Survivalist - 15 - Overlord (28 page)

The plastique in one of the musette bags.

He searched the bag and found the remaining segments.

Rourke placed them in a circle approximately six feet in diameter around him. There were not enough detonators.

He narrowed the hole’s diameter to three feet, spacing the detonators one into every other segment, just barely getting them close enough together that he thought it would work. He had no idea of how many men might be below him inside the boxcar, but he told himself it couldn’t be too many.

And what choice was there, he thought.

He crawled forward of the circle of charges, knowing that it would be easier to move rearward on the car when the time came because of the wind.

He flattened himself along the boxcar’s roof and drew the Metalifed and Mag-na-Ported Colt Python. He levelled the revolver toward the furthest of the charges which contained a detonator. There were four detonators and eight charges all told.

He fired, shifted the muzzle, fired, the first explosion rocking him away, Rourke nearly losing his balance as he rolled right, catching himself, the second explosion coming, firing the Python, then again, the third and fourth explosions coming, the gaping hole in the roof of the boxcar visible now. He thrust the Python into the leather as he made it to his feet, running, vaulting up and dropping feet first through the hole into the interior of the boxcar. He crashed downward, onto crates, he realized —the warheads. He rolled clear, both Detonics Scoremasters coming into his hands, already cocked and locked, his thumbs sweeping down the ambidextrous safeties.

Black uniformed KGB Elite Corps personnel surrounded him and he fired, again and again, and again hearing a voice, “John! Take cover!”

Natalia’s voice. He threw himself left and away from the crates of warheads, the roar of Paul’s German MP-40 submachinegun, sharp reports of Natalia’s matched .357s.

He was up to his knees. Seven bodies of KGB Elite Corps

personnel formed a ragged circle around him.

And he heard another voice. Russian accented, the voice a rich baritone. “I am Colonel Ivan Krakovski, Doctor Rourke.” The man was average height, trim but not extraordinarily well built handsome featured. In his hands were two wires. “When I touch together these wires, one of the warheads will detonate and that will be enough to detonate them all. I am the man who will end the world. You should know that.”

If Rourke fired, the wires could still touch as the madman died.

“John?” It was Paul’s voice. Krakovski’s hands moved.

John Rourke hurtled the empty Scoremasters from his hands, his left hand moving to the sheath on the left side of his belt, his fingers popping the snap from the safety strap, his right hand tearing free the twelve-inch bladed Crain knife, his right hand coming down as the wires came together, the knife’s primary edge finding flesh and bone and the Russian colonel’s right hand severing, blood spurting everywhere as the Russian shrieked in agony, Rourke shouting, “Kill him!” as Rourke threw his body down, the Schmeisser, Natalia’s .357s, the roar of gunfire momentarily deafening.

In the next second, Rourke told himself he was alive. In the next second he was up. “Out the boxcar door— now!”

He was to the door, Paul to it in the same second, the door hasped and padlocked shut from the inside, Rourke sheathing the knife as he stepped back. Natalia gestured Paul away, the P-38 in her right fist discharged twice, then twice more, then the lock falling away, Rubenstein knocking it clear of the hasp, freeing the hasp with the butt of the Schmeisser. Rourke threw the sliding door open, grabbing Natalia to him, folding her into his arms.

Snow, beneath it rocks, he knew, beyond it the sea.

Hugging her body against him to protect her, he threw himself over, seeing a blur as Paul followed them, Rourke impacting the snow with his right shoulder and arms, rolling, losing Natalia, rolling, his legs scissoring outward, stopping the roll, Natalia rolling past him, Rourke reaching for her. Paul was several yards further ahead. “Paul!”

He didn’t know if the younger man could hear him over the roar of the train and the keening of the wind.

But Paul waved back. Rourke was to his knees, peering ahead through the swirling snow, He stood, Natalia suddenly beside him.

The train.

As John Rourke had worked his way toward the boxcar, he had seen everyone jumping clear, Michael among the last of them.

His eyes rivetted on the train. The curve. The train seemed to hesitate for an instant, as if somehow a living thing and determining its fate.

And then the engine jumped the track, tearing the two passenger cars, the boxcar loaded with Chinese warheads and dead maniacs, the two remaining passenger cars, tearing them from the track, vaulting over a rock ledge, lurching upward, the train seeming to jackknife over the leaping foam tipped waves, then collapsing as if all its energy were spent, into the sea.

If the warheads would go, they would go quickly. He hadn’t seen how they were packed. He held Natalia close against him, his lips touching her hair.

The train disappeared beneath the surface.

The icy wind tore at him and he held her closer. He could see Paul Rubenstein limping toward them, looking behind him toward the submerged train.

They waited there, the cold something there was no time to feel.

And after a time, John Rourke kissed Natalia’s mouth lightly and said to her and to Paul Rubenstein, “What do you say we go find ourselves some coats. And then what do you say we have a drink. But first,” and he raised his face toward the sky, now still falling, filling his eyelashes. But he was alive to feel it. “Thank you,” he said, then turned his eyes back to the earth.