Survivalist - 21.5 - The Legend Read Free Page A

only his best friend but his son-in-law. Shortly after begirining his search for his family, he had met Natalia, and his world changed again. He remembered her from the espionage game they had both played out in Latin America, but on opposite sides. And, Natalia too had become bis friend and ally and something more. He was in love with her, and she with him. But that fact had no bearing on his search for his family.
    He found them, barely made it into the Retreat with them alive before the ionization of the atmosphere took full effect and the sky literally caught fire. Deliberately while his wife, Sarah, his friend Paul and Natalia too, rested through the centuries in cryogenic sleep, John Rourke awakened, awakened his children, taught them, then returned to the Sleep. He at once performed a disservice to his wife, for which he could never make amends, and do the right thing. She lost her childhood, but now Michael, their son, and Annie, their daughter who was now Paul’s wife, were adults, fully capable of shouldering their share of the burden of survival and of helping to propagate the species.
    But, the Eden Project, mankind’s supposed last hope, returned, and over the course of the days and weeks and months following the Awakening from cryogenic sleep in the safety of The Retreat, John Rourke’s ‘family’ was no longer alone on the earth, the Eden returnees, others as well who had, by various means, survived the holocaust. Including two colonies of the enemy, survival communities of KGB-led hardline Soviet Communists still intent on world domination, even at the risk of global destruction.
    John Thomas Rourke looked around the table as his son, Michael, approached the table, then sat down. Although everyone told John Rourke that he and his son looked sufficiently alike to be twins, Rourke only considered that well-meant flattery. Yet, because of the tricks with human aging he had played through use of the cryogenic chambers, although their birthdays were decades apart, there Avas now less than a decade’s gap between their actual ages. He looked directly at Michael Rourke. “How’s your knife?”
    “Didn’t get hurt, Dad.”
    Wolfgang Mann, already seated, said, “Doctor, the meeting is yours.”
    John Rourke nodded to his son, exhaled, then sat down, saying, “Gentlemen, this will be our last briefing before those few of us who are going inside move out. I don’t know the overall attack plan of Colonel Mann, nor do I desire to know it. Should any of us who will be entering the Underground City be taken alive, such knowledge could endanger too many others. So, this will be a little one-sided.
    Timed to coincide with the Mid-Wake attack on the Soviet Underwater Complex,” John Rourke went on, “it has been the intent since events began shaping up for what is about to occur that, in order to minimize casualties, commando raids would be launched simultaneously on the Underground City and the Soviet Underwater Complex just before the main attacks take place. My team and I will be leaving - ” John Rourke rolled back the cuff of the black knit shirt that he wore to read the face of the Rolex on his left wrist- “in approximately fifteen minutes. It is our intention to penetrate the Underground City, utilizing the energy weapons created especially for that purpose as based on the Soviet technology. Once inside, we will fight our way toward the central control complex, where, according to our most recent intelligence data, we should be able to locate and neutralize both the main entrance controls and the primary radar system which coordinates surface to air missile responses.”
    He hoped …
    Jason Darkwood broke surface under the dome of the lagoon, cocooning his wings around him. High clouds hung beneath the dome, clouds of water vapor and God only knew what else, clouds that were always there, giving the air above the appearance of being a sky. But on the other side of the dome was the sea, the entire