Survivalist - 21.5 - The Legend (8 page)

It was possible, just possible, that the power inside the air defense center was down, too …

Natalia moved quickly along the edge of the barricade behind which she had hidden. The jacket of her uniform was off, the grenades inside, the sleeves of the jacket tied together forming a bundle with which to carry them. Already, the air inside the mountain was stuffy, smelled badly, and made her feel slightly nauseated.

She was confident that she could find her way back to their original position where she had left the energy weapons, despite the surrounding darkness which was almost total. She carried a small flashlight in her purse, the purse slung cross body like a musette bag now. And, if she could not find her way back, or time did not allow that, if what she planned succeeded, she would have access to all the energy weapons she needed.

In the darkness, with no sounds of electrical equipment aad no flow of fresh air, she could hear tiny noises, and thus moved more carefully. The Soviet uniform skirt was poorly designed and even more poorly executed and impeded her movement as she crept forward. So, the Bali-Song knife already out and silently opened in her hand, she found the side seam by her left thigh and eased the knife’s primary edge against it, splitting the skirt to her hip. The slip beneath it was already bunched up and out of the way, and it was her own so she had no desire to cut it.

She kept moving, her objective a simple one: To reach the enemy position which had been the source of the energy weapon fire and neutralize the men there …

A good three dozen men of the raiding parties-U.S. Marines, German Long Range Mountain Patrol and Commando personnel, Chinese from the Second City, all fighting side-by-side against the common enemy-rallied around Jason Darkwood. Darkwood raised his right arm, sweeping hand and arm forward in a broad arc as he shouted, “Follow me!”

Darkwood started toward the fence gates which separated the lagoon docks from the domes of the Soviet city itself, his Lancer pistol in his left hand, his Randall knife in his right.

Gunfire from the men around him was deafening, and the thought crossed his mind that he hoped the newly-developed low penetration round these men were firing was as safe to fire under the domes as testing indicated. Otherwise, a stray shot and they could all die.

Black uniformed Marine Spetznas personnel held the gates, retorting tire with Sty-20s, PV-26 shark guns and AKM-96 assault rifles. Men fell on either side of Jason Darkwood.

A young black Marine near to Darkwood, left arm limp at his side and streaming blood from a shoulder wound, did something then that took Jason Darkwood totally by surprise.

He started to sing.

The Marine hymnn.

Under normal circumstances, Jason Darkwood would have started looking for people to join him in “Anchors Aweigh,” but instead he joined the young man, and others did, too. Some of the Germans and Chinese mumbling were words that didn’t fit, but

keeping to the tune.

They were at the gates now, the electric gullwing car that was their battering ram, punching through the fence, its windows riddled with bullets, the man driving it probably dead.

The Soviet forces fell back from the fence, but held their ground near a knot of gullwing cars parked near to the gates.

Darkwood didn’t know the second verse to the song, just started singing the first verse again.

Everyone was singing, now, and the words no longer were even distinguishable and, as they ran, weapons firing, they fell into step, charging toward the Soviet Marine Spetznas position.

They closed with the enemy.

At point blank range, Jason Darkwood fired the Lancer 9mm pistol into the chest and neck of a Marine Spetznas officer coming at him with an AKM-96. Two enlisted men charged toward him and Darkwood backstepped, firing the Lancer again, putting down one of the men, sidestepping and using the knife in his hand like a club, crashing the blade flat down across the skull of the second man.

Two Marine Spetznas officers were inside an already moving gullwing car, the doors open.

Darkwood thrust his pistol into his belt and picked up an AKM-96, fisting the weapon in his right hand, bracing the stock between his right elbow and hip. He fired, spraying out the magazine in three-round full-auto bursts, killing the man behind the wheel of the gullwing, the car crashing into the tunnel wall just beyond.

From the corner of his eye, Darkwood spotted the senior among all the Marine Spetznas officers he had seen so far, and Darkwood summoned two of the Marines near him, racing toward the man. A Soviet enlisted man lunged with his bayonet, just missing Darkwood’s right rib cage. Darkwood fired out the last half-dozen rounds in the AKM-96’s magazine, putting the man down.

The Marine Spetznas officer, back to a gullwing car, raised his hands and shouted in Russian, “Do not shoot!”

Jason Darkwood threw down the emptied Soviet assault rifle and pointed the muzzle of his pistol toward the Soviet officer. “Sir, in the name of the United States Government of Mid-Wake and Allied Expeditionary Force command, I order you to instruct your men to lay down their arms and cease hostilities at once or suffer the consequences.”

Darkwood cocked the hammer on the pistol and smiled.

With a tremulous voice, the Marine Spetznas officer began to shout to his men.

And Jason Darkwood decided it was safe to lower the hammer on his pistol…

She was already through the knees of her stockings, and her bare knees were cold against the street surface as she crept toward the very faint outline of a man. Although every light was out, some very mffused illumination came through the tunnel from the gray outside, and when she was very careful, she could make out some shapes.

This shape was clearly human. She went after it with her knife …

His light sensitivity had always been a problem for him during daylight hours, requiring him to use sunglasses ever since his early teens whenever he was in strong sunshine. But, on the plus side, his night vision had always been superb.

He could see now, just barely enough to know that he had his plastique reasonably evenly spaced along the massive green door.

And he stood beside the door, with much difficulty because of his wounded left thigh.

The quickest way to one of the energy weapons was to walk straight up the middle of the driveway. Of course, if the lights came back on, he would be a sitting duck.

He decided to risk it, while his leg still held out. With the added time the darkness had given him, he’d been able to utilize all the plastique in a manner which would obviate ever having to go inside the building.

The pattern and density with which he had been able to plant the charges would do the job he’d intended to do with the other half of his plastique and the grenades, destroying the very bowels of the building and possibly bringing down a wall.

He was walking right up the middle, the twin Detonics mini-guns in his hands, the reloaded Scoremasters in his belt beneath the uniform tunic, elsewhere on his body the suppressor-fitted Smith &

Wesson 6906 and the A.G. Russell Sting IA Black Chrome knife, the S&W Centennial revolver in his hip pocket.

Rourke did not run because he could not run with any degree of comfort, limping badly on his stiffening left leg. The thigh wound had all but stopped pumping and he suspected that the bullet was out, that the wound was just a very deep graze.

He kept moving.

If the antiaircraft defenses were out, Colonel Mann and his forces would know and German air power would be starting its attack at any moment-ground forces from New Germany, Mid-Wake, the Second Chinese City and the Icelandics (a small contingent of Icelandic police) storming toward the city. Nearly as small a force as the men of Lydveldid Island were, the few persons from the Wild Tribes of Europe, these not fighters at all, but cargo handlers and the like, doing what they could to further the cause of freedom.

John Rourke kept walking.

At last, he neared the position where he had left Natalia, slowing his pace, knowing her night vision was good but not as good as his, not wanting to surprise her.

But when he reached the spot, Natalia was no longer there.

The grenades were gone, but both energy weapons and their power source backpacks were there.

“Shit,” John Rourke observed.

He picked up one of the energy weapons, slipping into the straps for the backpack. He powered up the rifle, brought it to his shoulder, squinted his eyes against the flash from the first of two shots he intended to make, the first to light the target for the second.

He shouted in Spanish to Natalia through the darkness, reasoning that there were probably twenty people alive on Earth who spoke that rich and musical tongue now and none of them were here. “Be careful! I am firing now! Keep down!”

And he touched the trigger of the energy weapon …

Natalia’s left hand was over the man’s mouth, her right knee crashed against his spine, the knife in her right hand gouging into the side of his neck as she heard John Rourke’s voice.

She gave the knife a twist and dove toward the nearest wall, draw

ing the suppressor-fitted Walther PPK as she did so, covering her face and eyes as the hum and buzz of the energy weapon came and went, the faint sound of synth-concrete taking the hit.

There was no explosion, and she realized there should not have been. John would be firing his first shot to illuminate the target area.

The second shot came, and a roar followed it, her eardrums pulsing with it.

“He used it all,” she verbalized to her unhearing ears …

John Rourke raised up from the prone position he’d dropped to, but with considerable difficulty.

Fire burned within the base of the air defense control center now, the fire burning so brightly because there were trucks parked within the below ground area, and the synth-fuel tanks they carried, had caught. The fires licked upward around the exterior of the structure, but synth-concrete did not burn.

While the fires spread-they would be short-lived, he knew-John Rourke hauled himself to his knees behind cover, firing the energy weapon he’d used to detonate the plastique on the green door while he still had sufficient light. This time, his targets were the windows of the structure. Any damage he could do to the equipment inside was a plus, now.

And, from far to his right, there was more energy weapon fire, but not directed toward him.

“John!”

It was Natalia.

Rourke shouted back to her as he fired, Tm working the windows. Help Michael and Paul, then get out of here! 1*11 be right behind you!”

There was no answer, but after a flurry of quick shots from Natalia’s direction, her firing ceased.

The flames from the fire in the substructure of the air defense center were already dying, but Rourke kept shooting, smaller fires started by the energy weapon hits already visible through several of the shot through windows.

Behind him, toward the tunnel where Michael and Paul were pinned down, he heard the muted roar of a grenade, then another.

The energy weapon in Rourke’s hands died, the last burst missing its target completely and impacting the synth-concrete driveway.

John Rourke shrugged out of the packstraps, putting his arms into the straps for the second weapon, shouldering the pack, then hauling himself to his feet. A spasm of pain shot through him from his leg, settling in his stomach for an instant. He shook his head to clear it, then started away from the synth-concrete wall where he’d taken cover. There was not enough light to check the energy level on his new weapon, but there should be a dozen or more full-charge shots left in it he guessed, he hoped.

Rourke started toward the tunnel.

The first impact came, a conventional explosive missile or bomb, he realized, striking near the main gates. The floor beneath him vibrated with it and the tunnel wall near him cracked, the tunnel ceiling above cracking as well, and synth-concrete dust showering down on him.

Rourke ordered himself to ignore the pain, breaking into a run.

Another impact, the sound of this explosion rattling through the tunnel itself, but from behind him. German missiles, hitting the side of the mountain itself, knocking out the air defense batteries that now, apparently, were without radar guidance.

There was another explosion, the tunnel shaking violently, Rourke nearly stumbling, his left leg nearly buckling with pain.

“Bleeding again. Damn,” Rourke almost whispered, still running.

Ahead of him, he saw Michael firing a conventional Soviet assault rifle, but no sign of Natalia and Paul. Michael’s right arm was limp at his side, the assault rifle at his hip.

Rourke quickened his pace as much as he dared, nearing the tunnel entrance now. Another explosion came, the tunnel starting to break up, massive chunks of synth-concrete Ming from the tunnel ceiling.

Rourke grabbed at his thigh, pressing his hand and the pistol in it against the wound to staunch the flow of blood.

He was almost to the tunnel entrance now, Michael firing again. In the distance, well out from the tunnel, Rourke caught a glimpse of Natalia and Paul, running out ropes of German plastique.

There was another missile strike, the floor of the tunnel splitting. Michael turning around and looking back down the tunnel, then shouting to him-not loudly enough to be heard-and gesturing to

him to hurry.

John Rourke threw himself into the run, lighraeadedness and nausea sweeping over him from blood loss.

As the roar of the explosion died, he could hear Michael shouting, “… waiting for you! Gonna blow!”

Rourke wasn’t thinking straight, he realized.

He lurched along the last portion of the tunnel, sagging against the tunnel wall and his son calling. “Dad-“

Til be all right, Michael. They’re mining the area between here and the entrance-right?”

“Come on!” And Michael Rourke drew his father’s left arm across his shoulder with his own left hand.

“Your arm.”

“Bullet broke the radius, I think. Hurts like hell. Come on, Dad. You shoot, HI carry. “