Total War

Chapter Thirty-three

The ride across the desert, trailing the bikers, had been hot. Rubenstein had fallen off the big Harley once but had not been hurt. As Rourke and Rubenstein stopped on a low rise, Rourke turned to the younger man, saying, "I think you're getting the hang of it, Paul. Good thing, too. Look." He pointed down into the shallow, bowl-shaped basin before them.

"My God!" Rubenstein said, shuddering.

In the basin-once a lake bed, Rourke supposed, but now nothing but sand and some barrel cactus dotted here and there-were the bikers they had been trailing. Rourke recognized, even at the distance, two of them from the clothes they wore. One man in particular, whom Rourke had picked as the leader of the gang, wore a Nazi helmet with steer horns jutting from each side, not unlike a Viking helmet. None of the other bikers in the basin had such a helmet. There were at least forty.

"What is it-some kind of convention?"

"What? Rourke asked absently, then, realizing what Rubenstein had said, he commented, "They were probably part of a larger biker gang and they all set this spot as a rendezvous. Could be more of them coming."

"Damned bikers." Rubenstein spat in the dust.

"Hey-we're bikers, now, aren't we?" Rourke said, looking at Rubenstein. Taking off his sunglasses to clean the dust from them, he went on, "Most bikers are okay-some of them, badasses. But you can't generalize. Just 'cause somebody's got a machine under him and he doesn't much care for authority doesn't make him scum. It's just these guys-they're scum."

"But there's gotta be almost three dozen of them down there."

"I make it forty, give or take," Rourke said lazily. He checked his watch, then checked the sun. "In another two hours, it'll be dark. Looks like a good moon tonight, though. We'll get 'em all then."

"There's just two of us," Rubenstein said. "That's twenty-to-one odds."

"Yeah. At least they can't accuse us of taking unfair advantage of them."

"Twenty-to-one, John?"

"Remember what we said over the men and women they killed, back at the plane? 'Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.' Well, I never cared for fearing things-doesn't help anything much." Then, pointing to the desert behind them, he said slowly, "See all that Paul? Now, that's something we're never going to cross in fear. What's out there in that country after the war, neither of us knows. Nuclear contamination, bands of brigands that'll make these suckers down in the basin look like sissies, probably Russian troops. I don't have the idea that we won the War, really. Good knows what else. There'll be plenty of chances to be afraid later, I figure. No sense starting before we have to."

As quietly as they could, then, Rourke and Rubenstein took their Harleys behind the cover of some large rock outcroppings, ate some of the food they'd brought from the plane, and rested. Rourke told Rubenstein of his plan. When he had finished, Rubenstein said, "You're gonna get killed." Rourke shrugged.

They waited until past sunset and well into the night. The moon was up, and the sounds from the biker camp in the basin indicated to them that everyone was pretty well drunk. While they'd waited, another half a dozen bikers had come into the camp.

Rourke checked both of the stainless Detonics 45s, checking the spring pressure on the magazines, even hand-chambering the first round rather than cycling it from the magazines of the guns. This gave him six rounds plus one in each gun, plus the spare magazines. He secured the Detonics pistols in the double Alessi shoulder rig, then slipped the massive two-inch Colt Lawman inside his trouser belt, at the small of his back. Metalifed, like the Lawman snubby, the Colt six-inch Python in the Ranger leather holster on his right hip was checked as well. The Ranger belt had loaded dump pouches, but Rourke was counting on speed if he had to reload. For that reason, he checked the Safarilands cylinder-shaped speedloaders. There were four of them. Designed for use with the Python, they worked equally as well with the Lawman two-incher. Rourke put two each in the side pockets of his jacket. Taking a swig of the old coffee, he stood up and walked toward his bike.

"I still say you're crazy," Rubenstein warned.

"Could be," Rourke said, settling back, lighting a cigar. "You know, I'm almost out of cigars. Hope we find some place that's got some one of these days." He sucked deeply on the big cigar. "Don't forget to get down there with that Schmeisser when I need you, now."

Rubenstein stuck out his right hand. Rourke looked at him, smiled, and shook it. Then he cranked the bike and headed out from behind the rocks and down into the basin.

The slope into the basin was a long, gentle incline, and he kept the bike slow as he rode it down. Glancing from side to side, his jaw set, the muscles of his neck tensed, he counted perhaps fifty bikers, most of them lying about on the ground. From the brilliance of the moonlight in the clear sky he could see the glint of wine and whiskey bottles strewn about the campsite. He could see the guns-assault rifles of every description, some submachine guns. Virtually everyone was wearing at least one handgun, and several of the bikers were wearing two. As he reached the perimeter of the campsite and started in, he saw some of the bikers get to their feet, watching him. He flashed a smile and waved to one of them. The man waved back, looking at Rourke, but his expression was puzzled.

Rourke kept riding. Not quite halfway to the center of the camp and the man with the Viking helmet, Rourke saw the bikers closing in behind him. He heard a voice in the crowd shouting, "That's Pigman's bike!"

Rourke slowed the bike as he reached the center of the camp. He kept the engine running and stopped less than three yards from the big man with the horned Nazi helmet. He was sitting with his back to his machine. A woman was on each side of him. Rourke took a deep drag on his cigar, smiled, and rasped, "Hello. You the head honcho around here?"

The Viking stood up, hitching his jeans up by the wide black belt slung under his beer pot.

"Yeah. Who are you?"

"We met before, but maybe you don't quite remember," Rourke said, slowly exhaling the gray cigar smoke as he spoke. "My name's Rourke. John Rourke. We were never introduced."

"I ain't met you," the Viking said.

"He's ridin' Pigman's bike"' Someone shouted. Rourke watched the Viking's eyes under the lip of the helmet.

"Like I said. Who are you?"

Rourke, the cigar in the left corner of his mouth, squinted against the smoke and said, "We met back there, where you and your bunch of pussywhips massacred all the people outta that airliner. I'm the guy with the sniper rifle who snuffed out twelve of you assholes. Remember me now?"

The Viking stepped closer toward Rourke. "Yeah. I remember you now. And I'm gonna kill you."

Rourke smiled, whispering, "I just wanted to make sure you knew who I was." His left hand had been resting on the back of the bike seat. Now he flashed it outward, the snubby-barreled Lawman appeared in his fist. He pulled the trigger twice. The muzzle was less than a yard from the Viking's face. Both bullets sliced through his head, and blood and brains exploded, spattering the two women, who began to wail and run.

Rourke gunned the Harley and started into the wall of bikers in front of him, firing the Lawman empty at the nearest of them. He rammed the empty revolver into his belt and got the Python into his right hand, firing.

Rourke cut the Harley forward. The bikers fell away from him like a wedge, the Python roaring into faces and chests and backs. They had been standing so tightly together that missing one was impossible.

As he reached the far end of the camp, Rourke skidded the bike into a tight circle and dismounted. Already, there were bikes revving up from inside the camp. A swarm of the bikers was starting toward him, on foot.

Crouching beside the bike, Rourke speedloaded the Lawman and the Python and set them comfortably in his hands. Rubenstein should be coming, he thought, opening up with the submachine gun that he'd grabbed from the gear of one of the bikers. He sighted across the Python in his right hand and fired into the attacking bikers. As he emptied the Python and the Lawman into them, gunfire started from above Rubenstein was shouting above the din-the same counterfeit Rebel yell he'd made back in the garage when they'd got the '57 Chevy started. Rourke used his last loads in the revolvers, firing both guns empty into the bikers, who were running in all directions, dodging the gunfire that rained on them from in front and from behind.

Putting away the empty revolvers as he advanced toward the center of the camp, Rourke snatched up an M-16 from the ground, which had been dropped by a dead biker. Still walking toward the center of the camp, he fired the assault rifle empty, then snatched up a Thompson submachine gun from nearby him on the ground. Walking now, firing three-shot bursts into the masses of bikers around him, he pressed toward the center of the camp. The Thompson clicked empty. He dropped it to the ground, ripping both of the Detonics .45's from their shoulder holsters. He could see Rubenstein now, on his knees beside his bike, at the far end of the camp. The SMG blazed into the bikers around him.

There were half a dozen bikers, mounted, coming toward Rourke now. Most of the others were at the far corner of the camp or already dead. Rourke fired the Detonics in his right fist at the nearest biker, catching the man in the neck and hurtling him from his machine. Then he fired the one in his left fist at a second biker. The bullet hit the biker's face and hammered him to the ground. His bike fell on top of him, the wheels spinning.

Rourke fired both pistols simultaneously as a biker coming up fast from the left started toward him. The biker had a submachine gun in his right fist, and he was firing. Rourke's twin .45's burned into the biker's chest, ripping the man out of the seat. The biker's ankles locked into the handlebars and the bike spun out into a crowd of bikers ten feet away.

Suddenly, Rourke felt something hammering into his neck. He fell forward, going into a roll, both .45's still in his hands. Three bikers were coming down on him. He fired, each pistol nailing one of the bikers, then coming up empty. As the third biker threw himself onto Rourke, his hands going for Rourke's throat, Rourke palmed the black-chromed Sting 1A from the sheath inside his trouser band and drive it down like a stake into the biker's back. Pulling himself up to one knee, Rourke touched his left hand to his neck. His fingers came away covered with blood. Ramming fresh magazines into the Detonics pistols, Rourke got to his feet and continued firing, emptying the guns as he finally reached the center of the camp.

He stopped beside the body of the Viking, and let both pistols drop to his sides. He could see Rubenstein, at the opposite side of the camp, standing, the gun in his hands silent. He squinted, his head aching from the wound on the side of his neck. The basin was a sea of fallen bodies and fallen motorcycles. At the far edge of the camp, he heard the sound of an engine gunning to life and looked up. There was a lone biker, wrestling his machine away from the camp, a trail of dust behind him as he started out of the basin.

Rourke looked down to the ground, snatched up a twelve-gauge shotgun which one of the bikers had dropped. Tromboning the pump and chambering a round, Rourke hauled the nearest motorcycle from the ground, straddled it, and started the engine. From behind him, he could hear Rubenstein shouting, "Rourke-what are you doing?"

Rourke headed the motorcycle after the one survivor of the camp and shouted back, "I'm not finished!"

He passed the perimeter of the camp and started picking up speed. The biker's dust trail faded ahead of him. The basin was far longer than it was wide, and at the distant end, toward which Rourke headed, was a steep hill.

Through the dust, Rourke could see his quarry starting up the hill, the bike slipping and the man going down. He jumped up and got the bike under him and tried the hill again. Rourke bent low over the Harley, the wind ripping at his face and hands and hair. His lips were drawn back, his teeth bared, the riot shotgun in his right fist against the controls.

The biker was halfway up the hill, and the bike started collapsing under him again. Rourke skidded to a halt in a cloud of dust at the base of the hill, letting the bike drop to the ground. He snapped the riot shotgun to his right shoulder. He squinted down the sights and muttered the word, "Die!" Then he pulled the trigger.

The biker's hands went to his back, and he fell forward, then slid down the hillside on his face. His body slammed to a halt at the base of the hill, less than ten yards from where Rourke stood.

Rourke dropped the riot shotgun into the sand and started walking back toward the camp. He could see a dust cloud, coming in his direction, a single man on a motorcycle. As the bike neared him, Rourke made out Rubenstein's face and stopped, switching loads in his .45's as he waited.

Rubenstein slowed the bike. Obviously, he was still having a hard time still controlling it. He stopped, and the machine nearly skidded out from under him.

Rourke waited a moment until the dust settled. Then he walked over to Rubenstein and his bike. Rubenstein, very softly, asked, "Are you finished now?" Rourke nodded his head, saying, "We've got a long ride ahead of us. But I'm finished for now."

The End

Special Preview of the Survivalist #2

The Nightmare Begins

"I've been meaning to ask you," Rubenstein began, wiping his red bandana handkerchief across his high, sweat dripping forehead. "Out of all those bikes back there at the crash site, why did you take that particular one?"

Rourke leaned forward on the handlebars of his motorcycle, squinting down at the road below them, the intense desert sun rising in waves, visible despite the dark-lensed aviator framed glasses he wore. "Couple of reasons," Rourke answered, his voice low. "I like Harley Davidsons, I already have a Low Rider like this," and, almost affectionately, he patted the fuel tank between his legs, "back at the survival retreat. It's about the best combination going for off-road and road use-good enough on gas, fast, handles well, lets you ride comfortably. I like it, I guess," he concluded.

"You've got reasons for everything, haven't you, John?"

"Yeah," Rourke said, his tone thoughtful, "I usually do. And I've got a very good reason why we should check out that truck trailer down there-see?" and Rourke pointed down the sloping hillside and along the road.

"Where?" Rubenstein said, leaning forward on his bike.

"That dark shape on the side of the road; I'll show you when we get there," Rourke said quietly, revving the Harley under him and starting off down the slope. Rubenstein settled himself on the motorcycle he rode and started after. Perspiration dripped from Rourke's face as he hauled the Harley up short and waited at the base of slope for Rubenstein. Lower down, the air was even hotter. He glanced at the fuel gauge on the bike-just a little over half. As he automatically began calculating approximate mileage, Rubenstein skidded to a halt beside him. "You've gotta watch those hills, pal," Rourke said, the corners of his mouth raising in one of his rare smiles.

"Yeah-tell me about it. But I'm gettin' to control it better."

"All right-you are," Rourke said, then cranked his bike into gear and started across the narrow expanse of ground still separating them from the road. Rourke halted a moment as they reached the highway, stared down the road toward the West and steered his motorcycle in the direction of his gaze. The sun was just below its zenith and as far as Rourke was able to tell they were already into Texas and perhaps seventy-five miles or less from El Paso. The wind in his face and hair and across his body was hot, from the slipstream of the bike as it cruised along the highway, but it still had some cooling effect on his skin-already he could feel his shirt, sticking to his back with sweat, starting to dry. He glanced into his rear-view mirror and could see Paul Rubenstein trying to catch up.

Rourke skidded the Harley into a tight left, realizing he was almost past the abandoned truck trailer. He took the bike in a tight circle around it as Rubenstein approached. As he completed the 360 degrees he stopped alongside the younger man's machine. "Common carrier," Rourke said softly. "Abandoned. After we run the Geiger counter over it we can check what's inside-might be something useful. Shut off your bike. I don't think we're gonna find any gas here."

Rourke unstrapped the Geiger counter from the back of his Harley and gave it to Rubenstein. He watched as the smaller man carefully checked the truck trailer; the radiation level proved normal. Rourke walked up to the double doors at the rear of the trailer and visually inspected the lock.

"You gonna shoot it off?" Rubenstein was asking, suddenly beside him. Rourke turned and looked at him. "You've gotten awful violent lately, haven't you? We got a prybar?"

"Nothin' big," the other man said.

"Well," Rourke said, drawing the Metalifed Colt Python from the holster on his right hip, "then I guess I'm going to shoot it off. Stand over there," he gestured back toward the motorcycles. Once Rubenstein was clear, Rourke took a few steps back and on angle to the lock, raised the Magnnaported six-inch barrel on line with the lock and thumbed back the hammer. He touched the first finger of his right hand to the trigger, his fist locked on the Colt Medallion Pachmayr grips, the .357 Magnum 158-grain semi-jacketed soft point round slamming into the lock, the mechanism visibly shattering. Rourke holstered the revolver. As Rubenstein started for the lock, he cautioned, "It might be hot," but Rubenstein was already reaching for it, pulling his hand away as his fingers contacted the metal.

"I said it might be hot," Rourke whispered. "Friction." Rourke walked to the edge of the shoulder, bent down and picked up a medium sized rock, then walked back to the trailer door and knocked the shattered lock off the hasp with the rock, throwing the rock aside. "Now open it," Rourke said slowly. Rubenstein fumbled the hasp for a moment, then cleared it and tugged on the doors. "You've got to work that bar lock," Rourke advised.

Rubenstein started trying to pivot the bar and Rourke stepped beside him. "Here-watch." Rourke swung the bar clear, then opened the right hand door, reached inside and worked the closure on the left hand door, then opened it as well.

"Just boxes," Rubenstein said, staring inside the truck.

"It's what's in them that counts. We could stand to re-supply."

"But isn't that stealing, John?"

"A few days ago, before the War, it was stealing. Now it's foraging. There's a difference," Rourke said quietly, boosting himself onto the rear of the truck trailer.

"What do you want to forage?" Rubenstein said, throwing himself onto the truck, then dragging his legs after him.

Rourke, using the Sting 1A from its inside-the-pants sheath, cut open the tape on a small box and said, "Well-what do I want to forage? This might be nice." Reaching into the box, he extracted a long rectangular box about as thick as a pack of cigarettes. ".45 ACP ammo-it's even my brand and bullet weight-185-grain JHPs."

"Ammunition?"

"Yeah-jobbers or wholesalers used certain common carriers to ship firearms and ammunition to dealers. I'd hoped we'd find some of this. Find yourself some 9-mm Parabellum-may as well stick to solids so you can use it in that M-40 as well as the Browning High Power you're carrying. If you come across any guns, let me know."

Rourke started working his way through the truck, opening each box in turn unless the label clearly indicated something useless to him. There were no guns, but he found another consignment of ammunition-.357 Magnum, 125-grain semi-jacketed hollow points. He put several boxes aside in case he didn't find the bullet weight he wanted.

"Hey, John? Why don't we take all of this stuff-all the ammo, I mean?"

Rourke glanced back to Rubenstein. "How are we going to carry it? I can use .308, .223, .45 ACP and .357-and that's too much. I've got ample supplies of ammunition back at the retreat once we get there."

"That's still close to fifteen hundred miles, isn't it?" Rubenstein's voice had suddenly lost all its enthusiasm.

Rourke looked at him, saying nothing.

"Hey, John-you want some spare clips-I mean magazines-for your rifle?"

Rourke looked up. Rubenstein held thirty-round AR-15 magazines in his hands-a half dozen. "Are they actual Colt?"

Rubenstein stared at the magazines a moment, Rourke saying, "Look on the bottom-on the floorplate."

"Yeah-they are."

"Take 'em along then," Rourke said, opening a box of baby food in small glass jars, said, "now go and see if you can find something to use as a sack to carry all this stuff. I'm going to take some of this baby food-it's full of protein and sugar and vitamins."

"I have a little-I mean had-a little nephew back in New York that..." and Rubenstein's voice began noticeably tightening, "that stuff tastes terrible."

"But it can keep us alive," Rourke said, with a note of finality.

Rubenstein started to turn and go out of the trailer, then looked back to Rourke, saying, "John-New York is gone, isn't it? My nephew-his parents. I had a girl. We weren't serious but we might have gotten serious. But it's gone."

"Yeah," Rubenstein said, his voice odd sounding to Rourke. "I guess-" Rourke looked up, Rubenstein was already climbing out of the trailer. Rourke searched the remaining boxes quickly. He found some flashlight batteries, bar type shaving soap prepacked in small mugs, and safety razors and blades. He rubbed the stubble on his face, took a safety razor and as many packs of blades as he could cram in the breast pocket of his sweat-stained blue shirt, one of the mugs and several bars of soap. He found another consignment of ammunition-158 grain semi-jacketed soft point .357s and took eight boxes of fifty. With it were some .223 solids and he took several hundred rounds of these as well. He carried what he wanted in two boxes back to the rear of the trailer and helped Rubenstein climb inside with the sack to carry it all. They crammed the sack full and Rourke jumped down to the road, boosting it onto his left shoulder and carrying it toward the bikes. "We're going to have to split up this load," he said.

As Rourke turned toward his bike, he heard Rubenstein's voice and over it the clicking of bolts-from assault rifles. Without moving he looked up, heard Rubenstein repeat, "John!"

Slowly, Rourke raised to his full height, squinting against the glare through his sunglasses. A dozen men-in some sort of uniform-were on the far side of the road. Slowly, he turned around, and behind him, on Rubenstein's side of the road beside the abandoned truck trailer, were at least a half-dozen more.

All the men carried assault rifles of mixed heritages-and all the guns were trained on Rourke and Rubenstein...

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Created 5/24/2000

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