Total War

Chapter Thirty

"I never wore a cowboy hat before," Rubenstein said. "Except when I was a kid."

Rourke turned as he started opening the door into the church. "Is that a fact? Come on."

Rourke stepped inside, Rubenstein behind him. Then both men turned back toward the door. Rubenstein started coughing. "My God!"

"Yeah, ain't it though," Rourke said, turning back to look down the church's long main aisle and toward the altar. The smell of burnt flesh was strong. The pews had been converted into beds-people were lined one after the other, head to head along them.

Rourke started up the aisle. The pews were jammed with burn victims, as were the floors. He picked his way past the people in the aisles. A few were sitting up. They had open, festering sores on their beet-red faces. Many of them had their eyes bandaged. There were nuns-about six or seven-moving slowly about the church, and near the front of the church he saw a priest. He walked toward the man, tapped him on the shoulder.

The priest was gently washing the face of a little girl. The hair on the left side of her head was burned away. Her face was a mass of blisters. "Father?" Rourke said.

The priest turned toward him then. Rourke studied the priest's face. He was dark-apparently Chicano. It looked like he hadn't shaved for several days. "Father, my name is Rourke. My friend here and I are from a commercial jetliner that crashed about twenty-five miles south of here. I need to find a hospital, some medical-" but he stopped.

The priest's eyes were almost smiling, but not quite. Rourke whispered, "This is the hospital?"

"Yes. All the hospitals were destroyed in the firestorm. We here are doing what we can, but there must be thousands out there in the ruins-like this one. There is no one to help your people on the plane."

"What about medical supplies?" Rourke asked.

"Water-and that is running out. We make bandages from what we can."

"I see," Rourke said slowly, starting to stand. Then he leaned over the little girl. He said, "Are you a doctor, Father?"

"We have no doctor."

Rourke looked back to Rubenstein, and Rubenstein nodded, his face set in a grim mask.

"You do now-at least for a few hours. I'm a doctor."

"God has heard me," the priest said, crossing himself and smiling.

"Well, I can't say about that."

He started working then, until sunrise, then noon, and long into the afternoon. As soon as he thought he'd seen every patient, another was brought in.

The little girl died at noon. There were no drugs, no pain killers and Rourke realized bitterly that most of the more serious cases would end in death. But at least he had been able to help some of them. As night started to fall, he checked one of the worst cases again. The man was dead. Rourke covered his sticky, raw-face with a sheet, then stood. Rubenstein was helping the priest move one of the dead, a woman, into the courtyard behind the church.

Rourke followed them, stopping just outside the door. There were dozens of bodies in the yard, seventy-five or more, Rourke judged. Rourke walked over to the priest. "Father, I'm going to have to get back to the plane now."

"Yes. I have been waiting all afternoon for you to say this. I knew you would have to return to the airplane. May God go with you."

"You'd better get those bodies buried, Father. Soon."

"I will do what I can."

"Move them and burn them, then," Rourke advised.

The priest stared at Rourke. "They will be buried. I know most of these people. They were Catholic. They must be buried as Catholics."

"If I could, I'd hang around and help," Rourke said quietly. "I'm sorry."

"You have helped-and God bless you for it."

Rourke took the priest's outstretched hand, then turned to go. "I'm coming, John," Rubenstein said.

Rourke turned to him, holding his hat in his hands, saying, "After all this time, I don't know what we'll find out there, Paul."

"I know that," the smaller man said. "I'm going with you anyway."

Rourke just nodded, turned, and started toward the main doors, Rubenstein behind him. It was dark again by the time Rourke and Rubenstein reached the edge of the city. The howling of the wild dogs in the distance grew louder with the failing darkness.

Much of the residential section here had not been burned, but was deserted. "Where'd you suppose everyone went?" Rubenstein said.

"Up there," said Rourke, pointing toward the mountains on the other side of the city. "For some reason, whenever there's disaster, people always think of going to the mountains. Santa Fe is probably a giant refugee center by now. Doesn't look like there were any hits up there, either."

"Why don't we go to Santa Fe for help, then?"

"Too far to walk, and if the town is still functioning, I'd guess they don't have any doctors, nurses, or medical supplies to spare."

"How come you're a doctor but you run around with guns?"

"That's a long story."

"I got the time," Rubenstein said.

"Well, briefly, I studied to be a doctor, went all through college and medical school, even interned. But then I started watching what was happening in the world and said to myself that as a doctor, all I'd be able to do would be to patch things up for other people. Maybe in the CIA or something like that, I thought, I could keep things from needing to be patched up for a while longer. After a few years in covert operations, down in Latin America, mostly, I saw that wasn't possible. I'd always been into guns-hunting, the outdoors, the whole nine yards. Started getting interested in survivalism. I was a weapons expert already, found myself writing articles and books on it, started getting into the technical side of survival. Wrote about that, too. Because of my degree, I wound up doing a lot of seminars on survival medicine, stuff like that. I traveled all around the United States, parts of Latin America, the Mideast, Europe-teaching survivalism, weapons training. Anyway, here I am."

They walked on in silence for a few minutes, then Rourke stopped Rubenstein as they passed a house on their left. It seemed totally intact. There was a garage at the end of a long driveway, the door closed all the way.

"Look at that," Rourke said, "and see if you're thinking what I'm thinking."

He didn't wait for Rubenstein to reply, but started sprinting toward the garage, up the driveway. He stopped at the garage door and tried it. Locked.

Reaching under his leather jacket, he snatched one of the Detonics pistols from its shoulder holster. "Now I've got a lock I'm gonna shoot-get out of the way," he said.

He aimed at the lock and fired once. The lock and most of the handle fell away. "Go find something to pry at this door with," Rourke said.

In a moment, Rubenstein was back, but empty handed.

"What's the matter?"

"I found something better than a prybar. The side door was unlocked."

"Did you look inside?"

"Yeah. The prettiest '57 Chevy you ever saw. It's up on blocks, but the tires are there."

Rourke followed Rubenstein into the garage. A tarpaulin was draped half over the gleaming fireengine red and chrome vintage car. "Look for some gas," Rourke almost whispered.

Ten minutes later, they had found three two-gallon gas cans and were beginning to put the wheels on the car. Working now on the last wheel, Rourke said, "Here," then handed Rubenstein one of his pistols. "Take this and look around the block. See if you can find any more gas. That's the gun I used on the door. It's only got five rounds left in it. If I hear you shoot, I'll come running."

Rourke tightened the last of the lug nuts, then started working on the garage door, pulling the chains taut and pushing up until he had released the locking mechanism. He slid the overhead door up and clear of the frame, then walked back to the Chevy. He searched under the front seat and found the ignition key. Then he slid into the front seat and put the key in the ignition. He got out again, took the one water jug he'd brought from the church for himself and Rubenstein to use and checked the battery. He had to pour most of the water into it. He opened the radiator cap-the radiator seemed full when he shone his flashlight inside and he muttered, "Thank you."

Getting back behind the wheel, Rourke tried the ignition. The car groaned a few times. He smashed his fist against the steering wheel. If the battery were dead, it was hopeless. He turned when he heard a sound at the side door. It was Rubenstein.

"I found one more can of gas next to a power mower down the street."

"Good," Rourke muttered. Then, "If this battery doesn't turn this over, you can go out and check for a battery and tools to change it with. Keep your fingers crossed," he added.

He took the key out of the ignition, looked at it and whispered, "Come on baby-this'll be the ride of your life."

He put the key into the lock and turned the ignition. The engine coughed and then roared as he stepped on the gas pedal.

Rubenstein shouted. Rourke looked up at him, squinted his eyes against the flashlight he held. "You're takin' that cowboy hat awful serious, aren't you?" Then, "Come on, Paul, pour in that gas and let's get out of here."

The smell of exhaust fumes was thick in the garage, despite both open doors, by the time Rubenstein threw down the empty gas container and ran around the front of the two-door hardtop and climbed in beside Rourke. Rourke looked over at him and smiled. "Let me guess. You've never stolen a car before-or ridden in a '57 Chevy? Right?"

"Yeah," Rubenstein said. "How'd you know?"

"Intuition," Rourke laughed, hauling the big long-throw gearshift into first. "Intuition."

The needle on the speedometer was bouncing near twenty as Rourke slowed at the end of the long driveway. He let up on the clutch again and made a hard left into the street, sliding the stick back into second as he reached the end of the block, then cutting a hard right onto what had been a main street. He raced through the street, then turned onto one of the major arteries.

"You just ran a-" Rubenstein started, but then fell silent, smiling to himself.

"I don't know about you," Rourke said, "but right now I'd be happy if a cop pulled me over for a ticket." He glanced at Rubenstein and the smaller man nodded.

A moment later, Rubenstein said, "Hey-this thing's got a tape deck."

"Wonderful," Rourke said. "Check the glove compartment and see if he's got any tapes."

"One," Rubenstein said a moment later, then inserted the cartridge.

As the music began, the men looked at each other. "The Beach Boys?" Rourke said.

"You gotta admit," Rubenstein said, touching the dashboard, "the music goes with the car."