Michael looked at his Rolex. It was nearly time. “If he tries anything, he dies,” Hammerschmidt announced, his voice emotionless.
“If he tries anything, we might all die,” Michael interjected, standing up slowly, keeping his hands in plain view, but the leather jacket open so he could get at the Berettas.
“Good luck!” Han hissed.
Michael Rourke anticipated needing it as he stepped from behind the rocks and into the open. Prokopiev-Michael assumed it was the Soviet commander —was coming down from the rocks, a never before seen assault rifle slung crossbody beneath his right arm, a pistol holster at his belt, the uniform the black battle dress utilities of the KGB Elite Corps, jump boots rather than jackboots. Prokopiev was tall, about Michael Rourke’s own height, lean and well muscled. He began walking out.
Michael Rourke walked slowly toward the center of the gap, matching his pace to Prokopiev’s so they would arrive beside the fallen banner at approximately the same moment.
“You have no rifle” Prokopiev shouted, his voice edged with humor.
Michael kept walking, calling across to him as he
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did, “I don’t need one, Major.”
Prokopiev stopped beside the banner. Michael stopped less than a yard from him. “So,” Michael grinned, “who’s running the Elite Corps these days? Prokopiev smiled. “I am.”
Michael was momentarily taken aback, but countered in the next instant. “Personnel shortage with everyone promoting themselves since Karamatosov died, is there?”
“You intend to provoke me, Rourke?” “No —not really. It was a cheap shot. Antonovitch take over?”
“Yes. The comrade colonel shall avenge the murder of the Hero Marshal.”
“And you intend to help him,” Michael said, making a statement, not a question. “Indeed, Rourke.”
Michael nodded thoughtfully. “If the Chinese catch up with you before you touch base with your own people, well —that may be just a hope and nothing more,” He was consciously attempting to keep his English as idiomatic as possible, thereby hopefully confusing this man enough that if he —Michael —overstepped his guesswork, it might go undetected. “What is it that you propose, Rourke?” “Michael is fine. My friends call me that. I imagine some of my enemies do, too. I’ll shoot you the straight shit, Vassily —may I call you that?”
“If you like.” There was a hard edge to Prokopiev’s voice, but it was tinged with uncertainty.
“Good. We were on our way to the Second Chinese City in order to open negotiations with this Mao character. We want an alliance with him if we can get it. That should be obvious at any event. You want his
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access to the pre-War Chinese nuclear arsenal and we don’t want you to have it. Let’s be honest about it. But with this gunfire, with some of our people wounded, with you guys around, I don’t think now is the right time to go visiting. Especially since you probably have an attack force of your own en route to this area and you were on an intelligence gathering mission. Right?”
“Go on,” Prokopiev hissed.
“I’ve got a substantial force of German and Chinese troops —from the First City —right behind us. That might not do us any good, though, if Mao’s people are too close to you. You’ve got a rendezvous to keep, but you won’t reach it in time to save your bacon without our horses. If you get our horses, we’re stuck here as the reception committee for Mao’s army. I was explaining to my heavily armed friends back there in the rocks,” and Michael jerked a thumb toward the position he had just left, “that this is a ‘stand-off: A tactical situation that has stalemated. The way it is now, nobody wins or loses and we all wait here like sitting ducks for Mao’s people to come along and kill us, or worse.”
“What is it that you propose —Michael? I take it that you have prepared some solution to this situation, although I do not agree that it is this — stand-out thing.”
” ‘Stand-off, Vassily. But you’re just hanging tough. I admire that. You have us trapped, but your people can’t get to the horses while we can pick you off. If we keep shooting at one another long enough, Mao’s people are going to come that much faster and there’s a substantial chance the horses will run out of grazing and wander off. And, if your people haven’t ridden before, they’ll never control those horses. Nasty little
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critters, believe me. I’ve been a horseman since before the Night of The War, and I have a hard time controlling them.”
“What is it that you propose?”
Michael looked toward the horses, pausing for what he hoped was dramatic impact. “You have people waiting for you. We have people waiting for us. You probably have more men than we have horses, right?”
Prokopiev paused for an instant, then his eyes —they were gray —flickered. “We do.”
“So you planned to kill us, take our horses and leave some men behind for a holding action, then get back and bail them out, right?”
“You mean rescue them? Yes. This was the plan. It will still work.”
Michael shook his head, smiled, “Vassily — Vassily — look — My plan is this. We have a temporary truce; I suggest expanding it and working together until the crisis is resolved. I’ll pledge my word that if our people arrive first, you’ll go unmolested. And I’ll accept your word of the same,”
“You are insane!”
“No —and you know I’m not. We have seven horses. Eight with the pack animal. I propose that two of our guys and two of your guys head for help to their respective forces. We hold the other four horses in reserve just in case. We take positions on the high ground on both sides of the gap here. That way, we can still start shooting at one another if we want. But we’ll also have the gap bottlenecked and can hold back Mao’s people —or try to at least —until help arrives, your people or ours. And if you have a medical technician who’s got field surgery experience, we have one of our wounded who’s dying. Our boys will teach your
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boys how to handle those horses. With men going in two different directions to two possible sources of help, we’re doubling the chances that we’ll make it out of this alive. What do you say?”
Vassily Prokopiev began to laugh; at this stage, Michael Rourke didn’t know if that were a good thing or a bad thing. He didn’t say anything. And abruptly, the KGB Elite Corps Commander stopped laughing. “You are serious.”
“Deadly serious. What about it?”
Prokopiev looked to the still grazing horses, Michael following his eyes. As if on cue, the animals began edging further away. “You have my word. A sizeable force is perhaps two hours behind us now. We should get on with this at once.”
“I’ll get two riders. You get two. Send over your surgeon and call your men out of the rocks over us. You and I can help wrangle the horses.”
“Wrangle?”
Michael smiled as he started to turn away. “You’ll love it, Vassily; trust me.”
Ther,e were no friendly forces —German, Chinese or otherwise— any closer than the perimeter of the First Chinese City. It was a stall for time and the chance to survive. Despite the fact he had lied, Michael Rourke somehow felt his father would have been proud of him—if he lived long enough that his father would ever find out.
“Han! I need you and one other man! Otto would be best!” He kept walking as, from behind him, he heard Prokopiev shouting up into the Soviet position.
There was always some means by which to cheat death, his father had taught him and his sister, always some means to trick fate, if you had the mental agility
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to conceive it and the nerve to attempt it.
Already, his mind was racing. He heard answering shouts in Russian from the rocks on both sides of the gap. He assumed that Major Vassily Mikhailovitch Prokopiev was shouting his commands rather than using the radio set Michael had observed attached to Prokopiev’s helmet as a gesture of good faith. But was Prokopiev perhaps whispering into his headset? There was no way to know at all.
If he could get Han and Otto out on horseback, ostensibly going for help — Michael Rourke felt the corners of his mouth raising in a smile.
There might, indeed, be a way to sidestep what seemed inevitable.
As Otto and Han came forward out of the rocks, Michael signaled them toward where the Pryzwalski-like horses were still grazing. He walked quickly, but evenly, so as to avoid frightening the creatures away. After a moment, Han and Otto were flanking him. “What did you say to that Russian major?” Hammerschmidt asked under his breath.
“We formed a temporary alliance against a Maoist army that’s about two hours away. Two of his men will go to rendezvous with their extraction unit —at least I think so. You two are supposed to rendezvous with the German-Chinese army that my father’s leading.”