to the airfield— come on!'
He shoved Natalia in, climbing back behind the wheel. The door still open, he released the emergency brake, gunning the engine as he let out the clutch. The half-track lurched ahead along the gravel drive.
The cab door slammed as Rourke cut the wheel into a hard right, a truck blocking his path. He took the half- track up over a small rock barrier and onto the lawn of the estate, then across it, Natalia firing out the opposite window. He could hear the Russian coaching the Wiznewski girl in how to change magazines for the AK-47s. Rourke cut the wheel hard left, shouting, 'Hold on!' He turned the truck from the grass and back onto the gravel driveway, toward the closed iron grillwork gates at the far end. The shaking of the ground was something inescapable now— he could feel it even as the half-track lurched ahead.
Rourke fumbled for the windshield wiper switch. The rain was starting to fall in sheets now. The double iron gates were just yards ahead and Rourke, double-clutching to upshift and get some speed, shouted to the women, 'Get your heads down— we're going through!'
Less than a yard from the gates the brick support columns began to crumble as the ground running along side the driveway started to crack. Rourke hammered his right foot down on the accelerator, released, double-clutched, and upshifted, then stomped the accelerator again. The crack in front of them widened. He had no choice but to drive over it.
He could feel the front tires go into the crack, hear the engine groaning, then feel the half-track bump and lurch ahead. He stomped down hard on the gas pedal as the front of the truck smashed into the gates, the brick support columns already crumbling down on the cab, the windshield cracking across its entire length.
The gates split open and Rourke cut the wheel into a sharp right along the road paralleling the estate. He glanced to his right at Natalia, her hair streaming rain water as she leaned from the cab window firing at their pursuers.
He could see the crack in the ground widening and running alongside them now, seeming to move faster than they were.
'I've got to outrun that fissure!' Rourke shouted over the roar of the engine and the howling of the wind and rain. 'Natalia, get back inside!' Rourke lessened his pressure on the gas pedal, worked the clutch and shifted into fourth, the engine whining. He shot a glance to his right. He was gaining on the widening fissure in the earth; but silently he wondered if he could pass it before it cut the road ahead of him and blocked his only chance of escape— the airfield ten miles away.
Chapter 44
Sarah Rourke could just see the faces of her children, Michael and Annie, in the back of the fisherman's boat, packed there with Harmon Kleinschmidt, two of the women, and the dozen or so other children. Sarah had reasoned that once the attack against the Soviet prison compound had taken place, the island would no longer be safe. Mary Beth had surprisingly, she thought, agreed with her.
Mary Beth was at the wheel of the boat Sarah had stolen earlier, taking it coastward. And again, Sarah smiled at the thought, she was wearing borrowed clothing. She had reasoned that the best way to reach the prison and free the men who were to be executed that day was to appear as innocuous as possible. Most of the women were wearing dresses; some of them, herself included, had bundles wrapped up to look like babies. Inside Sarah's was a borrowed MAC-10
.45 caliber submachine gun. Under the long, ankle-length skirt of the borrowed dress she wore, the .45 Colt automatic was strapped to her left thigh with elastic.
Mary Beth had beached the boat, and Sarah and the seven other women had fought their way through the surf. The tides were high, and the wind strong for some reason. From the shore there had been a two mile walk into town, and at Sarah's urging the women had split up into three groups to attract less attention to themselves and to avoid blowing the entire operation should one group be captured.
Now, as Sarah rocked the imaginary baby in her arms a half-block from the factory gates— the factory that was now a prison— she looked at the borrowed watch on her wrist. If a Soviet officer did not come along in another five minutes, she would have to scrap plan 'A' as she called it and go to plan 'B.' The second plan called for an assault by herself and the rest of the women on the prison gates. It was suicide.
She sucked in her breath. There was a Soviet officer walking with a noncommissioned officer, turning into the street and walking toward her. She quietly wondered if she'd have the nerve. Still rocking the swaddled submachine gun in her arms, singing to it softly as she moved, she walked toward the Soviet officer.
She had no idea what rank he was, but since he was older-looking, she assumed the rank was high enough that his life would be important— she hoped so, at least.
She stopped, standing a few feet to the right and ahead of the Soviet officer and the soldier with him.
'Sir?'
The officer stopped talking to the soldier, stopped walking and turned to face her. He nodded. 'If you need help with your child, madam, there are doctors in the city who will offer what medical aid they can. The nearest facility is—' and he started to gesture down the block behind him.
'No, sir,' Sarah told him, forcing a smile: 'It isn't that. But it has to do with my baby. Please, would you look at him?' She hoped to appeal to the officer's vanity, to his ego. The helpless woman asking his advice— she hoped he saw it that way. She was committed now. There was little time before the execution was to take place.
The officer looked to the soldier beside him, shaking his head, saying something in Russian. 'Very well, madam. But I fail to see...'
She started walking slowly toward him, watched the soldier's eyes, watched them shift as she moved her
'baby' in her arms into a better position. The Soviet soldier started to open his mouth and Sarah swung the 'infant' into position, letting the faded blue blanket fall to the ground at her feet. The MAC-10 swung in a firing position, the stubby muzzle aimed at the soldier, her right first finger twitching against the trigger, the soldier falling.
Sarah, her feet braced apart, turned the muzzle of the weapon against the officer, whispering, 'I'll kill you too if you move.'
There were soldiers running up from the prison gates, the gates open, and she turned back to the Soviet officer. 'What is your name?'
'I am Major Borozeni.'
