Survivalist - 15 - Overlord (6 page)

He had put them on and she had laughed and he had taken them off and she had made a big thing out of begging him to put them on again. And then she had laughed again and he hadn’t taken them off but instead just laughed with her and at her and at himself and they had made love. She thought about this. It was the last time they had made love before they had left Iceland to search for her father, just

before Karamatsov had tried to use his madness-inducing poison gas to launch a revolution against his government at the Soviet Underground City.

Annie Rourke Rubenstein thought of her mother again, of her mother being pregnant. Annie wanted Paul’s baby but they had agreed, not until the world was rid of Karamatsov and it would be safe to have a child, to bring a new life into the world. If anything had made their resolve more, more — she tried to think of a word —more resolved, she almost verbalized. If anything, it had been the death of pretty Madison and the baby.

She shifted the M-16, carrying it at the pistol grip in her right fist.

She thought she heard a sound from the greenway at the center of the community, just beyond the last step. She didn’t change her pattern of movement. To do so, if an enemy were present, would be to invite a shot. She kept walking, forcing herself not to increase her pace as she crossed the expanse along the height of the steps, perfectly in the open, an easy shot for even an indifferent marksman.

The German sergeant, Ludwig Peiffel, had heard the sound too, and with his eyes he telegraphed it to her.

If it were Russians out there —and some of their commando units were good at infiltration, very good —it might somewhat disarm them to think that Lydveldid Island was guarded by women, that the situation were so desperate that just defenseless women —and she smiled despite the danger she knew she was exposed to as she walked on, in the open. She had never felt herself to be particularly undangerous because of her sex, or that sex automatically made someone more or less of a danger. Maybe, if it were Russians who had caused the all but undetectable noise, they would learn about dangerous women this night. She was nearly to the edge of the open space, nearly to where she could duck beneath the comparative shelter of the porch railing.

Sergeant Peiffel cleared his throat and she didn’t move her

head but let her eyes follow his out toward the greenway. Had it been movement?

There was still no gunfire from the rim of the volcano.

“Ludwig—awful quiet, isn’t it?” she said in a not overly loud stagey voice.

“Yes, Frau Rubenstein, it is very quiet,” Sergeant Peiffel agreed, his eyes shifting toward the greenway again.

Annie stopped beside the vertical where the porch rail began and looked deliberately down into the greenway. She saw nothing. She felt something. She closed her eyes, trying to focus her concentration. What she could do with her mind sometimes was starting to scare her. It wasn’t something she could see, but she could feel it just as surely as she had felt the presence of the man who had knocked at the door of Doctor Munchen, known his purpose. It was a combination of logical interpretation of fragmentary available data and some power she didn’t understand at all. She had talked about it with her father. He had told her that she shouldn’t push it, but rather let it develop naturally as it already had. She had read about such things, in women seemingly coming on at the outset of the menstrual cycle, but sometimes vanishing when the metabolism changed during and after pregnancy. Logic dictated that it was some delicate chemical balance.

She felt the men out there. Her gift, if indeed it was that, was not so well-honed as for her to be able to tell numbers, even see them. But she felt their presence. Many men. And she felt a mixture of anger, hatred, and fear.

Sergeant Peiffel had a radio set with which he could contact the defenders at the rim of the volcano, the two German counter snipers in place —precariously—on the roof of the presidential residence. She whispered to him without moving her lips, “I want you to alert the snipers on the roof, and then the forces at the rim. We have company.”

Peiffel raised his eyebrow and smiled for an instant and then moved to reach the radio at his belt.

The smile froze on his face.

Annie saw that before she heard the burst of automatic weapons fire and threw herself down to the floor of the porch, but inside herself she had felt it a split second before and that, more than his death, more than her immediate danger, terrified her. It was hard crawling in an ankle length skirt without falling flat on your face, but she made it behind the rail, automatic weapons fire tearing into the porch itself, into the railings, shattering glass despite the protective shutters that had been installed when the building was sealed with Madame Jokli inside. Annie stabbed the M-16 through an opening in the porch rail and opened fire, razor edge chips and granite dust so heavy around her that she had to squint to protect her eyes.

“Get ‘em,” she screamed, returning fire now general from the porch, the heavier cracks of the counter-sniper fire from the roof coming too now. Annie shifted the M-16 to her left hand, outstretching her right arm, balling her tiny fist into the uniform tunic of Sergeant Peiffel — but she knew already that he was dead and the wide open stare that she had seen too often before confirmed that. She released the grip on his uniform and moved her hand down toward his utility belt, going for the radio. Automatic weapons fire from the greenway laced across his chest and abdomen as she drew her hand back.

They’d hear the gunfire at the rim, she told herself. But they wouldn’t hear it if there were a battle in progress at the rim. “Shit,” she snapped. She screamed up toward the roof, drawing herself deeper into cover, the M-16 in both hands now again. “On the roof—call for help! Use your radios!”

There was another volley of the heavier rifle fire from the snipers, but now in an arc all .along the greenway facing the presidential residence there was heavy automatic weapons fire and Annie recoiled as the body of one of the counter-snipers plummeted past her from the roof above, catching for an instant in the bushes which fronted the high porch,

then tumbling away.

There was no more of the heavier sounding gunfire of the sniper rifles. Had a radio transmission gotten through? In an instant, the Russians would charge the porch …

Captain Pavornin had given the attack signal and the gunship which would transport him forward to join the ground assault team was airborne now, some of the German mini-tanks already in motion, Pavornin’s gunships firing their rockets. The German armor was tough.

“This is Pavornin—Lieutenant Askonikov—bring up the left flank — quickly and get your grenadiers and missilemen into position—heavy concentration of the German mini-tanks coming right at you!” He was beginning to reconsider joining Sergeant Borov with the right flank. A trio of German gunships was coming at him now, Pavornin elbowing the pilot opposite him. “There!”

He had heard about this strategy from those who had fought against the Germans before, seen it himself during the attack on the German stronghold in Argentina. Rumors circulated that the strategy had been taught the German military by the American John Rourke. Cut a wedge through the battle lines at all costs and attack the field commander and thereby so disrupt the chain of command that the battle was broken off.

Pavornin suddenly felt very naked in his gunship. “Take me away from here now!”

His pilot nodded rather than replying through the headset radios they both wore. He glanced back. The door gunner was strafing the German counter-attack below. The pilot wasn’t using his missiles—not yet. The helicopter rose, then fell, then rose again, the streak of a missile contrail just passing beneath their chin bubble. Pavornin felt it —fear.

Akiro Kurinami spoke almost softly into his headset radio. “The Russian pilot is trying to avoid us —I wonder why. Ed —go high. Walter, stay on me!” Kurinami dodged the chopper down and to starboard, now giving the German gunship maximum acceleration, feeling himself pushed back into the pilot’s seat as he climbed the machine, the G force pressing against his chest. The Soviet gunship rotated one hundred eighty degrees on its axis, hesitating for a split second, then started back toward the advancing Soviet lines. Kurinami worked the safety release for his starboard missiles, punching the button as he levelled off, firing his machineguns as well, the gunship vibrating with the missile launch. The contrail —the missile streaked toward the Soviet command gunship, the tail rotor, the entire tail section vaporizing in a fireball of black and orange and yellow. Kurinami still fired his machineguns as he made the pass across the dorsal side of the Soviet gunship. There was an explosion, even more violent than before, the chin bubble of Kurinami’s helicopter smudged suddenly black with it, Kurinami banking his machine hard to starboard, glancing back over his shoulder. The Soviet gunship had vanished. #

He spoke into his headset mouthpiece. “All right —let’s help our people on the ground,” and he started the chopper down at almost maximum pitch, near maximum speed …

Annie Rubenstein had no way of knowing if a radio message had gotten out to the rest of the defenders and, even if it had, whether or not reinforcements could be expected to arrive on time. Five of the Icelandic police remained alive with her there on the front porch of the presidential residence, though one of them was wounded and bleeding badly from a shoulder wound, another’s face cut from a spray of rock chips.

She asked herself what her father would do in the same situation, and she knew what he would do instinctively. “All

right—you and you —cover us —you three—with me —now!” She was up, firing a burst from her M-16, the assault rifle in her right fist along with a handful of her skirt’as she vaulted the railing and dropped toward the ground. Her body caught up in the bushes for an instant, then rolled free, tearing her clothes, feeling the branches as they swatted against her face and tugged at her hair. She hit the ground in an undignified roll, firing the M-16 again as she got to her feet. The three Icelandic police were just behind her, one of them on the steps as she looked back, the man taking a burst across the chest and going down. Annie shouted to the other two, “Stick close!” hoping that they understood enough to do it. She dodged left, into a zigzagging run at a tangent toward the arc of Soviet gunfire, throwing herself down just inside the borderline of the greenway, gunfire plowing the grass near her head as she rolled onto her back, then over again onto her stomach, the assault rifle at her shoulder now, on full auto, firing, spraying into the Soviet cover.

One of the Icelandic police was beside her, firing out his assault rifle, the second —as she stopped to change magazines she could see him — a few feet to her left behind the trunk of a tree, up on one knee, still firing.

The Soviet attackers broke from cover and stormed forward, laying down such a heavy volume of automatic weapons fire she couldn’t raise her head long enough to return fire.

Suddenly, the pattern of gunfire changed, a heavy concentration from behind her and she looked back. Her mother and three more of the Icelandic police and German corporal were coming in two units from both sides of the presidential palace. Her mother led two of the Icelandics and the German corporal led the other, Sarah Rourke’s M-16 on full auto. Some of the Soviet attackers started to go down, their attacking wedge broken; others dodged for cover.

Annie shouted to her two men, “Now!” She was up, running, firing, the M-16 in her right fist, the Beretta from

the Bianchi holster at her left hip, firing in her left hand. She emptied the assault rifle into two of the Russians, then slapped the muzzle into the face of a third, took a half step back and fired into his left eye with the Beretta. The rifle fell on its sling, empty, to her left hip; no time to reload. Her right hand snatched the Scoremaster from the identical holster on her right side as she turned half to her left, discharging both pistols simultaneously-tnto the chest of one of the Russians. She looked behind her, her mother gut-shooting a Russian officer as he turned toward her to fire.

Sarah Rourke snapped the rifle up and left and fired it out, shouting across the din of battle, “Not bad for a pregnant lady who’s busting out of her blue jeans, huh!”

There were flashes in the darkness, the sweep of searchlights, the brilliant bursts of light from explosions. John Rourke was ready by the open gunship door, holding to one of the safety straps with his left hand, his M-16 in his right fist, the hood of his parka up against the cold. The German base loomed ahead; the German gunship banked, Rourke feeling it, skirting the edge of the aerial batdefield, well beyond the furthest edge of the German base which fronted the Hekla Community, aiming as Rourke had ordered toward the interior of Hekla itself, which had to be the ultimate Soviet objective in the attack.

Natalia’s voice drew him back to the moment. “When they let us out, you and Paul cover me —I’ll take the grenade launcher.”

“Agreed,” Rourke shouted back over the icy roar of the gunship’s slipstream. He glanced back into the subdued green light of the cabin. Paul was readying himself, an M-16 slung on each side, bags of grenades slung crossbody on each side along with bags of spare magazines for their weapons.

There were explosions behind them now, and explosions and pinpoint lights of small arms fire in the distance ahead by the crater rim. Rourke’s plan was a simple one —insert behind the main body of the attacking Soviet force and

counter-attack from the rear, the gunship going airborne again and strafing the Soviet line, attempting for radio contact with the German and Icelandic defenders at the rim of the volcano to start a second wave counter-attack. If it worked —but if it didn’t, Rourke considered. But there was no other option. He had counted on arriving before the Soviet attack began, but fate and Soviet battle plans had mitigated against that.

The helicopter was steadily dropping, the land beneath it steadily rising, the effect unnerving slightly as Rourke’s eyes surveyed the battlefield they fast approached at the rim of the cone. The main body of Soviet forces and hence the main thrust of the Soviet attack against the Hekla Community seemed concentrated against the face of the cone nearest the German base —a poor move, Rourke felt subjectively, but if the Soviets had been better tacticians and strategists, they would have been that much more difficult an enemy.