Bill threw himself against the loading dock, ramming a fresh magazine into his assault rifle, then looked up, across the loading dock, throwing his body up, rolling, coming to his knees and firing as two Soviet soldiers started across. Both Soviets went down.
He pushed himself to his feet, Jim Hastings and Curly already opening the sliding door into the warehouse itself.
Hastings and Curly disappeared inside, Bill running to the truck, Pete Critchfield jumping out, his bastardized M-16 in his fists.
"So far so good, Bill."
Bill Mulliner looked at his leader. "Yeah— so far so good."
The butterflies were gone from his stomach and he was still alive— so far, so good.
Chapter Thirty
The airfield in the shadow of Mount Thunder was busy— as busy, he supposed, as airfields had appeared during the Berlin airlift the Allies had conducted when his own government had shut off West Berlin from West Germany years ago. Planes of any description that could carry cargo were landing, being off-loaded and refueled simultaneously and taking off again as quickly as possible.
Rozhdestvenskiy walked the field now, an aide running to his side, the aide falling in step, shouting to him over the roar of the engines. "Comrade Colonel— a communiqué from the southeast."
"Read it to me," Rozhdestvenskiy nodded. Probably another complaint that some item of supply could not be found, he thought.
"Central southeastern supply depot, reference Womb, penetrated by heavily armed, numerically superior Resistance force. Heavy casualties and theft of strategic material and supplies—
preliminary casualty report and loss report to follow— signed—"
"Never mind— I know the fool's name!" He took the note, crumpled it, started to throw it down to the runway surface— he stopped himself. His temper— he was losing it, and thus showing a weakness before a subordinate. "He is a fool," he sighed, by way of explanation, "in that he allows himself such a situation to come to pass— to—"
"Yes, Comrade Colonel!"
He studied the subordinate's face. There was little apparent differences in their ages— yet this man was a captain and he was a colonel. The face, however, showed the difference. Moonshaped, fleshy, ingratiating— weak.
He was not weak.
"You will radio immediately to the commander of the supply depot in Nashville— he is to place himself under arrest and surrender command to his senior ranking subordinate. You will radio Chicago that I am to be met at the airport and there must be a helicopter to fly me to headquarters on the Lake. You will also radio to General Varakov, supreme commander, that it is a matter of the utmost urgency that I should have an interview with him immediately. Make all necessary travel arrangements, contact my valet here and have my things packed for a short stay. Move out."
"Yes, Comrade Colonel."
The man ran off, across the field— like a dog more than a man, Rozhdestvenskiy decided. There was the difference.
He would go to Chicago, request that General Varakov commit his military forces to crush the Resistance so the stocking of the Womb could continue. He would request Varakov's help in resolving the matter of the American Eden Project— He felt himself smile. If Varakov did not cooperate— Colonel Nehemiah Rozhdestvenskiy watched the planes as they landed, as they took off again— for at least a few moments.
The efficient, orderly use of power. It would calm him.
Chapter Thirty-One
Rourke calculated his fuel use to be adequate to make the return trip to the submarine— beyond that perhaps enough to make it back to where he had camouflaged the prototype FB-111 HX for the return trip to Georgia— if his luck held. He flew the 0H58C Kiowas now at maximum speed, not the speed for fuel conservation, but the speed required by the situation. He had been gone from the missile control bunker and the underground silos vastly longer than he had anticipated. He glanced to his right— the dull green of the second helicopter was there, Natalia almost visible at its controls.
They flew low to give as little advance warning of their arrival as possible, in case somehow, something had gone wrong. He followed the contours of the ground with his altimeter, rising over a low ridge.
In the distance he could see that something had gone wrong.
Wildmen were everywhere, and at their center were two crosses— O'Neal and Rubenstein?
He overfiew the crosses, glancing below him now— Paul, perhaps dead, certainly close to unconsciousness. O'Neal, his body twisting against the ropes that bound him to the cross timbers.
Near the crosses, he could see Cole, Cole's two men Armitage and Kelsoe, and a bizarre, squatlooking man wrapped in a bearskin robe. Cole beckoned to the sky— Rourke knew why.
"Natalia—"
"Yes— I see— do we go in?"
"We pull back along the other side of that ridge line," he said into his microphone. "Then I go in— that's what Cole wants." He exhaled hard into the microphone. "And that's what Cole is going to get."
Rourke banked the chopper sharply, shouting past his microphone to the men near the open chopper doors, "Hang on to the seats, guys—" He chewed harder on his cigar...
The rotor blades from Natalia's helicopter still moved lazily in the breeze, but it was not the breeze that moved them. Natalia stood beside him, dressed in her dark clothing and boots, her pistols on her hips, seeming to accentuate their roundness— she had trained to be a ballerina, she had told him once, and her martial arts skills were past the level of the ordinary and almost elevated to the artistry of the dance. There was a perfection about her— he saw her eyes quickly flicker to his— their blueness overwhelming him. He turned away, looking at the men of the shore party.
"A lot of you saw Lieutenant O'Neal strung up on that cross down there. The other man most of you know— he's my best friend, Paul Rubenstein. So we've all got a very personal stake in getting them out alive if we can. I didn't see Colonel Teal. If Cole and the wildmen have formed some kind of alliance, then Teal might already be dead. I don't know who this Cole is— but I know what he is. In his own way, he's more of a savage than those wildmen we've been fighting, you've been hearing about. I recognize some of you from the landing party that night that came in with Gundersen. So you know how these people are— crazy, suicidal— deadly.
"I have to go in— Cole wants it that way, and if we all go in shooting, Paul and your lieutenant will be killed— they'd do that. Cole would. I know it. Natalia is staying here—"
"No," she snapped, almost hissing the word. Their eyes met.
"Yes," he ordered. "Major Tiemerovna is a pilot— we need at least one here to cover you guys from the air. You'll have to break up into two elements— one Natalia can fly in over the wildmen, drop on the far side. That way you'll have them set up for a kind of enclosement— if you do it right. Natalia'll need a gunner—"
"I'm the man who runs the deck gun on the submarine."
"Then you're the man," Rourke told the young, blond-haired seaman with the oddly brushed mustache. Rourke supposed the young man had grown it either to show he could or to look older.
"Then Natalia and you'll give air support. We'll need one man to stay with the second helicopter— the one I flew. If the wildmen break through, put a burst into the machine—
Natalia'll show you where to shoot so you can blow her up. In case Cole or one of his men knows how to use a chopper, we can't let him have it. If you do blow the chopper, run like hell and you're on your own. Volunteer?"
Three men took a step forward. Rourke picked one— a seaman first he'd seen in the fighting on the beach against the wildmen— he seemed to have a cool head. "You're it, Schmulowitz."
"Aye, sir."
"Natalia'll pick squad leaders for the ground action— do exactly as she says. If any ten of you guys had between you as much battle experience as she has, you'd be doin' great."