Survivalist - 15 - Overlord Read Online Free

resisting the formation of habit.
    The granite spires and upswept walls of the Greater Khingan Range rose before him, an offset spinal column separating Inner Mongolia from Manchuria, separating one near subarctic expanse of nothingness from another. They had rolled the jeep-like vehicle from its carry position inside the largest of the three helicopters that morning and decided to examine the terrain from the ground as opposed to the method, the search pattern, which had been used since they had first set out.
    Hammerschmidt’s musical baritone habitually ill-concealed amusement, as it ill-concealed it now. “A wild duck chase, hmm?”
    “Goose,” Michael automatically corrected. “But you’re
    probably right, Otto.”
    “Then where are the Communists going?” It was Maria Leuden who spoke now, her voice musical as well, deeper than a woman’s voice often was, a throaty alto. Michael turned and looked at her. Her gray-green eyes were barely visible above the scarf which swathed the lower portion of her lovely face against the cold, the hood of the parka all but obscuring the dark brown hair except for the few stray wisps which fell across her forehead and caught in an errant gust of wind now as she continued to speak. “Karamatsov cannot be taking his army just nowhere. That would be irrational.”
    “Most likely, yes,” Michael agreed. “If he is moving without a definite geographic goal, we’ll all have been operating under a misapprehension, a potentially dangerous one.”
    They were near what, five centuries ago, had been the city of Harbin, northeastern China’s most important industrial base. But he doubted any of it would remain now, no gutted ruins.
    But Harbin had drawn him. From.his readings in the endless nights of the long years during which his father had returned to the Sleep, he had learned that Harbin had been a “Russian” city in the China of old, the Russians and the industry drawn there by Harbin’s uniqueness as a railhead. He had wondered, when Karamatsov’s line of march had seemed to indicate the direction of China, if somehow Harbin or its environs still possessed something Russian, or Russian lusted.
    Karamatsov — the name still filled Michael Rourke with hatred. It was on Karamatsov’s orders, whether directly given or merely established as policy that the suicide raid on the Hekla Community in Iceland had taken place. And as a result of the raid, Michael’s wife, Madison, and their unborn child had died.
    His father had spoken little of the desire for vengeance which Michael attempted not at all to conceal. His father,
    almost more than he, wished vengeance as well. Karamatsov was Natalia’s husband and tormentor. Karamatsov was a relic of the five centuries ago war which had nearly destroyed all of humanity and which was still being fought. Karamatsov was incarnate evil.
    To Michael, Karamatsov was all of these things, but they mattered not at all. Karamatsov was the man responsible for the death of Madison and their baby. For this reason alone — none of the others really mattering—Karamatsov would die. Michael did not desire conflict with his father over the ultimate fate of Vladmir Karamatsov, the Hero Marshal of the reborn Soviet Union, but it would not be his father, John Thomas Rourke, who would kill Vladmir Karamatsov. It would be him. And the desire so consumed him that he was prepared to fight his father for the right.
    Maria Leuden’s voice interrupted his ruminating. “He must have a purpose.”
    Michael looked at her again. She was obvious about her feelings for him. Love, perhaps, Michael thought. But the memory of Madison Rourke mitigated against that now, perhaps always. There was always sex without love, and he did not dismiss the idea out of morality. There was, though, in sex, the risk of love. And he would not be so destroyed within himself again until he had eradicated the cause of this destruction — forever.
    “Otto,” Michael told the captain