by Ahern, Jerry
He couldn’t hear her, knew what she meant. Rourke kept running.
Two of the Chinese were down dead, a third dragged between two other men. The wall.
John Rourke ducked, threw his rifle to his shoulder, firing toward the choppers as they angled off. Han Lu Chen urged his men through, Darkwood and Han just over the rubble there by the breach, firing their assault rifles toward the gunships.
Rourke flipped a three foot high section of wall and dropped into the snow.
Sarah dropped to her knees beside him. “The fighting’s heaviest on the north wall. But I knew you’d be coming this way!” She threw her arms about his neck, kissed him hard on the mouth. Rourke held her close to him.
“Han. Get someone to see to your wounded. To the north wall! Come on!” And he shouted in Chinese, “KuaU”, rallying the men to him, running, Sarah falling behind, but pregnant as she was, he’d realized she would.
The center of the compound reminded him of hell. Half demolished modular structures, burning hermetically sealed tents, construction vehicles overturned where mortars had impacted.
Rourke dodged craters, running for the north wall.
Otto Hammerschmidt was moving across the compound, not running, but under his own power. “Doctor! The north wall is the worst!”
“Right!”
John Rourke reached the north wall, Darkwood beside him. On the walkway at mid-height of the wall, he saw Akiro Kurinami, rallying men along the walkway toward the breach some fifty feet down.
Rourke shouted to the Chinese commandos, pointing toward the breach in the wall. Sarah was coming, her rifle in both hands, Otto Hammerschmidt fallen in beside her.
Rourke ran to the breach, Darkwood with him.
Aldridge’s Marines were stopped, perhaps a quarter mile off from the wall, nearly a third of the Soviet ground forces engaged with them.
And from the north, the sky was darkening with Soviet gunships, more Soviet ground forces fighting their way toward the wall.
Rourke spoke into his radio. “Paul. I’m at the north wall. Those gunships coming from the north. You’ve got to engage them.”
“We’re working on it, John. I’ve got six J7-Vs breaking off now. Look out. They’re coming over your position.”
The J7-Vs streaked overhead, John Rourke involuntarily ducking.
The Soviet gunships were closing, half of them breaking off to engage the J7-Vs, the remainder dropping rappelling lines.
“Paul. I’m taking some men to nail those rappellers as they hit. Watch out for us.”
“Roger that, John. God bless.”
Rourke looked to the men at the breach surrounding him, choosing from the the men he had brought with him, Hammerschmidt and some of the German paratroop commandos, some Eden personnel. Sarah held his arm. “We’ve got to stop those men rappelling down from the gunships. Who’s with me?”
There were shouts, upraised weapons. John Rourke grabbed Sarah to him, kissed her hard on the mouth. “Just in case—I love you.”
He clambered over the debris, Darkwood beside him.
Rourke shouted back. “Akiro! Hold the wall. Otto! Help him.”
The Soviet forces already on the ground were closing on the wall.
John Rourke’s M-16 fired, again and again, three round bursts, cutting men down. Something tore at his sleeve, a bullet, he guessed, but he felt no wound. He kept moving, the men on either side of him in a wedge.
The M-16 was empty. Rourke changed magazines. He kept running, forward, shooting a Soviet officer in the chest and neck and face, jumping over his body.
Soviet ground force personnel were all around them now.
Darkwood’s assault rifle was empty, the submarine commander buttstroking a Soviet Elite Corpsman in the face, taking a half step back, drawing his sidearm, bending over the man as the Elite Corpsman dropped to his knees, Darkwood firing the pistol point blank into the man’s head. Darkwood grabbed up the dead man’s rifle, fighting on.
Han Lu Chen, an American M-16 in his right hand, his Chinese Glock pistol in his left, fired both weapons into a knot of Elite Corpsmen, dropping two of them. He took a bayonet across his left thigh as he spun to meet the third man, firing his pistol into the Elite Corpsman’s face. “I am all right!” Han shouted to John Rourke.
The .44 Magnum revolver in his left fist, the M-16 in his right, John Rourke fought his way forward, perhaps half of the force rappelling from the chopper already on the ground.
This was it, Rourke-realized. Superior odds were one thing, but these were just too high.
The revolver was empty. He shot an Elite Corpsman in the neck with the M-16, smashed another across the face with the barrel of the revolver.
Over the northern horizon, he saw something.
Gunships.
More Soviet gunships—there was something. “Paul!” Rourke shouted into his radio over the cacophony surrounding him. “Do you read me?”
“It sounds like—yeah. Those gunships. Those are ours, John. It’s Michael. There’re a dozen gunships and Michael and a platoon of German commandos are ready to rope down.”
John Rourke licked his lips.
He thrust the 629 into its holster, running ahead.
Darkwood was using a Soviet assault rifle like a baseball bat, swatting down men on either side of him.
John Rourke fired the M-16, the last burst gone. No time to reload, he let the assault rifle fall to his side on its sling, his hands moving to the butts of the two Detonics Scoremasters in his pistol belt.
As he tore them free, his thumbs jacked back the hammers and he waded forward, a shot to one Elite Corpsman’s temple, a shot to another man’s thorax.
He knee-smashed a man who dove for him, missed. As the man fell, Rourke fired into his right eye.
Darkwood took a hit, stumbling, swinging the rifle with one hand now.
John Rourke closed with the men surrounding Darkwood, firing, killing, firing, killing, both pistols locked open in his hands.
Rourke stabbed them into his pistol belt, reached under his coat.
Darkwood, weaponless except for a massive Bowie knife, stood beside him.
John Rourke handed him one of the twin Detonics miniguns. “Only seven shots. Cheer up; I usually only
load six.”
Rourke drew the LS-X knife from his side. One of the little Detonics .45s in his left hand, the Crain knife in his right, Darkwood beside him, a Bowie knife and the other little Detonics, they moved forward.
Rourke shot one man in the head.
As an Elite Corpsman came at them with a bayonet, Darkwood stepped back, letting the man charge past toward Rourke, then swinging down with the primary edge of the knife across the Elite Corpsman’s back. As the man stumbled, John Rourke lunged outward with his knife, the tip of the blade ripping across the man s throat. A second Elite Corpsman was right behind him and Darkwood shot him in the chest.
The German helicopters were closing now with their Soviet counterparts, missile contrails filling the sky.
Ropes dropped from the German gunships.
In the next instant, Michael and the German commandos would be dropping into battle, but to their deaths unless—John Rourke shouted in Chinese and in English, “Follow me!” He caught up a dead Soviet trooper’s rifle, running the little .45 in his belt, the knife in his left fist, the rifle in his right.
He fired, the Soviet rifle bucking in his hand, an Elite Corpsman aiming his rifle skyward going down.
The German commandos were on the ropes now.
John Rourke fired out the Soviet assault rifle, bringing down two of the Soviet troopers, ramming the empty gun’s muzzle into the face of another man. Rourke’s right hand filled with the little Detonics pistol.
A shot to one man’s chest, the neck of another. Something tore across Rourke’s right shoulder and back and he fell to his knees, sprawling forward. Two Elite Corpsmen came for him.
He emptied the pistol into both men, lurching to his feet, droppin
g the little .45 into his coat pocket.
The M-16 was still empty at his side.
He picked up one of the rifles dropped by the dead men, firing it, reloading the M-16 with a fresh magazine, then one rifle in each hand, going forward, his breath short, the bullet wound painful, but his doctor’s sense telling him it was not serious or deadly.
He saw his son, Michael, roping downward, swinging off the rope, thrusting an M-16 forward, firing. An Elite Corpsman was raising a rifle to fire point blank into Michael’s back.
John Rourke fired first, his son wheeling around.
They stood together for an instant, back to back, fighting.
John Rourke heard Paul’s voice in the earpiece of his radio. “They’re pulling back, John. They’re pulling back.”
“Keep at them, Paul!” And John Rourke shouted to his son. “Michael. See Darkwood over there?” “Yes.”
“Let’s link up, then go get them.” Already, the Soviet ground forces were falling back, pursued by the German commandos, strafing runs from the German helicopters cutting the Elite Corpsmen down as they fell back.
“I’m with you,” Michael shouted.
That fact was one of the great comforts of John Rourke’s life.
He could hear Paul’s voice throbbing through the earpiece, “We’re winning! They’re pulling out!”
John Rourke and Michael Rourke consolidated with Han Lu Chen and Jason Darkwood, the sounds of battle diminishing now, the gunfire almost sporadic.
Jason Darkwood handed back John Rourke’s pistol.
“You’re bleeding, Doctor.”
Rourke smiled at Darkwood. “Yeah, well, so are you. And he looked at Han Lu Chen. “And so, for that matter, are you.” The Chinese shrugged.
John Rourke told his son and his two friends, “Let’s get going.”
The men from the north defensive wall of Eden Base, the Chinese Commandos, the Germans, all fell in around John and Michael Rourke, Jason Darkwood and Han Lu Chen.
They formed a ragged line. There was still fighting to do as they moved northward. But Paul had said it well, “We’re winning!”
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
Soviet personnel caught between the walls surrounding Eden Base, the group of Marines closing toward the wall and the forces John Rourke led, were making what Sarah Rourke realized was a suicide charge.
And she couldn’t have a part of it.
Perhaps three dozen men, no more than that, fighting to the death rather than surrendering.
She didn’t want to see it.
Akiro Kurinami stood some few feet from her, beside the breach in the wall. “Fire over their heads. Slaughtering them is useless!”
There was a volley, then another as Akiro gave the command the second time.
She looked up.
There were tears in his eyes.
“Fire at will!”
Some gunfire impacted the breach in the wall, one of the wall defenders going down wounded, chunks of debris flying, the gunfire from beyond the wall intense, then dropping off.
As Sarah Rourke looked away, she saw the good-looking man, the one who had spoken to her with such
perfect English. The one she didn’t recognize from the Eden personnel.
There was a rifle in his hands and he raised the rifle to his shoulder.
Her eyes flashed from the rifle to where it was aimed. “Akiro!
The little Trapper Scorpion .45 was in her hand. She was on her knees beside the wall and she pointed the pistol upward and fired, fired, fired until the gun was empty in her hand.
The good-looking man fell over dead.
Sarah Rourke just knelt there, the hand which held the empty pistol shaking.