by Jerry Ahern
They flew low to give as little advance warning of their arrival as possible, in case somehow, something had gone wrong. He followed the contours of the ground with his altimeter, rising over a low ridge.
In the distance he could see that something had gone wrong.
Wildmen were everywhere, and at their center were two crosses— O'Neal and Rubenstein?
He overfiew the crosses, glancing below him now— Paul, perhaps dead, certainly close to unconsciousness. O'Neal, his body twisting against the ropes that bound him to the cross timbers.
Near the crosses, he could see Cole, Cole's two men Armitage and Kelsoe, and a bizarre, squatlooking man wrapped in a bearskin robe. Cole beckoned to the sky— Rourke knew why.
"Natalia—"
"Yes— I see— do we go in?"
"We pull back along the other side of that ridge line," he said into his microphone. "Then I go in— that's what Cole wants." He exhaled hard into the microphone. "And that's what Cole is going to get."
Rourke banked the chopper sharply, shouting past his microphone to the men near the open chopper doors, "Hang on to the seats, guys—" He chewed harder on his cigar...
The rotor blades from Natalia's helicopter still moved lazily in the breeze, but it was not the breeze that moved them. Natalia stood beside him, dressed in her dark clothing and boots, her pistols on her hips, seeming to accentuate their roundness— she had trained to be a ballerina, she had told him once, and her martial arts skills were past the level of the ordinary and almost elevated to the artistry of the dance. There was a perfection about her— he saw her eyes quickly flicker to his— their blueness overwhelming him. He turned away, looking at the men of the shore party.
"A lot of you saw Lieutenant O'Neal strung up on that cross down there. The other man most of you know— he's my best friend, Paul Rubenstein. So we've all got a very personal stake in getting them out alive if we can. I didn't see Colonel Teal. If Cole and the wildmen have formed some kind of alliance, then Teal might already be dead. I don't know who this Cole is— but I know what he is. In his own way, he's more of a savage than those wildmen we've been fighting, you've been hearing about. I recognize some of you from the landing party that night that came in with Gundersen. So you know how these people are— crazy, suicidal— deadly.
"I have to go in— Cole wants it that way, and if we all go in shooting, Paul and your lieutenant will be killed— they'd do that. Cole would. I know it. Natalia is staying here—"
"No," she snapped, almost hissing the word. Their eyes met.
"Yes," he ordered. "Major Tiemerovna is a pilot— we need at least one here to cover you guys from the air. You'll have to break up into two elements— one Natalia can fly in over the wildmen, drop on the far side. That way you'll have them set up for a kind of enclosement— if you do it right. Natalia'll need a gunner—"
"I'm the man who runs the deck gun on the submarine."
"Then you're the man," Rourke told the young, blond-haired seaman with the oddly brushed mustache. Rourke supposed the young man had grown it either to show he could or to look older.
"Then Natalia and you'll give air support. We'll need one man to stay with the second helicopter— the one I flew. If the wildmen break through, put a burst into the machine—
Natalia'll show you where to shoot so you can blow her up. In case Cole or one of his men knows how to use a chopper, we can't let him have it. If you do blow the chopper, run like hell and you're on your own. Volunteer?"
Three men took a step forward. Rourke picked one— a seaman first he'd seen in the fighting on the beach against the wildmen— he seemed to have a cool head. "You're it, Schmulowitz."
"Aye, sir."
"Natalia'll pick squad leaders for the ground action— do exactly as she says. If any ten of you guys had between you as much battle experience as she has, you'd be doin' great."
"And what about you?" Natalia asked him suddenly.
Rourke swung the CAR-15 forward on its cross-bodied sling, the scope covers removed already, the stock extended.
He unzipped the front of his bomber jacket so he could get at his pistols. He reached into his pocket and took out the little Freedom Arms .22 Magnum Boot pistol with the three-inch barrel, the one he'd taken off the dead Brigand back in Georgia before they had met Cole, before Natalia had been wounded and they had been forced to take to the nuclear submarine, then transported under the icepack to the new west coast— before he had ever heard of wildmen.
He slipped the pistol up his left sleeve, just inside the storm-sleeved cuff.
"I'll go see what Cole wants— try to get something going with Paul and O'Neal— I'll be there."
He reached into his jeans pocket, found his Zippo lighter, turned it over in his hands a moment and flicked back the cowling, rolling the striking wheel under his thumb, making the blue-yellow flame appear, the flame flickering in the breeze as he lit the cigar clamped between his teeth.
"I'll be okay," he said. Her eyes didn't look like she believed it.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Rourke walked slowly ahead, having stopped for a moment at the top of the rise, looked down toward the missile bunker— a half-dozen wildmen were posted there as sentries— and then stared at the crosses. Rubenstein was still unmoving, his left arm red-stained along the entire length of the sleeve of his jacket. O'Neal had stopped moving, and Rourke saw the man's eyes at the distance— pain and fear. He kept walking.
He reached the height of the rise, beside the twin crude crosses, and stopped. He reached out with his right hand, feeling Paul's ankles for a pulse— there was one.
"Give me your guns." A wildman, large, armed with an AK-47— where he'd gotten it Rourke didn't know— stepped from the far side of the crosses and reached out his left hand.
Rourke, the cigar in the left corner of his mouth, reached up his left hand and took the cigar. He stared at the wildman's hand for a moment, cleared his throat and spit, the glob of spittle hitting the wildman's palm.
"You son of a bitch," the man snarled, Rourke sidestepping half-left and wheeling, his left foot snapping up, feigning a kick at the head, the wildman dodging to his left, Rourke's right, leaning forward, Rourke wheeling right, both fists knotted on the CAR-15, his right fist pumping forward with the butt of the rifle, the rifle butt snapping into the wildman's chest, Rourke arcing the flash-deflectored muzzle down diagonally left to right across the man's nose, breaking it at the bridge.
Rourke stepped back, short of killing him, his right foot stomping on the barrel of the AK-47 as the wildman— huge— seeming even in collapse— tumbled forward and sprawled across the ground.
The wildmen were starting to move, Rourke's rifle's muzzle on line with Cole. "Call em off, asshole!"
"They'll rip you apart," Cole shouted back.
"Let's see what the man wants first, shall we?" Rourke shifted his eyes left— to the man in the bearskin, the squat man he had seen beside Cole from the air. "Cut 'em both down— now!"
"No!"
Rourke's eyes met Cole's eyes. "You're a dead man already— on borrowed time."
"Cut them down," the squat man in the bearskin commanded.
Rourke stepped back, his eyes flickering from Cole to the wildmen starting toward the two crosses.
A burly, tall man started up the cross where Rubenstein hung, hacking at the ropes, Rourke snarling to him, "Let him down easy or you get a gut full of this," and he gestured with the CAR15.
The man climbing the cross looked at him, nodding almost imperceptibly.
Others of the wildmen started forward, catching Rubenstein as the ropes were released, helping him down, setting him on the ground. Rourke shot a glance to his friend's face. The eyelids fluttered, opened, the lips— parched-seeming— parted and— the voice weak— Rubenstein murmured, "John?"
"Yeah, Paul," Rourke almost whispered. "It's okay."
"I'm— I'm gettin'—"
"Take it easy," Rourke told him, watching Cole and shift
ing his eyes to O'Neal as they brought him down from the cross.
"I'm dyin' on my feet, damnit!"
Rourke looked at his friend, edging toward him, gesturing the wildmen away with the muzzle of the CAR-15, then snapping, "Get ready," reaching down, helping Rubenstein's right arm across his shoulders, getting the younger man up, slumping against his left side. "All right?"
"Yeah," Rubenstein sighed. "Yeah— all right." Rourke said nothing, looking at O'Neal, lying there— O'Neal seemed somehow more subdued, more ill than when he had been on the cross—
his eyelids closed and his head slumped. Rourke caught the movement of a pulse— strongseeming— in the missile officer's neck.
O'Neal was playing out something— Rourke let the young navy lieutenant play it out.
"Okay, Paul— we start forward— right?"
"Right," Rubenstein nodded, his breath coming in short gasps, but regular.
Rourke started to walk, half dragging his friend on his left side, the CAR-15's muzzle leveled now toward Cole and the squat man in the bearskin and Levis.
He kept the muzzle in the airspace between them, already decided that if either one moved, he'd shoot the man in the bearskin first.
The wildmen— a knot of them— closed around Rourke and Rubenstein as they moved forward.
"You'll never get outa here alive, you Jew-lovin'—"
"Shove it, Cole," Rourke snarled.
Then Rourke stopped, less than two yards of airspace separating him and Paul from Cole and the man in the bearskin.
"I'm called Otis," the man in the bearskin smiled.
"No shit," Rourke nodded.
"You are— ah?"
"He's John Rourke— Dr. Rourke," Cole said through his teeth.
"Ohh— the John Rourke who wrote those excellent texts on wilderness survival— how marvelous. To meet you after reading your work— I literally devoured them. And the books on weapons as well—"
"Marvelous," Rourke told him.
"Since I know so much about you— I suppose— well, that you'd like to know something about me— and about my little band of followers here."
Rourke said nothing.
"He's looney, John," Rubenstein coughed.
Rourke still said nothing.
"We actually call ourselves the Brotherhood of The Pure Fire. I'm the high priest, the spiritual leader— the mentor to these lost souls, one might say."
"One might," Rourke whispered.
"Yes— well, as you can imagine, after all this war business, well— the time was ripe for someone—"
"To appoint himself leader of the crazies," Rourke interrupted.
Otis— the wildman leader— smiled. "In a manner of speaking— I suppose so. But of course our mutual friend here— I think he makes me seem mild. After all— blowing up Chicago with five eighty-megaton warheads is a bit extreme, isn't it?"
Rourke's eyes shifted to Cole's eyes— Cole's eyes like pinpoints of black light burning into him.
"Now's the time you're supposed to say, 'You'll never get away with this,' " and Cole laughed.
"But I'm more of a patriot than you— hangin' around with Jews and Commies. I'm gonna rid the United States of the Soviet High Command."
"President Chambers never sent you, did he— neither did Reed."
"Reed? Hell— I almost hadda shoot Reed when I killed the real Cole and took his orders—
bullshit with Reed. Him and Chambers— they'd never have the nerve to push a button— but me—"
Rourke said nothing. He looked at Paul once, murmuring, "Good-bye old friend," then pumped the trigger of the CAR-15, in and out and in and out and in and out, three fast rounds in a burst to Cole's chest, Cole— or whoever he really was— falling back, screaming, his hands flaying out at his sides.
"My missile!" Otis screamed, his voice like a high-pitched feminine shriek, a broad-bladed knife flashing into his right hand from a sheath at his belt. Rourke shifted the muzzle of the CAR-15
left, firing, but Otis was diving toward him, the slug impacting against Otis' right shoulder, hammering the man back and down, but not killing him, Rourke realized.
As Otis fell back, his body rolled against a mounded tarp behind him, part of the tarp whisking back— Teal's burned and mutilated body, the eyes still open in death— was on the ground, insects crawling across the face.
The wildmen were closing in, knives, spears, assault rifles in every hand. There was gunfire—
from the edge of the rise near the crosses.
Rourke pumped the CAR-15's trigger, unable to miss, firing into a solid wall of humanity, Rubenstein lurching away from him, Rourke feeling the rip and hearing the snap as the younger man grabbed the Detonics .45 from under Rourke's left armpit, the heavy bark of the .45
rumbling too now, the gunfire from their rear unmistakably that of an AK-47—"O'Neal!" Rourke shouted.
Rourke fired out the CAR-15, ramming the muzzle of the empty gun into a face near him, with his left hand snatching at the Detonics .45 under his right armpit, thumbing back the hammer, firing point blank into the face of the nearest wildman, the body sprawling back, others falling from its weight.
Rourke's right hand flashed to the flap holster on his hip, getting the Python, the six-inch barrel snaking forward, the pistol bucking slightly in his clenched right fist as the muzzle flashed fire, the nearest wildman clasping his neck.
"John— here!"
It was Rubenstein's voice, Rourke edging back, firing both handguns now, the Detonics in his left— loaded with seven rounds this time— and the Colt in his right— loaded with six.
Both guns were half-spent as he edged back from the knot of screaming, howling wildmen. He looked skyward for an instance, the heavy, hollow chopping sound of helicopter rotor blades suddenly loud over the shouts of the men trying to kill him.
"Natalia!" he shouted.
The green 0H58C helicopter was coming in low, and now fire was spitting from the side gun, the 7.62mm slugs hammering into the knot of wildmen, their shrieks louder now as they ran for cover.
"Over here, John!"
Rourke looked behind him, Rubenstein beside a massive pickup truck. Rourke started to run toward him, the Python bucking in Rourke's right fist as he snapped the last three shots over his left shoulder, then threw himself into a run, automatic weapons fire already starting around him, then dove for the shelter of the vehicle.
Rubenstein— on his knees, pale as death beside the right front wheel-well, fired the Detonics.
"Empty."
Rourke slammed closed the cylinder of the Python, the Safariland speedloader, empty now, crammed back into his musette bag. He handed the pistol to Rubenstein. "Here— use this."
Rourke took the Detonics, emptying his own pistol, then reloading both with fresh magazines from the Sparks six pack on his belt.
He reached into the musette bag, finding a spare magazine for the CAR-15, dumping the empty, ramming the fresh one home, working the bolt, then passing the rifle to Rubenstein, the Python out of ammo. Rourke took another of the Safariland speedloaders, reloaded the big Colt and holstered the gun.
He reached into the musette bag, getting the remaining loaded magazines for the CAR-15, putting them on the ground beside Paul. "You recovered fast—"
"Bullshit— I'm dying— just too stupid to fall down."
"Lemme look at that," and Rourke slipped behind the younger man, probing gently at the wound. Rourke reached behind him, snatching the AG Russell Sting IA from the sheath at his belt, using the blade to cut away the sleeve.
"Aww— that was my good coat, John."
"Shut up," Rourke snapped— the wound was dirty, clotted— he would have to open it to clean it. "You think it hurts now— wait'll I get around to fixin' it!"
Rubenstein glanced at him, then pushed his wire-rimmed glasses back up the bridge of his nose.
"Coulda been worse, John— coulda lost my glasses."
"Yeah— could've at that," Rourke told him, leaning ag
ainst the pickup truck. "Remember how to hotwire a car?"
"Yeah— I remember," Rubenstein nodded.
"Gimme that rifle and climb up there— once you've got it going, I'll pass up the CAR and the spare mags— we take off for the bunker— make a stand there— run over as many people as we can on the way, huh?"
Rubenstein smiled, handed Rourke the rifle and reached up for the door handle.
"Shit— it's locked!"
"I'll fix that," Rourke told him. "Look away." Rourke reached for the Python at his hip, aimed at the lock and turned his face away, firing upward, the thudding sound loud of lead against sheet metal. "Now try it."
Rubenstein pulled at the door handle—"Hot" and the handle broke away, the door swinging out.
The younger man grinned, then started up into the pickup cab, gunfire coming from the sky again as Natalia's helicopter made another pass, gunfire from the ground as well as the shore party advanced from both sides. Rourke looked under the truck now, finding targets of opportunity with the CAR-15, firing single shots into backs and chests and legs, bringing down as many of the wildmen as he could.
The truck vibrated, coughed, rumbled— the engine made sputtering sounds as it came to life.
"John!"
"Right," and Rourke edged up, grabbing the spare magazines, then throwing himself up beside Rubenstein. "Can you drive this thing one-handed?"
"You just shift when I tell ya to," Rubenstein shouted.
"Right," and Rourke, the Python back in his right fist, tugged at the door, closing it partially.
Wildmen running for the truck, Rourke's right hand swinging the Python on line— one round, a head shot. A man down. Another round, then another, two in the chest and a man down. He fired out the last two, a double shot at a wildman with an M-16, the rifle discharging a long, ragged burst, a spiderwebbing in the glass at the top of the windshield.
"Shit," Rubenstein shouted, the truck starting to move.
Rourke holstered the empty Python, giving Rubenstein the CAR-15. "Just aim the truck forward and hold the wheel with your left knee—"
"Gotchya, John," Rubenstein called back, taking the CAR-15 in his right fist and pointing it out the window, firing as wildmen stormed toward them.
