He swept the binoculars back, along the defile—poorly concealed men and a few women perhaps—though the long hair and distance made it difficult for him to tell. He counted twenty-five brigands at least, and two more further up by the tree line.
Evading a medium-sized brigand band working the territory would be time consuming, time he could utilize in making headway to the Retreat to resupply and link with Paul, time he could use searching for his wife and son and daughter.
He glanced back through the tubes at the six military personnel. They moved too openly, as if inviting attack. That thought had crossed Rourke's mind when first spotting them, but there were no indications there was any large military force operating in the area, using these six as bait. Rourke had to assume ignorance the sole motivation of the six men—or possibly just the ignorance of their commander.
He put down the glasses.
He had replaced the spent cartridges in the twin stainless Detonics pistols, still had ample ammunition for the CAR-—several loaded magazines full. The Metalified Python, of course.
He pushed himself to his feet—he would leave the jet
black Harley he rode hidden as it already was, then cross behind the ambushers.
He looked back once, judging the distance between the six troopers and the waiting brigands.
Two hundred yards—he would have to hurry.
He swung the CAR-forward, his right fist locking on the pistol grip, his left hand earing back the bolt, letting it fly forward and chamber the first round from the magazine. His right thumb found the safety, working it on—he was already running.
Chapter 2
Rourke edged along the rise through the tree line. The two brigands who sat above the rest in the shelter of a pile of rocks were within fifty yards of him now. There were two alternatives—attempting to take out the brigands one at a time through stealth, or sniper fire. The first possibility—because of the sheer weight of numbers and the immediacy of the brigands' opening fire on the six military personnel moving through the valley—was something he decided to rule out.
Rourke shrugged, flattening himself in a solid prone position along the tree line with an outcropping of rocks affording cover against returning fire. He telescoped the CAR-'s stock, settling the metal buttplate against his right shoulder in the pocket, the Colt scope's reticle settling, too—on the spinal column of the nearest brigand. One of the two men in the higher rocks had to be the leader.
His thumb worked the safety to off, the first finger of his right hand touching the trigger.
"Good-bye," Rourke muttered, then began the squeeze, the rifle recoiling against his shoulder, its sharp crack loud in the otherwise still countryside.
He rode it out, the .'s recoil mild enough, the scope showing his work—the brigand holding the binoculars to his eyes slammed forward, up and over the rocks behind which he had hidden himself, the body rolling downward.
The man who had been beside the first man turned around, his mouth opened as if to scream. Rourke shot him in the neck, the body toppling back across the rocks and staying there, the arms flapping up once, then still.
Rourke tucked down, gunfire slamming into the rocks near his position, bullets biting into the tree trunks, bits of bark spraying him as did chips of rock. He pulled back. And there was gunfire now from the six men on the valley floor.
Rourke pushed himself up, the rifle swinging onto targets of opportunity among the brigand band. Two round semiautomatic bursts—one man down. Another target—male or female. Rourke wasn't sure.
There was more answering fire, automatic weapons chewing whole pine boughs from the trees surrounding him, pine needles showering him. Rourke pulled back.
Moving along on knees and elbows, he drew away from the rise, then pushed himself up into a Low, running crouch, starting through the tree line. He stopped, rising to his full height beside a greater in diameter than normal pine, shouldering the CAR-, firing another two round burst. A brigand with what looked like an M-was running up the hill toward him, the brigand's body lurching backward, doubling up like a jacknife, then seeming to hesitate in mid-air for an instant, then going down.
Rourke ran on, diving to cover in more of the low rocks as heavy automatic weapons fire tore into the trees.
He pushed up, snapping off a fast two-round burst with the CAR-, missing, then another two-round burst—a man with a shotgun, one of three men racing up the hill. This time Rourke didn't miss.
He shot a quick glance into the valley—there was fire still coming from the six military personnel in the valley, but seemingly having little effect.
Rourke pushed himself to his feet, backing off into the
trees, spraying a succession of two-round bursts from the hip toward the advancing brigand fire team, nailing one more of them and dropping him, the third man going to cover, but spraying automatic weapon fire into the trees. The tree trunk nearest Rourke erupted with the impact, huge chunks of bark and slivers of green wood pelting at Rourke's face.
Rourke buttoned out the nearly spent thirty-round magazine, ramming a fresh magazine from his musette bag into the well, then firing two more two-round bursts.
He started running laterally again, along the tree line, to give the brigands a moving target, to give the six men in the valley time to close up toward the base of the hill. Fire and maneuver—he hoped as he ran that they were thinking the same thing.
Chapter 3
Paul Rubenstein slowed his bike, Natalia slowing hers beside him.
"Must be John," he murmured, working open the bolt of the Schmeisser and giving the Browning High Power a good luck tug in the ballistic nylon tanker style shoulder holster across his chest.
Natalia said nothing—Paul watched as she eared back the bolt of her M-, the rifle slung cross body, diagonally under her right arm, as Rourke carried his.
"Let's go—"
"We can split when we reach the battle site—you take the right flank, I'll take the left," she answered.
"You got it," and Rubenstein revved his machine, punching out, steering the fork wildly as he dodged tree trunks, feeling the bouncing as he jumped hummocks, his cowboy-booted feet balancing him as he reached a shallow defile, the bike jumping over a ridge of earth and coming down, dust flying up around him.
The gunfire was louder now, heavy automatic weapons fire like he'd heard so many times before in the weeks since he'd known John Rourke, in the weeks since the Night of The War. The ground evened out, Rubenstein wrestling the Harley hard right, almost losing it, his left foot dragging the ground as he twisted with his hands, his forearms aching as he pulled the machine upright. He bent low now, building RPMs as he sped the machine along the crest of the rise. There was a forested area a hundred yards ahead, the gunfire coming from just beyond it, heavier even than it had been.
"I'll head through the trees—you go around 'em, Natalia!" Paul shouted.
"Yes, Paul!" he heard her call back, not looking. The idea amused him for an instant—Natalia, the KGB major, the tough fighter, the martial arts expert, the female counterpart of Rourke in almost every skill—"yes, Paul." He laughed at himself.
He was closing the distance into the trees now, jumping the bike over a small hillock of dirt and gravel-sized rock, dodging the fork hard left to miss a tree trunk. It was a deer path he was on—Rourke had described them, shown them to him. He bent lower over the machine, thorns and pine boughs swatting at his face and exposed hands, slapping against his olive drab field jacket. He saw movement in the trees to his far left—it wasn't Natalia on her bike. It was a man, running, firing an assault rifle.