An overpass bridge. In the shelter of the center pylons he saw something moving.
He focused the binoculars more sharply for the increased range.
A dog—a stray dog, like hundreds he had seen since the Night of The War. Homeless, dirty, wild—ready to rip your throat to eat rather than starve. It looked part collie, perhaps part golden retriever—it was the right color for that. She was—as the dog began to stand up, he could make out beside it on the ground two puppies, barely visible. What the world desperately needed, he thought, were more stray dogs.
He swept his binoculars back to the lead tank, nearer to him than the dogs themselves, the road angling away from him in the direction in which the tanks moved.
The hatch open like the others, a man was clambering up and out of the hatch. There was an argument going on—between the man from the tank and one of the outside riders. The focal point of the argument seemed to be an AKM.
Rourke squinted, returned his gaze to the dogs. The female, the mother, was attempting to carry one pup by the scruff of the neck in her mouth, nudging the other pup with her forelegs, with her muzzle. She dropped the puppy from her mouth as she nudged at the other one. It rolled, unable to fully stand. She picked it up again, nudging at the other puppy once more.
Rourke heard the sound—automatic weapons fire.
The mother dog fell—a broad splotch of red suddenly visible on her neck behind her right ear. The puppy in her mouth was also shot—its body cut in half. Another burst of automatic weapons fire—the little puppy on the ground. Its body seemed almost to disintegrate.
Rourke swept the binoculars back to the lead tank—the man from inside the tank held the Soviet assault rifle to his shoulder, fired another burst, then handed the weapon back to the outside rider.
The man from the tank was laughing. Rourke could see him—laughing.
Rourke chewed down harder on his cigar, feeling the smoke in his lungs. He replaced the Bushnells in the pouch, zippered it shut.
He raised the CAR-15, extending the telescoped buttstock.
He judged the range at just under four hundred and fifty yards—stretching the CAR-15 beyond common sense and reason.
If he’d had the Steyr-Mannlicher SSG, twice the range would have been possible and easily so.
He settled the three-power scope’s reticle—between the shoulder blades of the man from the lead tank, the man who had fired the AK.
Rourke closed his right eye a moment—he had killed wild dogs, many of them since the Night of The War.
What the tanker—the commander likely—had done was something altogether different, he realized.
And besides, Rourke thought—riding with the hatch open seemed to assume no American would fight back against the tanks, would resist the Soviet invaders.
Rourke moved the safety. He started the trigger squeeze.
He felt the recoil, heard the crack, saw the scope shift slightly, blurred, then saw the man at the hatch of the lead tank, the man who had killed the dog and her two puppies—saw both hands move suddenly to the small of the back just above the belt, dead center over the spine. The body toppled forward, sliding across the front edge of the tank, slipping to the ground. The arms flapped once, twice—then no movement. Rourke made a mental note to experiment with bullet drop figures in excess of four hundred yards—he had aimed substantially higher.
As soon as he got the opportunity.
The Russians around the lead tank were moving, the second tank already starting laterally across the road—some of the Russians who had ridden on the outside of the tanks, now hidden beside the treads, returned fire. The rocks below Rourke and a hundred yards or so ahead of him took the impact of the automatic weapons fire.
Rourke felt a smile cross his lips. “So long, asshole,” and he was up, moving, the CAR-15’s safety coming on under his right thumb, raising his body up from its crouch, breaking into a long-strided run toward the Harley. There was a roar, a high-pitched loud whistling sound—the 125mm smooth-bore turret gun. He moved fast into a right angle, breaking through the tree line, running, feeling the ground tremble as he was slapped forward by a rush of air—the HEAT round had impacted to the left of his original line of movement. If he hadn’t broken right, he realized, looking back through the cloud of smoke and dirt and foliage raining down, he would have been dead. Rourke pushed himself up, running again—if he could make the Harley, maximum speed on the T-72 series was fifty miles per hour—the Harley could do better than that—and effortlessly.
He kept running, but at an oblique angle now, to his left—the tank gunner would try to saturate the area. The gunner had fired left, now he would fire right—the whistling sound again, the roar of a blast dying on the air.
Rourke threw himself into the run, the whistling louder, higher pitched.
He hurtled himself forward through an opening in the tree cover, shielding his head with his hands. He felt the ground shake—but feeling at all meant he was still alive. Before the explosion died, he was up, running, a cloudburst of dust and broken bits of foliage engulfing the woods around him.
Fire—he looked behind him, the trees burning near the two impact sites.
He broke through the tree line—his bike, Soviet soldiers, six of them—they surrounded the machine, their own motorcycles parked on the opposite side of the dirt track.
The nearest of the men was turning, toward him.
No time for the CAR-15, Rourke’s right hand flashed under his brown leather bomber jacket, snatching at the Pachmayr gripped butt of the stainless Detonics there. As the Soviet soldier raised his AKM, Rourke fired, the pistol bucking in his hand.
The soldier’s face took the 185-grain JHP—the center of the face collapsing in the redness of blood as the man fell back.
A second soldier—Rourke shot him twice in the chest, Rourke’s left arm going out, his left fist straight-arming a third soldier in the chest, knocking the man back and down.
Rourke jumped, his left leg snaking over the seat of the Harley Low Rider. He got the stand up, firing the Harley’s engine, pumping the trigger of the Detonics into the chest and abdomen of a fourth Soviet soldier. The little Detonics was empty, the slide locked back. He thumbed down the stop, letting the slide run forward, ramming the pistol into his belt. A fifth Soviet soldier— Rourke’s left leg snapped up and out, the toe of his combat-booted foot catching the man in the groin as the soldier tried to bring his rifle to bear. Rourke gunned the Harley, almost losing his balance, dragging his feet, keeping upright and taking off along the dirt road.
The Low Rider was best suited to highway driving, and making high speed on the bumpy, rutted dirt road was difficult, keeping it up harder—he let the machine out as much as he dared, keeping low over the handlebars as he looked back—one of the Soviet bikers was already coming, two more were mounting up.
Rourke’s right hand slipped down to the CAR-15, his thumb working the safety off—he twisted the muzzle behind him, firing once, twice, a third time, the Soviet biker nearest him skidding off into the trees to avoid Rourke’s fire. Rourke worked the safety again, letting the CAR-15 drop on its sling at his side, his attention wholly focused now on riding.
Behind him, he could hear the sounds of bikes—the remaining two Soviets. He bent lower over the Harley—he made it there was at least another mile of the dirt track before he reached paved highway.
A deep rut—Rourke skirted the machine around it, balancing out with his feet, then gunning the engine, jumping a huge bump, wrenching the machine up with his arms, gunfire from behind him now. He looked back again—two bikers close, a third fifty yards or so behind them.
He couldn’t risk firing, the road too rutted for him to shift a hand from the handlebars. His body low across the jet black Harley, he kept riding. There was a sharp bend right, Rourke’s machine skidding through the curve, his right leg out, balancing the Harley, his right foot dragging through the mud as the road dipped, the Harley grinding, Rourke wrenching at the machine. Moving again—he kept the machine moving, through the curve and up the grade, the mud hard and rutted again, Rourke jumping the bike laterally over a deep rut, the machine skidding, Rourke balancing it out. Still moving.
A shouted curse from behind him—Rourke looked back, seeing one of the Soviet bikers down.
He gunned the Harley, taking the grade, jumping a hummock of ground, the dirt road evening out, Rourke letting out the machine—ahead he could see paved road.