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

Rourke bent over and, with the thumb of his left hand, closed the eyelids.

"Done," he whispered.

Chapter 40.

The chill wind lashed at John Rourke's face and hair as he bent low over the Harley-Davidson. The engine throbbed between his thighs, the sound of it combined with the wind roaring in his ears. He glanced to his right, Rubenstein beside and slightly behind him.

The escape from town had been surprisingly easy. Rourke decided Varakov was indeed a man of his word, but there was no way Rourke could imagine Korcinski keeping to his portion of the bargain and releasing the rest of the men from the Resistance. He could simply leave it out of his report to Varakov that they had been executed, but he would have waited for something to happen, some reason for Rourke's release and once news of the death of Karamatsov reached him, Korcinski would know, it would all be clear. They would all be dead.

Rourke turned and glanced toward Rubenstein, trying to hear what the younger man was shouting over the slipstream and vibration of the engines. ' 'Where, are, we, going?"

Rourke smiled, his lips curled back against the pressure of the wind, the speedometer on the bike over seventy. "To a reunion," he shouted, then seeing the puzzled look on Paul Rubenstein's face, he repeated, only shouting louder, more slowly, ' 'To, a, re, union!"

Rourke turned and bent over the bike again. The fog was all but lifted and it was nearly nine A.M. as he glanced at the black face of the Rolex Oyster Perpetual Submariner on his left wrist, executions, he thought, were usually an early morning affair. "Hurry," he shouted to his side toward Rubenstein, then gave the bike more throttle.

Rourke slowed the Harley dramatically, making his turn wide onto the gravel road, taking him off the main highway and into the woods and down toward the clearing far beyond where he determined the hostage Resistance fighters were still being kept. He had judged Korcinski as being competent yet vain. He would never expect Rourke to come back and try to rescue his "comrades."

Rourke counted heavily on that, for even with Paul Rubenstein at his side the odds were heavily stacked against him.

Rourke slowed his jet-black Harley even more, curving into a gentle arc and stopping. Rubenstein passed him, then cut back, and stopped beside him, facing him.

"Where, John?"

"Upthere, maybetwomilesthroughthe woods, too many Russians on the highways," Rourke rasped back, winded.

"We got a chance?"

Rourke smiled. "If we didn't have a chance we wouldn't be here."

Rourke started the Harley again, slower this time because of the roughness of the dirt road he followed.

Rourke reviewed the details of his plan, the only way he thought he had a chance. If nothing were transpiring as he reached the clearing he would wait, wait for the Resistance fighters to be led from wherever they were being held to a spot where they would be shot. He remembered the Soviet massacre of the Polish officer corps during World War II, the Katyn Forest Massacre. They had used German weapons and tried to blame the Germans for the mass murder. Some clever investigator had discovered the real truth, examining the rope with which the victims had been bound, they were Russian made. Perhaps Korcinski would try to arrange things so that it appeared the Resistance people had fought among themselves and use the captured weapons from the fighters to execute them.

Rourke drove his bike as quickly as he dared through the woods, glancing every few minutes at the Rolex, watching the seconds tick away, wondering if the hostages were still alive.

After several more minutes, Rourke slowed his bike, signaling with one hand for Rubenstein, behind him, to do the same. Stopping, Rourke glanced back across his right shoulder. "Over there, maybe five hundred yards. Come on."

Rourke dismounted, hauling his bike into the trees, taking the bayonet from his belt, and hacking away at the brush to camouflage it. Rubenstein did the same a few yards from him.

"You want the SSG?" Rubenstein asked. Rourke shook his head no, unslinging the CAR-15 from his back and working the ears on the bolt, chambering a round, then slipping the safety on. The rifle, stock collapsed, slung under his right shoulder, his fist wrapped around the pistol grip, he started forward, Rubenstein moving behind him as Rourke glanced back.

The air was cold, damp, and foul-smelling from the patches of fog still clinging in the shadows of the trees low along the ground. Rourke walked slightly stooped over, threading his way under low branches around bushes laden with two-inch-long thorns, bright-green-leaved brush swatting at his hands and thighs as he pushed his way past.

Judging he'd gone half the distance, he signaled a stop with his left hand, held a finger to his lips for silence and drooping into a low crouch, moved ahead. After what Rourke judged as another fifty yards, he stopped again, hearing the faint sound of voices. He moved laterally, trying to line up the sound of the voices with the approximate position of the clearing, stopped, hearing the voices more clearly, but still unable to tell the words, then started forward again.

He moved what he judged as slightly more than a hundred yards, stopped, and listened. There were orders being shouted. He thought he faintly recognized Korcinski's voice. Dropping to the ground, Rourke signaled Rubenstein to do the same. Both men moved ahead on their knees and elbows, crawling over the rough ground, cautious to avoid snapping a dried twig or some other casual noise that might betray them.

Again Rourke signaled a stop, seeing the outline of the upper half of a uniformed man above a low-rising natural hedgerow. Rourke motioned Ruben-stein to stay back, handing him off the CAR-15 and palming out the Sting IA from inside his trousers, then on knees and elbows he inched forward.