Rozhdestvenskiy started to run.
Chapter Sixty-five
The truck, with its heavy load, would barely do sixty steadily, Rourke judged, comparing the truck’s speed with the matching speed of the Ninja, and only on the straight-aways. It was necessary in the curves, to preserve the load, to slow to thirty.
Behind him he heard what he had expected to hear—vehi-cles.
Rourke looked back. Coming around the curve behind them, into the straightaway were what he counted as an even dozen more or less Honda Gold Wings, fast, power-ful, painted black. Behind the wedge of bikers a single auto-mobile—a black Pontiac Firebird Trans-Am. Behind this, two abreast, black painted vans. Visible on the roofs of the vans some type of weapon—he imagined Soviet RPK light machineguns.
“Natalia! Company. Hustle,” he shouted.
He saw her through the open window, turning her head, glance at him once—her eyes in the pale green of the over-head lighting system—their blueness riveted him.
The truck began to pick up speed, but it couldn’t pick up much with the specialized emission control equipment it carried, and acceleration was pitifully slow.
He looked behind him again—the KGB armada was clos-ing.
They would target him, so he couldn’t destroy the serum in the truck bed. Then close in on Natalia and box the pickup in, killing her and rescuing the serum. It was Rozhdestvenskiy’s only option.
The thought flashed across Rourke’s mind, to abandon the motorcycle and jump into the pickup bed, but it wouldn’t prevent them from stopping the truck. He could destroy the serum, but he needed the serum to keep his wife, his children, Paul alive.
And Rozhdestvenskiy would know Rourke wanted at least some of the serum intact.
“May as well get started,” he whispered into the slip-stream around him. He stabbed the left side M-16 toward the KGB armada and opened fire, emptying the half spent magazine, one of the bikes swerving, spinning out, crashing against the concrete surface of the walkway on the left side of the corridor.
Rourke let the rifle fall empty to his side, making the bike accelerate, outstripping Natalia and the truck for an in-stant, the road surface around him that formed the corridor floor taking the impact of bursts of machinegun fire, slugs whistling, ricocheting maddeningly.
Rourke pulled in front of the truck, using the serum bot-tles it contained as a shield, the gunfire ceasing, but as he looked back, the motorcycles and the Firebird speeding ahead.
Rourke let the Ninja drift right, bringing up the second M-16, firing behind him—spraying the assault rifle left to right and back again, three of the bikers down, their ma-chines spinning out, crashing against the walkway bases, others of the machines slowing, skidding, another bike out of control, crashing.
Rourke let the Ninja drift left as machinegun fire raked the road surface, but it meticulously avoided Natalia in the truck.
Mentally he ran the scorecard—seven bikers remaining, the four vans and the Firebird.
“Shit,” he snarled into the wind.
Chapter Sixty-six
Natalia was honking at him, Rourke looking back—she was waving her right hand. Rourke shook his head, not un-derstanding.
Natalia began to honk her horn again—long and short-blasts of the horn—suddenly Rourke realized. Morse code. Rourke turned to her again moving his right hand as if in a wiping out motion, then nodding his head.
She nodded back.
Dash—dot—dash—dot.
Dot—dot—dash—dot. Dash—dash—dash. Dot—dot—dash. Dot—dash—dot.
“C-4,” Rourke whispered. “C-4.”
He turned to her, nodding. The musette bag on his left side—the five pounds of C-4 he himself had taken. He reached into the musette bag, awkwardly one handed claw-ing at the brick of plastique, ripping away approximately a third of it. He kneaded it in his hand, like some persons use a rubber ball to exercise their fingers. It was becoming soft from his body heat.
Rourke kept kneading it, already knowing what he would do with it.
Rourke let the Ninja drift right, the ball of C-4 in his right hand—he snapped his right arm back and outward, the C-4 leaving his grip, edging slightly left in the bike’s saddle, keeping his balance, drawing the Python.
The seven bikers were coming—he let them come, past the C-4 almost. He stabbed the Python behind him, gunfire from the vans hammering into the pavement around him. He double actioned the Python once. A miss. Again. Another miss.
The bikers were nearly past it. He fired the Python once more—there was a roar, screams drowned in it, Rourke nearly losing the bike, swinging his balance right again, looking back, a fireball belched upward toward the corri-dor ceiling, chunks of human beings and motorcycles rained downward.
The Trans-Am had swerved, taken one of the small ramps leading to the walkway, moving along the walkway, now, coming fast, bouncing between the wall to the right and the walkway guard rail to the left, sparks flying as the fenders grated against the railing, the driver’s side window rolling down, the muzzle of a submachinegun poking through it. And his lips drawn back against the slipstream of the wind, Rozhdestvenskiy screaming the word, “Die!”
Rourke made the bike swerve, the chattering sound of glass—he looked to his left—Rozhdestvenskiy was shoot-ing at Natalia, the windshield cracked, the pickup swerving, then steadying.
The Python still in his right fist, Rourke stabbed it to-ward the black sportscar, firing twice for the window, miss-ing, seeing the sparks as the bullets glanced off the hood.
The subgun opened up again, Rourke ramming the Py-thon into the leather, making the bike speed ahead.
He glanced behind him—one of the vans had somehow become disabled. Only three remained, machinegun fire coming toward him now as all three formed a single rank across the corridor floor.
Subgun fire from the Pontiac to his right. The Firebird was speeding up, past Natalia, even with Rourke.
Rourke swung the M-16 outward, pumping the trigger, emptying the magazine toward the Firebird, the Firebird veered left—the railing on the walkway peeled away, chunks of it flying outward into the corridor road surface, Rourke dropping the empty M-16 from his fist, making the Ninja swerve away.
He looked back and right—the Firebird was still coming, and behind him now, the three vans had stopped shooting; they were closing with Natalia.
More subgun fire from the Firebird, Rourke reaching to the small of his back to the Thad Rybka holster and the two-inch Colt Lawman. He had it, pointing the little .357 toward the Firebird, firing, but not for the passenger com-partment and the open window there—for the tires instead. At the speeds with which the car moved, the tires were high speed radials, not run-flats. He aimed for the area by the rims, the left front so he would affect the steering. He dou-bled actioned the little Colt. A miss.
Subgun fire from the window again. Rourke fired the little Colt—once, twice, a third time—four rounds were gone.
Subgun fire—he could smell gasoline—the submachine-gun Rozhdestvenskiy used had hit the Ninja’s gas tank. It could explode at any moment.
Rourke pumped the last two rounds from the Lawman— the tire seemed to explode, the Firebird crashing through the guard rail, bouncing back against the concrete to the right of the car, then away, punching out the railing, crash-ing down to the road surface, rolling, sliding along on the roof. Rourke swerved the Ninja, the little Colt shoved into his belt.
He let the bike skid, away from him, jumping clear, the bike skidding now toward the Firebird, the bike impacting against the passenger door of the inverted street machine— the gasoline tank—a small explosion, flames scorching up-ward for a brief instant, the Firebird’s tires on fire.
Rourke rolled across the road surface, stopping on his back, remembering to breathe.
