Rourke lit one of his cigars, looking at Cole, studying him. "You leading it—the
recon patrol, I mean?"
"Corporal Henderson—"
"Ohh—well, I don't care much if he ever comes back anyway. How's his face
doing?" Henderson was the man Rourke had put away for shooting Natalia.
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Cole glared at Rourke, saying, "One of these days, Doctor Rourke—after we
contact Colonel Teal, after we secure those warheads—it's you and me."
Rourke nodded. "It scares me just to think about it," and he exhaled the gray
smoke from his lungs.
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Chapter 29
The faces—she watched them as they watched her. She held Michael's right hand in
her left, the boy saying nothing, but watching the faces, too.
Sarah shifted the weight of her M-16, the rifle carried now cross body on its
sling, her right fist balled around the pistol grip. She had not seen so many
people in one place—crowded together in one place—since before the Night of The
War. It mildly frightened her. She had seen other large groups—but she didn't
count them people. The brigands—they were less than animals. The Russians—she
refused to think of them any more than she had to. But she thought every once in
a while of the Soviet major—the man she had met during the resistance escape in
Savannah, whom she had met once again in Tennessee.
He had spared her.
She had watched his eyes, seeing something there she had seen in her husband's
eyes. And she wondered what he had seen in her eyes.
She shook her head.
"What's wrong, Momma?" Michael looked up at her—he was nearly to the height of
her breasts when he stood erect.
"Nothing—just all these people—" She stopped, Pete Crichfield having stopped,
even Bill Mulliner's golden retriever, the dog the children had constantly
played with at the farm, having stopped.
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Bill Mulliner came up beside her. "That fella on the porch—David Balfry—he's the
commander."
"The commander?"
"Yeah—college professor before the Night of The War—he's sort of the headman for
the resistance in Tennessee here."
She looked beyond Pete Critchfield's massive shoulders. "David Balfry,*' she
repeated.
He was her own age, she judged. Tall, straight, lean-featured. Close cropped
blond hair, a smile lighting his face for an instant.
"Mrs. Rourke!" It was Pete Critchfield, calling to her.
"Yes, Mr. Critchfield."
"You and your boy come up here and meet David." Sarah left the ragged column,
walking closer to the knot of people, still watching her—watching all of the
newcomers, she told herself. There were wounds—bandaged, some not cleanly. There
were missing limbs, eyes—terrible burns on the faces and exposed hands of some
of the people in the crowd. She pushed past, stopping at the porch steps of the
farmhouse.
"Mrs. Rourke—I heard of your work in Savannah with the resistance there. It's an
honor to meet you," and David Balfry extended his hand. The fingers were long,
like the fingers of a pianist or violinist were supposed to be but so rarely
were.
She felt his hand press around hers.
She looked into his eyes—they were green. They were warm.
"It's—it's a pleasure to meet you, too—Mr. Balfry."
"It used to be Professor Balfry—now it's just David. Sarah—isn't it?"
"Yes," she told him. She wondered quickly what else he would ask her.
"May I call you Sarah?"
She nodded, saying nothing.
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"Is a doctor," she told him, shifting her feet in her tennis shoes.
"Yes—but were you ever a nurse—"
"Not really—but I've done a lot of it."
"Reverend Steel—I think he could use some help with the sick—after you settle
in, of course."
"Of course—I mean—yes. I'll help," she told him.
Balfry extended his right hand again, this time to Michael's head, tousling his
hair. She felt the boy's right hand tensing in her left, saw him step away.
David Balfry smiled. "We'll get to know each other, son," and he turned to Pete
Critchfield. Sarah felt awkward just standing there, but didn't know what else
to do.
Michael tugged at her hand.
Something else tugged at her as well.
Balfry looked away from Pete Critchfield once and she thought he smiled at her.
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Chapter 30
The landing party had not returned. Rourke, Cole, Gundersen, Lieutenant O'Neal
and Paul Rubenstein stood in the sail, watching the dark shore. There was no
moonlight, the sky overcast still and the incredibly large flakes of snow still
falling, but the temperature still almost warm.
Rourke glanced at the luminous black face of the Rolex on his left wrist,
cupping his right hand over it to make the darkness deep enough that the
numerals would glow.
"They've been gone for eight hours—supposed to be back two hours ago. If they
were my men, Captain Cole, I think I might go looking for them."
"Yeah—well—"
"Yeah—well," Rourke mimicked. He shifted his shoulder under the bomber jacket,
the familiar weight of the Detonics pistols there in the double Alessi rig
something he was glad to have back again. The Sparks Six Pack rode his trouser
belt, the magazines freshly loaded and the ammo from each all hand cycled
through his pistols to assure the magazines functioned properly—they did. These
six magazines plus the magazines he normally carried, vastly increased his ready
firepower. Rubenstein stood beside him, the Browning coming into his hands. He
hand cycled the slide, chambering a round off the top of the magazine, then made
the 9mm pistol disappear under his Army field jacket.
ins
"Ready when you are, John," Paul smiled.
"Captain—" It was Lieutenant O'Neal, the missile officer. "Sir, I can get
together part of that shore party right now—"
Rourke interrupted him. "Belay that—that's what you say in the Navy, isn't it?"
O'Neal's normally red cheeks flushed as he laughed. "That's right, sir."
"I've got a better idea, I think—if Commander Gundersen approves," Rourke added.
"Cole, Paul, myself—those three other troopers of Captain Cole's—we go in now.
Hit the beach in a rubber boat if you got one, then get up into those rocks. If
that recon patrol Hendersen led got nailed, it was probably pretty soon after
they hit shore. You save that landing party if we're not back by dawn—and have
'em ready in case we come back sooner with somebody chasing us."
"That sounds good to me," Gundersen nodded. "Captain Cole?" Gundersen raised his
eyebrows, as if waiting for Cole to respond.
"No other choice, I guess," Cole nodded.
'Til get the rest of the gear," Rubenstein said, disappearing toward the
hatchway leading down from the sail.
"And with your permission, sir," O'Neal volunteered to Gundersen. "I'll get that
inflatable geared up."
"You got it," Gundersen nodded.
Rourke stared past Gundersen—the shore was a darker gray line against the near
blackness of the water, and in the distance above the rocks which marked the
coast was a lighter gray—it was the sky. The water in the inlet was calm—the
deck on the sail almost motionless under him.
There were people in the darkness—and Rourke didn't doubt that someone of them
at least was watching him from the rocks.
As it always was—despite the elements, the forces of nature—the true danger was
man.
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Chapter 31
The waves made a soft, almost rhythmical slapping sound against the gunwales of
the gray inflatable boat; Rourke crouched in the prow, the CAR-15 ready,
Ruben-stein beside him, Cole and his three troopers filling out the center and
aft section, two of the three troopers rowing.
There had always been considerable talk about a sixth sense, but nothing
concretely proven, at least as far as Rourke considered it. But if there were a
sixth sense—and gut feelings had convinced him long ago there were—he felt its
activation now.
"I feel something," Rubenstein murmured beside him.
Rourke smiled, saying nothing. Beneath the bomber jacket against the cold, he
wore a dark blue crew neck sweater from the submarine's stores—but he still
shivered. It wasn't the cold doing it.
There was a whitish outline gleaming ahead—the shoreline where the waves lapped
against it now. The tide was high, and this cut the distance to the rocks beyond
the beach.
"Kill those oars," Rourke commanded, stripping away his leather gloves, stuffing
them into one of the bomber jacket's outside patch pockets, then dipping his
hands into the water on both sides of the prow. "Use your hands," he rasped, his
fingers numbing from the water temperature already—but there was no choice.
It took several minutes of the slow movement, barely
110
able to fight the waves rolling back from the shore, to move with the tide and
reach the land. Rourke throwing a leg out, water splashing up over the collar of
his combat boot, then his other leg out, Rubenstein into the water too now. The
surf splashed against the prow of the boat, turning into a fine, icy spray,
Rourke flexing his fingers against the fabric of the boat as he hauled at it,
snow still coming down—no more heavily than before, but no less heavily either.
"Come on, Paul," he rasped to the younger man, then to Cole, "Get your butts
outa the boat and give us a hand! Come on!"
Cole sprang from the boat, dousing himself in the water, his three men following
suit but with less lack of grace. Water dripping from him, Cole reemerged,
cursing—
"Shut up, damnit!" Rourke snapped. The boat was nearly up from the surf, Rourke
glancing to Paul, saying, "Together," then hauling at the rubber boat, over the
last roll of breakers, both men heaving together, the boat onto the sand.
"You and you—you help 'em," Rourke rasped to the three soldiers. "Get the boat
out of here—back in those rocks. Secure it in case the tide does get higher."
Rourke swung the CAR-15 off his shoulder where it had hung muzzle down. He
pulled the rubber plug from the muzzle and dropped it into his musette bag where
he carried some of his spare magazines and other gear. He shifted the rifle
forward, working the bolt and chambering the top cartridge out of the freshly
loaded thirty-round stick.
He started forward across the sand, feeling he was being watched, waiting for it
to come—
It came.
"Kill them!"
The shout—somehow oddly not quite human.
Ill
Rourke wheeled, snapping the CAR-15's muzzle forward, ramming the flash
deflector into the face of the man—man?—coming for him. The machete dropped from
the right hand as the body reeled.
"No guns unless we have to," Rourke half shouted, flicking the safety on for the
CAR-IS. He stepped toward the attacker, the man starting to move, a revolver
rising in his right hand, already the sounds of more of the attackers going for
Rubenstein and the others coming to him over the sound of the waves, over the
whistling of the wind. Rourke's right foot snaked out, cross body, catching the
man's gunhand wrist, the revolver sailing off into the darkness.
Rourke let the rifle slide out of the way on its sling, his left foot coming up,
going for the man's jaw. He missed, the body rolling across the sand, coming
upright. There was another knife, smaller than the machete, but not by much.
Rourke grabbed for the AG Russell Sting IA in his trouser band, the small knife
coming into his palm, the black skeletonized blade shifting outward in his left
hand as the man—he wore a motley collection of clothing and animal skins—made
his lunge. Rourke sidestepped, the man steaming past him, Rourke's knife
hammering down, the blade biting into flesh somewhere over the right kidney, the
body's momentum tearing the blade through and down, Rourke's left wrist hurting
badly, the knife slipping from his grip.
He turned, hearing something—feeling something. Two men—like the first, half in
the clothing of "civilized" men and half in animal skins, unshaven, hair wildly
blowing in the wind. One had a long bladed knife secured, lashed to a pole—a
primitive pike or spear. The second held a pistol.
Rourke violated his own rule; not bothering with the CAR-15, not having the time
to get at it, snatching at the
112 i
Detonics under his left armpit, his right fist closing on the black rubber
Pachmayr gripped butt, his right thumb jacking back the hammer, his first finger
into the trigger guard as the pistol came on line, twitching against the
trigger, the gleaming stainless handgun bucking in his hand, the man -with the
pistol taking the impact somewhere near the center of mass, the 185-grain JHP
throwing him back into the sand.
The one with the improvised pike was swinging it, the blade making a whooshing
sound as it cut the air. Rourke edged back, hearing more gunfire now from the
beach— the light rattle of Paul's Schmeisser, lighter than the shotgun blast he
heard following it.
Rourke edged back, the pike coming again, Rourke dropping to his right knee,
scissoring out his left leg for a sweep as the man followed up on his lunge, the
blade inches above Rourke's head, Rourke's left leg connecting behind the right
knee of the man with the pike. The body started shifting forward, like a
deadfall tree in the wind.
Rourke rolled left, pulling his right leg after him, the body slapping down
against the sand, a shout issuing from the man. "Kill them! Kill the heathens!"
"Heathens," Rourke muttered, rolling again, getting to his feet.
The man was starting up, his pike coming up, Rourke feigning a kick with his
right, half wheeling, snapping out his left combat-booted foot. His leg took the
shock, his left knee aching as the toe of his boot impacted against the right
side of the man's face.
Rourke wheeled, two more of the wildmen coming for him. He dodged left, one of
the men—a machete in his right hand—bringing the blade down hard through the
air, barely missing Rourke's right arm.
Rourke
pumped the Detonics, nailing the second man, this one with a gun.
He wheeled, the sound of the machete in the air again
113
making him do it. The blade arced past his nose, the man's arm at maximum
extension. "That's never a good idea," Rourke cautioned him, wheeling half left,
snapping his right leg out in a double kick to the man's face, the man falling
backward.
Rourke started down the beach, Rubenstein locked in combat with a man twice his
size, Rubenstein's pistol high in the air, over his head, the wildman fighting
him holding it there. Suddenly, the wildman doubled forward, Ruben-stein half
stepping away, rubbing momentarily at his right knee, then pushing the Browning
High Power forward, the man starting to rise, both hands clasped to his crotch.
The muzzle flash against the darkness of the sky, the rocks and the water were
brilliant for an instant, the high pitched pop of the 9mm almost lost in the
wind and the noise of the surf, then drowned in the scream of the wildman as he