Survivalist - 17 - The Ordeal (7 page)

And then he saw twin balls of fire looking toward him, growing in immensity, moving through the gray fog of dusk and swirling snow.

Feral dogs, indeed, but as lupine in appearance as any true wolf he had seen.

Coming, then another pair of eyes, the first pair’s body members and torso taking shape, then a third pair of eyes, the

first pair’s attendant form now fully defined. Rourke edged back. If it would be life or death, he would use a gun, but it would have to be that.

Three more materialized through the snow, making six in all. They were coming for him. He wondered if they smelled the same fear he smelled, which was his own.

Coming.

John Rourke moved as the pack leader, larger, as anticipated, sniffed at the snowy ground, as if scenting something which wasn’t properly there but seemed to be there all the same. And then the creature wheeled directly toward him, fewer than a dozen yards away.

Rourke’s right hand tightened on the shaft of the makeshift spear.

The creature lunged, Rourke’s right arm upthrusting, the Sting IA that was the point of his weapon penetrating the creature beneath the sternum, the animal’s own weight carrying the blade through to rip open the abdominal cavity, Rourke ducking left and down, rolling, the feral beast’s body tumbling into the snow inches from where Rourke had stood, the spear shaft gone now, the animal rolling in agony.

The second of the wolves hinged for him, Rourke’s right hand going for the 629. As the animal’s arc of motion brought him within reach, Rourke’s right arm arced outward, backhanding the six-inch piece of stainless steel pipe which was the revolver’s barrel across the animal’s face. Rourke wheeled right, made a saber thrust with the Crain knife, in and withdrawn as the animal yelped in agony and fell.

A blur of motion. He saw it, reacted, then felt the impact and smelled the odor as a third animal’s body crashed against his own. It was on him, Rourke’s right hand moving, ramming the muzzle of the revolver into the gaping wound of a mouth, no way to use the knife properly, but instead crashing the skull-crusher that was formed out of the double buttcap at the base of the pommel into the right side of the animal’s head,

Rourke’s right knee smashing up into the trunk.

The animal rolled away, Rourke to his feet, wheeling half right, as the animal made to lunge again, Rourke’s left leg snapping up and out, the toe of his left combat boot impacting the apex of the animal’s drooling muzzle, sending it rolling away into the trees, yelping maddeningly.

The fourth animal and the fifth were coming for him, Rourke thrusting with the LS-X, catching one of the creatures in the torso and gutting it, averting his face as the spray of blood started. The fifth animal was on him and Rourke stumbled back, falling, the animal’s jaws snapping over his left arm, but catching clothing, not flesh—this time. Before it could bite again, Rourke crashed the butt of the 629 down over its skull, between the eyes, then as he was able to move his left arm, rammed the knife in through the right side of the creature’s neck.

Rourke was on his knees, the blood-dripping Crain knife balled tight in his left fist, the revolver in his right. The sixth wolflike dog—where was it?

Suddenly his breath was gone and he was gasping, falling, the revolver spilling from his right hand, the knife slipping away between the fingers of his left. The creature rolled over him, Rourke looking up just in time to see it impact, roll, then twist upward and lunge. John Rourke, choking, eyes tearing, scooped two handfuls of snow and flung them toward the animal’s face as he forced himself to his knees, then fell away left. The creature’s concentration seemed broken for only seconds. And as the animal came for him, Rourke bent forward, shrugging his parka from his shoulders, flinging it over the animal and blanketing the creature with it for an instant. His hands reached to the double Alessi rig, but grabbed at the harness halves instead of the twin stainless Detonics pistols the holsters themselves held.

As the animal shook itself free of the coat, Rourke was on it, praying the harness coupling would hold, looping it over the

creature’s head, then throwing his body weight back and left, the animal snarling, yelping, then a cracking sound so loud that it was almost earsplitting—the neck—and then all effort against Rourke subsided.

John Rourke fell forward, face down into the snow.

Six.

On hands and knees, his right fist still clenched to his shoulder harness, he looked around him as much as the dying light would allow.

None of the animals seemed particularly weighty—lucky for him, Rourke smiled—but it would be easy enough to make a quick post-mortem and separate the healthiest of the pack.

The explorers Lewis and Clark had survived for a time on dog meat and, though Rourke had never tasted it, he’d worked with men all over the world who had, at one time or another, thrived on it. If nothing else, the hearts.

He stood up, inspecting his shoulder holster as best he could in the fading light, finding it none the worse for wear, shrugging into it, checking that both .45s were secure. His coat was another matter. Much of the left sleeve was in shreds. He had needle and thread and could adequately repair it.

The 629 would need a barrel-swabbing again. He wiped it clean with snow, dried it on the outside of his coat and holstered it.

His little A.G. Russell knife. It lay only a yard from his feet, still partially attached to a stump of pine sapling shaft.

He picked it up, began to clean it with snow.

It would not be good for Natalia to know what they were eating, but— He sheathed the Sting. John Rourke spotted the Crain LS-X on the ground and picked it up, mechanically wiping the blade with handfuls of snow. There was a school of thought which held that long-bladed, seriously proportioned knives were less than practical, merely for show. He smiled, finding himself wondering how many of those adherents to that philosophy had found themselves confronted by six hungry wild animals when the use of a gun was all but out of

the question. He shrugged.

On the negative side, what he contemplated made for a more than mildly disgusting proposition, but on the plus side his exertions had worked up a healthy appetite. He began inspecting the provender providence had brought them.

She twirled once in front of the mirror, the silk skirts of the almost midnight-blue dress she wore ballooning outward from her ankles, the glass slippers on her feet catching the firelight and sparkling to rival the diamonds at her throat, her ears, her wrists, all but the diamond on the third finger of her left hand which was at once enormous yet tasteful, beautiful.

She heard his footsteps along the tiled wooden floor behind her and felt her heart skip a beat, saw his image in the mirror and felt her cheeks flush.

Natalia turned toward him so abruptly that the fabric of her dress rustled.

“Hello.”

His voice was as one imagined the voice of God might sound, but too human, in a single word saying more to her than any man had ever begun to express in ten thousand.

His left hand reached out to her, beneath the french cuff of his.shirt the simple elegance of his stainless steel Rolex wristwatch catching the firelight as well. His fingers stroked gently at the bareness of her neck, found a loosened lock by the nape, entwined gently in it and she bent her face to his wrist, her lips softly caressing the strength that was his hands.

He took a step back from her, shrugging his massive shoulders so slightly that she would not have noticed had not her eyes been in thrall to his every movement. Her hands touched the black butterfly bow which emerged from the white

collar of his shirt, the black pearl studs of his shirtfront rising and falling gently as he breathed.

He took her into his arms, the texture of his tuxedo wonderfully rough feeling against her bare chest and arms and shoulders, her breasts pressing against the fabric of her bodice, tight against him.

“I love you,” he told her.

But she knew that.

John Rourke bent his face over hers and his lips parted. She closed her eyes.

The floor beneath them seemed to rise up.

There was gunfire and the sounds of explosive devices were everywhere.

Her eyes were open, but still she couldn’t see him. “John! John! John … John …” The fire which had cast its warm glow over the ballroom where she had waited for him—how long?—now consumed the ballroom and she was surrounded by it and she bunched her dress tight around her as she dropped to her knees, huddling there as the fires rose in yellow walls around her. “John!” Her ring—it was not a diamond, yet it was, but it was no logner blue or white, but blood-red like a ruby and she screamed for him until the heat invaded her lungs, her arms folding over her breasts, the heat searing her flesh. “John … John … John…” Why didn’t he come for her …

John Rourke touched his left hand to her neck, raising her head just a little as he told her, “This is really good-tasting. I amazed myself. Kind of a stew. Neither of us has really eaten in almost twenty-four hours and we both need some nourishment.” He had par-boiled the flesh just to be on the safe side. “This will taste good. A little hot but that’ll warm you up inside. You’ll be feeling better in no time. And at any minute now, I expect Annie and Paul to come rolling up. Annie’ll get you feeling your old self, Natalia. When she was a little girl and

I was very tired or depressed, I’d help tuck her in at night and get her to give me a kiss and then a hug and have her pat me on the shoulder or the back. She started it, one time when she knew things weren’t going right, somehow. And it made me feel better, so we started kidding about it and I’d say, ‘Now give me a pat so I feel good,’ and she’d give me a pat. And the funny thing was that it always made me feel better. So, when Annie gets here, you tell her you want her to give you a big hug and then a pat. And don’t forget the part about the pat, because that’s important. But you’ve got to eat so you’ll feel strong again.”

Slowly, with greater difficulty than he’d ever had feeding the children when they were little, he fed her, with the bark spoon he’d made catching at the bits of food as they dribbled from her mouth. She had dirtied herself while he’d been gone and he’d bathed her as necessary, covered her. After she was fed, he would have to wash out her things, dry them by the fire.

Was she going down?

Throughout the day, with his reminding her, she had cared for her own bodily functions. He told himself that it was just that she had been sleeping too soundly and in her exhausted and confused state—

“Natalia!” His throat ached with her name.

Russian helicopters were ringing the Second Chinese City. Fuel to burn, Michael Rourke surmised, just like the Second City. Fires dotted the mountainside into which it had been built, heavy fighting by all the defensive positions.

Their movement throughout the late afternoon and into the early evening, until the snow became too heavy to travel without lights, had taken them along the base of a high ridge and, because there was no choice, closer to the beleaguered Second City.

With Annie and Maria Leuden flanking him despite his protests, Michael Rourke had climbed the ridge to assay the condition of the battle.

Maria, close beside him, spoke softly as she said, “In ancient times, it was not unknown for persons whose options had been entirely exhausted to risk destruction of self in order to defeat an enemy.”

“You mean their nuclear weapons,” Annie interjected. “Don’t you?”

“Yes.” Maria nodded.

Michael Rourke looked from Maria to his sister. “You think they’d detonate a nuclear weapon to—”

“Maybe they’d detonate them all. I mean, it would only take one if it were set off properly, wouldn’t it?”

“I don’t know, Annie,” Michael told her, shaking his head

despairingly. “Yeah—maybe. Probably. Shit—”

He started back down from the ridge, his German binoculars still in his hands, and his hands were shaking but not with the cold …

Han Lu Chen spoke. “They would do it.”

The Russian officer, Prokopiev, warmed his hands over the heater/cooker. Annie stirred warm water into a packet of food, the five of them huddled inside the German field shelter. It was dome-shaped, radar-reflective, hermetically sealed against the elements and fitted with a portable climate-control system which ran on pellets of solidified synth fuel, the combination not making them bake with the heat, but keeping the chill low enough that with sweaters on, they could move about comfortably in the confined area with their parkas off. The windchill factor outside the tent was approximately thirty-four degrees below zero Fahrenheit, if the emergency kits from the German Supers were to be believed. And, if anything, Michael Rourke thought they might be registering on the conservative side.

Prokopiev finally spoke. “I cannot believe they would do this. I have spoken with the Comrade Colonel. He wants the nuclear weapons only so that he may threaten to use them and thus end the warfare, not to end the earth.”

“Maybe,” Annie said matter-of-factly. “It’s hard to imagine he wouldn’t use them if he had to.”

“But—”

She handed the food packet to Prokopiev and looked at him as he took it from her. “Grow up, Vassily, for God’s sake! Maybe he isn’t your damned hero marshal, but he’s no saint either! Antonovitch didn’t survive as one of Karamatsov’s chief staff officers by being a goodie-goodie, for Christ’s sake!”

“She’s right, Vassily.” Michael nodded, Maria handing him a food packet she’d made for him. He was quite capable of

adding hot water to dried food and had been doing it for five centuries, really, the German food in taste not unlike the Mountain House products his father had so favored, identical in preparation. But Maria and Annie, or perhaps Maria because of Annie, liked to busy themselves with the domestic chores of camp, or perhaps only felt they were supposed to. He thought for a moment about Madison, his wife of so little time. She had been at her happiest when caring for him. He closed his eyes, could still see her blond hair and how it caught the light-Han Lu Chen was talking and Michael Rourke opened his eyes. “These are desperate, war-mongering people, their religion built on violence, their culture stifled, primitive, and perhaps their understanding of the true nature of the weapons which they possess so limited they cannot imagine the destruction of which these weapons are capable. Perhaps they have already begun some irreversible process.” “Madmen,” Prokopiev said, barely audible. “Yes,” Maria interjected. “Like the madmen who pushed the first button and began the war that nearly destroyed all life on this planet five centuries ago?”