Survivalist - 12 - The Rebellion (9 page)

Again the corporal saluted and Helmut Sturm returned it, the younger man doing a very sharp about face and breaking into a dog trot, his assault rifle at high port, his steps carrying him leadenly across the drifting sand.

Sturm turned away, licking his dry lips against the sun and the wind.

He scanned the area distant from him where the helicopters awaited, looking for his obersturmfuehrer. He saw the man, shouting, “Fritz—give the signal—we attack!”

“Yes Herr Haupsturmfuehrerl” And his obersturm

fuehrer saluted, Sturm this time returning the salute with added sharpness.

He began to walk, ignoring the background sounds of the helicopters’ rotor blades picking up speed, tugging his gloves into position, breaking into a run now for his machine’s open fuselage door. And as he ran, he patted at the full flap holster on the belt at his waist—his pistol.

He had estimated the Soviet force on the ground—planes were coming in with alarming regularity as though a full-scale invasion were in process—at being in rough parity with his own. And he would have the element of surprise.

He ducked his head, slowing his pace, then vaulted aboard. He clapped his sergeant at the shoulder, shouting, “Herman—to victory, eh?” He didn’t wait for a response, moving forward and sliding into his seat beside the main control panel and his pilot. He settled his radio headset into position, jerking his left thumb upward.

His pilot nodded.

The machine started to rise.

In the distance he could see the mirror signals from the highest of the dunes, signaling those elements on the ground under the leadership of Sigfried and Sturm’s two other line platoon leaders to begin their attack. He had ordered radio silence lest a message be intercepted by his quarry, the Russians.

And radio silence would be his excuse with Standartenfuehrer Mann—that he had not obtained proper authorization for the attack.

As he stared groundward through the machine’s chin bubble, he considered Standartenfuehrer Wolfgang Mann. Born to one of the best families, among the original elite who had founded The Complex more than five centuries ago. His party membership assured—he had never sought party advancement. His wife one of the most beautiful women Sturm had ever had the good fortune to see in his entire life. And she from a family equally as good as that of

the Standartenfuehrer. But it was rumored always that theirs had been a love match, not one of the doomed arranged marriages within the elite, marriages that were publicly strong and privately weak. The Standartenfuehrer had been a superb athlete in his youth. He had revamped the air cavalry force to his own ideas and methods while still a junior officer, sometimes in direct opposition to the general staff. And soon, he would be appointed to the general staff as the youngest field marshal in the history of the military organization of The Complex—the first true field commander in five centuries. He was called in some quarters “the modern Rommel”—and it was this which worried Helmut Sturm. The business with Deiter Bern, whose name even whispered was punishable by death. Wolfgang Mann had been one of Bern’s supporters against the leader’s drive to re-Nazify The Complex, but Mann had been too highly placed to touch because of family and influence, his career too meteoric to crush.

Not a pilot by training, he could fly as well or better than his best pilots. He was at once a strategist and a tactician, beloved by his men.

Helmet Sturm at once saw his Standartenfuehrer as an idol and a danger.

“Herr Hauptsturmfuehrerl”

He turned from his reverie to the face of his pilot. “Yes?”

“We are in position, Herr Hauptsturmfuehrerl”

“I know that,” Sturm answered evenly.

It was time to break radio silence. He flicked the switch on the console to which his headset was wired. “Eagle Strike!”

On the ground to the north, he could see the puff of smoke from the first of the mortars.

Vladmir Karamatsov sat bolt upright in his cot. The

sound of the explosion rang in his ears.

He swung his feet over the side and stuffed his feet into his boots. Another explosion, this one closer. Mortar fire.

He was up, grabbing his black flight jacket in his left hand, his shoulder holster with the five-centuries-old Smith & Wesson Model 59 automatic in his right.

He was at the door of his quarters, shrugging the shoulder holster onto his frame, twisting his feet to push them all the way into his boots.

He was through the door—one of his officers was running toward him. The sunlight bright, Karamatsov squinted against it for a moment—and he thought of John Rourke, the sunglasses.

“We are under attack, Comrade Colonel Karamatsov!”

“Get our gunships airborne!” He ran past the man, dismissing any further conversation, dodging right, throwing himself to the sand as another mortar struck, a wave of sand crashing down across his back. He beat the sand from his body as he forced himself to his feet, running, shaking his jacket free of the sand and shouldering into it.

His personal gunship was waiting for him, its rotor blades already turning.

But he heard different sounds—vehicles. He looked to his right—gunfire, flames. And things which looked like miniaturized tanks were crossing over the high dune at the far edge of the encampment’s perimeter. They were roughly the size of the efficient Volkswagen Beetles of five centuries earlier, but rode high off the ground, heavily armored, from the look of them, balloon tires instead of treads. The first wave of the machines bounced over the dune and was coming toward him.

Karamatsov ran—emblazoned in his mind was the image of the swastika which had adorned each of the mini-tanks.

He was cut off from his machine now, a second wave of the mini-tanks coming from the opposite end of the camp.

Gunfire—machine guns, but not his own.

He looked skyward as he dove for cover behind a rank of packing crates, chunks of wood splintering off as machine gunfire raked across them. Helicopters—some were his own—but others, the majority of the others—they were not.

He cursed in English, “The devil with you!” He pushed himself to his feet, running again. He had to reach his machine so he could take charge of the response—otherwise defeat would be certain. He reached under his jacket, breaking the Model 59 from the leather, working off the thumb safety. He shifted the pistol to his left hand, patting at the outside pocket of his flight jacket—the little Smith & Wesson Model 36 Chiefs. He opened the pocket flap and drew the snubby barreled revolver. A pistol in each hand now, he ran.

He looked behind him. The mini-tanks were consolidating on the central section of the encampment—his men were resisting but had no armored vehicles and even the new assault rifles would not penetrate armor.

A small squad of the Nazi troopers were racing on foot and cutting him off from his machine. Karamatsov threw himself to the ground near the dead body of one of his men, stuffing the revolver into his hip pocket, picking up the assault rifle.

Gunfire hammered toward him; Karamatsov rolling, fired the assault rifle toward the small squad of Nazis. He could hear—see now—gunfire from the open fuselage door of his helicopter. Two of the Nazis were down. He fired again—the third went down, the fourth dropping to a crouch beside a fallen comrade, firing. The sand near Karamatsov’s head seemed to explode over him and he rolled left, firing wildly.

The roar of heavy machine gunfire—he looked up. One of his own helicopters. The Nazi who had been firing at him was down, draped clumsily across the body of one of his comrades, the back of his khakis laced with the red of

his blood.

Karamatsov threw down the assault rifle, running now, across the ground and into the storm of sand made by his beating rotor blades. He threw himself through the opening, shouting to his pilot, “Take it up—now!”

He crawled forward, out of the opening in the fuselage, the machine rocking and swaying under him, around him. It was then that he glanced at the digital chronometer on his left wrist. As he hauled himself to his feet, fighting the sway of the machine as he moved forward, Vladmir Karamatsov laughed.

If the jet fighters of Krakovski’s lead elements were on schedule …

As if to echo his thoughts, he heard the sonic boom, then another and another and another and another.

He was fully forward now, sinking into the seat opposite his pilot.

“Pull back—so I can see this!”

“Yes, Comrade Colonel!” The machine banked hard to port, Karamatsov watching the horizon line for a moment through the chin bubble, then as the machine leveled off, watching through the windshield. Black streaks through the sky, tan Nazi mini-tanks erupting as contrails dissipated in the black and orange fire-balls of air-to-ground missiles. The sand rippled under the impact of submachine gun bullets, the Nazi infantry forces falling back toward the perimeter of the camp.

His own helicopters were closing in battle with the Nazi machines, but some of the fighter bombers were breaking off, engaging more of the Nazi helicopters. He had seen an anti-aircraft bombardment once—shells exploding in midair. And it was the same effect now—but rather than shells exploding, the Nazi gunships were exploding, vaporizing before his eyes.

The windshield through which he stared was smudged black with oil that had gushed toward his machine when another from his force had caught fire from a peripheral missile strike and a secondary explosion had then vaporized the craft.

He kept his hands locked in his lap—to prevent anyone seeing them shaking.

War—it was no longer something talked about at night, or studied from books, or an exercise—it was reality.

And Helmut Sturm, his forces triply decimated at the least, knew inside himself that had Standartenfuehrer Wolfgang Mann been in command, somehow the roles of victor and vanquished would have been exchanged.

And the worst of it—he had witnessed as machine gunfire from one of the shadow black fighter aircraft which had appeared seemingly out of nowhere had stitched across the position held by his wife’s brother. And her brother’s men.

Helmut Sturm wondered how he would tell his wife Helene that her brother Sigfried was dead and that he could not even retake the boy’s mangled body from the field.

He closed his eyes—it was unmanly to cry, he had been taught.

Annie Rourke squeezed the towel tighter, the water dribbling from it into the basin, then refolded it and laid it across Paul Rubenstein’s high forehead, smoothing back his thinning hair, murmuring to him, “You were so brave—I love you.”

He opened his eyes then, and she leaned over him more closely, kissing his lips lightly.

“What, ahh, aww, shit—I’m—I’m sorry—I—”

“After Daddy and Momma and Natalia got away with Lieutenant Kurinami and Doctor Halverson—”

“I remember.” Paul Rubenstein smiled up at her thinly. “Dodd—he—”

“No, it wasn’t Dodd. He was at the other side of the crowd. It was that man Blackburn, the one who spoke German and was supposed to go with Daddy to Argentina. He hit you with that wrench and he tried to take your submachine gun.”

“What—where, ahh—wow, my head hurts.”

“I shot him in the left thigh—just a little,” Annie admitted.

“What—are we under siege here—what?”

Annie put her hands into her lap, smoothing her skirt, studying the pattern in the material rather than looking into Paul’s dark eyes. “Ahh, well, no, ahh—no. After I shot Blackburn in the leg, Captain Dodd and Craig Lerner

and Jeff Styles and Jane Harwood—she’s the commander of Eden Three—they all got guns and forced the crowd to disperse, after they forced all of them to put down any weapons they had. He, Captain Dodd, he had an assault rifle pointed at you. I laid down my gun,” she sighed. “So Captain Dodd, Lerner, Styles and Jane Harwood are the only ones in the camp who are armed. Right now. There wasn’t anything else I could do.”

She watched Paul’s eyes—the lids fluttered and his jaw was hard-set, as though he were in pain. “What happens if the Russians come back and pay us a visit?” Paul asked her.

“That’s the same thing I asked Captain Dodd. He said then he would rearm us.”

“Gee whiz, that’s smart. Ahh—”

“Dr. Munchen came by. He said your head will be all right—and he told me Momma and Daddy and Natalia got away with Colonel Mann. They’re on their way to Argentina. They’re safe—for now.”

Paul reached up his right hand and she took it in hers. She waited for him to speak. “Annie, how’s—”

“Michael’s asleep. Madison’s asleep too,” and she gestured behind her to the opposite side of the tent. She had her father’s bad habit of second guessing what people were going to say and answering questions before they were fully asked.

“You’ve gotta get something going—so we can find out who the murderer really is. With a Soviet agent in the camp and Dodd disarming everybody—hell, if—”

“I know,” she whispered, touching her lips to his hand a moment. “What can I do, Paul?” She knew what to do, but wanted to let him tell her.

“You’re gonna have to go to Dodd and demand that he let you help. The killer has to be from Eden One or Eden Two—Eden Three wasn’t on the ground long enough for any of the criogenic sleepers to be awake. Unless somebody

from the flight crew—the commander or the flight officer or the science officer. Eden One has a master computer with all the personnel files. Dodd told me his instructions indicated that that was in case they landed and reviving all of the sleepers proved impossible or impractical. The files were to allow him to pick and choose who he needed for specific tasks from among the sleepers. There’s gotta be something to link somebody from Eden One or Two or the flight crew of Eden Three to Mona Stankiewicz. I’d say it was her boyfriend maybe—” “Haselton?”

“Yeah, but he was on Eden Three, I think. So he wouldn’t have been awake yet. If Dodd‘11 let you use the computer and you can find some kind of link—it’ll be subtle.”

“I can use Daddy’s Apple HE—and I taught myself Basic. I should be able to use the onboard computer.”

“Good girl.” Paul smiled. She touched her lips to his hand again. His plan had been exactly the same as hers— but she was glad she’d let him say it. “See if you can find Dodd—and be careful. Even if that Soviet agent doesn’t have a gun anymore—”