The Doomsayer ts-4

by Jerry Ahern

  Paul Rubenstein stood there a moment, tears welling up in his eyes, his glasses steaming a little. In that instant, he was thankful for the guns he carried, for the things he'd learned that had kept him from a similar fate. He was grateful to Rourke for teaching him how to survive after the Night of the War.

  The phrase, "My fellow Americans.. ." and how he'd thought of it earlier as the roach climbed around the palm tree beyond the fences, came to his mind. Rubenstein stood there, crying, his right fist wrapped tightly on the Schmeisser.

  Chapter 28

  Sarah Rourke stood at the wheel of the fishing boat, glancing shoreward, trying to see if she could still locate Mr. Coin in the darkness. She couldn't. "It was rough, wasn't it, Mrs. Rourke?" Harmon Kleinschmidt asked her.

  She looked down at the young man seated at her feet as she stood before the controls.

  Before she answered him, she looked back to the stern— on the tarp that covered the blood from the dead soldier she could see Michael and Annie, already dozing.

  She looked down at Kleinschmidt, saying, "My name is Sarah. You don't need to call me Mrs. Rourke— I'm not that much older than you are. Yes, it was rough, I suppose."

  "I saw them bloodstains. You had to kill somebody, didn't you?"

  "I thought gentlemen didn't ask questions like that."

  "I ain't a gentleman that much— and you sure ain't either, Sarah."

  She looked away from the waters ahead of her, and down at the young man again. "What do you mean?" she asked, still cold in her wet things despite the blanket wrapped around her now.

  "I'll just come right out with it. What you told me, I don't think it's fair to you or them kids to go on doin' what you're doin'. You need a man to take care of all of you. I guess I'm sort of volunteerin'. I like you—a lot— Sarah."

  Her cheeks felt hot. She didn't know what to say to the man— the boy, she thought. He wasn't more than twenty-five, if that.

  "That's sweet of you, Harmon."

  "Ain't sweet of me, Sarah. I mean what I say."

  "A lot of men feel that way about somebody who's helped them, like a nurse for example."

  "It ain't that," he told her flatly.

  "Well, you just rest," she began.

  I'm sick of restin'— sick of this whole War, the whole damned thing."

  "So am I," she said, honestly. "I killed a man with a knife just a little bit ago. My boy, Michael, killed a man. I've killed other people since the Night of the War. We've been cold, sick, wet, dirty; we've gone without sleep. All of it."

  "I hear that northeastern Canada didn't get hit much. Fella I met had come down from there, missed the Commies all the way. New York City he heard was all gone, but up in northeastern Canada it was still like before. Ain't nothin' there the Communists would want, I guess— too cold. But a man could have a good life up there, with the right woman, with kids like them."

  Sarah looked down at him and wished he weren't sitting so close to her feet. "How far is the island?"

  "You still on the compass heading I worked out?"

  "Uh-huh."

  "Maybe twenty minutes or so. Just keep them runnin' lights out so the patrol boats don't spot us. I figure we could take this boat and make it pretty far up into Canada— leave all this behind us."

  "What about the Resistance, the men in prison you told me about?" Sarah said softly.

  "I don't know.., don't guess I'll help them any by gettin' myself killed. I did my share. Sounds like you've done your share too since the War began."

  "My husband is out there somewhere, looking for us."

  "You don't know that. He might be dead. If he is alive, might figure you and the kids were dead—

  maybe took up with another woman."

  "Maybe," Sarah answered. "Maybe all of that. But if he's alive, he's looking for me. And the only thing that's kept me going is telling myself he's alive."

  "What if I tell you he's dead probably; or what if I tell you he's so busy stayin' alive himself that he can't look for you? What if—"

  "What if the War had never happened?" She looked back across the bow, searching the shadowy, moonlit horizon for some sign of the offshore island.

  "How come he was away from you when it happened? None of my business, I know that. But how come?"

  "We—" she began. "We'd been separated. Nothing formal. Just couldn't get along the last few years. He came back, just before the War. We made up, decided to try again. It was my fault, really. He wanted to cancel the job he had in Canada and stay home. I told him I needed the time to get my head clear, to think, so we could start again. The night the War happened he should have been on his way back."

  "Driving?"

  "No, by air."

  "Ain't nothin' left of Atlanta, Sarah, if he landed there. I heard lots of commercial airliners crashed when they ran out of fuel with nowhere to land, or just got blown out of the sky when they flew too close to a missile or an air burst. He's dead— got to be."

  "You don't know my husband," she told Kleinschmidt. "He isn't like anybody you ever met."

  "He's some kind of super guy or somethin'?"

  "In a way, I guess he is. You can see it in Michael. I wouldn't have expected a boy three times Michael's age to do what he's done. It's not normal."

  "What do you mean?" Kleinschmidt asked.

  A cloud passed in front of the moon. She could no longer see Kleinschmidt's young, tired face when she looked down by her feet where he sat, propped against the bulkhead. "John Rourke is— he's always been so much larger than life. He's almost perfect, really. He seems to know everything, to be able to do anything, to solve any problem. He isn't like you," she told Kleinschmidt. Then, under her breath, so no one but herself would hear, she added, "Or me."

  Chapter 29

  Rubenstein moved from tent to tent, after having thrown up once he'd gotten outside the first tent, more careful to avoid silhouetting himself against the light. He talked to an older man who'd been awake, swatting flies away from a festering wound on his left leg. The lights were kept on in the tents to make certain no one stood up during the night and to make visual inspection of the tents easier when the guards looked in. There were no sanitary facilities, no facilities for child care, and some of the guards, the old man had confessed, enjoyed beating people. Some of the other guards had seemed like decent men, the old man had told him, but they did nothing when the other guards began their beatings.

  The old man had never heard of retired Air Force Colonel David Rubenstein or his wife.

  Paul stopped now outside a tent, the fifth so far. Shaking his head, he forced his way inside, keeping low to avoid profiling himself in the yellow light. The stench in this tent was either not so bad, or he had become accustomed to it— he wasn't sure which. There were more children here, faces drawn, eyes sunken, bellies swollen. The old man— Rubenstein hadn't asked his name and the man hadn't volunteered it had said most of the older people gave the bulk of their food to the children and the recent mothers; and the food allotment for each adult per day was a cup of cereal, as much bad water as you wanted to drink, and twice a week fish or meat. The cereal had weevils in it, the fish and meat usually smelled rancid. A lot of the people around the camp had dysentery, the old man had said.

  Rubenstein passed through the tent, looking for his parents, looking for a familiar face, not sure if he'd recognize any of his parents' friends. There was a woman at the far end of the tent, holding a child in her arms, the child's breathing labored. She was awake and as he passed her, she whispered, "Who are you?"

  "My name is Paul Rubenstein," he told her, glancing around the tent.

  "Why are you here?"

  "I'm looking for my parents. Do you know them? My father has a full head of white hair, his first name is David. My mother's first name is Rebecca. Rubenstein. He was a Colonel in the Air Force before he retired."

  "He wouldn't be here, then," the woman said.

  Rubenstein sucked in his breath, wondering what the wo
man meant, afraid to ask.

  "He just wouldn't be here. I was supposed to be someplace else too," she said, brushing a fly away from her child's lips. "But I was pregnant and they didn't want me along, so they left me. I lost the baby," she said, her voice even. "I don't know what they did with my baby afterward. They never told me about him— he was a boy. My husband Ralph would have been proud of the boy— handsome. Ralph, he's in the Air Force too, that's why they took him. Some kind of special camp near Miami for military people and their families. I hope they don't hurt Ralph. I would have named my baby Ralph Jr., after my husband. He was a beautiful boy. I don't know what they did with him. I would have named him Ralph, you know."

  Rubenstein looked at her, whispered. "I'm sorry," then left the tent. He crouched outside by the flap, crying quietly. "Goddamn them," he muttered.

  It was starting to rain and in the distance below the dark rain clouds he could see a tiny knife edge of sunlight, reddish tinged. The camp would soon be awake and he had to get out before he got caught. He looked back toward the tent. He could hear the woman talking to herself.

  He decided something, then. He was going to go to Miami, find his parents at whatever hellhole camp they were in, if they were still alive. But first he was going to do something here. He didn't know what yet. There was the Army Intelligence contact. Maybe he could help, Rubenstein thought.

  Paul pulled himself back against the tent. He heard something, the rumble of an engine. He looked to his right— there was a U.S. military jeep coming, three Cubans riding in it. The rain was coming down in sheets now, and the wind was picking up. Rubenstein pushed his glasses back from the bridge of his nose, brushed his thinning black hair back from his high forehead.

  He pulled back the bolt on the Schmeisser, giving it a solid pat.

  Paul Rubenstein raised himself to his feet, standing almost directly in front of the jeep, the headlights beaming just to his left. At the top of his lungs, the young man shouted. "Eat lead, you bastards!" and he squeezed the trigger of the Schmeisser.

  "Trigger control," he shouted, reiterating Rourke's constant warning to him, working the trigger out and in, keeping to three-round bursts from the thirty-round magazine. The driver of the jeep slumped forward across the wheel, then the man beside him, the third man in the back raising a pistol to fire. Rubenstein pumped the Schmeisser's trigger again, emptying three rounds into the man's chest. The man fell back, rolling down into the mud.

  Rubenstein ran beside the jeep, the vehicle going off at a crazy angle into one of the tents.

  The young man jumped for it, his left foot on the running board, his right hand loosing the Schmeisser, pushing the dead driver from behind the wheel. Sliding in, he kicked the dead man's feet away from the pedals.

  Rubenstein ground the vehicle to a halt, noticing now for the first time that there was a gray light diffused over the camp. It was dawn. He rolled the body of the passenger, then the driver, out of the right side of the jeep, shifting the vehicle into reverse. People streamed from their tents. As he skidded the jeep around, slamming on the brakes as he fumbled the transmission into first, he could see guards running toward him from the far end of the camp.

  His jaw was set, his lips curled back from his teeth, as he stomped on the gas pedal, driving forward. The puddles sloshed up on him as he raced through the mud. Some of the prisoners of the camp threw themselves toward the advancing Cuban guards.

  "No!" Rubenstein shouted, the guards machine-gunning the women, the old people.

  Rubenstein buttoned out the magazine on the Schmeisser with his left hand, replacing it with a fresh one, the windshield of the jeep down in front of him. He rested the blue-black submachine gun along the dashboard and started firing again.

  There were dozens of guards, he thought, all of them armed with assault rifles or pistols, streaming from metal huts. They were half-dressed, shouting, firing at him. Rubenstein kept shooting. He glanced to his left— there was a Communist Cuban guard running beside the jeep, hands outstretched, reaching for him.

  Rubenstein balanced the steering wheel with his left knee, snatching the wire cutters from his belt, ramming the eighteen inches of steel behind him and out, then looked back. The Cuban soldier fell, the wirecutters imbedded in his chest.

  A smile crossed Rubenstein's lips as he stomped the clutch and upshifted, the jeep now speeding past the tents, the huts, the angry, shouting guards and their guns.

  Rubenstein triggered another burst from the Schmeisser, getting a man who looked like an officer. The young man hoped he was the camp commandant.

  The Schmeisser was shot dry and he dropped it beside him on the front seat, snatching the worn blue Browning High Power into his right fist, thumbing back the hammer, firing the first round into the face of a Cuban soldier who'd thrown himself up on the hood of the jeep.

  The soldier fell away; there was a scream as the jeep rolled over something. Rubenstein didn't care what it was.

  The High Power blazing in his right hand, he fought the wheel of the jeep with his left, bringing the vehicle into a sharp left turn, the jeep almost flipping over on him as he gunned it forward. Holding the pistol awkwardly, he rammed the stick into third gear, the engine noise so loud he could barely hear the shouts now.

  Two Cuban soldiers were running for him, the gate a hundred yards ahead. Rubenstein rammed the Browning straight out in his right hand, firing once, then once again, the nearer of the two men throwing his hands to his face as he fell. The second man, unhit, dove into the jeep, his hands reaching out for Rubenstein's throat. Rubenstein tried bringing the gun up to fire, but the man was in the way, his hands tightening on Rubenstein's throat as the jeep swerved out of control.

  Rubenstein dropped the Browning, clawing at the Cuban's face, getting his fingers into the man's mouth by the left cheek, then ripping as hard as he could.

  The man's face split on the left side, the fingers released from Rubenstein's throat, and Rubenstein grasped the 9mm pistol. He snapped back the trigger, the muzzle flush against the Communist soldier's chest, the scream from the torn face ringing loud in Rubenstein's ears as the man fell back, into the mud.

  Rubenstein cut the wheel right just in time, the left fender crashing into a row of packing crates that tumbled into the mud. The High Power clenched in his right fist, Rubenstein cut the wheel harder right, with less than fifty yards to go until he reached the main gate. A dozen guards stood by the gate shooting at him.

  Paul jammed the Browning High Power into his trouser band, then fumbled on the seat for the Schmeisser. He buttoned out the empty magazine, balancing the steering wheel with his left knee again as he changed sticks in the submachine gun. He smacked back the bolt, bringing the muzzle of the weapon up over the hood, his left fist locked on the wheel again. He didn't shoot.

  The distance to the gate was now twenty-five yards. He hoped he remembered what Rourke had told him about practical firing range. Twenty yards, the guards at the gate still firing. Fifteen yards and Rubenstein began pumping the trigger, two-round bursts this time, firing at the greatest concentration of the guards. One man went down, then another. The guards ran as the jeep rammed toward them.

  Rubenstein kept up a steady stream of two-round bursts, nailing another guard. He punched his foot all the way down on the gas pedal as the jeep homed toward the gate, shouting to himself, "Now!" The front end of the vehicle crashed against the wood and barbed wire gate, shattering it. The jeep stuttered a moment, then pushed ahead. Rubenstein brought the SMG back up, firing it out as he cut the wheel into a sharp right onto the road.

  As he sped past the concentration camp, the noise of gunfire from behind him had all but stopped. He looked to his right, toward the camp. He could see men, women, and children; he imagined he saw the old man with the festering leg wound who had told him so much, the young woman with the dead baby. Rubenstein began to cry, telling himself it was the wind of the slipstream around the vehicle doing it to his eyes.

  Every person in
the camp compound was waving his arms in the air, cheering.

  Chapter 30

  Natalia stood under the water of the shower, the water hot against her body. She'd wanted to wash away more than the sand, she realized. She turned off the water after running it cold for a moment, then stepped out. She grabbed a towel and wrapped it around her hair, then another towel and wrapped it around her body. Her feet still slightly wet as she walked out of the bathroom, across the carpeted bedroom and to the double glass doors at the far end. There she stepped out onto the small balcony overlooking the sea. She was disappointed. She had missed the sunrise.

  It was cold, but she stood there a moment, then walked back inside, toweling herself dry and pulling on an ankle-length white robe. She took a cigarette from the dresser and lit it, inhaling deeply. Then, the towel still wrapped around her hair, she walked back out on the balcony, standing by the railing, staring at the beach and the ocean beyond.