Survivalist - 21.5 - The Legend (26 page)

But Rubenstein ordered her, “Don’t, Annie!”

She stood her ground, then, but the muzzle of the shotgun was shaking violendy.

The Jew said, “Lieutenant, let him pass.”

“But, Herr Rubenstein-“

“Let him pass, Lieutenant.”

The young officer cleared his throat, ordered his men, “Let this vile being pass.”

Zimmer smiled, the muzzle of his weapon tight against the right temple of the screaming infant as he continued along the corridor, the Jew and the woman and the others falling back to let him pass.

There was hatred in their eyes, and that was good, because when one acted out of hate, one acted less than rationally.

Twenty

The initial burst of gunfire had subsided because the weap ons in the hands of the Nazis were ill-suited to close quarter combat such as this and so comparatively powerful that severe of the Nazis fell dead by shots from their own comrade: rifles.

In that alone, the Nazis were at a disadvantage. There wen so many of them that it was impossible to miss.

The revolvers in her hands were empty now, but she usee both of them to crash down across the neck and shoulders o one of the Nazis who was locked in combat with Otto Ham merschmidt. Jabbing the guns into her belt, her right hanc swept over the pocket along her thigh and she had the Bali song, wheeling it open, as her right arm arced outward anc downward, averting her eyes from the blood spray as the tip oi the Wee-Hawk patterned blade caught the carotid artery of one of the Nazis and slashed it open.

Something struck her, driving her to her knees, a man’s weight crushing her. Natalia twisted her head to the right. The man, one of the Nazis, was dead. She threw her shoulder against his chest and rolled him off. She came up in a crouch, her knife still in her hand. She thrust it forward, into the chest of one of the Nazis. His hands grasped her wrist in a death grip.

Natalia drew her body back and kicked her right foot into

bis testicles. He lurched back, and her hand slipped from the knife.

It was as if fate were telling her to use the sword, she realized, because a Nazi, with a bayonet fixed below the muzzle of his rifle, charged toward her and it was either use the sword or die.

Natalia’s left hand reached to the handle of the sword, starting it up from its sheath, her right hand grasping the hilt as she started to clear.

She stepped back, the toes of her left foot pointing forward, her right foot shifting so she stood in a Tstance, the sword in a high guard position. As the man charged, Natalia spun 180 degrees right, sweeping the blade in a long arc as she dodged the bayonet, the sword meeting the Nazi’s throat at the adams apple, killing him.

She backstepped on her right foot, the sword in a high guard position again, then cleaving outward and downward in a broad, fast arc across the left side of the neck of another of the Nazis.

Natalia turned half left, edging her left foot back, the blade alive in her hands now, spinning as her eyes sought a new target …

The heel of Michael Rourke’s left hand impacted one of the Nazis at the side of the nose, splattering blood everywhere but not killing the man. Michael Rourke’s gloved fingers gouged for a handful of flesh, finding it, twisting the man’s head toward him as Michael’s right arm punched forward, in his fist the knife made for him at Lydveldid Island by old Jon, the Swordmaker. Edge up, he drove the blade in well beneath the sternum and ripped as he pushed the man off his steel.

About a dozen of the Nazis, firing handguns sporadically, were ranning toward the doors at the far end of the vaulted stone hall.

Michael Rourke shouted as he wiped the blood from his blade across the back of a dead man, “After them! Come on!”

Michael slipped the knife into the sheath as he broke into a run, jumping the body of another dead man as he started a fresh magazine up the butt of one of his Beretras …

Deitrich Zimmer reached the end of the corridor, the doorway there, airtight, sealed.

Behind him, the Jew and his wife and the traitorous soldiers kept close watch, weapons ready for him to lose his concentration for that single second that would allow them a shot.

Zimmer smiled inwardly.

If he released the baby to open the door, they would have him. If he released the gun, they would have him.

And, beyond this doorway lay the future of mankind.

Carefully, his eyes on them every second, he shifted the baby (townwani placing the muzzle of the pistol into the baby’s mouth.

“You bastard!” It was the bitch who shrieked at him.

Zimmer let the smile inside of him show on his face. Carefully, he shifted the pistol from his right hand to his left, holding it awkwardly but well enough and obviously so that his ability » pull the trigger and blow the child’s head to nothingness would not be impaired.

With his right hand, now, he opened the wheel lock on the door.

He stepped through and into the windy blast.

The air forces of New Germany pummeled the redoubt, gunships and J7-Vs everywhere.

The facade of synth-concrete covering the superstructure of the redoubt was largely blasted away now.

In moments, the redoubt would totally fall and the anti-Nazis would think they had won, which was even better than he could have planned.

Deitrich Zjmmer approached the loaf-shaped structure set into the rocks, his now free right hand finding the control set in his pocket, his thumb flipping back the guard, then depressing the switch.

His eyes settled on the doorway, the Jew Rubenstein and the others waiting for him to make the slightest misstep.

He looked back toward the loaf-shaped rock; it was already rotated away, the powered half-track sled waiting for him as it had been for Albert Heimaccher before Zimmer had availed himself of the control unit. Within the enclosed vehicle were emergency rations, emergency weapons, and supplies.

Zimmer activated the next button, the cover of the sled rising upward and forward.

Zimmer eyed his enemies.

His timing would have to be precise.

Carefully, the baby turning blue with the cold, his own hands starting to numb, he approached the sled, then stepped up and inside.

Rather than closing the bullet resistant cocoon around him. he activated the sled controls, the engine purring to life. He started the machine moving slightly forward, glancing back to his enemies. They were through the doorway, weapons shouldered and ready.

The machine reached the edge of the snow covered ramp.

Deitrich Zimmer retook the pistol in his right hand, holding up the screaming child, the muzzle of the weapon still in the child’s mouth.

Zimmer turned toward the Jew and the others, shouting to them, “I have won!”

He fired the pistol, casting the dead infant away as the hail of bullets started, his left hand hitting the cocoon control, his right hand discarding the pistol, working the lever to power the machine to full.

Bullets zinged off the body structure, a pellet from a shotgun blast tearing into his right shoulder.

The sled was already picking up momentum.

The Jew threw himself onto the cocoon, hammering at it with a rifle butt, then the rifle railing away, the Jew’s fists pounding on the covering.

The sled was at the ramp, moving along it.

Zimmer, his right shoulder paining him badly, gave the half

track sled full power forward.

The Jew Rubenstein clung on for a few seconds longer, then fell off, into the snow, hopefully to his death.

The half-track sled was into the run now, and before air power could come after him, he would be gone.

Despite his pain, Deitrich Zimmer smiled.

The world would be changed forever.

Twenty-one

They cornered the dozen Nazis between their own unit and a group of German Long Range Mountain Patrol personnel, the Nazis throwing down their weapons and raising their hands.

Michael Rourke, a Beretta in one hand, his M-16 in the other, walked toward the twelve, Natalia beside him.

“Ask one of them in German where’s Zimmer and the baby.” Michael ordered.

Natalia repeated his question, but as one of the Nazis started to answer, Otto Hammerschmidt, who had been talking to someone on his radio, interrupted. “Michael. The infant child is dead and Zimmer has escaped. Zimmer murdered the baby.”

Michael Rourke turned toward Otto Hammerschmidt.

Michael blinked.

Natalia Tiemerovna began to cry, then screamed, “God damn them!”

Michael Rourke turned toward the Nazi who had been about to speak, shoved the muzzle of his rifle against the man’s face. “Please, Herr Rourke! Please-“

Michael pushed the muzzle of the rifle into the Nazi s mouth.

Tears filled Michael Rourke’s eyes. His right hand trembled.

There was a strong fecal smell, and the Nazi’s eyes were so wide that they looked about to somehow fall out of their sockets.

Hammerschmidt’s voice. “Michael, do what you must.” Natalia screamed, “Do it! What is the use!? Do it!” Michael Rourke pushed the muzzle of the rifle in deeper. The man was gagging, choking. Michael Rourke closed his eyes. His mother. His father.

Now the brother he had never seen.

Michael Rourke could feel his father’s voice inside his head, but he couldn’t hear any words.

He took the muzzle of the M-16 from the Nazi’s mouth. His voice tight, the words hard corning, Michael Rourke rasped, “Thank the God you don’t believe in, you’re not Deitrich Zimmer.”

Twenty-two

In days and nights of tireless searching, there had been no sign of Deitrich Zimmer.

The best specialists that New Germany had to offer in the field of mortuary science had done all that could be done, and still the litde child’s coffin was closed, most of the head disintegrated from the hydrostatic shock and concussive force of the bullet

Deitrich Zimmer had planned the child’s murder. That was obvious, because the round he used in the German pistol was not even intended for use in a handgun, merely the same caliber and dimensions, but a tracer that was fired from small tank mounted cannons out of an overbarrel spotting rifle.

It was a marvel that the gun, badly damaged as it was, had not totally shattered when Zimmer fired it.

The cemetery was a quiet place.

The Christian minister from Lydveldid Island, who spoke in a language Michael Rourke could not understand, performed the service.

Clouds gathered on the horizon, deep gray and menacing.

His sister and Natalia on either side of him, Paul with them. Michael Rourke stared at the open grave.

The casket was so small, the grave so small.

The child had never really lived, never known a kind touch.

In halting English, the minister said, “I commit the body of John Thomas Rourke, Jr., to this earth in the hope of everlasting resurrection.”

Natalia and Annie wore black civilian clothes, as did Paul and Michael. Annie wept. Visible in Natalia’s eyes were the tears she

was holding back.

Michael Rourke was cried out for the moment.

The casket was lowered into the ground.

“He was a litde child and he’s with the angels now,” Paul murmured.

Because of their upbringing, Annie, when first reaching the baby, had baptized him with the water of her tears in the hope of his soul being freed to enter Heaven.

Michael supposed he would have done the same. Annie whispered now, “1 baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”

She wept loudly, her body racked with tremors as Paul folded her closely into his arms.

Michael approached the grave, took up a handful of the soil of New Germany. He threw it into the grave, over the coffin. The vault lid was ready to be lain.

He stared at the coffin of the brother he had never known. This is the wrong place to say this, John, and the wrong time, too, I guess. I can’t even promise you Fli get your murderer. But Til promise you that you’ll never be forgotten.”

Annie and Paul stood beside him.

Michael was wrong, because the tears came again and very hard, harder than be had ever experienced them.

Natalia put a hand on his shoulder and another on his arm.

Michael Rourke could not promise his brother revenge, but he would try.

One

Akiro Kurinami’s office was spartan, and thus typically Japanese. A polished rock was the only adornment on the table that was his desk. The heat within the recently completed public building worked well, and Dodd was almost warm, but the heat was slightly noisy. Kurinami said. “Sit down, Commander.”

“Thank you, Mr. President.” Dodd took the folding chair opposite Kurinami’s desk. Like many of the furnishings of Eden, the chair was from New Germany. What didn’t come from New Germany or occasionally from Mid-Wake was scavenged from the shuttles themselves or put together from the Eden Project stores. There was talk that the Russians were interested in a trade agreement with Mid-Wake. New Germany and Eden and that Kurinami himself had suggested it because of the Undergound City’s vast manufacturing potential.

Kurinami smiled as he spoke. “I cannot help but wonder at the odd turn of events. Corrimander. As much as I puzzled over why you stepped out of the election I now wonder more why you have volunteered the idea that since more of this continent is habitable than Europe, we should open ourselves to immigration from the Russian cities and the Chinese First City. It is a remarkable idea, and noble as well, but-“

Dodd made himself smile. “I felt our young nation needed unity. I did what I felt was best for Eden in stepping down. Now I feel our young nation needs strength. Ifs the American tradition to open our shores to all who wish to come here in peace. But you still believe that Tm some sort of enemy, don’t you, an enemy of Eden?”

Kurinami laughed. “Eden. The name sticks, does it not?”

“Yes.”

“I do not know how to feel about you, Commander. I believe that a man can have a change of heart, that a man can sacrifice private ambition for public good, no matter how strongly that ambition drives him. I was speaking with the Chairman of the First Chinese City. As an ally, as a friend, he saw your proposal as one that would serve to end divisiveness in the future, make the whole world closer to being one.”