Rourke didn't wait to see that the younger man was complying, but grabbed Natalia, shoving her roughly ahead of him toward the fuselage door.
'John!' Rourke glanced to his left. Rubenstein was struggling with the seat belt, its buckling mechanism apparently jammed. 'Save yourselves!'
Rourke glanced toward Natalia; the Russian woman was already working the handle on the cargo door with her left hand, in her right hand something metallic gleamed—a knife. She reached the butt of it out to Rourke. Rourke snatched it from her hand, wheeling, the aircraft's lurching and bumping throwing him toward Rubenstein. Collapsing against the fuselage, Rourke reached the knife blade under the webbing strap across
Paul's left shoulder, sliced it; then, as he started for the leg strap, he could feel the rush of arctic-feeling air, hear the slipstream. The fuselage door opened. Rourke's borrowed knife slashed apart the last of the restraints.
The knife still in his right hand, he snatched at his CAR-, yelling to Paul, 'Jump for it, Paul—go on!'
As Rourke was moving toward the door, the younger man was already on his feet, the Schmeisser in his right hand; Natalia was starting to jump.
Rourke, at the fuselage door, wheeled, reaching toward his strapped-down Harley, cast a glance at it because it would likely be the last, and snatched his leather jacket. He turned and dove, the snow slamming up toward him as he rolled onto the road surface, his left shoulder taking it, aching as he hit, the rear stabilizers sawing through the air toward him as he flattened himself, .the tail of the fuselage passing inches over his head.
He followed it with his eyes for an instant, then pushed himself to his feet, slipping on the ice, running, lurching forward. He could see Natalia, lying in the middle of the road, Paul running toward her. Rourke heard it, the wrenching and groaning of metal. He wheeled, skidding on the heels of his black combat boots across the ice, to watch as the plane crashed through the metal roadside barricade and disappeared over the side. He waited— there was no explosion. But there wasn't much hope either, he thought. Three people, one jacket, a rifle with no spare magazines and a submachine gun with no spare magazines. A few pistols. He looked into his hand—and a Bali-Song knife. He turned, starting back toward Natalia.
But like a little girl after taking a spill on an ice rink, she sat, legs wide apart, her right hand propping her up, her left hand brushing the hair back from her face,
hair already flecked with snow. Beside her Rubenstein crouched, as if waiting.
Rourke stopped walking, a yard or so from her still. He held up the knife.
'Never told me about the Bali-Song knife.'
She only smiled. Rourke glanced back where the plane had disappeared; if anything could be salvaged, it would have to wait. The leather jacket was bunched in his left hand along with the CAR-. He approached Natalia, squatted down beside her, and draped the coat across her shoulders. She was already shivering, as was Paul Rubenstein. And so was Rourke. . . .
'I had the Bali-Song for a long time. For some reason I didn't carry it when you found me in (he desert. I don't remember why-But I took it with me to Florida, just in case.
'Are you good with it?' Rourke asked her, shivering.
'Yes. If my hands weren't so cold—I could show—' She shook from the freezing air temperature; sub- freezing, perhaps close to zero, Rourke thought as he started down the side of the embankment, carefully, slowly, for the rocks that formed the purchases for his hands and feet were ice-coated. 'Be careful, John.'
'Once I get down there, I can snake up a rope; then you and Paul can join me and at least we'll have some shelter—unless it looks like it's going to blow or something.'
'I can—' Rubenstein began.
'You stay with Natalia. If I break every bone in my body doing this, I want someone in one piece to take care of her.' It was getting dark as Rourke started climbing again, the aircraft still some thirty feet below him, its portside wing broken in two, the starboard engine
snagged in a clump of rocks some fifty feet farther below it and half-obscured now by snow.
Rourke's hands were numb as his fingers played along the glistening iced-over rocks, his shoulder still ached from where he'd hit the road surface, and one desire suddenly obsessed him—to urinate. Rourke's right foot edged down, then his left. The left slipped as loose shale under him, crusted over with ice, broke away from the dirt that had held it. His fingertips dug into the rock surface against which they pressed as his right foot braced against the coated rock against which only the toes now pressed.
'John—I'm coming down,' Natalia shouted.
'No—I'll be—' Rourke swung his left leg out, finding a purchase against a gnarled stump of bush growing out of the dirt embankment. 'I'm all right.'
Rourke edged his right hand down onto a lower ledge of rock, then his left foot, then his left hand, then his right foot. Slowly, methodically, his kidneys screaming at him to let go, he kept moving.
His hands were numbed to the point where he could barely sense the rocks under his fingertips, and his feet were becoming chilled as well. A numbness was setting into his thighs. But the plane was nearer.
He glanced up once; Natalia and Paul, peered down at him, over the edge.
The thought crossed his mind that even if one of the bikes had remained serviceable, how would they ever get it up to the road surface? And the freak storm—when would it end?
The plane was a few yards away from him now, across a wide break in the ground and below the break, a drop of seventy-five feet or more. Rourke settled himself against the rocks, checking his footing, then awkwardly because
of the narrowness of the ledge, swung his left leg around behind him, found a purchase for the left foot, then simultaneously swung his left arm out and around, twisting his body. He moved his feet slightly, firming the position he had, his back now against the rocks and dirt of the embankment. The snow, falling in larger, heavier flakes, covered his shoulders, lingered on his eyelashes-freezing him.
