Survivalist - 20 - Firestorm (23 page)

Rourke’s flashlight beam swept over the room. “Your left!” Paul snapped. Rourke sidestepped right as he spun left, flashlight and .45 moving as one. An Elite Corpsman, an officer, a short barreled assault rifle in his hands. As Rourke fired, he heard Paul firing from behind him. The Soviet officer’s body twitched back, then doubled forward as Rourke and Rubenstein each fired again, the Russian sprawling sideways over a control console.

“Paul! Get this thing under our control! Tm killing the steam and restoring power, then ni lock us in!”

“Right!”

John Rourke rammed die nearly empty Scoremaster into his trousers, grabbing the second pistol, reaching the door. A man-recognizable as that only by the uniform and the gun-writhed on the tunnel floor near the doorway, nothing human-looking left to his red raw face and hands. Rourke shot him in the head.

Stepping over the body, Rourke drew up his goggles, die flashlight weaving crazily over the ceiling of the tunnel now, thrust into his belt but still on.

Gloves. Rourke pulled on the right one, then the left, goggles up. He’d burn himself, most likely. His left hand held the flashlight and he safed the Scoremaster, dropping the pistol into his parka pocket, eyeballing the target for his right hand while he could still see through his fogging over snow goggles.

Rourke reached into the steam from as far behind its jet as he

could, pain seizing him as his double gloved hand penetrated the spray, his fingers closing over the emergency bypass control, twisting it, bis teeth gritted against the pain, his goggles nearly fogged over now. Rourke retrieved his knife, hot feeling even through his gloves. His hand shifted, and he groped blindly for the tunnel wall, found it, moved along it, tearing down his goggles, a wash of cold air over his eyes and upper face.

He reached the door, the jet of steam slowing as he stumbled over the flange and pulled the door to. *!John-“

The normal lighting had returned and the contrast to the hell-like exterior nearly blinded Rourke as he stared past Paul Rubenstein toward a Soviet non-com, an Elite Corpsman, in the man’s hands an ; assault rifle. The man’s left temple was bleeding, but he was other-f wise unwounded.

Paul had both Brownings pointed at the Elite Corpsman, the Russian’s rifle pointed at the AV-16’s master control panel. The monitoring screens were between Paul and the Soviet non-com. On the monitoring screens, like massive windshields but functioning like the viewing ports with which Mid-Wake submarines were equipped-merely giant video screens-Rourke could see the terrain over which they sped. There was no sign of Michael in the Atsack, which was good. But the terrain was familiar. The AV-16 was speeding toward the edge of the plateau, hundreds of feet of sheer drop beyond and below it.

“John-“

The Russian, in English so colloquially intensive that the man had to be one of the men who had survived with Karamatsov, ordered, “Drop the damn guns, man, or JT1 waste the control panel and we all go to hell! And you-the pig sticker. Ditch it now!”

“Pig sticker? You’re obviously no connoisseur of steel, pal. This is a hand-made, marked prototype of a specially designed knife made for me five centuries ago by Jack Crain, one of the most famous knifemakers in the world. Pig sticker? Be serious.”

“Drop it, asshole. You’re Rourke, aren’t you?”

“If you know Fm John Rourke, then you know what Tm going to do with this knife, don’t you-asshole.”

The Elite Corps non-com wheeled toward John Rourke, the control panel no longer his target, in the same instant Rourke’s right hand moving forward in a long, fast arc, Paul shouting, “Down!”

As die LS-X flicked from Rourke’s gloved fingertips-the pain to his flesh as his fingers flexed moving through him like a shiver-Paul’s Browning High Power discharged simultaneously, the Elite Corpsman’s body sprawling back, bis rifle discharging into the control panel as Rourke hit the floor.

“Shit!” Paul snapped.

Rourke was up, moved toward the control panel, kicking the rifle from the dead man’s hands as he retrieved his knife from the dead man’s chest, two bullet holes in the Elite Corpsman’s body, one in the chest inches from where the LS-X had struck and penetrated and one in the throat just under the chin.

“Hate throwing a good knife,” Rourke remarked as he pushed die body to the floor, wiped the blade clean of blood on the man’s uniform then leaned over the console. The AV-16’s maneuvering controls were shot to pieces. They could be rewired-he looked at the view screens-but net in time. Less than four minutes and the AV-16 would be over the edge of the plateau. “Gimme a hand, Paul-fast.”

“What do you want me to do?” It was less of a question than a request.

“See if you can bring up the locations of the rest of the vehicles in this squadron.” “Right.”

Rourke crossed the compartment to what appeared to be the main computer console, began trying access names-“Missile targeting” brought up the program he wanted after better than one precious minute.

“John-got all the vehicles I can find located. Might have missed one. I don’t think so. And we don’t have Michael in the Atsack -that’s certain.”

“Hang on.” Rourke’s eyes scanned the program, his reading knowledge of Russian not nearly so good as his spoken command of the language. “Natalia,” Rourke almost whispered. He missed her, for more than her Russian language skills.

He had it. “Try this sequence.” And John Rourke began recking a litany of number-letter codes, these in English, just the same way that Soviet missile bunkers before the Night of the War used English tracking symbols. “A-19; C-6; F-13; W-3; K-5; whatchya got?”

“Bingo! She’s running.”

Rourke’s eyes left the green screen for the computer console, the whirring of the drives grinding in an almost reassuring harmony. He shifted his gaze to the headsup on die view screens. Each vehicle Paul had located, displayed on the view screen by its sensor impression, was acquiring a target designation, one after the other. There was probably an override program which would allow the AV-16 in which they rode to target itself. But no time was left to find that. And the fall over the plateau would obliterate this machine at any event.

“Can you hunch?”

Paul looked at him, saying, They couldn’t be-” They aren’t nuclear. I got that out of the program. High Explosive Anti-Tank.” Rourke smiled, then started for the door, his right hand stiffening, the skin cracking as he moved it within his glove. He pulled the glove away. “Where you going?”

Rourke glanced at the view screens. About two minutes only remained until the AV-16 rolled over die edge of the plateau. As he doused his right hand with the German-devised antiseptic healing spray, he told his friend, To the turret. Fll get out through there. Soon as you have those missiles launched, get the hell out of here. See you on the outside.”

Rourke didn’t wait for an answer, throwing open the door, a fresh magazine going up the well of the nearly emptied Scoremaster, the second .45, one round fired, still in his waistband. He jumped the body of the man he’d mercy killed, running along the tunnel now toward the center of the vehicle, ticking off seconds in his head.

Gunfire tore into the metal of the tunnel wall near Rourke’s head and Rourke dodged the pinging ricochets, then threw himself down, the Scoremaster in his right fist stabbing toward the origin of the gunfire, an Elite Corpsman, the skin of his hands and face scalded. Rourke fired, then again and again, the Elite Corpsman going down, his assault rifle spraying across the tunnel ceiling, Rourke’s hands and forearms moving up to protect his head, ricochets whining everywhere around him like swarms of bees.

As the singing of the bullets dissipated, Rourke was up and moving, running along the tunnel now, the partially shot out Scoremaster still in his left fist, his right hand nearly fumbling the tactical magazine change because of die pain there.

Rourke rounded a bend and neared the approximate center of the AV-16, an overhead hatchway there. Rourke started up the ladder, only three steps needed before he could comfortably attack the hatch locking mechanism. He wheeled it open, then pushed the hatch upward, licking his lips as he continued up the ladder. The only item of his equipment he considered expendable was the M-16-there were plenty of those. He loosened it on its sling and flung the weapon through die hatchway opening.

Pistol fire reverberated from above him as Rourke dove upward through die opening, banging his head on the hatch flange, but not seriously, stumbling back.

About fifty-two seconds remained before the AV-16 went over the precipice.

An Elite Corpsman, sitting in a reclining seat that was synchronized to turret movement of the energy weapon, a second man-a gunner’s assistant of some kind-stood crouched beside a small control panel. Both men had pistols in their hands. Rourke’s right hand moved to his waistband as the gun in his left hand fired, three 185-grain hollowpoints impacting the man beside the control panel, Rourke throwing his weight against the gun mounts, die gun shifting, the pistol shots from the man in die chair going wild, spi-derwebbing two gauges on die control panel as Rourke’s right hand-his flesh screamed at him-stabbed upward and his first finger flexed against the trigger twice, the first shot penetrating through the chair’s left armrest, hurtling the man in the chair half out of it, the second shot entering through the left side of the gunner’s neck.

Rourke safed both pistols as he spun toward the hatchway, kicking it shut as hands-one of the hands held a Soviet pistol-pushed through. There was a scream of agony, fingers severed, skittering across the floor of the turret like living things. Rourke reached to the floor, grabbing up the M-16, the buttstock penetrated several times by pistol shots. He wedged the rifle’s barrel over the hatchway door.

Twenty-five seconds at the outside.

The energy weapon. Rourke reached for it, eyes moving downward, scanning for the mount system. A simple push through bolt secured with a large cotter pin. Rourke tore the cotter pin free, then pushed out the bolt. He wrenched the energy weapon free of the

mount, a cable feeding downward from it through the mount. Twenty seconds.

Rourke glanced overhead. The bubble of the gun turret was partially cocooned in titanium or something like it, partially only the interior covering, something like plexiglas.

If the material were enough like it—

Rourke pulled on his gloves.

The cable extending from the gun was well insulated. Rourke set the energy weapon on the seat, beside the dead man who was half-fallen to the floor. Rourke drew the Crain knife, realizing he might be destroying it.

His right foot braced the gun downward, the LS-X in both fists as he raised it over his head.

He focused his concentration through and beyond the tautiy distended cable as he hacked downward. The knife caught for a split second, then cleaved through the cable in a shower of sparks, Rourke’s hands opening, his body lurching back, slamming against the turret bulkhead.

The cable was severed. Rourke dragged himself to his feet. Ten seconds? He didnt know. Rourke’s gloved hands reached for the sparking main section of the cable, catching it well down from the severed portion, holding it away from his face as he stretched it upward to the plexiglas-like substance, the still flowing power making contact with a steel bolt, the electricity arcing across the transparent material. It began to burn, flames licking outward so suddenly Rourke’s right hand and arm were nearly consumed in them.

Rourke looked to the floor. His knife. He grabbed it up, the LS-X at cursory glance seeming none the worse for wear. Sheathing it, Rourke reached for the energy weapon. It was about the size of an ordinary pre-War M-60 machine gun.

There was a cracking sound, the sounds of metal straining against metal and he looked toward the hatchway as the M-16 bent and snapped away from the hatch opening. Rourke left hand stayed on the energy weapon, his right moving to his mouth. He bit his gloves away and drew the 629, double actioning it down the hatchway, the noise in the confined space of the turret deafeningly loud.

Rourke glanced to the transparent portion of the turret dome. It would have to be burned through enough.

As he stabbed the emptied .44 Magnum into its holster, he caught up the energy weapon in both arms like he would have carried a baby, clutching it against him as he stood on the gunner’s seat. Flames licked toward him in the wind which lashed through the ever enlarging opening.

Rourke braced bis right foot against the rim of the turret, fire searing at the flame retardant material of his snowpants. Holding the energy weapon with his right hand and arm, he reached his gloved left hand into the flames, screaming as he did it, catching hold of the titanium cocoon, hauling himself up, through, his parka on fire as he stumbled through die opening and down to die shell of the AV-16, wind tearing at him, snow blinding bis ungoggled eyes.

He squinted against it as he rolled across the armored missile platform’s hull. Tube hatches were open, steam and vapor rising from them, mass launch of the platform’s missile complement imminent as he rolled his body in the snow there, trying to extinguish the flames.

He looked forward. The ground fell away, the AV-16 starting to lurch into die abyss.

His parka still aflame, the energy weapon clutched to his chest, John Rourke pushed himself up, dodging an open firing hatch, then another, near the tread fender now, die roaring starting, the groaning of straining metal that had begun an instant earlier as the AV-16 began to slip over the edge totally drowned out.

John Rourke jumped, flames all but consuming the sleeves of his parka, the legs ofhis snowpants, the missiles launching, the roaring of their engines numbing him as he plummeted through empty space.

John Rourke impacted something, suddenly smothering, his mouth filling.

Snow. Rourke burrowed into the drift, the battery firing of the missile complement continuing, the ground shuddering, then suddenly more explosions, the vibration of the ground beneath him became more intense. He tried to look up but he could not, was slammed downward by concussive force of explosion after explosion as the missiles reached the targets clustered around him, secondary explosions now as the weapons within the armored vehicles of the Soviet assault force themselves exploded. The ground seemed to break away from him. Snow showered down on him.