The Prophet

"You sound just like a professional meteorologist."

"It's worse for me— I open up a window, I get my feet wet— submarines are like that."

Rourke shook his head, saying, "Standup comic before you joined the navy?"

"No— but thanks for the compliment."

"I wasn't making a compliment," Rourke told him. Because of cross winds, it had been rough landing on the missile deck— rougher by the time Natalia had done it. And now— the winds visibly rising as the waves tossed higher and higher— it would be hazardous in the extreme to take off. This was why he waited— if the helicopter ran into problems he would be there to fish out survivors.

"Natalia— you reading me?"

"Yes, John. Over."

"Don't be so formal— only you and me and Gundersen on the line here. How you reading those winds?"

"Twenty-five knots and gusting higher."

"Rourke?" It was Gundersen. "I'm gonna have to dive soon— these seas are getting rough. I've got some people in sick bay this is playin' hell with."

"Got ya," Rourke answered. "Natalia? How long?"

"Another minute— maybe two. The deck is slippery— we're using guidelines to get the men out to the helicopter."

"Right," he told her, watching her craft now— tense. From his vantage point two hundred feet up and to the sub's starboard side, Rourke could see what seemed to be the last two men, struggling along the missile deck on the manila rope guidelines, wind lashing at the raingear the men wore against the salt spray that broke over the bow as the submarine lurched violently with each swell.

The last of the two men disappeared inside the helicopter Natalia piloted. She was a good aviatrix, Rourke knew— but the best helicopter pilot in the world would have been hard-pressed to judge his controls right to get off the swaying, rolling missile deck against the wind.

The helicopter— as if a living thing itself— began to move, rising slightly, edging forward and to the right side, then rising more, spinning several times then dipping slightly downward—

Rourke's heart went to his mouth— then skimmed along the surface of the waves, then was airborne.

"She flies good." Gundersen's voice echoed through his headset.

Rourke chewed down harder on his unlit cigar. "Yeah," he murmured.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Paul Rubenstein sat cross-legged in the rocks, his head bothering him slightly. "The hell with it," he murmured, reaching into the pocket of his O.D. green field jacket, finding the container Rourke had given him and removing one of the painkillers Rourke had prescribed. The octagonsided tablet in his mouth, he splashed it down with a swallow of canteen water. "Lieutenant?"

"Yes, Mr. Rubenstein?" And O'Neal turned toward him. O'Neal's M-16 was nearly to the level of the rocks, ready to come up to fire.

"When John gave me these for pain, he told me to try and rest for a few minutes after I took one— do me a favor and keep a good eye out— I gotta close my eyes— my head's killing me."

"Right, Mr. Rubenstein."

Rubenstein nodded, then hunkered down in the rocks. The bolt was closed on the Schmeisser and his High Power was holstered. Rourke had often lectured on mixing firearms with any type of depressant or stimulant— with any foreign substance— and Rubenstein took the advice seriously. Having had, for all intents and purposes, no familiarity with firearms before the Night of The War, he now considered himself well-skilled— he'd had what he considered the best teacher. But firearms were not second nature to him as they were to Rourke. Almost subconsciously, he took advice literally and intended to until more familiarity deepened his judgment.

He set the Schmeisser aside on the ground next to him, folding his hands in his lap. He stretched his legs, tired from the sleepless night. He saw a face— she had been his girl. He wondered if all the people who inhabited New York City had died quickly...

"Mr. Rubenstein! Mr. Rubenstein— Paul!" She had been so pretty in a very soft way— he didn't want to lose— "Mr. Rubenstein! Wake up!"

Rubenstein opened his eyes, feeling warm, sleepy still, then moved, suddenly feeling the cold and dampness, his eyes reacting to the bright grayness of the morning.

"How— ahh— how long—"

"About three-quarters of an hour maybe— look, Mr. Rubenstein."

Paul shook his head, snatching up his Schmeisser, then getting to his knees— the headache was gone— and peering over the rocks. Across the small depression where the mounded-over bunker was on the far ridge he could see wildmen massing. And now, faintly, he could hear the rumbling of vehicles.

He could see the first one— a battered Jeep— rolling up onto his far left on the ridge. Then, on his right, another Jeep.

And then at the center— a massive pickup truck, the wheels high off the ground and suspended from the winch supports at the front of the vehicle was a body— burned black in spots, blood covered, the left arm missing, the eyes catching the glint of sunlight and reflecting it like glass—

it was Armand Teal.

"Look!"

"I see him," Rubenstein murmured to O'Neal. "No— no— look!" Rubenstein turned his head right, toward O'Neal, then past him. Wildmen behind them, wildmen on either side, heavily armed with assault rifles, spears and machetes, some of the wildmen standing like toy figurines, almost frozen, their spears poised for flight.

And at their head—"Cole— you son of a bitch!"

"Mr. Rubenstein— you and Lieutenant O'Neal— lay down your arms," Cole shouted.

"Bullshit!"

"Lay down your arms and you'll be spared— at least for now. I came for the missiles— not to kill you!"

Rubenstein worked back the bolt of the Schmeisser, pushing O'Neal aside, on his knees still, the submachine gun snaking forward. He saw it— the shadowy form in flight as he fired, Cole dodging, two of the wildmen with him going down.

Something— the shadowy thing that flew— was in his line of vision, tearing into him now, dragging him back and off his knees. He felt himself spreadeagling, his subgun still firing, upward, his left arm unmoving. He stared at his arm— a massive stick seemed to be holding him to the ground.

"The spear— my God, Mr. Rubenstein!" It was O'Neal.

"Spear—" Rubenstein coughed the word, his subgun firing out. He tried to move his left arm, felt the tearing, the ripping at his flesh. "No!" He screamed the word.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Bill Mulliner squirmed on his knees beside the right front wheel of the van— it was his stomach. His father— the Russians had killed him— had called it "butterflies," and Bill Mulliner had them every time before a raid. As soon as the raid would start, the butterflies left. He wondered if it was fear of death— or fear of what came afterward. In church on Sundays they used to talk about the glory that awaited you when you had been born again in Jesus Christ, the glory of Heaven when you never wanted, never needed, but were filled with the happiness of being in God's presence. He wondered sometimes how you could be happy with the life gone from you. Or was the life something that wasn't physical at all?

He gripped his M-16 more tightly.

He looked to his left and up. Just inside the slid-open door of the van he could see the heels of Pete Critchfleld's shoes— Pete would be hunkered down low, waiting, his M-16 with the collapsible butt stock— admittedly homemade— ready to kill Russians.

Bill Mulliner looked to his far right and down. In the drainage ditch on the other side of the fence, already penetrated past Russian security, would be Curly and Jim, Jim with a Thompson submachine gun. He'd been a police officer before the Night of The War and the weapon had been legal and licensed.

The others— fifteen additional men, making nineteen all told, were scattered along the base perimeter. All of them were waiting for the signal.

The base had been, according to Pete Critchfield, a recording company warehouse. The security system in use when the facility had stored the latest country western albums was the security system in use today. Only the manpower composition and numbers had changed. Two older, retired policemen had been the security guards on the day shift— this according to Jim Hastings, the cop with the Thompson. Now, however, there were thirty-six Russian infantrymen with KGB

supervision who patrolled the facility's fenced perimeter with guard dogs.

It would be Jim who would give the signal— waiting until a truck marked as carrying explosives would enter the compound. Jim would throw a fragmentation grenade— between the nineteen men, there were only four grenades. The battle would start.

Bill Mulliner watched now, a motorcycle escort rolling along the street ahead of a U.S. two-and one-half-ton truck, the truck over-painted with a red star on the door side, he could see. The motorcyclists were talking to each other, one of them gesturing to an abandoned Mercedes parked half across the sidewalk. The second cyclist laughed. A joke about capitalist Americans, Bill guessed.

His palms sweated, as much as they had sweated when Jim Hastings and Curly had smuggled themselves into the compound inside a garbage truck, then jumped from the truck— he had seen one of them barely at the far corner of the warehouse.

The deuce-and-half made a sharp, fast right— Bill Mulliner thought he would never drive that way carrying explosives— and turned into the driveway leading into the warehouse area, stopping in front of the fence, the guards there approaching the fence and opening it. The motorcyclists started through, the truck's transmission grinding audibly, black smoke belching from the muffler, the truck beginning to lumber forward.

Automatically, Bill Mulliner moved his selector from safe to full auto, then glanced to his right. He could see Jim Hastings starting to get up in the ditch, his right arm hauling back, then snapping half-forward. There was a small dark object— Bill watched it fascinated as it arced toward the truck through the late morning air.

The grenade fell— he could hear the noise it made hitting the concrete. It rolled, and he watched it, waiting for it to explode. Waiting.

The explosions were something that made his ears ring and his head ache, the first tiny explosion of the grenade swallowed by the roar and blast of the truck itself, a black and orange fireball belching skyward. He started to run from behind the van, the heat of the fireball searingly hot against his face as a wind seemed to generate from the fireball above and surrounding the explosives truck.

He was at the main gates— what was left of them, jumping from a fallen motorcycle, loosing a three-round burst from his M-16 into the already half dead cycle rider, the man's clothes and flesh burning as he rolled, screaming, on the ground. The tarred surface under Bill's feet stuck to his shoes, the tar melting from the heat of the fireball as he ran. He glanced behind him once—

he could see Pete Critchfield coming with the van, the van's front end specially reinforced, the van jumping the curb, across the sidewalk now and ramming through the chain link fence, a seven-foot-wide section of the fencing pulling away from the support posts— these bent almost in half— and stuck to the reinforced bumper, pushing ahead of the van, sparks flying from the fencing as it swept the concrete.

Bill kept running, seeing a sentry coming toward him, the sentry's guard dog bounding ahead. Bill pumped the M-16's trigger, the dog still coming. He pumped the trigger again, the dog going down. The sentry still firing, his AK47 hammering slugs into the warehouse wall beside which Bill ran, the concrete block powdering, chips of the concrete and a spray of fine dust powdering Bill's face.

Bill fired the M-16, hearing the heavier rattle of the Thompson submachine gun, seeing Jim Hastings running to intersect him. The Soviet guard went down.

Bill ran forward, jumping the dead guard, firing his M-16, two guards coming around the far corner of the warehouse wall, one guard going down, a long burst of automatic weapons fire hammering into the wall again, the second guard tucking back. Bill heard the scraping of the chain link fence section, the roar of the van's eight-cylinder engine, saw the blur of grayish white as the van cut past him and toward the corner of the building. There was a scream, the sound of tires screeching and a power steering unit being pushed too hard, then the blur of gray-white again, the van backing up. The fence was still stuck to the bumper, and hanging from it now was a body— the Soviet trooper, his hands flailing, his legs twisted at odd angles.

Jim Hastings— less than a yard from Bill now, raised his Thompson to his shoulder, firing a short burst, the Soviet guard's body stopping its thrashing— he was dead.

There was assault rifle fire all around him now as he reached the corner of the warehouse, the van already by the loading dock, some of the Resistance fighters there too, M-16s, pistols, riot shotguns— gunfire.

Bill threw himself against the loading dock, ramming a fresh magazine into his assault rifle, then looked up, across the loading dock, throwing his body up, rolling, coming to his knees and firing as two Soviet soldiers started across. Both Soviets went down.

He pushed himself to his feet, Jim Hastings and Curly already opening the sliding door into the warehouse itself.

Hastings and Curly disappeared inside, Bill running to the truck, Pete Critchfield jumping out, his bastardized M-16 in his fists.

"So far so good, Bill."

Bill Mulliner looked at his leader. "Yeah— so far so good."

The butterflies were gone from his stomach and he was still alive— so far, so good.

Chapter Thirty

The airfield in the shadow of Mount Thunder was busy— as busy, he supposed, as airfields had appeared during the Berlin airlift the Allies had conducted when his own government had shut off West Berlin from West Germany years ago. Planes of any description that could carry cargo were landing, being off-loaded and refueled simultaneously and taking off again as quickly as possible.

Rozhdestvenskiy walked the field now, an aide running to his side, the aide falling in step, shouting to him over the roar of the engines. "Comrade Colonel— a communiqué from the southeast."

"Read it to me," Rozhdestvenskiy nodded. Probably another complaint that some item of supply could not be found, he thought.

"Central southeastern supply depot, reference Womb, penetrated by heavily armed, numerically superior Resistance force. Heavy casualties and theft of strategic material and supplies—

preliminary casualty report and loss report to follow— signed—"

"Never mind— I know the fool's name!" He took the note, crumpled it, started to throw it down to the runway surface— he stopped himself. His temper— he was losing it, and thus showing a weakness before a subordinate. "He is a fool," he sighed, by way of explanation, "in that he allows himself such a situation to come to pass— to—"

"Yes, Comrade Colonel!"

He studied the subordinate's face. There was little apparent differences in their ages— yet this man was a captain and he was a colonel. The face, however, showed the difference. Moonshaped, fleshy, ingratiating— weak.

He was not weak.

"You will radio immediately to the commander of the supply depot in Nashville— he is to place himself under arrest and surrender command to his senior ranking subordinate. You will radio Chicago that I am to be met at the airport and there must be a helicopter to fly me to headquarters on the Lake. You will also radio to General Varakov, supreme commander, that it is a matter of the utmost urgency that I should have an interview with him immediately. Make all necessary travel arrangements, contact my valet here and have my things packed for a short stay. Move out."

"Yes, Comrade Colonel."

The man ran off, across the field— like a dog more than a man, Rozhdestvenskiy decided. There was the difference.

He would go to Chicago, request that General Varakov commit his military forces to crush the Resistance so the stocking of the Womb could continue. He would request Varakov's help in resolving the matter of the American Eden Project— He felt himself smile. If Varakov did not cooperate— Colonel Nehemiah Rozhdestvenskiy watched the planes as they landed, as they took off again— for at least a few moments.

The efficient, orderly use of power. It would calm him.

Chapter Thirty-One

Rourke calculated his fuel use to be adequate to make the return trip to the submarine— beyond that perhaps enough to make it back to where he had camouflaged the prototype FB-111 HX for the return trip to Georgia— if his luck held. He flew the 0H58C Kiowas now at maximum speed, not the speed for fuel conservation, but the speed required by the situation. He had been gone from the missile control bunker and the underground silos vastly longer than he had anticipated. He glanced to his right— the dull green of the second helicopter was there, Natalia almost visible at its controls.

They flew low to give as little advance warning of their arrival as possible, in case somehow, something had gone wrong. He followed the contours of the ground with his altimeter, rising over a low ridge.

In the distance he could see that something had gone wrong.

Wildmen were everywhere, and at their center were two crosses— O'Neal and Rubenstein?

He overfiew the crosses, glancing below him now— Paul, perhaps dead, certainly close to unconsciousness. O'Neal, his body twisting against the ropes that bound him to the cross timbers.

Near the crosses, he could see Cole, Cole's two men Armitage and Kelsoe, and a bizarre, squatlooking man wrapped in a bearskin robe. Cole beckoned to the sky— Rourke knew why.

"Natalia—"

"Yes— I see— do we go in?"

"We pull back along the other side of that ridge line," he said into his microphone. "Then I go in— that's what Cole wants." He exhaled hard into the microphone. "And that's what Cole is going to get."

Rourke banked the chopper sharply, shouting past his microphone to the men near the open chopper doors, "Hang on to the seats, guys—" He chewed harder on his cigar...

The rotor blades from Natalia's helicopter still moved lazily in the breeze, but it was not the breeze that moved them. Natalia stood beside him, dressed in her dark clothing and boots, her pistols on her hips, seeming to accentuate their roundness— she had trained to be a ballerina, she had told him once, and her martial arts skills were past the level of the ordinary and almost elevated to the artistry of the dance. There was a perfection about her— he saw her eyes quickly flicker to his— their blueness overwhelming him. He turned away, looking at the men of the shore party.

"A lot of you saw Lieutenant O'Neal strung up on that cross down there. The other man most of you know— he's my best friend, Paul Rubenstein. So we've all got a very personal stake in getting them out alive if we can. I didn't see Colonel Teal. If Cole and the wildmen have formed some kind of alliance, then Teal might already be dead. I don't know who this Cole is— but I know what he is. In his own way, he's more of a savage than those wildmen we've been fighting, you've been hearing about. I recognize some of you from the landing party that night that came in with Gundersen. So you know how these people are— crazy, suicidal— deadly.

"I have to go in— Cole wants it that way, and if we all go in shooting, Paul and your lieutenant will be killed— they'd do that. Cole would. I know it. Natalia is staying here—"

"No," she snapped, almost hissing the word. Their eyes met.

"Yes," he ordered. "Major Tiemerovna is a pilot— we need at least one here to cover you guys from the air. You'll have to break up into two elements— one Natalia can fly in over the wildmen, drop on the far side. That way you'll have them set up for a kind of enclosement— if you do it right. Natalia'll need a gunner—"

"I'm the man who runs the deck gun on the submarine."

"Then you're the man," Rourke told the young, blond-haired seaman with the oddly brushed mustache. Rourke supposed the young man had grown it either to show he could or to look older.

"Then Natalia and you'll give air support. We'll need one man to stay with the second helicopter— the one I flew. If the wildmen break through, put a burst into the machine—

Natalia'll show you where to shoot so you can blow her up. In case Cole or one of his men knows how to use a chopper, we can't let him have it. If you do blow the chopper, run like hell and you're on your own. Volunteer?"

Three men took a step forward. Rourke picked one— a seaman first he'd seen in the fighting on the beach against the wildmen— he seemed to have a cool head. "You're it, Schmulowitz."

"Aye, sir."

"Natalia'll pick squad leaders for the ground action— do exactly as she says. If any ten of you guys had between you as much battle experience as she has, you'd be doin' great."

"And what about you?" Natalia asked him suddenly.

Rourke swung the CAR-15 forward on its cross-bodied sling, the scope covers removed already, the stock extended.

He unzipped the front of his bomber jacket so he could get at his pistols. He reached into his pocket and took out the little Freedom Arms .22 Magnum Boot pistol with the three-inch barrel, the one he'd taken off the dead Brigand back in Georgia before they had met Cole, before Natalia had been wounded and they had been forced to take to the nuclear submarine, then transported under the icepack to the new west coast— before he had ever heard of wildmen.

He slipped the pistol up his left sleeve, just inside the storm-sleeved cuff.

"I'll go see what Cole wants— try to get something going with Paul and O'Neal— I'll be there."

He reached into his jeans pocket, found his Zippo lighter, turned it over in his hands a moment and flicked back the cowling, rolling the striking wheel under his thumb, making the blue-yellow flame appear, the flame flickering in the breeze as he lit the cigar clamped between his teeth.

"I'll be okay," he said. Her eyes didn't look like she believed it.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Rourke walked slowly ahead, having stopped for a moment at the top of the rise, looked down toward the missile bunker— a half-dozen wildmen were posted there as sentries— and then stared at the crosses. Rubenstein was still unmoving, his left arm red-stained along the entire length of the sleeve of his jacket. O'Neal had stopped moving, and Rourke saw the man's eyes at the distance— pain and fear. He kept walking.

He reached the height of the rise, beside the twin crude crosses, and stopped. He reached out with his right hand, feeling Paul's ankles for a pulse— there was one.

"Give me your guns." A wildman, large, armed with an AK-47— where he'd gotten it Rourke didn't know— stepped from the far side of the crosses and reached out his left hand.

Rourke, the cigar in the left corner of his mouth, reached up his left hand and took the cigar. He stared at the wildman's hand for a moment, cleared his throat and spit, the glob of spittle hitting the wildman's palm.

"You son of a bitch," the man snarled, Rourke sidestepping half-left and wheeling, his left foot snapping up, feigning a kick at the head, the wildman dodging to his left, Rourke's right, leaning forward, Rourke wheeling right, both fists knotted on the CAR-15, his right fist pumping forward with the butt of the rifle, the rifle butt snapping into the wildman's chest, Rourke arcing the flash-deflectored muzzle down diagonally left to right across the man's nose, breaking it at the bridge.

Rourke stepped back, short of killing him, his right foot stomping on the barrel of the AK-47 as the wildman— huge— seeming even in collapse— tumbled forward and sprawled across the ground.

The wildmen were starting to move, Rourke's rifle's muzzle on line with Cole. "Call em off, asshole!"

"They'll rip you apart," Cole shouted back.

"Let's see what the man wants first, shall we?" Rourke shifted his eyes left— to the man in the bearskin, the squat man he had seen beside Cole from the air. "Cut 'em both down— now!"

"No!"

Rourke's eyes met Cole's eyes. "You're a dead man already— on borrowed time."

"Cut them down," the squat man in the bearskin commanded.

Rourke stepped back, his eyes flickering from Cole to the wildmen starting toward the two crosses.

A burly, tall man started up the cross where Rubenstein hung, hacking at the ropes, Rourke snarling to him, "Let him down easy or you get a gut full of this," and he gestured with the CAR15.

The man climbing the cross looked at him, nodding almost imperceptibly.

Others of the wildmen started forward, catching Rubenstein as the ropes were released, helping him down, setting him on the ground. Rourke shot a glance to his friend's face. The eyelids fluttered, opened, the lips— parched-seeming— parted and— the voice weak— Rubenstein murmured, "John?"

"Yeah, Paul," Rourke almost whispered. "It's okay."

"I'm— I'm gettin'—"

"Take it easy," Rourke told him, watching Cole and shifting his eyes to O'Neal as they brought him down from the cross.

"I'm dyin' on my feet, damnit!"

Rourke looked at his friend, edging toward him, gesturing the wildmen away with the muzzle of the CAR-15, then snapping, "Get ready," reaching down, helping Rubenstein's right arm across his shoulders, getting the younger man up, slumping against his left side. "All right?"

"Yeah," Rubenstein sighed. "Yeah— all right." Rourke said nothing, looking at O'Neal, lying there— O'Neal seemed somehow more subdued, more ill than when he had been on the cross—

his eyelids closed and his head slumped. Rourke caught the movement of a pulse— strongseeming— in the missile officer's neck.

O'Neal was playing out something— Rourke let the young navy lieutenant play it out.

"Okay, Paul— we start forward— right?"

"Right," Rubenstein nodded, his breath coming in short gasps, but regular.

Rourke started to walk, half dragging his friend on his left side, the CAR-15's muzzle leveled now toward Cole and the squat man in the bearskin and Levis.

He kept the muzzle in the airspace between them, already decided that if either one moved, he'd shoot the man in the bearskin first.

The wildmen— a knot of them— closed around Rourke and Rubenstein as they moved forward.

"You'll never get outa here alive, you Jew-lovin'—"

"Shove it, Cole," Rourke snarled.

Then Rourke stopped, less than two yards of airspace separating him and Paul from Cole and the man in the bearskin.

"I'm called Otis," the man in the bearskin smiled.

"No shit," Rourke nodded.

"You are— ah?"

"He's John Rourke— Dr. Rourke," Cole said through his teeth.

"Ohh— the John Rourke who wrote those excellent texts on wilderness survival— how marvelous. To meet you after reading your work— I literally devoured them. And the books on weapons as well—"

"Marvelous," Rourke told him.

"Since I know so much about you— I suppose— well, that you'd like to know something about me— and about my little band of followers here."

Rourke said nothing.

"He's looney, John," Rubenstein coughed.

Rourke still said nothing.

"We actually call ourselves the Brotherhood of The Pure Fire. I'm the high priest, the spiritual leader— the mentor to these lost souls, one might say."

"One might," Rourke whispered.

"Yes— well, as you can imagine, after all this war business, well— the time was ripe for someone—"

"To appoint himself leader of the crazies," Rourke interrupted.

Otis— the wildman leader— smiled. "In a manner of speaking— I suppose so. But of course our mutual friend here— I think he makes me seem mild. After all— blowing up Chicago with five eighty-megaton warheads is a bit extreme, isn't it?"

Rourke's eyes shifted to Cole's eyes— Cole's eyes like pinpoints of black light burning into him.

"Now's the time you're supposed to say, 'You'll never get away with this,' " and Cole laughed.

"But I'm more of a patriot than you— hangin' around with Jews and Commies. I'm gonna rid the United States of the Soviet High Command."

"President Chambers never sent you, did he— neither did Reed."

"Reed? Hell— I almost hadda shoot Reed when I killed the real Cole and took his orders—

bullshit with Reed. Him and Chambers— they'd never have the nerve to push a button— but me—"

Rourke said nothing. He looked at Paul once, murmuring, "Good-bye old friend," then pumped the trigger of the CAR-15, in and out and in and out and in and out, three fast rounds in a burst to Cole's chest, Cole— or whoever he really was— falling back, screaming, his hands flaying out at his sides.

"My missile!" Otis screamed, his voice like a high-pitched feminine shriek, a broad-bladed knife flashing into his right hand from a sheath at his belt. Rourke shifted the muzzle of the CAR-15

left, firing, but Otis was diving toward him, the slug impacting against Otis' right shoulder, hammering the man back and down, but not killing him, Rourke realized.

As Otis fell back, his body rolled against a mounded tarp behind him, part of the tarp whisking back— Teal's burned and mutilated body, the eyes still open in death— was on the ground, insects crawling across the face.

The wildmen were closing in, knives, spears, assault rifles in every hand. There was gunfire—

from the edge of the rise near the crosses.

Rourke pumped the CAR-15's trigger, unable to miss, firing into a solid wall of humanity, Rubenstein lurching away from him, Rourke feeling the rip and hearing the snap as the younger man grabbed the Detonics .45 from under Rourke's left armpit, the heavy bark of the .45

rumbling too now, the gunfire from their rear unmistakably that of an AK-47—"O'Neal!" Rourke shouted.

Rourke fired out the CAR-15, ramming the muzzle of the empty gun into a face near him, with his left hand snatching at the Detonics .45 under his right armpit, thumbing back the hammer, firing point blank into the face of the nearest wildman, the body sprawling back, others falling from its weight.

Rourke's right hand flashed to the flap holster on his hip, getting the Python, the six-inch barrel snaking forward, the pistol bucking slightly in his clenched right fist as the muzzle flashed fire, the nearest wildman clasping his neck.

"John— here!"

It was Rubenstein's voice, Rourke edging back, firing both handguns now, the Detonics in his left— loaded with seven rounds this time— and the Colt in his right— loaded with six.

Both guns were half-spent as he edged back from the knot of screaming, howling wildmen. He looked skyward for an instance, the heavy, hollow chopping sound of helicopter rotor blades suddenly loud over the shouts of the men trying to kill him.

"Natalia!" he shouted.

The green 0H58C helicopter was coming in low, and now fire was spitting from the side gun, the 7.62mm slugs hammering into the knot of wildmen, their shrieks louder now as they ran for cover.

"Over here, John!"

Rourke looked behind him, Rubenstein beside a massive pickup truck. Rourke started to run toward him, the Python bucking in Rourke's right fist as he snapped the last three shots over his left shoulder, then threw himself into a run, automatic weapons fire already starting around him, then dove for the shelter of the vehicle.

Rubenstein— on his knees, pale as death beside the right front wheel-well, fired the Detonics.

"Empty."

Rourke slammed closed the cylinder of the Python, the Safariland speedloader, empty now, crammed back into his musette bag. He handed the pistol to Rubenstein. "Here— use this."

Rourke took the Detonics, emptying his own pistol, then reloading both with fresh magazines from the Sparks six pack on his belt.

He reached into the musette bag, finding a spare magazine for the CAR-15, dumping the empty, ramming the fresh one home, working the bolt, then passing the rifle to Rubenstein, the Python out of ammo. Rourke took another of the Safariland speedloaders, reloaded the big Colt and holstered the gun.

He reached into the musette bag, getting the remaining loaded magazines for the CAR-15, putting them on the ground beside Paul. "You recovered fast—"

"Bullshit— I'm dying— just too stupid to fall down."

"Lemme look at that," and Rourke slipped behind the younger man, probing gently at the wound. Rourke reached behind him, snatching the AG Russell Sting IA from the sheath at his belt, using the blade to cut away the sleeve.

"Aww— that was my good coat, John."

"Shut up," Rourke snapped— the wound was dirty, clotted— he would have to open it to clean it. "You think it hurts now— wait'll I get around to fixin' it!"

Rubenstein glanced at him, then pushed his wire-rimmed glasses back up the bridge of his nose.

"Coulda been worse, John— coulda lost my glasses."

"Yeah— could've at that," Rourke told him, leaning against the pickup truck. "Remember how to hotwire a car?"

"Yeah— I remember," Rubenstein nodded.

"Gimme that rifle and climb up there— once you've got it going, I'll pass up the CAR and the spare mags— we take off for the bunker— make a stand there— run over as many people as we can on the way, huh?"

Rubenstein smiled, handed Rourke the rifle and reached up for the door handle.

"Shit— it's locked!"

"I'll fix that," Rourke told him. "Look away." Rourke reached for the Python at his hip, aimed at the lock and turned his face away, firing upward, the thudding sound loud of lead against sheet metal. "Now try it."

Rubenstein pulled at the door handle—"Hot" and the handle broke away, the door swinging out.

The younger man grinned, then started up into the pickup cab, gunfire coming from the sky again as Natalia's helicopter made another pass, gunfire from the ground as well as the shore party advanced from both sides. Rourke looked under the truck now, finding targets of opportunity with the CAR-15, firing single shots into backs and chests and legs, bringing down as many of the wildmen as he could.

The truck vibrated, coughed, rumbled— the engine made sputtering sounds as it came to life.

"John!"

"Right," and Rourke edged up, grabbing the spare magazines, then throwing himself up beside Rubenstein. "Can you drive this thing one-handed?"

"You just shift when I tell ya to," Rubenstein shouted.

"Right," and Rourke, the Python back in his right fist, tugged at the door, closing it partially.

Wildmen running for the truck, Rourke's right hand swinging the Python on line— one round, a head shot. A man down. Another round, then another, two in the chest and a man down. He fired out the last two, a double shot at a wildman with an M-16, the rifle discharging a long, ragged burst, a spiderwebbing in the glass at the top of the windshield.

"Shit," Rubenstein shouted, the truck starting to move.

Rourke holstered the empty Python, giving Rubenstein the CAR-15. "Just aim the truck forward and hold the wheel with your left knee—"

"Gotchya, John," Rubenstein called back, taking the CAR-15 in his right fist and pointing it out the window, firing as wildmen stormed toward them.

Rourke took one of the Detonics pistols, firing point blank as a wildman jumped for the hood of the truck, the face exploding, blood caught on the truck's slipstream spattering the windshield.

The truck lumbered ahead. "Have to shift," Rubenstein shouted.

Rourke's left hand reached to the stick, his concentration focused on hearing, feeling the clutch pedal activate. He upshifted into second, the vehicle starting to weave, then back under control, no firing from Rubenstein with the CAR.

Rourke— through the partially shattered windshield— could see the bunker now— and there was a man near to it, near the doors, the doors opening— "Cole!"

Chapter Thirty-Three

Natalia glanced at her altimeter and banked the helicopter to port, checking her degrees against the level horizon, correcting slightly and banking again, homing the machine toward the greatest concentration of wildmen, around the massive, oversize-wheeled pickup truck that she could see Rubenstein driving, Rourke beside him. At the far end of the flat expanse along the ridge she could see Lieutenant O'Neal as well— the rifle in his hands a familiar shape— an AK-47.

"Gunner— start firing when you're ready— leveling off," she shouted back.

"Yes, ma'am," the blond seaman shouted.

And she could hear it— the rattling of the M-60 machine gun mounted in the door— for his sake she wished there had been flak gear to protect his legs. There was heavy fire coming again from the ground as he strafed the wildmen attacking the truck.

Her heart froze— a man was entering the missile control bunker— Cole.

She pulled up on the controls, gaining altitude so she could maneuver, banking the helicopter steeply, "Hold on, gunner!"

"Yes, ma'am— holdin' on!"

The helicopter spun a full one hundred eighty degrees and she had the nose lined up on the bunker, throttling out toward it, arcing hard to starboard. "Gunner— kill that man entering the bunker!"

There was no answer in words, just the rattle of the M-60 machine gun, Natalia watching as the gun walked on target, the ground plowing up under the impact of the slugs, Cole disappearing inside the bunker doors as bullets hammered against the concrete surrounding the doors and into the doors themselves, Cole gone.

"Damnit!" she snapped. She pulled up on the controls, banking steeply to starboard again, climbing, then nosing down toward the ground— she would have to get the wildmen on the ground blocking Rourke and Rubenstein in the truck— and Rourke and Paul would have to get Cole. "Damnit!"

Chapter Thirty-Four

Rourke rammed a fresh magazine into each of the Detonics pistols, shoving both out the window simultaneously as a wildman carrying a machete threw himself across the hood of the truck, Rubenstein screaming, "John!"

Rourke fired both pistols, the slugs impacting against the blond, burly wildman's curly-haired chest, the body rolling off the front of the hood, Rourke bouncing in his seat, his head hitting the roof of the truck cab as the vehicle rolled over the body and there was a hideous-sounding scream.

The bunker was less than a hundred yards away now, Rourke firing at targets of opportunity, occasionally the truck lurching under him as Rubenstein would free his right hand to pump the CAR-15 through the driver's side window.

And Cole had disappeared.

Natalia's chopper buzzed overhead, gunfire pouring from it into the surrounding wildmen attempting to stop the truck through sheer force of body numbers, a solid wall forming in front of Rourke and Rubenstein, gunfire everywhere now, from the wildmen and from the submarine's shore party.

At the doors of the bunker now Rourke could see a second figure— O'Neal. The missile officer was stepping back, kicking out, ramming his foot against the outer door of the bunker, then falling onto his knees, firing his pirated AK-47 at the locking mechanism.

Rourke pumped the triggers of the twin stainless Detonics pistols, the truck grinding ahead, over the bodies, hurtling bodies to each side, gunfire ripping into the windshield again. Rourke fired out both pistols, nailing the wildman with the assault rifle.

Forty yards to go, Rourke ramming fresh magazines into his pistols. He fired one pistol through the open side window, killing a man there, then pushed open the door, standing up, holding to the truck cab, shouting to O'Neal, "Back away— we're gonna ram the door." The massive winch at the front of the vehicle— it could be used as a battering ram, Rourke judged. "Paul— get into a crouch behind the wheel— I'll jump clear. Leave her in second and give her all the gas you got!"

"Right— gotchya," Rubenstein shouted back.

Rourke jammed the second Detonics into his left hip pocket, holding on now against the window frame with his left fist, leaning out, firing the Detonics pistol in his right, a chest shot on a woman with a spear rushing toward them, her blond hair knotted and tangled, dirty. Her body spun out and she fell, lurching forward, the truck bouncing as the right front wheel crushed her, a scream piercing the air.

Rourke fired again— twenty-five yards to go— a massive man wrapped in what looked like dog skins racing toward them firing an assault rifle. Rourke emptied the Detonics into— the man's chest and neck, bright splotches of blood flowing there, the body lurching back, falling against more of the wildmen in his wake.

The Detonics was empty, the slide locked open, a wildman rushing them with a machete. Rourke dodged the machete as the man hurtled himself laterally across the hood, Rourke's right fist arcing out with the Detonics still clenched there, using the butt of the pistol like a piece of pipe or a roll of quarters to back his knuckles, his fist impacting the man on the left side of the forehead, the eyes going wide, the body rolling, tumbling down, the right front wheel crushing the man's legs— but there was no scream, the blow to the head apparently having killed him.

Ten yards to go, the roar of the engine and the vibration louder, louder than Rourke had thought it could have been— he jumped clear as they hit five yards, the roar louder still as Rubenstein—

Rourke glanced to the younger man as he jumped— hammered the gas pedal flat against the floor.

Rourke hit the ground, half rolling against a wildman, the wildman— tall, lean, the half-naked torso rippling with muscles under a fur poncho and cut-off jeans, lashing out with a Bowie bladed knife. Rourke's left fist groped for the second Detonics, found it, his left thumb passing behind the pistol's tang to work down the safety, then sweeping around as he fired the pistol point blank against the wildman's throat, blood bursting out of the wound in a wet sticky cloud as Rourke turned his eyes away.

He pushed himself to his feet, hearing the grinding and tearing of metal, looking now toward the bunker doors, the outer door at least caved in.

Rourke started to run, hammering the empty pistol in his right fist against the face of a woman with a revolver, knocking her down, splitting her nose down the center, her scream shrill, agonized as he ran on. A wildman from his left— Rourke fired the second Detonics, a two-round burst into the chest, the man toppling back.

Rourke was beside the truck, Rubenstein visible through the still open right side door, sprawled across the seat.

"Paul!"

The younger man looked up. "All right— okay— I'm all right."

Rourke punched the Detonics pistol in his left fist forward. "Down!" He fired three times, emptying the pistol, mutilating the face of the wildman with the butcher knife starting for Paul through the sprung-open driver's side door.

Rubenstein rolled against the seat back, pushing up the CAR-15, firing through the open door behind him as more of the wildmen rushed the truck.

Rourke, both pistols empty, wheeled, a short, stocky man wearing animal skins and blue jeans hurtling his body toward him.

Rourke took its full force, sprawling back against the side of the bunker, the concrete rough and hard against the skin of his neck as he slipped down along its length, the man going for his throat. Rourke found his knife with his left hand, dropping the Detonics to the ground, his right arm pinned at his side, his left hand arcing forward and around, driving the knife in under the right rib cage— there was a scream, a curse, the body slumping away for an instant, Rourke's right arm free, his right fist hammering down with the Detonics, the butt crushing into the face of the wildman, smashing the nose, as Rourke's left knee slammed upward, smashing into the groin.

Rourke sidestepped as the body fell, the second pistol still on the ground, buttoning out the magazine in the pistol in his right hand, catching the empty and ramming home a fresh one from the six pack. His right thumb worked down the slide stop, his first finger pulling the trigger, killing a wildman lunging at him with a spear.

Rourke slumped back against the concrete wall for an instant, inhaling hard— He reached across the body of the man he'd knifed, found his second pistol, reloaded it, then found his knife— he had emptied the Sparks six pack and had only the remaining magazines in his musette bag and on his belt— "John— inside!"

Rourke looked to his right— Rubenstein and O'Neal were gone, the door to the bunker pried partially away from the jamb.

He glanced skyward, Natalia in the helicopter making another pass over the ground— Rourke threw himself up, over the hood of the truck, swinging his legs over and dropping down, firing the pistol in his right hand at a man with a spear as he hit the ground, then pushing himself through the space between the metal door and the jamb.

"Here!"

It was half in shadow in the narrow space behind the door and he felt a hand on his left forearm.

"Me, John!"

Through the crack between the door and the jamb, Rourke could see wildmen massing for an assault against the door, the one called Otis, blood oozing through his fingers as he held his shoulder, at their head.

Rourke looked behind him, his eyes gradually accustomed to the gloom. He ripped his sunglasses from his face, stuffing them into the inside pocket of his bomber jacket.

"Paul— you and O'Neal get as far back as you can go— hurry."

Rourke edged back, away from the door, the assault starting, the Detonics in his right hand coming up, in his mind's eye trying to judge the perfect spot for hitting the fuel pump— he fired, throwing himself back, the truck roaring into an explosion, Rourke suddenly gasping for air as he looked back, the heat of the explosion making a wind, sucking air from inside the bunker. Rourke coughed, lurching forward on his hands, his fists still clenched on the twin Detonics pistols— there was screaming from outside.

Rourke pushed himself to his feet and half threw himself into the deeper shadow ahead, down the tunnel leading into the main body of the bunker.

Cole would be arming the missiles to launch— and millions would die.

Chapter Thirty-Five

Rourke raced ahead, leaving Rubenstein and O'Neal beside the second door— the one with the combination lock, wide open— if Cole had closed it, Rourke would have been powerless to stop him. Rourke ran on, lights gleaming in the corners where the low concrete ceiling met the walls, such little room in the passage that if Rourke jogged slightly left or right, his shoulders would brush against the walls.

He could hear the humming of machinery— generators working— the lighting and the missiles— firing devices were all on the same electrical system, he assumed.

He could see brighter light at the far edge of the tunnel and he threw himself more into the run, his arms at his sides, his pistols clutched in both fists— he would kill Cole in cold blood if he had to to stop him.

The end of the passage was less than twenty yards away, Rourke cocking his head back, his mouth wide open gulping at the stale, cool air, Rourke skidding on his combat boot heels across the last yard or so, lurching against the door frame— the missile control room.

Cole— leaning across a panel of switches and lights, computer tapes whirring.

Rourke shouted, "Cole— don't!"

Cole turned, his face a snarl, his lips drawn back across his uneven teeth, his eyes glinting, the front of his body covered in mud-smeared blood. "For America!"

Cole threw himself across the panel nearest him, both pistols in Rourke's fists bucking and bucking again and again, the noise deafening, his ears ringing, Cole's body sliding down from the panel, his left arm extended.

Rourke saw it— as if in slow motion— the push of a button, a red button.

The lighting in the control room switched from whitish yellow to a dull red, a mechanical voice booming over a speaker near Rourke's head, his ears still ringing from the concentrated gunfire in the confined space.

Cole's body fell to the floor, rolled, the eyes blank and staring upward.

The computer voice announced, "T minus ten minutes and counting— irretrievable launch sequence initiated. T minus nine minutes forty-five seconds and counting."

Rourke stared at the speaker. "Shit."

Chapter Thirty-Six

Rourke whirled the dials on the radio— praying the electromagnetic pulse hadn't reached this far into the ground, the electromagnetic pulse that had wiped out the air base communications until Teal— the late Armand Teal— had jerry-rigged to restore them.

"Calling the helicopter— Natalia! Come in, damnit!"

"John— where are—"

"No time— in the bunker— launch is—" the mechanical voice again— "T minus eight minutes fifty seconds and counting"—"You hear that?"

"Yes— yes—"

"Get down here— I'm going into the silos— try to disarm the electrical system that would trigger the launch— the panel here is armor plated and I can't get into it. Follow me— we've gotta try—

Rourke out!" Rourke threw down the microphone, both Detonics pistols already holstered, his hands at his sides as he ran for the metal steps leading down toward the silo maintenance access tunnel just ahead.

He ran— he prayed.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Natalia shouted to the machine gunner, "I'm taking her down, seaman— I have to get inside the bunker and help Dr. Rourke!"

"Yes, ma'am!"

She made the helicopter rotate a full three hundred sixty degrees as she scanned the ground for a safe place to land— there was none. She picked a spot within two hundred yards or so of the bunker entrance and the still-burning truck at the door— she started down. "Hang on," she sang out.

The landing party forces were consolidating to complete the envelopment. The wildmen, perhaps a hundred of them still— fighting hand to hand with the landing party forces now, gunfire pouring from a knot of the wildmen near the bunker doors, into the bunker itself, as best she could discern.

She jockeyed the controls, the helicopter touching down. She killed her engine for the tail rotor, then the main rotor, and pressed the quick release button of her seat restraint harness, jumping out and to the ground, snatching up her M-16.

Wildmen were everywhere— and she had to get to the bunker.

"Hey, ma'am— this'll help ya!"

She looked behind her— it was the gunner with the machine gun detached from its mounts, the link belt draped across his body as he framed himself into the doorway. The machine gun began to spit tongues of flame into the mass of wildmen.

Natalia shot him a wave, then started to run.

She shouted to the shore party men— "Follow me— to the bunker— I have to get inside! Follow me!"

The men began to rally around her, forming a wedge with her at its center as she ran, pumping the trigger of her M-16, cutting down each target of opportunity, men and women, headshots, shots to the chest, bursts that ripped away the nameless faces— she kept running.

The M-16 came up dry and she rammed the butt of the weapon against the face of a wildman with a spear— his nose crushed under its impact as he fell back and away from her.

She threw the rifle at another of the wildmen, snatching open the holster flaps and drawing her L-Frame stainless Smiths, the ones customized by Ron Mahovsky for Sam Chambers before his ascendancy to the presidency of U.S. II, the ones he had given her as a gesture of friendship for her aid in the evacuation of peninsular Florida, the ones with the American eagles on the barrel flats— she fired both .357 Magnums at once, putting two slugs into the chest of a wildman coming at her with an assault rifle blazing— she ran on.

They were nearing the doorway into the bunker, the truck still smoldering but some of the wildmen— a man in Levis and a bearskin their apparent leader— creeping around the sides of the truck, gunfire coming from inside the bunker— it would be Paul and O'Neal, she realized.

They ran ahead. "Get that squat man with the bearskin— he must be the leader," she shouted.

The wildmen near the bunker door turned now, almost as one, raining their assault rifles, firing them out in long, ragged bursts, Natalia seeing some of the men from the shore party going down, Natalia's guns blazing in her hands, gunfire from both sides of her from the shore party, the wildmen going down as well.

Both revolvers were empty and she rammed them into her holsters, securing the flaps, bending down, snatching up an M-16 from the ground beside her, standing then, firing out the rifle into the wildmen.

"Close with them!" She started to run, using the rifle alternately like a spear and a club, ramming the flash deflector into a face, swatting the stock against a head, butting the stock against a rib cage.

She stopped— a half dozen of the wildmen in a knot around the squat man who was their leader. The shore party men were around her.

Natalia threw the rifle to the ground, reaching into her hip pocket for the Bali-Song knife, her thumb flicking up the lock that bound the two skeletonized handle sections together, then the interior of the right thumb joint sliding into the open depression in the rear handle section, the knife held between her thumb joint and the side of her first finger, the forward section and the blade rocking forward, the second finger of her right hand forming a fulcrum under the near handle half, and she rocked the near handle half down, both handle halves swinging together, her fist locking around them.

She pressured the near handle half, the Wee-Hawk blade edge outward— with her thumb and first finger, flicking her wrist, rolling her hand and closing the knife, repeating the same motion, but finishing the circle and rolling the knife inward to open it again.

She advanced toward the squat wildman with the bearskin wrapped around him, a knife the size of a short sword appeared in his blood-covered right hand.

He lunged, Natalia feigned, backed off a halfstep and rolled the knife closed, then open, lunging as she rolled the knife closed again, then open again, lunging and parrying as she closed the knife, then rolled it open, the man with the bearskin lunging, her blade open, her fist clenched tight around it, her right arm punching out, the Wee-Hawk blade's tip punching into the carotid artery on the right side of the neck, ripping, tearing— the man fell away, dead.

Natalia did another roll of the knife, closed and open, then leaned down, smearing the blade clean of blood against the bearskin, then rolling it closed and turning the knife end over end in her fist, then closing the lock shut. She dropped it in her hip pocket, the others of the wildmen dead around her, some of the shore party still standing beside her, gunfire from near the helicopter, but mostly the fire from the M-60 machine gun being used.

"Paul— it is Natalia— I must get inside!"

She glanced at the gold lady's Rolex on her left wrist— she judged perhaps five minutes remained until launch.

And if she and Rourke were in the access tunnel trying to confuse or disarm the system when the first missile hit ignition— they would be vaporized.

"Paul!"

"Come ahead, Natalia!" Again, she started to run.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Rourke used the small stainless steel screwdriver on his key ring to remove the last of the bolts over what he hoped was the master electrical panel cover. He tugged at the ends— it was jammed. He withdrew the Black Chrome Sting IA from its sheath, using it to pry against the cover— the cover snapped loudly, echoing in the tunnel as the mechanical voice droned on—"T

minus five minutes twenty-five seconds and counting— T minus five minutes twenty-seconds and counting— T minus five minutes fifteen seconds and counting."

"Shut up!" he shouted. "Shut up, damnit!"

"T minus five minutes five seconds and counting," the voice almost answered.

Beneath the panel were a maze of multicolored wires— he had wired his own home, wired the Retreat— he had wired bombs of conventional explosives— he had never seen such a confusing array of wires in his life. Some would be blinds, some double blinds, some trip detonators that would fuse all the wires in the panel and make disarming the system totally impossible— "Shit," he rasped.

Rourke glanced to his left— "T minus four minutes fifty seconds and counting."

He could see the fin section of the nearest of the missiles, this the missile that would launch first, its flame discharge sufficient to vaporize him before he would have the chance to realize it was happening.

"T minus four minutes forty seconds and counting."

"Shut up—"

Rourke snatched one of the Detonics pistols out of the double Alessi rig and fired up into the speaker box at the far end of the tunnel.

But still he could hear the voice, only more distant from the next farther speaker.

"T minus four minutes thirty five seconds and counting."

Rourke holstered his gun, studying the wiring diagram— "Come on, Natalia— damnit— come on!" She knew the system better than he did— had studied its stolen plans. For once in his life he prayed Soviet Intelligence had gotten perfect information.

Rourke touched at the nearest blue wire— he followed it out to the terminal— his hands gloved to guard against electrocution— but leather wouldn't do much he knew— he worked with his tiny screwdriver.

The computer voice droned on. "T minus four minutes twenty seconds and counting."

Didn't the voice know that it too would die, he thought?

Chapter Thirty-Nine

"T minus four minutes, fifteen seconds and counting." Natalia heard the voice, stared for a moment at Cole's dead eyes, then ran on, her pistol holsters slapping at her sides, her feet seeming to her barely to touch the concrete floor as she reached the ladder, then started down three rungs at a time to the lower level and to the missile access tunnel. "T minus four minutes five seconds and counting."

The voice was maddening...

Rourke looked up, hearing the thudding of heels on the concrete. "T minus three minutes twenty seconds and counting. T minus three minutes fifteen seconds and counting. T minus three minutes ten seconds and counting. T minus three minutes five seconds and counting. T minus three minutes to irretrievable launch. Two minutes fifty-five seconds to launch. T minus two minutes fifty seconds and counting."

Natalia— he shouted her name— "Natalia!"

She skidded on her heels, dropping into a crouch beside him at the electrical panel— six wires were removed, three cut— he held his knife against a fourth, his finger behind the wire.

"What happened when you cut these?" she said breathlessly.

"Nothing— not a damn thing—"

"This could take hours and we still might fuse the wires and automatically trigger a launch—"

"Shit," he rasped.

"I love you, John— I think we're going to die here—"

"I love you, too," he told her, the knife blade still poised over the wire.

"Don't cut that— I wish we'd had more time together— I wish you'd made love to me—"

"I couldn't— why shouldn't I cut it—"

"Sarah could never understand how lucky she is— that you love her— were faithful to her—"

"I had no choice— it's me— it wasn't you— it's the way I'm made— I wanted to so much—"

She looked at him, Rourke taking her hand, squeezing it. "I never loved anyone like I love you," he whispered.

"I'll love you even after death—"

"T minus two minutes five seconds and counting. T minus two minutes and counting."

"The wires have to be the way to stop this," Rourke rasped.

She shifted her gaze, Rourke following it as she picked up the cover panel that had been over the wiring itself.

"That protected the wires—"

"Protected—" She dropped the panel, threw her arms around his neck and kissed him, Rourke feeling her mouth full against his lips. Breathless, she told him, "That's it— if I can find the preignition wire here, I can activate the ignition test sequence and start the nearest of the missiles to burn—"

"What are you talking about—"

"The panel, John— that's what it did— the packing inside— all around here— fireproof— it's like a fireproof vault— these launch in series— these missiles. If the panel and the circuit box weren't fire-proofed, the first burn would destroy the launch system wiring and the other five missiles wouldn't launch at all— if I can get an ignition check burn, the flames will vaporize the wiring and the system will be dead—"

"So will we," Rourke added. "What do we do—"

"Maybe not— I can rig a delay— maybe fifteen seconds just by stripping away most of the insulation on one of the wires and grounding it to a hot wire— say for the lights—"

"If you know what you're talking about, fine— you lost me— do it."

"You run— I'll do it myself."

"T minus one minute thirty-five seconds and counting. T minus one minute thirty seconds and counting." A claxon began to sound, the computer voice louder now to be heard over it. "T

minus one minute twenty-five seconds and counting."

"I'll stay with you— I won't leave you— I won't."

She looked at him— her eyes, their incredible blueness, her skin so white, her hair almost unnatural in its darkness, a lock of it fallen across her forehead, her left hand unconsciously brushing it back from her face.

"Take my gloves—"

"I have my own— tighter fit," she nodded, smiling.

"T minus one minute fifteen seconds and counting."

Natalia began tracing out wires with her right hand Rourke helping her into the left skintight leather glove. She took the right glove, pulling it on herself as he watched her eyes follow out the wiring system.

"I have no way of knowing if this is the right wire— I think it is— but I don't know—"

"T minus one minute five seconds and counting. T minus one minute to irretrievable launch ignition— preignition in ten seconds. T minus forty-five seconds."

"That's it— their preignition burn— I can get it here—"

"T minus forty seconds—"

Her hands moved across the panel, a wire ripped free, the Bali-Song coming out in her right hand, the blade a blur of gleaming steel, the blade slicing against the plastic coating of a blue wire.

"Preignition burn—"

Natalia fell back, screaming— "John—" Rourke grabbed her in his arms and felt the electrical current pulse through her, throwing his weight and hers away from the panel and ripping her free.

She was breathing— barely.

The computer voice droned. "T minus twenty-five seconds. T minus twenty—" The voice was swallowed in the roar of the missile engine.

Rourke, his body trembling still from the electrical shock, pushed himself to his feet, his hands clawing Natalia's body to his chest, his right shoulder butting into her abdomen as he flung her across it, the roar of the engine deafening now.

A glance behind him— a ball of flame rolling from the nearest of the missiles.

Rourke started to run— The claxon still sounded, louder than before, the roar of the fireball behind him, the heat oppressive— his lungs ached, his chest ached.

"No, I won't die!" He screamed the words to the tunnel walls around him as he ran, an explosion from behind him, the electrical conduit along the tunnel ceiling afire now, the lights—

fluorescent tubes— bursting, exploding, flecks of razor-sharp glass raining down on him as he ran.

The fireball— he could smell it, taste it; he stole a glance over his shoulder as he ran— it was blindingly bright and right behind him.

Ahead, he could see the door to the access tunnel entrance— Natalia had left it ajar as had he—

he opened his mouth wide, the hot burning air seeming to sear his lungs as he gulped it to sustain him— he ran.

The door was twenty yards away— he couldn't remember if it was fireproof— fifteen yards away. Ten yards. He glanced behind him, the fireball nearer, his left foot buckling, but he caught his balance. Five yards. Rourke threw himself through the doorway, lurching and twisting, hurtling his weight against the door, slamming it, his left hand snaking out to the bolt latch— his fingers burning as he touched it.

The door was starting to melt.

Rourke kept running— ahead— perhaps fifty yards ahead was the access ladder to the control room.

"John—" The cough— the voice— Natalia.

Rourke slowed, leaning his weight against the wall as he stopped, slipping Natalia to her feet—

"What—"

"Fireball— other— other side— the door— melting—"

As if punctuating his words, there was a groaning sound, then the roar of the fireball— the door was gone.

"Run for it," and Rourke shoved her ahead, Natalia starting to run, outdistancing him, fresher—

Rourke ran, picking up his feet, laying them down, shouting to himself internally—"Run!"

Twenty-five yards to the ladder now. Twenty— the conduit overhead here was afire as well, Rourke feeling the heat searing at the exposed skin on the back of his neck, the roar of the fireball so loud he could no longer even hear his own labored breathing.

Ten yards. Five.

Natalia was up the ladder, two rungs at a time.

Rourke threw himself against it— Natalia's hands were reaching down— there was no time, no sense— to argue. He took her hands, Natalia half pulling him up the ladder. He stumbled forward, after her, jumping over Cole's body, Natalia ahead of him, shouting, breathless—

"Paul— get out of here— run for it!"

Rourke stumbled, caught himself against the wall— the concrete seemed burning hot to the touch. He kept running, Natalia was ahead of him, daylight there, the fluorescent tubes on the tunnel sides exploding still, the conduit itself making a sheet of flames above their heads, the fireball being sucked faster, he knew— toward the oxygen.

The doorway— five yards. Two yards. Natalia was through, Rourke throwing himself through and past the burnt truck and behind her, running, throwing himself to the ground and right, the fireball belching out as he rolled, his hands going to protect his face.

Then it was gone. No missile contrails were in the air as he moved his hands from his face.

He didn't know how long it was— he was too tired to look at his watch.

But after a time— she was crawling toward him on her knees, then slumped against him, he heard Natalia's voice, felt her hands touch at the back of his neck— he was sore there, tender.

"You have the worst sunburn I've ever seen," she laughed.

Rourke put his arms around her and held her body close against him.

He closed his eyes.

Chapter Forty

"As best I can make out," O'Neal smiled, rubbing his dirty hands across his dirty, soot-smeared face, "when that fireball hit the air out here it got hot enough to melt down everything that wasn't concrete— that tunnel is sealed tighter than a drum and there wasn't a cook-off— no radiation at all. We lucked out— or I should say you did." Rourke looked up at him. Rourke squatted on the ground, Natalia behind him rubbing a cream into the burn on his neck. "We can put a charge over that mound along the ridge there and bury the missile bunker entrance completely— what about an earthquake someday here?"

"Well, maybe—"

"Unless a fault was created on the Night of The War, they wouldn't have built this anywhere near one— it should be safe forever.

"Maybe somebody a thousand years from now will dig it up—"

"Perhaps someone a thousand years from now will be too smart to want to," Rourke heard Natalia murmur from behind him.

"A shame our people and your people couldn't have worked together— well, like we did here—

before— well, before all—"

"Before the Night of The War," Paul Rubenstein added somberly, his jacket and shirt gone, his left arm and shoulder heavily bandaged, his eyes glassy from the painkiller Rourke had given him before cleaning and dressing the wound.

"Maybe someday," 0'Neal said, squinting against the afternoon sun— Rourke was reminded to find his glasses in his bomber jacket pocket— "somebody'll remember what this place was—

maybe build a little marker here, you know?"

Thunder rumbled out of the cloudless sky, the sun blood-red.

"Maybe someday," Rourke almost whispered. "Maybe."

Chapter Forty-One

Bill Mulliner realized two things— one was he was more frightened than he had ever been in his life because, since the successful raid on the supply depot in Nashville and the theft of arms, ammunition, and medical supplies, Russian troops were everywhere. The other thing he felt was pride— his father had died in an abortive attempt at a similar raid— the success now in at least a small way avenging his father's death.

His father— he still hadn't, he realized, adjusted to the idea of his father's not being there. The scratchy beard stubble when he hadn't shaved— despite Bill's age, he would kiss his father on the cheek. The warm, sweatiness of the man's skin, the dry firmness though of his hand when it had clasped his.

The man he could talk to, not always well, but talk to— this was gone from him forever, and as he walked, three M-16s slung on his shoulders and one eight-hundred-round can of 5.56mm ammo in each hand, he cried.

But only the darkness of the forest could see him— Pete Critchfield and the others walked far ahead...

Sarah Rourke looked up from the injured black man whose bandage she had just changed, the man's eyes wide in the darkness as he too had heard the sound. She had the Trapper .45 in her right hand, thumbing back the hammer.

"What is it?" Mary Mulliner whispered hoarsely.

Sarah heard Michael make the sound, "Shh."

Annie, who had helped her with the injured man's bandage— mainly making him smile—

clutched her left arm.

"Mrs. Rourke?"

It was Bill Mulliner's voice, beside him, slightly ahead of him coming into the clearing, Pete Critchfield— before he reached the edge of the sheltered fire on which she boiled water, she could smell the fetid smoke of his cigar.

"Bill— Pete— how 'd it—"

"Lost two men— and Jim Hastings and Curly got the rest with them, stashing the loot—"

"You make yourself sound like a criminal for stealing American supplies from the Russians—

don't call it loot, Pete," she said hastily.

"All right— the stuff, then— weapons, ammunition, explosives, some medical supplies— I'm carrying the medical stuff and some explosives— Bill here's got the ammo and Tom— you donno Toni— he's got more of the medical stuff for ya."

The third man nodded. "Ma'am."

"Tom," she nodded back— he was black, like the man she treated now.

"Left two men up by the road," Critchfield went on—— "Russians ever'where now—"

"You must have made a big splash," she smiled, her voice low.

"Yeah, well— destroyed an ammo truck, killed about eighteen or nineteen of their people, took what we could pack in a van we stole and blew up the rest— I'd say they was a might flustered, least-ways."

And Critchfield laughed, Sarah hearing the man on the ground beside her laugh too and say,

"You fight near as good as us black folks, Pete!"

Sarah looked at her patient, then ran her left hand across his head, telling him, "You rest easy—

so you can laugh later."

Mary Mulliner— Sarah guessed she liked none of it— said, "I'll make you men some coffee."

Somehow, Sarah thought, there was an odd sound in Bill Mulliner's voice. "Okay, Mom." His face looked worn and afraid, somehow older than Sarah had ever seen it...

"If they got David Balfry alive," Pete Critchfield said, warming his hands on his coffee cup as he looked at her, "then they'll like as not get David to talk— tell 'em ever'thing he knows 'bout the Resistance. And he knows a lot, he does."

"God bless him," Sarah whispered.

"Amen," Mary Mulliner added.

"Mommie— hold me— I'm cold," Annie pleaded, Sarah folding her left arm around the child, picking up her coffee cup in her right hand.

"Could we try to bust him out?" Bill asked suddenly, blurting it out, his blue eyes wide in the firelight, the pupils like pinpoints, his red hair across his forehead.

"David— outa Chicago? That's where they'd take him— no. Can't. David's done— simple as that. And he'd be wantin' us to think that, too. Write him off 'stead of gettin' ourselves killed tryin' to bust him outa there. Probably use drugs to get him to talk. No— I figure we gotta go on— that's what David'd be wantin' us to do. I gotta contact U.S. II headquarters— talk with that Reed fella in Intelligence— see if n he knows what the Russians is about with all these supplies and things. There's a farm— not far from your old place, Mrs. Mulliner— the Cunningham place. Raised quarter horses before The War— beautiful things. But old Mr. Cunningham was a ham radio operator. Still got all his equipment. We never used the place, kept it on the back burner, so to speak, for a safe house, like they call it in the spy movies. Well— we're usin' it now— and that radio—"

"The Cunninghams are dead— a raid—" Bill Mulliner began.

"Brigands?" Michael asked.

"Brigands," Critchfield nodded. "But them Brigands burned the house and the barns— old Cunningham had him a machine shop underground of the house— kind of a survivalist like Mrs. Rourke's husband was—"

"Is," Sarah corrected unconsciously.

"Yes, Sarah— is," Critchfield nodded. "Cunningham and his missus got killed fighting the Brigands— but the underground part never got touched. All we gotta do is rig up some sorta antenna like and use that ham radio of his. Food and some ammo stored there, too. Can make it there in about six hours hard walkin' time."

"Then let's go," Sarah said. "Most of my wounded can walk all right— we can stretcher carry the one that can't— both legs shot up, but he's still strong."

"Then it's agreed?" Critchfield nodded.

"Agreed," Bill Mulliner added.

"Agreed," Annie laughed, and everyone laughed with her— except Sarah. She thought of David Balfry— he had kissed her. And now he would be enduring something she didn't even want to imagine.

"Agreed," Sarah finally said.

There were Russians everywhere, and if they made it to the Cunningham place unmolested, it would be a miracle. And there were Brigands, too— she felt almost evil thinking it, but perhaps the Russians and the Brigands would lock horns and just kill each other and make it all over, all done with. Perhaps.

She sipped at her coffee and it was cold and bitter to taste.

Chapter Forty-Two

General Ishmael Varakov heard the clicking of heels on the museum floor— he knew, without looking up from his file-folder-littered desk that it would be Rozhdestvenskiy, come with absurd punctuality for his appointment.

The clicking of heels neared as Varakov studied the urgent communiqué from the Kremlin leadership still in hiding in their bunker. "Rozhdestvenskiy and the KGB are to be given full aid and support of the army, the GRU and any other forces or facilities at your command. The Womb is the ultimate priority project— this is to be given your full efforts." It was signed by the Central Committee and The People of The Soviet.

Varakov smiled— was that like SPQR-Senatus Populusque Romanus? He remembered what had happened to them.

"Comrade General!"

There was a louder click of heels, and Varakov still studied the communiqué.

Without looking up, he murmured, "Sit down, colonel— it appears I am ordered to assist you and this Womb Project. But as commanding general still I must first insist that I be informed as to the total implications of my orders—"

"Comrade General—"

Varakov looked up, Rozhdestvenskiy— blonde, athletic, firm-jawed, handsome by any standard, erect even when sitting— again the image of the SS officer came to Varakov's mind.

"Yes, colonel?"

"All work with factories for prosecuting The War effort with The People's Republic of China and remaining NATO troops is to be temporarily put aside. All agricultural production not vital to the Womb effort is to be put aside— all energies, as your orders indicate, are to be devoted to the speedy development of the Womb Project to its ultimate goal."

"What is this ultimate goal, colonel—" Varakov would not call him comrade— those he had called comrade had meant too much to him to so debase, so abuse the word.

He watched Rozhdestvenskiy— not a hair out of place, the uniform neat, perfect, without a wrinkle— so unlike his own, which even he realized much of the time looked as though it was slept in. It was.

"In simple terms, Comrade General—"

"Yes— we must be simple—"

"There was no slight meant to you, Comrade General— I have always held the deepest admiration for your past distinguished military career—"

"Please— spare me—"

Rozhdestvenskiy raised his right eyebrow, his lips downturned at the corners, held tight together, his eyes seeming to emit a light of their own. "Very well— the goal of the Womb is much the same as the goal of the American Eden Project— the survival of the best and finest ideology. But we shall triumph— the Americans will not—"

"You speak in hyperbole, colonel— be more concrete."

"The Eden Project was conceived to ensure the survival of the Western Democracies at all costs in the event of a global nuclear confrontation. The Womb will counter this last desperate gesture of the degenerate Capitalist system, and at once ensure the eternal triumph and majesty of the People's Revolution. But one element is missing, one needed element. To accomplish this goal, to ensure the very survival of the Soviet system, of Communism itself, the military must be fully committed to release KGB-attached forces to pursue that needed element, without which the Womb is doomed and American Imperialism will triumph."

"And what about the survival of the Soviet people, colonel?" Varakov asked, his voice sounding dull to him. "What of their survival?"

Rozhdestvenskiy smiled. "May I be blunt, Comrade General?"

"A change, yes."

"The spirit of the Soviet people, of the struggling masses everywhere, is best embodied in the political leadership of the Soviet and in the KGB as its extension of will—"

"And the people be damned," Varakov said flatly, staring at Rozhdestvenskiy.

"The sheer force of numbers implies at its most basic conceptualization arbitrary selection—"

"An ark-like Noah in the Judeo Christian Bible— but an ark by invitation only, based on dialectics?"

"You do know— all of it," Rozhdestvenskiy almost whispered.

"I do know— all of it—"

"There will be room for you, Comrade General—"

Varakov laughed. "I have lived long enough to sleep for five hundred years— to awaken to what?"

"Perhaps your niece if she can be found—"

"To be your concubine— or to be executed because you consider her to have had complicity in the death of Karamatsov— hardly, colonel."

"You have been ordered by Moscow—"

"I have been ordered by what was Moscow— and is now a group of old men afraid to die with dignity because they did not live with dignity— old men who hide in a bunker and are so afraid, so distrusting, that not even their commanding generals know exactly where the bunker is located. Are they packed— and waiting?"

"Yes, Comrade General—"

"Do not call me comrade— I have been given orders. I have spent my entire life since I was fifteen obeying military orders. Now I am reduced to obeying the orders of cowardly murderers who save themselves over the finest of Soviet youth— I will follow the letter of my orders—

have your troops— have them all. But I am not your comrade— I have never been— you are dismissed, colonel."

Varakov looked from the eyes to his desk, studying the communiqué. He heard the chair move slightly as Rozhdestvenskiy would have stood up, heard the click of heels as Rozhdestvenskiy would have saluted, then the long pause when he— Varakov— did not look up to return the salute.

Finally, he heard the sound of heels on the floor of his place, his special place, the sound diminishing with each step.

There would not be a recall to Moscow, a premature pension— or perhaps an accident.

There would not be the time for that. He— Varakov— would die like all the rest.

His feet hurt badly.

Chapter Forty-Three

David Balfry opened his eyes— they hurt to open, his nose stiff and he could not breathe through it. The lights were bright.

He looked down to his chest, then looked away, sickened, the nipples of his breasts black, burned, the electrodes still clipped to them.

"You are awake?" The voice was almost kind-sounding. "He is awake— let us be sure—"

Balfry felt the pain starting in his testicles— the burning, felt it, smelled his flesh as it smoked.

"No— o-o-o-o— Christ, no—!" The pain stopped and he was numb except for a core of pain still somewhere inside the pit of his stomach.

"Then you will cooperate and tell us the information we request about the so-called Resistance?" There was a laugh.

"Fuck you," Balfry stammered, his tongue thick-feeling, his words strange-sounding to him—

his teeth gone, broken, his tongue swollen from thirst, cut where it scraped against the jagged edge of his teeth. They had used a hammer and chisel part of the time— part of the time pliers. The salty taste started again in his mouth and he knew he was bleeding.

"Our dental care— our electrical stimulation— you found this offensive? Hmm." The voice— he could not see the face— cooed to him. "Hard on you? Painful, even?" There was laughter in the frightening darkness beyond the light. "There are things unspeakable in yours or any language—

things we can make you endure, Balfry— but there are drugs to calm your pain, to ease you happily into death— these choices are yours to make. We have hours, days, weeks— as long as necessary."

"No, ya don't," Balfry coughed. "You need what I know— and you need it now— but to get it now you're gonna have to kill me— and then you won't have it— eat shit."

"A college professor— such a way for a university don to speak— let's try the electrodes to the breasts again— the twitching is interesting to watch."

The pain— it flooded his chest and he cried and felt ashamed. But he didn't talk— he would have laughed. With the pain, he couldn't talk.

Chapter Forty-Four

Rozhdestvenskiy entered the room at the far corner of the museum basement. What he saw made his stomach churn.

"You are barbarians— and worse than that— incompetent! This is an important prisoner whose information may be vital and you so risk his life!"

He couldn't see the face in the darkness beyond the light— all he could see was the captured Resistance leader, Balfry.

"But, Comrade Colonel!"

He recognized the voice— and more than that, his eyes drifting across the naked, horribly abused body strapped against the "work" table, the table hanging the man almost completely inverted—

the technique.

"You will call medical assistance immediately— the man will be treated, made comfortable and then administered drugs— drugs against which he can offer no resistance and that will allow his successful interrogation— not this butchery."

"You are insane—" and Rozhdestvenskiy started out the door—

"Comrade Colonel—"

Rozhdestvenskiy, his hand on the knob, stopped, not turning back, not wanting to see the American again.

"He is dead, Comrade Colonel— I— I had no idea that—"

Rozhdestvenskiy leaned against the door, letting it slam closed under his weight.

"Have the man's body— what remains of it— given a decent burial. He is the equivalent of an enemy officer— he deserves such." And Rozhdestvenskiy turned, stepping quickly into the shadow, reaching out, his left hand finding the throat of the man whose technique he knew so well, hated so well.

"And if you ever— ever attempt such a thing again— when the time comes, rather than a long sleep and renewed life— I will disembowel you with greater zest than I have ever killed any other man—" Rozhdestvenskiy pushed the torturer away, heard the clatter of the body falling against what sounded like an instrument tray, upsetting it, overturning it, metallic objects and glass tinkling against the stone floor.

Rozhdestvenskiy stepped out of the shadow, walked back to the door and looked once again at the now dead American, Balfry.

"When one lives with animals," Rozhdestvenskiy began, never finishing, going out through the doorway and closing the memory behind him.

Chapter Forty-Five

The submarine's deck winch shifted, Rourke's Harley the last of the three bikes to be put onto the rocks. No dock, they had carefully explored a section of coastline, finding a flat rocky surface with deep enough soundings for the submarine to get within ten yards— Rourke standing now on the rock, salt spray blowing on the wind, Natalia and Paul Rubenstein already moving away along the spit of rock to the shore, only Commander Gundersen beside him now as the Jet Black Harley Low Rider swung precariously from the tackle, then was lowered slowly down.

"How's O'Neal?"

"Got him in sick bay— got a few more cuts and bruises during that bruha you folks had with Cole and the others. But he's just fine. Told me to give you his best regards— and to wish you luck finding your family."

"Tell him I wish him the same— the best of luck, and if he's looking for someone, to find them—

and— well, tell him," Rourke added lamely. Gundersen laughed. "All right— I'll tell him exactly that."

"Where you bound to?"

"Close as I can get this boat to U.S. II headquarters without a Russian reception committee to welcome me, I guess," Gundersen laughed.

"Then what?"

"Funny talk for a guy who rides around under water, but guess you could say I'm a quoteunquote soldier— I'll follow my orders. Finally got through to U.S. II— ran a radio link through a ham set opened up last night in Tennessee— some Resistance people just got onto it— fella named Critchfield. Know him?"

"No— he didn't mention anything about a woman and two children, did he?"

"No— can't say I asked, either, though— sorry about that."

"I'm heading there anyway, once I get back."

"Well— we made the link," Gundersen said. "Seems Cole was really Thomas Iversenn. Reed called him a kudzu commando?"

"Yeah--kudzu's a plant, imported from Japan years ago— grows worse than a weed in Georgia—

it's a vine. Covers up telephone poles, abandoned houses—"

"Really?"

"Yeah— but what about Cole— or Iversenn?"

"He was a National Guard officer— a first lieutenant. Wandered in one day with about a dozen men or so and volunteered to go regular army. They took him. Reed never really trusted him—

rightwing radical, he called him. U.S. II assigned the real Cole and six men to recover the warheads to use as a bargaining tool against the Soviet Union. Somehow, Iversenn found out about it— killed Cole and his men, Reed almost bought it. He took Cole's orders and identity."

"How'd he know so much about the missiles?"

"Worked at the facility that built the warheads— apparently— least figures it this way— this Iversenn had been planning to get to the missiles someday even if there hadn't been a war— start his own preemptive strike against the Soviet Union and alert Washington to join in or get retaliated against. Crazy."

"Yeah— he was," Rourke nodded, reaching out to the Harley, starting to ease it around as the tackle lowered it.

Gundersen helped him.

"What about you, John— Reed said he'd like you back. Gave me the coordinates for the new U.S. II headquarters and—"

"I'll memorize the coordinates— just in case I ever need them. But I've got my family to look for— what I was doing before Cole or Iversenn shot Natalia and started this whole thing."

"I'll ask you a favor then— with the jet fighter you've got stashed—"

"An experimental fighter bomber."

"Yeah— well, I know things on the water and under it— I leave airplanes to other people." And Gundersen laughed.

"What's the favor?"

"You said you rigged the ammo dumps and everything at Filmore Air Force base to blow if anyone tampered with it."

"Natalia and Paul did— good job, I understand."

"This is direct from President Chambers. If the Russians should land forces out here, we don't want them having an airfield to use, or any U.S. materiel or planes. Could their people debug the stuff Major Tiemerovna and Mr. Rubenstein did?"

"Probably— if they were careful," Rourke answered.

"Then I've got one order for you— order from President Chambers, a request from me."

"I take requests— I don't take orders," Rourke answered softly, easing his bike down and balancing it on the stand.

"Fire a missile into that ammo dump or whatever you need to do— destroy the base completely..."

Rourke looked at him, then back to the Harley, undoing the binding that held it to the tackle. "All right— I'll make a run on it on the way East. Might not be perfect, but I'll tear up the main runways and hit the ammo dump and arsenal."

"Agreed— I'll tell Reed that— we're talking again before I go under."

Rourke extended his right hand, Gundersen taking it.

"Good luck to you, commander—"

"You, too, John— maybe we'll see each other again sometime."

Thunder rumbled loudly in the clear morning sky. And Rourke didn't answer Gundersen.

Chapter Forty-Six

Pete Critchfleld seemed to explode. "You what?"

"I didn't think— didn't catch the lady's last name—"

"Shithead!" Critchfield looked back at Sarah, saying, "Excuse me, ma'am—" then looked at Curley. "Didn't catch her name— moron! You get that submarine back and tell that Gundersen fella to tell Dr. John Rourke we got his wife and two children here all safe and sound and he can come and get 'em when he gets here."

"But— I can't— the sub won't open a frequency with me for another hour—"

"Then you goddamned well tell 'em then!"

Critchfield turned away walking across the underground shelters s main room, Sarah hearing the hum of the electric generator as Critchfield walked, watching his face.

She looked up from the wounded man she was attending. "My husband?"

"There was a radio communication from a U.S. nuclear submarine on the west coast— whatever the hell the west coast is— we made the link to U.S. II headquarters for this Commander Gundersen. Him and me— we talked a little— then I hadda go relieve Bill Mulliner on guard duty— left Curley there monitoring the link— you know how— well, maybe you don't— but radio communications like this is funny— change in the air currents or somethin'. And there was lots of static— maybe all that thunder in the skies all the time. Anyways— Curley there heard them talkin' about a Dr. John Rourke and two friends of his— some Russian woman who's on our side maybe a little or leastways helped them out and a fella named Paul—"

"A Russian woman and a man named Paul,"

Sarah nodded.

"Anyways— Curley there— the asshole— excuse me again, ma'am," Critchfield shrugged, his face reddening, "he didn't say nothin' about you and the children. But they'll be talkin' again in an hour— Curley says. Then maybe we can put you and your husband on the radio together and talk a bit— then he can come here and get ya."

"John," Sarah said— to talk to John Rourke. How long had it been.

She couldn't talk now— she just nodded her head and botched the bandage on the man she was helping.

"You relax there, ma'am," Critchfield smiled suddenly as she looked up. "I gotta send Bill Mulliner off with some guys down into Georgia a ways— there's a Resistance group down there I gotta contact. U.S. II wants us to get a headcount of still operating groups and warn 'em Balfry maybe talked."

"Yes," she nodded, the word all she could say.

"I'll have Bill run down and say good-bye." She nodded, licking her lips— she tried the bandage again.

Chapter Forty-Seven

She sat with Bill Mulliner, on the steps leading into the underground shelter, the house above them in the light through the open hatchway burned, some timbers remaining that laced a shadow across Bill's face as he sat beside her, his eyes looking down.

"I'm glad for you, ma'am— you findin' your husband."

"I don't know if I'll know what to say— all those times we fought over his preparing for—

well— his preoccupation with survivalism. He was right— I could have been with him in his Retreat if I'd ever let him tell me where it was— or take us there."

"But I'm glad for knowin' ya, Mrs. Rourke— powerful glad."

She hugged her left arm around the boy's shoulders. "And I'm glad for knowing you, Bill—

without your strength— the children and I wouldn't have—"

"Seems like you do real good on your own, ma'am," he laughed, but the laughter hollow sounding to her.

"Well— well, appearances are one thing— but to have a man to turn to— to know you were there these last days— I— I don't know what I would have done without you," and she kissed him, hard on the lips like she would have kissed a man twice his age, closer her own age. She turned her face away, feeling embarrassed slightly, wringing her hands together over her knees, her feet spread wide apart on the steps below her, but her knees locked together tight.

She heard Bill Mulliner breathing. "Ma'am— hope I meet a girl again— and she's— ahh— she's like you," and she turned to look at him but he was standing up, running up the steps.

Sarah Rourke closed her eyes— tight, like her knees were tight and her throat was tight. Tight.

Chapter Forty-Eight

They used an old pickup truck that worked four-wheel drive— sometimes anyway, Bill Mulliner had determined. They were near the border with Georgia and he knew the area where they were going. It wasn't far from the little town he'd gone to once with the church group— Helen. It had been a Swiss village— right there in Georgia. He smiled, thinking about it— about the girl in the church group who had held his hand when they'd walked through the shops there.

His hands held the steering wheel now— too tightly.

The Resistance group— they had a name he couldn't remember— was hiding in the wild area in what had been the park around Anna Ruby Falls— he'd gone there once when he was really little, his mother had told him, kissing him good-bye as he'd boarded the truck.

He didn't remember it.

The truck jarred, bounced— the road was mudrutted and bad, the gravel and clay slippery as he tried to hold the steering to keep them on the road and out of the yawning ditches on each side.

There were better roads— modern highways. But there would be Russians on them.

Here there would only be Brigands— and there were usually fewer of them, fewer and less wellarmed these days. They had run out of people to steal from, towns to loot, food and weapons to kill for.

They wandered the countryside— sometimes heavily armed— but sometimes like scavengers. Kings once, they had thought themselves to be, he considered.

Now like lepers.

But dangerous lepers still— he watched the trees as did the man beside him in the cab and the men in the open bed of the truck behind the cab.

He could see their eyes, the leaness, the intensity their stares gave to their features as they watched the woods. Life would never be the same again, he suddenly thought.

Chapter Forty-Nine

Commander Gundersen leaned against the radio, wanted to hammer his fist against it. He didn't. If the radio broke he wouldn't be able to contact U.S. II.

"They are there— with you?" He said it into the microphone, not bothering with pro-words, call signs. He was too angry, too saddened for that.

"This is Undergrounder— affirmative on that, Bathtub."

The idiocy of the words they used— it amazed him. The idiocy of the entire thing.

By now, Rourke would be aboard his plane— the radio from the submarine wouldn't reach him— Rourke would keep the radio off to avoid Soviet detection. "Shit," Gundersen rasped, turning away from the set.

"Sir— what'll I—"

Gundersen looked behind him at the radio operator.

"Tell 'em— tell Mrs. Rourke— Jesus Christ, what'll I tell Mrs. Rourke?"

He stood there, balling his fists. In his mind, he said, "Mrs. Rourke— see, your husband left almost an hour ago. If he isn't at the plane by now, well— he will be soon and there's no way to reach him. He's planning to look around Tennessee— just stay there and maybe he'll find you—

isn't that big a state, is it— Tennessee?"

He shook his head. "Sir— what'll I—"

"Tell Mrs. Rourke that— ohh, Christ— I'll tell her—"

Gundersen picked up the microphone, then set it down again for an instant.

He didn't know what to say at all.

Chapter Fifty

General Ishmael Varakov sat in his seat behind his littered desk in his office without walls, the only face left for him to see without disgust that of Cathenne.

He looked up, calling out across the museum hall to her. "Catherine!" He called again.

"Catherine!"

He looked back to his desk, his papers— no word of Rourke, no word of his niece.

In seven to ten days— perhaps far less— it would all be done. Soon, very soon, finding them would only prove useless.

"Catherine!"

He looked up and she stood in front of his desk.

"Comrade General!"

He sighed, loudly, his feet hurting. He stood up, stuffing his feet as best he could into his shoes.

"You have a mother who lives?"

"Yes, Comrade General— on a collective farm near Minsk."

"I am ordering her transported— to a villa I own on the Black Sea— it is still beautiful there. See to it that the orders are written. And you have a brother?"

"Yes, Comrade General— he fights with our forces in northern Italy, I think."

"Send my orders to his commanding general— I outrank the man. Your brother is ordered to my villa on the Black Sea as well."

"But— but, Comrade General, I—"

He walked— the effort great because he was very tired. He passed around the desk, taking Catherine's hands in his, taking the notebook and pencil from her.

"We are all going to die— you should be with the ones you love at this time, Catherine, and you will issue my orders for your transportation as well— this is top priority. You will want for nothing there. You will be with the ones you love."

Her eyes— wet, tearing, looked up into his. "I will issue the orders for my mother, Comrade General— and for my brother. To be together. I will not issue the orders for my own transportation."

"You are loyal, child— but you must be with the ones you love, now."

"I will stay here, Comrade General," and she cast her eyes down, her voice so low, so hoarse, he could barely hear her words. "I will be with the one I love, then."

Varakov closed his eyes, folding the girl into his arms.

They would all die, he knew— unless he could find Rourke and Natalia— and soon.

Chapter Fifty-One

Rourke had placed the three motorcycles aboard the fighter bomber, Natalia and Paul— his left arm slung, useless because of the spear wound until it healed— having removed as much of the camouflage as necessary.

He started forward, seating himself behind the main console in the nose section, testing his electrical system.

Destroy Filmore Air Force base, fly to as near the Retreat as possible, then get the plane camouflaged once again. Go to the Retreat, get the truck, come back for the supplies, leave Paul to recuperate and read the note Natalia insisted he read, the note from her uncle. If it had been urgent, it was not urgent now, he thought.

So much time had elapsed.

Then regardless of the note, before doing whatever it was General Varakov was so insistent about— find his wife, his children.

Sarah--Michael--Annie--Rourke exhaled a long sigh, chewing down on his cigar as he watched the gauges rise. It was stuffy— but he didn't want to start the climate control systems panel yet. There was still more to check out.

What could Varakov want? he wondered. Perhaps Natalia's position had become untenable and Varakov merely wanted her with him— safe. Rourke smiled— he hardly considered himself safe, or anyone with him.

But whatever, the note would not be the important thing. It would be secondary. He would search Tennessee, search for Resistance units— perhaps one had seen something of a woman and two children. Were they still on horseback? he wondered.

He smiled as he thought of the animals— Tildie, his wife's, and Sam, his own, the big gray with the black mane and tail and four black stockings.

It would be good to ride with them again— to ride Sam, to ride with Sarah.

He could hear the thunder as it rumbled in the sky. He would maintain radio silence to avoid accidental Soviet detection. He imagined static would be unbearable at the higher altitudes anyway. He kept checking his instruments...

Filmore Air Force base came into view as Rourke, flying low as he planned to do cross country, came over the ridge of rocks. He adjusted his altitude to match the lower level of the valley floor, beginning his attack run.

"John— if it will be easier," Natalia's voice came through his headset radio, "I can launch the missiles from my controls."

Rourke nodded in his helmet. "No— I'll do it," he told her, his face mask clouding a little as he spoke. He overflew the field, climbing slightly to bank, mentally picking his targets on the computer grids, verifying with the television optical unit mounted under the nose that the base was still untouched and the assault would be necessary. There were human figures on the ground— wildmen, from the quick look at them. There would be some left, wandering, leaderless.

Their loss would be necessary— and useful, too. He finished the bank, rolling over into a level flight path, checking his angle of attack indicator, his approach indexer, these mounted to his left front.

He reached out his gloved-left hand, his right on the control stick, adjusting the switches on his air combat maneuver panel.

Rourke overflew the field again, climbing to bank, the rollover, then leveling off, his weapons systems panel controls armed. He checked the wing sweep indicator on his lower left.

"Going in," he said into the headset microphone built into his helmet.

He poised his left hand over the controls— he fired, a Phoenix missile targeting toward the ammo dump, the ammo dump suddenly exploding as he launched the second Phoenix, the armory erupting into a fireball. He did a slight rollover, banking to port, leveling off, loosing a cluster of 24Mk82 580-pound mass iron bombs, pulling his nose up, the plane light now as the weight of the pylons was gone from the wings, the bombs impacting and exploding as he swung his visual scanning television monitor rearward, watching it as he nosed up and climbed.

The runway was gone— there would be a crater there once the smoke and debris and flame cleared— there would be no runway. He switched the TFR, the terrain-following radar helping him as he dropped his altitude, to maintain a constant elevation regardless of the ripples and rises in the terrain.

"We're going home," Rourke said quietly. Neither Paul Rubenstein nor Natalia answered him.

But he hadn't expected they would.

Chapter Fifty-Two

The Womb radar system— once the Mt. Thunder North American Air Defense Command Center Radar in the Colorado Rockies— showed a blip.

The technician punched the alert button, in the next instant his supervisor was beside him.

"Comrade Lieutenant— this is not in our approach paths for the field— flying low— a TFR

flight— hypersonic— the pattern of the blip matches that of the American F-111— perhaps a variant."

He looked up at the lieutenant, taking his eyes off the blip for an instant.

"I will contact weapons—" The lieutenant picked up the red telephone receiver from its red cradle on the console.

"Radar has a confirmed American blip— F-111 type fighter attack bomber— request use of the particle beam weapons system. Yes, comrade— I will hold."

The technician watched his blip.

"It is moving fast, comrade— at approximately eight hundred miles per hour—"

"Comrade— we are losing the blip," he heard the lieutenant say.

"It is leaving my screen, Comrade Lieutenant," the technician said, watching the green blip fading to his left.

"Very good, comrade," and the technician heard the receiver click down to its carriage— he didn't take his eyes from the radar screen to watch it.

"Use of the particle beam weapons system was denied."

"The blip is lost, Comrade Lieutenant," the technician said.

"Let him live— at least for a bit longer." And the lieutenant laughed.

The technician kept his eyes on the screen— perhaps there would be another one— or if this blip returned, to attack the field, perhaps then the particle beam weapons system would be employed. He had seen the test when it had been installed days earlier at the Womb. The pencil-thin beam of light, barely visible— the drone aircraft had been vaporized, disintegrated— it had been the most impressive thing he had ever seen. He watched his dull radar panel again— nothing but supply craft for the Womb.

Chapter Fifty-Three

Sarah Rourke walked slowly past the burned farmhouse— it was so much like her own home—

gone.

And now John was gone again— with the Russian woman— the name of the woman, the submarine commander had told her, was Major Natalia Anastasia Tiemerovna. She rolled the name, trying to taste it— she hadn't asked if the woman was beautiful. And the man he traveled with— Paul Rubenstein. She had no doubt that if the woman— this major— were the woman of either John Rourke or the man Paul Rubenstein that she was John's woman. She smiled for a moment, stopping her walk— what woman, given the option to be, would not be John Rourke's woman.

Except perhaps herself— it had crossed her mind more than once before the Night of The War. But divorce was a word she could never say to him— she loved him too much, and he loved her.

Perhaps he thought she was dead— but then why did he tell Gundersen he would be searching for her?

There were questions to ask— but they would come when he found her. She decided something. The Resistance fought an important fight— she was part of it. She would stay with Critchfield and the others— and Bill would someday be back. She would stay with them, fight— and someday John Rourke would find her.

"Someday," she said.

She felt silly— and she started to cry. She kept walking.

Chapter Fifty-Four

They had left the truck, the concentrations of Russians on the only roads through the mountains too great for them to risk the noise. Camouflaged more than a mile back, Bill Mulliner and his three men walked on. It would be risky— no code words or countersigns existed within the Resistance— it was not even an organization. Once they encountered the Resistance, he would have to rely on convincing the leader— reportedly a man named Koenigsburg— that Pete Critchfield had indeed sent him, that the messages he carried— all verbal— were indeed those of Critchfield and of President Chambers and Reed, Chambers' intelligence aide.

He let out a long sigh— he wondered if, by the time he did eventually get back to the new headquarters, Mrs. Rourke would already be gone as they had thought. He hoped someday to see her again, to meet a woman like her.

He walked on, his right fist on the pistol grip of his M-16. She would remember him, he knew—

if for no other reason than his father's pistol, the Trapper .45, which he had given her. But he hoped for other reasons, too...

Rourke stepped back from the plane— it was, once again, well camouflaged. But from the air only. To land the craft he had selected the only spot available, and there was little peripheral wooded area nearby to which he could "snuggle" the plane to obscure it at least partially on the ground. He had made the plane tamperproof— unless someone happened by with a parts replacement kit for an F-111 and a machine shop to alter parts, for this was a prototype model based on the F-111 only— it would be impossible to get it off the ground.

He turned, walking toward Natalia and Rubenstein, Rubenstein already straddling his Harley, Natalia standing beside hers, her motor not yet started either.

"Not much more than an hour to the Retreat from here," Rourke called out.

"And then rest for Paul—"

"And for you," Rourke told her. "I will help you—"

"Paul will need those dressings changed at least once a day— he can't do it himself," Rourke told Natalia. "Besides— I have to get moving fast. You're still a little weak from the operation— you know that yourself."

"I am not," she insisted.

"All right— you're not," he smiled. He straddled the Low Rider. "Ready?" he asked both of them.

Rubenstein nodded, starting his engine, Natalia mounting her machine. "Ready," she said, glaring at him.

Rourke gunned the Harley ahead— there was a shortcut he thought he could use, taking him through the park that surrounded Anna Ruby Falls outside Helen, Georgia.

He aimed the Harley's fork toward it...

The body was a fresh kill, or so it seemed, Bill Mulliner thought, peering through the field glasses, down onto the bridge that crossed the rocky stream at the base of the falls.

He scanned the binoculars up toward the falls themselves, estimating the drop at well more than a hundred feet— and he had always been a poor judge of exact distances.

He scanned the area to the far side of the falls, high rocks and a muddy path leading up into woods.

He looked back to the bridge— the man was an American, not looking like a Brigand— too clean, Bill Mulliner thought.

Then he saw the movement, almost dropping his binoculars, refocusing them. On a flat rock about fifty feet further downstream beyond the bridge and the falls was another body—

American-seeming, too. And the body still had life in it.

"We've gotta go down there," Bill Mulliner whispered hoarsely to his three men.

"Bullshit— probably Brigands or somethin'," one man, taller than Bill by a head or more, bearded, rasped.

"The man on the rock is alive." Bill Mulliner peered through his binoculars— as the body moved again, he saw the face. He had seen it once before, in passing, during a Resistance attack. The man would not remember him— but he remembered the face, the man who owned it—

Koenigsberg, the Resistance leader he had come to find.

"That's Koenigsberg."

"Then we go home," the bearded man murmured. Bill Mulliner put down his glasses and looked at the older, taller man.

"We can go around and circle to the other side to our left, or we can go around to our right and come up the gorge, or we can head straight down— either way of the first two will take at least a half-hour. He'll be dead by then, maybe, and all three ways we're wide in the open for anybody lookin' down at us from the other side of them rocks. There's a human being— a fellow Resistance fighter, down there. We go get him. And any man who's too cowardly to go and help— well, damn well stay here and cover me— or just run."

Bill Mulliner swept the far side of the gorge behind the falls with the binoculars again. He saw no movement except for a squirrel moving almost lazily up a tree trunk. It was like the deerwoods on a smoky afternoon.

"Let's go— those that are goin'," and Bill Mulliner pushed himself up, the binoculars swinging from his neck, the M-16 in his hands. He started out of the rocks and toward the long, steep, dirt— and rock side of the gorge. It would be a hard climb down, he thought.

"Wait up," one of the men called in a loud stage whisper, and Bill Mulliner turned around.

Rifle shots— the bearded man who had complained fell flat backwards and never moved. Bill wheeled, his M-16 coming up, something hammering into his chest as there was another burst of gunfire. There was a scream from behind him as he heard more of the gunfire.

Bill fell backward, hitting his head on a rock, shaking his head to clear it. He looked down— his chest was bleeding, bubbles of blood pumping from over his right lung. "Jesus— I'm shot," he said to himself.

He pushed himself to his feet, stumbling. There was more gunfire, but this time from behind him.

"Come on, Billy— come on," the voice of Thad Fricks came to him.

Thad was alive, Bill thought. He turned, trying to move away from the edge of the rocks. Another burst of gunfire— Thad Fricke's rifle went off and he fell, disappearing into the trees.

Bill Mulliner gasped, a pain gripping his chest.

A single rifle shot, and already he was falling, his left leg burning, his face and his hands skidding along the rocks as he fell downward, his rifle gone, his head bumping against a pine tree stump, a clump of brush— a handhold, but he slipped from it and fell, sliding again, rolling, rolling, rolling.

"Sweet Jesus!" he screamed...

"Those shots were from the falls," Rourke almost whispered, his bike stopped near the top of a hilly rise.

"What do you think, John?" Rubenstein asked.

"Whatever you want to do," Natalia murmured.

"Can't be too many— not too many shots— sound like assault rifles— but too high-pitched for AK-47s— not your people," Rourke said, looking at Natalia.

"Agreed—.223s— all of them."

Rourke gunned the Harley—"Let's go," and let out the machine, starting ahead, up a gully and alongside a row of yearling Georgia pines and then into a sparse woods, hearing the roar of Rubenstein's and Natalia's bikes behind him, feeling the throb of the Harley's engine between his legs.

He hit the top of the rise and bounced a hummock of dirt, seeing the drop off into the gorge ahead, slowing the bike, braking, kicking down the stand, dismounting, the CAR-15 in his hands. He saw three bodies on the ground as he ran toward the edge, hearing Paul's and Natalia's bikes stopping behind him.

At the bottom of the steep side of the gorge there were bodies— one on a bridge across the stream at the base of the falls, still another on rocks there beneath the bridge and fifty feet or so beyond. And a third— the third body and the second body still moved. And there were men—

Brigands— moving down from the far side of the gorge, what looked from the distance like M16s in their hands— five of them.

They had not heard the motorcycles coming, Rourke realized— the steady, drowning roar of the falls itself obscuring the noise.

They were Brigands— Brigands— the cut of the men, the dirt, the faces, the way they moved. He saw the lead man raise his M-16 and fire into the man on the rocks who had still moved— the man moved no more. They were Brigands— cold blooded murderers.

Rourke shouldered the CAR-15, ripping away the scope covers— he was cold-blooded, too.

He flicked the safety, pumping a two-shot burst into the man who had just murdered. The body fell, Rourke shifting the scope, finding another target, killing.

There was gunfire from beside him— Natalia's M-16, Rubenstein's German MP-40— Paul had called it a Schmeisser so long Rourke thought of it that way too now.

The bodies fell.

All five were down. Rourke shifted his rifle— one shot to each man, to each head— five dead.

"John— the one at the base of the grade here— a boy with red hair— he's moving." Rourke handed her his rifle, "Take the bikes and start along the side here until you can climb down safely— watch your stitches and watch Paul's arm. I'll go this way."

"All right," she whispered.

Rourke— his rifle with Natalia— started to the edge, found a spot that looked the least steep, and started down, slipping onto his rear end, sliding, catching himself, skidding on the heels of his boots, getting to a standing position, running to keep up with his momentum, slipping, falling back, skidding, then getting his balance.

He half jumped, half fell, but was standing— in a crouch— as he hit the bottom of the gorge. He picked his way across the spray-licked, moss-greened rocks, toward the red-haired boy, the roar of the falls louder now.

No other body moved— but the boy moved. Rourke skidded across a low boulder— blood there— and dropped to his knees beside the boy. "Easy, son," Rourke said, raising the boy's head— the hand he held the head in was sticky and wet with blood.

"Ambushed us," the boy gasped.

"It's all right— we got 'em for you— Brigands—"

"Yeah— we— we call 'em that— that, too," the boy sighed.

"Don't try to talk— don't—"

"Gotta help— help the man— the man on the rocks—"

"He's dead," Rourke whispered. "One of the Brigands got him— I killed the guy who did it—

rest easy." He wondered if it would help the boy to say that he was a doctor— for his skills as a doctor would not— blood loss, a lung that seemed collapsed— there was a chest wound that did not suck— and obviously, from just a superficial examination, numerous bones broken. The boy was dying. He decided to say it anyway, to lie that the boy would live, or could. "I'm a doctor, son— I'll do what I can for you to make you comfortable." He couldn't lie.

"I'm dyin'-you're a doc— you know that," and the boy coughed up a slimy mixture of blood and spittle.

"I'm a doctor— and I know that," Rourke nodded, holding the boy closer. "You with the Resistance?"

"Yeah— you, too?"

"No— I'm with some friends— a man and a woman— they're coming," and Rourke heard footfalls on the rocks behind him. He glanced back— it was Natalia only.

"John— I left Paul— the climb was too steep with his arm."

"John?" The boy hissed the word.

"Yeah, son— my name's John—"

"A doctor?"

"Yeah—"

"John Rourke," the boy gasped.

"I don't know you," Rourke said, studying the boy's face more closely.

"Sarah," the boy gasped. "Boy Michael— a little girl— Annie—"

Rourke tightened his left hand's grip on the boy's shoulder—"My wife and children— you've—"

"Cunningham— Cunningham horse farm— near Mt. Eagle, Tennessee," the boy gasped.

"Mt. Eagle," Rourke whispered. "You're— you're— Mulliner— the red-haired boy with the gun that night at the door— the Mulliner farm."

"Bill Mulliner," the boy coughed. "Bill Mulliner— tell my mom— tell her I love her— tell her—

and— tell Mrs. Rourke— good— good..." The boy's eyes stayed open, blood drooled from the right corner of his mouth as his head sagged away.

"Good-bye," Rourke said for the dead boy, and he looked up into Natalia's blue eyes. She closed her eyes and said nothing.

"Sarah," Rourke whispered.

The End

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ISBN: 0-7408-0510-X

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