Survivalist - 21 - To End All War Read Online Free PDF Page A

in all likelihood would have such capabilities. Certainly, the missiles coupled with an explosive charge could penetrate through the outer door. The interior vault door was another matter, of heavy-gauge steel. But an explosive charge —a second one —might damage it enough that entry could be gained.
    “Damn,” Annie hissed under her breath.
    Rausch, most certainly one of the men on the ground, could have given compass coordinates to his men aboard the chopper, but most likely was bringing them in by transponder or merely by ordinary modern radio.
    If she could kill Rausch and the man with him, whoever he might be, Annie might be able to confuse the helicopter into landing either farther away or off the road entirely, crashing. But, in either event, she must keep The Retreat entrance a secret from the Nazis. Otherwise, whatever she did to Rausch and the man with him would only be a temporary respite.
    So, there were only seconds.
    She glanced once toward the face of the mountain. Natalia was visible as a shadow within a swirl of snow, still some thirty to forty-five seconds from touching down. There was no time to wait.
    Annie Rourke Rubenstein left the cover and concealment of the rocks, starting forward, all but swimming through the deeply drifted snow, keeping the muzzle of the laser-sighted Taurus up above it.
    She had no worry about the Ml6, its muzzle cap in place. And, again, she remembered the words of her father during those five years he had so intensely educated and trained them. “What do you call this thing on the muzzle of my CAR-15 again?”
    “A muzzle cap?”
    “Now, look at this.” They’d been standing in the main supply room, and he’d taken down a rather large box, opened it, and turned it at an angle so that when she stood on her tiptoes she could look inside. The box was full to the brim with more of the muzzle caps that fitted tight over the flash hider and, she already knew, blocked entry of dirt, water, or other foreign material through the muzzle end of the barrel. “What do you see?”
    “A whole bunch of them.”
    “Right. So, whenever you need to protect the bore of your weapon, use one of these. But, wheneveryou might need a shot very fast, don’t worry about shooting through it, because I’ve got enough to last us for a very long time. Okay, Annie?”
    “Okay,” Annie had told him.
    The M16’s chamber was loaded. All she needed to do, if the pistol proved insufficient for the task, was to swing the assault rifle forward, flick the tumbler from safe to auto, and pull the trigger.
    There was an extra muzzle cap in the same bag in which she carried spare magazines for the M16. She kept moving… .
    As Natalia kicked away from the rock wall, there was a lull in the wind and she heard the unmistakable sound of a silenced
    German helicopter gunship in the night.
    “Damn,” she hissed under her breath.
    It was like the sound of a fly buzzing in one’s room in the darkness, distinct, annoying, recognizable. With all the time she’d spent working with Vladmir Karamatsov on behalf of KGB interests in Latin America, the sound of a fly buzzing in a room was nothing strange to Natalia.
    If the Nazis had commandeered one of the German military gunships for the purposes of drawing them — the women—out of The Retreat, it was logical to assume that they could have commandeered a second or third gunship as well. Evaluating the situation empirically, she could arrive at no other more likely conclusion than the gunship being manned by Nazis having come to reinforce Freidrich Rausch in his intended assault against The Retreat’s main entrance.
    Natalia let herself descend more rapidly than was wise, nearly more rapidly than was prudent toward the drifted-over ground below… .
    Annie was as close as she dared without being detected.
    She checked the laser again, shining it into the snow.
    Her father had taught her many things, some of which she’d recalled tonight. One thing he had told