The Nightmare begins

by neetha Napew

  "No—I won't stop," he said. "Give me one of your cigarettes—I don't want to

  smell up the place."

  The girl turned away from him a moment, fumbled in the pocket of her jacket and

  handed Rourke the half-empty pack. Then she took it back, extracted one of the

  cigarettes and lit it—her hands steady, the match lighting the first time. She

  inhaled hard, then passed the cigarette over to Rourke. He stayed on his back,

  the cigarette in his lips, staring up at the top of the shelter and the darkness

  there.

  "Is it that you'd be unfaithful to her?" Natalie said, her voice barely above a

  whisper.

  "Somethin' like that," Rourke said, snapping ashes from the tip of the cigarette

  out the partially open flap and into the rain.

  "But—what if she isn't—" and the girl left the question unfinished.

  "Then it wouldn't be somethin' like that," Rourke said quietly, dragging hard on

  the cigarette, then tossing it out into the rain.

  He could feel the girl moving beside him under the blanket. "Are you human?" she

  whispered.

  He turned his head and looked at her, then without getting up reached out his

  left hand and knotted his fingers into the dark hair at the nape of her neck,

  drawing her face down to him, looking for her eyes by the dim light there

  through the shelter flap. All he could see was shadow. He could feel her breath

  against his face, hear her breathing, feel the pulse in her neck as he held her.

  Her lips felt moist and warm against his cheek as she moved against him, and

  Rourke took her face in his hands and found her mouth in the darkness and kissed

  her, her breath hot now and almost something he could taste, sweet, the release

  of her body against him something he could feel in her as well as himself, She

  lay in his arms and he could hear her whispering, "You are human."

  Rourke touched his lips to hers again, heard her say, "Nothing is going to

  happen, is it John?"

  "I don't know—go to sleep, huh? At least for now," and he felt her head sink

  against his chest and heard her whisper something he couldn't hear.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Rourke opened his eyes, glancing down at the watch on his left wrist. It was

  three A.M. The girl was still sleeping in his arms, and to see the face of the

  Rolex he'd had to move her. He heard the sound again, a shot, then another and

  then a long series of shots—submachine gun fire, light like a 9mm should sound.

  "The damned fools," Rourke said aloud, feeling the girl stirring in his arms,

  then feeling her sit up beside him.

  "Shots?"

  Then Rourke heard Rubenstein, sliding off the pickup truck bed, beside them

  suddenly under the shelter. The rain was still pouring down outside, and Rourke

  stared out from the shelter flap, then pulled his head back inside, his face and

  hair wet. Without looking at either Rubenstein or the girl, Rourke said, "The

  damned fool paramils—it's a blasted night attack. Damn them!"

  As Rourke pulled on his combat boots, whipped the laces tight and tied them, the

  sound of the gunfire became more general, shouts sounding as well from all

  sections of the brigand camp, the engines of some of the big eighteen-wheelers

  roaring to life and, as each did, the shots were drowned out for a moment.

  Rourke shouted to Rubenstein, over the din, "Paul, start getting this shelter

  taken down and get the truck ready to roll—Natalie, give him a hand! I'm going

  up by the road." Rourke slipped into his leather jacket, got to his feet in a

  low crouch and started through the shelter flap, then dove back inside,

  shouting, "Mortars!"

  He dove onto the girl and Rubenstein, knocking them to the shelter floor. The

  shelter trembled, the ground trembled, the blast of the mortar was deafening.

  Then came the sounds of rocks and dirt hitting the shelter, added now to the

  drumming of the rain. Rourke pushed himself up on his hands, rasped, "Hurry!"

  and started back toward the shelter flap, then into the rain. There was the

  whooshing sound of another mortar round, and though the pouring rain muffled the

  sound, he instinctively dove left, the mortar impacting behind him and to his

  right. Rourke pushed himself up out of the mud, the CAR-15 diagonally across his

  chest in a high port as he ran zigzag across the mud, avoiding the brigand men

  and women running everywhere around the camp in obvious confusion and panic.

  Some of the eighteen-wheelers were starting to move, inching forward, then

  backward, the very shape of the circle in which they'd parked prohibiting them

  from maneuvering. Some of them were entrenched deep in the mud of the plateau,

  and mud sprayed into the air as the wheels bit and slipped and dug themselves

  deeper.

  Ahead of him, from the glare of the truck head­lights and the few lanterns,

  Rourke could see a knot of several dozen men by the head of the single road

  leading up to the top of the plateau, and he could see the flashes of gunfire

  and hear more small calibre automatic weapons fire.

  Rourke spotted Mike, the brigand leader, without a shirt, his body visibly

  trembling in the cold, the riot shotgun in his hands. As Rourke ran up to the

  men around Mike, the brigand leader stopped talking and glared at him a moment,

  then nodded slightly, and went on. The words were hard to make out with the

  missing teeth and the stitched, swollen lip. "… ey can't get up here after us. I

  figure maybe we got fifty or a hundred of 'em trapped halfway up the road down

  there in the dark—we keep shootin' into 'em, we're, ahh—we're gonna pin 'em down

  all night— first light we get we can finish 'em."

  "What about the mortar rounds—all you need is one hittin' a fuel tanker and this

  whole spot is a huge fireball. I don't think that can wait till morning." Rourke

  heard some of the brigands grunting agree­ment, one from the rear of the knot of

  men around Mike shouting out, "One of them mortar rounds almost hit my truck—I

  was parked right next door to one of the diesel tankers. The new guy's right!"

  "All right, smart ass," Mike said, turning to Rourke, "what do we do—huh?"

  "You're the leader," Rourke said, hunching his shoulders against the rain. "But

  if I were you, I'd take about fifty or seventy-five men, maybe in two groups,

  and work my way down both sides of the road—right now. No shooting at all until

  you reached those fifty or so guys in the middle of the road. Try and get 'em by

  surprise, maybe, then from their position, you can just dig in and start pouring

  out a heavy enough volume of fire to push that mortar crew back out of range of

  the top of the plateau. If you dig yourselves in well, by the sides of the road

  rather than by the middle, you can keep your casualties down, then just before

  dawn, pull back. Hold your fire then until the mortar crew gives the middle of

  the road a good enough workout to figure you've pulled back, then start firing

  from the rims of the plateau here—you might even catch 'em out in the open

  trying to retake the position in the middle of the road. Simple."

  Mike didn't say anything for a long minute, then, "You volunteering to lead one

  of the two groups?"

  Rourke sighed heavily, then said, "Yeah—wait
'til I tell my lady what's up. You

  line up the guys—I'll meet you back here in five minutes." Without waiting for a

  comment, Rourke started in a slow run back across the camp and toward the pickup

  truck. He had no intention of sitting out the rest of the darkness in a foxhole

  in the middle of the road.

  Another mortar hit off to Rourke's right as he took shelter beside one of the

  truck trailers, then he started running again—back toward the pickup truck.

  Natalie and Rubenstein—their differences, Rourke judged, put aside—were

  drenched, the girl's hair alternately plastered to her forehead or catching in a

  gust of wind, Rubenstein's glasses off and his thinning hair pushed back in dark

  streaks. The lean-to was down and Rubenstein was just closing up the gate of the

  truck bed.

  "We gotta get out of here—fast," Rourke said, standing between them both. "I

  don't have any kind of good plan, but it's the best I can think of—now listen,"

  and Rourke leaned forward, saying, "I'm leading a group of the brigands down

  along one side of the road, there'll be another group on the other side—kind of

  pincer-type thing. When we reach the paramils—there are maybe fifty of 'em in

  the middle of the road about halfway up to the summit—we're going to knock them

  out, then lay down some fire on that mortar crew to push 'em back out of range

  of the plateau. Before they hit one of the fuel tankers. Now," Rourke continued,

  "once I get down there and you hear the mortars stopping or pulling back, you

  and Paul take the bikes—"

  "Wait a minute—shh, I hear something," the girl said.

  Rubenstein looked skyward, saying, "Yeah—so do I, John. Listen."

  Rourke looked skyward. He could see nothing but blackness, the rain still

  falling in sheets across his face and body and the ground on which he stood. "I

  hear it, too," Rourke almost whispered. "Helicop­ters—big ones and a lot of

  them—the paramils don't have that kind of equipment—"

  Suddenly, the entire campsite, the whole upper surface of the plateau was bathed

  in powerful white light, and there was a voice, in labored English, coming over

  some kind of loudspeaker from the air above them. Rourke turned his eyes away

  from the sudden brightness. The voice was saying, "In the name of the Soviet

  People and the Soviet Army of Occupation you are ordered to cease all

  hostilities on the ground. You are outnumbered by an armed force vastly superior

  to you—lay down your arms and stay where you are."

  Behind him, Rourke heard Paul Rubenstein, muttering, saying, "You can all go to

  hell!" And as Rourke started to turn, Rubenstein had the "Schmeisser" up and had

  started firing.

  Rourke shouted, "Down!" and grabbed at Natalie, forcing her down into the mud,

  the roar of heavy machine gun fire belching out of the darkness above him,

  Rubenstein crumpling to the mud, doubled over, the SMG in his hands still firing

  as he went down. Rourke crawled across the mud toward the younger man, then the

  voice from the helicopters shouted over the speaker system again, "No one will

  move! Lay down your arms and surrender or you will be killed!"

  Rubenstein's eyes were closed and Rourke could barely detect a pulse in the

  neck. Natalie was beside Rourke in the mud. As Rourke raised Rubenstein's head

  into his lap, he glared skyward. Still, he could see nothing but the light.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Once Samuel Chambers' advisors had stopped arguing, one of the naval

  officers—second in com­mand to the air force officer, the ranking military

  man—had suggested using a Harrier aircraft to travel to Galveston. It could fly

  low, below radar, was fast, armed, and could land or take off vertically, with

  the capability to hover, if necessary. Chambers had agreed. The flight from the

  Texas-Louisiana border area had been short and, Chambers admitted to himself,

  exciting. The Harrier accommodated only two men, himself and the pilot, and he

  felt happy that he wasn't too old yet to have been able to stare into the

  darkness and the rain they had encountered halfway through the trip and

  fantasize that he had been at the controls himself. He had flown twin engine

  conventional aircraft for many years, but never a jet. As the Harrier aircraft

  began to touch down in the Cemetery parking lot just outside Galveston, Chambers

  felt almost as if now he had flown a jet, and the feeling was good to him,

  uplifting, rejuvenating—better than the air of depres­sion that he could feel

  settling over him when he thought of the sad state of affairs on the ground.

  Because the plane had been for two men only, he was without his aide, without

  security. He had armed himself, borrowed a .45 automatic from one of the

  National Guardsmen, and the pilot was also armed, with a small submachine gun.

  As the plane touched down, any fears Chambers had held of security problems on

  the ground vanished. He could see more than a dozen men in U.S. military

  fatigues, holding M-16s and coming out of the shadows and toward the landing

  zone, itself illuminated with high-visibility strobe lights that had been placed

  there, Chambers understood, just for his arrival.

  The aircraft slowed its engines and there was a loud whining noise as it

  stopped, the landing completed. The pilot scanned the ground, then made a

  thumbs-up gesture to Chambers behind him and the canopy over their heads started

  to open with a hydraulic-sounding hiss. The apparent commander of the soldiers

  on the ground stepped toward the plane, saluting, saying, "Mr. President—we've

  been waiting for you, sir."

  The pilot stepped out and reached up from the wing surface and helped Chambers

  out of the co­pilot's seat in the camouflage-painted jet. Chambers climbed out

  over the side of the fuselage, awkwardly and conspicuously, he thought, then

  down onto the wing where the pilot helped him to the ground.

  Chambers smiled at the army officer—a captain— and then turned to the pilot,

  extending his hand, saying, "Well, lieutenant—I enjoyed that flight. Got my mind

  off the troubles we all have for a few moments—it was like twelve hours' sleep

  and then a date with a pretty girl and a steak dinner all rolled into one!"

  The pilot smiled, taking the offered hand, then his eyes hardened, his hand drew

  back and swept down to the small submachine gun slung diagonally across the

  front of his body. Chambers spun on his heel, as rough hands smashed him against

  the side of the aircraft fuselage, then a coughing sound, once, twice, and

  splotches of blood appeared almost magically on the pilot's forehead and he fell

  back against one of the wing flaps.

  Chambers pushed himself away from the fuselage and started to run from the

  plane, away from the circle of lights. Looming up ahead of him were several men,

  all clad like those by the plane, in military fatigues. From behind him, he

  heard a voice, the English perfect, but odd-sounding when he heard the name the

  voice spoke. "I am Major Vladmir Karamatsov, Mr. President, of the Committee for

  State Security of the Soviet—you are under arrest. You are surrounded. You

  cannot escape. If you attempt to resist, you may only become unavoidably

  injured."

/>   Chambers stopped running, his breathing hard. He smoked too much, he told

  himself. He wondered if getting to the pistol under his windbreaker would do any

  good.

  "I assume, sir, you may be armed—I would advise against any attempt to use a

  weapon against yourself or any of my men. It would only result in needless

  bloodshed."

  "Needless bloodshed?" Chambers shouted angrily. "What about that boy—the pilot?

  What about him— major?"

  "He was armed with a submachine gun and would have used it—we were protecting

  your life as well. Since he likely had orders to prevent your falling into our

  hands."

  "Bullshit!"

  "Perhaps—but that is unimportant—now, your weapon. You will hand it

  over—please!"

  Chambers surveyed the dark faces beyond the edge of the light, then shrugging

  his shoulders reached slowly under his windbreaker. He heard the sound of a

  rifle bolt, he thought, then heard Karamatsov shouting something in Russian.

  Chambers produced the gun and held it out from his body. The major was walking

  across the lighted area toward him, left hand extended, in the right hand a

  strange-looking handgun with a very long, awkward-looking barrel. The major was

  saying, "Please do not attempt any useless heroics, Mr. President. You can be of

  greater value to the American people alive rather than dead—we mean you no

  physical harm."

  Chambers closed his eyes and felt the pistol being taken gently from his hand.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  The Soviet forces had landed two of their heli­copters on the plateau, the

  others still hovering overhead, their floodlights illuminating the rain-soaked

  ground in a white glare that Rourke was almost getting used to as he knelt in

  the mud, using the pressure of his right hand to stem the bleeding from the

  gunshot wounds in Rubenstein's abdomen.

  The girl had ignored the Soviet commander's directive to stay beside the

  vehicles and approached the nearest helicopter, shouting something in Rus­sian

  which Rourke had been unable to catch with all the noise and confusion. He could

  hear gunfire from the ground level below the plateau and assumed the paramils

  were making a run for it, trying to use the darkness to hide their retreat.