The End is Coming

by Jerry Ahern

  Rourke smiled his warmest smile, interrupting the man, “Except for medical emergencies, right?” Rourke passed the man his papers.

  The man unfolded the letter Maus had signed as director of the civilian hospital in the converted gunshop and shooting range. “Hippoder mineed—”

  “Hypodermic needles,” Rourke corrected. “Can’t give shots with dirty needles—hepatitis, stuff like that.”

  The man unfolded Rourke’s identity papers, looking at Rourke—apparently trying to match the physical description with the face—it should match, Rourke thought. The forger had been looking at his face while counterfeiting the iden­tity papers.

  “And her?” the man said.

  Rourke turned to look at Natalia—fear was written across her face so that a blind man could have almost known it, he thought. She handed him her papers from the battered brown vinyl purse that had come with the old raincoat.

  Rourke passed them over to the KGB noncom. “Here you go,” he smiled. “Say look—we got a lot of sick people up there—need those needles. The hypodermics.”

  There had been one other risk for Maus—that if they were discovered and traced back to the hospi­tal, there would be a raid, and the Resistance headquarters destroyed. Rourke considered that now as he watched the man, studying Natalia’s forged documents, peering into the car, a flash­light in his right hand, the beam high, trained on Natalia’s face.

  Rourke made a decision.

  “Major Tiemerovna!”

  As the man gasped her name, Rourke wrenched the LTD’s door handle—he had prepared to do it, and he slammed the door hard outward, against the abdomen of the KGB noncom, hammering the man back.

  Rourke reached out of the car, stepping half out of the driver’s seat, his left hand grabbing for the military flap holster on the man’s belt, his right grabbing for the papers—he had them all.

  The pistol—Rourke stuffed the papers into the pocket of his borrowed overcoat, worked the slide of the pistol in case a round hadn’t been cham­bered—none had. He pointed the pistol at the KGB noncom’s face—the mouth was open to shout for aid. Rourke emptied the pistol into the man’s mouth, then threw it down to the pavement, the door not closed as he stomped the accelerator, the door slamming as it whacked against the side of the barricade, Rourke throwing the hat out the window as he ducked, shouting to Natalia, “Down!”

  Gunfire shattered the rear window, bullet holes spiderwebbing the windshield in front of him, the accelerator already flat to the floor, the speedome­ter needle passing fifty and climbing fast—he’d al­ways liked eight cylinder Fords.

  Chapter Forty-three

  “I’m going for the guns,” Natalia shouted, Rourke shooting a glance toward her—he smiled. She had ripped away the scarf that had covered her hair, shaking her head now, freeing her hair like a wild animal, something untamed, might shake itself at the first taste of freedom. She smiled at him—they both understood what she had done. Death might be imminent.

  Behind them, motorcycle/sidecar combinations were rolling, headlights bouncing as the vehicles accelerated, their noise loud in the cold night air through Rourke’s open window.

  “Before you get the guns—burn these—” and Rourke fisted the papers in his overcoat pocket, making sure he had them all, handing them across to Natalia.

  “Right—” She bent to the floor as he looked at her, lighting them with her cigarette lighter—the papers were on fire.

  He turned his attention to the road—an auto­mobile—with Chicago Police markings obliter­ated by a red star. It was moving diagonally across the highway, cutting them off. He could hear Na­talia stamping her feet— “Nothing but ashes.”

  “Now get us some guns—we got friends comin’ up on the left.”

  Rourke started steering right, the police car cut­ting them off. Natalia—at the edge of his periph­eral vision he could see her going over into the back seat to start getting the weapons.

  The blue and white car was too close— Rourke cut the wheel hard left, shouting over the wind of the slipstream, “Hang on—collision!”

  The right front fender—he could see it, hear it, feel it as it smashed against the right rear fender of the police car, the sounds of metal twisting, tear­ing, the bumper of the police car twisting up to where it was visible over the LTD’s hood, the Ford straining, dragging at the police car, Rourke accel­erating, another tearing sound, louder than be­fore—the LTD shot ahead.

  In the rearview mirror he could see the police car, making a high-speed reverse, flick turning, the twisted bumper breaking off, the blue light flash­ing from the roof. There was the rattle of assault rifle fire, Rourke shouting to Natalia, “AKMs—keep low!”

  The rear windshield shattered out, Rourke swerving as more gunfire poured toward them, Rourke hearing it pinging against the body of the Ford. He cut sharp right, onto a ramp—he didn’t know where he was heading, no time to look and Chicago streets and expressways not that recent a memory.

  He fought the wheel, shouting, “Natalia—are you all right?”

  The rear end of the Ford was fishtailing as he curved the entrance ramp at nearly fifty, sideswiping the guardrail, the Eisenhower Expressway opening up before him—the post office inter­change coming up fast—they were passing the post office now, Rourke shouting again to Natalia as he picked up more blue lights in the rearview mirror.

  “Natalia!”

  “Yes—I’m all right—I almost have them!”

  Rourke cut the wheel hard left, shouting, “Hang on!” a police car starting toward them going against the direction of the lanes—but there was no traffic, just abandoned cars flanking the ex­pressway in both lanes on both shoulders. Rourke stomped the accelerator to the floor, shooting an intersection, into the Loop now, the police car on a collision course with them.

  Gunfire—from behind him, the police car sud­denly swerving, its windshield shattered, another shot, the police car accelerating, Rourke cutting a sharp right to miss it, in the rear view seeing Nata­lia, holding one of her revolvers, and the police car crashing into an underpass abutment behind them.

  Rourke started to edge left, turning toward State Street. “It was made into a shopping mall—it could be cut off,” Natalia shouted.

  Rourke cut back right— “Back seat driver,” tak­ing the next left—Wabash.

  Police cars—four abreast—were coming down Wabash, against him, he cut left at Jackson Boule­vard—heading against the flow of traffic had there been traffic—a one-way street, the signs half down but still visible.

  “Just as well,” he shouted to her— “High speed on Wabash with the elevated train platform—sui­cide.” And he stomped the gas pedal, crossing State, Dearborn, heading west, the city empty, ghostly, one out of every ten or so street lights burning—Rourke guessed the Russians had gotten power restored at least to parts of the city. But the street lamps were mostly shot out or otherwise shattered, it seemed, as he sped under them.

  Natalia was back beside him now— “The rest of our gear—it’s in the back seat—here,” and she handed him a pistol—one of the little Detonics stainless .45s—she knew what he liked, he thought. “Chamber’s loaded, hammer down,” she advised.

  Rourke rammed the pistol into his belt, ripping open the overcoat buttons, swerving to avoid the body of a dead dog—and suddenly, behind him, there was a pack—the animals running after the car, the police cars two blocks back not frightening them off—Rourke swerved close to a curb to avoid a wrecked car in the middle of the street—he almost lost control of the Ford as a huge dog leapt out toward the car from the roof of an abandoned car—it was on the hood, snarling, foam dripping from its mouth— “Shoot it, for God’s sake,” Rourke shouted to Natalia.

  He looked to his right—already she was leaning out the passenger side window, one of her revolvers in her right hand, the dog snapping at the wind­shield, somehow balancing itself on the hood.

  There was a loud shot—felt in his right ear. The dog�
�s head seemed to explode, the animal’s body flopping to Rourke’s left, blood and gray material that was brain splattering the windshield. The body slid from the hood of the car as Rourke swerved right.

  He found the windshield wiper switch—only one wiper blade—in front of the driver’s side. The other was bare metal. He punched the washer but­ton on the wiper control switch—nothing— “Aww, shit,” Rourke rasped—the blood and brain matter were smeared now like grease, all but ob­scuring the windshield—he kept the wiper blade going, hoping to at least scrape some of the mess away.

  More police cars—closing from the streets he crossed, falling in, almost like a formation, be­hind those already in pursuit.

  Wacker Drive—Rourke turned right, accelerat­ing, police cars behind him now but still nothing ahead—the Civic Opera House—he had given a lecture there once, he recalled—police cars now blocking the street ahead of him.

  He shouted to Natalia, “Did you ever block out underground Wacker Drive?”

  “No—we couldn’t leave workers down there—the Brigands—some of their bodies—they were eaten partially—arms cut off and legs—and our pathologists said they weren’t dogs who had done it—people.”

  Rourke looked at her, sucked in his breath, rasping, “Reach into my pocket and find me a ci­gar—soon as I do this,” and Rourke cut the wheel hard left, half bouncing over a lip of concrete curb, turning sharp right, fishtailing, skidding, his lights making bizarre patterns as he drove into the velvet blackness of the underground.

  Chapter Forty-four

  In the darkness—total darkness except for the headlights and the few working dashboard lights—he could feel Natalia’s right hand reach across him, searching his breast pocket for a cigar. “Lit?”

  “Not with that auxiliary gas tank,” he told her, swerving sharp left, nearly piling up in a divider, the car bouncing away from it as he avoided a pile of cement blocks in the middle of the road.

  And suddenly the cavernlike underground drive was illuminated, an almost surreal blue wash of light, sirens loud in the distance behind him—more of the expropriated police squad cars. And there were single headlights too—motorcycles, he guessed.

  Rourke stepped hard on the gas.

  Beside him, the headlights of the police vehicles and the motorcycles growing fast now, Natalia had an M-16—she was leaning out of the passen­ger window— “Watch out when I run close to the tunnel walls!” He heard it, felt it—the pelting of hot brass against his bare skin, his hands, his neck, his right cheek.

  A set of headlights behind them swerved mad­deningly to the right, a blinding flash in the dark­ness, a bright orange wall of flame, but punching through the wall—one set of headlights, then an­other, and then a single headlight—a motorcycle. The sidecar visible in the light of the fire was aflame, a man shape moving in it, arms waving, arms like torches, then the single headlight seemed to jump skyward as Natalia’s M-16 loosed a long, ragged burst, sidecar and motorcycle separating, crashing into opposite sides of the tunnel walls—flames. Two police cars, their Mars lights flashing blue in the darkness as Rourke took a sharp curv­ing right, police cars and motorcycles coming fast from his right flank as he passed another entrance into Underground Wacker.

  The entire tunnel was washed in the blue light of the flashers now as Rourke made the Ford acceler­ate, swerving the wheel left, right, left again, evad­ing abandoned automobiles left everywhere in the narrow confines of the underground, dog packs running across his lights, yelping, snarling, some of the animals leaping upward as he passed them, fangs bared.

  A massive animal—almost too large to be a dog, Rourke thought—it leaped from the hood of an abandoned car, Natalia screaming as he looked right, the dog half inside the vehicle, Rourke’s right hand snatching at the Pachmayr gripped butt of the Detonics, his thumb jerking back the trig­ger.

  He fired the pistol once, twice, a third time, point blank into the chest of the animal as it lunged for Natalia’s throat.

  His ears rang with the gunfire, but the animal still moved, a low roaring gunshot, partially muf­fled, the animal slumping as Natalia pushed close to Rourke—her face normally had a paleness to it, an almost unnatural whiteness—what men an­other time would have called alabaster. But her cheeks were flushed bright red now—and her eyes were larger-seeming than he thought human eyes could be.

  “That—”she gasped.

  “Did he break the skin—at all—” Rourke shouted, not looking at her, swerving to avoid an overturned green dumpster spilling out from the sidewalk backing the underground entrances to buildings and restaurants.

  “No—thank God—there—I said it again,” she laughed.

  Rourke glanced at her, then back at the tunnel. It was coming into a sharp right—Rourke cut the wheel hard, shouting to her, “Push the dog out af­ter I finish the turn.”

  He felt Natalia clinging to him as he cut the wheel all the way right, the Ford’s rear end fishtailing, Rourke’s hands moving over the wheel as he recovered fast, straightening out, the squealing of tires behind him, headlights dancing maddeningly along the tunnel walls in his rearview mirror.

  He felt Natalia moving now— “Heavy,” he heard her gasp, and he heard the car door open­ing, then after a moment slamming shut.

  He looked across at her—one of the L-Frame Smiths was in her right hand still. It was her shot that had finished the dog, he realized.

  The Detonics still in his right hand as he held the wheel, cocked and locked, Rourke hammered down on the accelerator. It was narrowing ahead, and pylons dotted the roadway, pylons that, under normal conditions at normal speeds would have made driving difficult.

  Gunfire echoed from behind them—the police cars closing, and more of the motorcycles coming up in the rearview as well. The bullet hole spiderwebbed windshield, smeared with the blood and brain matter of the wild dog that had climbed onto the hood, the windshield wiper scraping screechingly across it—Rourke peered ahead.

  Somehow he’d lost one of his headlights and the velvet darkness beyond the single yellowed beam was blacker still.

  Chapter Forty-five

  It was as though he was trying to thread a surgi­cal needle, Rourke thought, sides wiping a pylon as he zigzagged his way through the underground. The police vehicles were closing. One of the mo­torcycles in the opposite lane now, coming up faster than he could risk driving the LTD through the obstacle course. Besides the normal obstacles of the pylons, abandoned cars littered the roadside on the building side to his right and the opening to the Chicago River on his left. Trash dumpsters, garbage cans, the bones and half-devoured bodies of dead animals—and men—were sprinkled about the road surface like discarded toys.

  “Watch out for the seat there—if that dog left any fleas behind they could be carrying God knows what on them. This is contagion city—”

  “We have sprayed—”

  “Even the neutron bombing wouldn’t have done any good—these dogs couldn’t have survived that—like you said, they came from outside the city bringing fleas and ticks with them—stay as clear as you can of that part of the seat—and don’t touch your hands to your face or hair—I’ve got stuff in my pack that you can use to clean up.”

  “That motorcycle—it’s coming up fast—the man in the sidecar—I think that’s an RPK light machine gun he’s got.”

  “Wonderful,” Rourke rasped, glancing into his side-view mirror—the M-72 motorcycle/sidecar combination was a car’s length behind him now—the man in the sidecar manipulating a weapon, getting ready to fire.

  Rourke still grasped the Detonics .45 in his right fist. He rammed it out the open driver’s side win­dow and fired it out, three rounds, the pistol rock­ing hard in his hand, his wrist bent to aim the gun.

  The motorcycle swerved, but wasn’t stopped.

  Rourke gained a single car length.

  His right thumb worked the slide stop down, the slide running forward as he rammed the pistol into his belt, empty.


  Ahead of him, the tunnel seemed to be open­ing—it would be the underground section of the Michigan Avenue bridge, he realized. He started cranking the wheel left, machine gun fire hammer­ing into the driver’s side door, the rear end of the LTD fishtailing right, Natalia shouting, “Don’t move your head—” The muzzle of an M-16 was shoved in front of him, between his face and the cracked and smeared windshield, fire from the muzzle, Rourke craning his head back, glancing left—Natalia had knocked out the LMG on the motorcycle/sidecar combination, the motorcycle itself spinning out, crashing against a pylon.

  He started recovering the wheel, accelerating as he straightened out into the underground level of the bridge.

  There was a humming sound, rubber tires over metal gratings, bouncing and thudding sensation as the Ford shot ahead.

  In the rearview, he could see three police cars and two more motorcycles. He kept accelerating. Natalia screamed, “The bridge—there’s a nine-foot section out at the far side—John!”

  “Shit!”

  Rourke hammered the accelerator to the floor—his eyes searching through the darkness to find the hole in the bridge—and ahead, a darker patch than the darkness of the roadway, to his right a high curb. Rourke cut the wheel hard right, then left, the LTD skidding, the rear end swaying, the steering all but gone as he accelerated, the rear end impacting the curb as he turned away, two of the police cars coming at him, skidding as they tried to brake—one swerved left—crashing into the bridge supports, the second rocketed past him, Rourke nearly crashing the LTD into it broadside, the headlights there one instant then gone the next. As he fought the wheel, a fountain of river water sprayed up, spraying the LTD for an instant, but then the wheel was all the way left, Rourke heading away from the hole in the bridge, the third squad car and the two motorcycle units coming dead on, the biker units flanking the police car, consuming the entire width of the bridge.