The End is Coming

Chapter Forty-seven

Rourke threw himself toward the men, his left foot snaking out as he half wheeled right, the sole of his combat boot impacting a jaw in a double Tae-Kwon-Do kick, his right hand still holding the knife stabbing into a second man.

He finished the turn, his right foot in a short, jabbing kick to the groin of a third man, Rourke’s knife blade hacking upward, catching the nose and cheek—ripping flesh as blood sprayed. He wheeled again, his right elbow hammering back as a man came from his right flank, the point of his elbow contacting bone—Rourke hissing with the pain—but feeling bone crunch, not his own. He sidestepped, knifing another man in the throat, as a swordsman would make his lunge, Rourke’s left hand stabbing outward, the middle knuckle impacting beneath the nose of another man, breaking it, bringing the bone up and punc-turing the ethmoid bone—the nose driven up into the brain, the man’s eyes rolled as he fell back dead.

The knife in his right hand flashed again—slick and red and wet with blood now—chopping through the neck of another man.

And Rourke was beside Natalia, Natalia up, her knives working, cutting and stabbing. Rourke stabbed a man with a club—in the cen-ter of the adam’s apple—he withdrew the knife, finding a spare magazine for one of the .45s—one of the eight-round extension magazines. He but-toned out the magazine in the big Colt, losing it on the sidewalk, ramming the fresh magazine home, working down the slide stop—he fired point blank, shooting away the face of one of the attack-ers, the Gerber in his left fist now slashing out-ward—another man down.

He fired the .45 a second time and a third, two men going down— “An opening, John!”

It was Natalia—he looked to his right, pumping the trigger of the Colt again—another man down—an opening in the wall of attackers, Nata-lia running for it, Rourke almost shoving her ahead. He fired the .45 into the gaping mouth of a man with a machete—

Natalia was through the opening, the opening closing, Rourke hacking it open again with the knife, blasting it open with the remaining rounds in the magazine of his one loaded pistol. He was through, Natalia looking behind her as she ran—she was loading an M-16, perhaps twenty yards ahead of him.

He ran for her—Natalia shouted, “John—flat on the ground!”

Rourke threw himself forward and down, roll-ing, gunfire over his head, Natalia’s M-16, firing into the wall of attackers as they pursued.

On his back, Rourke dropped his knife, rammed the Colt into his belt, found the M-16—he snatched two spare magazines, both from the musette bag at his left side, buttoning out the spent magazine, letting it be lost, ramming one of the two fresh sticks up the well of the assault rifle, working the bolt release—

He was rolling again, Natalia’s rifle empty—

The Gerber in his left fist along with the spare thirty-round stick for the M-16, Rourke was up, pumping the M-16’s trigger, cutting down men in waves as they ran from the still burning barricade. And then Rourke started to run, firing out the stick, dropping the empty to the pavement, ram-ming the fresh one home, hands reaching for him—he hacked out with the knife, hearing a shriek of pain. He wheeled, firing point blank into four men, cutting them down.

The nearest of the pursuers was ten yards back—but there were dozens behind this nearest man. Rourke ran, Natalia running just ahead of him, her M-16 spitting three-round bursts—bright tongues of yellow light in the night—

Rourke’s breath was coming in gasps—his M-16 firing behind him, he ran. Michigan Avenue—Natalia turned right—in-stinctively, he thought, heading for the lake, for her uncle, despite the KGB, despite the fact that she was wanted—dead. Rourke was after her, firing out the M-16, drop-ping out the empty to the sidewalk, Natalia run-ning diagonally across Michigan Avenue, toward the park between Michigan Avenue and the lake, Rourke after, a fresh magazine going up the well of the M-16.

Behind him as he reached the opposite curb—the pursuers had stopped.

“John!”

Natalia’s hoarse whisper from the darkness be-side a statue.

Rourke ran to her, his stomach aching with the exertion, his breath in short gasps—he coughed, fresh loading the CAR-15 - he had lost three M-16 magazines—but he had plenty more. He had lost one .45

ACP magazine, standard Colt—but it had been an ordinary magazine and was not irreplace-able. They had burned he didn’t know how many hundred rounds of ammo.

“Get that—that—that—the eight hundred-round box—bottom of my pack—strapped there—reload magazines.”

He heard Natalia— “Yes.” He felt her working at his back to remove the ammo box. He dropped to his knees beside the statue, both Detonics pistols reloaded, the Colts—all three re-loaded as Natalia loaded thirty-round magazines from the box.

He started reloading his .45 magazines—the eight-round Detonics extension magazine, the smaller magazines for the little Detonics pistols— “What the hell stopped those crazy people?”

“We’re in Grant Park,” she answered. “The ur-ban Brigands I spoke of—these ones are armed, perhaps as well as we are. And they cut the heads off their victims to show they don’t like intruders. I don’t know where they live—but between here and the band shell—a no man’s land—not even our patrols will go into the park at night unless they have infrared equipment.”

Rourke looked at her, feeling sweat drip off his face. He found one of his cigars, chewed down on it, lit it—coughed as the smoke entered his lungs. “So between us and your uncle—more loonies?”

Natalia nodded, lighting a cigarette. “Yes—more—more of them.”

He wondered what they could be like—if the crazy men from the underground were afraid. “Let’s go—right up the middle,” he told her.