Survivalist - 21.5 - The Legend (36 page)

Usingthe German climbing equipment, added to the fact that they

wereall mtimately familiar with each face of the mountain, facilitated j

theirascent, despite the darkness and the tact that there was no moon, j

Theonly electronic security they had encountered, perforce not I

overlyprecise because there was now abundant re-released wildlife in I

thearea, was at the fence surrounding the base of the rnountain itself, j

Bridgingthe fence without interrupting ifs current allowed them easy j

access.

Thenew German climbing boots, the advanced crampons and the fact, that for better than fifty percent of the distance they needed no climbing gear stall and could essentially just walk, reduced the ascent time to under two hours.

‘There’s noekctronic security on the summit, except for a video camera on the far side,” John told them. “By keeping low and going in front of the statue, well be undetectable.”

Theyapproached the statue, Paul seeing it for the first time, as was Michael. Michael observed, The face on the statue is pretty lifelike; I think you ought to lose the beard, Dad. Just a suggestion.”

Johnturned around, saying nothing. And, in the darkness, Paul could not see fas face. But, he agreedwith Michael. The full beard John had grown to disguise his now very recognizable face, just wasn’t him, somehow.

Keepingto knees and elbows, they crawled pastthe base ofthe statue past the escape batch John had actually used before and after the event which the statue depicted, as if frozen in time, and to the far side of the TDountain’ssummit, wefl out of range of the video surveillance.

Therewas a large, fiat stone, surrounded by several smaller stones. Michael began moving the smaller stones away. “If we dothis right,” John said taking one end of the large,flat stone, Paul taking the other, “wellbe in and out and they’ll never know how we didit. That should make our Martin Zimmer even more upset.” Michael joining them, they moved the fiat stone onto the tarp John had laid out on the rocky surface besideit, so there would be no scuff marks on the stones.

“Where’sthis come out again?” Paul asked.

ButJohn only laughed softly…

MichaelRourke knew The Retreat as well as his father, having been its master for all the years while his father returned to The Steep. Michael and his sister had grown up there.

Goingfirst through the tunnel, climbing downward in near total darkness except for the small flashlight he held clamped in his teeth, he reached the interior vault closure and began to work the combination.

“Howare you coming, Michael?”

“Almost-gotit, Dad.

“Wheredo we come out?” Paul reiterated. “Ohh-I remember. It

takesa sick mind to think of something like that.”

Tilgrant you devious,” Michael’s father said. Michael Rourke drew open the door and aimed his flashlight at the back of the object which masked the secret entrance. “Remember, push on your right side and swing it to your left.”

Tremember.” Michael pushed, the porcelain cold against his hands. The toilet’s flush tank swung away and Michael Rourke drew back. There was no light, no sound. Hedecidedtogoforit, stepping through, feeling with his foot first that the toilet lid was down, only putting part ofhis weight on it, then stepping down to the floor. If there were motion or pressure sensors, their entry would be detected.

Theflashlight in his teeth again, Michael held one ofhis Berettas in each hand.

Hisfather was through the opening, then his brother-in-law.

“Wecan’t risk lights because a power surge would be detected. There are motion sensors by the main entrance, but I can’t get my Harley up the escape tunnel anyway, so there’s no need to go to the main entrance. The video cameras probably aren’t monitored continuously, so let’s hope they don’t catch the flicker.”

Andthey started getting out of their backpacks…

Reachingthe video camera without its seeing him was the hardest part, and he stood beside it now, balanced precariously on top of one of the gun cases, the A/B switch in hand. Coaxial cable was vastly changed over what he remembered, but he had rehearsed this, at the house on the outskirts of Eden City, which James Darkwood had secured as a very temporary headquarters for them.

Usingthe pliers fromhis LeathermanTool, Michael Rourke worked loose the locking nut, then readied himself to jerk the coax free of the camera feed. Hewasdoubleglovednow, rubber below leather, to avoid leaving fingerprints, which were still used occasionally for indentification, he’d understood fromDarkwoodand Kohl. But, these days, sophisticated laser scanners routinely picked up latent prints that were left through a porous glove, a technology pioneered in the late twentieth century.

Hejerked the coax free and pushed the single feed end of the A/B switch into place, leaving the lock nut until later. In the next instant, he pushed the coax that was a moment before it disconnected from the

camera onto one of the receptacles on the other end of the A/B switch.

No sirens sounded, no lights flashed on, but he didn’t for a moment feel safe …

Paul Rubenstein had his A/B switch in position on the second video

surveillance camera, then tightened the lock nut. The video equipment

they were attaching would be their gift to the government of Eden. It

was cheap Russian equipment, suited to the task but so ubiquitous as to

be unliacabte.the marketfl only these

with all serial markings removed.

Paul drrnbed down off the kitchen counter, checking his connection to the video recorder.

He lot the A/B switch’s remote and the switch moved to the center position, the feed from the camera going to both coax lines, the one leading along to the mam entrance of The Retreat and the one leading down to his recorder.

His fingers poised over the play and record buttons. In six centuries, apparently, no one had discovered a way to make one button which reliably did both.

When the camera reached its farthest rearward swing, Paul pushed play and record the same feed that was going along coaxtothe security station going into the recorder as well.

He looked at las watch, timing a full rotation of the camera from starting point back to starting point at one minute and fifty-two seconds. He tapped out the numbers on a calculator, then leaned against the wall and waited

Five

John Rourke had the alarms on the cases he needed to enter bridged in under ten minutes, the video of the interior of the Retreat’s great room being fed back through the coax from the security cameras, so that anyone observing the video signal-watching it on a monitor-would see exacdy what was expected, an empty room in darkness except for illuminated cases, not three men rifling them.

The alarms bridged, Paul and Michael aiding him, John Rourke began to open the cases.

The first things he took from the cases were the twin stainless Detonics .45s. He hefted them in his hands, najding in satisfaction.

Carefully, he set both pistols onto the padded length of material he’d stretched across the floor. Michael handed him the two full-sized Detonics Scoremasters. John Rourke set those onto the length of fabric as well.

Paul set the 629 next in line and the suppressor-fitted 6906.

The knives-both the Crain LS-X and the A.G. Russell Sting IA Black Chrome-along with their sheaths, the leather surprisingly well-preserved, were stowed in an open pack.

John Rourke took his dark-lensed aviator style sunglasses from the case and placed them carefully in the hardside case in a pocket of his jacket. “Paul, get my SSG; never know when we might have to do some long distance work,” Rourke whispered beside his friend’s ear.

Paul nodded.

John Rourke went to the library shelves.

He set the open pack on the floor beside him.

Videotape was supposed to be wound periodically to guard against deterioration, but German scientists had assured rum that if he could get it, they could salvage it.

Michael was beside him, whispered into his ear, “What are you getting?”

“Home movies. Annie’s and PauTs children can see them someday, and yours and Natalia’s, too.” “Dad, I, uhh-*

“What I said I meant You know I loved Natalia, but there was no way we could ever be together. You did what I wanted, and Fm happy for both of you that you did it on your OWTI, without me prompting it. My daughter is married to one of the two finest men Tve ever known, and some day Natalia wiflbemarry^ son’s arm. men went on with Ins work.

He left the video shelves and went to one of the book shelves.

“What book?” Michael asked him.

“What else?* John Rourke smiled. There were two books, one the Rourke Farmty Bible and the other was Ayn Rand’s novel, Atlas Shrugged…

There were other hems they took with them, extra Barami HipGrips and PacbrnayrGrips for his father’s revolvers, Pachmayrs for the .45s, as wefl. Spare magazines and speedloaders, were other gear that migfjt prove riecessary to them. From here, they would join Natalia and Annie, then travel inn the Wildlands.

He didn’t need sleep, but he needed rest.

Michad was last irwD the escape turm

hintthenstartir^toworkontte They had worn surgical slippers

o\er their boots so no footprints woidd be at least none that

would be recognizable, and he pulled his off now, stuffing them into a pocket of his coat so he’d have decent traction on the ladder rungs…

John Rourke reached the summit and climbed out into the cold night air, Annie’s IDetorhcs ScoreMaster in his right fist, the Smith & Wesson CeiiterjrrialmbJsbeftonitsHipGrip, one pack on his back, another in his left hand.

Keeping from sight of the video surveillance camera, John Rourke took a moment to took upward into the night sky. With no moonlight, and the only artificial light from hundreds of feet below, the star fields were brilliant diamonds set against black velvet.

He thought about the two women he had loved in his life. And perhaps both of them were forever lost to him. Certainly Natalia was. He’d wanted this to happen, intentionally used the cryogenic chambers after

the Great Conflagration to bring his son and daughter to adulthood, so Anniecould wed Paul, so Natalia could wed Michael. He’dwantedNa-talia to belong to Michael, wanted it and feared it and now it had happened.

Happiness and sadness could sometimes be one.

Stars altered their paths slightly over the years, as did men and women, and had he the means, he would have calculated how much subde variation their was between the patterns among the stars now and then. John Rourke watched the stars a moment longer. In the six centuries which had passed since he’d first viewed the stars from the summit of this mountain, his question was still unresolved.

Six

While they slept. Commander Dodd instituted a dictatorship, and during the long years of his dominion, resentment grew in Eden, so did its population. The former was a natural result, the latter was planned. Oat of both grew a resistance to tyranny, forced into the Wildlands for survival.

John Rourke watched the terrain below the now-antique J17-V, KohlatitscorcroLs. Eden lived up to its name, a garden of lush green, the summers soil short and cool, the winters still long and cold, but the tree cover returned, looking like the Georgia that had existed in the latter decades of the twentieth century, rather than the barren wasteland he had awakened to after the first Sleep in the immediate aftermath of the Great Conflagration. In that respect-the re-greening-Dodd and his successors had done well.

John Rourke had always felt the devil was worth his due.

Rourke’s eyes shifted back into the cabin. James Darkwood slept, but young Darkwood had been up nearly all the night and, unlike the rest of the cabin occupants, had not come out of a century and a quarter’s cryogenic repose.

Annie did needkpoint.

Oddly, so did Natalia, although with evidendy less practice. He smiled, thinking about that. Not something that was probably given great emphasis at the Chicago Espionage School six centuries ago in the Soviet Union, needlepoint. Perhaps cross-stitch instead.

Michael and Paul played chess, happily still a pastime for people everywhere.

John Rourke returned to his notes.

A century’ and a quarters worth of history wasn’t assimilated in a moment

Dodd’s plan-or was it Deitrich Zimmer’s? -was to increase the population of Eden exponentially, through immigration of carefully

selected groups and through a rigidly enforced policy of sexual exploitation of women.

Today in Eden, women had no political rights. Like men, they owned litde else but the clothes on their back. Today, economic incentives had replaced harsher methods. Ibday, women were given a cash payment and tax credit for every child they brought into the world. When Dodd was just getting started, women who refused to bear children were forced to do so.

He understood the woman who had tried to pick him up’ on the bus. She wanted to be made pregnant. Although artificial insemination was available to any woman who chose it, it was forced on women of child-bearing age. If they did not become pregnant by more conventional means, the alternative punitive taxes were levied. Over half the young women he had seen in Eden were pregnant.

When Dodd took over, almost immediately he proceeded to activate D.R.E.A.D., but in secret.

Over the intervening decades, the Soviet Union, prohibited from building nuclear weapons, allied itself with New Germany and Mid-Wake for protection against Eden. Eden possessed the Soviet nuclear weapons seized after conquering the Soviet underwater complex. New Germany armed itself, a technologically simple task, comparatively, sharing the technology on a give and take basis with Mid-Wake.

The alliance between Mid-Wake and New Germany insistently reminded John Rourke of the relationship between the United States and Great Britain before The Night of The War, all but perfect mutual trust (tempered with a little espionage between good friends, to be sure).

There was resistance to Dodd’s policies, and some of the Eden returnees, someof the immigrants from Mid-Wake (whomDodd could not prohibit, although he apparently tried) and some of the Russians abandoned Eden proper, for die Wildlands.