Dodd’s body trembled with what was, unquestionably, rage. “You refuse to honor my request for the return of my prisoners, you refuse to honor my ultimatum for the removal of your base. You have not heard the last from me.”
“Would that such were the case, Commander Dodd, I would truly rejoice. I take it you have pressing business elsewhere?”
Dodd wheeled on his heel, stared at Kurinami. “You little rotten son of a bitch. You can hide here, but you have to come out sometime. And then your
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ass is mine.
“I would gladly, Commander Dodd, with all due respect, accept your personal challenge at any time. Sir!”
“Get fucked,” and Dodd stomped across the room, threw open the door and walked out.
Wolfgang Mann whistled softly, Kurinami staring after Dodd still. “That man is more than insane; he is dangerous.”
It was stating the obvious, Akiro Kurinami almost said.
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CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
They rode on through the night, the vision intensification equipment within their helmets making the ground before them as bright as a cloudy day, but running lights of any kind unnecessary.
As they appeared a progressively narrowing gap, still several hundred yards away (they had reduced speed to fifty miles per hour as they had begun to climb), John Rourke spoke into the headset within his helmet chin guard. “Where the rocks narrow up ahead. It’s a good spot for an ambush. Paul —you stay with Annie and Maria to back us up. Natalia — come up to the entrance to the gap with me, then wait until I’m through; cover me. Once I’m through, I’ll radio back and cover you, then Paul, you bring Annie and Maria through. Any questions?”
“I can go through,” Paul volunteered.
“I know you can —but it’s my turn” and Rourke said nothing more, gradually accelerating to a little over sixty as Natalia pulled up alongside him, the others falling off as he looked back once. They slowed as the grade steepened, stopping their Specials at the entrance to the gap. “How are you feeling?” Rourke asked Natalia. Any and all could hear whatever words were exchanged between them over the commonly shared bands. “Tired?”
“A little. But I like these machines. It would be wonderful sometime, just to get on one and ride and
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ride and never stop until you reached a place where it was always green and people didn’t want to kill one another, wouldn’t it, John?”
“Maybe we’ll all find such a place, someday. At least we can keep looking. You’ll be all right out here?”
“Anything goes bad, I’ll be right there with you,” she told him and he turned his head to look at her.
But the helmet and visor were anonymous looking and he could see nothing of her face, nothing of her eyes, her hair. “I’ve always known that,” John Rourke told Natalia Tiemerovna. He gunned the Special into the gap, reaching the high ground where it levelled and slowing to under twenty, his eyes scanning the ground. If tragedy had befallen Michael, this was as likely a place as any and more likely than most.
He brought the Special up short and stopped, skidding a little. “If you heard the skid, I’m fine,” he said into his helmet radio. He dismounted as he kicked out the stand, keeping his helmet visors in place so he could see with the aid of vision intensification rather than the naked eye.
There was brass on the ground, both 5.56rnm as was fired in the M-16s like Michael carried and 7.62X39, as was used with AK type weapons. Michael had indicated, after his accidental encounter with the Mongols, that they were armed with weapons of this type, but apparently of fresh manufacture, these and originals and copies of the Glock 17 9mrn pistols. There were 9mrn casings on the ground as well, but without detailed analysis he was unable to tell if they were from one of the Glock-types or from the Berettas carried by Michael.
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The Metalife/Mag-na-Ported six-inch 629 in his right fist, he walked ahead, saying into his helmet radio, “I’m on foot. There are signs of a significant number of metallic cartridges having been fired here recently —the brass is untarnished. I’m going up the gap toward where it begins to narrow. First sound of a shot, it’ll be a loud one from my revolver. But at the first sign, Paul, you get Annie and Maria up to high ground where they can cover. Natalia. You wait for Paul. Corne in after me if I call.”
There was a large, dark shape looming ahead on the ground. As he neared it, its shape was better defined. It was a dead horse, the carcass untouched, but the horse was too big for the horses that Michael and the rest of his party had utilized. It looked almost part Arabian. There was another dead horse about a hundred yards further along.
He looked toward the east and west elevations of the gap. Ambushers would logically have fired down from both sides. But where to take cover from which to return fire if the first rounds hadn’t ended it, which apparently was the case? His eyes moved from side to side along the floor of the gap and, at last, he spotted a likely location, a sharply jutting overhang which would have protected anyone beneath it from enemy fire from above and afforded cover from behind which fire could be returned to the far sides of the gap.
John Rourke quickened his pace, his gloved right fist balling on the 629.
He stopped just before the rocks, .223 brass in abundance here, in greater abundance on the other side as he crossed over the rocks and down. He
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holstered his revolver and drew the Grain knife from its sheath at his left side, scraping with it on a rock surface that had caught his eye. Blood, dried.
“Natalia. See if you can get your machine up into the eastern side of the gap. Paul. You and Annie and Maria move up a little. I’m going up to the west side. And everybody be careful,” he said needlessly.
He began to climb, carefully checking his footing as he moved, finding a solid purchase, climbing on, at last reaching the western summit.
Here, he found several bodies, Chinese and, judging from the socks one of the otherwise denuded bodies wore, German. And, curiously, a body that could have been Russian, again the only thing to tell by being the socks. Boots, trousers, winter clothes, even underwear were gone, not to mention weapons. He found considerable quantities of 9mm and .223 brass here.
“Natalia —you in position yet?” Rourke said into his helmet radio.
“Yes —there is no rifle brass, nor handgun brass. But there are plenty of Russian bodies. I can tell from the stockings. Otherwise, all the clothing and weapons are gone. Some of these men had their throats slit, others — ”
“One man here is partially beheaded. A couple of dead horses down at the base of the rocks that I can see from here. Get back down. I’d like to say we could bury them, but there isn’t time.”
“Daddy-11
“What, Annie?”
“Michael was here— in that dream I had—I saw a place like this. He was here. I think this is where —
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where — ”
“Where it happened,” Rourke finished for her. But what?
The only chance was to go to the Second Chinese City. And he hadn’t brought an army. There hadn’t been time for that, either.
“Paul — get on that other radio and get to Hart-man’s man at the Second City. See if he can shake us loose a couple of gunships to get within fifteen minutes striking range of the Second City and wait there for us to call them in.”
“Right, John.”
As he started down, John Rourke kept talking to them. “It looks like there was a battle here of considerable proportions. A lot of bodies, all Chinese — our Chinese, I’d say — and Russian. No sign of Michael, Han or Otto. The AK brass I found makes it look like the Mongols were in on it. So I don’t have any idea what went on here, but I’ve got a bad feeling we don’t have too much time to find out.”
“Daddy-”
“What, Annie?”
“Michael’s alive — I can feel it, somehow. I think he’s trying to reach me — I know that sounds crazy — ”
“No it doesn’t” Natalia interrupted.
“I agree with Natalia. We wouldn’t have been here at all to find this if it hadn’t been for your dream. Just keep me informed on what you feel, what you think is happening, baby.”
“All right, Daddy.”
Rourke reached the base of the rocks in considerably less time than it had taken for him to make the climb, from above detecting a vastly easier route
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