Survivalist - 21.5 - The Legend (28 page)

“That’s crossed my mind, too. But I figured if they were some kind of hit team-“

“You watched too many videotaped movies when you were a kid.”

Michael grinned, saying, “I had pretty much nothing else to do for about a decade and half. But, if they are a hit team, it could be Zimmer who set them up. So maybe we’ll get lucky.”

“A lot of times, you remindme of your Dad so much it’s scary, but then sometimes you don’t, and maybe that’s scarier,” Paul whispered.

Michael Rourke shrugged his eyebrows and picked up his rifle. The sling and swivels were taped to prevent extraneous noise. If the six men they followed were a hit team suckering them into a trap,

there was no sense making it easier for them to do their work .

Natalia eased up on her toes and slipped onto a bar stool, letting her dress ride up just a litde to show some thigh. ‘Golden Oldies’ from Mid-Wake were the musical rage of New Germany, and here especially, it seemed. Over the sound system, as she’d entered, one of the Beach Boys’ signature tunes was just ending and the Beaties’ “You’re Gonna Lose That Girl” began. By the time one of the three bartenders noticed her, Elvis was singing.

“Yes, Fraulein?”

“Vodka and tonic, please.”

“Good. I get tired of women ordering things that ruin their plumbing and bar’s, too.” And he was gone, leaving her to wonder just what some of the women ordered.

Men were everywhere, some dressed in the trendy suits of New Germany which looked like ‘sixties Nehru jackets, some in work clothes (coveralls) and some few in casual clothes. And there were a disproportionate number of women here, considering the sexual demographics of Opentown, some of them in obvious working clothes, too.

Under Nazism, prostitution had flourished no less than under other forms of government, merely keeping itself well below the surface to avoid direct conflict with the law. In Opentown, as it had been for centuries everywhere, prostitution was illegal, but Natalia had noticed no one seemed to care.

Lights, again very ‘sixtiesish, flickered across the dancefloor while the dancing itself was more reminiscent of the Latin dance forms which had enjoyed some vogue before The Night of The War, men and women all but copulating in time to the music.

The song had changed, the Doors doing “Light My Fire,” and just as if the song were a cue, a man took the bar stool next to Natalia and asked, “Buy ya’ a drink, lady?”

He spoke English, obviously from Mid-Wake. She mentally shrugged and acknowledged she understood. “I already have a drink coming.” As if on cue, as well, the bartender brought her drink and set it down beside her right hand. “See?” Natalia smiled.

“Name’s Bob Jessup, ma’am.”

He was long legged and had a face that looked like he’d seen a few

! fistfights in his life and brae eyes that smiled like a boy’s.

Tm Heidi Frobe.” He offered bis hand and she took it briefly. His flesh was warm and dry. “Are you an American?”

“Mid-Wake Marine until peace broke out, ma’ am. You German?”

“Yes. Do you work with the bio-team?”

“Diver. I go skinny-dippin’ in the river every day. Used to do the same thing with a gun back in the Corps. Same difference only the pay’s better and the food tastes like shit.”

She laughed in spite of herself.

“Whatchya do?”

“Here?”

“No, I mean, well, regular. Cinch you ain’t one of the workin’ girls.”

Natalia took it as a compliment that Bob Jessup didn’t see her as a prostitute. “1 work in engineering, with computers. I agree, the money is wry good, but the food is terrible, I think.”

He was so American and it would have been so easy for her to drop into his accent, but she kept the German intonation and inflection to her English.

“Wanna dance?”

“I just met you.”

“I have a dangerous job. There might not be a tomorrow night, lady.”

She liked his style and she hadn’t danced in a place like this in five hundred years. “All right,” she told him, smiling. And, Gruber was on the dance floor and she’d be able to keep a better eye on him there …

Michael Rourke moved ahead on knees and elbows, his rifle in both fists at eye level, the crackling of the camp fire, the sounds of insects and birds and the soft hiss of the wind, the only noises.

He kept moving.

Their horses were tethered and hobbled almost a half mile away so a stray noise would not betray their presence to the enemy personnel.

Paul would be coming up on the far side the camp.

As Michael crawled forward, he stopped, beneath a piece of half

dead scrub brush able to see the camp clearly. The fire burned too brighdy. Aside from the fact it was a natural attention getter, something six men on the run would try to avoid, even this far from what civilization there was, the fire was also a waste of wood. The nights were cool, but not cold unless the winds blew right and wood for burning was hard to find, the area so arid.

A trap for him and Paul almost certainly.

But Michael Rourke had planned ahead. Four things he took off his father’s body, to hold for his father, and use if he had to. His father’s watch, the little A.G. Russell Sting LA Black Chrome, the Smith & Wesson Model 640 Centennial revolver and the old battered Zippo windlighter with which his father had always lit cigars.

His father’s other equipment, along with his mother’s gun, was confiscated by Dodd. Kurinami, after his election to serve four years as President of Eden, had ordered the return of the items and Dodd complied. They were now stored at the Retreat.

The Rolex watch was in storage at Mid-Wake for his father to re-don if-when, Michael told himself-his father some day awoke from this new Sleep. The lighter he-Michael-carried as a memento. And the gun and the knife he carried in the event that he did find Deitrich Zimmer, to use them, if possible, to end Zimmer’s miserable life.

Michael could see all six men, or what appeared to be six men, at least, sleeping bags filled with man shapes just close enough to the fire to be seen but not close enough to be seen distinctly.

He moved on, over the rough ground and toward his pre-selected position.

There were no trip wires, no alarms of even the most primitive type set as a perimeter alert system. This worried Michael Rourke still more.

He kept moving …

Natalia Tiemerovna, despite herself, was having a good time. Bob Jessup was a good dancer, his arms strong around her but he never once attempted to touch her in a way that was less than gentlemanly. And she could watch Armand Gruber, who had left the dance floor and sat deep in conversation at a small corner table with a woman of about thirty, the woman’s clothes and manner in sharp

contrast. She was dressed cheaply, but carried herself beautifully. “Heidi?” “Yes?”

“Old line, least at Mid-Wake, but what’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?”

Natalia laughed. “You are right; it is an old expression. In answer to the question, though, I am actually a spy and I followed a very desperate character here.”

“Right,” he laughed.

Natalia smiled up at him.

“So, don’t tell me,” he said.

“Well, Opentown is very boring. All I do is sit around at a computer terminal all day long. Tell me about your job. It sounds very exciting,” she said.

The song switched to a fast number and he started her back toward the bar. Her drink was still there, but she wasn’t about to touch it after it had been left unattended. Bob Jessup signalled the bartender and Natalia asked Jessup, “Could you get me a glass of water?”

“Sure. I don’t drink a lot myself. Couldn’t when I was on duty and I never figured it made much sense to blow a weekend pass spending every dime I bad for the first couple of hours, then throwing up the rest of the time, if youH pardon my French.”

She laughed, at him, at the expression-she hadn’t heard it in years-and how thoroughly stupid a situation this was. What was she going to do when Armand Gruber decided to leave?

Her water arrived and Jessup had a beer. He raised his glass, saying, “To pretty German girls.”

“To handsome American men,” she nodded. They clinked glasses. “Is k very dangerous diving all the time?”

“Ever try it?”

She giggled. “Oh, no-I would be afraid to try.” Til take you, if you want.”

“Oh - that would be nice, but I do not know.” Armand Gruber and the woman-she was blonde and wore a tight black vinyl skirt and low cut black top-got up, starting toward the back where there were several doors.

“Wriatchyalookin’at?”

“Looking at?”

The little guy and the bleached blonde hooker. They interest

you?”

Natalia looked at Bob Jessup, for once flat-footed and without a ready answer. So she said nothing, but still watched Armand Gruber and the ‘bleached blonde hooker’. Natalia took her purse from the bar and clutched it in her lap. The Walther PPK/S was inside it, and so was the suppressor, but the bag wasn’t long enough to accommodate gun and silencer assembled. Jessup just stared at her. She stared back.

“So, maybe you are a spy.”

“I have to leave, Bob. Thanks for the dance.”

He put his right hand on her left arm and Natalia’s right hand moved to rest between her knees so she pushed up her dress and get to the Bali-Song knife strapped to the inside of her left thigh.

“If there’s somethin’ wrong, Heidi, maybe I can help,” he told her.

The possibilities were limited: start a scene and attract Gruber’s attention or take Bob Jessup along. She could always dump him later. “All right, but do exactly what I say. Come with me,” she told him, slipping off the bar stool and smoothing down the straight skirt of her dress.

“Yes, ma’am,” Bob grinned …

Michael Rourke plotted every conceivable spot for a trap, but when one of the six sleepers by the fire, turned out to be in the rocks to his left and whispered in awkwardly accented but syntactually correct English, “Do not move, Herr Rourke,” Michael Rourke wasn’t at all surprised. He froze.

“Now, drop the rifle in front of you.”

He let the rifle fall from his ringers.

The route Paul would be taking into the camp was more involved, so they wouldn’t have Paul yet, hence the man who had the drop on him still whispering.

Michael Rourke started to his feet, the Nazi starting to order him not to. But Michael stood anyway. The two Berettas in the shoulder holster he wore would take care of most close range situations if he could get to them. But, as his father had always insisted, Michael Rourke planned ahead.

He raised his hands, clasping his hands behind his head. “You’ve

got me. Why don’t you shoot and get it over with?”

“You will die soon enough, Herr Rourke.”

Michael nodded, but didn’t think so. The sleeves of his black German field jacket were wide, to accommodate the liner and heavy clothing beneath when weather demanded. Tonight, Michael Rourke wore no liner nor anything heavier than a black knit shirt beneath the jacket. Strapped in a skeletonized holster to the inside of his right forearm was his father’s litde Smith & Wesson revolver.

Michael, hands behind his head, had the revolver gripped in his left hand.

There v.as movement and the man with the drop on him emerged from the rocks. “I had expected more from a Rourke.”

“Well, always tough following in your father’s footsteps,” Michael smiled. “Why are we whispering?”

“Because, it-“

“Ohh. so if I made some noise, your guys out there wouldn’t be able to spring a trap on my friend.”

“The Jew.” the man snarled, spitting into the ground.

“Hey. lighten up. I mean, Paul’s the only Jew I know well but he’s like my brother. I met a couple of Jews at Mid-Wake. They seemed okay, too. E\er think you and your Nazi buddies got this all wrong?”

The mari took a step forward, which was the best Michael Rourke could hope for.

Michael dodged kft and dropped to one knee as he stabbed the little stainless sted .38 Special out at shoulder height and shot the man in the throat and forehead with a double tap.

The shots still echoed in the night as Michael reached to the dirt and caught up his rifle in his right hand. There was no need to shout to Paul, because they had planned for the contingency of unexpected shots.

Gunfire tore into the ground near Michael’s feet and the rocks behind him, as he threw himself right and into the darkness behind some low rocks and scrub brush. His M-16 spoke in a long burst, but he was moving again before the answering fire could zero in on his muzzle flashes.

Five

The doorway through which Armand Gruber and the blonde woman in the black vinyl had disappeared, led to the outside. Bob Jessup seemed like a nice guy and, for some reason she didn’t quite understand herself; Natalia liked him. She dropped the German accent from her English as she opened her purse. “Look, you might get yourself killed, Bob. Stay here, this is Nazi stuff.”

“Nazis?”

She nodded her head.

He shrugged his shoulders. “You got a gun, huh?” Natalia nodded again.

In the marginal lighting, there at the end of the corridor, she could see Bob Jessup smile when he said, “Me, too. I wasn’t a Marine for nothin’, lady. Hey-your name really Heidi?”

“What do you think?” Amateurs could get a person killed, but there wasn’t the time for anything else, even an answer. Her hand on her gun, but the Walther still inside her bag, her left hand went to the doorhandle. “Ladies first” she told Bob Jessup as she pushed past him.

As she passed through the doorway, the Walther came out of her bag and down along her right thigh. With a straight skirt and no pockets, there was no better way to hide it.

Beyond the doorway was an alley, dirt only^ no pavement. Trash compactors were ranked along its length in both directions. Humankind hadn’t changed that much in five centuries, Natalia reflected.

There was an electric car with a badly damaged right rear

fender parked at the end of the alley and she saw it just in time to see a flash of blonde hair. As the passenger door closed, the car already starting to drive off.

She almost said a dirty word.