Ahern, Jerry - The Quest

Rourke dropped below the edge and turned toward Reed, close behind him. “I make it about six feet to the nearest part of that lower level roof line, six feet from the grass. Let’s get everybody up and over except that corporal. Have him wait five minutes in case some shooting starts. No sense getting more people killed than we have to.” Rourke didn’t wait for a reply, but started moving, running in a low crouch toward the nearest roof line, setting his safety on and letting the rifle sling back behind his shoulder, upping his speed, raising to his full height as he ran the last few yards, his hands going out ahead of him, his feet coming together as he forced himself up, his hands clawing for the roof line, then getting a grip and pulling his body up and over. On his hands and knees, pushing himself up to a crouch, he swung the rifle forward, edging off the safety, making a quick visual inspection of the scope, ascertaining there was no damage and moving off toward what apparently was a roof-mounted air conditioner. Going flat against it, he surveyed the roof line: it was a trap. He was certain now there were no guards. He could see men on the next higher roof level, but only a fool of a commander would have left an entire section of the roof line unguarded.

He glanced behind him, seeing Reed coming over the roof line and almost immediately after him one of the two men with him. Rourke signaled Reed and the other man to follow him, then ducked from behind the air-conditioning unit to the edge of the higher roof line, going into a crouch. Reed joined him.

“There—that’s why it’s a trap,” Rourke rasped, jabbing his thumb toward the guards on the next roof line. “Wait a minute, take this.” Rourke slipped the safety on his CAR-15 and pushed himself up the six feet to the next roof line, scrambling over it and dropping flat against the tarred surface. He studied the guard nearest him, one man, standing in the open—an obvious setup, he thought.

Rourke crawled on his stomach along the roof surface toward the side overlooking the knoll.

Peering over the edge, he saw something that, though he expected it, made his blood run cold—a large concentration of troops waiting in the wooded areas beyond the far side of the upper-level parking area. He ducked down, then, running in a low crouch, crossed the roof line to the far parking areas in front of the shopping center. Rourke dropped low beside the roof edge and looked over the side—Soviet armor surrounded the several dozen military helicopters on the ground, motorcycle-mounted troops ringing what looked to be a staff car.

“Shit!” Rourke muttered, then started back toward Reed and reached the roof edge and flipping over the side, dropping and flexing his knees to break the fall.

“Well?”

“Well, kiss your fanny goodbye,” Rourke snapped, starting toward the roof line fronting the knoll.

The corporal was just coming over the roof line. Rourke caught the man in his arms against his chest, breaking his fall and turning him around. “Back down, Corporal,” Rourke snapped, hitting the roof edge and flipping down on the grass, rolling and tumbling down the knoll, coming up on his knees, the CAR-15 at his hip.

“Come on!” he snapped, breaking into a deadrun across the parking lot. The trap was about to spring, he thought, and there was too much of it to wait it out. There wasn’t even time to run.

Rourke saw someone coming up over the lip of the culvert. Fulsom? The man’s arms were waving. He was choking, it looked like, his body doubling over, the knees buckling, then the man pushed himself up and ran toward them again. Rourke glanced behind him. First was the corporal, then Reed, then the other soldier.

Fulsom was shouting something and Rourke tried waving him down, signaling him to be still. But Fulsom was still shouting. Rourke couldn’t make out the words, but heard the spasms of coughing. Rourke glanced behind him again; the lower roof was swarming now with Soviet troops, and the upper-level parking area was no longer nearly deserted. He could see the canvas roof lines of Soviet military trucks there. In the distance, from the other side of the shopping center, he could make out the revving of motorcycle engines. Rourke could hear Fulsom now, the words still cluttered sounding from the coughing, “Gas! They got all of—” Then Fulsom dropped, a single rifle shot echoing in the night.

Rourke stopped running, looked up at the roof, saw a Soviet trooper, an officer beside him jerking him around, slapping him in the face.

There was a bullhorn—the English very good—the words; “Lay down your weapons and you will be unharmed!” Rourke snatched the CAR-15 to his shoulder, telescoping the stock, his eye picking up the rifleman who’d triggered the shot from the roof, the crosshairs of the three-power scope settling across the helmeted head, Rourke’s trigger finger twitching once, the single 5.56mm rifle bullet’s noise as it crossed the air to its target like a thunderclap in the otherwise total silence.

The soldier stumbled back, then fell forward over the roof line to the loading dock below.

Rourke stood, motionless, the rifle still shouldered, waiting. He might be done, he knew, there were too many of them. He settled the crosshairs on the officer who only a second earlier had stood beside the now-dead Russian soldier.

The bullhorn sounded again, “Lay down your arms and you will not be harmed!”

Rourke scanned the roof line for the bullhorn, spotted it, and fired. The bullhorn shattered from the hand of the man, the white metal thing falling from sight.

At the top of his voice, the rifle in front of his chest at high port, Rourke shouted, “Bite my ass!” Then he started to run.

Chapter 33

Colonel Korcinski shouted to his driver, “Stop! There he is!” And before the car had settled, he was opening the rear passenger door, then stepped out into the parking lot.

He could see the man he wanted. It had to be Rourke, tall, lean, a brown leather jacket, a rifle in his hands, his hair blowing in the wind as he ran. The light mist that Korcinski had noted earlier on the windshield was turning into a steady slow rain and, ignoring it, he started walking forward, shouting to the leader of the motorcycle detachment, “Get that man—alive—the others be damned! Get that man Rourke!” Then, turning to the driver standing beside him now, he snapped, “Field glasses!” In a moment his chauffeur had returned and Korcinski had the glasses up to his eyes and was adjusting them. He watched Rourke running and shooting, the troopers swarming toward him not returning fire as they closed in, crumpling under the withering accuracy of his bullets.

Rourke made to fire the rifle; it was apparently empty. Three of Korcinski’s soldiers were closing on him, then suddenly one went down, and there was a rumbling sound from a heavy-caliber weapon. There was a pistol in Rourke’s right hand, dully gleaming in the spotlights from the trucks, belching fire against the darkness behind him, then firing again. Two more of Korcinski’s men went down. And Rourke was running again.

“Get him! That man must be stopped.” He was tempted, sorely tempted, he realized, to disobey his direct orders, and order his men to shoot rather than get cut down by this American who was somehow so important to General Varakov. Mentally, he bit his tongue, shouting, “Get that man—but do not under any circumstances harm him. Get him!”

Chapter 34

A motorcyclist was closing in on him. Rourke sidestepped and, as the cyclist missed him by a good two feet, Rourke swung the CAR-15 from the muzzle like a baseball bat, notching the Soviet motorcyclist on the chin and knocking him from the bike. The bike rolled ahead a few yards and spun out.