The End is Coming

Chapter Eighteen

John Rourke stood over his children, watching them sleep. Michael rolled over—opened his eyes. “Hi, Daddy.”

Rourke dropped to his knees beside the chil-dren. It was a far corner of the bunker, a blanket hung to make a triangle with the corner walls. There was another air mattress beside the one on which the children lay—it was empty. Sarah slept there, he knew—she had shown him their quar-ters.

“Shh,” he told his son. He raised his right first finger to his lips, his voice low. “Don’t wanna wake your sister, Michael.”

“Where’s Mommy?”

“Outside—”

“What’s the matter?”

“Nothing to worry about—I’m taking you and your sister and your mother home tomorrow— you’ll have a ball. So much to do at the Retreat— books, music—I’ve got a videocassette recorder there—movies, educational programs—you can learn about astronomy, about the human body, about science—physics and chemistry—all of it—for you and Annie to learn from—”

“Can we play outside?”

Rourke sucked in his breath. “Sometimes—but the idea of the Retreat is that it’s kind of secret—like a secret hiding place, ya know? But you can play with Paul—you can call him Uncle Paul—he’s my best friend. And—”

“And Natalia?”

Rourke closed his eyes.

“Mommy told me she’d asked you about some Russian lady and you said her name was Natalia and she’d be living with us from now on.”

Rourke nodded. “You can play with Natalia, too—Annie’ll like her a lot—so will you, son.”

“But aren’t the Russians the ones who started everything—like The War, and all the trouble—”

“But Natalia didn’t start it. She saved my life—more than once. Natalia and Paul—the three of us have been searching for you and your sister and your mother. She’s a good friend—you’ll like her, be happy with her.”

“Is Natalia going to marry—what did you say his name was—”

“Paul.”

“Is Natalia going to marry Uncle Paul?”

Rourke closed his eyes again, then opened them, seeing his son in the gray light. “No—she isn’t—no—”

“Well, why is she staying with us, Daddy?”

Rourke swallowed. “She’s a good friend to Paul and me. And in helping us look for you guys, well, she kind of got in trouble with the KGB—”

“That’s the Russian CIA, isn’t it?”

“Yeah—sort of—but different in a lot o f ways.

“Is Natalia a spy, like you were?”

“Sort of—but she’s through with that now—just wants to be with us, be our friend, help things get right again—like that—it’s a long story. Compli-cated—kind of.”

“I’m not sleepy—you can tell me,” Michael in-sisted.

“I’m sleepy,” Rourke smiled in the darkness. “I’ll tell you all about it later—all about it. I hear you’ve been taking good care of your mother and sister—give me your hand,” and Rourke reached his right hand out in the darkness, found his son’s vastly smaller, but solid, firm hand—he clasped it tight.

“Oww—”

Rourke laughed, low, soft. “You’ve turned into one hell of a good man, son. And I’ll be needing your help a lot as we go along.”

“Momma tell you that I—”

“That man at the farm—that you killed him. I’m sorry you had to do that—but I’m glad you were there to protect your mother and sister—yeah—she told me. And at the Mulliner place—looks like all those times we went out back and fooled with the guns came in handy, huh?” and he clasped his son’s shoulders in the darkness. “But you can put all that behind you now—go back to growing up. You’ve done a lot of that, but there’s a lot of grow-ing to do and everything. I’m proud of you.”

“I’m glad you came back—Mommy never stopped talking about when you’d find us. Things would get kind of bad—we’d be cold, or there’d be Brigands or Russians all around us—but Momma always said you’d find us.”

“You think this’ll make her happy—the Retreat, I mean? What do you think?”

“Maybe—I’m not sure. But she wants to be with you.”

“I love her—being a grown-up isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, kid,” and Rourke bent over his son, finding the boy’s face, kissing his forehead.

He heard automatic weapons fire from outside. “Stay here,” and Rourke was up, running. Sarah was outside.