Paul Rubenstein slowed his bike, Natalia slowing hers beside him.
'Must be John,' he murmured, working open the bolt of the Schmeisser and giving the Browning High Power a good luck tug in the ballistic nylon tanker style shoulder holster across his chest.
Natalia said nothing—Paul watched as she eared back the bolt of her M-, the rifle slung cross body, diagonally under her right arm, as Rourke carried his.
'Let's go—'
'We can split when we reach the battle site—you take the right flank, I'll take the left,' she answered.
'You got it,' and Rubenstein revved his machine, punching out, steering the fork wildly as he dodged tree trunks, feeling the bouncing as he jumped hummocks, his cowboy-booted feet balancing him as he reached a shallow defile, the bike jumping over a ridge of earth and coming down, dust flying up around him.
The gunfire was louder now, heavy automatic weapons fire like he'd heard so many times before in the weeks since he'd known John Rourke, in the weeks since the Night of The War. The ground evened out, Rubenstein wrestling the Harley hard right, almost losing it, his left foot dragging the ground as he twisted with his hands, his forearms aching as he pulled the machine upright. He bent low now, building RPMs as he sped the machine along the crest of the rise. There was a forested area a hundred yards ahead, the gunfire coming from just beyond it, heavier even than it had been.
'I'll head through the trees—you go around 'em, Natalia!' Paul shouted.
'Yes, Paul!' he heard her call back, not looking. The idea amused him for an instant—Natalia, the KGB major, the tough fighter, the martial arts expert, the female counterpart of Rourke in almost every skill—'yes, Paul.' He laughed at himself.
He was closing the distance into the trees now, jumping the bike over a small hillock of dirt and gravel- sized rock, dodging the fork hard left to miss a tree trunk. It was a deer path he was on—Rourke had described them, shown them to him. He bent lower over the machine, thorns and pine boughs swatting at his face and exposed hands, slapping against his olive drab field jacket. He saw movement in the trees to his far left—it wasn't Natalia on her bike. It was a man, running, firing an assault rifle.
Rubenstein slowed the bike, the rear tire spraying dirt and pine needles, the bike sliding as Rubenstein balanced it out, letting it drop then, running from the bike and into the trees.
The man in the woods was turning around, throwing the assault rifle to his shoulder to fire.
Rubenstein swung the Schmeisser forward on its sling. He wouldn't beat the first burst. He knew that.
Then suddenly, Rubenstein stopped the upward movement of the German MPsubgun's muzzle.
It was John Rourke—the tall, dark-haired, lean-faced man with the assault rifle.
Paul Rubenstein couldn't help himself—he let out a yell.
Chapter 4
The counterfeit rebel yell—with a New York accent. Rourke felt his face seaming with a smile.
'Paul—over here—keep down!'
Rourke wheeled, ducking down himself, a fusillade of automatic weapons fire pouring toward him, hammering into the trees surrounding him. He pumped the CAR-'s trigger, edging back into the trees. He saw a flicker of movement at the base of the hill, along the near edge of the valley. Dark hair blew back straight from the neck, dark clothes—an M-firing.
'Natalia!' Rourke shouted the name, astounding himself that he had. Gunfire was pouring toward her on the bike now, the bike wheeling hard right toward the base of the hill, then skidding in the dirt, the woman almost leaping from the machine to the cover of rocks. He couldn't see her for an instant, then saw the flash from her rifle, heard the long burst aimed toward the hillside.
Rourke felt himself smiling—a Russian major leaping to the defense of six U.S.
military personnel. 'Paul—we're heading down—into the valley.'
'Gotchya, John!'
Rourke glanced behind him once, the younger man nearly up alongside him as Rourke rammed a fresh thirty-round magazine up the CAR-'s well. Then he started to run, shouting to Rubenstein, 'Paul—give that counterfeit rebel yell of yours!'
He heard it, laughing as he ran, heard the younger man almost scream, 'Yahoo!'
The brigands dotting the hillside were starting to shift from their positions now, getting up, running, trapped in a three-way crossfire as Rourke opened up, hearing the rattle of Rubenstein's subgun behind him and to his right, Natalia's M-pouring into them, and at last the six men in the valley maneuvering forward, their M-s blazing.
The nearest of the brigands was perhaps thirty yards away now, Rourke firing out the CAR-into the smaller subgroup, the semiautomatic assault rifle coming up empty. He snatched the twin stainless Detonics pistols from the shoulder rig under his jacket, letting the CAR-drop to his side on its sling, his thumbs working back the pistols' hammers. He fired both .s simultaneously, the -grain JHPs thudding into the face of the nearest brigand, the
