The Quest

Chapter 8

“I don’t know,” Rourke said, not looking at Rubenstein, but staring up at the stars. They were less than a mile from the principal entrance to the retreat. “Sometimes you get the feeling there’s something happening, you don’t know where or what, but that you’re involved with it anyway, and that someday you’ll learn what it was and when—sort of like the feeling you get when a shiver runs up your spine and people say that somebody’s just walked across your grave. Maybe they have.” “What do you mean?” Paul Rubenstein asked, his voice sounding tired.

“I don’t know,” Rourke almost laughed. “Come on. Not much farther now.” Rourke looked at the balding younger man in the starlight. Rubenstein was exhausted, his wounds still depleting his strength. The road to the entrance of the retreat was twisted and difficult. “Come on.” They rode the bikes, the engines barely above stalling, up the narrow pathway. Rourke eyed the familiar landmarks; he knew each tree and each rock. He had found the site of the retreat six years before, purchased it, then over the last three years was able to afford to convert it. It was a natural cave, carved over millions of years by the forty-foot-high waterfall from an underground spring, filtering from the natural pool at its base down into the rocks, coursing below in a narrowing cavern to God-knew-where—its origins, he guessed, perhaps as far away as the Canadian border, the water icy cold, crystal clear, perhaps only coming to light as it passed through the rear of the cave. He could mark the places where the waterfall had been over the millions of years since it had begun, how it had gradually carved out the cave. Giant stalactites were suspended from the cave ceiling and gradually bled their substance to form the stalagmites below them.

He used the underground portion of the stream as his hydro-electric power source, his own generators capable of supplying three times his maximum power needs. He had left the structure of the cave basically unaltered, the natural rise at the rear of the cave to the waterfall’s right forming the main sleeping quarters, smaller natural mezzanines forming the additional rooms: two more bedrooms, the kitchen, and the bath, the latter shielded from the rest of the massive cave by a natural, opaque curtain of limestone. Rourke had electrified the cavern, plumbed it and, using a four-wheel drive pickup truck, gradually furnished it with appliances, bedroom furnishings, everything that would be needed to preserve the comfort if he were ever forced to live permanently in the retreat. Spare parts, service manuals, all were carefully catalogued and stored. The great room was the room he liked. It was the main body of the cavern and its rear was formed by the pool at the base of the waterfall. In this room were his books, records, videotape library, guns—his room, he had always thought of it. As he slowed his borrowed Harley Low Rider and signaled Paul Rubenstein to do the same, he almost felt a longing for the place, a sense of normalcy there.

“We’re here,” Rourke whispered.

“Where? I don’t see anything.”

“You’re not supposed to.” Then Rourke explained. “Once I had the retreat I realized it would be useless to me if I couldn’t absolutely rely on the fact that it wouldn’t be discovered. That meant I had to have some sort of secret entrance. In comic books, movies, science fiction, they put branches or shrubs in front of the cave entrance, but none of that works. I wanted something more permanent.” “So what did you do?” Rubenstein asked.

“Watch.” Rourke dismounted from the bike and walked toward the cracked and rough weathered granite wall before them. He looked down; they were approximately half way up the mountainside. He walked to a large boulder on the right of his bike, then pushed against it with his hands. The boulder rolled away. He walked to his far left where a similar, but squared-off rock butted against the granite face. “See,” Rourke began, pushing on it. “This whole area of Georgia is built on a huge granite plate at varying depths. This mountain is an outcropping of it, extending all the way into Tennessee, maybe well beyond. I did a lot of research in archeology to come up with this—how the Egyptian tombs were sealed off, Mayan temples.” Rourke braced himself against the rock and pushed it aside.

There was rumbling in the rock itself, and Rubenstein drew back. The rock on which Rourke stood began to sink, and as it did a slab of rock about the size of a single-car-garage door began to slide inward. “Just weights and counterbalances,” Rourke said, smiling, his face reflected by the starlight. “When you want to open from inside, levers perform the same function as moving the rocks out here.” Rubenstein leaned forward, peering into the gradually opening doorway and the darkness beyond.

“Come on,” Rourke said, then walked into the darkness. Rubenstein was off his bike now, but Rourke saw the young man standing unnecessarily close behind him. “It’s fine—really.” A flashlight was in Rourke’s left hand, one of the angleheads the two men had stolen from the geological supply house in Albuquerque. As the weak beam shone against the granite, Rourke bent down, then flicked a switch with an audible click. A dim light, reddish in hue, illuminated the cavern opening.

“Get your bike inside.”

Rourke went back outside to get his Harley and wheeled it through the entrance. As Rubenstein began to move his machine, Rourke rasped, “Paul, there’s a redhandled lever in there, by the light switch. Swing it down and lock it under the notch.” Rourke waited a moment, looking up at the stars, then heard Rubenstein shout, “Got it, John.”

Rourke said nothing, but bent and rolled the two rock counterbalances into position, then stepped into the cave. He bent to the redhandled lever, loosed it safely from the notch retaining it and raised it, the granite doorway started to move, the rock beneath them shuddering audibly.

“Relax,” Rourke said softly, turned, and saw Rubenstein staring beyond at the edge of the red light to the steel double doors at the far end of the antechamber. “I’ve got ultrasonics installed to prevent insects or vermin from getting in—closed circuit TV up there,” Rourke said, gesturing above their heads to the low stone ceiling.

Rourke walked to the steel doors, shone his flashlight on the combination dials and began to manipulate them, then turned the lever-shaped handles and the doors swung open.

“Paul,” Rourke said, stepping into the darkness, “kill that light switch for red back there, huh?” Rourke stepped into the darkness, reached out his right hand and waited until he assumed Rubenstein was beside him in the darkness. He could see the light of the anglehead flashlight.

“Now,” Rourke almost whispered, then got the light switch.

“God!”

Rourke looked at the younger man, smiled, and stepped down into the great room. “Just as I described it,” Rourke said with what he felt was justifiable pride. “Let’s bring the bikes down the ramp.” Rourke pointed to his left to the far side of the three broad stone steps leading into the great room, “then I’ll give you a fast tour before you collapse.” Rubenstein wiped his brow. Rourke started to back up the three steps, then into the darkness beyond the steel doors. Rourke started his liberated Harley down the ramp, stopped it, went back and closed the doors from the inside, sliding a bar in place on levers across the double doors.

“Place is stone, so it’s fireproof, everything in it is as fireproof as possible. I’ve got a couple of emergency exits too; show ‘em to you tomorrow.” Rourke returned to the Harley and started it down the ramp, stopping again to hit another light switch mounted against the cave wall, metal wire molding running from it up toward the darkness of the ceiling. The ramp was wide enough for the two men to walk their bikes side by side. In front of them, at the base of the ramp, Rourke pointed out a truck.

“Ford—four-wheel-drive pickup, converted it to run off pure ethyl alcohol. Got a distillery for it set up on the far side over there.” Rourke pointed well beyond the camouflage-painted pickup truck to the far end of the side cavern. Along the natural rock wall separating it from the main cavern were rows upon rows of shelves, stacked floor to ceiling, several large ladders spaced along their length.

“Up there, spare ammunition—reloading components when I get to that—food, whiskey, whatever.”

Rourke parked the bike on its stand. Rubenstein did the same. Rourke walked the length of the side cavern, pointing to the shelves.

“I’ve got a complete inventory that I run on an ascending/descending balance system so I know what’s running down, what might spoil, etc.” Then Rourke started pinpointing, calling off the things on the shelves. “Toilet paper, paper towels, bath soap, shampoo and conditioner, candles, light bulbs— sixties, hundreds—fluorescent tubes—lights witches, screws, nails, bolts, nuts, washers—” he stopped to point to a low shelf—“McCulloch Pro Mac 610 chain saw—best there is, combines easy handling with near professional quality durability—spare parts, etc.” Rourke moved on. “All the ammunition for my guns.” Rourke started at .22 Long Rifle, moved up to .38 Special, then .357 Magnum, 9mm Parabellum, .44 Magnum, and .45 ACP, then the rifle cartridges—.223 and .308—then twelve-gauge shotgun shells, double 0 buck and rifled slugs, mostly two and three-quarter-inch. “I stick to the shorter stuff,” Rourke commented, “because it works in the three-inch Magnums, not vice-versa.” There was row upon row of Mountain House foods in large containers and small packages, some ordinary canned goods, other food supplies, then stacks of white bootsocks, underpants, handkerchiefs. “All reserve stuff,” Rourke commented. A large bin occupied some of the end of the shelving area, inside it, as Rourke showed Rubenstein, were holsters, slings, various other leather goods. Beyond this was a shelf filled with a dozen pair of black GI combat boots, and beside these a half dozen pairs of rubber thongs.

“It’ll take you a while,” Rourke commented to Rubenstein, “before you can really see all I’ve put up, but you’ll catch on to it. Check the inventory sheets.” Rourke took down one of four clipboards hanging on hooks at the far end of the shelving. “Now look behind you. My pride and joy—” Rourke gestured to the far wall, a gleaming black Harley-Davidson Low Rider suspended a few inches off the floor—“to protect the tires.” Rourke walked back to the end of the shelf row and hit another switch and the side cavern behind them went dark. Rourke hit a second switch and the darkened smaller chamber ahead of them illuminated.

Rourke commented, “Work room,” and pointed along the walls and down a row of log tables. Vises, reloading equipment, power saws, drill press, then ranked on shelves above these were oil filters, spark plugs, fan belts, tools hung on pegboard wall panels beyond these. Rourke set his CAR-15 on one of the tables, withdrew the six-inch Python, setting it beside the rifle, next he snatched both Detonics stainless pistols from their double-shoulder rig and set them down as well, then the small A.G. Russell black chrome Sting IA.

“Gotta clean these tomorrow,” Rourke observed.

Rubenstein took the Browning High Power from his belt and set it down, then laid down the Schmeisser, “I’ll get the little Lawman and the Steyr later,” Rourke noted. “Come on.” Rourke walked past the rows of tables and hit the light switch, then turned a corner and, once again, they were in the main cavern, but at the far end of the great room, the sound of the waterfall splashing beside them.

Rourke stripped away his leather jacket, his Alessi shoulder rig, and the Ranger leather belt, and set them on the arm of what looked like a leather-covered chair.

“Vinyl,” Rourke observed. “Hate the stuff, but it’s less susceptible to damage than leather and more easily repaired.” Rourke started into the room, then stopped, turned to Rubenstein, and took off his sunglasses. “What would you like to see first? I bet, the bathroom, hmm? How about a real shower?” Rourke didn’t wait for an answer, but started toward the near side of the great room, walked up a row of three low stone steps and pointed toward the opaque curtain of stone. “In there—help yourself. Grab yourself some clothes. I’ll use it later.” Then Rourke turned and walked across the great room toward the television set, the stereo, the books, the guns. He stopped in front of the glass gun case and slid the glass panel aside. He heard Rubenstein’s voice behind him, turned, and saw him with a handful of clean clothes. Rourke smiled, pleased the younger man had found his way back to his motorcycle, already learning to make his way around the retreat.

“What’s that, John?”

“Come and see,” Rourke said, staring back at the cabinet. He heard Rubenstein stop beside him, then pointed at each weapon in the gun case. “That’s an Interdynamics KG-9 9mm assault pistol,” Rourke began.

“Looks like a submachine gun,” Rubenstein commented.

“Only a semi-automatic, though,” Rourke said, then pointed to each succeeding item, identifying it in turn, “Smith and Wesson Model 29 six-inch, Metalifed and Mag-Na-Ported; Smith and Wesson Model 60 two-inch stainless Chiefs .38 Special; Colt Mk IV, Series ‘70 Government Model; Metalifed with a Detonics Competition Recoil system installed and Pachmayr Colt Medallion grips. That little thing is an FIE .38 Special chrome Derringer, and the little tubes on the shelf down here are .22 Long Rifle and .25 ACP barrel inserts made by Harry Owens of Sport Specialties. Makes the little gun able to fire .38 Special, .22 rimfire, or .25 ACP. I’ve got more of those insert barrels for my Detonics, for my shotguns, et cetera.” Rourke pointed back up to the cabinet. “That gun is a Colt Official Police .38 Special five-inch—Metalifed with Pachmayr grips. Same frame essentially as a Python, so I had it reamed out to .357 to increase its versatility.” Then Rourke moved to his right to the long guns, racked one over the other. “That’s a standard AR-15, no scope. That’s a Mossberg 500ATP6P Parkerized riot shotgun. Safariland sling on it. That’s an original Armalite AR-7 .22 Long Rifle. Take it apart and it stows in the buttstock, even floats. Had enough?” Rourke turned, smiling at Rubenstein.

“How much—I mean it’s rude, John, I know that but how—”

“Every cent I could scrape together for the last six years, after the cost of the property itself. I gambled. I’m sorry I won, but it paid off I guess.” Rourke closed the case and walked toward the sofa in the center of the great room, then leaned down to a small box on the table, and looked inside. “Empty,” he muttered, and crossed the room.

He glanced over his shoulder, Rubenstein following him. Rourke smiled, saying, “You’re more curious than eager for that shower, aren’t you?” Rourke kept walking, up the three low stone steps and into the kitchen. There was a long counter with stools beside it, on the other side a six-burner range with a double oven, a double-door refrigerator, and more counter space. At the far left were two chest-type white freezers. “I’ve got a big meat locker back in the side of the utility area, maybe you saw it—this is for stuff that is most commonly used.” Rubenstein was next to him as Rourke opened one of the freezers, the entire left half of it was filled with aluminum-foil-wrapped packages. Rourke took a package from the freezer and turned over a roast, looked at it, then closed the freezer. He unwrapped the package on top of the freezer, extracted one of the small cigars he liked, rolled it between his fingers, smelled it, and put it to his mouth. He lit it with the Zippo.

“You’re kidding,” Rubenstein said, his voice sounding to Rourke as though the young man were shocked.

“What’s the matter? What’s so strange? All the comforts of home.” Rourke stopped, the lighter still burning in his hand as he stared over Rubenstein’s shoulder, past the counter to the small table on the side of the couch. There was a picture there—he couldn’t see it, but knew it—of Sarah and the children. “Almost all the comforts,” he said, his voice low. He snapped closed the cowling of the lighter and dropped the lighter in his pocket.

“How did you get this up here?”

“With the truck,” Rourke answered, as he went to the refrigerator, opened it, and took out an ice tray. He took a large glass beer mug from an overhead cabinet and filled it half with ice. He replaced the unused ice cubes, muttering, “Help yourself to anything you want,” then turned on a small black switch next to the sink. There was a rumble, a mechanical hum, then Rourke turned on the cold water faucet, the spigot sputtering a moment. “Air gets in the system,” Rourke remarked, then water spattered out, and Rourke walked away, leaving the water running.

He went to another cabinet, this time below the counter level, and extracted a half-gallon bottle of Seagram’s 7, twisted off the cap, breaking the stamp, and poured a good three inches in the beer mug over the ice, then closed the bottle and replaced it under the counter. He returned to the sink and added two inches of water to the glass, shut off the water, then turned off the pump switch.

“You’ve always got to remember to turn on the switches for the water—only thing different from ordinary plumbing—electrically operated pumps. I use several, so if one breaks down it won’t kill all my water at once.” Rourke started out of the kitchen and back down the steps into the great room. Rubenstein was behind him. “John, this can’t be real, I mean—” “It is, Paul,” Rourke said, turning. “It is. Go get cleaned up. Later I’ll fix us something to eat.” “How about steak and eggs?” Rubenstein asked laughing.

Rourke didn’t laugh. “Well, I’ll have to flash thaw it, but I guess so. Powdered eggs all right?” Rourke nursed his drink while Rubenstein showered. He got the steaks and set the microwave oven, then returned to the sofa. He was reading, not a book, but a catalogue of the books he had on the shelves along one wall of the great room—refreshing himself on the contents of his library—determining, now that it was his only library, if any gaps existed that critically needed filling. He put down the looseleaf binder and went to the bookshelves, rolled the ladder along their length and climbed up, selecting a book about projected climatalogical changes as the result of heat and temperature inversion. The red sunsets still worried him.

He heard Rubenstein behind him, turned and stepped down the ladder.

“All those books, John. What are these?” He stopped and pointed to a lower shelf.

“Just books I’ve written on weapons, survivalism, things like that. I’ve tried to have something of everything,” Rourke said, sipping his drink and studying the cover of the book as if by holding it an answer to the bizarre climate would somehow come to him osmotically. “I always viewed a library as the most essential thing for survival beyond food, water, shelter, weapons. What good would it do if we survived, Paul, if all the wisdom of the world were lost to us? I may be misquoting but I believe it was Einstein who said that regardless of what World War Three was fought with—and I’m just paraphrasing—World War Four would be fought with rocks and clubs. Simply it means that civilization—regardless of the physical reality of man—would end. It won’t here.” Rourke gestured broadly toward his books.

“Children’s books too?” Rubenstein asked, looking at the lowest shelf.

“For Annie and Michael, perhaps their children someday. Can’t teach them to read with these.” Rourke gestured at the higher shelves. “Most of those, children’s books were illustrated or written and illustrated by Sarah, anyway—a double purpose.” “Do you really think it’ll last that long?”

“The world or the aftermath of the War?” Rourke asked, turning away, not expecting an answer. He dropped the book on the coffee table, looked over his shoulder as he downed his drink, and said, “If the timer hits on the microwave, just push the off button. I’m taking a shower.” Rourke walked to the far side of the great room, past the waterfall, and up the three stone steps to the master bedroom. Curtains could be drawn to separate it from the rest of the retreat but he left them alone, going through his things to find a fresh change of clothes and dumping the contents of his pockets on top of the dresser. He went into the bathroom.

He shaved, brushed and flossed his teeth, then climbed into the shower, washing himself several times, washing his hair, and standing under the hot water. He then turned it to straight cold—from the underground spring the temperature was cold, very cold. Rourke, standing under the icy water, stared down at himself: a few cuts, a few bruises. He was intact, the last radiation reading on himself and his equipment showed normalcy. He inhaled, able to count his ribs a little more easily, and he noticed too that more of the hair on his chest had turned to gray. He turned his face up to the spray, his eyes closed, feeling the water hammering on him, then shut off the water and stepped out to dry himself, shivering a little, unused still to the temperature of the cavern—a year-round constant 68 degrees because of the natural temperature of the rock and the water. It was a relief not to put on combat boots and wear instead a pair of rubber thongs.

Rourke couldn’t see Rubenstein; he guessed the younger man was exploring. With his shirt tails out of his pants, his glass refilled and fresh cigar, Rourke walked toward the rear of the cavern, beyond the living quarters and shop area, past the waterfall. He stopped and smiled when he saw the look of bewilderment on Rubenstein’s face.

“You’re impressed?” Rourke asked, sipping at his drink.

“A greenhouse?” The younger man was staring at a small house of sheet plastic, humidity dripping from the windows, bright purple lights glowing from within.

“I wish I could use sunlight, but if I installed any sort of skylight, it would be visible from the air and that could blow the whole place. So, as long as the growlights hold out, we’ve got fresh vegetables, occasionally.” “I punched the off button on the microwave oven. You got everything here!”

“Not quite,” Rourke said, then walked back in the kitchen.

The men ate, Rourke in relative silence. Rubenstein unending in his comments on the retreat. After dinner—time really didn’t matter in any relative sense, Rourke realized—the two sat in the great room, drinking and talking. Rourke’s watch read four a.m. for the outside world.

Rubenstein became tired and Rourke pointed him toward one of the spare bedrooms. He left Rourke alone in the great room. Rourke, unable to sleep, was still considering the note his wife had left and wondering where to begin the search. He found a videotape to his liking and put it on the machine. There was one of Sarah and the children, but he couldn’t take seeing it, he told himself, so he watched a movie he’d recorded from commercial television two years earlier, he thought. It was a Western with the hero a gunfighting marshal up against a land baron. Rourke turned it off and found another tape, a science program on the big bang theory of the origins of the universe. He fixed another drink and watched the tape. Still wide awake when the tape ended, he found a movie more to his liking, a British secret agent after a top secret satellite. Rourke watched, fixed another drink, and wondered when the whiskey would run out.