the panel here is armor plated and I can't get into it. Follow me— we've gotta try—
Rourke out!' Rourke threw down the microphone, both Detonics pistols already holstered, his hands at his sides as he ran for the metal steps leading down toward the silo maintenance access tunnel just ahead.
He ran— he prayed.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Natalia shouted to the machine gunner, 'I'm taking her down, seaman— I have to get inside the bunker and help Dr. Rourke!'
'Yes, ma'am!'
She made the helicopter rotate a full three hundred sixty degrees as she scanned the ground for a safe place to land— there was none. She picked a spot within two hundred yards or so of the bunker entrance and the still- burning truck at the door— she started down. 'Hang on,' she sang out.
The landing party forces were consolidating to complete the envelopment. The wildmen, perhaps a hundred of them still— fighting hand to hand with the landing party forces now, gunfire pouring from a knot of the wildmen near the bunker doors, into the bunker itself, as best she could discern.
She jockeyed the controls, the helicopter touching down. She killed her engine for the tail rotor, then the main rotor, and pressed the quick release button of her seat restraint harness, jumping out and to the ground, snatching up her M-16.
Wildmen were everywhere— and she had to get to the bunker.
'Hey, ma'am— this'll help ya!'
She looked behind her— it was the gunner with the machine gun detached from its mounts, the link belt draped across his body as he framed himself into the doorway. The machine gun began to spit tongues of flame into the mass of wildmen.
Natalia shot him a wave, then started to run.
She shouted to the shore party men— 'Follow me— to the bunker— I have to get inside! Follow me!'
The men began to rally around her, forming a wedge with her at its center as she ran, pumping the trigger of her M-16, cutting down each target of opportunity, men and women, headshots, shots to the chest, bursts that ripped away the nameless faces— she kept running.
The M-16 came up dry and she rammed the butt of the weapon against the face of a wildman with a spear— his nose crushed under its impact as he fell back and away from her.
She threw the rifle at another of the wildmen, snatching open the holster flaps and drawing her L-Frame stainless Smiths, the ones customized by Ron Mahovsky for Sam Chambers before his ascendancy to the presidency of U.S. II, the ones he had given her as a gesture of friendship for her aid in the evacuation of peninsular Florida, the ones with the American eagles on the barrel flats— she fired both .357 Magnums at once, putting two slugs into the chest of a wildman coming at her with an assault rifle blazing— she ran on.
They were nearing the doorway into the bunker, the truck still smoldering but some of the wildmen— a man in Levis and a bearskin their apparent leader— creeping around the sides of the truck, gunfire coming from inside the bunker— it would be Paul and O'Neal, she realized.
They ran ahead. 'Get that squat man with the bearskin— he must be the leader,' she shouted.
The wildmen near the bunker door turned now, almost as one, raining their assault rifles, firing them out in long, ragged bursts, Natalia seeing some of the men from the shore party going down, Natalia's guns blazing in her hands, gunfire from both sides of her from the shore party, the wildmen going down as well.
Both revolvers were empty and she rammed them into her holsters, securing the flaps, bending down, snatching up an M-16 from the ground beside her, standing then, firing out the rifle into the wildmen.
'Close with them!' She started to run, using the rifle alternately like a spear and a club, ramming the flash deflector into a face, swatting the stock against a head, butting the stock against a rib cage.
She stopped— a half dozen of the wildmen in a knot around the squat man who was their leader. The shore party men were around her.
Natalia threw the rifle to the ground, reaching into her hip pocket for the Bali-Song knife, her thumb flicking up the lock that bound the two skeletonized handle sections together, then the interior of the right thumb joint sliding into the open depression in the rear handle section, the knife held between her thumb joint and the side of her first finger, the forward section and the blade rocking forward, the second finger of her right hand forming a fulcrum under the near handle half, and she rocked the near handle half down, both handle halves swinging together, her fist locking around them.
She pressured the near handle half, the Wee-Hawk blade edge outward— with her thumb and first finger, flicking her wrist, rolling her hand and closing the knife, repeating the same motion, but finishing the circle and rolling the knife inward to open it again.
She advanced toward the squat wildman with the bearskin wrapped around him, a knife the size of a short sword appeared in his blood-covered right hand.
He lunged, Natalia feigned, backed off a halfstep and rolled the knife closed, then open, lunging as she rolled the knife closed again, then open again, lunging and parrying as she closed the knife, then rolled it open, the man with the bearskin lunging, her blade open, her fist clenched tight around it, her right arm punching out, the Wee- Hawk blade's tip punching into the carotid artery on the right side of the neck, ripping, tearing— the man fell away, dead.
Natalia did another roll of the knife, closed and open, then leaned down, smearing the blade clean of blood against the bearskin, then rolling it closed and turning the knife end over end in her fist, then closing the lock shut. She dropped it in her hip pocket, the others of the wildmen dead around her, some of the shore party still standing beside her, gunfire from near the helicopter, but mostly the fire from the M-60 machine gun being used.
'Paul— it is Natalia— I must get inside!'
She glanced at the gold lady's Rolex on her left wrist— she judged perhaps five minutes remained until launch.
And if she and Rourke were in the access tunnel trying to confuse or disarm the system when the first missile hit ignition— they would be vaporized.
'Paul!'
'Come ahead, Natalia!' Again, she started to run.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Rourke used the small stainless steel screwdriver on his key ring to remove the last of the bolts over what he hoped was the master electrical panel cover. He tugged at the ends— it was jammed. He withdrew the Black Chrome Sting IA from its sheath, using it to pry against the cover— the cover snapped loudly, echoing in the tunnel as the mechanical voice droned on—'T
minus five minutes twenty-five seconds and counting— T minus five minutes twenty-seconds and counting— T minus five minutes fifteen seconds and counting.'
'Shut up!' he shouted. 'Shut up, damnit!'
'T minus five minutes five seconds and counting,' the voice almost answered.
Beneath the panel were a maze of multicolored wires— he had wired his own home, wired the Retreat— he had wired bombs of conventional explosives— he had never seen such a confusing array of wires in his life. Some would be blinds, some double blinds, some trip detonators that would fuse all the wires in the panel and make disarming the system totally impossible— 'Shit,' he rasped.
Rourke glanced to his left— 'T minus four minutes fifty seconds and counting.'
He could see the fin section of the nearest of the missiles, this the missile that would launch first, its flame discharge sufficient to vaporize him before he would have the chance to realize it was happening.
'T minus four minutes forty seconds and counting.'
'Shut up—'
Rourke snatched one of the Detonics pistols out of the double Alessi rig and fired up into the speaker box at the far end of the tunnel.
But still he could hear the voice, only more distant from the next farther speaker.
'T minus four minutes thirty five seconds and counting.'
Rourke holstered his gun, studying the wiring diagram— 'Come on, Natalia— damnit— come on!' She knew the system better than he did— had studied its stolen plans. For once in his life he prayed Soviet Intelligence had gotten perfect information.
