Survivalist - 20 - Firestorm (22 page)

“We get through this, youll be the first damn horse to get a Congressional Medal of Honor!” Darkwood shouted. Then the magic word again-“Gyaagh!”

The energy weapon. It fired, Fritz rearing, Darkwood nearly losing his balance. Fewer than twenty-five yards now. Darkwood whipped the empty Lancer 9mm across his horse’s sweat-glistening rump. “Gyaagh!” Fritz leaped, running, Darkwood low in the saddle as gunfire thundered around him. Darkwood was hit. He didn’t know where. He was still alive. “Gyaagh!” A spray of froth from his horse’s wide open mouth washed over him.

Darkwood saw the faces of the energy weapon gun crew. There was terror in their eyes. One of the Elite Corpsmen drew a pistol. Darkwood drew his knife, the duplicate of the Randall Smithsonian Bowie that his ancestor had carried in the pioneering days of Mid-Wake after the Night of the War-when all was all but lost.

Darkwood threw himself from the saddle as Fritz reared, Darkwood’s mouth opening to scream, “Die, you son of a bitch!” as he threw himself over the Elite Corpsman with die pistol. Darkwood’s right arm arced downward as their bodies met, crashing into the snow drifted granite batdement, the primary edge of Darkwood’s blade impacting at the juncture of the left shoulder and neck, only stopping as the blade jammed against the collar bone.

Darkwood’s left knee smashed upward, finding a target firm yet yielding, a rush of air from the Russian’s mouth as he screamed pain and died.

To his feet, Darkwood lurched toward the energy weapon, his left hand closing over it. A cable, like ordinary coax in appearance only considerably greater in diameter, ran from the rear of the gun toward some piece of unidentifiable machinery. Darkwood’s right hand still held the knife and he hacked downward with it, a shower of sparks, an electrical arc, the cable severing as Darkwood’s fist released the knife and closed over the pistol grip of die energy weapon. It was about the size of a conventional machine gun, awkward for one man to lift up, raise over his head, heavy, out of balance.

A pistol shot close beside him, a burning sensation across his ribcage, then cold as he hurtled the energy weapon downward over the edge of the abyss toward the snow splotched granite below.

As men swarmed over him, he thought he heard the sound of German J7-Vs coming over the horizon. But the horizon was lost in darkness…

Annie Rourke Rubenstein sensed the movement around her, telling herself it was merely a combination of audio and visual cues so subtie that she wasn’t aware of them on a conscious level. But whether that were the case or not-if she really sensed the movement of the men surrounding her with something beyond the five normal senses-they were coming.

She checked the wounded German flier’s pulse. It was nearly too weak to detect. “Natalia,” she whispered into her radio. “If you can hear me, they’re corning. Hurry, if you can.” If Natalia were very near, Annie realized, she might well have the radio turned off so an incoming transmission would not betray her position. The units could be worn with earpieces, but these were uncomfortable at best and, in the cold weather, even worse. And if Natalia had heard, Natalia might be unable to respond without betraying her position.

At any event, there was no answer.

Annie unwrapped herself and the soldier sufficiently from the blankets that she could wriggle out, covering him quickly, only his mouth and a portion of his nose exposed. And she was instantiy colder. Her rifle beside her, she clambered over two seat backs and crawled on hands and knees toward the farthest edge of the helicopter wreckage within which she had sheltered herself and the German. The snow pants she wore felt uncomfortable and she shifted the waist of the pants a little. How men could wear trousers all their lives was beyond her understanding. She kept moving,

along the edge of the wreckage, toward a spot just aft of the gutted cockpit which she had determined earlier would be the best defensive position in the event of attack. From this vantage point, she could monitor activity visually for slightly better than 270 degrees of the compass. The remaining ninety degrees-in bits and pieces were irreconcilable blind spots.

She removed her heavy outer glove, pressing it under her armpit to keep it closed and seal the body heat within, then ventured the partially stripped hand to her waist, opening die M-12 holster there and extracting the Detonics Scoremaster .45. The Beretta 92F she carried in the other holster had a higher firepower potential to be sure, but if she needed a pistol at all, it would be at very close range and the .45 ACP round-because of her father’s influence over the years, she realized-was deadlier to her way of dunking.

Annie edged the slide slightly rearward to visually confirm a chambered round. The press check completed, she reholstered, this time cocked and locked. The pilot made a soft groaning sound, which, a few feet farther away, would have been indistinguishable from the wind which keened around mem. There was a sudden movement from far to her right and she had the M-16 to her shoulder in die same instant, aware that her glove had fallen to the snow drift which covered a portion of the cockpit doorframe.

“Fraulein Rourke!”

The man had a white flag tied to the muzzle of an M-16. She smiled, wondering who it might have been who’d given it to him-maybe Commander Dodd of Eden Base. “Ifs Frau Rubenstein,” she called back across the snow, dodging slighdy right before she responded, tucking back left, in case there were some sort of directional microphone trained on her for the purposes of nailing her precise position to a sniper.

“I prefer your other name, Fraulein. I should not like to have to think of you as a Jew.”

She dodged right again. “Rather my husband’s a Jew than a damned Nazi like you!”

There was no response for an instant, only the howl of the wind; but the man with die white flag didn’t move to cover. She retrieved her glove, pocketed it. At last, he spoke. “Very well, Frau Rubenstein. My name is Hugo Goerdler. I have been empowered by my superiors to offer you safety if you will surrender to me at once. Otherwise, you will be shot.”

She didn’t bother answering, tired already of shifting positions back and forth so a directional sound unit couldn’t get a precise enough fix on her position. It was rumored that die Russians might, in fact, be working on a sound based sniper system, utilizing ultra-sensitive computer linked microphones that could pinpoint and then identify a target. The rifle was sighted through the computer and merely fired. Utilizing specially designed armor-piercing rounds, it would be possible to take out a target inside a wide array of structures by shooting through the walls. Because of the possible Soviet breakthrough, the Germans were working on such a device as well. She was happy that the inevitable gunfight wasn’t a year from now.

“Frau Rubenstein! This is the last time I will ask you.”

She couldn’t pass it up. “Thank God for small favors.”

The man who had identified himself as Hugo Goerdler walked back into cover. Annie tucked down as well as she could. The German aviator was protected by an aggregation of assorted pieces of heavy debris from the gunship, walled in with steel and charred seat cushions, as safe as she could make him when the shooting started.

The shooting started.

Michael Rourke’s eyes burned and his temples throbbed, but he could barely risk blinking his eyes, had to keep them focused on the electronics displays before him. The last of the Soviet AV-16 missile platforms with its entourage of monstrously large T-91 tanks and armored personnel carriers was rolling past him, according to the display and the feelings in his guts, one of the T-91s less than a yard from him. He could feel the ground vibrate beneath the Atsack. Was the snow which was drifted and blown all around the Atsack being vibrated off?

If it were, and someone aboard the passing vehicles noticed, he was dead. All that saved the Atsack from electronic recognition was the metallic mass of the armored armada surrounding him—too many signals to interpret, even assuming the Soviet electronics were backed by computers as sophisticated as the system aboard the Atsack. But visual recognition was another matter and, at the distance, potentially more dangerous because the Atsack, without the mounds of snow which Michael Rourke silently prayed still obscured it, would be impossible not to see.

The T-91 nearest him had rumbled past without slowing, without altering course-at least according to the headsup display he still so unblinkingly watched.

As his own danger began to pass, his mind began to fill with thoughts of his father, John Rourke, and his brother-in-law and friend, Paul Rubenstein-aboard one of the gigantic AV-16 tactical missile launchers, if they weren’t already dead …

Clanking noises and groans, of metal striking or pulling against metal surrounded them, the overall ambience of the tunnel-like rust brown colored tube through which they moved, its air clouded with noxious smelling gray-blue wisps of synth-fuel residue, like hell’s

boiler factory.

John Rourke’s eyes narrowed as he neared the AV-16’s control cabin, a Detonics Scoremaster .45 bunched tight in each fist, the guns along his thighs, hammers cocked, the respective thumbs of his right and left hands poised over the ambidextrous safeties, ready to drop them. Paul Rubenstein, a Browning High Power in each fist, nodded toward the blue-smoky blackness behind them. John Rourke glanced that way and nodded back. There were new sounds, sounds of booted feet moving along the tunnel.

They were trapped.

Rourke hissed an obscenity under his breath and he stuffed both pistols into his trouser band beneath the open parka, his hands moving along the ceiling of the tunnel, over the access panel there. What it provided access to he didn’t know, only hoped. The panel was secured with Phillips head screws. He reached to the musette bag near his left hip, finding die tool he required, unfolding the Phillips blade, putting it to the first screw head as Paul moved deeper back into the swirling synth-fuel smoke trailers, ready to meet the men coming along the tunnel.

The first screw was out and Rourke pocketed it, his other hand already working on die second screw. Loose. Out. Pocketed. The third screw. He removed it. The fourth screw, his left hand supporting the panel cover as his right hand turned out the screw. The head was slighdy burred. He closed his eyes, inhaled, exhaled slightly, applied more upward pressure to the screw head, at last turning it out.

The sounds of the men coming along the tunnel were louder now, closer.

Rourke removed the panel.

A maze of plasticized tubes and three gauges. The AV-16s ran synth-fuel to power a closed system steam system which turned the massive turbines needed to propel it and provide for the massive demands of electrical energy needed. If the AV-16 were mounted with one of the energy weapons, the system would have to be indeed quite powerful.

A lot of steam.

John Rourke signalled into the corridor, hoping that Paul was observing him. The three gauges. Rourke studied them intentiy. One was an emergency bypass. He turned the faucet handle-like

knob beside the gauge and pressure immediately began to drop. He turned back to normal pressure. The next gauge and the handle below it monitored and controlled recirculating steam. The third processed incoming steam, directing it along an emergency routing system, as best Rourke could discern, and through the main system.

He heard Paul’s voice whispering into his ear. “Six men. We start shooting, well alert the crew in the compartment there.” Rourke looked at his friend as the younger man nodded toward the control room.

“I think I’ve got that under control. Be ready to get through that doorway into die control compartment as fast as you can.”

John Rourke adjusted the emergency bypass control, his eyes moving to the main system route for the steam. If he split the pipe in just the right way-And it was only the modern equivalent of PVC.

*Be ready.”

Already, Rourke heard voices from the six men.

“Have your flashlight ready, Paul. Better zip up and pull your hood as close around your face as possible. Don’t leave any more exposed skin than necessary. Hands, too.”

Rourke took his own advice, pulling on his gloves as well. The screwdriver tool went into the musette bag by bis left hip. Then his right hand filled with the Life Support System X knife. He turned his face toward the tunnel space behind them. “Goggles,” Rourke rasped, pulling up his own. Even with the precautions, if he miscalculated, he and Paul would be boiled by the live steam.

“Ready,” Paul Rubenstein whispered.

Six men. The two in front began to sound the alarm as they raised their rifles. In Russian, Rourke shouted, “Run for your lives,” And he stabbed the LS-X into the steam pipe, letting go of the knife instantiy, just leaving it in the PVC-like material as a wedge to direct the spray of live steam.

Tve got the door!”

The lights blinked out in the next instant, a buzzer sounding, a panic light illuminating the tunnel red, with the steam filling the tunnel-Rourke held his breath-the place was more hellish than before.

His goggles were beginning to cover over with vapor, but he could just see the doorway, Paul beside it. Rourke’s hands went to his mouth and he bit off his gloves as he drew one of the Scoremasters, stepping over the flange for the doorway, his other hand holding the old Kel-Lite with its German batteries. “Don’t move!” Rourke shouted.

But the crewmen of the control cabin were already moving, stumbling in the darkness that was relieved only by two spot-like panic lights set in the low ceiling, guns in their hands. Rourke opened fire, killing the man nearest him with a shot in the forehead. Rourke’s left wrist and forearm braced bis right wrist, the flashlight in his left hand, the light and the muzzle of Ids pistol moving simultaneously.

He heard the sharp cracks of Paul’s Browning High Power, seeing die hazy beam from Paul’s flashlight at the far right edge of his peripheral vision as Rourke fired again, dropping another of the crewmen with a single shot to the thorax. A double tap into the chest and heart of a third man.