Read Online Survivalist - 17 - The Ordeal by Jerry Ahern - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Jerry Ahern
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eyes.
The floor beneath them seemed to rise up.
There was gunfire and the sounds of explosive devices were everywhere.
Her eyes were open, but still she couldn’t see him. “John! John! John … John …” The fire which had cast its warm glow over the ballroom where she had waited for him—how long?—now consumed the ballroom and she was surrounded by it and she bunched her dress tight around her as she dropped to her knees, huddling there as the fires rose in yellow walls around her. “John!” Her ring—it was not a diamond, yet it was, but it was no logner blue or white, but blood-red like a ruby and she screamed for him until the heat invaded her lungs, her arms folding over her breasts, the heat searing her flesh. “John … John … John…” Why didn’t he come for her …
John Rourke touched his left hand to her neck, raising her head just a little as he told her, “This is really good-tasting. I amazed myself. Kind of a stew. Neither of us has really eaten in almost twenty-four hours and we both need some nourishment.” He had par-boiled the flesh just to be on the safe side. “This will taste good. A little hot but that’ll warm you up inside. You’ll be feeling better in no time. And at any minute now, I expect Annie and Paul to come rolling up. Annie’ll get you feeling your old self, Natalia. When she was a little girl and
I was very tired or depressed, I’d help tuck her in at night and get her to give me a kiss and then a hug and have her pat me on the shoulder or the back. She started it, one time when she knew things weren’t going right, somehow. And it made me feel better, so we started kidding about it and I’d say, ‘Now give me a pat so I feel good,’ and she’d give me a pat. And the funny thing was that it always made me feel better. So, when Annie gets here, you tell her you want her to give you a big hug and then a pat. And don’t forget the part about the pat, because that’s important. But you’ve got to eat so you’ll feel strong again.”
Slowly, with greater difficulty than he’d ever had feeding the children when they were little, he fed her, with the bark spoon he’d made catching at the bits of food as they dribbled from her mouth. She had dirtied herself while he’d been gone and he’d bathed her as necessary, covered her. After she was fed, he would have to wash out her things, dry them by the fire.
Was she going down?
Throughout the day, with his reminding her, she had cared for her own bodily functions. He told himself that it was just that she had been sleeping too soundly and in her exhausted and confused state—
“Natalia!” His throat ached with her name.
Chapter Thirteen
Russian helicopters were ringing the Second Chinese City. Fuel to burn, Michael Rourke surmised, just like the Second City. Fires dotted the mountainside into which it had been built, heavy fighting by all the defensive positions.
Their movement throughout the late afternoon and into the early evening, until the snow became too heavy to travel without lights, had taken them along the base of a high ridge and, because there was no choice, closer to the beleaguered Second City.
With Annie and Maria Leuden flanking him despite his protests, Michael Rourke had climbed the ridge to assay the condition of the battle.
Maria, close beside him, spoke softly as she said, “In ancient times, it was not unknown for persons whose options had been entirely exhausted to risk destruction of self in order to defeat an enemy.”
“You mean their nuclear weapons,” Annie interjected. “Don’t you?”
“Yes.” Maria nodded.
Michael Rourke looked from Maria to his sister. “You think they’d detonate a nuclear weapon to—”
“Maybe they’d detonate them all. I mean, it would only take one if it were set off properly, wouldn’t it?”
“I don’t know, Annie,” Michael told her, shaking his head
despairingly. “Yeah—maybe. Probably. Shit—”
He started back down
The floor beneath them seemed to rise up.
There was gunfire and the sounds of explosive devices were everywhere.
Her eyes were open, but still she couldn’t see him. “John! John! John … John …” The fire which had cast its warm glow over the ballroom where she had waited for him—how long?—now consumed the ballroom and she was surrounded by it and she bunched her dress tight around her as she dropped to her knees, huddling there as the fires rose in yellow walls around her. “John!” Her ring—it was not a diamond, yet it was, but it was no logner blue or white, but blood-red like a ruby and she screamed for him until the heat invaded her lungs, her arms folding over her breasts, the heat searing her flesh. “John … John … John…” Why didn’t he come for her …
John Rourke touched his left hand to her neck, raising her head just a little as he told her, “This is really good-tasting. I amazed myself. Kind of a stew. Neither of us has really eaten in almost twenty-four hours and we both need some nourishment.” He had par-boiled the flesh just to be on the safe side. “This will taste good. A little hot but that’ll warm you up inside. You’ll be feeling better in no time. And at any minute now, I expect Annie and Paul to come rolling up. Annie’ll get you feeling your old self, Natalia. When she was a little girl and
I was very tired or depressed, I’d help tuck her in at night and get her to give me a kiss and then a hug and have her pat me on the shoulder or the back. She started it, one time when she knew things weren’t going right, somehow. And it made me feel better, so we started kidding about it and I’d say, ‘Now give me a pat so I feel good,’ and she’d give me a pat. And the funny thing was that it always made me feel better. So, when Annie gets here, you tell her you want her to give you a big hug and then a pat. And don’t forget the part about the pat, because that’s important. But you’ve got to eat so you’ll feel strong again.”
Slowly, with greater difficulty than he’d ever had feeding the children when they were little, he fed her, with the bark spoon he’d made catching at the bits of food as they dribbled from her mouth. She had dirtied herself while he’d been gone and he’d bathed her as necessary, covered her. After she was fed, he would have to wash out her things, dry them by the fire.
Was she going down?
Throughout the day, with his reminding her, she had cared for her own bodily functions. He told himself that it was just that she had been sleeping too soundly and in her exhausted and confused state—
“Natalia!” His throat ached with her name.
Chapter Thirteen
Russian helicopters were ringing the Second Chinese City. Fuel to burn, Michael Rourke surmised, just like the Second City. Fires dotted the mountainside into which it had been built, heavy fighting by all the defensive positions.
Their movement throughout the late afternoon and into the early evening, until the snow became too heavy to travel without lights, had taken them along the base of a high ridge and, because there was no choice, closer to the beleaguered Second City.
With Annie and Maria Leuden flanking him despite his protests, Michael Rourke had climbed the ridge to assay the condition of the battle.
Maria, close beside him, spoke softly as she said, “In ancient times, it was not unknown for persons whose options had been entirely exhausted to risk destruction of self in order to defeat an enemy.”
“You mean their nuclear weapons,” Annie interjected. “Don’t you?”
“Yes.” Maria nodded.
Michael Rourke looked from Maria to his sister. “You think they’d detonate a nuclear weapon to—”
“Maybe they’d detonate them all. I mean, it would only take one if it were set off properly, wouldn’t it?”
“I don’t know, Annie,” Michael told her, shaking his head
despairingly. “Yeah—maybe. Probably. Shit—”
He started back down
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