Survivalist - 21 - To End All War (25 page)

Rourke walked along the forwardmost rank of gunships.

An Elite Corpsman with a pistol stepped out, Rourke dodging right as the man fired, the Elite Corpsman’s bullet missing. But Rourke fired both ScoreMasters simultaneously. And he didn’t miss.

There were explosions outside now, aheavy volume of machine gun fire, but no sounds of anti-aircraft batteries opening up on the drone.

John Rourke safed both ScoreMasters as he climbed up into one of the gunships, thumbs poised over the safeties as he walked forward, ducking under the overhead.

The gunship was empty.

As he sat down in the cockpit, the pistols going between his legs, muzzles against the seat surface, his fingers began activating electrical systems. His eyes moved over the floor of the hangar. Natalia was almost finished, it seemed, near the fuel storage area.

Rourke’s eyes moved to the instrument panel.

All systems on, fuel gauges registering full.

He started the main rotor.

The engine turned over instandy.

Oil pressure was already beginning to build as he flipped the switch for the tail rotor.

Natalia was coming away from the fuel storage area now, looking for him.

John Rourke climbed out of the cockpit, guns in hand again, and went to the fuselage doorway on the starboard side. “Natalia! Here. Change in plans!”

She waved to him and began to run, looking slighdy ridiculous in high heels and a skirt with a revolver in each hand.

John Rourke checked to port and starboard of the gunship.

If men still lived inside here, they were holding back.

He went forward, dropping down into the pilot’s seat again.

Nearly full pressure.

Nearly sufficient RPMs.

Through the hangar doors, he could see activity on the airfield outside, moving vehicles, running men, an explosion.

He heard Natalia’s voice behind him. “Anything I need to do?”

“I don’t think we’re lashed down, but double-check,” Rourke called back.

While he waited, he reloaded both Detonics miniguns, holstering the pistols under his arms, then lowering the hammers of the two ScoreMasters, replacing the pistols into his trouser band.

Again, from behind him, came Natalia’s voice. “We have about two minutes until—”

“I know. Strap in, Natalia,” Rourke told her.

She took the seat beside him. He enjoyed having Natalia beside him, like few other sensations in his life.

John Rourke increased rotation, starting to lift off ever so slighdy.

“I hate this,” Natalia said. “Flying inside a building.”

John Rourke said nothing, very gendy altering rotor pitch, the gunship starting to edge forward over the floor. At last, he told her, “Check that our weapons systems are all operational and give me machine guns.”

“Right. About ninety seconds, John, and the whole building goes.”

“Right,” Rourke nodded.

Men were running into the hangar through the large doors. Had this been some sort of spy thriller from five centuries ago, they would have immediately apprehended what was happening and begun to close the hangar doors, to block the helicopter’s exit.

But it wasn’t and they didn’t.

Instead, about a dozen men took up positions behind parts, crates, and other gunships, shouldering their assault rifles. “We have machine guns up, Natalia?”

“Yes.”

John Rourke nodded. He flipped his control switches, activating forward firing port and starboard guns dead on toward the riflemen now beginning to fire at him, the heavier rounds of the machine guns fired with such rapidity that a burst seemed like one long shot tore through the packing crates, spilling the men sheltered behind them to the concrete slab. Rourke maneuvered his machine slighdy to port, angling the forward firing guns still more, firing toward the men in cover among the choppers.

“Missiles up?”

“Yes. We have forty-three seconds, John.”

“Right.” John Rourke let the gunship turn ninety degrees on the axis of the main rotor, activating a single starboard side missile, rotating away from it and increasing speed as the contrail vanished among the gunships still ranked in the hangar.

The explosion from the missile rocked the building’s walls, a fireball belching after them as Rourke looked back once and increased speed to escape it.

He was only a few feet below the roof supports now, and too near the ground for comfort still. “When we get outside, look for Paul and for Michael. If we can pick them up, they’ll be safer.”

“All right. Twenty-one seconds, John.” Rourke only nodded, increasing speed gradually, almost to the doors.

Men ran through the open doorway, firing assault rifles, Rourke firing the gunship’s port and starboard forward machine guns, getting most of them.

As he flew past, there was a blur at the far left corner of his

peripheral vision. “Natalia! Port side fuselage door.” “All right.”

As he glanced toward Natalia, he saw her leveling the suppressor-fitted PPK/S, firing it once, then again and again. He looked back and down through the chin bubble, saw the body rolling beneath them.

“Eight seconds, John.”

Rourke nodded, nearly into the open.

Automatic weapons fire tore across the chin bubble but didn’t penetrate. Rourke veered away from it, catching sight of three men with assault rifles to his far left.

“Four seconds. Three. Two, now. One.”

John Rourke gunned the main rotor, the gunship dipping, slipping right in the sudden draft, Rourke radically altering main rotor pitch, the gunship escaping the open hangar doors as the explosions came from behind him, occurring almost simultaneously.

Rourke started the gunship climbing, let it rotate one hundred eighty degrees, and looked back. Secondary and tertiary explosions were ripping through the hangar structure now, the walls of the immense prefab building bulging outward, then collapsing inward as the roof fell and fireballs rushed upward into the freezing air.

“I see Michael.”

Rourke looked to his left, banked the chopper to port, and started to descend, skimming over the runway now. He saw Paul, just ahead of Michael, both of them running toward the bunkers at the far end of the field.

There was an explosion from the control tower, then another, the tower teetering like a chopped-through tree, swaying, the legs collapsing under it, the structure falling forward into the airfield, another explosion coming.

To Rourke’s right, the roof of the smaller hangar—the one for the fighter bombers—seemed to ripple front to back, and then a fireball tore through its center, belching skyward in the hot updraft.

Gunfire tore across the surface of the field, near to Michael, too near.

Rourke let the machine rotate ninety degrees to port and began to climb, the source of the gunfire a vehicle with a machine gun mounted to its rear end. Rourke almost whispered, “Activating one starboard missile now.” He fired, then turned away from the contrail, back toward Michael and Paul.

The two men were even with one another now, Michael always a faster runner than Paul, but both of them swapping gunfire with riflemen from the far end of the field, neither Paul’s submachine gun nor Michael’s pistols adequate for the distance involved. Rourke banked the gunship, brought it ninety degrees to starboard, and fired a pair of missiles toward the riflemen, banking to port, easing downward toward the surface of the field.

Rourke looked behind him. In the distance, J7-Vs were approaching from the west, over the Ural River. And, as he looked forward again, Natalia said, “There, John! The Germans!”

German gunships were moving in from the east, coming low over the field, missiles and guns firing. “Natalia—”

Tm already changing frequencies, John.” She switched into German from English. “This is Soviet gunship KH R 333 658, piloted by John Rourke. This is Major Tiemerovna speaking. We are moving direcdy toward German helicopter force, flying east over center of field to pick up Michael Rourke and Paul Rubenstein. Hold your fire against us. I repeat, this is Major Tiemerovna, in gunship—”

He nearly had them. Michael and Paul were starting to run toward them, to intercept their line of flight.

At the far left corner of Rourke’s peripheral vision, he saw a moving vehicle, one of the Soviet energy weapons mounted to it. “Shit,” John Rourke almost whispered.

He banked to port, taking elevation, the energy weapon firing, a ripple of white-hot lightning coming from its muzzle, Rourke banking to starboard, the energy beam flickering beneath the chin bubble.

Rourke banked the machine to port and started a dive, activating forward firing port and starboard missiles for full battery shots.

As the energy weapon fired upward at them, Rourke fired, forward firing missile batteries launching from port and star

board, the contrails vanishing toward the vehicle firing on the gunship as Rourke banked.

The gunship vibrated and the control panels died. “What was that?”

“Energy weapon strike,” Rourke answered, flicking switches, then reaching to the overhead, going to auxiliary power as he looked to port.

The vehicle with the energy weapon was lost within a fireball—black and orange and yellow—of tremendous size. The gunship was going down. “John?”

“We’re not dead yet,” John Rourke shouted to her, the wind rush around the cockpit growing to maddening intensity, the gunship starting to spin.

He tried auxiliary power again.

Nothing.

“Intruder defense.” “What?”

“Intruder defense,” Rourke repeated, hitting the system activation switch. Soviet gunships were equipped with an intruder defense system that discharged a high voltage electrical current through the skin. “Don’t touch anything at all!” Electricity arced around them as the gunship spiraled downward, the pressure against Rourke’s kidneys, in his throat… . The charge dissipated, the ground rushing upward.

John Rourke hit the emergency power switch again.

His instrument panel pulsed, died, pulsed, and he had power.

John Rourke gave full power to the tail rotor, edging power into the main rotor’s engine.

The gunship stabilized, Rourke advancing power on the main rotor, the gunship slipping left, Rourke skimming it over the airfield.

Toward Michael and Paul.

Almost, he thought, almost verbalizing it.

“Lower, John,” Natalia told him.

And John Rourke smiled, thinking about the old jokes from five centuries ago about women being backseat drivers. “John?”

“Coming in ” he told her, slipping the machine to starboard, cutting back on main rotor power, pitching downward, then gliding to a landing.

Paul and Michael ran toward the ship, Michael vaulting inside as John Rourke looked back, then Paul diving in after him, shouting, “Take her up!”

John Rourke changed pitch and added power, the gunship arcing upward, Rourke rotating it a full three hundred sixty degrees, then giving full power to the main rotor as he banked to port, toward the German gunship force. “John. They see us, are telling us to climb. Both the shore and inland batteries are destroyed with minimal casualties. We have them. We have them! I could kiss you!”

John Rourke looked at Natalia Tiemerovna.

As he started the gunship climbing, he found one of the thin, dark tobacco cigars from inside his uniform blouse, then clamped it tighdy between his teeth.

Another skirmish won, the final batde just ahead.

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