Earth Fire

“Come on!” Rourke screamed the words. The vault door! Hurry!”

And as Rourke turned, the vault door was beginning to close.

A jeep in the horseshoe—KGB guards firing from behind it, Rourke turned both M-16s toward them firing as he ran the width of the loading dock, jumping, both guns going dead in mid-air, throwing the guns away from his sides. He hit the road surface, going into a tuck roll, coming up on his knees, in both fists one of the twin Detonics stainless pistols, his thumbs jack-ing back the hammers, both .45s belching fire as he climbed to his feet, storming the Jeep.

One KGB guard dropped, beside the two Rourke had already killed with the M-16s, a second man down, his head exploding with a double impact of 185-grain JHPs, a third one—his M-16

was firing, Rourke hitting the road surface, rolling up, firing out both pistols, fists at maximum extension, emptying the twin .45s into the assault rifle firer’s chest.

The body rocked back, then slumped against the Jeep.

Rourke was up, stabbing both pistols, slides still locked back, into the side pockets of his uniform, jumping into the Jeep.

He found the key, pushing a dead man from the seat, snatch-ing away the man’s M-16—how many rounds the thirty round magazine still contained he had no way of telling exactly, but from the weight as he slipped the Jeep’s clutch, it felt like it was about half full.

He let the clutch all the way out, stomping the gas, stomping down the clutch again, upshifting, taking the ramp as he let out the clutch and floored the accelerator—the vault door was nearly closed now—Rourke wrenched the transmission into third, stomping the gas, bracing the pedal down with the butt of the M-16—it was half empty anyway—jumping clear as the Jeep hit the vault doorway, Rourke rolling to the loading dock surface, the screech of rubber, the sound of metal tearing, rip-ping—but as he looked up, the vault door had bitten into the Jeep, the Jeep partially crushed, but the vault door open three feet wide at least.

Rourke started to his feet. One of the KGB guards was lung-ing for him, Rourke’s left foot snapping up and out, against the muzzle of the M-16, kicking it to Rourke’s left, Rourke’s right hand hammering forward, the middle knuckles finding the ad-am’s apple, crushing the windpipe, blood gushing from the man’s mouth through his clenched teeth, Rourke’s fist snapping back, then forward, the middle knuckles impacting the base of the nose, driving the bone up and through the ethmoid bone and into the brain.

Rourke’s left hand snatched the M-16, Rourke’s right hand finding the little AG Russell Sting IA black chrome, Rourke hacking the sling free of the dead man’s body with it as the body fell.

Rourke wheeled, the M-16 still not in a firing position, an-other KGB guard lunging toward him. Rourke underhanded the knife the six feet separating them into the center of the guard’s chest.

The M-16 in his right fist now at the pistol grip, he eared back the bolt—this one hadn’t been chamber loaded. He’d bet on that and won—and he fired, spraying out half the magazine into the KGB defenders on the loading dock.

Two of Reed’s men were down, one dead and one wounded.

Rourke fired toward the KGB force assaulting their position, emptying the rest of the magazine, killing three more of the KGB guards.

He leaned down, retrieving his knife from the dead man, shouting to Reed as he wiped the blade clear of blood, “Get your men through the doorway—hurry!”

As he rammed fresh magazines into the Detonics pistols—all he had on him were two spares and he was using them now—he searched for Daszrozonski. “Lieutenant,” Rourke shouted, see-ing him leading a small force of the Soviet Special Forces troops— “The vault door—hurry!”

Rourke started to run, firing the Detonics pistols at targets of opportunity, seeing Natalia reach the vault door, watching as she clambered up and over the half crushed Jeep. He shouted to her over the rattle of assault rifle and pistol fire, “Natalia—blow the Jeep so the door will close—get ready—” Like himself, she carried on her five pounds of the C-4—it would be more than enough to vaporize the Jeep—she was good at blowing things up.

Rourke glanced at his watch, then he looked to the center of the three trucks. Corporal Ravitski was running from the back of it, shouting, “It is set—the charge is set!”

As Ravitski swung his AKS-74 toward the KGB, three of the guards opened up on him, Rourke seeing it as if in slow motion, Ravitski’s body seemingly cut in half by the assault rifle fire, his left arm severed from his body, his face shot away.

Rourke’s pistols were up—he fired both simultaneously—the left ear of one of the three guards, the back of the neck of an-other.

He swung both pistols as the last of the three KGB men wheeled toward him, the M-16 already starting to make fire. Rourke fired both pistols at once—both eyeballs in the KGB man’s head seeming to explode, and then the whole head ex-ploding.

Rourke wheeled toward the vault door—a half dozen of the KGB guards were charging Natalia behind the Jeep—Rourke emptied the one round left in each pistol, taking out two of the guards, the slides locked open.

He jammed the pistols into his uniform pockets, not bothering to close the slides, running, diving to the loading dock sur-face as gunfire rained toward him. He rolled—a dead KGB guard, an M-16 in his right hand—Rourke wrenched it free, wheeling on his knees, firing out the M-16

toward the remaining guards assaulting Natalia’s position. He threw the rifle— empty—into the face of another man rushing him, took three steps and jumped to the Jeep, rolling across the deformed hood, falling to the floor beside Natalia. “Take my rifle—I’ve got to finish this,” and Rourke snatched her M-16, Natalia sliding under the front of the jeep, murmuring, “I’m wiring the explo-sives into the engine—it should create a shrapnel wave effect outward—get as many of them as we can.”

“Right,” and Rourke shouldered her assault rifle, firing as an-other group of the KGB guards charged their position. He had to clear it for Reed, Daszrozinski and the others. Rourke glanced at his watch—less than a minute until the trucks blew.

Rourke fired out the magazine. “Gimme a spare—”

“I don’t have any,” she shouted from beneath the Jeep.

“Wonderful,” Rourke snarled. A KGB man was coming over the Jeep—Rourke rammed the flash deflectored muzzle of the M-16 into his right eye, snatching the just dead man’s M-16, firing point blank at a Soviet guard less than a yard away, sever-ing the man’s head from the body at the neck.

The M-16 belched fire again in his hands, the guards falling back.

“Where did you get the fresh magazine?” Natalia shouted up.

“A nice man happened along and loaned me his gun—you almost done?”

“Almost—”

“Get up here—I need someone else shooting at these guys— hurry it up!” Rourke burned out the magazine, pulling another from the dead man’s utility belt, ramming it home, working the bolt release, firing again.

Then Natalia was up from under the Jeep, beside him. “All I have to do is touch this one wire to the positive terminal of the car battery—”

“How the hell you doin’ that without blowing yourself up?”

“I haven’t figured that out yet.”

Rourke glanced at his watch—ten seconds maybe, Reed com-ing up at the left corner of his peripheral vision, others of the Americans and some of the Russians following him. “Where the hell is Vladov—”

“I haven’t seen him since he got inside—I don’t know—but I heard machinegun fire from deeper inside.”

Why weren’t their people attacking from their rear? Rourke wondered. Perhaps Vladov and his man.

Reed was over the top of the Jeep, a .45 in each hand, Daszrozinski and three of the Russian SF-ers and the GRU ma-jor and the GRU sergeant behind him, running the ramp. Rourke shouted, his throat aching with it, “Move it, Lieuten-ant! Move it!”

Daszrozinski was up, diving across the top of the Jeep, his men following him, doing the same, Rourke tucking back, wingshooting beyond them toward the KGB personnel.

The flash of light—Rourke turned his face away, shielding Natalia against him, the sound of the explosion momentarily deafening him despite the insulation of the vault walls around them, the Shockwave slapping at Rourke, forcing him down, still clutching Natalia.

Rourke rolled on his back as the sound of the three explo-sions died, debris raining down just beyond the cracked open vault door. “I have an idea,” Natalia shouted. Rourke could barely hear her. “Ill just shoot into the engine block—to hell with the battery wire.”

“Everybody up—away from the door,” Rourke shouted. “Now!”

“You heard the man—move,” Sergeant Dressier ordered, even Reed to his feet, running, Daszrozinski firing an M-16 over the top of the Jeep as more of the KGB attacked.

Rourke dragged Natalia with him, running now. Ten yards— twenty—twenty-five—”We’re far enough—give me a rifle,” Na-talia ordered.

Rourke tossed her his, Natalia swinging the M-16 to her shoulder, settling the muzzle for an instant, firing, then running, Rourke beside her, the force of the explosion hammering him down to his knees, Natalia beside him.

He looked back—the fireball was already dying—screams were barely audible from beyond the vault door—but the door was slowly closing, and then there was a loud clanging sound and the vault door leading outside the Womb was closed.

From the far side of the high ceilinged area of the natural rock cave in which they were, near the vault door at the far end, Rourke heard machinegun fire—it would be Vladov. “Let’s go—otherwise we’ll be trapped between the vault doors for good!” Rourke started to run, Natalia beside him.

Chapter Forty

MiG 27s were closing from the horizon line to the east, Chambers shouting to his driver, “Get this thing going faster!”

“Yes, Mr. President!” The Volkswagen’s transmission rat-tled, the driver upshifting into fourth. Chambers thought of it for an instant. He was the president — no armored lim-ousine, just a liberated Volkswagen Beetle that had to be more than twenty years old. And he was running in it for his life to get the half mile down the road beyond the lines of the U.S. II anti-aircraft batteries.

“Faster—”

“These things don’t go that fast, Mr. President!”

“Shit,” he snarled. The MiG 27s came fast enough—he had learned Soviet fighter aircraft well when participating in a strategic arms limitation session as a science advisor to the Secretary of Defense, years before his short elevation to the presidential cabinet, and before his assumption of the presidency by default.

The MiGs screamed through the air above, machinegun fire chewing chunks out of the road surface as the MiGs at-tacked the U.S. II defensive position. And Chambers real-ized it suddenly—driving in a Volkswagen down an otherwise deserted road toward U.S. II lines they would have had no way of knowing he was the president, no desire to waste a missile to destroy them.

The Volkswagen’s windshield wipers were working furi-ously, but dirt still streaked the glass and the Volkswagen moved ahead — Chambers estimated the speed a little better than seventy miles per hour. Ahead of him, there were explosions, fireballs belching skyward, missile contrails mov-ing from the air to the ground, more missile contrails mov-ing from surface to air. One of the MiGs exploded, then another. At the rear of the U.S. II position, there was a huge explosion—perhaps they had hit an ammo or fuel dump.

“Get us there, son,” Chambers snapped.

And where was Lieutenant Feltcher and the TVM? Had he ever reached the Texas Volunteer Militia at all?

Sam Chambers told himself not to expect a miracle — but he closed his eyes and prayed for one anyway, all the while hearing more explosions, more death.

Chapter Forty-one

“What is happening, Major Revnik?” Rozhdestvenskiy grabbed Revnik by his tunic, twisting him around. At a dis-tance well beyond Revnik and a dozen armed guards there was gunfire—machineguns, assault rifles, occasional pistol shots, from the far end of the Womb near the interior bombproof vault doors.

“A group of men, and one woman, have entered the Womb. They have detonated explosives at the loading dock—many of our men are killed, Comrade Colonel.”

“The men—who are they?”

“I do not know —some of them seemed Russian —some of them were dressed in American uniforms, Comrade Colonel.”

“Comrade Major,” a young corporal interrupted, snap-ping to attention, rising from his position behind the barri-cade of electric golf carts behind which Revnik and his men had taken up their positions.

“I cannot be bothered now,” Revnik snapped.

Rozhdestvenskiy turned to face the corporal. “What is it?”

“Comrade Colonel Rozhdestvenskiy, I recognized the woman from my tour of duty in Chicago, Comrade Colo-nel. It was Comrade Major Tiemerovna.”

“And the man,” Rozhdestvenskiy snapped. “One of the men with her—it would be Rourke.”

“The doctor whom you have sought, Comrade Colonel?” Revnik asked.

“CIA agent, doctor, weapons expert— survivalist— he is all these— and he is here!” And Rozhdestvenskiy hammered the heel of his balled right fist against the wall surface. “Re-vnik, get fifty of our best men, assemble them here. I shall take charge of dispatching this Rourke and the traitorous Major Tiemerovna myself.”

He started back down the corridor, toward his office. He didn’t allow himself to run. It would have looked as though he were panicking, as though he were afraid.

He walked into his outer office, his secretary looking up, smiling, “Comrade Colonel?”

He walked past her, into the inner office. On top of his desk were papers, files, maps, intelligence estimates—none of these would do him any good now. He unlocked the top right hand drawer.

He reached inside, his right fist closing around the butt of his revolver. “Damn you, Rourke!” he rasped.

Chapter Forty-two

Rourke had stuffed all his belongings into the Lowe Al-pine systems pack, all except the scoped CAR-15. And one of the Soviet SF-ers had carried it through when escaping the truck in which he had hidden. The GRU sergeant had carried Natalia’s gear. Rourke fished in the pack now, no time or inclination to change from the borrowed Soviet uni-form, but instead needing the rest of his weapons related gear. The belt and flap holster for the Python, the ammo dumps in place, the big Gerber MkII strapped there. The Milt Sparks Six-Pack with its six additional Detonics maga-zines. The Metalifed Colt Government MkIV Series 70, the Thad Rybka small of the back holster with the two-inch Colt Lawman MkIII, the musette bag which carried extra magazines for the CAR-15 and M-16 and an identical bag carrying extra magazines for the Detonics pistols and for the Colt, these latter working in the Detonics pistols as well.

Rourke stripped away the Soviet uniform tunic.

He slung the musette bags cross body from his shoulders, using the wide belt from his Levis to secure the Rybka hol-ster and the Sparks Six-Pack in position. He secured the gunbelt for the Python as well, finding one of the speed loaders in the musette bag with the pistol magazine. He rammed the Safariland loader against the rear face of the opened cylinder, the ejector star activating the release, the loader dumping into the cylinder—six 158-grain semi-jack-eted soft points.

He holstered the Python. Natalia had stripped away her uniform tunic as well, ripping away the necktie from her shirt, opening her shirt collar. She positioned the Safariland double flap holsters on their belt around her waist, check-ing the twin L-Frame four inchers. She reholstered the Smith revolvers, securing the flaps. From her huge black canvas bag she took the Ken Null SMZ

shoulder rig, slip-ping it on, securing it to her belt on the off gun side. From the floor beside her, she picked up the silencer fitted Walther. She twisted the silencer free of the muzzle. “No need for this now. We can safely assume they know we’re here,” and she dropped the silencer into her purse.

She slung the purse cross body under her right arm, then shifted it across her back.

Vladov’s men who had changed into KGB uniforms stripped them away. Beneath them were their own Special. Forces uniforms, not the fatigues they had worn earlier, but blue parade dress uniforms, medals in place.

Vladov affixed the dark blue beret to his head, at a rakish angle, Rourke noted. “We will likely all die, gentlemen, Ma-jor Tiemerovna. We will die if we must, but we shall carry the pride of our unit to our graves.” Vladov picked up his AKS-74, then looked to his men. “Five of you—you, you, you there—you and you—take up positions on both sides of the RPK and behind it — you,” and he pointed to the fifth man, “will back up the machinegunner. The RPK will be dismounted and you will serve as the ammo bearer.” He turned to Rourke, Rourke realizing Reed was now standing beside him just inside the flange surrounding the interior vault door. “We are ready to proceed.”

“Where?” Reed snapped.

Rourke answered him. “We’ve got two jobs—to knock out the particle beam weapons so they can’t be repaired at all. We’ve got to locate the cryogenics laboratory and de-stroy the cryogenic serum, and if possible sabotage any-thing else along the way—life support systems for the Womb—anything like that.”

“And you are to steal as many of the cryogenic chambers as possible—this is General Varakov’s directive—to save yourself and the major and your family—and perhaps some of the men who fight with Colonel Reed.”

“And the men who fight with you,” Rourke corrected Vladov. “Them as well.”

“What the hell do you mean?” It was Reed, and as if punctuating his remarks, small arms fire began to erupt from the far side of the vaulted stone hall beyond the inte-rior bombproof vault door.

“They prepare to attack, Comrade Captain,” Daszrozinski shouted from beside the M-72

combination where he supervised the temporary defense.

“Very good, Lieutenant,” and Vladov turned to Reed. “It may be possible, Colonel, that some of your men or my men may find sanctuary at Doctor Rourke’s mountain Retreat and survive the holocaust. But I suggest there is little time to argue. And I suggest that it is more likely the case none of us shall leave this place alive.”

The gunfire was increasing in volume.

Reed nodded, “At least I agree with ya on that, Captain. Which way, Rourke?”

“Past their position, to the left—if General Varakov had his information right. A long corridor—it should be a shooting gallery.”

“You’re always so fuckin’ pleasant,” and Reed stomped away, raising his men.

Chapter Forty-three

Nehemiah Rozhdestvenskiy knew the target. Only one person could have set them against him. The person was Varakov. And the target was the cryogenics laboratory. The microphone in his left hand—the hand trembled slightly— he announced over the Womb’s public address system.

“At-tention all personnel. This is Colonel Nehemiah Rozhdestvenskiy. The Womb is under siege from within. Approximately two dozen American saboteurs and Soviet traitors. They are armed with assault rifles and handguns and possibly with plastic explosives. They are dangerous. Their objective is to reach the cryogenics laboratory and to destroy our very chances of survival. They are to be stomped out like the vermin that they are. They would de-stroy our plans for world order in the future. They are our enemies. All personnel are to be armed—male and female personnel. Ninety rounds of ammunition per weapon. The arsenal rooms are then to be locked and secured and guarded, appropriate officers of the day will take charge. Hunt these traitors and saboteurs, hunt them down, kill them. But if at all possible, two of them are to be brought to me alive. The sole woman, Major Natalia Tiemerovna, the treacherous widow of our late spiritual leader Vladmir Karamatsov, a hero to us all, in whose memory we still serve. A man—American. He is tall, muscular appearing. He reportedly habitually carries two small, stainless steel finish .45 caliber pistols in a double shoulder holster. His name is Dr. John Rourke. He is a terrorist with the Ameri-can Central Intelligence Agency. The person responsible for bringing one or both of these persons to me alive shall be awarded the highest honors and hold great responsibility and influence in the new order that shall be formed after the awakening. This is my word. I shall personally lead a search and destroy unit in pursuit of these enemies. Find them. Stop them. Kill them. Bring Dr. Rourke and Major Tiemerovnato me—alive.”

Rozhdestvenskiy looked at his hand—it had stopped shaking.

He would win—he must.

Chapter Forty-four

The CAR-15 slung across his back, an M-16 in each hand, Rourke sidestepped past the flange of the interior bomb-proof vault door and broke into a dead run, opening fire toward the Soviet KGB position where the corridor began on the far side of the huge vaulted room. The distance to the KGB riflemen was approximately one hundred yards. Spraying both rifles toward them in three round bursts, Rourke skidded on his heels, Natalia and Vladov catching up to him, Reed already running ahead with his own contin-gent and some of the Russians.

Behind them, Daszrozinski and one other man huddled beside the slowly moving sidecar of the M-72 combination, the RPK light machinegun blazing toward the KGB posi-tion as well, Daszrozinski’s AKS-74 assault rifle blazing. Rourke shoved Natalia ahead of him, running again—there was no cover. Ahead, one of the Americans went down — there was no sense stopping to check the body—the back of the head exploded with the hit. Natalia snatched up the dead man’s M-16 as she ran past, a rifle in each hand now, too, firing.

Rourke glanced back. The driver of the motorcycle com-bination was down, slumped across the handlebars. Daszrozinski pushed the dead man—the chest peppered with bullet holes—from the bike saddle, swinging on, driv-ing now. The RPK still fired, but the assault rifle fire from the KGB position was heavy.

Ahead, perhaps twenty-five yards still, was the farthest left corridor. The lead elements of Reed’s men had reached it. An instant later there was covering fire from the corridor mouth.

Rourke had heard what Rozhdestvenskiy had said over the PA system—mentally he had corrected the KGB com-mander. He—Rourke—had been an employee of the CIA, but was no longer. And he knew Rozhdestvenskiy knew that, but it made good copy to his troops. Rourke ran on, the M-16 in his right hand fired out, still pumping the trig-ger of the assault rifle in his left hand as he ran.

It too ran dry. He left both rifles fall to his sides on their black webbed slings. His right hand moved to his trouser band—the Metalifed Colt Government Model. He jacked back the slide, stabbing it toward the KGB position, firing, knowing that at the range it was virtually useless.

The mouth of the corridor was now fifteen yards. He ran, Natalia only a few paces ahead of him—the one article of clothing she had changed was footgear—the uniform boots she had worn with her attempted disguise had been vastly too large for her and stuffed with rags and paper. But she moved fleet footedly now, changed to her own boots.

The M-16 in her left hand was shot out now, but the one in her right still spit fire.

Ten yards, Reed’s men laying down a solid field of fire toward the KGB position, Rourke leaning into the run, his lungs burning with it, the .45 empty in his right fist.

Natalia reached the mouth of the corridor, Rourke skid-ding on his heels behind her—his borrowed uniform boots weren’t the greatest fit either, he realized, his left heel ach-ing. Rourke dropped to his knees, swinging the CAR-15 forward from behind his back, the Colt .45 stabbed into his trouser band, the slide stop downed. He telescoped the stock, pulling free the scope covers, stuffing them into his shirt pocket, putting the CAR-15 to his shoulder, firing. Semi-automatic only, with the Colt three power scope he picked his targets—a KGB lieutenant, a shot into the right side of the forehead; an enlisted man and a shot into the neck as he raised up to shoot; another enlisted man in the right forearm; another man—he couldn’t tell the rank—in the mouth as it opened—it never closed.

Daszrozinski and the M-72 were coming, the running man beside the car—the ammo bearer—jumping to the side of the sidecar now, Daszrozinski picking up speed, the RPK still firing, the gunfire from the KGB position less and less.

But from behind Rourke now, near the far end of the cor-ridor, there was gunfire. Rourke looked back—Vladov and his men had gone ahead and they were meeting resistance.

“Shit,” Rourke snarled. Rourke turned to Reed. “Keep covering Daszrozinski, then catch up to Natalia and me. Keep a small force as rear guard to back us up when those guys behind the electric cars start for the corridor.”

“Hey, who the hell made you the general?”

“You got a better idea?” Rourke smiled.

“Yeah, but I can’t say it in front of Major Tiemerovna. Go on—we’ll cover ya—and I’ll take care of a rear guard—go on.”

Rourke nodded, ramming fresh magazines into both of the M-16s, saving the CAR-15, pushing it back across his back beside his pack. An M-16 in both hands now, rasping to Natalia, “Come on,” he started to run again, the length of the corridor. Ahead, Vladov’s men weren’t falling back, but they were under heavy fire.

It was what he had said it would be—a shooting gallery, Rourke thought.

Chapter Forty-five

Pockets of KGB personnel were everywhere in the space be-yond the end of the corridor. Mezzanines, ranked like vineyard steps, terraced, were ranked one slightly above and rearward of the other at the far side of a vaulted assembly area, office doors to the right, large metal doors, like garage doors to the left.

Rourke estimated the number of guns trained on them and firing as over a hundred and growing.

He flattened himself against the corridor wall, the RPK fir-ing toward the tiered mezzanines, but Rourke realizing it would have little effect—the enemy numbers were just too high.

“Vladov, have your men strip out the five pounds of C-4 each of them has. Who’s got the Dragunov?” And he looked around. The GRU major carried it slung behind his right shoulder.

“Pick your best shooter, give him this. Have the rest of your men break up their plastique bundles into five equal increments, then have ‘em mold them into a ball—as quickly as possible.”

“What are you—” Natalia began, then her eyes lit, their blueness still something Rourke lost himself in as he watched her. “We throw the plastique like grenades, then we shoot into the plastique.”

“You got it,” Rourke nodded. “You use an M-16, I’ll use my CAR-15, and one of Vladov’s men on the Dragunov. Three guys throw, the rest keep us covered and them covered.” Rourke turned to the Russian SF-ers. “Okay, how many of you guys have heard of the game baseball?”

Natalia laughed ...

Reed had joined them. The pitching roster included three Russians and four Americans now, the rest of the Americans and some of the Russians in the rear guard unit—and already the KGB

personnel from the earlier fight were closing on the mouth of the corridor behind them.

“Once things start to blow,” Rourke cautioned, “we head for that nearest garage door—the major here,” and Rourke gestured to Natalia, “and Captain Vladov will use some of the C-4 to can opener the door for us. Should be more of those electric cars inside—golf carts. That’s all they are. In an en-closed space like this you can’t use more than say a half dozen internal combustion vehicles and those have to be strictly con-trolled for pollutants and lead emissions. Maybe we’ll luck out and there’ll be a regular vehicle or two inside. Whatever, we get a vehicle, we can outdistance these people for a while before they get so organized that we can’t reach the cryogenics lab at all.”

“That’ll be guarded by now, so heavily we’ll need an army to get in,” Dressier groused.

“Well, fine, I’ll worry about that when we get there. And besides, Sergeant,” and Rourke looked at the white-haired man, “we are an army, remember?”

Dressier nodded, laughing. “All right, you men, I want those plastique charges ready on the double.”

They were being piled up like a stack of cannon balls at a monument, out of reach from all but the most bizarre rico-chets from the terraced mezzanines. Rourke had freshly re-loaded the magazine for the CAR-15 while they’d talked from the boxes of loose 5.56mm ammo in his pack. He rammed the fully loaded thirty round stick up the well now. Ready.

Natalia, prone on the floor, legs spread wide, the butt of an M-16 snugged to her shoulder called, “Ready to fire.”

Lieutenant Daszrozinski—Vladov had selected him as the best man to use the Dragunov—was by the other side of the corridor, prone as well. “I am ready also.”

Rourke positioned himself behind Natalia, standing, leaning his body into the wall for added support. “Ready—Vladov—call the shots.”

“Yes, Doctor,” and Vladov addressed the pitchers. “Gentle-men, take your first one pound balls—we will fire in volleys. On my signal.” Vladov addressed the men providing covering fire.

“At the count of three, provide the suppressive fire. One—two—three!”

Gunfire, the roar of it deafening, Rourke feeling it as hot brass pelted against the exposed flesh of his neck, his face, his forearms. Then Vladov’s voice, “Pitchers—ready—prepare to throw—throw!”

Rourke saw the first grey blur, arcing high toward one of the upper level mezzanines, Rourke settling the Colt scope’s reti-cle, snapping the trigger—it was shotgunning, not rifling, he realized.

There was an explosion, then another and another.

Two more balls of the plastique, Rourke hitting a second, another explosion, then one of the balls landing near the base of the lower mezzanine. There was a burst of full auto fire from in front of him, the ball of plastique exploding, chunks of the mezzanine structures were collapsing now, fires burn-ing, glass shattered on the floor everywhere.

Vladov shouted, “Cease fire.”

The mezzanines were for upper level corridors—each corri-dor, Rourke realized, teeming with more of the KGB person-nel. “Aim for the mezzanines themselves—we make ‘em so they can’t be crossed, we can slow ‘em down,” Rourke shouted.

Vladov’s voice. “There you have it, gentlemen, we must do better. Pitchers ready. Marksmen, we are ready.”

“Ready,” Rourke called.

“Ready,” Daszrozinski snapped.

“Ready,” Natalia answered.

“Suppressive fire—on three. One—two—three!”

Again the roar of automatic weapons fire, the hot brass fly-ing, Rourke settling himself, a deeper breath, letting part of it out, holding the rest. A blur of grey, toward the upper level mezzanine, “Mine,” Rourke shouted, settling the scope’s reti-cle, firing, the explosion making a fireball in mid-air, part of the upper level mezzanine outwall blown away.

Another blur and another, Daszrozinski’s Dragunov firing, then Natalia’s M-16. Two more, Rourke firing, Daszrozinski shouting, “I have the one on the left!” Rourke and Daszro-zinski fired simultaneously, both balls of plastique exploding in mid-air, the upper level mezzanines shuddering, a section of floor in the top mezzanine collapsing, crashing downward to the floor, screams, shouts of panic from the Soviets occupying the positions below. “We did it,”

Daszrozinski shouted. “We did it!”

“Make for the garage doors now,” Rourke shouted. “Vla-dov, Natalia, run for it,”

He glanced to the pitchers. “Guys, throw ‘em hard right and fast—Daszrozinski and I’ll get

‘em—Lieutenant—let’s go for it! “Rourke shouted.

“Yes, Doctor Rourke!”

Rourke settled the CAR-15, waiting, the first grey blur—he fired—another and another, Rourke and Daszrozinski’s weap-ons firing continuously, semi-automatic only, most of the balls exploding in mid-air. More gunfire from beside him—the men who had been providing suppressive fire were potshotting the plastique balls Rourke and Daszrozinski had missed, chunks of flooring rising up, collapsing downward, screams, the gun-fire from the KGB

positions sporadic now. Rourke shifted his right eye from the scope, squinting it closed, opening it, searching for Natalia and Vladov. They were beside the garage door nearest, planting charges, one on each side. Rourke shouted to the men beside him, “Keep pourin’ in the lead — we gotta cover Natalia and the captain—hustle!”

Rourke let the CAR-15 drop to his side, swinging forward one of the M-16s —on full auto, he made it spit death.

Chapter Forty-six

Reed and Sergeant Dressier had planted plastique charges—five pounds apiece—to each side of the corridor wall, the rear guard called in, joining the others as they ran for the garage door, no fire coming from the mezzanines now, only gunfire from the mouth of the corridor where a large KGB force—Daszrozinski had recognized Rozhdest-venskiy leading them—was starting an attack. Rourke hus-tled the others ahead of him, staying behind at the end of the corridor, getting as far back from it as he could, gunfire hammering toward him now as the KGB assault force ran the length of the corridor, at least fifty of them to the best he could count.

Twenty-five yards from the end of the corridor, Rourke swung his M-16 forward, spraying it laterally from left to right, cutting a swatch across the corridor, hitting first the charge to his left, then the charge to his right, then letting the gun fall to his side, running, a fireball belching from the corridor toward him—but it would belch toward the mouth of the corridor as well, and likely make the corridor impass-able. He ran on, two more explosions now from ahead, smaller ones, both sides of the garage door buckling.

The smoke cleared as Rourke reached the door. Already, Reed, Vladov, and men from both the U.S. and Soviet con-tingents were working to raise the door.

Rourke threw his left shoulder to it, heaving, the door starting up, Natalia beside him, pushing against the garage door—it was up. And inside were a half dozen golf carts, connected to charging units. And, a Ford pickup truck, olive drab in color. And a solitary motorcycle. There were other cycles, but these really motorized scooters. But only one cycle. Rourke liked Harleys, but some of the Japanese bikes were very good. And the one real motorcycle inside the garage was a fire engine red Kawasaki Ninja.

“All right,” Rourke whispered. “All right!”

He looked behind them. The corridor was still in flames.

He looked back to the bike. It was a racing machine— fast, responsive, perhaps one of the KGB

officers had ‘liber-ated it’ from some showroom or some garage. Perhaps it belonged to Rozhdestvenskiy himself.

If the latter were the case, so much the better.

He looked to Reed and Vladov. “Gentlemen, like they say, start your engines. Let’s get all these electric carts roll-ing. We can use them to block off corridors with the help of a little plastique. The truck—that can haul the bulk of us. I’ll take the bike.”

“Just like horsemounted cavalry,” Natalia murmured.

Rourke looked at her. “You’ve got it.”

He approached the fire engine red Ninja, the Kawasaki GPz900R, water cooled with transverse four-cylinder en-gine would redline in top gear at 145 mph or better. It was capable of doing a quarter mile from a standing start in under twelve seconds reaching speeds in excess of 120 mph.

For outdistancing the electric carts, he judged it would be adequate.

“Should we sabotage the other garages. Perhaps there are more trucks there?” Rourke looked to Vladov.

“I’m sorry—”

“I asked—”

“Ohh—no. No time. Just put charges on the doors and blow the opening mechanisms—that’ll slow them down. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

“Rourke, what the hell you plannin’ on doin’ with that bike?”

Rourke looked at Reed. “Riding it, soon as I hotwire it so she’ll run.” There was the roar of an engine and Rourke looked around. Natalia, a smudge of oil on her right cheek, bent up from under the hood of the Ford pickup. Rourke started to work on the GPz900R Ninja.

But on a hunch, after a second, he felt along under the faring — his right hand stopped. One of the little magnetized boxes. He opened it. “The key,” Rourke said to himself.

He shifted off his pack, tossing it into the rear bed of the pickup. “Natalia, you drive the truck. I’ll stay right with you.”

Rourke handed her the CAR-15 and one of the M-16s and she placed them into the truck.

For safety sake, he removed the Colt’s magazine, jacking out the round chambered in the .45

and replacing the round in the magazine, then reinserting the magazine up the well. He snapped the trigger, letting the hammer fall over the empty chamber, returning the pistol to his waistband.

He mounted the Ninja, bringing the bright red bike’s en-gine to life, the machine vibrating between his legs, throb-bing, ready to spring ahead. Reed’s men were operating the electric golf carts, Vladov’s men riding shotgun with them, Reed and Vladov in the truck bed with the rest of the men.

“Ready?”

“I placed the charges,” Vladov nodded. “Daszrozinski and I.”

Rourke nodded. “Let’s get the hell out of here,” and very slowly he let the Ninja out.

Chapter Forty-seven

Revnik turned to look at Rozhdestvenskiy. “They have sabotaged all of the garage doors, Comrade Colonel, six of our men were killed in attempting to open them—trip wires and—”

Rozhdestvenskiy snarled, “Shut up, Major. The contents of the third garage—”

“Nothing was harmed, Comrade Colonel, but the door is destroyed and blocks the—”

“Have the door removed. The assault vans, my car, the motorcycles—I want them out of there—now. Not five minutes from now—now!”

Rozhdestvenskiy turned and walked toward the first ga-rage. The Ford pickup truck which had been inside would be of little consequence. He doubted with all of the pollu-tion control equipment it was capable of any great speed. The electric cars—golf carts—would have been taken to form corridor barricades as Rourke, Major Tiemerovna and the others fought their way toward the cryogenics labo-ratory at the heart of the Womb. If they took the most direct route, they would have four miles to travel. An indirect route would consume as many as twenty miles, the passages winding as they did from one level to another.

But the motorcycle was very fast. There had been no room for it in the third garage where his car was kept and so he had left it in the first garage. He mentally scourged him-self for the laxness.

All about him was rubble, the terraced mezzanines which formed connecting bridges from one side of the mountain to the other in this section of the Womb complex were destroyed. More than one hundred and fifty of his men were dead or critically injured.

Their goals would be twofold—to destroy the cryogenics equipment, perhaps to steal some of it for themselves. And to destroy the particle beam weapons atop the mountain.

“Revnik!”

Rozhdestvenskiy turned around, calling to his aide.

“Yes, Comrade Colonel?”

“Revnik. You will finish your duties here as quickly as possible, then take one hundred men to the access corridor leading to the particle beam installations atop the moun-tain. I estimate that the force will split into two groups—of necessity if nothing else. Your force will anticipate this, lie in wait and when a portion of the invasion group makes their way to the particle beam weapons, you will counter them, destroy them. I will personally command the motor-cycle detachment and the assault vans, to cut them off at the cryogenics laboratory. They cannot be more than five min-utes ahead of us and I can take my force by the most direct route. Do not hesitate to call up reinforcements should they be required. I want all but the American doctor and Major Tiemerovna dead. If there is any way, these two individuals should you encounter them are to be brought to me.”

Revnik saluted. “Yes, Comrade Major.”

“Yes,” Rozhdestvenskiy nodded.

He began to walk toward the third garage, the doorway nearly moved aside now, reaching it, picking his way over the rubble beside the door, over the remains of bodies blown to bits and pieces.

But his car was perfect. He stared at it a moment.

He had had the country scoured for one that was both intact and had all of the equipment he needed. The Pontiac Firebird Trans-Am black, the interior black as well. Rather than the standard engine, the 308 cubic inch V-8 had the high output option, giving it 190 horsepower. Five speed transmission. He had found the best mechanic in the Womb and had the engine modified for even greater speed. Be-cause of that, fuel economy was nil, but the Firebird would hit 150 miles per hour and stay there if it had to. There were two sets of keys for it, one locked in the wall safe in his of-fice. The other in his hand now as he approached it. The suspension had been built up. The car was not armored, but the original equipment glass had been replaced by bullet re-sistant glass, dark tinted, nearly matching the black body of the car.

He opened the door, climbing into the cockpit, strapping himself in with the lap and shoulder restraint. He placed the key in the ignition, working the combination lock so he could start the machine. He turned the key—the engine roared to life ahead of him, around him. A case rested on the seat next to him—he opened it. Inside was the Uzi sub-machinegun, with it in neat compartments cut into the styrofoam were four thirty-two round magazines.

He depressed the top round in each of the magazines, get-ting the feel for the spring pressure.

It seemed adequate. He flicked on the radio hitting the PA switch. “This is Rozhdestvenskiy. I wish the twelve members of the motorcycle force to ride before me in a wedge, two man center, fifty yards ahead. I wish the four assault vans to follow behind me—two abreast. We shall follow the most direct route to the cryogenics laboratory. In the event that we should encounter the doctor or Major Tiemerovna, they are to be taken alive if at all possible so that I may deal with them personally. Rourke doubtlessly is riding my motorcycle—he has a passion for these machines. If my motorcycle must be destroyed in order to apprehend or kill him, it is of no concern. I shall advise you of my or-ders via the public address system. Move out in sixty sec-onds—from now.”

He set down the microphone, closing the driver’s side door, locking it, revving the huge V-8, the stick in neutral.

One by one, twelve of his Elite KGB Force mounted their specially selected, specially tuned Honda Gold Wings. In the rearview mirror, he could see the vans filling with their personnel, the roof panels opening, the RPK light machine-guns being elevated into position.

The bikes were starting.

He stomped the heavy duty clutch and slipped into first gear, deactivating the parking brake, feeding gasoline to the machine.

He glanced to his watch.

Forty-five seconds. All his men were mounted. “We shall take the left outside the garage and then the first right into the main traffic corridor. Maintain constant speed of fifty miles per hour until further notice.” The sweep second hand of the Gold Rolex President reached the twelve.

“Move out!”

The bikes, two by two left the garage, the rumble of the machines almost deafening, the sound of his own mighty engine almost lost. He made the left, the wedge of one dozen KGB bikers ahead of him forming, his speedometer needle to fifty, staying there.

He always considered himself to have a flair for the dra-matic, noting it as the four assault vans turned out of the garage and closed behind him into the formation. He reached across to the glove compartment and took from it a cassette tape, punching it into the deck, flipping the switch for the PA interlock so the tape would play out through the PA system yet he could cut it off when he spoke to issue commands.

The song the tape began to play was the Soviet national anthem.

Chapter Forty-eight

They had finished mining the last of the electric golf carts. According to the information Natalia’s uncle had provided, they were at the terminus of the underground and aboveground passageways. They had encountered resist-ance along the way but had been able to shoot their way past.

Nine of Reed’s men survived along with Reed. Ten of Vla-dov’s men.

Rourke, Natalia beside him, stood overlooking Natalia and Vladov’s handiwork with the last of the golf carts.

Reed spoke. “If this is the terminus between the cryogen-ics lab and the particle beam installation, then this is where we part company, Rourke. We’re runnin’ out of time. All this creep Rozhdestvenskiy has to do is get lucky and inter-cept us in one of the passageways with a vastly superior force and we’re goners. I’m taking my men up top to knock out the particle beam weapons.”

“My assigned task, I believe,” Vladov said, “is the de-struction of the cryogenics laboratory.”

“If either group is successful,” Natalia began, “The KGB master plan will be severely damaged.”

“If both groups are successful, we’ll knock ‘em out of the box,” Rourke nodded. “All right, we split up. Natalia and I are heading for the cryogenics lab—if somehow I can get some of those cryogenic chambers and enough of the se-rum, well—maybe there’s a chance for my family to survive this. I’ll give you the location of the Retreat, Reed—you can—”

“I’m never getting out of here alive. I walked in here knowing that. I think Captain Vladov feels the same way. The more of these KGB assholes we kill, well, the bigger the smile on my face when the bullet finds me.”

“My sentiments as well, Colonel,” Vladov smiled.

“You can’t say that,” Rourke told Reed. “You might make it out—”

“I’d head back for Texas if I did. KGB units and Army units under their control should be pounding hell out of our boys right now.”

“And I,” Vladov smiled. “Someone must stay behind to destroy all that is in here, so that if some of mankind does survive, no one will be able to use this place and the material here to establish himself as a dictator. No, once the primary mission is finished, we shall continue to sabotage all that can be destroyed here in the Womb.”

Rourke extended his hand to Reed. “I won’t lie and say I’ve enjoyed knowing you, but I respect you. Good luck, and God bless you, too.” Reed took his hand, nodding, say-ing nothing.

Vladov extended his hand to Reed. “Colonel, I think at least we are fully allies.”

Reed’s eyes flickered, and then he released Rourke’s hand and took Vladov’s. “Captain, my sincerest respect to you, to Lieutenant Daszrozinski, your men. Godspeed, Cap-tain.”

“And to you, Colonel.” Vladov took a step back and sa-luted. Reed hesitated, then drew himself up and returned the salute, holding it for a long moment, then dropping it, Vladov turning away and walking back toward the pickup truck.

Reed looked at them, at Rourke and Natalia beside him. Reed said, “I never figured either of you. Figured Rourke was crazy for not jumpin’ your bones, Major—no offense. I would have. So I guess that’s a compliment. And you, Rourke—so fuckin’ independent, always so damned right, so damned perfect. I guess about the best compliment I can give—and I mean it—you’re a good American and we could’ve used more like you.”

Natalia took two hesitant steps forward, leaned up and kissed Reed on the cheek. Reed looked at her and smiled. “Major, if you don’t mind a dying man getting his last re-quest?”

She didn’t answer him. Reed put his hands on her upper arms and drew her toward him, then kissed her full on the lips. Rourke watched as she kissed him back. “I was right all along,” Reed smiled, letting go of her. “Rourke—he was crazy all this time, lady,” and Colonel Reed turned away and started to walk—quickly, erect—toward the knot of his men ten yards away. He never looked back.

Chapter Forty-nine

Chambers ducked his head down, the lip of the trench blowing away, dirt and rocks showering him. He clenched his M-16 in his fists, ducking back under the sheltered por-tion of the redoubt,

“Halversen,” he shouted, calling to the radio man at the far end of the bunker. “Halversen!”

“Mr. President, nothing yet. I’ve tried every frequency that the KGB hasn’t jammed. If the Texans are coming, sir—well, they aren’t receiving us at all and I’m not picking Up any of their talk.”

Chambers turned away, rasping, “Keep trying, Halver-sen.”

Footsteps along the trench, Chambers looking up, a young man in Air Force fatigues running in.

“Where the hell’s the president?”

“Who wants him, Sergeant?”

“My lieutenant told me to run over here. The last of the surface to air missiles was fired.” There was the sound of an explosion from outside, then more gunfire. “They send any more of them damn MiG airplanes against our position, we’re goners.”

“They send too many more against this whole Army, we’re goners.”

“Where the hell’s the president—supposed to tell him per-sonally.”

“Be back in a minute,” Chambers said, glancing toward Halversen, but the radio man’s head was leaned toward his machine.

“Probably off stickin’ his head in some goddamned hole figurin’ he’s gonna get shot.”

“Or maybe he dressed up like a woman and tried to es-cape through the lines, like Santa Anna did after he lost to Houston at the Battle of San Jacinto.”

The Air Force sergeant laughed. “Naw, everything I hear, well—Chambers—he’s a good old boy, even for a scientist, or a president. But I gotta find him though. Lieutenant wants to know what to do.”

“You found him, son, I’m the president.”

“You—why—” and the young Air Force sergeant—he looked barely older than nineteen—but promotion had come fast during the weeks since the Night of The War—snapped to attention.

“I’m sorry, sir—I—”

“You tell your lieutenant that when the SAMs are gone to get every man in his battery to pick up an assault rifle off one of the men who’s already dead. When the Russian planes come, have him have all of you fire in volleys toward the weapons pods underneath the wings. If the weapons are armed and you get a lucky hit, you might activate a detona-tor and blow up the damned plane. Move out, Sergeant.” .

“Yes, sir,” and the man started to go, then turned back. “I’m sorry for what I said, Mr. President, about the damn hole and all—”

“It was a goddamned hole—and no offense taken—good luck, Sergeant,” and as the sergeant started out of the bun-ker, Chambers found his cigarettes and his matches, light-ing up. He read the warning on the side of the package and laughed out loud.

Chapter Fifty

There were a large number of “lake-worthy” craft still about, Maus had known that from his work in the Resist-ance and, as he stood up to survey his armada as it moved shoreward, what he saw only confirmed it. He had never stopped to count the number of craft. Marty had counted them but never told him the number.

He waved his right hand high, across the distance sepa-rating the small cabin cruiser in which he rode from the mo-torized sailboat in which Stanonik stood. Behind them, around them, there were more than a hundred craft—from large sailing boats to motorized launches, men and women of the Resistance, civilians who had helped but never before fought, the few survivors of Ft. Sheridan and Great Lakes.

As the ranking surviving military man, command had fallen to him. He watched as Marty—his Python in his right fist—waved back.

For the several hundred men and women, there were fewer than one hundred M-16s, some of these not originally military assault rifles at all but after-market altered from the commercial civilian model, these by the wide range of gun tinkerers Maus had collected around him into the Re-sistance after the Night of The War. For the most part, pis-tols, the dreaded “handgun” that so many had fought to eradicate from the American scene and which since the Night of The War had helped to hold the Russians back however slightly. That Americans could be armed—unlike the citizens of many nations of the world—had proven an ultimate blessing in combating the Soviet invaders. Some shotguns, some .22 rifles.

Not a machinegun among them. Not a LAWS rocket. Not even a subgun. These that they had over the course of their battles stolen from the Soviets who had stolen them from U.S. military armories, had been sent with the bulk of the Resistance toward Texas to help combat the fight against the Soviet forces massing against U.S. II. Maus and the other Resistance leaders had known that reaching Texas in time was impossible, but necessary. If sufficient forces started climbing up the backs of the Russians, they would have to divert troops from their main objective, buying time for U.S. II, however little.

The lake shore lay ahead.

Already, Soviet patrol boats were steaming toward them.

Maus raised the loud-hailer to his lips. “This is Maus. All right, they’re coming to meet us. Most of us won’t get through—but we knew that. Those of us that make it to shore—well, they know where we’re headed. Forget about Soviet headquarters. We attack the prisoner compounds at Soldier’s Field and nearby. Free as many Americans as we can. And kill as many of the Soviet troops as we have to. Good luck.”

And under his breath, as he set down the loud hailer, he whispered a prayer.

In less than a minute, as he judged it, the Soviet forces would open fire.

Chapter Fifty-one

They moved on foot, running, the corridor as wide as a four lane highway, overlit by long fluorescent tubes, the corridor itself more like a seemingly endless tunnel, leading slightly upward, Reed and his men holding their rifles at high port, hugging both sides of the corridor wall, Reed leading one element, Sergeant Dressier the second element.

There were numerous side passages, but Reed wanted to keep going up, toward the particle beam weapons at the top of the mountain. Paralleling the corridor on each side was a walkway perhaps five feet higher than the main corridor surface, the walkway itself little more than six feet wide, a metal railing at the lip.

The tunnel-like corridor curved, not only upward but in a gradual spiral as best Reed could tell

— it was taking him to the right place.

The absence of resistance of any kind bothered him, but also reassured him.

The KGB had second-guessed the reason for penetrating the Womb. It meant they were concentrating their efforts on the particle beam facilities and the cryogenic laboratory. It at least meant, Reed thought, that he would have a chance of nearing his goal. And once he was near to it, then he could get to it.

The men who would guard the cryogenic laboratory—if they knew the extent of the plans for the Womb—would be desperate men, fighting for their continued existence. But the men who guarded the particle beam facility were only guarding a massive weapon.

Desperation would be on Reed’s side.

To a man, his soldiers were resigned to death and com-mitted to victory. With men like these he could cut through any resistance, he told himself. If one man only could reach the facility there could be a way of turning such massive power against itself.

He thought of Rourke and laughed. Rourke who always planned ahead. Rourke had never said,

“If you don’t knock out the particle beam weapons I’ll never get any of the cryo-genic chambers or any of the serum out of here. They’ll blow my aircraft out of the sky.”

Rourke had never said that, but to Reed it was implicit in his understanding of the situation. That at least some of Rourke’s people survive. If somehow some of the Russians survived in the Womb, or even survived vicariously through five centuries of breeding underground in the Womb, some-one would need to be alive to warn the returning Eden Pro-ject, to tell the story of what happened.

To give the story of the valiant dead on both sides. That thought surprised him—to consider a Russian valiant. But Ravitski had been brave, had died. Vladov, Daszrozinski and the others would die.

It was only fitting that someone survive to remember them.

Reed walked on, the corridor taking a sharp bend, up-ward and angling left. They were nearing their goal—and nearing death.

Reed slipped his hand under his fatigue blouse. There was a ziploc plastic bag there, folded inside it an American flag. He had a planned use for it.

Chapter Fifty-two

Rourke slowed the fire engine red Kawasaki Ninja, mak-ing a wide circle as he stopped, swinging the M-16 forward on its sling, keeping the Ninja’s engine running under him.

Natalia, at the wheel of the Ford pickup, slowed, stopped. Vladov, riding beside her, jumped out, shouting something to Daszrozinski in the truck bed, Daszrozinski and the nine other men of the SF unit and Major Gorki and Sergeant Druszik of GRU evacuating the truck bed as well.

Rourke stared down the corridor. It was as wide as a four lane highway, a walkway on each side just about the width of a car, a railing running the length of the corridor. Over-head, banks of fluorescent tubes glowed brightly, giving an almost green tinge to everything the light touched.

“There it is,” Rourke almost whispered, squinting against the light and gesturing along the length of the corridor. The corridor ended some two hundred yards ahead, and beyond it would be the cryogenics lab.

“They are waiting for us,” Vladov observed.

“Yeah, I figured that, too,” Rourke nodded. He took the .45 from his belt, snapped back the slide and let it run for-ward. He upped the safety and stuffed the pistol back in his belt. The grip safety had never been pinned or otherwise de-activated—if the thumb safety should wipe off, the gun was still at least marginally safe to carry that way.

“There is no way to go around them,” Natalia called, climbed down from the cab of the pickup.

“At least if we want to reach the lab.”

“They’ll let us get close enough, then open up, most likely.”

“Doctor,” Vladov began. “I view our mission—meaning by that the mission of myself and my men — I view it that we have the primary goal of getting yourself and Major Tiemerovna inside the cryogenics laboratory, to destroy the supplies of the cryogenic serum and perhaps to steal some for use at your Retreat, along with the appropriate cryogen-ics chambers and monitoring equipment. That being the case, we shall go ahead, forming a corridor for yourself and the major through which you can penetrate the laboratory. After that, I’m afraid the rest shall be left in the capable hands of yourself and the major. We shall be otherwise en-gaged.”

“Let’s get this straight for once and for all. I want to save my family, but my primary mission is to prevent Rozhdestvenskiy’s people from sleeping through the holocaust and awakening to destroy the Eden Project — when and if it re-turns.”

“And if it doesn’t, Doctor, you should consider that. If we succeed in destroying the utility of the Womb, but do not succeed in saving your family, then it will all have been meaningless if the Eden Project should fail to return. I know little about space travel, aside from the exploits of our Soviet cosmonauts, aside from the few American films I have seen when for a time I served as military attache to our embassy in Japan. But I understand that quite a few things could go wrong. A malfunction in the onboard elec-trical systems could cause the cryogenic chambers inside the shuttles to cease to function. The occupants would die. A meteor shower could attack the ships and destroy them. If the mathematical calculations were incorrect, rather than an elliptical orbit taking them to the edge of the solar system and back again, they might instead drift out of the solar sys-tem and voyage endlessly. When they awaken, they would be doomed to wander forever, if they chose to return to their sleep, or they would die in a matter of hours when shipboard oxygen was depleted. In other words, the survival of your family, though I have never met them, is vital. Without their survival, if we succeed, we will have achieved nothing. There will be no human race. All mankind would be lost.”

“Some people may survive, living underground, if they’re smart enough and technologically set

—”

“Another maybe. Whereas, the mountain Retreat Gen-eral Varakov has spoken of should be impervious, the elec-trical supply you yourself saying should likely be infinite. There is an Americanism, I believe—the best wager—”

“Best bet,” Rourke corrected automatically.

“Very well, your family is the best bet for the survival of the human race. That is the priority which my general has given me, and which I shall obey. Perhaps, if you do sur-vive, and in the era five centuries from now you should help to rebuild cities and towns,” and Vladov smiled, almost sheepishly, “I would find it amusing. In the Soviet Army, my particular unit has earned the name Drahka—it simply means in English —”

“Fight,” Rourke interrupted.

“Yes. It sums up our lives, our destinies, our spirit, our honor, that we never give up. Perhaps—well—a street, or a village square where children play—it might somehow be something we would somehow know.”

Rourke swallowed hard, then nodded.

“After all, a Russian name, a Russian word in an Ameri-can town—it might be very amusing.”

“I shouldn’t think it would be amusing—but it would be fitting,” Rourke nodded.

“Comrade Doctor, I understand Daszrozinski has called you this once and you did not find it an offense. For in truth we are the best comrades, all of us in this fight.”

“Comrade Captain, Zehlahyou Udahchee,” Rourke mur-mured.

“Comrade Doctor, good luck,” Vladov echoed. He ex-tended his right hand—Rourke took it. Vladov stepped back. He turned to Natalia. He called his men to attention, the GRU major and sergeant snapping to as well. He raised his hand in salute to her, “Comrade Major. Your uncle was and always shall be our nation’s finest officer. On behalf of your uncle and yourself, please accept our salute.” He called to the other Russians, “Present arms!”

Natalia stood for a moment—Rourke thought she was about to weep. But she raised her right hand—it was the last salute she would ever give, he knew, however it worked out. She held it. Finally, Vladov commanded, “Order arms,” and the rifle salutes went down. Vladov nodded to her, “Com-rade Major,” and lowered his salute. She lowered hers.

And as Rourke watched her, now she did weep.

Chapter Fifty-three

Of the armada, only some two dozen of the ships re-mained, Maus hauling himself up from the waves, his left arm bloody and useless to him, a .45 in his right fist as he ordered his legs to move him forward. KBG troops, ahead of him, to his right, less than a half dozen of the Resistance coming out of the water with him. He fired the .45, taking down one of the KGB men. For a moment he thought of his wife. He swallowed hard, fir-ing again, slugs tearing into the rocks near him, one of the Resistance fighters going down, screaming.

Maus stood his ground, stabbing the .45 ahead of him, firing.

A searing pain in his left leg and he stumbled forward, falling hard against the rocks, firing the pistol as soon as he raised it, another of the KGB men going down.

“Hang on, Tommy!”

The voice almost made him laugh. The boom of a .357 Magnum, again and again and again, the thunder of a shotgun, then again.

He looked to his left.

It was Marty, the Python in his fist, another man be-side him holding a riot shotgun.

Marty dropped to his knees beside him. “You okay, Tommy?”

“Am I okay? You crazy. My left arm’s almost shot off and somebody shot my left leg out from under me, but I’ll make it. Get me up. We’re headin’ for Soldiers Field. How many of us left?”

“Maybe fifty, scattered all over the shoreline for about a city block. Seven of the Russian patrol boats are left.”

“The hell with ‘em—let’s move—get me up,” and Marty hauled Maus’s right arm across his shoulders, Maus getting to his feet, wincing from the pain in his left leg. But he could hobble.

“All those times I told ya, without me you’d be flat on your face—took this to make you see it seriously,” Marty laughed.

“All right. So walk already. In my next life I’ll treat you better.” Moving made him scream inside himself, but he forced the pain from his mind as much as he could. There were Americans who needed to be freed before they died.

They reached the height of the spit of land near the airfield, Marty discharging the Python twice more, downing one of the KGB men.

The man with the shotgun on Maus’s left picked up the AKM and handed Maus the shotgun.

“Can you hold it with your left hand enough to use it like a cane—it’s outa ammo anyway.”

Maus took it, his left arm barely able to move, but he closed the fingers of his left fist around it, supporting his left leg now rather than just dragging it.

“I can walk,” Maus snarled, Marty letting free of his right arm, reloading the Python.

“So you can walk—how about shoot?”

“Put a fresh magazine in for me and we’ll see, huh?”

Marty took the Colt from Maus’s right hand, dumped the spent magazine—the slide locked open already— and took the magazine from the single carrier on Maus’s belt. He rammed it home, letting the slide run forward, upping the safety, handing the Colt back to Maus.

“So let’s kill some KGB guys and free those Ameri-cans 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. Be-low him the Western Soviet Army, far in the distance the Eastern Army. No one bothered with his aircraft and he or-dered 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 de-cipher 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. Sur-prise Party meant unexpected forces behind the Eastern So-viet 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 them-selves—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 over-whelmed 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 en-emy at the end of the corridor which led to the cryogenics lab, Natalia standing beside Rourke, watching with him as Vla-dov 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 some-how?”

“Yes,” she answered softly.

“You’ll never want,” Rourke told her.

She looked up at him, Rourke touching the tips of his fin-gers 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 jump-suit. 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 un-less 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 incalcula-ble hardship would have wrought was something incompre-hensible 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 want-ing 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 pos-sessed 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 posi-tion. 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 corri-dor 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 over-head 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, clutch-ing 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 as-sault 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, aim-ing 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 con-struction 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 im-pact. 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 fin-ger 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 oppor-tunity, 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, an-other Elite Corpsman down.

Vladov’s men were closing on the position, shouts com-ing 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, kill-ing, 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 bayo-net 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 cling-ing 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, ex-cising 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 po-sition, 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 hol-stered 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. Cap-ture for them was something Rourke didn’t even consider.

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

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 litter-ing the floor, dangling dead or dying from the construc-tion 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 bayo-nets.”

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 consid-ered, as someone other than a Russian. One might be al-lowed 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 reli-gious 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 comrades 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 em-braced.

Vladov had cried once before in his adult life, when the woman he had been about to marry had died in an agri-cultural 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 uni-form, 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 ene-mies. 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 anony-mous 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.

Vladov moved ahead, walking now, his pistol empty— he let it fall. He raised his empty rifle—

no time to load it, closing with the KGB, his bayonet doing its mighty work, hacking, slashing, killing. The rifle fell from his right hand as the fingers there were severed.

His men were dead.

He grabbed his knife with his left hand, unsheathing it, burying it in the chest of an Elite Corps Major—killing him.

He felt the coldness suddenly, not knowing for an in-stant if it were the blood loss, the shock, or the moment before death.

It was the moment before death he realized then, a bay-onet being ripped from his already wounded side as he fell.

But in Vladov’s left hand was the knife. The bayonet stabbed at him again, missing him, Vladov thrusting the knife upward, into the abdomen of his attacker. There was a scream.

The blades of perhaps a dozen bayonets hacked toward him and Vladov shouted the name given his men and him-self. “Fight!” One of the blades was coming at his throat and he didn’t turn his face away from it and ...

Chapter Sixty

Reed fired the last round from his .45 into the face of the KGB Elite Corpsman, shoving the body aside, pushing against the doorway—it didn’t give. But Dressier was beside him, rasping,

“Stay back, sir,” and Dressler’s M-16 emptied into the locking mechanism.

Reed threw his body against the doors, his left shoulder aching him badly, his left arm already drenched with his blood.

The doors gave and Reed half fell through, Dressier be-side him. They threw their bodies against the doors, closing them, the fighting still going on in the corridor outside, less than a half dozen of Reed’s men surviving it.

“Sir, you goin’ up to the particle beam weapons?”

“I’m gonna sabotage the controls. President Chambers told me what to do if I got this far—make the power build up in the system and blow the weapons up — “

“You gonna be needin’ me, Colonel. I’d sorta—well—the men outside there.”

“Gimme your plastique, Sergeant Dressier.”

Dressier reached under his fatigue blouse. “Here, sir—nice and warm. Malleable.”

Reed nodded, noticing for the first time that in the battle to get out of the smaller access corridor, Dressier too had been wounded — his left leg was drenched with blood and there was a wound from the right side of his neck, blood clotting there.

Reed gave his hand to Dressier. “Sergeant, God bless, huh?”

“You, too, sir, if'n you’re plannin’ to blow this door, you’ll never get out.”

“And they’ll never get in, Sarge,” and Reed made himself laugh.

“Be seein’ ya, Colonel.”

“Right—for sure—be seein’ ya,” and Dressier ripped the door open and was gone, Reed hearing the gunfire, then throwing his body against the doors. He dropped to his knees, molding the C-4

against the door frame—he had to cause part of the wall to collapse. This would block the door. A gunshot would be the detonator. He worked quickly—his men would soon be dead and the Elite Corps would be at the door—and at his heels.

Chapter Sixty-one

He had ridden the motorcycle up the ramp onto the small loading dock beside the cryogenics laboratory, waiting for something to happen. Nothing did. He stopped the fire en-gine red Ninja, dismounting then, letting down the stand.

An M-16, selector set to full auto, filled each hand.

The truck brakes — he heard them and he glanced back— Natalia had backed the pickup to the dock.

He heard the door slam and looked back again—she was out — his CAR-15 was slung across her back, an M-16 was in each hand as she turned a full three hundred sixty degrees.

“Where are they, John?”

“Inside, maybe,” Rourke told her.

There had been no resistance as they had left the small corridor, no resistance as they had entered the huge concrete box which formed the chamber, the cryogenics lab. It had once been an ordinance lab, dominating the far wall.

“Perhaps they—”

“What?” Rourke asked her.

“All of their forces—perhaps they are committed there with Vladov and against Reed. Perhaps—”

“No, I don’t think so.” She had mounted the ramp lead-ing from the floor level to the loading dock. She stood back to back with him now.

“What do we do?”

“We go inside — what we’re expected to do, I guess.”

Rourke approached the double swinging doors, pad-locked from the outside. He loosed a burst from his M-16, the lock disintegrating. He took a step back, then two steps forward, a roundhouse double Tae Kwan Do kick to the center portion of the two doors, at the joint where they mated, the chain falling free, the doors swinging inward, only one swinging back. There was no gunfire, from inside, from anywhere.

“We’re walking into a trap, John.”

“We don’t have any choice, Natalia.” Rourke shoved the rifle in his right hand through the doorspace — nothing hap-pened.

He followed the muzzle of the rifle inside. “Stay here for a second,” telling Natalia.

The cryogenics laboratory’s lights were lit. There was no one that he could see.

He looked up—the false ceiling was ten feet from the floor—There was no one in the vast laboratory.

“Come inside and watch the doors from here,” Rourke called to Natalia.

Rourke started across the laboratory, both rifles ready in his hands.

The far wall was dominated by rows of shelves, three litre sized bottles there, the apparent color of the bottles a very pale green, like the color of Rhine wine.

“The cryogenic serum,” he said under his breath. His palms sweated. He walked toward it. To his far right, as he scanned the room, were wooden packing crates, some large, the size and shape of coffins. Some smaller, like the size of a bedroom-sized color TV portable. Some of the crates were open, most were not. To his left, running as far as the extent of the laboratory, were ranks of what he judged were cryo-genic chambers—translucent lids, open, some few closed, monitoring equipment rigged to them.

He started toward the cryogenic serum again.

There was a sound from above him—Rourke wheeled— the panel of ceiling overhead had slid open—the muzzles of automatic rifles pointed down at him. “Run for it, Nata-lia!” Rourke stabbed both M-16s upward to fire.

A voice, “Doctor Rourke, a moment, please!”

Rourke looked to his right. Near the cryogenic sleep chambers a man stood, having hidden behind them, Rourke guessed. Two dozen others stood near him, all armed. “You will die, my dear Doctor Rourke, but I first wanted to talk.”

Rourke licked his lips. Natalia stood at the entrance to the laboratory, both M-16s hanging on their slings at her sides. There was something that was not right about her, but guns were pointed at her from the ceiling above and from the area near the cryogenic chambers.

More of the ceiling panels opened, men dropping down from the ceiling now, M-16s pointed toward Rourke and toward her.

“You see, Doctor, however daring your plan, it was doomed to failure,” Rozhdestvenskiy smiled. “I won’t de-grade you both by ordering you to drop your weapons, you would not have time to use them.” Natalia was walking to-ward him, both fists balled at her sides, the KGB Elite Corps personnel falling back from her as though somehow afraid of her.

“And you, my dear Major, what a lovely creature you have always been. And how traitorous.”

“You are the traitor,” Natalia barely whispered. “You, and my husband, he was like you.”

“Ohh, such a way to talk, Major, about someone who is dead and can no longer champion his good name.”

“His good name—his perversions, his evil, the way that he beat me—his good name indeed.”

“The affairs between a husband and wife,” and he smiled gesturing palms upward and shrugging. “These are not my affair, Major. But without him, there would have been no knowledge of the Eden Project, no knowledge of the cryo-genic serum which allows the cryogenic sleep to save lives rather than take them—without him,” and he gestured ex-pansively around him, “none of this. He was my dear friend—though I am aware of his shortcomings. But no one is perfect. Except perhaps for you and Doctor Rourke. And you shall both soon see what perfection can profit you.”

Slowly, Natalia had been moving her hands to the pistol grips of her rifles. Rourke still held both his M-16s in his fists, but a Shootout would have netted nothing, he real-ized. He waited for Natalia—she had something, he knew that, some play ready.

Her hands were nearly to her rifles.

Rozhdestvenskiy laughed, “Major, hold your rifles if you wish, point them at me even, you will not get off a shot be-fore you are cut down.”

Natalia’s hands closed on the pistol grips. “Thank you for letting me hold my rifles.”

“If you draw comfort from them in these, your last mo-ments alive, feel free, my dear. You see, we anticipated the arrival of yourself and the Doctor.”

“Who?” Rourke asked suddenly.

“Ahh,” Rozhdestvenskiy laughed. “Your American pub-lic television—the British television series—you have a ready wit, Doctor. But I’m afraid neither that nor anything else shall save you and the major from retribution,” and he smiled ingratiatingly, obviously enjoying what he was do-ing.

Rourke shrugged, “All my life, you know, I’ve never re-ally been able to make jokes, to make people laugh, I con-sidered it a character flaw. But just recently, I’ve been doing better.”

“Too bad you won’t have the time to develop the talent, Doctor.”

Rourke shrugged.

Natalia said nothing.

Rozhdestvenskiy continued. “We anticipated your ar-rival, as I indicated. The actual ceiling goes up some twenty feet. The false ceiling was installed for better temperature control. But we installed the ceiling to already existing girders which spanned the laboratory. So it was simple to position some of my men above you.”

“Yes,” Rourke nodded.

Natalia spoke. “You were very kind, Colonel, to let me hold my rifles at the pistol grips. Both rifles have their selec-tors set to full automatic.”

“My dear, it is useless, before you raise them toward me, you’ll be dead.”

“But I don’t have to raise them,” Natalia smiled, her voice like honey. “I anticipated this would be a trap. Do you re-member the C-4 explosives which we have used so effica-ciously against you?”

Rozhdestvenskiy smile started to fade.

“The muzzles of both rifles are packed with one pound apiece. All I have to do is twitch my finger against either trigger and the explosions will destroy the cryogenic serum for you. It is only perhaps fifteen feet away and I doubt the glass in the bottles will withstand the shock.”

“You lie—kill—”

“Try me!” She shrieked the words. No one moved.

“You would not —”

“Why not,” Rourke almost whispered.

“Even if your gunfire should sever my arms from my body, the involuntary nervous responses will cause the fin-gers to twitch against the triggers—your serum, your life—gone.”

“But—but yours, too.”

“We came here for some of the cryogenic chambers and monitoring equipment, and a supply of serum for our-selves. And to destroy your serum. So you’d die when the holocaust comes. We’ll settle for the first two—some of the chambers—we need six, we’ll take six along with the spare parts kits, the monitoring equipment. We’ll take six bottles of the serum.”

“Each recipient needs only a few ccs,” Rozhdestvenskiy began.

“We’ll take six anyway—we’ll leave the rest for you. Com-promise?”

“John!”

“Leave it, Natalia. It’s my plan now.”

Rozhdestvenskiy licked his lips. “You’ll never get out of here alive.”

“You have your boys play cops and robbers with us after we load up—in fact, have them load us up—but they don’t have to check the water and oil. We’re just fine and the truck runs great—and I love the bike—yours?”

“Yes.”

“I leave it for you. Ride around on it for the next five hundred years and have fun. I’ll walk toward the doors — and grabbing me will just make Natalia blow up the serum. I’ll keep an eye on the loading, make sure nobody tampers with the vehicles. And once we’re loaded up, I’ll aim my rifles at the serum until Natalia gets free—wouldn’t want half the bottles shot up, would you?

If we make a play for the rest of the serum, you’ve got nothing to lose by killing us. And why would we risk a gunfight after we have the se-rum and the chambers we need.”

“Then we will meet again in five centuries, Doctor. To re-sume the battle, you fresh from your Retreat in the Georgia mountains if you get there and me fresh from the Womb?”

“If you get there,” Rourke smiled. “And make sure your guys are real careful loading the stuff. We wouldn’t want to waste any of the serum, would we?”

Natalia stood her ground.

Rourke gestured with his M-16s to the KGB men nearest the serum. “Move away, guys. The lady’s gonna stand right there near the serum.” As Natalia moved slowly past him, Rourke winked at her.

Chapter Sixty-two

There had been a gunbattle with the weapons crew — four men. Reed had killed them all. He leaned heavily over the controls panels now — he had been shot three times in the abdomen and was dying.

He worked the controls, knowing just enough Russian and just enough about the mechanics of a laser charged par-ticle beam system to know which control to work, the infor-mation on the weapons system courtesy of Samuel Chambers’ best scientific guesswork. Reed hoped the man had been right.

There was a loud humming noise from the vault behind him, the vault extending for perhaps a quarter mile, mas-sive diameter tubes coiling back and forth. These were used to generate the speed for the particles which formed the beam.

He kept working the controls. There would likely be serv-ice personnel in the charging area itself—they would come to kill him. But he doubted they were armed, only one of the crewmen had been armed, and that only with a pistol.

He set the controls, using his bayonet to pry off the dials without moving the dial stems leading into the control pan-els. He crushed the plastic dials under the heels of his com-bat boots, then left the consoles, the humming a loud whine now.

He went to the entry doors, setting out more of the plas-tique—the last that he had—against the locking mecha-nism. He had destroyed the lock by hammering it out of shape with the butt of the dead Russian’s American pistol. The lock would have to be shot through to enter the control room—and a shot would blow the plastique.

He returned to the control panels, picking up the 1911 Al pistol again, using the butt to hammer out the faces of gauges and digital readout panels—the numbers had been climbing steadily. The gauges were gone.

A voice from behind him—a man. A pipe wrench in both hands like a club. Reed fired into his face with the .45, kill-ing him. Reed picked up the wrench, swinging it against the control panel, shattering the casings—the humming grew steadily louder. The fire control console—he smashed it with the wrench—there would be no way to fire and release the charged particle. Without putting a new control panel into place.

The humming, the whining was a roar now.

He wondered how long until the overloaded system would explode. Perhaps it would rip away the top of the mountain. At least it would destroy the weapons system ut-terly. He had read an intelligence memo about particle beam devices—similar to a neutron explosion—perhaps the life in the Womb would be destroyed as well.

He closed his eyes against the pain inside him—his abdo-men, his left arm.

Reed prayed Rourke and Natalia would have the time to carry out their mission, but there was no waiting now.

No time left.

He used the wrench one more time to smash out the glass ahead of and above the control panels, the particle beam weapons stretching skyward. It was nearly dusk he real-ized—the last night?

Awkwardly, blood spurting between his fingers as he held in his intestines, he dragged himself across the control pan-els and through the opening, breaking out the rest of the glass with the slide of his .45.

The rocks below were navigable. Then perhaps a fifty yard walk to the base of the nearest gantry-like structure which housed the particle beam weapon and raised it skyward.

Before he started down from the rocks, he felt under his fatigue blouse, through the blood feeling the plastic bag which covered the flag. There would be bullet holes in it. Blood on it.

But it wouldn’t be the first time. He started down the rocks and toward the gantry.

Chapter Sixty-three

The truck was loaded with six of the U.S.-made cryo-genic chambers which Rourke himself had personally in-spected as best as possible to determine their functional capabilities. Six spare parts kits. Six monitoring equipment kits, six spare parts kits for the monitoring equipment.

Five of the serum bottles, packed in wooden cases were aboard the truckbed, Natalia had let one of the rifles drop to her side and carried the sixth bottle now, Rourke stand-ing in the doorway, both assault rifles aimed across the lab-oratory toward the bottles of cryogenic serum as Natalia walked free.

Rozhdestvenskiy and a bearded man in a lab coat stood far to one side. The KGB Elite Corps flanked her on both sides, their rifles lowered.

Rourke spoke. “Try anything to stop Major Tiemerovna and I empty both magazines into the serum bottles. It won’t do much good to pick it up off the floor and even if you chemically analyze it, it’d take too long to reproduce a suf-ficient amount.”

“They do not have the proper chemicals — my uncle told me this. The one factory which produced the key ingredient was destroyed during the Night of The War. The chemical cannot be reproduced because its formula was top secret and it is the one portion of the Eden Project plan they have never found.”

“You are so well informed, Major,” Rozhdestvenskiy shouted. “That traitorous bastard of an uncle—were there time remaining, I would personally execute him.”

She stopped walking, raising the rifle at her right side slightly. “Another word about my uncle and I destroy the serum—all of it. I’m still close enough.”

“Get out of here,” Rozhdestvenskiy rasped.

Natalia kept walking, Rourke never moving the muzzles of the two M-16s. If he fired he would cut down Natalia as well. But she knew that.

She was nearly beside him—it was the most dangerous part. Once they felt she was sufficiently far from the serum bottles not to damage them, they would make their play.

Rourke shouted, “A little change in the plan, Colonel. Anybody blinks an eye and I blow away all the bottles.”

“That was not the agreement, Doctor.” Rozhdestvenskiy started forward. Rourke pulled the trigger on the rifle—Na-talia was clear now, his right hand raising as he blasted three of the serum bottles with the burst.

“A warning,” Rourke shouted.

“Don’t shoot,” Rozhdestvenskiy commanded his men.

Natalia stood beside Rourke now.

“You plan what I think?”

“You plan what I think?” he asked back.

“Yes—I love you, John.”

She dropped the bottle at her side to the floor. It shat-tered, the liquid inside splashing up on Rourke’s feet and hers.

“What are you doing?” Rozhdestvenskiy screamed the words.

Rourke never moved the muzzles of his rifles, but Natalia wheeled beside him, her rifles pointed toward the truck. “There are five bottles in the truck, Colonel. John will now destroy the serum in the bottles by the wall. You cannot stop him before he empties both rifles and destroys the bottles utterly. If you attempt to do so, I shall destroy those bottles in the truck.”

“You would kill Rourke with the explosives!”

“You would kill him by shooting him—and the rifles were never loaded with explosives—I fooled you, Colonel. The master spy duped—what a tragedy!”

“Bitch—”

“Right now I’m planning to shoot the serum bottles,” Rourke snarled. “I can shoot you, too. Look at it this way— as long as we have the five bottles in the truck, you’ve got a chance.”

Rourke emptied the assault rifles into the serum bottles at the far side of the laboratory—not a move made to stop him. The bottles seemed to shatter in slow motion, shards of glass everywhere, bottles shattering other bottles, the shelves starting to collapse.

One bottle remained.

Rourke let the emptied M-16s fall to his sides. He drew the Python, saying, “If only a few ccs are needed for each injection, well, we probably have enough in the truck to in-ject your entire Elite Corps and all of the women—think about that. This is a Colt—Natalia tells me you carry one, too. A Colt is a very American gun—Colt’s sort of like apple pie, baseball, motherhood.”

He thumbcocked the Metalifed and Mag-na-ported six-inch, firing once, the last bottle shattering.

Rourke let himself smile.

“Now, Colonel, Natalia’s going to get on the truck in just a minute here, and I’ll keep one of my assault rifles trained on the five bottles that are left. She’ll drive off and I’ll fol-low her. Then we’ll see what happens.” Rourke holstered the Python, then dumped the empty magazines from the as-sault rifles, letting them clatter to the floor. He reloaded. He backstepped through the doorway, Natalia still aimed both rifles at the five bottles in the truck bed.

Rourke turned, running along the loading dock, jumping aboard the fire engine red Ninja bike, swinging both M-16s toward the truck bed. He couldn’t miss at the range. He let the rifles fall to his sides, “Not yet, Natalia.” He started the bike, turning it around to face the ramp. He leveled one of the M-16s toward the five bottles. “Now—remind our friends.”

He couldn’t see inside, but he heard Natalia calling over her shoulder, “Doctor Rourke has the five remaining bottles under the muzzle of his rifle. I am boarding the truck. At the first shot, the first attempt to stop us of any kind, he shall destroy the remaining five bottles. Maybe you can scrape some off the floor and filter out the broken glass — but I don’t think so.”

“Damn you!” It was Rozhdestvenskiy’s voice. But Nata-lia only walked ahead, slowly, down the ramp, around the cab of the pickup, setting both rifles inside, climbing in be-hind the wheel. The engine started. The truck lurched slightly forward. Rourke turned and looked behind him, but the rifle’s muzzle unswerving. He shouted, “Natalia, get moving—Rozhdestvenskiy, bite my ass,” and Rourke swung the second M-16 toward the laboratory doors, firing half a magazine, the Elite Corps dropping back, Rourke let-ting both rifles fall to his sides, putting himself low over the Ninja’s body, letting the bike out and taking it down the ramp — he was trying to match the zero to sixty figures he’d read of.

Chapter Sixty-four

Rozhdestvenskiy jumped from the loading dock, tossing his car keys in his hand. “What about the force that fought at the small corridor?”

“They were Russians, Comrade Colonel,” the lieutenant answered. “They were Special Forces—the unit known as Fight—they—”

“Are they dead — I did not ask for them to be eulogized.”

“They are dead—but so few of them, Comrade Colo-nel—they killed sixty-three of our men.”

Rozhdestvenskiy looked at the young lieutenant. “And what of the particle beam facility?”

“The Americans have all been killed. But the doors lead-ing into the facility were mined, and have only just been gotten through.”

“Idiots, so some of the Americans are inside.”

“Only one it is thought, Comrade Colonel—but Com-rade Colonel—”

“What?”

“In the battle between our men and the Special Forces unit, Major Revnik was killed by the Special Forces Cap-tain.”

“Then Revnik is dead—if he were stupid enough to die, he was too stupid to live.” He gestured after Rourke and Natalia Tiemerovna. “Seal off all passages. The women can fight as well. Leave a wide path for them. They must be heading for the doors to the airfield elevators. We shall pur-sue them, overtake them and kill Rourke before he can de-stroy the serum bottles. Then our assault vans can box in Major Tiemerovna’s truck and she can be killed. We shall still be triumphant. But there is to be no shooting at the truck itself. No one but this unit is to attack them. The func-tion of the rest of my forces is merely to contain them—no risks can be taken with the bottles. I want one hundred men—or men and women— it doesn’t matter—I want them on the field in the event Rourke and the major slip through our fingers. If the airplane should reach the field before in-terception, it should be destroyed.”

“But the serum, Comrade Colonel—”

“Better no one should survive than Rourke and Major Tiemerovna, Lieutenant. We can easily catch them. The motorcycle is capable of great speed, but the truck is not. In the corridor straightaways, we can catch them. And we can kill them.”

He started to walk across the boxlike chamber. Near the far corridor, in a storage compartment, the vehicles were garaged.

He checked the revolver in his belt. He would get Rourke and Natalia Tiemerovna—it was more important now than life itself.

Rozhdestvenskiy started to run.

Chapter Sixty-five

The truck, with its heavy load, would barely do sixty steadily, Rourke judged, comparing the truck’s speed with the matching speed of the Ninja, and only on the straight-aways. It was necessary in the curves, to preserve the load, to slow to thirty.

Behind him he heard what he had expected to hear—vehi-cles.

Rourke looked back. Coming around the curve behind them, into the straightaway were what he counted as an even dozen more or less Honda Gold Wings, fast, power-ful, painted black. Behind the wedge of bikers a single auto-mobile—a black Pontiac Firebird Trans-Am. Behind this, two abreast, black painted vans. Visible on the roofs of the vans some type of weapon—he imagined Soviet RPK light machineguns.

“Natalia! Company. Hustle,” he shouted.

He saw her through the open window, turning her head, glance at him once—her eyes in the pale green of the over-head lighting system—their blueness riveted him.

The truck began to pick up speed, but it couldn’t pick up much with the specialized emission control equipment it carried, and acceleration was pitifully slow.

He looked behind him again—the KGB armada was clos-ing.

They would target him, so he couldn’t destroy the serum in the truck bed. Then close in on Natalia and box the pickup in, killing her and rescuing the serum. It was Rozhdestvenskiy’s only option.

The thought flashed across Rourke’s mind, to abandon the motorcycle and jump into the pickup bed, but it wouldn’t prevent them from stopping the truck. He could destroy the serum, but he needed the serum to keep his wife, his children, Paul alive.

And Rozhdestvenskiy would know Rourke wanted at least some of the serum intact.

“May as well get started,” he whispered into the slip-stream around him. He stabbed the left side M-16 toward the KGB armada and opened fire, emptying the half spent magazine, one of the bikes swerving, spinning out, crashing against the concrete surface of the walkway on the left side of the corridor.

Rourke let the rifle fall empty to his side, making the bike accelerate, outstripping Natalia and the truck for an in-stant, the road surface around him that formed the corridor floor taking the impact of bursts of machinegun fire, slugs whistling, ricocheting maddeningly.

Rourke pulled in front of the truck, using the serum bot-tles it contained as a shield, the gunfire ceasing, but as he looked back, the motorcycles and the Firebird speeding ahead.

Rourke let the Ninja drift right, bringing up the second M-16, firing behind him—spraying the assault rifle left to right and back again, three of the bikers down, their ma-chines spinning out, crashing against the walkway bases, others of the machines slowing, skidding, another bike out of control, crashing.

Rourke let the Ninja drift left as machinegun fire raked the road surface, but it meticulously avoided Natalia in the truck.

Mentally he ran the scorecard—seven bikers remaining, the four vans and the Firebird.

“Shit,” he snarled into the wind.

Chapter Sixty-six

Natalia was honking at him, Rourke looking back—she was waving her right hand. Rourke shook his head, not un-derstanding.

Natalia began to honk her horn again—long and short-blasts of the horn—suddenly Rourke realized. Morse code. Rourke turned to her again moving his right hand as if in a wiping out motion, then nodding his head.

She nodded back.

Dash—dot—dash—dot.

Dot—dot—dash—dot. Dash—dash—dash. Dot—dot—dash. Dot—dash—dot.

“C-4,” Rourke whispered. “C-4.”

He turned to her, nodding. The musette bag on his left side—the five pounds of C-4 he himself had taken. He reached into the musette bag, awkwardly one handed claw-ing at the brick of plastique, ripping away approximately a third of it. He kneaded it in his hand, like some persons use a rubber ball to exercise their fingers. It was becoming soft from his body heat.

Rourke kept kneading it, already knowing what he would do with it.

Rourke let the Ninja drift right, the ball of C-4 in his right hand—he snapped his right arm back and outward, the C-4 leaving his grip, edging slightly left in the bike’s saddle, keeping his balance, drawing the Python.

The seven bikers were coming—he let them come, past the C-4 almost. He stabbed the Python behind him, gunfire from the vans hammering into the pavement around him. He double actioned the Python once. A miss. Again. Another miss.

The bikers were nearly past it. He fired the Python once more—there was a roar, screams drowned in it, Rourke nearly losing the bike, swinging his balance right again, looking back, a fireball belched upward toward the corri-dor ceiling, chunks of human beings and motorcycles rained downward.

The Trans-Am had swerved, taken one of the small ramps leading to the walkway, moving along the walkway, now, coming fast, bouncing between the wall to the right and the walkway guard rail to the left, sparks flying as the fenders grated against the railing, the driver’s side window rolling down, the muzzle of a submachinegun poking through it. And his lips drawn back against the slipstream of the wind, Rozhdestvenskiy screaming the word, “Die!”

Rourke made the bike swerve, the chattering sound of glass—he looked to his left—Rozhdestvenskiy was shoot-ing at Natalia, the windshield cracked, the pickup swerving, then steadying.

The Python still in his right fist, Rourke stabbed it to-ward the black sportscar, firing twice for the window, miss-ing, seeing the sparks as the bullets glanced off the hood.

The subgun opened up again, Rourke ramming the Py-thon into the leather, making the bike speed ahead.

He glanced behind him—one of the vans had somehow become disabled. Only three remained, machinegun fire coming toward him now as all three formed a single rank across the corridor floor.

Subgun fire from the Pontiac to his right. The Firebird was speeding up, past Natalia, even with Rourke.

Rourke swung the M-16 outward, pumping the trigger, emptying the magazine toward the Firebird, the Firebird veered left—the railing on the walkway peeled away, chunks of it flying outward into the corridor road surface, Rourke dropping the empty M-16 from his fist, making the Ninja swerve away.

He looked back and right—the Firebird was still coming, and behind him now, the three vans had stopped shooting; they were closing with Natalia.

More subgun fire from the Firebird, Rourke reaching to the small of his back to the Thad Rybka holster and the two-inch Colt Lawman. He had it, pointing the little .357 toward the Firebird, firing, but not for the passenger com-partment and the open window there—for the tires instead. At the speeds with which the car moved, the tires were high speed radials, not run-flats. He aimed for the area by the rims, the left front so he would affect the steering. He dou-bled actioned the little Colt. A miss.

Subgun fire from the window again. Rourke fired the little Colt—once, twice, a third time—four rounds were gone.

Subgun fire—he could smell gasoline—the submachine-gun Rozhdestvenskiy used had hit the Ninja’s gas tank. It could explode at any moment.

Rourke pumped the last two rounds from the Lawman— the tire seemed to explode, the Firebird crashing through the guard rail, bouncing back against the concrete to the right of the car, then away, punching out the railing, crash-ing down to the road surface, rolling, sliding along on the roof. Rourke swerved the Ninja, the little Colt shoved into his belt.

He let the bike skid, away from him, jumping clear, the bike skidding now toward the Firebird, the bike impacting against the passenger door of the inverted street machine— the gasoline tank—a small explosion, flames scorching up-ward for a brief instant, the Firebird’s tires on fire.

Rourke rolled across the road surface, stopping on his back, remembering to breathe.

He was up—no time to finish Rozhdestvenskiy if he weren’t already dead—the vans were coming, closing in on Natalia. Rourke reached for the C-4 in his musette bag— about three pounds of it, molding it quickly into a ball, the C-4 already slightly warm from his body heat.

He threw the C-4 into the roadway, one of the vans skid-ding away, hitting the walkway to Rourke’s right, explod-ing, flames belching upward.

Rourke drew both Detonics pistols simultaneously, fir-ing, aiming for the C-4, machinegun fire from the two re-maining vans hammering at him, around him, chips of concrete flying, bullets ricocheting.

The two vans were near the C-4 now, Natalia well past it.

A hit—the C-4 exploded, Natalia’s truck swerving, the left fender glancing off the walkway, the truck bouncing, lurching, but moving ahead.

One van gone. The other still coming.

The pickup slowed, Rourke running for it, stabbing both pistols into his belt, jumping, clawing for the side of the truck bed, his fingers closing for it, hurtling his body weight over and inside, rolling, crashing against the coffin-shaped boxes of the cryogenic chambers.

Rourke picked himself up to his knees, changing sticks for the Detonics pistols. As the pickup swerved to avoid the wreckage of the Firebird and the motorcycle, Rourke saw Rozhdestvenskiy, crawling, alive, away from the wreckage, and for a second their eyes met.

The last van was still coming. Rozhdestvenskiy’s voice echoed through the corridor. “Kill them!”

Chapter Sixty-seven

Reed climbed, glancing to the Timex on his left wrist, smudging away the blood from the crystal. If what he had done to the particle beam system worked, the system would explode in a matter of minutes, he reasoned.

He was still only a third of the way up the gantry, the American flag beneath his fatigue blouse still, his .45, half-loaded only, in the military flap holster at his belt. The sec-ond .45 he had carried for a time he had lost in battle.

He kept climbing, his right palm bloody and raw from scraping against the metal, his left arm blessedly numbed to the pain there, his abdomen hurting—he felt like throwing up but didn’t dare. When he coughed, blood spurted out.

He kept moving.

Soon—very soon.

The sun was truly setting and he noticed it more than he had ever before—very red, very beautiful.

He kept climbing.

It was the one thing he had to do.

Chapter Sixty-eight

Rourke climbed around from the truck bed, reaching for the passenger side door, Natalia springing the door as he shouted to her, Rourke swinging his left leg inside, then fall-ing to his knees on the seat.

He twisted around, the M-16s making movement in so confined a space awkward, Natalia saying as he slammed the door closed, “We should be just a few minutes away from the bombproof doors leading into the hangar bays—if the doors are still opened.”

“They’re gonna want to stop us, not just box us in, Rozhdestvenskiy had to figure on that. Unless he gets on a radio and tells them to close, they should be open—any-way—they can’t stop their supply shipments just for us—we gotta worry about that last van.”

Exhausted, Rourke unslung the M-16s from his shoul-ders, leaning through the window. The van was closing, the LMG beginning to open up. Rourke fired the M-16, toward the windshield

— but it would be bullet proofed.

The slugs had no effect.

“Give this thing all the gas it’s got,” he roared to Natalia. “And gimme the extra C-4 you took off the American cor-poral’s body. If those doors to the hangar bays are closed, it won’t get us through anyway.”

“Agreed.” Natalia pushed her black canvas bag across the seat. “It’s inside.”

Rourke opened the bag —a nightgown, a hair brush, a half-dozen speed-loaders for the L-Frames she carried.

It wasn’t in the outside pouch. He zipped open the main compartment—the C-4, beside it tampons and a half-emptied carton of cigarettes. “Women,” Rourke murmured. He took the C-4, snapping the brick in half, then began knead-ing it in his hands, the other half returned to the bag. It was starting to soften.

“I’d say hurry up, he’s closing on us.” Gunfire hit the wall to their left, a ricochet cracking more of the windshield, Na-talia making the truck swerve, then straightening. “The turn-off should be up here.”

“Right. You let me off when you take it, then drive like hell for a hundred yards or so. And fast.” Rourke formed the C-4 into a mushroom shape—it was the consistency of the Play-Doh his children had used when they were small.

“Here it is,” Natalia shouted, the truck skidding, the rear end fishtailing, Natalia downshifting, fighting the wheel, the truck turning, the cargo shifting behind them — Rourke heard the sound of glass breaking.

One of the bottles of serum—had any of it survived?

She turned the truck into the access corridor, Rourke swinging open the door, the truck slowing, Rourke jumping down, falling to his knees, shouting, “Get outta here.”

The van was making the turn. Rourke waited, the van coming, the LMG starting to fire again, slugs hammering the concrete wall of the corridor.

Rourke had the reloaded Python in his left fist. In his right the mushroom shaped chunk of plastique, soft at the top, very soft.

He hurled the C-4, shifting the Python to his right fist, the C-4 hitting the grill at the front of the van, molding around the metal, sticking there.

Rourke fired at the van—a miss, the van still coming, Rourke running, running harder than he had ever run in his life.

To his right ahead was a small access tunnel. Rourke jumped to the walkway, vaulting the railing, stabbing the Python outward as a line of machinegun fire etched along the wall surface toward him.

He double actioned the Python once, diving to the small access tunnel, the roar deafening as he covered his ears and hugged his forearms against the sides of his head — he could feel the force of the explosion tearing at him, feel the heat of it.

The explosion died.

Rourke got to his knees — part of his shirt had been torn away.

He stood up, his hands shook.

He stooped over, picking up the Python.

He stepped to the end of the access tunnel. The van was a mass of twisted metal, still smoldering, the upholstery burning in patches along the road surface.

Ahead of him, Natalia had stopped the truck. She was reversing, Rourke started to run to meet her.

If the serum had survived—even a little of it, he could at least save Sarah and the children, Paul and Natalia—at least them.

If the bombproof doors to the hangar bays were only open.

He kept running, the Python still in his right hand.

Chapter Sixty-nine

The bombproof doors had been open—maybe he lived right, he thought. The door on the pickup’s passenger side wide open, Rourke hugged the doorframe, firing out first one, then the second of his two M-16s, cutting down per-haps a dozen of the KGB hangar bay personnel, the rest running back through the doors.

Rourke jumped clear as Natalia slowed the pickup.

“I’ll find us a plane. You get those doors sealed—the mechanism’s over there,” and he pointed to the far wall.

He started running across the hangar bay, searching for the right aircraft, sufficiently large to handle the cargo, suf-ficiently fast to get them where they needed to go, with little enough landing field required to put her down.

That the hangar bay doors had been open told him one thing — Rozhdestvenskiy would be waiting to stop them on the field above.

He found the plane, stopping before it — a substantially modified Grumman OV-1 Mohawk of the type used in Viet-nam. He ran to it, to begin pre-flighting. Already, the bombproof doors were closing behind him ...

It wasn’t the perfect aircraft, it required too much run-way space for landing, but he could set it down on a high-way and then taxi it off the road. With luck he’d make it close enough to the motorcycle he had left behind, hidden in the trees near the field he had used when he’d landed the prototype jet fighter, the same craft they had used to fly to Chicago to see Varakov.

With the truck back near the cargo doors, and Natalia’s help, he had loaded his backpack, the six cryogenics chambers, the six spare parts kits for the chambers, the six moni-toring consoles, the six spare parts kits for the monitoring equipment—and the one remaining jar of the serum—the others destroyed.

Rourke sat at the controls now, the plane ready as it would ever be, Natalia working the elevator controls.

Overhead, the sky was darkening. At any moment, the bombproof shields would slide in place automatically, blocking the elevator shaft.

There had been no sounds of gunfire from the field above, and as the overhead section of the runway slipped further and further apart, there was still no sound.

His only sensation was the purple darkness.

He looked out. Natalia ran to board the aircraft, jump-ing, the elevator already in motion, Natalia reaching the el-evator and running for the aircraft.

She was aboard, Rourke hearing the sounds of the hatch being closed.

“I’m all set,” she called out, breathless sounding. Rourke nodded, both M-16s loaded, his pistols checked. Natalia took up her position by the co-pilot’s controls, two M-16s beside her. There would be no way to have a protracted gun battle from the aircraft—it would be take-off or lose.

Rourke raced the engines, the plane starting to inch ahead, the elevator nearly to the level of the field.

Already, he could see KGB Elite Corps ringing the open-ing for the elevator pad, M-16s in their hands. Behind them, Jeeps fitted with RPK light machineguns.

Rozhdestvenskiy’s face in the lights of the field as the ele-vator pad settled.

Rourke hit both engines, starting ahead, Rozhdest-venskiy’s voice loud over a bullhorn,

“Surrender now and you will have merciful deaths. If you force us to destroy the last of the cryogenic serum, you will take weeks to die in agony, Rourke. Hear me. And you will watch Natalia Tiemerovna die first. I will flay her skin an inch at a time, I will have my men rape her before your eyes. Surrender or face this.”

He could run down the men with the airplane, but the bodies were so densely packed together that they would eventually block the aircraft’s wheels. The Jeeps formed a solid wall beyond that.

They were trapped.

“Be ready to fight,” Rourke whispered. “I can’t get us off the ground. And I’ll kill you just before it ends—Rozhdest-venskiy meant what he said.”

Natalia whispered, “Yes.”

“Turn one of your M-16s against the bottle of the serum. Do it now.” Rourke still had almost full power to the en-gines, ready for take-off. “Damnit,” he swore.

He saw Rozhdestvenskiy’s face, the KGB colonel stand-ing in the front passenger side of one of the Jeeps, his left arm casually draped over the RPK—he was smiling.

Perhaps, Rourke thought, before they swarmed over the plane, he could get off a shot to kill Rozhdestvenskiy.

He—Rourke—and Natalia and, the ones who had died had won in a way, Rourke thought. Rozhdestvenskiy and his men were doomed without the serum. Perhaps succes-sive generations of them could breed inside the Womb until it was safe to return to the surface, perhaps somehow they would not be so horribly evil. That the Womb still was capa-ble of hermetic seal was the only defeat. His own death. Na-talia’s death—considering they had destroyed Rozhdestvenskiy’s plans for survival—these mattered little. Paul. Sarah. Michael. Annie. That they would die, that he had failed them consumed him, burning in him, angering him.

“The hell with this. I’ll blow up the damned plane all over them—hold on—don’t shoot the serum bottle yet,” and Rourke throttled forward, the aircraft starting to move.

“Surrender, Rourke!”

Rozhdestvenskiy couldn’t hear him, but Rourke shouted it anyway, “Bite my ass, you bastard!”

He gave the plane full throttle, the KGB guards moving back, but the Jeeps unmoving, the machinegunners moving their weapons into position. It was all about to go.

An explosion, louder than anything Rourke had ever heard before. He looked to his left—the top of the moun-tain—a mushroom shaped ball of fire rising skyward—and in its light on one of the twin gantries there, a figure. Some-thing about it—it had to be Reed. And in the instant of light, draped across Reed’s body nearly to the top of the gantry but not quite reaching it, blew an American flag in the heat wind.

Rourke gave the craft more throttle, the Jeeps starting to move now, Rozhdestvenskiy nearly falling from his perch beside one of the RPKs, the vehicle streaking away from the mountain. Already, Rozhdestvenskiy was screaming through the bullhorn, “You will die for this —”

“That’s just like a neutron bomb, that’s why they’re run-ning like hell to get out of here—hang on,” and Rourke pushed the throttle all the way forward, working the flaps, steering the craft along the field, threading his way through the maze of running men and fleeing vehicles, the end of the runway nearing as he straightened out. Only one vehicle followed them—the Jeep Rozdestvenskiy had been on, Rozhdestvenskiy driving it now—a pistol in his hand, fir-ing. Rourke gave the aircraft full throttle, the barricade fences coming up fast.

In the sideview mirror of the fuselage, Rozhdestvenskiy, the Jeep skidding, Rozhdestvenskiy’s face twisted with rage, his mouth open, screaming words Rourke didn’t need to hear to understand.

The barricade fences—full power, the nose coming up. “Hang on,” Rourke rasped, Natalia answering nothing, the nose staying up, the barricade fences beneath them now, Rourke hitting the landing gear, hauling it up, banking the aircraft—and as he turned it, the top of the mountain was a ball of flames, the particle beam weapons gone, Reed gone, the flag gone.

On the field beneath them, the Jeeps and figures of run-ning men were like something seen through a microscope.

The neutron radiation would have been minimal and the likelihood of contamination remote. He felt no ill effects, nor apparently did Natalia as he looked at her.

“We made it,” she whispered.

“He’ll come after us, try to find the Retreat—he’ll come.”

Rourke said nothing else. It was full night and the world might end before dawn the next day was through.

Chapter Seventy

Colonel Nehemiah Rozhdestvenskiy leaned against one of the Jeeps, staring, staring at his mountain without a top, his mountain that no longer could be hermetically sealed, the Womb that was now useless to him.

One of his officers, Captain Andreki, was calling to him. “Comrade Colonel—the radiation—we must escape before it can reach the airfield—when the cloud settles—”

“I will kill him, then I will die. But I will kill him. It is Doctor Rourke who has done this. And it is Rourke who will die for it. All radar installations which still function are to search for his plane. All ground forces are to search for it above them. We shall take whatever means at our disposal and go to northeastern Georgia. We shall search the moun-tains there throughout the night. We shall find this Retreat, we shall destroy it, destroy Rourke and Major Tiemerovna, destroy Rourke’s family. We shall have the last victory—we shall have the last victory—”

He realized that Captain Andreki was leading him away—but he would pursue Rourke—and inside him he knew this would be the last night of earth.

Chapter Seventy-one

General Ishmael Varakov listened to her words, carefully. “Moscow is gone. The radio was full of static and then for an instant it cleared. All the radio operator could say was ‘fire’—and then there was nothing more, not even static, not a sound as though—”

“Enough, Catherine. It has begun. Come stand beside me and we shall talk. You can tell me of your childhood per-haps. We have one night in which to tell each other all that we might ever wish to tell each other,” and he smiled at her, taking her hand, slowly walking from his desk toward the figures of the two mastodons at the center of the museum’s great hall. His feet hurt.

“When I was a boy, all was in tur-moil. Russia had suffered defeat at the hands of the Japa-nese and the old Czar and his family liked more to play tennis and to have parties than to care for the people. Lenin was always on the lips of the people—he is here, he is there. There was much hunger. And then of course the First World War, which was to be the war to end all wars, but so many of our soldiers never returned and then the era of Kerenski, and that failed, and then Lenin finally took charge and there was fighting everywhere. I was only very young after all that and I remember the horrors still as though I had seen them myself because still my family spoke of them, still whispered of them when there was darkness. And the Sec-ond World War—in which I fought—Stalin was a fool to ever trust the Nazis. And then they turned on us and tried to destroy us and later we destroyed them. All this—you would think, Catherine, that with all the millions who died in the First War, the many who died during the Revolution, the millions who died during the Second War—you would think that we would have learned something, Catherine, something to tell young people like you that would magi-cally make you understand how stupid and useless it all was. But did we?”

He stopped walking, looking into her eyes. “You are a pretty young girl. I do not still understand why you would so favor an old man by loving him. But I am glad that you do. Sit and tell me about your childhood.”

He sat near the feet of the mastodons, Catherine sitting beside, but more perched on the edge of the vinyl covered bench than actually sitting. “I did nothing interesting, Com-rade General—it is a very boring story—there is nothing in-teresting about me— “

“How wrong you are,” and he held her hand.

Chapter Seventy-two

He had landed the aircraft on a stretch of straight high-way, then taxied it off the road and into a field before it had been able to go no further.

Natalia had gone on ahead, to the original take-off site they had used with the prototype fighter. Rourke’s Harley was hidden there.

And Rourke had worked while she had been gone, get-ting the eighteen smaller crates offloaded from the plane, getting the six coffin-shaped crates which contained the cry-ogenic chambers nearer to the hatch.

He had field stripped his rifles one at a time, cleaning them. He had cleaned the Government Model, the little Lawman, the six-inch Python. He had touched up the edges of his knives. He had done everything to avoid thinking.

It was already the new day beyond the ocean—and soon—He somehow knew that it was the last day.

A plan had already formed, a plan to solve the unsolve-able.

But it meant putting himself in the position of God—and it was an uncomfortable thought.

He loved Sarah. He loved Natalia. He loved them equally—at least he told himself that—and he loved them differently.

It was the only way to solve it.

He closed his eyes. There was no need, no desire to sleep. If all went well and they were able to utilize the cryogenics equipment and the last precious bottle of the serum, he would sleep for nearly five centuries. If it did not, he would die. In either event sleep now was unimportant.

In the distance now, he heard the sound of the trucks, the familiar sound of his own camouflaged Ford pickup truck. The less familiar sounds of the truck he had borrowed from Pete Critchfield, the Resistance leader; Rourke would never return it.

He wondered if Natalia had told Paul and Sarah and the children what would happen at the next dawn. Had she told Paul the story Reed had recounted of the death of Paul’s parents?

He somehow doubted that she had. It was, after all, his responsibility.

One could escape one’s enemies, but never the ultimate enemy of being the one who was responsible.

He closed his eyes again. There was no need to see the trucks as they approached. And he wondered how he would begin it. Would he look at Michael and Annie and tell them, “Your lives are forever to be changed—forever.”

Chapter Seventy-three

He didn’t know why the KGB was evacuating the city. There were still regular army troops, but they fought every-where throughout the city with the people he and the others of the Resistance had freed from the detention camps.

That death was inevitable did not escape him, but not from his wounds at least. He rested in the back of the van they had taken from the Russians, a police van. Through the open doors, he could see Marty approaching, carrying something.

He didn’t try to sit up. He watched instead.

Marty stopped at the open rear doors. “Hey, Tommy—how you feeling?”

“I’ve felt better—what have you got there?”

“Remember I promised you a beer? Well, this one closet near where the locker rooms were—guess one of the KGB prison guards liked beer. Had a cooler-full. I got us each one.”

Marty stepped up into the van, twisting the cap off one of the bottles and handing it to Maus.

“You heard something, didn’t you?”

“Well, you know how people talk—word is the KGB pulled out because some top secret project went belly up— and —” But he stopped talking.

“And what?”

“Nothin’ important—”

“What?”

Marty opened his beer, clinked the bottle against Maus’s bottle and then took a long pull. He smacked his lips. “Nice and cold.”

“What?”

“They had a radio here—one of those jobbies that pulls in stations from all over the place.”

Marty drank some more of the beer. “Got a ham operator out of Greenland—said all of Europe was off the air—lots of static, then a moment of clear transmission—one of the guys he had talked to—he said the—” Marty took another pull on the beer. “Trouble with beer—once you drink it, the bottle’s empty.” And he looked at Maus. “The ham operator said the guy told him the sky was on fire and—it didn’t make much sense.”

Maus raised his bottle of beer, clinked the glass against Marty’s. “Here’s lookin’ at ya, Marty.”

Marty began to laugh. “I betchya I can scrounge up a couple more beers if I try hard. Our work’s done tonight.”

“Yeah, that’s a good idea. You know, I had this terrific idea for increasing sales, ya know—was just gonna imple-ment it before The Night of The War.”

“What kinda idea?”

“It’ll take a while to explain it—”

Marty laughed, and Maus laughed then, too. Marty said, “I got all night, Tommy.”

Chapter Seventy-four

President Samuel Chambers stood on the rise of ground looking out. He could see much by the fires that still burned. Beside him stood Lieutenant Feltcher. At the base of the rise stood the TVM Commander.

The Soviet Armies had been defeated, routed.

Feltcher said, “We won, Mr. President.”

“My radio man has been getting these weird signals all night. Ham operators—like that.”

“What do you mean, sir?”

He looked at Feltcher.

He didn’t have the heart to tell him. Instead, he said, “Maybe what transpired will bring about peace someday. Maybe somebody somewhere will look back and know what happened—maybe.”

“You mean, Mr. President, maybe we whipped them so bad we’ll really beat them, drive ‘em back to the Soviet Union—have America back?”

“By tomorrow morning, I’m confident of it, Lieutenant, all our troubles will be over.”

“Is it some new weapon, sir?”

He looked at Feltcher in the firelight, then just shook his head as he lit a cigarette—he had several packs to still smoke that night—there was no sense wasting the last of his cigarettes.

“No—not a new weapon, Lieutenant. I think we’ll shortly see the old weapons did quite enough—quite enough.” He inhaled the smoke deep into his lungs and said nothing else for a moment.

Then he looked at Feltcher. “While you were away, well, it’s too long a story. But I’ll tell you anyway. We did something to the air and the sky is catching on fire and when the sun rises tomorrow morning we’ll all be dead. And there’s no way to stop it. I’ve got a lot of smoking to do—if you want to join me, I’ll tell you about it. Or maybe you want to find someplace to go and pray. Up to you, Lieutenant.”

Feltcher didn’t say anything. After a moment there was a solitary pistol shot. Someone in the darkness, Chambers knew, had just taken his own life rather than face the sun-rise. Others had already—others would.

Chambers began to walk toward the tent that was his newest headquarters, his last headquarters. He turned around to look at Feltcher. The young lieutenant was mak-ing the sign of the cross.

Chapter Seventy-five

Natalia’s knowledge of engineering and electronics, Paul’s practical knowledge of how things worked gained from his experience with editing technical writing, Sarah’s experience with the practical aspects of nursing and with de-sign, Rourke’s own experience with building the Retreat from nothing, with the functioning of the human body.

An engineer turned spy, a trade magazine editor, a would-be nurse turned artist and writer, a doctor turned weapons expert and survivalist. The children served as ‘gophers’—go for this and go for that.

Paul with Michael’s help had prepared the bikes and the trucks for the long term storage. Sarah, with Annie’s help, had prepared the foodstuffs, supervised the plants which renewed the oxygen supply inside the Retreat. They would not last the five hundred years, but with the timer-con-nected growlights and water sprays, they would thrive long enough that when they awakened in five hundred years if they awakened, the oxygen would be clean to breathe if not very fresh.

They had seen to all of the weapons, seen to the generator systems, the backup generators, all these keyed to the hy-droelectric power system based on the underground stream and the waterfall. If this failed, the cryogenic chambers would be their coffins and they would never awaken.

The last of the cables were being strung, linking the cryo-genic chambers’ monitoring systems to the power supply, Annie feeding cable while Natalia connected it.

Rourke stepped to the electronic monitoring console. There had never been a need for the system before. But he had activated it once they had sealed the main entrance of the Retreat. The two escape chambers had also been checked, Rourke doing this himself. The one tunnel leading through to the other side of the mountain was hermetically sealed, as was the main entrance.

He had not yet hermetically sealed the second tunnel which led above.

Rourke studied the console controls, then looked up to the television monitoring screen—closed circuit, via cable, it would function until the end, until the atmosphere caught fire and the camera and cable just simply burned.

It was nearly dawn. He adjusted the instruments. In the distance near the base of the mountain, he could make out large numbers of troops moving with mechanized equip-ment.

In the air were helicopters of every description.

These were Rozhdestvenskiy’s forces, searching for the Retreat to destroy it.

But the sun was almost rising and throughout the hours they had worked until they could take no more of it, Rourke and the others had listened to shortwave broadcasts—the horror, the devastation. It followed the sun. There had been a ham operator in Greenland who had constantly been broadcasting—about the fires which consumed Europe, England—but now his voice too was stilled.

There had been other broadcasts—U.S. II announcing the victory over the Soviet Forces—Natalia had shown no emotion at this.

Victory, Rourke thought. What a strange word.

“John, all set!” Rubenstein sang out.

Rourke looked behind him, losing his train of thought. “Good, Paul, help Natalia with the injections.”

“I’m through here, too,” Sarah called out. “I can help; I’ve used hypodermics before.”

“Go ahead then.” Rourke stared at the monitor. The sky above the Retreat was almost black, lightning bolts streaking across it, ball lightning—pure electricity—shooting in low arcs under the clouds. Rourke played with the controls. He scanned the valley on zoom and more clearly now could see men and equipment moving toward the mountain road.

He exhaled hard, studying the television picture. There were dozens of helicopters in the air moving along above the men—Soviet. Rourke studied the monitor—the electri-cal storm was heightening.

“John, the injections are ready, all six.”

Rourke looked back at Natalia, then at Rubenstein and at Sarah—the children still moved, talked, but it was as if the three other adults and himself had suddenly frozen— still.

“Good,” Rourke finally said. “Isn’t much time left. From the way that sky looks, the ionization is already starting.”

Rourke started across the room, toward the cryogenic chambers, their blue light bathing the room in a haze.

Rourke glanced back toward the television monitor, the blackening sky, the lightning. “I’ll check the last escape hatch and seal it before I put myself under—give everybody the injections first,” Rourke said softly.

Rourke walked the few paces to the coffee table, earlier moved out of the way of the chambers and monitoring equipment. Beside his glass fronted gun case now. He looked down at the six hypodermic needles on a white towel there. There was a taped name on each. He picked up the needle for Michael.

“Natalia—you checked my figures—you agree on the amount of the injections.”

“There were only tables for body weights down to ninety pounds, John, I worked back through the formula in the manuals accompanying the chambers, Michael weighs sixty-two pounds. The injection should be right.”

Rourke looked at the injection, then at his son. “Michael, kiss your mother and sister, then come over to me.”

Natalia was beside Rourke in an instant, reaching up, taking the hypodermic from Rourke’s fingers. “I’ll give your son the injection—if something—it shouldn’t be your guilt, John.”

Rourke started to say something, but didn’t, just nod-ding. He watched Michael and his mother hug each other, then watched Annie throw her arms around her brother, kissing him.

Michael walked toward him.

Rourke looked down at the boy. “Michael, it should seem like only a little time. I know five hundred years sounds like a long time, but when you’re just sleeping—”

“Will I dream a lot, Daddy?”

Rourke dropped to his knees in front of the boy, squeez-ing Michael tight against him, and as he spoke his voice sounded choked, strained to him. “Son, you’ll dream good dreams, I know you will,” Rourke whispered.

He could feel the boy’s body tense, Rourke’s eyes focus-ing tight on the needle as it entered his son’s arm, then on Natalia’s eyes.

“I feel-I feel-“

Rourke stood up, sweeping his son into his arms as the boy fell almost instantly asleep.

“That’s supposed to—” Natalia began.

Rourke looked at her, murmuring, “I know, it’s supposed to happen.”

Rourke carried his son to the cryogenic chamber, resting the tiny body inside it. His eyes flicked from the elapsed time readout setting back to his son’s face. The breathing was shallow—too shallow? Rourke listened for the heart-beat with a stethoscope from the small shelf at the side of the chamber. “It’s slow—very slow—”

Sarah was beside him, holding Rourke’s arm.

Annie, her voice odd sounding, asked, “Is Michael all right?”

Rourke looked down at his daughter and swept her into his arms, tears streaming from his eyes as he held her.

“Michael’s all right ...”

Both children rested under the glowing translucent domes now, their faces bathed in the blue light, clouds of gas beginning to swirl around them. Rourke stared at them. Sarah stood on his right, Rourke’s arm around her. Natalia stood at his left, her hand in his. Paul flanked Natalia.

Rourke looked away from the faces of his children. For the last two minutes, the horror show had continued—the Soviet soldiers as they marched up the mountainside were dying, struck by lightning, ball lightning consumed some of them—human torches. Only three of the helicopters re-mained aloft, burning debris dotting the landscape.

“You’d think they’d give up,” Rourke murmured.

“Would you?” Natalia asked softly.

Rourke said nothing. After a long moment, then, “Paul—you’re—”

“Yeah—I know—I kind of figured—God,” and Ruben-stein let out a long, deep breath. “Guess I’d better lie down—in my chamber, huh?”

“Relax, Paul,” Rourke whispered, taking the needle, starting toward his friend.

Natalia embraced Rubenstein, kissing him on the lips. Rubenstein stepped back, looking somehow embarrassed. “I’m going to feel—funny, I’m—aw, give it to me,” and Ru-benstein started to sit down on the edge of his chamber.

Rourke extended his hand, the younger man taking it. “Paul, if I’d had a brother, it would have been you.”

The younger man smiled. “I love ya, both of you,” and he looked at Natalia then back at Rourke. Already he was roll-ing up his left sleeve.

“Loosen your belt, kick off your shoes—don’t want to constrict your blood vessels. Probably should all be naked.”

“I don’t think it’ll make much difference—if we live, we live—you taught me that,” Rubenstein smiled.

Rourke clapped the younger man on the shoulder, saying, “Until we wake up then.”

Rubenstein’s eyes were on the needle. Rourke started to put the needle to Rubenstein’s arm. Rubenstein blocked Rourke’s hand for a second, saying sheepishly, “I always hated shots—let me look the other way.”

Rourke gave him the injection . . .

Rourke, Sarah and Natalia stood beside the glowing blue lights, the three remaining unoccupied chambers. The elec-trical storm had intensified still more as Rourke studied the monitor for a moment. Natalia, glancing at Sarah, came into Rourke’s arms. Rourke held her.

“Don’t feel, well, just don’t,” Sarah whispered, her voice odd. She turned away, walking over to where the children slept, gas filling the chambers now in a swirling cloud.

“What are our chances?” Natalia whispered to Rourke.

“Natural granite will insulate against electrical shock—should keep the air from burning in here. After we’re all in the chambers, we won’t need air anyway. We’ll breathe the gas—it’s continuously purified. The plants over there will keep growing,” and he gestured beyond the far end of the great room, the plastic covered greenhouse there with the purple grow lights. “The underground springs should keep up our electrical power. Those grow lights should burn for years with the timers before the fluorescent tubes die—the plants will clean the air we breathed now so there’ll be clean air inside the Retreat when we awaken. Stale—but it’ll be clean. Nothing else on earth—unless it’s sealed in granite— nothing should survive, live. We have the only chambers that will work because we have the only serum.”

“The Eden Project—”

“If there wasn’t a meteor shower that got their hulls, or there wasn’t a malfunction in their solar batteries, or some-thing else no one foresaw—they would be back after we awaken.”

“I feel,” Natalia whispered, “feels like, like the harlot or something—” She glanced at Sarah.

“Don’t.”

“After we wake up, what—”

“Don’t worry—but I know I’m glad you’re with me, here.”

“Give me the injection, John, unless you want me to ad-minister the injection to—to Sarah, for you.”

“You sleep,” Rourke whispered to her, bending his face toward hers, kissing her lips.

She closed her eyes and leaned against him, murmuring, “I love you.”

“Natalia,” Rourke said softly, holding her.

He walked beside her, to her chamber. She sat on the edge of it and their eyes met as Rourke placed the needle against her skin. “I love you,” he rasped, giving her the injection. She closed her eyes—he missed the blueness there already. . .

It seemed to Rourke like an eternity, but it had been only minutes by the digital clock on the console beside the televi-sion monitor, only minutes since Natalia had given Michael the first injection. Sarah stood beside him. “Thank you for finding us—I think.” She smiled oddly. “We’ll have lot to talk about—the children, other things. You’d better hurry now.”

“You always talked us to death,” Rourke whispered, chill-ing at the word. He drew his wife into his arms, looked into her face, then kissed her.

“What are you going to do—about us?” she whispered back, kissing him again.

Rourke breathed hard. “Trust me once more?”

“I love you, John Rourke, and I know you love me. Whatever we make of our lives if we wake up, I guess it doesn’t matter as much as our loving one another. We should never have married—we both know that. But I love you.”

Rourke held her close, walked with her to her chamber.

“Will you be all right—can you get your chamber started after you—”

“I’ll give myself the injection just after I start my cham-ber,” he assured her. “I can hold my breath against the gas — I’ll be fine.”

“I know that,” she smiled, leaning up to him, kissing him, holding his hand. “I’ll see you in five hundred years.” She closed her eyes and sat on the edge of her chamber as Rourke put the needle to her skin.

“I love you,” he whispered, and as she sank back, asleep, he said the word, “Sarah.”

Chapter Seventy-six

Rourke studied the television monitor. Perhaps a hun-dred of the KGB troopers remained now, huddled on the ground, lightning smashing into the rocks beside which they took shelter.

“Armageddon,” he whispered. Two of the helicopters remained airborne, the sky around them alive with electricity. “Rozhdestvenskiy,” he said, staring at the monitor as one of the helicopters flew near the camera.

The sky was black, electricity filling the air, arcing across the ground now. He thought of Reed and what he had died doing.

Rourke, the double Alessi rig still across his shoulders, ran the length of the darkened Great Room, the bluish glow of the chambers chilling, eerie somehow. He stud-ied the faces in the chambers, one-by-one, the eyelids closed, the swirling gases marking the faces then seeming to whisk aside. “I have to,” he said to them. “I have to do this —show the KGB why they lost, why they’d lose again or anyone else would lose if it happened all over again.”

Rourke started to run again, past the far side of the Great Room, into the storage area.

In the dim light, he ran along the room’s length, past the rows of shelves and the provisions there, the ammuni-tion, the spare parts, the clothes—stopping by a small niche in the wall, a steel tool cabinet there. He threw his body against the tool cabinet, budging it aside, then shifting it away from the wall with his hands. There was a steel door, three feet square, a combination lock on it. He twirled the dial on the lock, right, then left, then right, twisting the handle, the door swinging out.

Rourke walked back to the shelves, pulling down a flashlight. He smiled—it was one of the angleheads he and Rubenstein had taken from the geological supply shop in Albuquerque—when it had all begun. He flicked the switch, nothing. He unscrewed the butt cap, reaching into another shelf, and pulling out two batteries, drop-ping the D-cells into the flashlight and screwing the butt cap closed. He turned toward the small, open steel door, walking toward it. Rourke bent down, flicking on the flashlight, shining it up inside. Rungs were anchored to the living granite, three feet apart, the tunnel inside an-gling steeply upward.

He turned back to the shelves. From a box he took an American flag. He returned to the escape tunnel.

Rourke pulled himself inside and started to crawl to-ward the first rung, the flashlight in his left hand. His feet inside, he shone the light toward the door and closed it behind him—there was an identical combination lock on the inside. He wrenched the handle shut, twirling the lock. It was sealed.

Clipping the anglehead flashlight to the front of his shirt, he started to climb, one rung at a time, upward through the darkness. He stopped, before the second door, identical to the first. But only a simple steel bar was across it and he opened it, rubber gaskets on the door it-self and on the frame. Rourke crawled through. His feet past the door, he twisted in the narrow tunnel confines, wrenching the door closed behind him, the gaskets seal-ing.

He kept climbing through the darkness.

The light bouncing, jarring as he moved, he undipped it from the front of his shirt and shone it ahead. The third sealed doorway. Here too, a simple steel bar locked the door. Rourke started to reach for it, then shone the light to his belt, ripping one of the two snap-held double magazine pouches open, off his belt. He slipped the maga-zines from inside the pouch, opening the pouch’s belt slot. With the leather magazine pouch over his left hand like a glove. Rourke reached up for the door handle, twisting away the bar, then wrenching open the handle. The door slid to his right. Above him, the sky rumbled with thunderclaps, massive, unimaginably huge light-ning bolts cutting through the clouds, ball lightning roll-ing from horizon to horizon as he shouldered himself out of the escape tunnel.

Rourke crouched beside the opening at the top of the mountain, electricity arcing through the scrub brush. In the distance, he could see one of the Soviet helicopters crashing down, struck by the lightning, burning. Only one remained. Rourke started to his feet, running, crouched, toward the center of the mountaintop. His ra-dio aerial, camouflaged in a bracken of scrub pine.

Small patches of cloth were visible protruding partially from the inside of his shirt—red and white—as he touched at the flag.

Rourke reached for the antenna mast, electricity sparking from it, Rourke drawing back his hand.

Below him, far beneath the mountain, massive ball lightning rolled across the ground, the ground itself burning, the remaining Russian soldiers running, clothes burning, electricity arcing from their bodies, their heads, bodies exploding with it.

Rourke reached for the mast again, the leather maga-zine pouch protecting his hand. He started to tug at the cloth, pulling it from inside his shirt. Red. White. Red and white stripes. A blue field with white stars. A strong wind whipped across the mountaintop as Rourke secured the grommets on the flag to the antenna mast, the flag catching in the stiff wind, unfurling, blowing across the top of the mountain.

Rourke stepped back, staring out across the valley. The thunder seemed to be in waves, lightning bolts ripping the sky around him.

Out of the black sky, the last Soviet helicopter came. Rourke started toward the escape tunnel entrance. The helicopter was firing its machineguns, the rocks around Rourke’s feet chipping up, seeming to explode.

A missile launched from the gunship, a smoking trail. It exploded less than a dozen yards from the blowing flag. Rourke fell to the ground, the concussion stunning him. He started to push up to his feet. The flag was ripped, tattered—but still there. The Soviet helicopter was making a run, coming low, its coaxially mounted machineguns blazing, slugs impacting around the flag.

“No-o-o!” Rourke screamed the word, his hands flash-ing up to the twin stainless Detonics .45s, ripping them from the leather. On the horizon, the sky was burning, like a wave, the fire licking across the air, toward him, engulfing the ground.

Rourke could see inside the cockpit of the helicopter now, past the open cockpit door.

“Rozhdestvenskiy,” Rourke snarled. The rock floor beneath Rourke chewed up under the impact of the machinegun slugs, a small wound opening on Rourke’s left forearm as a rock chip impacted against it. Rourke stood unflinching, the pis-tols in his hands as the helicopter closed.

Rozhdestvenskiy was leaning out the cockpit door, a submachine-gun in his hands, firing.

Rourke shoved both gleaming Detonics .45s ahead of him at arm’s length, then started to fire, first the right pistol, then the left, then the right, then the left.

The helicopter was still coming. The slide locked back on the pistol in Rourke’s right hand—empty.

Rourke, his lips drawn back over his teeth, shouted, “God Bless America!” The pistol in his left hand dis-charged, Rozhdestvenskiy’s body lurching, twisting, the submachinegun in the KGB

colonel’s hands firing still, but into the helicopter.

The fire in the sky was rumbling toward Rourke as he started running toward the open hatch of the escape tunnel. He dove for the tunnel; the fire welled up and consumed the mountain, as it had the sky and the earth below …

Chapter Seventy-seven

He stood behind the figures of the mastodons, his left arm folded around the shoulders of Catherine—her body trembled.

General Ishmael Varakov waited.

He thought of his niece Natalia.

He thought of the girl beside him who loved him.

He thought of God if there was God and he hoped there was.

He could hear it. The thunder. Outside he could see the lightning in the storm blackened sky.

He had thought to await it staring out across the lake — destruction and beauty co-mingled.

But the museum was his home.

Varakov smiled at the thought.

He had found love in many places. He had found honor. He had found what he felt was truth.

General Varakov held Catherine more closely to him.

He saw it—the wave of fire as it belched through the open brass doors of the museum, washed over and through the mastodons—he did not scream as the fire engulfed him.

-end-