Survivalist - 17 - The Ordeal by Jerry Ahern Read Free Book Online Page B

Michael the son of such a man? Was the very beautiful, very sensitive-seeming Annie the daughter of such a man? And the Jew, Rubenstein, husband of Rourke’s daughter—why would such a man of obvious bravery and goodness be so devoted to a man such as John Rourke?
    The facts seemed evident. Rourke was an enemy, but a noble one. All Rourkes were enemies, but noble enemies. The rest of what he had been taught to believe was a convenient lie. Lies, of course, were the bulwark of statecraft. And official lies such as this were policy. Policy was to be unquestioned. He would not question the lie, just realize from now until his life ended—which would not be very long, he surmised—that the lie was not to be believed.
    This clear in his mind, Vassily Prokopiev began the complex process of sorting out his options.
    John Rourke was a war criminal, but as a commando of the Elite Corps, his job was not to seek out war criminals. Yet, as its commander (unless his death was assumed and he was replaced, also likely), his directive was the welfare of the State, which dictated, of course, that John Rourke and all the Rourke family must die. Yet John Rourke was, in all likelihood, dead. As to the rest, circumstance had made them comrades. And all
    his life he had been taught that loyalty to one’s comrade was second only to one’s loyalty to the State. At the moment, the State was an abstraction, his comrades were real.
    He had read many suppressed books, in one finding a curious reference to a man named Sartre and a concept labeled “situation ethics.” Prokopiev realized that he was, after all, the living proof that such books were dangerous to the unwitting reader.

Chapter Ten
    Snow was falling heavily in the lower elevations and, as they had pressed on throughout the waning daylight hours, they penetrated more deeply into the storm. With the cover of the snowfall, it would be less likely they could be spotted from the air by the Soviet airpower. With no radiation detection equipment available to him, it would be safer to melt snow for water than avail himself of the local water supply, albeit that a bushel’s worth of snow was needed to produce a pint of drinking water. With the lack of appropriate shelter materials and the coming of the colder temperatures of the night, the snow would serve as insulation and artificially elevate the temperature, and could possibly be utilized to insulate what shelter he would fabricate.
    He left Natalia in a niche of rocks protected from the wind, wrapping her in the blanket, half tempted to leave his parka over her as well. But reason prevailed over emotion—should he become ill, her chances of survival in her present state would be zero.
    The snow fell in large flakes which clung to his eyelashes and his hair, the hood down, the skin of his cheeks tingling with the cold, but his body warm from exercise.
    John Rourke’s right fist clenched the haft of the Life Support System X, handmade for him five centuries before by the Weatherford, Texas knifemaker Jack Crain. He brought the primary edge down against the base of the five-foot pine
    tree’s trunk, then once more and finally a third time, toppling the fir easily, heaving it into the pile with others he had already cut.
    The pine trees, abundant here, would suffice to form the bare necessities upon which he could expand.
    He didn’t resheath the LS-X knife, because of the pine tar on the blade that would have to be removed.
    As he began hauling the trees toward the site he had picked for their shelter, he realized the snow was falling more rapidly, more heavily …
    Michael Rourke, brushing the snow from his eyes, squinted down into a depression where perhaps centuries ago a river had run, below the rocks in which he and Annie now lay side-by-side. Men and equipment—Chinese, but from the Second City—were moving downward along its course. Annie was speaking into her helmet radio, although she did not wear the helmet. “Paul—we have