The Web

I

the AKM across his lap.

He had never been in mass combat before.

The helicopter gunship was hovering, then dropping, gliding forward slightly and stopping.

He felt the lurch, felt the impact; then he released the restraint harness, throwing open the side door and stepping out near a squad of the commandos already on the ground, his own personal KGB team surrounding him.

"We enter the factory. Follow me!" He started to run, remembering as he ran to raise the rifle into an assault position.

The gates of the factory complex were locked with a chain, a massive padlock securing them.

"Stand back." He raised the assault rifle, firing into the lock. The sound of the jacketed slugs tearing into the metal of the lock was deafening, but the lock seemed to have been broken.

He reached for it, feeling the heat of the metal despite the gloves he wore, wrenching it open, then twisting it free of the chain.

"Get the gates opened—now!"

The chain-link twelve-foot gates swung inward, and Rozhdestvenbkiy stepped into the service drive of Morris Industries—a giant step, he felt, in history.

He started to run, shouting again, "Follow me!" Above him, there was a spectacular burst, a skyrocket of blue and red and gold in a starburst, massive, exquisite.

He continued running, reaching a set of double doors. They would be locked. He raised the assault rifle again, firing into the locking mechanism. A burglar alarm sounded.

"Idiots," he shouted, then reached the doors, twisting

on the outside handle, wrenching the door open outward. He stepped into the factory complex, his men surrounding him. The building was in reality a series of interconnecting buildings.

"The loading docks," he shouted, then started running. It the materials he sought would he anywhere, they would be by the loading docks. There would be time then to search out precisely where they were manufactured. Gray light shafted through wire mesh-reinforced glass windowpanes as he ran the length of the first building; and occasionally through one of the windows as he looked out, he could see fireworks in the sky—more rockets, more starbursts. Were the people here insane?

He reached the end of a long corridor, already breathless from the running. Glancing to right and then to left, he looked right again.

"There—hurry." For some reason, some reason he couldn't understand, he felt the need to hurry that much greater each time one of the skyrockets would explode. He felt—he couldn't define it.

Ahead of him he saw massive garage doors of corrugated metal, and between the doors and the corridor through which he ran, he could see crates—coffin-shaped and roughly the same size. He stopped running, leaning heavily against the wall, his breath coming in short gasps.

"Victory," he shouted. "The final victory over the Americans!" Suddenly the glass from the wire-meshed corridor windows shattered over his head, shards of it falling on and around him.

He stepped away from the wall, looking through the corridor windows into the dawning sky—a huge starburst, the largest firework he had ever seen—pale colors against a pale sky. And the concrete beneath him began to

tremble, the walls to shake, dust and infinitesimally small chunks of debris drifting down.

"My God!" Where had he learned that? he thought. "They're blowing it up!"

He started to run, the crates— the precious crates—behind him. Survival was more immediate now as the cross supports began crumbling and a three-foot section of concrete killed the commando beside him—just beside him.

Squads of assault rifle-armed Soviet infantrymen were pouring through the streets.

"Damn it," Rourke rasped, both of the twin Detonics stainless .s in his fists. Suddenly, the ground beneath him began to rumble, to shake.

He glanced at the black luminous face of the Rolex Submariner on his left wrist, then squinted skyward— full dawn. The explosions had begun just as Martha Bogen had said they would.

There was no time now—no chance to save the town. Russian troops—why?

The explosions. Already, in the distance near the high peaks of the rim of the valley, he could see rock slides starting.

He had waited near the school, still several blocks from Martha Bogen's house—and the garage where his Harley should still be hidden.

But waiting for the Soviet troops to clear the street in front of him would be suicidal now.

Thumb-cocking both pistols, he started to run, the ground shaking beneath him still more violently.

Gunfire. Soviet AK series assault rifles, firing toward

him, glass shattering in the louvered classroom windows beside him as he jumped a hedgerow, running.

Rourke wheeled beside a concrete vertical support for a portico rooi. He fired the pistol in his right hand, then the pistol in his left, bringing down an assault rifle-armed soldier. The man's body spun, his assault rifle firing wildly, into his own men.

Rourke started to run again. Past a flagpole. During the day there would have been an American flag there and a Kentucky state flag as well.

He was nearly to the street beyond the school front lot. The ground trembled again.

He tried envisioning what the men and women of the town would have done to ensure their mass suicide. The ground trembled again and he saw a black disk sail skyward out of the street. There had been a large natural-gas storage area. . . .

"Natural gas," he rasped, throwing himself to the grassy ground beneath him.

The gunfire, the shouts, the commands in Russian and in English to halt—all were drowned out. Rourke dropped his pistols, covering his ears with his hands.

The street a hundred yards ahead of him was a sea of flame, chunks of paving hurtling skyward. They had mined the gas system.

Rourke grabbed for his pistols, pushing himself to his feet, running, stumbling, running again. A line of explosions—smaller ones—ripped through the road ahead of him in series. He had to cross the road to reach Martha Bogen's house on the other side.

He ran, bending into the run, arms distended at his sides. The gunfire resumed from behind him; he couldn't hear it, but could see the grass and dirt near his feet

chewing up under it.

He hit the pavement, still running, the explosions gutting the road drawing closer. Debris—bits of tarmac and cement and gravel—rained down on him. His hands, the pistols still in them, were over his head to protect it.

The road was now twenty-five yards away; his body ached; the waves of nausea and cold were starting to take hold.

"Narcan," he rasped. He needed the Narcan shot. He tripped, sprawling, pushed himself up, then ran on.

Ten yards. He was feeling faint, sick, the morphine was taking hold of him again.

Five yards. He jumped, the street ripping as a manhole cover less than a dozen yards to his right sailed skyward, roaring up on a tongue of flame.

The street behind him exploded and he was thrown forward.

Rourke rolled, still clutching his pistols.

He started to his knees, hearing—not hearing but feeling—something behind him.

He wheeled, hitting the road surface, firing both pistols simultaneously.

Two Soviet troopers fired at him; the ground beside him erupted under the impact of their slugs, both men going down under the impact of his.

He stumbled to his feet, lurching, feeling as though he would black out.

Rourke rammed both pistols, cocked and locked, into his wide trouser belt, then snatched at the injection kit inside his shirt against his skin. His hands shook, cold and nausea making his head reel. He dropped to his knees. The Narcan injection was in his right hand.

He looked beyond his hand as he tested the syringe.

"Man with a gun—Russian," he rasped, telling himself to act, forcing his body to respond. His left hand—he

could feel the slowness—found the butt of one of his pistols.

Automatically, he swept the left thumb around behind the tang of the Detonics to reach for the safety on the left side of the frame. He worked it down as the Russian soldier raised his assault rifle.

Rourke's right hand worked toward his left arm, the sleeve pulled up already—he had planned ahead as he a/ways did.

He started raising his left arm, as if both sides of his brain were taking separate control of him. He tried squinting at the sights a moment, seeing the hypodermic come into his line of fire.

His right hand jabbed the hypo into his left forearm.

"Aagh," he shouted, feeling the change sweep over him, seeing the slow-motion movement in his left hand as the thumb moved back around the tang, out of the way of the slide.

He was suddenly back—cold and sweating, but back, his mind working. His left first finger worked the trigger and the Detonics bucked hard in his hand.

The Soviet trooper's assault rifle fired skyward as his body twisted, almost as in a dance, then crumpled to the roadside.

Rourke pushed himself to his feet. That had been the last Narcan shot, but the last he should need. He snatched at the other pistol in his belt, worked down the safety and—he could not run again—he started into a loping walk to the curb.

Rourke assessed his surroundings—head left. He started that way. It was at least another block, maybe two. The B-complex shot would start working soon after he administered it—after he got to it.

The nausea was passing, the coldness subsiding; his

head ached and his muscles ached.

As he increased his stride, more explosions rocked the ground beneath him.

Glass, in windows on both sides of the street he loped into, shattered; fires erupted everywhere.

Another manhole cover sailed skyward on a column of flame and Rourke jumped away, the explosion ringing in his ears, debris falling like rain on him.

He rolled onto his back, protecting his face with his left forearm.

He had to run. He rolled onto his knees, then pushed himself up, starting forward, lurching into a ragged, long-strided run.

More gunfire behind him. He wheeled, almost losing his balance. He pumped a shot at hip level with the Detonics in his right fist, downing a Soviet soldier at the end of the block.

He turned and kept running.

He could see the house—white frame with green vines growing up the round columns on the front porch. Rourke could see the driveway; his bike would be in the garage at the end of it.

Still running, he glanced behind him. No one. Perhaps the Russians were getting out while they still could.

More explosions. Rourke glanced up, toward the rim of the valley; rock slides were everywhere, the very faces of the peaks changing, seeming to melt away.

Rourke turned up the driveway, running harder now, sweating. The garage door—ten yards, five . . . He stopped. It would be locked. He raised both pistols, firing the one in his right hand, then the one in his left. The garage-door lock shattered as he loped and lurched forward. He fell against the door.

Jamming the pistols into his belt, he wrenched the door handle, twisting it, shoving it up, letting the door slide out of sight.

The jet black Harley—he saw it. Rourke stumbled toward it. His gear looked untouched.

He snatched at the CAR-wrapped inside a blanket and a piece of ground cloth.

He ripped the covering away, then searched the musette bag slung on the handlebars, he found a thirty-round magazine, rammed it up the well, and eared back the bolt handle.

He let the bolt slide forward.

"Come on," he rasped, staring out into the street. He could hear the sounds of more explosions; the gas lines were still going, of their own accord now.

Rourke slung the CAR-cross-body from his left shoulder, under his right arm.

He started searching the Lowe pack and found his medical kit, the injection kit inside it. Rourke opened that, taking the B-complex syringes and jabbing one into his left forearm.

He dropped to his knees, trying to even his breath.

Her jaw hurt where the man, John, had hit her. On her knees, on the window seat in the main room of the library overlooking the street and the post office beyond, she wrang a handkerchief in her hands, red hearts embroidered on it, a gift from her husband years ago.

There were fires all over the city; she was afraid of fire.

Everyone else was with someone, safe, ready to die. John was out there in the streets, somewhere. He wouldn't make it; she knew that. She had nursed for her husband often enough to know that in hib condition, he would be too weak (o travel far. She had never even told him the secret paths through the valley to reach beyond the mountains.

He would die alone; she would die alone.

She wondered what his last name was.

He hadn't hit her because he hated her. It was because he hadn't wanted to die with her.

"I hope you live, John," she said, suddenly feeling a weight slip from her.

The manhole cover in the street outside rocketed skyward, the flame under it rising, spreading. The floor under her shook; the plate-glass window in front of her shattered.

She had one more injection—one she had saved in her desk drawer.

It would make her sleep. She gave it to herself, letting the needle fall from her hand, her hands bloody from the glass that had cut her as the window shattered around her.

There was a cool wind and as she closed her eyes, she could see her dead husband's stern face. He was scolding her for what she had tried to do, but there was love in his eyes. &#; · .

Rourke settled himself on the seat of the Harley, the motor purring under him, the tanks full, the Detonics stainless .s reloaded and holstered in the Alessi rig across his shoulders. He was slightly cold—the exhaustion, the drugs coursing through his veins. The collar of his Drown leather jacket was snapped up.

Under the jacket he carried the musette bag on his left side, spare magazines for the Detonics pistols and for the CAR-slung under his right arm.

On his right hip was the Python, Metalifed and Mag-Na-Ported; spare ammo for the big Colt was in the musette bag, too, in Safariland Speedloaders.

There were Soviet troops on the ground, Soviet helicopters in the air above. The ground beneath him trembled. Fire was everywhere—in the houses on both sides of the street, a wind whipping it up as he looked out of the garage.

He had been breathing, slowly, evenly, getting the house (hat was his body in order, summoning up the reserves of strength he would need.

It was that or die.

His left fist worked in the clutch, his right throttled

out, and the Harley started ahead.

With his right thumb he worked the CAR-'s safety off, then moved his left hand quickly, securing the dark-lensed aviator-style sunglasses.

He squinted through them as he braked in the middle of the street.

In an inside pocket of his leather jacket were some of his dark tobacco cigars.

He took one and placed it between his teeth, rolling it into the left corner of his mouth, unlit.

"Ready," he whispered to himself.

He throttled the Harley, working through the gears, lowering his frame across that of the bike, reaching the end of the street, making a sharp right, then accelerating again. In his mind's eye he could see the way he'd entered the town and that was the only way he knew to leave it.

He passed the post office. As he cut another left, into the street angling past the library, it was a sea of flames.

"Martha," he rasped, looking away as he gunned the jet black Harley ahead.

Despite it all, he felt a sadness for the woman.

Soviet troops on the right, two of them aflame from the gas fires, three of them wheeling toward him, started to fire their assault rifles. Rourke gave the Harley gas then shifted his grip to the CAR-. Firing rapid two-round semiautomatic bursts, he nailed the nearest of the men, then the one behind him.

Gunfire from the third man's assault rifle ripped into the street surface beside him. Rourke throttled out, cutting a broad arc as he made a hard right, then angled off the street and into the grassy shoulder paralleling it, Fires still raged on the far side by the school building. Soviet troops ran haphazardly about, an officer in their

midst; Rourke spotted him, a tall man, his hat gone, his face dirt-smudged.

There was an overturned jeep, and though the officer called to his men, they were scattering. The officer was tugging at something under the jeep.

Rourke sped past, glancing left, seeing a form half under the jeep, the officer working with a pry bar, trying to get someone out.

Rourke slowed the Harley, cutting a wide arc. The jeep was close to the fires raging down the center of the street; the grass on the far side of it was burning.

"Shit," Rourke rasped, gunning the Harley back toward the jeep.

The officer dropped the pry bar, snatching at a full-flap military holster on his right hip.

Rourke slowed the bike, stopping, the CAR-pointed straight at the Russian.

"Shoot me, then. But first help me get this man out; he's still alive!"

Rourke said nothing. His right thumb flicked the safety of the CAR-on, and he let down the Harley's stand, the engine cut off.

He walked toward the Russian, saying, "I'm ill—not as strong as I usually am. You work the pry bar; I'll pull him out."

"Agreed." The Soviet officer nodded.

The man—a major, Rourke noticed—ieaned against the pry bar. Rourke dropped to his knees in the street beside the injured man pinned under the overturned jeep.

An older man—a senior noncom of some kind. The face, unconscious, was pleasant-looking.

Rourke grabbed the man's shoulders, "Now, Major," Rourke ordered, feeling the jeep rising slightly beside

him, hearing the groaning as the Soviet officer strained on the pry bar.

Rourke put his own right shoulder to the end of the overturned jeep, then threw his weight back, sprawling backward into the street with the older man, getting him clear as the jeep fell.

"I could not hold it anymore!"

Rourke ignored the officer, looking to the older man. "He's gonna need a hospital and quick."

"There are helicopters—cargo helicopters. They can be used for the wounded."

"You get him outa here fast," Rourke rasped. "This whole town's gonna blow."

"What are you doing?" The major's right hand went out to Rourke's right forearm.

Rourke shook it away, then opened the leather case which had Martha Bogen's shot kit.

"Morphine," Rourke rasped. "Relax. Vm a doctor. Put a compression bandage on that right leg—not a tourniquet unless you want him to lose it." Rourke pulled his knife, then cut at the noncom's sleeves, first the right, then the left, using one sleeve folded over as a bandage, the second to secure it to the leg. "Not too tight. Looks like you've got somebody to baby-sit with, Major." Rourke stood up.

The Soviet officer's right hand moved and Rourke started for his rifle, but the hand was extending toward him.

Rourke took it.

"I should arrest you—or have you shot."

"That last part"—Rourke smiled—"I was kinda thinkin the same thing myself. But I'll pass on it."

Rourke loosed the Soviet major's hand and turned to walk away. There was a chance the man would pull a gun

and shoot; Rourke decided he wasn't going to count it a possibiiiiy.

He stepped aboard the Harley, gunning the engine to life, Setting up the kick stand.

The major was looking to his injured sergeant.

Rourke gunned the Harley ahead. . . .

He was at the end of the town now. Only the road leading up into the mountains and out of the valley was ahead.

Explosions rocked the ground under and around him, and behind him there was a growing fire storm, already edging into the wooded area around the town.

He looked at the town one more time—Bevington, Kentucky. "Sad," he murmured, then started the Harley up ahead.

The road was steep going; rock slides were starting to his right, his attention focusing there as he steered the Harley around boulders that had already strewn the road.

Overhead, above the thundering of the explosions and the hissing roar of the fire storm behind him, he heard a sound—familiar. He glanced skyward—helicopters.

"That's what I get for being a good Samaritan," he rasped, shaking his head. But he didn't blame the major, or the injured sergeant. Like most things in life, he thought, gunning the Harley on, the exhaust ripping under him and behind him, there was no one to blame.

The helicopters were clearly after him; he didn't know why. Maybe the KGB, he thought—but why had they been in Bevington, Kentucky, to begin with?

He swung the CAR-around, the safety off. There was a sharp bend in the road and Rourke took it at speed, cutting a sharp left onto the shoulder because half the

width of (he road was strewn with boulders. There was a rumbling sound to his left and Rourke looked that way— a rock slide, shale and boulders skidding down for as far as he could see, a rock slide paralleling the roadway.

"Shit," he rasped, glancing up at the helicopters. There was a chattering sound; he didn't have to look again. Machine-gun fire.

The road dipped, Rourke accelerating into the grade. The rock slide was coming inexorably closer, closer. The area to his right was heavily wooded; fire swept through it.

Rourke skidded the bike hard left, then right, avoiding a deer that ran from the flaming forest on his right. He accelerated, the rock slide still coming.

Machine-gun fire tore into the road beneath him, bullets ricocheting off the rocks to his left.

The road took a fast cut left and Rourke arced the Harley into it. As he hit the straightaway, he twisted in the Harley's saddle, the CAR-—stock retracted— pointing skyward at the nearest of the helicopters. He let off a fast semiauto burst—six shots in all. The helicopter pilot pulled up.

Rourke let the rifle drop to his side on the sling, then throttled out the Harley, the rim of the valley in sight, perhaps a mile ahead.

Gravel and smaller rocks were pelting at him, hammering against the road surface, their effect almost indistinguishable from the machine-gun fire from the choppers above. The fire on his right was up to the roadside, and the trees flanking the road on his right were torches, columns of fire; the heat from them scorched at his skin as he drove his machine upward—toward the rim of the valley.

Massive boulders were falling now. Rourke steered the bike around them as they impacted on the road before him. A tree, still a mass of flames, fell; Rourke gunned the Harley full throttle, his body low over the handlebars, as he passed under it, burning branches and chips of bark spraying his hands, his face, his clothing.

Rourke squinted back, beyond the burning tree trunk and skyward. The helicopters were still coming.

He cut the Harley sharp left, taking the grade that would take him to the rim, boulders rolling across the road before him now, missing him by inches, the Harley's exhaust like a cannon, like a trumpet, strident, tearing at his eardrums, the wind of the slipstream lashing at him, hot from the fire raging to his right.

More machine-gun fire, the helicopters above him now, one of them ahead of him.

Rourke couldn't free a band to shoot back. The very fabric of the mountains was crashing down toward him, dust and smoke in a cloud around him as he hit the rim.

Rourke skidded the bike into a tight turn, breaking, balancing the machine with his feet as he stopped it, tele* scoping the stock, then shouldering the CAR-. There was no escape from the helicopters, as he had just escaped the rock slides and the fire storm.

He rammed a fresh thirty-round stick into theColt and ripped away the scope covers, sighting on the nearest of the bubble domes as the helicopter closed with him, machine-gun bullets ripping into the dirt and rocks around him.

"Come in, Colonel! Borozeni calling Colonel Rozhdestvenskiy. Come in.

Ground to air ... come in!"

There was no answer, then, "Major Borozeni . . . Lieutenant Tiflis calling Major Borozeni!"

"Come in, Tiflis, over."

"Comrade Major, we cannot contact Colonel Rozhdestvenskiy. . . . What are the orders? Over."

"Tiflis, bring your helicopters back." Tiflis had commanded the helicopter force, not the special gunship fleet that had brought in Rozhdestvenskiy's commando team for seizing the factory, but the medivac and cargo helicopters. "Tiflis, listen carefully. . . . Use your radio. . . . It's stronger. Contact the entire helicopter fleet. ... I am assuming command in the apparent absence of Colonel Rozhdestvenskiy. Over."

"Yes, Comrade Major. Over."

"Tiflis." Borozeni remembered to work the push-to-talk button on his radio. 'Tiflis, contact me on how many ships. . . . We have hundreds of wounded. . . . Hurry. Out."

"Tiflis out, Comrade Major."

There was only static. Borozeni glanced down to the

unconscious sergeant beside him. Borozeni's knee ached. He shifted position, but could not move his bloodstained right hand lest the bleeding increase. He assumed the man on the motorcycle really had been a doctor—or at least had known what heM talked about. The shot of morphine had helped the sergeant.

"Tiflis to ground. Tiflis to ground command." "Borozeni here. . . . What is it, Tiflis?" 'Tiflis to ground ... All but four—repeat four, Comrade Major—all but four of the helicopters returning. . . . Landing will begin in two minutes. Tiflis over." "We need them all. . . . What are they doing? Over." "In pursuit of man riding motorcycle out of valley, Comrade Major . . . May be the American agent Rourke, wanted by KGB. Over."

Borozeni smiled. A man on a motorcycle. So his name was Rourke. "Tiflis, tell the commanders of those four ships to—" 'Tiflis out."

Borozeni worked the push-to-talk button, then stared skyward at the chopper. What had happened? "Tiflis to ground . . . Tiflis to ground . . .

Over."

"What was the meaning of that? Borozeni over." "Tiflis to ground . - - The suspected American agent just shot at the helicopters, Comrade Major.

Over."

"Tell them to pull back ... or I will personally have them on report to General Varakov. Borozeni out." Borozeni smiled, murmuring in English, "Even."

Rourke squeezed a single shot toward the dome of the nearest helicopter, the ground around him now erupting with the impact of the machine-gun fire from the four gunships.

Squinting through the three-power Colt scope, he could see the glass dome take the impact of the slug. Rourke fired again, the recoil hammering at his right shoulder, his arms almost too tired to hold up the gun. The glass spiderwebbed again.

The four ships were circling him now. Rourke concentrated on the one he could hring down, taking aim for a third shot at the same area where the Plexiglass would be weakest.

Sarah. Michael. Annie. Paul would find them, care for them.

"Die," Rourke shouted at the helicopter. The machine swerved and his shot went wild, all four machines rising rapidly, hovering, and turning into a ragged formation, then disappearing back toward the valley.

Rourke let the rifle sink down.

He didn't believe in luck—but he didn't argue with it either. He worked the safety on for the Colt assault rifle, then gunned the Hariey over the lip of the valley and down toward the highway. . . .

He had washed his body in an icy stream, and now— tired and changed into fresh clothes—he sat by his motorcycle, stirring cold water into a pack of his freeze-dried food. He tasted a spoonful of it. It would have been better hot, but the nutritional value was the same. He had added a hundred miles since leaving Bevington and was well inside Tennessee. Paul had probably passed him. Perhaps Paul had found them.

Rourke leaned back, eating his cold food, his muscles still aching, his stomach still uneasy. He planned ahead-^always. He hadn't planned on Martha Bogen, or on the suicide of an entire town. Or on the Russians being there. The sun was setting—red on the horizon, too red, the weather warm now.

He had seen signs of Brigands in the last twenty-five miles—their habitually careless camps, litter and broken bottles everywhere.

To the east, he could see the faint glimmering of some early stars on the horizon.

Tomorrow, he would renew the search, to find Sarah, Michael, and Annie.

And perhaps Paul really had found them.

He would stop at the Retreat, he decided.

He finished the food, then set the empty package aside. Finding a cigar in his shirt pocket, he lit it in the blue-yellow flame of his Zippo.

John Rourke made a last check of the twin Detonics

.s, then of the CAR-. He had cleaned all three guns, and reloaded the spare magazines for them.

As he watched the last wash of red in the sky where the bun was fast vanishing, he closed his eyes. Sarah, Michael, Annie. Paul Rubenstein.

Another face—her eyes were a brilliant blue.