Earth Fire

by Jerry Ahern

  “So let’s kill some KGB guys and free those Ameri­cans and if there’s time before the sky catches on fire I’ll let you buy me a beer,” Marty laughed.

  “Sounds okay to me—but you can buy—I bought the last time.”

  Together they walked ahead. And somehow, the fighting around them sporadic, more of the Resistance forming around them, he felt they’d make it.

  Chapter Fifty-four

  Lieutenant Feltcher peered through the binoculars. Be­low him the Western Soviet Army, far in the distance the Eastern Army. No one bothered with his aircraft and he or­dered the pilot to veer off, replacing the binoculars in their case and picking up the microphone. It was all in a nonsense code he had worked out, something the KGB would not de­cipher quickly. “This is organ grinder, calling taffy pull, over.”

  The voice came back immediately. “Taffy pull to organ grinder—reading you. Go ahead. Over.”

  “Affirm right testicle and left—your nearest moving. Farthest coming up with a birthday party—getting my drift? Over.”

  “Affirmative, organ grinder—come home for a snack. Taffy pull out.”

  “Organ grinder out.”

  Taffy pull was the TVM—Texas Volunteer Militia. Sur­prise Party meant unexpected forces behind the Eastern So­viet Army—Resistance as best Feltcher could make out, perhaps from states all over the southeast and middle west. He had no way to tell. But there were at least a thousand vehicles coming up behind the Eastern Soviet Army.

  The reference to testicles had meant the Armies them­selves—the right one the Army of the West, the left the Army of the East. U.S. II forces were in the distance as he stared back across the terrain. A certain sadness over­whelmed him. The Resistance Army about to assault the rear of the Soviet Army of the East had crossed through the no-man’s land of the Mississippi, intentionally exposing themselves to radiation, sealing their death.

  But they came anyway. Soon, the Soviet Armies wouldn’t know what hit them.

  “Make this thing fly faster, huh. I don’t wanna miss Armageddon by five minutes.”

  The snack—it meant the attack was about to begin.

  Chapter Fifty-five

  Vladov and his men had moved ahead, to confront the en­emy at the end of the corridor which led to the cryogenics lab, Natalia standing beside Rourke, watching with him as Vla­dov moved on. Behind them, at the far end of the corridor, Rourke knew there would be a cordon of KGB Elite Corps— to block any possible retreat.

  But it was quiet for a moment, Natalia saying, “Have I brought all of this upon you, John?”

  Rourke folded her into his arms, drawing her head to his chest. “No, no more than I brought it on you. If you’d never met me, Karamatsov would probably still be alive and he’d be running the show here and you’d have a place in the Womb.”

  “I wouldn’t have wanted that,” she interrupted, her voice low, muffled sounding against him.

  “I know that—neither would I.”

  “If—if Captain Vladov-what if—”

  “If the Eden Project never returns and we survive some­how?”

  “Yes,” she answered softly.

  “You’ll never want,” Rourke told her.

  She looked up at him, Rourke touching the tips of his fin­gers to her chin, looking into her eyes, their incredible blue-ness. When Vladov and his men had first moved out, she had changed into her own clothes—her battle gear, a black jump­suit. Rourke too had changed out of the borrowed Soviet uniform, to his faded Levis, his combat boots, a light blue chambray shut, his battered brown leather bomber jacket covering the twin Detonics stainless pistols.

  “I’ll always love you,” he told her, pulling her closer against him, kissing her, his mouth crushing against hers.

  “We might be better off—all of us—if I died here,” she said.

  Rourke pushed her away, his fingers clamped tight to her upper arms. “Don’t you say that, don’t ever say that. Life isn’t something you can throw away—not a life like yours. Don’t ever think that. Because if you die here, I’d fight here until the last one of them was dead or I was dead. And then all of this would be for nothing.”

  There were tears in her eyes. “But you already have a wife, and you are not the kind of man to—”

  “No— I’m not,” Rourke told her. “You’ve trusted me. And I’ve trusted you. You have to trust me in this,” Rourke almost whispered.

  “I read the fairy tale about sleeping beauty when I was a girl—my uncle would bring things to me from all over the world. It was a beautiful book—I think it was printed in America. He taught me English because he said I must know the way my potential enemy would think and could not un­less I understood his language. But—with the cryogenic sleep—will you,” and she smiled, turning her face away, her lips touching at his right hand.

  Rourke drew her to him. “Awaken you with a kiss?” And he held her very close, his lips touching her hair.

  He knew what he would do. Because if the Eden Project did not return, and he eradicated the Womb, six people would remain alive on earth. Perhaps others would survive through the generations. But what five centuries of incalcula­ble hardship would have wrought was something incompre­hensible to him. There would only, perhaps, be six. Michael, Annie, Paul, Sarah, Natalia and himself.

  He very much wanted to awaken her with a kiss, but want­ing something didn’t always make it so. But he kissed her now, harder than he had ever kissed her.

  Chapter Fifty-six

  Rourke sat astride the Ninja, the gas tank nearly full, the motor throbbing beneath him, the bike almost as if it pos­sessed a will of its own and wanted to move ahead and be done with the waiting.

  He looked at Natalia in the cab of the olive drab Ford pickup truck.

  She nodded.

  Rourke had taken a second M-16, one suspended now from each side of his body. All of his guns were checked, speedloaders loaded, magazines full, knives in position on his body and sharp.

  “Ready,” he called to Natalia. Vladov’s men were in posi­tion. The shooting would start in an instant and he had no intention of letting them give their lives just to get him and Natalia past. He would kill as many of the KGB Elite Corps as he could along the way.

  “I love you, John Thomas Rourke.”

  “I love you. Let’s go,” and Rourke saw her blue eyes one more time, then gunned the fire engine red Kawasaki Ninja ahead, the pickup moving to his left, the tunnel-like corri­dor walls speeding past him, the lights overhead a blur of green light.

  Both of the M-16s were charged, the safeties set, and Rourke, as the Ninja sped under him, shifted one of them slightly forward, the butt hitting against the seat. He moved the selector to auto—ready. His pack was in the truck cab beside Natalia. So was the CAR-15.

  He wore his sunglasses—they cut the glare of the over­head lighting and protected his eyes from the slipstream over the low faring.

  Under his breath, he gave a near silent challenge. “You try, Rozhdestvenskiy, you try real hard to stop me, asshole.”

  The shooting had begun near the end of the corridor.

  John Rourke rode the machine straight toward it.

  Chapter Fifty-seven

  Vladov’s men were pinned at the corridor and, brilliantly bright light beyond and the KGB Elite Corps there. Rourke knew Rozhdestvenskiy would be there, too.

  He gunned the Ninja, shifting the M-16 forward, clutch­ing it at the pistol grip, his right index finger along the side of the guard, ready to move against the trigger. Natalia was perhaps twenty yards behind him, Rourke holding the Ninja back, Natalia giving the truck all the gas she could, he knew.

  He moved his right index finger into the trigger guard, barely touching at the Colt assault rifle’s trigger.

  Natalia had said that aboard the bike he would be like horsemounted cavalry—hit hard and run through, he thought.

  The enemy was ahead. Vladov’s men cheered as he passed, leaving their positions, running, their AKS-74
as­sault rifles blazing, their full dress uniforms resplendent with their medals, pride etched across their faces as they ran to the attack.

  Rourke opened fire, the corridor gone now, a wide, high, long and vaulted chamber surrounding him, KGB Elite Corps forces behind packing crates, overturned golf carts, atop metal ribbed construction towers to each die. Rourke worked the M-16’s trigger in even three round bursts, aim­ing the Ninja toward the greatest concentration of the KGB, and the cryogenics laboratory beyond.

  The M-16 was empty, bodies falling to it as he let it fall to his right side, his right hand snatching the Python from the leather at his hip, the big Colt thrusting forward, his right index finger double actioning it—the face of one of the KGB men to his right exploded. Rourke fired again — one of the KGB Elite Corps guards in one of the metal ribbed con­struction towers, his body tumbling downward, the M-16 in his hands spraying death into his own comrades. Rourke fired again, an Elite Corpsman hurtling his body at the bike—the man’s neck seemed to dissolve into red at the adam’s apple.

  Rourke fired again, among them now, gutshooting one of them. He fired again, an Elite Corpsman lunging toward him with a bayonet—the man’s face exploded under the im­pact. He fired again — an Elite Corpsman spraying an M-16 toward him—the body sprawled back against a half dozen of his comrades.

  The Python was empty. Rourke shoved it into the leather, snatching the Colt Government Model from his waistband, his right thumb wiping down the safety, his right index fin­ger already inside the trigger guard—he fired, a 185-grain Jacketed Hollow Point impacting the forehead of one of the Elite Corpsmen—an officer—aiming a pistol toward Rourke’s face.

  Rourke swerved the Ninja, plowing toward the main KGB position again, heading straight for the center of them, emptying the .45 ahead of him into targets of oppor­tunity, ramming the pistol—the action still open, into his waistband.

  His right hand found the little Detonics under his right armpit, jerking it free awkwardly, his right thumb jacking back the hammer, his index finger working the trigger, an­other Elite Corpsman down.

  Vladov’s men were closing on the position, shouts com­ing from them, Natalia ramming the nose of the pickup truck into a knot of the Elite Corpsmen—screams of the dying drowning the rattle of gunfire.

  Rourke fired out the little Detonics .45, the lives he claimed lost to him. He stuffed the pistol into his right hip pocket, drawing the identical gun from the holster under his left armpit, cocking the hammer, firing, killing, firing, kill­ing, firing, killing. He swerved the bike—almost losing it from under him—and aimed the bike toward them again. Natalia’s truck was reversing at high speed, men running from it.

  Beside him nearly, one of Vladov’s men rammed a bayo­net into the throat of one of the Elite Corpsmen.

  Rourke fired out the little Detonics, killing more of them.

  He stuffed the pistol into his belt, reaching behind him— the Metalifed two-inch Colt Lawman. He doubled actioned the .357, the flash brilliant, the target a face inches from him, his wrist feeling the recoil hard, the skin of the face catching fire for an instant as the Elite Corpsman fell back dead.

  More of the Elite Corps coming from the corridor.

  Vladov shouted, “Get out of here, Doctor. You and the major must be about your business.”

  Rourke slowed the bike, making an arc with it, thrusting the little Lawman ahead of him, emptying the cylinder into the bodies of KGB Elite Corpsmen around him.

  Natalia had the truck moving forward again, KGB cling­ing to it.

  Rourke stuffed the little Lawman into its holster at the small of his back, dumping the spent magazine in the M-16 at his right side, replacing it, swinging both Colt assault rifles forward, firing them simultaneously, cutting the KGB bodies from the sides of her vehicle, cutting them away, ex­cising them like he would cut away a tumor with a scalpel. He let both rifles fall to his sides, both magazines half spent, the safeties on.

  “Vladov, God bless you!”

  “And you!” Rourke gunned the Ninja, making a wide arc with it, Natalia already driving the pickup past the KGB po­sition, toward the far end of the chamber. The cryogenics lab was there, Rourke knew.

  A KGB Elite Corpsman jumped for the bike—Rourke drew the big Gerber from its sheath and hacked him down, riding on.

  Chapter Fifty-eight

  The fighting for the moment was all behind them. At the far end of the vaulted room was another corridor, short by comparison to the ones through which they had passed.

  Rourke shouted to Natalia, “Stop for a minute.”

  The truck began to slow, Rourke arcing the bike under him, bringing it to a halt, balancing it under him as quickly, he began reloading his weapons, introducing fresh fully loaded magazines to the assault rifles as well.

  “Vladov’s men are the best in the Soviet Union,” Natalia called. “But he will be outnumbered at least ten to one in a few moments. He cannot hold too long against such odds.”

  Rourke nodded agreement. “I know, I don’t think we’ll encounter that much resistance at the lab itself—they wouldn’t want to risk a Shootout that would destroy their equipment. If we get inside, we should be able to get loaded and get out again before we bump into more trouble.” He loaded the last of the two revolvers—the Python — and hol­stered it.

  “Let’s go,” and Rourke gunned the Ninja. He looked back once.

  Vladov and his men were holding the chamber. The sound of gunfire was loud. Soon it would reach a peak, then stop—and Vladov and his men—they would be dead. Cap­ture for them was something Rourke didn’t even consider.

  “Let’s get out of here,” and Rourke started into the corri­dor.

  Chapter Fifty-nine

  Five of his men lived, Daszrozinski though wounded, among them. Both of the GRU men had perished in the fighting.

  “I have not seen, Comrade Captain—I have not seen Colonel Rozhdestvenskiy.”

  “He is here somewhere. Perhaps ahead, waiting for Doctor Rourke and Comrade Major Tiemerovna near the laboratory. But he is here.”

  The fighting had slowed for a moment, the Elite Corps personnel massing by the long corridor through which Vladov and his men had come, Elite Corps bodies litter­ing the floor, dangling dead or dying from the construc­tion towers.

  “I believe that we should counterattack, my friend,” Vladov smiled. His own wounded side hurt him badly and he had lost considerable blood and his head ached from it.

  “Yes, Comrade Captain, I believe this, too, when they come for us, we can go to them. We can show them what it really means to be Russian.”

  “Order the men to check their weapons and fix bayo­nets.”

  Vladov blotted out Daszrozinski’s response, staring across the overturned golf cart toward the KGB Elite Corps position by the end of the corridor. He checked his Smith & Wesson automatics — all three of them, one at a time.

  He checked his rifle. He affixed the inverted Bowie bladed bayonet to it.

  “Comrade Captain, we are ready,” Daszrozinski said, interrupting Vladov’s thoughts—of death and what, if anything, lay beyond it. It was easier to die, he consid­ered, as someone other than a Russian. One might be al­lowed to grow up with a faith in some afterlife. But nothing about being Russian was easy or ever had been. And he was proud somehow of that.

  He looked at his men.

  “When they come for us, we shall cheat them, we shall counterattack. I estimate there are one hundred of them massing there by the end of the corridor. There are six of us. We should easily be able to kill one quarter of their number, perhaps greater than that. For we are whom we are, we are the best our nation has to offer. We are the finest soldiers who have ever lived. We have trained, we have fought, some of us have already died. And the rest shall join our comrades soon. If any of you hold a reli­gious belief, now is the time to make your peace with your God. This will be the last battle for us all. I have never known finer comrades—there could be no finer comrade
s for any officer, for any man.”

  Vladov extended his right hand to each of his men in turn, all of them huddled there behind the overturned golf carts. At last he came to Daszrozinski. “My finest friend,” he told the younger officer. The two men em­braced.

  Vladov had cried once before in his adult life, when the woman he had been about to marry had died in an agri­cultural accident.

  He cried now as he raised his right hand to salute his men. Each returned the salute.

  From the end of the corridor across the space of the vaulted hall from them there was a shout. Then the sound of an automatic weapon.

  He lowered the salute as did his men.

  He looked across the golf carts—the KGB Elite Corps was walking forward, their weapons firing sporadically.

  “See to your uniforms,” Vladov ordered, the men straightening their tunics. “Gloves.” Each man in turn took his parade dress white gloves from inside his uni­form, pulling them on. Vladov straightened his beret.

  “A wedge formation—we run to them—we kill them. My comrades.”

  Vladov raised himself up—his side hurt him terribly, but he kept his head up.

  “Attack—fight!” He started to run forward, Daszrozinski beside him, his men around him. He fired out the AKS-74, seeing it all as if in slow motion when the Elite Corps bodies fell to his fire. He let the assault rifle fall to his side. His 659 pistols—both 9mms in his hands, he ran ahead, emptying the double column magazines at his ene­mies. Daszrozinski fell beside him and did not move, dead.

  He kept going, both pistols emptied—he let them fall from his hands—he would not need them in an anony­mous mass grave with his comrades. He drew the Smith Mini Gun in the shoulder holster under his tunic, firing, killing, another of his men down, a scream issuing from his throat, “Long live the—” But he died before the word came out.