Rubenstein slowed the bike, the rear tire spraying dirt and pine needles, the bike sliding as Rubenstein balanced it out, letting it drop then, running from the bike and into the trees.
The man in the woods was turning around, throwing the assault rifle to his shoulder to fire.
Rubenstein swung the Schmeisser forward on its sling. He wouldn't beat the first burst. He knew that.
Then suddenly, Rubenstein stopped the upward movement of the German MPsubgun's muzzle.
It was John Rourke—the tall, dark-haired, lean-faced man with the assault rifle.
Paul Rubenstein couldn't help himself—he let out a yell.
Chapter 4
The counterfeit rebel yell—with a New York accent. Rourke felt his face seaming with a smile.
"Paul—over here—keep down!"
Rourke wheeled, ducking down himself, a fusillade of automatic weapons fire pouring toward him, hammering into the trees surrounding him. He pumped the CAR-'s trigger, edging back into the trees. He saw a flicker of movement at the base of the hill, along the near edge of the valley. Dark hair blew back straight from the neck, dark clothes—an M-firing.
"Natalia!" Rourke shouted the name, astounding himself that he had. Gunfire was pouring toward her on the bike now, the bike wheeling hard right toward the base of the hill, then skidding in the dirt, the woman almost leaping from the machine to the cover of rocks. He couldn't see her for an instant, then saw the flash from her rifle, heard the long burst aimed toward the hillside.
Rourke felt himself smiling—a Russian major leaping to the defense of six U.S.
military personnel. "Paul—we're heading down—into the valley."
"Gotchya, John!"
Rourke glanced behind him once, the younger man nearly up alongside him as Rourke rammed a fresh thirty-round magazine up the CAR-'s well. Then he started to run, shouting to Rubenstein, "Paul—give that counterfeit rebel yell of yours!"
He heard it, laughing as he ran, heard the younger man almost scream, "Yahoo!"
The brigands dotting the hillside were starting to shift from their positions now, getting up, running, trapped in a three-way crossfire as Rourke opened up, hearing the rattle of Rubenstein's subgun behind him and to his right, Natalia's M-pouring into them, and at last the six men in the valley maneuvering forward, their M-s blazing.
The nearest of the brigands was perhaps thirty yards away now, Rourke firing out the CAR-into the smaller subgroup, the semiautomatic assault rifle coming up empty. He snatched the twin stainless Detonics pistols from the shoulder rig under his jacket, letting the CAR-drop to his side on its sling, his thumbs working back the pistols' hammers. He fired both .s simultaneously, the -grain JHPs thudding into the face of the nearest brigand, the body hurtling back, the head seeming to explode, blood—almost like a cloud—momentarily filling the air around it.
The military personnel from the valley were closing now, the brigands who remained alive trapped—and because of that, Rourke realized, more dangerous than before.
Two brigands came at him in a rush, the nearer of the two making to fire an M-, the one behind him already discharging a revolver. Rourke threw himself down, firing at an upward angle toward the man with the assault rifle, the body doubling over, toppling forward, the . mms spraying a steady stream into the ground at the already dead, still falling man's feet. Rourke rolled, trying to acquire the target with the revolver. He heard a burst of automatic weapons fire, the man's body spinning, the revolver roaring fire and the body falling, the gun sagging from the limp hand and into the dirt.
Rourke glanced to his right—Paul Rubenstein with the Schmeisser,
Rourke shouted, "Paul—thanks!"
But Rubenstein didn't hear him, Rourke realized, the younger man's subgun already firing again.
Rourke was up now, reaching down for the M-locked in the dead man's fist.
Rourke tugged at the rifle, the fingers locked on it. Rourke stepped on the hand, crushing the bones, then ripped the rifle from the fingers. Loaded magazines for the assault rifle were stuffed behind the man's belt, Rourke reaching down, grabbing up the three that he saw, buttoning out the empty and ramming a loaded twenty up the well. He preferred thirty-rounders himself, the twenty-round magazines not enough firepower and the forties he had always suspected of putting too much weight into the magazine well.
The M-'s selector was still on auto and Rourke shifted the muzzle toward the brigands, now locked in gunfire with Rubenstein, Natalia and the advancing military. Rourke shouldered the rifle, firing three-round bursts across the sights, shifting the muzzle from target to target, gunfire starting toward him again as bodies fell and the few still surviving brigands turned their fire against him.
The M-emptied on a short burst—only two rounds—and Rourke dumped the magazine, ramming the second twenty up the well, then with the rifle at his hip, started to advance, cutting short bursts of two or three rounds into the still remaining brigands. Natalia's gleaming custom revolvers belched bright bursts of fire, men falling before her, Paul with the Schmeisser in his right hand and the battered blue Browning High Power in his left.
Rourke stopped shooting, the last of the brigand bodies twitching on the ground less than five yards from his feet. Natalia stood, her arms sagged along her thighs, the matched Smiths limp in her hands.
Rourke noticed Paul Rubenstein, the slide locked back,
on the emptied Browning, his right hand emptied of the subgun, the Schmeisser dangling at his side. His right hand held his glasses, and his eyes were closed.
Rourke let out a long, hard breath—a sigh. There was a cigar in his pocket and he took it out, setting down the M-. He lit the thin, dark tobacco in the blue-yellow flame of the Zippo which bore his initials. For some reason, he momentarily studied the initials—J.T.R. The thought—ridiculous—occurred to him.
What if he had been someone else, besides John Thomas Rourke? He smiled as he inhaled the smoke deep into his lungs—had he been a man unskilled at fighting he would have been dead, perhaps even since the Night of The War.
Methodically, automatically, he began moving about the field, examining the bodies, ignoring the U.S. II troopers shuffling with seeming unease nearby. A man of peace—sometimes the price of survival was very high.
Chapter 5
"So, Dr. Rourke—-we came looking for you—that's why we 're here. President Chambers and Colonel Reed—"
Rourke looked up from loading the six-round Detonics magazine. "Colonel Reed?"
"President Chambers personally promoted him, sir."
Rourke nodded, then looked back to the magazine, double checking through the witness holes that the magazine was fully charged, the lower hole empty as it should be. He took the Detonics and jacked back the slide, locking it with the slide stop. "So you're Captain Cole—"
"That's right, sir—Regis Cole, recently promoted myself," and the young, green-eyed man smiled.
"Hmmm," Rourke nodded, estimating the man's age at perhaps twenty-five, the five enlisted men with him younger seeming still. Rourke inserted the magazine up the Detonics' well and gave it a reassuring pat on the butt—reassuring to himself that it was seated, then worked the slide stop downward, the slide running forward, stripping the first round. Rourke started to lower the hammer.