Survivalist - 17 - The Ordeal Read Online Free PDF Page B

it, the rope frayed and with both our weights, snapped. Fritz fell from sight. I clung to the ledge, eventually got myself to safety and tried roping down to Fritz. I could not. I called to him and there was no answer. I began to cry and I sniffed back the tears and I ran for help. I found a patrol on some sort of compass course, brought them to the scene and they roped down for Fritz. He was unconscious. He revived in the hospital and eventually was fully restored. Fritz was like my brother then. And when I went to visit him in the hospital, we shook hands very briefly. I told him a dirty joke I had heard, something about a Jew, oddly enough.” And Hammerschmidt looked at Rubenstein embar
    rassedly. “But we were taught to think that way and only some of us learned otherwise in those days. But I never told Fritz how frightened I was that he had died, that we might never climb together again, or share secrets with one another. I never even told my father that I cried when I thought Fritz might be dead. No wonder women think we are crazy. They are right. We are.” Otto Hammerschmidt pulled his helmet on over his close-cropped blond hair.
    Paul Rubenstein put his helmet on as well. “John—do you read me? This is Paul. Over.” There was no answer …
    The shivering was stopped and once he was certain of it, he wrapped Natalia in everything warm there was available to them. Clad only in his still damp light blue cotton shirt and his underpants, John Rourke crouched in the rocks beside her, the small fire between them, his hands busy at disassembling the radio set in his helmet. His jeans and his bootsocks, along with her clothing and her underwear, were drying beside the fire. He had risked it because the need for dry clothing outweighed the potential hazards of such a small fire being detected.
    Shelter and food were the next concerns, but the radio might solve much of that. Night would be coming quickly here in the high mountains, and with it bitter cold.
    He felt her arctic gear. Nearly dry. His then. It was nearly dry as well. Soon, very soon, dry enough that body warmth would do the rest.
    Light would be critical to evaluate and possibly diagnose, then repair one of the radios if repair were in order. But perhaps it was only a problem of range, or some Russian jamming. He couldn’t be sure. The differences between these helmet radios and any radios he had extensively worked with five centuries before was analogous to the differences between a personal computer unit and one of the giant defense department mainframes he had seen, the complication and sophistication so vastly greater. Given time, he was confident
    he could deduce the nature of the problem and, if it were correctable, correct it. It had to be something related to the helmets taking the dousing they had. It was the only commonality that might explain why both helmet radios would not function. If not that, then a problem of range or Soviet jamming. The former he might correct. The latter was beyond his control.
    He looked around him. Rocky. Barren of vegetation. No caves evident and no depressions of suitable size for a protracted stay.
    It was clear that their first order of business was to move on to a more suitable location.
    “Damn the thing,” John Rourke almost whispered, replacing the guts of the radio in the helmet in reverse order to his removal of it.
    From his musette bag, Rourke removed a small tool, unfolding the screwdriver blade of closest appropriate size. He had already cleaned the twin stainless Detonics .45s, leaving the more difficult job of cleaning the N-Frame Smith & Wesson revolver until last. Carefully, after verifying its empty condition, he removed the crane screw, forwardmost of the sideplate screws, setting it down on a smooth rock near him, then opening the cylinder and sliding cylinder and crane off the frame. He set them aside, then using the same screwdriver bit removed the two remaining screws in the sideplate. Using the