Survivalist - 19 - Final Rain Page 12

  John Rourke’s horse reared, John Rourke’s sword crashing down across the visor of the black knight’s helmet, peeling it away, the helmet splitting in half. But there was nothing beneath it.

  The black knight’s laughter rang so loudly Annie’s entire being was filled with it. Natalia’s hands covered her ears as the sword fell from her hands and she screamed.

  The black knight’s sword flashed red, locked against the mighty blade of John Rourke, the white horse John Rourke rode rearing, wheeling. The black knight’s mount turned, into an all-out run, the black knight low over its neck, his black cloak as rigid on the wind behind him as was the blade of the sword in his right hand.

  John Rourke’s animal reared, then vaulted ahead.

  Their hooves made the ground tremble.

  The black knight’s mount skidded on its haunches, wheeling, then charging back, sand and surf in clouds in its wake, the sword held in the black knight’s hand like a lance, aimed at John Rourke’s throat.

  John Rourke cast off his helmet, his sword arm extending to full reach as he lowered himself in the saddle, his heels swinging against the white’s mighty flanks as it galloped forward.

  The black knight’s sword gleamed red and the red was blood and his terrifying laughter consumed all sound and there was darkness emanating from him like some great cloud. John Rourke’s voice rang out, “You will surely die, Karamatsov!”

  Their horses passed each other, blades clashing with a ring that made the rocks tremble and shake, their horses wheeling, bounding again to the inevitable clash.

  Steel rang on steel, horses whinnied, their sounds like human screams, the reverberation of the swords as they struck against each other echoing and re-echoing until Annie’s senses tingled with it and she wanted to scream. Natalia’s horse reared, but Natalia sat it well.

  The combatants pulled apart, charging away across the sand.

  The blood-edged black sword flashed. His animal charged.

  John Rourke’s great white Shire vaulted to combat, the sword wheeling in John Rourke’s fingertips.

  The animals crashed against one another, the black knight suddenly unhorsed, rolling in the sand.

  But he was to his feet, casting off his black cloak to the wind.

  John Rourke’s animal wheeled and reared, settling, standing calmly. John Rourke dropped from the saddle with ease, with perfect grace.

  Both his fists closed over the hilt of his terrible sword. His dark hair—there was no gray in it now—blew back from his high forehead as the wind rose and the waves crashed harder against the black rocks.

  Lightning bolts still streaked across the sky.

  He approached the black knight, the black knight’s sword at the ready, John Rourke’s sword held high.

  They moved as if in some mystical dance she could not understand, could barely watch.

  And the black knight’s blood-edged sword swung forward, met by John Rourke’s gleaming steel, the ringing of steel on steel again, only louder, penetrating every fiber of Annie’s being. Natalia wept.

  Her animal nervously pawed the ground.

  The great white Shire stood, quietly awaiting its master.

  Steel to steel.

  The black knight’s sword arced low, to sever John Rourke’s legs from his trunk, John Rourke stepping back easily, blocking the thrust, arcing it upward as steel scraped steel, hacking downward, the black knight’s blade blocking it, their swords locked inches above their gleam

  ing hilts, the black knight’s right foot rising, shoving against John Rourke’s groin. John Rourke fell back, stumbled. The black knight charged to seize his advantage, but John Rourke was up, sweeping his blade in a great arc, catching the black knight’s steel, brushing it aside, hacking downward, outward, the black knight falling back.

  Steel against steel, both men powerful, drawing the steels apart as though both men felt and fought some invisible force which wished to hold them together.

  The black knight’s sword swung over his head and downward, John Rourke’s blade catching it, rolling it away, arcing round and across the black knight’s midsection. John Rourke stepped back, sword poised high beside his right shoulder, held in both fists.

  As the black knight faltered, John Rourke’s blade caught the flicker of a lightning bolt as it shot across the sky, the crash of thunder, the black knight’s sword rising, swept away in the path of John Rourke’s blade, John Rourke’s sword cleaving downward, to the headless neck, downward, through the chain mail and black leather, a terrible scream issuing from within the black knight, the cloud of black vapor which surrounded him suddenly red, the torso splitting right and left.

  There was the groan of thunder and the sky ripped asunder as a lightning bolt greater and brighter than anything she had ever seen-was she still Annie?-impaled the sea.

  And there was stillness.

  John Rourke’s blade glinted red.

  She was still Annie, because she watched them now from the perspective of distance.

  John Rourke gave a whistle to his horse.

  Gently, the mighty animal trotted toward him.

  Natalia eased down from the sidesaddle where she sat.

  Her black Shire following at her heels like an obedient dog, the wind rising off the sea, she walked across the sand, toward John Rourke, the wind toying with her hair, her cloak, her skirts.

  John Rourke stood, and as she approached, he thrust his sword into the sand before her, dropping to one knee. Natalia’s hand reached out to him, her Fingers touching at his hair.

  Annie no longer wanted to watch. John Rourke stood.

  Natalia took a single pace toward him.

  John Rourke swept her into his arms, his face above hers, his eyes looking down on her. The corners of Natalia’s mouth raised in a gentle smile, her lips slightly parting.

  Annie didn’t want to see this. Natalia’s lips seemed moist.

  John Rourke’s lips touched at them, his arms crushing her against him, their mouths touching, not parting. The thunder abated. The lightning bolts were no more. One of the horses whinnied.

  On the horizon, the sun moved. It was not setting, but rising, yellow-white and streaks of the light passed over the blue of the ocean in great bands as wide as roads and the ocean’s surface glistened beneath it… .

  Annie Rubenstein opened her eyes and stood up, in one motion. “It’s over,” she whispered, the pain so intense now at the base of her skull that there was a wash of red over her eyes and she fell forward as the darkness closed around her. …

  John Rourke’s body was bathed in sweat. He knelt beside the couch he had, a few moments earlier, occupied. Paul held Annie’s face in his hands.

  He looked past Annie’s body.

  She breathed.

  Beyond her, her breathing even, the rising and falling of her chest predictable, her eyelids closed, extinguishing the

  surreal blueness he would always love, Natalia slept.

  Phillip Rothstein said, “I don’t know what happened. But the brain wave monitor. The pattern is almost back to normal now, as if she were only sleeping.”

  John Thomas Rourke looked up from his knees, at Rothstein’s face.

  “Mrs. Rubenstein should be all right. It’s exhaustion. What happened?”

  John Rourke almost whispered. “I just did two things I should have done in life.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  In the snowdrifts in the rocks above what passed for a track west, he had found them, cowering from the cold, wrapped in the tatters of German uniforms and a Soviet blanket. It had been the baby which cried, its skin still soft, not leathery like the man and woman who had warmed it with their bodies. Because the baby was the only one of the three alive.

  He supposed perhaps it shouldn’t be called a baby. Perhaps a year old, maybe more, maybe less. And it—as he dressed the child in warm things from the pack given him by Comrade Marshal Antonovitch in the backpack— he discovered was a little girl.

  The chil
d stared up at him, her brown eyes filled with something which might have been fear.

  “Do you have a name, little one?” Vassily Prokopiev asked, realizing the child could not answer him. What did a child eat? But a child needed a name.

  He had taken the child up in his arms and she was too weak to make more than the moaning sounds he had heard first on the wind while he’d refueled the half-track truck. Her tiny legs could barely move, her arms barely raise. His special warfare training at least had equipped him for this. He thoroughly examined her for any sign of frostbite. She was cold, shivering until he’d held her in his arms long enough that the shivering stopped. And there

  was no sign that frostbite had taken hold.

  Soft food? She had teeth, baby teeth, not a full set.

  Her eyes were clear and never left him as he struggled around her in the cab, the only place where it was warm, to find food she could consume.

  A packet of noodles and small bits of chicken. He added water from a canteen and heated it in the packet with the microwave immersion heater that was part of his survival pack, powering it from wires he crossed out of the ignition.

  The child would not touch it.

  “This is good. And hot.”

  There was nothing else for it. He began to eat from the pack. It was good, but the heat left it quickly.

  The child’s tiny right hand reached up to his lips.

  He took food from the packet with his fingers, realizing the child-one of the wild tribe children-had never seen a spoon before.

  The child ate from his fingertips.

  For the first time in a long time, Vassily Prokopiev was moved.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  Michael Rourke listened only on one level of consciousness. Madame Jokli’s voice kept repeating the same message over the radio. “German Hekla Base. I cannot receive. This is Madame Jokli. Along with a small force of Icelandic police and Michael Rourke, I am trapped in the presidential palace. Soviet assault is imminent. Seismic equipment here indicates an eruption of considerable magnitude imminent as well. We need extraction. The people of Hekla will die without it.” She would always pause, as if giving them time to digest her words, assuming they heard them, then continue. “German Hekla Base. I cannot receive. This is Madame Jokli. Along with …”

  She should have added the word heroic, or something like it, to describe the men of the police force. They had fought their way in against assault rifle armed troops, using merely swords. And now, without a single complaint, they waited for their inevitable deaths.

  Michael Rourke studied their faces, as he had since the radio was completed and there had been nothing to do but lingeringly touch up the edge of his knife and wait.

  They were good faces, best among them the face of Bjorn Rolvaag. He was a demon with a blade, and at last Michael Rourke understood why this man so gigantic and so gentle carried only a staff. What had prompted Rol

  vaag to take up a sword was clear: There was no choice.

  Rolvaag stroked his dog between its ears, like the rest of them waiting, only Madame Jokli doing something other than waiting. Her old womanservant sat in a corner on a straightback chair, every few moments tugging at her skirts or her apron, her eyes closed half the time as if she were sleeping or trying to, or perhaps hoping this was only a dream.

  A bullhorn sounded from the greenway below them. The voice was Russian, but the words English. “You were recognized, Doctor Rourke.” That was always happening, people confusing him with his father. He had learned to essentially ignore it, flattered most times. “You have no hope of victory. Surrender yourself and Madame Jokli and the Icelandic police will be spared.” He wondered almost absently when they’d think of starting to execute hostages every five minutes. He wished he hadn’t thought of it. “In five minutes, we will execute ten Icelandic citizens. We will begin with women and children. When the supply of these persons is exhausted, we will take the elderly. The men will be the last to die.”

  Madame Jokli’s voice had stopped, Michael realized. She stood up from the makeshift radio, looked at Michael and smiled, “It is finished, isn’t it?”

  Michael sheathed his knife.

  “Yes. Can you tell them?” Michael gestured toward Rolvaag and the others, although he suspected Rolvaag might have understood part of it.

  “Yes. The Soviets will kill you because they think you are your father.”

  ^Better that they kill me than hold me and try to use me against him.” And he smiled. “If Karamatsov were still alive, they’d ship me off to him. Anyway, we aren’t dead yet. Your message might have gotten through at any event. We’ll go down, armed. YouU be at our center. Maybe things can be turned around. We’ll have to wait and see.”

  “What would you have liked to have done with your life, Michael Rourke?”

  “I thought I wanted to be a doctor of medicine like my father. Maybe that. I don’t know. There was never very much time to decide. I was a little boy when the Night of the War came. After that, there were other things to do. I don’t know.”

  “And the woman? Fraulein Doctor Leuden?”

  “I never knew quite what I wanted. She loves me. I love her. But I keep remembering Madison, my wife. At least if we don’t make it, well-” He thought of the promises he’d made as he’d stood over her grave, watched the snow cover it, knowing the snow would last there for as long as time lasted.

  Michael Rourke stood up, walked to stand in front of Madame Jokli. He put his arms around her. She leaned her head against his chest for a moment.

  “You have two minutes!”

  Michael turned away from Madame Jokli and walked toward the boarded up window. He shouted through it. “Don’t kill anybody. We’re coming down.”

  He gave a tug to the Berettas in their shoulder holsters, decided to free them, putting them into his belt on either side of his abdomen, safeties off.

  He would break away when they reached the outside. Before they could take him, execute him, he’d take— sixteen rounds in each pistol, likely no time to reload, maybe one with the knife—quite a few of them with him.

  The men of the Icelandic police force began standing up, fixing their uniforms.

  Dress parade again, the last parade.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Sarah Rourke was crying, Wolfgang’s strong hand on her shoulder. “I’m a fool.” “You are not.”

  “You lost your wife. I just heard that my daughter is alive. So why am I crying?” She buried her head against his chest.

  The vibration of the J7-V’s motors pulsed. In her self-imposed darkness, she heard the voice of Wolfgang’s radio operator. “In English,” Wolf said.

  “Yes, Herr Colonel. Another radio message. From the commander of the residual force at Hekla base. Fraulein Doctor Leuden reached the base an hour ago. The storm is quite intense. It took her considerable time to reach the base. She was left behind in the lava tunnels of the volcano itself. It appears that young Herr Rourke-“

  Sarah sat up, looked at the young man’s face. “Go on.”

  “The young Herr and Herr Rolvaag went into Hekla itself, alone. And a radio message has just arrived there. The young Herr Rourke, Madame Jokli and a small force of Icelandic police are surrounded by a substantial Soviet force. They are trapped, it appears, Herr Colonel, inside the presidential palace.”

  “We must attack, then,” Wolfgang Mann said, standing.

  “Herr Colonel. There is more to the message. Madame Jokli conveyed that seismic equipment she has access to shows a major eruption of the volcano to be imminent. She is appealing for evacuation.”

  Wolfgang Mann clasped his hands behind his back. “Order that a message be sent—What is it?”

  There was a strange look in the young radioman’s eyes. “It is a one-way transmission, Herr Colonel.”

  Wolfgang Mann looked at his wristwatch. “I want every available plane standing by. Order the full residual force which can still fight into the volcano at once. Between our
aircraft and the Soviet aircraft, we may be able to evacuate a substantial portion of the populace. And that, of course, means defeating the enemy force first. Order an attack at once.”

  And he turned away and stared out the window of his aircraft, toward the snow-covered runway. German helicopter gunships took off and landed, ferrying the wounded to Eden Base, the squadron of J7-Vs guarding the landing zone.

  He looked at Sarah. “There is a good chance. I hope.”

  Already, she could hear the young radioman’s staccato German going onto the air.

  Sarah Rourke looked down at her hands. Her knuckles were white.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Michael Rourke stepped into the purple light, the brown leather bomber jacket he wore, so much like his father’s, closed for the first two inches of the zipper, covering the butts of his twin Beretta 9mms.

  The Soviet commander swaggered before his troops at the base of the steps. He shouted up to Michael Rourke. “And so, this is how it ends for the infamous renegade John Rourke. After five centuries of battle, he merely surrenders. Ha! I will take your pistols.”

  Michael started down the steps. This was better than he had hoped for. He’d seen his father do the thing, in practice and when his life depended upon it, any number of times.

  He remembered one of the times his father had taken him aside and would tell him about the old western gunfighters. “You’ll read a lot of conflicting things about the west and the men in it, especially the men who were good with a gun. Now, a lot of them carried two guns, Michael. And it was true that most of them couldn’t use a gun that well with their off hand. Most of the ones who carried two guns did it for the same reason the pirates in the days of single shot pistols that took forever to reload carried three or four or sometimes more handguns stuffed into their sash or their belt. For that extra shot.