The Quest s-3

by Ahern, Jerry

  He had his third cup of coffee, determined mentally his order of work and pulled the baseball cap back in place. The fog had not dissipated; he had watched through the window. A few cars moved slowly on the street, those with travel and gasoline permits. Several people, shoulders hunched, eyes down, walked along the sidewalks. There was no work, no food, nowhere to go for these Americans. He decided to recommend to Varakov that the unproductive persons—those over age, those infirm, etc.—be liquidated in order that they be less of a burden for the new order. He doubted though that the soft-hearted Varakov would go along with the idea.

  Varakov, he thought. He stopped on the steps and lit a cigarette, looking across the street. That was his next project: eliminate Varakov and assume his command. He—Karamatsov—would show the Politburo, the Premier, all of them, how a conquered, nation could be subdued, whipped into line, then made productive once again. The very next project, he thought, after arranging something nice for Natalia. Perhaps, he thought, reconsidering, he could use Natalia to destroy her uncle—eliminate them both. He had no use for a wife who had no use for him. There were many women like the blonde, ones who didn’t think they were angels or precious flowers—ones who would make a man feel like a god.

  He started toward the sidewalk, walking each morning since he had arrived to military headquarters. Exercise was good for a man.

  Chapter 37

  Rourke had driven through the night, returned to the retreat by the most circuitous route to determine he wasn’t followed. He had showered, changed, eaten, had a drink and discussed what he had to do with Paul Rubenstein. While Rourke had cleaned and checked his weapons, they had discussed the letter from Varakov and Rourke’s promise to Natalia not to kill her husband. He disliked being cast in the role of an assassin.

  Yet, if Karamatsov didn’t die, and if Karamatsov found out about the plan, he would most assuredly blame his wife and try to get his revenge. Perhaps, too, Rourke had thought out loud, Karamatsov would kill her anyway. He had gotten the impression when they had met in Texas that, aside from total ruthlessness, Karamatsov was also more than slightly insane.

  And now, having ridden through the fog through the early-morning hours, a fresh bandage in place on his cheek where he had skinned it, his guns freshly cleaned and checked and loaded, his knives touched up on the whetstone, he knew what he would do.

  He dismounted the bike, seeing Karamatsov coming down the steps and onto the sidewalk and starting his way. Rourke stripped off his leather jacket and the pistol belt with the Government .45.

  He had already cocked and locked the twin Detonics stainless pistols, and they rode now in their shoulder holsters under his armpits. The harness made in a rough figure eight across his shoulders and back over the light-blue shirt, he stepped from the alley into the foggy street, rolling his sleeves up as he walked. Karamatsov had not seen him yet. He trusted to Varakov that Soviet patrols would be conspicuously absent.

  Rourke stopped, taking one of the small cigars from his shirt pocket, lighting it in the blue-yellow flame of the battered Zippo lighter. He dropped the lighter in the pocket of his Levi’s, his combat boots clicking with hollow sounds on the pavement.

  He stripped the sunglasses from his face and pocketed them, the glare of the fog making him change his mind and put them back on. He stopped in the middle of the street, then walked to the curb and onto the sidewalk.

  He stopped again, two thin streams of gray smoke issuing from his nostrils as he exhaled. Karamatsov had finally seen him.

  Chapter 38

  Paul Rubenstein squatted on his haunches on the roof line of what had once been a restaurant, the Steyr-Mannlicher SSG in his hands, the 3 x 9 scope set to six power for the distance, a round chambered in the synthetic stocked Parkerized bolt action.

  Rourke had anticipated that Varakov would perhaps have Karamatsov dogged by a sniper, to kill Rourke after he killed Karamatsov. Paul smiled, thinking that for once John Rourke had been wrong. He stopped smiling as he saw Rourke stop in the street, the distance separating Rourke from Karamatsov less than twenty-five yards. It was a gunfight—it was insanity, Rubenstein thought. He wished he could hear the words. He watched as both men looked from side to side to make sure, Rubenstein guessed, that no innocent bystanders were in the line of fire. He wished also that Rourke would have let him do it, just snap the trigger and let Karamatsov fall. He shifted the scope slightly and framed the crosshairs on Karamatsov’s head; it would be so easy.

  His hands sweated—it wouldn’t be easy at all, he thought. And that wasn’t Rourke’s way of things. It always had to be fair. “Damn,” the young, slightly balding man muttered, his glasses steaming over his own perspiration. The perspiration was from fear that perhaps Rourke wasn’t invincible as he had always seemed to be ever since they had met after the plane crash in New Mexico on the night of the war.

  “Damn,” he whispered to himself, quickly scanning again for snipers, then focusing on Rourke, then Karamatsov, then cutting the power so he could see both men as they faced each other.

  Chapter 39

  Rourke almost whispered, “Right here okay?”

  “For what, Rourke, are you going to tell me how wonderful my wife was in bed?”

  “We never saw a bed. I told you before, nothing happened.”

  “Then why here, why now. Why?”

  “A long story,” Rourke observed. “Go for your gun whenever you want—if you like, I’ll wait while you ditch your coat.” “All right,” Karamatsov snapped, stripping the coat from his shoulders, throwing it down on the sidewalk, pulling the baseball cap low over his eyes. “One gun, two. I have never been in a Western gunfight before.” “I don’t think you will be again. It’s not technique that counts, not so much. It’s not just speed. It’s accuracy. That’s why I figured twenty-five yards—makes it more even for you against me. I might be faster, but you’re probably just as accurate.” “I’m so touched, Rourke. I can see why Natalia thinks so highly of you. And you can have her—the slut. The moment my back was turned, after all my years of fidelity to her—even now I am still faithful to her. And she, you—you plot to murder me.” “If it matters,” Rourke said softly, his eyes riveted to Karamatsov’s eyes. “She doesn’t know a thing about this. I even promised her once I wouldn’t kill you. If I ever meet her again, she’ll probably hate me for killing you.” “You mean, if you kill me,” Karamatsov snapped, his voice sounding higher-pitched, the words clipped and nasal.

  “Have it your way—if. Then—whenever you’re ready—just go for it. I’ll watch your eyes, and I’ll know when to make my move.” “Idiot! American fool!”

  “I’ll admit two grown men standing in the street and shooting at each other isn’t too smart. It was just the fairest thing I could come up with on the spur of the moment,” Rourke said, rolling the cigar in the left corner of his mouth, clenching his teeth.

  “Doesn’t someone drop a handkerchief?”

  “That’s only in movies,” Rourke answered.

  Karamatsov edged, sidestepping slowly to his left, off the curb and into the street.

  Rourke edged left as well, his eyes watching Karamatsov’s eyes, the fog starting to lift and swirl as the wind picked up, sunlight breaking through. Rourke squinted, despite the glasses, against the glare of the sun on the gray fog.

  It was misleading, he thought, to say you watched the eyes. Karamatsov had probably assumed as much. At twenty-five yards or so, the eyes themselves would be hard or impossible to see clearly. You watched instead the set of the eyes, he thought, the almost imperceptible tightening of the muscles around them, the little squint that—Rourke saw the eyes set.

  Karamatsov’s right hand flashed up toward the Model 59 in the shoulder rig, the thumbsnap breaking with an almost audible click, the gun’s muzzle straightening out as Karamatsov took a half-step right and crouched, his left hand moving to help grasp the gun, the hat caught up by a gust of wind and sailing from his head.

  Rourke’s right han
d moved first, then his left, the right hand bringing the first Detonics on line, the safety swept off under his thumb as the gun had cleared the leather, the gun in the left hand moving on line as Rourke triggered the first shot.

  Rourke saw the flash against the fog of Karamatsov’s pistol, the stainless Detonics bucking through recoil in Rourke’s right hand, then the left gun firing, then the right and the left simultaneously.

  Karamatsov flew up off the ground almost a foot, Rourke judged, the gun in Karamatsov’s hands firing up into the air—a second round. The Russian’s body twitched in midair, then twitched and lurched twice more as it fell, the Russian’s gun firing again into the street. A window smashed on the other side. His body rolled over face down, the right arm and left leg twitching, shivering, then stopping. There was no more movement.

  Rourke thumbed up the safety on the pistol in his right hand and jabbed it into his belt, shifted the gun in his left hand to his right, thumbed up the safety and held the gun limp at his side against his thigh, walking forward, slowly, then stopping and rolling over the Russian’s body with his combat-booted foot, his right thumb poised over the safety of his pistol.

  There were four dark-red patches on Karamatsov’s trunk.

  Rourke bent over and, with the thumb of his left hand, closed the eyelids.

  “Done,” he whispered.

  Chapter 40

  The chill wind lashed at John Rourke’s face and hair as he bent low over the Harley-Davidson. The engine throbbed between his thighs, the sound of it combined with the wind roaring in his ears. He glanced to his right, Rubenstein beside and slightly behind him.

  The escape from town had been surprisingly easy. Rourke decided Varakov was indeed a man of his word, but there was no way Rourke could imagine Korcinski keeping to his portion of the bargain and releasing the rest of the men from the Resistance. He could simply leave it out of his report to Varakov that they had been executed, but he would have waited for something to happen, some reason for Rourke’s release and once news of the death of Karamatsov reached him, Korcinski would know—it would all be clear. They would all be dead.

  Rourke turned and glanced toward Rubenstein, trying to hear what the younger man was shouting over the slipstream and vibration of the engines. ‘ ‘Where—are—we—going?” Rourke smiled, his lips curled back against the pressure of the wind, the speedometer on the bike over seventy. “To a reunion,” he shouted, then seeing the puzzled look on Paul Rubenstein’s face, he repeated, only shouting louder, more slowly, ‘ ‘To—a—re—union!” Rourke turned and bent over the bike again. The fog was all but lifted and it was nearly nine A.M. as he glanced at the black face of the Rolex Oyster Perpetual Submariner on his left wrist—executions, he thought, were usually an early morning affair. “Hurry,” he shouted to his side toward Rubenstein, then gave the bike more throttle.

  Rourke slowed the Harley dramatically, making his turn wide onto the gravel road, taking him off the main highway and into the woods and down toward the clearing far beyond where he determined the hostage Resistance fighters were still being kept. He had judged Korcinski as being competent yet vain. He would never expect Rourke to come back and try to rescue his “comrades.” Rourke counted heavily on that, for even with Paul Rubenstein at his side the odds were heavily stacked against him.

  Rourke slowed his jet-black Harley even more, curving into a gentle arc and stopping. Rubenstein passed him, then cut back, and stopped beside him, facing him.

  “Where, John?”

  “Up there—maybe two miles through the woods—too many Russians on the highways,” Rourke rasped back, winded.

  “We got a chance?”

  Rourke smiled. “If we didn’t have a chance we wouldn’t be here.”

  Rourke started the Harley again, slower this time because of the roughness of the dirt road he followed.

  Rourke reviewed the details of his plan, the only way he thought he had a chance. If nothing were transpiring as he reached the clearing he would wait, wait for the Resistance fighters to be led from wherever they were being held to a spot where they would be shot. He remembered the Soviet massacre of the Polish officer corps during World War II—the Katyn Forest Massacre. They had used German weapons and tried to blame the Germans for the mass murder. Some clever investigator had discovered the real truth, examining the rope with which the victims had been bound—they were Russian made. Perhaps Korcinski would try to arrange things so that it appeared the Resistance people had fought among themselves and use the captured weapons from the fighters to execute them.

  Rourke drove his bike as quickly as he dared through the woods, glancing every few minutes at the Rolex, watching the seconds tick away, wondering if the hostages were still alive.

  After several more minutes, Rourke slowed his bike, signaling with one hand for Rubenstein—behind him—to do the same. Stopping, Rourke glanced back across his right shoulder. “Over there, maybe five hundred yards. Come on.” Rourke dismounted, hauling his bike into the trees, taking the bayonet from his belt, and hacking away at the brush to camouflage it. Rubenstein did the same a few yards from him.

  “You want the SSG?” Rubenstein asked. Rourke shook his head no, unslinging the CAR-15 from his back and working the ears on the bolt, chambering a round, then slipping the safety on. The rifle, stock collapsed, slung under his right shoulder, his fist wrapped around the pistol grip, he started forward, Rubenstein moving behind him as Rourke glanced back.

  The air was cold, damp, and foul-smelling from the patches of fog still clinging in the shadows of the trees low along the ground. Rourke walked slightly stooped over, threading his way under low branches around bushes laden with two-inch-long thorns, bright-green-leaved brush swatting at his hands and thighs as he pushed his way past.

  Judging he’d gone half the distance, he signaled a stop with his left hand, held a finger to his lips for silence and drooping into a low crouch, moved ahead. After what Rourke judged as another fifty yards, he stopped again, hearing the faint sound of voices. He moved laterally, trying to line up the sound of the voices with the approximate position of the clearing, stopped, hearing the voices more clearly, but still unable to tell the words, then started forward again.

  He moved what he judged as slightly more than a hundred yards, stopped, and listened. There were orders being shouted. He thought he faintly recognized Korcinski’s voice. Dropping to the ground, Rourke signaled Rubenstein to do the same. Both men moved ahead on their knees and elbows, crawling over the rough ground, cautious to avoid snapping a dried twig or some other casual noise that might betray them.

  Again Rourke signaled a stop, seeing the outline of the upper half of a uniformed man above a low-rising natural hedgerow. Rourke motioned Rubenstein to stay back, handing him off the CAR-15 and palming out the Sting IA from inside his trousers, then on knees and elbows he inched forward.

  Again Rourke stopped, the sentry clearly in view, an AK-47 at high port as the man stared over the hedgerow, Rourke beneath his line of sight. There was no chance of getting around behind the man, Rourke decided, pushing himself up slightly and scanning the woods as best he could for signs of other sentries. He picked one man on the far side of the clearing, opposite this man and turned back to the clearing, so far staying away from Rourke’s own position. Then Rourke spotted a third man, far to his left, standing beside the collection of Soviet vehicles. Korcinski’s staff car was there, Rourke doubted the man had spent the night in the open field in the woods. Perhaps he had returned to preside over the execution. There were more orders barked from the clearing, and now Rourke recognized Korcinski’s voice, in Russian, the colonel ordering the hostages be brought from the trucks where they were being held. Rourke spotted the fourth sentry far to his right by two large tents, these apparently set up to house the men who had guarded the hostages over night.

  There was activity in the clearing, men grumbling in Russian as soldiers grumble in any tongue, the sounds of rifle actions being checked. The exe
cution, Rourke realized, was imminent. He looked back to the sentry almost immediately ahead of him, still staring out blankly over the hedgerow.

  Rourke edged forward, the Sting clamped in his teeth. It was risky, what he planned, but it was all he could do.

  He was less than five feet from the sentry now, slightly to the soldier’s right.

  Rourke got his knees up under him in a crouch, then scanning from right to left to see if he were being watched, he pushed himself to his feet, reaching out with his left hand, the arm extended fully, snatching his fist toward the right side of the Russian soldier’s face, his right arm lunging forward like a fencer, the black chrome Sting clenched in his right fist, his thumb braced against the grooved steel handle portion of the knife, the spear point tip of the blade punching in hard in the hollow behind the chin to cut the vocal chords and stifle any cry. The Russian’s eyes were wide with pain and horror as Rourke withdrew the knife, then raked it left to right across the man’s already bleeding throat, catching the soldier as he fell forward toward him, already dead, the look of puzzlement still in the eyes.

  Rourke eased the body to the ground, wiping the blood from his hands on the soldier’s uniform shirt.

  Rourke dragged the body under a bush, then stripped away the ammo from the man’s belt, and snatched up the AK-47, looking behind him, signaling Rubenstein to come ahead.

  Rourke inched into the hedgerow, a full view now of the clearing showed perhaps a dozen Russian soldiers being formed up into a long single rank. The corners of Rourke’s mouth turned down as he squinted at the weapons the men held—the motley collection used by the Resistance people and Reed and his men.