by Ahern, Jerry
At the far side of his peripheral vision, he could see Nata
lia, the Walther in her left hand, the Bali-Song knife—she would have been carrying it in a garter on her thigh beneath her dress, he knew from experience—flashing open in her right, slashing across the throat of one of the Nazis, blood spurting everywhere around them.
John Rourke kept moving, gunfire tearing into an overturned table, the people who had tried taking shelter behind it already dead. Rourke found the source of the gunfire, firing the Centennial once, then again, spinning the Nazi assassin back on his heels and down.
Rourke wheeled right, feeling something more than any normal sensory trigger. One of the Nazis, his face twisted in rage, opened fire as Rourke threw himself left. Rourke fired, the last round in his five-shot revolver catching the Nazi high, in the mouth, the man staggering, his M16 discharging into the floor ahead of his feet, chips of floor tile and ricochets flying everywhere.
As Rourke looked right, another of the Nazis was closing in on him, swinging an M16 around toward him. Rourke dropped the revolver into an outside pocket and grabbed up a chair, flinging it at the Nazi. The chair impacted the assault rifle and the weapon fired wildly right as Rourke closed with the man, his right hand around the Nazi’s throat as his left hammered forward, his fingers crushing the windpipe as his knife gouged up under the man’s sternum.
Rourke pushed the man off the knife, picking up the M16.
As Rourke started to turn, another of the Nazis was bringing his weapon to bear, fewer than six feet away. There was no other choice, and Rourke’s left arm arced outward, his fingers releasing the handle of the Sting LA. As the knife buried itself in the right side of the man’s chest, Rourke brought the muzzle of the M16 up, the weight of the weapon convincing him that the twenty-round magazine had to have at least a few rounds left.
He punched the rifle toward the man as the Nazi struggled to raise his weapon. Rourke fired, the M16 splitting a three-round burst and emptying.
One of the Nazis was beating down a woman with the butt of his rifle. Rourke raced the few steps toward the man, ramming the empty rifle’s muzzle against his right ear, blood spurting as the Nazi screamed, then fell.
Rourke was on him now, his empty rifle fallen to the floor. Rourke’s right hand closed over the revolver in his pocket, drawing and smashing it down over the Nazi’s left temple, killing him.
Rourke tore the sling of the dead man’s rifle free, the weapon in his right hand now as he glanced once at the woman — dead — and advanced toward the doorway. Michael, his pistol apparently empty and with no spare magazines, was using the Beretta like a bludgeon, smashing one of the Nazis over the head again and again, bringing the man down. Then Michael dropped to one knee and rose up, an M16 in his hands, firing into two more of them.
Rourke reached the doorway, a knot of Nazi personnel just on the other side, pinned down there by three German officers with captured M16’s, along with Sam Aldridge.
Rourke looked back into the banquet hall. Bjorn Rolvaag, his expression almost placid-looking, was beating three of the Nazis back toward a wall with nothing more than a chair. One of the Nazis tried to raise his weapon. Rolvaag smashed the chair over the man’s face, then waded in on the other two men, hammering them down with his fists.
Jason Darkwood was at the doorway now, with him Otto Hammerschmidt. A heavy volume of fire was pouring through the doorway, emanating from the Nazis stalled outside.
A stalemate, and once more John Rourke looked toward the ceiling. More and more plaster was raining down and the crack he’d noticed seconds ago was widening.
Sarah, a bloody steak knife in her right hand, Rourke’s A.G. Russell knife in the other, was moving through the room, inspecting the dead and injured.
More gunfire from the Nazis on the other side of the doorway. Rourke tucked back closer to the wall beside which he stood. “Keep away from the opening!”
Inside the hall, those who could drew back.
Darkwood shouted from the other side of the doorway, “Colonel Mann took three men with him and went out through the kitchen to get behind them and—what’s the term, Sam?”
“An envelopment.”
Darkwood nodded. “He said give him about two minutes. I make it he’s got a minute to go.”
Rourke looked at the ceiling again. “Maybe we do if we’re lucky.” He looked at Aldridge. “Sam, get people organized to evacuate the wounded. Fast.”
“Yes, sir!” and Aldridge started barking orders in the next breath.
“Hammerschmidt, help him. Get Rolvaag with you.” “Yes, Herr General!
Rourke shook his head, looking at Michael, Paul, Annie, Natalia. “Annie, Natalia, help Sarah and Maria with the injured. If someone looks too hopeless to get out, it’s going to be a judgment call.”
“I will make it,” Natalia answered.
Rourke nodded as the woman moved off. “Michael, Paul, Jason, get us six more people who are armed. Hurry up.”
Rourke was already checking the Ml6. Eight rounds remained in the magazine. “I need magazines!” Rourke shouted to anyone within hearing range. He let the M18 fall to his side on its sling, taking the bloodied revolver from the pocket of the ruined tuxedo, his thumb pushing forward on the cylinder release catch, his trigger finger pushing the cylinder out of the frame. He let the revolver roll back in his hand, nesting it between his thumb and little finger, sliding his thumb up over the frame and punching the ejector rod downward, spilling the empty brass to the plaster-covered floor between his feet.
He took the speedloader from his pocket as he righted the revolver, started the five rounds into the five charging holes, and let the loader activate against the ejector star, all five rounds chambering simultaneously. As his left hand pocketed the empty loader for later use, his right thumb swung the cylinder closed and rotated it slighdy left and down, indexing it.
He dropped the revolver into his waistband just left of his navel.
A young German officer ran up, handed him seemingly filled twenty-round magazines. “These are all that I could find, Herr Doctor General.”
Rourke smiled, shook his head, and put one of the three twenties up the well of the Ml6, keeping the one with eight rounds as a spare, then handing around the other two magazines.
The ceiling would go at any second.
Rourke shouted back, “As soon as we’re into the corridor, start evacuating as quickly as possible!”
And he looked at Michael, Paul, and Jason Darkwood. Darkwood had six other men. All nine were armed with M16’s. Paul had his battered old Browning High Power in his left hand, the hammer down.
“You and you.” Rourke picked two of the men at random. “Understand enough English?” he asked perfunctorily. They both indicated they did. “Good. I want suppressive fire on the Nazi position.” Han Lu Chen, the Chinese intelligence agent from the First City, approached, M16 in hand. Rourke nodded to him, then continued. “Nice controlled bursts, firing high and low, alternating so they’ll think there are more than just two of you. Keep firing until you’ve each fired three bursts, then cease fire until we’re through the doors and on them. Then join us, right?”
“Yes, Herr Doctor General,” the senior of the two men — boys—acknowledged.
“Take up your positions. Paul, Michael, stick with me. You too, Han. Jason, take the rest of them.”
Darkwood grinned, “Yes, Herr Doctor General.”
“Blow it out your ear,” Rourke grinned back.
Flanking the door on either side, the two young Germans who were to provide the suppressive fire were in position. In almost perfect synchronization, the two officers opened fire, neat three-and four-round bursts in a crossfire pattern against the Nazi position beyond the large double doors of
the banquet hall.
The ceiling above John Rourke was groaning loudly now, about to collapse.
As the German officers snapped their rifles up, Rourke shouted the first word that came to mind,
“Charge!”
His twice-liberated M16 firing in short, full auto bursts, Michael and Paul flanking him, Rourke raced through the space between the doors.
The Nazis were positioned just inside the doors of the hall in which the dance was being held, the room still brighdy lit and decorated with banners featuring both the German and United States colors.
Rourke and the others with him sprinted across the corridor, a grenade hurled toward them. Rourke wheeled toward it, shouting, “Out of the way!” and took one of the greatest risks he’d ever taken. He kicked the grenade as hard as he could, sending it arcing down the corridor in mid-air as it exploded. Gunfire tore past him and into the floor near his feet.
Michael and Paul were the first two through the doorway, Michael taking a hit, going down, firing, then getting back on his feet. Rourke’s rifle had eight rounds remaining in the magazine and he threw the selector to semi-auto, firing a single shot into the chest of one of the Nazis, wheeling a few degrees left, then firing a second round into the head of another. As he tried for a third shot, one of the Nazis threw himself at Rourke, deflecting the M16. The third shot went wild, Rourke and the man falling to the floor.
The man was powerfully built, his hands enormous, closing around Rourke’s throat. John Rourke’s right knee smashed up, missing the groin, striking the pelvis. But his right hand got free enough to reach for the Centennial inside the waistband of his trousers. With the muzzle flush against the man’s testicles, Rourke fired, the recoil nearly snapping his own right wrist.
Rourke pushed the man away, then fired a second shot into the Nazi’s head as he got to one knee.
His M16 gone, Rourke had only the revolver. He fired, hitting another of the Nazis in the left side of the-neck. Paul was butt-stroking one of the Nazis as the man fell, twisting the pistol from his grasp. “John!”
The pistol—a Beretta 92F—sailed from Paul’s hand. Rourke caught it, stepping back, firing the last two rounds from his revolver into the chest of a Nazi turning toward him with an M16.
Rourke turned the Beretta in his left hand, worked the safety off, and double actioned another round into the Nazi’s throat.
Michael, his left arm bleeding, was locked in combat with two of the Nazis.
Rourke jumped a dead body, smashed the butt of the Centennial down across the neck of one of them, then fired a point-blank double tap from the Beretta into the chest of the second man.
Michael shouted, “Thanks,” stabbed the Beretta that was in his right hand toward another of the Nazis, and fired, killing the man.
Rourke caught up an M16 as he dropped the Centennial into his pocket, the Colt assault rifle in his right fist, the Beretta 92F in his left. Rourke fired into a knot of Nazis trying to escape toward the rear of the hall, cutting down three of them, wounding a fourth.
From the opposite side of the corridor, there was a tremendous crash, the floor beneath Rourke’s feet vibrating with it.
One of the Nazis, shot through several times it appeared and close to death, reached up from the floor near Rourke’s feet.
John Rourke put a burst from the rifle into the man’s head.
A cloud of plaster dust belched across the corridor and through the doors into the ballroom, dense as heavy fog. John Rourke held his breath against it, the fighting here all but done.
He ran into the corridor, chunks of the ceiling collapsing around him.
He could hear Wolfgang Mann’s voice shouting over the din, saying, “Kleinermann, assist in subduing the enemy
personnel in the ballroom. The rest of you, to the banquet hall!”
Men were everywhere around Rourke now as he coughed and choked, at last penetrating the cloud of dust inside the banquet hall. Chunks of the ceiling, enormous in size, lay everywhere. All about him were the moans of the injured and dying.
Rourke handed off his rifle.
His skills as a doctor were needed now more than anything else.
Chapter Twenty
Sarah assisted one of the German doctors at an aid station set up in the far end of the ballroom, as distant as possible from the still-unstable ceiling of the banquet hall and the almost as badly damaged corridor. Natalia, Annie, and Maria helped at another aid station at the far end of the corridor, where there was no evidence of, immediate structural damage. Michael, his left arm stiff at his side, the sleeve of his jacket cut away and a blood-stained bandage over his bicep, joined Rourke and Paul Rubenstein.
John Rourke, in his shirtsleeves now, the partially loaded Beretta in his trouser band beside the fully emptied Smith & Wesson revolver, crossed into the corridor once more. Flanked by his son and his friend, he clambered over the debris and toward the center of the banquet hall, where people were still buried alive.
Darkwood called to them from the still-thick clouds of plaster dust, more falling by the second. “John! I’ve got one that’s alive!”
Rourke spat dust from his mouth, calling back into the corridor, Tell Colonel Mann we need those gas masks quickly.”
As they reached Darkwood, kneeling atop a pile of debris, Sam Aldridge appeared from inside the mound, his black hair washed grey with dust, his uniform torn. And Aldridge was coughing badly. “Got a woman down there, Doctor … she’s …” Aldridge began coughing so badly he could not speak.
Rourke looked at Darkwood, who was coughing, too. “Jason, you get Sam out of here, and yourself, too. Get some fresh air and stay out of here until we’ve got masks. Make sure they’re all checked for filters. Now, get outa
here.”
Darkwood nodded, coughed, tried to speak. He hauled Sam Aldridge’s right arm across his shoulders and started helping the black marine captain down the mound of debris toward the doors.
“Let me go,” Paul volunteered. Tm smaller.”
Rourke looked at his friend and nodded. Logic was logic.
Paul handed Michael his High Power and dropped to his knees, then started into the hole, shouting downward, “I’m coming to help you out of there, ma’am.”
John Rourke looked around them as his friend disappeared down inside the hole. The speakers’ table where they had all sat less than fifteen minutes ago was all but buried, the dais on which it had been set collapsed. The podium was partially buried and lay on the floor on its side. As far as could be told in these first moments after the disaster, no one that he knew more than casually was unaccounted for, but that could change at any moment.
Paul shouted up. “John?”
Rourke leaned over the hole, Michael beside him. It was darker inside than he’d expected and he had no flashlight. “What is it? How is she?”
“She might have a broken back; I’m not sure.”
“Fm coming down.” Rourke handed Michael the Beretta, “Here, take this, and this, too,” he said, passing his son the little revolver as well. Rourke’s bowtie was already undone, and he ripped it from beneath his collar now. His hands, which were only partially healed, were already cracking and bleeding in spots from the abrasive action of the plaster. He placed one hand on either side of the hole and started to let himself down.
The hole’s interior diameter was tight, almost too tight for his shoulders. He reached the bottom in a second or so, going into a crouch. He could barely see and the plaster dust was chokingly thick. Ahead of him, he could hear Paul coughing. He started on hands and knees toward the sound. To have fired the Zippo lighter in his trouser pocket for illumination could have been suicidal. With the heavy concentration of dust, he had no reason to suspect it would not be combustible. “John!”
In a moment Rourke was on his knees, stooped over beside Paul Rubenstein. In the poor fight Rourke could make out the woman’s gross features, but nothing in detail. And, he reminded himself, he had better vision in poor light than most people, the concurrent upside to his always inordinate light sensitivity.
Rourke coughed, nearly choking as he bent over the woman, his hands moving along her body. As he stopped coughing enough to speak, he asked, “
Paul, what made you think—” And then John Rourke answered his own question. The woman’s body was twisted at the waist at an unnatural angle. She was breathing, but heavily. His hand traveled down her left leg and he pinched it. The woman groaned. There was feeling. With greater difficulty, he got his hands beneath her, feeling along her spine. “It’s not broken. But she does have broken ribs, and likely there’s a fracture in one or both legs the way they’re twisted.” Rourke coughed again; Paul was also choking. “You get out of here. Get the Germans to haul in some of that heavy equipment they’re promising.”
“They were saying they weren’t certain the floor would take it.” Paul began another coughing spasm.
Rourke held back the cough he felt rising in his throat. “Get them to evacuate anything below us in this building, get a move on with any of the other more easily moved casualties. Well need that guest list checked and verified for attendance. Once we’ve got a count, then bring in the equipment. In the meantime, Fil need oxygen down here for her and a gas mask for myself. Find one of the other doctors and get him down here ready for a glucose I.V. to keep her going until we get her out of here.”
“All right … I’ll…” Paul was seized by a fit of coughing again.
“I know; youll be back quickly.”
“Right!” Paul coughed, squeezed past him, and was
gone.
Rourke found the woman’s hand and held it, speaking to her softly in German between coughing spasms. She was coughing. Rourke could do nothing for her. He had his A.G. Russell Sting IA Black Chrome back, so if he’d had something to use as a tube, he could have eased the woman’s breathing with a tracheostomy if that were necessary, but he couldn’t even do that.
