by Ahern, Jerry
Ten yards. He was feeling faint, sick, the morphine was taking hold of him again.
Five yards. He jumped, the street ripping as a manhole cover less than a dozen yards to his right sailed skyward, roaring up on a tongue of flame.
The street behind him exploded and he was thrown forward.
Rourke rolled, still clutching his pistols.
He started to his knees, hearing—not hearing but feeling—something behind him.
He wheeled, hitting the road surface, firing both pistols simultaneously.
Two Soviet troopers fired at him; the ground beside him erupted under the impact of their slugs, both men going down under the impact of his.
He stumbled to his feet, lurching, feeling as though he would black out.
Rourke rammed both pistols, cocked and locked, into his wide trouser belt, then snatched at the injection kit inside his shirt against his skin. His hands shook, cold and nausea making his head reel. He dropped to his knees. The Narcan injection was in his right hand.
He looked beyond his hand as he tested the syringe.
"Man with a gun—Russian," he rasped, telling himself to act, forcing his body to respond. His left hand—he
could feel the slowness—found the butt of one of his pistols.
Automatically, he swept the left thumb around behind the tang of the Detonics to reach for the safety on the left side of the frame. He worked it down as the Russian soldier raised his assault rifle.
Rourke's right hand worked toward his left arm, the sleeve pulled up already—he had planned ahead as he a/ways did.
He started raising his left arm, as if both sides of his brain were taking separate control of him. He tried squinting at the sights a moment, seeing the hypodermic come into his line of fire.
His right hand jabbed the hypo into his left forearm.
"Aagh," he shouted, feeling the change sweep over him, seeing the slow-motion movement in his left hand as the thumb moved back around the tang, out of the way of the slide.
He was suddenly back—cold and sweating, but back, his mind working. His left first finger worked the trigger and the Detonics bucked hard in his hand.
The Soviet trooper's assault rifle fired skyward as his body twisted, almost as in a dance, then crumpled to the roadside.
Rourke pushed himself to his feet. That had been the last Narcan shot, but the last he should need. He snatched at the other pistol in his belt, worked down the safety and—he could not run again—he started into a loping walk to the curb.
Rourke assessed his surroundings—head left. He started that way. It was at least another block, maybe two. The B-complex shot would start working soon after he administered it—after he got to it.
The nausea was passing, the coldness subsiding; his
head ached and his muscles ached.
As he increased his stride, more explosions rocked the ground beneath him.
Glass, in windows on both sides of the street he loped into, shattered; fires erupted everywhere.
Another manhole cover sailed skyward on a column of flame and Rourke jumped away, the explosion ringing in his ears, debris falling like rain on him.
He rolled onto his back, protecting his face with his left forearm.
He had to run. He rolled onto his knees, then pushed himself up, starting forward, lurching into a ragged, long-strided run.
More gunfire behind him. He wheeled, almost losing his balance. He pumped a shot at hip level with the Detonics in his right fist, downing a Soviet soldier at the end of the block.
He turned and kept running.
He could see the house—white frame with green vines growing up the round columns on the front porch. Rourke could see the driveway; his bike would be in the garage at the end of it.
Still running, he glanced behind him. No one. Perhaps the Russians were getting out while they still could.
More explosions. Rourke glanced up, toward the rim of the valley; rock slides were everywhere, the very faces of the peaks changing, seeming to melt away.
Rourke turned up the driveway, running harder now, sweating. The garage door—ten yards, five . . . He stopped. It would be locked. He raised both pistols, firing the one in his right hand, then the one in his left. The garage-door lock shattered as he loped and lurched forward. He fell against the door.
Jamming the pistols into his belt, he wrenched the door handle, twisting it, shoving it up, letting the door slide out of sight.
The jet black Harley—he saw it. Rourke stumbled toward it. His gear looked untouched.
He snatched at the CAR-wrapped inside a blanket and a piece of ground cloth.
He ripped the covering away, then searched the musette bag slung on the handlebars, he found a thirty-round magazine, rammed it up the well, and eared back the bolt handle.
He let the bolt slide forward.
"Come on," he rasped, staring out into the street. He could hear the sounds of more explosions; the gas lines were still going, of their own accord now.
Rourke slung the CAR-cross-body from his left shoulder, under his right arm.
He started searching the Lowe pack and found his medical kit, the injection kit inside it. Rourke opened that, taking the B-complex syringes and jabbing one into his left forearm.
He dropped to his knees, trying to even his breath.
Her jaw hurt where the man, John, had hit her. On her knees, on the window seat in the main room of the library overlooking the street and the post office beyond, she wrang a handkerchief in her hands, red hearts embroidered on it, a gift from her husband years ago.
There were fires all over the city; she was afraid of fire.
Everyone else was with someone, safe, ready to die. John was out there in the streets, somewhere. He wouldn't make it; she knew that. She had nursed for her husband often enough to know that in hib condition, he would be too weak (o travel far. She had never even told him the secret paths through the valley to reach beyond the mountains.
He would die alone; she would die alone.
She wondered what his last name was.
He hadn't hit her because he hated her. It was because he hadn't wanted to die with her.
"I hope you live, John," she said, suddenly feeling a weight slip from her.
The manhole cover in the street outside rocketed skyward, the flame under it rising, spreading. The floor under her shook; the plate-glass window in front of her shattered.
She had one more injection—one she had saved in her desk drawer.
It would make her sleep. She gave it to herself, letting the needle fall from her hand, her hands bloody from the glass that had cut her as the window shattered around her.
There was a cool wind and as she closed her eyes, she could see her dead husband's stern face. He was scolding her for what she had tried to do, but there was love in his eyes. &#; · .
Rourke settled himself on the seat of the Harley, the motor purring under him, the tanks full, the Detonics stainless .s reloaded and holstered in the Alessi rig across his shoulders. He was slightly cold—the exhaustion, the drugs coursing through his veins. The collar of his Drown leather jacket was snapped up.
Under the jacket he carried the musette bag on his left side, spare magazines for the Detonics pistols and for the CAR-slung under his right arm.
On his right hip was the Python, Metalifed and Mag-Na-Ported; spare ammo for the big Colt was in the musette bag, too, in Safariland Speedloaders.
There were Soviet troops on the ground, Soviet helicopters in the air above. The ground beneath him trembled. Fire was everywhere—in the houses on both sides of the street, a wind whipping it up as he looked out of the garage.
He had been breathing, slowly, evenly, getting the house (hat was his body in order, summoning up the reserves of strength he would need.
It was that or die.
His left fist worked in the clut
ch, his right throttled
out, and the Harley started ahead.
With his right thumb he worked the CAR-'s safety off, then moved his left hand quickly, securing the dark-lensed aviator-style sunglasses.
He squinted through them as he braked in the middle of the street.
In an inside pocket of his leather jacket were some of his dark tobacco cigars.
He took one and placed it between his teeth, rolling it into the left corner of his mouth, unlit.
"Ready," he whispered to himself.
He throttled the Harley, working through the gears, lowering his frame across that of the bike, reaching the end of the street, making a sharp right, then accelerating again. In his mind's eye he could see the way he'd entered the town and that was the only way he knew to leave it.
He passed the post office. As he cut another left, into the street angling past the library, it was a sea of flames.
"Martha," he rasped, looking away as he gunned the jet black Harley ahead.
Despite it all, he felt a sadness for the woman.
Soviet troops on the right, two of them aflame from the gas fires, three of them wheeling toward him, started to fire their assault rifles. Rourke gave the Harley gas then shifted his grip to the CAR-. Firing rapid two-round semiautomatic bursts, he nailed the nearest of the men, then the one behind him.
Gunfire from the third man's assault rifle ripped into the street surface beside him. Rourke throttled out, cutting a broad arc as he made a hard right, then angled off the street and into the grassy shoulder paralleling it, Fires still raged on the far side by the school building. Soviet troops ran haphazardly about, an officer in their
midst; Rourke spotted him, a tall man, his hat gone, his face dirt-smudged.
There was an overturned jeep, and though the officer called to his men, they were scattering. The officer was tugging at something under the jeep.
Rourke sped past, glancing left, seeing a form half under the jeep, the officer working with a pry bar, trying to get someone out.
Rourke slowed the Harley, cutting a wide arc. The jeep was close to the fires raging down the center of the street; the grass on the far side of it was burning.
"Shit," Rourke rasped, gunning the Harley back toward the jeep.
The officer dropped the pry bar, snatching at a full-flap military holster on his right hip.
Rourke slowed the bike, stopping, the CAR-pointed straight at the Russian.
"Shoot me, then. But first help me get this man out; he's still alive!"
Rourke said nothing. His right thumb flicked the safety of the CAR-on, and he let down the Harley's stand, the engine cut off.
He walked toward the Russian, saying, "I'm ill—not as strong as I usually am. You work the pry bar; I'll pull him out."
"Agreed." The Soviet officer nodded.
The man—a major, Rourke noticed—ieaned against the pry bar. Rourke dropped to his knees in the street beside the injured man pinned under the overturned jeep.
An older man—a senior noncom of some kind. The face, unconscious, was pleasant-looking.
Rourke grabbed the man's shoulders, "Now, Major," Rourke ordered, feeling the jeep rising slightly beside
him, hearing the groaning as the Soviet officer strained on the pry bar.
Rourke put his own right shoulder to the end of the overturned jeep, then threw his weight back, sprawling backward into the street with the older man, getting him clear as the jeep fell.
"I could not hold it anymore!"
Rourke ignored the officer, looking to the older man. "He's gonna need a hospital and quick."
"There are helicopters—cargo helicopters. They can be used for the wounded."
"You get him outa here fast," Rourke rasped. "This whole town's gonna blow."
"What are you doing?" The major's right hand went out to Rourke's right forearm.
Rourke shook it away, then opened the leather case which had Martha Bogen's shot kit.
"Morphine," Rourke rasped. "Relax. Vm a doctor. Put a compression bandage on that right leg—not a tourniquet unless you want him to lose it." Rourke pulled his knife, then cut at the noncom's sleeves, first the right, then the left, using one sleeve folded over as a bandage, the second to secure it to the leg. "Not too tight. Looks like you've got somebody to baby-sit with, Major." Rourke stood up.
The Soviet officer's right hand moved and Rourke started for his rifle, but the hand was extending toward him.
Rourke took it.
"I should arrest you—or have you shot."
"That last part"—Rourke smiled—"I was kinda thinkin the same thing myself. But I'll pass on it."
Rourke loosed the Soviet major's hand and turned to walk away. There was a chance the man would pull a gun
and shoot; Rourke decided he wasn't going to count it a possibiiiiy.
He stepped aboard the Harley, gunning the engine to life, Setting up the kick stand.
The major was looking to his injured sergeant.
Rourke gunned the Harley ahead. . . .
He was at the end of the town now. Only the road leading up into the mountains and out of the valley was ahead.
Explosions rocked the ground under and around him, and behind him there was a growing fire storm, already edging into the wooded area around the town.
He looked at the town one more time—Bevington, Kentucky. "Sad," he murmured, then started the Harley up ahead.
The road was steep going; rock slides were starting to his right, his attention focusing there as he steered the Harley around boulders that had already strewn the road.
Overhead, above the thundering of the explosions and the hissing roar of the fire storm behind him, he heard a sound—familiar. He glanced skyward—helicopters.
"That's what I get for being a good Samaritan," he rasped, shaking his head. But he didn't blame the major, or the injured sergeant. Like most things in life, he thought, gunning the Harley on, the exhaust ripping under him and behind him, there was no one to blame.
The helicopters were clearly after him; he didn't know why. Maybe the KGB, he thought—but why had they been in Bevington, Kentucky, to begin with?
He swung the CAR-around, the safety off. There was a sharp bend in the road and Rourke took it at speed, cutting a sharp left onto the shoulder because half the
width of (he road was strewn with boulders. There was a rumbling sound to his left and Rourke looked that way— a rock slide, shale and boulders skidding down for as far as he could see, a rock slide paralleling the roadway.
"Shit," he rasped, glancing up at the helicopters. There was a chattering sound; he didn't have to look again. Machine-gun fire.
The road dipped, Rourke accelerating into the grade. The rock slide was coming inexorably closer, closer. The area to his right was heavily wooded; fire swept through it.
Rourke skidded the bike hard left, then right, avoiding a deer that ran from the flaming forest on his right. He accelerated, the rock slide still coming.
Machine-gun fire tore into the road beneath him, bullets ricocheting off the rocks to his left.
The road took a fast cut left and Rourke arced the Harley into it. As he hit the straightaway, he twisted in the Harley's saddle, the CAR-—stock retracted— pointing skyward at the nearest of the helicopters. He let off a fast semiauto burst—six shots in all. The helicopter pilot pulled up.
Rourke let the rifle drop to his side on the sling, then throttled out the Harley, the rim of the valley in sight, perhaps a mile ahead.
Gravel and smaller rocks were pelting at him, hammering against the road surface, their effect almost indistinguishable from the machine-gun fire from the choppers above. The fire on his right was up to the roadside, and the trees flanking the road on his right were torches, columns of fire; the heat from them scorched at his skin as he drove his machine upward—toward the rim of the valley.
Rourke squinted back, beyond the burning tree trunk and skyward. The helicopters were still coming.
He cut the Harley sharp left, taking the grade that would take him to the rim, boulders rolling across the road before him now, missing him by inches, the Harley's exhaust like a cannon, like a trumpet, strident, tearing at his eardrums, the wind of the slipstream lashing at him, hot from the fire raging to his right.
More machine-gun fire, the helicopters above him now, one of them ahead of him.
Rourke couldn't free a band to shoot back. The very fabric of the mountains was crashing down toward him, dust and smoke in a cloud around him as he hit the rim.
Rourke skidded the bike into a tight turn, breaking, balancing the machine with his feet as he stopped it, tele* scoping the stock, then shouldering the CAR-. There was no escape from the helicopters, as he had just escaped the rock slides and the fire storm.
He rammed a fresh thirty-round stick into theColt and ripped away the scope covers, sighting on the nearest of the bubble domes as the helicopter closed with him, machine-gun bullets ripping into the dirt and rocks around him.
"Come in, Colonel! Borozeni calling Colonel Rozhdestvenskiy. Come in.
Ground to air ... come in!"
There was no answer, then, "Major Borozeni . . . Lieutenant Tiflis calling Major Borozeni!"
"Come in, Tiflis, over."
"Comrade Major, we cannot contact Colonel Rozhdestvenskiy. . . . What are the orders? Over."
"Tiflis, bring your helicopters back." Tiflis had commanded the helicopter force, not the special gunship fleet that had brought in Rozhdestvenskiy's commando team for seizing the factory, but the medivac and cargo helicopters. "Tiflis, listen carefully. . . . Use your radio. . . . It's stronger. Contact the entire helicopter fleet. ... I am assuming command in the apparent absence of Colonel Rozhdestvenskiy. Over."
"Yes, Comrade Major. Over."
"Tiflis." Borozeni remembered to work the push-to-talk button on his radio. 'Tiflis, contact me on how many ships. . . . We have hundreds of wounded. . . . Hurry. Out."
