Survivalist - 22 - Brutal Conquest (24 page)

Michael didn’t raise his glass. He studied the surface of the liquid, then Schmidt’s dark, penetrating eyes. There was laughter in them.

Schmidt said, “You will be shot to death, with an American weapon, of course, and left to be found. The Americans will be charged with causing the death of Eden’s beloved leader. The people of Eden, the party membership, all will mourn this tragic death. All will be united in their resolve to take revenge against the Trans-Global Alliance. You will be of greater benefit to our ultimate victory in your death than would ever have been possible in life for you.”

Michael decided to say something. “Would it do any good to-“

“To beg?” Schmidt laughed.

Michael said, “No, just to remind you that you’ll never get away with this? I know what I’m talking about.” Schmidt laughed again, but otherwise made no response. Michael Rourke decided he was definitely in trouble… .

John Rourke saw the car—more like a Twentieth Century golf cart in size—moving along the driveway, a lone man sitting in it. Rourke glanced across the street toward Natalia and Annie. “Fraulein, if you would, take the pliers from this fellow. I will begin to make the repair.” Rourke left the street-side of the driveway and crossed over, aware that the surveillance cameras probably still had him in view. Natalia was already walking toward the gates. As they passed each other in the middle of the street, Rourke winked and whispered, “Here we go.”

Natalia walked past, as if nothing had transpired between them… .

Natalia Tiemerovna’s thoughts were on Michael. She told herself that if he were in immediate danger, Annie would have known somehow.

She watched as the golf cart-sized vehicle began to slow, nearing the fence. Natalia stepped closer to the fence, hunching her shoulders so her cleavage would deepen.

The golf cart stopped.

The man—he was in his middle twenties or so, blond, blue-eyed, muscular, and tanned under a short-sleeved white knit shirt—stepped out. “Where’s the German?” Evidendy, his-question was answered as she followed his eyes across the street. “I guess you get these,” he said, moving nearer to the fence, the pliers in his hand. He was visibly armed, a shoulder holster with some small pistol in it under his left arm. The pliers were in his right hand.

“You’re just so nice to help us,” Natalia smiled.

“He was making himself a pain in the ass, girlie. Here.” He extended the pliers through the fence.

Natalia did two things.

She twisted the ornament on the strap of her purse, sending a radio signal to Paul and the Tac Team to activate the jamming of the video security system, then grabbed the blond man’s wrist with her right hand and jerked him toward her so his face slammed into the fence.

Her left hand twisted behind her, freeing the suppressor-fitted PPK/S from the small of her back, its safety already off. She interposed her body between the camera and the man, in case the system weren’t already jammed. But she knew it would be. She put the muzzle of the pistol to the blond man’s throat in the next instant and pulled the trigger… .

John Rourke slammed down the hood on the car that Natalia and Annie drove, then ran for his own car. He threw open the driver’s side door, then jumped behind the wheel. Behind him, in the rearview mirror, he saw Annie already behind the wheel of the other car, which started into motion. John Rourke punched the ignition code of his own car. In about a second, he’d know if the Edison Seven had any guts or was just a pretty face… .

Natalia stabbed the detonator into the plastique and ran, the remote that would activate it in her left hand, her PPK/S in her right. John’s car was in highspeed reverse down the street, while Annie was making a three-point turn.

Natalia, in the middle of the street, pushed the button on the remote.

She kept running, hearing pieces of the gates whisding through the air behind her… .

Paul Rubenstein and Ed Shaw reached the fence simultaneously, three of the Tac Team men activating the tactical ascender. It was similar to a ladder, but the rungs were more like actual step treads, segmented, pneumatically operating. As the ladder segments shot upward, the entire mechanism leaned forward, supports folding out automatically in front, supporting the ascender.

Shaw started up the treads, Paul Rubenstein behind him.

The platform was already folding out from the top. Once they reached the platform, they would jump… .

Schmidt had a gun, one that Michael Rourke respected.

The gun, most likely a Lancer reproduction but identical in appearance to a Walther P-38K 9mm Parabellum, was pointed at his head.

The six men who had accompanied him into Schmidt’s office were running to their posts.

A loud, piercing alarm was sounding from the corridor, the doors open.

Michael Rourke figured he had nothing to lose, so he jumped toward Schmidt and the gun.

*

John Rourke stomped the Edison Seven’s accelerator pedal to the floor and, reassuringly, the machine shot forward into the driveway. The body of the man Natalia had shot lay there, causing Rourke to steer around it.

From the hedgerow on both sides of the drive, energy weapons began firing, blue-white streaks flashing on all sides of him, apparendy part of some automatic intruder defense system. “Shit,” Rourke rasped. He cut the wheel left, toward the hedgerow. An energy bolt impacted across the hood of the Edison Seven, the windshield spiderweb-bing, the synth-glass blackening. Rourke kept driving, the Edison Seven picking up speed as it crashed through the hedgerow, where a fence was hidden within. The car hesitated for an instant, then there was the sound of metal tearing metal, pieces of the fence flying away on either side of the Edison Seven’s low-swept hood.

There were more of the energy bolts now, but from behind him. And, in the rearview mirror, he could see Annie and Natalia’s car crashing through the same opening in the hedge.

The grassy strip between the two driveways was dry and hard.

John Rourke was thrown up and down and sideways, despite the seat restraint he wore. Nevertheless, he was able to steer the Edison Seven toward the fountain at the far end of the strip, in the arc of the horseshoe driveway.

Michael Rourke’s left hand was over the Walther P-38K. | His right hand, balled into a fist, crossed Schmidt’s lantern- | shaped jaw at the same instant the pistol discharged. 1

Michael’s left hand stung, his flesh caught in the slide, the « bullet pinging off the desk. j

Michael started to reach for the pistol, but Schmidt’s left I caught him in the abdomen, doubling him forward. Sch-f midt’s hands grabbed for Michael’s left hand and wrist. Mi- | chaei felt a sharp pain. Schmidt turned around, flipping j Michael forward into a roll, throwing him hard to the floor, j

A chunk of flesh from the web of Michael’s left hand was s missing, blood spurting out between his thumb and first finger. The gun discharged, a bullet impacting the floor beside Michael as he rolled. Getting to his feet, the body blocked f Schmidt, throwing his left shoulder with the full force of his weight against his opponent’s chest. The Walther flew from Schmidt’s right hand as he and Michael fell to the floor. Michael’s right knee struck the ground hard and his right leg : went numb. His left fist hammered upward, catching Sch-l< midt under the jaw, twisting the man’s head back. |

Schmidt’s right knee smashed upward, missing Michael’s | testicles, impacting the pelvic bone instead. Michael’s I breath left him in a rush. But he lurched forward and j downward, his left elbow arcing across Schmidt’s face, 1 glancing off the right cheekbone and the nose. I

Schmidt’s nose was broken. As blood sprayed, Michael averted his eyes.

Schmidt’s voice was a low growl, “Damn you, Zimmer!*

Michael’s elbow thrust back, missing Schmidt’s nose and -mouth, impacting him across the forehead. Michael hissed, Trnnot Zimmer, asshole. I’m Michael Rourke!”

Schmidt’s left fist seemed to come from nowhere. Michael twisted his head away but too late, the right side of his jaw taking a punch that came so hard and fast floaters started across his eyes and he fell away.

Schmidt was up. His right foot snapped out, Michael’s hands going to his groin and his knees locking together as Schmidt kicked. Michael caught the ankle and rolled, pulling Schmidt down to the floor on top of him.

As Schmidt fell, his left knee raised and his body weight crashed down against his opponent, its full force concentrated in the knee at the center of Michael’s abdomen.

Michael lost his breath and started to vomit in the same instant. He groped upward with his right hand, grabbing part of Schmidt’s left ear, then ripping. The middle knuckles of Michael’s left hand were formed into a wedge that he snapped upward toward Schmidt’s larynx, to crush it, to kill. Schmidt dodged, falling away, Michael ripping part of his left ear as he screamed.

Then Schmidt was up.

Michael staggered to his feet, half doubled over, unable to stand fully erect, vomit mixed with blood dripping from his mouth.

Schmidt’s left hand moved and suddenly there was a knife in it. “Michael Rourke, then. Die!” And Schmidt hurtled himself forward… .

The Edison Seven skidded, its rear end fishtailing right, the car sliding broadside through the hedge at the far end of the greenway and into the arc of the horseshoe-shaped driveway.

Energy weapons were not in evidence here, but there was a fence, the Edison Seven splitting it, pieces of metal spraying outward, the passenger side windows shattering.

The car skidded sideways, toward the fountain that was at the approximate midpoint between the hedgerow and the steps leading into the building.

John Rourke threw open the driver’s side door, tore off his seat restraints, and hurled himself out as he grabbed for the rifle case beneath the seat. He hit the gravel hard, going into a roll.

As his body slammed to a halt, the Edison Seven crashed into the fountain, collapsing the near side of the bowl surrounding it, electricity arcing off the hood as energy weapons were fired from the steps by at least two men.

John Rourke’s right hand snaked crossbody, snatching one of the twin stainless Detonics mini guns from the double Alessi shoulder holster. He punched the pistol forward, firing a double tap toward the steps. There were three men on the steps now, one of them falling down dead, the second and third running back inside the building.

Rourke safed the pistol as he got to his feet, shoving the .45 into the waistband of his trousers while he unlimbered the H-K 91. He racked the action back with his left hand.

He was up, running toward the car. He ducked behind the car, at an angle to the house so any projectiles fired toward him would have the maximum amount of meted to penetrate before reaching him… .

Michael Rourke’s father had always taught him, “In a knife fight, if you have to, take the cut on the outside of the forearm. Less chance of bleeding to death or sustaining incapacitation.”

As Schmidt’s knife arced outward and downward, there was nothing else Michael could do but block it with his left forearm^ to avoid taking a cut across his abdomen.

As the\blade crossed his flesh, Michael Rourke shrieked with pain and anger, blood spurting from his arm as his right hand snapped forward, inside his opponent’s guard, the heel going for the base of Schmidt’s nose … to break it … drive the bone upward through the ethmoid bone and into the brain … to kill.

Michael’s blow missed, hitting the front teeth instead. There was a spray of blood as Schmidt’s hps split and he fell back.

Schmidt still held the knife.

Michael’s left forearm was drenched with blood, and he could not take another cut like that.

His face a bloody mask, Schmidt charged forward, the knife held high in a rapier hold, aimed for Michael’s chest.

Michael Rourke waited.

At the last second he dared, he dropped right, Michael’s legs scissoring outward, catching Schmidt’s feet and bringing his out-of-balance body crashing downward. Michael rolled onto his chest and pushed up, nearly collapsed. He was getting light-headed now from the blood loss and pain.

But he stood, sagging forward.

He was near the bar.

The decanter. It looked like real glass, not synth-glass. If it was …

Schmidt was on his feet. Holding the knife as he had before, he charged, cursing in German.

Michael’s right hand had the decanter, his left the synth-glass bottle of vodka.

As Schmidt came for him, Michael sidestepped, swinging the botde of vodka outward and toward Schmidt’s head, the synth-glass bottle impacting his head so hard that it cracked.

Schmidt staggered.

Michael held the whiskey decanter by its base and smashed it against the bar rail.

There was a reassuring sound of glass breaking.

Schmidt fell forward against the bar, started to turn.

Michael still held the cracked vodka botde, the liquor dribbling through the crack and down his nearly useless left arm, the alcohol burning him.

With all of his weight behind the vodka botde, Michael crashed it downward across Schmidt’s right forearm. Then Michael stepped in, holding the smashed whiskey decanter by the neck, near his right shoulder, arcing downward.

Schmidt’s shredded lips drew back in a snarl.

Michael was losing consciousness, the pain in his left arm incredible now. His right hand swept outward.

Schmidt’s right hand still held the knife, driving it upward for Michael’s abdomen.

Michael’s right hand arced right to left.

There was a look in Schmidt’s eyes for a micro second.

In that look, Michael Rourke saw that Schmidt realized death was coming.

The jagged base of the whiskey decanter slashed across Schmidt’s throat, choking a scream from his bloodied lips.

Michael’s body was carried on his own momentum and he started to fall, a wash of darkness flooding over him… .

Paul Rubenstein ran dead out, Ed Shaw and the other Tac Team personnel surrounding him. Gunfire, both conventional and energy weapons, emanated from the rear of the house, more than Paul had expected.