Survivalist - 15.5 - Mid-Wake (43 page)

“Now where to, Sam?”

“If they’ve got her, captain, after all the trouble Rourke put ‘em to, they’d be bigger assholes than I know they are not to have her iust where I said—the detention area

beneath the military command post-office complex.”

“Deploy your rear guard, Sam—then let’s get the hell on with it.”

Sam Aldridge turned to the two Marines designated to be left behind. “You heard the man—the word is given.”

The two Marines repositioned their helmets, grabbed up the gear from the rest of the force, and Darkwood tapped his wrist chronometer. The senior of the two men nodded his understanding and Darkwood and Aldridge covered them as they made the dash to the edge of the dock, then took the ladder down rather than risking the noise of a splash dive.

“You’re the man who knows where he’s going, Sam— let’s do it.”

Aldridge gave a thumbs-up sign and left cover, Darkwood right behind him, looking back once at the packing materials. The Russians were arming with nuclear missiles. He was sure of it.

The 2418 A2 was bunched tight in his right fist, his thumb poised near the safety as he sprinted alongside the Marines, following Sam Aldridge… .

Paul Rubenstein had nearly reached the Soviet submarine, the waves higher now, crashing over him as he tried to increase his pace or at least maintain it.

But the submarine had started underway.

Some 200 yards or so remained, and already the submarine was moving away with a rapidity he wouldn’t have thought possible.

Paul Rubenstein treaded water.

Paul Rubenstein cried and prayed… .

The President of Mid-Wake told John Rourke, “Anything you wish, sir.”

“I need to talk to somebody who knows nylon cord or whatever your equivalent is. I need some to rewrap the handle of one of mv knives. And T need the knives so I

can do it.”

“Certainly, Doctor Rourke, but if you would like, simply tell me what you desire and it can be done for you.”

“No thank you, Mr. President. I’d prefer to do it myself and know just how it’s done. Where are my guns?”

“They’re here. Quite safe. They can be returned to you whenever you wish.”

John Rourke considered that. “What about the ammunition?”

“I was told it would have spoiled with the exposure to salt water it received.”

“Probably so,” Rourke said quietly. “Could you duplicate it for me, if that were possible?”

“I, ahh—I can get someone up here to answer that question. Please. Allow me,” and Jacob Fellows picked up what apparently passed at Mid-Wake for a telephone, but was in the same general shape as an orange. And this one was even the right color. “Computer. This is the President.” Fellows paused, then, “Locate and direct to join me at this exchange and number Director of Ordnance, Mid-Wake Armed Forces. As soon as possible. Instruct that he come prepared with data concerning—please pause.” Fellows looked at Rourke. “What type of guns are they, sir?”

“The caliber in question is designated commonly as .45 ACP, or .45 Automatic Colt Pistol. I am specifically concerned with the reproduction of the load I habitually use, or failing that what was commonly known as standard military hardball, a 230-grain Full-Metal-Case bullet ahead of—”

“Please, Doctor Rourke—I’ll never remember all of that.” He spoke into the orange again. “Computer. Ordnance Director should be equipped with data concerning most commonly encountered loads for caliber designated as following: .45 ACP or …” He looked quizzically toward John Rourke.

“.45 Automatic Colt Pistol, Mr. President.”

“Computer—that was .45 ACP or .45 Automatic Colt Pistol. Thank you, computer.” The President set down the orange. “So—is there anything else that I can do to

accommodate you, sir?”

“I would appreciate your cooperation, sir, in two matters which concern me greatly. They are of virtually equal importance, each in its own way.”

“Certainly.”

“I would like to request that my family be contacted on the surface and alerted to my presence here and that I am well.”

“That may take some doing, but it can be done, Doctor Rourke. And the second request?”

“Get me the hell out of here and loan me one of your submarines and a few people to run her and some scuba gear, and I’ll go after Major Tiemerovna myself.”

Jacob Fellows smiled good-naturedly. “Sir, I would venture to say that scuba gear, as you call it, and certainly that term is still used, has changed rather radically since your day.”

“No doubt,” Rourke whispered.

“Yes—and, ahh—well, the Wayne will be ready to leave port soon enough, but with the Reagan gone—to achieve just the goal you desire—we cannot leave ourselves quite that vulnerable.”

“I looked out the window, Mr. President. A place this size and you only have two submarines?”

“No—no—of course not. We have a fleet only slightly smaller than that of our Soviet adversaries. We have the equivalent of their Island Class submarines—”

“Island Class? What are Island Class submarines?”

“Their monster—”

“The big ones. Very impressive.”

“Ours are nearly as large and certainly more efficient. We have various other vessels. But the job you speak of requires the best attack class vessel available. And that is either the Reagan or the John Wayne.”

“What happens if the Reagan doesn’t make it?”

“Well—the skipper of the Reagan, Commander Darkwood, is the best there is. So was his father.”

“His father?”

“You have no familiaritv with the Darkwood familv. of

course. Perhaps you would feel better, rest easier if you understood the competent hands in which your Major Tiemerovna’s fate has been placed.”

“Perhaps,” John Rourke whispered.

But then, without his guns, his knives, and a submarine, there wasn’t much else he could do at the moment other than listen.

“Excellent. Let me ask you a question first, Doctor Rourke. As an intelligence agent, which I understand you were—the CIA, was it?”

“Yes.”

“Excellent. Were you at all aware of the Mid-Wake Project?”

“In those days, things were on a need-to-know basis, of course. I didn’t have the need to know.”

“As it should have been, of course, Doctor Rourke.” “Do you have anything like a cigar around here?” “A what?”

“It’s a thing made out of leaves that are rolled up and you put one end of it in your mouth and light the other end of it and you inhale the smoke into your lungs.”

“My God, sir! What sort of insidious torture is this?”

“Forget I asked.” John Rourke smiled. “Tell me about Mid-Wake—or the Mid-Wake Project.”

“Well, I don’t have to tell you that in those days the Russians and United States were competing in various areas, not the least of which was defense. But they also competed in space.”

“That’s how we got to the moon.”

“You would have seen that—live?”

“Yes—I saw it live.”

“By God, I envy you. I envy them,” the man said, a trace of genuine sadness resonant in his FM-announcer voice.

“It was quite a sight,” Rourke said, realizing that such an understatement sounded horribly lame considering the circumstances.

“Such heroes, those men.” The President inhaled deeolv. then continued, nickine UD the thread of his

thought. “At any event, then, you are conversant with the situation. There was considerable effort to build space stations, the Russians having the jump on the United States to a degree, to a degree not. But both nations wanted something truly spectacular and yet wholly functional in the skies, not just what budgetary constrictions would allow. And that’s how Mid-Wake was hit upon, Doctor Rourke. All of our personnel were either involved in the space-oriented scientific disciplines or in marine biology, oceanography, and the like.” “I don’t know if I follow you.”

President Jacob Fellows was apparently enjoying his revelations. “Sir, you are here, now, inside the greatest space station ever conceived.”

John Rourke wished he had that cigar.

“By the mid-1980s,” Jacob Fellows began, “with the emphasis on relieving the growing national debt, with the Congress spending in support of dying social programs which had the primary purpose of assuring re-election, and with growing environmental problems of which the vast majority of the American people had little knowledge, the practical uses of space had become self-evident to all those who wished to see. And to capitalize on the space program and at the same time keep costs down, it was necessary to build a permanent space station beyond the limited scope of what had been openly proposed. The only terrestrial environment which comes close to duplicating the environment in space is, of course, under the sea.

“And there was another need for Mid-Wake as well,” Fellows continued. “The Soviets were talking—with some sincerity it is believed by today’s historians—about arms reduction. And while the Soviet officials were talking arms reduction, the KGB and other ultra-conservative groups within the fabric of the Soviet State were making themselves even more ready for war. The trouble with a totalitarian system is that it can be so easily subverted. At any event, the Soviets had a naval super-base in Vietnam at Cam Ranh Bay, and the KGB and others knew very well that if arms talks between the Soviet government and the

United States did proceed into true progress toward reduction, eventually the European missile problems would be ironed out and talk would turn to submarine-based missiles again.”

“This was built as some sort of defense against that?” John Rourke asked.

“More as a compensation, Doctor Rourke. I mentioned the Darkwood family. Well, because of our small population base and the necessary population-maintenance level—all voluntary, mind you—family integrity has remained pretty constant. Everyone here can trace his or her ancestry back to the first scientists and technicians who came here and were eventually trapped here when the war came and it was learned that the atmosphere was doomed. The Darkwood family is one of these original families. Nathaniel Darkwood was a scientist of considerable abilities, as well as an Olympic athlete.”

“Now I know why that name—Darkwood—has been gnawing at me. Nate Darkwood—that’s what he called himself. He won a fistful of gold medals in swimming, and he was one of those rare athletes that was equally good at two sports. Biathalon, I think—yes.”

“Skiing and marksmanship combined—I’ve seen old tapes.”

“Cross-country skiing and rifle marksmanship,” Rourke said. “He was involved in a number of projects in marine biology and—I read one or two of his papers on sharks— but then, there was some kind of storm and the ship he was on went out of radio contact and there was a long search, I remember.”

“He was never lost at sea. Nathaniel Darkwood and a handful of others—many of them the people supposedly lost at sea with him—were formed into a special scientific intelligence unit. It was a result of their efforts that the data was obtained which made Mid-Wake a top-secret national priority.”

“Because of the Cam Ranh Bay naval base?” Rourke asked.

“Certain persons of power in the KGB and the Soviet

Navy saw a means of having the ultimate weapon, a weapon their perceived enemy would never know existed. Using Cam Ranh Bay as the operational base, they began constructing beneath the sea the Soviet domes from which you were fortunate enough to escape. The domes served two purposes. The scientific purpose was seen as allowing the Soviets unparalleled research opportunities with geothermal energy, marine studies, and—much like Mid-Wake—research that would prove invaluable in the construction of a large-scale, permanent space station. The defensive purpose was their primary interest, however. Once the domes were complete, they would have a strategic base beneath the sea where existing submarines could be serviced and new submarines that could not officially be counted in strategic arms talks could be built. When it was learned that the Soviets were doing this, h was realized that an effective counter to this base had to be devised, and since Mid-Wake was already in its early stages, Mid-Wake was selected to be the counter to the Soviet base. The United States government couldn’t blow the whistle on the Soviet base without destroying what progress had been made in detente with the U.S.S.R. And, for that matter, without revealing Mid-Wake. Not to mention the sources of the intelligence data which substantiated the existence of the Soviet base. A group of people whose deaths had been faked and were operating only with the knowledge of the President and a few trusted Congressional leaders, but without the authority of law. And the cost for Mid-Wake was in the billions of dollars, yet the research benefits would have paid for the project and actually yielded a profit within twenty years and saved billions in research dollars for the future. So the base was never mentioned.”

“And after the Night of the War and the Great Conflagration, both Mid-Wake and the Soviet base survived. And for you, the war never ended.”

“Yes,” Jacob Fellows said quietly.

“And?”

Fellows looked at Rourke and smiled. “You’re a percep

tive man. All right. This is in strictest confidence, Doctor Rourke.”

“All right,” Rourke nodded.

“The Soviets used most of their nuclear warheads and lost a number of their submarines during what you call this night of war. We had nuclear capabilities, but very limited, and we were not able to assist our friends and families on the land to any great degree. There was violent submarine warfare and many lives lost, but we could provide no true, direct assistance in terms of resolving the war on the surface. For some time, we played cat-and-mouse games, as the expression goes. But it was discovered we both utilize the same fault in the earth’s crust as our source of geothermal power, what keeps us going here. Both of us. If we destroyed the Russians, with nuclear weapons, we might destroy ourselves. And the Russians have the same data. So we kept our war non-nuclear. For almost five centuries, we kept it that way. Occasionally they would have the advantage, and occasionally we would. But now, all of that has changed. They have produced Island Class submarines with missile-launching capabilities, and they have been mining raw materials for producing bomb-grade plutonium from beneath the sea. We have been forced to do the same. It appears that the Russians are involved in a program which has the eventual aim of retaking the earth’s surface. Our scientists and strategic planners estimate the Russians will not have full capability in this area for several more decades. And, with the recent confirmation that there is substantial life still on the surface …”