In the moonlight— there was always moonlight when it wasn't needed, wasn't wanted— he saw her eyes sparkle, her mouth upcurve with laughter.
He smiled at her, then turned away, walking— slowly, steadily, toward the bunker.
Rourke glanced behind him once— Paul with the Schmeisser and O'Neal carrying his .45
Government Model— were bringing up the rear.
Rourke stopped at the steel door of the bunker.
Natalia's voice: 'There should be a conventional locking arrangement, then a second door inside with a double combination lock.'
'Can you work the combinations— I did poorly at that in spy school.'
She laughed. 'On the other hand, I was very good at it— a woman has a naturally more sensitive touch— I can, but it would take perhaps a few hours without mechanical assistance— I don't think the stethoscope from your medical kit would help a great deal with the types of doors they have.'
'You're well-informed,' Rourke told her.
'Yes,' she called back.
'Yes,' he murmured, mimicking her. He turned around, shouting, 'Paul— if these locks will keep us out, they'll keep anyone else out except Cole— or Teal. You and Lieutenant O'Neal— I want you—'
'John!' Natalia screamed, Rourke wheeling, from the top of the bunker where it was partially mounded over with earth, one of the wildmen lunging for him, a double-headed axe, the handle cut to hand-axe size.
Rourke took a half step back, hearing the shots from Natalia's M-16, the wildman spinning out in midair, crashing down, Rourke starting to raise his CAR-15, something hammering at him from behind. He stumbled forward under its weight, the Car-15 falling from his shoulder. He twisted his face right, jerking his head left, a Bowie pattern knife— long-bladed, cheap looking but deadly enough, he decided— hammering, stabbing, biting into the ground beside his face. Rourke jabbed his right elbow, the arm already extended, back, the elbow connecting with something solid, Rourke feeling the weight sag from his back, rolling, snatching the Detonics .45
from under his left armpit, jacking back the hammer, firing at the face three feet away from his hand. The wildman's head exploded, blood spattering upward. Rourke pushed himself back, up, getting to his feet from a crouch, wheeling, still crouched, pumping the trigger of the Detonics
.45 simultaneously with hearing a burst from Natalia's M-16 and Rubenstein's Schmeisser, the wildman running from the top of the mound twitching, twisting, falling, tumbling to the ground. Rourke started to reach down for his fallen Colt assault rifle.
Another burst of gunfire from the M-16, a long ragged burst from the German MP-40.
Rourke wheeled toward the sound of the subgun, wildmen rushing toward Paul and O'Neal. Rourke extended his right hand, his fist balled tight on the Pachmayr gripped butt of the Detonics. He squeezed the trigger once, then once again, two of the wildmen going down, one of them at least-clutching at his throat— dead.
Rourke started to look back toward Natalia, something hammering at him as he did.
A wildman, the man nearly twice his size, he judged as they hit the ground, Rourke's right fist opening involuntarily as his elbow smacked against a small rock. The feeling in his right hand—
it was gone for an instant.
His left hand hammered up, finding the fleshy gut of the man on top of him. Nothing happened as Rourke hammered his fist in hard.
On his back, Rourke snapped his left knee up, hammering it against bone, then snapping it up again, feeling the squish of testicles, hearing the scream of pain, feeling the rush of air from the man's lungs against his face, the breath foul-smelling. The man had the beginnings of diabetes, Rourke diagnosed, hammering his knee up again, another scream and another rush of the fetidsmelling breath. Rourke rolled half right, jabbing his left elbow back into the side of the wildman's face.
He could see Natalia, the M-16 on the ground, two of the wildmen backing her against the bunker, her pistols in her hands. 'Look out— Natalia!'
She started to turn, a wildman from the mound on top of the bunker jumping for her, one of the men nearest to her reaching for her, both pistols discharging, the body falling against her.
He lost sight of her for a moment as he tried crawling from underneath the screaming man half covering his chest. Then Rourke saw her, the pistols gone from her hands, her left hand brushing a thick lock of her almost black hair back from her forehead, in her right hand the Bali-Song knife flashing open, her body seeming to form itself, shape itself into a duelist's stance, the knife flashing out hard, coming back, then stabbing outward again, snapping back, one of the two wildmen she still fought screaming and toppling forward across the man she'd shot.
The still standing wildman had a machete— he was advancing toward her.
Rourke crawled— the hands of the wildman on top of him still clawing at him, the feeling coming back into Rourke's right hand, his left arm pinned under the wildman, his right hip with the Python under him, the holster slipped back on the belt and too far behind him for him to reach.
The first Detonics— two shots should still remain, he told himself.
Another burst of subgun fire— Paul and 0'Neal, a burst of gunfire from an M-16 as well, a scream of pain, a curse.
The Detonics was inches only from the tips of Rourke's fingers as he clawed the ground, feeling the wildman on top of him digging his teeth into his thigh. Rourke moved his left hand—
slightly. He couldn't get it free to reach for the Detonics under his right arm. He started to grab for the handle of the Sting IA black chrome.
He clawed outward with his right hand— the Detonics was too far.
He twisted his right hand back, trying to get it under his bomber jacket to the second Detonics under his right arm, his left unable to reach it. But his left hand had the handle of the Sting IA. He wrenched it free of the leather, ramming it back, feeling it drag as it bit flesh, hearing the scream, the pressure of the teeth on his left thigh easing, his right fist closing on the butt of the Detonics under his right armpit, tearing at the holster to break the gun free of the trigger guard break.
He heard it, felt it, the snap opening. He pulled the second Detonics out, thumbed back the hammer and jabbed the muzzle around toward the head of the wildman, the muzzle less than two inches from the head. He averted his eyes— blood would spray, and so would razor-sharp bone fragments— and pulled the trigger once, then once again, the body rocking over him.
The man had to weigh close to four hundred pounds, Rourke figured, the head split wide and all but dissolved at the rear of the skull, but the body— in death— still pinned him.
He twisted his left hand free, shoving at the chest, then moved his right hand against the wildman's left shoulder, the muzzle of the Detonics nearly flush against it. He pumped the trigger twice, fast, his wrist aching with the pressure, the body lurching over him, his left hand pushing up against it, the body rolling clear.
Rourke staggered up to his feet, reaching for the first Detonics.
The wildman with the machete was making a lunge for Natalia, her Bali-Song flashing out and catching the glint of moonlight, the machete dropping from the man's right hand as did two of the fingers.
But a revolver was coming up in the left hand.
Both pistols in Rourke's fist, he fired, the pistol in his left hand— the first gun— barking twice, the one in his right barking two times as well, the slides locking back, the pistols empty, the wildman with the revolver in his left hand and blood gushing from the severed fingers of his right falling back, sprawling onto the ground.
Rourke wheeled, buttoning out the magazines in his pistols and letting them drop, ramming the pistol from his left hand into his belt, snatching at a fresh magazine then with his left hand, driving it up the beveled well of the stainless .45, his right thumb dropping the slide stop, the gun leaving his hand, sailing cross— body into his left, his right moving down for the Metalifed and Mag-Na-Ported Colt Python .357 at his hip. His fingers closed over the butt as he popped away the flap, his hand rolling the gun over and around on his trigger finger as he broke it from the leather. He wheeled half-right. 'Natalia!'
He set the pistol sailing across the air space separating them, the woman making the Bali-Song slide from her right to her left hand, catching the Python in midair, her fist grasping around the cylinder, then the gun seeming to fly up, spin, settling into her right fist. She half-turned, the Python's six-inch barrel snaking forward, dully gleaming in the moonlight, a tongue of orange fire licking from the muzzle, another wildman rushing her, dropping.
Rourke turned, starting to run toward Rubenstein and O'Neal, the two men pinned down by gunfire coming
