Survivalist - 18 - The Struggle

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Title : #18 : THE STRUGGLE

Series : Survivalist

Author(s) : Jerry Ahern

Location : Gillian Archives

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John Rourke stared through the Plexiglas panel which ran the length of the bottom portion of the portside fuselage door. There was nothing but snow and jagged jutting peaks and trenchlike rocky ravines, along the boundaries of these, and in patches bisecting the slopes some stands of pine trees. Above this, above the Soviet gunship which carried them away from the Second Chinese City’s ruins, was a gray sky, laden with still more snow.

Riderless horses moved in bands of three or four, in some instances their Mongol riders—dead—dragged by a stirrup over the merciless terrain, the horses frightened off what trail there was, tacking at bizarre tangents over the ridgelines to escape the noise of the terrain-following helicopter.

There was a roar, the Plexiglas vibrating, the images of snow and boulders and all the rest—even the dead men dragged behind their animals—suddenly shimmering, a human scream rising from the explosion, then lost almost the same instant that it began, the Soviet gunship shuddering, a black-and-yellow fireball sweeping aft from the helicopter’s cockpit chin bubble.

Vassily Prokopiev and Rourke’s son Michael moved

as if they were a single entity, hurtling their bodies away from the aft belching flames. John Rourke was already moving, tearing one of the armored fire extinguishers from its mounting beside the fuselage door. He shouted, “Paul!” But the younger man was grabbing for the second extinguisher even as Rourke spoke.

Rourke swung toward Michael and Prokopiev, spraying their backs with the white stream of foam, Prokopiev rolling across the fuselage deck, the flames on Michael’s trouser legs out, Michael whipping away one of the blankets covering the unconscious Chinese agent Han Lu Chen, smothering the flames racing over Prokopiev’s tunic. Rourke shifted the extinguisher toward the cockpit, Paul Rubenstein already advancing against the flames. “No good, John!”

There was a humming sound, louder and louder, the gunship vibrating maddeningly around them as if it were going to shatter. Maria Leuden shrieked, “We are crashing!”

John Rourke thought, No shit, but said nothing, advancing against the flames. But Paul was right. No good. The extinguisher was dead in his hands and he threw it down. “Get Han!”

“My men!” Prokopiev shouted, starting forward, Michael bulldogging him. “I must—”

“They’re dead, damn it, Vassily!” Michael insisted. As Rourke wheeled toward Han Lu Chen, he caught a glimpse of Michael shaking Prokopiev violently. In the next instant, the KGB Elite Corps Commander was up from his knees. “Help me!” Michael ordered Prokopiev.

Rourke’s hands flew over the restraining buckles which bound Han Lu Chen into the webbing hammock, the Chinese beaten senseless by the torture masters of the Second City, comatose now. “Maria!

Get the weapons! Paul! You and Michael—get the fuselage door open and stand back—flames!” One of the safety strap buckles was stuck, Rourke’s right hand grasping for the butt of the LS-X at his side, raking the primary edge over the strap, severing the fabric. As he sheathed the knife with his right hand, his left hand hauled Han Lu Chen up, Rourke putting his shoulder into him, then throwing the Chinese intelligence agent across his back.

There was a rush of frigid air, Michael shouting, “Look out!” A rush of fuel-scented heat filled the cabin.

As Rourke turned toward the fuselage door, tongues of flame were hungrily licking inward. “There’s another extinguisher forward!” Paul Rubenstein shouted, streaking past Rourke, toward the inferno that was the cockpit.

“No!” John Rourke called after him, but his friend was gone, into the flames, then stumbling back, the third fire extinguisher tumbling from his fingers, rolling across the deck. Prokopiev was on him, flipping the extinguisher to Michael, then smothering the flames which assaulted Paul’s legs and arms, beating them out. Maria Leuden dropped to her knees beside Prokopiev, using her coat to fight the flames.

Michael Rourke moved relentlessly forward, assaulting the fire along the port side of the aircraft at its very heart, the overhead control panel, this the origin of the flames penetrating through the open fuselage door and blocking their egress.

There was a roaring wave of flame, and then the opening was clear. Michael yelled back, “Whatever we’re doing, do it now!”

John Rourke stood beside the fuselage opening, the ground coming up fast, the gunship mere yards above the snow. There was no other choice. “Everybody!

Now! Follow me and jump! God help us!” Rourke looked back once, Paul Rubenstein scrabbling to his feet, Prokopiev and Maria Leuden helping him. There was no time to judge, to wait for a better spot. John Rourke shifted Han Lu Chen into his arms, shielding the unconscious man’s head with his forearm, then jumped.

There was a rush of frigid air, Rourke’s face and bare throat and hands pelted with spicules of ice and blowing snow, the incessant droning of the falling helicopter suddenly gone, Rourke’s body impacting the snow-packed ground, his left hand covering Han’s face, Rourke’s body rolling, slamming hard to a stop, his breath knocked from him, his left wrist alive with pain as he moved it.

He looked up and back, brushing snow from his eyes with his right hand, Han moaning beneath him. Either Michael and Paul and the others had already jumped or… The Soviet gunship skipped over a rise of ground, rolled over and exploded, consumed in flame.

“Paul! Michael!”

Rourke was to his knees, still cradling Han Lu Chen in his arms. He stumbled forward, easing the Chinese into the snow, then got to his feet. When he moved his left wrist, it hurt, but nothing felt broken. Mechanically, he glanced at his Rolex. It was apparently unscathed. His whole left side, shoulder, rib cage, hip, and knee felt as if he’d been run over by something. He started forward, automatically reaching under his open parka for a gun. They had been shot down. “Michael! Paul! Maria! Prokopiev!”

“Dad!”

Rourke turned so quickly that his head began to swim and there were floaters in front of his eyes, his breathing still shallow, labored.

Michael was standing in the snow field a hundred

yards or so closer to the still burning gunship. Rourke started toward his son…

Paul had sustained no serious new burns, nor had Prokopiev or Michael, although Maria Leuden’s hands were slightly burned, but again not seriously. Han Lu Chen, oddly, seemed none the worse for the fall. As John Rourke and Michael Rourke advanced on four of the free-roaming Mongol horses, Rourke felt the stiffness leaving his left side, his left wrist still tender when he moved it wrong. But almost miraculously, no one had really been hurt, “the only casualties the pilot and navigator who, Rourke judged, had likely died in the same instant as the explosion.

“That was a Soviet RPG that hit us, Michael.”

“Some of the Second City Chinese,” Michael Rourke said softly.

The horses were still better than a dozen yards away and to frighten them off now would simply mean more tracking and running and more time lost before they could reach the friendly German lines. A dying Mongol had evidently lashed himself into the saddle of his horse. Bony stumps and raw meat-appearing chunks of human body were tethered to one of the lathered animals at the end of a braided leather rope several feet behind one of the animals.

“Maybe Chinese, maybe Mongols,” John Rourke said to his son after the protracted silence, “We’ll be sitting ducks on horseback. We’ll have to ride that long defile near the Soviet lines until we can separate from Prokopiev. If I were a Mongol, bent on revenge for the destruction of the Second City, I’d be waiting there. And that’s what we were passing over when the RPG hit us. It’s going to be you and me. Paul’s too weak to do a lot of climbing and Prokopiev’s not in such hot

shape either. Maria won’t object if I borrow you a while, will she?” “Do you like Maria?”

Rourke took his eyes from the horses for an instant—only that—and glanced toward his son. “She’s pretty, she’s smart, obviously nuts about you.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“Do you love her?”

“Yeah.”

“Then why don’t you marry her? Because of what happened to your first wife and the baby?”

“Goddamnit, you don’t mince words, do you, Dad?”

“I never had the time, or, the truth to tell, the inclination. So, I guess I don’t ‘mince words’, Mike.”

“That’s about three times in my life you’ve called me that.”

“You’ve got nothing better to do than keep count?” Rourke said rhetorically, smiling at Michael for a moment, then his eyes back on the horses.

“Yeah. Because of Madison and the baby,” Michael almost whispered.

John Rourke said, “Get ready to go for the two nearest you. Remember—you’re the one who told me these little horses are tough.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“Do I like Maria? Sure. You treat her like shit. Now!” And John Rourke lunged toward the animals nearest him, his right fist closing on the bridle of the roan and his left hand grabbing the reins of the almost brindle-colored one. As the latter animal reared and Rourke sidestepped but held on, he felt as if his left wrist was breaking. But since it didn’t, it provided further verification that it was only a minor sprain.

“Got mine,” Michael shouted.

Rourke only nodded, despite the pain in his wrist, shifting the reins of both animals to his left hand. With

his right hand he drew the Crain LS-X knife, cutting the dead man free…

The second time they caught Mongol horses, it was easier, but, that was partially because there were only two horses to catch. With them, they returned to where the other four horses and the other four members of their party were, unsaddling the animals, wiping them down, feeding them from the grain bags on each saddle. The saddles themselves, though quite ornate, reminded Rourke of the United States Army’s McClellan saddles. They were split along the tree dead up the center. As with the Cavalry McClellans from the nineteenth century, the purpose for the split was obvious. In wintertime, the split would conduct heat from the animal’s body to the body of the rider; in times of prolonged hard riding, when the animal would lose considerable body mass, the split would prevent gauling along the animal’s spine. An old friend, a collector of western memorabilia, had explained the philosophy behind McClellan saddles to Rourke five centuries ago.

Taking the sturdiest of the horses for themselves, leaving Maria and Paul and Prokopiev to ride down through the defile with the injured Han Lu Chen, John and Michael Rourke started for the higher ground. Soviet assault rifles were lashed to the saddles of their expropriated animals, Mongol swords lashed to the saddles as well. One of the dead Mongols, whose body was still in the saddle when his animal was captured, had carried a five-centuries-old Glock-17 and several spare magazines. Rourke found the gun totally serviceable after administering a thorough cleaning while the horses rested, then left it with Prokopiev, replacing the corroded ammunition with some of the

modern German ammunition manufactured for him to duplicate the 115-grain Federal 9mm BP.

Once they reached German lines, proper emergency care could be found, Rourke having done all that he could for Han Lu Chen without any real facilities at his disposal. And transport could be gotten to the First Chinese City and its modern hospital.

As they rode, they talked, about Annie, for whom they both were worried, about Natalia’s problems. As they crossed into a snowdrifted ravine, they were forced to dismount and lead the animals. “If these animals were larger, this would be easier,” Michael Rourke exhaled, tugging at the Mongol animal as it began to founder in a suddenly deeper drift. The snow still fell. And suddenly Michael Rourke asked his father, “You talk about me and Maria—what about you and Natalia?’

“What do you mean exactly?” Rourke responded, walking alongside his horse, holding the reins, pushing against the animal’s flanks to propel it ahead.

“You’re in love with two women; two women are in love with you. What are you going to do about it?”

John Rourke looked at his son, smiling, saying, “You have any solutions in mind?”

“No,” Michael said almost desultorily.

“WelL neither do 1.1 know Natalia’s mental collapse is at least partially my fault, maybe all my fault—”

“I didn’t say that, Dad,” Michael interrupted.

“Stating the obvious is a waste of time; and I’ve never accused you of being a time-waster, Michael. I know something has to be done, but if I already knew what, I would have done it. Centuries ago.”

They reached the height of the defile and the snow was less deep here and they were able to remount the Mongol horses. Rourke looked at his Rolex, computing the amount of time it would take for Paul and

the others to reach the danger zone. And he spurred his mount ahead …

Ahead of them lay a ridgeline that resembled the backbone of some monstrously large prehistoric beast, and between the rocky vertebrae were huddled at best count from the distance at which Rourke observed perhaps a dozen and a half men. All of them that he could see through the German binoculars were Mongols, armed variously with twentieth century automatic rifles and a few captured Soviet arms, among these at least one more RPG of the type used to shoot down the Soviet gunship aboard which Rourke and his son and all the rest had nearly died. The position which the Mongols held on the ridgeline dominated the gorge which had to be crossed through to reach the Russian or German lines.