Michael tugged at her hand.
Something else tugged at her as well.
Balfry looked away from Pete Critchfield once and she thought he smiled at her.
Chapter 30
The landing party had not returned. Rourke, Cole, Gundersen, Lieutenant O'Neal and Paul Rubenstein stood in the sail, watching the dark shore. There was no moonlight, the sky overcast still and the incredibly large flakes of snow still falling, but the temperature still almost warm.
Rourke glanced at the luminous black face of the Rolex on his left wrist, cupping his right hand over it to make the darkness deep enough that the numerals would glow.
"They've been gone for eight hours—supposed to be back two hours ago. If they were my men, Captain Cole, I think I might go looking for them."
"Yeah—well—"
"Yeah—well," Rourke mimicked. He shifted his shoulder under the bomber jacket, the familiar weight of the Detonics pistols there in the double Alessi rig something he was glad to have back again. The Sparks Six Pack rode his trouser belt, the magazines freshly loaded and the ammo from each all hand cycled through his pistols to assure the magazines functioned properly—they did. These six magazines plus the magazines he normally carried, vastly increased his ready firepower. Rubenstein stood beside him, the Browning coming into his hands. He hand cycled the slide, chambering a round off the top of the magazine, then made the mm pistol disappear under his Army field jacket.
ins
"Ready when you are, John," Paul smiled.
"Captain—" It was Lieutenant O'Neal, the missile officer. "Sir, I can get together part of that shore party right now—"
Rourke interrupted him. "Belay that—that's what you say in the Navy, isn't it?"
O'Neal's normally red cheeks flushed as he laughed. "That's right, sir."
"I've got a better idea, I think—if Commander Gundersen approves," Rourke added.
"Cole, Paul, myself—those three other troopers of Captain Cole's—we go in now.
Hit the beach in a rubber boat if you got one, then get up into those rocks. If that recon patrol Hendersen led got nailed, it was probably pretty soon after they hit shore. You save that landing party if we're not back by dawn—and have 'em ready in case we come back sooner with somebody chasing us."
"That sounds good to me," Gundersen nodded. "Captain Cole?" Gundersen raised his eyebrows, as if waiting for Cole to respond.
"No other choice, I guess," Cole nodded.
'Til get the rest of the gear," Rubenstein said, disappearing toward the hatchway leading down from the sail.
"And with your permission, sir," O'Neal volunteered to Gundersen. "I'll get that inflatable geared up."
"You got it," Gundersen nodded.
Rourke stared past Gundersen—the shore was a darker gray line against the near blackness of the water, and in the distance above the rocks which marked the coast was a lighter gray—it was the sky. The water in the inlet was calm—the deck on the sail almost motionless under him.
There were people in the darkness—and Rourke didn't doubt that someone of them at least was watching him from the rocks.
As it always was—despite the elements, the forces of nature—the true danger was man.
Chapter 31
The waves made a soft, almost rhythmical slapping sound against the gunwales of the gray inflatable boat; Rourke crouched in the prow, the CAR-ready, Rubenstein beside him, Cole and his three troopers filling out the center and aft section, two of the three troopers rowing.
There had always been considerable talk about a sixth sense, but nothing concretely proven, at least as far as Rourke considered it. But if there were a sixth sense—and gut feelings had convinced him long ago there were—he felt its activation now.
"I feel something," Rubenstein murmured beside him.
Rourke smiled, saying nothing. Beneath the bomber jacket against the cold, he wore a dark blue crew neck sweater from the submarine's stores—but he still shivered. It wasn't the cold doing it.
There was a whitish outline gleaming ahead—the shoreline where the waves lapped against it now. The tide was high, and this cut the distance to the rocks beyond the beach.
"Kill those oars," Rourke commanded, stripping away his leather gloves, stuffing them into one of the bomber jacket's outside patch pockets, then dipping his hands into the water on both sides of the prow. "Use your hands," he rasped, his fingers numbing from the water temperature already—but there was no choice.
It took several minutes of the slow movement, barely
able to fight the waves rolling back from the shore, to move with the tide and reach the land. Rourke throwing a leg out, water splashing up over the collar of his combat boot, then his other leg out, Rubenstein into the water too now. The surf splashed against the prow of the boat, turning into a fine, icy spray, Rourke flexing his fingers against the fabric of the boat as he hauled at it, snow still coming down—no more heavily than before, but no less heavily either.
"Come on, Paul," he rasped to the younger man, then to Cole, "Get your butts outa the boat and give us a hand! Come on!"
Cole sprang from the boat, dousing himself in the water, his three men following suit but with less lack of grace. Water dripping from him, Cole reemerged, cursing—"Shut up, damnit!" Rourke snapped. The boat was nearly up from the surf, Rourke glancing to Paul, saying, "Together," then hauling at the rubber boat, over the last roll of breakers, both men heaving together, the boat onto the sand.
"You and you—you help 'em," Rourke rasped to the three soldiers. "Get the boat out of here—back in those rocks. Secure it in case the tide does get higher."
Rourke swung the CAR-off his shoulder where it had hung muzzle down. He pulled the rubber plug from the muzzle and dropped it into his musette bag where he carried some of his spare magazines and other gear. He shifted the rifle forward, working the bolt and chambering the top cartridge out of the freshly loaded thirty-round stick.
He started forward across the sand, feeling he was being watched, waiting for it to come—It came.
"Kill them!"
The shout—somehow oddly not quite human.
Ill
Rourke wheeled, snapping the CAR-'s muzzle forward, ramming the flash deflector into the face of the man—man?—coming for him. The machete dropped from the right hand as the body reeled.
"No guns unless we have to," Rourke half shouted, flicking the safety on for the CAR-IS. He stepped toward the attacker, the man starting to move, a revolver rising in his right hand, already the sounds of more of the attackers going for Rubenstein and the others coming to him over the sound of the waves, over the whistling of the wind. Rourke's right foot snaked out, cross body, catching the man's gunhand wrist, the revolver sailing off into the darkness.
Rourke let the rifle slide out of the way on its sling, his left foot coming up, going for the man's jaw. He missed, the body rolling across the sand, coming upright. There was another knife, smaller than the machete, but not by much.
Rourke grabbed for the AG Russell Sting IA in his trouser band, the small knife coming into his palm, the black skeletonized blade shifting outward in his left hand as the man—he wore a motley collection of clothing and animal skins—made his lunge. Rourke sidestepped, the man steaming past him, Rourke's knife hammering down, the blade biting into flesh somewhere over the right kidney, the body's momentum tearing the blade through and down, Rourke's left wrist hurting badly, the knife slipping from his grip.
He turned, hearing something—feeling something. Two men—like the first, half in the clothing of "civilized" men and half in animal skins, unshaven, hair wildly blowing in the wind. One had a long bladed knife secured, lashed to a pole—a primitive pike or spear. The second held a pistol.