The Savage Horde Read online

  Chapter 1

  John Rourke pulled up the zipper on the fly of his Levis with his right hand,

  his left moving across his body plane to the Detonics stainless under his right

  armpit in the double Alessi rig, his fingers knotting around the black checkered

  rubber Pachmayr grips, his left thumb poised to cock the .45 as soon as it

  cleared the leather. He gave the pistol a short, firm tug, hearing the speed

  break through the trigger guard unsnap. His thumb jerked back the hammer.

  Rourke wheeled, the .45 in his left hand snaking out from inside the brown

  leather bomber jacket, moving forward, his right hand reaching for the gun's

  twin under his left arm. He already had the target—a man about six-foot four,

  unshaven, his black leather jacket mud-stained, a riot shotgun in his hands, the

  pump tromboning as the twelve-gauge, roughly .70 caliber muzzle swung on line.

  Rourke's trigger finger twitched once, the second Detonics already out, in his

  right fist, the hammer jacking back. Rourke fired the second pistol as well, the

  discharge like an echo of the first punctuating the riot shotgun as it fired.

  Rourke threw himself down and right, the shotgunner right handed and the impact

  of Rourke's first slug pounding the man in the right side of the chest, twisting

  the body right, pulling the shot column right as well. The ground three feet

  from Rourke seemed to erupt, the .30

  caliber-sized pellets raising a spray of loose dirt and dead leaves, the dirt

  showering down as the shotgunner spun, twisted and lurched toward the lank

  Georgia pine beside which he'd stood. The body slipped along the length of the

  pine's trunk, then stopped, almost sagged down to the knees, the shotgun falling

  as the hands went limp.

  Rourke pushed himself to his feet, muttering, "Can't even urinate without

  somebody tryin' to kill ya—hell." His pistols held close to his sides at hip

  level, Rourke moved toward the man, Rourke's eyes behind the dark-lensed

  aviator-style sunglasses scanning from side to side. Where there was one brigand

  there were usually a dozen or more nearby.

  But he saw no one else.

  He stopped beside the body—the front of the leather jacket the dead man wore was

  caught up on a stump of branch. Blood oozed from the right center of the chest

  over the lung and from the left side of the neck near the hinge of the jaw, the

  eyes wide open in death, still clear.

  Rourke shoved the body down to the ground, letting it flop into the rotted

  leaves and the brown and brittle pine needles there. The shotgun was a

  cheapie—Rourke had no interest in it. Rourke unzipped his bomber jacket, shoving

  one of his Detonics pistols into his belt, the safety upped. His left hand free

  now, the right fist clenched tight on the other Detonics, Rourke

  began—methodically—to search the dead man.

  A poor-quality lockbiade folding knife—Rourke didn't need it. A disposable

  cigarette lighter—Rourke tried it under his thumb and it lit. He had no use for

  disposable anythings, but extra fire was always useful—Rourke pocketed the

  lighter. Cigarettes—Rourke didn't smoke them and he stuffed them back in the

  dead man's pocket. A Freedom Arms .22 Magnum Boot Pistol. "Hmm," Rourke

  murmured. He inspected the little gun; it seemed in perfect working order. He

  searched the pockets, finding

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  a plastic box of fifty rounds, only four holes in the plastic grid for the

  missing rounds. He stuffed the box of ammo in his bomber jacket patch pocket and

  put the boot pistol's hammer to half cock, twisted the cylinder base pin and

  withdrew it, then removed the cylinder. Four rounds, all unfired. He had used

  the little Freedom Arms guns a few times as last ditch back up ordnance. They

  worked well and were accurate, despite their size. But he carried no single

  action revolver ever with a round under the hammer. He pushed out one of the

  four loaded rounds, using the base pin to urge it out of the charging hole in

  the cylinder, then reassembled the gun, pocketing the loose fourth round. Rourke

  tucked the three-inch tubed gun in another pocket, then quickly resumed the

  search. A wallet; inside it a Pennsylvania driver's license— expired—and the

  folded up picture of a naked blonde-haired woman. It looked clipped from a

  magazine, and there was twenty dollars. The money was really useless, more

  suitable for fire starting than a means of exchange since the Night of The War.

  Rourke took the twenty and pocketed it anyway, then thumbed closed the eyes.

  Looking around the wooded area past the body, he upped the safety on the second

  Detonics, dropped the pistol in his hip pocket and picked up the shotgun,

  mechanically emptying the magazine tube. He unscrewed the nut at its front,

  tossing the nut into the trees, then pulling the magazine spring. He bent and

  twisted this, then threw it away, letting the emptied and nearly useless smooth

  bore fall to the ground. It could be fired awkwardly single shot, but there was

  no time to remove any less obvious parts.

  He started back across the clearing now and away from the dead man. More

  brigands would be coming soon, having heard the gunfire. He was mildly surprised

  none had come yet. To have left an operable weapon behind him for someone else

  perhaps to use against him would

  have been foolish.

  As he started to mount the Harley, he thought better of it, turned and pulled

  down the zipper of his fly, finishing what he'd started to do before the

  interruption . . .

  "I tell ya those was shots—shots, Marty—maybe he's in trouble or something

  Crip!" His hands shook as he lit a cigarette, the lighter not working for him.

  The taller, thinner man crouched beside him in the pines took a Zippo from his

  pocket and worked it. "Here—and if Marty's in trouble, then that's too fuckin'

  bad, Jed—too fuckin' bad,"

  The first man, Jed, poked the tip of the cigarette into the lighter's flame,

  nodding through a mouthful of smoke, coughing as he said, "But if he bumped into

  somebody—maybe—' *

  "Somebody comes this way lookin' for us, we take care .a them too—there's plenty

  of us and only six of them Army guys comin' and if we could hardly hear them

  shots, a cinch them Army guys didn't." Jed's eyes followed Crip as the taller

  man turned and glanced down along the defile and toward the valley below.

  Spotted behind rocks and boulders and trees were more than two dozen men—armed

  with everything from riot shotguns to automatic weapons. And past these, at the

  far side of the valley, more visible from the wake of trodden down grass and

  wild oats tracking their line of march, were six figures in olive drab.

  Crip was peering through binoculars now, "Those guys gotta have maybe a coupla

  hundred rounds of ammo apiece on 'em—and the six M-16s. Maybe got other shit we

  can use."

  "We could use gas better," Jed murmured.

  "Yeah—well—with more ammo and better guns, maybe we can get us some
gas, too. 1

  been plannin'—"

  10

  "But killin' Army guys—maybe they're fightin' the Commies or somethin'—maybe—"

  "Maybe shit," Crip laughed. "You wanna go fight Commies, go on and do it. Me—I

  wanna stay alive, stay cookin'—like the guys down there want. I take 'em to war

  with the fuckin' Russians and they'd run like hell. I take 'em to war to get

  some neat shit, to have some fun—they stick, they fight. Them Army guys down

  there's like ever'body else—fair game. They'd plug us soon as shit—but we'll ice

  'em first."

  Crip went back to looking through the binoculars. Jed puffed anxiously on the

  cigarette—and his hands still shook . . .

  Natalia Anastasia Tiemerovna brushed the dark lock of hair back from her face,

  dismounting the bike, walking across the clearing. The fingers of her left hand

  swept back through the hair again, tiny knots in it from riding the bike against

  the wind. She made a mental note to put her hair up after she brushed it, either

  that or tie a scarf over it. The fingers of her right hand were half hidden

  under the full flap of the black leather holster on her right hip, the

  fingers—all but the first finger—wrapped around the smooth finger-grooved

  Goncala Alves stocks of the round butted Smith L-Frame, the firsf finger poised

  and slightly outstretched, to reach into the revolver's trigger guard as soon as

  she cleared leather.

  She heard a rustling in the trees, but didn't react to it and draw the .357—it

  was Paul, her eyes having caught sight of his movement in the instant prior to

  the snapping of the twig. What Paul Rubenstein still lacked in expertise, she

  felt he more than compensated for by ingenuity and tenacity—and she liked him

  anyway. She saw a form on the ground at the edge of the trees—but it was

  unmoving.

  11

  Her left hand unsnapped the flap of the Safariland holster on her other hip,

  both of the customized, slab-side barreled stainless L-Frames coming into her

  hands and their muzzles leveling toward the treeline's edge. She kept walking,

  lengthening her stride, glancing down once at her black booted feet beneath the

  black whipcord slacks.

  The leaves—multi-colored the way autumn had always been near Moscow when a

  little girl on her way to ballet—were beautiful.

  She stopped, five yards from the form of the man on the ground—dead. She glanced

  from side to side, then walked forward, knowing Paul was still in the tree

  cover, watching for signs of a trap.

  Natalia stopped beside the body, kicking it fast once in the exposed rib cage

  just to be sure, then stepping back quickly. There was no betraying

  movement—however slight. She bolstered the revolver in her left hand, then

  dropped to her knees.

  Her skin touched its skin—still warm. The eyes were closed—unnaturally, by

  whoever had put the twin holes in the body, she deduced. "Not heartless," she

  murmured to herself, then more closely inspected the wound in the neck and in

  the chest. "But very good."

  She stood up, walking in the direction from which she judged the shots to have

  been fired. She stooped to the ground—a piece of brass, still shiny and bright,

  freshly fired. .45 ACP—Natalia glanced at the headstamp, recognizing the ammo

  brand. It was what Rourke carried, as did she herself. "Hmm," she murmured.

  There was a second cartridge case and she picked it up, noticing a disturbance

  in the leaves a few feet further on. She walked toward that, already noting the

  imprint of motorcycle tracks.

  "John?" She studied the tracks. For the last seven days, she and Paul Rubenstein

  had been searching for him. There was the urgent message from her uncle. There

  12

  was the fear that somehow Rourke had not survived the storms which had swept the

  coast and central section of the country. There was the loneliness she felt—and

  the confusion of purpose, identity. She was Russian—she was helping Americans.

  America and Russia were technically still at war, despite the fact Soviet forces

  occupied much of the land. She was KGB—a major.

  She shook her head to clear it.

  There would be time later to wrestle with herself—wrestle with herself as she

  had done already.

  Natalia walked past the motorcycle tracks, seeing something glistening on the

  leaves. She bent over, taking a dry leaf and touching it to the moist leaves

  that had shown the glistening effect. Without bringing it too close to her nose,

  the smell confirmed her initial suspicion—urine. Probably human. There was

  another, similar wet spot a few feet to the left.

  "Natalia!"

  "She glanced behind her. Paul was running toward her, his Schmeisser

  submachinegun dangling from its sling under his right arm, a riot shotgun—or at

  least the major pieces of it—in his right hand.

  "I found this—somebody deliberately made it inoperable."

  "It could still function single-shot—hand chambering. I noticed it, too. I think

  John was here, Paul—and just a few minutes ago."

  "That louder shot was from this—"

  "And the two lighter ones from these that we heard," she nodded, showing him the

  spent cartridge cases.

  Rubenstein took them from her, inspecting them. "That's John's brand all right—"

  "But also one of the largest ammunition manufacturers in the world—the cases

  could have been from a thousand other people—ten thousand. But I found this,"

  and she gestured toward the motorcycle tracks. "And signs of

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  someone urinating here about the time we heard the shots. That dead man's flesh

  is still warm. I think it was John—stopped to—to—"

  "To piss," Paul nodded, smiling embarrassedly.

  Natalia felt herself smile, "Yes," she nodded. "And somebody came up on him—that

  man over there. John shot him, then disassembled the shotgun so no one could use

  it afterward. Then he finished—pissing. Then he drove off."

  "But when there's one brigand, there's usually a bunch of 'em—"

  "There aren't any signs of them—did you find any?"

  "Nothing—no," and Rubenstein shook his head, his left hand pushing his

  wire-rimmed glasses up off the bridge of his nose, then sweeping across his high

  forehead through his thinning dark hair.

  ''And neither did I—if you were John—"

  Rubenstein laughed. "Ha—if I were John—if anybody is closer to John in the way

  they think—you are. What would you do—kill one brigand and figure there are more

  around?"

  "John urinated twice—as if he'd been doing it when he heard the man, then there

  was the gunfight, then John checked the man's pockets—I noticed that when I

  checked the body. Then John finished what he'd been doing."

  "That's John for you," Rubenstein smiled.

  ' 'He would have been here long enough to tell if others were coming—and none

  did. Which would mean this dead man could have been a straggler—"

  "There wasn't any bike—no signs of a truck or anything—"

  "Or he could have been alone and on foot."

  Paul shook his head. "I don't think so."

  "Neither do I—his boots were marked from riding a bike, and the soles were
<
br />   polished almost smooth—but they weren't worn down as if he'd walked a great

  deal."

  14

  "John would have figured there were brigands in the' area and whatever they were

  doing, hearing what maybe would have been gunshots wasn't important enough to

  pull them away—"

  Natalia nodded. "Laying a trap—ambuscade—"

  "What?" Rubenstein asked, his face quizzical looking to her.

  . She felt herself laugh—"That's only English, Paul—ambuscade—it means ambush."

  "Ohh," and he nodded. "Yeah—I knew that," and Rubenstein laughed.

  She touched her left hand gently to his right forearm. "John is probably looking

  for the other brigands—the rest of the dead man's gang."

  "Can't be more than a couple miles—guy wouldn't have left his wheels—"

  "He could have been a scout—maybe from a base camp. But you're right, Paul—not

  more than a few miles."

  "If we can backtrack him through the woods—"

  "We'll know soon enough if John did the same thing," she interrupted. "And we

  can find him—"

  "Before he runs into a dozen or two brigands I hope," Rubenstein added soberly.

  "Before—yes—come on," and she started running back toward her bike, glancing

  over her shoulder as Rubenstein threw the useless shotgun into the trees, then

  started running in the opposite direction—for his bike, she knew.