“Why do you think I came, Herr Doctor? Because I enjoy this rather disappointing climate?”
John Rourke laughed, a hearty, genuine laugh. “I have your assurances, then?”
“Yes. And I would like to have your help, Herr Doctor. I must unearth the leaders of this conspiracy against the Fatherland, and I imagine you would be equally interested in bringing Commander Dodd to book.”
“Before the discoveries I learned of at Mid-Wake, as I wrote you by dispatch and as Doctor Munchen’s accounts have no doubt reinforced, I was firmly convinced that the best method for destroying a cancer was, if all else proved inadequate, excision. I have since learned of subtler methods; but it is, after all, the end result which is important.”
Paul Rubenstein, at times, felt like John H. Watson, despite the fact that his weight was all wrong for the part.
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Annie poured him more coffee and smiled at him, her hand brushing against his, her Sherlockian father continuing to speak. “Michael, my son, has gone off to the Second Chinese City. Before attempting to solve this Dodd matter, if you’ll indulge me, I’d like to get back to China. We still have a substantial lack of meaningful intelligence concerning Karamatsov’s forces and who is running the show in his place, and I’d like to be nearby just in case Michael’s embassy—”
“A peace mission, Herr Doctor? Yes —to the Second Chinese City. I recall it was to be undertaken. There is so much happening”
“Agreed. But Hartman is monitoring the movements of the Soviet army and the events at the ‘Underground City. He’s spread a bit thin. If something should go wrong with Michael’s mission, I want to be close enough to act.”
“My best wishes, then, of course” Mann nodded, lighting another cigarette after offering one— accepted—to John Rourke, Rourke lit his own and the colonel’s. “I would relieve Hartman’s command were it possible, but with maintaining bases here and in Iceland and in what was France and Hartman’s existing force to monitor the Soviets, I am severely undermanned at New Germany. Were the Russians to strike there in force, we would be hard pressed to repel them.”
“I understand. And the last thing you need is an enemy within. I’ll get back to Eden Base as soon as practical. I’d ask Paul to volunteer, or Annie for that matter, but if I’m needed, we’ll all be needed.”
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“Agreed. Agreed. Yes”
“What will happen when Dodd learns we’re here?” Elaine Halversen asked suddenly, her face gray tinged.
“We will be fine,” Kurinami assured her.
“Indeed you will, But we may find out shortly,” Mann smiled. “I instructed that he be informed the moment you arrived. Since I have little use for Commander Dodd, I thought it only fitting that he be awakened from a peaceful sleep by news of your arrival. So far, he has done nothing. But the morning is still young. And, I assure you, you and your lieutenant shall be afforded the full and considerable protection of New Germany, Fraulein Doctor. That is my pledge.”
John Rourke raised his coffee cup. “Let’s drink to that, then!” And even Elaine Halversen smiled.
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CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The Mongol mercenaries were without fear of death, Michael Rourke realized. They forced their mounts with whips and sabers up into the higher rocks, the animals slipping and skidding under them, blood on the animals from where they’d been beaten sometimes visible in a reflected streak of light from an accidentally burnished piece of armor or the flash of a blade. Although the armor seemed more ceremonial, like a costume, than to serve a practical purpose, no single burst from an M-16 would put one of them down.
Michael Rourke’s rifle was fired out, no time to change magazines as three of the Mongols who had whipped and heeled their horses almost vertically along the rock face neared him. He let the rifle fall to his side on its sling and tore the twin Beretta pistols from their holsters under his arrnpits beneath his parka, firing them almost point blank at the charging enemy mercenaries, one of the men down, another wounded or simply unhorsed as his animal stumbled, horse and man skidding back along the gray rock surface toward the floor of the gap, the third man’s horse jumping the lip of the rocks from behind which Michael and his meager force and the Soviet medical corpsman fought, Michael sidestepping as the man’s saber wheeled toward him, the animal under him rearing, a pistol firing simultaneously, the rock beside
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Michael’s feet disintegrating. Michael safed both 92F Berettas and crossdrew his knife from the sheath at his left hip, throwing his body weight against the legs of the Mongol’s mount, his body shuddering with the impact.
The horse — one of the larger animals clearly of Arabian lineage —stumbled, fell, the man spilling from the saddle, the pistol flying from his hand as his body impacted the ground, the saber still bunched tight in his fingerless-gloved fist. Michael went for him with the knife old Jan the Icelandic swordmaker had crafted for him after the centuries old pattern of the Life Support System II.
Steel locked to steel, the saber of the Mongol vastly longer, but the knife in Michael Rourke’s right fist he felt was stronger. Michael’s body weight hammered the Mongol back even as he rose, forcing him to his knees; their blades were still crossed.
The Mongol snarled something unintelligible, the smell of his breath overpoweringly bad as it hissed through the yellowed stumps of his teeth, their faces inches apart. The Mongol drew a small, curved blade knife, Michael’s left hand catching the left wrist, the knife at crotch level as they pushed against one another, each trying to overpower the other’s balance, Michael’s legs pistoning against the Mongol’s superior body weight.
Michael drew back, loosing the knife hand, the steel of Michael’s knife scraping against the steel of the Mongol’s saber, the saber twirling in the Mongol’s hand, Michael Rourke parrying the thrust as it came, their blades stroking, the Mongol charging him. Michael threw himself down and forward,
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under the arc of the Mongol’s saber, the LS II raking across the Mongol’s thighs and right kneecap as Michael rolled away and the Mongol tumbled forward to his face. Michael threw himself onto the man’s back, the Mongol rearing like an unbroken animal, Michael almost thrown clear, but hammering the knife blade downward into the right kidney.
The Mongol shrieked what had to be a curse, Michael’s legs binding around him at the hips now, the Mongol tumbling forward as Michael Rourke wrenched his blade clear, then thrust it into the throat, the shriek dying almost as soon as it had begun.
Michael Rourke staggered to his feet, in his mind for a moment seeing it as if it had only just happened, the man in the rumpled clothes who had come into the barn and was trying to make Michael’s mother fellate him, Michael seeing his own hand as it clenched over the catspaw-surfaced boning knife they had taken with them from the kitchen in the house they had abandoned the night before when the bombing came.
And then Michael’s conscious will was no longer involved, and the knife moved in his hand and into the evil man’s right kidney and the man screamed and died and his mother cried and held him.
Michael Rourke was just standing there, bullets impacting the rocks around him. His knife was still in his right fist, and he wiped it clean of blood on the dead Mongol’s body. As he sheathed the knife, he threw himself down out of the line of fire, his rifle tossed to him by the Soviet medical corpsman, more of the Mongols charging up the steep sides of the
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gap, regular troops kneeling beside their mounts, firing up into the rocks, the Mongols firing from the saddle as they rode, and with greater accuracy.
Michael rammed a fresh magazine up the M-16’s well, firing into a knot of the Mongols as they urged their horses up the rock wall, two of the Mongols going down, their horses with them. Michael could see the Soviet position on the other side of the gap, his radio headset lost in the fight with the Mongol a moment earlier. There was fighting there, hand to hand.
He heard one of the Chinese from the First City — the nearly dying trooper— shouting, screaming. Michael swung around, two of the Mongols and a regular Maoist officer charging down on the man, somehow having circled around them from behind. Michael fired out the M-16, cutting down the Maoist officer and one of the Mongols, then throwing down his empty rifle, both of the partially spent Beretta pistols coming into his hands, firing, the second Mongol stumbling back as his saber half-cleaved the First City trooper’s head from his neck, arterial blood spurting geyser-like into the wind.