Survivalist - 23 - Call To Battle (28 page)

Paul Rubenstein knew it, too.

Before they had parted, after John had helped get the pilot out of the crippled helicopter, Paul took the extra few seconds to clasp John Rourke’s hand, to say perhaps for the last time, “My friend.”

Without knowing John Rourke, one could not understand the true meaning of those words.

Perhaps the entire earth trembled. It felt as if that were true as the first Shockwave came. John Rourke fell to his knees, making the third leg of a tripod with the butt of the Heckler & Koch rifle, keeping himself from falling prone by strength and force of will as the mountain heaved and the very floor of the plain here within the cone rose, sank, then split with an ear-shattering crack. Lava flowed from the enormous wound in the living rock like suppurating pus, lava geysering skyward with such intensity that, in the next instant, the very darkness rained fire.

The six men-Martin one of them-who had taken refuge within a natural rock fortress at the very center of the cone had not yet seen him. Rourke imagined them rather preoccupied with their own survival at the moment; the sea of magma rolled beneath them and waves of the liquid rock upthrust and crashed and lashed out in fiery fury, the very rock on which the fortress was set floating like a raft on the tempest-tossed fire.

There was still a bridge leading out to the fortress and John Rourke, as he descended the volcanic shield, started toward it. They had not seen him, but if he were spotted he would be without shelter from their fire. He thought of Paul, praying that his friend would get the helicopter up and out of the ever-expanding inferno.

Fumaroles were everywhere, great spouts of noxious gas and acrid charcoal-colored smoke belching skyward on all sides of him, an enormous cloud hanging low over the interior of the cone, its greyness alleviated only by the falling pieces of yellow hot rock. The interior of the cloud glowed orange and purple.

Ash rained everywhere, forcing Rourke to smudge it away from his mask’s protective eye-covering every few seconds just so that he could see. The action of the HK-91 was covered with it.

Rourke, running as best he could, still keeping his balance, neared the bridge leading out to the island of rock on which the fortress floated.

As John Rourke stepped onto the bridge, the mountain roared its anger again and the bridge twisted, angled to Rourke’s left. But Rourke kept his balance. The bridge was narrowed now, the volume of magma suddenly increased. The fiery liquid rock splashed within inches of his combat-booted feet. Should a wave of the lava lap over his feet, what litde protection the leather afforded would be vaporized in a microsecond and so would his flesh beneath.

Rourke kept moving.

In the same instant that he smudged away more of the ash from the lenses of his mask, gunfire tore into the rock beside Rourke’s feet, energy bursts crackling through the air near his head. Rourke brought the HK-91 to his shoulder, the rifle’s safety already thumbed off. Rourke fired, not knowing whether the volume of ash would have been too much for the firearm. But the HK worked, the first shot, then a second and third hammering into the rock fortress, great chips of the rock flying upward, a man in seaman’s clothes falling through a niche in the rock. The man’s energy weapon fired as his body vanished into the sea of boiling lava.

John Rourke quickened his pace, his only hope now to get into the fortress and fight it out at close range. Stranded here, he would not only be visible and easy to pick off, but was also prey to the rapidly diminishing width of the bridge of rock along which he trod.

Rourke ran forward, across the bridge.

Another energy weapon was fired toward him, blue-white bolts of plasma flickering through the maelstrom of molten rock and burning ash. Another energy bolt, then another. The bolts intercepted the rain of debris, making the bits of rock explode like shrapnel around him. Rourke’s body was pummeled with the rock, bits of it clinging to the old leather jacket he wore, burning

like phosphorous. Rourke swatted at a piece with his gloved left hand and the leather of the glove smoked. Rourke kept running.

He was near the island of rock now, the mountain shaking so violendy that most of his concentration was consumed with keeping his balance.

One of the Nazis rose up from behind the fortress wall some ten feet above and fired almost point-blank. John Rourke was already moving, throwing himself forward, flush against the rocky surface of the fortress wall. As Rourke’s hands caught to the wall, the mountain shuddered again, only more violendy than before. The island of rock twisted, lurched and the bridge fell away. Rourke clung there, his rifle swinging wildly at his side on its sling.

The Nazi who had fired at him was above him now, bringing his energy weapon to bear in line with John Rourke’s head. Rourke released his grip to the rock with his right hand, hanging above the molten sea beneath him only by the fingers of his left hand as his right hand groped for the pistol grip of the HK.

The Nazi was shouting something at Rourke, but Rourke could not hear it-the thunderous cacophony of the eruption filled his ears with nothing but the sounds of the mountain’s destruction. Rourke’s gloved right hand closed around the pistol grip of the HK-91. Rourke punched the rifle upward, firing, then again and again, the rifle’s recoil force tearing at Rourke’s right wrist, tor-quing in his hand.

The head of the Nazi who stood over him exploded and the body fell back and away, out of sight.

John Rourke let go of his rifle, grasping instead for additional purchase on the rock as the fingers of his left hand began to slip.

Rourke swung there.

Two of the men with Martin were gone. That left three more, and Martin Zimmer himself.

Bremen seemed more dead than alive as Paul Rubenstein at last slung the young man over his right shoulder in a fireman’s carry. But there was breathing, a pulse and heartbeat. A slab of rockmassive-seeming from the swatch it had cut in the rocks around it-had evidently dislodged and crashed down near Rolvaag’s graduate student, breaking up, huge chunks of it surrounding Carl Bremen. There was a wound to Bremen’s head, bleeding heavily. But Paul Rubenstein remembered John’s often stating that head wounds were deceptive, and frequently showed a great deal of blood in disparate proportion to their size.

Paul had cleared away some of the rocks after applying a makeshift bandage to the head wound. Then, after determining as best he could that neither Bremen’s neck nor back seemed broken, he moved the man, hauled him awkwardly into a standing position, then bent into him for the carry.

As Paul trudged back along the slope, changing direction every few steps to avoid trickles and larger flows of magma, he realized that the helicopter might well be gone; if Rolvaag had any sense and could get the pilot’s help, it would be.

But as Paul Rubenstein reached the summit of a rock upthrust, he saw it below. His heart sank. Rolvaag and the pilot were outside, some fifty feet back from it, the starboard side of the helicopter had half-vanished into an open crack in the surface of the slope, magma spewing up from the crack, the machine itself on fire.

There was no escape from the mountain’s eruption now, but he would try. They were doomed …

John Rourke edged along the fortress wall, at any moment expecting the waves of boiling magma to crash upward and cover him, or expecting another of the three remaining Nazis, or perhaps even Martin himself, to fire down at him.

Rourke reached a split in the wall. He looked up. The fortress rose some fifteen feet here, the rock slick and grey, but the crack-a foot or so at best-perhaps wide enough that he could use his hands to pull and his feet like wedges. The HK rifle slamming against his side, Rourke started up.

Emma Shaw would have shut off her radio, except that there might be an incoming transmission from the helicopter John Rourke and Paul Rubenstein had taken. But she shut off her awareness of the transmissions ordering her to return to base, threatening her with court martial for disobeying direct orders.

Ahead and miles below, the southern portion of the island of Hawaii looked like an inferno. And she began programming her onboard navigation computer for the dead center of the eruption, Kilauea’s cone …

The Navy helicopter pilot, Butler, could walk with a little help from Thorn Rolvaag. There was nothing to do with Carl Bremen but carry him. Since Paul already had the man, he told Rolvaag he would keep him across his shoulder as long as he could, then give Rolvaag a turn.

Oxygen in their breathing units was at varying levels, Rolvaag’s-not a jury-rigged thing like the one Paul Rubenstein wore-having almost thirty minutes remaining. Paul gauged his own supply at five. Both the injured Bremen and the Navy pilot, Buder, wore units like the one worn by Rolvaag.

Paul, as he walked in a long-strided commando walk down the face of the slope, was already working out what he would tell Rolvaag. And, although Paul Rubenstein detested the very idea of a lie, under the circumstances it would be best. “I have a second oxygen tank back up the slope. You three go on. I’ll look for the tank.” Or, could he fake a sprained or broken ankle?

No matter what, he would use the last of his oxygen going back for John. He couldn’t just leave him. And, if he-Rubenstein-was going to die, as seemed now inevitable, he would rather die with his friend.

“Rolvaag. Listen. Your turn on Bremen. Then take him and you and Buder go on. I’m going back for another oxygen tank. Otherwise, I’m already dead. Just keep going. Ill catch up.” And Paul Rubenstein shifted Bremen down, helped Rolvaag in getting the man onto his shoulder.

Then Paul Rubenstein started back up the slope, toward the firebrimming cone of the volcano to find John Rourke. He kept to a metered pace, because if he moved too rapidly, the oxygen would burn up all the faster …

John Rourke lay wedged within the crack in the rock fortress walls, catching his breath. That was becoming progressively more difficult, the supply in his air tank down almost to empty. He could survive a while longer at reduced efficiency once the tank was fully depleted, and he imagined the burning lungs and aching heads of the men within the fortress, his enemies, all mere human beings.

Perhaps-but the helicopter should be gone. Paul would see his obligation to Rolvaag and Buder and this fellow Bremen, if Paul was able to find him-see his obligation to get them to safety.

No win.

John Rourke pushed himself up out of the wedge.

Waves of magma lapped at the fortress walls, the island on which the fortress floated lurching madly as Rourke clambered to the top of the fortress wall.

Inside, in the flaring of the erupting lava, Rourke could see two of the men prone, inert, lifeless-seeming. Another crawled across the surface of the rock floor. The last clutched an energy rifle.

This last man looked up, shouted in English, “The legendary Herr Doctor at last! Now I can die well!”

The man started to raise his weapon. But the effect of the air quality slowed him, Rourke realized.

Rourke jumped.

John Rourke’s body impacted man and rifle simultaneously, driving the rifle skittering away over the rocks, driving the man down.

It was adrenalin-rush taking over, because the man wriggled from beneath him as Rourke caught his wind. The oxygen botde was empty. Rourke struggled to his feet. The man braced him, a knife in each hand.

Rourke stripped away the mask.

“Die with honor if you dare!”

John Rourke lurched back, coughing as he drew his first unaided breath, lightheadedness, nausea, sweeping over him. But his right hand went to the hilt of the Crain LS-X knife. Martin lay off to the side, staring at them. They would all die here, Rourke realized, but perhaps he could teach this son stolen from him at birth that there was honor. And that would, at least, mean something.

“All right,” Rourke rasped through clenched teeth.

And John Rourke drew the Crain knife, holding it like a short sword as the Nazi with a knife in each hand threw himself into battle. The knives moved in the man’s hands as if they possessed their own life, were capable of action independent of the man holding them. Where the man’s body was slowed by the effects of the bad air and exhaustion, the knives seemed unaffected, whirring in short arcs and downsweeps inches from Rourke’s body.

Rourke’s head ached. Nausea consumed him.

At last, the man with two knives was close enough and Rourke’s blade locked against one of the two knives, Rourke sidestepping, attempting a kick to the man’s right knee.

“Rauph! Look out for the bastard!”

It was Martin who shouted the words. John Rourke reeled from them as the man with two knives-Rauph, Martin had called him-spun away. Tears welled up in John Rourke’s eyes, from the burning irritation of the gas, he told himself. But also, perhaps, because of Martin.

This was his son, his enemy.

Rauph dove forward, feinting with the knife in his right hand, the knife in his left poised to piston forward. It was a professional knife fighter’s move. But John Rourke had seen it before.

Rourke dodged right, sidestepping the knife in Rauph’s right hand while Rourke’s own blade hacked outward to intercept Rauph’s left arm.

Steel met flesh and Rauph screamed, the knife falling from Rauph’s suddenly limp fingers. Rourke’s knife had sliced to the bone of the forearm, laying the flap of flesh and the clothing above it back. Blood spurted from everywhere along Rauph’s lower arm as Rauph spun inward toward Rourke. The knife in Rauph’s right hand was in a saber hold.

Rourke wheeled left, angling his blade downward, catching Rauph’s blade. Rourke’s right elbow smashed upward, impacting Rauph’s mouth. Rourke disengaged from Rauph’s blade in the same instant, Rourke stepping back.

Rauph’s head snapped away, blood spurting through Rauph’s teeth. Rauph slashed outward with his knife. Rourke held the Crain LS-X in a saber hold as well, thrusting it forward into Rauph’s throat just below the Adam’s apple, recovering, withdrawing his blade as Rauph’s blade backswept.

Rauph started to collapse.