by Ahern, Jerry
They kept going, the rapelling gloves Rourke wore easing along the rope as he worked it through the straight eight at the level of his abdomen. Beneath the special German rapelling gloves were the gloves that accompanied the jumpsuit, designed to seal with the wrists of the jumpsuit, specifically designed to guard against barbed wire and other potential sources of puncture.
He could see the ground beneath them clearly, see the roving team of guards, nearly at their maximum distance from the point at which Rourke had chosen that he and the others rapel. In a moment, the guards would be turning around, would start back, would be alerted.
Rourke pushed off again and jumped, breaking his fall against the harness, dropping into a crouch beside the rock wall, Hammerschmidt to the ground a second later. Rourke tugged at his rope three times, reaching to one of the leg pouches, opening the silent fastener.
His disliked using gimmicky weapons—but under the circumstances there was little choice.
Michael and Paul would be coming down quickly,
would be spotted by the guards.
Rourke palmed the blackened, forged stainless steel four-point Ninja star, another peculiar item utilized by the German commandoes.
He glanced toward Hammerschmidt—Hammerschmidt was ready.
They were blackness in blackness, the sky mercifully heavily overcast, their clothes designed to be like shadows in the night.
Rourke tugged away the rapelling glove, the sensitivity of the suit’s gloves ‘so excellent he could have operated while wearing them.
He spoke into the microphone in the face of his gas mask. “I’ve got the one on the right—at the count of three. One. Two. Three!”
Rourke hurtled the star, his target less than thirty feet away, already looking up along the face of the rock wall, apparently having heard Michael and Paul. The star buried itself in the throat of the man, a gurgling sound as Rourke dove forward, the second man going down as Rourke brought down the first, Rourke’s knife in his right fist by the time he reached the body, but no need to use it, the man beneath him dead.
Rourke glanced toward Hammerschmidt—Hammerschmidt nodded back, Rourke hearing the voice in his ear, “Dead.”
“Good—drag them this way,” and Rourke grabbed the dead man by the ankles, hauling the body into the deeper shadow by the immediate base of the wall, withdrawing the shuriken only then, wiping it clean of blood on the dead man’s uniform, returning the star to the pouch on the leg of his jumpsuit.
Immediately, he took up the man’s rifle, removed the magazine, worked the action and popped the chambered round.
Quickly, Rourke searched the body—a utility folding knife, what apparently was Underground City currency, a handkerchief. No other weapons.
He field stripped the rifle, withdrawing the bolt, clutching it in his left fist as he ran toward the spot where Michael and Paul were finishing their descent. Rourke discarded the bolt into the darkness, putting it on the ground rather than throwing it. Michael was shucking the rope, Paul doing the same, each of them tugging at the ropes, the ropes being drawn up by Hammerschmidt’s men under the command of Sergeant Dekker.
The rear of the Soviet position nearest to the greenhouses was some two hundred yards away. Paul was helping with Rourke’s rifle, the rifle secured to the rear of the harness for the descent. As soon as the rifle was clear, Paul said, “Get me.”
“Right,” and Rourke turned around, Paul with his back to him, Rourke undoing the lashings for the Schmiesser Paul had secured there. Michael and Otto Hammerschmidt were doing the same for each other.
Rourke said two words into the microphone in his mask. “No guns.” And with his unburdened left hand, he signalled that they move out, breaking into a long strided loping run. He remembered a line from the many adventures of Sherlock Holmes—“The game is afoot!”
Chapter Twenty-nine
They had agreed it would be knives and hands and garrotes, but guns would not be used, unless it meant the sacrifice of the entire team.
John Rourke ran at the lead, to his right Paul Rubenstein, behind them Michael and Otto Hammerschmidt, in Rourke’s right fist the black catspaw-handled Gerber Mkll, his rapelling gloves stashed in the large leg pocket on the left leg of the jumpsuit, the lens material of the gas masks surprisingly insusceptible to fogging during exertion and the mask itself surprisingly comfortable to wear.
They hugged the rock wall until its end, having crossed half the length of the rear of Karamatsov’s line. At the edge of .the rock wall they stopped, Rourke speaking into the built-in microphone. “Son-of-a-bitch is pretty confident—so far. Hope he stays confident and doesn’t expect anything from his rear. Follow my lead—let’s go,” and Rourke started ahead again.
He suddenly found himself smiling, wondering if he would ever get too old for this. His son was thirty, his daughter twenty-eight. Biologically, he would have had to have fathered them before he was ten except for the manipulation of the cryogenic chambers.
He would have been a grandfather in a matter of months—if it hadn’t been for Vladmir Karamatsov killing his daughter-in-law, Madison.
As he ran, he tried recalling if he had ever really hated before.
John Rourke admitted to himself that he loved Natalia, and the facile answers he had given Michael, his son, were not complete answers. But Sarah was his wife and he loved Natalia no more than Sarah—but he realized too that he loved her no less.
One of the Soviet jeeplike vehicles, Rourke speaking into his mask, “Otto—Michael—go get ‘em,” and he dodged left, Paul running even beside him now, at the far right corner of his restricted peripheral vision—restricted because of the mask—seeing Michael as if in slow motion, Michael’s right gloved fist moving to his chest, withdrawing the massive life Support System II, as Michael had called it. Michael had asked if he—Rourke—had known Jack Crain and Rourke had told his son yes, the Texas knifema-ker a valued friend and one of the unrivalled best at his craft. His design had stood the test of five centuries, unchanged. He hadn’t told his son that he owned the five centuries before original that Crain had made for him. It was one of the few surprises still at the Retreat which neither Michael nor Annie had seen. He had saved it to give to Michael. But now he would use it.
Michael moved right, Hammerschmidt left, toward the targets of the two men who stood beside the Soviet vehicle, the two—Michael and Hammerschmidt— moving as though in some ballet, working remarkably well together. There was a sixth sense that men who fought together and routinely saved each other’s lives developed. He and Paul had this. It seemed that
somehow Michael and Otto Hammerschmidt had it as well.
To the left, Hammerschmidt struck, his target wheeling toward him, raising his Soviet Animov-60 assault rifle, Hammerschmidt knocking the weapon aside as he plunged the blade into the throat with a rapier thrust, withdrawing, hacking with the German bayonet across the side of the neck, a spray of blood in the halflight.
Michael—his man had turned abruptly, Michael visibly wrenching his body out of the run into a classic martial arts pose, the left knee coming up, the body seeming to relax, the left leg pistoning down, the right leg snapping upward and outward, catching the Soviet assault rifle at the small of the stock, the rifle flying skyward, Michael twisting his body, rolling, catching the rifle, then tossing it to Hammerschmidt.
The Soviet soldier edged back along the ground, Michael going for him, the flash of a blade—Rourke couldn’t tell the type at the distance. Rourke made to start toward them, felt Paul’s hand restraining him at his left forearm. But Michael was moving, the massive Life Support knife in both fists bisecting the line of Michael’s left upper arm, the knife point downward. As the Soviet soldier charged, Michael sidestepped right, pivoting on his left foot, the knife in Michael’s hands seeming almost to have a deadly will of its own, Michael’s arms swinging like a baseball player in the batter’s box, the blade of the knife hacking through the left side of the Soviet soldier’s neck, the body f
reezing in stop-motion, spinning out slowly, falling, Michael pivoting again on his left foot, his right leg going out to almost maximum extension as the knife in his hands raised high overhead then chopped downward, the Soviet soldier’s helmet split
ting into two perfectly even halves, another spray of blood as the knife contacted the skull. The body fell.
John Rourke could hear Paul Rubenstein’s voice in his earpiece. “Quite a boy, isn’t he?” And then Paul laughed.
Rourke started running again, glancing back once—Michael and Otto Hammerschmidt were behind them, the Soviet assault rifles in their hands.
To the right, from the front of Karamatsov’s lines, there was gunfire, and from the far right, by the airfield hundreds of yards away, there was the boom of artillery and the night sky was nearly as bright as day for an instant.
Artillery answered almost immediately from near the entrance to the Underground City, more flashes of light, a strange electronic noise of a level that made the ears ring. “The energy weapons—artillery,” Hammerschmidt’s voice said, coming through the earpiece.
“Shit—if Karamatsov’s attacking, we might be too late!” Rourke waved the others foward, breaking into a dead run now, artillery shells exploding around them on all sides, the energy weapons seeming to cause the earth to ripple as things like lightning bolts impacted the ground.
Rourke dodged left, angling toward the furthest extension of Karamatsov’s lines that approached the greenhouses. There was a flash of brilliant light as another of the energy weapons fired, huge machines the size of field artillery—but in the flash of light, John Rourke could see the shadow of a figure, then another and perhaps more, running toward the greenhouses.
Soviet troops ran about everywhere—mortar teams
setting up, riflemen withdrawing from positions under heavy artillery and mortar fire from the tunnel entrance to the Underground City.
A Soviet trooper passed within two yards of John Rourke, running—he never stopped.
They were nearing the furthest extension of the battle line now, the greenhouses more clearly visible. The M-16 in Rourke’s right fist, his arm extended, he worked the selector to auto—a phalanx of Soviet soldiers suddenly throwing themselves up like a wall across Rourke’s path. Rourke fired, the M-16 bucking in his fist, the flatter sound of Soviet assault rifles behind him—Michael’s voice through Rourke’s earpiece, “It’s me—me and Hammerschmidt!”
The sharp crack of a three-round burst from Paul’s submachinegun—silence didn’t matter now, the sounds of battle enveloping them.
John Rourke closed with the line of Soviet troopers, emptying the M-16, then snapping the front hand-guard against his left palm, ripping the butt of the rifle forward and into a Soviet face, kicking the body away with his left foot, whirling right, smashing the flash deflector of the M-16 diagonally across the bridge of the nose of another Soviet trooper, Rourke’s right foot snapping up and out, catching the man in the groin.
Rourke jumped over the body as it sagged downward, glancing behind him, Paul emptying his Schmiesser into one man, using the butt of the weapon like a cudgel against the face of another, then running again.
Rourke couldn’t see Michael or Hammerschmidt— but then he heard Michael’s voice in his earpiece, “We’re on the way!”
Rourke said nothing, changing sticks in the M-16
as he ran, putting the empty into the pouch on his vest just vacated, running, working the charging handle and stripping the top round off the fresh thirty-pound magazine.
Two Soviet troopers with Animov rifles running to cut him off—he fired, one three-round burst, then another, cutting both men down.
At the far left edge of his peripheral vision, Rourke could see Paul, saying into his microphone to the younger man, “Paul—the furthest greenhouse out— go for it!”
“Right!”
Rourke stopped, wheeled a full one hundred eight degrees and sprayed the M-16 into the Soviet troops starting for them, hosing them down, bodies jackknifing into the darkness, illuminated then for an instant in another flash of artillery fire, then disappearing.
The M-16 empty, Rourke let it drop to his side on its sling, his left fist snatching the Scoremaster from his belt, his right going for the Scoremaster in the vest’s built-in holster.
His thumbs jacked back the hammers, his first fingers twitching the triggers. Single shots—he couldn’t afford the luxury of double taps—men going down as he fired. He started to run, almost at the edge of the line now, mortar plates here, tubes belching gray smoke against the darkness, machinegun nests firing maddeningly, Paul’s voice, “Barbed wire— watch it, John—I’m over.”
Rourke acknowledged, “Thanks—Michael—Hammerschmidt—you catch that?”
“Got it.”
Ahead of him now, both pistols nearly empty, Rourke could see the wire, concertina—how little some things had changed, he thought fleetingly.
A Soviet trooper lunged for him, Rourke emptying the last round in each pistol into the trooper’s chest, Rourke’s arms going out, grasping for the body as it sagged away, launching the body over the concertina wire, the wire depressing under the weight, Rourke leaping up, vaulting over the wire across the dead man’s back.
He was clear of the wire, ramming both pistols into his gunbelt, the slides still locked open and empty. The M-16—he found it with his right fist, grabbing another magazine, ramming it up the well, pouching the empty, running as he let the bolt slam home.
The furthest greenhouse was perhaps three hundred yards—he could see Paul ahead of him.
A lightning bolt pulse from an energy weapon impacted the ground near Rourke’s feet and Rourke felt the shock wave of the artillery fire, felt it slap him down, tucking his body into a roll as he fell, coming up out of it, to his knees, dirt and debris falling about him like rain.
To his feet, he lurched forward, his body still rocking with the impact—he ran on.
Two hundred yards to go, Paul well ahead of him now, almost to the greenhouse’s near wall, in the flash of light from a conventional artillery burst Paul silhouetted against the wall for an instant.
Rourke looked back—Michael, clearing the fence in a running jump using a body as his platform, Hammerschmidt right behind him, a Soviet assault rifle in each of the German commando’s hands.
A hundred yards, the artillery—conventional and energy—increasing in intensity, but here in the no-man’s land between the battle lines, the chance of impact from artillery or mortar fire more remote.
Rourke could see Paul vanish into the greenhouse,
Rourke throwing himself into the run, safing the rifle, the M-16 dropping to his side, changing magazines for the Scoremasters from the musette bags that hung at either side of his gear, running the slides forward, working the ambidextrous safeties up, leaving the pistols cocked and locked, one in each fist.
He threw himself to the ground beside the greenhouse, catching his breath for an instant, trying to segregate sounds from within the greenhouse from those of the battle which raged behind him and in front of him.
He thought he heard the working of a slide—a silenced pistol?
To his feet, Hammerschmidt’s voice in his ear. “We are entering the near greenhouse—we see them—four persons. One may be a woman. They have a cannister—
Hammerschmidt’s voice cut out as Rourke ran along the length of the greenhouse. He heard a burst of subgun fire—Paul.
There was a glass door, steel or some other metal reinforced—Rourke’s left foot snapped forward as he wheeled half right, a double Tae-Kwon-Do kick to the glass, the glass shattering, Rourke stabbing both pistols into his belt, catching up the M-16, with the butt of the rifle knocking out the remainder of the glass, diving through as glass in one of the window panels near his left arm shattered. “Look out, John!” Paul’s voice, heard in the earpiece and heard normally. Rourke looked to his right as he hit the floor of the greenhouse and rolled, assault rifle fire ripping the concret
e block floor beside his head, Rourke squinting his eyes involuntarily against the dust spray despite the protection of the gas mask. As he came out of the roll he fired the M-16 toward the flash from the
darkness. There was a scream—clearly a woman.
To his feet—and he heard Paul’s whispered voice in his ear. “I’m to your left John—three of ‘em left in here I think.”
Rourke edged right, ducking behind a table where broad leafed plants—some of the leaves chewed partially away by gunfire—were racked. Water dribbled down along the length of the table, some of the plants overturned. He saw movement at the far end of the greenhouse.
He spoke into the microphone that was built into the mask. “Paul—move up along the left. I’ll move up along the right—before you shoot—”
“I know—you do the same.”
Rourke reached to the M-16, his right fist closing on the pistol grip. In a crouch, he started forward, between the tables of plants and the greenhouse wall, picking his footing carefully, hoses, pipes, shattered pots from plants, fallen trays of seedlings everywhere.
When the first of them had entered the greenhouses, Natalia would have been put on alert, the helicopter waiting for her. But it would do no good for her to appeal to the Soviet combatants if Rourke or Paul or Michael or Hammerschmidt didn’t get the information on the gas that would give her the facts she needed to convince the fighters that Karamatsov was only using them.
Rourke spoke into his microphone, whispering lest his voice be heard by his adversaries ahead somewhere in the darkness at the far end of the greenhouse. “Natalia—you hear me?”
The voice was weaker because of her location well behind the lines. “I hear you, John—you and Paul— and Michael and the captain—”
“We’re fine.. As soon as we get to the gas—be
ready.”
“Be careful—I love you always.”
Rourke closed his eyes for an instant. “God help me—I love you—be ready,” and he continued moving, the M-16 held tight against his chest, not the ideal weapon for the confined space but his only weapon capable of a sufficient volume of fire.
