Free Survivalist - 19 - Final Rain by Jerry Ahern Page A

started to maneuver the gunship downward, lest he lose control in the next gust of wind… .
    Annie ran across the grassy area fronting the hospital, men and women in military uniforms and hospital uniforms carrying patients on stretchers. The tie which closed her robe came undone, but there was no time to retie it. She ran.
    A woman in white nurse’s uniform and cap was directing human traffic from the head of the steps. Annie shouted toward her as she ran. “Where is Major Tiemerovna?” The woman turned, looked astonished to see her. And Annie recognized her, the charge nurse from Natalia’s floor. “Where’s Natalia Tiemerovna? Have you gotten her out yet?”
    The nurse ran down the steps, meeting Annie at
    their center. “Thank God you’ve come. The German officer. He’s trying to get her out of the room. She came out of the coma when the alarm was sounded. I don’t know how. She had all those sedatives—” “What’s happening?”
    “She grabbed an orderly. He was about to give her an injection. Somehow, she got hold of his trouser belt and she has it around his neck. She’s telling everybody to stand back or she’ll kill him. She’s laughing and crying at the same time. The German is — ” Already, Annie was running past her, up the steps. “The German officer is trying to reason with her! But she won’t listen. We have to finish the evacuation and we—” Annie couldn’t hear the nurse any longer over the sounds of the evacuation, over the blaring of the recorded message, over the heaviness of her own breathing… .
    John Rourke connected the blue wire into the timer, then advanced the timer by ten seconds.
    Twenty-six remained to launch of the missiles.
    Sixteen seconds until the destruct mechanism detonated.
    He hoped.
    He left the M-16, the arctic gloves, more of both aboard the aircraft. If he didn’t reach the aircraft, he’d never need anything again. He ran, reaching the doorway.
    Rourke stopped. He looked back.
    On the counter beside the control panel was his knife.
    “Dammit,” Rourke rasped. He ran back, grabbing up the knife, no time to sheath it, running for the bunker doorway now, into the cold, slipping, catching himself, counting in his head as the seconds ticked away. “… nine … eight …”
    Overhead, almost as soft as an imagining under the howling of the wind, he heard it. He looked up, waving the knife in his hand as he ran.
    Paul. The helicopter.
    “… six… five …”
    The helicopter was coming in, sweeping over the fenceline, slipping toward him. He had the knife sheathed.
    “… four … three …”
    John Rourke hunched his shoulders, ducking his head, throwing himself onto the port side float, shouting to Paul, hammering his fists against the fuselage. “Take her up! Take her up now!”
    The helicopter lurched, lifted.
    “… one-“
    It came like the crackling of thunder, the vapors rising from the engines which would propel the missiles skyward forming a cloud around them, swirling cyclon-ically in the helicopter’s downdraft, a buzzer sounding, ringing, all around the aircraft, pulsing, and then the buzzer lost in the rumble and crackle, the ground on all four sides of the missile complex seeming to buckle, fire belching skyward, John Rourke turning his face away, the helicopter lurching, flames visible reflected off the chin bubble.
    The winds tore at him, numbing him, the heat up-draft stifling him. Rourke held his breath and looked down.
    Rippling outward from the missile complex in four directions the explosions came, the center of the small island seeming to collapse.
    One of the missiles seemed to rise from its launching pad, then another.
    John Rourke watched them, powerless.
    The center of the compound seemed to drop, into the flames of the explosions, the missiles toppling one by one, the flames ricking upward toward the gunship, Rourke’s numbed hands clawed into the helicopters floats.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN
    Annie tied her robe as she walked