Survivalist - 15.5 - Mid-Wake Read online

  “Let’s get our weapons systems onto those Gullwings,” Aldridge ordered. He’d bet Lisa was inside the defending APC. And on his video screen now, he saw something happening on the top floor balcony of the officers’ residence beyond the little firefight. “My God—I think that’s Rourke—”

  Chapter Thirty-one

  John Rourke started to fall, Natalia whispering beside him, “I have you, John,” and as she helped him to remain upright, he touched his lips to her hair. He closed his eyes tight against the pain, almost stumbling again, walking with her.

  He reassessed his wounds. She had staunched the bleeding of the abdominal wounds. And there were no exit wounds. Which meant the projectiles were still inside him and would have done considerable damage. The prognosis was still the same—death. But it was easier now to go along with her than to further delay her by insisting that she leave him behind. He would likely die on the way down, or certainly inside the APC if they made it that far.

  “How are you feeling, John—don’t slip away from me— please!”

  “I’m fine—much better. You—you always were a good nurse,” he reassured her. “How much further?”

  “Not much further—getting through that window was the tough part, wasn’t it?”

  He looked around them, not remembering getting through the window at all. They were on the patio-like balcony, entered from Kerenin’s apartment. There had to be a doorway to it—but he hadn’t seen where that was. The emergency lights were still on and that was good. Aldridge, Martha, the Chinese—all of the escaped prisoners would be long gone by now, but Natalia was amazing in her adaptability and her wealth of technical knowledge. She could steal one of the little submarines he

  had seen coming into the lagoon and she could get away. He knew she could get away.

  “All right—we’re at the railing, John—now—I have to make some sort of harness so I can get you down. The slings from the rifles will do it, I think.”

  He nodded, licking his lips. His mouth was terribly dry. There was a second APC down there now, on the grass. “Was there cannon fire a minute ago?”

  “Yes—that APC—the girl you spoke about. She vaporized one of the Soviet cars—she must be pretty good. I can’t wait until you introduce us. You’ll do that, won’t you, John?”

  “Yes—of course.”

  “Good—now I’m counting on you. Don’t forget.” “I—ahh—”

  He leaned forward, against the railing—it was at waist height.

  “Careful—let me do this now—you just stand still, John.”

  “Yes, Mother.” He laughed, and as Natalia started putting the harness of rifle slings around him, she kissed him on the cheek. He heard something, shaking his head and turning around. “They’re in the apartment, Natalia. Get outta here.”

  “Not without you.”

  Rourke turned himself around, leaning against the railing now. “Gimme—gimme a rifle.”

  She had two of them—his? His, he told himself. She handed him one.

  The window shattered and Natalia started to throw herself in front of him and John Rourke pushed her aside, shouting, “Jump for it!” as he lurched toward the window, the light brighter than it had ever been. He fired the AKM-96. The two men in the window fired back, bullets ripping chunks out of the concrete of the balcony surface, Rourke still firing, Natalia’s assault rifle opening up. Rourke kept firing, one of the men down, Rourke’s rifle empty. He threw it down and started to reach for the twin stainless Detonics pistols. The second man went down.

  And he saw Feyedorovitch and at least two other men coming through the window and Natalia screamed. “John!” Why had she screamed? Feyedorovitch had an assault rifle. Rourke couldn’t bring his arms up enough to get to his guns. He was trying—he knew he was trying. Natalia screamed his name again or was it the same scream? Feyedorovitch’s rifle fired. The stupid little Sty-20s fired.

  John Rourke’s head suddenly hurt very badly and he knew he was falling backwards. Natalia was running toward him, in slow motion and she was moving her mouth, saying something he knew but he couldn’t hear the words, just the tremendously loud explosion inside his head. It just kept going on and on and on and he was falling, Natalia’s fingertips touching his fingertips and then they weren’t touching and the blur in front of his eyes was suddenly faster and he saw the wall of the building and he saw Natalia looking down at him and he thought she was screaming and then everything just stopped and there wasn’t anything anymore at all.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  “I think he’s dead, captain.”

  “Damnit, we didn’t come this far—”

  “They got the woman—I know that. But I didn’t hear any more gunfire.”

  “Fuck it—we’re takin’ him with—move it, Marines!”

  Aldridge shoved Lisa Belzer into motion, tears rolling down her cheeks.

  “Get back in that damn APC and follow orders—you and you,” he shouted to the two Chinese, “get in there with her. Keep tight on us.” Aldridge clambered up the APCs superstructure, two of his Marines still hauling Rourke’s body out from beneath the trees through which he had fallen from the top floor of the officers’ residence. Rourke’s face was covered with blood and if he was breathing, Aldridge couldn’t detect any sign of it. No pulse in the neck. “Shit,” he snarled, shouting to the Marine he’d left inside his APC. “Lay some rounds on that balcony—now!”

  He didn’t want to kill the woman that Rourke had died trying to save, but he didn’t need his men shot either. The APCs cannon roared and Aldridge covered his ears with his hands, the superstructure vibrating under him. Lisa and the two Chinese were into the other APC, the hatch closing.

  Aldridge reached down, his two men passing up the body, and he caught it under the armpits. Rourke had been a big man and heavier than he looked. But deadweight was always heavier. He hauled him up, the two men scrambling up onto the superstructure, one of them helping him. “In the hole, move!” The second Marine

  dropped through the hatchway and Aldridge dragged Rourke’s body across the superstructure, gunfire coming at them now from the balcony—or what was left of it— and bullets ricocheting off the APCs superstructure. He was tempted to leave the already dead man behind, but he couldn’t bring himself to. The body would be flushed out into the ocean to feed the fish. The man deserved full military honors at Mid-Wake. And as Aldridge began stuffing the body through the hatchway, he vowed inside himself that if he got out, so would Rourke’s body.

  He had him down and shouted, “Careful with the body. No sense breaking bones!” His father had died in combat and so had his younger brother, and his brother’s body had been a mass of broken bones after it had been dragged back and never looked right in the coffin. His mother had said that.

  Aldridge pushed the second Marine through ahead of him, then, his feet almost on the other man’s head and shoulders, he threw himself down after him, swinging the hatch shut under a hail of gunfire. “Blow that damn balcony to hell!”

  “Yes, sir!” The APC vibrated around him and he lost his balance, caught himself, then threw himself into the control seat, gunning the engine. The second APC with Lisa Belzer running it was already moving. She was a gutsy lady. If she ever got herself promoted, he could ask her out sometime. But it looked bad an officer and a— and Aldridge started laughing.

  “What’s so funny, captain?”

  “You wouldn’t understand,” and Aldridge worked the levers and the APC started rolling forward and left, Lisa’s APC ahead of them, Aldridge stomping the accelerator and, following her, aiming the APC for the tunnel… .

  She had crawled from where she had fallen, chunks of debris raining around her, her revolvers in both hands, her left leg already numbing from the Sty-20 round she’d taken.

  She saw him for an instant, her consciousness going.

  His body had caught up in some trees and, even as she watched, it had slipped from the boughs which had cradled it and fallen to the groun
d below.

  There was no movement.

  There was no life.

  She had turned away from him, firing her revolvers as they had charged toward her, getting two of them at least until the rifle butt came and impacted the side of her head.

  She lost her guns, but not consciousness—adrenalin, she thought. “Kill me!” John Rourke was dead.

  Natalia Anastasia Tiemerovna knew she had died inside too… .

  Aldridge turned out of the tunnel, Lisa’s APC dead ahead of him and moving fast. He hit the radio controls and could pick up somebody named Feyedorovitch calling for everything and everyone available to rendezvous at the lagoon. Aldridge worked the levers and swerved the APC into an almost too-tight hook onto the right side of Lisa’s APC, then accelerated, his rear end fishtailing, evening out, passing her now. “How we doin’ behind us—speak to me!

  “Corporal Belzer’s APC is accelerating too, captain— she’s right on our tail. Don’t see anything—belay that— got five—make that six APCs just turning out of the tunnel and about the same number of Gullwings.”

  “These guys never give up, do they?” Aldridge shouted back rhetorically—he knew they didn’t. His people and their people had been fighting the continuing battle of World War III since the night that it all went down, almost 500 years if he remembered his dates right. They never gave up. You killed them and more came. You blew up one of their submarines and there was always another one. And now—they had missiles. The nuclear ones just like five centuries ago. And they’d win—he felt the pres

  sure around his eyes. He kept driving. He’d led a commando raid against the Stalin, one of the big ones, one of the monster submarines, and they’d ridden the damn thing almost into port to place their explosives and hit the missile factory, but they hadn’t made it, had been gassed, and he’d awakened a prisoner and they’d started playing with him with electric shock, with sensory deprivation. His dreams had become more horrible than being awake, and that was saying a lot.

  There was a line of Gullwings blocking the roadway and there was an APC behind them. “Take the cannon—that APC,” he shouted to the Marine beside him who had worked the gun against the balcony. “Kill it!”

  He floored the accelerator now, realizing that even electronically controlled guns would have a harder time hitting a faster-moving target.

  “Fire, damnit!”

  The cannon fired, smoke and fire engulfing three of the Gullwings, the enemy armored personnel carrier firing back. Aldridge swerved his machine hard right. When the explosion came, he almost lost control, skidding, jumping the sidewalk, sideswiping the building walls on his right, every bone in his body feeling as if it were vibrating. The APC fired again, Aldridge shouting, “Shoot now!”

  His gunner fired as the Marine at the rear monitoring the video screen there shouted, “They got Lisa Belzer! God damn ‘em to—aww, nothin’.”

  The road surface beside the enemy APC turned into a rising fireball, gushing toward them and away from them along the tunnel ceiling, Aldridge keeping the accelerator to the floorboard, through the fireball, past the enemy vehicle.

  “Disabled—what! Get specific!”

  The man called back. “Corporal Belzer’s APC got flipped over on its side and rammed into the far tunnel wall. The superstructure’s half blown away. They got her, captain—the motherfuckers!”

  “Let’s see they don’t get us,” Sam Aldridge called back

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  never ask her out now. “I’m sorry, Herb,” he said. And he glanced at the Marine beside him. “You making it, Bernie?”

  “Yes, sir—making it—just.”

  Aldridge could see the fence ahead. There were Gullwings there and there were troops behind every imaginable sort of barricade and there was a phalanx of APCs closing from the right.

  He cut left, jumping the curb, punching the Russian machine through the fence leading to the main sub pens. He was starting to slow since he was traversing ground now and not a hard road surface.

  “APCs closing fast, captain,” the man at the rear called out. “Those other six are still dead behind us.”

  “Just pray the guns in the Scout subs are waitin’ for us and be ready to move.”

  “How about the dead guy, sir?”

  Aldridge looked at Corporal Bernie Richter. “The body goes with us—right?”

  “Yes, sir!”

  Aldridge could see the tunnel between the Scout pens and the lagoon dead ahead, nothing blocking it except two Gullwings. “Vaporize ‘em, Bernie!”

  “You got it, captain!”

  The cannon fired, the pulse of the thing making the superstructure vibrate, the two Gullwings vanishing in a ball of flame the next instant. Aldridge drove through the flames, knowing he couldn’t stop now.

  “Gettin’ a readout off the rear tires, captain—they’re hot—on fire!”

  “Hang in there, Herb!”

  He realized his knuckles were going stiff on the levers which controlled the APC, his neck aching, his eyes burning him because he couldn’t blink. It was a narrow walkway here, not made for traffic at all. He bounced a curb, was in the tunnel.

  “Be ready!” Come on, baby, he almost said aloud to the machine. He was starting to lose the steering.

  The lagoon was dead ahead, another APC there. “Fire

  around it—make a ring around it—do it now!”

  The cannon fired, then again and again and again, the APC almost out of control as Aldridge slowed her, the lagoon less than a hundred yards ahead, just beyond the dock. “Now!” He stomped the brake and skidded, “Hold on to something tight!”

  The APC fishtailed, the rear end sweeping right, Aldridge bracing himself. If he did it just right, maybe they wouldn’t die just yet.

  He felt the impact. “You hit the thing, sir!” It was Herb shouting from the rear of the APC. “She’s—she’s gone over, into the lagoon!”

  “Out!” Aldridge hit his seat-belt release and slid from behind the controls, their APC smoking now, on fire. Flames were starting from some of the overhead panels, and he could smell burning insulation. He grabbed up Rourke’s body—one of his two men had strapped it into one of the other seats. He hit the seat-belt harness release and it sagged toward him. Aldridge shouted to Bernie Richter, “Up the hatch—watch for enemy fire and he grab him.”

  “Right, sir!” Richter disappeared through the hatchway, Aldridge realizing Herb Koswalski was helping him with the dead man. “Ready, sir!”

  “Just thrills me no end you’re ready, corporal!” Aldridge pushed, the Marine with him lifting, and they had Rourke’s body through the hatchway.

  “Got him, sir! We got company—those damn APCs!”

  Aldridge was the next one up, the AKM-96 going ahead of him.

  They were ten yards from the water.

  Aldridge jumped from the smoldering superstructure to the dock, shouting, “Pass him down!”

  His two Marines slid Rourke’s body down, Aldridge getting the tall, lean white man over his right shoulder. It was stupid, hauling a dead body. He did it anyway, running, his two men outdistancing him, dropping into kneeling positions beside the water at the end of the dockside. Gunfire tore into the dock bumners. Aldridce

  heard an explosion—one of the APCs firing—and felt the dock vibrate under him.

  “Into the water, guys! Hubba-hubba!” Aldridge tossed his rifle away and jumped, letting the body slip from his shoulder as he impacted the water, tucked down.

  He had never liked diving. He opened his eyes. Rourke’s body wasn’t floating.

  As Aldridge’s head broke the surface, he started to drag Rourke up. “He’s alive, damnit! All right!”

  Assault-rifle fire peppered the water around him and grabbed Rourke across the chest and under the left armpit and shouted, “If you can hear me, take a deep breath, Rourke!” Aldridge pulled Rourke with him under the surface, air escaping Rourke’s mouth in great bubbl
es. Aldridge felt something hit the water’s surface. The APCs firing, he knew. He dragged Rourke with him, breaking the surface, gulping air, drawing Rourke’s head toward him, rocking the head back, forcing air into Rourke’s lungs from his own.

  Two of the monster subs were crossing the lagoon, a deck gun firing. Aldridge could see Richter, but not Herb Koswalski. “Herb! Where are you? Koswalski! Koswalski?”

  “Captain!”

  Aldridge swallowed water, choking as he twisted in the churning lagoon, one of the Scout subs coming dead on for him. But he could see Martha on the deck, another of the escapees at the deck gun. The deck gun opened fire, long volleys, the noise of the thing deafening. She had disobeyed orders being in this close. He’d kill her after he kissed her.

  A line—he couldn’t reach it, swam toward it, the line snaking out again, this time his right hand catching a whole coil. He twisted the coil around his upper body and Rourke’s, shouting, “Reel us in!”

  The water around him exploded again and he dragged himself and Rourke under, the sound even more deafening beneath the waves.

  He was being dragged up and he pushed Rourke’s head

  to the surface. “Get him first—he’s still alive or he was a second ago!” Aldridge slipped the rope from his own body, shoving Rourke up under the rail, Martha and another woman and a Chinese reaching for him. “Get him some mouth to mouth—but he could have a shot-out lung—be careful!”

  Aldridge was halfway up himself when the hands reached for him and he fell forward to his knees onto the deckplates.

  APCs were firing from the dock and the monster subs were closing, both their deck guns firing now. “Richter and Koswalski? You see ‘em?”

  Martha turned away from him, snaking out the line again, and Aldridge vomited up water across the deck plates, then looked after her. Richter and Koswalski, something wrong with Richter, the same rope that had reeled him in hauling them in now. He grabbed the rope and started to pull.