Survivalist - 15 - Overlord Page 21

  But now she was pinned down, men from the forward cars having poured back, smoke grenades used, acrid smoke which burned her eyes and stung her throat and her nostrils, filling the car even though she had shot out three windows. And it was bone-chillingly cold, the wind of the train’s

  slipstream lashing at her as she huddled behind three dead bodies and two crates of rations, the bodies riddled with more bullets than she could have counted, the gunfire from the front of the rail car incessant.

  She pushed up, firing the LMG, the cyclic rate amazingly fast because with caseless ammo as was used in all of tl.e Soviet weapons, there was no true ejection cycle. She had fired through the first of the belts, the discarded links clustered around her everywhere as profusely as pine needles in a forest.

  She could have withdrawn to the last car, but it would have accomplished nothing. There was no place to go, and even if she were able to escape the train, doubtful at the enormous speed at which it traveled without sustaining fatal injury, her mission lay ahead. She fed the new link belt into the action of the LMG.

  Another smoke grenade, then another and still another, were hurded toward her. As she coughed, closing her eyes against it, but firing a burst with the LMG to keep her attackers away, she knew they could not try high explosives. Not with the cargo in the boxcar two cars ahead. Natalia kept firing …

  The J-7V lifted off vertically, then changed into its horizontal flight mode, seemed to hesitate for a brief instant, then shot ahead, Rourke feeling himself pushed slightly back against the copilot’s seat he had expropriated for the flight to the Russian-held train.

  “I saw it, Herr Doctor. It appeared to be moving at best speed.”

  “A hundred and fifty miles per hour or so. Can you match it?”

  “To match their speed exactly considering the power of the slipstream around them will be most difficult, Herr Doctor.” “If you don’t we will have lost the war—and Major

  Tiemerovna.”

  The German pilot’s face split with a grin. “I said difficult, Herr Doctor. I did not say impossible, nor did I imply that.”

  Rourke nodded to him. “Good man.”

  “There!” Paul was crouched between the pilot’s and copilot’s seat and gestured toward the southwest in the distance. And Rourke saw it too. The Soviet-controlled train, nearer than expected.

  The train was about to enter a steep walled mountain pass that the map had indicated ran for some thirty miles.

  And beneath them, in the grayness now that despite the still swirling snow had replaced the darkness of night, Rourke could see the forty mile expanse that was their target zone.

  Sheer walls of granite rose hundreds of feet into the air, the newness of their peaks sharp, threatening, and at the very base of the granite walls, the rail bed, two tracks looking from this elevation to be side by side, and a short distance beyond them to the southeast, waves lashing furiously high, was the Yellow Sea.

  The pilot circled the J-7V and then banked to the east, Rourke squinting against the pencil thin line of sunrise beneath the gray blanket of the storm, the aircraft banking steeply again. “These winds will not help us, Herr Doctor.”

  “I know that. You’ve got to do it.”

  “And I know that, Herr Doctor,” the pilot nodded somberly.

  The aircraft banked again, behind the Soviet-controlled train now, following it along the tracks still at least a quarter mile below them.

  Rourke’s eyes moved to the altimeter. It was dropping rapidly.

  The map Han had given him showed the mountain pass through which the tracks now crossed, but even from the map, Rourke had never envisioned it as this narrow, the J-7V dropping into it, flying on an angle because level flight

  would have brought the wingtips within mere feet of the rock wall on either side of them.

  The pilot was slowly dropping speed as the J-7V overtook the train, almost matching it now, matching it, the rear car beneath them, the mountain pass extending for several miles yet. “Can you get us over the car just rear of the engine?”

  “Yes, Herr Doctor,” and almost imperceptibly, the J-7V moved ahead, a pale shadow of it visible on the snowless roofs of the cars over which the aircraft passed, the granite walls suddenly closer together, the pilot increasing air speed, rocketing ahead and up and out, passing over the engine. From the front car, immediately behind the engine and ahead of the solitary boxcar, there was gunfire coming now.

  “It was too narrow, Herr Doctor.”

  “You’ve gotta try it, man!”

  The pilot looked at Rourke, then at Rubenstein between them, then at Rourke again, his eyes wide, his tongue darting out to lick his lips. He nodded, the plane banking sharply, diving, back into the pass, flying, it seemed, mere feet over the tracks now, smoke billowing from the second to the last car of the train from windows that appeared shot out. Natalia? — Rourke wondered.

  The aircraft was over the last car, over the second to the last car, the rock faces to either side of them seeming to squeeze together again, the angle of flight changing sharply, the pilot not flinching. Paul Rubenstein clung to the two seats between which he crouched, Rourke looking to the younger man’s face, Rubenstein’s eyes seeming to say, “It’ll be all right, John.” Rourke prayed that it would.

  The J-7V was over the boxcar now, gunfire coming at them from the lead car just behind the engine, Rourke hearing the sounds of ricochets off the J-7V’s armored skin.

  The German aircraft was over the lead car now, the end of the mountain pass just ahead.

  “As soon as we’re through,” Rourke shouted. “Then go to it.”

  “Yes, Herr Doctor.”

  They were through, the J-7V’s angle of flight changing abruptly and sharply, level now, the speed seeming dead even with the train. And suddenly the J-7V shot ahead. “What are you doing?” Rourke shouted.

  “I fly my aircraft to perform your mission, Herr Doctor. Trust me, Herr Doctor.”

  The pilot manipulated a bank of switches and suddenly the J-7V seemed to stall, switching into the vertical mode, the train nearly beneath them as the J-7V dropped, the aircraft buffeted and veering to port, the pilot playing the controls, the vertical descent continuing, and suddenly stopping.

  “We have landed. Hurry and good luck, Herr Doctor!”

  Rourke was already out of his seat, Rubenstein ahead of him near the egress hatch, Rourke clapping the pilot on the shoulder. “Thank you.”

  Rourke and Rubenstein together jumped through the egress hatch, Rourke nearly losing his balance as he impacted the roof of the train car, the engine dead ahead. Bullets whined through the roof of the car, Rourke realizing it would be grisly luck if one got through with sufficient remaining velocity to kill anyone, the roof of the train car dimpling with them, Rourke swept from his feet as he turned into the slipstream, to his knees. “Shit!” He was up, bending into the wind, his eyes squinted tight shut against it, the wind hammering him down again, to his knees, Rubenstein beside him, Han and the others clambering down from the J-7V as Rourke turned his face from the wind.

  Despite the parka hood, the wind howled in his ears, deafening him. He crawled forward. As he looked up, Soviet personnel were clambering onto the roof from the car below, as soon as one would reach the roof, swept over by the wind, their assault rifles clattering away across the roof line, falling over the side. Rourke reached under his parka, one of the Scoremasters coming into his fist. He jacked back the

  hammer and fired, killing the nearest of the Soviets, the body lurching forward despite the impact of the 185-grain jacketed hollow point. Another of the Soviet troopers — Rourke recognized the black uniform as KGB Elite Corps — was attempting to fire a pistol. Rourke fired first, twice at the man’s chest and neck.

  Michael was beside Rourke now as they neared the forward end of the car, Paul’s six men led by the man named Wing who spoke English just behind them, Han and his men making the perilous jump to the next car back. As Rourke started to turn to
face forward, he saw one of Han’s men, caught up in a gust of wind, being hurtled to his death between the train cars. The noise of the wind which roared around him was too loud for Rourke to hear the scream.

  They reached the forward end of the car now, a Soviet trooper pushing up to the level of the roof, Michael shooting him away with one of his Berettas. Rourke rolled over onto the access ladder, the roar of the wind suddenly all but abated. Rourke dropped to the platform level between the lead car and the engine, Michael down next, then Paul, Rourke jumping to the engine platform, then Michael following. The man named Wing was down, the others of Paul’s group following. Paul gave John Rourke a thumbs up signal; blowing half a magazine for the Schmeisser into the front door of the car, two of Wing’s men kicking it in, Paul and the man named Wing the first through, Paul’s Schmeisser blazing from his right hand, the M-16 from the left, Wing with one of the Chinese caseless submachineguns in each hand.

  Rourke turned to the entrance into the engine compartment, a massive door before him. He had inspected the door on the identical train they had ridden, knew where it hinged, had measured the height.

  From one of the two musette bags that crisscrossed over his chest, beneath his parka, Rourke took a small block of the German equivalent of plastique, laying it into place on

  the outside of the door over where the upper hinge would be, Michael dropped into a crouch beside him, molding an identical brick of plastique over the location of the lower hinge; Rourke finished, then laid a third segment of plastique over the lock plate.

  Gunfire ripped into the door and some of it penetrated, Rourke dodging to the side, Michael flanking the door opposite from him. For the most part the gunfire had simply dimpled the metal door.

  Rourke leaned closer to the door again, inserting the detonator over the lock into the plastique. More gunfire through the door now, Rourke signalling Michael, his son nodding. Rourke tossed the detonator across the open space between them. Michael caught it, inserting the detonator into the plastique which was for the upper hinge. Michael set his own, the third detonator, into the lower hinge charge. Michael nodded, Rourke jumping back onto the adjoining platform, gunfire clattering from inside the first car through the open doorway, Michael jumping across. Michael drew back, Rourke upping the safety on the Scoremaster, thrusting it into his belt.

  Rourke started out of his parka, the radio attached to his belt, throwing the parka into the slipstream. It was one of the German issue ones and replaceable enough. Michael did the same.

  Waves from the turbulent surface of the Yellow Sea crashed w|fhin feet of them now as the train entered the narrowest portion of the forty mile strip.

  John Rourke looked at Michael, then drew the Python.

  They were small charges of plastique. But enough to do what was needed.

  He stabbed the Python toward the upper hinge and double actioned a shot, turning his face, averting his eyes as the first charge blew, hearing the roar of Michael’s .44 Magnum revolver dully as then Michael fired and the second charge blew. Rourke fired and blew the third charge,

  the one over the lock.

  He looked at his son as he holstered the Python, one Scoremaster in Rourke’s right fist, the fully loaded one in his left. His son looked at him, one Beretta in each of Michael’s fists.

  Rourke felt himself smile. His son smiled. John Rourke nodded, and together, they jumped the platform, Rourke’s left foot and his son’s right impacting the door at its center almost simultaneously, the door falling away on its hinges, inward, the engine compartment filled with KGB Elite Corps personnel.

  As John Rourke and Michael Rourke stepped through the wide doorway, the KGB personnel started firing, and John and Michael Rourke started firing. The .45s bucked in Rourke’s fists, the one in his right hand empty, stuffed into his trouser band. His right fist snatched one of the twin stainless Detonics .45s from the double Alessi rig, his right thumb jacking back the hammer, the little .45 bucking in his fist. The Scoremaster in his left hand was empty now, Rourke ramming it into his belt, the action still locked open, grabbing for the second litde Detonics, ripping it from the leather, firing, men going down. Bullets ricocheted off the metal walls of the engine compartment, the cracking of Michael’s Berettas, then suddenly the booming of his .44 Magnum revolver, Rourke’s ears jarring with it. Rourke thrust the little Detonics from his right fist, empty, into his hip pocket, snatching the Python from the leather, emptying the cylinder into the last of the KGB Elite Corps personnel. Michael’s .44 Magnum revolver boomed once more, almost in perfect unison with Rourke’s .357.

  There was always the roar of the wind, always the clacking sound of the train as it sped over the rails—but it was silent except for that.

  By rough count, fifteen of the KGB Elite Corps personnel lay dead, scattered about the engine compartment.

  A Chinese man, slight of build like Mr. Wing who now

  accompanied Paul Rubenstein, but seemingly twice Wing’s age, sixty or better, Rourke thought, emerged from behind the instrument bulkhead.

  “Hi! Rourke grinned at the man. Michael started to laugh. As they started forward, both reloading their weapons as they walked, John Rourke said to his son, “How do you think you say ‘Could you please stop the train?’ in Chinese?”

  Michael shrugged his shoulders, and reached for one of the switches and then pointed toward it and the Chinese engineer started nodding his head enthusiastically …

  Paul Rubenstein and the slightly built Chinese agent with him, Wing Tse Chau, were running, only two of Wing’s men left who weren’t dead or wounded. They had cut through the first car and left some casualties but made no attempt to overpower the Soviet troops inside, Han and his men having caught the men in the first car in the crossfire with Paul and Wing and their smaller force. Over the second car, a battle raging beneath them between Russian troops and Han’s Intelligence commandoes, then making the jump, Wing nearly going over the side as he lost his balance for an instant, Paul Rubenstein catching him and as the other two reached the boxcar and started over the top of it behind him, Paul realized that in the boxcar were the nuclear warheads. If whoever commanded the train were insane enough—He forced the thought from his mind and focused his violence against the wind which tried hammering him down. For each step he would take toward the rear of the car, he would fall forward, brace himself, then go ahead.

  He reached the edge of the boxcar, the passenger car behind it, the second from last in the train, streaming smoke, small explosions coming from it now …

  He had moved to the boxcar so as to personally guard the

  warheads as soon as he had realized what was happening, ordering that his men fight to the death. Ivan Krakovski would write of their bravery, or immortalize them by making the warheads detonate.

  Seven of his Elite KGB corps were with him. He thought of them as his own. They should have been his own.

  If he detonated the warheads, they would not fall into enemy hands. And he knew the reason why the Hero Marshal wanted them. So the Hero Marshal could use them to get the American John Rourke and Major Natalia Tiemerovna. The woman who held off his best men in the second car from the rear of the train had to be Tiemerovna. And who else would have conceived such a daring foolish plan for stopping this train than the American Rourke whom the Hero Marshal so despised. And Krakovski knew that the Hero Marshal would full well destroy the planet if it took that to have his vengeance.

  Krakovski decided.

  He would give the Hero Marshal his vengeance. And, if somewhere some Soviet youth survived, then somewhere his courage would be sung.

  He began to open one of the containers in which the warheads were individually packed …

  Natalia Anastasia Tiemerovna was out of ammunition for both the LMG and her two M-16s. She slung them back, empty, drawing the twin L-Frame Smiths from the holsters at her hips. There couldn’t be too many more of the defenders at the front of the car. If only, despite the shot out windows, the smoke were
not so thick.

  Only amateurs thumb cocked double action revolvers except for the most precise shots. Precision would hardly be required here and she was no amateur. She made ready to stand and run forward, to win or die …

  The engineer was saying something Rourke could not understand. And then he made what must have been a universal gesture. He pointed to the gunshot-riddled instrument panel, shook his head and drew his right index finger across his throat.

  “The instruments are dead,” Michael Rourke said.

  John Rourke almost whispered. “He can’t stop the train.”

  The engineer tugged at John Rourke’s right hand and Rourke turned his eyes to follow the engineer’s eyes. Over the control console was an illuminated map, showing the route; the engineer placed his finger over the map section Rourke mentally matched to the map Han had given him. There was a sharp curve approximately four-fifths of the way through the narrows where the train was now. The engineer was gesturing maddeningly toward it, then finally, gesturing to the engine cab around them. He quickly raised his hands and made a strange sound. Rourke shook his head. The engineer pointed to the map and then pointed away from the railbed and into the sea at a violent tangent.

  “I think he said we’ll derail —holy shit,” Michael said softly.

  John Rourke looked out through the window, toward the waves.

  “Take the engineer with you. Get him to understand — we’ve gotta get everybody off the train. I don’t care how you do it. I’m going for the boxcar. That’s where whoever the leader here is and that’s where the warheads are. Impact won’t make them detonate. The water could because it will retard neutron emissions. But it might not. If the warheads are packed properly. Getting off the train may buy us ten seconds, or it could save our lives. But if somebody detonates one of the warheads —the German scientists say that—”

  “I know,” Michael Rourke told his father. “Maybe a dozen average yield weapons and — “