The Savage Horde

Chapter 54

Rourke heard the knock, looked up as he called, "Come in."

The door opened.

"Mind if we talk, Doctor Rourke?" Gunderson asked.

"Not a bit," Rourke told him. "You don't mind if I finished getting dressed?"

Rourke stood up, walking stocking footed across the cabin, getting his combat boots and sitting down again, stuffing first his right foot, then his left foot into the leather. He began to lace the right one. "What do you want to talk about?"

"Couple things. Major Tiemerovna for openers. She wants to go along."

"She's too weak," Rourke told him, looking up. "Too dangerous anyway."

"I'm letting her go—"

"Bullshit," Rourke told him.

"See, it doesn't matter to me that she's a Russian—she's not going to do anything to jeopardize you. So I can worry about her sense of duty to mother Russia after you find the warheads. She wouldn't take you on—she'd wait and take me on for them. You're going to need all the backup you can get."

"Your Lieutenant O'Neal—pretty good man. I'll have Paul—Paul Rubenstein."

"Yeah," Gundersen smiled. Rourke began tying his left boot. "But you'll also have Cole and three of his men. He wants to kill you as soon as you get to the missiles, maybe

before then. Everybody talks about you as a smart man—seems like it'd be kinda dumb for you to have missed that."

"I haven't missed it," Rourke smiled, looking up, then looking back to his boots. He stuffed the ends of the bootlaces into the tops of his boots, then stood up.

Rourke walked back to the bunk, taking a clean blue chambray shirt from where he'd set it earlier, pulling it on. "Rubenstein and Major Tiemerovna—been talking with both of them a lot. Seems like there's nobody better with a gun or knife or in any kinda fight than you—"

"They exaggerate a lot," Rourke told him.

"Understand the three of you fought a lot as a team."

"We've done a few things," Rourke nodded.

"She's going. So, you walk a little slower, put on a few less miles per day. The warheads have waited this long, they can wait a little longer. She's got every reason in the world to kill Cole—can't say I blame her. What started it between them?"

"He told her he was going to put her under arrest. She told him to go to hell.

He went to slap her—she flipped him. She could take on half your crew at once.

She's one of the best martial arts people I've ever seen. Most women who are good in martial arts couldn't compete with a man nearly as good—the strength factor. She's the exception. She can move faster, think faster—"

"And then one of Cole's men shot her?"

"Yeah," Rourke said through his teeth.

"I gave her her guns back—you don't want her to go, you try takin' 'em away from her. Funny thing," and Gundersen looked down at the floor a moment, then Rourke watched his eyes as he looked up. "That Captain Cole—got orders signed by President Chambers, and she's admittedly a KGB agent. We're at war with Russia.

Thing that's funny—asked myself why I trust her more than him."

"One of his men," Rourke began, his voice low. He

stood up, stuffing his shirt into his pants, then closing his pants and his belt. "Before he died." Rourke picked up the double Alessi rig, the holsters empty. He raised his arms, letting the shoulder holsters fall into place. He picked up one of the Detonics pistols, working the slide, chambering the top round off the magazine. Slowly, carefully, he lowered the hammer, beginning to insert the gun in the holster under his left armpit. "One of his men told me before he died—Cole isn't who he says he is, whatever the hell that means."

Rourke repeated the ritual for the second pistol, bolstering it as well. "Could be those aren't presidential orders—looks like Sam Chambers' signature though."

"Major Tiemerovna—she'd have told you if Cole were a Russian."

"If she knew—since she started helping me, she's been coming under suspicion from her own people—nothing so much she's talked about, just what she hasn't talked about."

"You saying Cole could be a Communist and she wouldn't know?"

"She's KGB—there's still the GRU, lots of initialed organizations in Soviet Intelligence. And maybe it's something else. Can't see why the Russians would recruit a U.S. nuclear submarine to do this—why not land some troops?"

"Maybe they want to fire the missiles—maybe at China—use this as a surprise base—so the Chinese won't pick them up on long range radar."

"Four hundred and eighty megatons is enough to destroy a lot—maybe a really large city totally destroyed. Not enough to stop the Chinese though. Understand they're giving the Russians a hard time of it. But a plan like that'd be stupid."

"I tried contacting U.S. II—electrical interference in the upper atmosphere must be too strong for my radio equipment. You say the word, I'll pull the plug on Captain Cole

and throw him in irons."

Rourke laughed, securing the Sting IA in its sheath on the left side of his belt inside the band of his Levis.' 'You really still have irons on board ships?"

"Well," Gundersen laughed. "Figure of speech. You get my drift, Rourke?"

"Yeah," Rourke nodded. "No—" His teeth were clenched—he could feel them as he spoke. "No—Cole's a ringer, or a Communist—or maybe something else—I'm sure of that. But we'll never find out what's going on unless we let him play out his hand."

"You play poker much, Doctor Rourke?"

"Used to play a lot with my kids—they'd always win," Rourke answered.

"Weil—heard this line in a western once—you're drawin' against an inside straight—with Cole, I mean. He knows what he's doing—enough to leave his own men strung out there while you and Rubenstein tried saving them, then show up just in time for the last rubber boat out. It's important that he gets to the warheads—"

"And I'm the one Armand Teal will believe. He can't touch me until we reach Filmore Air Force Base and find out if Teal's still alive. I'm safe 'til then.

All I gotta do is worry about those crazy-assed wildmen."

Gundersen stood up. "That's why she's going with you—for after you reach Filmore."

"I don't want her along—those stitches—"

"You told me six hours ago her stitches were nearly healed. She was practically back to normal."

Rourke licked his lips, buckling on the flap holster with the Python. He said nothing. Gundersen left.

Rourke looked at himself in the mirror—three handguns, a knife. It wouldn't be enough.