The Gemini Divergence (48 page)

He then unholstered his parabellum and
motioned for her to walk ahead of him and exit through the front
door into the common hall.

*~*

An immense explosion shattered the silence
and sent shock waves barreling through every man made cavity
throughout Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado.

As the sound of rocks falling came to an end
and the dust started settling; two figures began to become visible,
dusting the black granite soot from their clothing.

Then there was a cherry glow in front of the
face of the larger of the two dark figures as he removed his
goggles and revealed the clean skin where the goggles had been.

It was Lemay. The cherry glow was his ever
present cigar, still burning, and the now exposed skin around his
eyes was the brightest thing in the cavern.

He bellowed half chuckling, “Goooodnesss!” as
he gave a strong pat to the weapon that they had just fired.

When he did, all of the dust that had
accumulated on the new weapon fell off and into the air.

Lemay chortled on, “That baby has more oomph
than a three hundred pound French whore… Dr. Volmer has outdone
himself this time.”

The figure next to him removed his goggles as
well and revealed himself to be Jack; laughing as well, “Imagine
what this will do to those Bavarian beer cans up there.”

They looked at each other with their
conspicuously unsoiled eyes in the dark and sooty cavern and gave
each other a high five.

When they slapped hands, the shock caused
more ash from both off their bodies to be shaken off in every
direction.

Then Jack noticed the dust and remarked,
“General Sir, your uniform, its ruined.”

Lemay looked at the sleeves on his Jacket and
answered, “Hell son, it’s made in a factory, there are more where
this came from.”

Then the General boasted, “I can’t wait to
get some of these babies mounted on some of those black and blue
McDonnell pop cans.

As the dust settled a little more, it could
be seen that the gun, which was mounted on a tripod, had hoses
running to electrical equipment that was scattered about the cave
around them.

It was obviously not a weapon that could be
carried into battle on a man’s shoulders.

Lemay then queried, “Any more heat in that
sidewinder son?”

Jack smiled as he replied, “More flaming
balls from hell, Sir?”

“How many you got?”

“A deuce and a half full out side.”

“Great! ‘Cause I got all day.”

Jack started pressing some buttons as the
equipment around them started to wine. Finally a red light on the
top of the gun lit up.

Lemay remarked, “Air Force – 1, Mountain –
zip, how d’ya think this game’s gonna end son?” as they both began
putting their goggles back on.

Jack remarked, “One molehill coming up Sir,
as he again pulled the trigger.”

*~*

In a TV report a short time later a local
reporter explained, “I am standing here in front of the Air Force’s
new underground facilities at Cheyenne Mountain, where I am told
they are months ahead of construction schedule because the miners
were able to clear the usually impossible granite away in record
time. The civilian contractors would not comment on what new
methods were used, they cite that any comments might reveal
government secrets about the interior of the new facility.”

*~*

Schwerig returned to the main hanger with
Svetlana, where Graff, escorted by two guards, came to greet
him.

There were people working throughout the
hanger; not only mechanics and technicians, but also a group of
soldiers doing marching drill in the wide open space.

“Any luck Herr General?” queried Oberst Graff
as he approached Schwerig.

“No. This one is a tougher nut than I had
anticipated. We will have to come up with some other methods for
our two guests.”

“Ja wohl, Herr General,” responded Graff as
Svetlana quickly glanced back at Schwerig with a completely
contemptuous gape.

“For now, just return her to her compatriot
and keep them together. I will have to work on them later, as I
have been summoned to brief Von Sterbenbach again at the present
moment.”

“Of course, Herr General,” responded Graff,
as he gently pulled his pistol to assume responsibility of the
prisoner.

Schwerig, returning his pistol to his holster
commented, “I don’t care how you proceed with them, but I want them
alive when I return.”

Schwerig then turned and left.

Once Schwerig was out of ear shot, Graff
smiled at the female Soviet and smartly remarked, “Well, my
darling, how romantic was your evening?”

She sneered at Graff, “Keep your smutty
thoughts to yourself, Nemetskii filth.”

Graff grabbed her hand and spun her around to
face him.

As he looked into her eyes, he touched her
cheeks with the hand he held the pistol in and commented, “I just
might take a trip to the same candy store that the general just
visited.”

She smiled, and then instantly, stomped on
his foot, then kneed him in the groin.

In a seemingly simultaneous motion she
grabbed Graff’s hand that was holding the pistol with both of her
hands and swung her body around to point the gun at the guard that
was behind her.

She fired a shot into his chest, and then
quickly turned the gun to shoot the second guard as well.

Still moving at lightning speed she elbowed
Graff in the cheek with her left arm.

When he released his grip on her to some
extent, she then swung around and caught him in the side of the
head with her right foot.

Graff fell unconscious and released the gun
as he fell to the floor.

She then quickly scanned the situation around
her and noticed that the whole room had been alerted by the gun
shots, and men were approaching from all sides.

The mechanic closest to her was holding a
very large wrench, so she pointed the gun at him and held out her
hand; gesturing for him to give it to her or be shot.

He quickly complied and stepped back as she
hastily positioned the wrench in her left hand.

Schwerig had already re-drawn his weapon and
was approaching her from the side. He wanted to get as close as
possible to avoid shooting a hole in the side of the station with
an errant round.

He then thought to command at the top of his
lungs, “For God’s sake, nobody shoot, the last thing we need is a
massive depressurization.”

An anonymous response from the men remarked,
“Why don’t you tell her that.”

An instantly peeved Schwerig turned to figure
out who said that, as he responded, “I’m working on that... damn
it!”

The female Soviet quickly took advantage of
Schwerig’s diverted attention and took aim at his pistol hand and
fired.

Schwerig instantly turned his gaze back at
her, shaking the pain from his hand, after she had shot the pistol
from it.

He could feel an unbearable stinging in his
hand and he didn’t know how badly it was wounded, or where the
pistol was thrown to, but he didn’t dare take his eyes from her
again.

He was also stunned that she had the skill to
shoot that well.

She locked eyes with Schwerig only for a
moment as she was suddenly distracted by a soldier that quickly
approached her from the side swinging a large metal pry bar.

She turned and used the wrench in her hand to
block the first swing by her new assailant, then quickly brought
the gun around and shot him in the side as he tried to swing
again.

He dropped the bar and fell to the
ground.

Schwerig took advantage of her distraction to
grab a ceremonial sword that was on display with a shield hanging
on the wall in front of the conference room that the other soviet
was tied to a chair within.

When she turned to find Schwerig again, she
was dismayed to find that he had vanished and was not where he had
been before.

As she scanned around as quickly as possible,
Svetlana noticed Schwerig quickly moving behind a saucer to her
right.

She swiftly pointed her gun and fired twice,
but he was moving too quickly; the errant rounds then breaking
windows of offices that lay behind him.

She instantly recoiled with disgust, as she
banged a compressor sitting beside her with the wrench in
anger.

She then hurriedly darted around the other
side of the saucer to try to cut Schwerig off, but when she got to
the other side she could see that he was just finishing ascending a
ladder onto the top of the craft.

She hastily took a shot at him as he cleared
the brim of the saucer.

That errant round found its way to a window
that led to space, causing it to crack.

Immediately a group of technicians started to
respond toward the window, in order to try to keep it from
imploding and depressurizing the hanger.

Depressurization alarms started to blare as
warning lights started flashing throughout the hanger.

Schwerig, out of the line of fire for a
moment, sees the window crack and curses to himself.

Svetlana started to back away from the craft
in an attempt to see onto the top of it as another group of men
tried to overtake her.

She instantly turned and shot two of them.
The others then, quickly disengaged.

Schwerig, then realizing that she only had
one shot left in the Luger that she had absconded with, looked
around for something to deflect the last bullet.

He opened an emergency access cover from the
saucer, that was about the perfect size to be used as a shield and
detached it.

He then turned and held it up as a shield
whilst whistling very loudly at Svetlana.

She instantly turned and fired at him, but he
had already ducked behind the access cover.

The round penetrated the first layer of the
cover and embedded itself within the layer of insulation inside of
it.

Schwerig smartly commented while laughing,
“Ha, nice to know that the shielding works.”

He then jumped off of the rim of the craft
onto a crate that was sitting beside it, still holding the
makeshift shield.

She pointed the gun at him and tried to fire,
but realized that the gun was now empty, so she threw the pistol at
Schwerig.

He casually blocked the incoming object with
his shield and smarted, “Temper, temper, my dear,” as he vaulted
the final distance to the ground from the atop the crate.

She instantly screamed and ran at him
swinging, but he deflected her blow away with his sword.

He repeatedly blocked her recurring blows
without countering, in an attempt to wear her out.

After she had swung five or six times, she
stopped to catch her breath.

Schwerig remembered a tactical move that
Skorzeny had taught him during fencing lessons back in Argentina
and immediately put it into action.

He swung at her over his right shoulder to
deliberately cause her to block his blow from her right, as he then
spun to his left, quickly bringing his shield around first to block
her reaction blow coming from her left to her right, leaving her
entire left side open to where Schwerig was now coming around with
his weapon from his right

She instantly realized her mistake and
screamed in disgust, but it was too late. Schwerig’s sword found
its mark and impaled her into her stomach.

She tried to swing one last time at him, but
he twisted the sword and ran her completely through with it,
causing her to drop the wrench and fall to her knees.

Schwerig’s men erupted into cheers, as
Schwerig then lifted his left foot and placed it onto her chest in
order to push her away as he pulled his sword from her.

She then fell backwards onto the floor lying
supine and motionless.

Schwerig looked around at his men, now
surrounding him, patting him on the back and cheering, but he
didn’t seem moved.

He brushed the sweat from his forehead and
yelled, “Make a hole! Step aside,” as he then marched through the
crowd over to a pile of crates and grabbed a palette jack with his
left hand, still holding the bloody sword in his right.

He then made a bee line toward the windowed
room with the remaining Soviet, kicked the door open and entered,
while towing the palette jack behind.

He whipped the jack around and inserted it
under the seat that the Soviet Cosmonaut was tied to, quickly
jacked it up and started to tow the cosmonaut out into the
hanger.

Walking at a very brisk pace; Schwerig pulled
the man with his left arm, still wielding the blood dripping sword
from his right.

He pulled the cosmonaut through a hole in the
now very curious crowd that had gathered around Svetlana’s body,
and were now watching Schwerig’s actions, trying to figure out what
he was doing.

When he reached her lifeless body with the
remaining Soviet in tow, he turned and kicked him over onto the
floor, still bound in his chair, so that the bound Soviet was now
facing his dead compatriot.

“Lana,” the bound Cosmonaut cried.

Schwerig then placed the tip of his sword
into the upward facing ear of the bewildered man and shouted,
“Готовы ли вы говорить со мной сейчас?, (Are you ready to talk to
me now?)”

Schwerig then put pressure onto the sword
until blood started to run down the Soviet’s face, as he continued
his rant, “Вы когда-нибудь хотите, чтобы ваши домой?, (Do you ever
want to see your home again?)”.

The beleaguered captive looked from the
corner of his eyes towards Schwerig, when he did, he could see the
Earth through the massive window over his assailant’s shoulder, and
the Soviet Union was presently facing the station.

He could see the sun glistening from the many
rivers and lakes across Siberia.

His façade crumbled, as his emotions fell
through an imaginary whole in his thoughts.