Survivalist - 20 - Firestorm (16 page)

Originally, John Rourke had planned to carry this knife himself.

But, as fathers will, Michael’s father had told him, he had instead put it away for his son to some day use. Unwittingly, when old Jon the Swordmaker gave him - Michael - the Life Support System I, it freed John Rourke of the unspoken promise to his son. Because of the ferocity of close combat at times, John Rourke had often considered using the knife but had never done so. With Michael possessed of a blade, though slighdy smaller (three inches shorter in the blade and reduced overall dimensions), essentially equal, John Rourke decided to employ the blade himself. He said, “Some day, it can be for your son.”

Michael halved the distance between the rocky outcropping from which he’d first seen the Soviet half-track truck and the truck itself.

The snow was deeper than he’d anticipated and the going slower, drifts well above his waist, the only means of locomotion at all practical for Michael Rourke to work his way along the rocks flanking the path virtually hand over hand, raising his legs as high as he could, lurching ahead and downward.

He slipped, falling full into the snow, half-burying himself within h, “swimming” out of it and to Wrfe*^ht«*Btte»wr may

from his goggles and as much as he could from me flaphPfaWTmd his knife.

He started along die path again, a two foot square patch of the truck’s cab and a six foot or so square patch of the vehicle’s left side all that guided him.

There was a bend in the path and, despite his exhaustion from the struggle of merely trying to walk and his eagerness to reach the truck, he stopped, assessing what might possibly lie around the bend.

There were still no signs of footprints or vehicle treads anywhere visible around the area. But with the velocity of the wind and the volume of die snowfall, such traces would obliterate almost instandy.

Michael Rourke swung the M-16 forward, brushing snow from the dosed dust cover, from the trigger guard. He didn’t remove the rubberized muzzle plug since he could shoot through that if necessary and accumulating snow down the bore would pose a worse threat of obstruction.

His gloved fist on the Colt assault rifle’s pistol grip, his right thumb poised at the selector, Michael Rourke started forward.

As he reached the spot where die rugged track he followed took an almost unnaturally sharp right angle, he leaned forward, the muzzle of the M-16 going ahead of him.

Michael Rourke’s wrist almost snapped as whatever it was-a blur of grayish-white against the snow and the darkness-impacted the M-16 at the carrying handle, die pistol grip slipping from his momentarily numbed fingers, hands - they were gloved in discolored brownish pink leather-tearing at the rifle. But the rifle was still slung to him crossbody and Michael was dragged forward.

As he fell, his right hand reached for the revolver, but bis fingers still couldn’t close. His left hand went out ahead of him, fingers splayed, palm flat as he plowed into and through die snow, something ripping at the sling, twisting it, the sling biting deep into the left side of his neck.

Michael tried pulling away, got to his left knee, reached for the sting with both hands. As he looked up, he saw the face which belonged to the gloved hands. And he saw the hands more closely.

The hands were half-gloved, half-wrapped in human skin and the face was nearly obscured in a frozen mat of beard and eyebrows and long hair which almost hooded the head, eyes glowing out at him

from the center. As Michael twisted at the sling, something impacted his right arm and he fell left, realizing as he fell that not his arm had been struck, but the rifle stock. A club-it was a human femur-swung through the air and downward toward him.

Michael let himself fall, the pain at the left side of his neck where the sling pressured against him excruciating. He told himself he’d lived through worse as his left hand found the butt of the knife made for him by old Jon the Swordmaker. He ripped it from die learner and arced it left to right, slicing through the tensioned web fabric sling, his bodyfalling all the way back now that he was free of it, the femur passing inches from his eyes and nose.

He slipped back through the snow, down along the rocky defile which had been his path to the Soviet half-track truck, spreading his arms and legs to slow himself, feeling returning to his right wrist and hand, with it pain.

The second neanderthal-like man-he was a Wild Tribesman, obviously one of those who had turned to cannibalism for survival-threw himself forward, diving, impacting the snow inches from Michael as Michael skidded into a wall of granite, his left shoulder impacting it hard. He nearly lost the knife.

The Wild Tribesman was to his feet, the first one running through the snow as if it weren’t there, he moved so quickly. Michael’s right hand worked well enough and he reached to the flap holster at his side, tearing open the closure, his fingers clutching for the rubber grips. As the first Wild Tribesman-now brandishing the M-16, but inverted, holding it by the muzzle to use as a club - came within striking range, Michael had the four-inch barreled .44 Magnum clear of the leather, firing it from chest height, double actioning it once, then once more, then again, all three 180-grain jacketed hollow points connecting; he could see the bits of ragged military uniforms and pelts of human flesh covering the Wild Tribesman spraying away under the impacts.

Man followed gun, the M-16”s butt plowing into the snow, the Wild Tribesman’s face and torso just after it.

As Michael Rourke wheeled to take the second man, something hit him from the left, the full force of another human body, a third Wild Tribesman crashing down on him from the rocks against which Michael had impacted seconds earlier.

Michael’s revolver discharged, the second Wild Tribesman’s human bone club flying upward into the snow, lost in the darkness as me bullet hit the Wild Tribesman’s right shoulder. Michael Rourke fell back, sprawling into the snow, but still clutching his knife.

The Wild Tribesman who had tackled him tackled him again, Michael rolling across the snow with him, the man’s weight crushingly heavy as they stopped, Michael beside the edge of die pathway downward toward the truck, the Wild Tribesman’s snarling face over his, the Wild Tribesman’s right knee on Michael’s left forearm, pinning the knife down as well. Michael smashed upward with his right elbow, contacting bone, the Wild Tribesman rolling off him, but Michael’s right arm numb.

To his feet, regrasping the knife old Jon had made for him.

The Wild Tribesman, from beneath a ragged Soviet arctic parka, likely the “skin” of a former prey, drew two Soviet Elite Corps bayonets, charging toward Michael now, both bayonets held clumsily like daggers.

Michael Rourke ducked left and down, slicing the knife in his hand through a snowdrift, scooping snow onto the blade flat, hurtling the snow into the face of his attacker. The Wild Tribesman’s head snapped back and his eyes blinked. Michael lunged into a half-right turn, his knife held like a rapier, stabbing toward the carotid artery of the Wild Tribesman. The Wild Tribesman’s right shoulder flexed and Michael’s knife deflected across the shoulder muscles and over the Hppermost right side of the back. The Wild Tribesman spun toward him, driving both bayonets downward. Michael dropped, rolled left, his legs scissoring outward and around the right leg of the Wild Tribesman. There was a snapping sound in the cold air, the Wild Tribesman’s right leg caving in as a hideous scream issued from his hps.

Michael rolled away, the Wild Tribesman throwing his body mass toward Michael, both bayonets driving downward.

Michael Rourke came up to his right knee, lunging forward with the full extent of his left arm, driving the copy of the five centuries old Life Support knife edge upward into the Wild Tribesman’s groin, then letting his own body weight drag the blade upward until it locked against bone.

Michael rolled left as the Wild Tribesman collapsed, blood geyser-ing from the arteries Michael’s weapon had severed. Michael breathed. There was a sound half like a snarl, half like a

scream. To his left. The Wild Tribesman he’d wounded, die one who’d been coming at him with the human bone club, charging toward him now, barehanded, right arm limp at his side.

They were evenly matched, the Wild Tribesman and Michael Rourke’s right arms both useless to them. To his feet. The Wild Tribesman came like some charging locomotive. Michael edged back. There was no time for a weapon. As the Wild Tribesman threw himself toward Michael, Michael wheeled right in the trampled flat snow, his left leg rising, his numb right arm going out for balance, his left foot impacting the Wild Tribesman against the already injured right arm. The Wild Tribesman screamed.

As die Wild Tribesman stumbled, nearly past Michael, Michael finished the turn he’d started, the Wild Tribesman reeling, Michael Rourke jumping upward, drop kicking die Wild Tribesman in the injured right shoulder and right side of the chest, Michael’s body vibrating with die impact. Michael fell. The Wild Tribesman swayed like an axed-through tree, then fell away, over die side of the path, in die next instant the sound of safety glass shattering.

The Wild Tribesman had impacted the cab of the Soviet half-track truck below.

Michael Rourke lay there for an instant, catching his breath, sweat bathing his body beneath the arctic gear, suddenly freezing cold. His right arm was still numb.

Despite the cold, Michael opened his parka enough to access the Beretta 92F under his right armpit with his left hand, snapping it free, thumbing up the ambidextrous safety.

To bis feet. He stumbled, caught himself.

Things to do. Close the parka. Check the other two, making certain, although there was little doubt about the one with the knife in his crotch.

His father and Paul would be coming, might have heard the sounds of die fight over the open radio transmitter in his right outside pocket-unless it was smashed. But they would have heard the sound of the gunfire at any event.

And so would any Russian patrols in the area.

Michael moved toward the edge of the path and looked downward. He could see the legs of the Wild Tribe cannibal, twisted, protruding upward through the cab of the half-track truck.

He spotted his revolver in the snow and started toward it.

Michael Rourke reached the revolver. Shivering now, he placed the Beretta under his limp right arm, caught up the revolver, shook some of the snow free from it, then thrust it into his belt. Again, he regrasped the Beretta.

The next task was the M-16.

But that was higher up along the trail.

He started to look for it, knowing that if he didn’t keep moving until the sweat dried gradually from body heat, he stood a chance of freezing to death. Michael Rourke kept moving.

wound in the man’s left shoulder.

The man from the charred helicopter was little more than a boy, a lieutenant in Wolfgang Mann’s command by the uniform insignia he wore. But the head wound was so severe that Annie marveled at the fact he’d been able to make the transmission at all. She said as much to Natalia, kneeling there beside her in the meager shelter of the gunship as they fought to stabilize his condition to the point where it might be possible to get him back to die facilities at the Retreat, and there, just perhaps, save his life.

“He didn’t make the transmissions. Fd be willing to bet on that,” Natalia said, keeping her voice so low that Annie could barely hear her over the keening of the wind. This is a trap. He is real, all right, and the injuries certainly are. But there’s something wrong, Annie.”

Annie Rourke Rubenstein looked around them. There were no signs of booby traps in the wrecked gunship, but that could have meant there really were some. There had been no footprints outside the machine, but with the blowing and drifting of die snow, any such markings would have been erased within seconds of being made.

“Are you sure?”

Tve seen enough head injuries in my life to know this man couldn’t have been talking on die radio. This head wound would have made him unconscious-like he is now-instantiy. Someone else sent the transmission and left this poor man here for us to find so everything would look genuine.”

To get us out here? But why not-“

“Strike now?” Natalia looked up from her work. “Whoever it is, wants all of us. That means getting inside the Retreat.”

“But we can’t not take him back. He’d die. WhafO we do, Natalia?”

“Fm working on that,” Natalia answered. Annie could see her eyes smiling where the snow goggles were pulled down. And Annie Rourke drew her M-16 closer to her before continuing to dress the shrapnel

John Rourke stood beside his son as Paul walked back from the Soviet half-track truck, the location Vassily Prokopiev had given for the capsule containing the data on the Particle Beam technology quite specific. Paul opened his gloved right hand and John Rourke opened his, the capsule dropping from one hand to the other.

“How do we read this?” Michael asked, Rourke glancing at him. Michael was rubbing his right arm near the wrist. After as thorough an examination as circumstances allowed under such severe weather conditions, John Rourke was quite confident there was no serious damage.

“Fd think ifs some sort of microfilm, possible microdots. In either case, we should be able to find a means of reading aboard the Atsack. Which is the next order of business, gendemen” Rourke said, looking at his son and at his friend. John Rourke slung his M-16 slighdy forward as he secured die capsule carefully into an inner pocket of his parka. “If anything happens on die way, tliis has to get through to New Germany and to Mid-Wake.

“Why both?” Paul asked. “For the obvious reason?”

And John Rourke smiled, nodded. If they both have it, neither one will have the edge. I don’t want to have one war lead us into another. Come on.” And he pulled up the snow goggles as he tightened the snorkel hood closer about his face.

Herr Colonel. You are the finest officer under whom I have ever served or could hope to serve.” “WeH, then?”

Hammerschmidt shrugged his shoulders-“Checkmate, Herr Colonel.”-and moved the white queen.