"Ahern, Jerry - Survivalist 003 - The Quest" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ahern Jerry)

The two men talked for a while longer. Afterward Rourke went to bed before Rubenstein. More to keep out the light than for privacy, Rourke drew the curtains separating the master bedroom from the rest of the cavern and stripped away his clothes, then lay down on the double bed, his left hand reaching out to the empty side of the bed, his mind filled with thoughts of Sarah.

Chapter 20.

Rourke, Reed and three of the five Army men walked past the university, turned left, and walked to the downtown area of the city. Rourke's skin crawled. He was weaponless, not by choice, but necessity. To be caught with firearms or even a knife in the Soviet-occupied city would certainly mean discovery and most likely death. Rourke had decided on the course of action as the only means of contacting the Resistance. There was a man he knew in Athens and, if there were a Resistance forming, this man would be in it, Darren Ball, ex-Special Forces, ex-mercenary, tough, hard, experienced, and as anti-Communist as any man Rourke had ever met. Ball, before the war, had taken to running a bookstore specializing in militaria, weapons books, and related items. He had lost a leg in Rhodesia, which had effectively ended his military career.

Rourke, wearing a beat-up straw cowboy hat and dark sunglasses, scanned the street. The sight of the Kalashnikov-armed Soviet troops strolling casually in the cold sunlight through an American city disgusted him. Twice Reed had had to restrain one of his men, Bradley, a young black sergeant, who was fiercely anti-Soviet.

With Reed and the three soldiers, all disguised as civilians and, like Rourke, weaponless, Rourke stopped on the corner. Without moving his lips, Rourke muttered, "Hope nobody stops us for papers or anything, hmm? Bradley, you come with Reed and me. You two drift around and act cool. We'll meet you back here. Try and assess the composition of the Russian units here; how many, what equipment, listen and learn, go," and without waiting for acquiescence, Rourke, Reed, and the headstrong Sgt. Bradley started toward where Rourke hoped to find Darren Ball, the Liberty Book Store and B.S. Emporium. Almost brushing shoulders with a half-dozen Russian soldiers, Rourke, Reed, and Bradley reached the far corner, and Rourke stopped. The bookstore windows were boarded over and the wooden sign hanging over the storefront had been spray-painted black, lining out the name.

"What do we do now?" Reed asked.

"We keep our shirts on," Rourke said almost disgustedly, then slowly walked around the corner. A knot of young people was standing there, Rourke guessed in violation of some Russian rule against public assembly. Settling the straw cowboy hat low over his eyes, squinting in the sunlight despite the glasses he wore, Rourke walked over toward them, the two military men behind him. Rourke fished a small cigar out of the pocket of his snap-front cowboy shirt, and stopped beside the young men and women, bending his head low toward the flame of the Zippo held cupped in his hands, talking without looking at them, "Any of you people know what happened to the guy who used to run this place, the B.S. Emporium? Fella named Darren Ball, missing a leg."

One of the younger men looked squarely at Rourke, saying, "What, you want information? Go to hell."

A girl, about eighteen, grabbed the young man's arm as Rourke looked at him, the girl saying, "Cliff, don't. If he's one of them he'll only, "

"Relax," Rourke rasped, turning away and looking back into the street. "I'm an old friend of Darren Ball's. What are you so afraid of, if I'm one of who?"

He looked past the young man to the girl. She brushed her hair nervously from her face with the back of her left hand, her eyes shifting uneasily from side to side, they were pansy blue. "I didn't mean anything, Mister. Neither did he."

"I can take care of myself, Patty," the young man snapped, stepped toward Rourke, shaking the girl's restraining hand from his arm.

Rourke turned, faced the young man, glanced from side to side on the street, and smashed his right knee up, higher than for a groin shot, just smacking into the stomach in the soft part of the gut, and as the young man, Cliff, Rourke remembered the girl calling him, doubled over, Rourke flicked his right hand down across the left side of the boy's neck, the knife edge chopping above the musculature and behind the ear. The young man collapsed. Rourke caught him under the armpits and got the boy, unconscious, to his feet.

"Here, you and you," Rourke snapped swaying the unconscious Cliff toward two of the other young men in the crowd. They had been edging toward Rourke, but catching Cliff had forced them to move back.

Rourke drew his lips back over his teeth, inhaling hard on his cigar, then exhaling the gray smoke, watching it catch the wind as he scanned the street on both sides for evidence that he had been watched. It seemed clear. He looked at the girl. "Patty, now tell me what you mean, you think I'm spying for the Russians. What?"

"I, I didn't say that," the girl stammered.

Rourke bent toward her, his face inches from hers, her eyes looking up into his. He removed the glasses, saying, "I'm not going to tell you why I want to see Darren Ball. That would only maybe get you in trouble. He and I are old friends and if you dislike the Russians as much as you seem to fear them, then you should tell me, now. Do you know where he is?" "I'm afraid," she said, looking nervously from side to side. "You don't have to do anything wrong. The Russians pay for informers and people have started informing on anyone whether he's done something or not, and sometimes they let you go after it, sometimes they kill you. My sister, they let her go. She hadn't done anything, but she hasn't opened her mouth to say a single word since, " She drew in her breath hard and it made a sort of scream, Rourke thought. He glanced behind him: six Russians, armed, were rounding the corner.

Rourke looked at her. "Now, quick, where?"

"A tent down by the fire station, all I, "

"You, the cowboy hat!" The voice was hard, young, filled with authority. Over the years Rourke had come not only to distrust authority but to resent it.

Rourke turned around. Reed and Bradley had drifted off, and he could see them across the street. "Yeah?"

"You're supposed to say, " the girl started behind him.

"That is an improper form of address," the young Russian lieutenant snapped.

"Well, what am I supposed to call you?"

Rourke knew the drill, he thought, and under normal circumstances, he realized, he would have played the game to get away quietly and do his business, but the fear in the girl's eyes made him think differently. The Russian and his five men edged toward Rourke. Rourke put his sunglasses back on, rolled the cigar in his mouth to the left corner, the half-burnt cigar clamped in his teeth there.