Ahern, Jerry - Total War

"I still say you're crazy," Rubenstein warned.

"Could be," Rourke said, settling back, lighting a cigar. "You know, I'm almost out of cigars. Hope we find some place that's got some one of these days." He sucked deeply on the big cigar. "Don't forget to get down there with that Schmeisser when I need you, now."

Rubenstein stuck out his right hand. Rourke looked at him, smiled, and shook it. Then he cranked the bike and headed out from behind the rocks and down into the basin.

The slope into the basin was a long, gentle incline, and he kept the bike slow as he rode it down. Glancing from side to side, his jaw set, the muscles of his neck tensed, he counted perhaps fifty bikers, most of them lying about on the ground. From the brilliance of the moonlight in the clear sky he could see the glint of wine and whiskey bottles strewn about the campsite. He could see the guns-assault rifles of every description, some submachine guns. Virtually everyone was wearing at least one handgun, and several of the bikers were wearing two. As he reached the perimeter of the campsite and started in, he saw some of the bikers get to their feet, watching him. He flashed a smile and waved to one of them. The man waved back, looking at Rourke, but his expression was puzzled.

Rourke kept riding. Not quite halfway to the center of the camp and the man with the Viking helmet, Rourke saw the bikers closing in behind him. He heard a voice in the crowd shouting, "That's Pigman's bike!"

Rourke slowed the bike as he reached the center of the camp. He kept the engine running and stopped less than three yards from the big man with the horned Nazi helmet. He was sitting with his back to his machine. A woman was on each side of him. Rourke took a deep drag on his cigar, smiled, and rasped, "Hello. You the head honcho around here?"

The Viking stood up, hitching his jeans up by the wide black belt slung under his beer pot.

"Yeah. Who are you?"

"We met before, but maybe you don't quite remember," Rourke said, slowly exhaling the gray cigar smoke as he spoke. "My name's Rourke. John Rourke. We were never introduced."

"I ain't met you," the Viking said.

"He's ridin' Pigman's bike"' Someone shouted. Rourke watched the Viking's eyes under the lip of the helmet.

"Like I said. Who are you?"

Rourke, the cigar in the left corner of his mouth, squinted against the smoke and said, "We met back there, where you and your bunch of pussywhips massacred all the people outta that airliner. I'm the guy with the sniper rifle who snuffed out twelve of you assholes. Remember me now?"

The Viking stepped closer toward Rourke. "Yeah. I remember you now. And I'm gonna kill you."

Rourke smiled, whispering, "I just wanted to make sure you knew who I was." His left hand had been resting on the back of the bike seat. Now he flashed it outward, the snubby-barreled Lawman appeared in his fist. He pulled the trigger twice. The muzzle was less than a yard from the Viking's face. Both bullets sliced through his head, and blood and brains exploded, spattering the two women, who began to wail and run.

Rourke gunned the Harley and started into the wall of bikers in front of him, firing the Lawman empty at the nearest of them. He rammed the empty revolver into his belt and got the Python into his right hand, firing.

Rourke cut the Harley forward. The bikers fell away from him like a wedge, the Python roaring into faces and chests and backs. They had been standing so tightly together that missing one was impossible.

As he reached the far end of the camp, Rourke skidded the bike into a tight circle and dismounted. Already, there were bikes revving up from inside the camp. A swarm of the bikers was starting toward him, on foot.

Crouching beside the bike, Rourke speedloaded the Lawman and the Python and set them comfortably in his hands. Rubenstein should be coming, he thought, opening up with the submachine gun that he'd grabbed from the gear of one of the bikers. He sighted across the Python in his right hand and fired into the attacking bikers. As he emptied the Python and the Lawman into them, gunfire started from above Rubenstein was shouting above the din-the same counterfeit Rebel yell he'd made back in the garage when they'd got the '57 Chevy started. Rourke used his last loads in the revolvers, firing both guns empty into the bikers, who were running in all directions, dodging the gunfire that rained on them from in front and from behind.

Putting away the empty revolvers as he advanced toward the center of the camp, Rourke snatched up an M-16 from the ground, which had been dropped by a dead biker. Still walking toward the center of the camp, he fired the assault rifle empty, then snatched up a Thompson submachine gun from nearby him on the ground. Walking now, firing three-shot bursts into the masses of bikers around him, he pressed toward the center of the camp. The Thompson clicked empty. He dropped it to the ground, ripping both of the Detonics .45's from their shoulder holsters. He could see Rubenstein now, on his knees beside his bike, at the far end of the camp. The SMG blazed into the bikers around him.

There were half a dozen bikers, mounted, coming toward Rourke now. Most of the others were at the far corner of the camp or already dead. Rourke fired the Detonics in his right fist at the nearest biker, catching the man in the neck and hurtling him from his machine. Then he fired the one in his left fist at a second biker. The bullet hit the biker's face and hammered him to the ground. His bike fell on top of him, the wheels spinning.

Rourke fired both pistols simultaneously as a biker coming up fast from the left started toward him. The biker had a submachine gun in his right fist, and he was firing. Rourke's twin .45's burned into the biker's chest, ripping the man out of the seat. The biker's ankles locked into the handlebars and the bike spun out into a crowd of bikers ten feet away.

Suddenly, Rourke felt something hammering into his neck. He fell forward, going into a roll, both .45's still in his hands. Three bikers were coming down on him. He fired, each pistol nailing one of the bikers, then coming up empty. As the third biker threw himself onto Rourke, his hands going for Rourke's throat, Rourke palmed the black-chromed Sting 1A from the sheath inside his trouser band and drive it down like a stake into the biker's back. Pulling himself up to one knee, Rourke touched his left hand to his neck. His fingers came away covered with blood. Ramming fresh magazines into the Detonics pistols, Rourke got to his feet and continued firing, emptying the guns as he finally reached the center of the camp.

He stopped beside the body of the Viking, and let both pistols drop to his sides. He could see Rubenstein, at the opposite side of the camp, standing, the gun in his hands silent. He squinted, his head aching from the wound on the side of his neck. The basin was a sea of fallen bodies and fallen motorcycles. At the far edge of the camp, he heard the sound of an engine gunning to life and looked up. There was a lone biker, wrestling his machine away from the camp, a trail of dust behind him as he started out of the basin.

Rourke looked down to the ground, snatched up a twelve-gauge shotgun which one of the bikers had dropped. Tromboning the pump and chambering a round, Rourke hauled the nearest motorcycle from the ground, straddled it, and started the engine. From behind him, he could hear Rubenstein shouting, "Rourke-what are you doing?"

Rourke headed the motorcycle after the one survivor of the camp and shouted back, "I'm not finished!"

He passed the perimeter of the camp and started picking up speed. The biker's dust trail faded ahead of him. The basin was far longer than it was wide, and at the distant end, toward which Rourke headed, was a steep hill.

Through the dust, Rourke could see his quarry starting up the hill, the bike slipping and the man going down. He jumped up and got the bike under him and tried the hill again. Rourke bent low over the Harley, the wind ripping at his face and hands and hair. His lips were drawn back, his teeth bared, the riot shotgun in his right fist against the controls.