Survivalist - 12 - The Rebellion (7 page)

“I’ll change, if I may,” Natalia began. “And, then, I’ll accompany you, Captain.” She didn’t wait for an answer— she handed back John Rourke’s sunglasses, leaned up on her bare toes and kissed his left cheek lightly, then started for her tent.

She didn’t delude herself. Dodd thought she was guilty, believed it. And nothing would convince him otherwise.

But if she let John Rourke commit some act of violence against Dodd, John—all of them, all the people she loved—they would be outcasts from human society forever.

She let the tent flap fall closed behind her, then sat on the edge of the cot.

Her mind was functioning on two levels. While she awaited the inevitable, she might as well be comfortable. She wouldn’t be going into battle. On impulse when she had left The Retreat she had taken a skirt and a pair of sandals. She also wondered how they would punish her for this murder—and how she could prevent John Rourke from ruining his life and the lives of his family by interfering.

Michael was awake, but not sitting up—his eyes seemed alert and clear though, as clear as they could with the medication. Paul Rubenstein had sat up, Rourke cautioning him before the younger man attempted it. Sarah sat at the small table beside the lit Coleman lamp, Annie and Madison respectively sitting beside Paul and Michael, at the edges of the cots. John Rourke stood near the tent flap, too angry to sit.

“I’m supposed to leave for Argentina tomorrow—I don’t want to. Dodd’s going to railroad Natalia—I can feel it in my guts. But if I don’t, and Mann’s faction loses and this Deiter Bern is executed, we’ll be facing Karamatsov’s forces alone and we may wind up facing the Nazis too—a no-win proposition, at least on the surface.”

“On the surface?” Sarah echoed. “Now I went through a lot since the Night of The War—and I learned you were right about a lot of things John. Don’t ever give up like that. And I know that if the Russians and these Nazis attack us, you never will give up. None of us will. But they have weapons that are a whole lot more sophisticated than ours, and there are at least hundreds of them—more likely thousands of them. And we’ll lose. I mean, maybe all of us here and Natalia—we can stay together and keep fighting from the mountains and harassing them—but we won’t win, John. You’ve got to go.”

“Momma is right,” Annie said softly.

“She—she is, Dad,” Michael agreed.

“It isn’t my place to speak, Father Rourke… .”

“No, of course you have a voice in what we do. Go ahead, Madison.”

“We will care for Natalia. But I think we will all die— Natalia, too—if you do not help the colonel-man in his fight for freedom.”

“She’s gonna make a hell of a sister-in-law,” Paul began. “Michael and Annie and Madison and I—we can take care of things here, John. Because if you don’t go—you and Sarah and Kurinami and those volunteers he’s been rounding up and Elaine Halverson—if you don’t go, well, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. And the whole idea of Nazis—it gives me the creeps. But if this guy Mann is what he says he is—and I don’t think he’d have anything to gain by lying to us—but if he’s what he says he is, then he wants to kick the real Nazis out of power. I gotta be for that, ya know?”

Rourke only nodded, staring past the Coleman lamp at his wife’s shadow.

“And as far as Natalia is concerned,” Paul continued, “like Madison said—she’ll be safe.”

“There’s a Russian agent at work in the camp,” Rourke answered. “That’s probably how Rozhdestvensky and Karamatsov before him knew so much about the Eden Project in the first place. One of the men or women aboard fed the information to the KGB. And whoever this person is, it’s important to him or her to get Natalia out of the way. Perhaps Natalia might be able to recognize him, or recognize something about him that would betray his identity. I doubt Mona Stankiewicz was murdered just to be a victim—if I’d forced her to speak her piece when she first talked with me. Shit,” he groaned. “Anyway, Karamatsov will assume this person is still alive, and find a way of using him against us. The key to proving Natalia’s

innocence is one of the keys to our survival here. Get the KGB agent—and with Eden Four just down and two more to go, this place is starting to look like a used space shuttle lot—and the whole thing …” John Rourke stopped.

Sarah Rourke looked up at him, smiling thinly as she pulled the blue and white bandanna from her hair, then ran her fingers through it. She was a pretty woman, Rourke thought in the instant. “What’s the matter, John? Too many people?”

Rourke sat down on the chair opposite her, reached out and took her hand—she didn’t withdraw it. “Yeah,” he laughed. “I was used to it for so long—and it looks like everything is starting all over again. Maybe the people who propounded cyclical views of history were right—I don’t know.”

“What did you fight for, you mean?”

He leaned across the table, touching his lips to her hand that he held in his. “I always knew what I was fighting for. I always knew that. To stay a step ahead of the insanity. But the crazies are still out there, Sarah. It hasn’t changed. People are still running around trying to kill one another. Violence is still everybody’s answer. Human life is still cheap. I don’t know,” he whispered to her, his throat tight.

“You’ve always tried, John, to do the right thing. For us more than for yourself. You lost the youth of our children. You’re in love with Natalia, but you remain faithful to me.”

He started to speak, but she touched her fingers to his lips.

“You’re a decent man. A fine man. Maybe—maybe you’re too fine, there’s too much nobility in you. It would be easier to live with you—you’ve always been so good at everything you did, John. Your honor’s like a suit of armor to you. Your knowledge. You could never accept the fact that the rest of humanity wasn’t perfect just like you—and

so you fought against the idea and you isolated yourself, John. If this is all over, someday—what do you want to do?”

Rourke looked down at her hand in his. “A clinic, maybe—get a real hospital going. Pretty soon there’ll be babies born, life starting up again.” And he looked up at her, across the table, into her eyes that were only half visible in the lamplight. “But I don’t think it’s ever going to end, Sarah—I just don’t.”

“You’ve never been an optimist—just a pessimist who refused to give up. You are that. And I love the idea of you—so very much.” It was as if they were sitting all alone in their house that was no longer there. And it was late at night and the children were in bed. “A woman couldn’t ask for a better man to love. I’ll never agree with you—I can’t see life the way you do. I’m just not that logical—but it’s a conscious choice with me, John. I refuse. I’m very sorry— sorry that you were right. And you’re sorry too. You carry a burden I couldn’t carry, John. I never could. It’s been hard trying to share it—and I know I really haven’t. It’ll be good to go with you to Argentina. A lot of places, well, a man can’t get in, I think. But a woman can. I don’t speak German—but one of the people Kurinami got to volunteer, Forrest Blackburn, I think his name is, he does. So at least there’ll be two of you. It sounds silly after all these years— these years of being married. But I don’t think we ever really knew each other. But we can now. And whatever happens between us—we’ll be better for it, I think.”

“I love you,” John Rourke told her.

“I know you do. And I know you love Natalia, too—and I can’t help with that. Because this is real and you don’t get story-book solutions to things, do you, John?” And she smiled.

John Rourke laughed. “No, no, you don’t—you don’t at all, do you? I don’t think I gave you a very good life, did I?”

“No, John—for once you’re wrong. You’ve always been bigger than the reality around you. I never wanted to be. But I don’t think a better man has ever lived than you.” And she stood up and drew his head against her breast and Rourke felt her breath against his face and her lips touched at his forehead.

It was then that he heard the first shout of anger from beyond the confines of the world they had drawn around them for a few moments.

“Stay here, miss,” the Eden Project guard holding the M-16 said, sticking his head inside the tent flap briefly, then disappearing again.

From outside she heard the shouts. “She caused it— she’s the one. Kill her now and be done with it!”

“Kill the Goddamned Commie bitch!”

She perched on the edge of her cot, drawing her feet closer to the side of the bed, pulling her skirt down lower over her tightly squeezed knees. She realized she was frightened.

She could hear Captain Dodd’s voice shouting above the din outside. “All right—Major Tiemerovna is Russian, but her guilt hasn’t been clearly established. And if it is, she’ll be punished, but in a lawful manner and only for the death of Mona Stankiewicz—not for causing World War III.”

“Mona and I were engaged, Goddamnit, Captain!”

“Haselton—I know how you feel, man—but this isn’t— no!” Gunfire. The M-16 fired into the air, she surmised.

Her right hand moved up from her knees along the tops of her thighs, pulling up the beige linen, moving to the inside of her left thigh—with a scarf she had tied the Bali-Song to her leg. She undid the scarf now, the knife coming alive in her right hand as she stood, the full skirt dropping to below her knees as she moved toward the rear of the tent, the scarf in her left hand, her left hand thrusting into the

pocket on the side of the skirt, freeing her of the scarf.

Her left hand moved along the interior rear wall of the tent, the Bali-Song’s Wee Hawk pattern blade biting into the canvas and then ripping downward from the height of her chest to the level of the canvas floor panel. She looked back toward the front of the tent and the flap. Another burst of assault riflefire. Screaming. Shouted threats.

Natalia Anastasia Tiemerovna reached back to the cot— the dark blue cardigan sweater there. She caught it up and pulled it over her shoulders, tossing her hair free of it, buttoning the top button at her neck to keep the sweater from falling. She pushed her sandalled left foot through the opening she had cut in the rear of the tent, the Bali-Song open still in her right hand, thrusting into the darkness ahead of her as she stepped the rest of the way through.

She was out of the tent—more gunfire, then a shout. “Get out of our way, Captain!”

Natalia started to run, cursing herself for dressing like a woman—the sandals were impractical for running. The sweater would give her scant protection against the evening’s chill with the sleeveless blue knit top she wore beneath it. The skirt would catch and rip on briars and thorns if she made it far enough away to start for the mountains. And the Bali-Song was her only weapon.

She ran, hearing behind her, “The bitch got away. The Commie’s loose—hunt her down!”

Another voice—a woman’s voice—the words made Natalia’s breath catch in her throat. “Hang her!”

Natalia ran—as she reached the edge of the camp, she slowed, stopped. “There she is! Over here!”

“Look out. Shit—she’s got a knife!”

Two men—neither of them was armed except with handguns. At the distance, she doubted their ability to hit with them except by accident.

She wheeled to her left, starting into a dead run—but something hammered at her legs and she fell, hacking into

the darkness with her knife. “Jees—she cut me! Cut me!”

Natalia’s left hand hammered up and out, the heel of it contacting bone. There was a groan, and the weight rolled off of her.

She pushed herself to her feet, but arms reached out for her. The knife in her right hand hacked through the darkness. There was a scream of pain—something was coming toward her face and she dodged, feeling something slamming against the left side of her head. She started losing her balance, falling. Hands—her right arm was twisted back and around and she felt her grip go and the Bali-Song fall away.

“Bastards!” she screamed, her left knee catching one of the men in the crotch, her left hand straight-arming another man in the face—but her left wrist was caught in a grip that felt solid as a vise and her arm was wrenched back. Hands grabbed at her legs, dragging her down, the weight of a man crushing her down. Her left arm was pinned to her side. Her right arm was twisted behind her— a little more pressure and she knew it would break. Hands held her ankles pinned.

A voice—she couldn’t see the face clearly. “Hell, this cable‘11 be as good as a rope—good enough for her.”

And then a voice she recognized—the one Dodd had called Haselton. “I’m doin’ it. Mona and I were going to be married—I’m doin’ it!”

“Then do it!” Natalia screamed at the attackers surrounding her.

Dodd’s voice—from the edge of the knot of humanity crushing and twisting her. “For God’s sake, you’re supposed to be the cream of humanity—and you’re a mob. For God’s sake, don’t do this thing!”

Natalia was dragged to her feet. Her right knee found a target. “Fuck you!” The voice was washed with pain. A hand slapped at her and her head sagged back and she felt her knees buckling.

She was being pulled—she didn’t know to where, but when she tried using her feet even to walk, the pressure on her right arm was increased and she screamed, “Stop it!”

But the pressure didn’t decrease.

The cable—it was snaked around her neck now. “Tie her to the back of Rourke’s truck. Drag hang her!” And then: “Fun’s over!”

She closed her eyes. It was John Rourke’s voice.

Natalia opened her eyes. The light from the camp backlit him and in silhouette now, she could see the Detonics .45s in his hands.

“Dr. Rourke, I can handle—”

“Shut up, Captain.” Natalia felt the cable loosen slightly at her throat. “Let her go. Help her up and let her walk over here. First person who does otherwise dies—end of story.

“John,” she whispered. The pressure on her arm was eased—then gone. The noose of cable fell from her neck to her chest. She sat up, took the noose from her body and threw it down.

She tried to stand up—she looked at her skirt and mechanically began dusting it off as she stood there, her knees weak.

“I’ve got Natalia’s Bali-Song, John!”