Survivalist - 15 - Overlord (21 page)

They would have to pass within ten feet of the bulldozer.

He had started the machine, let it run, elevated the shovel, moved the machine slightly closer to where they would walk. Prayed they would not notice the changed position of the machine.

Less than a dozen yards to go now, one hand on the starter, the other on the control which would drop the shovel.

And he realized his hands trembled. If he miscalculated or the shovel did not drop instantly, he might crush Elaine.

Less than a half dozen yards, his grip tightening on the release lever for the shovel. He inhaled, waiting, released part of the air, the lead man just beneath the shovel, almost past it.

Akiro Kurinami hit the starter and it turned over and his other hand worked the shovel release as he flung himself off the right side of the open-cabbed machine, the scream that

had started from the leader dying as the steel of the shovel slapped against the concrete floor. Kurinami dove over the shovel and toward the forward-most of the two men who carried Elaine slung between them, his muscles not responding as they should, he knew, the jump short, his hands barely reaching to the shoulders of the man who was his target, his feet slipping in something like glue which he realized inside himself was bodily fluids from the man he had crushed beneath the massive shovel.

His right fist curled into the fabric of the man’s snow smock and suddenly both of them were slipping into the ooze which seeped from beneath the shovel, Kurinami realizing only split seconds were left before the last man opened fire.

Kurinami’s left hand moved for the throat, his fist closing over it as he wrenched his body sideways, throwing his entire weight behind his hand as they slammed into the puddle of oozed human remains. There was a scream from the man’s throat, Kurinami’s right hand grabbing for the head, the man’s hands pummeling him, Kurinami twisting his body away from the man, still grasping throat and head. There was an earsplittingly loud snap and the body went limp under his hands. He was on his knees.

Elaine had been thrown down like a discarded rag doll, the last man struggling his rifle forward on its sling. Kurinami summoned all the strength inside him, as he had been taught to do when he had been taught the martial arts by his grandfather. He hurtled himself to his feet and then forward, his head impacting the last man at the abdomen, his hands going for the knees, behind the knees, ripping, the man’s body toppling rearward, Kurinami rolling over him.

As the third man came to his knees, his assault rifle coming up, Kurinami, on his right side, snapped his left foot up and out, into the throat, then into the face. The body toppled back, Kurinami throwing himself over the man, hauling his right fist up, snapping it downward into the exposed throat as the rifle discharged beside him,

Kurinami’s ears ringing with it.

He fell over the third man, collapsed, unable to move, barely able to breathe.

He closed his eyes.

He forced himself to roll free of the man, disentangling the man’s neck and right ‘arm from the sling. He held the M-16 in his right first, on his knees, crawling now, to reach Elaine.

He pulled her hood back. He ripped the toque from her face, his ear going to her lips. She was breathing, shallowly but evenly. He curled back her left eyelid, the eyes glassy looking, the pupils dilated.

“Drugged,” he gasped.

He fell back on his haunches.

Beside him was the second dead man. He pushed back the hood of the snowsmock and the parka, tore the white toque from over the face.

The face belonged to a man he had never seen before. Not Eden Project. Not one of the Germans.

Who, he almost whispered …

The wind had erased the hoofprints in all but those areas which were sheltered from its force by natural windbreaks — rock overhangs, narrow gaps. The helmet radios proved invaluable as they would split up, making ever widening interlocking circles, searching in the likely areas for the next scattered sets of hoofprints, then at last finding what they sought, then moving ahead, only to repeat the laborious process time and time again.

The last set of prints — Natalia had found them —seemed deep and fresh. The darkness and the swirling snow had made finding them consume nearly two hours.

Rourke, Natalia and Paul Rubenstein flanking him, sat aboard his Special and spoke into the headset microphone. “They must be stopping for the night soon. If they build fires

typically like the remains of the one we saw near the helicopter, well spot them. Unless we stumble right on them, let’s stick to the plan.”

Both Paul and Natalia uttered their agreement.

Rourke started them ahead, into the night …

He had been told there was a snowstorm outside. But inside the petal of the First City, all was serene and the artificial light was unchanged.

He had felt Maria Leuden’s eyes on him all night.

After the drink with the chairman and his ambassadorial charge, he had taken Maria into the corridor where her apartment could be found and then left quickly, going to see to Hammerschmidt’s condition.

Michael Rourke had found his way to the monorail and to the right stop for the hospital without incident, searched out the equivalent of the charge nurse — he had encountered the term in a book or videotape — and asked concerning the welfare of the German commando captain. He had been told that Hammerschmidt was progressing extraordinarily well and, though no miraculous overnight healing could be expected, Hammerschmidt rested comfortably and the burns seemed less severe than originally thought.

Contented, Michael had returned to his apartment, showered, attempted to leaf through a book. Rolvaag, despite being nearly as long without sleep as Michael, had been sitting in the spacious waiting room at the end of the hall reading as Michael had entered and called out to him. The dog had stirred, Rolvaag had waved, then returned to his book, one of the Icelandic volumes Michael had arranged that Rolvaag could borrow from the chairman’s private library. If the chairman spoke Icelandic, he had not evinced it at the dinner party.

The book was a nineteenth century English novel, and though Michael had read other works by the same author, it

did not capture his interest.

Sleep was what he needed, but it wasn’t in him.

He thought of Maria Leuden. She would probably be asleep by now.

In less than twelve hours, they would be leaving to link up with the helicopter and find out why it had gone out of radio contact.

He began to pace the bedroom.

He looked at the two Beretta 92Fs in the double shoulder rig hanging on the headboard post. He could always clean them again, but the interval since the last cleaning had been so short that powder residue could not have sweated out of the bore and the cleaning would be essentially useless. The 629 hadn’t been cleaned since he had used it against the Mongols.

He started for the elaborately painted cabinet in which he had stowed his pack and his other gear. He opened the double doors. He closed his eyes.

He closed the doors and leaned heavily against the cabinet.

He was naked except for a pair of underpants and he walked back toward the bed, skinned into his blue jeans and the shirt he had just worn and ripped both Berettas from their leather, stuffing them beneath his shirt butts, outward against his kidneys.

Michael Rourke started from the bedroom, across the sitting room, snatching up the key from beside the door, opening the door, slamming it overly hard behind him. He didn’t worry over the lock. If it locked, he had the key. But the door and the lock were so flimsy no one with any determination would have been kept out.

Down the corridor.

Michael Rourke stopped at the door, so much like his own.

He knocked at the door.

He waited.

He started to turn away. The door opened.

Maria Leuden wore a blue silk-looking robe, tied about her waist, her glasses on, her eyes huge seeming behind them, her left hand pushing her hair back from her face.

“Michael-1-“

He stepped inside the doorway, his hands touching at her waist, then his arms encircling her. “I love you,” she whispered.

Michael Rourke brought his mouth down on hers, molding her body against his …

When they reached the top of the rise, it was at first hard to tell how far away the fire really was because of its size. But after some observation, Rourke decided the captors of the pilot were a little over a mile distant.

He pulled the helmet from his head, taking the radio from beneath his parka. “Rourke to Courier. Come in. Over.”

There was static, then the voice of the pilot. “This is Courier, Herr Doctor. Come in. Over.”

“I’m leaving this frequency open. Are you ready to fly, over?”

“Ready, Herr Doctor. My copilot stands by. Over.”

“I estimate your ETA—” Rourke rolled back the storm sleeve and looked at the luminous black of the Rolex Submariner on his wrist. “ETA in sixteen minutes from liftoff. Rourke out.”

He pocketed the radio, leaving the frequency open to serve as a homing beacon.

He replaced his helmet, his ears numb with the cold from the brief exposure, the shield before his face steaming, then the steam starting to dissipate as he spoke to Natalia and to Paul. “With them out in the open like that, we won’t be able to accurately judge their strength until we’re right up on

them. There shouldn’t be more than eight or nine at any event. We need the pilot alive. That’s why we’re here. And we need one of whoever they are alive to find out who they are. Like we planned it, up the middle, Natalia gets the pilot. Right?”

“Like we planned it,” Paul answered.

“Yes,” Natalia murmured.

“Nice and slow until we’re close. Once the superchargers on these bikes kick in, they’ll hear it. Now we sit here for twelve minutes.” He slung his M-16 forward, removing the magazine, working the action several times to be certain the cold hadn’t adversely affected it.

He replaced the magazine, wishing he could have lit a cigar, but the cold was a more powerful motivator than habit.

John Rourke had judged the time needed to cross slowly to within two hundred yards of the camp and then accelerate into the camp as about three minutes. If these people had not stolen the helicopter or damaged it, there was substantial reason to believe they were not familiar with aircraft to any substantial degree, if at all. The fact that they rode horses, the inefficient but deadly means with which they had dispatched the gunner, all pointed to a certain primitiveness.

He wondered.

Rourke checked the face of his Rolex. It was nearly time.

He spoke into the helmet microphone. “Let’s start out nice and slowly,” and he throttled up and let the machine rumble forward, Natalia moving into the center position, Rourke to her left, Paul to her right, Rourke checking the gauges on the Special’s instrument panel. He ruled out using the explosive charges which could be expelled from the bike, and with the rising force of the wind and the snow it drove, smoke would have been of little effect.

These were hardy men he would soon face, living here, camping out of doors in weather so horrible severe. But he realized he could never be so naive as to regret killing them any more than he regretted killing anyone. He had known a man once who had told him something invaluable about

killing. “Once you get to liking it, there’s only one more kill you should rack up — yourself.” He had known men to whom the advice should have been meaningful.

They had crossed half the expanse separating them from the campfire, Rourke increasing speed slightly, Natalia and Paul following his lead.

He armed the twin machineguns in the fairing.

He consulted his wristwatch — the helicopter would be due, barring the unforeseen, in one minute, the J-7V timing itself to sweep in from the opposite end of the plateau sixty seconds after the helicopter. He swung the M-16 slightly forward, charging the chamber, leaving the safety set to safe.

“Now,” he whispered, revving the machine, giving it what he still mentally called “gas,” the speedometer bouncing upward, the supercharger kicking in with a loud whine.

Men were rising from around the fire, great mounds of snow falling from the lean-to shelters in which they had protected themselves, Rourke seeing the outline of rifles coming up.

He fired a burst with both faring machineguns, intentionally firing wide to the left of the camp to avoid inadvertently killing the captured German pilot, Paul’s machineguns doing the same. Natalia accelerating past them dead for the center of the camp, Rourke giving the machine full acceleration, the Special skipping over the hummocks of snow and the rocks beneath them, Rourke twisting the fork, cutting into the camp to the left of the fire, not using the machineguns, stabbing the M-16 forward, working off the safety tumbler and firing into the moving shapes of men.

A bullet whined as it ricocheted off the faring, Rourke firing another burst. A man shape bundled in blankets —and furs? — brought a rifle that looked modern yet looked oddly familiar to his hip, tongues of flame flickering from it as Rourke fired again.

The man went down. As Rourke wheeled the Special, he saw Natalia in the center of the camp, a man swinging a

burning club toward her, snatched from the fire. She dodged, the Special she had been dismounting collapsing against her. Rourke throttled out, riding from the camp, Rourke arcing it in a tight loop, wrestling the fork as he accelerated the machine out of the curve of the loop, aiming himself and the machine toward the center of the camp, the motorcycle lurching beneath him, Rourke letting go, diving from it and tackling the man with the burning club as he swung it down toward Natalia.

Rourke hammered the man into the snow, the fire extinguishing with a loud hiss, the man wriggling away from him, Rourke rocking back, the M-16 too far back to get fast enough as the man drew his pistol. Rourke drew the Python from the flap holster at his hip and doubled actioned it twice, then twice again, the man’s body snapping back into the fire.