Survivalist - 20 - Firestorm (8 page)

Darkwood’s palms sweated. Pain. Disorientation. Yes. He had both. And mere was a chemical reaction going on in his body that was making things very bad for him..

He touched his left hand to the locking bolt on the door leading to the outside, to the snowdrifted courtyard.

He slid the bolt back.

His left hand gripped the door handle, his right fist tightening on the butt of the 2418 A2.

“Open the door,” Darkwood told himself. “Ifs only a door. ItH be a little cold. Thafs all right. Anything out there, hey, no problems. I blow it away with this.” He held the pistol close by his right side. He wished he had one of the thirty-round magazines in it instead of only a fifteen. Then he would have had thirty-one shots instead of only sixteen.

He didn’t.

He twisted the door handle. The door was stack.

Darkwood tugged at it, a cold sweat breaking out over his kidneys, under his armpits, dizziness sweeping over him. He pulled harder and the door opened, an icy wind almost knocking him down, swirling around inside his hospital room like the terrestrial whirlwinds he had studied about in geography and climatology classes when he was a boy in school.

He shivered. “The wind,” Darkwood murmured.

Snow was drifted several feet high beside where the door had been and it formed a flange there now, at the base and on the left hand side of the doorframe as well, sculpted flat and smooth, grainy, textured too.

“Anybody out there?”

Only the wind replied …

John Rourke reached the center corridor running as he spoke into

the walkie-talkie. “He can hear us, Sam, hear us, I’d lay money on it. He can hear every word we say. He’s closing in on Darkwood right now, if he hasn’t gotten him already.”

“My two Marines-that mother fucker. They’re not answering!”

“Dead.One Marine and one German Commando dead on post five and probably more between there and Darkwood’s room. He’s good. He’s so good he’s scarey. We’re gonna get him. Hear that, Rausch? We’re gonna nail your ass.”

Rourke could hear Sam Aldridge’s breathing as Aldridge opened the frequency again. Aldridge was running …

Jason Darkwood stood in the doorway’s threshold, his left hand balled into a fist to keep his robe closed at his throat, his entire body trembling with cold and the dizzy feeling in his head. He called into the swirling snow and the darkness beyond the meager cone of white light from the doorway, his form silhouetted in it. “I know you’re out there. You want to kill me, then come ahead, you shit!”

Darkwood stepped through the doorway …

John Rourke had planned ahead.

If Freidrich Rausch had access to one tape recorder, he had equal access to many. If Freidrich Rausch realized that the first tape recorder would be discovered, he might assume that no one would in turn assume he would utilize a second tape recorder in the same way as the first, to draw someone to it, but this time for a totally different purpose.

John Rourke punched through the doorway into the vacant patient room across the central courtyard and opposite from the identical quarters occupied by Jason Darkwood.

Rourke ran to the window, pushed back the curtain. Jason Darkwood stood in the snow, just outside the open doorway leading from his room, shaky looking. It could be a reaction of adrenaline with the medication Doctor Munchen had administered to aid in Darkwood’s recovery.

And at the edge of the shaft of light flooding over the snow through the open doorway, inside the room, behind Darkwood, there was the figure of a man.

John Rourke couldn’t risk a shot.

Rourke looked to his right, the sliding hospital bed table so much like those used five centuries ago the nearest heavy object to hand. He grabbed it, wresting it free of the bed with his right hand as his left hand reached out for the door handle. He could hurtle the table through the open doorway into the courtyard and distract -

Rourke almost touched the door handle.

The flashlight from his belt. He grabbed it, letting the table rest against the wall.

Rourke dropped to a crouch beside the door handle, in the beam of the flashlight seeing the wires, the same as before, an obvious invitation to cut them. But, tracing them to the nearest outlet, Rourke saw another set of wires,4he first set a blind. As he moved, his right foot slipped a lhtle and as he shone the flash over the floor he detected a puddle of water, a wire set in its center. He followed the second collection of wires back toward the door handle; if he’d cut the first and obvious set, the second set would have gotten him.

John Rourke was out of time. He shoved the flashlight into his belt as he raised to his full height and swung the M-16 forward on its sling.

He could see Darkwood starting to turn around as the shadow of the man who stalked him obscured a portion of the shaft of light in which Darkwood stood.

John Rourke fired the M-16 through the synthetic transparent panel which served as a window to the courtyard, blowing it out in huge jagged chunks, spraying the 5. 56mm bullets across the base into which the glass-substitute was set so he could scramble through without ripping his clothing and the flesh beneath it to shreds. Darkwood was already wheeling toward the sound of gunfire, but not toward the shadow.

The M-16 empty, John Rourke let it fall to his right side on its sling, his right hand grasping for the butt of the six-inch barreled .44 Magnum revolver at his right hip.

He drew, starting the trigger squeeze as his right arm raised to shoulder height and his left palm cupped around his right fist.

The figure stepped out of the shadow, fully backlit now, a sinister silhouette with some sort of crossbow shouldered and ready to fire.

The figure-it had to be Rausch-ducked left as Darkwood, apparendy alerted by some sound or some movement, turned toward him. Perhaps the sound of the crossbow’s safety catch being flicked off, Rourke thought.

Rourke’s revolver discharged, the crossbow flying from the figure’s right hand, the figure falling back.

Rourke’s shot missed the intended target, the silhouetted figure’s center of mass.

Darkwood fired his pistol, the muzzle flash-lower with the caseless ammunition than with conventional gunpowders-a quick tongue of flame that endured for only an instant. There was an answering flash from inside the room and Darkwood stumbled back, fell into the snow as John Rourke vaulted through the shot out window and into the courtyard.

Darkwood was up on his elbow, firing the pistol again as Rourke reached him. “It was Rausch! Had to be!”

John Rourke heard the slamming of a door from inside.

“Get inside if you can. FH send help!” Rourke grabbed for his walkie-talkie. “Sam! This is Rourke. Rausch is in the corridor outside Darkwood’s room. Rausch tried and missed. He’s armed. Get help to Darkwood.”

He didn’t wait for an answer, hitting the doorway into the room, his clothes wet with snow from the brief seconds outside in the courtyard, the 629 in his right fist.

Rourke crossed the room in two long strides, grabbed up a chair from near the bed, returned to the open doorway and threw the chair through into the corridor.

A burst of automatic weapons fire tore through the seat back, almost severing the chair in two before it bit the corridor floor.

Rourke stabbed the 629 through the doorway and emptied the remaining five rounds from the cylinder in the direction from which the gunfire had originated. He dropped the 629 into the Sparks holster and drew both Detonics Scoremasters, thumbing back the hammers as he went through the doorway, firing both pistols simultaneously, crossing the corridor to the doorway opposite but slightly nearer the origin of the gunfire, chunks of wall and doorframe spraying around him, Rourke’s eyes squinting against the cloud of debris.

There was something in his right eye. He blinked both eyes as he looked down at his pistols, both pistols still holding four rounds each. Backing deeper into the doorway, blinking his eyes to clear

the right one, Rourke stabbed both pistols toward Rausch’s position, firing them out, another hail of automatic weapons fire tearing into the doorframe.

Rourke thrust both pistols into his belt, the slides still locked open over the empty magazines. His right hand found the butt of the Colt Lawman at the small of his back, drawing it from the Rybka M.O.B. holster, punching the snubby .357 Magnum blindly down the corridor, firing as his left hand rolled back his right eyelid. Involuntary paroxysms traveled up his spine as he touched his left index finger to his eyeball. Rourke shrank from his own hand, the revolver empty. He blinked his eye, tears rolling from it.

The offending bit of building material was gone.

Rourke grabbed for his flashlight, flicking it on, staring into the light with his right eye, making the tears come more freely now. More gunfire. Rourke stuffed the Lawman into the right hip pocket of the black BDU pants he wore, shaking his head, both hands reaching for the litde Detonics Combat Masters under his armpits, ripping the miniaturized stainless steel .45s from the double Alessi rig-His thumbs jacked back the hammers and he punched both pistols around the doorframe simultaneously, firing a double tap from each.

More automatic weapons fire, the sound light enough to be a 9mm submachine gun.

Rourke shifted the pistol in his right hand to his left, both of the litde .45s held uselessly there for a moment as he pulled the magazine from the M-16, stuffed the empty into a front pocket, then snatched a fresh thirty-round spare from his musette bag.

He rammed it home, pressuring his hip against the wall to lock the rifle in place as his right hand worked the bolt, jacking a round into the chamber.

Rourke shifted one of the little Combat Masters back to his right hand, firing both pistols out, keeping them in the open a split second too long so that Rausch would realize they were empty.

A long burst of automatic weapons fire into the doorframe and wall.

Again, John Rourke had planned ahead. Rausch would have assumed no rational man, facing an opponent armed with an automatic weapon, would respond with pistol fire if he had another option.

As Rourke shifted the Detonics Combat Master from his right hand to his left, his right fist found, then closed over the M-16’s pistol grip, thrusting the Colt assault rifle outward, tensioning it against the sling. Rourke stepped into the corridor, Freidrich Rausch just disappearing around a bend at its far end. Rourke fired, taking a chunk out of the corner of the corridor, Rausch staggering for a split second before he ran on.

John Rourke ran after him.

Jason Darkwood raised the leg of the hospital bed, kicking the inverted kidney shaped bedpan in place beneath it.

He dropped to his knees, shaking with fear.

If adrenaline had done it to him, reacted chemically with the medication Doctor Munchen had prescribed, then more adrenaline would undo it-he hoped.

He inserted a fresh magazine up the well of the 9mm Lancer Caseless, put the fingers of his left hand beside the bedpan, closed his eyes and rammed the edge of his hand against the bedpan, knocking it away, letting the leg of the bed crash down on his fingers.

Jason Darkwood almost screamed with the pain, sprawling back, bis hand still trapped beneath the leg of the bed.

He shook his head.

The adrenaline rush came.

He could feel the nausea replaced with pain.

To his knees. He threw his body weight against the bed frame as he lifted up with his right hand, freeing his left hand.

His fingers didn’t move.

He didn’t care.

Darkwood reached out for his pistol, his knife already sheathed, his pistol belt around his waist. To his feet.

He stumbled, nearly collapsing over his bed, the pain so intense that the nausea was returning to him. But the fear, the fear which had slowed his reflexes, dulled his senses, nearly paralyzed him-the fear was gone.

Jason Darkwood started for the door, his throbbing left hand useless at his side, his right fist tight on the butt of the 2418 Al.

John Rourke reached the bend in the corridor, the M-16 extended ahead of him like a magic wand against death. “It’s me! Rourke! Shout or FI1 shoot!” There was no answering call from Sam Aldridge or any of the Germans or the U.S. Marines. The M-16 still tight in his right fist, he shouted again. “Aldridge?” No answer. Wrist bent, Rourke stabbed the assault rifle around the corner and fired out two three-round bursts in rapid succession.

He tucked back, letting the M-16 fall to his side on its sling, putting fresh magazines as rapidly as he could up the wells of the Detonics .45s, Combat Masters and Scoremasters.

He fired out the M-16, made a fast tactical change and dodged into the corridor for an instant, pulling back.

No sign of Rausch.

“Shit,” Rourke hissed.

He looked to the wall opposite him. It was an empty patient room, the kind reserved for an officer or senior non-com with two beds only, the type Darkwood occupied. But no one occupied it now.

John Rourke grasped the M-16 in both fists and fired, starting from the floor up, zig-zagging the muzzle as he controlled the long, magazine-emptying burst, cutting a rough shape in the wall near to his own size. He pulled back, letting the rifle fall to his side, the metal of the barrel by now hot enough to burn.

A Scoremaster in each hand, Rourke threw himself against the wall, left shoulder first, his body momentum crashing through the cutout portion of the wall, crumbling beneath his weight as he stormed through, falling to his knees, eyes closed against the dust and debris, his eyes opening, only partially, on his knees, a pistol still locked in each hand.

There was a door on the far side of the room.

Rourke scrambled up from his knees and ran for it. He stopped

before the door, took a half step back, pivoted on his right foot and made a double Tae-Kwon-Do kick at the handle, the door shattering open outward. There was gunfire from the right. Rourke drew back, his walkie-talkie picking up Sam Aldridge’s voice. “Doctor, where are you?”

Rourke looked into the corridor, able to make out the number on the crumbled, now bullet riddled door. “By patient room six after the bend in the corridor and up from the corridor leading off Darkwood’s room. Over.”