The End is Coming

Chapter Thirty-eight

Both Detonics pistols were empty as they reached the tunnel mouth, Rourke shoving Nata-lia ahead of him, then jumping after her, hitting the dirt surface of the tunnel floor hard, on knees and elbows crawling inside as the ground around him rippled with the plowing effect of the machine gun bursts. He looked up at Natalia—she was changing sticks for all three M-16s. As he worked down the slide stop, ramming both Detonics pistols into his belt, empty, taking one of the M-16s from her, he rasped, breathless— “That fuse is lit—maybe a minute—” he sank forward, breathing hard.

“I know—run like hell,” she laughed.

He looked at her, felt himself grin. “You got it.”

And she was up, stooped over, but running, Rourke firing a burst from the M-16 through the tunnel mouth then running.

The heavy thudding of machine gun fire and the lighter reports of the AKMs was an echo behind them, now the echo diminishing.

But the Soviets would be following if they hadn’t noticed the fuse and shooting down the straight line of the tunnel, and he and Natalia would be slaughtered.

If they had noticed the fuse. . . .

He heard the gunfire, louder than it should have been, shoving Natalia down ahead of him, throw-ing his body over hers as bullets tore into the dirt and rock walls of the small tunnel, cut waves and ripples across the dirt of the tunnel floor.

Then he heard, feeling it almost before the ac-tual noise reached his ears, burrowing his body even more across hers, his chest over her head, Rourke’s hands going to his ears. The tunnel floor trembled, shook—seemed to be twisting under them. The concussion dying, Rourke pushed himself up, dragging Natalia to her feet, shoving her ahead. He looked back once—a wall of flames behind him.

They were safe, at least until they reached the end of the tunnel and came out through the mouth of the small cave—at least until then.

And the KGB unit behind them—unless some had run for safety through the blown-out steel doors, they would all be dead. Where the dyna-mite had been situated, it would have torn the ma-chinery to bits, then propelled it in a wave of shrapnel that would have destroyed anyone in its path. He swallowed hard—but kept running.