Sarah was shouting something as he came level with the cab—Rourke couldn’t hear over the engine noises, the slipstream, and the gun-fire coming from behind them.
But he knew what she wanted—he nodded to her, raising his left hand, then slashing it down quickly. The Ford started into a skidding stop, Rourke slowing the Harley, stopping beside the truck cab. Sarah was leaning across the seat, the passenger side door opening fast, bouncing back on its hinges.
“Michael—into the truck—gimme my gun—you and your sister—down on the floor!”
He half threw the boy from behind him on the bike saddle to Sarah’s hands reaching across An-nie, crushing her, it seemed, against the seat-back—but Annie was reaching for him, too— “Got him,” Sarah shouted, Rourke slamming the door as his son cleared it, gunning the Harley as he holstered the empty Python, the Ford peeling out, gravel bits and a cloud of dust in its wake. The CAR-15—Rourke swung it forward on its sling, earing back the bolt, both hands on it ten-sioned against the sling, the stock collapsed. He started pumping the trigger—Russian soldiers, some running on foot, Russian bikers behind them—he fired into the lead elements, AK fire pouring back toward him. He fired out the magazine, changing sticks, working the bolt release, then cutting the bike into a tight left and gunning the machine out— assault rifle fire tore into the road’s surface on both sides of him—he could hear ricocheting sounds as bullets hammered into the rocks on the right side of the road—or perhaps his ma-chine.
He ripped one of the twin stainless Detonics pistols from the leather under his left armpit, reaching around behind him, jacking the ham-mer back, firing once, twice, a third time—it was useless. Upping the safety, he rammed the cocked and locked pistol into his belt, lowering his body over the Harley, gunning the engine—faster.
The pickup was dead ahead—he was gaining on it—gunfire rained around him, the roaring of Soviet bikes making his ears ring.
His wife—his son—his daughter— “Damn!” He shouted the word—maybe heaven would hear him, he thought.
The wind of the slipstream tore at him, sting-ing at his ears, his forehead, Rourke feeling his lips drawing back from his teeth—he didn’t want to see his face.
The road angled sharply upward and into a curve, Sarah taking it fast, he saw—too fast? The Ford’s rear end seemed to fishtail, the truck lurching, rising up and down on its shocks, then vanished around the curve. Rourke took the curve in a wide arc, cutting into the oncoming lane, skidding off the far lane and into the loose dirt and gravel of the shoulder, his feet out, bal-ancing him, dragging as he fought to control the machine. His hands worked—the machine was pulling ahead—Rourke gunned the engine, gravel spraying up around him, pelting at his ex-posed hands, making pinging sounds against the steel of the Harley—
The exhaust—he could hear it thunder under him, behind him.
Back on the road—low over the Harley, gun-fire tearing into the pines beyond the road shoul-der, ripping into the tarmac under him, gravel and bullet fragments spraying around him, sparks on the roadside as bullets impacted small stones.
His lips drawn back tight, his neck—the ten-dons something he could feel distending— He let out the Harley—to catch the truck.
He was out of the curve, still climbing, the blue Ford pickup about a city block’s length ahead as he leaned into his machine.
More gunfire, a stillness for an instant as the Soviet column must have taken the curve. Rourke had the half-shot-out Detonics back in his right fist, thumbing down the safety, swinging left in the Harley’s saddle, keeping low over the machine, firing once, twice, a third time—the lead Soviet biker’s machine skidding from under him, spilling the man onto the high-way, the biker nearest behind him, jumping his machine to clear his comrade, the machine out of control, the man and the machine separating in midair. The bike crashed down—a Soviet truck behind the bikers skidding, losing con-trol—in an instant shooting across the oncom-ing lanes and over the shoulder, impacting against a stand of pines.
Rourke leaned into his machine again, ram-ming the spent pistol into his hip pocket—rid-ing. He glanced back again—he had stalled the column.
Ahead, Sarah’s truck was slowing. “Why?” He shrieked the word into the wind of the slip-stream. Michael—he could see the boy—Sarah’s M-16—he was firing it through the open passenger window—ahead of them.
The truck was doing a high-speed reverse, Mi-chael’s head and the rifle tucked back inside, the pickup lurching onto the shoulder on Rourke’s side, the near shoulder, gravel and dirt spraying up as the truck’s rear wheels fought for traction, then the pickup bisecting the highway, crossing the oncoming lane, bouncing up and over the far shoulder, then disappearing below the rim of the highway.
“Why!”
Rourke looked behind him—the Russians were coming again, bikers riding low-profiled against their machines, men in open-topped transport trucks firing assault rifles. Where the Ford pickup had been, ahead now Rourke could see what had made Sarah turn, leave the road—Brigands.
Men and women in pickup trucks, men on mo-torcycles, some with women riding behind them—assault rifles, shotguns—all bristled from the backs of the trucks.
Rourke arced the Harley right, then cutting a sharp left as he slowed, skidding, losing the bike, the bike going out from under him, Rourke’s left leg out, his left foot all that kept the machine from crashing down, from skidding away, his arms aching as he wrestled the machine almost upright—he gunned the engine, shifting his weight right, the machine righting itself, then Rourke lowering his body over it as he cut across the road, gunfire from both sides of him now—Brigands shooting at him and at the Russians, Russians shooting at him and at the Brigands—
The road shoulder, Rourke trying to slow the bike—the edge of the ground beyond the shoul-der, gravel and dust kicking up around him, gun-fire from both sides—
The ground dropped into a steep slope, pine tree stumps speckling it, rocks and boulders and high grass, too. He jumped the Harley over a hummock, the machine coming down hard, Rourke fighting to control it. The Ford was ahead, slowly moving, rocking and bouncing— Rourke balanced out the machine, slowing his speed, his combat-booted feet dragging both sides as he took the grade. He looked back once—Brigands by the edge of the road—Russians, too—gunfire loud be-hind him. But they were firing at each other.
Chapter Twenty-six
There were men moving along the ground be-neath him—some of them, as he watched the sandy ground, raised rifles, firing—but the heli-copter was at too high an altitude for gunfire from conventional weapons to reach him. It was like an American Western movie, but one where the director had lost all sense of the classic uni-ties. There were pickup trucks riding alongside men on horseback—and there were cowboy hats everywhere.
There had been rumors that the leadership of the Texas volunteer militia had changed drasti-cally after the death of their man Randan Soames—and intelligence reports Rozhdestvensky had been receiving confirmed that. And now his own eyes confirmed it.
Beneath him, in ragged caravan, were what he judged as a thousand men, and likely women too, though distinguishing details, despite his Swarovski Habicht glasses, from the height he was above them and the speed at which the heli-copter moved was all but impossible.
For them to open fire on a Soviet helicopter was brazen indeed.
Texas was about to boil over.
Other intelligence reports seemed to indicate that some of the larger Brigand bands had been defeated by the Texas Volunteer Militia—and that some of the Brigand leadership had been swayed to the cause of the Resistance, further swelling the ranks of fighters in Texas and East-ern New Mexico for a land war against the So-viet forces.