Rourke was now at the far end of the grade, looking down onto the flat expanse leading toward the high rocks. He could see Paul Rubenstein, body tucked down, the Steyr-Mannlicher SSG Special Rifle with the 3 x 9 scope at his shoulder. There would be a series of shots from the brigands to pin Paul down, then the brigands would advance, and Paul would edge up and fire the green synthetic stocked rifle, then duck down as the brigands shot again. If the brigands had divided themselves into fire-and-maneuver elements, Rourke realized, they could have swept over Paul easily, but fortunately their tactics weren’t that good.
Rourke slung the CAR-15 across his back diagonally, muzzle down, and edged over the lip of the grade, hugging the pine trees and low rocks along the side and moving diagonally along the left flank of the attacking brigands. The closest of them—a big man, heavyset, armed with some type of automatic rifle Rourke couldn’t immediately identify at the distance—was perhaps fifty yards away, edging along a wall of low rocks running in a zigzag pattern toward the far side of Rubenstein’s position. Rourke inched along, flanking the man, but cutting the distance too, timing spurts of his own movements to the covering noise of the brigands’ shots. With his left hand, Rourke palmed out the A.G. Russell black chrome Sting IA; the tiny double-edged knife shifted then into his right hand. There was another long round of firing and Rourke made his move, coming up behind the heavy brigand in a rush, diving toward him, tackling the man and bringing him down hard onto the rocks, the squishing sound of the man’s head slamming into a rock, Rourke’s right fist ramming forward into the throat rather than the man’s trunk because of the shortness of the knife blade. Rourke gave the knife a hard twist and ripped it out, flattening himself over the body, listening for a change in the pattern of shooting. Looking up over the low wall of rocks, he saw that nothing had changed. He picked his next target—a tall, lanky man with shoulder-length blond hair and a scraggly beard. Wiping the knife blade clean of blood on the first dead man’s trousers, Rourke inched forward over the low rock wall and toward the tall blond man.
The target was twenty-five yards ahead, and as with the first brigand, Rourke waited for another long shot string, then made a headlong dash, leaping over a clump of low rocks, sidestepping a half-rotted pine tree trunk and diving into the man’s body just below the waist, throttling him to the ground. Rourke’s right hand whipped forward with the knife, his left hand grabbed on to a handful of the greasy hair and jerked the head back to expose the neck, then the knife made a left to right swipe across the unguarded throat. As Rourke drew the knife away, he let the head sag to the rocks. Wiping the blade clean on the blond man’s clothes, Rourke spotted his next target, wondering how many of them he could take out before they’d be missed, before someone would turn around, see him, then start the real shooting.
He edged toward a black man, smallish in build, but the bare arms rippling with muscles. A .45 automatic was in the man’s left hand. The distance was twenty-five, perhaps thirty yards, the precise range hard to tell because of the man’s position in the rocks. Rourke closed to ten yards, waited for another volley of shots from the brigands, then moved forward. He dove toward the man, but the man turned, sidestepping and missing Rourke’s knife blade, but Rourke’s left arm was solidly hooked on the man’s left shoulder and neck and he brought him down. As the man started to shout, Rourke lunged upward from his knees with the Sting IA, the spear point biting deep into the Adam’s apple. The man fell back, his mouth half opened, but the scream not coming. The body tumbled backward along the rocks.
Rourke got to his knees, turning, and saw one of the brigands looking his way, starting to shout. Rourke’s right hand dropped the knife, flashing toward the Detonics pistol under his left armpit, the tiny stainless steel .45 in his fist, the hammer swiping back to full stand. The first finger of Rourke’s right hand edged against the trigger until it gave, the pistol rocking in his hand, the brigand sounding the alarm now falling back, the center of his forehead split wide because of the angle of the 185-grain jacketed hollow point slug when it impacted.
Rourke snatched up his knife, wiped it clean, and holstered it, then pulled the second Detonics from under his right arm.
With one of the .45s in each fist, Rourke started up the sloping rocks, the brigands turning toward him now, directing their fire away from Rubenstein. Rourke fired the gun in the left hand, then the one in the right, then the left again. As the enemy fire started finding him, he dove into the rocks, hearing the chattering of Rubenstein’s 9mm subgun coming from the top of the rocks. Jamming both of the emptied .45s into his belt, Rourke swung the CAR-15 from his back, his thumb flicking off the safety, his trigger finger snapping off three-round, semi-automatic bursts from the Colt’s thirty-round magazine. The brigands were falling back. Rourke got to his feet and moved out toward them. From the corner of his left eye he saw Rubenstein, moving awkwardly because of the earlier wounds, starting down from the rocks, the subgun in his right hand, the 9mm Browning High Power in his left, both guns spitting fire. Three brigands were still moving along down toward the base of the rocks and past the clearing, heading for the trees. “The pickups,” Rourke rasped under his breath. He raised the CAR-15 and fired, then fired again, but the magazine was shot empty and there were still two men running.
Rourke let the CAR-15 swing out of the way under his arm. He snatched the Mag-Na-Ported six-inch Python from his hip, lining the dull metallic finish of the Metalifed gun’s front sight into the outlined notch of the Omega rear sight blade, his fists wrapped around the massive Pachmayr grips, the double action pull coming off, a single 158-grain semi-jacketed soft point belching fire at the muzzle. The nearer of the two men was going down and rolling forward, hands outstretched.
Rourke sighted again, fired and missed, then thumb cocked the Python—the last brigand was perhaps seventy-five yards downrange, and Rourke fired, the muzzle climb of the .357 almost negligible, but blocking his view for an instant. As the gun came down out of recoil, he saw the last brigand staggering, both hands clamped to the small of his back, then the legs buckled and the man went down. Rourke turned, swinging the muzzle of the Python around, but eased it down.
Paul Rubenstein was beside him. The younger man, his face streaming sweat, panted, “You shot him in the back.” Rourke let the revolver hang limp at his right side along his thigh and said, “Only because that was the guy’s best looking side.”
Chapter 3
Sarah Rourke dismounted, held loosely one of Tildie’s reins as she stood beside the lathered animal, and stared out at the sandbag fence and the farmhouse beyond.
She looked over her shoulder, “Michael, Annie—you, too, Millie—stay here and keep mounted. I’m going to see if there’s anyone at that farmhouse.” Then looking at ten-year-old Millie Jenkins, she added, “Millie, I want to see if anyone knows your aunt and where I can find her farm.” Sarah turned back and faced the farmhouse, then drying her sweating palms on the sides of her blue-jeaned thighs, she started walking toward the sandbag fence, leading Tildie behind her. The mare whinnied once, snorted, and followed her on the loose rein. Sarah had left tied to Tildie’s saddle the modified AR-15 she’d taken from one of the brigands that first morning after the war. All she had was her husband’s Colt .45 automatic inside the waistband of her trousers, the butt concealed under her ripped blue T-shirt. She was perspiring despite the fact that it was cool in the Tennessee Mountains. She stripped the blue-and-white bandanna from her hair and shook her dark hair loose as the wind whipped up from beyond the farmhouse.