'I'm— I'm gettin'—'
'Take it easy,' Rourke told him, watching Cole and shifting his eyes to O'Neal as they brought him down from the cross.
'I'm dyin' on my feet, damnit!'
Rourke looked at his friend, edging toward him, gesturing the wildmen away with the muzzle of the CAR-15, then snapping, 'Get ready,' reaching down, helping Rubenstein's right arm across his shoulders, getting the younger man up, slumping against his left side. 'All right?'
'Yeah,' Rubenstein sighed. 'Yeah— all right.' Rourke said nothing, looking at O'Neal, lying there— O'Neal seemed somehow more subdued, more ill than when he had been on the cross—
his eyelids closed and his head slumped. Rourke caught the movement of a pulse— strongseeming— in the missile officer's neck.
O'Neal was playing out something— Rourke let the young navy lieutenant play it out.
'Okay, Paul— we start forward— right?'
'Right,' Rubenstein nodded, his breath coming in short gasps, but regular.
Rourke started to walk, half dragging his friend on his left side, the CAR-15's muzzle leveled now toward Cole and the squat man in the bearskin and Levis.
He kept the muzzle in the airspace between them, already decided that if either one moved, he'd shoot the man in the bearskin first.
The wildmen— a knot of them— closed around Rourke and Rubenstein as they moved forward.
'You'll never get outa here alive, you Jew-lovin'—'
'Shove it, Cole,' Rourke snarled.
Then Rourke stopped, less than two yards of airspace separating him and Paul from Cole and the man in the bearskin.
'I'm called Otis,' the man in the bearskin smiled.
'No shit,' Rourke nodded.
'You are— ah?'
'He's John Rourke— Dr. Rourke,' Cole said through his teeth.
'Ohh— the John Rourke who wrote those excellent texts on wilderness survival— how marvelous. To meet you after reading your work— I literally devoured them. And the books on weapons as well—'
'Marvelous,' Rourke told him.
'Since I know so much about you— I suppose— well, that you'd like to know something about me— and about my little band of followers here.'
Rourke said nothing.
'He's looney, John,' Rubenstein coughed.
Rourke still said nothing.
'We actually call ourselves the Brotherhood of The Pure Fire. I'm the high priest, the spiritual leader— the mentor to these lost souls, one might say.'
'One might,' Rourke whispered.
'Yes— well, as you can imagine, after all this war business, well— the time was ripe for someone—'
'To appoint himself leader of the crazies,' Rourke interrupted.
Otis— the wildman leader— smiled. 'In a manner of speaking— I suppose so. But of course our mutual friend here— I think he makes me seem mild. After all— blowing up Chicago with five eighty-megaton warheads is a bit extreme, isn't it?'
Rourke's eyes shifted to Cole's eyes— Cole's eyes like pinpoints of black light burning into him.
'Now's the time you're supposed to say, 'You'll never get away with this,' ' and Cole laughed.
'But I'm more of a patriot than you— hangin' around with Jews and Commies. I'm gonna rid the United States of the Soviet High Command.'
'President Chambers never sent you, did he— neither did Reed.'
'Reed? Hell— I almost hadda shoot Reed when I killed the real Cole and took his orders—
bullshit with Reed. Him and Chambers— they'd never have the nerve to push a button— but me—'
Rourke said nothing. He looked at Paul once, murmuring, 'Good-bye old friend,' then pumped the trigger of the CAR-15, in and out and in and out and in and out, three fast rounds in a burst to Cole's chest, Cole— or whoever he really was— falling back, screaming, his hands flaying out at his sides.
'My missile!' Otis screamed, his voice like a high-pitched feminine shriek, a broad-bladed knife flashing into his right hand from a sheath at his belt. Rourke shifted the muzzle of the CAR-15
left, firing, but Otis was diving toward him, the slug impacting against Otis' right shoulder, hammering the man back and down, but not killing him, Rourke realized.
As Otis fell back, his body rolled against a mounded tarp behind him, part of the tarp whisking back— Teal's burned and mutilated body, the eyes still open in death— was on the ground, insects crawling across the face.
The wildmen were closing in, knives, spears, assault rifles in every hand. There was gunfire—
from the edge of the rise near the crosses.
Rourke pumped the CAR-15's trigger, unable to miss, firing into a solid wall of humanity, Rubenstein lurching away from him, Rourke feeling the rip and hearing the snap as the younger man grabbed the Detonics .45 from under Rourke's left armpit, the heavy bark of the .45
rumbling too now, the gunfire from their rear unmistakably that of an AK-47—'O'Neal!' Rourke shouted.
Rourke fired out the CAR-15, ramming the muzzle of the empty gun into a face near him, with his left hand snatching at the Detonics .45 under his right armpit, thumbing back the hammer, firing point blank into the face of the nearest wildman, the body sprawling back, others falling from its weight.
Rourke's right hand flashed to the flap holster on his hip, getting the Python, the six-inch barrel snaking forward, the pistol bucking slightly in his clenched right fist as the muzzle flashed fire, the nearest wildman clasping his neck.
'John— here!'
It was Rubenstein's voice, Rourke edging back, firing both handguns now, the Detonics in his left— loaded with seven rounds this time— and the Colt in his right— loaded with six.
Both guns were half-spent as he edged back from the knot of screaming, howling wildmen. He looked skyward for an instance, the heavy, hollow chopping sound of helicopter rotor blades suddenly loud over the shouts of the men trying to kill him.
'Natalia!' he shouted.
The green 0H58C helicopter was coming in low, and now fire was spitting from the side gun, the 7.62mm slugs hammering into the knot of wildmen, their shrieks louder now as they ran for cover.
'Over here, John!'
Rourke looked behind him, Rubenstein beside a massive pickup truck. Rourke started to run toward him, the Python bucking in Rourke's right fist as he snapped the last three shots over his left shoulder, then threw himself into a run, automatic weapons fire already starting around him, then dove for the shelter of the vehicle.
Rubenstein— on his knees, pale as death beside the right front wheel-well, fired the Detonics.
'Empty.'
Rourke slammed closed the cylinder of the Python, the Safariland speedloader, empty now, crammed back into his musette bag. He handed the pistol to Rubenstein. 'Here— use this.'
Rourke took the Detonics, emptying his own pistol, then reloading both with fresh magazines from the Sparks six pack on his belt.
He reached into the musette bag, finding a spare magazine for the CAR-15, dumping the empty, ramming the fresh one home, working the bolt, then passing the rifle to Rubenstein, the Python out of ammo. Rourke took another of the Safariland speedloaders, reloaded the big Colt and holstered the gun.
He reached into the musette bag, getting the remaining loaded magazines for the CAR-15, putting them on the ground beside Paul. 'You recovered fast—'
'Bullshit— I'm dying— just too stupid to fall down.'
'Lemme look at that,' and Rourke slipped behind the younger man, probing gently at the wound. Rourke reached behind him, snatching the AG Russell Sting IA from the sheath at his belt, using the blade to cut away the sleeve.
