The Quest

Chapter 32

Rourke pushed himself up and raced from the lip of the culvert and across the parking lot toward the grassy knoll some two hundred yards away, the CAR-15 in his right fist, the safety off, the freshness of the air exhilarating to his lungs, his hair blowing across his face and then back from his forehead in the cool night wind. He hit the grassy knoll and threw himself to the ground, hugging the green as he waited for Reed, then the two men after him. Sighting through the Colt’s three-power scope, he tried spotting the roof line. Again he saw nothing, then edged along the grass closer toward the building, Reed was nearly across the parking area now, one of the other men already starting out from the culvert.

Rourke stopped, rolling onto his back on the grass, catching his breath, staring up at the night sky and the stars. The haze was still around the moon and it wasn’t the moon, Rourke knew, but something in the atmosphere. He snatched a tuft of grass from beside him—it was green and healthy—he could feel a mist starting to fall. Was the rain radioactive yet? he wondered. There was so little time for him to find Sarah and the children, if there were any time at all. There was safety in the retreat. He stared up as the stars began fading above a thin layer of clouds. What then, he asked himself, what after he found Sarah, Michael, Ann? Life in the retreat forever, go outside specially suited-up because the air was foul? What if radiation seeped through the ground into the water source for the retreat somewhere hundreds of miles away? He monitored and tested the water periodically—but what if? The ifs were gnawing at him; he had no choice but to find his family, and after that somehow keep them all alive. And what if between the time from when he had found the tracks and now they had died? What if they thought he were dead?

Doubt, he thought, doubt . . .

“See anything?”

He glanced to his left, a part of his consciousness noticing Reed edging up along side him.

“No—nothing,” Rourke muttered, watching across the parking area as the last man began his headlong lunge across the open area—a target, but Rourke doubted anyone would shoot. He was convinced now that the Communists were setting a trap, and what drew him on, he supposed, was the reason behind it. If they wanted the attackers in the commando team dead, they would have opened up already, sealed the storm drain, potshotted them through the other side or gassed them; there were an infinite number of ways to kill.

Whatever the trap, it was important enough to risk the supply depot and the helicopter landing field on the other side of the shopping center. Whatever the trap, the mass death of the commando team was not its objective. Rourke’s stomach turned and his palms began to sweat under the gloves he wore.

The last of Reed’s two men hit the grassy area and Rourke waited a moment for the corporal to catch his breath, then signaled Reed and the two men to move out, edging along the ground on his hands and knees toward the rise at the top of the knoll, keeping his head below it and peering beyond. There was more of the parking area, where he finally saw some signs of life—but not enough, he told himself. There were two fixed-wing aircraft of the single-engine variety, apparently used for observation flights, and with a short enough takeoff that they could use the lot. Trucks were parked alongside the buildings and there were lights from inside through what had once been the windows of the stores when it had still been a shopping center.

Rourke dropped below the edge and turned toward Reed, close behind him. “I make it about six feet to the nearest part of that lower level roof line, six feet from the grass. Let’s get everybody up and over except that corporal. Have him wait five minutes in case some shooting starts. No sense getting more people killed than we have to.” Rourke didn’t wait for a reply, but started moving, running in a low crouch toward the nearest roof line, setting his safety on and letting the rifle sling back behind his shoulder, upping his speed, raising to his full height as he ran the last few yards, his hands going out ahead of him, his feet coming together as he forced himself up, his hands clawing for the roof line, then getting a grip and pulling his body up and over. On his hands and knees, pushing himself up to a crouch, he swung the rifle forward, edging off the safety, making a quick visual inspection of the scope, ascertaining there was no damage and moving off toward what apparently was a roof-mounted air conditioner. Going flat against it, he surveyed the roof line: it was a trap. He was certain now there were no guards. He could see men on the next higher roof level, but only a fool of a commander would have left an entire section of the roof line unguarded.

He glanced behind him, seeing Reed coming over the roof line and almost immediately after him one of the two men with him. Rourke signaled Reed and the other man to follow him, then ducked from behind the air-conditioning unit to the edge of the higher roof line, going into a crouch. Reed joined him.

“There—that’s why it’s a trap,” Rourke rasped, jabbing his thumb toward the guards on the next roof line. “Wait a minute, take this.” Rourke slipped the safety on his CAR-15 and pushed himself up the six feet to the next roof line, scrambling over it and dropping flat against the tarred surface. He studied the guard nearest him, one man, standing in the open—an obvious setup, he thought.

Rourke crawled on his stomach along the roof surface toward the side overlooking the knoll.

Peering over the edge, he saw something that, though he expected it, made his blood run cold—a large concentration of troops waiting in the wooded areas beyond the far side of the upper-level parking area. He ducked down, then, running in a low crouch, crossed the roof line to the far parking areas in front of the shopping center. Rourke dropped low beside the roof edge and looked over the side—Soviet armor surrounded the several dozen military helicopters on the ground, motorcycle-mounted troops ringing what looked to be a staff car.

“Shit!” Rourke muttered, then started back toward Reed and reached the roof edge and flipping over the side, dropping and flexing his knees to break the fall.

“Well?”

“Well, kiss your fanny goodbye,” Rourke snapped, starting toward the roof line fronting the knoll.

The corporal was just coming over the roof line. Rourke caught the man in his arms against his chest, breaking his fall and turning him around. “Back down, Corporal,” Rourke snapped, hitting the roof edge and flipping down on the grass, rolling and tumbling down the knoll, coming up on his knees, the CAR-15 at his hip.

“Come on!” he snapped, breaking into a deadrun across the parking lot. The trap was about to spring, he thought, and there was too much of it to wait it out. There wasn’t even time to run.

Rourke saw someone coming up over the lip of the culvert. Fulsom? The man’s arms were waving. He was choking, it looked like, his body doubling over, the knees buckling, then the man pushed himself up and ran toward them again. Rourke glanced behind him. First was the corporal, then Reed, then the other soldier.

Fulsom was shouting something and Rourke tried waving him down, signaling him to be still. But Fulsom was still shouting. Rourke couldn’t make out the words, but heard the spasms of coughing. Rourke glanced behind him again; the lower roof was swarming now with Soviet troops, and the upper-level parking area was no longer nearly deserted. He could see the canvas roof lines of Soviet military trucks there. In the distance, from the other side of the shopping center, he could make out the revving of motorcycle engines. Rourke could hear Fulsom now, the words still cluttered sounding from the coughing, “Gas! They got all of—” Then Fulsom dropped, a single rifle shot echoing in the night.

Rourke stopped running, looked up at the roof, saw a Soviet trooper, an officer beside him jerking him around, slapping him in the face.

There was a bullhorn—the English very good—the words; “Lay down your weapons and you will be unharmed!” Rourke snatched the CAR-15 to his shoulder, telescoping the stock, his eye picking up the rifleman who’d triggered the shot from the roof, the crosshairs of the three-power scope settling across the helmeted head, Rourke’s trigger finger twitching once, the single 5.56mm rifle bullet’s noise as it crossed the air to its target like a thunderclap in the otherwise total silence.

The soldier stumbled back, then fell forward over the roof line to the loading dock below.

Rourke stood, motionless, the rifle still shouldered, waiting. He might be done, he knew, there were too many of them. He settled the crosshairs on the officer who only a second earlier had stood beside the now-dead Russian soldier.

The bullhorn sounded again, “Lay down your arms and you will not be harmed!”

Rourke scanned the roof line for the bullhorn, spotted it, and fired. The bullhorn shattered from the hand of the man, the white metal thing falling from sight.

At the top of his voice, the rifle in front of his chest at high port, Rourke shouted, “Bite my ass!” Then he started to run.