Survivalist - 23 - Call To Battle (27 page)

Rourke followed with his eyes in the direction where his friend gestured. Two of the enormous blades from the helicopter’s main rotor had furrowed themselves into the rock, almost forming the shape of a cross, molten rock surging up around them. “Let’s see if they’re alive,” Rourke said, starting to change direction.

Veins in the face of the rock were opening with alarming rapidity, sections of the shield higher up along the cone starting to float away on the magma beneath, huge slabs of the blackened rock periodically slipping downward, stalling, lava building up behind them. So far, none had dislodged completely. When one did, any person in its way would be dead. The rock itself might weigh tons and the lava behind it would turn flesh to ash.

Traversing the shield now, it was necessary as they moved toward the downed helicopter to constandy alter their course because of freshly opening veins of magma. The gas rising from fumaroles higher up the face of the mountain was becoming thicker, and volcanic ash covered their clothing, anything exposed. The gas masks they wore were of the type incorporating integral hoods, and Rourke was for once grateful for the design which he usually found a nuisance. His coat protected his weapons, except for the LS-X knife and the HK-91. The knife would not be affected by the falling ash and the HK was as rugged a firearm as ever made, either in its semiautomatic sporter form as Rourke carried it, or as a selective fire battle rifle.

The side of the mountain trembled so violendy that Rourke nearly fell. But he kept his footing, swaying with the motion. There were belches of flame from some of the wider veins in the rock, spouts of lava shooting upward. The volume of ash increased to the consistency of a sudden downpour, and there was a terrific roar which apprehended Rourke’s attention, making him turn to face the summit. Ash spewed from very near to the cone now and lava was flowing in a river of molten rock several yards wide perhaps a hundred yards back, huge slabs of rock floating in it, battering out a channel.

Rourke and Rubenstein, side by side, clambered over a dislodged slab of volcanic rock. Beyond it lay the partially destroyed Navy helicopter.

There were emergency lights lit within and Rourke said to Paul Rubenstein, “Maybe we’re not too late.” But, they might already be too late to survive. More than fifteen minutes had passed and, with the pace of the eruption moving at such a frenetic rate they might not make it off the mountain alive, let alone get Martin.

They kept going …

Michael Rourke looked at Natalia, then at Annie, then across the desk at Admiral Hayes. “You’re telling me, Admiral, that you can’t let any aircraft approach the volcano. What the hell are my father and my brother-in-law supposed to do, then, wait? They’ll be flying out. All I’m saying is we can get a few helicopters in there and give them some assistance. We don’t even need a crew. Give us one chopper. Natalia and I can fly it. She’s a terrific helicopter pilot.”

Admiral Hayes smiled at them with soft, blue eyes, as if she understood something they did not and somehow felt sorry for them all because she did. “I even ordered the planes involved with the evacuation effort anywhere within five miles of the south face to go into a holding pattern. Visibility any closer than that is near zero and the ash that’s spewing into the air is clogging air filters on some of the helicopters, causing their engines to stall out. If I let you take a helicopter, I’d be sending you to your deaths. That’s why I had the Shore Patrol bring all of you here under guard. I hold the deepest respect for your family, and your dedication to one another.

“I think that all we can do now,” Admiral Hayes said, “is pray that Doctor Rourke and Mr. Rubenstein are somehow able to make it out alive. The helicopter carrying Professor Rolvaag is down. We can’t even risk getting an aircraft in there to look for them. Our hands are tied, so I suggest we clasp them together.”

Michael Rourke was weighing the possibilities concerning how best he could steal a helicopter, and when he looked at his mistress and his sister, he could see that Natalia and Annie were doing the same. He could pray while they flew.

Where was Gruppenfiihrer Croenberg? Martin Zimmer, his hands shaking and the pit of his stomach freezing cold, grabbed Rauph by the shoulder and spun him around. “We will all be killed here, Rauph! You have to do something! Now!”

“The Gruppenfiihrer may be having a difficult time getting in because of die eruption, Herr Zimmer. But I am certain-“

“Fool! You must do something now. I will be killed here. The wlcano is erupting, man! Are you blind? Get me to safety!”

“Herr Zimmer, we are all stranded here until the Herr Gruppenfiihrer returns. Where can we go?”

Lava was spewing out of spreading ruptures in the living rock, pouring down and away from them, but the rock beneath Martin Zimmer’s feet seemed to shake more violendy by the second. How soon before the interior of the volcanic cone would crack, and lava would consume them all in flame?

“What if the Gruppenfiihrer isn’t coming back?”

Rauph looked at him as if he were insane. “Not come back? Herr Zimmer! What you say! The Gruppenfiihrer would not abandon us, his men, nor certainly you, the son of Deitrich Zimmer, the leader. Never! He has been delayed. That is all, I am certain. At any moment the aircraft will return and we will be taken from this hell. Do not be afraid.”

“Afraid! You dare say that I, that I am afraid!” Martin Zimmer toned away, walked off, trying to control his breathing, trying to control the trembling of his entire body. If Croenberg had left ■em here to die, there was nothing that they could do.

And Martin Zimmer not only did not want to die, but the world could not be denied his leadership …

John’s hands had worked furiously over the pilot, closing up the sucking chest wound over the man’s left lung. A small blade from the tail rotor had sheared away, cut through the gap where the tail section had been, penetrated the pilot from back to front and buried itself in the control panel. The other crewman was dead, his neck broken.

Paul Rubenstein worked over Thorn Rolvaag, who was unconscious when he and John found the downed helicopter. He was now just coming around. “Bremen. Gotta find Carl.”

“Carl?”

“Bremen.”

Take it easy,” Paul told him.

“He’s out there somewhere, down.”

Paul Rubenstein’s mind raced. Assuming that Rolvaag knew what he was talking about, this Carl Bremen, perhaps the graduate student who had accompanied Rolvaag in the taking of his pressure measurements, would have to be below where they had landed their helicopter. Otherwise, he and John would have seen the man. “Look. I think I can find him. Lie still, all right.”

“Butler?”

That was the name on the pilots uniform. “John’s helping him. The other man’s dead.” “Jesus!”

“Whatever,” Paul nodded. As often as he heard it, he would never accustom himself to the way non-Jews used the name of the one whom they considered the Son of God. Annie rarely took the name of the Lord in vain, or that of the one she believed was his Son. “You just take it easy. If you feel it will help, pray for your friend. I think we can find him.”

John had cursorily examined Rolvaag after putting a hasty compression bandage to the pilot’s wound, pronounced Rolvaag seemingly okay. There was no way to tell about any possible concussion.

As Paul Rubenstein looked around in order to confer with John, John was not looking at him. John’s face in the yellow light of the emergency overhead lamp seemed more a mask of determination than anything human, as he said, “I heard what you said. You and Rolvaag should be able to get the pilot here down to our aircraft. Then leave them there and look for this man Bremen. Give yourself a time limit. Then, one way or the other, get airborne. If you can do it safely, come over the cone and look for me and for Martin.”

“John-“

“Let me finish. We’re out of time. You know that as well as I do. The whole side of the mountain could blow away at any second. We don’t have more than twenty minutes or so of oxygen left. Once we go to breathing regular air, we’ve got maybe a few more minutes before the gas puts us under. The only thing we can do is this-you take care of these men, and I’ll go after Martin.”

“But-“

“Ifs not just for Sarah, Paul; Martin’s still my son.” Paul Rubenstein didn’t try to argue; he would have done the same himself had Martin been his and Annie’s son …

Any professional military person, perhaps only after one too many drinks, would admit that there were times when orders had to be ignored; but, Emma Shaw had never so obviously gone against orders in all her life.

But there wasn’t any choice.

The radio traffic told the story, and it was a story she could not accept.

John and his friend, Paul Rubenstein, were trapped on Kilauea and the helicopter they had stolen was their only out. A helicopter would have as much chance of making it through the storm of lava, ash and gas as a snowball in Hell. And it was Hell where John and Paul Rubenstein were.

But if she could reach the volcano in time-unless the whole ming were blown sky high by then, which according to the radio

traffic could take place at any second-she could get her V-stol fighter bomber in there. It would be a tough jump if she had a lot of people to pack in the bomb bay, but she’d taken off out of tight spots with a full load of blockbuster bombs and they weighed more. She could do it.

In her mind’s eye, she was picturing how the people would have to pack in along the fuselage in order not only just to fit but to keep from being thrown about against the bulkheads once the aircraft accelerated out of the vertical mode.

There might be some bumps and bruises, but she could make it, in and out.

Or try, at least.

Emma Shaw signaled her wingpersons, “Fm gone, to Kilauea. Return to base. Shaw Out.” And she banked the tip of her portside wing and broke formation …

Michael made stating the obvious so charming sometimes. Annie moved to the corridor door, looking out. “We’re clear. Take their car, get to the field and do what we have to.”

Natalia looked at the Rolex on her left wrist. It would take them longer to reach the island of Hawaii than there was time remaining before the eruption-according to the estimates of Doctor Betty Gilder, Rolvaag’s colleague-would be at full force.

That meant that John and Paul had no chance at all.

But Natalia knew them better than to accept that; they would not. “Let’s hurry,” she said, running for the door, still holding the Shore Patrolman’s assault rifle.

Natalia Anastasia Tiemerovna-would her last name someday soon be Rourke, as Michael’s wife? she wondered, hoped-dropped her purse.

The Shore Patrolmen paused and she bent over. As she raised up, the Bali-Song was in her right hand and she used it like a Yarawa stick, hammering it in an uppercut to the nearest man’s testicles. Michael’s left crossed the jaw of the third man as Natalia’s man doubled over and Natalia simultaneously grabbed for the muzzle of his rifle and chopped him into unconsciousness with a blow to the side of his neck.

Annie had the third Shore Patrolman against the wall of the corridor, the muzzle of the little pistol John had given her-it was an Interams Firestar 9mm Parabellum-touching the tip of the man’s nose. “Get his gun, Michael,” Annie ordered.

Natalia swung the borrowed assault rifle onto the two inert men while Michael disarmed the man on whom Annie had the drop. “I’ll fly it; I am better at it,” Natalia said matter-of-facdy.

Michael was clapping the third Shore Patrolman in his own cuffs, and said, “Agreed. But first we have to steal one.”

Thirteen minutes of air remaining according to the diode counter, two twenty-round magazines for the HK-91 clipped together, whole sections of the mountainside floating off on rivers of lava, John Thomas Rourke reached the crest of the summit, and from the top of the shield looked down into the crater.

He was reminded, oddly, of an ice flow. Except for the difference in materials, the plain at the interior of the cone was like that, whole sections of it broken off, riding on the lake of magma beneath, the volcanic veins, brilliantly illumined in flame, like the veins of the human body, but distended and discolored and ready to burst.

Paul should be back at the helicopter by now, or nearly so. Hopefully Paul would listen to him, give only a reasonable amount of time to find this fellow Bremen, then give it up and get airborne. Hopefully, but not likely Paul would no more leave a man out here to die than John Rourke would.

So, if Paul could not find the man, Paul was as likely doomed as Rourke himself felt. Logic dictated that once he set foot into the cone, aside from Martin and the other five men there, all heavily armed Nazi commandos, the magma would, at the least, trap him, at worst explode around him.

There was no choice.

John Rourke began to climb over onto the interior of the cone, picking his way to avoid the luminous coals and the growing fissures. The plain within the cone was like a valley, broad from end to end, narrow from side to side, like another valley often spoken of, the valley of death …

He left Rolvaag, the scientist a little fuzzy-headed from his injuries, it seemed, but eager to do whatever could be done, with the injured pilot safe inside the helicopter-as safe as one could be on the slope of an erupting volcano. And Paul Rubenstein told himself that somehow, if he were unable to find this man Carl Bremen, or unable for some other reason to return, that Rolvaag and the pilot-seriously but not mortally wounded, still able to talk, to hear-would in one way or another get the helicopter airborne.

John had known the real way of it when he’d said what he said. John wouldn’t have left this Bremen, the graduate student, here on the mountain, and neither would Paul Rubenstein. And Paul Rubenstein had often wondered if women lied to each other as often as men did? John knew. Paul knew.

Paul went on his way, searching on the slope below for the hapless graduate student Carl Bremen. John would be at the cone by now, perhaps already moving onto it.

The mountain shook so violently that Paul Rubenstein could hardly keep his footing. John knew that the eruption would be complete in a matter of minutes, perhaps, and then they would all die.