The Quest

Chapter 34

A motorcyclist was closing in on him. Rourke sidestepped and, as the cyclist missed him by a good two feet, Rourke swung the CAR-15 from the muzzle like a baseball bat, notching the Soviet motorcyclist on the chin and knocking him from the bike. The bike rolled ahead a few yards and spun out.

Rourke snatched a fresh thirty-round magazine for the CAR-15 and rammed it home, shoving the empty in his belt, holstering the Colt .45 Automatic as he ran for the bike, wrestling the bike up and kick-starting it, still settling himself across it as the wheels were already beginning to move.

The CAR-15 slung from his right shoulder and out of the way, Rourke revved the bike, taking it in a wide circle as other Soviet motorcycle troopers started toward him, closing in.

He caught a glimpse of a man standing by the staff car he’d seen earlier, but now on this side of the parking lot, field glasses in front of his face.

“I’ll give you a good show, pal,” Rourke muttered to himself, getting the RPMs up on the Soviet motorcycle and turning off sharply left, heading toward the green of the grassy knoll on the far side of the lot. He hadn’t done the hell-for-leather kind of hill climbing for years, he thought, his hands like vises on the bike, getting every ounce from the gears that he could as he bent low over the machine for the run toward the knoll, then reaching up as he hit the incline, swaying his balance from side to side, his feet going out, supporting him, then pulling up, skittering along over the grass as he jumped the lip of concrete onto the upper-level parking lot. More of the motorcycle troopers were there, and trucks loaded with troops, the men spilling from them and swarming toward him. Rourke curved the bike, slowing it, firing the CAR-15 across his body at them, then letting the rifle hang at his side, revving the bike, going low over the handlebars. He started toward the knoll again. There were as many as a dozen of the Soviet motorcycle troopers starting up the knoll toward him, and Rourke cut his wheel left, veering away from the knoll, exited from the parking lot blocked by trucks at the far end. A cloud of orange rolled toward him, and he glanced from side to side. Most of the Soviet troopers were wearing gas masks.

He veered the bike left, a line of six Soviet cyclists coming toward him, the CAR-15 in his hand, firing, like knights he thought, jousting, but with guns rather than lances.

Two of the Soviet troopers went down and he fired again, cutting his power, grinding the bike to a halt, bending low over one of the dead soldiers, snatching the gas mask from the dead man’s face, pulling it in place over his own face, then he jumped back on the motorcycle and started back toward the knoll.

The orange cloud was rolling toward him, obscuring his view. He angled the bike away from it and across the parking lot, a dozen bikers coming in single rank at speed toward him. He veered the bike left again and toward the knoll.

Flattening himself, low over the handlebars, the wind whistling across the gas mask making a howling sound in his ears, the throb of the motor between his legs shuddered through his frame.

Six of the Soviet motorcycle troopers, just below the lip of the knoll—Rourke couldn’t stop, revved the bike and jumped it, soaring out over their heads, the bike landing hard, shuddering under him, the front wheel not reacting to his hands, the bike skidding away from him, Rourke spilling from it, slithering across the parking lot surface, his face numbed on the left side. His left arm pained him, the CAR-15 was gone from his shoulder.

Rourke tried to push himself up as he ripped away the gas mask. He couldn’t get past his knees, a dozen of the Soviet foot soldiers now rushed him, the Colt Government .45 coming into his right hand, spitting all the death he could muster, his left hand snatching the Detonics under his right arm, the hammer jerking back under his thumb, the stainless .45 bucking in his hand as he pumped the trigger.

The Colt fell from his right fist, empty. And he snatched the second Detonics, firing it point blank into the first wave of the Soviet soldiers.

They were falling, but the gun in his left hand was empty. He fired the last round from the Detonics in his right hand, then spun the pistol on the trigger guard, hammering the butt down on the face of the nearest of the Soviet troopers, his left hand snatching the M-16 bayonet from his belt, driving it forward into one of the Russians, catching it into the throat and ripping, then drawing it out, the blood-tinged Parkerized blade ramming forward into another of the soldier’s midsection. The Detonics gone from his right hand, Rourke staggered to his feet, the A.G. Russell Sting IA in his right hand, slashing.

There was a ring of men around him now and a knife in each of his hands. “You want me alive,” Rourke snapped, “then pay for it!” The soldiers closed on him, Rourke’s hands and arms working like pistons, driving the knife blades, slashing. Men fell, stumbling and dying around him. The bayonet was gone, stuck in somebody’s chest, and he swung the Sting IA in a wide arc, the Soviet soldiers edging away as Rourke spun in a circle with the knife outstretched, the men closing again. He rammed the knife into somebody’s stomach and tried getting it out. His right arm went numb as a rifle butt crashed down on it. He snatched at the nearest man, his left hand going for the throat, his fist tightening on the front of it and crushing the windpipe, his right knee driving upward into another man’s groin, his right arm, still numb, swinging in front of him.

Someone had him around the knees, and Rourke hammered his left fist down in what, as a kid, he’d thought was a dirty rabbit punch. The pressure around his knees relaxed and Rourke threw his left fist forward, his knuckles splitting as he smashed out somebody’s teeth, his numb right arm pushing away a snarling face inches from his, his left knee ramming into another man’s groin.

Rourke started to fall back, kicking now as his feet went out from under him. A foot kicked into the side of his head; unconsciousness started to wash over him. He spotted the Sting IA on the ground, snatched at it and rammed it straight up, the blade hammering into the mouth of the man nearest him, blood spraying across Rourke’s face, angry shouts from the men around him. Rourke started pushing himself up as the knot of soldiers pulled back for an instant, then he turned. There was a rifle butt coming at him and he ducked, throwing his head into the stomach of the man to his left, knocking the Soviet trooper to the ground, then feeling the pressure of bodies on top of him. The soldier beneath Rourke was screaming, Rourke’s left hand knotted on the man’s face, twisting at it, gouging.

Rourke rolled, several of the soldiers still clinging to him. He tried to push himself up. A tall man hurtled at Rourke and Rourke sprawled back.

Suddenly, it was Rourke and the tall soldier, everyone else backed away in a tight circle. The man’s face was bloodied, his voice taut with emotion, his English bad, but intelligible. “I cannot kill you. I beat you though.” Rourke edged back a step, the soldier coming at him in a rush, Rourke sidestepping, his right foot coming up, the toe smashing into the soldier’s groin, then the knee hammering upward into the soldier’s jaw, missing the mouth. Rourke stumbled back. Someone behind him threw him forward.

The big Russian was up, his mouth bleeding heavily, his fists raised almost like a nineteenth-century pugilist. Rourke started for him, but the Russian’s left fist smashed forward, catching Rourke on the right side of the head, the blow stunning him. The Russian dropped his guard and moved in. Rourke thought the Russian shouldn’t have done that.

Rourke’s left foot smashed upward, the upper part of his foot connecting square into the Russian’s groin. The big man’s black eyes bulged, his body stumbling forward as he doubled over. Both Rourke’s fists doubled together and swung down across the man’s exposed neck. The Russian fell. The soldiers ringed around Rourke, closing in, then suddenly parting in a wave to his right.

Fulsom’s face, his shoulder a mass of blood, but he was alive. Beside him was the man Rourke had seen with the binoculars, the officer holding a pistol in his gloved right hand, the binoculars swinging almost lazily from his neck like a tourist. The muzzle of the pistol was flush against Fulsom’s right temple.

“Rourke, stop or I fire. You understand?”

Rourke glared at the man, then saw the hammer drawn back under the officer’s thumb.

“Your round,” Rourke almost whispered, shaking his aching head to clear it.