War Mountain Read online

  Books by Jerry Ahern

  The Survivalist Series

  #1: Total War

  #2: The Nightmare Begins

  #3: The Quest

  #4: The Doomsayer

  #5: The Web

  #6: The Savage Horde

  #7: The Prophet

  #8: The End is Coming

  #9: Earth Fire

  #10: The Awakening

  #11: The Reprisal

  #12: The Rebellion

  #13: Pursuit

  #14: The Terror

  #15: Overlord

  Mid-Wake

  #16: The Arsenal

  #17: The Ordeal

  #18: The Struggle

  #19: Final Rain

  #20: Firestorm

  #21: To End All War

  The Legend

  #22: Brutal Conquest

  #23: Call To Battle

  #24: Blood Assassins

  #25: War Mountain

  #26: Countdown

  #27: Death Watch

  The Defended Series

  #1: The Battle Begins

  #2: The Killing Wedge

  #3: Out of Control

  #4: Decision Time

  #5: Entrapment

  #6: Escape

  #7: Vengeance

  #8: Justice Denied

  #9: Deathgrip

  #10: The Good Fight

  #11: The Challenge

  #12: No Survivors

  They Call Me the Mercenary Series

  #1: The Killer Genesis

  #2: The Slaughter Run

  #3: Fourth Reich Death Squad

  #4: The OPium Hunter

  #5: Canadian Killing Ground

  #6: Vengeance Army

  #7: Slave of the Warmonger

  #8: Assassin’s Express

  #9: The Terror Contract

  #10: Bush Warfare

  #11: Death Lust!

  #12: Headshot!

  #13: Naked Blade, Naked Gun

  #14: The Siberian Alternative

  #15: The Afghanistan Penetration

  #16: China Bioodhunt

  #17: Buckingham Blowout

  War Mountain

  Jerry Ahern

  SPEAKING VOLUMES, LLC

  NAPLES, FLORIDA

  2013

  THE SURVIVALIST

  #25 WAR MOUNTAIN

  Copyright © 1993 by Jerry Ahern

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission of the author.

  9781612322889

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  Books by Jerry Ahern

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  For our buddy Mark Stricklett, who’s trying very hard to get us to join the twentieth century——even though it’s almost over! All the best . . .

  Prologue

  John Rourke’s thoughts went back to another time—his left foot stomped the clutch pedal hard to the Saab 900 Turbo’s firewall, his right hand jumping the stick from fourth into second. As he revved the accelerator with the toe in order to double clutch while the heel of his right foot rode the brake, his hands wrestled the wheel into so tight a right turn that the car entered the alley on two wheels only.

  Gunfire tore into the alley wall, bullets whining off the Saab’s coachwork but not yet hitting a window. Rourke downshifted into first, the tachometer almost redlining before he could upshift into second, the engine almost over-revving again before he could get into third. The alley was nearly too narrow for the Saab, but wider than Rourke would have preferred. The Mercedes from which the gunfire originated, sparks flashing from its fenders, was able to squeeze through as well. The Volvo which had blocked the road in front of him and would now turn down after the Mercedes should be a better fit still.

  Rourke jacked the stick into fourth, the speedometer up to eighty-five or so he guessed; there wasn’t any chance to take his eyes from his driving long enough to look. Submachine gun fire again, bullets rippling along a row of garbage cans, overturning them like a rank of dominoes.

  At the end of the alley, late-evening traffic was light. Rourke was downshifting again into second, not daring to stop as he cut the wheel right and slipped between a blue delivery truck and a white Cadillac El Dorado. Rourke slipped the Saab’s transmission into third, his eyes flickering toward the rear-view mirror, then the side-views. The Mercedes had turned out after him, and the green Volvo was beside it in the next lane out from the curb.

  Traffic stopped for a red light.

  He knew Munich not at all, really, and literally had no better idea of where he was at the moment than that he was “downtown” and his hotel wasn’t in sight. On the other hand, the men who followed him almost assuredly knew the city reasonably well.

  John Rourke’s right hand slipped to his trouser waistband, finding the butt of the SIG-Sauer P-228 9mm. Celluloid superspies notwithstanding, it was only possible to bring one’s own weapons along when one was illegally inserted into a foreign country or was working officially with the country’s own secret service. This situation fit neither scenario.

  Rourke was in Munich for the sole purpose of contacting a former KGB officer named Plotkin. Yuri Plotkin, on the other hand, was in Munich out of fear for his life. Plotkin was being hunted by the neo-Nazi underground because he carried in his head the names of powerful and highly placed European community leaders on whom the KGB had developed dossiers, the data therein implicating them as Nazi sympathizers, people who in the days before World War II would have been called “fifth columnists.”

  It was Rourke’s mission to rendezvous with Plotkin—once he was able to refix his position and elude his pursuers (but not in that order)—so that Plotkin could download the information in his head then get out along an escape route the CIA had established for the Russian by way of returning the favor.

  The
very night of Rourke’s arrival in Munich, he made his prearranged meeting with the local CIA station chief, Bernie Twillinger, at the bar in the touristy restaurant in his hotel. Twillinger gave Rourke the rendezvous time and place for meeting Yuri Plotkin, as well as keys to the Saab, but not a gun.

  “Gun’s in the car?”

  “This should be a pretty clean job, Dr. Rourke, not what you’re used to in Latin America,” Twillinger laughed. “So, relax. You won’t need a gun.”

  “I want a gun anyway.”

  “I can’t get you one until tomorrow night.”

  “I’ll make it through the night. Try for a .45 or a .357.”

  “I don’t know very much about guns. Those are automatics, aren’t they?”

  Rourke exhaled, perhaps a little too loudly, too obviously.“The .45s can be either, and if you count the Desert Eagle, so can .357s. Want me to write a shopping list?” Rourke took the cocktail napkin from beside his double shot of Seagram’s Seven and a pen from his pocket, then began to write as he spoke. “You won’t find a Detonics that easily, so try for a Colt, either a Commander or a Government Model in .45 ACP. If you can’t find either of those, get an L-Frame Smith & Wesson—a 681 or a 686 with a four-inch barrel—or a Colt Python, and those are .357 Magnums. Okay? Here.” And, Rourke folded the napkin then handed it to Twillinger. “And I’ll need the gun tomorrow morning, along with fifty rounds of ammo. If you get one of the .45 automatics, try to find me some extra magazines.”

  “Those are clips, right?”

  “Not really, but you’ve got the general idea all right,” Rourke said patiently.

  “You won’t be seeing our man until tomorrow night.”

  “Need time to clean the gun, check that it works properly.” Rourke also intended to check out the rendezvous site before darkness masked anything he would be better off knowing about. That little detail, however, was nothing that concerned Bernie Twillinger. “So, tell me about Plotkin and these Nazis.” There was a bossa nova playing over a speaker system, but barely audible. And that was a pity, because it was one of the works of Antonio Carlos Joabim—and John Rourke had always been a fan.

  But he pushed the strains of “Desafinado” out of his consciousness and listened to Twillinger. “The Nazis aren’t as big a deal as some people make them out to be.”

  “Is that official or only opinion, Bernie?”

  “I work in Munich all the time, Dr. Rourke, and I feel I have a pretty good handle on things. The Nazis break down into three categories, really, the old guys who were Nazis during the War, the political theorists who banter over philosophy, and the skinhead types looking to bash some luckless Jew with a paving stone.”

  “You’re wrong, Bernie. The philosophers are worth worrying over, because men die but ideas frequently don’t die with them. Have three Nazis—the really dedicated ones who feel they’re saving the white race or some shit like that—and you’ve got a plot. They’re like fleas on a dog, because as long as they’re left untreated they’ll multiply until they become more of a threat than an annoyance. Remember the old Sax Rohmer character, Fu Manchu?”

  “I suppose, why?”

  “Well, the world will hear from the Nazis again, too.”

  “You and Plotkin should get along famously, Doctor.”

  “We’ll see,” Rourke told Twillinger, then sipped at his drink.

  In the morning, there was a package at the hotel’s front desk, inside it a SIG-Sauer P-228 (neither .45 nor .357, but perfectly adequate), one spare thirteen-round magazine and a box of 115-grain JHP Federal 9BPs, the only 9mm Parabellum load John Rourke ever bothered with.

  Feeling brighter about the gun (the firearms-ignorant Bernie Twillinger could have brought him a .25 auto or something), Rourke disassembled the pistol, verifying its condition as much as he could without test-firing it. Totally unwittingly, Rourke was sure, Twillinger had provided one of the few semiautomatic pistols in which one could have virtually perfect confidence right out of the box.

  The gun and the loaded spare magazine with him, Rourke went downstairs again and had breakfast, returning to his room to defecate, then make a telephone call to his wife. “So, how are the kids?”

  “Michael’s still fascinated with having a baby sister.”

  “Hope that lasts,” Rourke told his wife.

  “Sometimes brothers and sisters can be friends, like husbands and wives—sometimes.”

  “I’ll be home soon.”

  “Why do you bother, John? I mean, for a man of your skills to be zipping around the world chasing—who are you chasing today?”

  “You know I can’t—”

  “Sorry, I forgot it’s like being married to somebody who’s in the Mafia or something. Keep the women ignorant. I forgot to ask! Is it time to get me pregnant again?”

  “Sarah!”

  “Look, you know I love you, but that’s not our problem. Be careful. Annie’s screaming like she’s got her pants full.”

  “Fine. Love you too.”

  “Bye.” She hung up.

  John Rourke lit one of his small, thin, dark tobacco cigars and went to the window, staring out over the unfamiliar city. By nine in the evening, at least one section of it would be familiar enough.

  As John Rourke took the Saab gently through the intersection, the light finally turned green, and he began looking for the few recognizable landmarks from his scouting foray during the afternoon. He didn’t want to find them, lead the Nazis who pursued him—in a rather subdued manner now, to be sure—to where Yuri Plotkin was supposed to be. The cathedral steeple, the cafe sign, the fountain—none of these were in evidence, so Rourke’s mind returned to the business at hand, the men in the black Mercedes and the lime green Volvo.

  Rourke lit one of his cigars in the blue-yellow flame of his battered old Zippo windlighter, rolling down the window and feeling the slap of night air on his face. He smiled, thinking that he could always let one of the two pursuit cars pull up alongside, then, just like in the mustard commercials, lean his head out and ask to borrow some—he smiled, but doubted there was sufficient cross-culturalization for them to get the point. However, the idea might work as a means of killing some of them.

  That there were no police following him was amazing; either that or indicative of the fact that Plotkin’s intimations about official cooperation—at least at some levels—with the Nazis erred only in that they were conservative. It was possible that the men following him had some fix in with the local police, or at least with a few key officials.

  Traffic was still moderate to light, as Rourke, keeping the Saab revving high in second, cruised along the street. There were illuminated windows, the shops behind them closed for the evening; and virtually every category of humanity Rourke could imagine walked the night, ranging from two rather obvious transvestites, to teens on the cutting edge of bizarre fashion, replete with Mohawk-style hair, colored purple or flame red, and blue jeans which were so full of holes they looked as if they’d been used for pattern-testing buckshot from a riot gun.

  He was coming up to another light and the Mercedes was still behind him, but the Volvo was starting to pull up alongside. Rourke kept his window down, and the SIG was in his right fist the instant after he reset the gearshift into first.

  The Volvo stopped beside him, windows down. Rourke turned his head and looked directly into the front seat. Two men, a little less than classic Aryan in appearance, looked straight ahead. In the back seat there sat a third man, something bundled in his arms—probably a submachine gun.

  The man in the passenger seat, without even looking Rourke’s way, said in a loud voice, “Doctor, you will turn right at the corner here and you will be followed. Should you do other than turn right, you will be shot.” The man who’d spoken cocked his head toward the rear seat and now Rourke, as his eyes followed, verified that, indeed, the bundle was a submachine gun. Rourke almost laughed. The Jew-hating Aryan supermen were using an Israeli Uzi.

  John Rourke mentally shr
ugged, then brought the SIG up to the level of his own chest and double-actioned the trigger, putting a bullet into the left temple of the man who’d spoken to him, blood and brain matter splattering the man behind the wheel. The left temple, aside from being convenient from Rourke’s position, made an ideal target in that there was a bright red mark there, perhaps a forceps scar from his birthing process. But Rourke’s attention immediately went elsewhere as he pivoted in his seat and fired two shots fast, the first into the thorax, the second into the mouth of the man in the back seat who was holding the Uzi. Rourke rotated slightly forward and fired a fourth shot as the Volvo’s driver started to cross against the still-red traffic light.

  The Volvo shot forward, the dead man slumped over the wheel, his right foot apparently stomping down in a death rictus over the accelerator.

  Rourke’s right thumb worked down his pistol’s decocking lever and he slipped the firearm under his right thigh as his hand moved to the Saab’s stick. But his feet were already working, his left hand cranking the wheel into a hard right.

  The Volvo was into the middle of the intersection now, stopped in its tracks as it kissed bumpers with a bus. Rourke caught it in the Saab’s passenger side side-view mirror as he finished the turn, already upshifting into second.

  The Mercedes was right behind him.

  But John Rourke had planned ahead.

  His left hand caught the Saab’s steering wheel into a tight right as he threw the stick into neutral and hauled up on the emergency brake. Rourke grabbed for the pistol and threw himself from behind the wheel, half falling into the street as the Mercedes slammed the Saab broadside.

  The Saab skidded. Rourke ran. The Mercedes’s radiator dumped its load into the street, a gusher of steam shooting upward as engine compartment met unibody construction support post.

  Rourke wheeled, steadying his breathing as he aimed for the already shattered windshield, the Mercedes’s driver’s head partially through it.

  Ten rounds remained in the SIG’s original magazine. He used them, firing through the hole in the windshield and putting a bullet through the forehead of the driver. Rourke pivoted left, firing as the passenger-side door opened, killing the man there with two shots in the chest before the man’s pistol—in the instant Rourke saw it the gun looked like a Walther P-38—could fire.