Survivalist - 20 - Firestorm

by Ahern, Jerry

  Colonel Mann was firing from horseback, bis animal rearing suddenly as conventional small arms fire cut a ragged swath along the rocky surface near its forelegs. Mann half fell, half leapt from the saddle, his assault rifle in his hands as he crashed to his knees, rolled, fired. Then he was up and running.

  Darkwood could see Sam Aldridge crouched in the rocks where the defile widened, Aldridge’s horse dead in the snow beside him, eyes staring blankly at nothing. Assault rifle fire tore into the animal’s body, making it lurch as though somehow reanimated. Darkwood’s own horse was racing toward him and Darkwood pulled himself up from the ground to which he’d slipped again a split second earlier, reached outward as he threw himself toward the animal and caught his left hand in the animal’s reins.

  Darkwood fell, dragging the horse down as well. Another blast from the energy weapon, the horse scrabbling to its feet, Darkwood grabbing at the saddle, throwing his right leg over as the horse stood, shook, then vaulted ahead along die defile.

  Darkwood could see a trail leading upward, not much of a trail but with the energy weapon and the heavy conventional weapons fire they wouldn’t last the three minutes, assuming that Sam or Otto Hammerschmidt had had the chance yet to use their radios and summon reinforcements. Darkwood realized he was still holding his pistol and he used the weapon now like a whip or stick and slapped it against Fritz’s sweat-gleaming right flank.

  He started the animal up die trail, toward the summit from which the energy weapon’s fire seemed to originate. “Gyaagh!”

  Jason Darkwood didn’t know what “gyaagh” was supposed to mean, but a lot of cowboys had used the expression when exhorting their horses to greater speed in the western videos he’d watched as a boy. “Gyaagh!” And it seemed to be working.

  Chapter Forty-seven

  She waited the better part of ten rnmutes for the orders to be given for the six remaining men in the immediate vicinity of the Retreat to reassemble after fruidess attempts at contacting by radio the two men she had murdered.

  And now it would have to be very quick and there would be no second chances. Because, if it didtft work, she would be fully exposed to six assault rifles and have only two six-shot revolvers for defense against them. That would not be enough. There wouldn’t even be time to reach the suppressor-fitted Walther .380 beneath her coat.

  Her own assault rifle and the rifles of the two dead men would not help either, because she would have to walk into the tiling barehanded. She had learned the technique from John. In these days, and in those days five centuries ago, no one expected to be braced in a stand-up gunfight as in the era of die American wild west, face to face, live or die.

  She called out from the darkness, in German, intentionally stilted. “I have come to talk wim you. I am without a rifle. My hands are empty.”

  The six men turned to face her as one.

  She hadn’t lied, after all, because her hands were empty and her rifle and die rifles of the two dead men were hidden back in the rocks. And so were her holsters, but not the belt she usually wore them on. The belt was cinched around her waist, over her sweater. The twin stainless L-Frame Smith .357s with die American Eagles engraved upon the right barrel flats were stuffed into the belt, in the front, just the way John did it with his Scoremasters.

  And, if she could pull it off the way John did it, she’d live-maybe.

  “I am coming out to speak with you. We have wish to discuss terms for your surrender.”

  She kept her rmdsweU away from her rxxly plane, so they’d be visible. She was counting on audacity, too, the sheer audacity of proclaiming that the six heavily armed men were surrounded by a group of women.

  One of the six took a short step forward, raising his assault rifle to hip level.

  Tire a single burst and before I fall, there will be more gunfire from die rocks surrounding you than you can imagine.” It sounded rather lame, especially in intentionally clumsy German. But, in a way, that could be good. The more over-confident die six men felt, the easier they would be to deal wim. “Which is your leader?”

  The one who had stepped slighdy forward spoke. 1 command this patrol. Our leader has your friend surrounded. She will (tie at the slightest provocation.”

  That was a possibility, of course, however remote, tiiat upon hearing gunfire and after attempting radio contact with these six, the men near Annie’s position would simply do their best to kill her immediately. But, with these six alive, the situation had no hope at all.

  She stopped when she was thirty feet from the six men. They were bunched up tighdy, which was better for her. “WiU you lay down your weapons and surrender?”

  The man who had stepped slighdy forward laughed and turned to look at the other five. Natalia Anastasia Tiemerovna reached for her pistols.

  One of the five men behind the leader started to shout.

  She double actioned through die Smith and Wesson in her right hand, die revolver bucking slightly in recoil as she shot the wouldbe shouter in the chest. He started to fall back as she fired the revolver mat was in her left hand, hitting the selffroclaimed team leader somewhere near the thorax, the precise location of her shot hard to gauge in the poor tight and heavy snow.

  The revolver in her right hand-she snapped a shot into the man at her far right, his assault rifle starting to fire as she stepped away and left, then fired the revolver in her left hand, the first shot spinning him around, die second shot punching him into a chest-high snow drift.

  Gunfire tore into die ground less than a meter from her right foot and she spun toward it as she stepped left, both revolvers at chest level, firing simultaneously, her ears ringing with the sound, the man who had fired at her sprawling back, dropping to bis knees, his gun firing into the remaining two men. Natalia wheeled toward them, firing a double tap from the revolver in her right hand into the nearer of die two men, then a double tap from the second revolver into the last man, both men falling down dead. Ten shots, six dead. She breathed.

  Chapter Forty-eight

  Jason Darkwood leaned bard over the neck of his horse, the animal stumbling, righting itself, vaulting ahead along the upreaching trail toward die height overlooking the defile within which his comrades still fought for their lives.

  The hood of Darkwood’s parka blew back and he ripped the Navy-blue stocking cap from his head, the wind lashing across his face as he shouted the magic word again to Fritz, “Gyaagh!” He lashed at the animal with the reins, kicking his heels against its pulsating flanks, spurring Fritz upward along die ice-slicked granite. “Gyaagh!”

  The energy weapon fired again. He couldn’t see the flash, nor the resultant explosion, but could feel the concussion almost simultaneously with the blast which assailed his wind and cold numbing ears. “Gyaagh!”

  The Lancer 2418 A2 was still bunched tight in his right fist. He made it that there were nine or ten rounds remaining in the pistol, reminding himself he should count his pistol shots as carefully as he counted the torpedoes aboard bis submarine, the Reagan. “Gyaagh!”

  The horse beneath him half jumped, half stumbled over a dislodged pile of granite slabs, down to its haunches, Darkwood half out of the saddle, his right foot on the rocky surface beneath them, wedging into the rock, pushing Fritz upward, “Come on, boy! Come on!”

  Fritz lurched to a standing position, knees skinned and bleeding, Darkwood in the saddle again without remembering exacdy how, digging in his heels, shouting the magic word again, “Gyaagh!”

  Fritz jumped forward and into a dead run along the flatter rock-bed, a bend just ahead, Fritz’s hind feet skidding on the ice, the animal nearly going down, regaining its balance, then into the bend and around it. “Gyaagh!”

  As Darkwood and his mount rounded the bend, Darkwood’s eyes narrowed against the icy slipstream around them despite the protective goggles, just out of reflex action; he saw the leading edge of the Soviet line.

  Two of die Elite Corpsmen in their white snow smocks, rifles to their shoulders, wheeled t
oward him. In Darkwood’s mind flashed visions of all the cowboys of bis youth, their pistols flashing fire in their hands as they rode. He stabbed die Lancer 9mm past his animal’s head and fired once, then again, then again and again, bringing one of the men down, sending the Elite Corpsman spinning back over the edge of the overlook, a scream rising, falling, dying.

  The second Elite Corpsman fired. Fritz lurched sickeningly, falling, Darkwood half-falling, half-jumping from the saddle, hitting the rocks, skidding down into a snow bank, bis right ear packed with the freezing white crystalline substance, his mouth filling with it, his goggles obscured by it. Another burst of assault rifle fire.

  Darkwood wiped his left sleeve across his goggles as he spat snow, then stabbed his pistol toward the Elite Corpsman, firing it, again and again, emptying the weapon into the man’s upper body.

  The man fell down dead in a heap.

  Darkwood clambered to his feet, slipping, righting himself, standing.

  Fritz rose, shook, stood there, a long but not too deep looking bullet crease along the left side of the animal’s chest.

  Darkwood ejected the empty magazine from his pistol, putting one of the extension spares up the well in its place, letting the slide slam forward. Another blast from the energy weapon, perhaps as close as a hundred yards ahead of him. It was deafeningly loud, his eardrums vibrating with it. Darkwood scrambled over the rocks and out of the snowbank, his gloved left hand getting the snow out ofhis ear. He looked at the horse. “Well probably both get it, fella. Wanna tryr

  The horse, of course, didn’t answer him. But somehow, Darkwood sensed Fritz was game if he was. Darkwood swung up into the saddle, caught up the reins. He hammered his heels against the animal’s sides and Fritz started ahead, gathering momentum. More of the Elite Corpsmen were visible now, rising

  from their defensive positions. Darkwood fired his pistol at the nearest of diem, lolling die man or putting him down-Darkwood couldn’t tell which-with a single shot.

  Darkwood’s animal seemed to be moving faster, the Elite Corpsmen swarming toward them all a blur. Darkwood fired into die blur of bodies, no time to count shots, rifle butts hammering at him, at the horse, bullets burrowing into his saddle, a slug tearing across Darkwood’s right thigh and right hip. Darkwood slumped, did not fall. “Gyaagh!” The pistol was empty. Darkwood clubbed at the face of an Elite Corpsman as Fritz body-slammed the man.

  “We get through this, youll be the first damn horse to get a Congressional Medal of Honor!” Darkwood shouted. Then the magic word again-“Gyaagh!”

  The energy weapon. It fired, Fritz rearing, Darkwood nearly losing his balance. Fewer than twenty-five yards now. Darkwood whipped the empty Lancer 9mm across his horse’s sweat-glistening rump. “Gyaagh!” Fritz leaped, running, Darkwood low in the saddle as gunfire thundered around him. Darkwood was hit. He didn’t know where. He was still alive. “Gyaagh!” A spray of froth from his horse’s wide open mouth washed over him.

  Darkwood saw the faces of the energy weapon gun crew. There was terror in their eyes. One of the Elite Corpsmen drew a pistol. Darkwood drew his knife, the duplicate of the Randall Smithsonian Bowie that his ancestor had carried in the pioneering days of Mid-Wake after the Night of the War-when all was all but lost.

  Darkwood threw himself from the saddle as Fritz reared, Darkwood’s mouth opening to scream, “Die, you son of a bitch!” as he threw himself over the Elite Corpsman with die pistol. Darkwood’s right arm arced downward as their bodies met, crashing into the snow drifted granite batdement, the primary edge of Darkwood’s blade impacting at the juncture of the left shoulder and neck, only stopping as the blade jammed against the collar bone.

  Darkwood’s left knee smashed upward, finding a target firm yet yielding, a rush of air from the Russian’s mouth as he screamed pain and died.

  To his feet, Darkwood lurched toward the energy weapon, his left hand closing over it. A cable, like ordinary coax in appearance only considerably greater in diameter, ran from the rear of the gun toward some piece of unidentifiable machinery. Darkwood’s right hand still held the knife and he hacked downward with it, a shower of sparks, an electrical arc, the cable severing as Darkwood’s fist released the knife and closed over the pistol grip of die energy weapon. It was about the size of a conventional machine gun, awkward for one man to lift up, raise over his head, heavy, out of balance.

  A pistol shot close beside him, a burning sensation across his ribcage, then cold as he hurtled the energy weapon downward over the edge of the abyss toward the snow splotched granite below.

  As men swarmed over him, he thought he heard the sound of German J7-Vs coming over the horizon. But the horizon was lost in darkness…

  Annie Rourke Rubenstein sensed the movement around her, telling herself it was merely a combination of audio and visual cues so subtie that she wasn’t aware of them on a conscious level. But whether that were the case or not-if she really sensed the movement of the men surrounding her with something beyond the five normal senses-they were coming.

  She checked the wounded German flier’s pulse. It was nearly too weak to detect. “Natalia,” she whispered into her radio. “If you can hear me, they’re corning. Hurry, if you can.” If Natalia were very near, Annie realized, she might well have the radio turned off so an incoming transmission would not betray her position. The units could be worn with earpieces, but these were uncomfortable at best and, in the cold weather, even worse. And if Natalia had heard, Natalia might be unable to respond without betraying her position.

  At any event, there was no answer.

  Annie unwrapped herself and the soldier sufficiently from the blankets that she could wriggle out, covering him quickly, only his mouth and a portion of his nose exposed. And she was instantiy colder. Her rifle beside her, she clambered over two seat backs and crawled on hands and knees toward the farthest edge of the helicopter wreckage within which she had sheltered herself and the German. The snow pants she wore felt uncomfortable and she shifted the waist of the pants a little. How men could wear trousers all their lives was beyond her understanding. She kept moving,

  along the edge of the wreckage, toward a spot just aft of the gutted cockpit which she had determined earlier would be the best defensive position in the event of attack. From this vantage point, she could monitor activity visually for slightly better than 270 degrees of the compass. The remaining ninety degrees-in bits and pieces were irreconcilable blind spots.

  She removed her heavy outer glove, pressing it under her armpit to keep it closed and seal the body heat within, then ventured the partially stripped hand to her waist, opening die M-12 holster there and extracting the Detonics Scoremaster .45. The Beretta 92F she carried in the other holster had a higher firepower potential to be sure, but if she needed a pistol at all, it would be at very close range and the .45 ACP round-because of her father’s influence over the years, she realized-was deadlier to her way of dunking.

  Annie edged the slide slightly rearward to visually confirm a chambered round. The press check completed, she reholstered, this time cocked and locked. The pilot made a soft groaning sound, which, a few feet farther away, would have been indistinguishable from the wind which keened around mem. There was a sudden movement from far to her right and she had the M-16 to her shoulder in die same instant, aware that her glove had fallen to the snow drift which covered a portion of the cockpit doorframe.

  “Fraulein Rourke!”

  The man had a white flag tied to the muzzle of an M-16. She smiled, wondering who it might have been who’d given it to him-maybe Commander Dodd of Eden Base. “Ifs Frau Rubenstein,” she called back across the snow, dodging slighdy right before she responded, tucking back left, in case there were some sort of directional microphone trained on her for the purposes of nailing her precise position to a sniper.

  “I prefer your other name, Fraulein. I should not like to have to think of you as a Jew.”

  She dodged right again. “Rather my husband’s a Jew than a damne
d Nazi like you!”

  There was no response for an instant, only the howl of the wind; but the man with die white flag didn’t move to cover. She retrieved her glove, pocketed it. At last, he spoke. “Very well, Frau Rubenstein. My name is Hugo Goerdler. I have been empowered by my superiors to offer you safety if you will surrender to me at once. Otherwise, you will be shot.”

  She didn’t bother answering, tired already of shifting positions back and forth so a directional sound unit couldn’t get a precise enough fix on her position. It was rumored that die Russians might, in fact, be working on a sound based sniper system, utilizing ultra-sensitive computer linked microphones that could pinpoint and then identify a target. The rifle was sighted through the computer and merely fired. Utilizing specially designed armor-piercing rounds, it would be possible to take out a target inside a wide array of structures by shooting through the walls. Because of the possible Soviet breakthrough, the Germans were working on such a device as well. She was happy that the inevitable gunfight wasn’t a year from now.

  “Frau Rubenstein! This is the last time I will ask you.”

  She couldn’t pass it up. “Thank God for small favors.”

  The man who had identified himself as Hugo Goerdler walked back into cover. Annie tucked down as well as she could. The German aviator was protected by an aggregation of assorted pieces of heavy debris from the gunship, walled in with steel and charred seat cushions, as safe as she could make him when the shooting started.

  The shooting started.

  Chapter Forty-nine

  Michael Rourke’s eyes burned and his temples throbbed, but he could barely risk blinking his eyes, had to keep them focused on the electronics displays before him. The last of the Soviet AV-16 missile platforms with its entourage of monstrously large T-91 tanks and armored personnel carriers was rolling past him, according to the display and the feelings in his guts, one of the T-91s less than a yard from him. He could feel the ground vibrate beneath the Atsack. Was the snow which was drifted and blown all around the Atsack being vibrated off?