Survivalist - 22 - Brutal Conquest by Jerry Ahern Read Free Book Online Page B

Zimmer’s unit. He could not access any of the files.
    “Damnit,” he muttered under his breath.
    Inside that computer would almost certainly be information concerning Dr. Deitrich Zimmer. And Deitrich Zimmer could well hold Michael’s mother’s life in his hands.
    Michael Rourke left the desk with its computer console and walked along the near wall of Martin Zimmer’s almost ridiculously spacious office.
    The only thing that pointed to Zimmer’s Nazi leanings was a small brass globe—or maybe it was gold—which was placed on a shelf in the large bookcase before which Michael Rourke now stood. Atop the globe was a small, almost meticulously delicate swastika… .
    The building at the near end of the four structures was a livery stable.
    The building beside it seemed to be some sort of pub-he house.
    Mary Ann, bolder up until now, cowered by the low, wide doorway. “What’s the matter?” “My old manll be in there.” “Don’t you want to see him?”
    “Yeah, but-“
    The unfinished sentence hung there in the air between them. And John Rourke suddenly understood. Sarah or Annie or Natalia would have read the reaction an instant sooner, he realized. She was afraid of her old man … that somehow he would punish her for being gone.
    John Rourke turned the knob on the cast-iron handle of the door and opened it.
    The unmistakable smells of marijuana and green beer assailed his nostrils, mingling on the cold air with the animal odors from the stable next door.
    John Rourke went through the doorway first… .
    Michael Rourke walked along the corridor of the capitol building’s first floor, toward the staircase at its far end. Gunther Hong walked beside him. “I will show you, Martin, where our search teams are. The transponder signals on the situation map indicate the Rourke Family must be boxed in. We were able to field an SS Search and Destroy Team. I thought they needed the practice.”
    “Wise decision,” Michael nodded, saying nothing else.
    Instead of getting away, he was going deeper into Martin Zimmer’s seat of government. The building itself reminded him of hazy childhood memories and photographs he had seen of classic small town courthouses.
    They reached the staircase and started downward… .
    Natalia Tiemerovna stopped moving when she heard the low growl from behind her. Her mind raced. The Germans had maintained a controlled population of dogs a century ago. There was no reason to suppose … she
    turned her head very slowly. The Chinese of the Second City had kept wolves.
    Mouth dripping saliva from bared fangs, hind legs flexed, a descendant, presumably, of one of those wolves stood behind her.

10
    “Paul, they’re too tired to go on.”
    “I know,” Paul Rubenstein told his wife. Then he looked at Martin Zimmer’s face. Martin was obviously cold and otherwise uncomfortable. But he was laughing. “You keep laughing, buddy, you won’t have to worry about your father or your brother looking like you anymore. They’ll have faces and teeth.”
    Martin Zimmer’s smile disappeared.
    Annie said, “I’ll get them together.”
    “Don’t let any of them get too comfortable,”’ Paul advised. “We might have to move out fast.”
    The configuration of the terrain here was unrelieved flatness. If they were spotted from the air or pursued by a fast vehicle, there would be no place to hide and it would be a standoff at best, with Martin Zimmer as the sole bargaining chip. And to produce him might be sealing Michael’s death.
    But the women were exhausted.
    “Bring her over here. Come on,” Paul ordered, Zimmer not even nodding, but turning toward the gathering knot of twenty-two freed women, the twenty-third one on the litter he and Martin carried between them… .
    The map of the Wildlands dominated an entire wall.
    But it was only a computer screen. As Michael watched, he was able to discern the exact positions of the ground patrols sent out, he had hoped erroneously, after his family.”