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

"Come on!" he rasped to the sergeant. "Just like television, " Rourke started in a deadrun for the far edge of the roof, jumped, his legs extended in midair between the building, his body crashing down on the neighboring roof, going into a roll.

Bradley had stopped on the edge. "Catch the gun." He tossed the AK-47 across the airspace, then the belt. Rourke looped the belt across his shoulders and under his right arm. Bradley ran back, then started forward, bent against his stride and his face set, his lips drawn back.

"Look out!" Rourke shouted. Bradley cleared the roof line as a Soviet soldier came up by the fire escape, his AK-47 opening up.

Bradley's arms flew away from his sides, like a bird trying to fly, a look of fear on his face for a fleeting instant, then the eyes wide. Bradley was dead; his body fell between the buildings. Rourke dropped to both knees and opened up with the AK-47, a three-round burst hammering into the face of the Russian who'd killed the black sergeant.

Rourke got to his feet, backing away, knowing the Russians were coming up the fire escape. He scanned the roof he was on: there were no buildings near, no hope of escape, he thought. The AK-47 braced against his right hip in an assault position, Rourke started to squeeze the trigger of the AK, then spun to his right. From the far end of the downtown section there was an explosion, then a fireball belched up into the sky.

"The fire station!" Rourke rasped. "Reed, Darren Ball!" Rourke edged toward the far side of the roof, the street below him in panic, fire belching up from manhole covers and sewers.

Rourke turned. Three Russian soldiers were coming up on the opposite roof. He fired, burning out the magazine, then rammed home a fresh one from the belt.

A truck was parked by the curb on the street side, a pickup with a camper top over it. "What the hell!" Rourke rasped. He took a few steps back from the roof edge to get up momentum, then with a running jump clear of the roof, crashed down toward the camper top, his body impacting hard against it, sliding off, and rolling down into the street.

Rourke pulled himself to his feet. There was a single Russian starting toward the roof line above. Rourke raised the muzzle of the AK-47 and fired a three-round burst, then turned and ran, as the Soviet soldier fell screaming from the roof onto the street. The fires still raged from the manhole covers. Sirens were wailing in the distance.

Chapter 21.

Varakov's one abiding wish ever since assuming military command of the Army of Occupation had been, he thought, a simple and basic one, he would have preferred that Lake Michigan be facing west of the city so he could watch the sunset over it. He walked along the lakeshore, watching the deep blue of the water, then looking beyond toward the city he commanded and wondering about the country that lay beyond it. He walked along stone ramparts, slick and slippery from the water, but he walked very carefully, watching the waves break below him. Finally, he sat, staring out at the darkening water, thinking.

Karamatsov had to die, yes. But Karamatsov was the favored child of the KGB, and simply to walk up to him and shoot him in the face would not go well. To try to implicate him in some impropriety would perhaps bring about the downfall of Natalia as well.

And, Varakov realized, if he attempted to arrange for something concerning Karamatsov and it were to fail, then matters would only be worse: it could come back at him and only diminish his power and his ability to protect Natalia from Karamatsov and from her own warped sense of guilt.

No, it had to be a death, pure and simple. And if he could arrange the death in such a way as to make Karamatsov appear the hero, the valiant, noble, but thoroughly dead, Soviet officer, that would only serve to heighten Natalia's security, and his own. He worried enough about the latter only to be realistic. He realized he was an old man and from Soviet political standards, he was almost as old as one could justifiably expect to become.

A hero's death for Karamatsov. The man in charge of the American Continental KGB would die a hero. Yes.

But as to how he could assure Karamatsov's memory, Varakov felt at a loss. He needed, he realized, to somehow make certain someone from the Americans would kill Karamatsov. And, Varakov sighed, Karamatsov was very good, hard to kill, deadly and skillful and well protected.

To kill Karamatsov he would need someone who could best him, someone who was even more deadly, more skillful. A smile flashed across his thick lips. The man who had however unwittingly started it all, the fight between Karamatsov and Natalia, what was the name? Varakov stood up, staring out at the water. The wind was whipping up, some of the breakers now crashing over the lips of the nearest edge of concrete. "Rourke," he said, so only the water could hear him....

"Comrade General?"

"Girl, coffee!" he shouted, walking, he realized, as he hadn't walked since he was ten years younger. He smiled at the young female secretary, and shouted after her as she scurried downstairs to the cafeteria for the coffee, "And requisition a new uniform skirt; that one is too long!"

He crashed down in the chair behind his desk, his greatcoat still on, plopping his hat on the desk top and kicking off his shoes.

"Rourke," he said, "who has bested Karamatsov once before. Ha, ha!"

Chapter 22.

Rourke had hidden the Harley and his weapons in the railroad yard by the end of town. With the explosions still ringing in the distance, he edged toward the area cautiously through the tall grass and weeds, the reddish clay under his feet giving because of the dampness of the ground. He could see two of Reed's men left behind with the equipment. He edged closer to them and, in a low voice, called out. The men turned, guns ready, but the muzzles already lowering as Rourke rose from his crouch and ran across the few yards separating them.

"What the hell is goin' on in that town, Fourth of July or a war?"

"A little of both, I guess," Rourke answered, sitting in the grass despite the dampness, shucking off the cowboy boots and exchanging them for his black combat boots. "Bradley's dead, shot by some Soviet trooper, but I got the guy. Reed and the others are okay. He made contact with the Resistance, I'm almost certain." Rourke scraped most of the mud off the cowboy boots, slipped them into a plastic bag, and secured them inside the Lowe pack on the back of the Harley, then scrounged out his weapons, checking the twin Detonics pistols, the Government .45, and the CAR-15. "We can wait a little while, but not too long, I don't want the Russians slamming up roadblocks and putting out more patrols and us getting boxed in." Rourke slipped on the brown leather jacket over his double Alessi holster, then left the bike, starting toward one of the crumbling concrete pylons supporting the railroad trestle. He noticed Reed's two men behind him.