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on that right leg—not a tourniquet unless you want him to lose it." Rourke
pulled his knife, then cut at the noncom's sleeves, first the right, then
the left, using one sleeve folded over as a bandage, the second to secure
it to the leg. "Not too tight. Looks like you've got somebody to baby-sit
with, Major." Rourke stood up.
The Soviet officer's right hand moved and Rourke started for his rifle,
but the hand was extending toward him.
Rourke took it.
"I should arrest you—or have you shot."
"That last part"—Rourke smiled—"I was kinda thinkin the same thing
myself. But I'll pass on it."
Rourke loosed the Soviet major's hand and turned to walk away. There was a
chance the man would pull a gun
and shoot; Rourke decided he wasn't going to count it a possibiiiiy.
He stepped aboard the Harley, gunning the engine to life, Setting up the
kick stand.
The major was looking to his injured sergeant.
Rourke gunned the Harley ahead. . . .
He was at the end of the town now. Only the road leading up into the
mountains and out of the valley was ahead.
Explosions rocked the ground under and around him, and behind him there
was a growing fire storm, already edging into the wooded area around the
town.
He looked at the town one more time—Bevington, Kentucky. "Sad," he
murmured, then started the Harley up ahead.
The road was steep going; rock slides were starting to his right, his
attention focusing there as he steered the Harley around boulders that had
already strewn the road.
Overhead, above the thundering of the explosions and the hissing roar of
the fire storm behind him, he heard a sound—familiar. He glanced
skyward—helicopters.
"That's what I get for being a good Samaritan," he rasped, shaking his
head. But he didn't blame the major, or the injured sergeant. Like most
things in life, he thought, gunning the Harley on, the exhaust ripping
under him and behind him, there was no one to blame.
The helicopters were clearly after him; he didn't know why. Maybe the KGB,
he thought—but why had they been in Bevington, Kentucky, to begin with?
He swung the CAR- around, the safety off. There was a sharp bend in the
road and Rourke took it at speed, cutting a sharp left onto the shoulder
because half the
width of (he road was strewn with boulders. There was a rumbling sound to
his left and Rourke looked that way— a rock slide, shale and boulders
skidding down for as far as he could see, a rock slide paralleling the
roadway.
"Shit," he rasped, glancing up at the helicopters. There was a chattering
sound; he didn't have to look again. Machine-gun fire.
The road dipped, Rourke accelerating into the grade. The rock slide was
coming inexorably closer, closer. The area to his right was heavily
wooded; fire swept through it.
Rourke skidded the bike hard left, then right, avoiding a deer that ran
from the flaming forest on his right. He accelerated, the rock slide still
coming.
Machine-gun fire tore into the road beneath him, bullets ricocheting off
the rocks to his left.
The road took a fast cut left and Rourke arced the Harley into it. As he
hit the straightaway, he twisted in the Harley's saddle, the CAR-—stock
retracted— pointing skyward at the nearest of the helicopters. He let off
a fast semiauto burst—six shots in all. The helicopter pilot pulled up.
Rourke let the rifle drop to his side on the sling, then throttled out the
Harley, the rim of the valley in sight, perhaps a mile ahead.
Gravel and smaller rocks were pelting at him, hammering against the road
surface, their effect almost indistinguishable from the machine-gun fire
from the choppers above. The fire on his right was up to the roadside,
and the trees flanking the road on his right were torches, columns of
fire; the heat from them scorched at his skin as he drove his machine
upward—toward the rim of the valley.
Massive boulders were falling now. Rourke steered the bike around them as
they impacted on the road before him. A tree, still a mass of flames,
fell; Rourke gunned the Harley full throttle, his body low over the
handlebars, as he passed under it, burning branches and chips of bark
spraying his hands, his face, his clothing.
Rourke squinted back, beyond the burning tree trunk and skyward. The
helicopters were still coming.
He cut the Harley sharp left, taking the grade that would take him to the
rim, boulders rolling across the road before him now, missing him by
inches, the Harley's exhaust like a cannon, like a trumpet, strident,
tearing at his eardrums, the wind of the slipstream lashing at him, hot
from the fire raging to his right.
More machine-gun fire, the helicopters above him now, one of them ahead of
him.
Rourke couldn't free a band to shoot back. The very fabric of the
mountains was crashing down toward him, dust and smoke in a cloud around
him as he hit the rim.
Rourke skidded the bike into a tight turn, breaking, balancing the machine
with his feet as he stopped it, tele* scoping the stock, then shouldering
the CAR-. There was no escape from the helicopters, as he had just
escaped the rock slides and the fire storm.
He rammed a fresh thirty-round stick into theColt and ripped away the
scope covers, sighting on the nearest of the bubble domes as the
helicopter closed with him, machine-gun bullets ripping into the dirt and
rocks around him.
"Come in, Colonel! Borozeni calling Colonel Rozhdest-venskiy. Come in.
Ground to air ... come in!"
There was no answer, then, "Major Borozeni . . . Lieutenant Tiflis calling
Major Borozeni!"
"Come in, Tiflis, over."
"Comrade Major, we cannot contact Colonel Rozh-destvenskiy. . . . What are
the orders? Over."
"Tiflis, bring your helicopters back." Tiflis had commanded the helicopter
force, not the special gunship fleet that had brought in Rozhdestvenskiy's
commando team for seizing the factory, but the medivac and cargo
helicopters. "Tiflis, listen carefully. . . . Use your radio. . . . It's
stronger. Contact the entire helicopter fleet. ... I am assuming command
in the apparent absence of Colonel Rozhdestvenskiy. Over."
"Yes, Comrade Major. Over."
"Tiflis." Borozeni remembered to work the push-to-talk button on his
radio. 'Tiflis, contact me on how many ships. . . . We have hundreds of
wounded. . . . Hurry. Out."
"Tiflis out, Comrade Major."
There was only static. Borozeni glanced down to the
unconscious sergeant beside him. Borozeni's knee ached. He shifted
position, but could not move his bloodstained right hand lest the bleeding
increase. He assumed the man on the motorcycle really had been a doctor—or
at least had known what heM talked about. The shot of morphine had helped
the sergeant.
"Tiflis to ground. Tiflis to ground command." "Borozeni here. . . . What
is it, Tiflis?" 'Tiflis to ground ... All but four—repeat four,
Comrade
Major—all but four of the helicopters returning. . . . Landing will begin
in two minutes. Tiflis over." "We need them all. . . . What are they
doing? Over." "In pursuit of man riding motorcycle out of valley, Comrade
Major . . . May be the American agent Rourke, wanted by KGB. Over."
Borozeni smiled. A man on a motorcycle. So his name was Rourke. "Tiflis,
tell the commanders of those four ships to—" 'Tiflis out."
Borozeni worked the push-to-talk button, then stared skyward at the
chopper. What had happened? "Tiflis to ground . . . Tiflis to ground . . .
Over."
"What was the meaning of that? Borozeni over." "Tiflis to ground . - - The
suspected American agent just shot at the helicopters, Comrade Major.
Over."
"Tell them to pull back ... or I will personally have them on report to
General Varakov. Borozeni out." Borozeni smiled, murmuring in English,
"Even."
Rourke squeezed a single shot toward the dome of the nearest helicopter,
the ground around him now erupting with the impact of the machine-gun fire
from the four gunships.
Squinting through the three-power Colt scope, he could see the glass dome
take the impact of the slug. Rourke fired again, the recoil hammering at
his right shoulder, his arms almost too tired to hold up the gun. The
glass spider-webbed again.
The four ships were circling him now. Rourke concentrated on the one he
could hring down, taking aim for a third shot at the same area where the
Plexiglass would be weakest.
Sarah. Michael. Annie. Paul would find them, care for them.
"Die," Rourke shouted at the helicopter. The machine swerved and his shot
went wild, all four machines rising rapidly, hovering, and turning into a
ragged formation, then disappearing back toward the valley.
Rourke let the rifle sink down.
He didn't believe in luck—but he didn't argue with it either. He worked
the safety on for the Colt assault rifle, then gunned the Hariey over the
lip of the valley and down toward the highway. . . .
He had washed his body in an icy stream, and now— tired and changed into
fresh clothes—he sat by his motorcycle, stirring cold water into a pack of
his freeze-dried food. He tasted a spoonful of it. It would have been
better hot, but the nutritional value was the same. He had added a hundred
miles since leaving Bevington and was well inside Tennessee. Paul had
probably passed him. Perhaps Paul had found them.
Rourke leaned back, eating his cold food, his muscles still aching, his
stomach still uneasy. He planned ahead-^always. He hadn't planned on
Martha Bogen, or on the suicide of an entire town. Or on the Russians
being there. The sun was setting—red on the horizon, too red, the weather
warm now.
He had seen signs of Brigands in the last twenty-five miles—their
habitually careless camps, litter and broken bottles everywhere.
To the east, he could see the faint glimmering of some early stars on the
horizon.
Tomorrow, he would renew the search, to find Sarah, Michael, and Annie.
And perhaps Paul really had found them.
He would stop at the Retreat, he decided.
He finished the food, then set the empty package aside. Finding a cigar in
his shirt pocket, he lit it in the blue-yellow flame of his Zippo.
John Rourke made a last check of the twin Detonics
.s, then of the CAR-. He had cleaned all three guns, and reloaded the
spare magazines for them.
As he watched the last wash of red in the sky where the bun was fast
vanishing, he closed his eyes. Sarah, Michael, Annie. Paul Rubenstein.
Another face—her eyes were a brilliant blue.
THE SURVIVALIST SERIES
by Jerry Ahern
#: THE WEB
(, $.)
Blizzards rage around Rourke as he picks up the trail of his family and is
forced to take shelter in a strangely quiet Tennessee valley town. But the
quiet isn't going to last for long!
#: THE SAVAGE HORDE (, $.)
Rourke's search gets sidetracked when he's forced to help a military unit
locate a cache of eighty megaton warhead missiles hidden on the New West
Coast—and accessible only by submarine!
#: THE PROPHET (,
$.)
As six nuclear missiles are poised to start the ultimate conflagration,
Rourke's constant quest becomes a desperate mission to save both his
family and all humanity from being blasted into extinction!
#: THE END IS COMING (,
$.)
Rourke must smash through Russian patrols and cut to the heart of a KGB
plot that could spawn a lasting legacy of evil. And when the sky bursts
into flames, consuming every living being on the planet, it will be the
ultimate test for THE SURVIVALIST.
#: EARTH FIRE
(, $.)
Rourke, the oniy hope for breaking the Russians' brutal hold over America,
and the Reds fear the same thing: the imminent combustion of the earth's
atmosphere into global deadly flames!
#: THE AWAKENING (,
$.)
Rourke discovers that others have survived the explosion of the earth's
atmosphere into flames—and must face humans who live to kill and kill to
live, eating the flesh of their victims!
Available wherever paperbacks are sold, or order direct from the
Publisher, Send cover price plus $ per copy for mailing and handling to
Zebra Books, Park Avenue South, New York, N. Y . DO NOT SEND
CASH.