The Savage Horde

by neetha Napew

  Methodically, automatically, he began moving about the field, examining the

  bodies, ignoring the U.S. II troopers shuffling with seeming unease nearby. A

  man of peace—sometimes the price of survival was very high.

  26

  Chapter 5

  "So, Dr. Rourke—-we came looking for you—that's why we 're here. President

  Chambers and Colonel Reed—"

  Rourke looked up from loading the six-round Detonics magazine. "Colonel Reed?"

  "President Chambers personally promoted him, sir."

  Rourke nodded, then looked back to the magazine, double checking through the

  witness holes that the magazine was fully charged, the lower hole empty as it

  should be. He took the Detonics and jacked back the slide, locking it with the

  slide stop. "So you're Captain Cole—"

  "That's right, sir—Regis Cole, recently promoted myself," and the young,

  green-eyed man smiled.

  "Hmmm," Rourke nodded, estimating the man's age at perhaps twenty-five, the five

  enlisted men with him younger seeming still. Rourke inserted the magazine up the

  Detonics' well and gave it a reassuring pat on the butt—reassuring to himself

  that it was seated, then worked the slide stop downward, the slide running

  forward, stripping the first round. Rourke started to lower the hammer.

  "I always carry my .45 with the magazine completely full and a round in the

  chamber," Cole noted.

  "A lot of people do," Rourke almost whispered, inhaling on the cigar in the left

  corner of his mouth. "But

  27

  a lot of professional gunmen advocate—or advocated I guess these days—stripping

  the round for the chamber off the top of the magazine."

  "To relieve spring pressure?"

  "It helps—but not for that," and Rourke thumbed out the magazine with the

  release button. "Here," and he pointed to the top round in the magazine. "Notice

  how it's edged forward just a little—makes for more positive feeding than

  starting with a magazine where the top round has the case head all the way back

  against the spine of the magazine. Anyway—always works for me," and Rourke

  replaced the magazine in the pistol and began securing the Detonics under his

  left armpit in the holster there. "Why were you looking for me, anyway? What'd

  Reed want?"

  Cole, squatting on the ground beside Rourke and slightly at an angle to him,

  looked around, then behind him. Natalia and Paul were talking, Paul reloading

  his Schmeisser's magazines. "I'd rather, ahh—talk a bit more privately, Dr.

  Rourke," Cole said hoarsely.

  "There's nothing I wouldn't trust to Paul or Natalia—"

  "She's a Russian, sir?"

  "Good for her," Rourke smiled.

  "I must insist, sir," Cole said again.

  Rourke nodded, then shouted across the rocky area where they were,

  "Natalia—Paul! The captain's going to tell me something in private—I'll tell you

  all about it as soon as he's through."

  Rourke stood up, Cole's green eyes icy.

  "Satisfy you?" Rourke smiled.

  "I can impress you into service, Dr. Rourke—and then you'll have to do as I

  say."

  "Draft me?" Rourke laughed, spontaneously. Picking up his CAR-15, the magazines

  for the weapon reloaded from ammo scrounged from the dead brigands, Rourke

  stared at Cole. "You can't draft me," and he gestured

  28

  with the CAR-15. "I'm a conscientious objector."

  Rourke started walking off toward the tree line, Cole beside him . . .

  Rourke had checked all the bodies, each of the brigands—all men—dead. Natalia

  had walked beside him for part of the search, saying nothing, their eyes

  meeting, then finally, the last of the dead looked to, she had said, ~"It hasn't

  changed, John. I can't live without you."

  Rourke had touched his hands to her face—feeling the warmth of the skin, her

  cheeks slightly flushed. Her eyes—the incredible blueness of them, "When I look

  up at the stars at night, I—I find myself—seeing you, thinking about you."

  "What will we do?"

  She had said the words quietly, then cast her eyes down, his hands still framing

  her face, his fingers letting her windblown hair brush against them.

  "I don't know. It seems—it seems I say that more and more when we talk about you

  and me. I don't—" He folded the woman into his arms, aware then that Rubenstein

  was eyeing the U.S. military personnel as they closed in, hearing Rubenstein

  ramming a fresh magazine into the Schmeisser—just in case.

  "My uncle," she said after a moment, her voice barely a whisper, her head

  against his chest. "There is a note for you—he sent me with it. It is urgent—he

  sent me with it and he sent my things as well. As if—as if he never expected me

  to return to—to the KGB. To—to my life. And—and I don't know if I expect

  to—either. I don't know anything any more. Just that I love you, that you're

  married—that I want more than anything—even more than us, for you to find

  them—to find Sarah."

  She had stepped away, not looking at him, her words barely audible. "How stupid

  I am." She'd looked at him again and forced a smile, her eyes wet with tears . .

  .

  Cole had not inspired instant respect, or even liking

  29

  when he had first introduced himself in that next moment—and in the twenty

  minutes or so in which they had talked, Rourke's feelings toward the young U.S.

  II Army captain hadn't changed. As they walked now up the hill and toward the

  tree line, Rourke found himself analyzing the way Regis Cole spoke more than the

  words he said.

  ". . . that nobody else could do the job. Your country needs you, Dr. Rourke."

  Rourke stopped walking. "What job is it—that no one else can do?" Rourke spit

  out the stump of burned, chewed cigar butt, then looked Cole in the eye.

  "During a debriefing session—you mentioned to Colonel Reed that you had known

  Colonel Armand Teal before the war—"

  "We shared an igloo together for three nights on a survival exercise. I know

  him."

  "He's the commanding officer of Filmore Air Force Base in Northern California—"

  "Hope he can swim," Rourke said soberly.

  "We've determined that Filmore survived. It was well above the fault line and

  the mountain chain there would have protected it from the tidal wave effects

  when the San Andreas went. And there were only neutron hits there as far as we

  can ascertain as well—overflights. There even seemed to be some activity, a U.S.

  flag flying."

  "Could be the Russians," Rourke told him.

  "Sure—but we've tried contacting the base-interference, static—we can't get

  through and no one answered when the reconnaissance overflight tried radio

  contact. If it had been the Commies, they would have answered."

  "What's so important about Filmore Air Force Base and Armand Teal—you want me to

  tell you about him?"

  "We want you to talk with him," Cole smiled.

  "Go to California? Bullshit!" and Rourke turned and

  30

  started walking back down the hillside. He heard the sound of a gun coming out

  of the leather behind him, wheeled, both Detonics pistols coming into his fists

  as he dropped into a crou
ch. He heard the clicking of M-16 bolts, the different

  sounding rattle of steel as the bolt of Rubenstein's Schmeisser opened.

  Cole had a Government Model 1911A1 half out of the leather, letting it roll out

  of his hand on the trigger guard.

  "You put your gun away—or I'll kill you," Rourke hissed at him.

  X

  "At least let me explain."

  "You wanna explain, I'll be down there—with my friends. You tell me, you tell

  them. And tell your own people to put their rifles down—or you'll be the first."

  Cole said nothing for a moment, then only nodded. Bolstering his pistol, he

  shouted loudly, "As you were!"

  Rourke pointed the pistols in his balled-tight fists toward the ground, then

  lowered the hammers with his thumbs. Every human being had a right to weapons—

  handguns, rifles, edged weapons—for his own self-defense, the defense of loved

  ones. Regardless of the unrealistic, immoral laws there had been, regardless of

  the do-gooders who had tried to make America weaponless and Americans helpless.

  But no man had the right to impose his will—with a gun or anything else—by

  force. It was a lesson Cole hadn't yet learned—as Rourke turned his back to the

  Army captain and started down the hillside again, he felt that somehow Cole

  would learn the lesson still. The hardest way there was.

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  Chapter 6

  "John!"

  Rubenstein. A shout. Rourke picked up the CAR-15 from the sling where it hung,

  starting to run, leaving the bike in the trees, not quite reaching it before

  he'd heard the call—the shout.

  Rourke stopped on the top of the rise, Natalia and Cole were faced off, Cole

  reaching out to slap Natalia, Natalia's reflexes taking over, catching the hand

  at the wrist, her body twisting as she side-stepped, Cole sailing up, forward,

  rolling over, crashing down onto his back. An assault rifle discharged as

  Natalia started settling her hands on her hips—too close to the twin stainless

  .357 Magnums she wore there. One of the troopers' M-16 jumped in his hands;

  Natalia spun around, both pistols still in the leather, her hands clutching at

  her abdomen.

  "John . . ." It was like a wail as she sprawled forward,

  "Natalia—" He'd felt fear before—but never this fear, He started to run.

  Rubenstein was running too, his Schmeisser covering the six soldiers and their

  commander, "Natalia!" Rourke screamed it now, feeling the muscles in his arms

  and back, the tendons in his neck—his eyes—all tightening, his heart pounding in

  his chest. "Natalia!" He was out of the trees, running toward her, the woman's

  body writhing on the ground, the soldier with the M-16 stepping toward her, the

  right foot kicking out at her as Cole moved faster than Rourke thought he

  32

  could have, the pistol he'd pulled twenty minutes earlier coming from the

  leather again, the base of the frame this time smashing down, Rubenstein

  half-wheeling, the Schmeisser falling from limp hands, but the hands grasping

  out for Cole's throat.

  "Get him—alive!" It was Cole's voice.

  Rourke wheeled, his CAR-15 coming up, firing a three-round semi-auto burst with

  the CAR-15, Cole spinning, falling back. Rourke kept going—toward Natalia. He

  heard the working of the bolts, saw the muzzles raising—four M-16s, pointed at

  his face.

  He stopped, his rifle up and on line with them. "I'm going to the woman—if you

  try to stop me, I'll kill you."

  Rourke started ahead, pushing the muzzles of the rifles aside. He didn't care to

  look at the man behind him. The man beside Natalia—the one who'd shot her—simply

  stood beside her, his right foot kicking out again—to check if she were dead,

  Rourke knew.

  Rourke snapped the telescoped butt of the CAR-15 up and out. His body wheeled

  with it, the metal buttplate at the.end of the tubular stock hammering square

  into the soldier's face. Rourke's right knee smashed up, finding the groin,

  impacting against the scrotum, the man's bloodied face going white as he fell.

  Rourke held his left hand out, palm outward, the five

  «t

  other troopers raising their assault rifles to fire, Rourke holding his aimed

  toward them. "The woman," Rourke rasped. "Or your deaths—"

  Rourke dropped to his knees beside her, her fingers covering her abdomen, the

  fingers pale, laced, woven together, blood seeping through between them as he

  rolled her over.

  The eyelids fluttered.

  "Rourke—Rourke!"

  It was Cole.

  "Rourke—you fuckin' shot me!"

  33

  Rourke began to examine the wound—he himself was on borrowed time with Cole, he

  knew that; but Natalia's borrowed time was coming due. Had he not been a

  physician, never seen a gunshot wound—had he never seen death, he knew, he would

  have recognized it in her face.

  "You're goin' with me—for those six missiles. Eighty megatons apiece,

  Rourke—eighty megatons apiece. The woman's good as dead. You want your Jew

  friend dead too?"

  Rourke looked up for an instant, his eyes flickering across the field toward

  Cole, Cole's left arm bloodied and limp at his side, but in the right hand the

  Government Model .45 held steady, the muzzle pointed at Rubenstein's head,

  Rubenstein moving slowly on the ground, trying to get up.

  "Where's your base camp, Cole? How do you contact headquarters?" Rourke began

  examining Natalia's wound in greater detail, spreading her fingers, but slowly.

  Sometimes the body is its best defense—were the hands holding in her intestines?

  Gently, he broke the tight weave of her red and sticky fingers. "Where is it?"

  "A submarine—two hours away—maybe three. Nuclear submarine—one of the last ones

  we could contact. Full complement crew—full medical facilities."

  The Retreat, Rourke judged, even if he could get Natalia aboard a bike and ride

  her there without her bleeding to death, was seven hours away by the fastest

  route, likely spotted with brigand activity, possibly Soviet Army as well. But

  the likelihood of meeting with Soviet troops for once did not alarm him. They

  would have access to blood and the facilities for typing, medivac choppers

  available on call as well. Without massive transfusions, Natalia would likely

  die. Even with them—Rourke shuddered. Mechanically, he had counted the number of

  shots in the burst she had taken. Seven rounds.

  34

  He heard a moan behind him—the trooper who had shot her, then kicked her—the one

  Rourke had smashed in the face with the rifle butt, the nose broken and twisted

  to the side of the face, the lips puffed and gushing blood.

  "We keep our guns—we get Natalia the best medical attention available," Rourke

  called out over his shoulder, his voice low.

  "Agreed," Cole snapped. "Then you're coming to Filmore Air Force Base—"

  "I didn't say that. I'm taking her to the submarine. And we'd better make it

  fast. That bullet in your arm should come out before the wound infects

  seriously. And your trooper here—he could bleed to death too."

  He'd need to perform a laparotomy to inspect her abdominal organs. Regardless of

  where the bullets had actuall
y impacted, there would be the trauma of blast

  effect to deal with. As he started applying a pressure bandage with materials

  from his musette bag, he realized the peritoneal cavity and the organs there

  could be cut to pieces. He recalled reading an adventure novel once where the

  5.56mm slug had been referred to as a "tumbler"— and it was that. There had been

  cases in the warfare in Southeast Asia where limbs had been severed by the buzz

  sawing effect of the .223.

  What he saw of her exposed intestines seemed a very pale tan, almost grey in

  color—like pieces of underdone sausage in appearance. As he tightened the

  pressure bandage, he prayed that he could keep her alive until they reached the

  facilities he'd need to operate. That she wouldn't die.

  "Paul—" Rourke called the name but never looked. "Get on your feet—and keep that

  thing you call a Schmeisser handy. Anything happens to Natalia . . ." Rourke let

  the sentence hang.

  The voice that came back sounded strained—tired, perhaps in pain. "Killing would

  be too good."

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  Chapter 7