The Web
Jerry Ahern
Prologue
John Rourke stood in the rain. He'd landed the Beech-craft because the plane had been almost out of fuel. As best he'd been able to judge from the maps, the plane was about twenty-five miles from Chambers and U.S. II headquarters.
Paul was sitting in the plane, talking to his parents; the pilot had gone to find some kind of transportation. The radio wasn't working well, too much static.
Beside Rourke stood Maj. Natalia Tiemerovna. 'The truce will be over soon, John; it is over now, I think.'
'At least it showed we're still human beings, didn't it?' Rourke said quietly, his left hand cupped over his dark tobacco cigar, his right arm around Natalia.
'You will go on looking?' she asked.
'Yes.'
'Where do you plan to go?'
'The Carolinas, maybe Georgia by Savannah. She was likely headed that way.'
'I hope you find her—and the children.'
Rourke looked at the Russian woman. Rain water streamed down her face—and his. ''Thank you, Natalia.'
The woman smiled, then lowered her eyes. She stood beside Rourke in the pouring rain.
Chapter one
'I just damned well can't order my men to fire on Americans to save a Russian agent, Rourke—no matter how much she's helped us!'
Rourke glanced at Reed, then snatched aMossberg ATPP riot pump from one of Reed's men. 'Nobody has to order me,' he whispered, squinting hard against the sunshine as he tromboned the shotgun and shouldered it.
'Rourke!'
'Leave it!' Rourke ordered, not looking at Reed as the Army Intelligence captain spoke.
The crowd of men and women-—civilians, mostly— was advancing, rifles, shotguns, clubs, and knives of every description in their hands. A woman screamed from the crowd, 'Give us that Commie bitch—now!'
Rourke snapped the muzzle of the riot shotgun down fast, firing, pumping, then firing again, skipping the pellets of double-buck across the tarred surface of the runway-access road, the pellets at most ricocheting upward against the shins of the lead ranks of the mob. The mob fell back a few yards. Rourke worked the tang-mounted safety after tromboning another round into the chamber, then handed the shotgun to Reed. 'That's
called riot control—ever hear of it?'
Rourke didn't wait for an answer, extending his hand; Reed took it. 'You didn't get weather from the tower.'
'That's all right—couldn't be hotter up there than it is here.' Rourke nodded toward the mob. They were advancing again. Reed shouldered the pump and worked the safety, then fired into the runway surface, the roughly thirty-caliber pellets skipping toward the rioters. 'See—works just great.
About two more times, and the braver ones are gonna figure you're trying too hard not to kill 'em—then they're going to rush you. Let 'em past; we'll be airborne.'
'Rourke?'
'Yeah—I know. Good luck.' Rourke nodded fast, then took off in a dead run behind the dozen or so armed U.S. II troopers and toward the pickup truck.
'He's gonna make a break for it with the Russian girl!' an angry voice shouted from the crowd behind him. Rourke hoped the anonymous voice was right.
He reached the truck, jumping aboard, the door not closed as he worked the key. The ignition fired; his right fist locked on the floor-mounted gearshift. His left foot popped the clutch; the dark tobacco cigar moved across the clenched tight teeth and settled in the left corner of his mouth as the truck lurched ahead. The truck door slammed itself, the mirror vibrating as Rourke studied it. The mob had closed with Reed's men, closed with them sooner than Rourke had expected, and had passed them.
There was sporadic gunfire, and behind the truck now, Rourke could see the first ragged ranks of the mob— running after him toward the airfield.
Far ahead, through the cracked glass of the Ford's windshield, he could see the light cargo plane, the twin
