The End is Coming

by Jerry Ahern

  Revnik’s voice: “To the triumph of the Soviet!”

  Two thousand voices shouted, the halls ringing with it— “Triumph!”

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Rourke was awake, having slept while Natalia flew, and as he sat up in the copilot’s seat, he could watch the ground below them—at treetop level they were coming in. “John—your re­straint—”

  Rourke checked the lap and shoulder har­ness—it was secure.

  He watched her hands as they played over the instruments, then looked away, watching through the plexiglass—the treetops were now even with them as the jet skimmed over a fence, Natalia already throttling back—he could hear it—as she committed them to landing.

  It was a small country airstrip—but the run­way surface in good shape as he watched its grayness seeming to swallow the forward view, rising up in a blur of roughness and bleakness—and he felt the impact of touchdown, hearing the skidding, hearing and feeling as Natalia throt­tled down.

  Into his microphone, he whispered, “You’re a fine pilot.”

  “Now is a poor time to verify that, isn’t it,” her voice came back....

  There was no chance to land the plane some­where where it might not be detected—and so the plane, Rourke considered, was written off. Speed in reaching Varakov was the ultimate con­cern and the small airfield just north of the Illi­nois-Wisconsin line was the closest thing his map had shown and small enough, he had hoped, that there would be no Soviet guards.

  So far, as they left the plane in the field, as they walked, their assault rifles ready, no guards were in evidence.

  “We will steal a car?”

  “If we can—you can always try your Soviet I.D. and see if you can convince them you ar­rested me—”

  “I do not think I would find greater favor now with the KGB than would you, John—”

  Rourke only nodded. Fifty yards still until the edge of the airfield, fifty yards of exposure still. As if reading his thoughts, Natalia said, “When I made the overflight—before I awakened you—there was nothing.”

  “Can’t always tell from the air,” he cautioned. They had left the plane without a booby trap, no time really to construct one. One additional jet fighter for the Russians would not sway the odds in even the most minute way, he had reasoned, and perhaps leaving it here some Resistance unit would find it and make use of it.

  They were passing an outbuilding, made of corrugated metal, Rourke’s eyes flickering toward it. “Run for it,” Rourke shouted, shoving at Natalia, sweeping the M-16’s muzzle toward the building. Something—he didn’t know what—

  “Halt!”

  The voice was from his right, and he wheeled toward it, squinting in the sunlight despite the dark-lensed glasses he wore. A single man, hold­ing what looked from the distance to be a Ruger Mini-14.

  Natalia was swung toward him, her M-16’s muzzle leveled at his midsection.

  Rourke stepped beside her. In his left hand he carried the eight-hundred-round ammo box of 5.56mm ball, in his right hand he clenched the M-16. “What do you want?” Rourke challenged.

  “Who the hell are you people—with that plane?”

  “I work for the F.A.A.—checking out rural airports—”

  “Knock it off,” the solitary man with the Ru­ger rifle called back. At the corners of his pe­ripheral vision, Rourke could see more armed figures—men and women—stepping out from inside the building, coming from the far edge of the field.

  “I don’t like this, John,” Natalia whispered hoarsely.

  Rourke said nothing, watching only.

  The man with the Mini-14 spoke again. “Who are you?”

  “I’m John—this is Natalie—who the hell are you?”

  “Morris Dumbrowski—Combined Counties Resistance Fighters.”

  Rourke breathed a long sigh. “Then relax—we’re on the same side.”

  Then a woman’s voice, from his right, near the corrugated metal building’s door.

  “I’ve seen her—she’s the one who was always with the general—the one in the fur coat—maybe his slut or something!”

  Natalia wheeled toward her, Rourke stepping between Natalia and the woman. “No,” he snarled to Natalia.

  “I’m not his woman—I’m his niece,” Natalia shrieked.

  Rourke rasped under his breath, “Shit—”

  “Russians—fuckin’ Commies!” It was Morris Dumbrowski’s voice, Rourke turning to face the man.

  “I seen her,” another woman’s voice shouted. “She was with that bastard who used to run the KGB—maybe she’s his woman.”

  Natalia wheeled toward the new voice, shout­ing, almost screaming, “I was his wife—and he’s dead—he was a butcher!”

  Rourke stepped beside Natalia. “My name’s John Rourke—if you’re Resistance like you say you are, you must know Colonel Reed—get in touch with him at U.S. II headquarters—he can vouch for us both.”

  “Why?”

  Rourke turned to face the voice—it was the woman from the corrugated building—she was walking toward them, holding a pistol, some kind of double-action revolver with a barrel that looked too long to be comfortably carried. She kept talking. “So you can get your Commie friends to get a fix on our radio, or maybe get a fix on U.S. II? Fuckin’ rot in hell, mister—”

  “It’s not mister,” Natalia said, Rourke shocked by the calm suddenly in her voice. “It’s Doctor—he’s a doctor of medicine, and I’m a major in the KGB—but if the KGB were to find me, they’d likely kill me. General Varakov—he is my uncle, and we go to see him—he is helping to fight the KGB.”

  “You’re crazy, lady—and if he’s a doctor, then he’s your psychiatrist,” the woman with the long-barrel revolver from the corrugated build­ing laughed, the laugh almost a cackle.

  “Then I will kill you,” Natalia said. “It is not Natalie, my name—it is Natalia Anastasia Tiemerovna, major, Committee for State Secu­rity of the Soviet. I have told the truth.” Natalia raised her M-16, the rifle in both hands, her legs spread wide apart, the muzzle of the rifle aimed at the woman with the long-barreled revolver.

  Rourke rasped, “Contact Colonel Reed—and take a look at this—I’ll move slow.” Rourke reached to Natalia’s right holster, opening the flap there, the M-16 swinging free on its sling, the CAR-15 across his back. He set down the ammo box, taking the second revolver from the holster on Natalia’s left hip.

  He heard someone cock a weapon in the crowd of Resistance fighters.

  Rourke rolled both revolvers in his hands, butts forward, walking toward the woman with the long-barreled revolver, walking slowly.

  The woman looked down at his hands.

  Rourke could feel Natalia’s eyes boring into him.

  Rourke stopped less than two feet from the woman with the long-barreled revolver—she was evidently one of the leaders, but not the first in command, he guessed.

  Rourke held the perfectly matched .357s butts forward, showing the woman the twin revolvers. “The American Eagle on the barrel flat here of the revolver in my left hand. They were made for Sam Chambers by a guy named Ron Mahovsky, a company called Metalife Industries. Ma­hovsky—before The Night of The War—he was one of the top revolver smiths in the country. Sam Chambers gave these revolvers to her—to Natalia, Major Tiemerovna, because he didn’t have a medal to give her. When the quakes hit Florida—you heard about that?”

  The woman nodded.

  “If it hadn’t been for Major Tiemerovna, thousands more of American lives would have been lost—and President Chambers knew that. Take a look at these yourself,” Rourke said, holding the revolvers out toward the woman, butts presented toward her. “And be careful, ma’am—they’re loaded.”

  His eyes watched the woman’s eyes. She looked at the guns Rourke offered her, at her own revolver—Rourke knew what it was now, a Smith & Wesson Model 10 M&P with six-inch barrel, just a .38 Special. The woman dropped the gun into a too small holster on her right thigh, the bottom of the
holster cut out, two inches of barrel protruding through it.

  She reached for both revolvers at once.

  He’d seen his cowboy heroes do it in countless movies when he had been a boy.

  He did it now—the road agent spin, edging his trigger fingers into the guards, letting the revolv­ers roll inward, away from his palms, snapping his hands up as the guns moved, the revolvers twirling on their trigger guards, both gun butts dropping into his fists, his thumbs working back the hammers instinctively—he had practiced the trick with single-action semi-autos, used it a time or two—and both pistols moving, Rourke himself moving.

  He was beside the woman, slightly behind her, the pistol in his left hand, its muzzle finding the underside of her chin, ramming up against the flesh, the gun in his right hand at the side of her body, pointed at the man with the Mini-14, Mor­ris Dumbrowski—Natalia had wheeled, her M-16 pointed toward the Resistance fighters who had come from the far side of the field.

  It had taken perhaps a second, and Rourke, his voice loud, shouted, “She gets it first, and then you Dumbrowski—I’m telling the truth, so’s the major—take us to Resistance headquar­ters and a radio and Reed will back us up, or Chambers himself.”

  “You telling us—” Dumbrowski began. “You tellin’ us, that you’ve got some kinda mission—that U.S. II—”

  “U.S. II didn’t send us—my uncle sent for us,” Natalia called out. “But he’s a decent man. There is something gone wrong—something wrong for all of us—and he thinks that Doctor Rourke and I can do something to stop it—that is why we come here.”

  “And we could use your help—the Resist­ance’s help—getting into the city—to get to him.”

  The woman Rourke held in his arms, the woman he held a gun to, coughed, saying, “You want us to help you reach General Varakov?”

  “It’s the only way—maybe. What’s it going to be—we all shoot each other here and now for nothing, or you check out our story?”

  “Throw your guns down then,” Dumbrowski shouted.

  “We keep our guns—no other way,” Rourke shouted back.

  It was the woman—Rourke had been wrong—who was the leader. She raised her voice, shout­ing across the field, “Put your guns away—but keep an eye on both of them—we’re going to the base,” and her hands came up, touched at the barrel of the revolver under her chin and gently, slowly, moved it aside.

  Rourke let go of her, the woman turning to face him. “I’m Emily Bronkiewicz—our leader was killed three weeks ago—I was his wife. I’m the leader now. Stay with us, close, or we’ll open fire.”

  And her eyes drifted to the revolver in Rourke’s left hand, the gun held diagonally away from him. “You were right about the American Eagle—but now let’s see if the guns were really a gift—and if you’re telling the truth, we’ll help if we can. If you’re not, then go ahead and shoot me when you want to—but there’re enough of us to get both of you.”

  Rourke lowered the hammers on both revolv­ers—slowly.

  He walked past the woman, to give Natalia her guns back. He whispered to the Resistance leader, “Don’t bet on that last part.”

  Chapter Thirty-five

  The base to which Emily Bronkiewicz had re­ferred was at first look a cave dug out of a slop­ing hillside, Rourke and Natalia in the middle of the Resistance group, walking stooped over through the cave by flashlight beam, a brighter light ahead, noise as well.

  The tunnel abruptly stopped, Rourke sud­denly realizing he could stand to his full height, Natalia rubbing the small of her back with her hands as she did likewise.

  The tunnel had ended in a building, a struc­ture largely concrete with heavily shuttered high windows—or at least Rourke assumed them to be windows—and double steel doors at the far end. The building seemed nearly a perfect square, drill presses—dust covered—and lathes and other machinery in evidence, as though pushed aside into corners of the building, the floor oil-stained in spots, large patches of it, gummy-looking as Rourke and Natalia fol­lowed Emily Bronkiewicz across the floor, diag­onally toward a cubicle-style office at the height of a dozen or so stairs that overlooked the main floor.

  Rourke surmised that it had once been a plant manager’s office, the place apparently at one time a machine shop. Its exact nature was hard to determine.

  Others of the Resistance broke off before reaching the stairs, Rourke and Natalia continu­ing to follow Emily Bronkiewicz.

  She started up the steps, Natalia immediately behind her, Rourke following Natalia, Dum­browski and two other men behind Rourke.

  Emily paused at the office door, turning the knob, opening the door inward.

  Natalia followed her inside, Rourke after Na­talia, only Dumbrowski coming inside after Rourke.

  Emily perched herself on the front edge of the gray metal desk at the rear of the office.

  Natalia remained standing.

  Rourke shrugged, sitting down in the metal in­terview chair and pushing it away from the side of the desk, turning out to face Emily Bronkiewicz. “So—where’s the radio?” Rourke asked her.

  “I’m a Pole, Dr. Rourke—if that’s your real name.”

  “It’s really Rourovitch and I’m a spy.”

  Emily looked at him, but didn’t smile. “I hate the Russians. I hated them before The Night of The War, for what they did in Poland. My oldest son—he was thirteen. He got killed fighting the Russians. My husband just died. Doing the same thing. My daughter’s in such a way that she won’t even talk. She’s seventeen—a Soviet sol­dier. He was drunk, he raped her. She caught something from him—some kind of disease. But we don’t even have penicillin to fight it. My mother and father lived in Chicago—they died during the neutron bombing on The Night of The War. My husband’s brother was arrested and hauled away to a forced labor camp or something—”

  “A factory,” Natalia interrupted. And Emily Bronkiewicz looked at her. “It would have been a factory. There are no forced labor camps here—but the laborers at the factories are not al­lowed to leave—so it is like a camp. They are fed well—it was my uncle who insisted that they work in eight-hour shifts only and be treated de­cently.”

  “Is that your excuse?” the woman asked.

  “It is not an excuse—it is merely the truth.”

  “They made him a slave—that’s simple enough to understand. He has to work for them, can’t come back. I don’t know where he is, even if he’s still alive at all.”

  “What are you trying to say?” Rourke asked the woman.

  “Out there on the airfield—well, you could have killed a lot of us. Here—no such luck for you. I’ve got all my people outside. If I don’t step outside with you two following me, you’ll never get out of here alive. First gunshot they hear, they’ll be ready, and if I don’t come out, they’ll come in and kill you. Shoot the walls out of the office here to kill you both. But kill you—kill you anyway. Me—I don’t matter much no more any way.”

  Morris Dumbrowski swept the muzzle of his Mini-14 up, fast, Rourke starting to move, Na­talia’s right hand flashing across her body, the silenced stainless Walther in her right fist.

  Rourke shifted direction, going for Emily Bronkiewicz, his right hand bunched into a fist, flashing out toward her jaw as he came out of the chair.

  He heard something that sounded like a loud belch, the mechanical noise of a slide moving out of battery, back into battery, the clatter of metal against wood. Rourke’s fist found Emily Bronkiewicz’s jaw, a light tap to throw her off balance, his left hand reaching out across her body and smothering her right as she made to draw her long-barreled revolver.

  As Emily slumped back, Rourke’s hand moved up to cover her mouth, Dumbrowski starting to say something, but Rourke heard Na­talia cut him off, “Shh.”

  Rourke had the Bronkiewicz woman, sup­porting her from falling off the desk, her re­volver out of the leather in his left fist, pointed at the woman.

  She moaned, Rourke watching as her eyelids flut
tered.

  He could hear Natalia talking, her voice a whisper. “I could have just as easily killed you, Mr. Dumbrowski—but I only shot you in the right forearm—that’ll heal.”

  “You’ll never—”

  “Shh—”

  The door from the head of the steps outside the office started opening, Natalia sidestepping, Rourke leaning Emily Bronkiewicz back roughly across the desk, beside the door in two strides, the first man coming through the door­way. Rourke hammered down with the barrel of the ungainly sized M&P revolver, his wrist tak­ing the impact as ordnance steel impacted bone, the man slumping forward.

  Rourke let him fall, starting for the second man, his shotgun starting to swing on target, his mouth opening to shout, Rourke reaching for him.

  There was a flash of something, something gleaming, catching light as it moved, the man’s mouth open but not making noise as the man’s eyes shifted right, fast. Rourke stepped into the man, shoving the riot shotgun’s muzzle hard to the man’s right, Rourke’s right fist hammering out, tipping against the base of the man’s jaw, the head snapping back.

  Rourke started to catch the body as it sagged, glancing once at Natalia, the stainless silenced PPK/S shifted into her left hand. He looked at the door—the man’s right arm was pinned there by the Bali-Song, the handle slabs open and spread, the Wee-Hawk pattern blade penetrated through the leather of the man’s jacket and at least a half-inch into the soft wood of the door.

  Rourke wrenched the knife free, dragging the body through the doorway, then easing the door closed.

  He stood beside the doorway, “You throw a good knife, Natalia,” Rourke told her, looking up from the knife, closing it, locking the handle slabs together, then tossing the Bali-Song to her.

  She caught it in her right fist, making it disap­pear into a pocket of her black jumpsuit. “Pa­cific Cutlery made a good knife—all I did was practice a lot,” and she smiled.

  “You two Commies quit congratulatin’ your­selves—you ain’t never gettin’ outa here alive.”

  It was Dumbrowski, and Rourke looked at the man.