by Jerry Ahern
from under his left armpit, jacking back the hammer, firing at the face three feet away from his hand. The wildman's head exploded, blood spattering upward. Rourke pushed himself back, up, getting to his feet from a crouch, wheeling, still crouched, pumping the trigger of the Detonics
.45 simultaneously with hearing a burst from Natalia's M-16 and Rubenstein's Schmeisser, the wildman running from the top of the mound twitching, twisting, falling, tumbling to the ground. Rourke started to reach down for his fallen Colt assault rifle.
Another burst of gunfire from the M-16, a long ragged burst from the German MP-40.
Rourke wheeled toward the sound of the subgun, wildmen rushing toward Paul and O'Neal. Rourke extended his right hand, his fist balled tight on the Pachmayr gripped butt of the Detonics. He squeezed the trigger once, then once again, two of the wildmen going down, one of them at least-clutching at his throat— dead.
Rourke started to look back toward Natalia, something hammering at him as he did.
A wildman, the man nearly twice his size, he judged as they hit the ground, Rourke's right fist opening involuntarily as his elbow smacked against a small rock. The feeling in his right hand—
it was gone for an instant.
His left hand hammered up, finding the fleshy gut of the man on top of him. Nothing happened as Rourke hammered his fist in hard.
On his back, Rourke snapped his left knee up, hammering it against bone, then snapping it up again, feeling the squish of testicles, hearing the scream of pain, feeling the rush of air from the man's lungs against his face, the breath foul-smelling. The man had the beginnings of diabetes, Rourke diagnosed, hammering his knee up again, another scream and another rush of the fetidsmelling breath. Rourke rolled half right, jabbing his left elbow back into the side of the wildman's face.
He could see Natalia, the M-16 on the ground, two of the wildmen backing her against the bunker, her pistols in her hands. "Look out— Natalia!"
She started to turn, a wildman from the mound on top of the bunker jumping for her, one of the men nearest to her reaching for her, both pistols discharging, the body falling against her.
He lost sight of her for a moment as he tried crawling from underneath the screaming man half covering his chest. Then Rourke saw her, the pistols gone from her hands, her left hand brushing a thick lock of her almost black hair back from her forehead, in her right hand the Bali-Song knife flashing open, her body seeming to form itself, shape itself into a duelist's stance, the knife flashing out hard, coming back, then stabbing outward again, snapping back, one of the two wildmen she still fought screaming and toppling forward across the man she'd shot.
The still standing wildman had a machete— he was advancing toward her.
Rourke crawled— the hands of the wildman on top of him still clawing at him, the feeling coming back into Rourke's right hand, his left arm pinned under the wildman, his right hip with the Python under him, the holster slipped back on the belt and too far behind him for him to reach.
The first Detonics— two shots should still remain, he told himself.
Another burst of subgun fire— Paul and 0'Neal, a burst of gunfire from an M-16 as well, a scream of pain, a curse.
The Detonics was inches only from the tips of Rourke's fingers as he clawed the ground, feeling the wildman on top of him digging his teeth into his thigh. Rourke moved his left hand—
slightly. He couldn't get it free to reach for the Detonics under his right arm. He started to grab for the handle of the Sting IA black chrome.
He clawed outward with his right hand— the Detonics was too far.
He twisted his right hand back, trying to get it under his bomber jacket to the second Detonics under his right arm, his left unable to reach it. But his left hand had the handle of the Sting IA. He wrenched it free of the leather, ramming it back, feeling it drag as it bit flesh, hearing the scream, the pressure of the teeth on his left thigh easing, his right fist closing on the butt of the Detonics under his right armpit, tearing at the holster to break the gun free of the trigger guard break.
He heard it, felt it, the snap opening. He pulled the second Detonics out, thumbed back the hammer and jabbed the muzzle around toward the head of the wildman, the muzzle less than two inches from the head. He averted his eyes— blood would spray, and so would razor-sharp bone fragments— and pulled the trigger once, then once again, the body rocking over him.
The man had to weigh close to four hundred pounds, Rourke figured, the head split wide and all but dissolved at the rear of the skull, but the body— in death— still pinned him.
He twisted his left hand free, shoving at the chest, then moved his right hand against the wildman's left shoulder, the muzzle of the Detonics nearly flush against it. He pumped the trigger twice, fast, his wrist aching with the pressure, the body lurching over him, his left hand pushing up against it, the body rolling clear.
Rourke staggered up to his feet, reaching for the first Detonics.
The wildman with the machete was making a lunge for Natalia, her Bali-Song flashing out and catching the glint of moonlight, the machete dropping from the man's right hand as did two of the fingers.
But a revolver was coming up in the left hand.
Both pistols in Rourke's fist, he fired, the pistol in his left hand— the first gun— barking twice, the one in his right barking two times as well, the slides locking back, the pistols empty, the wildman with the revolver in his left hand and blood gushing from the severed fingers of his right falling back, sprawling onto the ground.
Rourke wheeled, buttoning out the magazines in his pistols and letting them drop, ramming the pistol from his left hand into his belt, snatching at a fresh magazine then with his left hand, driving it up the beveled well of the stainless .45, his right thumb dropping the slide stop, the gun leaving his hand, sailing cross— body into his left, his right moving down for the Metalifed and Mag-Na-Ported Colt Python .357 at his hip. His fingers closed over the butt as he popped away the flap, his hand rolling the gun over and around on his trigger finger as he broke it from the leather. He wheeled half-right. "Natalia!"
He set the pistol sailing across the air space separating them, the woman making the Bali-Song slide from her right to her left hand, catching the Python in midair, her fist grasping around the cylinder, then the gun seeming to fly up, spin, settling into her right fist. She half-turned, the Python's six-inch barrel snaking forward, dully gleaming in the moonlight, a tongue of orange fire licking from the muzzle, another wildman rushing her, dropping.
Rourke turned, starting to run toward Rubenstein and O'Neal, the two men pinned down by gunfire coming from the rocks above.
Rourke dove toward the shelter of a rock outcropping, snapping off two shots into the rocks. He heard the boom of the Python again, then silence, then suddenly the crack of three-shot bursts from an M-16.
He looked behind him as he reloaded his second pistol. Natalia— an M-16 spitting fire in her hands— was running toward him.
Rourke thumbed down the slide stop of the pistol in his left hand, sliding his thumb back around the tang, gripping the pistol, then pumping a fast two-round semiautomatic burst up into the rocks.
He still couldn't see Rubenstein and O'Neal, both men pinned by a heavy concentration of assault rifle fire. He heard Natalia's M-16 again, then her voice, breathless, beside him.
"How many do you think?"
"Two or three or they would have made a rush— remember, they're crazies."
"Here," and she stuffed the Python back into the flap holster on his right hip. He heard the snap of the flap closing shut. "Two rounds left in it if you started with a full six."
"Yeah," he nodded, realizing that he too was breathless.
"There could be more of them in the valley, going for the helicopter."
"To destroy it— yeah," he nodded, watching her face for an instant in the moonlight, in the instant forgetting where he was, what he was doing— she was incredibly, unreally beaut
iful, he thought.
Another burst of assault rifle fire from the rocks. "Gotta nail those suckers," he rasped, finding one of his thin, dark tobacco cigars, biting off the end and clamping it between his teeth.
"I've never seen you do that before."
"Usually trim the ends with a knife at the beginning of the day," he told her. "You keep 'em pinned down— don't try getting over in the rocks to Paul and O'Neal— I'll get up there after those suckers." He reached his left hand to his musette bag, reaching inside, removing four AR15 thirties. "Here," and he looked at her for an instant as he handed her the magazines.
"I love you, too," she smiled.
"Shut up," he whispered, leaning across in the rocks, kissing her forehead.
Rourke pushed himself to his feet, starting to run— there were three men still to kill, he judged.
Chapter Seventeen
Rourke worked his way through the rocks, the partially spent magazines in the twin stainless Detonics pistols replaced with full ones, giving him seven rounds now in each gun, the full magazine plus the round chambered. He had emptied the Python of the two remaining rounds, worked one of the Safariland speedloaders against the ejector star and loaded six into the cylinder, the Python nestled in the flap holster on his right hip.
There were sporadic bursts of gunfire from the rocks, poorly controlled bursts that ate up large quantities of ammo and had little effect on a target except by accident.
There were occasional bursts from the rocks below as well— Natalia's M-16, three-round bursts which made sparks as they hit the rocks pinning down the wildmen. Bursts from Rubenstein's sub-gun too, neat bursts— two or three rounds each, long bursts— accurate but too long— from O'Neal. Rourke kept moving, seeing the three wildmen clearly now.
There was no other way for it.
He holstered the cocked and locked Detonics pistols and secured the guns in the leather, working the trigger guard breaks closed with the thumb and first finger of the opposite hand.
He reached to the Python.
He carried it for one reason only— long-range accuracy.
There were no custom parts in the gun— with some fitting he had taught himself to do, he could replace anything. It was one of the very few out of the box revolvers which could be used perfectly well without action tuning. The action was sometimes criticized as being too sensitive, too prone to fouling with dirt or debris. He had never found it so. And the strength of construction made it perhaps the most solid of .357 Magnum double actions.
He thumbed back the hammer as he extended the pistol in both clenched fists, resting his forearms on the rock in front of him but not the gun itself.
He sighted on the furthest of the three heads, then barely touched the trigger, launching the 158grain semi-jacketed soft point load, the gun barely moving in his hands, his right thumb cocking back the hammer, the other two wildmen starting to turn.
Rourke fired again, taking out the man to his left, the man's face seeming to disintegrate in the moonlight.
The third man, the last of the wildmen there, was raising the muzzle of the assault rifle.
No time for a single action shot, Rourke double-actioned the smooth trigger. The third headshot made, he waited quietly in the rocks— just in case there were others of the wildmen he had not detected.
He had a Python in storage for his son— one of the newer, stainless steel Pythons. He had a Detonics stainless for him as well. He wondered if he would ever see Michael Rourke again.
"John— are you all right?" It was Natalia— John Rourke took what he judged a full five seconds before answering her.
Chapter Eighteen
Lieutenant O'Neal had originally been a missile officer— before the complement of missiles from Commander Gundersen's nuclear submarine had been fired out on the Night of The War. His was the cause of his being with the shore party to begin with, and of his eventual sole survival despite his wounding.
Rourke thought of that as O'Neal, still weak but seemingly invigorated from the fighting, waxed eloquent over their predicament. "She's right— Major Tiemerovna, that is. What she described from the homework she did on this system— assuming all her facts were straight—"
"We had a very highly placed source," Natalia smiled. "But he's dead now anyway— I think."
"Yes— but assuming everything he gave you about the missiles was true, you're right, major. Disarming these would be very tricky— impossible once they were armed. You always get intelligence stuff on a need to know basis, but you pick things up, things you aren't supposed to know. This irretrievable system— The No— Recall was what they called it. Once they were armed, the only thing you could do was fire them."
Rubenstein, leaning against the steel doors of the bunker, pushed himself away from the doors, saying, "That's stupid!"
"Yeah— a lot of us thought so, Mr. Rubenstein," O'Neal nodded, shifting his position on the ground, obviously uncomfortable. "Nobody asked us, though. It was—" and O'Neal looked up at Natalia, standing opposite him, beside Rourke. "I ahh— it was to guard against Soviet sabotage of our missile systems—"
"Don't apologize to me— I'm still an enemy agent," she told him, her voice a warm alto, contrasting sharply, Rourke thought, with her words.
"Well, then— what'll we do—"
Rourke looked at Paul. "You and O'Neal hold the position— against Cole. Three of them, two of you— shouldn't be that difficult. Natalia and I fly back to the submarine with the two helicopters— bring back reinforcements. Shouldn't be more than two hours— three tops. Those wildmen we killed were foragers, I guess. Either that or something like a patrol. These doors are bombproof, so they weren't trying to get into the bunker— you can see from these scorch marks where somebody tried it— likely some of these guys, and they learned they couldn't. If I'm wrong and there's a big concentration of wildmen coming, get out— we'll pick you up— fire a flare from that H-K flare pistol of mine—"
"There are flare guns in the helicopters—"
Rourke glanced at Natalia. "Better still. So, either way," Rourke said, taking his rifle from where it leaned against the bunker doors, "it shouldn't be rough duty. Stay up in those rocks— Cole comes, keep him away from the bunker. The wildmen come, beat it out of here— and they'll keep Cole away. Then we can try to do something about getting inside— that may be where you come in," Rourke said, looking at Natalia.
She laughed.
"What's so funny, major?" O'Neal asked, his face wearing a strange expression.
"A KGB major being aided in breaking into an air force missile bunker by the United States Navy—"
Rubenstein said it. "She's right— that's funny—"
Chapter Nineteen
Cole's palms still sweated on the M-16 he held, the bonfires glowing now, the wildmen unmoved since they had first encircled him, his two men and his prisoner.
"Armitage," he called. "Yeah, captain—"
"If anything happens— shoot Colonel Teal in the head— a coupla times—"
"Yes, sir," Armitage nodded.
Cole looked at the man— the casual way he had answered. He had known Armitage for three years. They had trained together in Alabama at the camp there. They had played the war games together, listened to the speeches together. He had been with Armitage the time they had fire bombed the car of the black television reporter.
Cole studied the flaming cross— it amused him. That he should be intimidated by a flaming cross.
"Armitage," he called out.
"Yeah, captain?"
"You and Kelsoe— get ya some tree limbs— make us a cross, too— you remember how?"
Armitage said nothing for a moment, Cole watching him, then watching as the face lit with a smile, the firelight of the bonfire surrounding them, making his face glow red, almost diabolical looking.
"And light it, Captain?"
"Yeah— and light it, Armitage."
"Yes, sir!"
Cole watched as Armitage ran over to Ke
lsoe, Kelsoe producing a hand axe from his belt.
"Show you bastards how it's done," Cole murmured, looking again at the wildmen.
Chapter Twenty
Sarah Rourke walked through the darkness, Bill Mulliner opposite her and slightly ahead on her right, Michael walking with Annie and Bill's mother, Mary Mulliner. Michael would alert her, she knew, so she concentrated her attention, focused her senses ahead of them— there had been noises, telltale noises only. There were people at the base of the funnel-like defile. But there were Russian troops on the road and staying on the high ground would have meant capture. For this reason only, Bill— Sarah realizing she had coached him— had decided to lead them down into the defile.
Brigands possibly, or more Russians— but possibly more Resistance. They were gambling.
She had come to understand herself more as a woman, she thought, trying to force her attention away from her thoughts and to the task at hand— but unable to.
She had come to understand what she could do— the power she had. Bill— a boy really, little older than Michael— was a man. He was the natural leader. But she had weathered more combat than he had, endured more, had a greater depth of judgment and perception than his years allowed him. She knew that— he knew that.
So she advised rather than attempting to lead, implied rather than ordered.
The same result was achieved— yet Bill had his self respect as a man.
She considered herself lucky to be a woman— there were fewer problems with ego where practical matters were concerned. She was content to respectfully follow his orders— so long as they were orders that followed her own directives, however subtly given.
She understood too some of the things that had caused the tension in her relationship with her husband. He would not be implied to, be coached, be nudged along. He had never once refused to listen to a direct suggestion, an idea. But he had refused oblique direction— and it was unconscious with him, she thought.
