The End is Coming

Chapter Forty-five

It was as though he was trying to thread a surgi-cal needle, Rourke thought, sides wiping a pylon as he zigzagged his way through the underground. The police vehicles were closing. One of the mo-torcycles in the opposite lane now, coming up faster than he could risk driving the LTD through the obstacle course. Besides the normal obstacles of the pylons, abandoned cars littered the roadside on the building side to his right and the opening to the Chicago River on his left. Trash dumpsters, garbage cans, the bones and half-devoured bodies of dead animals—and men—were sprinkled about the road surface like discarded toys.

“Watch out for the seat there—if that dog left any fleas behind they could be carrying God knows what on them. This is contagion city—”

“We have sprayed—”

“Even the neutron bombing wouldn’t have done any good—these dogs couldn’t have survived that—like you said, they came from outside the city bringing fleas and ticks with them—stay as clear as you can of that part of the seat—and don’t touch your hands to your face or hair—I’ve got stuff in my pack that you can use to clean up.”

“That motorcycle—it’s coming up fast—the man in the sidecar—I think that’s an RPK light machine gun he’s got.”

“Wonderful,” Rourke rasped, glancing into his side-view mirror—the M-72 motorcycle/sidecar combination was a car’s length behind him now—the man in the sidecar manipulating a weapon, getting ready to fire.

Rourke still grasped the Detonics .45 in his right fist. He rammed it out the open driver’s side win-dow and fired it out, three rounds, the pistol rock-ing hard in his hand, his wrist bent to aim the gun. The motorcycle swerved, but wasn’t stopped.

Rourke gained a single car length.

His right thumb worked the slide stop down, the slide running forward as he rammed the pistol into his belt, empty.

Ahead of him, the tunnel seemed to be open-ing—it would be the underground section of the Michigan Avenue bridge, he realized. He started cranking the wheel left, machine gun fire hammer-ing into the driver’s side door, the rear end of the LTD fishtailing right, Natalia shouting, “Don’t move your head—”

The muzzle of an M-16 was shoved in front of him, between his face and the cracked and smeared windshield, fire from the muzzle, Rourke craning his head back, glancing left—Natalia had knocked out the LMG on the motorcycle/sidecar combination, the motorcycle itself spinning out, crashing against a pylon.

He started recovering the wheel, accelerating as he straightened out into the underground level of the bridge.

There was a humming sound, rubber tires over metal gratings, bouncing and thudding sensation as the Ford shot ahead.

In the rearview, he could see three police cars and two more motorcycles. He kept accelerating. Natalia screamed, “The bridge—there’s a nine-foot section out at the far side—John!”

“Shit!”

Rourke hammered the accelerator to the floor—his eyes searching through the darkness to find the hole in the bridge—and ahead, a darker patch than the darkness of the roadway, to his right a high curb. Rourke cut the wheel hard right, then left, the LTD skidding, the rear end swaying, the steering all but gone as he accelerated, the rear end impacting the curb as he turned away, two of the police cars coming at him, skidding as they tried to brake—one swerved left—crashing into the bridge supports, the second rocketed past him, Rourke nearly crashing the LTD into it broadside, the headlights there one instant then gone the next. As he fought the wheel, a fountain of river water sprayed up, spraying the LTD for an instant, but then the wheel was all the way left, Rourke heading away from the hole in the bridge, the third squad car and the two motorcycle units coming dead on, the biker units flanking the police car, consuming the entire width of the bridge.

“Gimme a gun!”

He reached out his right hand, feeling the mem-ory-grooved smooth Goncalo Alves stocks of one of her matched L-Frames coming into his palm. He switched the revolver to his left hand, ramming the hand out the driver’s side window, his right fist locked at the top of the wheel. Natalia was rolling over into the back seat, an M-16 in her hands as he glanced at her.

The LMG on the M-72 combination to Rourke’s left was firing, and then the LMG from the sidecar to his right—AKM fire streamed toward them from the passenger side of the solitary police car. Natalia’s assault rifle fire—it reverberated from the back seat, the sounds of empty brass pinging against the frame of the open window, Rourke’s left fist clenched tight on the L-Frame, his right rock-steady on the wheel to give as sure a firing platform as possible—he was aiming for the police car—aiming the LTD

straight at it.

The L-Frame in his left fist—he pumped the trigger, double-actioning two rounds toward the M-72

combination to his left. He fired twice more—the motorcyclist threw his hands out from his handlebars, slumping back, the machine gun-ner in the sidecar reaching for the bike’s controls suddenly, then jumping clear, Rourke shouting to Natalia, “Watch out!”

He cut the wheel hard left, evading the motorcy-cle, the combination crashing into one of the bridge supports to his left, Natalia’s M-16 still fir-ing as they passed the squad car, AKM fire ripping across the driver’s compartment, his windshield shooting out, the rearview mirror gone, the speed-ometer, the gas gauge—all of it shattered, a ribbon of bullet holes across the dashboard. Rourke accelerated—past the underground tun-nel running parallel to the river, into what looked like a box canyon of building walls ahead of him, shouting, “Natalia? You all right?”

“So far,” he heard her shout back to him.

“Hold on—flick turn,” and Rourke dropped the L-Frame to his lap, holding it between his legs, cutting the wheel sharply to the left as he stomped the emergency brake, locking the rear wheels, then popping the brake as the car rotated a full one hundred eighty degrees, accelerating as he fought the wheel, then flooring it as he aimed toward the last of the motorcycle combinations, the police car turning behind it. Rourke could see the face of the machine gun-ner in the sidecar—and then it was gone, Rourke rocking the wheel hard left, into the combination, then hard right and away, hearing a scream die on the slipstream, blood splattering the few shards of glass left in the windshield, Natalia’s M-16 firing again toward the oncoming police car, the AKM firing from the passenger window, Rourke’s left hand finding the L-Frame—two shots left.

He stabbed the revolver through the open wind-shield ahead of his face, his right fist white-knuck-led on the top of the Ford’s steering wheel.

He fired once, then once again, the windshield of the advancing police car shattering, Natalia’s M-16 fire increasing its rate—she had to have shot through a full magazine in seconds, he realized, but the gunfire continued, sparks coming from the police car’s hood, a stricken face suddenly visible behind the wheel as Rourke swerved the Ford to avoid a head-on collision, the LTD’s single head-light catching the face in freeze frame.

A bridge support—Rourke fought at the wheel—there was no response—he stomped the brakes, the rear end of the Ford fishtailing right, Rourke shouting to Natalia, “Hit the floor! Hit the floor!”

He held the wheel as long as he dared, then threw himself down to the floor over the hump, his body shuddering as he felt the impact, heard the twisting and tearing of steel. Smoke—he smelled gasoline fumes.

His back hurt a little—he pushed himself up.

Natalia was already up— “I’ve got the packs and everything—all the gear— “

“Out of the car and—”

“Run like hell,” she almost laughed, Rourke see-ing her streak through the rear driver’s side door and out, Rourke, the L-Frame in his belt now be-side the Detonics, half rolling, half falling from the driver’s side of the front seat.

On his feet, his hands grabbing at the lapels of the overcoat, ripping it free of his body as he ran—

He felt it—like a giant’s breath blowing at him, throwing himself to the road surface, shouting to Natalia,

“Down!”

He shielded his face and head, the roar of the explosion—the gas tank—deafening as it echoed from the steel of the bridge above him and below.

The bridge shook—Rourke’s mind raced—if it collapsed it collapsed—

The shaking stopped, and John Rourke looked up, the crackle of the fire from the LTD that had served them so well all that he could hear over the ringing in his ears. And Natalia was beside him—holding him.