Survivalist - 15 - Overlord Page 6

  Rourke’s eyes closed and he breathed.

  He opened his eyes. The darkness was near total. He couldn’t shout, could barely breathe. Rourke’s right foot was wedged into the crevasse and he realized that had he fallen

  any further he would have broken the foot, or dislocated his hip. He flexed the toes of his right foot inside his combat boots. They were numb with cold and pain but moved. His left shoulder was screaming at him to let go of the knife as he pried his boot free, struggling for a new, less punishing purchase against the glass-smooth wall of glacial ice which could at any moment close above and around him, entombing him.

  Rourke’s right hand moved slowly along the ice, toward the bottom edge of his arctic parka, then raising it, his gloved hand searching against the small of his back, near his right kidney. He found the vastly smaller knife he always carried, had always carried even before the Night of The War. The Sting IA Black Chrome. He tugged it free of the inside-the-pants sheath, balling his right fist over the skeletonized handle, then drawing his right arm up and back and stabbing forward, gouging the A.G. Russell knife into the ice, his body weight suspended from both hands now, swinging free as his foot lost its purchase.

  Rourke tested his weight against both knives. Both knives held.

  Both knives were at approximately the same level. He began to pull himself up, his shoulders seeming to burn with the pain. There were times he wished he were still Michael’s age.

  If Natalia and Paul had seen him fall, if Paul had heard his shout—but the distractions of battle. They had just begun their advance. The ice groaned around him, shifting, Rourke feeling it push against him. The crevasse was closing.

  He had his shoulders to the level of both knives, holding on with his left hand to the larger handle of the Crain knife, shifting his right hand for a terrifying instant to get his forearm above the Russell knife. The little knife held. Rourke inhaled, shifting his grip on the Crain knife, his body thrusting upward, above the level of the knives. He

  pushed himself upward, to maximum extension of his arms, nearly locking his elbows.

  John Rourke closed his eyes for an instant, trying to ignore the groaning of the narrowing walls of ice in front and in back of him, then ripping the little Russell knife free of the ice with his right hand and, -as his left elbow locked, his grip started to go, stabbing the smaller knife into the ice above him, clinging there, taking some of the weight off his left hand and arm and shoulder.

  John Rourke breathed. He could not see the opening in the ice above him, but he ignored the possibility that it had already closed and encased him here forever. But forever wouldn’t be very long. He would freeze to death quickly enough.

  Already, his limbs were numbing from something else than pain.

  But there was no time and each second he hung suspended here the ice would close that much more. He started pulling himself up on the little Sting IA Black Chrome, getting his left foot up, onto the hollow handle of the Crain Life Support System X. He stood, catching his breath, the knife not shifting beneath him.

  To climb this way would be too time consuming, deadly. There was no way to gauge the exact distance remaining to the top, but he judged he had fallen some thirty feet, perhaps more than that. Rourke’s mind raced. The little Sting IA had a ring through its butt for attaching a lanyard. Rourke shifted slightly on his purchase, with his left hand grasping at the sling of the M-16. The sling was not made to be removed one handed. But he started working at it, prying, the sling of the clip type rather than one which threaded through the swivels and was bound by the buckle. He had one clip all but free — free now, the rifle starting to slip away. He caught the end of the sling in his teeth.

  With his left hand, Rourke caught up the rifle and loosed the sling from his teeth. It was the waste of a perfecdy

  serviceable M-16, but there was nothing else for it. He held the M-16 between his legs, working loose the other clip which was at the buttstock. He had it, as the rifle slipped away into the darkness of the abyss below, Rourke nearly losing his balance, catching himself. He reached up his left hand, snapping the sling into the hole at the base of the skeletonized handle of the Sting I A. Rourke breathed.

  He was starting to grow numb all over from the cramped position, from the cold, from the —he had never seen any logic in self-deception — fear. Rourke started feeding the slack in the sling through the buckle to give himself as much length as possible with the sling.

  If the sling held and if the short blade of the Sting IA bit deeply enough into the ice —Rourke was shivering. The darkness seemed to be increasing—was it the ice closing over him or simply a cloud passing in front of the three-quarter full moon?

  He told himself the latter. Sometimes, self-deception was necessary, however illogical.

  He worked the method through his mind several times.

  Using the massive Crain Life Support System X, he would gouge into the ice surface while hanging by one hand from the sling attached to the little Sting IA, then get a foothold and raise himself up, then regrasp the sling and free the Crain knife, then repeat the process all over again. A third knife would have made it easier, pitons made it almost a practical means of traverse.

  John Rourke reached to maximum extension, his booted feet balanced on the handle of the Crain knife, his right hand wrenching out the Sting IA, then his right arm extending upward, driving the knife into the ice like a stake into the heart of a vampire. He wrapped the sling around his right fist and tugged. The knife moved slightly, then held, locked in the ice —he hoped at least. Holding to the sling, he eased himself down to where his knees could bend, searching for a

  toehold against the ice, finding none but wedging his legs against the narrowing walls which were glass slick. He used his left hand and fought at the Crain knife, ripping the Life Support System X free, swinging crazily for a moment as the force of his exertion freed his body from the wedged position he had taken.

  Instantly, he modified his plan of attack against the sheer ice face. Instead of driving the Crain knife into the same wall, he would drive it into the opposite wall, using a modified rock chimney technique.

  Rourke balled his gloved left fist more tightly still over the handle of the Crain knife and drove it into the ice almost at chest height, pulling himself up against the sling’s tension, getting his left foot into the handle of the Crain knife, raising himself up, the walls closer together here, an advantage for what he had determined as his means of locomotion, but a growing danger. Rourke ripped the smaller Russell knife free, then stabbed it into the ice at the maximum extension of his right arm’s upward reach.

  Again, he half swung, was half wedged —and he wrenched the Crain knife free, then drove it in again at nearly chest height, raising his left leg, getting a foothold, starting to drag himself up — his boot slipped. Rourke started to lose his hold on the sling, but caught himself as his left hand grasped for the haft of the Crain knife.

  He swung there, knowing that at any moment one of the knives might lose its bite into the ice and he could fall.

  The ice groaned around him again, a sound like tortured metal under great strain.

  Again, he brought his left foot up, getting it as firmly as he could into position on the haft of the Crain knife, then pushing himself up. There was no time to rest. He tore the smaller knife free, then hammered it into the ice with all the force he could summon, at maximum reach above him. Again, he grasped the sling/lifeline, again he tugged the Crain knife free of the ice, each time the task more difficult,

  his strength ebbing, he knew.

  He drove the Crain knife home, again rising to stand on its handle. His shoulders were touching the walls of ice which confined him and the crevasse seemed even narrower in the gray light above him.

  John Rourke repeated the process — drive the smaller knife into the ice, swing from the sling, wrench out the larger knife and then drive it into the ice, then climb up to stand upon it, then begin again —he didn’t
know how many times, realizing at one level of consciousness that he was moving automaton-like, marveling at still another level of consciousness that he was moving at all. His arms ached with weariness; his legs cramped.

  As he rose to perch precariously again on the handle of the Crain knife, his head impacted something above him —ice.

  “Jesus,” Rourke cried into the darkness.

  He was trapped.

  Annie Rourke —Sarah Rourke watched her, praying for the child. The gift the girl had was also a curse, perhaps more a curse than a gift at all.

  “I can feel him, Momma —he’s trapped —he’s in darkness. He’s never been so tired. I can feel him thinking—about us and never seeing us again —Momma!”

  Sarah Rourke held her daughter tightly in her arms. They were trapped under enemy fire, had no radio, were still at least a quarter mile from the rim of the volcano. And Annie Rourke had said a word which said it all, moaned the word like pain —ice.

  “John!” Sara screamed her husband’s name until her throat ached with it …

  Natalia Anastasia Tiemerovna felt something—Annie? She looked at Paul Rubenstein beside her, crouched near the

  height of the cone, Russians in front of them, some still behind them, the defenders of Hekla counter-attacking now, Natalia and Paul pinned down. Natalia closed her eyes. “Where’s John,” she asked.

  In her self-imposed darkness, she heard Paul Rubenstein saying, “Where the hell is he?” Annie …

  Annie Rourke focused her concentration. If her father were in danger Natalia and Paul might be near by. Natalia … She whispered the word, “Natalia … Natalia … please, Natalia …”

  Chapter Ten

  He was sealed in the crevasse. The ice could have been feet thick or only inches thick. He didn’t know which. Rourke stood, balanced on the handle of the Crain knife, his legs cramping because he couldn’t move them, his feet falling asleep, losing all sensation. He tried wiggling his toes inside his boots but with the added numbing effect of the cold, they could barely respond. With the A.G. Russell Sting IA he chiselled at the ice over his head, hammering at the butt of the knife with the Pachmayr gripped butt of the Metalifed and Mag-na-Ported Colt Python from the holster at his right hip. The ice was chipping away, but piteously slowly.

  The walls of ice groaned again. The last time they had made it such that he could not keep both shoulders level and still be able to move freely; this time it confined him still more.

  He stopped hammering, his strength, his very ability to raise his hands all but ebbed away. The next time the walls closed, he would be crushed or forced to drop downward, abandoning any hope of survival. But his will had not ebbed away.

  John Rourke could barely see, the darkness all but absolute now.

  He had never cared to gamble at cards or dice —life was

  too much of a gamble as it was, no matter how one planned ahead. And it was time again to gamble, the stakes all or nothing. If the ice were too thick —

  He blotted thoughts of defeat from his mind. Again, his thoughts focused on Sarah, Michael, Annie, Paul —and Natalia. He loved two women. He might never see either of them again.

  John Rourke wrapped the sling carefully around the blade of the Sting IA and pocketed it. Clinically, his years of firearms expertise summoned up, as though he were punching up a file in a computer. The .357 Magnum over the .45 ACP had the greatest hydrostatic shock value. It would be the Python then. He wasn’t looking to knock down the ice, but rather burst through it.

  He drew himself downward; ironically, it was easier now with the walls having closed in around him, the ice making him shiver with the cold.

  Rourke took his dark-lensed aviator style sunglasses from an interior pocket, placed them over his eyes. He was totally blinded. He removed the glasses, could barely see the section of ice he had chipped away at, memorized the range of motion needed and then replaced the glasses. As he clung to the ice wall, wedged there over the Crain knife which still supported his feet, John Rourke thrust the Python upward, the muzzle pointed by feel, the six-inch rocking gently in his fist as he fired, his ears ringing with it. He fired a double tap, chunks of ice toppling down around him. He fired another single round, then the last double tap, the cylinder empty.

  Rourke could no longer hear even his own breathing. His ears were filled with hollow roars.

  He removed the sunglasses, looking up. He could barely detect that some larger chunks of ice were shot away. Still no opening into the arctic night above him.

  Rourke worked the cylinder release catch, thumbing it rearward, with his trigger finger pushing out the cylinder,

  shaking the revolver over the abyss, the empty brass falling away. He felt in one of the musette bags, finding one of the Safariland speedloaders, ramming it by feel into the cylinder, against the ejector star, the cartridges dumping as he awkwardly held the revolver between his knees. He pocketed the speedloader. If he survived, it would be needed. He told himself he would survive.

  He closed the cylinder, taking the revolver again in his right fist. The ice walls shuddered, closing around him again. Rourke turned sideways, the walls against his chest and back. The pistol overhead, he worked the trigger as fast as it could be double-actioned, the howling roar in his ears intensifying, the pelting of chunks of ice intensifying, his glasses pocketed, his eyes averted, closed.

  The Python was empty.

  John Rourke looked up.

  Moonlight.

  Rourke rammed the Python into the full flap holster at his right hip, closing the flap so he wouldn’t lose the revolver. The Crain knife—he must get it. The walls of ice started to shudder, closing, faster now, Rourke pushing himself up, finding the Sting IA in his right pocket, gouging it into the ice overhead, holding to the sling.

  He let his feet slip from the handle of the Crain knife, using almost the last of his strength to pry it free of the ice, then throw his arms up sideways in a ragged arc and thrust the knife into the ice overhead. He pulled himself up, still holding to the sling with his right hand.

  He pulled —his head pushed through the crack in the ice.

  The crevasse was shuddering closed.

  John Rourke wrenched the Crain knife free of the ice as he thrust his upper body into the sub-zero night, a strange warmth rushing over him. He rolled his body free, his legs barely responding, jerking at the sling which was still attached to the Russell knife, the smaller knife arcing up and out of the crevasse as the crevasse sealed, the ice beneath

  Rourke’s body shuddering violendy, Rourke sagging to his back, his left fist still clutching the Crain knife. “American!”

  The English was bad, but it was heavily accented with Russian and Rourke couldn’t hold that against the speaker.

  He saw the man, one of the Soviet assault rifles in both the man’s fists, the man less than six feet away, levelling the rifle to fire.

  The Life Support System X was not made for throwing, was not balanced for throwing. A good man, Rourke’s father had once told him, could underhand anything from a kitchen knife to a shortsword at small distances. Rourke snapped his left hand and arm forward as he rolled toward the man, his left hand loosing the haft of the Crain System X, the foot long blade snapping into the moonlight between them, burying itself in the Soviet soldier’s chest as the assault rifle sprayed into the ice. John Rourke tried to stand, but couldn’t. His eyes started to close.

  Chapter Eleven

  Paul Rubenstein had elected to go, Natalia providing covering fire for him with two of the M-16s, friendly forces to close for use of the grenade launcher. “Ready?”

  “Ready,” Rubenstein answered, swinging the M-16 forward on its sling.

  “Now!” Natalia shouted, Paul Rubenstein pushing up from the crouch and sprinting away from the rocks behind which they had taken cover, heavy light machinegun fire coming at him as he dodged and ran, the sound of Natalia with an M-16 behind him.

  He was making toward the sparsest portion of ene
my resistance behind them, going back to look for John Rourke. Natalia told him that somehow she sensed Annie and somehow she sensed that something was wrong about John. She didn’t know how or why.

  And Paul Rubenstein ran. The Soviet forces were nearly finished, but fighting to the last man as Rubenstein had anticipated they would, as John Rourke had soberly predicted, bitterly predicted. It seemed ingrained in the Soviet military mentality to fight until resistance was no longer possible, then to continue to fight. He wondered if it were a subconscious racial memory of the Sege of Stalingrad, or just indoctrination, or perhaps both. He kept running, two

  Soviet troopers opening up from behind an ice ridge to his left. Rubenstein threw himself down, firing, spraying into the ice ridge, huge chunks of ice flying; Rubenstein found one of the German grenades, baseball shaped and copied after American grenades he had seen in movies —how long ago. He pulled the pin, hurtling the grenade toward the ice ridge, then pushing up to his feet and running again as it exploded, knowing the damage it would do.

  He kept running, nearly clear of enemy fire now, a few straggling Soviet soldiers still to be seen, some fewer of them wounded. Rubenstein started shouting. “John! John Rourke! Where are you?” It seemed inconceivable to him that something could have happened—he realized subconsciously that he thought of John Rourke as being like an immortal, somehow impervious to death. “John!” The thought chilled him more than the bone chilling cold of the night.