“I don’t have any,” she shouted from beneath the Jeep.
“Wonderful,” Rourke snarled. A KGB man was coming over the Jeep—Rourke rammed the flash deflectored muzzle of the M-16 into his right eye, snatching the just dead man’s M-16, firing point blank at a Soviet guard less than a yard away, sever-ing the man’s head from the body at the neck.
The M-16 belched fire again in his hands, the guards falling back.
“Where did you get the fresh magazine?” Natalia shouted up.
“A nice man happened along and loaned me his gun—you almost done?”
“Almost—”
“Get up here—I need someone else shooting at these guys— hurry it up!” Rourke burned out the magazine, pulling another from the dead man’s utility belt, ramming it home, working the bolt release, firing again.
Then Natalia was up from under the Jeep, beside him. “All I have to do is touch this one wire to the positive terminal of the car battery—”
“How the hell you doin’ that without blowing yourself up?”
“I haven’t figured that out yet.”
Rourke glanced at his watch—ten seconds maybe, Reed com-ing up at the left corner of his peripheral vision, others of the Americans and some of the Russians following him. “Where the hell is Vladov—”
“I haven’t seen him since he got inside—I don’t know—but I heard machinegun fire from deeper inside.”
Why weren’t their people attacking from their rear? Rourke wondered. Perhaps Vladov and his man.
Reed was over the top of the Jeep, a .45 in each hand, Daszrozinski and three of the Russian SF-ers and the GRU ma-jor and the GRU sergeant behind him, running the ramp. Rourke shouted, his throat aching with it, “Move it, Lieuten-ant! Move it!”
Daszrozinski was up, diving across the top of the Jeep, his men following him, doing the same, Rourke tucking back, wingshooting beyond them toward the KGB personnel.
The flash of light—Rourke turned his face away, shielding Natalia against him, the sound of the explosion momentarily deafening him despite the insulation of the vault walls around them, the Shockwave slapping at Rourke, forcing him down, still clutching Natalia.
Rourke rolled on his back as the sound of the three explo-sions died, debris raining down just beyond the cracked open vault door. “I have an idea,” Natalia shouted. Rourke could barely hear her. “Ill just shoot into the engine block—to hell with the battery wire.”
“Everybody up—away from the door,” Rourke shouted. “Now!”
“You heard the man—move,” Sergeant Dressier ordered, even Reed to his feet, running, Daszrozinski firing an M-16 over the top of the Jeep as more of the KGB attacked.
Rourke dragged Natalia with him, running now. Ten yards— twenty—twenty-five—”We’re far enough—give me a rifle,” Na-talia ordered.
Rourke tossed her his, Natalia swinging the M-16 to her shoulder, settling the muzzle for an instant, firing, then running, Rourke beside her, the force of the explosion hammering him down to his knees, Natalia beside him.
He looked back—the fireball was already dying—screams were barely audible from beyond the vault door— but the door was slowly closing, and then there was a loud clanging sound and the vault door leading outside the Womb was closed.
From the far side of the high ceilinged area of the natural rock cave in which they were, near the vault door at the far end, Rourke heard machinegun fire—it would be Vladov. “Let’s go—otherwise we’ll be trapped between the vault doors for good!” Rourke started to run, Natalia beside him.
Chapter Forty
MiG 27s were closing from the horizon line to the east, Chambers shouting to his driver, “Get this thing going faster!”
“Yes, Mr. President!” The Volkswagen’s transmission rat-tled, the driver upshifting into fourth. Chambers thought of it for an instant. He was the president — no armored lim-ousine, just a liberated Volkswagen Beetle that had to be more than twenty years old. And he was running in it for his life to get the half mile down the road beyond the lines of the U.S. II anti-aircraft batteries.
“Faster—”
“These things don’t go that fast, Mr. President!”
“Shit,” he snarled. The MiG 27s came fast enough—he had learned Soviet fighter aircraft well when participating in a strategic arms limitation session as a science advisor to the Secretary of Defense, years before his short elevation to the presidential cabinet, and before his assumption of the presidency by default.
The MiGs screamed through the air above, machinegun fire chewing chunks out of the road surface as the MiGs at-tacked the U.S. II defensive position. And Chambers real-ized it suddenly—driving in a Volkswagen down an otherwise deserted road toward U.S. II lines they would have had no way of knowing he was the president, no desire to waste a missile to destroy them.
The Volkswagen’s windshield wipers were working furi-ously, but dirt still streaked the glass and the Volkswagen moved ahead — Chambers estimated the speed a little better than seventy miles per hour. Ahead of him, there were explosions, fireballs belching skyward, missile contrails mov-ing from the air to the ground, more missile contrails mov-ing from surface to air. One of the MiGs exploded, then another. At the rear of the U.S. II position, there was a huge explosion—perhaps they had hit an ammo or fuel dump.
“Get us there, son,” Chambers snapped.
And where was Lieutenant Feltcher and the TVM? Had he ever reached the Texas Volunteer Militia at all?
Sam Chambers told himself not to expect a miracle — but he closed his eyes and prayed for one anyway, all the while hearing more explosions, more death.
Chapter Forty-one
“What is happening, Major Revnik?” Rozhdestvenskiy grabbed Revnik by his tunic, twisting him around. At a dis-tance well beyond Revnik and a dozen armed guards there was gunfire—machineguns, assault rifles, occasional pistol shots, from the far end of the Womb near the interior bombproof vault doors.
“A group of men, and one woman, have entered the Womb. They have detonated explosives at the loading dock—many of our men are killed, Comrade Colonel.”
“The men—who are they?”
“I do not know —some of them seemed Russian —some of them were dressed in American uniforms, Comrade Colonel.”
“Comrade Major,” a young corporal interrupted, snap-ping to attention, rising from his position behind the barri-cade of electric golf carts behind which Revnik and his men had taken up their positions.
“I cannot be bothered now,” Revnik snapped.
Rozhdestvenskiy turned to face the corporal. “What is it?”
“Comrade Colonel Rozhdestvenskiy, I recognized the woman from my tour of duty in Chicago, Comrade Colo-nel. It was Comrade Major Tiemerovna.”
“And the man,” Rozhdestvenskiy snapped. “One of the men with her—it would be Rourke.”
“The doctor whom you have sought, Comrade Colonel?” Revnik asked.
“CIA agent, doctor, weapons expert— survivalist— he is all these— and he is here!” And Rozhdestvenskiy hammered the heel of his balled right fist against the wall surface. “Re-vnik, get fifty of our best men, assemble them here. I shall take charge of dispatching this Rourke and the traitorous Major Tiemerovna myself.”
He started back down the corridor, toward his office. He didn’t allow himself to run. It would have looked as though he were panicking, as though he were afraid.
He walked into his outer office, his secretary looking up, smiling, “Comrade Colonel?”
He walked past her, into the inner office. On top of his desk were papers, files, maps, intelligence estimates—none of these would do him any good now. He unlocked the top right hand drawer.
He reached inside, his right fist closing around the butt of his revolver. “Damn you, Rourke!” he rasped.
