Survivalist - 21.5 - The Legend (6 page)

He walked past them, trying to ignore the questions they shouted after him, into the corridor beyond the outer office. He hoped the two were following him, simply to keep them from other duties. Men and women ran along the corridor, many of them armed, others carrying computer discs, still others seeming just confused.

Antonovitch turned off the main corridor and toward the office of the Premier.

Only the Premier himself could give the order that must be given now…

Natalia Tiemerovna paused just inside the tunnel entrance, John and Paul and Michael exchanging fire with an Elite Corps Unit which had pursued them from beyond the main gates. She kicked out of the low heeled shoes that went with her uniform, throwing down first one then the second of the two shoes that had been stuffed into the interior pockets of her greatcoat. They were the modern-day German equivalent of high fashion track shoes, closed quickly enough with the hook and pile fasteners. And, she could run in them.

She kicked the uniform shoes away and picked up her weapon, starting down the tunnel ahead of the three men, toward the control center at its opposite end. As soon as the radar system was down, the Underground City’s air defense system would be neutralized and the Allies would be able to attack.

It was poor tactics to run on ahead, but it was also a compulsion, a need within her to which she had no choice, other than to respond.

Ever since she had started thiriking for herself, started fighting on the side that was right in this war which had lasted now for five centuries, something had nagged at her soul. And perhaps it had nagged at her soul even before then.

If the Soviet cause had been wrong, if Communism was a lie, a terrible deceit perpetrated on the impoverished masses, could there be any other immediate cause for the nuclear terror which had all

but obliterated humanity?

And she had been a part of it, a small part, but an important part. She had worked to subvert the western democracies, had worked to further Communist revolutionary aims throughout the world, had done her part and more. She had the decorations-she still possessed them-to prove it.

She was ore of the precious few women to achieve field grade rank. No doubt, part of that was because of her uncle, Ishmael Varakov, who subsequently became Commander of the North American Army of Occupation. Part of that, too, was her then-husband’s influence.

But she’d been good, very good, and distinguished herself in what then she had thought was service to the Soviet people and the downtrodden of the world.

It was her fight more than it was anyone’s fight.

If she helped to start it, she should help to finish it. And, if she died doing this, then another problem was solved.

She had no death wish, but death was preferable to being alone, and once this war ended, John and Sarah could enjoy the blessings of peace, raise the child that was even now in Sarah’s womb.

And, if she lived, she would go her own way. She had already considered that. The Wild Tribes of Europe, children’s children of a French survival colony that could not stay out of the atmosphere long enough and had been forced prematurely back to the deadly surface, desperately needed help. Education of even the most basic sort was unknown to those few who survived, the infant mortality rate over seventy percent because of lack of medical care and poor sanitation. She had considered this as her alternative, and realized that perhaps somehow she might at last have found the impoverished masses that the philosophy of Marx and Engels had taught her to serve.

Natalia Anastasia Tiemerovna reached the end of the tunnel. There were KGB Elite Corps troops stationed there and they opened fire on her with energy weapons …

John Rourke ran, the energy rifle at high port in his hands, Michael and Paul holding the near end of the tunnel which accessed into the city. In the distance, toward the end of the tunnel, he could

just make out Natalia, flat on the tunnel floor, energy pulses impacting the tunnels walls around her, the pops of small explosions as tunnel wall material exploded, the bolts of bluish white Ughtning crackling everywhere.

But John Rourke had planned ahead. Technology was fine, but some things were never out of date. From the belt beneath his tunic, John Rourke pulled a grenade. It wasn’t gas, it wasn’t sound and light. It was a copy of the American M-67 fragmentation grenade with a four to five second delay fuse. The classic baseball grenade, a good man with a good arm could throw it forty yards and the casualty radius when the body of the grenade itself fragmatized on impact was at least fifteen yards was ready. John Rourke could see Natalia now, lying there in the tunnel mouth, unmoving. And fear like he had never known suddenly gripped his stomach, nearly loosening his bowels.

Hugging along the wall now moving steadily forward, he pulled the wire clip which was the second safety for the grenade, all that remained, to pull the split ring at the end of the cotter pin and lob the grenade. If Natalia were dead, he asked himself, what had any of this profited him? What would he do? Her death would solve his greatest dilemma by the simplest means, but John Rourke had never sought the easy way and simple solutions carried with them terrible peril.

There was still no movement from Natalia as he neared the tunnel mouth. When he first learned about grenades, concurrendy he had also learned that sometimes bowling a grenade toward its target was the most effective means of getting a grenade where you wanted it when shorter distances were concerned, rather like the underhand throwing of a knife at close range. The energy weapon hanging from its sling by his right side, John Rourke pulled the pin and lobbed the grenade underhand, past Natalia, out of the tunnel mouth and toward the knot of energy weaponed armediilite personnel. Rather than throwing himself to the tunnel floor to protect himself he stabbed the energy weapon toward the Elite corpsmen and fired, pumping the trigger as fast as he could, dashing toward Natalia. Inside his head, he counted the seconds. The maximum delay would be five. It was at three seconds that he let the energy weapon fall to his side and threw his body on Natalia’s, covering Natalia’s head and his own with his hands and arms. The roar of the M-67 so

close to the tunnel mouth caused an echo effect, his ears ringing with it.

But beneath him, he heard a sound sweeter than anything he had ever imagined. “What-” Natalia’s voice. She lived.

“Can you move?” He didnt wait for an answer, looking toward the end of the tunnel. The KGB defenders were dead or dying, their energy weapons no longer a threat. But that situation would change in seconds as more of their number reached the site. And, beyond the tunnel, he could see the Air Defense Command Center.

All he had to do was reach it. If hecould plant the charges that he wore beneath his coat, he could neutralize it. If he could not plant those charges, he could neutralize the facility at any event, detonating it on his body.

Paul wore a similar set of charges, as did Michael.

John Rourke had refused Natalia’s request for the same.

But she could not be left on her own now, barely able to stand, weaving as she sagged against him, a darkening bruise marring the perfect alabaster ofher left temple. He dragged her onward, looking back only once. Paul and Michael were pinned down by the entrance to the tunnel, energy weapons impacting the tunnel walls.

And, maybe, this time would be the end.

Since The Night of The War, he had cheated death more times than he could remember. As he half-carried Natalia beside rum, he wondered if this time death might finally win the game …

So far, so good, Darkwood said under his breath. The phrase was becoming his watchword for this operation. Not a shot had been fired to alert the Marine Spetznas guarding the lagoon, which would, in turn, sound a general alert throughout the complex.

The sonar net had not registered entry of a submarine, yet; yet, the time was long since past for the Ronald Wilson Reagan, Sebastian at the con, to have penetrated the entry tunnel to the lagoon beneath the domes.

“Sir!”

“What is it, Mondragon?” Darkwood responded, his eyes never leaving the control panels he monitored.

“Three Marine Spetznas bigshots on the way up, Sir!”

“Mondragon, we don’t refer to officers of opposing forces as *big shots.’ They are officers and should be accorded all due respect for rank; unless, of course, circumstances indicate we should kill them. But, we kill them respectfully.”

“Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.” And there was a slight hint of a laugh.

“Get out of sight and let them in,” Darkwood ordered. “Don’t react until I give the word or they try to shoot me. Clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

Darkwood glanced over his shoulder, then over to the console nearest him, to the Lancer 2418 A2 within reach of his right hand.

He exhaled, listened for the door to open behind him, heard the voice in Russian snapping, “What is this?”

In English, Darkwood responded, “What’s it look like, Comrade?” And Darkwood looked over his shoulder. Three Marine Spetznas officers, the highest ranking among them only a captain. But a naval captain, Darkwood’s rank, was field grade, the equivalent of a full colonel, so he had the senior-most one of them considerably outranked. “You should be saluting a senior officer, gentlemen; but, I won’t tell if you won’t tell.”

“Take your hands from that equipment!”

Darkwood glanced at the console, then into the lagoon. Nothing yet. “Gentlemen, has it crossed your collective minds-and I use the term ‘collective’ intentionally-that if Fm in here, and Fm not bothering to try to run or fight, you are outnumbered? I suggest relaxing. Consider the smoking lamp as lit. You might care to surrender your weapons, too. You’ve just been outflanked.”

He heard the scratchy sound of a plastic Sty-20 scraping against a plastic Soviet issue holster. Since captured Sty-20s were so often utilized by American forces, there was inventoried a fabric holster for use with the pistols, vastly better designed and considerably less noisy.

Darkwood said to the three Marine Spetznas officers behind him, “If you shoot me with one of those, the Marines that are in here with me will shoot you, then slit your throats for good measure. And, the two men on the steps aren’t yours; they’re mine.”

Before there was a response, Darkwood saw the black monolith that was the sail of the Reagan break surface in the lagoon. A smile crossed his lips as he turned in his seat and looked at the three men.

Their Sty-20s were aimed at his chest. “I suggest setting down your weapons; you have that choice or death. I won’t bring it up again.”

The two junior officers looked at the captain, who stood between them.

The captain lowered his weapon, then lowered his body into a crouch and set the Sty-20 on the floor by his feet. As he rose back to his full height, the other two officers set down their weapons and Mondragon and the two Marines inside the harbormaster’s tower came from hiding behind two of the equipment racks, their AKM-96s at high port.

Jason Darkwood turned back toward the lagoon. The deck of the Reagan was just surfaced and her hatches were opening, men and equipment pouring from them.

So far, so good …

Nicolai Antonovitch walked past the wall-to-wall staff officers in the Premier’s outer office, reached over just under the lip of the secretary’s desk and pushed the button which provided access through the double doors into the Premier’s office.

The secretary, a pretty, if somewhat severe looking girl in her mid-twenties, looked up at him, brown eyes wide.

“Everything will be better from now on” Antonovitch told her, smiling at her.

The door lock buzzed and Antonovitch entered.

The Premier stood before an illuminated map table which showed the interior and immediate exterior of the Underground City. He looked up from the table, saying, “You should have been announced. Why are you late?”

“I was considering several strategic and tactical options.”

“And?”

Nicolai Antonovitch drew the pistol at his belt-it was a Tokarev he’d carried and used for years-and pointed it at the Premier, then began pulling the trigger …

Heavy conventional gunfire-automatic weapons and some pistols-along with the bluish white lightning bolts from Soviet energy weapons poured toward them, craters in the ground around their

position and the walls near them blackened from energy weapons strikes, pockmarked from bullets.

John Rourke held Natalia, still slightly ill-looking, but able to hold a gun, held her close beside him.

Time was running out.

But he would never choose death while an alternative remained.

“Help me,” Rourke told her. “Keep up steady answering fire, but don’t work for accuracy. Just keep them busy, like they used to say in the old western movies.”

“We’re not going to make it,” Natalia whispered.

“Yes we are,” Rourke smiled, the words holding more conviction than he genuinely felt. As soon as the radar controls for the antiaircraft batteries were knocked out, there would be an attack against the Underground City of unprecedented magnitude. Then there would be a chance.

The structure at the base of which they huddled for protection from fire was the command center for the Underground City’s air defenses. If he could neutralize the structure-John Rourke’s mind raced. Already, he was pulling hand grenades from his gear, but the hard way, by twisting open the plastic hangers rather than pulling pins.

The command center was a concrete block building some thirty feet high with no access at all at ground level except via a driveway with a heavy looking metal door at the far end where trucks could enter and leave. There was access above, but that meant traversing an open staircase leading to a main door, and there was already gunfire from above.

John Rourke had anticipated being able to enter the building via conventional means with the help of the energy weapons, then destroy the radar guidance equipment which controlled the air defense response. He had not anticipated the rapidity of the resistance response.

But, he had planned ahead for emergencies.