Earth Fire

by Jerry Ahern

  It was not to be looked upon as combat—but as murder, he knew.

  He turned to his men. “Your attention. I shall say this once and once only. The cause we serve is the cause of the people, because it is the cause of humanity. Alone, we rep­resent the noble spirit of the Soviet People against a menace to all humankind which we ourselves have created. The ulti­mate expression of Communism has been and is to serve the worker, to break the chains of oppression. Working with our American allies this day, however uncomfortably, we shall be doing just that. Serving the cause of the People of the Soviet Union and oppressed people throughout the world. Colonel Rozhdestvenskiy and the KGB—they have ceased to be Communists. They are barbar­ians. They must be liquidated. As your captain, it is not something I enjoy to order you into battle against your fellow countrymen, but the cause we serve is just. We do not kill our comrades, we kill our enemies. And we had better be as efficient as possi­ble in this for once we penetrate the Womb, we shall be out­numbered at least forty to one. If the women and support personnel have combat skills, then eighty to one. But we are Special Forces. We are the best. We have been trained to march in the vanguard or hold the barricade. We take with us the pride of our heritage, the faith of the Soviet People. Our personal honor.”

  He turned away. Along the road now he saw one of the four wheel drive patrols. And he checked getting the Walther from beneath his tunic one more time.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  In the rocks above, Rourke watched — he could see Vladov and his men. He could see the sentry vehicle. He charged the chamber of the Dragunov SVD’s bolt, running one of the 7.62mm type 54 R rounds into the chamber, his hand wrapping back around the pistol grip through the skeletonized buttstock.

  He settled himself, his legs wife spread, his breathing even, his right eye squinted through the dark lens of his sun­glasses against the light, the scope—more than fourteen inches long—well back from the action and closer to his eye than he would have liked, despite the rubber eye cup. But he settled into it, into the unfamiliar rifle, the weapon in his hands rock steady.

  “What the hell’s the range of that thing?” Reed asked from behind him.

  Without moving, Rourke murmured, “Maximum effec­tive range is eight hundred meters with the specially selected ammo the gun’s issued with. But I don’t like a single trigger system on a sniper rifle. And I don’t like a semi-automatic in a sniper rifle. And I’ve never fired a Dragunov before so I don’t know what kind of quirks it might have. And if I do fire it, the scope’s gonna go banging right into my eye and so my follow-up shot’s gonna be slow and likely gonna be off. It uses the same rimmed cartridge they use in their PK GPMG and the RPK LMG—high pressure load. Any more questions?”

  “No.”

  “Then shut up and let me concentrate,” Rourke rasped, watching now as Vladov led his men down into the roadway. Soon, a runner should be coming back from Natalia that a convoy had been targeted.

  Soon, Vladov would either flag down the approaching sentry vehicle or attempt to stop it on the fly. Rourke settled the scope on the machinegunner in the back of the four wheel drive vehicle. A quick shot would put him away and give Vladov’s men a chance to stop the vehicle before get­ting gunned down.

  He waited, suddenly remembering when it had all started—when he and Paul had taken cover in the rocks above the wreckage of the jet liner and he had used his own sniping rifle against the brigands who were systematically murdering the survivors of the crash.

  How long ago had it been, he wondered, not consciously wanting to remember?

  And then the vehicle began to slow, the face of the man with the machinegun something he could read through the Dragunov’s PSO-1 sight. There was suspicion written all over it.

  “Watch out,” Rourke told Reed.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Captain Vladov stood in the middle of the roadway, his right hand raised. He shouted, “Halt!”

  The vehicle had already begun to slow, but even at the distance, he did not like the look in the eyes of the soldier manning the RPK light machinegun in the vehicle’s rear.

  He had no story to tell—military small talk for thirty sec­onds or so until he could get into position, then he would draw the gun and kill the machinegunner.

  The vehicle ground to a halt, the brakes screeching slightly.

  Vladov approached the vehicle, the man beside the driver moving his AKM slightly.

  Vladov kept walking, his men behind him — he could hear their combat booted footfalls on the road surface. “I seek information. There was a convoy, just going up the road ten minutes or so ago—”

  “Yes, Comrade Captain,” the man with the AKM began. “I too have seen this convoy—nothing seemed to be irregu­lar.”

  “My opinion,” Vladov rasped, “exactly—what a pity, no?” The butt of the Walther PPK/S filled his right hand, the silencer hanging up on the inner seam of his tunic.

  The driver was starting to move his hands on the wheel, the man from the front seat opening his mouth, raising his AKM.

  Vladov’s eyes shifted to the machinegunner—the weapon was swinging toward him, the bolt being worked.

  The silencer— “Damnit!” He ripped the silencer clear of his clothing.

  Vladov thrust the pistol forward and pumped the trigger, the safety off before he had repositioned the pistol in his belt the last time. One round—a neat hole where the right eyebrow of the machinegunner had been. A second round—the bridge of the nose ruptured blood.

  He swung the silenced Walther to his right. Daszrozinski and Corporal Ravitski were on the man with the AKM, Daszrozinski ripping open the man’s throat with a knife.

  Ravitski was thrusting a bayonet into the soldier’s abdo­men. Three of Vladov’s men were swarming over the hood of the vehicle toward the driver, but the vehicle was already in motion, moving.

  Vladov fired the Walther once, then again and again, into the back of the driver’s head and neck. The driver slumped forward.

  Ravitski had the wheel, leaning across the already dead soldier with the AKM, his hands visibly groping for the emergency brake.

  The vehicle stopped.

  Vladov shot his cuff, looking at the face of his watch— eight minutes, perhaps less before the next patrol vehicle would be along.

  “Quickly—their uniforms,” and he dropped the safety on the Walther PPK/S American’s slide and started toward the vehicle. “There is little time, Comrades.”

  Chapter Thirty-three

  The runner had returned almost the same instant Vladov had shot the driver of the patrol vehicle, almost the same instant Rourke had begun a trigger squeeze on the Dragunov sniper rifle. But as the driver had slumped forward across the wheel, Rourke had eased the pressure, then set the safety to listen as the runner detailed to Reed the partic­ulars of the convoy Natalia had selected. From the man’s words, it seemed that the convoy would intersect the por­tion of the road where now Vladov’s men replaced the KGB in under ten minutes.

  Rourke looked at the runner. “You rest easy here for a couple of minutes. Join us down by the road unless the con­voy’s too close—if that’s the case stay here until it’s through—don’t wanna tip our hands.”

  Rourke pushed himself up, snatching up his own rifles, slinging each cross body to opposite sides of his torso, then picking up the Dragunov. “What the hell’s that, sir?” the enlisted man asked.

  Rourke looked at him and smiled. “Ask the colonel later—he knows all about it now.”

  Holding the Dragunov in his right fist, Rourke started down from the rocks, the distance to the road approxi­mately six hundred yards as he estimated it, but slow going because of the rocky, uneven terrain.

  He glanced behind him once—Reed was coming, his M-16 in both fists at high port.

  Rourke lost himself in thought as he ran. He would never understand Reed. It seemed as though gruffness and abra­siveness were a shield he used to cover whatever really lay inside him. He had obs
erved the growing respect in Reed for Vladov and his men, noted the grudging quality of Reed’s remark to Vladov—good luck.

  Rourke jammed a deadfall pine, sidestepping a depres­sion that was covered by some of the lingering mountain snow—but the snow was sagged downward at the center, betraying the depression beneath. He reached the trail—it would be easier going now, he thought.

  He glanced behind him again, Reed was coming, and from the sniping position in the rocks above, the runner was starting down.

  Below him on the roadway, three of Vladov’s men were already boarding the sentry vehicle, three others of his men dragging the bodies of the dead to the side of the road to­ward the varied assortment of large sized fallen rocks. To his right on a track which would intersect the trail down from the higher rocks, he could see Natalia, running, be­hind her the remainder of the American force.

  If he could set it up properly, Rourke realized, they would have a solid chance against the convoy, but after that once they reached Cheyenne Mountain and tried to bluff their way in, he didn’t know. But it was the sort of thing one had to play a step at a time, he thought, saying it under his breath as he ran, “A step at a time.”

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Two of the Americans and two of the Russians were sent back up into the rocks, with them were left the assault rifles, backpacks and other heavy gear of the remainder of the force.

  Rourke, Natalia beside him, Reed, then Sergeant Dressier behind her, waited in the drop of the far side of the road from the high rocks where Rourke had waited earlier with the Dragunov. The next patrol had been waved past by Vladov, the Jeep’s hood up, Vladov proclai­ming a loose battery cable.

  Vladov himself had assumed the driver’s slot aboard the sentry vehicle, Corporal Ravitski and Lieutenant Daszrozinski with him, the lieutenant manning the RPK in the back of the vehicle.

  Once again Natalia had her silenced stainless Walther, freshly loaded. None of the AKS-74s were silencer fitted, nor the M-16s. Putting a silencer to a .45 was something Rourke had always felt absurd and revolvers could only rarely be effectively silenced. For the rest of them, beyond Natalia’s pistol, it was nothing but knives and hands.

  In Rourke’s right hand now, he held the Gerber MkII fighting knife, the spear point double edged blade given a quick touch up on the sharpening steel carried on the out­side of the sheath.

  Rourke still carried his hand guns, but had no intention of using them. A shot fired would blow the entire opera­tion, because in the mountains as they were, sound could carry for great distances.

  They waited, Rourke listening for the first rumbling sounds of the convoy. Three trucks, U.S. Army deuce and a halves, and two motorcycle combinations, these Soviet M-2s, the sidecars fitted with RPK light machineguns with forty-round magazines only as best Natalia had been able to observe from above the road.

  What the trucks carried or how many men beyond the two men visible to Natalia earlier in the truck cabs, there was no way of knowing.

  They waited.

  Rourke shifted position, tempted to tell Natalia to hang back, let him and the other men join the battle.

  But it was a ridiculous thought and he dismissed it almost instantly. She would not — and he doubted he’d be able to cold cock her so easily a second time. And she fought better than most men fought to begin with. So she was more useful in battle than any of the others.

  He said nothing.

  But he looked into her eyes — she winked at him once.

  He winked back.

  They waited.

  Then he heard it—the sound of a two and one-half ton truck’s gearbox, the roar of an engine. Then the sound of one of the motorcycle combinations.

  There was no need to signal to the remainder of Vladov’s men, who occupied positions in the rocks on the other side of the road. They would have heard it, too.

  There was the sound—a sound of steel being drawn against leather—Sergeant Dressier with what Rourke recog­nized as a Randall Bowie.

  There would be no sound of Natalia’s Bali-Song being opened — she would open it when she needed it and not be­fore. It was usually her way.

  No one said, “Ready,”—none of them was fully ready but they were as ready as possible. Knives against assault rifles and light machineguns.

  Rourke pricked his ears, listening as Vladov shouted to the convoy. “There is trouble along the roadway—we must see your papers.”

  There was the screech of brakes, the sounds of transmis­sions gearing down. Rourke didn’t dare to raise his head above the lip of rock and peer across the roadway.

  “We must see your papers—who commands this con­voy?” Vladov’s voice.

  Another voice, the voice with a heavy Ukranian accent. “I command this convoy, Corporal—what is the meaning of this? These materials are consigned to the Womb Project.”

  I must check your papers, Comrade Major—I am sorry, but I have my orders—from Comrade Colonel Rozhdestvenskiy himself, Comrade Major.”

  “This is preposterous—what sort of trouble along the road?”

  It was like a stage production, waiting in the wings for the cue line to enter—stage right and stage left, Vladov’s men and some of Reed’s men on stage left, Rourke and Natalia and the others below the level of the road on stage right.

  Vladov had been fed the proper line.

  “The trouble, Comrade Major—it is very grave. A group of Americans and renegade Russian soldiers have infil­trated the area and are preparing to attack one of the con­voys in order to gain entrance to the Womb and sabotage the efforts of our leaders.”

  “This is criminal—these men—they must be stopped.”

  “No, Comrade Major—they must not be stopped. Not yet—”

  “Yet”—Rourke jumped up from the rocks, rolling onto the road surface, to his feet now, the Gerber ahead of him like a wand—a wand of death.

  Vladov was scrambling over the roof of the patrol vehi­cle, jumping, hurtling himself at the KGB officer.

  There was a plopping sound from behind Rourke— Natalia’s silenced Walther, he knew, the AKM armed man beside the KGB officer going down as he raised his assault rifle to fire.

  Rourke dove the two yards distance to the man standing beside the nearest truck, Rourke’s right arm arcing forward like a fast moving pendulum, the spear-point blade of the Gerber biting into the throat of the man, Rourke twisting the blade, shoving the body away to choke to death on blood, Rourke clambering up into the truck cab—the driver was pulling a pistol, a snubby Colt revolver. In that in­stant — Rourke guessed the man had taken it off some dead American—Rourke thrust forward with the knife, hacking literally across the man’s throat, blood spurting from the sliced artery, the blood spraying across the interior front windshield, Rourke’s left hand grabbing at the man’s gun-hand, his left hand finding the revolver, the web of flesh between thumb and first finger interposing between the hammer and the frame as the hammer fell.

  “Asshole—gave me a blood blister!” Rourke snarled.

  He freed the Colt of his hand — a Detective Special.

  There would be a blood blister.

  Pocketing the little blued .38 Special, Rourke shoved the body out on the driver’s side to the road, rolling back, jumping down to the road on the passenger side, onto the back of a KGB man with an AKM. The man was a Lieuten­ant. Taking the man’s face in his left hand, as Rourke dropped back, he wrenched the head back, slashing the Gerber from left to right across the exposed throat, then ramming it into the right kidney, putting the man down.

  Natalia fired the PPK/S, the slide locking back, open as the man in front of her went down to the silenced shot.

  She wheeled, raking the silencer across the face of an­other man, then switching the pistol into her left hand, the right hand moving back. Rourke saw it, knew it was com­ing, the right hand arcing forward, the click-click-click sound of the Bali-Song flashing open, then her right hand punched forward, the Bali-Song puncturing the adam
’s apple of the man whom a split second earlier she had hit with the pistol. He fell back, Natalia wheeling right, three men rushing her, Rourke diving toward them, snatching one man at the shoulder, bulldogging him down, imbedding the knife into the chest, twisting, withdrawing.

  Natalia’s Bali-Song was opening, closing, opening, clos­ing, opening—it flashed forward, the second of the three men screaming, blood gushing from his throat where she’d opened the artery.

  The third man was stepping into her, raising a pistol.

  Rourke took a long step forward on his right foot, pivot­ing, his left leg snapping up and out, a double Tae Kwan Doe kick to the right side of the man’s head, the man falling away, as he did, Natalia’s knife flashing toward the man, slicing across the gunhand wrist, the pistol—a Makarov— clattering to the road surface along with the last two fingers of his hand.

  Rourke stepped toward the man, his right foot snaking out, catching him at the base of the nose, breaking it, driv­ing the bone up and through and into the brain.

  Rourke stopped, turned—

  Vladov stood there a few yards from him—Reed was be­side him—both men’s knives glinted red with blood in the sunlight.

  The fighting had stopped.

  The personnel of the convoy lay dead and dying.

  “No casualties,” Reed murmured. “Looks like anyway.”

  “Many casualties,” Vladov corrected. “Too many, I think.”

  Rourke said nothing.

  Chapter Thirty-five

  The trucks were rolling, Vladov and Daszrozinski each man­ning one of the M-72 combinations and two of the Soviet SF-ers riding the sidecars respectively to man the RPK LMGs. Rourke drove the first truck, his Russian good enough, he knew, Nata­lia had confirmed, that if he avoided a protracted conversation he could convince the guards they would encounter at the checkpoints outside Cheyenne Mountain that he was indeed Russian. Beside him, Natalia. She was changing into the small­est of the Soviet enlisted men’s uniforms they could find. “If I’d wanted a uniform, I could have brought my own uniform.”