smashed or shot through, a female officer, pretty, walking up and down the

center aisle. Was she Vladmir’s woman?

The female officer wheeled toward the sound of the opening door and Natalia fired as the woman drew her pistol, Natalia firing before the woman’s handgun cleared the holster, a double tap to the forehead and nose, the woman’s body falling back. One of the LMG crewmen at Natalia’s left tried to swing the weapon in the direction of the doorway through which Natalia had come. Natalia snapped the silenced muzzle of the Walther toward his head and fired again, a single shot through the left cheek and into the eye.

She thrust the M-16 toward the remaining three, in her most vulgar Russian snapping, “Move and your fucking brains will be all over the walls!”

The three men froze, Natalia’s mind racing, the Walther in her right hand down to three shots remaining. It was murder^ but if she tried to have the men bind each other or tried to force them to exit the train by the doorway through which she had come, she might be forced to use the M-16, and the sound of gunfire would bring more of the at least forty men she had counted outside the train. She eyed the three men. In one man’s eyes, she could see that he knew. He made for the assault rifle on the car floor beside him. Natalia fired, the hollow point into the left nostril, Natalia wheeling left, a single hollow point into the second man’s right temple. The third man had an assault rifle swinging up toward her and she fired the last round from the Walther, impacting his throat just below the chin, his head snapping back against the wall, his body sagging to the floor.

Natalia lowered the muzzle of her pistol and breathed …

Michael Rourke had asked to be allowed to ride in the engine with the train’s engineer and although the noise of the train speeding over the rails was intense, he didn’t regret it. The machine was a marvel of simplicity. The entire forward fourrfifths of the engine comprised the fusion reaction cham

ber, water passed through the chamber and converted to steam, steam driving the pistons which made the train move. The instrument panel looked like the instrument panel of one of the J-7V fighters or one of the German helicopters. The engineer, rather than looking like the crusty fellows he had seen in videotapes of western movies, was a slightly built Chinese who wore wire rimmed glasses similar to the type Paul Rubenstein had worn before the Sleep. His appearance seemed more appropriate for a professor rather than a man who drove a train such as this through the night.

Han had accompanied Michael in the cab, to serve as translator to the many questions, Han had remarked, he knew Michael would have. And questions Michael did have.

How could they speed along the tracks when heavy snow was drifted on all sides — the tracks were clear? The engineer had explained, Michael realizing that in fact this man was an engineer in the truest sense of the word. The Chinese had electrical power to waste with their conquest of fusion power. The tracks, whenever there was snow anywhere along the line and the snows here were heavy, were utilized as convection coils and melted the snow from the bed over which they travelled. He had perhaps noticed that the cross ties were of steel as were the rails. Wouldn’t such a system be dangerous to animals, as he understood there were, or to the inadvertent rail worker who might contact the rails? But the system used such a low charge, electrical hazard was out of the question and the heat produced would feel pleasantly hot to the touch, not burningly hot. Where were the water towers which would be necessary to replenish the supply needed to produce more steam? The system was totally enclosed and once charged, never needed replacement of the water unless the entire system was to be dismantled for periodic maintenance.

As they entered the second hour of the ride, the engineer asked Michael if he would care to take the controls. Michael had begun to laugh at himself. He had stopped being a kid

so long ago he had almost forgotten what it was like. Almost. He took the controls …

The Schmeisser, the M-16, all were cleaned and checked. With time on his hands, Paul Rubenstein drew the battered Browning High Power from the black ballistic tanker holster he wore for it and popped the magazine, then worked the slide to clear the chambered round. Mechanically, he started to disassemble the pistol, moving the slide rearward so he could lock the safety into the proper notch to hold the slide back while he began to tug out the slide stop.

If Karamatsov had nuclear weapons, it would all be over. Paul would fight beside John Rourke until the last and then, if all were lost, he would take Annie and find the last place on earth that would be destroyed and stay with her there and die with her there. He wanted children. She wanted them. He worked down the safety and eased the slide forward off the frame, then jiggled the barrel free of the slide and began wiping the bore.

John Rourke had been silent since boarding this bizarre train. And Paul Rubenstein knew why. Normally, John would have been in the engine cab with his son, just as eagerly asking questions and learning the workings of the new magnificent machine. But the silence. John Rourke thought that he had sent Natalia to her death, perhaps, and already, before the fact, blamed himself.

Paul wondered if he could have told Annie that for the good of all mankind she should put her life in almost certain terrible jeopardy. It required a strength Paul Rubenstein prayed he would never have to find out if he possessed or not. He began reassembly of the High Power.

John Rourke opened his eyes.

He realized that he had subconsciously accepted the fact that there was nothing which could be done to avert Natalia’s possible death, that there was no way to more quickly intercept the oncoming Soviet train.

John Rourke stood up abruptly, snatching up his guns. “Paul! We’ve got a chance!”

He thrust both Scoremasters into his trouser band and began buckling on the pistol belt with the Python and the Sparks Six-Pak of spare magazines for the little Detonics pistols.

“What-“

Rourke shrugged into the double Alessi rig, the weight of the twin stainless Detonics .45s somehow more comforting to him than it had ever been.

“The J-7V. We can use it. Save Natalia. Stop the Russian train and keep Karamatsov from getting the warheads.” He picked up the little Sting IA Black Chrome and positioned it in its sheath inside the waistband of his Levis, then took the massive Crain Life Support System X from the seat. He wore the sheath on his trouser belt and had simply unsheathed the knife rather than removing steel and leather. He stared at the twelve-inch blade for a moment, then

looked at Paul Rubenstein, standing almost beside him. “The J-7V. If it can get off the ground and that pilot is as good as he seemed, we’ve got a chance. A damned good one.” He sheathed the knife.

He caught up his parka and started for the rear of the car shrugging into his parka, finding the radio transmitter in the interior pocket, working up the antenna as he stepped into the arctic blast, Paul Rubenstein beside him.

“Courier. This is Rourke. Come in, Courier. This is Rourke. Do you read me? Over.”

He closed his eyes and prayed. There was static and when the voice finally came it was almost impossible to hear over the roar of the slipstream around them, but it was the pilot’s voice. “This is Courier, Herr Doctor. Reading you with some static. Over.”