The Savage Horde s-6

by Ahern, Jerry

  Rourke shrugged, flattening himself in a solid prone position along the tree line with an outcropping of rocks affording cover against returning fire. He telescoped the CAR-'s stock, settling the metal buttplate against his right shoulder in the pocket, the Colt scope's reticle settling, too—on the spinal column of the nearest brigand. One of the two men in the higher rocks had to be the leader.

  His thumb worked the safety to off, the first finger of his right hand touching the trigger.

  "Good-bye," Rourke muttered, then began the squeeze, the rifle recoiling against his shoulder, its sharp crack loud in the otherwise still countryside.

  He rode it out, the .'s recoil mild enough, the scope showing his work—the brigand holding the binoculars to his eyes slammed forward, up and over the rocks behind which he had hidden himself, the body rolling downward.

  The man who had been beside the first man turned around, his mouth opened as if to scream. Rourke shot him in the neck, the body toppling back across the rocks and staying there, the arms flapping up once, then still.

  Rourke tucked down, gunfire slamming into the rocks near his position, bullets biting into the tree trunks, bits of bark spraying him as did chips of rock. He pulled back. And there was gunfire now from the six men on the valley floor.

  Rourke pushed himself up, the rifle swinging onto targets of opportunity among the brigand band. Two round semiautomatic bursts—one man down. Another target—male or female. Rourke wasn't sure.

  There was more answering fire, automatic weapons chewing whole pine boughs from the trees surrounding him, pine needles showering him. Rourke pulled back.

  Moving along on knees and elbows, he drew away from the rise, then pushed himself up into a Low, running crouch, starting through the tree line. He stopped, rising to his full height beside a greater in diameter than normal pine, shouldering the CAR-, firing another two round burst. A brigand with what looked like an M-was running up the hill toward him, the brigand's body lurching backward, doubling up like a jacknife, then seeming to hesitate in mid-air for an instant, then going down.

  Rourke ran on, diving to cover in more of the low rocks as heavy automatic weapons fire tore into the trees.

  He pushed up, snapping off a fast two-round burst with the CAR-, missing, then another two-round burst—a man with a shotgun, one of three men racing up the hill. This time Rourke didn't miss.

  He shot a quick glance into the valley—there was fire still coming from the six military personnel in the valley, but seemingly having little effect.

  Rourke pushed himself to his feet, backing off into the

  trees, spraying a succession of two-round bursts from the hip toward the advancing brigand fire team, nailing one more of them and dropping him, the third man going to cover, but spraying automatic weapon fire into the trees. The tree trunk nearest Rourke erupted with the impact, huge chunks of bark and slivers of green wood pelting at Rourke's face.

  Rourke buttoned out the nearly spent thirty-round magazine, ramming a fresh magazine from his musette bag into the well, then firing two more two-round bursts.

  He started running laterally again, along the tree line, to give the brigands a moving target, to give the six men in the valley time to close up toward the base of the hill. Fire and maneuver—he hoped as he ran that they were thinking the same thing.

  Chapter 3

  Paul Rubenstein slowed his bike, Natalia slowing hers beside him.

  "Must be John," he murmured, working open the bolt of the Schmeisser and giving the Browning High Power a good luck tug in the ballistic nylon tanker style shoulder holster across his chest.

  Natalia said nothing—Paul watched as she eared back the bolt of her M-, the rifle slung cross body, diagonally under her right arm, as Rourke carried his.

  "Let's go—"

  "We can split when we reach the battle site—you take the right flank, I'll take the left," she answered.

  "You got it," and Rubenstein revved his machine, punching out, steering the fork wildly as he dodged tree trunks, feeling the bouncing as he jumped hummocks, his cowboy-booted feet balancing him as he reached a shallow defile, the bike jumping over a ridge of earth and coming down, dust flying up around him.

  The gunfire was louder now, heavy automatic weapons fire like he'd heard so many times before in the weeks since he'd known John Rourke, in the weeks since the Night of The War. The ground evened out, Rubenstein wrestling the Harley hard right, almost losing it, his left foot dragging the ground as he twisted with his hands, his forearms aching as he pulled the machine upright. He bent low now, building RPMs as he sped the machine along the crest of the rise. There was a forested area a hundred yards ahead, the gunfire coming from just beyond it, heavier even than it had been.

  "I'll head through the trees—you go around 'em, Natalia!" Paul shouted.

  "Yes, Paul!" he heard her call back, not looking. The idea amused him for an instant—Natalia, the KGB major, the tough fighter, the martial arts expert, the female counterpart of Rourke in almost every skill—"yes, Paul." He laughed at himself.

  He was closing the distance into the trees now, jumping the bike over a small hillock of dirt and gravel-sized rock, dodging the fork hard left to miss a tree trunk. It was a deer path he was on—Rourke had described them, shown them to him. He bent lower over the machine, thorns and pine boughs swatting at his face and exposed hands, slapping against his olive drab field jacket. He saw movement in the trees to his far left—it wasn't Natalia on her bike. It was a man, running, firing an assault rifle.

  Rubenstein slowed the bike, the rear tire spraying dirt and pine needles, the bike sliding as Rubenstein balanced it out, letting it drop then, running from the bike and into the trees.

  The man in the woods was turning around, throwing the assault rifle to his shoulder to fire.

  Rubenstein swung the Schmeisser forward on its sling. He wouldn't beat the first burst. He knew that.

  Then suddenly, Rubenstein stopped the upward movement of the German MPsubgun's muzzle.

  It was John Rourke—the tall, dark-haired, lean-faced man with the assault rifle.

  Paul Rubenstein couldn't help himself—he let out a yell.

  Chapter 4

  The counterfeit rebel yell—with a New York accent. Rourke felt his face seaming with a smile.

  "Paul—over here—keep down!"

  Rourke wheeled, ducking down himself, a fusillade of automatic weapons fire pouring toward him, hammering into the trees surrounding him. He pumped the CAR-'s trigger, edging back into the trees. He saw a flicker of movement at the base of the hill, along the near edge of the valley. Dark hair blew back straight from the neck, dark clothes—an M-firing.

  "Natalia!" Rourke shouted the name, astounding himself that he had. Gunfire was pouring toward her on the bike now, the bike wheeling hard right toward the base of the hill, then skidding in the dirt, the woman almost leaping from the machine to the cover of rocks. He couldn't see her for an instant, then saw the flash from her rifle, heard the long burst aimed toward the hillside.

  Rourke felt himself smiling—a Russian major leaping to the defense of six U.S.

  military personnel. "Paul—we're heading down—into the valley."

  "Gotchya, John!"

  Rourke glanced behind him once, the younger man nearly up alongside him as Rourke rammed a fresh thirty-round magazine up the CAR-'s well. Then he started to run, shouting to Rubenstein, "Paul—give that counterfeit rebel yell of yours!"

  He heard it, laughing as he ran, heard the younger man almost scream, "Yahoo!"

  The brigands dotting the hillside were starting to shift from their positions now, getting up, running, trapped in a three-way crossfire as Rourke opened up, hearing the rattle of Rubenstein's subgun behind him and to his right, Natalia's M-pouring into them, and at last the six men in the valley maneuvering forward, their M-s blazing.

  The nearest of the brigands was
perhaps thirty yards away now, Rourke firing out the CAR-into the smaller subgroup, the semiautomatic assault rifle coming up empty. He snatched the twin stainless Detonics pistols from the shoulder rig under his jacket, letting the CAR-drop to his side on its sling, his thumbs working back the pistols' hammers. He fired both .s simultaneously, the -grain JHPs thudding into the face of the nearest brigand, the body hurtling back, the head seeming to explode, blood—almost like a cloud—momentarily filling the air around it.

  The military personnel from the valley were closing now, the brigands who remained alive trapped—and because of that, Rourke realized, more dangerous than before.

  Two brigands came at him in a rush, the nearer of the two making to fire an M-, the one behind him already discharging a revolver. Rourke threw himself down, firing at an upward angle toward the man with the assault rifle, the body doubling over, toppling forward, the . mms spraying a steady stream into the ground at the already dead, still falling man's feet. Rourke rolled, trying to acquire the target with the revolver. He heard a burst of automatic weapons fire, the man's body spinning, the revolver roaring fire and the body falling, the gun sagging from the limp hand and into the dirt.

  Rourke glanced to his right—Paul Rubenstein with the Schmeisser,

  Rourke shouted, "Paul—thanks!"

  But Rubenstein didn't hear him, Rourke realized, the younger man's subgun already firing again.

  Rourke was up now, reaching down for the M-locked in the dead man's fist.

  Rourke tugged at the rifle, the fingers locked on it. Rourke stepped on the hand, crushing the bones, then ripped the rifle from the fingers. Loaded magazines for the assault rifle were stuffed behind the man's belt, Rourke reaching down, grabbing up the three that he saw, buttoning out the empty and ramming a loaded twenty up the well. He preferred thirty-rounders himself, the twenty-round magazines not enough firepower and the forties he had always suspected of putting too much weight into the magazine well.

  The M-'s selector was still on auto and Rourke shifted the muzzle toward the brigands, now locked in gunfire with Rubenstein, Natalia and the advancing military. Rourke shouldered the rifle, firing three-round bursts across the sights, shifting the muzzle from target to target, gunfire starting toward him again as bodies fell and the few still surviving brigands turned their fire against him.

  The M-emptied on a short burst—only two rounds—and Rourke dumped the magazine, ramming the second twenty up the well, then with the rifle at his hip, started to advance, cutting short bursts of two or three rounds into the still remaining brigands. Natalia's gleaming custom revolvers belched bright bursts of fire, men falling before her, Paul with the Schmeisser in his right hand and the battered blue Browning High Power in his left.

  Rourke stopped shooting, the last of the brigand bodies twitching on the ground less than five yards from his feet. Natalia stood, her arms sagged along her thighs, the matched Smiths limp in her hands.

  Rourke noticed Paul Rubenstein, the slide locked back,

  on the emptied Browning, his right hand emptied of the subgun, the Schmeisser dangling at his side. His right hand held his glasses, and his eyes were closed.

  Rourke let out a long, hard breath—a sigh. There was a cigar in his pocket and he took it out, setting down the M-. He lit the thin, dark tobacco in the blue-yellow flame of the Zippo which bore his initials. For some reason, he momentarily studied the initials—J.T.R. The thought—ridiculous—occurred to him.

  What if he had been someone else, besides John Thomas Rourke? He smiled as he inhaled the smoke deep into his lungs—had he been a man unskilled at fighting he would have been dead, perhaps even since the Night of The War.

  Methodically, automatically, he began moving about the field, examining the bodies, ignoring the U.S. II troopers shuffling with seeming unease nearby. A man of peace—sometimes the price of survival was very high.

  Chapter 5

  "So, Dr. Rourke—-we came looking for you—that's why we 're here. President Chambers and Colonel Reed—"

  Rourke looked up from loading the six-round Detonics magazine. "Colonel Reed?"

  "President Chambers personally promoted him, sir."

  Rourke nodded, then looked back to the magazine, double checking through the witness holes that the magazine was fully charged, the lower hole empty as it should be. He took the Detonics and jacked back the slide, locking it with the slide stop. "So you're Captain Cole—"

  "That's right, sir—Regis Cole, recently promoted myself," and the young, green-eyed man smiled.

  "Hmmm," Rourke nodded, estimating the man's age at perhaps twenty-five, the five enlisted men with him younger seeming still. Rourke inserted the magazine up the Detonics' well and gave it a reassuring pat on the butt—reassuring to himself that it was seated, then worked the slide stop downward, the slide running forward, stripping the first round. Rourke started to lower the hammer.

  "I always carry my . with the magazine completely full and a round in the chamber," Cole noted.

  "A lot of people do," Rourke almost whispered, inhaling on the cigar in the left corner of his mouth. "But

  a lot of professional gunmen advocate—or advocated I guess these days—stripping the round for the chamber off the top of the magazine."

  "To relieve spring pressure?"

  "It helps—but not for that," and Rourke thumbed out the magazine with the release button. "Here," and he pointed to the top round in the magazine. "Notice how it's edged forward just a little—makes for more positive feeding than starting with a magazine where the top round has the case head all the way back against the spine of the magazine. Anyway—always works for me," and Rourke replaced the magazine in the pistol and began securing the Detonics under his left armpit in the holster there. "Why were you looking for me, anyway? What'd Reed want?"

  Cole, squatting on the ground beside Rourke and slightly at an angle to him, looked around, then behind him. Natalia and Paul were talking, Paul reloading his Schmeisser's magazines. "I'd rather, ahh—talk a bit more privately, Dr.

  Rourke," Cole said hoarsely.

  "There's nothing I wouldn't trust to Paul or Natalia—"

  "She's a Russian, sir?"

  "Good for her," Rourke smiled.

  "I must insist, sir," Cole said again.

  Rourke nodded, then shouted across the rocky area where they were, "Natalia—Paul! The captain's going to tell me something in private—I'll tell you all about it as soon as he's through."

  Rourke stood up, Cole's green eyes icy.

  "Satisfy you?" Rourke smiled.

  "I can impress you into service, Dr. Rourke—and then you'll have to do as I say."

  "Draft me?" Rourke laughed, spontaneously. Picking up his CAR-, the magazines for the weapon reloaded from ammo scrounged from the dead brigands, Rourke stared at Cole. "You can't draft me," and he gestured with the CAR-. "I'm a conscientious objector."

  Rourke started walking off toward the tree line, Cole beside him . . .

  Rourke had checked all the bodies, each of the brigands—all men—dead. Natalia had walked beside him for part of the search, saying nothing, their eyes meeting, then finally, the last of the dead looked to, she had said, "It hasn't changed, John. I can't live without you."

  Rourke had touched his hands to her face—feeling the warmth of the skin, her cheeks slightly flushed. Her eyes—the incredible blueness of them, "When I look up at the stars at night, I—I find myself—seeing you, thinking about you."

  "What will we do?"

  She had said the words quietly, then cast her eyes down, his hands still framing her face, his fingers letting her windblown hair brush against them.

  "I don't know. It seems—it seems I say that more and more when we talk about you and me. I don't—" He folded the woman into his arms, aware then that Rubenstein was eyeing the U.S. military personnel as they closed in, hearing Rubenstein ramming a fresh magazine into the Schmei
sser—just in case.

  "My uncle," she said after a moment, her voice barely a whisper, her head against his chest. "There is a note for you—he sent me with it. It is urgent—he sent me with it and he sent my things as well. As if—as if he never expected me to return to—to the KGB. To—to my life. And—and I don't know if I expect to—either. I don't know anything any more. Just that I love you, that you're married—that I want more than anything—even more than us, for you to find them—to find Sarah."

  She had stepped away, not looking at him, her words barely audible. "How stupid I am." She'd looked at him again and forced a smile, her eyes wet with tears . .

  .

  Cole had not inspired instant respect, or even liking

  when he had first introduced himself in that next moment—and in the twenty minutes or so in which they had talked, Rourke's feelings toward the young U.S.

  II Army captain hadn't changed. As they walked now up the hill and toward the tree line, Rourke found himself analyzing the way Regis Cole spoke more than the words he said.

  ". . . that nobody else could do the job. Your country needs you, Dr. Rourke."

  Rourke stopped walking. "What job is it—that no one else can do?" Rourke spit out the stump of burned, chewed cigar butt, then looked Cole in the eye.

  "During a debriefing session—you mentioned to Colonel Reed that you had known Colonel Armand Teal before the war—"

  "We shared an igloo together for three nights on a survival exercise. I know him."

  "He's the commanding officer of Filmore Air Force Base in Northern California—"

  "Hope he can swim," Rourke said soberly.

  "We've determined that Filmore survived. It was well above the fault line and the mountain chain there would have protected it from the tidal wave effects when the San Andreas went. And there were only neutron hits there as far as we can ascertain as well—overflights. There even seemed to be some activity, a U.S.