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"Well . . . hey, Abe." The attendant smiled. "I'm happy for Martha. It woulda been sad."

Rourke started to ask why, then nodded. "Yeah—sure would," he agreed.

"Nice lookin' machine y'all got here," Al said.

"Thanks." Rourke nodded. "Nice looking town. Cold as a witch's—Real cold outside. You got funny weather."

"Yeah. Just a little pocket here, I guess. We was always fixin' to get together with them fellers at the National Weather Service and maybe find out why, but never did get around to it."

Pointedly, Rourke said, "Well, there's always tomorrow," and smiled.

"Hey, there you go." Al laughed. "All set." He withdrew the nozzle and started to replace the gas cap.

Checking the pump, Rourke reached into his pocket for his money clip. He handed the man a twenty.

il get some—

"Keep the change." Rourke smiled, remounting the Harley, starting it, and upping the kickstand.

"Say . . . thanks, Abe." Al waved.

"O.K." Rourke nodded. They were all insane, he decided, as he started back into the street. . . .

"You're a good cook," Rourke told her, looking up from the steak and eggs nearly finished on the blue-willow plate in front of him.

"I don't usually get the chance." She smiled. "Living alone and all."

He smiled back at her. "You haven't lost your touch."

She turned back to the sink and shut off the water, then turned back to him, wiping her hands on her apron. "You haven't asked me any questions yet."

"You promised it'd all be made clear. I'm waiting for you, I guess." He smiled. He had questions, but wanted to hear her answers first somehow. "I gather that because I'm supposed to be your brother, it's assumed I'll go along with whatever's going on here?"

"That's right," she said, smoothing the apron with her hands, then sitting down opposite him. She poured more coffee into the blue-willow cup, then set the electric percolator down on the table top on a large trivet. "I called work—told them I'd be in late. They understood, with my brother coming to town and all."

Rourke forked the last piece of steak, then looked at the woman across from him. "Telephones?"

"Um-hmm." She nodded, smiling.

He looked on the table at the folded newspaper. "May I?"

"We're probably the only town this size in America with a daily newspaper," she said with a definite air of pride, handing it to him.

He opened the paper. The headline read: HALLOWEEN FESTIVITIES SET FOR

TONIGHT. A heading on a column read: SCHOOL BOARD ELECTION RESULTS TALLIED

"School board election?"

"Day before yesterday." She smiled.

"And yesterday was the Fourth of July."

"Um-hmm." She nodded, fingering back a wisp of dark hair with a touch of gray in it.

"And tonight's Halloween?"

"For the children—they love it so." She smiled.

"Tomorrow night Thanksgiving?"

"Yes."

Rourke sipped at his coffee; she had drunk from the same pot so he trusted it. He trusted nothing else in the town.

Sarah Rourke put a fresh piece of wood into the freestanding stove; it had been converted from propane, she guessed. There were plenty of chairs and table legs remaining and the weather seemed to be moderating slightly.

She stood up, letting the children continue to sleep in the bed. She had thrown the bodies overboard, and all of the bedding. Because of the fresh air, the mattress hadn't taken on the smell of the bodies, of the dead man and woman. They had worn wedding rings, and Sarah assumed they had been husband and wife.

The ice had melted sufficiently on the deck of the houseboat, and she could walk there—with care. She leaned against the rope railing; the ice there had completely melted and the rope was wet beneath her fingertips.

She stared out onto the lake, wondering what horrors lay ahead on the shore.

After disposing of the bodies, she had gotten the houseboat belayed to a large tree trunk growing near enough to the water, then she'd brought Michael and Annie down the rise with the horses. She had usedTildie and Sam as draft animals to tow the houseboat along the water's edge, toward a better and more even piece of shoreline and to a jetty nearby. There children and animals had boarded. The animals were now tethered in

the center of the main room of the houseboat—the carpet destroyed and the animals cramped, but warmer. Then with Michael and Annie, she had rigged an anchor from a heavy deadfall tree the horses had towed down. She had planned to pole the boat away from the shoreline if possible and had been in the process of searching for something with which to do the poling when Annie had pressed a switch on the engine controls—the engines had rumbled to life for an instant. Sarah had dried off the battery terminals, then started the engines again; this time the engines caught. Twin inboards, she had determined, and the fuel gauges read over half full. She had used the engine power to bring them to the center of the lake, and had dropped the anchor there for a safe night— the first she had spent in—She lurched forward, against the railing, hearing a tearing sound, the breaking of wood, the straining of metal. Behind her, the anchor rope had broken. She stared dumbly at where it had been, then down at the water.

There was a current. There hadn't been a current.

She ran into the main cabin. Finding her saddlebags and snatching the binoculars from them, she ran back on deck and focused the binoculars toward the dam at the far end of the lake.

"Jesus!! No!" She screamed the words. The dam had burst. The deck under her rocked; the horses inside the cabin whinnied, screaming, too, if animals could scream.

Annie's voice rang out to her. "Mommie!"

The houseboat, the warmth, the safety, the possibility of transportation it had offered, was being swept toward the dam in a rapidly increasing current.

Sarah Rourke stared skyward a moment at the gray clouds moving on a stiffening wind. She shouted, "Enough, God—enough!"

Rourke reached down and picked up a can of peaches. It was one of six cans left on the grocery-store shelf, the cans pushed forward, the empty portion of the shelf to the rear and out of casual sight. He was beginning to understand. The peaches, the cereal boxes—even the gasoline he had purchased for the Harley—all "pushed to the front."

As they walked outside—Martha had purchased a can of coffee inside—Rourke said to her, "I think I see it. Leave everything perfectly normal as long as possible, and then—"

"That'll take care of itself." She smiled. "Walk me to the library."

"All right," he nodded. He glanced at his wrist watch as they walked.

Seeing children strolling down the street with books in packs on their backs or stuffed under rheir arms, he thought of Michael and Annie. She would have been— It was three-fifteen in the afternoon. "School's out for today?"

"Yes." She smiled, saying nothing more.

Rourke kept walking with her, in silence, his leather jacket warm to him, but necessary to hide the shoulder

rig with the twin Detonics .s. His Harley was,relpcked in ihe garage, his other weapons w.ith it except for the Black Chrome Sting IA which was in its sheath inside the waistband of his Levi's on his left side.

"You don't need your guns," she said, as if she'd been reading his mind.

"No one would hurt you. You're my brother.'

"But I'm not your brother," he murmured, leaning down to her, smiling, as a group of children passed and waved, calling her "Mrs. Bogen."

"But that doesn't matter." Martha Bogen smiled, then looked at the children. "Hey Tommy, Bobby, Ellen— hey." And she kept walking.

Rourke slopped before they reached the library—the post office down the street from it. An American flag flew from the staff in front of it; a small garden was planted at the base of the staff.

"That's a pretty sight, isn't it—John?" She smiled.

"Yes," Rourke said. It was all he could say.

He felt something bump against him and looked down. A liltle child, a black mask covering the upper portion of his face, a white straw cowboy hat partially covering carrot red hair. "Sorry, mister," the little boy called out, running past him.

A woman, perhaps twenty-five, was walking after the little boy. She nodded to Martha Bogen and called after the child, "Harry—you take that mask off until tonight. You can't see where you're going!"

Rourke looked after the little boy, saying absently, "I grew up on that guy, him and his friend. Listened to him on the radio, then television."

Martha Bogen said, "Remember—it's Halloween."

"Halloween," Rourke repeated. "Right."

He followed her inside the library. As he had by now expected, there were teen-agers in the library, working on reports, it appeared; volumes of encyclopedias and other reference books were spread messily on several of the library tables. An older woman, white-haired, worked at the card catalog.

It was a library—perfectly normal.

"I have a few things to do. If you want you might like to look through the newspaper files," she offered, stopping beside a glass-fronted office.

"What—and read about Memorial Day and Valentine's Day?"

"I'll only be a little bit—I'll get some coffee going, then answer all of your questions."

"I have to leave—very soon," Rourke told her. "And you promised those trails."

"The library closes at five—there'll be plenty of light," she told him, then turned away and started into her office.

Shaking his head, he scanned the library shelves; his eyes stopped on a book that was appropriate—-at least part of the title. War and Peace. He smiled, murmuring half to himself, "We've had the war part." The white-haired woman at the card catalog looked at him strangely, and Rourke only smiled at her.

At five o'clock, trails or not, he was leaving the town. And if it meant shooting his way past policemen to do it, then he would. If it was Halloween here, he didn't want to find out what the locals meant by trick or treat.

"Hurry, Michael . . . Annie," Sarah shouted, taking the saddlebags off the back of Tildie's saddle and slinging them over her own shoulder—it could have been a death weight on her, she realized. She ripped a thong from the saddle and lashed the bags that were across her left shoulder under her right arm.

"Michael—you take that knife of yours—and when I tell you to, cut the rope on the railings—hurry."

"All right, Momma," the boy answered, reaching under his coat and producing what looked like a Bowie knife.

"My God—what a thing," she exclaimed. Then she turned to Annie. "You stay with me—take whatever I tell you to carry and do what I say."

The twin inboard engines weren't able to resist the current—she had tried longer than she should have and now it was impossible even to make way for one of the shorelines. But by swimming they might still escape the houseboat before it crashed against the remainder of the high concrete hydroelectric dam—or crashed through the massive gap in the center, to be crushed there where the water spilled now. Either way meant certain death for/

herself and the children.

But the horses would be strong swimmers, and if they held to the horses there would be a chance to escape the current.

Sarah released Tildie and Sam, then swung up onto Tildie's saddle, reaching down for Annie. "You hold these blankets—don't Jet go unless you have to or I telJ you to." If they made it out alive at all, the water would so soak them that the still-cool air temperatures would bring about chills, perhaps pneumonia. The blankets could be dried over a fire. Annie was in front of her, the little girl's crotch crushed against the front of the saddle.

In her right hand, the arm around Annie, Sarah held Tildie's repaired reins, then in her left she snatched Sam's. She ducked, keeping her head low to avoid crashing it against the ceiling. The houseboat shifted wildly under her now. "Michael—when I shout for you to do it, cut all the ropes you can, then swing aboard Sam and hold on tight and stay with me." She had thought, fleetingly, about tying the children aboard one of the horses, but if the horse were to get in trouble, the children would be powerless to help themselves. She swam, not well, but well enough, Sarah hoped. Annie could paddle around, but it wasn't really swimming. Michael was a strong swimmer for his age and size and couJd stay afloat—she prayed.

She kneed her horse ahead, holding back tight on the reins for control.

Ducking her head but not soon enough, she hit her forehead on the doorframe as Tildie passed through and onto the deck. The boards there were awash with cold spray from the current as the houseboat plowed through the water toward—the dam. She could see it clearly, the gaping holes, as if dynamite had opened it—

or perhaps some crack during the Night of the War, from the bombing. She didn't know what had caused it.

"Michael—the ropes! Cut the ropes. Hurry!"

"Right, Momma." And the boy—not a boy at all she again realized—turned to the ropes, hacking at them.

"Saw with it, Michael—saw with it!"

The boy had the highest of the ropes cut, then began working on the next.

Sarah reined in Tildie; Sam, inside the cabin still, bucked and reared.

Sarah was hardly able to keep the reins in her hands. "Hurry, Michael!

Hurry! I can't hold the horses much longer!" The second rope was cut. The boy glanced toward her once, then ignored her advice, and took the heavy-bladed Bowie pattern knife and chopped with it against the lower and final rope— again and again, the knife blade bounced up toward his face.

"Michael!" she screamed, but the last rope was cut.

She knew now that she could never get him aboard Sam. She edged Tildie forward, as Michael sheathed the knife. "Climb up behind me—and don't you let go of me," she heard herself shriek. Michael tugged at her left arm as she loosed Sam's reins, her arm aching as she helped him swing up behind her.

"Hold on!" she shouted, digging her heels into the frightened mare under her. The horse jumped ahead, through the opening in the guardrail and into the water. The mare's head went down, then surfaced. Sarah was washed in a wave of ice-cold spray that made her sjiiver. Annie screamed; Michael said, 'Tve got you, Momma!"

Sarah Rourke glanced behind her once. Sam had jumped for it, but she lost sight of him in the next instant. Now the houseboat was swirling toward the opening in the dam, spinning wildly like a leaf in a whirlpool.

"Tildie—save us, Tildie," Sarah shouted, afraid to dig

in her heels, the horse floundering under her. "Tildie!" she cried, as the horse's head went down.

"We've gotta jump, Momma," Michael shouted to her.

Sarah bit her lower lip, thought she had screamed; then, holding Annie tight in her arms, she shouted above the roar of the waters around her, "Michael—don't let go of me. And if I go under, you save Annie—do it." She jumped, her left foot momentarily caught up in the stirrup, then free as Tildie washed away in the current.

"Tildie," she shouted, the animal gone from sight. Michael clung to Sarah's neck. Sarah wanted to tell him to loosen his grip; it choked her, but she was afraid she'd lose him.

The saddlebags were filled with water now; the AR-was lost, their food and clothing gone except for what little she had in the bags.

She was swimming, fighting the current. Annie's mouth dipped under the water; Sarah fought to keep her up. Her breath, her own strength, was failing her; then Michael was gone.

"Michael!"

"Here," he shouted, suddenly beside her, no longer behind her, holding her left arm, helping her support his sister. "Momma—there's the shore!" Sarah looked up, the water pelting her face like waves of solid substance, slapping at her, hurting her.

She could see it—the shoreline, a muddy bank. She reached out her right arm, almost losing Annie, catching at the girl, the little girl saying, "I'm frightened, Mommie!"

"I am, too," Sarah cried as she saw the shoreline move rapidly away from her. Glancing to her right, she saw the opening in the dam growing wider by the instant. The

houseboat was now batting against the sides of the dam, then suddenly was sucked through, lost.

She reached out her right arm again; Michael was trying to tow her. She wanted to tell him to save himself—so at least one of them would survive.

"Michael!" "Keep going. Come on, Momma!" he shouted, water splashing across his open mouth, making him cough. Sarah was reaching, pulling, tugging, reaching, pulling, the shoreline still speeding past as she was pulled down by the current; but the shoreline somehow looked closer.

Michael was pulling at her, pulling at Annie—she couldn't understand what drove him.

She kept moving her arms, not really conscious of them anymore, not knowing if it was doing any good.

Left arm, right arm, left arm . . . She wanted to sleep, to open her mouth to the water.

She kept moving, her legs too tired now to push her.

Something hard, harder than the water hit at her face and she looked up—red clay, wet and slimy and . . . she wanted to kiss it.

Her left arm reached out, then her right, dragging Annie. The little girl was coughing, almost choking. Sarah slapped her on the back. "Annie!"

Annie slumped forward into the muddy clay and rolled onto her back, crying—alive.

"Michael!"

He wasn't there—he wasn't—"Michael!" She screamed, coughing, getting to her knees, slipping in the mud. She saw a dark spot on the water, staring into it.

His hair—dark brown, like his father's. "Michael!!" she screamed, tears rolling down her cheeks. Jump in and save him—yes, she thought. But if she died—Annie?

"Mich—" His head went below the surface and she died, but it was up again and his arms waved above the surface and he was coming toward her.

Sarah waded out into the water which thrashed around her waist. She tugged at the thong holding the saddlebags to her, loosed it awkwardly, then hurtled the bags to the shore, shouting to Annie, "Stay there, Annie!"

"Is Michael alive?"

Michael reached toward her and Sarah snatched at his hand. The boy came into her arms, both of them falling; then Sarah pushed them up toward the shore. Michael coughed.

"He's alive, Annie," Sarah whispered.

Michael hugged her, coughing still, and then Annie's arms were around her neck and the little girl was laughing and Sarah was laughing too. She whispered, 'Thank God for the Y.M.CA. pool!"

Rourke sat sipping the coffee.

"So when the war broke out—well we were always pretty cut off from the outside world, but we knew about it. The television reception here was never very good, but we lost the television stations, then the radio stations we could get. We knew ... all of it, as it happened. We sat up through the night in the town square, most of us, and we could see the lights on the horizons around the valley. We knew what was happening. We all sort of decided that living in a world that had been destroyed wouldn't be living at all. All but six families—and they left. They're probably dead now. See, we don't raise much more than what we have in truck gardens. The gas stations had just gotten their supplies before the war took place, and with no one going anywhere, well, we didn't use much gas. A lot of us—mostly everybody—just walk to work and such."

"So you decided to keep things going—just like before," Rourke told her.

"More or less." She smiled, sipping at her coffee, then pouring fresh coffee for Rourke. "At least to try."

"But—"

"But we realized it couldn't last forever. We only had so much. So we worked it out carefully—all of us. We all did. We were always close-knit—"

"You're not from here," Rourke said flatly, sipping his coffee.

"No. I'm not. It was my husband who was born here. He went away to medical school. We married and he brought me back here with him."

"How did (he town live?" Rourke asked her. "I saw that factory—"

"That's only been here the last seven years. It was all cottage industry before that. The factory makes some sort of equipment for the space program or the defense department; the people who work there never were quite sure.

"It doesn't make anything, anymore," Rourke said soberly.

"The factory is still running—"

"Making what?" Rourke heard himself snap.

"What they did before—everything is like it was before."

"That's useless. That's insane! For what purpose?" Rourke asked her. "I mean—O.K., the holiday thing is pretty obvious. Make everyone happy as long as you can—but then what? What'll you do when the food runs out and—"

"We won't do anything."

Rourke lit one of his small, dark tobacco cigars—he was running low on those and would have to restock at the Retreat. "What was your cottage industry?"

"Fireworks." She smiled.

He felt strange—perhaps at the realization of what she was telling him.

"You're not—"

.

"When strangers came in after the Night of the War, we asked them to stay.

Some of them decided to join us. The rest of them are being taken care of—and they'll be released. That's why the police have gone to twelve-hour shifts."

"When'll they be released?"

"Christmas was always our favorite holiday here, the reunion of family and friends. It's—"

Rourke hammered his hands palm downward onto her desk, then glanced over his shoulder toward the library behind him through the glass partition; it was dark, empty. He looked at his watch. It was after five. His vision was blurring.

"I wanted you to stay."

Rourke stood up, suddenly feeling strange, lurching half across the desk.

"Coffee," he murmured.

"We have the entire valley mined with explosives. And the night after tomorrow night, there'll be a fireworks display and then all of us ...

we'll—"

Rourke fell across the desk, cursing his stupidity. He looked up at her.

"Mass—"

"Suicide." She smiled, finishing his thought. "All two thousand three hundred forty-eight people in the town. That's why no one minded the lie, John. When I called you Abe." Rourke was having trouble hearing her, seeing her. He snatched for one of his Detonics pistols, but she held his wrist and he could not move his arm. "I was the only one who didn't have a family. My husband is dead. We had no children—there wasn't ever the time—the time to have children. But now I won't die alone, John."

He started to talk, his tongue feeling thick, unresponsive.

"I helped my husband in the clinic. I know how to use his drugs. You won't be able to do a thing, John—until it's too late, and then you can die with me, John."

She was stroking his head, smiling, and he felt her bend over to him and kiss his cheek. "It'll be all right, John; this is the better way. We'll all die and it will always be the same—normal, like it used to be."

Rourke tried to move his mouth to speak; he couldn't.

It was heavy rain now, cold but not freezing, dripping down inside the collar of his permanently borrowed &#;Army field jacket, his hair too wet to bother with pulling up the hood. His gloves were sodden. The Schmeisser was wrapped in a ground cloth and the Browning High Power was under his jacket. His boots were wet, the Harley having splashed through inches-deep puddles in the road surface, and the going was slow to avoid a big splash that could drown the engine.

He squinted through his rain-smeared glasses— Kentucky. He was entering Kentucky.

Paul Rubenstein wondered two things: would he ever see Natalia again now that she was safe with Russian troops, and had Rourke made it through the storm to find Sarah and the children yet?

Natalia had told the Russian commander that he, Rubenstein, was a Soviet spy who had been escorting her through American territory because he posed as one and was known to the Resistance people operating the area, thought to be one of them. His stomach churning as he'd done it, Rubenstein had agreed, backed up her story. Nat alia V credentials checked; he had been released.

They had shaken hands only, but she had blown him a kiss by .pursing her lips as they had spoken a few yards from the Soviet troops. Then he had boarded his machine and started back into the storm.

He had looked at her over his shoulder once; she hadn't waved, but he'd felt she would have if she could have.

And John—that Rourke had gotten through the storm at all wasn't something over which Rubenstein worried— Rourke was all but invincible, unstoppable.

But, as he released the handlebar a moment to push his glasses up from the bridge of his nose, Rubenstein wondered—had John Rourke found them yet?

Tildie had wandered ashore minutes after Sarah had taken Michael out of the water; Annie had been the first to spot her. The animal was visibly shuddering.

Sarah had built a fire by the shoreline in the shelter of some rocks and a red clay embankment; then having done what she could to warm the children, she had mounted Tildie—feeling the only way to warm the animal was to exercise her, then rub her down. Promising to keep them in sight, Sarah had started along the water's edge perhaps twenty feet above the shoreline, the wind of the slipstream around her and the animal, chilling her to the bone, but the animal responding.

Sarah clutched the patched-together reins, leaning into Tildie's mane to let the animal break the wind for her. The air temperature was cold, but vastly warmer than it had been. In her heart, she knew the reason why she rode—to think; and she had another reason as well, to search for Sam, her husband's horse, her son's horse. Tildie couldn't carry Michael, Annie, and herself for very long.

And there was affection as well, the affection between human and animal; she wanted to know that Sam was

alive or dead, not half-broken and crushed and suffering.

She reined m Tildie, about a quarter-mile closer to the damtiow. On tire red clay embankment beneath her she could see a shape, stained with mud, moving in the tree line.

"Sam!" Sarah wasn't ready to risk the embankment with Tiidie. She dismounted, securing Tildie's reins to a sapling Georgia pine, then started down the muddy embankment toward the trees by the shore. She could see the form clearly now—an animal.

She broke through the tree line, stopping. "Sam!"

The horse, its white hide covered in a wash of red— blood?—started toward her. Closer now, she could see it was only mud. She held out her hands.

The animal, frightened and weary, came toward her, nuzzling against her outstretched hands.

"Sam!" She hugged the animal to her, the wetness of her own clothing seeming to wash away some of the red clay mud on the animal's neck. She checked the saddle, that it was secure, then swung up, catching up the rein almost as an afterthought. Her feet dangled below the stirrups which had been set to Michael's leg length.

"Gotta get you out of here, Sam," she cooed, stroking his once-black mane and his red-smeared white neck. "Gotta get out of here." She nudged the animal forward with her knees. . . .

It had taken time to find a way up the embankment, one that the exhausted animal under her could navigate; then she had gone back for Tildie. Sarah had switched to Tildie's back and led Sam, his cinch loosened and some of the mud covering him already flaking away.

By the time she returned to the children, Annie was

shivering uncontrollably and Michael was gone. Her heart seemed to stop, but then Michael reappeared, more wood for the fire cradled in his arms.

She suddenly noticed he had no jacket—he had given it to Annie.

She warmed Annie with her own body until the shivering subsided to where the little girl could control it. She talked, not to Annie or Michael, not really to herself, but just to think. "I lost my rifle. The horses are exhausted. Those maniacs, the one with the human-teeth necklace and the others, are probably still out there."

She heard something which at once frightened her and comforted her. It would be Brigands; but the sound was lhat of a truck engine. . . .

She left Michael with Annie and the horses, a half mile away, and hid herself, shivering in her wet clothes, in a bracken of pines not far from the water's edge. There was one truck, a pickup, and in the back of it, she noticed cans of extra fuel. With extra gasoline, she could run the truck's heater. It was a Ford, and she had driven Ford pickups often. She could drive this one.

There were ten Brigands in sight, and if two rode the pickup truck it matched with the number of motorcycles—eight bikes in all. Holding her husband's . automatic in her right fist she wiped the palm of her hand against the thigh of her wet jeans. She did not know whether gunpowder was destroyed by water; would the gun shoot at aff, would it blow up on her?

There wasonfy one way to find out.

She started down from the trees, edging closer toward the shore. The Brigands huddled by a fireside away from the vehicles, their weapons on the ground beside them or leaning beside tree trunks. She recognized some of the

guns as Colt-type rifles, perhaps AR-s like the gun she had lost in the lake.

All would be lost if the key had been removed from the truck. She knew cars and trucks could be started without keys, but she didn't know how.

Her track shoes squishing, the bandanna wet over her hair, her body shivering under the woolen coat, she edged toward the front of the truck.

She ducked, hiding by the grill, listening as one of the Brigands rasped, "I gotta take a leak—be back in a second."

She heard gravel crunching—louder, coming toward her.

She pressed her body against the front of the truck; the engine was still warm and she could feel its heat. The gravel crunching and the sound of the Brigand's feet against the dirt were coming closer, becoming louder.

The ., cocked with the safety off, was in her right hand. She held her breath.

The man passed her, walking off into the trees from which she had come.

She let out a long sigh, then upped the safety on her pistol and peered around behind the rear of the truck, toward the other Brigands.

They still huddled around the fire—nine of them. She pushed herself up to her full height and came around toward the driver's side. The button on the door was up. Before touching the door, she looked inside. "Thank you, God," she murmured. The keys were in the ignition.

She shifted the pistol to her left hand, then with her right hand tried the door handle. It opened easily, the door creaking slightly on its hinges. She waited. None of the Brigands turned around.

She started up into the truck, then heard, "Hey—

hey, bitch!"

She glanced behind her, toward the front of the truck. It was the man who'd passed her, gone into the trees to urinate. In that instant, she cursed men for being able to do it so fast.

Sarah Rourke shifted the gun into her right hand, worked down the safety with her right thumb and pointed the pistol straight out between the open door and the body of the truck. She didn't say, "Hold it—don't come any closer." An old Sarah Rourke would have said that. She felt it in her bones. She pulled the trigger, the pistol bucking once in her right hand; the man's face exploded in blood.

She dismissed him mentally, climbing aboard and setting down the pistol, the safety upped again. Her right hand worked the ignition, her left foot the clutch, her righl foot the gas. She hadn't driven in so long, she thought. The engine rumbled reassuringly, then caught.

With her left elbow, she pushed down the door-lock button to give herself an extra instant while she found the emergency brake.

She heard the creaking of hinges, looked across the seat, and saw a face—one of the Brigands. "What the fu—" She picked up the pistol as the man started for his, and she fired. His left eye seemed to explode and the body slumped away.

She found the emergency brake, released it, and popped the clutch, looking to her left; there was a man clinging to the driver's side of the truck.

She kept driving, hearing the man's muted curses, the hammering of his fist against the window.

Looking behind her, seeing the angry eyes of the man who held on, Sarah worked the transmission into

reverse. She accelerated, the rear end of the Ford smashing into the motorcycles, her body lurching as she stomped on the brakes. She forgot the clutch; the engine died. The man still hung on, hammering against the window. She depressed the clutch with her left foot, working the key again. The engine wasn't catching. She could hear gunfire, shots pinging against the hood of the truck. She sucked in her breath, almost screaming; there was a smashing sound, of glass. She saw what the bullet had hit—the right-hand outside mirror was gone.

She tried the key again, murmuring, "Please—start— please!"

The engine rumbled to life and she put the stick into first; then as she started downward pressure on the gas, she popped the clutch, the truck lurching ahead under her. She glanced into the rear-view—the bikes were a mass of twisted metal behind her, jammed into the trees like paper clips into a box.

The man clinging beside her was still hammering on the glass. Another of the Brigands threw himself toward the hood. Sarah cut the wheel hard right, and the man slid away.

There was more gunfire, the window behind her head spiderwebbing with a bullet hole, but not shattering.

She kept driving, the man behind her hammering on the glass with his head now, screaming at her. She had to gel away. A stray bullet could hit the gasoline in the back of the truck, could kill her—and what would happen to Michael and Annie.

She couldn't roll down the window to shoot the man. Instead, she sideswiped the Ford into the trees, and the man screamed so loudly she could hear it distinctly.

There was red blood smeared against the driver's-side

window now as she upshifted and started away; men, visible in the outside mirror on the driver's side, were running behind her, firing. But she didn't think they would catch her. , After leading the Brigands off, she returned for Michael and Annie. Then she checked the gasoline. It would be enough to get them to Tennessee, to the Mulliner farm, or close enough at least, she judged.

The children, for the last ten minutes, had been wrapped in the blankets found in the back of the truck. They were sitting in the truck cab, naked under the blankets, the heat running full.

She picked up Sam's saddle and tossed it inside the truck bed, then did the same with Tildie's saddle.

She walked over to the animals, hugged Tildie at the neck, and stroked Sam's forehead between the dark eyes. "I love you guys," she whispered, kissing Tildie's muzzle, then slipping her bridle. She slipped Sam's bridle, then swatted both horses on the rumps, sending them off aiong the shoreline. She looked after them for an instant, manes cutting the wind, tails high. She turned away and cried.

The air felt almost warm to her. The wind lashed back her hair as the borrowed motorcycle rumbled between her legs, her body leaning into it as she navigated a tight turn, and read a sign, water-stained and half knocked down. There had been a museum there; it was now a barracks.

Natalia gunned the Kawasaki ahead. The response didn't seem like that of Rourke's bike. Rourke, she thought.

She wondered if he had found them yet. Were they back in the Retreat, picking up their lives together? And Paul—she smiled. He was a good man, a good friend to them both.

"Both," she repeated into the wind, not hearing it because of the slipstream. Words like both, or us—they were meaningless to her now.

The shore of Lake Michigan seemed remarkably peaceful to her—she watched the smallish whitecaps far off beyond the parkways, liking her view, but sorry for it. She squinted her eyes tight shut, then opened them, realizing how tired she was. She had not wanted to stay with the Soviet troops who had found her with Paul. She had driven with them toward Gary, Indiana, then

borrowed the motorcycle, taking something called "Skyway" and winding her way toward South Lake Shore Drive through what remained of Chicago. The buildings stood, but not a tree grew, not a blade of grass; not a dog yelped in the streets. There were no children. The neutron bombing had seen to that.

She followed the drive north, toward the museum that Varakov so religiously preserved, despite the fact that her uncle used it as his headquarters. And the KGB headquarters were there as well. She wondered, almost absently, if Rozhdestvenskiy had arrived yet from the Soviet Union, to replace her late husband. There had been rumors that he had, and unconfirmed though they had been, she hadn't doubted them.

She almost missed the turnoff, left into the small drive past the museum; not bothering to stop, she slowed so the guards could identify her.

She made a left onto the southbound drive, then a fast left into the museum parking lot, past more guards. The guards saluted, Natalia only nodding.

She parked the bike at the foot of the museum steps, dismounting as she let down the stand. She ran her hands across her face, through her hair.

"Major Tiemerovna . . . you are—"

"Alive." She smiled, looking at the face that belonged to the voice. It was that of a young corporal, a frequent sentry at the museum. "Thank you for caring." She smiled again. "Please, make arrangements to return this motorcycle to Captain Konstantin with the forces in Gary, Indiana; it was a loan."

"Yes, Comrade Major." The younger man saluted. She nodded, gesturing toward her clothes, then started up the steps, two at a time, the pistols shaking in the holsters

against her hips; the gun barrels with the American Eagles on them had elicited raised eyebrows on her comrades in Indiana. She smiled thinking about that. A gift given in friendship—she would use them from now on.

She stopped at the height of the steps to look at the sun, appearing reddish orange over the lake.

How long would from now on be? she wondered. She thought of Rourke, and she shook her head, tossing her hair back as she moved through the brass-looking doors into the museum; then she started across the vast main hall. She saw the figures of the mastodons that her uncle seemed so obsessed with watching, studying. And beyond them, on the small mezzanine, where she had thought she would find him, he stood, staring—at the mastodons.

There were men and women moving about the main hall, office workers, messengers. Ignoring them, she shouted, running now, past the mastodons, "Uncle Ishmael!"

The face turned toward her as she called again "Uncle!" She saw his thick lips forming into a smile, his arms outstretching, his uniform blouse opening. And as his arms expanded toward her and she took the mezzanine steps two at a time, running, his jacket opened wider, revealing the potbelly he had always had ever since her first remembrance of him—like a father. And like a daughter, she came into his arms, hugging his neck, feeling the strength of his arms around her.

"Natalia Anastasia," he murmured.

"Uncle." And she held him tightly.

"You are well, child?" he asked, folding her in his right arm, turning to stare across the museum's

great hall.

She stood beside him. "Yes, Uncle—I am well."

"The storm—when I heard that our troops found you, my heart—if an old man's heart can sing, then mine did," he said, not looking at her.

She studied his face.

"When I did not receive word from Chambers, the American president, I was frightened. For you."

"John Rourke flew all of us out of Florida, Uncle; he helped Paul Rubenstein find his parents. We took off just as—"

"Just as the final tremor hit. Thank—" He looked at her and laughed. "Yes, thank Lenin's ghost, child." And he laughed again. "That man, the mole agent who accompanied you when our troops found you, I assume he was Paul Rubenstein, the young Jew?"

"Yes, Uncle," she answered, her voice low, looking away. "I couldn't—"

"Betray a friend? I would not have expected you to, child. But I need to know. It is important. Is it the young—"

"Yes. It was Paul Rubenstein," she told him, fishing in her bag for her cigarettes, finding one, then a lighter, working the lighter, and then inhaling the smoke deep into her lungs.

"Such a bad habit—this smoking. You do it more since the death of Karamatsov."

"I know." She smiled, exhaling the smoke through her nostrils, watching it hang on the air for a moment, then begin to dissipate.

"You may see Rourke again—soon. Does this distress your "He's been captur—"

"Captured? Hardly. I think he is more ghost than man, sometimes. No. But I must speak with this man of yours."

She felt her hand trembling as she touched the end of the cigarette to her lips, inhaling the smoke. "He is not—"

"The wrong phrase, then." Varakov smiled. "Can you find Rourke for me?"

"Uncle, I—"

"I would not ask if it were not of vital importance. I need someone who has honor, someone who—I will explain it all to you later, Natalia. You cannot find him?"

"I do not know where to look, Uncle," she answered. "The storm—he went into it, to search for his wife and children—"

"Alone. And he sent this Rubenstein with you, to care for-you?"

"Yes. I tried to tell him I could—"

"It matters little, child, to a man who loves a woman, that she can care for herself, perhaps better under some circumstances than he could care for her^ or have her cared for. He did what I would have done. He has two lives, and is loyal to them both. He pursued one while he sent the other of his two lives under the care of this man who seems to be his best friend. He should be Russian, this Rourke."

"I wish he were." She smiled, then looked away.

Her uncle, Natalia not looking at him as he spoke, said, "You will give me as complete a description as possible of Rubenstein, of the vehicle he drove—"

"A motorcycle—like Rourke's, only blue."

"A motorcycle—only blue, yes. And the direction in which he would be traveling. Even now Rozhdestvenskiy

is rerouting my retreating troops, forming a strike force. I must talk with this Rubenstein in order to find Rourke. He has a place where he operates from—and this Jew can find it for me. I must talk with Rourke."

"Why?" She looked at her uncle then.

"You must trust me—that Rubenstein will not be harmed, nor will Rourke.

And while my men search for this young man, I have a job for you. It is perhaps the most dangerous mission you have ever had."

"Where must I go, Uncle?"

"Into Rozhdestvenskiy's private office. Walk with me and we shall discuss it."

Her palms sweated as she stubbed out tbe cigarette in a pedestal ashtray, then followed him slowly—because his feet;hurt, she could tell—down the steps.

As he leaned back in his chair, the telephone cradled beside his left ear, against his shoulder, Nehemiah Rozhdestvenskiy studied his face in the reflection of the mirror opposite his desk. He studied the toes of his shoes; they sparkled.

"Yes," he answered into the receiver. "Yes, Comrade. ... I cannot hear you. . . . The connection is ... yes—now. Work goes ahead on the Womb construction. ... I have already begun martialing forces to restart the factories needed. . . . No, Comrade, I have not made copies of the Eden Project documents. Should they fall into the wrong hands . . ." He coughed, covering up, he hoped, the fact that he had been about to interrupt Anatol Tporich, the supreme head of the KGB. "No, Comrade. A courier even now brings to your offices a copy of the abstract and my initial report of the findings. There can be no mistake. The factories will work four six-hour shifts to keep the laborers and technicians fresh.

They will be housed in the factories and not allowed outside contact... .

. And—" He coughed again, to cover another interruption. "Yes, Comrade—only KGB personnel . . . No, Comrade—not Major Tiemerovna. I

agree that-her loyalties may lie—** Tporich was lecturing him about security and Rozhdestvenskiy disliked anyone lecturing him on a subject at which he himself was so expert. "I will be constantly vigilant, Comrade.

... am losing your voice, Comrade!" There was much static. High-attitude bombers were being used as communications relays for overseas radio transmissions with all satellites down or out of service since the Night of the War. "There ... I hear you. Yes, Comrade." Rozhdestvenskiy lit a cigarette, studying his gleaming teeth in the mirror for a moment as he did. "Yes. ... I realize, Comrade, how little time remains. The Womb will be ready. . . . This I swear as a loyal member of the party."

The line clicked off, dead.

Rozhdestvenskiy studied the abstract of the Eden Project again. It was clear, concise, but incomplete. He needed more information. But he had not told Tporich that. He would find out what he needed to know in time. He had to, in order to live.

And to live—he had always felt—was all. After life, there was nothing.

Rubenstein felt better. He was making better time. The weather was almost warm again as he moved through Kentucky, nearing the Tennessee line, the Harley eating the miles since he had made the stop near the strategic fuel reserve of which Rourke had told him.

There was slush, heavy slush at the higher elevations. And in case the temperature dropped with evening, he wanted to get as far south as possible. If he pressed, he could get near the Georgia line and be well toward Savannah by nightfall. By now, Rourke should be crisscrossing the upper portion of the state and into the Carolinas, looking for Sarah and the children. Perhaps—Rubenstein fell himself smile at the thought—perhaps Rourke had already found them. Should he, Rubenstein, start for the Retreat?

He should follow the plan, he decided. If Rourke had designed it, it was—Rubenstein looked up; a helicopter, American but with a Soviet star stenciled over it, was passing low along the highway, coming up fast behind him.

"Holy shit!" Rubenstein bent low over the machine, running out the Harley to full throttle. He had almost

forgotten about the Russians; and what .were they doing? "Joy riding," he snapped, releasing the handlebar a moment to push his wire-rimmed glasses back off his nose. "Damn it!"

The helicopter was directly above him, hovering. Rubenstein started to reach for his pistol to fire, but the machine pulled away, vanishing up ahead of him.

Rubenstein braked the Harley, glancmg to his right; there was a dirt road, little more than a track. He wondered if he could take it. Should he? The helicopter was coming back, toward him, and Rubenstein had no choice. He wrenched the bike into a hard right, sliding across the slushy highway toward the dirt road beyond, jumping the bike over a broad flat low rock.

As his hands worked the controls, the bike came down hard under him, and throttled up to take the incline with some speed as he started up the dirt track.

There was a loudspeaker sounding Behind him. "Paul Rubenstein. You are ordered to stop your machine. You are ordered to stop and lay down your arms. You will not be harmed."

Rubenstein glanced skyward, at the helicopter almost directly over him.

He bounced the bright blue Harley up over a ridge of dirt and onto a board bridge. There was a second helicopter now, joining the pursuit.

The loudspeaker again. "You will injure yourself if you pursue this course of action. We mean you no harm." The voice was heavily accented. "You are ordered to surrender!"

"Eat it!" Rubenstein shouted up to the helicopter, the downdraft of the rotor blades making his voice come back to him. Ahead of him he could see the second helicopter,

hovering low, too low over the road where it widened. He could see uniformed troopers in the massive open doors of the formerly U.S. machine.

He heard the Russian voice again on the loudspeaker. "Paul Rubenstein.

This is by order of General Varakov; you are to stop immediately and lay down your arms."

Rubenstein spotted what Rourke had told him once was a deer trail; it looked the same. He wrenched the bike into a hard left, onto the deer trail, the branches cracking against his face and body as he forced the machine through. The path was bumpier than the dirt road he had just left.

"Paul Rubenstein . . . you are ordered to—"

He looked up, cursing under his breath, then looked ahead of him. A deadfall tree lay across the path. He started to brake, and the Harley skidded from under him. Rubenstein threw himself clear, hitting the ground hard.

He pushed himself to his feet, the Harley lost somewhere in the trees. He started to run, snatching at the battered High Power under his jacket. He stopped at the tree line, snapping off two fast shots toward the nearest helicopter; the machine backed off. He had lost sight of the other one after heading onto the deer path.

Machine-gun fire was coming at him, hammering into the ground and the trees ten yards behind him as he ran, swatting away the tree branches that snapped at his face. Pine boughs still laden with snow pelted him, washing wet snow across his face. The machine-gun fire was edging closer and he dropped to his knees, wheeling, firing the High Power in rapid, two-shot semiautomatic bursts.

The helicopter backed off.

"Son of a gun." He smiled, pushing himself to his feet,

turning to run again.

Three Russian soldiers blocked the path. The other helicopter, he realized, had landed its men.

Rubenstein started to bring the pistol on line to fire, but something hammered at the back of his neck and he fell forward, the gun dropping from his grip.

Hands reached down to him; voices spoke to him in Russian. Rubenstein rolled onto his back, his left foot snapping up and out, into the crotch of one of the Russians; the man doubled over.

Rubenstein reached up, snatching hold of a fistful of uniform, hauling himself up to his knees as he dragged the soldier down, his left fist smashing upward, into the face. Then he was on his feet, running. Someone tackled him; he went down, the ground slapping hard against him.

Another man was on top of him, holding him. Rubenstein snapped his left elbow back, found something hard against it, and heard a moan and what sounded like a curse despite the language barrier.

He pushed himself up, wheeling, his left swinging out, catching the tip of a chin. A man. fell back under his blow.

Rubenstein wheeled again. He saw the two bunched-together fists swinging toward him like a baseball bat, felt the pain against the side of his neck, then there was nothing but darkness and a warm feeling.

John Rourke squinted against the light, his belly aching, a sudden stabbing pain in his left upper arm. The pain was familiar—the arm aching like a bad tooth. He moved that arm, but it wouldn't move well. And when he opened his eyes, his vision was blurred. His other limbs didn't work when he told them to. He fell, feeling something tight around bis neck, choking him, feeling bands on his shoulders, moving him.

A voice. "John . . . John. I told you the last time, don't try to stand up. You can't walk; don't you know that by now? Thanksgiving's almost past. I'm sorry I couldn't give you any turkey; you've been throwing up everything I give you. But tomorrow's Christmas and then it'll all be over."

Rourke shook his head, murmuring, "I like turkey— Thanksgi— Christmas?"

"I'll help you onto the cot." Above him a woman's face smiled.

"Strong," he muttered, feeling her hands under his armpits. He wanted to help her, very badly because the floor was cold under him. Naked? His hands—he squinted to look at them. Tied together. So were his

ankles. The thing around his neck choked him again.

"Vm sorry, John. That rope around your neck—it got caught on the edge of the cot. I'll fix it." The pressure around his neck subsided.

"Thanks—Martha," he murmured. Martha? Martha Bogen? "Coffee," he shouted, his own voice sounding odd to him, his tongue feeling dry and thick and hot.

"Yes. You asked the same question the last two times I gave you an injection. I drugged the coffee with chloral hydrates—I just had to give you so much of it it made you sick. And I gave myself an apomo.rphine shot after I drank the first cup. I just threw it up. So it didn't bother me. I just made myself throw up. You are very forgetful, John." The voice cooed, good-naturedly.

"Sor—" Why was he sorry? he wondered. Because he was forgetful? He couldn't remember why he was sorry.

There was another needle plunged into his arm, and the pain was there again.

Why was she giving him two shots? He tried to think— if he could think.

The nausea—from the chloral hydrate she had said. But not the shots. "Not the shots," he verbalized.

"It'll be all right, John. I'll give you the antidote and when I do in thirty seconds you'll be just fine—honestly. And then we can hold each other's hands maybe and watch when the fireworks start and the mountains start to crash down on us. We'll die together. Neither one of us will ever be alone again, John." He saw her face; it looked distorted to him, like something seen through a tube with the lighting wrong. She was smiling.

"I still have all my husband's drugs, John, so I can bring you out of this very easily when it's time. Just a day

or so, really. You'll just feel like you're very drunk and it won't bother you. It hasn't. And then when I give you the antidote you'll be your old self again."

She kissed him on the cheek; he could feel it. He tried moving his arms, but they wouldn't move.

"Now, John," she said with what sounded like a mother's severity to him.

"Even if you should get yourself untied, it won't do you any good. With what I've given you, you can't walk and you can't really think too well.

You're locked in the library basement and I've taken your clothes and those guns of yours. I'll be back in a few hours with another set of shots. Maybe we can get some good soup or something into you after it all wears off. But I think if I fed you now, well, you'd just get all sick again."

He felt her kiss his cheek again, and then she disappeared from his line of sight.

He heard a door open, shut, and the sound of a key in a lock.

There was nothing else to do, he thought, so he started to move his shoulders and his hips. He kept moving them, throwing his weight to his right; then he rolled.

The basement floor slapped hard against his body and the side of his face.

The pain—it cleared his head. He rolled with much effort, twisting his body and throwing his weight, onto his back. He tried to move his legs; they wouldn't move. He squinted against the light, looking at the ropes on his hands. Ordinary rope—clothesline, he thought. He tried tugging against the rope; his arms didn't respond.

"Muscle relaxant—curare deriv—" He felt the nausea welling up inside him and leaned back his head, staring at