Survivalist - 20 - Firestorm Read online

  Wadmir…

  A flood of bitter memories passed through her and she was colder because of them. He had even persecuted her in death. And John, with Annie’s help, had saved her, ridden as a knight errant into the omnipresent nightmare which was drowning her, killed the one who was already dead, freed her from her tormenter.

  But from herself.

  Her right hand which held the knife shook, beyond trembling.

  She could hear the two Nazis breathing, now, the telltale creaking of equipment. In an instant they would pass by her and she would have to act or die, and she might die even then.

  She saw diem, back to her. But there was no moral dilemma. At the instant she opened the knife, unless they were deaf, they’d turn toward her And she counted on that.

  And the scarf over her mouth and nose, along with the snow goggles, would protect her from the blood.

  The little finger of her right hand nudged the Bali-Song’s lock back and up as the first three fingers pinched the lower handle half against the interior of her knuckles.

  The knife came alive in her gloved hand, the upper handle half swinging upward and forward as her grip shifted, thumb moving beneath the following blade, the pressure of her thumb’s interior venus mound against her palm all that held the knife now, her four fingers opening outward, intercepting the forward swinging upper handle half as the nearer of the two men turned toward her, eyes wide beneath the snow goggles, visible in the tight of the second man’s flashlight.

  Her right arm moved upward in a gentle left arc and swung back toward her, gravity doing the work, the Bali-Song’s primary edge severing the man’s carotid artery which was exposed, of course, because of where she had positioned herself and the click-click-click sounds of the knife as it worked. She had planned that, all of it. The fabric of the

  parka hood and what clothing lay beneath that meant only a lMe extra effort.

  He began to fall as she involuntarily squinted against the blood spray. But the clothing he wore diminished that and her goggles protected her at any event.

  The second man was raising his assault rifle to fire. She wouldn’t let him, of course, starting the swing upward as she virtually pirouetted there in the snowy rock cleft, her left palm outward like a shield, but really to distract his eyes for that vital instant. Her right hand rose at the end of her arm, as if it were weightless, the tip and the false edge catching at his toqued chin, across his scarved mouth, tearing the toque away completely now as she hooked his left nostril, drawing her right arm back, as though the knife were not a knife at all but a sword.

  She hacked downward and outward as the man’s scream started, his face turned to her right, his left, brought there by the cutting action of her knife, again the carotid on the right side of die neck exposed.

  The Bali-Song cleaved downward, across the artery, slowing as its primary edge encountered the collar bone beneath the right breast of die parka.

  She spun left, the Bah-Songinaswordsman’s guard position, beside her own right breast, to compensate for his superior height.

  But he was already falling into the snow, die flashlight tumbling from dying fingers.

  Natalia stood there, holding the knife.

  Not a sound was on the air except the rushing of the wind.

  She breamed.

  There were tiny speckles on her snow goggles.

  She nearly knelt beside the nearer of the two dead Nazis, wiping her blade clean on his coat. As she stood, she broke the silence, die click-click-click of the knife.

  Seconds was all it had taken.

  They were dead. And she didn’t know whether the thoughts which filled her were somehow evil - like the men she had killed were evil -but she felt alive again.

  Tm back,” Natalia whispered to the night.

  Chapter Forty-three

  Paul Rubenstein was being dragged along the tread, wedged beneath the fender which guarded it, the back of his parka ripping, his M-16 caught in it, the Schmiesser, lashed to his chest, stoving him in, denying him breath.

  He fought to move, wanted to shout, had no breath.

  His hands wrenched at the borrowed knife, tearing it free as the tread dragged him forward. He had missed the first time, not thrusting the knife with enough force, pitched back by the tread, clear of die AV-16, half buried in a drift.

  He’d caught his breath, made certain his numbing fingers still held Michael’s knife, men charged toward the mighty machine once again.

  This time, he stabbed the blade deep, wrenched from his feet so suddenly he almost lost his handhold. But he was too close to the bodywork of the machine.

  There was a snap, the sling for his M-16 ripped away, feeling the gun as it impacted his lower back, slid along his legs.

  He clung to the knife, reached out.

  Something had him, powerful, viselike, his left arm dragged outward and upward. His legs and the rifle were inseparably wedged for an instant and he did scream. And he was going over, down with the tread into the deep snow in the path of the tactical missile launching platform’s left rear tread, to be crushed beneath it.

  He was hanging, swinging like a marionette on one uncertain string.

  Paul Rubenstein looked up.

  He stared into the face of John Rourke and he was jacked upward and onto the AV-16’s ice-slicked superstructure.

  Chapter Forty-four

  Jason Darkwood sat with his back straight, feeling the motion of the horse - Fritz - beneath him, but aware ofit only on the very edge ofhis consciousness.

  On his right, rode Colonel Wolfgang Mann.

  On his left, Otto Haxmnerschmidt was astride a strapping animal colored nearly like the Palomino Roy Rogers had always ridden.

  Their German assault rifles were across the fronts of their saddles.

  “We’re idiots,” Sam Aldridge announced.

  “Yes,” Mann agreed.

  Tor a good cause,” Hammerschmidt nodded.

  Sam Aldridge’s voice, Aldridge on the far side of liammerschrnidt, added, “Four of us and God knows how many of them.”

  1 am glad this God you refer to knows, Captain Aldrklge,” Mann’s voice returned. “But! wish that he would share his intelligence data with us.”

  They moved along a narrow defile, wide enough only for the four of diem to ride, their horses abreast of each other, the creaking of saddles, the snorting of cold-flaring equine nostrils, the clopping of hooves, the subtie metallic murmurings of equipment, the crunching and slipping sounds of gravel dislodging beneath die snow, but otherwise no sound except when one of them spoke. “Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea I had after all, Colonel,” Sam Aldridge announced.

  “Now’s a really great time to think about that, Sam,” Darkwood snapped.

  Colonel Mann laughed. “It was brilliant. They know it is a trap of sorts, yet they cannot resist lolling four officers and they feel tactically superior with their new weapon. If we survive, I shall recommend you to your General Gonzalez, your Marine Corps Commandant, for a medal. If we do not, well-“

  Hammerschmidt, for the first time since news ofhis brothefs possible death and the realization that the younger Hammerschmidt had miraculously survived, began to laugh.

  Jason Darkwood eased the Lancer 2418 A2 in its holster, his eyes on the rocky overhangs flanking them on either side as they rode into the pass. Ami he thought about bis western movies again, saying under his bream, “Gary Cooper, eat your heart out.”

  Chapter Forty-five

  They solved the problem of Paul’s coat as soon as they entered the AV-16 through an aft service hatchway and were spotted by an Elite Corpsman guard. John Rourke shot the guard once in the head with the suppressor fitted Smith and Wesson 6906 9mm, the slide lock on, die shot all but totally silent.

  Rourke manually cycled the action, reapplying the slide lock as Paul shifted into the coat over his already empty DeSantis Slant Shoulder rig, pain visible in Paul’s face as he moved his shoulders and back. “Not a bad fit, John.”
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  “Lucky for him he didn’t die for nothing,” John Rourke observed.

  They started forward, the smell of synth fuel residue strong on the air, blue wisps of smoke like fog around them. Despite the feet that synth fuel residue was not harmful to inhale, the experience was not any the less nausea-inducing. Rourke and Rubenstein kept moving, past the six by six by eight foot, nearly cube-shaped tool storage area and into one of the narrow tunnels at its far end. None of the tunnels was wider than die shoulder span of a healthy-sized man. Rourke glanced at his old friend. Despite the battering Paul’s body had taken, he seemed all right, Rourke promising himself to carefully examine Paul for any sign of injury at the first opportunity after they got out of this. In Paul’s right hand was the German MP-40 submachine gun, in his left the battered Browning High Power 9mm. The second Browning, not nearly so used, would still be under Paul’s coat, probably chamber empty, just stuffed into his trouser belt.

  The tunnel extended some ten feet, stopping at a door which was round, locked with the type of mechanism usually employed on the watertight doors of submarines and surface warfare vessels. There was a synth rubber gasket surrounding the flange.

  “In the event of a gas attack?”

  “Likely the reason,” Rourke agreed, reaching out his left hand to try the wheel-shaped lock. It would move, and relatively easily, Rourke decided.

  “Probably troop quarters. Dozen or so.”

  “Probably.” Rourke stuffed the suppressor-fitted 9mm under his coat, weighing the possibilities.

  “Like always?”

  “Sure,” Rourke nodded. “With this all metal structure, we could kill ourselves with the ricochets.”

  “That’s what I was thinking. Pistols, right?”

  “Safer in the long run. Accurate shooting is better shooting,” Rourke smiled.

  Paul Rubenstein laughed, sating his submachine gun, slutting the older High Power into his pocket for a moment, extracting the second one, working the slide, settling it in his left hand, hammer cocked, die safety off. Then his right hand gripped the older gun, his right thumb lowering the smallish Browning safety.

  John Rourke’s coat was already open; the two Scoremasters were wedged between bis belt and his sweater-covered abdomen. He shifted them slighdy. “Ready?”

  “Yeah,” Paul nodded.

  Rourke smiled.

  His hands moved to the wheel and he spun it fast, the locking bolts well-lubed, sliding out of their receptacles, Rourke’s left hand wrenching the wheel to full open, his right hand shoving the door inward as he stepped over the flange, both hands flashing to his pistols as his eyes shifted around the chamber beyond the doorway.

  Six men were lying in smallish bunks racked along the sides of the ten foot wide, cell-like structure which comprised living quarters for the defensive team personnel. Eight more men-he and Paul had miscalculated-were either sitting on the edges of the shelf-like cots or around a small bolted down table at die exact center of the room, along which on both sides were similarly constructed, bolted down benches -the dining room.

  “Comrades,” Rourke whispered by way of greeting, one of the gleaming stainless steel .45s in each gloveless fist.

  Steam clouds were everywhere as virtually all fourteen men exhaled simultaneously.

  Rourke stepped left as Paul entered and angled right.

  For an instant, no one moved.

  Then one of die Elite Corpsmen reached for a pistol on the table near his right hand and John Rourke shot him between the eyes. Everyone moved at once, Rourke farther left, out of the far right - edge ofhis peripheral vision seeing Paul shift right, the Elite Corpsmen scrambling for assault rifles racked beside their cots, pistols in gunbelts on the cots or about their waists, Rourke’s .45s firing almost rhythmically, the lighter, sharper cracking sounds of Paul’s 9mms, the sounds of rifle bolts being racked, slides snapping forward, bullets pinging off the metal walls and bunk frames and the metal table and benches.

  Both Scoremasters were empty, slides locked open.

  Rourke didn’t draw the twin Combat Masters from the double Alessi shoulder holster under his parka.

  There was no need to.

  Tve still got twelve rounds,” Paul noted.

  John Rourke nodded, then started to change magazines. In a moment, more enemy personnel might be coming and the guns might be needed again.

  Chapter Forty-six

  Natalia risked her radio. “Annie, can you hear me?” Tm reading you.”

  She asked for the code phrase they’d agreed upon, sorriething they’d both felt no man would trip to. “Did you start?”

  Annie’s voice came back, slightly embarrassed sounding. “I feel a litde bloated. Any time now.”

  Natalia smiled. Neither of them was expecting her menstrual period, and the code response meant that Annie was free to talk, not under an enemy weapon. Natalia spoke, “I have to keep my voice low. There were eight men. Now there aren’t that many. There may be as many surrounding you. Be even more careful than you were. How is the young pilot?”

  “He’s alive; I don’t know for how much longer.”

  This won’t be much longer. Out.”

  Natalia had set hers and Annie’s radios to a frequency neither employed by the Germans nor the Russians. If all frequencies were being scanned, the transmission-out of necessity, en clair-might have been picked up. Otherwise, not likely. She would bank on the latter, but if the transmission were intercepted it made litde difference.

  There were enemy personnel yet to kill before she could even hope to go back for Annie. And time - and the young German pilof s life-was running out. Natalia pouched the radio and started moving again, the snow drifts deep, the wind high and obliterating her tracks as soon as she made them. She knew these mountains reasonably well. The enemy personnel could not. And none of them but one perhaps was as good as she was; it wasn’t conceit, merely honesty. And that one-this Rausch person-would lay back until the last.

  She kept moving …

  Their horses moved single file, now, Wolfgang Mann at the head of the short column, Jason Darkwood behind him, then Otto Hammerschmidt followed by Sam Aldridge.

  A second ago, Darkwood had thought he’d seerunovement in the rocks to their right and slighdy above them, but it could also have been a trick of his imagination.

  Both Sam and Otto were in radio contact with the remaining twenty men of their force, ten behind them at the base of the long defile through which they had ridden now for some time and ten-by now they should have reached their destination - on the far end of the defile. When the KGB Elite Corps unit struck, Sam and Otto would signal for the two ten-man elements to close in. Then it would merely be a matter of holding on until help arrived. At most, as Colonel Mann had assessed it after Sam Aldridge proposed the plan, five minutes at a gallop. The J7-Vs were on call as well, and they would reach the site of any ambush in under three minutes.

  Jason Darkwood tried to feel reassured. But five minutes, or even three minutes, could be a terribly long time, long enough certainly to die.

  Colonel Mann’s horse moved ahead, the V-shaped stream bed through which they rode rising sharply and flaring outward dramatically now into rippling waves of snow splotched granite. It was almost possible again for two men to ride abreast. And, if the Soviet force were going to attack, they would attack now.

  Sam Aldridge started to speak. Tf they’re going to hit us-” The blast into the rock wedge on their left choked off all other sound. Darkwood averted his eyes, feeling rock chips pelting at him after a wash of heat blew across them like a wind. His horse, Fritz, reared and Darkwood nearly lost his rifle as he clung with both hands to die animal’s mane and the pommel of the military saddle.

  Fritz slipped as the second blast came, showering man and animal alike in suddenly melted snow turned to steam and a blinding spray of rock chips and dust, only Darkwood’s snow goggles saving his eyes as he plummeted from the saddle. The assault rifle fell with him.

  H
e hit the side of the rock wall and skidded downward, catching himself as conventional automatic weapons fire laced across the

  granite inches from him, Wedging his boot heels against a rock ledge, he stopped, drew his pistol, stabbing it upward toward the obvious source of the enemy fire, returning fire in short, two round semi-automatic bursts, what Doctor Rourke so picturesquely called “double taps.” Sam Aldridge’s Palomino bolted past Darkwood, Aldridge clinging to the saddle with both hands, his assault rifle slung across his back, his feet dragging over the icy granite defile. There was a burst of assault rifle fire and Darkwood glanced right. Otto Hammerschmidt, horse under perfect control with Hammerschmidf s left foot stomped on die reins, was half-crouched, firing upward into the rocks.

  There was a flash of light and, instinctively, Darkwood dodged, not knowing where to, but reasoning that moving was his best option. The granite less than a yard from where he had been exploded, a shower of steam and dust and rock chips obscuring everything for an instant.

  The energy weapon.

  In the snow at the dead center of the defile lay Darkwood’s assault rifle. He started for it, but another blast from the energy weapon vaporized it and the rock around it. Darkwood edged back, shouting over the din of conventional small arms fire, “Sam!”

  Tm all right! Got you covered, Jase! Run for it!”

  Darkwood didn’t think twice, turned, and started in a dead run for the sound of Aldridge’s voice. Assault rifle and machine gun fire tore into the rock on both sides of him, the ricochets like a swarm of bloodthirsty insects surrounding him. His left sleeve ripped. He felt a crease of pain on the outside of his right thigh. He slipped, but from ice and the uneven surface beneath his feet, caught himself, ran.