Survivalist - 18 - The Struggle Read Online Free Page B

tragic. In the third occupied bed was a man, resting comfortably it appeared. Obviously military, he looked like a blond and blue-eyed version of black-skinned, brown-eyed Sam Aldridge.
    Margaret Barrow came out of her office.
    “Brought me my cake?”
    “Brought you your cake,” Darkwood nodded. “It’s very good. Taking the welfare of the crew as my utmost concern, as I always do, I realized it’d be necessary to have two pieces myself just to make certain it was entirely suitable. Then I carefully checked with Sam Aldridge, who, as it turned out, is quite the connoisseur of cake. He liked it, too.”
    “Well, if the Marine Corps approves, gee-whiz.”
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    She tasted the cake. “Mmm—it is good. Well, let’s see. Machinist First Class Hong—he had the blood blister, remember? Well—”
    Darkwood smiled. “Right. Hong’s a fine man. I was more concerned about women.”
    “You never change,” she smiled too sweetly. “Let’s see. Mrs. Rubenstein voluntarily accepted a sedative once I told her that Major Tiemerovna was stable and that she’d be of greater value to the Major if she were well rested once the Major awakened.”
    “How about Major Tiemerovna?”
    “That’s another story altogether, Jason. I’m no psychiatrist, but from what Mrs. Rubenstein told me, Major Tiemerovna’s a pretty sick woman.”
    “Give me a best guess.”
    She shrugged her shoulders and eyebrows in unison. It looked kind of sexy, Darkwood thought absently. But Margaret Barrow always looked kind of sexy anyway. “It probably started as what you or I would call a psychosis—”
    “I use that word all the time. Tell me in easy to understand words, Maggie.”
    She shrugged—just her shoulders this time—as she perched on the edge of a surgery table. “From what Mrs. Rubenstein said and from my own limited observations, the Major seems to be suffering, among other things, from manic depression, but locked into the depressive state. Like I said, I’m no shrink. She’s a very sick woman. Total disorientation, obviously experiencing hallucinations, catatonic most of the time. There’s nothing I can do for her except monitor vital functions, keep her cleaned and bathed and sedated until we reach port. In layman’s language, she’s gone off the deep end, Jason. And after what she’s evidently been through—some sort of battle, as Mrs. Rubenstein put it.”
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    “And the man?”
    “He’s Captain of Commandos Otto Hammerschmidt of the Republic of New Germany in Argentina. That’s what he said before I sedated him. And he’s got very fast hands,” she smiled. “He’s going to be all right, though.”
    “One of the reconstructed Nazis, huh.”
    “That’s not nice to say, Jason!”
    “Fine.”
    His ship’s company now included a German officer, the daughter of the twice legendary hero Doctor John Thomas Rourke, and a Major in the Soviet KGB who was gorgeous even if she was looney at the moment, both women five centuries old and ‘holding.’
    And the Reagan was farther away from Mid-Wake than he wanted to consider.
    He asked Margaret Barrow, “You wouldn’t like to come to my cabin and celebrate my promotion, would you?”
    She leaned back and rocked on one heel. “How?”
    “I meant maybe just a cup of coffee and some conversation.”
    “You want to be treated for mental illness, too?”
    He smiled. “Can’t blame a guy for trying, Maggie.”
    She smiled back. “I’d blame me if you succeeded. But yeah, I’ll come. If it’s more than coffee.”
    “Are you suggesting we examine and possibly test the medicinal liquor stores to confirm that no chemical breakdown has taken place which might alter its effectiveness?”
    “Who’d you get that line from?”
    “I’ve been studying circumlocution with Sebastian.” And she laughed and came into his arms. Darkwood’s eyes drifted toward Major Natalia Anastasia Tiemerovna. He’d learned firsthand that she was