Michael fired again, a double tap from each pistol, the Mongol’s body spinning, falling to the ground.
There was a shout from beside him, Michael wheeling toward the sound. The Soviet medical corpsrnan was using his empty rifle like a club, trying to fend off two Mongols with sabers. Michael Rourke shot one of the men, but both pistols were empty now. As the Soviet medic tried for a momentary advantage with the Mongol, the Mongol’s saber cleaved him almost in two, hacking downward where
154
the neck met the right shoulder and into the chest, a hideous scream from the dying Russian.
Michael Rourke’s right hand found the butt of the .44 Magnum revolver and he stabbed it toward the Mongol, firing, the slug ripping through the Mongol’s wide open mouth, yellowed teeth exploding outward on both sides of the mouth, the head snapping back into a cloud of gore which sprayed from the exit wound.
Michael turned toward the rocks across which more of the Mongols were coming. A Mongol horseman, his saber flying. Michael shot him from the saddle, a second Mongol’s saber crashing down, Michael wheeling toward the man to fire, the saber coming as he backstepped, a blinding explosion of light and more pain in his head than he had ever known, and then darkness.
155
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The young pilot named Lintz sat at the controls of the same J-7V. “Did you get to radio your wife, Olga?”
“Yes, Herr Doctor. And she misses me so,” he smiled.
John Rourke was about to reply when Annie, sitting toward the rear of the plane, asleep the last Rourke had noticed, screamed.
Rourke punched the safety restraint’s quick release and was up, moving along the fuselage, Annie screaming again, Paul kneeling beside her, arms around her. Annie’s brown eyes opened wide. “It’s Michael — Paul, daddy —it’s Michael. I saw it!” And she screamed, but as if she were in terrible pain, her hands going to cover her eyes.
Rourke dropped to his knees before her, beside her husband. “Annie —Annie!”
She screamed, cried. “Ann Rourke Rubenstein! Stop it!” Rourke shouted to his daughter, his hands on her shoulders, shaking her.
Her hands came down from her eyes. She sniffed back a tear. “Daddy!”
John Rourke folded his daughter into his arms. “Tell me what you saw,” he almost whispered.
“It was something like a sword and it caught in the light and there was an explosion, but it was inside Michael’s head and I felt it —daddy!”
156
“It’s all right, baby” Rourke cooed to her, rocking her in his arms. His eyes met Paul’s, and he moved his daughter out of his own arms into Paul’s arms, then rested back on his haunches.
His daughter had not been born with a gift; it was a curse in the truest sense of the word.
John Rourke closed his eyes.
157
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
They had stopped for refueling at the base outside Hekla community and, as a courtesy, although he could barely concentrate on the few words he spoke to her, he called the President of Lydveldid Island, Madame Jokli. When she asked if all were well, he told her simply that he would see.
And then the aircraft was off again, speeding across the now deserted British Isles, making radio contact with the smallish base in France where there was a small German installation to assist the relocated people of the Wild Tribes, cutting across Italy and the Adriatic and across Greece and landing in Turkey near the Bosporous where a small German garrison held a synth-fuel station and then airborne again, toward China.
Once Annie had calmed down sufficiently, he administered a sedative by injection, letting her fall asleep in Paul’s arms, then helping Paul to cover her with a blanket, the effect of the sedative worn off by now, her breathing even, regular, her sleep natural. That she seemed totally dreamless chilled John Rourke more than if she had been actively dreaming, restless. Was she no longer experiencing Michael’s assumed plight because Michael was safe? Or was he dead.
Rourke lit the thin, dark tobacco cigar that had been clenched tight in his teeth unlit for the past
158
several minutes, rolling the battered Zippo’s striking wheel under his thumb. The German flints he used lasted longer than any flints he had ever used. He studied the lighter in his hands for a moment, turning it over, his initials—J.T.R.—drawing his attention. He had always wanted for his children — like any parent —that they should live in happiness and peace. Michael —if he still lived —had been widowed, his wife of so little time, Madison, and the unborn child she carried murdered in one of the Soviet terror raids on Helka. And Annie. The ability to see what logic dictated could not be seen, to invade the thoughts of others. Her abilities— extra-sensory, psychic, paranormal, whatever the term — seemed only to increase. And he had noticed the faintest beginnings of such abilities in his son, although he doubted they would ever even approach the magnitude of hers. Was it the effect of the Sleep on their young minds, or was it simply something that would have surfaced regardless of circumstance? John Rourke doubted the latter. He exhaled smoke through his nostrils, pocketing the lighter.
After first becoming aware of Annie’s abilities, Doctor Munchen had asked for the opportunity of testing them, first calling for Rourke and Paul Rubenstein, asking permission of father and husband before asking hers. Paul had looked at him — Rourke —and John Rourke had lowered his eyes toward Paul. Paul cleared his throat. “I don’t like this stuff, Doctor Munchen. But this is Annie’s life, and she’ll make the decision. Thanks for consulting us, but it wasn’t necessary.”
And then Munchen had asked Annie. She had
159
asked Paul. She had gone ahead with the tests. Using standard tests, largely unchanged from the days in medical school when some of Rourke’s fellow students had played with the cards, tested each other’s responses, Annie had passed faultlessly. There was not a star nor a triangle nor a wavy line she could not read through the back of the card. There was not a sealed envelope, the contents of which were known to Munchen, that when she tried to read Munchen the contents remained secret.
But she almost never tried, because, as she had told Munchen when he — Rourke — and Paul had been called in midway during the tests, she was frightened of this ability.
It was the dreams which most terrified John Rourke. She would see danger, feel it, almost experience it. It was such a dream which had caused her to hasten the time of the Awakening when she had known Michael was in danger for his life.
And now—John Rourke studied the glowing tip of his cigar.
Then Annie screamed as though someone had driven a knife into her breast, her body rigid with pain as he reached her, eyes dilated with fear —but for none of it was there a physical cause. “Michael!”
160
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Michael Rourke’s eyes felt as though they were on fire and simultaneously coated with salt, his entire body consumed with more pain than he had ever known, as if the pain from the sword blow had never ended, was eternal.
His vision was blurred and his muscles were cramped and through the blur when he again forced his eyes to open, he could see Prokopiev, the right side of Prokopiev’s face covered in blood.
Michael started to turn his head —and the pain drove consciousness from him … As he raised his head, the pain returned and when his eyes opened he could not fully part the lids. He moved his hands and the muscles in his neck and shoulders cried out to him and he stopped moving, fighting to remain conscious. Slowly, moving as little as possible, his hands reached his face and his eyes were all but crusted over. As gently as he could, his fingers swollen and stiff, he pulled at the scabs of blood until his right eye opened. His vision cleared after a few seconds.
He began to work at the left eye, the result the same, but there was terrible pain in his left temple.
With his restored vision (he could not yet move his head), he watched Vassily Prokopiev, the Russian commander appearing more dead than alive and un-
161
moved since Michael had last looked at him —how long ago? His wristwatch — he did not move his head after the first unconscious attempt had brought the pain washing over him again —and so he felt for it. The Rolex was gone.
The Mongols.
He shivered and when the cold washed over him, the pain increased and he looked at his feet. Shackles were about his bare ankles, his boots and socks gone. (
“Proko —Prokopiev,” he called out feebly.
The Russian commander was alive at least. He muttered something incomprehensible but did not move. “Prokopiev —Vassily Prokopiev!”