The Doomsayer

Chapter 27

Paul Rubenstein glanced at his wristwatch. Running in a low crouch, he started out of the palms and toward the first of the ten-foot wire fences, the Schmeisser slung from his right shoulder, the wirecutters in his left hand. He was slightly winded by the time he'd crossed the distance to the first fence. And as he reached it he dropped into a deeper crouch, glancing quickly from side to side, the wire cutters already moving in his hands. Starting at the bottom of the fence he clipped a single cut, approximately four feet high. Because of the heaviness of the wire, another cut was needed. He cut horizontally across the top of the first cut, then pulled the barbed wire outward, toward him, slipping through in the darkness and pulling the "gate" in the wire closed behind him. He glanced toward the guard towers, then hit the dirt, flattening himself, the Schmeisser out in his right hand. A searchlight beam crossed over the ground less than a foot away from him.

The searchlight moved on, and so did Rubenstein, running across the grassy area, zigzagging just in case there were a minefield, hoping by some miracle he would miss them all by not running in a straight line. He reached the opposite fence line, breathless again. He started to reach his hand toward it, then stopped, his hand recoiling. There was a rat on the ground less than a foot from him, the body half-burned.

"Electrified," he cursed to himself.

Rubenstein glanced from side to side, quickly trying to determine whether to go back or whether there were some other way to cross the fence. "Damn it!" he muttered, then snatched at the big Gerber knife and started digging in the mixed dirt and sand. He couldn't go through the fence, couldn't go over it— so he'd go under it. He glanced up, flattening himself on the ground, sucking in his breath, almost touching the fence with his bare hand. The searchlight moved down the center of the open space between the fences, missing him by inches. As soon as it passed, keeping himself as low to the ground as possible, he began again to dig.

For once he was grateful he wasn't as big or as broad-shouldered as Rourke, he thought. He scooped dirt with his hands, widening the hole under the fence. The searchlight was making another pass and he flattened himself to the ground, as close to the fence as possible, this time noticing the searchlight that scanned, more frequently and more rapidly, the ground between this fence and the interior fence. That, at least, was not electrified. With the hour, all the prisoners in the compound had been herded inside the tents under which they were sheltered, and the compound grounds were empty of life. But earlier he had seen hands, faces— all touching that fence. It was possible, he thought, as he began again to dig, that the smaller fence was electrified after the compound was cleared, but he had to take the chance.

The small trench under the fence seemed wide enough now and, slipping into position, just missing another pass of the searchlight, he started through on his back. His shirt pulled out of his pants, and he felt the dirt against the skin at the small of his back.

He pushed on, then stopped— the front of his shirt was stuck on a barb in the lowest strand of wire. Perhaps there was no power in the lowest strand, he thought; perhaps the material in the shirt just hadn't made the right contact. He didn't know. He sucked his stomach in lest his skin touch the barb. Rubenstein looked from side to side, past the fence and back toward his feet, seeing the searchlight starting again. It would pass over his feet, reveal his presence.

There was a sick feeling inside him, his mind racing to find a way out. He had to gamble, he thought. He touched, gingerly with his shirt-sleeved elbow, at the wire. Nothing happened. Rubenstein reached out with both hands, freeing the shirt front from the barb, then pushed through, under the wire, the searchlight sweeping over the ground as his feet moved into the shadow. He was through!

The young man got to his feet, still in a crouch. He stared back at the wire a moment, then reached into the pockets of his leather jacket. There was nothing he could use, but he had to know. Taking the wirecutters, he reached under the fence's lowest strand, using the cutters like a slave hand in a laboratory, picking up the dead rat and sliding it under the fence toward him. He looked at the charred creature, and his mouth turned down at the corners in disgust. He hated the things. He lifted the rat with the tips of the cutters and tossed the already-dead body against the wire second from the bottom of the fence. Then he drew back, his right arm going up toward his face. The body clung to the wire a moment, smoking, electrical sparks flying. Paul's stomach churned and he felt like throwing up, but instead watched the searchlight as it swept toward him; then he darted across the few feet of ground to the low fence, hiding beside it, gambling it wasn't electrified as he touched the cutters to the lowest strand, then the one above it.

"Thank God," he whispered, letting out a long sigh. As the light passed inches from where he crouched, he began to cut the wire, using the same pattern he had before, cutting up approximately four feet, then across approximately three feet.

Looking over his shoulder, the wire cutters in his left hand now, he folded back the fence section and started through, into the compound.

He folded the fence section back, in a crouch, the pistol grip of the Schmeisser in his right fist, the muzzle moving from side to side as he surveyed the compound. He could see a guard— one only— walking slowly around the grounds, fifty yards from where he was. Rubenstein. still holding the wirecutters, started toward the nearest tent in a low, dead run. He pushed his way inside the tent.

Paul Rubenstein stopped, the smell that assailed his nostrils nauseating him, a buzzing sound in the air as flies swarmed throughout the tent. He looked in the faces of the people under the glow of the single yellow light hanging from a drop cord in the center of the tent, the flies and moths buzzing close to it. The faces were young, old, all of them weary, some of them sleeping, flies crawling across them. There was a child, moaning beside a sleeping woman. He stepped closer to them, and he kicked away the mouse nibbling at the child's leg.

Paul Rubenstein stood there a moment, tears welling up in his eyes, his glasses steaming a little. In that instant, he was thankful for the guns he carried, for the things he'd learned that had kept him from a similar fate. He was grateful to Rourke for teaching him how to survive after the Night of the War.

The phrase, "My fellow Americans.. ." and how he'd thought of it earlier as the roach climbed around the palm tree beyond the fences, came to his mind. Rubenstein stood there, crying, his right fist wrapped tightly on the Schmeisser.

Chapter 28

Sarah Rourke stood at the wheel of the fishing boat, glancing shoreward, trying to see if she could still locate Mr. Coin in the darkness. She couldn't. "It was rough, wasn't it, Mrs. Rourke?" Harmon Kleinschmidt asked her.

She looked down at the young man seated at her feet as she stood before the controls.

Before she answered him, she looked back to the stern— on the tarp that covered the blood from the dead soldier she could see Michael and Annie, already dozing.

She looked down at Kleinschmidt, saying, "My name is Sarah. You don't need to call me Mrs. Rourke— I'm not that much older than you are. Yes, it was rough, I suppose."

"I saw them bloodstains. You had to kill somebody, didn't you?"

"I thought gentlemen didn't ask questions like that."

"I ain't a gentleman that much— and you sure ain't either, Sarah."

She looked away from the waters ahead of her, and down at the young man again. "What do you mean?" she asked, still cold in her wet things despite the blanket wrapped around her now.

"I'll just come right out with it. What you told me, I don't think it's fair to you or them kids to go on doin' what you're doin'. You need a man to take care of all of you. I guess I'm sort of volunteerin'. I like you—a lot— Sarah."

Her cheeks felt hot. She didn't know what to say to the man— the boy, she thought. He wasn't more than twenty-five, if that.

"That's sweet of you, Harmon."

"Ain't sweet of me, Sarah. I mean what I say."

"A lot of men feel that way about somebody who's helped them, like a nurse for example."

"It ain't that," he told her flatly.

"Well, you just rest," she began.

I'm sick of restin'— sick of this whole War, the whole damned thing."

"So am I," she said, honestly. "I killed a man with a knife just a little bit ago. My boy, Michael, killed a man. I've killed other people since the Night of the War. We've been cold, sick, wet, dirty; we've gone without sleep. All of it."

"I hear that northeastern Canada didn't get hit much. Fella I met had come down from there, missed the Commies all the way. New York City he heard was all gone, but up in northeastern Canada it was still like before. Ain't nothin' there the Communists would want, I guess— too cold. But a man could have a good life up there, with the right woman, with kids like them."

Sarah looked down at him and wished he weren't sitting so close to her feet. "How far is the island?"

"You still on the compass heading I worked out?"

"Uh-huh."

"Maybe twenty minutes or so. Just keep them runnin' lights out so the patrol boats don't spot us. I figure we could take this boat and make it pretty far up into Canada— leave all this behind us."

"What about the Resistance, the men in prison you told me about?" Sarah said softly.

"I don't know.., don't guess I'll help them any by gettin' myself killed. I did my share. Sounds like you've done your share too since the War began."

"My husband is out there somewhere, looking for us."

"You don't know that. He might be dead. If he is alive, might figure you and the kids were dead—

maybe took up with another woman."

"Maybe," Sarah answered. "Maybe all of that. But if he's alive, he's looking for me. And the only thing that's kept me going is telling myself he's alive."

"What if I tell you he's dead probably; or what if I tell you he's so busy stayin' alive himself that he can't look for you? What if—"

"What if the War had never happened?" She looked back across the bow, searching the shadowy, moonlit horizon for some sign of the offshore island.

"How come he was away from you when it happened? None of my business, I know that. But how come?"

"We—" she began. "We'd been separated. Nothing formal. Just couldn't get along the last few years. He came back, just before the War. We made up, decided to try again. It was my fault, really. He wanted to cancel the job he had in Canada and stay home. I told him I needed the time to get my head clear, to think, so we could start again. The night the War happened he should have been on his way back."

"Driving?"

"No, by air."

"Ain't nothin' left of Atlanta, Sarah, if he landed there. I heard lots of commercial airliners crashed when they ran out of fuel with nowhere to land, or just got blown out of the sky when they flew too close to a missile or an air burst. He's dead— got to be."

"You don't know my husband," she told Kleinschmidt. "He isn't like anybody you ever met."

"He's some kind of super guy or somethin'?"

"In a way, I guess he is. You can see it in Michael. I wouldn't have expected a boy three times Michael's age to do what he's done. It's not normal."

"What do you mean?" Kleinschmidt asked.

A cloud passed in front of the moon. She could no longer see Kleinschmidt's young, tired face when she looked down by her feet where he sat, propped against the bulkhead. "John Rourke is— he's always been so much larger than life. He's almost perfect, really. He seems to know everything, to be able to do anything, to solve any problem. He isn't like you," she told Kleinschmidt. Then, under her breath, so no one but herself would hear, she added, "Or me."

Chapter 29

Rubenstein moved from tent to tent, after having thrown up once he'd gotten outside the first tent, more careful to avoid silhouetting himself against the light. He talked to an older man who'd been awake, swatting flies away from a festering wound on his left leg. The lights were kept on in the tents to make certain no one stood up during the night and to make visual inspection of the tents easier when the guards looked in. There were no sanitary facilities, no facilities for child care, and some of the guards, the old man had confessed, enjoyed beating people. Some of the other guards had seemed like decent men, the old man had told him, but they did nothing when the other guards began their beatings.

The old man had never heard of retired Air Force Colonel David Rubenstein or his wife.

Paul stopped now outside a tent, the fifth so far. Shaking his head, he forced his way inside, keeping low to avoid profiling himself in the yellow light. The stench in this tent was either not so bad, or he had become accustomed to it— he wasn't sure which. There were more children here, faces drawn, eyes sunken, bellies swollen. The old man— Rubenstein hadn't asked his name and the man hadn't volunteered it had said most of the older people gave the bulk of their food to the children and the recent mothers; and the food allotment for each adult per day was a cup of cereal, as much bad water as you wanted to drink, and twice a week fish or meat. The cereal had weevils in it, the fish and meat usually smelled rancid. A lot of the people around the camp had dysentery, the old man had said.

Rubenstein passed through the tent, looking for his parents, looking for a familiar face, not sure if he'd recognize any of his parents' friends. There was a woman at the far end of the tent, holding a child in her arms, the child's breathing labored. She was awake and as he passed her, she whispered, "Who are you?"

"My name is Paul Rubenstein," he told her, glancing around the tent.

"Why are you here?"

"I'm looking for my parents. Do you know them? My father has a full head of white hair, his first name is David. My mother's first name is Rebecca. Rubenstein. He was a Colonel in the Air Force before he retired."

"He wouldn't be here, then," the woman said.

Rubenstein sucked in his breath, wondering what the woman meant, afraid to ask.

"He just wouldn't be here. I was supposed to be someplace else too," she said, brushing a fly away from her child's lips. "But I was pregnant and they didn't want me along, so they left me. I lost the baby," she said, her voice even. "I don't know what they did with my baby afterward. They never told me about him— he was a boy. My husband Ralph would have been proud of the boy— handsome. Ralph, he's in the Air Force too, that's why they took him. Some kind of special camp near Miami for military people and their families. I hope they don't hurt Ralph. I would have named my baby Ralph Jr., after my husband. He was a beautiful boy. I don't know what they did with him. I would have named him Ralph, you know."

Rubenstein looked at her, whispered. "I'm sorry," then left the tent. He crouched outside by the flap, crying quietly. "Goddamn them," he muttered.

It was starting to rain and in the distance below the dark rain clouds he could see a tiny knife edge of sunlight, reddish tinged. The camp would soon be awake and he had to get out before he got caught. He looked back toward the tent. He could hear the woman talking to herself.

He decided something, then. He was going to go to Miami, find his parents at whatever hellhole camp they were in, if they were still alive. But first he was going to do something here. He didn't know what yet. There was the Army Intelligence contact. Maybe he could help, Rubenstein thought.

Paul pulled himself back against the tent. He heard something, the rumble of an engine. He looked to his right— there was a U.S. military jeep coming, three Cubans riding in it. The rain was coming down in sheets now, and the wind was picking up. Rubenstein pushed his glasses back from the bridge of his nose, brushed his thinning black hair back from his high forehead.

He pulled back the bolt on the Schmeisser, giving it a solid pat.

Paul Rubenstein raised himself to his feet, standing almost directly in front of the jeep, the headlights beaming just to his left. At the top of his lungs, the young man shouted. "Eat lead, you bastards!" and he squeezed the trigger of the Schmeisser.

"Trigger control," he shouted, reiterating Rourke's constant warning to him, working the trigger out and in, keeping to three-round bursts from the thirty-round magazine. The driver of the jeep slumped forward across the wheel, then the man beside him, the third man in the back raising a pistol to fire. Rubenstein pumped the Schmeisser's trigger again, emptying three rounds into the man's chest. The man fell back, rolling down into the mud.

Rubenstein ran beside the jeep, the vehicle going off at a crazy angle into one of the tents.

The young man jumped for it, his left foot on the running board, his right hand loosing the Schmeisser, pushing the dead driver from behind the wheel. Sliding in, he kicked the dead man's feet away from the pedals.

Rubenstein ground the vehicle to a halt, noticing now for the first time that there was a gray light diffused over the camp. It was dawn. He rolled the body of the passenger, then the driver, out of the right side of the jeep, shifting the vehicle into reverse. People streamed from their tents. As he skidded the jeep around, slamming on the brakes as he fumbled the transmission into first, he could see guards running toward him from the far end of the camp.

His jaw was set, his lips curled back from his teeth, as he stomped on the gas pedal, driving forward. The puddles sloshed up on him as he raced through the mud. Some of the prisoners of the camp threw themselves toward the advancing Cuban guards.

"No!" Rubenstein shouted, the guards machine-gunning the women, the old people.

Rubenstein buttoned out the magazine on the Schmeisser with his left hand, replacing it with a fresh one, the windshield of the jeep down in front of him. He rested the blue-black submachine gun along the dashboard and started firing again.

There were dozens of guards, he thought, all of them armed with assault rifles or pistols, streaming from metal huts. They were half-dressed, shouting, firing at him. Rubenstein kept shooting. He glanced to his left— there was a Communist Cuban guard running beside the jeep, hands outstretched, reaching for him.

Rubenstein balanced the steering wheel with his left knee, snatching the wire cutters from his belt, ramming the eighteen inches of steel behind him and out, then looked back. The Cuban soldier fell, the wirecutters imbedded in his chest.

A smile crossed Rubenstein's lips as he stomped the clutch and upshifted, the jeep now speeding past the tents, the huts, the angry, shouting guards and their guns.

Rubenstein triggered another burst from the Schmeisser, getting a man who looked like an officer. The young man hoped he was the camp commandant.

The Schmeisser was shot dry and he dropped it beside him on the front seat, snatching the worn blue Browning High Power into his right fist, thumbing back the hammer, firing the first round into the face of a Cuban soldier who'd thrown himself up on the hood of the jeep.

The soldier fell away; there was a scream as the jeep rolled over something. Rubenstein didn't care what it was.

The High Power blazing in his right hand, he fought the wheel of the jeep with his left, bringing the vehicle into a sharp left turn, the jeep almost flipping over on him as he gunned it forward. Holding the pistol awkwardly, he rammed the stick into third gear, the engine noise so loud he could barely hear the shouts now.

Two Cuban soldiers were running for him, the gate a hundred yards ahead. Rubenstein rammed the Browning straight out in his right hand, firing once, then once again, the nearer of the two men throwing his hands to his face as he fell. The second man, unhit, dove into the jeep, his hands reaching out for Rubenstein's throat. Rubenstein tried bringing the gun up to fire, but the man was in the way, his hands tightening on Rubenstein's throat as the jeep swerved out of control.

Rubenstein dropped the Browning, clawing at the Cuban's face, getting his fingers into the man's mouth by the left cheek, then ripping as hard as he could.

The man's face split on the left side, the fingers released from Rubenstein's throat, and Rubenstein grasped the 9mm pistol. He snapped back the trigger, the muzzle flush against the Communist soldier's chest, the scream from the torn face ringing loud in Rubenstein's ears as the man fell back, into the mud.

Rubenstein cut the wheel right just in time, the left fender crashing into a row of packing crates that tumbled into the mud. The High Power clenched in his right fist, Rubenstein cut the wheel harder right, with less than fifty yards to go until he reached the main gate. A dozen guards stood by the gate shooting at him.

Paul jammed the Browning High Power into his trouser band, then fumbled on the seat for the Schmeisser. He buttoned out the empty magazine, balancing the steering wheel with his left knee again as he changed sticks in the submachine gun. He smacked back the bolt, bringing the muzzle of the weapon up over the hood, his left fist locked on the wheel again. He didn't shoot.

The distance to the gate was now twenty-five yards. He hoped he remembered what Rourke had told him about practical firing range. Twenty yards, the guards at the gate still firing. Fifteen yards and Rubenstein began pumping the trigger, two-round bursts this time, firing at the greatest concentration of the guards. One man went down, then another. The guards ran as the jeep rammed toward them.

Rubenstein kept up a steady stream of two-round bursts, nailing another guard. He punched his foot all the way down on the gas pedal as the jeep homed toward the gate, shouting to himself, "Now!" The front end of the vehicle crashed against the wood and barbed wire gate, shattering it. The jeep stuttered a moment, then pushed ahead. Rubenstein brought the SMG back up, firing it out as he cut the wheel into a sharp right onto the road.

As he sped past the concentration camp, the noise of gunfire from behind him had all but stopped. He looked to his right, toward the camp. He could see men, women, and children; he imagined he saw the old man with the festering leg wound who had told him so much, the young woman with the dead baby. Rubenstein began to cry, telling himself it was the wind of the slipstream around the vehicle doing it to his eyes.

Every person in the camp compound was waving his arms in the air, cheering.

Chapter 30

Natalia stood under the water of the shower, the water hot against her body. She'd wanted to wash away more than the sand, she realized. She turned off the water after running it cold for a moment, then stepped out. She grabbed a towel and wrapped it around her hair, then another towel and wrapped it around her body. Her feet still slightly wet as she walked out of the bathroom, across the carpeted bedroom and to the double glass doors at the far end. There she stepped out onto the small balcony overlooking the sea. She was disappointed. She had missed the sunrise.

It was cold, but she stood there a moment, then walked back inside, toweling herself dry and pulling on an ankle-length white robe. She took a cigarette from the dresser and lit it, inhaling deeply. Then, the towel still wrapped around her hair, she walked back out on the balcony, standing by the railing, staring at the beach and the ocean beyond.

It had been a night she wanted quickly to forget. She understood why Diego Santiago was the way he was with a woman. She didn't think it was that she had so excited him. It was a problem that only a man could have, she thought. He had apologized, then fallen silent. She had rubbed his body, kissed him, tried to soothe him afterward. And she felt now that he trusted her, feeling somehow she knew a guilty secret.

She had washed her thighs three times, but the memory of what had happened to Santiago before he'd been able to do what he'd wanted to her still lingered. She would have felt sorry for him normally, she thought. But he was such a lie, such a fake, she thought. The "macho" general was like a young boy.

She was glad nothing had happened with him-because she hadn't wanted it. In the days with Karamatsov she had sometimes used her body to gain information. But she had never liked it, even though Vladmir had told her he would not blame her for whatever she did.

When Santiago kissed her, she had thought only of Rourke, wished it were Rourke, and afterward known that with Rourke it would have been so much different. She hugged her arms about her against the chill of the wind, looking skyward, thinking it was perhaps going to rain.

"John," she whispered.

Rourke had killed Karamatsov, but for her, as her uncle had explained it. Should she keep the vow she'd made and kill Rourke?

The uncertainty inside was destroying her, Natalia thought. But more than ever now, she knew, she loved the American. She wondered, absently, if he had yet found his wife and children. Somehow it would be easier to know he was with them. Then he would have no reason to think of her and she would know for herself that he was out of reach.

Natalia smiled, thinking of Rourke, knowing that if she were to fight something that lived only in Rourke's heart she could never win.

Chapter 31

John Rourke downed half the tumbler of whiskey, looked at his watch, then walked from the table and to the curtained window. He drew back the curtain, squinting against the sunlight. There were dark clouds on the horizon, but above them the sun was bright. He threw the curtains open, and light filled the room.

He walked across it again, snapping off the lamp which had illuminated the table through the night and early morning. He looked at Chambers, then at Sissy Wiznewski.

"I don't know which one of them is the Communist agent. The information in their files is too ambiguous."

"It's all we have," Chambers said, his voice sounding old.

"I know that." Rourke nodded. "I trust Reed. I don't think he's the traitor. Couldn't be just a small fish—

gotta be somebody with access to practically everything you do."

"Why haven't they attacked here?" the girl asked. Chambers shrugged his shoulders. Rourke answered for him: "To mount a full scale attack here would be time-consuming, expensive, and use a lot of troops the Russians can't spare. As long as they have President Chambers under a microscope, know his every move, it doesn't bother them. It's almost better than capturing him. If they captured him, somebody else would assume the leadership function and they'd be in the dark as to what U.S. II is planning or doing. This way, they know everything. Once we find the traitor, it'll be a different story. I think this area will be too hot for you." He turned to Chambers. "You'll have to leave here, go into hiding somewhere else." He turned and looked back at the girl. "This traitor, whoever he is, is the reason they've left this place alone. In a pinch, they could probably have used the spy they have to assassinate the President anyway. Got the best of both worlds. The KGB people aren't fools enough to cut off their nose to spite their face."

"You're sure there's a traitor here?" Chambers groaned.

"Has to be. There's only one way I can see to flush him out, too. The best ruse is no ruse at all. I want you to call an emergency meeting."

"Why didn't you ever run for President, Mr. Rourke? I'd have voted for you," Chambers smiled.

Rourke smiled back. "Better things to do," he said.

Chapter 32

Sarah Rourke stood on the beach, the blanket over her shoulders, her body still cold. Harmon Kleinschmidt's arm also was around her shoulders— to support himself as he stood, she told herself. Michael and Annie were standing a few feet in front of her. She glanced over her shoulder, at the fishing boat beached in the surf.

She turned back to look up the beach toward the rocks beyond. She'd been following the movement there for some time and now, finally, the people who had been watching her were coming down.

Unarmed, Sarah took a step forward, Kleinschmidt moving beside her.

"Here they come, Sarah," he told her.

She only nodded, watching. About two dozen women were walking across the beach, some of them holding pistols, some with rifles. One woman had a baby suckling her left breast and she held a pistol in her right hand. There were children, too, about Michael and Annie's ages. And most of the women looked young.

Michael looked at her and Sarah nodded, saying, "It's all right, Michael. Here are children for you and Annie to play with. You'll see." She saw him staring at Kleinschmidt, the dark eyes boring toward the man holding her, the jaw set like John's was so often.

"See, Sarah— children for your kids to play with while we wait here."

"Wait?"

"I want you to come with me, Sarah. I mean that. I'll convince you I'm right."

"Hey, Harmon!" A woman holding a baby in one hand and a pistol in the other shouted at him. She stopped, her bare toes moving in the sand as she stood.

"Hey, Mary Beth— this here's Sarah, the children are Michael and Annie— good kids, too."

Sarah watched Michael looking at Kleinschmidt, not liking what she saw in his eyes.

"I'll get somebody to take the boat out and scuttle her," Mary Beth said.

"No you don't," Sarah told her. "I'm just a taxi service. Harmon was wounded, I brought him here. I hope nobody minds if I stay for a little while, let my children rest a little. But then I'm leaving."

"We're both leaving," Harmon entered.

Sarah looked up at him, watching his eyes. She didn't know if she liked what she saw there.

"Then you get it down into the shallows along the beach there." Mary Beth pointed to the left with her pistol. "And get her moored and camouflage it. Them Russians see a boat here, they're gonna come lookin' for us for sure."

"Agreed," Sarah shouted back.

"Come on then," Mary Beth said, smiling for the first time. "I'll give you a hand and watch the kids. Some of the girls here can help you with Harmon, gettin' him up to the cave. Then I guess we can all give you a hand with the boat. Come on." She started toward Michael and Annie, Michael's arm going around his sister's shoulders, his feet moving back across the sand. Mary Beth looked at Michael and Annie. "Suit yourself, boy. Just follow everybody else then."

"See," Harmon Kleinschmidt whispered. "It's gonna be fine."

Sarah just looked at him. He was the only fully grown man on the island and couldn't take more than two steps without someone holding him up. She shook her head, shivering a little, not thinking it was going to be fine at all.

Chapter 33

John Rourke waited in the shadows by the corner of the building, watching. Chambers had called the emergency meeting, not announcing Rourke's arrival but did reveal the presence of Sissy Wiznewski. Chambers had announced to his advisers that disaster in Florida was imminent; he told them everything that had nothing to do with Rourke's plan to flush the traitor. Prior to the meeting, Chambers had selected eleven men, Rourke making the twelfth. The eleven had been chosen from Army Intelligence, men Chambers knew Reed personally trusted.

The meeting finally broke up. Rourke waited. On mere chance, he had selected to follow Randall Soames, commander of the Texas Volunteer Militia. Each of the other men would also follow one of the advisers. If someone left the compound, it would be almost a dead giveaway that this person were the traitor, Rourke had determined.

As he studied the compound, looking for some sign of Soames, Rourke wished it were merely as simple as finding the traitor. But once the traitor was recognized, it would be necessary to follow him to his contact, his radio, whatever means he used to notify the Soviets. And through that chain Rourke could contact Varakov. Already time was running out and there was little hope of an evacuation, however limited.

Rourke turned up the collar of his coat, the wind cold on his neck. He'd left the pistol belt with the Python and the CAR-15 with his bike. As he closed the leather jacket he checked the twin Detonics .45s in the double Alessi rig under the coat— they were secure, with spare magazines for the pistols on his trouser belt in friction retention speed pouches.

Cold still, Rourke hunkered back into the niche in the wall beside which he stood, then stopped. Randall Soames, dressed in a pair of Levis, a black Stetson and a western-style plaid shirt, was walking across the compound toward the gates. It was almost too easy, Rourke thought. As soon as Soames disappeared through the gates, Rourke took off at a dead run after him, reaching the gates, nodding to the guard there and looking down the road. Soames was walking. Rourke turned to the guard. Both the Intelligence people and the MPs were under Reed.

"Did he say where he was going, Corporal?"’

"No, sir— just for a walk, I guess. He does that a lot, but so do some of the others."

"How long is he usually gone?"

"You're Mr. Rourke, aren't you?"

"That's right, son," Rourke told him.

"Maybe half an hour. But if he were going anyplace on foot, the only place he could make in that amount of time and get back would be the town. It's abandoned now, and there wouldn't be time for him to do anything except turn around and walk right back."

"He always walks that way?" Rourke said, pointing down the road.

"Leastways every time I've seen him, sir."

"Thanks, Corporal." Rourke smiled, starting down the road after Soames, hugging the compound wall until the man disappeared over the rise. Then he started running as fast as he could, getting to the rise and dropping down beside the road.

Randall Soames wasn't walking quickly, wasn't turning around— nothing suspicious. Rourke waited. Maybe all Soames was doing was going for a walk— for a man his age he looked reasonably fit, and riding a desk all day could make any man antsy. He watched Soames pass over the next rise— there wasn't even a weapon visible. Rourke couldn't see anyone going out these days unarmed unless he were a complete fool.

Rourke ran ahead to the next rise, barely catching sight of Soames as he finally looked behind him, then pushed his way into a stand of trees. Rourke watched, waiting, thinking that a radio might be concealed in the trees there. But as Rourke started to push himself up, to move over the rise toward the trees, Soames reappeared, pushing a small motorcycle. A smile crossed Rourke's lips, then the corners of his mouth turned down. It was a small Honda, the kind that had been made years earlier and designed for compactness— the handlebars folded down for easy storage. He remembered reading about the small cycle. Top speed was about thirty-five miles per hour he recalled.

Soames looked from side to side along the road, then mounted the cycle, starting it and continuing down the road toward the abandoned town.

Rourke realized now how Soames made his walk so quickly and made it appear he had no time to do anything if he did walk down to the town. It had to be risky keeping the cycle stowed there, Rourke thought. But being a spy was not exactly safe either, he knew.

There was nothing to do now but run. Rourke pushed himself to his feet and took off along the rise, wishing he'd somehow had the foresight to stash his own motorcycle nearby, or that he could risk a radio call-in and get transportation. But he had no idea what frequency Soames's Soviet contact might be on, and had eschewed the use of a radio. So he ran, stripping the leather jacket from his back and holding it bunched in his left fist.

He had to gamble that Soames would be headed for the town and stay on or near the road. The small bike Soames rode wouldn't handle the terrain off the road— or at least Rourke hoped it wouldn't. The road, he remembered from the map he had studied earlier, zig-zagged following the terrain, and Rourke ran cross-country now to intercept the road.

He skidded down a low embankment, rolling behind some scrub brush, low against the ground, the road below him as Soames moved along it on the small bike. As Soames passed, Rourke pushed himself up, running across the road and through the grassy field beyond, to intercept the road again just before it turned into the town. His face and neck streaming sweat, his arms back and out like a distance runner going for the tape, Rourke ran on, not daring to lose sight of Randall Soames.

Rourke stopped again, diving half into a ditch along the roadside as Soames rounded a curve.

The commander of the Texas paramilitary forces stopped the bike, looking behind him, then from side to side. Rourke, peering through the tall grass, could see a smile crossing Soames's face. The bike started up again, down the road and into the town.

Rourke pushed himself up, jumping the ditch into the road, then crossing it and running parallel to it, hoping he was in the rider's blind spot should Soames look back. Rourke reached the building at the nearest edge of the abandoned town.

The town-limits sign was down, but he estimated from the buildings and the streets, that it had been a town of three or four thousand before the Night of the War.

He peered around the corner of the abandoned fire station behind which he stood, watching as Soames turned the motorcycle down the street at the farthest edge of the town.

Rourke began again to run, his lungs aching from it. Too many cigars, he thought.

He passed the first block, running across the intersecting street; he then passed broken store windows, a mailbox knocked over apparently by a car in haste to evacuate the city, a fire hydrant with the caps off and a few drops of water still dribbling from it. He reached the next intersection, glanced down it to make certain Soames wasn't suckering him, hadn't doubled back. Then he ran down the next block.

There was a broad expanse of burnt-out lawn, a Baptist church at the far end, the church untouched. Rourke stopped a moment, catching his breath, staring at the church. "Why wasn't it vandalized?" he asked himself aloud, then shook his head and began to run again, reaching the end of the block.

There was one more block to go before the street down which Soames had turned. Rourke, his arms out at his side again, ran it dead out, half collapsing against the side of the corner building— a real estate development firm— then peering around the corner.

Rourke's heart sank a moment. Soames was nowhere in sight, but at the end of the street, approximately two blocks down, was an uncharacteristically elaborate athletic field and stadium.

Rourke stared at it. The stadium looked to have cost more than all the other buildings in the town combined.

Rourke reached up under his left armpit, snatching one of the twin Detonics pistols from the Alessi shoulder holsters. He thumbed back the hammer, pushing up the frame-mounted thumb safety. Bending into his stride, he began to run again, hugging the side of the buildings he passed, getting across the alley, then to the next street and into the next block. He slowed, the athletic field less than two hundred yards way; and beyond the cinder track, with some of the painted white lines in the field still visible, was the stadium.

Something inside Rourke told him Soames was there. The wind was blowing cold again. He pulled the waist-length brown leather jacket back on. Then, at a slow trot, started across the athletic field, snatching the second Detonics from under his right arm into his left hand, thumbing back the hammer and crooking his thumb around to push up the safety.

Rourke stopped beside the stadium entrance, examining the dust on the concrete surface, a smile crossing his lips. Faintly, he could detect a tire tread in the blown sand.

Rourke started through the entranceway, and as he reached the end of the long tunnel, he scanned the bowl of the stadium itself, squinting against the sunlight despite the dark glasses he wore. A smile crossed his lips again. Apparently the games held at the stadium had once been broadcast over local radio. There was a low-gain antenna beside the booth on the far, topside of the arena, the sort of antenna that could be used to transmit to a more powerful receiver-sender fifty miles or so away.

There was no sign of Soames or his bike.

Rourke walked up the low, broad concrete steps into the grandstand, then started along the circumference of the stadium toward the booth and the antenna.

One Detonics .45 in each hand, Rourke moved slowly ahead, looking from side to side. He no longer cared if Soames detected his presence— because there was nowhere the spy could go. Soames could smash his radio, but that was unlikely. Rather than going cold, out of contact with his Soviet masters, he'd likely try to make a fight of it. Perhaps Soames had weapons stashed somewhere in the stadium; perhaps there had been a weapon concealed on his body— a holster that carried a snubby revolver or medium frame auto in the top of his cowboy boot. It didn't matter, Rourke thought.

Rourke stopped halfway around the stadium, beside the broadcast booth. The antenna was corroded, weather-stained, but a new-looking, almost shiny coax cable ran from it, through what seemed to be a freshly drilled hole in the concrete below the grandstand.

Rourke turned around, his eyes searching for the nearest steps down into the stadium complex beneath the stands. He found them, then started walking toward them. He stopped at the head of the steps, looking at the twin pistols in his hands, holding them as if weighing them.

Both pistols in front of him, elbows tucked close at his sides— he thought if he could see himself he'd be reminiscent of a cowboy in a silent picture— he started down the steps, into the darkness of the shadow there.

Rourke stopped halfway down the steps. With the back of his right hand he pushed the sunglasses up off the bridge of his nose and into his hair. He started walking again.

Rourke stopped, his left foot on the last step, his right foot on the concrete walkway of the tunnel. He held his breath, listening. Voices. He heard two voices, the words unintelligible but distinct enough that Rourke could tell they were in English. They were coming from the farthest end of the tunnel.

Rourke began walking, hugging his body against the rough concrete wall, the pistol in his right hand held high, the one in his left held flat along his left thigh.

He could hear the voices more clearly. He stopped, seeing the darker blackness of the new coax cable leading down from above, then snaking ahead into the shadow along the tunnel and toward its end. Rourke shifted the Detonics in his right hand into his belt, taking the sunglasses off his head, putting them in their case under his coat. His right fist clenched around the pistol again and he moved slowly, cautiously ahead.

The voices were clear enough now to be understood, at least in part. One of them belonged to Soames:

"I don't care, Veskovitch. Why worry? All that damned earthquake is going to do is kill more Americans and kill a bunch of them danged Cubans. I don't think your folks give a shit about them anyway."

"You were wise to come," the other voice— Veskovitch, Rourke assumed— began. "But you are wrong. We must contact headquarters. This is an important development. There may be valued Soviet personnel working in Florida at this very moment. They at least must be gotten out. It is not your responsibility, nor is it mine, to determine who should live and die. You speak of a disaster which could take millions of lives. Do you wish this on your conscience?"

Rourke, standing in the darkness along the wall, smiled. The Soviet agent, probably KGB, was sounding almost humanitarian. Soames sounded like a bloodthirsty animal. Rourke moved ahead, more slowly now, cautiously, not being able to see more than six feet ahead into the shadows.

He stopped, holding his breath, cursing mentally, then reached down and rubbed his right shin. There had to be a ramp down into the tunnel. He had just bumped his shin against Soames's motorcycle. Rourke shoved the Detonics from his right hand into his trouser band, then using the Safariland stainless handcuff key from his key ring, he found the valve stem on the rear tire and deflated it. He didn't want Soames using the bike for a getaway.

Pocketing the key ring, Rourke snatched the Detonics from his belt again. A pistol in each hand once more, he sidestepped the bike, then pressed against the concrete tunnel wall and moved ahead again.

The voices were louder now. "Well, go on then and call Varakov or whoever gets it— but let 'em know I brought it to you."

"You are still worried General Varakov will come for you, perhaps sometime in the middle of the night, and kill you for molesting a child. He did not like you. You were afraid of him and he knew that."

"Shut up," Soames snapped.

Rourke took two steps ahead, into the small cone of yellow light from the niche in the tunnel wall just ahead, then turned, both guns leveled, looking into the tiny room.

"I'll go along with that, Soames— but you two shut up," Rourke whispered, the safety catches down on both pistols as he aimed one at Soames and one at Veskovitch.

"Who—"

"Move and I kill you," Rourke interrupted.

Soames started for the radio, a move Rourke hadn't anticipated from the paramilitary commander. Rourke fired the Detonics in his right hand, the slug tearing into Soames's left side, kicking the man back against the far wall.

But Veskovitch was coming toward him, a pistol in his right hand, the gun firing.

Rourke fired the Detonics in his left hand, but Veskovitch was already on him, the 185-grain .45 ACP

slug tearing into Veskovitch's left leg. There was a loud cry of pain and anguish. The pistol in Veskovitch's right hand discharged and Rourke could feel heat against his own left hand, glancing down to it, as he smacked the .45 in his right down across the KGB man's neck. There was no wound in the hand, but the bullet had passed close, Rourke realized, perhaps just barely grazing his skin.

The Russian's left fist was circling upward and Rourke's right forearm blocked it. The Russian was screaming, "The radio, Soames— smash it!"

His left knee smashing up into the Russian's gunhand, Rourke looked over the KGB

man's back. He could see Soames staggering away from the far wall, a pistol in his right hand aimed at the radio.

Rourke tried bringing his right hand into position to shoot, but the Russian grappling with him shoved against him and the .45 discharged into the concrete over their heads, the slug ricocheting maddeningly off the concrete walls. Rourke backhanded the Detonics in his left hand across the KGB man's face, knocking him away.

Then Rourke brought down the Detonics pistol in his right hand, raising the left one into position as well, both pistols discharging simultaneously, both slugs driving into Soames's center of mass. The Texas commander fell back, the Detective Special .38 in his right hand discharging into the floor at his feet.

The echo of the gunshots still reverberating in the tiny room, almost deafeningly, Rourke wheeled right. The KGB man was raising his pistol to fire.

No time to swing his guns on line, Rourke hurtled himself sideways toward the Russian. Both Rourke's pistols clattered to the floor as his left hand reached for the KGB man's gunhand, his right hand going for the throat.

The agent's pistol discharged and for the first time, his ears ringing with the sound, Rourke noticed it— a Detonics .45, like his own, but blued. Rourke's left hand on the KGB man's wrist, he slammed the gunhand down, the pistol firing again.

Rourke moved his hand from the Russian's throat and smashed his right fist across the man's jaw.

The Russian's head snapped back and Rourke moved up on his haunches, straddling the KGB man's body. He studied the eyes— the lids were closed, not fluttering. Rourke, prying the man's fingers from the blue Detonics .45 then, bent low, trying to feel for breath. Rourke touched his fingers to the Russian's neck, then to the man's wrist. He raised the head slightly. However he'd hit the man, the neck had snapped and the Russian was dead. He hadn't wanted that.

Rourke thumbed up the safety on the blue Detonics and rammed the pistol into his belt, intending to keep it. He found his own pistols, then walked the few steps to Soames. Despite three hits from Rourke's

.45s, the paramilitary leader was still breathing.

Gently, Rourke rolled Soames over. The wounds would make him die, but not for several minutes if his constitution were strong, Rourke determined. "Soames, how do you make your contacts?"

"Go to hell...

Rourke thumbed down the safety on the Detonics in his right hand, touching the muzzle to the traitor's left cheekbone. Almost softly, Rourke told him, "I can either let you die comfortably or painfully, Soames. You know I'm a doctor. I've got a small emergency kit under my coat," Rourke lied. "I can give you a shot." There was an emergency kit with syringes, but back on his bicycle. "Morphine? Sound good? You could linger for hours," Rourke lied again. He thumbed up the safety on the Detonics and shoved it in the holster under his left armpit, then did the same on the second pistol, placing it in the holster under his right arm.

As if he were uncaring, Rourke took the blue Detonics that had belonged to the KGB

man and studied it, dumping the half-spent magazine, clearing the chamber. The pistol was in pristine condition, still wearing the original checkered walnut grips. He made a mental note to check the body and the room for spare magazines which were interchangeable with his own guns.

"Well?" Rourke studied Soames's face— it was white, drained. Soames had a few minutes at most to live and Rourke hoped Soames didn't know it. "Die in pain or get the morphine shot?"

"Gimme the shot," Soames grunted.

"The radio first. Tell me how to make the contact. I try it, it works, then the shot."

"All right, all right," Soames said through gritted teeth. "Songbird to Condor One, request— request relay." Soames coughed.

"What relay?" Rourke asked, trying to keep his voice calm. Blood spurted from Soames's mouth when he coughed.

"Request— relay— nineteen. Gets you—"

"Through," Rourke finished, then bent over Randall Soames, thumbing the lids on the dead eyes closed.

Rourke stood up. He walked over to the radio and flicked it on. He assumed they were using English on the radio— that way, if the signal were intercepted it would attract less attention. Rourke picked up the microphone, staring at it a moment, then at the men to whom the radio had been so important. "Songbird to Condor One," he called. "Requesting relay nineteen, over."

In a moment the radio crackled and there was a voice. "Relay nineteen through to Condor One— stand by."

Rourke lit one of his small cigars. He had no intention of going anywhere.

Chapter 34

"Harmon maybe is doin' the right thing," Mary Beth muttered, her eyes seemingly focused on the fire in the center of the cave floor.

"What do you mean?" Sarah Rourke asked, naked under her blanket, trying to warm herself and rid her bones of the chill they'd felt ever since the swim that previous night.

"With goin' up to Canada— all our men are gonna be dead by tomorrow afternoon. Some Army Intelligence fella that brings us supplies was out and left just before you and Harmon got here. He says the execution is on for tomorrow. To show the Resistance what'll happen if they keep up fightin'."

Sarah sat there silently like the rest of the women in the cave. Harmon Kleinschmidt was sleeping farther back in the cave in what seemed like an additional chamber. Some of the women were half undressed, apparently none of them worried that Harmon would wake up and see them. Sarah huddled in her blanket. "Aren't you going to try to do something to save your husbands, your boyfriends?" she asked finally.

"Like what, lady?" Mary Beth asked her, staring up and across the fire into Sarah's eyes.

"Like," Sarah paused, "like a rescue attempt." Sarah concluded lamely.

"Kleinschmidt can't do nothin'. He's gonna be laid up for a long time."

"Well, we don't necessarily need a man to do it. We could do it ourselves."

"We?" Mary Beth asked.

"Well, I meant the women— not me personally. Women could rescue them; you don't need a man to lead you."

"You volunteerin'?" Mary Beth's smile was something Sarah didn't like.

"Well, I don't really know any—"

"What I thought. Wind is all," Mary Beth snapped, looking back into the fire.

Sarah Rourke could feel her cheeks getting hot. Perhaps a fever, she thought— from the cold of the water. But maybe something else, she realized.

"All right," Sarah said, her voice low, so soft she could almost barely hear it herself. "All right," she said again, louder. "I'll do it. If you need someone to lead it, I'll do it."

"What?"

"I'll do it," she said, standing up, catching at the blanket and pulling it around her. She felt foolish suddenly and started toward the far end of the cave to find dry clothes. It was no time to lounge around talking with the girls. Somehow that made her feel more foolish now. "I'll do it," she said again without bothering to turn around. She wished, silently, that she knew how.

Chapter 35

Rourke sat at the radio, speaking slowly into the microphone, "This is John Rourke. Tell General Varakov I want to speak with him. It's important, more important than he could realize."

Rourke stopped talking, listening to the static on the receiver. Then there was a voice, barely audible in the transmission, because it was at low power and relayed several times, bad as well. "One moment." The air went dead. Rourke waited, stubbing out his cigar, then lighting another one, rolling the dark tobacco into the left side of his mouth. He studied the receiver. It was powered by storage batteries and these were charged, apparently, by a foot-powered treadle off in the corner.

"This is Varakov. Rourke?"

"This is Rourke, General. Can we speak freely?"

There was a pause for a moment. He wondered if Varakov thought that perhaps he had called to discuss the death of Karamatsov which both Varakov and Rourke had caused.

"I suppose so," Varakov said. Rourke remembered the voice from the time in Texas, as he had rescued Chambers and forced Karamatsov to walk him out.

"I have what I think you will agree is grievous news— and, frankly, I need your help," Rourke began.

There was a long pause, then: "My help?"

Rourke simply said, "Yes, because I think I understand you, and I respect you. I need your help."

There was another long pause, then the tired voice came over the static of the speaker.

"Tell me this thing, Rourke. I will only promise to listen."

"Agreed, sir," Rourke said slowly. He started at the beginning, how he had rescued Sissy Wiznewski from the Brigands, what she had told him regarding the artificially created fault line that would very soon precipitate the earthquake which would sever Florida from the U.S. mainland, about the hundreds of thousands of lives that would be lost. Finally, before he concluded, Rourke added, "Maybe I have you figured wrong, but I don't think so. Can you help?"

There was a long silence, and for a moment Rourke thought something had gone wrong with the transmission. "This is all true— you give me your word on this thing?"

"To the best of my knowledge, General, yes."

"You have seen this seismographic evidence with your own eyes?"

"One sheet. The rest was lost with her bike."

"You are a man of science. This is possible?"

"I think so," Rourke admitted.

"You ask that I make a truce, between your U.S. II forces and the Soviets?"

"Temporary, of course."

"Of course. What about the Cubans? You seriously think that they will believe you— or me?"

"If we can get them to take it seriously enough, they'll evacuate themselves I suppose. Then your people and mine can move in and evacuate the civilians."

"Why should I do this thing?"

"I don't know," Rourke said honestly, staring at the speaker above the radio as if he could somehow see Varakov's face in it. "I don't know," Rourke repeated.

"But you think that I will?"

"Yes. If you can, I think that you will."

"Natalia is there, on a mission with Colonel Miklov to negotiate with the Cubanos over a few minor difficulties. I can contact her, have her break the news to the Cuban commander. But you must do two things."

"What?" Rourke said slowly.

"I think this woman— Wiznewski with the strange first name— must go to Florida, show the piece of paper, talk to the Cuban commander. And perhaps you should go, too. If this is necessary, you promise me that you will not board a plane to evacuate until Major Tiemerovna has boarded as well? Agreed?"

"Why do you say that?"

"She will stay to help in the evacuation— you know that."

"I suppose Natalia would," Rourke commented into the microphone, his mind suddenly filled with her image— the dark hair, the bright blue eyes, the softness of her, the courage, too.

"Yes, she would. I agree. I do not leave without her. And I suppose it would be necessary for the girl to go there. But as soon as they are convinced, I must get put in contact with your emergency commanders and the Cubans. My friend Paul Rubenstein is in Florida now. I'm not certain exactly where."

"The Jew? I think I know. We thought at first it was you." Varakov outlined to Rourke a Soviet intelligence report on a single-handed attack on a Cuban detention camp. The young man had fought "like a lion," and most of the internees at the camp were Jews. "It must be Rubenstein. Yes, we will help you to find him— in exchange for your shepherding Major Tiemerovna."

"She was a Captain," Rourke said.

"I promoted her— for bravery. You understand?"

Rourke smiled, wishing for a moment he could see the old man's face, wondering what it looked like now. Were the eyes sad, was there still humor there?

"Yes, General. How do we contact each other? I can bring this radio to headquarters with me."

There was a pause. "Yes. I would speak with this Mr. Chambers and arrange the details of the truce. Did you—" Rourke smiled. "Soames? The child molester? Did I kill him?"

"Yes... I assume.. ." The voice trailed off.

"Your man Veskovitch was very brave and died well. If he had a family—" Rourke let the sentence hang.

"I will see that they know. Good-bye for now, Rourke." The radio went dead. Rourke sat there by the yellow light, not saying anything, not thinking anything. There was a picture now, vivid in his mind, and he almost wanted it to go away. It was an indefinite and changing picture. Sometimes a face, sometimes a way of standing or walking— and sometimes, if a voice could be pictured, it was a voice. Natalia. They were to meet again, he knew.

Chapter 36

"The fact is, General Santiago, that if these misdirected actions of your line commanders near the border continue, it will do nothing to further the cause of harmonious relations between your people and ours," Miklov said in perfect Spanish. Then he leaned back from across the table, seemingly studying the Cuban commander's face across the highly polished wood separating them.

Natalia had played tennis often before the Night of the War. But she had always more enjoyed watching it well-played by two worthwhile adversaries. As she turned her head now to look at Santiago, she felt a similar feeling. It was up to Santiago either to volley the ball Miklov had served or lose the match.

"But according to the reports of my line commanders, Colonel Miklov, there have been no such incidents beyond the course of normal patrolling or pursuit of an escaping Resistance fighter and the like. There have been no intentional incursions into your country's space."

Natalia looked back at Miklov, smiling. "But General Santiago must realize that whatever the cause for border incursions, that again they do little to promote harmonious relations. It is my hope that such incursions can be stopped completely and this is my purpose here— to discuss these matters and work out a mutually equitable solution."

Natalia began to turn to Santiago, but then her eyes drifted across the room to a white-coated, dark-skinned steward entering the room. The man stopped beside Santiago and placed a silver tray on the table before him. Santiago unfolded a note on the tray, nodded to the steward, and returned the note to the tray. The steward picked up the tray and left. Santiago looked at her a moment, then said, "My dear Major Tiemerovna, there is a radio-telephone message for you. You may take it on the telephone in your room if you wish."

"Thank you." Natalia stood and both Santiago and Miklov began to rise. "Please, gentlemen," she murmured, sweeping past the end of the table and touching the fingers of her left hand to Santiago's epauletted shoulder as she walked by.

Natalia crossed the room, feeling Santiago's eyes on her, then opened the double doors and walked through the doorway, closing them behind her. She leaned against the door a moment, looking down at the carpet beneath her feet. The caller had to be Varakov, she knew. She pushed away from the door and started toward the stairs, running up to the second floor of the house, then to the door of her room, quickly opening it. She walked inside and closed the door behind her. Sitting on the edge of the bed, smoothing her skirt under her, she lifted the telephone receiver, pulling off an earring as she brought the earpiece up. "This is Major Tiemerovna," she said into the receiver.

"Natalia, listen carefully," her uncle's voice began. "Rourke called me— the news he had was important. He used one of our own radio receivers. That is not important, though. Listen carefully."

Natalia looked down at her lap, then past the hem of her light blue skirt, along her bare legs and to her feet, then along the blue carpet and toward the glass doors leading onto the balcony and past the open curtains. She could just see the ocean beyond. "John Rourke," she whispered into the telephone. She heard her uncle telling her of the impending destruction of Florida, the meeting she had to arrange under a flag of truce for Rourke and the Wiznewski woman with General Santiago. She heard all of it, but the words that most stayed with her were,

"John Rourke." She would see him again....

For several minutes after the conversation with her uncle she lay back across the bed. It was incredibly new to her, the idea that she could love someone and yet debate whether or not she should try to kill him.

Chapter 37

"I don't know what the hell you're talkin' about, fella," the red-faced, beer-bellied man told Rubenstein, then turned back to work on his boat.

"Captain Reed gave me your name, Tolliver. He said you were the man down here."

"I don't know no Captain Reed. Now get out of here!"

Paul Rubenstein, the sun glaring down on him, his legs tensed, realized then he'd been balling his fists opened and closed. He reached out with his left hand and grabbed the florid-faced Tolliver by the left shoulder and spun him around, his right fist flashing out and catching the larger man at the base of the chin, the man falling back across the front of his boat.

Tolliver pushed himself up onto his elbows, squinting at Rubenstein. "Who the hell are you, boy?"

"I told you," Rubenstein said, his voice low. "My name is Paul Rubenstein. I'm just a guy who needs your help. I know Captain Reed of U.S. II. He gave me your name when I told him I was coming down here. Now you're bigger than I am, probably stronger, but believe me, I can be meaner— I learned since the Night of the War. Now," Rubenstein shouted, "I need your help!"

"Doin' what?"

"You ever go down by the camp— the big one?"

"Maybe."

"I'm going to break everybody out of there— and you're going to help me."

"You're full of shit, boy."

Rubenstein glanced over his shoulder, saw no one by the sandy cove where he'd found Tolliver working on his beached boat. Then Rubenstein reached under his leather jacket and pulled out the Browning High Power, shoving the muzzle less than two inches from Tolliver's nose. The hammer went back with an audible double click. "If you can sleep nights seeing those people in there, then whatever I could do to you would be a favor. You either help me round up some people in the Resistance to get those folks out of there, or I'm killing you where you stand."

"You're the one caused all that fracas there this morning, ain't you?"

Rubenstein nodded, then said, "Yeah— I am."

"Put the gun away. Why the hell didn't you say so in the first place. I'll help, then we can all get ourselves killed together. Never fancied much dying alone, if you get my drift."

Rubenstein raised the safety on the Browning and started to shift it down when there was a blur in front of his eyes. Tolliver's right fist moved and Rubenstein fell back into the sand, starting to grab for his gun.

"Now take it easy, fella. That was just to make us even. You shoot me, and you'll never find the Resistance people."

And Tolliver's big florid face creased into a smile, and he stuck out his right hand.

Rubbing his jaw with his left hand, Rubenstein looked at the bigger man— then they both started to laugh.

Chapter 38

Rourke opened the hatch on the DC-7 and looked out across the airfield. He could tell General Santiago by the ensignia on the collars of his G.I.-style fatigues; but the only face Rourke recognized was that of Natalia. He looked at her eyes, saw the recognition there and then threw down the ladder.

"Come on, Sissy," he said to the girl standing a little behind him.

Rourke started down the ladder to the runway, helping the girl. As Rourke turned to start across the field toward Santiago and Natalia, he stopped, his hands frozen away from his body, frozen in the movement of sweeping up toward the twin Detonics pistols under his coat. There was a semicircle of men, Cuban soldiers, with AK-47s in their hands, their muzzles pointed at him.

Rourke looked beyond the emotionless faces of the soldiers and across the airfield. Santiago seemed to be poorly disguising a smile— but Rourke couldn't read Natalia's eyes. There was a command shouted by Santiago, the words something Rourke recognized. "Arrest that man. Seize that woman and the airplane and its pilot— immediately!"

Rourke cocked his head slightly toward Natalia as she took Santiago's arm, hugging it to her it seemed. Her eyes just stared ahead. Coldly, Rourke thought.

"What's happening?" Sissy Wiznewski asked, her voice low, trembling.

Rourke reached out— watching the soldiers watching him— and took her hand, saying to her, "I'll let you know as soon as I find out myself. It wasn't Natalia's way, Rourke thought— not to go against her uncle's wishes, not to use the Communist Cubans as an instrument for her own revenge.

He tried to read the woman's face from the distance separating them. He'd been told there was a Colonel Miklov there with Natalia. But he saw no Russian officer, not even someone in civilian clothes.

A man Rourke judged as a squad leader stepped toward him, saying in bad English, "I will take your guns."

Rourke again glanced toward Natalia— nothing. He decided to gamble, reaching slowly under his coat with first his left, then his right hand, taking the Detonics pistols and handing them butt first to the squad leader. Since the man hadn't asked for his knife, Rourke didn't volunteer it.

"You will come with me," the man said. Rourke started to walk ahead, still holding Sissy's hand. "The woman— she will see the general."

Rourke eyed the soldier, then looked over the man's shoulder toward Natalia. He thought he caught an almost imperceptible nod. But it could have been his imagination, or wishful thinking he thought. He gambled again. "Sissy, it'll be all right, I think. Just do a good job convincing the general that the quakes are real. Don't worry," he added. Then Rourke let go of her hand and started ahead, the soldiers falling in ranks around him. He saw the squad leader from the corner of his eye, handing the twin Detonics pistols to Santiago. Rourke saw Natalia looking down at the guns in Santiago's hands, saw her lips move, saying something. Then Santiago— with almost ridiculous formality, Rourke thought— bowed and offered the pistols to Natalia. She took them, smiling, and for the first time he could hear her.

Natalia was laughing.

Chapter 39

Paul Rubenstein looked across the hood of the jeep, then at the florid-faced Tolliver beside him behind the wheel. "That's a death camp," Rubenstein said slowly, staring now past the hood of the jeep and to the lower ground and the road and the camp beyond it.

"The commandant has a reputation for being anti-Jewish."

"They put an anti-Semite in charge of a detention camp in an area with a large Jewish population," Rubenstein interrupted. "Then they know what's going on, the Communist Cuban government."

"Some say the commandant down there, Captain Guttierez, dislikes the Jews almost as much as the anti-Castro Cubans. He's been exterminating every one of them he can find."

"Why have you waited to do something?" Rubenstein asked him.

"Simple— you'll see in a minute— look." And Tolliver pointed over his shoulder.

Rubenstein, his palms sweating, turned around and looked behind the jeep. Tolliver's number-one man, Peddro Garcia, a free Cuban, had gone to get the rest of the Resistance force. Rubenstein's heart sank. Two men approximately his own age, a woman of about twenty and a boy of maybe sixteen.

Tolliver, his voice lower than Rubenstein had heard it before, sighed hard. "That's why, Rubenstein. Two men, a woman, a boy, me, and Pedro— that's it. Now you. You still want to do this thing?"

Rubenstein turned around in the jeep's front passenger seat, started down over the hood toward the camp. "Hell yes," he rasped, the steadiness of his own voice surprising him. "Yes I do."

Rubenstein felt the ground shaking, then looked at Tolliver. The man said, "Some little quakes like that have been coming the last week or so. Don't know why. This ain't earthquake country."

The trembling in the ground stopped and Rubenstein simply said, "Let's work out the details, then get started."

"We're gonna wait until dark, right?" Tolliver queried.

Rubenstein thought a moment. He'd learned from Rourke to trust your vibes, your own sense and what they added up to, whatever the others felt. "No... " he began distractedly. "No—

they won't expect an assault in daylight. I just don't think we've got the time to wait. We'll go soon."

Rubenstein was still watching the camp. He wondered how soon was soon enough.

Chapter 40

Natalia walked from her room and along the railing overlooking the first floor of the house. She stopped, staring at nothing, thinking of Rourke. Santiago had been easy to read. She smiled to herself. The Communist Cuban general had used Varakov's warning of the impending natural disaster, the coming of Rourke and Sissy Wiznewski— all of it as an excuse to see some sort of plot. For that reason when he had sent his men to arrest Colonel Miklov and Miklov went for a gun, she had disarmed Miklov and turned him over to Santiago. This action had pleased Santiago; she had pleased Santiago. That she despised him— mentally shrank from his touch, from his stare— was nothing of which the Cuban was aware. He thought, she knew, that somehow he thrilled her. And so— she smiled at the thought— she was free, still armed and able to move. Sissy Wiznewski was in Santiago's office trying to convince him of the reality of the massive quake. Rourke and Miklov were imprisoned in the basement that had been converted to accommodate prisoners Santiago personally wished to interrogate— and to torture.

She smoothed her hands against her thighs, then reached down to the floor beside her booted feet for the large black purse. She opened it, then looked inside. Her own COP .357

Magnum four-shot derringer pistol, the two stainless steel .45 automatics Rourke habitually carried, her lipstick, and a change of underwear— these items filled the bag.

Shrugging her shoulders, she turned from the railing and started down the stairs, smiling at the steward as he seemed to glide past Santiago's office doors. She stopped at the doors, the bag over her left shoulder, then knocked with her right hand. "It is Natalia, Diego," she said as sweetly as she could.

She heard an answering voice from inside, then opened the right-hand door and walked inside. Santiago stood, smiling. Sissy Wiznewski was already standing, the look on her face that of a schoolgirl who had just failed her most important final examination.

"This is all rubbish," Santiago pronounced with an air of authority. "This business of earthquakes is nothing more than a plot to cause us to evacuate Florida so Varakov's troops can invade here. You were wise to abandon your KGB friends and join us, my dear."

Smiling, she walked across the room, glancing at the seismic chart on the conference table, then at the frightened eyes of Sissy Wiznewski. "Yes," she murmured, reaching down and kissing Santiago's cheek as he sat down again.

As she drew her mouth away, she moved her left hand upward, the COP pistol in it, pressing the muzzle against Santiago's left temple. "But, my General, it is true— and you will now do exactly as I say or the top of your head will soon decorate the ceiling above where you sit. For a small gun, I still have one of the most powerful .357 Magnum loadings in it— the 125-grain Jacketed Hollow Point. Do you know guns? A pity if you don't, but tests conducted for American police departments indicated this was perhaps the most effective .357 Magnum loading available. Want to see?"

Santiago turned his head slightly and she looked into his eyes, smiling. "You tricked me," he said.

"That, darling, should be obvious to even you," she cooed. "Now, you will call out to have Colonel Miklov sent up— immediately. The guards will wait outside the door for him. After Colonel Miklov arrives, I will free Rourke. Already, though, you will have issued orders to your commanders initiating the truce. And you will issue orders for the radio signal to be given that the U.S. II and Soviet planes may land, as well as issue orders to your line commanders to begin evacuating civilians. Including the concentration camp near the airport. Everyone. And, my dear Diego, if you are very good, you too can leave after everyone else has."

She looked at Sissy Wiznewski and asked matter-of-factly, "How soon?"

"The— the general said there had been some small earthquakes reported for the last five days around the area. I'd say it's a matter of hours, if that."

Natalia smiled at the girl, then turned back to General Santiago. "For your own sake, Diego, I sincerely hope there is enough time left."

She pressed the muzzle of the COP pistol tight against his head. "Make your first call, darling."

Chapter 41

"What the hell is going on down there?" Tolliver snapped, dropping to the ground behind a palm trunk, Rubenstein dropping down beside him, the Schmeisser in his right hand.

"It looks like they're getting out of the camp— but why? What's going on?" Rubenstein riveted his eyes to the camp. The guards were running from their posts; the officers were running too. Rubenstein looked overhead. Planes of every description imaginable were filling the sky from the west. "Those are American planes!"

"Commies use ones they found on the ground a lot."

"No— they're coming from the west, maybe Texas or Louisiana."

"You're dreamin' kid," Tolliver snapped.

"No! Look— more of them!" The droning sound in the air was as loud as anything Rubenstein could ever recall having heard. The sky was filled, the ground darkening under the shadows of the aircraft. The ground began to tremble under him, but this time more violently than before.

Rubenstein stood up, Tolliver trying to pull him down, the young man shaking away Tolliver's hand. "It's an earthquake. Some of those planes are landing." He looked down toward the camp. The Cuban guards and officers were fleeing, the gates of the compound wide open.

"They're evacuating. There's gonna be an earthquake."

"You're nuts, kid."

Rubenstein looked down to Tolliver, started to say something, but then the ground shook hard and Rubenstein jumped away as a crack eighteen inches wide began splitting across the ground. Then a palm tree fell, just missing Pedro Garcia and the other Resistance people.

"A damned earthquake!"

As if to underscore Tolliver's shout, the ground began shaking harder, so hard Paul Rubenstein fell to the dirt on his hands and knees. "Oh my God!" he said.

Chapter 42

John Rourke sat in the detention cell, his feet up on the edge of the cot, his eyes focused on the guard sitting at the far end of the cell just beyond the bars. Rourke mentally shrugged. He'd waited long enough. He palmed out the A.G. Russell black chrome Sting IA with his left hand. He had not been searched.

"Guard," he rasped in English.

The Communist Cuban guard stood on the other side of the bars. "Si?"

"That's perfect," Rourke smiled. His left hand whipped forward, the Sting in his palm, point first, sailing from his hand, across the six feet or so to the wide bars, the shining black knife impacting square into the center of the guard's chest. Rourke was on his feet, diving toward the bars, his hands out, catching the guard before he fell and snatching the key ring. Rourke let the body fall to the basement floor as he reached around, fumbling for the right key. He found it and unlocked the cage, swinging the door out as far as it could with the body there, then going through.

He reached down, grabbing his knife, wiping the blade clean on the guard's uniform, then sheathing it. As he reached down for the Communist's AK-47, Rourke froze, a familiar voice behind him saying, "Wait, John!"

Rourke turned, slowly rising to his full height. His eyes tightly focused on Natalia, every outline of her tall, lithe body visible under the black jumpsuit she wore. And in her hands were his twin Detonics pistols, the hammers back.

"Well what is it? You going to kill me?"

"Why did you kill Vladmir?"

Rourke saw no reason to lie— to lie wasn't his way. "He was an animal, he would have killed you."

"My uncle told you this?"

"Yes." He hesitated. "But it was something I could see. Did he hurt you?"

"In many ways."

"Did I hurt you?"

"Only because you had no choice, because you have honor."

"I'm sorry," Rourke said softly.

The woman's eyes shifted a moment, down to her hands, then she took a small step closer to him, rolling over the pistols in her hands, presenting them butt first. "The earthquake— it has already started on the Gulf Coast. There is little time."

"I know," he told her, his voice low.

"Hold me, John— just for a moment.... Please."

The guns still in his hands, Rourke folded Natalia into his arms, feeling her dark hair against his stubbled face. "I can't say everything will be all right, can I?"

"No," he heard the girl whisper. "Never lie to me, John. Then I would die, I think."

She stepped back from him, and he set the pistols down on the small table beside the cell door. It wasn't something he'd intended to do, he thought, even as he did it.

His hands grasped her by her elbows, then he drew her toward him, looking down into her eyes. Then he kissed her lips, his mouth crushing down on hers, her body pressed tight against him. As he held her, he could hear and feel her breathing. "I love you," she whispered.

Rourke started to open his mouth, but the woman in his arms touched her fingers to his lips. "No—" She said nothing else.

Rourke looked at her a moment, then smiled. "All right," he said slowly, then bent to pick up his guns.

"You checked them?"

"Yes. There are five rounds in the magazine, one in the chamber. Just like you carry them."

Rourke left the pistols cocked and locked in his fists as he started away from the cell door, Natalia beside him in a moment with the dead guard's AK-47. "What's the situation?" he asked her as they reached the base of the stairs.

"Miklov— he is a good man— has my pistol to Santiago's head. I forced Santiago to begin the evacuation, and to begin the truce so our planes and yours can land. The girl, Sissy, is with Miklov. She will be safe."

Rourke turned and looked at Natalia, stopping in mid-stride. "Back there, I.."

"I understand you better than you think," she said, smiling a little.

"I know that," he told her, then started up the stairs two at a time.

Rourke kicked open the door into the main part of the house, the doorway leading into the hall. Men were running in every direction, armed men, servants, none of them giving Rourke and Natalia as much as a second glance. And suddenly below his feet, Rourke could feel the floor starting to shake. He glanced toward the high ceiling extending upward above the second floor. There was a chandelier there— crystal, Rourke thought absently. And suddenly it started to shake.

Rourke turned, pushing Natalia back into the basement doorway, shielding her with his body. The floor shook hard and there was a sound like an explosion as Rourke glanced behind him and toward the high ceiling. The chandelier crashed to the floor, shattering.

There was a gunshot then, loud but muffled, followed by a woman's scream.

Natalia looked up into Rourke's eyes. "That was Sissy— Santiago!"

The Russian girl was already running across the central hall, jumping to clear the debris of the chandelier, Rourke running behind her. She stopped in front of the double doors leading into Santiago's office, then lashed out with her left boot, the doors splintering apart. Rourke was beside her, shouldering through as she stepped into the doorway. They both stopped. Sissy Wiznewski was standing in the middle of the floor, her hands to her open mouth, her eyes wide. On the floor beside her were two men— one of them was Miklov, Rourke assumed. There was a knife sticking out, high in his chest, just below the throat. The second body belonged to Santiago. Rourke could tell from the uniform, but only that. Where the face had been there was now only a red, pulpy mass. There was a dark object in the center of the mass. Rourke had no idea what had happened to the other eye.

Chapter 43

Rourke dashed down the front steps of the house, the Detonics pistols in both hands firing into the Cuban troops in front of him. He dropped to one knee, snatching up an AK-47 from one of the dead soldiers, then bumping the selector to full auto and spraying the Soviet-built assault rifle ahead of him, hearing Natalia opening up beside him. "The half track— there!" Rourke shouted, starting down the steps.

He could hear Natalia, behind him now, screaming to the Wiznewski girl, "Sissy, get those guns and ammunition belts— hurry!"

Rourke reached the truck, snapping the butt of the AK-47 up into the jaw of a Communist Cuban soldier hanging onto the running board. Then he climbed up, into the cab, reloading the Detonics pistols and leaning the AK-47 beside him against the seat. He turned the key, the half-track truck's engine rumbling to life. "Come on!" he shouted.

Natalia backed her way down the steps, firing the AK-47 in witheringly accurate three-round bursts as the Cubans started after her. Rourke swung open the cab door, snatching the AK-47 from beside him, half-stepping out onto the running board. He fired the assault rifle, nailing two Cuban soldiers running up for Natalia from her left flank. "Come on!"

Sissy Wiznewski, her arms laden with rifles, belts with spare magazines festooned around her shoulder, was stumbling toward the truck. Rourke jumped to the driveway, feeling the ground tremble under his feet.

He grabbed an armful of the guns and pushed the girl up into the truck cab.

As Rourke turned, shouting again to Natalia, "Now! Come on!" he looked up. The sky overhead was dark, almost green in color, and he could feel rain on his face.

He looked down, firing a burst from the AK-47, Natalia beside him now. "Get into the cab. We have to make it to the airfield— come on!"

He shoved Natalia in, climbing back behind the wheel. The door still open, he released the emergency brake, gunning the engine as he let out the clutch. The half-track lurched ahead along the gravel drive.

The cab door slammed as Rourke cut the wheel into a hard right, a truck blocking his path. He took the half-track up over a small rock barrier and onto the lawn of the estate, then across it, Natalia firing out the opposite window. He could hear the Russian coaching the Wiznewski girl in how to change magazines for the AK-47s. Rourke cut the wheel hard left, shouting, "Hold on!" He turned the truck from the grass and back onto the gravel driveway, toward the closed iron grillwork gates at the far end. The shaking of the ground was something inescapable now— he could feel it even as the half-track lurched ahead.

Rourke fumbled for the windshield wiper switch. The rain was starting to fall in sheets now. The double iron gates were just yards ahead and Rourke, double-clutching to upshift and get some speed, shouted to the women, "Get your heads down— we're going through!"

Less than a yard from the gates the brick support columns began to crumble as the ground running along side the driveway started to crack. Rourke hammered his right foot down on the accelerator, released, double-clutched, and upshifted, then stomped the accelerator again. The crack in front of them widened. He had no choice but to drive over it.

He could feel the front tires go into the crack, hear the engine groaning, then feel the half-track bump and lurch ahead. He stomped down hard on the gas pedal as the front of the truck smashed into the gates, the brick support columns already crumbling down on the cab, the windshield cracking across its entire length.

The gates split open and Rourke cut the wheel into a sharp right along the road paralleling the estate. He glanced to his right at Natalia, her hair streaming rain water as she leaned from the cab window firing at their pursuers.

He could see the crack in the ground widening and running alongside them now, seeming to move faster than they were.

"I've got to outrun that fissure!" Rourke shouted over the roar of the engine and the howling of the wind and rain. "Natalia, get back inside!" Rourke lessened his pressure on the gas pedal, worked the clutch and shifted into fourth, the engine whining. He shot a glance to his right. He was gaining on the widening fissure in the earth; but silently he wondered if he could pass it before it cut the road ahead of him and blocked his only chance of escape— the airfield ten miles away.

Chapter 44

Sarah Rourke could just see the faces of her children, Michael and Annie, in the back of the fisherman's boat, packed there with Harmon Kleinschmidt, two of the women, and the dozen or so other children. Sarah had reasoned that once the attack against the Soviet prison compound had taken place, the island would no longer be safe. Mary Beth had surprisingly, she thought, agreed with her.

Mary Beth was at the wheel of the boat Sarah had stolen earlier, taking it coastward. And again, Sarah smiled at the thought, she was wearing borrowed clothing. She had reasoned that the best way to reach the prison and free the men who were to be executed that day was to appear as innocuous as possible. Most of the women were wearing dresses; some of them, herself included, had bundles wrapped up to look like babies. Inside Sarah's was a borrowed MAC-10

.45 caliber submachine gun. Under the long, ankle-length skirt of the borrowed dress she wore, the .45 Colt automatic was strapped to her left thigh with elastic.

Mary Beth had beached the boat, and Sarah and the seven other women had fought their way through the surf. The tides were high, and the wind strong for some reason. From the shore there had been a two mile walk into town, and at Sarah's urging the women had split up into three groups to attract less attention to themselves and to avoid blowing the entire operation should one group be captured.

Now, as Sarah rocked the imaginary baby in her arms a half-block from the factory gates— the factory that was now a prison— she looked at the borrowed watch on her wrist. If a Soviet officer did not come along in another five minutes, she would have to scrap plan "A" as she called it and go to plan "B." The second plan called for an assault by herself and the rest of the women on the prison gates. It was suicide.

She sucked in her breath. There was a Soviet officer walking with a noncommissioned officer, turning into the street and walking toward her. She quietly wondered if she'd have the nerve. Still rocking the swaddled submachine gun in her arms, singing to it softly as she moved, she walked toward the Soviet officer.

She had no idea what rank he was, but since he was older-looking, she assumed the rank was high enough that his life would be important— she hoped so, at least.

She stopped, standing a few feet to the right and ahead of the Soviet officer and the soldier with him.

"Sir?"

The officer stopped talking to the soldier, stopped walking and turned to face her. He nodded. "If you need help with your child, madam, there are doctors in the city who will offer what medical aid they can. The nearest facility is—" and he started to gesture down the block behind him.

"No, sir," Sarah told him, forcing a smile: "It isn't that. But it has to do with my baby. Please, would you look at him?" She hoped to appeal to the officer's vanity, to his ego. The helpless woman asking his advice— she hoped he saw it that way. She was committed now. There was little time before the execution was to take place.

The officer looked to the soldier beside him, shaking his head, saying something in Russian. "Very well, madam. But I fail to see..."

She started walking slowly toward him, watched the soldier's eyes, watched them shift as she moved her

"baby" in her arms into a better position. The Soviet soldier started to open his mouth and Sarah swung the "infant" into position, letting the faded blue blanket fall to the ground at her feet. The MAC-10 swung in a firing position, the stubby muzzle aimed at the soldier, her right first finger twitching against the trigger, the soldier falling.

Sarah, her feet braced apart, turned the muzzle of the weapon against the officer, whispering, "I'll kill you too if you move."

There were soldiers running up from the prison gates, the gates open, and she turned back to the Soviet officer. "What is your name?"

"I am Major Borozeni."

"Major," she began, not attempting to pronounce the last name, "tell those soldiers to stop where they are and drop their guns, or you're dead."

The Russian officer smiled, beginning to laugh. "Madam, I am not so important that I can be used as any sort of bargaining—"

Sarah fired a burst into the cobbled street in front of the officer's gleaming boots, then looked up into his eyes. "For your sake you'd better be."

The major shouted something in guttural Russian and the soldiers stopped in their tracks. Sarah smiled at him. "See— you're more important than you thought. Doesn't that make you feel good?"

The Soviet major had ceased to smile.

"Let's go," she said. As the major began walking ahead of her in the direction in which she'd gestured with the submachine gun, the other women started coming from the doorways and alleys, their guns in their hands, advancing toward the Soviet soldiers and the open prison gates. Sarah's stomach churned. She had just murdered a man— for all she knew a good man, perfectly innocent, not trying to harm her.

She promised herself she would vomit later— there was no time now.

The soldiers parted in a wave in front of her, one of them moving and gunfire— from Mary Beth—

cutting him down. "Nobody should try that again," Sarah screamed," or he gets killed!" Then, on second thought, she shouted to the major a few paces ahead of her, his hands upraised,

"Major, repeat that in Russian. And remember that if anyone tries anything, you die first— I swear it." She heard the conviction in her own voice, realizing that she actually meant what she said.

The major passed through the gates, Sarah a few paces behind him. There were at least fifty Soviet soldiers there, all with guns, but Sarah kept walking.

The major said, "What is it you want, madam? Surely, you cannot—"

"You're right," she interrupted. "That's what I want. Those fifteen Resistance fighters. Get them out here, let them take arms, and we leave— nobody gets hurt."

The major stopped, not turning around, but looking over his shoulder at her. "You are insane!"

"Don't you forget it, either, Major," she told him, her voice trembling slightly.

"If you make it away from here alive, madam, I will find you," the major said, his voice velvety with hatred, she thought.

"You know you won't. If I thought that I'd kill you. Now give the orders."

"I— I cannot. I am not the commandant here."

"Give the orders— now!"

He looked at her again over his right shoulder, then just nodded.

The major shouted something in Russian. None of the soldiers moved. Then, his face reddening, he shouted again, louder. One soldier, then another started moving, and soon the ranks of Soviet soldiers opened and beyond them she could see the fifteen men, faces drawn, clothes torn and incredibly filthy. She listened as the major barked another command, then saw the first Russian soldier hand over his weapon to the Resistance man nearest him.

She almost fainted with relief. She shouted then, "No killing unless we have to!"

The haggard Resistance fighter turned, glared at her a moment, then lowered the muzzle of the rifle, just nodding. In a moment, the other fourteen men had armed themselves. "Order us a truck, Major," she told the officer still standing, hands up, in front of her.

"No!"

"Major, please. I'll kill you," she said softly.

He turned and looked over his shoulder at her again, then nodded. She heard him shouting in Russian, then in a moment heard the sound of an engine starting. She shouted, "Mary Beth, get everybody on board. Have them keep their guns trained on the courtyard here-and no shooting unless the Russians start it!"

She watched over the major's shoulders as the truck loaded, Mary Beth at the wheel.

Sarah said softly, "All right, Major, you come with us. Behave and you'll come out of this alive and unharmed. I promise."

He turned and looked at her. "And what if I do not?"

"This." She gestured with the muzzle of the submachine gun in her hands.

"Agreed," he almost whispered, his voice tight, as though he were about to choke on the words.

"Thank you." Sarah Rourke smiled.

In another two minutes, she judged, she and the major had boarded the truck, the major sitting between her and Mary Beth behind the wheel. She said to the major, "I know they'll follow us, but say something to make them follow at a distance. Tell them I'll kill you if I see anyone following us."

"Would you, madam?" he asked her.

"Of course," she said with a smile.

The major shouted in Russian and the Soviet troops by the gates fanned back. Mary Beth started the truck forward, then between the gates. It was starting to rain and Mary Beth had the windshield wipers going as the truck cleared the gates and turned into the street beyond. Then she cut a hard left into the intersection.

"Step on it, Mary Beth!" Sarah shouted.

"You'll never escape," the major told her, smiling.

"Better hope we do, Major," she answered, looking out the window behind her into the road. Whatever the major had said was working, she thought, and there were no Soviet vehicles in sight.

But she had learned well since the Night of the War. The Soviets were there, on parallel streets, waiting to make their move or calling in helicopters to keep the truck under observation. And now that she had gotten the fifteen Resistance men out of the prison, she felt a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. She had no further plan— the rest of the way would have to be on guts and luck.

Chapter 45

Paul Rubenstein looked down at the ground below the low-flying aircraft. There were cracks in the ground-widening, it seemed, by the instant. Rain was falling in sheets and he silently prayed for the pilot. With Tolliver and Pedro Garcia and the others, Rubenstein had fought all the way to the airport, the other camps having spilled open as their Cuban Communist guards and warders had fled for their lives. Hundreds of men, women, and children were freed.

Many of the Cuban troops had fled by boat, the crafts visible as Rubenstein and the others had moved along the highway. Then Rubenstein had dropped off, going overland to retrieve his Harley, cutting back to the road again just ahead of the comparatively slow going convoy of every sort of land vehicle imaginable. Men hung on the outsides of the trucks, rode on the hoods of the cars and on the rooftops. It had taken two hours to reach the airport, and the airport itself was the greatest scene of mass confusion the young Rubenstein had ever witnessed. Cuban planes were loading Cubans, Soviet and American planes were loading the American refugees, some of the people from the camps having to be forced aboard the Soviet planes. The ground's trembling had been incessant, the cracks appearing everywhere in the runway surfaces.

And then Rubenstein had spotted Captain Reed, working to load one of the American planes impressed into the evacuation. Rubenstein had threaded his bike across the runways and buttonholed Reed, demanding to know what was happening.

And when Reed had told him, Rubenstein's heart sank. The tremors were the beginning of one massive quake that would cause the entire Florida Peninsula to separate from the rest of the Continental United States— what was left of it at least. Rubenstein had almost throttled Reed, demanding some kind of plane to get him to Miami where his parents were. Then Rubenstein had learned about Rourke. Rourke and the woman seismologist who had first brought the news of the impending disaster had gone to Miami to convince the Cuban commander of the reality of the impending disaster. Although Reed assumed they had been successful since the evacuation had been ordered, there had been no word from him since.

Again, Rubenstein had demanded a plane. Reed had agreed. There was a six passenger Beechcraft Baron specially altered to add almost another fifty miles per hour to its airspeed, the plane Reed himself had arrived in.

And now, as Rubenstein watched the ground cracking below the plane, watched the pilot manipulating the controls, and watched the sheets of rain, he wondered if by the time they reached Miami there would be a Miami to reach. Rourke was there, his mother and father were there. Even Natalia was there, Reed had told Rubenstein.

If Rourke died and he, Rubenstein, somehow survived, he would be honor bound, he knew, to continue the search for Rourke's wife, and the two children.

And what would he do, Rubenstein wondered, if the plane could land? Would he offload the Harley Davidson Reed and the pilot had grudgingly helped him get aboard? Would he somehow be able to find his parents, or John Rourke, or Natalia— but then simply die with them as the earthquake continued and the entire peninsula went under the waves?

A chill ran up Rubenstein's spine. It would be better to die— despite the chill, despite the sweating of his palms— than to live and never have tried to rescue the people— He stopped, a smile crossing his lips as he pushed his wire-framed glasses up on the bridge of his nose. "The people I love," he murmured softly.

Chapter 46

The main runway was beginning to crack. Rourke snatched the young child from the refugee woman's arms and handed the little girl aboard the DC-9, then helped the woman to follow. He should never have let Natalia go, he thought. They had reached the airfield, the evacuation already under way and most of the Cuban personnel aiding in the civilian evacuation or too busy trying to save their own lives to offer resistance. Rourke and Natalia had gotten Sissy Wiznewski on one of the first planes to take off after they had reached the field, then Natalia had gone off to aid a party of refugees, Rourke working with a Soviet captain and an American major to bring some order to the airfield and speed up the take-offs. More planes hovered overhead, ready to land as they made a wide circle of the field. It was a miracle that so far there had been no mid-air collisions.

He loaded the last child aboard the aircraft, then the little boy's crying mother, then slapped his right hand against the fuselage as the crewman by the door started closing up. Rourke snatched the borrowed walkie-talkie from his hip pocket. "Rourke to tower— DC-9 ready for take-off pattern!"

"Tower here. Roger on that."

Rourke shoved the radio into his pocket, then turned around scanning the field for Natalia. The rain was pouring down, and as the propellers of a plane passing along the runway near him accelerated, the rain lashed at Rourke's face. Pushing his streaming wet hair back from his forehead, he started to run, sidetracking a small, twin engine plane that was landing. He looked from side to side along the runway's length. There were more planes loading refugees at the far end of the field, and Rourke started running toward them. It was more than the promise he'd made Varakov, to see Natalia get away alive. But Rourke forced the thoughts from his mind as he ran on, sloshing through puddles on the runway, the wind blowing the rain at near gale force now, gusts buffeting his body as he dodged incoming and outgoing planes, making his way across the field.

Rourke reached the planes still loading, but Natalia was nowhere in sight. He grabbed a passing Soviet airman by the collar, shouting in Russian, "The Russian woman— where is she?"

The man looked uncomprehending a moment, a strong gust of wind lashing them both, catching the Soviet airman's hat and blowing it across the field. "Wait," the young man stammered. "A beautiful woman— dark hair, blue eyes?"

"Yes— where?" Rourke shouted over the wind.

"There, I think!" The airman pointed toward the airfield control center, a complex of low buildings about five hundred yards away, nearer the water beyond the airfield than the runways.

Rourke started running, shouting over his shoulder, "Thank you!" but the young airman was already turned around, helping a woman load a baby aboard the nearest aircraft.

Chapter 47

They were out of the city and there was no sign of Soviet pursuit. Sarah Rourke thought she knew why. The ground under the truck was shaking, and the rain was falling so heavily its color reminded her of staring through a cheaply made plastic drinking glass. It was almost impossible to see anything.

"Mary Beth! Stop the truck!"

The woman behind the wheel looked at her and hit the brakes, the truck skidding slightly, then grinding to a stop.

Sarah Rourke turned out the window and looked into the rain again, then looked back at Mary Beth, saying, "You want to get them into hiding, where that fisherman took your children. But he was taking my children up the coast so we could get away. I'm leaving you now."

"You're crazy. You'll get killed out there alone." Mary Beth called over the rain.

Sarah smiled. "No I won't."

She started out of the truck cab, the rain lashing at her, the long skirt of the dress plastered against her legs. "Get down!" she shouted to the Soviet major, gesturing with the MAC-10.

The man looked at her a moment, then started out of the truck. "What are you doing, Sarah?" Mary Beth screamed.

"I made this man a promise. I want to see it gets kept and nobody kills him."

There was a car coming down the highway-Russian, she thought. The car was swerving, the driver coming too fast in the rain. Sarah pressed herself against the side of the truck as the car skidded out of the oncoming lanes and across, narrowly missing the front of the truck and slamming into a utility pole.

Sarah gestured with the MAC-10 and the Soviet major ran beside her toward the car.

It was a recent, model, an American Ford. The two Soviet soldiers inside it were dead. She turned to the major. "Get the bodies out— and no funny business."

The Russian looked at her. "All right."

Sarah reached under her sodden dress, snatching the .45 automatic bound to her thigh, then cocking the hammer to full stand.

She pointed the gun at the major, the Russian clearing the body from the back seat and placing it beside the man already on the ground.

"Mary Beth— the gun!" Sarah held the MAC-10 out at arm's length in her left hand.

In a moment, Mary Beth was beside her. "You know what you're doin'?"

"Uh-huh," Sarah answered. "Good luck to you all. Get out of here."

From the corner of her eye, she watched as Mary Beth ran back toward the truck, then climbed into the cab, the truck starting away.

Sarah turned and looked at the Major. "You've been wearing a pistol all this time, haven't you?" And she eyed the holster on his belt.

"Not very efficient of you, madam."

Taking a step closer to him, she said quietly, rain streaming down from her hair and across her face,

"Take it out and toss it into the bushes."

"Yes," he answered, taking the gun slowly from the holster, eyeing her a moment, then tossing it away.

"Now get your shoulder to that car; get behind the wheel or something. I want it away from that pole."

"It will not drive, probably."

She started to speak, then the major interrupted her. "I know— I'd better hope that it drives." The major slowly climbed behind the wheel of the car. There was a groaning noise, but then after several false starts, the engine turned over and she gestured to the major to back the car up. She kept the gun pointed at his head.

Sarah thought for an instant he was going to try to make a break, but the car stopped, and as she stepped back from the door he climbed out. "I can't believe it," he smiled. "Luck is with you today. The car drives."

"Now stand over there, by the utility pole," she ordered.

"For you to shoot me?"

"You'd better hope—" She stopped, hardly believing the sound coming from her own throat— laughter. The major was smiling, then he too began to laugh. He stepped back, slowly, still facing her and, as he reached the utility pole, she started into the car, behind the wheel.

"Madam!"

She looked into his face. He raised his right hand and saluted her, bowing slightly.

"To another campaign, madam!"

Sarah Rourke set the pistol down on the seat, put the gear selector into drive and started off the road shoulder, the rear wheels skidding in the mud. She could see the major, in the rearview mirror as she started onto the highway, still standing there in the rain beside the bent utility pole. The car sputtered, the windshield was cracked, and there was blood on the dashboard, but the car seemed to run adequately.

Silently, she hoped the major made it alive.

Chapter 48

Rourke reached the blown-open front doors of the terminal complex, kicking aside a huge shard of broken glass as he ran through the puddled doorway and inside. What was Natalia doing here? he asked himself. But as he turned the corner into the main hallway, there was no time to search his mind for an answer.

He stopped dead in his tracks. There were three dozen people in the room at the end of the hallway: men and women, some old, some Rourke's own age or so.

And Natalia was there, holding her tiny derringer pistol in her outstretched right hand. There were five Communist Cuban guards and one officer.

Rourke flattened himself against the wall of the corridor and inched ahead, trying to make something of the Spanish coming from inside the room. "... This is immaterial to me, senorita. Until a secure Cuban aircraft can be landed, these prisoners will remain with me. I do not care for the idea of shooting a KGB

officer, even a self-proclaimed one. However, if you do not, for the last time, step aside and leave this room immediately, my men will open fire. If you care so much for these American military personnel and their wives, then I should think you would not wish to risk their being killed while my men are shooting at you."

Then Rourke's face creased into a smile. Natalia's quiet, alto voice, the Spanish perfect, began,

"Captain, aside from the fact that I outrank you, I also will shoot you in the face if you do not order your guards to put down their arms. Many of these people, if they ever were American military personnel, are likely retired. There is no real American military any more. Any purposes you might have to interrogate these people do not take precedence over the humane purpose of allowing them to be evacuated before this entire airfield is torn to pieces. Now," she said as she gestured with the pistol, "stand out of my way or die!"

Rourke shook his head, stepping away from the corridor wall, firing one of the Detonics pistols into an overstudded chair midway between where he stood and the entrance to the room at the end of the hall.

"Hold it— nobody moves!" he shouted in English, adding, "Sus mannos arriba!"

The Communist Cuban officer did just what Rourke had hoped, and turned to face his new challenger. As the captain moved, Natalia moved, the pistol in her hand flush against the side of the officer's head.

"Now, Captain," Rourke snapped in English. "I believe the young lady asked you and your men to do something. Order your men to drop their guns. Now!"

Natalia, her voice low, in English this time, said, "Or I will kill you, Captain."

The captain didn't move for a long moment, Rourke holding both Detonics pistols on the five guards, their AK-47s still on line against him.

"Do as they say," the officer shouted in Spanish. The guards then, one by one dropped their rifles to the floor.

"Now the pistol belts," Rourke commanded.

The Cuban officer nodded, and his men began to drop their pistol belts to the floor.

"Natalia, take the Captain's pistol."

Rourke started forward, the floor beginning again to shake under him. Rourke, jostled to the corridor wall, pushed himself to the doors of the room, then stepped inside, the shaking of the floor more violent. He looked at the Communist Cuban officer and muttered, "If I had the time right now, I'd beat the shit out of you. You're going to wait for a Cuban plane to take you back with your prisoners. You think anybody out there cares if this whole peninsula goes into the sea?

Can you imagine the tidal wave that'll hit Havana?"

Rourke backhanded the Cuban officer across the mouth with his left hand, the pistol jammed into his belt. "Idiot!" Rourke shouted.

"Come on," he said, starting the nearest of the refugees through the doorway. Then he turned to the Cuban guards, two of them holding up the officer, his mouth bleeding at the left corner. "You guys too—

no sense dying!"

There was a white-haired older man near him and Rourke snatched up one of the AK-47s, saying, "Can you handle one of these, sir?"

"I sure can, son," the old man said, prodding the muzzle at the nearest guard.

There was a sudden violent shaking of the ground beneath them, the walls of the building and the floor under their feet beginning to crack. "Get out of here!" Rourke hollered, grabbing Natalia's hand and starting to run with her, the refugees behind them. Rourke, still holding Natalia's hand, turned the corner into the entrance hallway, the roof starting to cave in, Rourke bending into his stride and hitting the shattered doorway and running out onto the airfield. He shot a glance behind him, over his left shoulder. He could see the white-haired man, a woman with him, the rest of the refugees, and even the Cubans running for their lives.

Rourke scanned the runway from side to side. In the minutes spent inside the building, the volume of the rain had increased, the cracks in the runway surfaces had broadened, and all but a few of the planes had cleared the field. There seemed to be no more aircraft coming in for landing.

There was only one plane not in motion, the DC-3 Rourke and Sissy Wiznewski had originally landed in. Rourke recognized the markings. "Over there!" Rourke shouted, starting to run toward it, still holding Natalia by the hand, one of the Detonics pistols in his right fist. The rain was falling so heavily he could barely see as he ran. He heard Natalia scream, turned and saw her falling. He caught her, the ground beneath them shaking so violently that Rourke too almost lost his balance.

He let go of the Russian girl's hand. He and Natalia helped the older refugees, some of the Cuban guards doing the same. The plane was still fifty yards away, Rourke gauged. And there was a crack, broadening almost imperceptibly, but expanding nonetheless. The crack was between them and the plane. Rourke started running again, helping an old woman across the field. There was only one plane on the field now, the DC-3, and one plane was landing. It was a twin-engine Beech-craft. Almost absentmindedly, Rourke noticed it from the corner of his right eye.

"Idiot," he thought.

The old woman started to collapse. Her cheeks were red with the exertion. Rourke jammed the Detonics into his belt beside the first gun, then swept the old woman up into his arms, running as best he could, jumping over the crack in the runway.

His feet sloshed through the deep puddles, the wind lashing the rain against his face. He heard himself shouting as he saw the DC-3's cargo door starting to close. "Wait! Wait! Don't leave!"

Then Rourke could see Natalia, just ahead of him, her dark hair plastered to the sides of her head, sprinting across the field, waving her arms toward the plane.

The plane was already taxiing, but as Natalia ran toward it, blocking its take-off path with her body, the plane suddenly stopped.

In a moment, Rourke was beside the fuselage, the cargo door opening, hands reaching down from inside as he handed up the old woman. He thought he heard her whisper, "God bless you, son."

Rourke turned around, seeing the white-haired old man with the AK-47, and beside him one of the Cuban guards, the two of them struggling an old woman aboard the aircraft. Natalia helped an old man clamber aboard.

Rourke looked back to the plane. "Not enough room!" the crewman in the cargo door was shouting. "I can't take four of you— too much weight!"

Rourke started to turn around, his eyes meeting Natalia's. She nodded.

Thoughts raced through Rourke's mind— Sarah, the children. If he died, what would become of them?

Then he looked beyond Natalia. "The damned plane over there! The Beechcraft! Come on!"

He started away from the plane. The white-haired man who'd carried the AK-47 and his wife were alone with Rourke and Natalia on the runway. Rourke had wanted it to be one of the Cuban guards, perhaps the Cuban officer. He started to shout something to the old man, but the man said, "It's all right."

Rourke started to shout, "No!" He stood there, then signaled to the crewman in the door of the DC-3.

"Come on!" he shouted to Natalia, to the old man and his wife. Rourke was already running across the field toward the Beechcraft.

Rourke shouted behind him, "I'll get to the plane first— stop them! Natalia, stay with them," and Rourke bent low, the rain pouring down on him as he went into a dead run toward the small plane at the far side of the runway.

The plane was taxiing, but Rourke couldn't be certain if it was just jockeying around the field or readying for take-off again. "Wait!" Rourke shouted. "Wait!"

Rourke kept running, snatching at the twin Detonics pistols rammed into his belt.

The ground was shaking so violently he could hardly move without falling; the cracks in the runway were widening. The plane was moving along the runway— away from him. Rourke raised both pistols into the rain-filled air and started firing them.

One shot, then another, then another, then two more. The plane wasn't slowing. Rourke kept firing. Another shot, then two rounds, then two more. He lost count, the one gun coming up empty, then the second pistol. But the plane was stopping.

Rourke jammed the guns, the actions still locked back, into his belt, then tried running faster toward the plane. The passenger door over the starboard wing opened. Rourke almost collapsed in relief. "Paul!

Paul!"

He could see Rubenstein, climbing down from the wing, running across the field toward him. As the two men met, Rourke sank forward, Rubenstein's outstretched arms catching at him.

"John! Thank God it's you!"

"Paul— what the hell are you doing here?"

"My parents, John— I've gotta find them."

"I was going to stay and look for you," Rourke said. "Try," he said as he swallowed hard, getting his breath, "try somehow to get the plane to set me down near St. Petersburg if it's still there."

"I don't think it is. My parents, though— they're here, I think."

"They may have' gotten out already," Rourke gasped.

"I've gotta know, John!"

Rourke just nodded, getting to his feet again. "I must get Natalia and an older man and his wife out. Use your plane."

"What?"

"There!" and Rourke pointed behind him.

The ground was starting to break up now, the runway buckling in huge chunks. Paul Rubenstein didn't say anything. He started to run across the airfield, jumping the cracks, toward Natalia and the white-haired man and his wife. Rourke stood there, the rain pouring down on him, the wind rising so that he could barely stand erect against it.

Then Rourke started to run. Twenty-five yards ahead of him, he watched as Paul Rubenstein swept the older woman into his arms, kissing her, watched as the white-haired man hugged Rubenstein. Rourke watched as Natalia stepped back; then a smile came to her lips.

Rourke stopped running. "Jesus," he whispered. Somehow, out of all the refugees, the old man with the full shock of white hair and the woman with him were Paul Rubenstein's mother and father. Suddenly, Natalia was there, standing on her toes beside him, her lips close to his ear.

"John, I understand what is driving you, now— I do." And she kissed Rourke's cheek.

Rourke looked down at the Russian girl, then shouted across the field, "Come on Paul!"

Rourke grabbed Natalia's hand, then started toward the Beechcraft, reaching the open doorway, clambering up into the plane, bypassing the pilot. He spotted Rubenstein's motorcycle and whipped out his knife, cutting away the gear strapped to it. He rolled it toward the door. He shouted out to Paul, "Get you a new one, buddy. Never take the weight."

"Right!" Rubenstein helped Rourke offload the bike.

In moments, Natalia had gotten Paul's mother and father aboard the plane. Rubenstein himself was the last to board.

Rourke shouted to the pilot, "Get this thing going!"

"We'll never get out of here," the pilot shouted. Rourke climbed forward, looking over the man's shoulder. The runway was starting to split down the middle, the rain pouring down more heavily, the wind sock over the control tower spinning maddeningly. The ground was shaking beneath the plane. At the far edge of the field, Rourke could see a wall of water rising as a huge section of runway slipped across the beach area into the ocean.

"Bullshit!"

Rourke shoved the pilot out of the way and slipped behind the controls, "Paul, get in there as co-pilot!"

"I can't fly."

"I'll teach you— you'll love it!" Rourke shouted, throttling up the portside engine, then the starboard. Rourke touched his fingers to his lips, then to the control wheel.

"Hang on! Here we go."

Rourke started the plane across what was left of the runway, zigzagging despite the wind, trying to find a space clear enough of the massive, ever-widening cracks for a take-off.

"All right, now or never!" Rourke shouted. To his right beyond the tip of the starboard wing, there was a massive wall of water rising, the entire airfield starting to come apart and fall into the ocean.

Rourke throttled out and the plane lurched ahead, pumping over a crack in the runway, settling down on the runway surface again. Rourke glanced to his right. The water was rushing toward them, the runway half submerged, waves starting to slosh in front of the aircraft. "Now!" Rourke shouted, pulling up, throttling out, the plane rising unsteadily. The runway and the water now roared across it as it dropped off below them.

The control tower loomed up ahead and Rourke fought the controls, working the ailerons, trying to bank the plane to starboard to miss the control tower with the portside wing tip. "Pray!" Rourke shouted, feeling Natalia's hand on his thigh as he cut the controls, seeing the control tower drop off to his left, the building already starting to collapse.

As Rourke leveled off the twin Beechcraft, he looked down. Where there had seconds before been an airport runway, now there was ocean, waves surging as far as he could see.

Chapter 49

Sarah Rourke skidded the car to a halt. The brakes were bad, she thought, but at least it had gotten her to the beach. She could see the fisherman start toward her with the children from the rocks by the beach as she exited the car.

She ran across the rain-flooded highway, dropping to her knees in the water, hugging Michael and Annie to her.

She looked up at the fisherman. "Thank you. I just couldn't have gone back with them."

"I know, lady. That Kleinschmidt is a good fella, but comes on heavy. Hey—"

What was it, she thought. "I don't understand."

"Your name Sarah?"

"Yes, I thought you—" but she stopped. She'd sent the children down with Mary Beth, had never seen the fisherman from less than a distance of several hundred feet.

"I just put it together— you and them kids. Sarah and Michael and Annie," he said.

"Who?" Sarah started up to her feet, pushing the wet hair back from her eyes.

"He's gone now. Went to Texas there by the Louisiana border to U.S. II headquarters. Some kind of mission. Name of John Rourke. Was lookin' for you."

Sarah dropped back to her knees in the rain-flooded highway, hugging her wet children to her. "Daddy's alive!" John, she thought. John...

She could tell the difference. Now not only was there rain water running down her cheeks, but tears.

Sarah Rourke looked up at the fisherman. "After I get the horses, how far is it?"

"I don't follow you, lady."

"To Texas, I mean." She hugged Michael and Annie again, not hearing if he had answered her or not.

Chapter 50

John Rourke stood in the rain. He'd landed the Beech-craft because the plane had almost been out of fuel. As best he'd been able to judge from the maps, the plane was about twenty-five miles from Chambers and U.S. II headquarters.

Paul was sitting in the plane, talking to his parents, the pilot had gone to find some kind of transportation. The radio wasn't working well, too much static.

Beside Rourke stood Major Natalia Tiemerovna. "The truce will be over soon, John— it is over now, I think."

"At least it showed we're still human beings, didn't it?" Rourke said quietly, his left hand cupped over his dark tobacco cigar, his right arm around Natalia.

"You will go on looking?" she asked.

"Yes."

"Where do you plan to go?"

"The Carolinas, maybeGeorgia bySavannah . She was likely headed that way."

"I hope you find her— and the children."

Rourke looked at the Russian woman. Rainwater streamed down her face— and his.

"Thank you, Natalia."

The woman smiled, then lowered her eyes. She stood beside Rourke in the pouring down rain.

The End

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