by Ahern, Jerry
"Tiflis out, Comrade Major."
There was only static. Borozeni glanced down to the
unconscious sergeant beside him. Borozeni's knee ached. He shifted position, but could not move his bloodstained right hand lest the bleeding increase. He assumed the man on the motorcycle really had been a doctor—or at least had known what heM talked about. The shot of morphine had helped the sergeant.
"Tiflis to ground. Tiflis to ground command." "Borozeni here. . . . What is it, Tiflis?" 'Tiflis to ground ... All but four—repeat four, Comrade Major—all but four of the helicopters returning. . . . Landing will begin in two minutes. Tiflis over." "We need them all. . . . What are they doing? Over." "In pursuit of man riding motorcycle out of valley, Comrade Major . . . May be the American agent Rourke, wanted by KGB. Over."
Borozeni smiled. A man on a motorcycle. So his name was Rourke. "Tiflis, tell the commanders of those four ships to—" 'Tiflis out."
Borozeni worked the push-to-talk button, then stared skyward at the chopper. What had happened? "Tiflis to ground . . . Tiflis to ground . . .
Over."
"What was the meaning of that? Borozeni over." "Tiflis to ground . - - The suspected American agent just shot at the helicopters, Comrade Major.
Over."
"Tell them to pull back ... or I will personally have them on report to General Varakov. Borozeni out." Borozeni smiled, murmuring in English, "Even."
Rourke squeezed a single shot toward the dome of the nearest helicopter, the ground around him now erupting with the impact of the machine-gun fire from the four gunships.
Squinting through the three-power Colt scope, he could see the glass dome take the impact of the slug. Rourke fired again, the recoil hammering at his right shoulder, his arms almost too tired to hold up the gun. The glass spiderwebbed again.
The four ships were circling him now. Rourke concentrated on the one he could hring down, taking aim for a third shot at the same area where the Plexiglass would be weakest.
Sarah. Michael. Annie. Paul would find them, care for them.
"Die," Rourke shouted at the helicopter. The machine swerved and his shot went wild, all four machines rising rapidly, hovering, and turning into a ragged formation, then disappearing back toward the valley.
Rourke let the rifle sink down.
He didn't believe in luck—but he didn't argue with it either. He worked the safety on for the Colt assault rifle, then gunned the Hariey over the lip of the valley and down toward the highway. . . .
He had washed his body in an icy stream, and now— tired and changed into fresh clothes—he sat by his motorcycle, stirring cold water into a pack of his freeze-dried food. He tasted a spoonful of it. It would have been better hot, but the nutritional value was the same. He had added a hundred miles since leaving Bevington and was well inside Tennessee. Paul had probably passed him. Perhaps Paul had found them.
Rourke leaned back, eating his cold food, his muscles still aching, his stomach still uneasy. He planned ahead-^always. He hadn't planned on Martha Bogen, or on the suicide of an entire town. Or on the Russians being there. The sun was setting—red on the horizon, too red, the weather warm now.
He had seen signs of Brigands in the last twenty-five miles—their habitually careless camps, litter and broken bottles everywhere.
To the east, he could see the faint glimmering of some early stars on the horizon.
Tomorrow, he would renew the search, to find Sarah, Michael, and Annie.
And perhaps Paul really had found them.
He would stop at the Retreat, he decided.
He finished the food, then set the empty package aside. Finding a cigar in his shirt pocket, he lit it in the blue-yellow flame of his Zippo.
John Rourke made a last check of the twin Detonics
.s, then of the CAR-. He had cleaned all three guns, and reloaded the spare magazines for them.
As he watched the last wash of red in the sky where the bun was fast vanishing, he closed his eyes. Sarah, Michael, Annie. Paul Rubenstein.
Another face—her eyes were a brilliant blue.
THE SURVIVALIST SERIES
by Jerry Ahern
#: THE WEB
(, $.)
Blizzards rage around Rourke as he picks up the trail of his family and is forced to take shelter in a strangely quiet Tennessee valley town. But the quiet isn't going to last for long!
#: THE SAVAGE HORDE (, $.)
Rourke's search gets sidetracked when he's forced to help a military unit locate a cache of eighty megaton warhead missiles hidden on the New West Coast—and accessible only by submarine!
#: THE PROPHET (,
$.)
As six nuclear missiles are poised to start the ultimate conflagration, Rourke's constant quest becomes a desperate mission to save both his family and all humanity from being blasted into extinction!
#: THE END IS COMING (,
$.)
Rourke must smash through Russian patrols and cut to the heart of a KGB
plot that could spawn a lasting legacy of evil. And when the sky bursts into flames, consuming every living being on the planet, it will be the ultimate test for THE SURVIVALIST.
#: EARTH FIRE
(, $.)
Rourke, the oniy hope for breaking the Russians' brutal hold over America, and the Reds fear the same thing: the imminent combustion of the earth's atmosphere into global deadly flames!
#: THE AWAKENING (,
$.)
Rourke discovers that others have survived the explosion of the earth's atmosphere into flames—and must face humans who live to kill and kill to live, eating the flesh of their victims!
Available wherever paperbacks are sold, or order direct from the Publisher, Send cover price plus $ per copy for mailing and handling to Zebra Books, Park Avenue South, New York, N. Y . DO NOT SEND
CASH.
FB2 document info
Document ID: b27b588e-8fec-4852-8c7f-360cc5896890
Document version: 1
Document creation date: 7.5.2012
Created using: calibre 0.8.48 software
Document authors :
Ahern, Jerry
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