Survivalist - 21 - To End All War (23 page)

“How will you escape the base, Doctor?” Han Lu Chen asked.

“We will take up the best defensive position available and wait it out until Major Hartmann’s paratroopers reach the field. We will then don armbands—blaze orange ones—by which means we will hopefully be distinguishable from enemy personnel. And, if all goes even moderately well, we neutralize Gur’yev base and move on to the Underground City for a coordinated strike timed to coincide with Mid-Wake’s submarine and commando attack on the Soviet underwater complex in the Pacific.”

Natalia lit a cigarette, not bothering to ask if her smoking would bother anyone. If John’s cigar hadn’t produced that result, her cigarette was certainly safe.

The moment she’d been waiting for for so long was nearly at hand.

This sole obstacle—Gur’yev—was all that remained before a final confrontation that would end it, one way or the other.

She exhaled, watching the smoke from her cigarette drift upward toward the ceiling of the environmentally controlled tent.

And she was suddenly very lonely, because however this turned out—whether she lay dead in some anonymous mass grave or survived to be free—to be alone was her destiny forever.

He was a major of the KGB Elite Corps, according to his borrowed black uniform, the bullet hole that had been in the chest of the last man who’d worn it rewoven in New Germany by removing a patch of material from the crotch of the uniform trousers and replacing it with a similar, but not identical piece of fabric.

If one of the guards at Gur’yev got close enough to cheek for the patch in the crotch, its discovery would be the least of John Rourke’s worries.

To disguise his appearance, he’d shaved away most of his sideburns. Anticipating such a penetration into the Soviet sphere of influence, he had not shaved his upper lip for the last two weeks, the resultant mustache—a litde grey—serving to draw his features downward, making his already naturally long face seem that much longer.

Beside John Rourke, the only one of the four of them wearing appropriate rank, sat Natalia. She was uniformed as a female major of the KGB Elite Corps, which she had been— KGB, at least.

Despite the severity of the uniform—knee-length black A-line skirt, heavy stockings, and sensible shoes under an open ankle-length greatcoat—she looked exquisite, as was normal for her in any event. Her almost-black hair was covered with a blond wig, considerably shorter than her own hair beneath it, so short it was almost the length of a man’s hair.

In the front seat of the Soviet ATV staff car, on the driver’s side, Paul was uniformed as a senior sergeant. Beside him, hair dyed blond and fake mustache added to divert the casual observer from the obvious physical similarities between son and father, Michael was uniformed as a lieutenant.

As Paul slowed the staff ATV to take the deliberate right angle onto the roadway leading toward the main gate, John Rourke checked under his uniform blouse. With some skillful tailoring by quartermaster personnel at New Germany, he was able to conceal his twin stainless Detonics CombatMas-ters in the double Alessi shoulder rig, a supressor-fitted 6906 in a specially designed inner pocket of his greatcoat and the two Scoremasters in his belt.

The litde Centennial was in the outside pocket of his greatcoat, ideal for that application because the hammer was completely enclosed and there was absolutely nothing to foul in the pocket lining if the gun were to be discharged.

And he smiled now as he remembered the words of his old friend, master gunsmith and consummate martial artist Ron Mahovsky, concerning his lifelong addiction to the revolver. “Six for sure.” The Centennial was only “five for sure,” but the principle was the same.

“We’re going to be stopping in a minute or so for the first gate check,” Paul advised.

“Remember the Soviet Communist Weltanschauung,” Natalia said, lighting a cigarette and exhaling a thin stream of smoke through her lips. “There is a terrifying, often paralyzing fear of authority. Constituted authority is the father figure, and in conflict with such a father figure there is always the risk of being disciplined. If we establish ourselves instantly as authority figures with which to be dealt and of which to be afraid, we can ride in easily using our cover identities and altered appearances.” v

“Once we’re inside,” John Rourke cautioned, “no matter what happens, one of us has to get to the airfield. If all hope of sabotaging a sufficient number of the aircraft themselves is lost, then we blow the synth-fuel dump. At least that will keep them from making too many sorties and tie up a lot of their ground personnel.”

“If we can make it through the gates, we can make it to the airfield,” Michael concluded soberly.

Rourke caught his son’s eyes in the rearview mirror, their color having been altered with contact lenses and nearly the color of Sarah’s eyes now. “I’m glad you’re so confident. Often confidence—not overconfidence, which can net just the opposite—is the key to success.” The staff ATV began slowing.

There were heavily armed sentries on either side of the roadway, deflection barriers behind them. Sandbagged machine gun nests flanked the road on the outer side of the first segment of the security gauntlet and beyond the deflection barriers, between the outer and inner guard stations.

The gates themselves were made of solid metal, titanium Rourke guessed, twelve feet high, topped for another two feet above that by the perennial favorite, barbed wire.

The wire would be electrified when the gates were closed, to make the contact, Rourke surmised.

And the gates stayed closed now as the guard sergeant approached the staff ATV, saluting as Paul lowered the window and Michael produced the orders.

The sergeant said not a word, merely inspecting the orders. Natalia rolled down her window and flicked ashes from her cigarette toward the ground, beginning to speak to Rourke, as though picking up a conversation in midstream. “I disagree that the Germans have any sort of chance against us, Comrade.”

John Rourke lit a cigarette —Soviet officers never smoked cigars in public, because it was still considered a capitalist affectation—and exhaled smoke as he told her, “Yes, Comrade Major, but as much as I agree and believe in the superiority of our forces, the fact remains that the German war machine, augmented as it is by the Americans and the other allies, is too strong to be ignored.”

Natalia laughed, saying, “But too weak to be a threat?”

The guard sergeant cleared his throat, Natalia looking at him, saying, “Yes?”

“Comrade Major, it is necessary to see—”

“-papers,” Natalia preempted, reaching into her purse and shoving the ID toward him through the open window. “We are in a great hurry.” She looked away, snapping her cigarette out the window toward the guard sergeant’s feet.

Rourke handed across his papers, as did Michael and Paul.

Michael cleared his throat, in what John Rourke knew was his son’s best Russian, saying, “Be quick about this, Sergeant, or there will difficulties.” Michael didn’t explain what the difficulties might be, but the already slightly nervous-looking guard sergeant’s eyes widened a little as he returned Natalia’s papers. “Thank you, Comrade Major.” He saluted as he spoke.

Then the guard sergeant passed back John Rourke’s papers, beginning the same short speech, but Rourke waving a hand toward him, dismissing him as he continued speaking with Natalia. “You may be right that I have expressed too much caution, Comrade, but to be cautious is better than to be reckless.”

“I grant you that, Comrade,” Natalia smiled.

Michael’s and Paul’s papers were returned, and as the guard sergeant began to salute again and the deflection barricade began to lower, Paul began to drive. John Rourke released his grip on the Smith & Wesson Centennial inside the pocket of his great coat—five for sure… .

An ice-edged wind blew across the parade ground fronting the airfield at Gur’yev, the ice field extending in all directions as far as John Rourke could see. Far to the west was the Ural River, all but a centralmost channel ice-encrusted.

As Rourke exhaled, his breath turned to steam. He helped Natalia from the car.

“Boy, is it cold,” Paul murmured, stepping back as Natalia exited the vehicle.

“Try bare legs except for these miserable nylons,” Natalia told him.

Michael stepped out, all four of them walking toward the front of the staff ATV. Warmth radiated from the engine that was still running, rising in visible waves off the low armor-\ plated hood.

John Rourke stared toward the gate leading onto the field. Security here was less in evidence, but it was a given that the base would be on full alert after the debacle the Soviets had suffered in New Germany.

A few yards from the entrance to the field was posted a sign, the notice reading, “Only Service Vehicles Beyond This

Point.”

There was a low fence of seemingly ordinary chain link, high-strength synthetic most likely, surrounding the field. Beyond this fence, and beyond the snowdrifts and massive chunks of upthrusting ice, were the runways. To the west, nearer to the river side, were the hangars, a tower, and the administrative buildings, all of these prefabricated structures and all of seemingly considerable size.

John Rourke pulled the synthetic fur officer’s cap from his head, ran the bare fingers of his right hand back through his hair, and replaced the hat. He re-gloved as he spoke. Those cars on the other side of the deflection barrier past the guard post are evidendy to take visiting personnel to their destinations, then return them to the parking area. That obviates allowing any potentially large amounts of explosives onto the field.”

“I’d thought you were overestimating the difficulty level,” Michael observed.

“If you noticed —I did—when we parked before the inner guard post by the main entrance,” Natalia said, “there was a pressure plate under us. Likely the car was scanned for explosives.”

“Our guns, too?” Paul asked her.

“No. The machine wouldn’t be sensitive to firearms or sensitive enough to detect explosives carried on our persons; otherwise, it would register an alarm every time a vehicle passed. If we’d had explosive loaded in the ATV, we would have betrayed ourselves.”

John Rourke cupped his hands and lit another cigarette, using his Zippo this time rather than the Soviet battery-operated lighter he’d used in the car, its blue-yellow flame moving with the wind. As he snapped the cowling closed and exhaled smoke through his nostrils, he said, “I think we’d better get about our business. Remember, no guns until the last possible second. And if it’s a shooting situation, let’s try our best for Natalia to handle it with her suppressed weapon or for me to do it with mine, right? Let’s go.”

Natalia fell in at John Rourke’s right side, Paul at Michael’s right side, and they started toward the airfield gates in twos.

The guards evidendy noticed them—three officers and a senior noncom drew themselves to attention, and the guard sergeant made a rifle salute. “Comrade Major!”

John Rourke returned the salute, saying, “Sergeant, we will require transportation to the main hangar area at once.” With that, Rourke handed over his identity papers, adding to Paul Rubenstein, “Sergeant Kerensky, the orders.”

“Yes, Comrade Major!” Paul offered the guard sergeant the orders, the man taking them, already returning John Rourke’s identity papers. Natalia and Michael had their papers ready, Paul getting his.

“Forgive me, Comrade Major, but there is heightened security now and I must confirm these orders with Captain Mi-chailovitch, who is the officer of the guard.”

As John Rourke had suspected, the ordinary Soviet soldier had not been informed of the debacle in New Germany, or else the guard sergeant’s remarks would have at least hinted at the reason.

“Very well, Sergeant,” John Rourke told him. “But see to it at once.” John Rourke caught the look of trepidation in his son’s eyes. He turned away from his son to Natalia. “Comrade, while we wait here, allow me to inspect once again that curious object we discussed a moment ago.”

Natalia smiled up at him, and her lips came together briefly as though blowing him a kiss. She opened her purse as John Rourke reached into the reinforced interior pocket of his greatcoat.

Natalia’s suppressor-fitted Walther PPK/S came from her shoulder bag at the same moment Rourke drew the suppressor-fitted Smith & Wesson 6906.

There were four men, John Rourke’s first double tap into the neck and left eyeball of the guard sergeant as the man started to return Michael’s papers. Natalia fired twice into the head of a corporal, Rourke taking out the private reaching for the guard booth radio telephone with two shots, one into the right side of the neck, the other into the right temple. Then Natalia put two bullets into the head of the last man, one through the left cheek and up into the eyeball, the second directly over the bridge of the nose.

OftT

Paul had swung back his greatcoat, his right hand going to the pistol grip of the Schmiesser submachine gun slung beneath his armpit as Michael, bare-handed, raced toward the guard booth, to operate the gate controls, Rourke knew.

“Too bad,” Natalia said, not dismissively but sincerely. “Killing these men, however necessary, was a waste.”

“Agreed,” John Rourke nodded, grabbing one of the dead men by the heels while Natalia grabbed another, Paul working on a third. The gate was beginning to open, Michael already packing the fourth man into the guard booth.

The car—something akin to a more civilized form of tracked Arctic Cat—was easy to start but cold as a tomb inside. Paul and Michael had disabled the other three identical vehicles before leaving the airfield main gate guard station.

As they drove along the perimeter of the airfield now, Paul at the wheel, John Rourke surveyed the field before them while, without thinking about the task consciously, replacing the four spent 115-grain jacketed hollow points in the magazine of the 6906.

“We should have no more than ten minutes,” Natalia advised, “and more likely considerably less than that until the dead men at the gate are discovered.”