Ahern, Jerry - The Savage Horde

Rubenstein was running too, his Schmeisser covering the six soldiers and their commander, "Natalia!" Rourke screamed it now, feeling the muscles in his arms and back, the tendons in his neck—his eyes—all tightening, his heart pounding in his chest. "Natalia!" He was out of the trees, running toward her, the woman's body writhing on the ground, the soldier with the M-stepping toward her, the right foot kicking out at her as Cole moved faster than Rourke thought he could have, the pistol he'd pulled twenty minutes earlier coming from the leather again, the base of the frame this time smashing down, Rubenstein half-wheeling, the Schmeisser falling from limp hands, but the hands grasping out for Cole's throat.

"Get him—alive!" It was Cole's voice.

Rourke wheeled, his CAR-coming up, firing a three-round semiauto burst with the CAR-, Cole spinning, falling back. Rourke kept going—toward Natalia. He heard the working of the bolts, saw the muzzles raising—four M-s, pointed at his face.

He stopped, his rifle up and on line with them. "I'm going to the woman—if you try to stop me, I'll kill you."

Rourke started ahead, pushing the muzzles of the rifles aside. He didn't care to look at the man behind him. The man beside Natalia—the one who'd shot her—simply stood beside her, his right foot kicking out again—to check if she were dead, Rourke knew.

Rourke snapped the telescoped butt of the CAR-up and out. His body wheeled with it, the metal buttplate at the.end of the tubular stock hammering square into the soldier's face. Rourke's right knee smashed up, finding the groin, impacting against the scrotum, the man's bloodied face going white as he fell.

Rourke held his left hand out, palm outward, the five «t

other troopers raising their assault rifles to fire, Rourke holding his aimed toward them. "The woman," Rourke rasped. "Or your deaths—"

Rourke dropped to his knees beside her, her fingers covering her abdomen, the fingers pale, laced, woven together, blood seeping through between them as he rolled her over.

The eyelids fluttered.

"Rourke—Rourke!"

It was Cole.

"Rourke—you fuckin' shot me!"

Rourke began to examine the wound—he himself was on borrowed time with Cole, he knew that; but Natalia's borrowed time was coming due. Had he not been a physician, never seen a gunshot wound—had he never seen death, he knew, he would have recognized it in her face.

"You're goin' with me—for those six missiles. Eighty megatons apiece, Rourke—eighty megatons apiece. The woman's good as dead. You want your Jew friend dead too?"

Rourke looked up for an instant, his eyes flickering across the field toward Cole, Cole's left arm bloodied and limp at his side, but in the right hand the Government Model . held steady, the muzzle pointed at Rubenstein's head, Rubenstein moving slowly on the ground, trying to get up.

"Where's your base camp, Cole? How do you contact headquarters?" Rourke began examining Natalia's wound in greater detail, spreading her fingers, but slowly.

Sometimes the body is its best defense—were the hands holding in her intestines?

Gently, he broke the tight weave of her red and sticky fingers. "Where is it?"

"A submarine—two hours away—maybe three. Nuclear submarine—one of the last ones we could contact. Full complement crew—full medical facilities."

The Retreat, Rourke judged, even if he could get Natalia aboard a bike and ride her there without her bleeding to death, was seven hours away by the fastest route, likely spotted with brigand activity, possibly Soviet Army as well. But the likelihood of meeting with Soviet troops for once did not alarm him. They would have access to blood and the facilities for typing, medivac choppers available on call as well. Without massive transfusions, Natalia would likely die. Even with them—Rourke shuddered. Mechanically, he had counted the number of shots in the burst she had taken. Seven rounds.

He heard a moan behind him—the trooper who had shot her, then kicked her—the one Rourke had smashed in the face with the rifle butt, the nose broken and twisted to the side of the face, the lips puffed and gushing blood.

"We keep our guns—we get Natalia the best medical attention available," Rourke called out over his shoulder, his voice low.

"Agreed," Cole snapped. "Then you're coming to Filmore Air Force Base—"

"I didn't say that. I'm taking her to the submarine. And we'd better make it fast. That bullet in your arm should come out before the wound infects seriously. And your trooper here—he could bleed to death too."

He'd need to perform a laparotomy to inspect her abdominal organs. Regardless of where the bullets had actually impacted, there would be the trauma of blast effect to deal with. As he started applying a pressure bandage with materials from his musette bag, he realized the peritoneal cavity and the organs there could be cut to pieces. He recalled reading an adventure novel once where the .mm slug had been referred to as a "tumbler"— and it was that. There had been cases in the warfare in Southeast Asia where limbs had been severed by the buzz sawing effect of the ..

What he saw of her exposed intestines seemed a very pale tan, almost grey in color—like pieces of underdone sausage in appearance. As he tightened the pressure bandage, he prayed that he could keep her alive until they reached the facilities he'd need to operate. That she wouldn't die.

"Paul—" Rourke called the name but never looked. "Get on your feet—and keep that thing you call a Schmeisser handy. Anything happens to Natalia . . ." Rourke let the sentence hang.

The voice that came back sounded strained—tired, perhaps in pain. "Killing would be too good."

Chapter 7

Her own children—Michael and Annie—played with Millie, the daughter of the ill-fated Jenkins couple. She smiled at the word—what did "Ill-fated?" mean? Was she ill-fated? The children played with the Mulliner dog, they laughed and ran.

Ill-fated.

John—

She squeezed her thighs tight together, feeling self-conscious suddenly sitting there on the porch steps, smoothing the borrowed blue skirt over her knees and then hugging her knees up against her chest, almost but not quite resting her chin on them.

She studied her hands—the nails were short, shorter than she'd ever kept them.

But cycling the slide of a .—she seemed to remember cycling was the correct word—was hard on the nails. Hers had all but broken and she had filed them down.

But at least underneath the nails she was clean—it had been a long time before she'd been able to keep them clean.

She heard the humming of a song, realizing almost absently that she herself was humming it—a song she had danced to with John. At their wedding. The photo was waterstained, bent, almost unrecognizable. But it was smoothed now inside a Bible in Mary Mulliner's house, in the bedroom Sarah used. And Sarah opened the Bible

frequently—not for the words there which Mary Mulliner had told her would comfort her, but for the picture being pressed there. John in his tuxedo, herself in her wedding dress. She smiled—trying to remember how many yards of material had been in the skirt.

She hugged her knees again. It was still early enough in the day—perhaps Mary's son would return with news of successfully contacting U.S. II and finding her husband. How many days had she told herself that? '

Again, she contemplated the word "ill-fated"—she had thought of it a great deal.

Chapter 8

Varakov stood beyond the abandoned astronomy museum, on the spot of land, the rocks beyond it separating him from Lake Michigan. For once it was not too cold, though he had yet to find himself able to describe the lake wind as warm.