Survivalist - 15.5 - Mid-Wake (48 page)

“Got shot off, you mean. Here—you let me do that— nice and easy.”

She had adopted him, he decided. But he let her help get the shirt over his head and help him to ease his arms through the sleeves. As he pulled it down, she started buttoning the plaquet front. “All dressed up like some kind of damn commando—where do you think you’re going?

“If by six A.M. your time Mid-Wake hasn’t heard that my friend Major Tiemerovna is free, I’m going after her myself.”

“They just gonna give you a submarine?”

“Hopefully. Otherwise, I’ll have to take one. Relax—I bounce back quick and this twenty-fifth-century medicine is great. I was accessing some stuff off the bedside computer. You work miracles nowadays—I do feel like a witch doctor.”

“Well, it’s just stuff. I mean, a doctor’s a doctor. You’d pick up on it.”

He smiled at her. “Ill never be able to repay you.”

She turned away from him and walked back toward the windows. “Look—ahh—I know you’re married. I heard that. And I know about this Russian lady major.” And she turned around from the window very suddenly and came toward him. “But you can always use a friend, can’t

John Rourke walked toward her and folded her into his arms and she leaned her head against his chest. “Always, Ellen,” he told her… .

Michael Rourke’s wrists were blistered but, as he tugged at the nearly burned-through plastic cord, the cord finally snapped. He saw no one in the companionway outside the brig, already massaging his wrists despite the blisters to get full feeling back into his fingers, hands, and

forearms. The cord could be turned into a garrote and, if he could steal a weapon, even one of those dart guns, he might have a chance. If his father and Natalia were alive, they could be aboard the submarine. If they weren’t aboard the submarine, they might be wherever it was headed—if it hadn’t gotten there already. There were possibilities.

And anyplace was better than here.

Sebastian sat in the command chair of the Reagan. He consulted the digital timepiece inset in the armrest and looked away from it. The timepiece readout was most distressing. Doctor Margaret Barrow stood beside him. “Well? Are you or aren’t you, Sebastian?”

“Margaret—I have orders. Not only do I have orders, but the orders are indisputably correct. Allowing for the maximum amount of time for all facets of the Captain’s plan, allowing for additional delays that might never be foreseen, a return by six A.M. Mid-Wake time is certainly an appropriate deadline. We cannot rely on our sonar-drag array and the Pillars of Woe “themselves masking our presence here forever. Not only is it my responsibility to await the Captain’s return, but it is also my responsibility to provide for the safety and the lives of the rest of the crew—yours included. At the appointed time, I will follow orders and head for the open sea, and as soon as conditions of proximity permit, I will communicate with Admiral Rahn in order to request further instructions—if Commander Darkwood and his party have not returned. Some time still remains, may I remind you.

“Barely enough time for them to make the swim.” “Jason is quite resourceful, as is Captain Aldridge and T iontonant Stanhone. PerhaDS thev will avail themselves

of some other means of transportation.”

“Sure,” she snapped, he thought a bit sarcastically. “Maybe they’ll steal an Island Class Soviet sub!”

He hardly thought so… .

“Well have to steal it.” “An Island Class sub?”

“Sure—it’d look terrific over my mantelpiece anyway.” Darkwood smiled.

Aldridge didn’t smile. Darkwood shrugged. “Look,” and Darkwood studied the Russian woman’s eyes a moment—they were very pretty and unbelievably blue—and then he looked back toward the Island Class sub. “If we board that vessel, alarms are going to sound and in general all hell is going to break loose, right? We may have time to get aboard, but we won’t be able to get back off and into the water and swim out—without getting ourselves killed. And if there’s a general alarm, the sharks might roam free in the lagoon too. We’d never make it out alive. And we have no idea what condition this Michael Rourke is in, and we might also sustain some casualties ourselves. That’d slow us down even more. But if we take command of the sub, we can shoot our way out.” He looked at the Steinmetz on his left wrist. “And the most telling argument of all, gentlemen, major, is that we are flat out of time. We could never make the swim-out to the Reagan in time to intercept it before Sebastian follows his orders and heads for the open sea. But even if they send an Island Classer against us, we’ll still have a little jump on them and can link up with the Reagan and fight our way home if we have to. Plus, it might be nice to see just what’s inside the tubes on that missile deck. Agreed?”

No one said they disagreed.

“Good—Sam, you go take that submarine for me.” Darkwood grinned.

Aldridge started to speak, then shook his head, trying to hold back lamrhtp.r.

“All right—here’s what to do,” Darkwood said seriously. “Tom—you and the two guys already in the water and two more men swim up to the Island Class and come aboard from her starboard side by the hydrofoil-launch berth. Use the PV-26s unless you feel more force is the only way to achieve the objective. I’d rather we avoid making any more noise than we have to.”

Stanhope nodded.

Darkwood weighed his pistol in his fist. “Those people on board should be expecting our charming companion to arrive sometime shortly. So what if she arrives a little early, huh?” And Darkwood smiled… .

Colonel Harley Wilkes, the ordnance expert, arrived in uniform this time. By Rourke’s Rolex, it was exactly five-thirty A.M. here, meaning that in a half hour the immediate disposition of Natalia’s fate would be known— either this Jason Darkwood had succeeded or failed.

“Thank you for coming at such an ungodly hour, colonel.”

“It’s not bad if you’ve been up all night, indulging a whim, doctor.”

Rourke looked the old Marine in the eye. “I apologize for the inconvenience.”

“You should sir—and the apology is accepted. I believe I have your special ammunition, although for the life of me I cannot see why our own pistols wouldn’t suffice for your needs.”

“As a soldier, colonel, you should know that a man fights better with a familiar weapon.”

“Very true.” The ordnance man nodded. “True.” He opened a small box-like attache case, took from it a red plastic ammunition box, and handed it to John Rourke. Rourke opened it. There was no headstamp and the brass was a little off color. “There is your ammunition, sir.”

“Looks good—how does it shoot?”

“We all but perfectly matched the velocity figures you

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mixed differently and our priming compound is more powerful. Chamber pressures seem to be quite reasonable and recoil is not as pronounced as I would have thought this old caliber should be.” “Can I try them out?”

“There’s a rifle and pistol range in the academic complex across the way. I anticipated your request. I’ll call for a nurse and a wheelchair.”

John Rourke stood up. “That won’t be necessary, thank you, colonel.” He judged another twenty-five minutes remained until the moment of truth… .

The walk actually felt good, Rourke’s perception of his overall fitness level pleasantly surprising to him. The air here, despite the fact that it was canned, felt fresh against the skin, and he almost thought that he detected a breeze, although such would have been all but impossible. The black BDU pants and the black knit shirt were comfortably cut, the •Mid-Wake-issue combat boots with their deck-style soles made for almost effortless wear, and at his waist he had a brass-buckled web belt, identical for all intents and purposes to the military-issue belts of five centuries ago.

The educational complex was imposing, and as they entered it Rourke began a dialogue with Colonel Wilkes. There were grammar schools and high schools servicing each of the primary living areas (of which there were two separate from this) in addition to the educational complex which they were now entering. In this complex were housed special elementary and secondary schools for the gifted, as well as the university and the Naval Academy. The Naval Academy was the one and only military academy and turned out naval and Marine officers. The closest thing to an Army was the Marine Corps (and there were also security police, for which no degree but considerable specialized training was required). To have had an Army when there was no land on which they

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Force when there was no air through which they could fly, Rourke realized.

Here also were Mid-Wake’s specialty schools for doctors of medicine and dentistry, the hospital (Mid-Wake’s only medical facility aside from smaller clinics) conveniently located to mesh with the integrated program of the teaching facilities. Nursing was as respected a profession as ever, Wilkes confirmed when Rourke questioned him, the requirements in nurses’ training nearly as stringent as those for medical doctors.

Here as well were the research centers which provided much of the scientific base for Mid-Wake’s technology.

The range was one of several located throughout Mid-Wake, civilian marksmanship encouraged and each man and woman, in the style of the twentieth-century and pre-twentieth-century Swiss, a citizen soldier and required to qualify biannually. The private ownership of firearms beyond the issue military weapons was encouraged, and most businesses and social organizations had rifle or pistol teams. Crime was almost non-existent, and Rourke was reminded of the often quoted remark of the twentieth-century literary futurist Robert A. Heinlein that an “armed society is a polite society.”

The range facility was extraordinary in its completeness and integration of computerization. Targets were controlled by computer and could be used in preprogrammed drills or individually programmed. Hits were immediately posted on a computer screen near the firing positions, as well as velocity at the muzzle and at point of impact. Specialized programs were available to measure reaction time, the effects of perceived recoil,
etc.

Rourke and Colonel Wilkes were met by a female captain, Wilkes’s chief assistant in the ordnance section. She had his pistols and when she gave them to him, John Rourke immediately field-stripped the twin Detonics .45s and inspected them. They had been indeed well cared for. The skillful combination of subtly different stainless steel alloys used in their production had not only withstood the test of five centuries, but the test of salt water. He was

told by the woman, a Captain Harriet Bowles, that there had been a few minor rust spots found on the one of the two pistols inscribed with his name, along the slide top strap, which was slightly matted to reduce glare. These had been quickly removed and, despite their saltwater dousing and their age, the guns looked—she sounded amazed—brand new.

Rourke was not amazed and had expected no less.

With mild trepidation, Rourke loaded four of the six-round magazines and fed them up the wells of the two reassembled pistols. Dry feeding was faultless. He felt encouraged. Harriet Bowles programmed the computer to individual combat.

At a flashing-light cue, the computer-controlled electronic targets rotated into position and Rourke, a Detonics .45 in each hand, engaged the various targets, the program telling him that he had 1.5 seconds to reload. He had one pistol reloaded and firing and reloaded the second as he continued the string.

He looked at the computer screen. All twelve shots from the first strings and eleven out of the subsequent twelve shots had registered in the K-zone. The twelfth shot had registered just beneath the K-zone and, on a human target, would have been a kill.

Functioning had been flawless and perceived recoil had been essentially what he was used to. He worked his way through fifty rounds in addition to the twelve he had already fired, selecting at random from several of the boxes of ammunition provided for him.

At the conclusion, he loaded both pistols and stuffed them into the waistband of his trousers beneath the black knit shirt. “Colonel Wilkes. Captain Bowles. Your work has been extraordinary and you are both to be commended. How many rounds are there available to me?” He had removed muffs and shooting glasses.

“We’d like to keep a small supply for our own experimentation and in the event the load should ever need to be duplicated, for use as a benchmark.”

“Certainlv. captain. How manv rounds are available to

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“A thousand?”

“Precisely or more or less?”

“I’d say precisely.” Colonel Wilkes smiled.

“Excellent.” Rourke smiled. He was loading his spare magazines as he spoke. “I don’t think 111 need that much, really.” He glanced at his wristwatch. It was five minutes after six Mid-Wake time.

Rourke reached under his shirt and drew both pistols. He had chamber-loaded them. He thumbed back the hammers, Captain Bowles’s pretty green eyes widening. Colonel Wilkes took a hesitant step toward him and stopped.

“What’s the—”

“It’s a little after six. Let’s go wake up your President and see if he’s expecting my friend Major Tiemerovna to arrive. And if he isn’t, I’m about to introduce a new industry into your economy. It’s called ‘rent a sub’; and if we can find a way of keeping the rates affordable, who knows? Now—these pistols, cocked and locked, will be under my shirt and easy to get at. I’m sorry if I appear to be abusing the excellent hospitality shown me by everyone here. If my friend Major Tiemerovna hasn’t been heard from and if your President doesn’t want to loan me a submarine and a crew, I’m taking one. Shall we?” And Rourke inclined his head toward the exit from the range. He thought Captain Bowles was suppressing a laugh… .

Natalia Anastasia Tiemerovna walked surrounded by men in Marine Spetznas uniforms, Sty-20 pistols and PV-26 shark guns aimed at her. But her blood surged and she felt a freedom of spirit she had not known since her captivity began. She was not only escaping, or trying to, but striking back. Each of the men who had rescued her had had in his gear a Soviet Marine Spetznas uniform. She thought Jason Darkwood and Sam Aldridge looked narticnlarlv charmimr in theirs.