Survivalist - 17 - The Ordeal Read Online Free PDF

my other officers lack. It may prove a mission from which you will not return.”
    “When was there any other kind of mission?” Akiro Kurinami almost whispered.
    “Then you will do it?”
    “Will I have time—” Kurinami began.
    “Your Fraulein Doctor is helping with the wounded, Lieutenant. The appropriate machines should be ready within
    the next fifteen minutes.” And Bremen glanced at his chronometer.
    “The man who was my doorgunner—he’s just a technician, but I’d like him along as doorgunner again. He’s a good man.”
    “Consider it done, although I must go through the formality of asking. By its very nature, this is a force of volunteers you will lead.”
    “I understand,” Akiro Kurinami nodded …
    “I don’t understand!” Tears flowed from her pretty eyes as she spoke. Kurinami took Elaine Halversen into his arms, holding her close against him, trying to blot out the moans of the injured just beyond the gray curtain that separated the tiny alcove in the main hangar building’s annex from the hastily set up field hospital. “I don’t—why do you—”
    “Why are you here, helping the wounded? Why aren’t you doing something easier?”
    “I—damn your logic!” And she buried her head against his chest. “Don’t die—please?”
    He wanted very much to promise her that he wouldn’t. Instead, he only held her and touched his lips to her forehead, rocking her in his arms.

Chapter Six
    Paul Rubenstein braked the Super, Otto Hammerschmidt, beside him, doing the same. Paul spoke into his helmet headset. “John—do you read me? This is Paul. Come in, John. Over.”
    Paul Rubenstein looked at Otto Hammerschmidt, the German commando captain’s face shield pushed up, his light-colored eyes clearly visible, the worry that was etched on Hammerschmidt’s face evident there in his eyes as well.
    There was no answer to the radio call.
    Rubenstein repeated it, then again. And, then, again.
    They had left Annie and Michael and Maria and Han Lu Chen and the Russian officer in the overhang of the cave, Michael still not coming around. They had ridden the Supers some fifteen miles closer to the Second Chinese City, dangerously near the battle lines, nearer, Rubenstein hoped, to wherever it was John and Natalia were in hiding, within their radio range.
    He tried the signal again, Hammerschmidt monitoring on his own helmet set.
    There was no response.
    The wind blew cold and there was the smell of synth fuel heavy on the air—the origin of the odor perhaps some modern equivalent of napalm in use by the Russians against the Second City.
    “What if they are dead?”
    The voice didn’t come through his headset radio. And it was Hammerschmidt’s voice. Paul Rubenstein removed his own helmet, as Hammerschmidt had done, ran his fingers through his thinning black hair, settled the helmet over his console. “They aren’t dead.”
    “You mean that you refuse to accept the concept that they might be dead.”
    “I mean they aren’t dead. We’ll head north, maybe come on some sign of them, maybe get into their radio range.”
    “Perhaps encounter some Soviet gunships along the way. What about your wife? What about Michael? Let me go on alone. There’s no one waiting for me. That’s the best way for a soldier, I think.”
    “Maybe it is. But no. I’m going on. I’d be glad for your company. But I’m going on anyway.”
    And Otto Hammerschmidt laughed. Paul Rubenstein looked at him quizzically. “We are strange creatures, I think. As men, I mean. You will search until you find John Rourke and if you do find this man who is your best friend, you will shake his hand, and if you embrace him, you will feel self-conscious and then you will laugh and he will laugh. I had a close friend named Fritz when I was a boy. We used to like to climb in the mountains near the Complex although heights were never my favorite thing. But of course I would not admit that. The rope became snagged and in trying to clear