Methodically, automatically, he began moving about the field, examining the
bodies, ignoring the U.S. II troopers shuffling with seeming unease nearby. A
man of peace—sometimes the price of survival was very high.
26
Chapter 5
"So, Dr. Rourke—-we came looking for you—that's why we 're here. President
Chambers and Colonel Reed—"
Rourke looked up from loading the six-round Detonics magazine. "Colonel Reed?"
"President Chambers personally promoted him, sir."
Rourke nodded, then looked back to the magazine, double checking through the
witness holes that the magazine was fully charged, the lower hole empty as it
should be. He took the Detonics and jacked back the slide, locking it with the
slide stop. "So you're Captain Cole—"
"That's right, sir—Regis Cole, recently promoted myself," and the young,
green-eyed man smiled.
"Hmmm," Rourke nodded, estimating the man's age at perhaps twenty-five, the five
enlisted men with him younger seeming still. Rourke inserted the magazine up the
Detonics' well and gave it a reassuring pat on the butt—reassuring to himself
that it was seated, then worked the slide stop downward, the slide running
forward, stripping the first round. Rourke started to lower the hammer.
"I always carry my .45 with the magazine completely full and a round in the
chamber," Cole noted.
"A lot of people do," Rourke almost whispered, inhaling on the cigar in the left
corner of his mouth. "But
27
a lot of professional gunmen advocate—or advocated I guess these days—stripping
the round for the chamber off the top of the magazine."
"To relieve spring pressure?"
"It helps—but not for that," and Rourke thumbed out the magazine with the
release button. "Here," and he pointed to the top round in the magazine. "Notice
how it's edged forward just a little—makes for more positive feeding than
starting with a magazine where the top round has the case head all the way back
against the spine of the magazine. Anyway—always works for me," and Rourke
replaced the magazine in the pistol and began securing the Detonics under his
left armpit in the holster there. "Why were you looking for me, anyway? What'd
Reed want?"
Cole, squatting on the ground beside Rourke and slightly at an angle to him,
looked around, then behind him. Natalia and Paul were talking, Paul reloading
his Schmeisser's magazines. "I'd rather, ahh—talk a bit more privately, Dr.
Rourke," Cole said hoarsely.
"There's nothing I wouldn't trust to Paul or Natalia—"
"She's a Russian, sir?"
"Good for her," Rourke smiled.
"I must insist, sir," Cole said again.
Rourke nodded, then shouted across the rocky area where they were,
"Natalia—Paul! The captain's going to tell me something in private—I'll tell you
all about it as soon as he's through."
Rourke stood up, Cole's green eyes icy.
"Satisfy you?" Rourke smiled.
"I can impress you into service, Dr. Rourke—and then you'll have to do as I
say."
"Draft me?" Rourke laughed, spontaneously. Picking up his CAR-15, the magazines
for the weapon reloaded from ammo scrounged from the dead brigands, Rourke
stared at Cole. "You can't draft me," and he gestured
28
with the CAR-15. "I'm a conscientious objector."
Rourke started walking off toward the tree line, Cole beside him . . .
Rourke had checked all the bodies, each of the brigands—all men—dead. Natalia
had walked beside him for part of the search, saying nothing, their eyes
meeting, then finally, the last of the dead looked to, she had said, ~"It hasn't
changed, John. I can't live without you."
cheeks slightly flushed. Her eyes—the incredible blueness of them, "When I look
up at the stars at night, I—I find myself—seeing you, thinking about you."
"What will we do?"
She had said the words quietly, then cast her eyes down, his hands still framing
her face, his fingers letting her windblown hair brush against them.
"I don't know. It seems—it seems I say that more and more when we talk about you
and me. I don't—" He folded the woman into his arms, aware then that Rubenstein
was eyeing the U.S. military personnel as they closed in, hearing Rubenstein
ramming a fresh magazine into the Schmeisser—just in case.
"My uncle," she said after a moment, her voice barely a whisper, her head
against his chest. "There is a note for you—he sent me with it. It is urgent—he
sent me with it and he sent my things as well. As if—as if he never expected me
to return to—to the KGB. To—to my life. And—and I don't know if I expect
to—either. I don't know anything any more. Just that I love you, that you're
married—that I want more than anything—even more than us, for you to find
them—to find Sarah."
She had stepped away, not looking at him, her words barely audible. "How stupid
I am." She'd looked at him again and forced a smile, her eyes wet with tears . .
.
Cole had not inspired instant respect, or even liking
29
when he had first introduced himself in that next moment—and in the twenty
minutes or so in which they had talked, Rourke's feelings toward the young U.S.
II Army captain hadn't changed. As they walked now up the hill and toward the
tree line, Rourke found himself analyzing the way Regis Cole spoke more than the
words he said.
". . . that nobody else could do the job. Your country needs you, Dr. Rourke."
Rourke stopped walking. "What job is it—that no one else can do?" Rourke spit
out the stump of burned, chewed cigar butt, then looked Cole in the eye.
"During a debriefing session—you mentioned to Colonel Reed that you had known
Colonel Armand Teal before the war—"
"We shared an igloo together for three nights on a survival exercise. I know
him."
"He's the commanding officer of Filmore Air Force Base in Northern California—"
"Hope he can swim," Rourke said soberly.
"We've determined that Filmore survived. It was well above the fault line and
the mountain chain there would have protected it from the tidal wave effects
when the San Andreas went. And there were only neutron hits there as far as we
can ascertain as well—overflights. There even seemed to be some activity, a U.S.
flag flying."
"Could be the Russians," Rourke told him.
"Sure—but we've tried contacting the base-interference, static—we can't get
through and no one answered when the reconnaissance overflight tried radio
contact. If it had been the Commies, they would have answered."
"What's so important about Filmore Air Force Base and Armand Teal—you want me to
tell you about him?"
"We want you to talk with him," Cole smiled.
"Go to California? Bullshit!" and Rourke turned and
30
started walking back down the hillside. He heard the sound of a gun coming out
of the leather behind him, wheeled, both Detonics pistols coming into his fists
as he dropped into a crou
ch. He heard the clicking of M-16 bolts, the different
sounding rattle of steel as the bolt of Rubenstein's Schmeisser opened.
Cole had a Government Model 1911A1 half out of the leather, letting it roll out
of his hand on the trigger guard.
"You put your gun away—or I'll kill you," Rourke hissed at him.
X
"At least let me explain."
"You wanna explain, I'll be down there—with my friends. You tell me, you tell
them. And tell your own people to put their rifles down—or you'll be the first."
Cole said nothing for a moment, then only nodded. Bolstering his pistol, he
shouted loudly, "As you were!"
Rourke pointed the pistols in his balled-tight fists toward the ground, then
lowered the hammers with his thumbs. Every human being had a right to weapons—
handguns, rifles, edged weapons—for his own self-defense, the defense of loved
ones. Regardless of the unrealistic, immoral laws there had been, regardless of
the do-gooders who had tried to make America weaponless and Americans helpless.
But no man had the right to impose his will—with a gun or anything else—by
force. It was a lesson Cole hadn't yet learned—as Rourke turned his back to the
Army captain and started down the hillside again, he felt that somehow Cole
would learn the lesson still. The hardest way there was.
31
Chapter 6
"John!"
Rubenstein. A shout. Rourke picked up the CAR-15 from the sling where it hung,
starting to run, leaving the bike in the trees, not quite reaching it before
he'd heard the call—the shout.
Rourke stopped on the top of the rise, Natalia and Cole were faced off, Cole
reaching out to slap Natalia, Natalia's reflexes taking over, catching the hand
at the wrist, her body twisting as she side-stepped, Cole sailing up, forward,
rolling over, crashing down onto his back. An assault rifle discharged as
Natalia started settling her hands on her hips—too close to the twin stainless
.357 Magnums she wore there. One of the troopers' M-16 jumped in his hands;
Natalia spun around, both pistols still in the leather, her hands clutching at
her abdomen.
"John . . ." It was like a wail as she sprawled forward,
"Natalia—" He'd felt fear before—but never this fear, He started to run.
Rubenstein was running too, his Schmeisser covering the six soldiers and their
commander, "Natalia!" Rourke screamed it now, feeling the muscles in his arms
and back, the tendons in his neck—his eyes—all tightening, his heart pounding in
his chest. "Natalia!" He was out of the trees, running toward her, the woman's
body writhing on the ground, the soldier with the M-16 stepping toward her, the
right foot kicking out at her as Cole moved faster than Rourke thought he
32
could have, the pistol he'd pulled twenty minutes earlier coming from the
leather again, the base of the frame this time smashing down, Rubenstein
half-wheeling, the Schmeisser falling from limp hands, but the hands grasping
out for Cole's throat.
"Get him—alive!" It was Cole's voice.
Rourke wheeled, his CAR-15 coming up, firing a three-round semi-auto burst with
the CAR-15, Cole spinning, falling back. Rourke kept going—toward Natalia. He
heard the working of the bolts, saw the muzzles raising—four M-16s, pointed at
his face.
He stopped, his rifle up and on line with them. "I'm going to the woman—if you
try to stop me, I'll kill you."
Rourke started ahead, pushing the muzzles of the rifles aside. He didn't care to
look at the man behind him. The man beside Natalia—the one who'd shot her—simply
stood beside her, his right foot kicking out again—to check if she were dead,
Rourke knew.
Rourke snapped the telescoped butt of the CAR-15 up and out. His body wheeled
with it, the metal buttplate at the.end of the tubular stock hammering square
into the soldier's face. Rourke's right knee smashed up, finding the groin,
impacting against the scrotum, the man's bloodied face going white as he fell.
Rourke held his left hand out, palm outward, the five
«t
other troopers raising their assault rifles to fire, Rourke holding his aimed
toward them. "The woman," Rourke rasped. "Or your deaths—"
Rourke dropped to his knees beside her, her fingers covering her abdomen, the
fingers pale, laced, woven together, blood seeping through between them as he
rolled her over.
The eyelids fluttered.
"Rourke—Rourke!"
It was Cole.
"Rourke—you fuckin' shot me!"
33
Rourke began to examine the wound—he himself was on borrowed time with Cole, he
knew that; but Natalia's borrowed time was coming due. Had he not been a
physician, never seen a gunshot wound—had he never seen death, he knew, he would
have recognized it in her face.
"You're goin' with me—for those six missiles. Eighty megatons apiece,
Rourke—eighty megatons apiece. The woman's good as dead. You want your Jew
friend dead too?"
Rourke looked up for an instant, his eyes flickering across the field toward
Cole, Cole's left arm bloodied and limp at his side, but in the right hand the
Government Model .45 held steady, the muzzle pointed at Rubenstein's head,
Rubenstein moving slowly on the ground, trying to get up.
"Where's your base camp, Cole? How do you contact headquarters?" Rourke began
examining Natalia's wound in greater detail, spreading her fingers, but slowly.
Sometimes the body is its best defense—were the hands holding in her intestines?
Gently, he broke the tight weave of her red and sticky fingers. "Where is it?"
"A submarine—two hours away—maybe three. Nuclear submarine—one of the last ones
we could contact. Full complement crew—full medical facilities."
The Retreat, Rourke judged, even if he could get Natalia aboard a bike and ride
her there without her bleeding to death, was seven hours away by the fastest
route, likely spotted with brigand activity, possibly Soviet Army as well. But
the likelihood of meeting with Soviet troops for once did not alarm him. They
would have access to blood and the facilities for typing, medivac choppers
available on call as well. Without massive transfusions, Natalia would likely
die. Even with them—Rourke shuddered. Mechanically, he had counted the number of
shots in the burst she had taken. Seven rounds.
34
He heard a moan behind him—the trooper who had shot her, then kicked her—the one
Rourke had smashed in the face with the rifle butt, the nose broken and twisted
to the side of the face, the lips puffed and gushing blood.
"We keep our guns—we get Natalia the best medical attention available," Rourke
called out over his shoulder, his voice low.
"Agreed," Cole snapped. "Then you're coming to Filmore Air Force Base—"
"I didn't say that. I'm taking her to the submarine. And we'd better make it
fast. That bullet in your arm should come out before the wound infects
seriously. And your trooper here—he could bleed to death too."
He'd need to perform a laparotomy to inspect her abdominal organs. Regardless of
where the bullets had actuall
y impacted, there would be the trauma of blast
effect to deal with. As he started applying a pressure bandage with materials
from his musette bag, he realized the peritoneal cavity and the organs there
could be cut to pieces. He recalled reading an adventure novel once where the
5.56mm slug had been referred to as a "tumbler"— and it was that. There had been
cases in the warfare in Southeast Asia where limbs had been severed by the buzz
sawing effect of the .223.
What he saw of her exposed intestines seemed a very pale tan, almost grey in
color—like pieces of underdone sausage in appearance. As he tightened the
pressure bandage, he prayed that he could keep her alive until they reached the
facilities he'd need to operate. That she wouldn't die.
"Paul—" Rourke called the name but never looked. "Get on your feet—and keep that
thing you call a Schmeisser handy. Anything happens to Natalia . . ." Rourke let
the sentence hang.
The voice that came back sounded strained—tired, perhaps in pain. "Killing would
be too good."
35
Chapter 7