The Quest

Chapter 41

Rourke ran through the woods, Paul Rubenstein beside and slightly behind him, both men stopping where they’d left the bikes camouflaged behind brush, stripping the brush away and mounting up.

“We’re going back up into the mountains?”

“Yeah, after the astronaut, Colfax. Should have the Russians right behind us—probably use helicopters to get up there—might be a lot of shooting,” Rourke added, looking at the younger man.

“So, I should be used to it by now?” Rubenstein laughed and Rourke slapped him on the shoulder, then looked at him. “What are you looking at me like that for?” “You’re a good friend, Paul,” Rourke said quietly, turned away, and mounted his Harley.

It began to mist less than ten minutes into the two-hour ride into the mountains, and soon the mist turned into a driving, road-slicking rain. Rourke, with Rubenstein riding dead even beside him to minimize the spray of the wheels against the highway, was soaked through.

Because of the driving rain, their speed was cut just to keep control, and, as Rourke turned off the highway onto the side road Fulsom had indicated for him, he glanced at his watch. It had taken slightly over two and one-half hours and might well take Reed, unfamiliar with the area, even longer.

Rourke pulled in at the side of the single-lane, black-topped access road, turned to Paul Rubenstein as he pushed his fingers through his soaking wet hair, his eyes half closed against the downpour. “The Colfax place should be at the end of this road, then a driveway. There’s a wooded area behind the house. No suitable spot for the helicopters to land if the Soviets use Air Cavalry, but they might be able to rapel down to the ground. They’re going to want Colfax alive to get the information on the Eden Project—the same as we want. Come on.” Rubenstein nodded, wet, looking disgusted, his glasses pocketed and his deep set eyes squinted, but unlike Rourke’s not just against the rain. Rubenstein, Rourke knew, needed the glasses to see properly.

Rourke started up the single-lane road, traveling slowly, Rubenstein behind him. The blacktop was slick and the ditches along both sides of the road were running to overflowing in the heavy rain, the water there a washed-out blood red from the clay.

At the end of the road was a graveled driveway and Rourke cut left, turning onto it, exhaling hard in relief at the more stable road surface, the bike crunching over the wet, white gravel chunks, a house looking as though it had been lifted from the Bavarian Alps directly ahead.

The cuckoo-clocklike structure had a second-floor porch traveling the width of the house, shuttered windows and doorways facing onto it, below a smaller porch, ornamental, gingerbread style woodwork, brightly painted, adorning each cornice and corner.

Rourke stopped his bike ten feet from the house, kicked out the stand, and dismounted. The CAR-15—the muzzle cap in place and dust cover closed—slung muzzle down across his back, his upturned collar streaming water into his shirt. He pushed his wet hair from his forehead and walked toward the small first-floor porch, looking up at the second floor for some sign of habitation. The gravel crunched beside him and Rourke glanced to his right. Paul Rubenstein was beside him.

“Paul—go around back—I don’t want Colfax to duck out on us.”

The younger man nodded, his thinning hair plastered to his forehead by the rain, then disappeared to Rourke’s left around the side of the house. Rourke stepped onto the porch, the drumming of the rain on the porch above him intense, the sound of rushing water through the downspouts from the roofline gutters like a torrent.

He fished into his wallet, pulled the plastic coated CIA identity card from it, then replaced the wallet in his pocket. He searched the door for a bell, found none and hammered on the fake Dutch door with his left fist. “My name is Rourke,” he shouted. “I’m with American Intelligence—CIA card here in my hand,” and he turned the card toward the curtained windows in case Colfax were looking through a slit.

“Jim Colfax—I’m here to help you,” Rourke shouted.

Then there was another shout, Paul Rubenstein, the voice clear over the drumming of the rain, the words though hard to make out.

Rourke glanced from side to side, pocketed the CIA card, and flipped the porch railing, his boots splattering down into the mud beside the porch, almost losing his footing as he ran around the side of the-house.

Rubenstein was pointing into the tall, widely spaced stand of pines in the backlot. “Colfax, a white-haired guy with a crewcut?” “Yeah—I think so,” Rourke shouted back over the rain.

“He’s out there,” Rubenstein said, breathless sounding. “I saw him—must have heard us coming up and took off. You said he has heart trouble, that’s why he quit the astronaut program?” “Yeah,” Rourke answered.

“Then we’d better hurry and stop him. I’m not sure, but either he’s got a funny way of running or he was holding both hands over his chest.” “My God!” Rourke shouted, already breaking into a dead run for the trees, “Get your bike and come on,” Rourke snapped over his shoulder. Rourke hit the tree line, his right hand curling around one of the narrow pine trunks, stopping, swinging around the trunk, scanning the woods right and left. He spotted movement, then saw a white-haired man running up the steeply sloping grade a hundred yards deeper into the pines.

“Colfax!” he shouted over the drumming of the rain. “Colfax! Jim Colfax. I’m an American. I don’t want to hurt you. I’m here to help.” The man started running.

Shaking his head, Rourke glanced behind him for Rubenstein and the bike, saw him coming and yelled, ‘”Over here—toward the slope, Paul,” then started running through the trees, dodging the sparse brush, jumping deadfalls, his feet slipping in the mud, catching himself on his hands, pushing to his feet and continuing to run. Rourke could see Colfax up ahead, see Rubenstein zig-zagging through the trees trying to cut Colfax off. “Colfax! Wait, man!” Rourke shouted, stopping, scanning the trees ahead, spotting the white hair, then starting to run again.

Rourke missed a deadfall, half stumbled, and caught himself, slithering across the mud, then getting half to his feet. Rubenstein was at the far edge of the woods, and Colfax was running laterally to Rourke’s left along the slope.

Shaking his head, Rourke picked himself up and started running. “Colfax—wait!”

Colfax turned, started running again and, as Rourke started to shout once more, Rourke could see the white-haired, athletic man stumble and fall, rolling down the slope, his body slithering across the red mud of clay wash and colliding against a tree stump and stopping.

“Over here!” Rourke shouted to Rubenstein, waving his left arm as he ran toward Colfax.

Rourke dropped to his knees in the mud, lifting Colfax’s face to feel for a pulse.

There was none. “The Eden Project,” Rourke whispered. The white-haired man’s eyelids rolled open as the head sank from Rourke’s hands.

“Can’t you do anything?”

Rourke looked up at the face belonging to the voice. “No, Paul—if I had a hospital or a trained cardiac team—maybe I could start the heart again. He was dead before I reached him. The eyelids just came open as a reflex action when I bent his head away. He’s gone.” “Then what’s up there—what’s the Eden Project, John?”

Rourke set the white-haired man’s head down on the ground, closing the eyelids with his thumbs, then stood and stared up at the gray sky, rain washing across his face.

He clapped Rubenstein on the shoulder, starting back toward Rubenstein’s bike. “The Russians’ll bury him.” Then, “What’s up there, hmmm? Cheer up, Paul, maybe it isn’t a doomsday machine or a weapon of some sort. Who knows—maybe the Eden Project is something that’ll do some good. Maybe.” Rourke almost repeated “who knows” but a wry smile crossed his lips. The last man who knew was dead.