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.