Her heart froze— a man was entering the missile control bunker— Cole.
She pulled up on the controls, gaining altitude so she could maneuver, banking the helicopter steeply, "Hold on, gunner!"
"Yes, ma'am— holdin' on!"
The helicopter spun a full one hundred eighty degrees and she had the nose lined up on the bunker, throttling out toward it, arcing hard to starboard. "Gunner— kill that man entering the bunker!"
There was no answer in words, just the rattle of the M-60 machine gun, Natalia watching as the gun walked on target, the ground plowing up under the impact of the slugs, Cole disappearing inside the bunker doors as bullets hammered against the concrete surrounding the doors and into the doors themselves, Cole gone.
"Damnit!" she snapped. She pulled up on the controls, banking steeply to starboard again, climbing, then nosing down toward the ground— she would have to get the wildmen on the ground blocking Rourke and Rubenstein in the truck— and Rourke and Paul would have to get Cole. "Damnit!"
Chapter Thirty-Four
Rourke rammed a fresh magazine into each of the Detonics pistols, shoving both out the window simultaneously as a wildman carrying a machete threw himself across the hood of the truck, Rubenstein screaming, "John!"
Rourke fired both pistols, the slugs impacting against the blond, burly wildman's curly-haired chest, the body rolling off the front of the hood, Rourke bouncing in his seat, his head hitting the roof of the truck cab as the vehicle rolled over the body and there was a hideous-sounding scream.
The bunker was less than a hundred yards away now, Rourke firing at targets of opportunity, occasionally the truck lurching under him as Rubenstein would free his right hand to pump the CAR-15 through the driver's side window.
And Cole had disappeared.
Natalia's chopper buzzed overhead, gunfire pouring from it into the surrounding wildmen attempting to stop the truck through sheer force of body numbers, a solid wall forming in front of Rourke and Rubenstein, gunfire everywhere now, from the wildmen and from the submarine's shore party.
At the doors of the bunker now Rourke could see a second figure— O'Neal. The missile officer was stepping back, kicking out, ramming his foot against the outer door of the bunker, then falling onto his knees, firing his pirated AK-47 at the locking mechanism.
Rourke pumped the triggers of the twin stainless Detonics pistols, the truck grinding ahead, over the bodies, hurtling bodies to each side, gunfire ripping into the windshield again. Rourke fired out both pistols, nailing the wildman with the assault rifle.
Forty yards to go, Rourke ramming fresh magazines into his pistols. He fired one pistol through the open side window, killing a man there, then pushed open the door, standing up, holding to the truck cab, shouting to O'Neal, "Back away— we're gonna ram the door." The massive winch at the front of the vehicle— it could be used as a battering ram, Rourke judged. "Paul— get into a crouch behind the wheel— I'll jump clear. Leave her in second and give her all the gas you got!"
"Right— gotchya," Rubenstein shouted back.
Rourke jammed the second Detonics into his left hip pocket, holding on now against the window frame with his left fist, leaning out, firing the Detonics pistol in his right, a chest shot on a woman with a spear rushing toward them, her blond hair knotted and tangled, dirty. Her body spun out and she fell, lurching forward, the truck bouncing as the right front wheel crushed her, a scream piercing the air.
Rourke fired again— twenty-five yards to go— a massive man wrapped in what looked like dog skins racing toward them firing an assault rifle. Rourke emptied the Detonics into— the man's chest and neck, bright splotches of blood flowing there, the body lurching back, falling against more of the wildmen in his wake.
The Detonics was empty, the slide locked open, a wildman rushing them with a machete. Rourke dodged the machete as the man hurtled himself laterally across the hood, Rourke's right fist arcing out with the Detonics still clenched there, using the butt of the pistol like a piece of pipe or a roll of quarters to back his knuckles, his fist impacting the man on the left side of the forehead, the eyes going wide, the body rolling, tumbling down, the right front wheel crushing the man's legs— but there was no scream, the blow to the head apparently having killed him.
Ten yards to go, the roar of the engine and the vibration louder, louder than Rourke had thought it could have been— he jumped clear as they hit five yards, the roar louder still as Rubenstein—
Rourke glanced to the younger man as he jumped— hammered the gas pedal flat against the floor.
Rourke hit the ground, half rolling against a wildman, the wildman— tall, lean, the half-naked torso rippling with muscles under a fur poncho and cut-off jeans, lashing out with a Bowie bladed knife. Rourke's left fist groped for the second Detonics, found it, his left thumb passing behind the pistol's tang to work down the safety, then sweeping around as he fired the pistol point blank against the wildman's throat, blood bursting out of the wound in a wet sticky cloud as Rourke turned his eyes away.
He pushed himself to his feet, hearing the grinding and tearing of metal, looking now toward the bunker doors, the outer door at least caved in.
Rourke started to run, hammering the empty pistol in his right fist against the face of a woman with a revolver, knocking her down, splitting her nose down the center, her scream shrill, agonized as he ran on. A wildman from his left— Rourke fired the second Detonics, a two-round burst into the chest, the man toppling back.
Rourke was beside the truck, Rubenstein visible through the still open right side door, sprawled across the seat.
"Paul!"
The younger man looked up. "All right— okay— I'm all right."
Rourke punched the Detonics pistol in his left fist forward. "Down!" He fired three times, emptying the pistol, mutilating the face of the wildman with the butcher knife starting for Paul through the sprung-open driver's side door.
Rubenstein rolled against the seat back, pushing up the CAR-15, firing through the open door behind him as more of the wildmen rushed the truck.
Rourke, both pistols empty, wheeled, a short, stocky man wearing animal skins and blue jeans hurtling his body toward him.
Rourke took its full force, sprawling back against the side of the bunker, the concrete rough and hard against the skin of his neck as he slipped down along its length, the man going for his throat. Rourke found his knife with his left hand, dropping the Detonics to the ground, his right arm pinned at his side, his left hand arcing forward and around, driving the knife in under the right rib cage— there was a scream, a curse, the body slumping away for an instant, Rourke's right arm free, his right fist hammering down with the Detonics, the butt crushing into the face of the wildman, smashing the nose, as Rourke's left knee slammed upward, smashing into the groin.
Rourke sidestepped as the body fell, the second pistol still on the ground, buttoning out the magazine in the pistol in his right hand, catching the empty and ramming home a fresh one from the six pack. His right thumb worked down the slide stop, his first finger pulling the trigger, killing a wildman lunging at him with a spear.
Rourke slumped back against the concrete wall for an instant, inhaling hard— He reached across the body of the man he'd knifed, found his second pistol, reloaded it, then found his knife— he had emptied the Sparks six pack and had only the remaining magazines in his musette bag and on his belt— "John— inside!"
Rourke looked to his right— Rubenstein and O'Neal were gone, the door to the bunker pried partially away from the jamb.