Survivalist - 24 - Blood Assassins Read Online Free

Two days from now, she’d be back in the air, and at any minute the forces of Eden and their Nazi allies would launch an attack against the United States and the rest of the Trans-Global Alliance. And, she’d be in aerial combat. And, maybe she would die. Takeoffs and landings from a carrier in rough seas were dangerous in and of themselves, not to mention other aircraft and ground batteries and everything.
    Cigarettes weren’t like they used to be in the days when John Rourke was growing up. Tobacco was now totally noncarcinogenic. So, unless one smoked to excess and contracted emphesyma or injured the heart, smoking was okay. Under the circumstances, as she lit a fresh cigarette from the butt of the one burned down between her fingertips, she would have smoked anyway, even if there hadn’t been noncarcinogenic cigarettes and even if cancer weren’t curable. Life like this was nothing to lose.
    Annie Rourke Rubenstein sat up, screaming.
    The afghan fell from her body to the floor.”
    “Dead?” What had she seen? She could not bring it back from the dream. There was a note on the coffee table. She picked it up and read it. Paul had gone off to see Admiral Hayes about something.
    She stood up.
    She looked down at her clothes. The wrinkles would fall out of her skirt. She straightened her blouse. She walked to the window and looked out. It was raining, huge drops streaming down over the panes of window glass like tears, like tears down a cheek.
    And, without warning, the memory of her dream flooded over her and Annie screamed as she fell against the window frame.

Five
    Paul Rubenstein sent Natalia over to keep his wife Annie company, not telling Natalia what Admiral Hayes had told him. He could not tell her, but knew that soon he would have to, tell Annie, tell Michael, too.
    He borrowed an F.O.U.O. car, its Tracer unit tuned to the frequency of the F.O.U.O. car which John had taken when he drove off the base. The Tracer unit allowed one F.O.U.O. vehicle to home in on another, a very simple thing since each of the vehicles emitted its own signal code from the moment it left the base until it was returned (unless the solar cells ran out of energy first).
    This signal was strong.
    Paul followed it out of the city and into the mountains, along a highway that a few hours from now would be well travelled during the rush hour, but now was all-but-deserted. He passed through small suburban Honolulu communities, climbing with the road, his eyes occasionally drifting down to the automatic
    controls which drove the car instead of him. He didn’t trust them, kept his hands very lightly on the steering wheel even though he didn’t have to.
    What Admiral Hayes told him, in the aftermath of Martin’s death, was almost beyond absorption. Tears still came to his eyes when he thought of it, and he would then focus his attention all the harder on the automobile’s automatic controls, as a means of forcing reality away from him.
    They—he and the car’s computer—were out of any trace of real civilization now, and Paul Rubenstein, a New Yorker centuries ago, breathed more easily. Now, cities compressed his spirit, were slightly maddening to him.
    It—the computer—kept driving, turning the car off onto an unpaved side road now.
    The car drove at a “safe” speed, neither so fast as to enable him to get this over with soon, nor so slow as to postpone the horrible inevitable.
    Instead, at what was the perfect speed, the computer drove him calmly toward what would be the worst moment of his life.
    His left arm was a little sore, still.
    But exercise was the best thing. He flexed his fist and put his hand into the borrowed glove. Michael Rourke took the ball from inside the glove and hefted it. His baseball experience was limited to distant memory and the occasional game of catch with his sister in the years when they were growing up alone at the Retreat.
    He took the ball and threw it against the concrete wall, and the ball