Ahern, Jerry - The Web

"You get him outa here fast," Rourke rasped. "This whole town's gonna blow."

"What are you doing?" The major's right hand went out to Rourke's right forearm.

Rourke shook it away, then opened the leather case which had Martha Bogen's shot kit.

"Morphine," Rourke rasped. "Relax. Vm a doctor. Put a compression bandage on that right leg—not a tourniquet unless you want him to lose it." Rourke pulled his knife, then cut at the noncom's sleeves, first the right, then the left, using one sleeve folded over as a bandage, the second to secure it to the leg. "Not too tight. Looks like you've got somebody to baby-sit with, Major." Rourke stood up.

The Soviet officer's right hand moved and Rourke started for his rifle, but the hand was extending toward him.

Rourke took it.

"I should arrest you—or have you shot."

"That last part"—Rourke smiled—"I was kinda thinkin the same thing myself. But I'll pass on it."

Rourke loosed the Soviet major's hand and turned to walk away. There was a chance the man would pull a gun

and shoot; Rourke decided he wasn't going to count it a possibiiiiy.

He stepped aboard the Harley, gunning the engine to life, Setting up the kick stand.

The major was looking to his injured sergeant.

Rourke gunned the Harley ahead. . . .

He was at the end of the town now. Only the road leading up into the mountains and out of the valley was ahead.

Explosions rocked the ground under and around him, and behind him there was a growing fire storm, already edging into the wooded area around the town.

He looked at the town one more time—Bevington, Kentucky. "Sad," he murmured, then started the Harley up ahead.

The road was steep going; rock slides were starting to his right, his attention focusing there as he steered the Harley around boulders that had already strewn the road.

Overhead, above the thundering of the explosions and the hissing roar of the fire storm behind him, he heard a sound—familiar. He glanced skyward—helicopters.

"That's what I get for being a good Samaritan," he rasped, shaking his head. But he didn't blame the major, or the injured sergeant. Like most things in life, he thought, gunning the Harley on, the exhaust ripping under him and behind him, there was no one to blame.

The helicopters were clearly after him; he didn't know why. Maybe the KGB, he thought—but why had they been in Bevington, Kentucky, to begin with?

He swung the CAR-around, the safety off. There was a sharp bend in the road and Rourke took it at speed, cutting a sharp left onto the shoulder because half the

width of (he road was strewn with boulders. There was a rumbling sound to his left and Rourke looked that way— a rock slide, shale and boulders skidding down for as far as he could see, a rock slide paralleling the roadway.

"Shit," he rasped, glancing up at the helicopters. There was a chattering sound; he didn't have to look again. Machine-gun fire.

The road dipped, Rourke accelerating into the grade. The rock slide was coming inexorably closer, closer. The area to his right was heavily wooded; fire swept through it.

Rourke skidded the bike hard left, then right, avoiding a deer that ran from the flaming forest on his right. He accelerated, the rock slide still coming.

Machine-gun fire tore into the road beneath him, bullets ricocheting off the rocks to his left.

The road took a fast cut left and Rourke arced the Harley into it. As he hit the straightaway, he twisted in the Harley's saddle, the CAR-—stock retracted— pointing skyward at the nearest of the helicopters. He let off a fast semiauto burst—six shots in all. The helicopter pilot pulled up.

Rourke let the rifle drop to his side on the sling, then throttled out the Harley, the rim of the valley in sight, perhaps a mile ahead.

Gravel and smaller rocks were pelting at him, hammering against the road surface, their effect almost indistinguishable from the machine-gun fire from the choppers above. The fire on his right was up to the roadside, and the trees flanking the road on his right were torches, columns of fire; the heat from them scorched at his skin as he drove his machine upward—toward the rim of the valley.

Massive boulders were falling now. Rourke steered the bike around them as they impacted on the road before him. A tree, still a mass of flames, fell; Rourke gunned the Harley full throttle, his body low over the handlebars, as he passed under it, burning branches and chips of bark spraying his hands, his face, his clothing.

Rourke squinted back, beyond the burning tree trunk and skyward. The helicopters were still coming.

He cut the Harley sharp left, taking the grade that would take him to the rim, boulders rolling across the road before him now, missing him by inches, the Harley's exhaust like a cannon, like a trumpet, strident, tearing at his eardrums, the wind of the slipstream lashing at him, hot from the fire raging to his right.

More machine-gun fire, the helicopters above him now, one of them ahead of him.

Rourke couldn't free a band to shoot back. The very fabric of the mountains was crashing down toward him, dust and smoke in a cloud around him as he hit the rim.

Rourke skidded the bike into a tight turn, breaking, balancing the machine with his feet as he stopped it, tele* scoping the stock, then shouldering the CAR-. There was no escape from the helicopters, as he had just escaped the rock slides and the fire storm.

He rammed a fresh thirty-round stick into theColt and ripped away the scope covers, sighting on the nearest of the bubble domes as the helicopter closed with him, machine-gun bullets ripping into the dirt and rocks around him.

"Come in, Colonel! Borozeni calling Colonel Rozhdestvenskiy. Come in.

Ground to air ... come in!"

There was no answer, then, "Major Borozeni . . . Lieutenant Tiflis calling Major Borozeni!"

"Come in, Tiflis, over."

"Comrade Major, we cannot contact Colonel Rozhdestvenskiy. . . . What are the orders? Over."

"Tiflis, bring your helicopters back." Tiflis had commanded the helicopter force, not the special gunship fleet that had brought in Rozhdestvenskiy's commando team for seizing the factory, but the medivac and cargo helicopters. "Tiflis, listen carefully. . . . Use your radio. . . . It's stronger. Contact the entire helicopter fleet. ... I am assuming command in the apparent absence of Colonel Rozhdestvenskiy. Over."

"Yes, Comrade Major. Over."

"Tiflis." Borozeni remembered to work the push-to-talk button on his radio. 'Tiflis, contact me on how many ships. . . . We have hundreds of wounded. . . . Hurry. Out."

"Tiflis out, Comrade Major."

There was only static. Borozeni glanced down to the

unconscious sergeant beside him. Borozeni's knee ached. He shifted position, but could not move his bloodstained right hand lest the bleeding increase. He assumed the man on the motorcycle really had been a doctor—or at least had known what heM talked about. The shot of morphine had helped the sergeant.

"Tiflis to ground. Tiflis to ground command." "Borozeni here. . . . What is it, Tiflis?" 'Tiflis to ground ... All but four—repeat four, Comrade Major—all but four of the helicopters returning. . . . Landing will begin in two minutes. Tiflis over." "We need them all. . . . What are they doing? Over." "In pursuit of man riding motorcycle out of valley, Comrade Major . . . May be the American agent Rourke, wanted by KGB. Over."

Borozeni smiled. A man on a motorcycle. So his name was Rourke. "Tiflis, tell the commanders of those four ships to—" 'Tiflis out."

Borozeni worked the push-to-talk button, then stared skyward at the chopper. What had happened? "Tiflis to ground . . . Tiflis to ground . . .

Over."

"What was the meaning of that? Borozeni over." "Tiflis to ground . - - The suspected American agent just shot at the helicopters, Comrade Major.