Survivalist - 17 - The Ordeal (21 page)

And one of the women, very beautiful, would every few moments adjust the setting of a dial, depress a button, turn a toggle switch.

Maria had been right. They worshipped nuclear death here.

Paul Rubenstein shifted the battered Browning High Power from the tanker holster into the waistband of his pants, with the butt pointed left, the hammer down, ready for use with his left hand.

The Schmiesser was clenched tight in his left fist. He still could not move the fingers of his right hand without considerable difficulty and pain …

Michael Rourke could hear, but sound of any kind was like someone whispering at a seashore in the midst of a storm, almost more maddening than the total deafness which he had experienced until now.

He first realized he could hear again when, after a very long time, the woman who was the head of all of this, the priestess or whatever, came to him and raised her fingernails over his face, like cats he had seen in videotapes, claws distended, about to claw him, he thought.

And he heard Maria Leuden, who had stopped screaming (he’d seen her mouth stop opening and closing, seen the tendons of her neck cease to distend, seen the flush in her cheeks dissipate), either passing out or drifted off to sleep. Suddenly she screamed again—but this time Michael Rourke really heard her.

The black-robed torturer with the strap with which he

continuously beat the seemingly unconscious Han Lu Chen, turned toward Maria and shouted something doubly unintelligible because of Michael’s hearing and the fact that the torturer spoke Chinese, a language with which Michael had almost no familiarity.

The woman turned away and Michael Rourke saw Vassily Prokopiev, who he had thought was dead, Prokopiev’s face smeared with blood. Prokopiev staggered to his feet and snapped his left elbow up into the face of one of the Mongol guards (there were at least a dozen and a half of them). Prokopiev grabbed the guard’s Glock 17 pistol and shot the guard twice in the face, then shot the priestess or whoever she was in the back.

The woman fell to the floor.

Prokopiev had one of the Mongol swords and, as he collapsed, blood spurting from a facial wound, he hacked downward with the sword and the rope beneath the blade severed and Michael Rourke’s left hand was free…

John Thomas Rourke positioned both Detonics Scoremasters in his pistol belt, the .45s cocked and locked. He had heard shots.

At the end of the long corridor, murals on the walls depicting the Night of the War and the Great Conflagration and other scenes unrecognizable other than in their violent themes, two large doors stood, ornately carved, black-lacquered wooden doors with trim that appeared to be real gold.

John Rourke tried the doors and they opened, despite their apparent considerable weight, opened easily under his hands …

Michael Rourke’s right hand grasped the Glock 17 pistol as it fell from Prokopiev’s other hand, Michael’s fingers stiff, moving with difficulty. But he was able to make the pistol fire a

pair of 9mm bullets into the face of the nearest of the Mongols, who was charging toward him with his saber drawn.

Michael twisted right, the span of rope between his right wrist and the steel ring to which the rope was tied less than three inches. Michael fired, the whine of the ricochet making him want to retch, it was so close. But the rope was severed.

He sat up, his head swimming, stabbing the pistol toward his bare legs, firing once to free the right ankle, two shots before he hit the rope binding his left ankle.

A third Mongol was coming and, as the saber crashed toward him, Michael Rourke tumbled from the altar, hitting the floor hard, the stone cold to his nakedness …

Paul Rubenstein twisted his body weight left, throwing his already injured right arm against the doors, figuring he had nothing to lose.

As the doors burst inward, John Rourke stepped through.

Both Scoremaster .45s came to John Rourke’s like living things coming because they were called.

And both spoke.

Paul Rubenstein, the pain in his right arm like a thousand toothaches, rammed the Schmiesser forward, taut against its sling, firing.

Mongol guards were going down.

Women in long white dresses who looked as if they were late for some sort of prom rushed across the room—it was a temple—and brandished torches. It was shoot at the women or burn, but he fired into the temple ceiling. Some of them fell back.

John laced one of the women across the jaw with his fist, a pistol still clenched in it as he dodged a torch.

Maria Leuden was lashed to some sort of pagan altar, naked, screaming. One of the prom girls came toward her in a dead run, stabbing a torch toward her face. “John!” Paul swung the Schmiesser on line with the torch bearer’s chest.

But there was the crack of a pistol shot, then another and ‘ another. !

Paul’s eyes shifted left. Michael, stark naked, one of the ‘ Chinese Glock 17 pistols in his left hand.

As Michael just stood there for an instant, two Mongols charged him, guns and sabers drawn.

“Paul! Get them!”

The boom of John Rourke’s .45s, emptying as Paul stabbed the Schmiesser in the men’s direction and sprayed.

Paul saw it coming and dodged, a saber slash, but his footing went and he sprawled back. Paul fired out the Schmiesser, the Mongol going down.

Doors on the far side of the temple were opening, more Mongols streaming through.

John Rourke’s .45s were still. Rourke rammed both pistols, the slides still locked open, empty, into his pistol belt, drew the 629 and fired from the hip like some sort of western gunfighter, one of the Mongols down, then another and another, the temple walls echoing and re-echoing with the concussions.

Michael Rourke passed like a blur across Paul’s field of vision as Paul found the butt of the Browning, thumbed back the hammer and shot another of the Mongols twice in the throat.

As one of the Mongols charged John Rourke, John fired, the Mongol’s body jackknifing but, incredibly, not falling, carried forward by momentum. John Rourke raked the barrel of his revolver across the man’s forehead as he came, the Mongol going down.

A man all in black, a wide strap half like a whip, half like a belt of enormous proportions, rushed forward, the belt lashing out, John’s left shoulder taking the impact as John tried to turn. Paul Rubenstein fired as he clambered to his feet, then fired again and again and again, the black-robed man stumbling to his knees, the whip falling from flaccid fingers, the body tumbling forward.

John Rourke’s revolver emptied into another of the Mongols, then Rourke sidestepped, twisted awkwardly right, his left leg rising, his left foot double-kicking another Mongol in the groin and abdomen as the man charged.

John Rourke dropped the revolver into its holster, both hands moving, the twin Detonics mini-.45s coming from under his coat.

One of the temple maidens in the white prom dresses hacked toward John’s face with a torch, John stepping back and firing the little .45 in his left hand, the torch splitting in two, sparks showering the woman, her dress catching fire.

She ran, screaming.

Paul Rubenstein threw himself toward her, onto her, smothering the flames with his body, the woman reaching up to claw at his eyes. “Sorry—” Rubenstein backhanded her across the jaw with his left fist which still held the pistol.

John Rourke was moving through the crowd of Mongol mercenaries like someone wading through a pool, the little Detonics .45s barking once, then again, then again, men falling on either side of him.

Paul was on his feet, firing the Browning High Power. At the far left edge of his peripheral vision, he saw Michael Rourke, Michael looking at once ludicrous and deadly. Michael was naked except for his double shoulder holster. The Berettas Michael carried were in his fists and firing, men falling as Michael fought his way toward his father, killing at point-blank.

Rubenstein emptied the High Power, dropped to his knees as he rammed the pistol into his belt, then grabbed up one of the docks still holstered on the belt of one of the Mongol mercenaries.

Paul Rubenstein got to his feet, the Glock tight in his left fist. He fired, fired again and again, fighting his way now toward John and Michael.

Maria Leuden shrieked, “Help me!”

Paul wheeled toward her where she was still bound at the opposite end of the altar. As he turned, he saw Michael turning, John moving, a blur. A Mongol with a torch rushed down on her. Paul fired and, as he fired, heard almost simultaneous shots from beside him, the Mongol’s body jerking, jerking, twisting again, flowers of blood at the Mongol’s forehead, his throat and his right cheek.

Paul turned quickly back toward the doors through which the additional Mongol mercenaries had come.

No movement, except for a few of the Chinese women in their prom-like dresses who ran toward the corridor beyond.

“Paul! Help me close those doors!” Michael streaked toward the door and, despite it all, Paul Rubenstein almost laughed, because streaking was exactly what it was, Michael Rourke still naked.

John called, “I’m freeing Maria—my God! Han! Paul. Michael. You get Maria.”

Paul looked back as he threw his weight to the door, Michael against the other door. The doors were twelve feet high at least, but easily enough moved. But, as Paul closed his door of the pair, his eyes swept across the room and found John Rourke. John was freeing Han Lu Chen of chains which bound him to the black marble wall nearest to the altar, Han’s body striped by the whip, almost unrecognizable as human.

The doors slammed to with a clang, Paul’s eyes shifting from the beaten Han Lu Chen toward the walls on either side of the doors, searching for a brace with which to keep them closed.

“Paul! Here!”

Michael Rourke was tugging at a mighty bar, resting along the joint between floor and wall on the far side from where Paul stood. It looked to be at least eight by eight inches and as many feet in length.

Paul ran to him, bent to the bar, tried lifting it.

Without warning, John Rourke was beside them, at the center of the bar. “Ready! Lift!” The bar was up and they guided it toward the doors, raising it still higher to drop it into

the cleats on the door.

It fell into place and the doors trembled.

“Han’s in desperate shape,” John Rourke rasped. “But we’re in worse shape if we don’t stop that meltdown.”

Michael was shouting and Paul couldn’t understand why until he noticed the bloodstains beneath Michael’s left ear and, as Michael turned his head, a similar blood trail under his right ear and along his neck and onto his chest. “What meltdown?”

“A series of nuclear reactors—” Paul began, but realized Michael couldn’t hear him. “Reactors! A bunch of them! Could screw up everything! Boom!” And Paul gestured outward with both hands and his right arm seized with pain.

“Right.” Michael nodded.

Vassily Prokopiev was on the floor, seriously wounded as well, it appeared, and Michael dropped to his knees beside him. “Paul? Cut Maria loose?”

Paul finished reloading the Schmiesser, started to speak, only nodded, drawing the Gerber and going toward the altar to cut Maria loose. He couldn’t help but notice—and didn’t think Annie would really mind—but Maria Leuden had a very pretty body. Between Maria and, earlier, helping to dress Natalia, he was seeing a lot. But there was only one woman he wanted to see and, by now, Annie would be safe somewhere with Otto Hammerschmidt and Natalia, too…

Annie Rubenstein clung to the life raft, but the raft was going down, one of the Soviet gunships passing over them moments earlier, strafing the raft, wounding Otto Hammerschmidt, then flying away, leaving them to die in the water.

The raft, partially deflated already, could barely hold Otto and Natalia well enough to keep their unconscious forms sufficiently above water to be able to breathe.

Annie had gone into the water to reduce the downward pressure on the leaking raft.

The signaling device her father had given to her—Annie had

activated it the moment the stolen Soviet gunship Otto piloted had almost shattered against the calm surface of the Yellow Sea.

No one was coming.

“We need you! Damnit! Help us!”

No one was coming.

Sarah Rourke had found a place to go to the bathroom and she felt better now.

“Sorry,” she said, rejoining Wolfgang Mann and the other two men.

“For what are you sorry, Sarah?”

“I mean, holding you guys up.”

Colonel Mann smiled that very nice, very sincere smile of his and told her, “Each of us is a unique person. Your persona happens to be female and biological needs cannot be ignored. You have nothing to feel sorry about. If I had at my disposal one hundred commandoes with your courage and skill, no enemy of freedom would ever stand before me and survive.”

“You’re very nice.” It sounded lame to her as she said it, but it was the only thing she could think of to say.

Mann smiled again, saying nothing.

With the two remaining commandoes, they set out again, the terrain familiar to her here, the lower levels of the government building where, presumably, the chairman of the First City was being held prisoner. She hoped he still lived, prayed that he did, because the chairman was now their only hope. There had been three sentries near the entrance she had selected—a service access—and using silenced pistols the sentries were dispatched almost too easily.

It was then, after entering through the service access, she had found a bathroom and used it. Something was making her

stomach very queasy and she kept telling herself it was the baby.

They walked along the.corridor toward the service elevators now.

The feeling of unease grew in her. They passed a storage room.

She heard a sound that she couldn’t identify, from the elevator bank.

“Inside here—it’s a feeling—”

Mann rasped to his men, “Follow Frau Rourke! Hurry!”

She passed through the doorless doorway quickly, flattening herself against a stack of crates just inside the opening, Mann and the others just behind her. She could hear their breathing through the radio. She hissed, “Shh,” once and held her breath.