Survivalist - 21.5 - The Legend (40 page)

“Yeah, and I go walkin’ in there with these,” Paul laughed evily, “and I don’t come walkin’ out again. You tell this Boris that I want plenty of antibiotics, some nose candy and six AKM-96 rifles.

“Six! For pussy?”

“Six for each one; tell him. Or I pack up the truck. He hears what he missed with these two, hell, I wouldn’t wanna be you guys. Probably get six or eight kids outa each one of ‘em before he’d throw ‘em away.”

She watched the two with whom Paul bargained.

They walked some distance away, Paul keeping his old Browning High Power on them while they conferred.

The key to the plan’s having any chance of success at all was that they didn’t go into East St. Louis, never got off the bridge, that Boris came to them.

And, although she didn’t like it, she realized that Paul was making a last gambit. He shouted to the two men, saying, “Look at this, man!” And his fist closed over the front of Natalia’s dress and ripped it open almost to her waist.

She wore a bra underneath and that was all. He went to Annie and did the same thing.

Natalia stood there, watching the men as they watched her, watched Annie, their eyes going farther than Paul had ripped. “All right. Get ‘em up to the barricade. Boris ain’t gonna like it. I tell ya that, man.”

Paul only nodded…

All of the charges, three on each side of the bridge, were in position, set to detonate when the radio signal was made.

John Rourke looked across to the other side of the bridge. Clinging to one of the girders there, as he did on this side, his son, Michael, was ready.

John Rourke looked at the black-faced Rolex Submariner on his left wrist.

All they needed was Paul’s signal.

His eyes drifted back to the face of his watch.

This was taking too long, and the longer it took, the more chance there was it would go wrong.

Eleven

Natalia’s fingers had full flexibility now, if not full reeling, the tips still tingling as she moved them. As soon as the two men had retreated toward the barricade, Paul walking on with them for a moment; she turned her back toward the truck and caught up her skirts, pulling them up until she could slide her right hand inside the waistband of her underpants. When she pulled on the Bali-Song that was taped between the cheeks of her rear end, the tape took a little skin with it. She was grateful for the gag to bite down on to keep her from making any sort of sound in the instant of pain. She let her dress fall back.

But she had the knife, the lock off, the handle in her right hand, shielded by her left. She desperately wanted to cut the bonds from her wrists, but to do so now might be premature. From a distance, if the ropes were seen not to be connected, the deception might be blown. Instead, she let one handle half drop, sawing with the Bali-Song’s primary edge against the ropes but not cutting all the way through. The rope was old, so it would be dry and cut away more easily, and only twisted around her wrists three times. Once one turn of the rope was cut through, she could pull her wrists free. Michael tying her, they had experimented with it several times to make sure that it would work.

Natalia looked at Annie, Annie nodding that she had her knife as well.

Paul, his voice gruff sounding, shouted, “Move your asses, girls! On the double!” Bowing her head slightly, Annie beside her, Natalia started moving off slowly toward him. “Hurry it

up, damnit!” She quickened her pace.

When they neared Paul, he grabbed them both and pushed them forward roughly. “Move it!”

The blanket that had been wrapped around her against the cold fell from her shoulders. When she looked back toward it, Paul gave her another shove, saying through his teeth, “Sorry.” Then he shouted at her, “Stupid! Don’t want the damn blanket? Then freeze your ass!”

They were nearing the barricade, Paul grabbing Annie and then her, pulling them together back to back. This was so they could help each other with the ropes on their wrists, if need be.

She looked toward the barricade. The two men who had accompanied Paul and then gone back ahead of him were gone, presumably to get Boris. She lowered her eyes, sawing through the turn of rope all the way.

Twelve

She was cold and stiff from standing there in the cold. And she really didn’t know just how long it had been, but her wrists were free and she could tell by feeling behind her, that Annie’s wrists were free as well.

A truck, from intelligence data she had seen, almost a brand new Eden Army issue, was pulling up on the far side of the barricade.

The two men she’d seen with Paul jumped down from the back, the truck parked at an angle across the bridge. She could see quite clearly.

Then a man climbed down out of the passenger side of the cab.

He was big, fat, and dirty looking. He wore a heavy coat that looked to made of sheepskin, cinched at his enormous waist with a wide belt, a pistol holster on either side in front, the pistols set for crossdraw. Cartridge belts were crisscrossed over his chest.

He wore a black beard, so long, it was nearly to the center of his chest. As he started forward, toward the barricade, she could properly assess his height as well over six feet. She guessed his weight at close to three hundred pounds.

“And who the hell are you to order me to come and see two damn pieces o’ ass? Yeah, you, damnit!”

Paul kept his cool. He shouted back, “Hey, you don’t wanna see ‘em, no big deal! m move on and sell ‘em someplace else.”

“The hell ya will!”

Paul stood his ground, his pistol still in his hand.

The big man was coming through an opening made for him in the barricade, his stride so long, it looked almost as if he could have crossed from one side of the river to the other without even needing a bridge to keep his feet dry.

“Blue eyes, huh? And he walked straight up to her, past Paul, grabbing Natalia by the neck with his right hand and almost lifting her off the ground. “Let’s see ‘em bitch!” She looked right at him. If he held her like this much longer, she’d have to try to kill him, because she couldn’t breathe.

“Keep your hands off til ya own her, man,” Paul said from behind him.

The big man started to laugh, his breath when he opened his mouth-his teeth were yellow, except for the ones that were black-more malodorous than anything she’d ever smelled in her life.

Then he let go of her neck and she almost fell, deciding to let herself tall, dropping to her knees, leaning forward and making a show of gasping for breath. On ber knees, she was even less to be noticed, less of a possible threat.

Above her, Paul and the big man-she hoped he was Boris-argued. “I don’t give no six rifles apiece for no damn piece o’ ass. I can take these from ya right now. Three rifles for both o’ ‘em and the drugs you wanted. That’s my deal, man. Take it or leave it.”

“Boris, huh? You a Russian?”

“So what? You want the three rifles or you warma be dead?” “What if I can get you more women like this?” “If they’re virgins?” “Virgins,” Paul said.

“Hell, for a steady supply of virgins-which you ain’t got, asshole-but I’d swap ya a rifle apiece and all the drugs ya want. Get high as the moon, I don’t give a shit.”

Paul touched his left hand to the back of his neck, as though rubbing away a cramp.

Natalia was waiting for the signal …

John Rourke heard the beeping in his left ear, one beep, then two, then one, men two. Paul was activating the radio signalling device located under the collar of his shirt.

John Rourke gave his son a “thumbs” up signal and they both started to climb …

Paul said, “You know, these two women. They’re worth a lot to me. Maybe I outghta take ‘em to the Land Pirates.”

Land Pirates was the signal.

Paul stabbed his pistol toward Boris.

Natalia’s right hand moved forward, the ropes falling away from her wrists as she made it to her feet, her left hand pulling away her gag, then clawing across Boris’s face, grabbing his right ear and twisting his powerful neck left, as the Bali-Song went click-click-click in her right hand and she had the point of the knife against his carotid artery behind and below his right ear. “Unconscious in five seconds and dead in twelve, if you move, fd just as soon you moved.”

Thirteen

John Rourke flipped the railing on his left hand, the ScoreMasters corning into his hands as his feet hit the bridge surface. “Hold it!”

As expected, the men who were starting to react to Paul and Annie and Natalia-six by the barricade and four beside the truck and one just climbing out from behind the wheel-turned toward him, starting for their weapons.

But John Rourke had planned ahead, arranging with his son that he would come onto the bridge the instant after he heard him shout.

Michael was on the bridge, an assault rifle in his right hand, the 44 Magnum Model 629 four-inch gleaming in his left. “Move and you die!”

Two of the men moved anyway, the driver of the truck and one of the men beside the barricade. John Rourke shouted as he fired, “Truck!”

The Detonics Scoremasters bucked once each in his hands as Rourke wheeled toward the barricade, the man dropping before his assault rifle could fire. Annie, one of Paul’s High Powers in her hands, fired at the man in the same instant, his body on its side, on the floor of the bridge.

The report from Michael’s assault rifle still echoed off the bridge’s metal struts.

No one else moved. Rourke shouted, “Natalia! Get that tiling into the truck. Annie! Get his weapons and toss them over the side into the river. Shoot his kneecaps out if he

causes any trouble. He just needs to be able to talk, not walk.”

Michael, a gun still in each hand, started herding die remaining nine men toward the center of the bridge. In minutes at the most, the rest of Boris, the slaver’s men, would be coming and John Rourke didn’t care to wait around to see them…

She locked three sets of disposable plastic restraints around Boris’s massive wrists, her knife to his ear as Annie secured his ankles. “You need a tongue to talk and one ear to listen, so this one is expendable if you move.”

“You-“

“Go ahead,” Natalia hissed through her teeth. “Call me something and see how fast you start losing body parts!”

He shut his mouth. Annie finished with his ankles and jumped down from the back of the truck, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders.

Natalia caught up her skirts with the same hand in which she held her knife and jumped to the bridge floor. “Go up to the cab with Paul. Ill join you in a minute.”

“All right”

“But give me Paul’s other Browning.”

Annie passed the 9mm to her, saying, “Ifs hot.”

“Right.” Natalia’s eyes glanced down at the pistol as she settled it in her hand. Cocked and locked. There had been thirteen rounds plus one in the chamber, and Annie fired two.

Twelve rounds, nine men. She flipped Bali-Song closed left-handed and dropped it in the side seam pocket of her dress. Natalia, her left hand holding together the top of her dress, started toward the nine men at the center of the bridge. One of them was the man who had talked so big, while she’d been bound and gagged.

Michael and John were looking at her as she approached. Michael cautioned, “We’re ranning out of time, Natalia.”

“Then these things who call themselves men had better

hurry or I will shoot each one of them.” And she shouted now at the nine men who stood with their hands clasped over their heads “Hear that? I am in a hurry. Remember how you shed your weapons?” Their guns and knives were in a pile on the bridge, near the far railing. “Let’s see you shed your clothes the same way. Be quick or be dead!”

Some of the men looked at one another, then looked at her. Natalia pointed the High Power at the biggest of the nine men. “Guess where I will shoot you!”

He started to undress…

Michael Rourke started hurling the guns and knives taken from the slavers over the bridge rail and into the river. Most of the guns were post-War and in terrible condition. There were a few Beretta 92F military pistols, but in such a condition of neglect that their value for parts would be dubious. The knives were big and flashy and of poor quality.

The last of the weapons tossed away, he looked back toward the center of the bridge.

Natalia was tall for a woman, but very slender. In the torn long dress she wore, she looked almost frail, her left hand holding her clothes together, her right hand holding a gun.

The last of the nine men was down to nothing.

Time was running out, but Natalia owed herself this, Michael Rourke realized. “Now, I want all of your to hold hands and form a circle, backs to the center. Move!

The nine men did as she ordered, looking stupid, just as she wanted, he knew.

Michael looked at his father. John Rourke, a .45 still in each hand, as he was standing beside the rear end of the truck, laughing out loud.

“Now,” Natalia ordered. “You will walk that way toward the tar end of the bridge. The first man who breaks the circle, dies. Start walking! Go on! Walk!” Tripping over each other, but holding hands as though their lives depended on it, they

started moving. “Faster! Come on!”

Michael Rourke, shaking his head, smiling, started for the truck…

Michael helped Natalia up into the cab of the truck Paul had driven here. The gesture, however unnecessary, was the gentlemanly thing to do.

John Rourke ran forward along the passenger side of the Eden military truck they were stealing from the slavers, toward the cab, climbing aboard, one foot inside, the other hanging free, his body weight on the open door, his right hand holding the radio detonator.

“We’re rolling!” Paul shouted, the truck starting forward, grinding through the gears of its automatic transmission as it picked up speed.

The truck carrying Michael and Natalia was already off the bridge and on the semi-paved excuse for a road leading to it, gathering speed.

John Rourke looked back. The nine naked men were running for their lives now, vehicles of all descriptions coming onto the bridge from the far end, some of the naked men rwinting beMnd them, toward the near end of the bridge.