Earth Fire Read online

  THE SURVIVALIST #09

  Earth Fire

  Chapter One

  Reed jumped from the Jeep before it had fully stopped, shouting to his driver, “Get up the road to the high school and warn headquarters and tell ‘em to pull out fast—use Emergency Plan Three—got that, Corporal?”

  “Yes sir, but—”

  “Just do it—move out—”

  “What about you, Colonel—”

  Reed started to run toward the grammar school building that had been converted to a field hospital — the wounded needed to be evacuated before the Soviet choppers struck. “I’ll get transportation—now boogey, soldier!”

  “Yes, sir!”

  Reed hit the steps, taking them three at a time in a long strided run toward the front doors of the school building which more resembled an elaborate courthouse in some rich Eastern states county.

  The guard just inside the door was clambering to his feet, getting his rifle up to present arms, Reed snarling, “Can it, soldier—get into the administrator’s office—fast—tell him we’re evacuating—we’re using Emergency Plan Three—on the double, boy—”

  “Yes, sir—”

  Reed left the man gaping, punching through the inside doors and into the main corridor—the classrooms had been converted to laboratories and wards, the largest of the wards the lunchroom itself. But it was one of the smaller wards he ran toward—the only ward which housed the few female patients being treated. He sprinted along the corri­dor, shouting to one of the medical technicians, “We’re evacuating—Soviet Air Cavalry unit five minutes away— maybe six—get some of these patients ready to travel, sol­dier!”

  “But, Colonel Reed—”

  “No buts—do it,” and Reed sprinted on, reaching the end of the corridor, a nurse there, rather than white uniformed wearing clean but ragged fatigues that looked at least two sizes too big for her. “Nurse —start getting the patients ready,” Reed snapped, dragging the woman toward him for an instant by the shoulders of her uniform. “We’re movin’ out fast—Russian choppers five or six minutes away!”

  He didn’t wait for an answer, taking the bend in the corri­dor left, running toward what had been one of the kinder­garten rooms, skidding to a halt on the worn heels of his combat boots, twisting the doorknob and pushing inside.

  There was space for three beds—but there was only one bed, a white-haired woman lying in it, sitting on the edge of the bed beside her a white-haired man. The man’s face looked carved from stone—pain etched around the eyes, the jaw set. An IV tube ran between a half empty bottle and the woman’s arm. Reed walked across the room to the bed. The man stood up. “Colonel Reed—”

  Reed saluted, despite the tattered civilian clothes the man wore rather than a uniform. “Colonel Rubenstein— sir—there’s a Soviet Air Cav Unit on the way—we don’t have much time. Mrs. Rubenstein has to be moved.”

  Reed watched the older man’s eyes flicker. “You’re active duty—I’m just a retired Air Force officer. This is your show. But she can’t be moved. You move the other ones, Colonel—my wife stays here. And I stay with her—”

  “Sir, they’re gonna—”

  “I know what they’re going to do, Colonel Reed — but she can’t be moved. She’s dying—she knows it. I know it. I’m not going to take the last few hours she might have left away from her—anymore than can’t be helped anyway. If the Russians come, then maybe we’ll both die together—”

  Reed shook his head. “No— no—what about your son— “

  “Paul would understand, Colonel—”

  Reed shook his head again. “No, he wouldn’t—if I were Paul Rubenstein, I wouldn’t understand — you’ve got an ob­ligation to live, sir. Your wife’d be the first one to tell you that—she’d—”

  “That’s enough Colonel—get out of here—let Paul’s mother die in peace and maybe I can die with her—”

  Reed balled his fists together along the outside seems of his fatigues. He opened his fists, turned around and found the doorknob, twisted it and stepped into the corridor. He wasn’t seeing too well and he closed his eyes, leaning against the door for a moment as it closed. His own mother had died of cancer, and Paul Rubenstein’s mother was doing the same.

  “Shit,” he snarled, hammering his fist against the wall. “Damnit it to hell!” He pushed away from the door. As he started running back along the bend in the corridor, he could hear the voice of the hospital administrator over the intercom—he was announcing the evacuation, that there was nothing to fear if order could be maintained. Nothing to fear—to Reed, since the Night of The War, there had been nothing but fear. Some little fear at times for his own safety, but when there was a job to do that required intelli­gence gathering against the enemy, there was no time for personal fear. But fear—that the War would never end, fear that the Russians could never be displaced from the power they had seized in North America, fear that the guy you shared a smoke with was someone you’d never see again. After the evacuation of the Florida peninsula before the mega-quakes which severed it from the continental U.S., he had come to know the Rubensteins like a second set of par­ents, suffered with them both when it had been learned Mrs. Rubenstein was dying of bone cancer and nothing could be done to save her. He had come, in the precious little time since the discovery of the rapidly progressing disease, to accept her death as inevitable, but not the death of her husband who had become, even more since the nature of Mrs. Rubenstein’s illness had been revealed, a close friend.

  He reached the end of the corridor, starting to thread his way through the evacuees and toward the doors leading to the outside.

  Reed checked the Timex on his left wrist—the Russian gunships would fill the skies at any moment. From the bat­tered flap holster hanging at his right hip, he drew the 1911A1, working the slide of the .45, jacking a round into the chamber, leaving the hammer at full stand and upping the safety.

  He pushed through the inner doors, his left hand helping ease a wheelchair patient through the doors. He reached the outer doors; the guard there was directing the flow of traf­fic — wheelchair patients to the ramp, ambulatory patients down the steps.

  Trucks were pulling up in front of the school, men pour­ing from the trucks to aid in the evacuation.

  Above the din, the shouts, the blaring of the PA system, he heard the thrashing noise in the air.

  In the distance, he could see their outlines, like huge, dark insects, like a swarm of mechanical locusts coming to devour all in their path.

  He closed his eyes an instant, hammering his left fist against his thigh. Inside the improvised field hospital — Reed almost prayed Mrs. Rubenstein would die now so that her husband, his friend, might take the chance to live.

  But he knew inside him that it wouldn’t happen that way.

  Reed stared at the helicopters—they were coming closer. He ran the fingers of his left hand through his hair. He shouted toward the sky, toward the Soviet force, “God damn you all to hell!”

  But he wondered if hell could be worse than the War.

  Chapter Two

  Rozhdestvenskiy stood beside Comrade Professor Zlovski, lighting a cigarette despite the fact that posted everywhere throughout the laboratory were boldly lettered signs Kureetvaspreshahyetsa. Colonel Nehemiah Rozhdest­venskiy realized he was someone for whom signs which ar­bitrarily gave orders no longer possessed the slightest meaning.

  He watched; the coffin shaped object’s blue light seeming to flicker, the swirling clouds inside it parting, as did clouds before the dawn, he thought. And in a very real way, Rozhdestvenskiy considered, it was a dawn— the dawn of a new age for Earth.

  If the man had survived.

  Rozhdestvenskiy looked at Zlovski, noting the man’s chin trembling slightly fro
m the oscillation of the spear point of his little beard. “When will we know, Comrade Professor?”

  “Comrade Colonel Rozhdestvenskiy—we—we shall know in a matter of seconds. The cryogenic chambers are designed to stimulate the occupant toward awakening, yet not abruptly. We—we shall know in seconds.”

  Rozhdestvenskiy only nodded, turning his attention back to the coffin shaped cryogenic chamber. It was one of the Soviet made chambers, but had been altered to match func­tion for function those twelve chambers of American man­ufacture which had been confiscated from the ruins of the Johnson Space Center along with the ninety-six three litre bottles of the nearly clear green liquid which was the all-important serum. The subject of the cryogenic suspended animation test—Rozhdestvenskiy had memorized the man’s name as a courageous hero of the Soviet Union, whether the man survived or not—had been injected with the correctly calculated amount of the cryogenic serum based upon body weight. The volunteer’s name was Corpo­ral Vassily Gurienko.

  “Corporal,” Rozhdestvenskiy called out. “Do you live, Corporal? Vassily?”

  Inside the chamber, as the clouds of the blue cryogenic gas dissipated, there was movement.

  “It could only be a reaction of the body—an autonomic response, Comrade Colonel,” Zlovski cautioned.

  “Vas-sil-y!”

  “Comrade Colonel!”

  “Vas-sil-y!”

  Slowly, the body inside the chamber rose, like a figure in a child’s nightmare sitting up from a coffin, the covering, the lid of the chamber elevating in perfect synchrony with the form inside. Slowly, the torso bent until Corporal Vas­sily Gurienko sat fully erect. The man was naked save for a light blue cloth covering over his legs, this partially dropped away, his private parts unconsciously displayed now.

  Rozhdestvenskiy walked toward the cryogenic chamber. “Corporal?”

  The occupant of the cryogenic chamber—his lower jaw dropped. “Comrade Colonel—I—what is— I feel—”

  Rozhdestvenskiy spoke slowly. “You were born where, Corporal?”

  “Minsk—Minsk, Comrade Colonel.”

  “Three times nine is how much?”

  “Twenty-seven,” the man answered after an instant’s pause.

  “What is the mathematical equivalent of pi?”

  “Ahh—three point one four one six, Comrade Colonel.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Comrade Colonel—I volunteered to serve the State,

  Comrade Colonel—”

  “How?”

  “To test, Comrade Colonel, to test the cryogenic cham­bers which will carry ourselves of the Committee For State Security Elite Corps and the selected female comrades and the support personnel five hundred years into the future to reawaken—to reawaken and to conquer the planet and to destroy the six returning United States Space Shuttles with our particle beam defense systems before they are able to land, Comrade Colonel, and to—”

  “Never mind,” Rozhdestvenskiy whispered. Rozhdestvenskiy took a half step back, bringing his heels together, raising his right hand to his forehead, “I salute you, Com­rade Corporal Gurienko, as a Hero of The Soviet Union.”

  Rozhdestvenskiy dropped the salute, turned to look at Professor Zlovski. “Well?”

  “I have told you, Comrade Colonel — there is no proper test of so short a duration and —”

  “The indications?”

  “They are all good, Comrade Colonel—the corporal, he must be subjected to extensive medical tests before we know more and —”

  Rozhdestvenskiy made a slicing motion through the air with his right hand, dropping his cigarette to the laboratory floor and heeling it out. He picked up the red telephone on the edge of the nearest lab table. “This is Rozhdestvenskiy. Give me Communications.” He waited, while the connec­tion was made, a ringing sound once, then a voice beginning a formal answering procedure. “Never mind that—this is Colonel Rozhdestvenskiy—send message seventeen. I re­peat, message seventeen. Send continuously until there is response. I am in the Cryogenics Laboratory and shall be returning to my Command Center.” He hung up.

  “You are not curious, Comrade Professor?”

  “About what, Comrade Colonel?”

  Rozhdestvenskiy felt himself smiling. “Message seventeen—what it is?”

  “I was not listening, Comrade Colonel— I would not pre­sume—”

  “It is a coded signal to the Kremlin Bunker—it is only one word. ‘Come.’ Sometimes,” he nodded, starting to walk away, “one word is all that is needed. I shall wish to peruse the medical findings of the corporal’s condition personally, and have you available to me all the while for consultation. See to it, Zlovski.” Then Rozhdestvenskiy stopped, lighting another cigarette—he would have five centuries to break the habit. “The corporal is to be treated with the dignity which would be accorded a hero of his stature.” And he smiled at the professor. “Comrade Professor Zlovski — thank you very much—a most worthwhile entertainment— most,” and he walked away, listening to the click of the heels of his Italian loafers on the hard laboratory floor.

  All but like the gods of Greco-Roman myth, he was im­mortal now.

  Chapter Three

  John Thomas Rourke slipped the Low Alpine Systems Loco Pack’s straps over his shoulders, watching as Natalia prepared herself—at least physically—for the ordeal which remained ahead of them. The twin stainless L-Frame Meta-life Custom Smiths had never left her throughout the con­ference with her uncle, General Varakov, in the mummy room of the museum by Lake Michigan, nor had the shoul­der holster—he had found out it was a Ken Null SMZ—with the special silencer fitted stainless American Walther PPK/ S. But she was slinging her two M-16s to her body now, as Rourke watched her. And there was Captain Vladov, the Soviet Special Forces Leader. One of his men had brought forth Vladov’s additional gear. Other than the Smith & Wes­son stainless Model 659 9mm he had worn earlier, Vladov now carried a second handgun, identical to the first. Still a third Smith & Wesson 9mm pistol he carried in what ap­peared to be a handmade tanker style holster, this gun the almost black looking 469, called the ‘Mini’ Gun before The Night of The War. The factories which produced American small arms had been occupied and in some cases made to continue production, mostly assembly from existing parts, Natalia had told him.

  Rourke turned to the face of the man who had changed his destiny, or perhaps helped him to fulfill it, if indeed there were destiny at all. General Ishmael Varakov, Su­preme Commander North American Army of Occupation of The Soviet.

  The general still sat on his backless bench, his secretary Catherine standing beside and behind him, her left hand resting gently on the massive old man’s equally massive left shoulder. The second Soviet Special Forces officer had ar­rived, with his men as well, a Lieutenant Daszrozinski.

  General Varakov spoke. “The assault which I propose, Dr. Rourke, is the only means by which the KGB can be pre­vented from fulfilling its goals. But I feel a guilt that I send you all to your deaths despite this knowledge.”

  John Rourke checked the Gerber fighting knife he had added to his gear before leaving for Chicago. As he sheathed the black handled MkII, he spoke, “Captain Vla­dov has five men and Lieutenant Daszrozinski has five men—a total of twelve Russians, plus Natalia of course. If there were only thirteen Russians,” he smiled, “an assault on the Womb to recover the cryogenic serum or destroy it and knock out the particle beam weapons there might be doomed to failure, I agree. But I’m an American. That’ll make the difference.” He watched Natalia’s eyes grow wider as he spoke, their incredible, surreal blueness brighter somehow in the contrast of the dim light of the mummy room. “And, if as you proposed, General Varakov, I can get the help of U.S. II in this, well,” and he laughed, “even just two or three more Americans added into—” and he paused, gesturing toward the Soviet SF-ers around him, knowing they were his allies now against the KGB, but finding it still hard to realize fully—”this assault force, well. You know what they alw
ays say. One American can lick any couple dozen people from anywhere else in the world. So, a thou­sand of Rozhdestvenskiy’s Elite KGB Corps, the thousand women he has there to perpetuate the KGB, all the support personnel, the thousands of American small arms stored there, the millions of rounds of ammunition. All of that— well, if mankind survives somehow after the ionization ef­fect begins and ends, well — history will probably show that this—” and he gestured again to the even dozen Soviet Spe­cial Forces troops and then to Natalia and himself— “this assault force just took advantage of those poor misguided KGB people.”

  Natalia Anastasia Tiemerovna began to laugh, hysteri­cally, doubling forward with it, holding the M-16s back on their slings, falling to her knees. And suddenly, Captain Vladov, whom Varakov himself had labeled the best sol­dier in the Soviet Union, began to laugh, Lieutenant Daszrozinski joining him, the sergeants each man had, the enlisted personnel laughing, too.

  Catherine, Varakov’s secretary with the too-long uniform skirt, smiled. Varakov, his face seaming, began to laugh, a laugh that sounded like a child’s dream of Santa Claus as it rolled sonorously from his massive body.

  John Rourke began to check one, then the other of the twin stainless Detonics Combat Master .45s he wore—it was the first time in his life, he smiled, that he had ever been funny. And in view of what lay before them, he thought, most likely the last time as well.

  Chapter Four

  Dawn came—the world had not perished by fire as it would, perhaps the next sunrise, or the next. It was an in­definite sentence of death — sometime, some sunrise within the next seven days at best, because of the electrically charged particles which had been thrust into the atmo­sphere during the bombings and missile strikes of The Night of The War, the total ionization of the atmosphere would take place. The atmosphere would catch fire, the fire spreading as the electrically charged particles were acted upon by the sun. It would be the last sunrise for humanity. As the earth rotated and the sun eventually rose throughout the twenty-four hours, there would be twenty-four hours of death, the sky itself aflame, the surface of the earth de­stroyed, the atmosphere all but completely burned away, much of the ozone layer destroyed. Humanity and all the lower life forms would be obliterated—forever.