The Doomsayer ts-4

by Jerry Ahern

  "She was a Captain," Rourke said.

  "I promoted her— for bravery. You understand?"

  Rourke smiled, wishing for a moment he could see the old man's face, wondering what it looked like now. Were the eyes sad, was there still humor there?

  "Yes, General. How do we contact each other? I can bring this radio to headquarters with me."

  There was a pause. "Yes. I would speak with this Mr. Chambers and arrange the details of the truce. Did you—" Rourke smiled. "Soames? The child molester? Did I kill him?"

  "Yes... I assume.. ." The voice trailed off.

  "Your man Veskovitch was very brave and died well. If he had a family—" Rourke let the sentence hang.

  "I will see that they know. Good-bye for now, Rourke." The radio went dead. Rourke sat there by the yellow light, not saying anything, not thinking anything. There was a picture now, vivid in his mind, and he almost wanted it to go away. It was an indefinite and changing picture. Sometimes a face, sometimes a way of standing or walking— and sometimes, if a voice could be pictured, it was a voice. Natalia. They were to meet again, he knew.

  Chapter 36

  "The fact is, General Santiago, that if these misdirected actions of your line commanders near the border continue, it will do nothing to further the cause of harmonious relations between your people and ours," Miklov said in perfect Spanish. Then he leaned back from across the table, seemingly studying the Cuban commander's face across the highly polished wood separating them.

  Natalia had played tennis often before the Night of the War. But she had always more enjoyed watching it well-played by two worthwhile adversaries. As she turned her head now to look at Santiago, she felt a similar feeling. It was up to Santiago either to volley the ball Miklov had served or lose the match.

  "But according to the reports of my line commanders, Colonel Miklov, there have been no such incidents beyond the course of normal patrolling or pursuit of an escaping Resistance fighter and the like. There have been no intentional incursions into your country's space."

  Natalia looked back at Miklov, smiling. "But General Santiago must realize that whatever the cause for border incursions, that again they do little to promote harmonious relations. It is my hope that such incursions can be stopped completely and this is my purpose here— to discuss these matters and work out a mutually equitable solution."

  Natalia began to turn to Santiago, but then her eyes drifted across the room to a white-coated, dark-skinned steward entering the room. The man stopped beside Santiago and placed a silver tray on the table before him. Santiago unfolded a note on the tray, nodded to the steward, and returned the note to the tray. The steward picked up the tray and left. Santiago looked at her a moment, then said, "My dear Major Tiemerovna, there is a radio-telephone message for you. You may take it on the telephone in your room if you wish."

  "Thank you." Natalia stood and both Santiago and Miklov began to rise. "Please, gentlemen," she murmured, sweeping past the end of the table and touching the fingers of her left hand to Santiago's epauletted shoulder as she walked by.

  Natalia crossed the room, feeling Santiago's eyes on her, then opened the double doors and walked through the doorway, closing them behind her. She leaned against the door a moment, looking down at the carpet beneath her feet. The caller had to be Varakov, she knew. She pushed away from the door and started toward the stairs, running up to the second floor of the house, then to the door of her room, quickly opening it. She walked inside and closed the door behind her. Sitting on the edge of the bed, smoothing her skirt under her, she lifted the telephone receiver, pulling off an earring as she brought the earpiece up. "This is Major Tiemerovna," she said into the receiver.

  "Natalia, listen carefully," her uncle's voice began. "Rourke called me— the news he had was important. He used one of our own radio receivers. That is not important, though. Listen carefully."

  Natalia looked down at her lap, then past the hem of her light blue skirt, along her bare legs and to her feet, then along the blue carpet and toward the glass doors leading onto the balcony and past the open curtains. She could just see the ocean beyond. "John Rourke," she whispered into the telephone. She heard her uncle telling her of the impending destruction of Florida, the meeting she had to arrange under a flag of truce for Rourke and the Wiznewski woman with General Santiago. She heard all of it, but the words that most stayed with her were,

  "John Rourke." She would see him again....

  For several minutes after the conversation with her uncle she lay back across the bed. It was incredibly new to her, the idea that she could love someone and yet debate whether or not she should try to kill him.

  Chapter 37

  "I don't know what the hell you're talkin' about, fella," the red-faced, beer-bellied man told Rubenstein, then turned back to work on his boat.

  "Captain Reed gave me your name, Tolliver. He said you were the man down here."

  "I don't know no Captain Reed. Now get out of here!"

  Paul Rubenstein, the sun glaring down on him, his legs tensed, realized then he'd been balling his fists opened and closed. He reached out with his left hand and grabbed the florid-faced Tolliver by the left shoulder and spun him around, his right fist flashing out and catching the larger man at the base of the chin, the man falling back across the front of his boat.

  Tolliver pushed himself up onto his elbows, squinting at Rubenstein. "Who the hell are you, boy?"

  "I told you," Rubenstein said, his voice low. "My name is Paul Rubenstein. I'm just a guy who needs your help. I know Captain Reed of U.S. II. He gave me your name when I told him I was coming down here. Now you're bigger than I am, probably stronger, but believe me, I can be meaner— I learned since the Night of the War. Now," Rubenstein shouted, "I need your help!"

  "Doin' what?"

  "You ever go down by the camp— the big one?"

  "Maybe."

  "I'm going to break everybody out of there— and you're going to help me."

  "You're full of shit, boy."

  Rubenstein glanced over his shoulder, saw no one by the sandy cove where he'd found Tolliver working on his beached boat. Then Rubenstein reached under his leather jacket and pulled out the Browning High Power, shoving the muzzle less than two inches from Tolliver's nose. The hammer went back with an audible double click. "If you can sleep nights seeing those people in there, then whatever I could do to you would be a favor. You either help me round up some people in the Resistance to get those folks out of there, or I'm killing you where you stand."

  "You're the one caused all that fracas there this morning, ain't you?"

  Rubenstein nodded, then said, "Yeah— I am."

  "Put the gun away. Why the hell didn't you say so in the first place. I'll help, then we can all get ourselves killed together. Never fancied much dying alone, if you get my drift."

  Rubenstein raised the safety on the Browning and started to shift it down when there was a blur in front of his eyes. Tolliver's right fist moved and Rubenstein fell back into the sand, starting to grab for his gun.

  "Now take it easy, fella. That was just to make us even. You shoot me, and you'll never find the Resistance people."

  And Tolliver's big florid face creased into a smile, and he stuck out his right hand.

  Rubbing his jaw with his left hand, Rubenstein looked at the bigger man— then they both started to laugh.

  Chapter 38

  Rourke opened the hatch on the DC-7 and looked out across the airfield. He could tell General Santiago by the ensignia on the collars of his G.I.-style fatigues; but the only face Rourke recognized was that of Natalia. He looked at her eyes, saw the recognition there and then threw down the ladder.

  "Come on, Sissy," he said to the girl standing a little behind him.

  Rourke started down the ladder to the runway, helping the girl. As Rourke turned to start across the field toward Santiago and Natalia, he stopped, his hands frozen away from his body, frozen in the movement of sweeping up toward the
twin Detonics pistols under his coat. There was a semicircle of men, Cuban soldiers, with AK-47s in their hands, their muzzles pointed at him.

  Rourke looked beyond the emotionless faces of the soldiers and across the airfield. Santiago seemed to be poorly disguising a smile— but Rourke couldn't read Natalia's eyes. There was a command shouted by Santiago, the words something Rourke recognized. "Arrest that man. Seize that woman and the airplane and its pilot— immediately!"

  Rourke cocked his head slightly toward Natalia as she took Santiago's arm, hugging it to her it seemed. Her eyes just stared ahead. Coldly, Rourke thought.

  "What's happening?" Sissy Wiznewski asked, her voice low, trembling.

  Rourke reached out— watching the soldiers watching him— and took her hand, saying to her, "I'll let you know as soon as I find out myself. It wasn't Natalia's way, Rourke thought— not to go against her uncle's wishes, not to use the Communist Cubans as an instrument for her own revenge.

  He tried to read the woman's face from the distance separating them. He'd been told there was a Colonel Miklov there with Natalia. But he saw no Russian officer, not even someone in civilian clothes.

  A man Rourke judged as a squad leader stepped toward him, saying in bad English, "I will take your guns."

  Rourke again glanced toward Natalia— nothing. He decided to gamble, reaching slowly under his coat with first his left, then his right hand, taking the Detonics pistols and handing them butt first to the squad leader. Since the man hadn't asked for his knife, Rourke didn't volunteer it.

  "You will come with me," the man said. Rourke started to walk ahead, still holding Sissy's hand. "The woman— she will see the general."

  Rourke eyed the soldier, then looked over the man's shoulder toward Natalia. He thought he caught an almost imperceptible nod. But it could have been his imagination, or wishful thinking he thought. He gambled again. "Sissy, it'll be all right, I think. Just do a good job convincing the general that the quakes are real. Don't worry," he added. Then Rourke let go of her hand and started ahead, the soldiers falling in ranks around him. He saw the squad leader from the corner of his eye, handing the twin Detonics pistols to Santiago. Rourke saw Natalia looking down at the guns in Santiago's hands, saw her lips move, saying something. Then Santiago— with almost ridiculous formality, Rourke thought— bowed and offered the pistols to Natalia. She took them, smiling, and for the first time he could hear her.

  Natalia was laughing.

  Chapter 39

  Paul Rubenstein looked across the hood of the jeep, then at the florid-faced Tolliver beside him behind the wheel. "That's a death camp," Rubenstein said slowly, staring now past the hood of the jeep and to the lower ground and the road and the camp beyond it.

  "The commandant has a reputation for being anti-Jewish."

  "They put an anti-Semite in charge of a detention camp in an area with a large Jewish population," Rubenstein interrupted. "Then they know what's going on, the Communist Cuban government."

  "Some say the commandant down there, Captain Guttierez, dislikes the Jews almost as much as the anti-Castro Cubans. He's been exterminating every one of them he can find."

  "Why have you waited to do something?" Rubenstein asked him.

  "Simple— you'll see in a minute— look." And Tolliver pointed over his shoulder.

  Rubenstein, his palms sweating, turned around and looked behind the jeep. Tolliver's number-one man, Peddro Garcia, a free Cuban, had gone to get the rest of the Resistance force. Rubenstein's heart sank. Two men approximately his own age, a woman of about twenty and a boy of maybe sixteen.

  Tolliver, his voice lower than Rubenstein had heard it before, sighed hard. "That's why, Rubenstein. Two men, a woman, a boy, me, and Pedro— that's it. Now you. You still want to do this thing?"

  Rubenstein turned around in the jeep's front passenger seat, started down over the hood toward the camp. "Hell yes," he rasped, the steadiness of his own voice surprising him. "Yes I do."

  Rubenstein felt the ground shaking, then looked at Tolliver. The man said, "Some little quakes like that have been coming the last week or so. Don't know why. This ain't earthquake country."

  The trembling in the ground stopped and Rubenstein simply said, "Let's work out the details, then get started."

  "We're gonna wait until dark, right?" Tolliver queried.

  Rubenstein thought a moment. He'd learned from Rourke to trust your vibes, your own sense and what they added up to, whatever the others felt. "No... " he began distractedly. "No—

  they won't expect an assault in daylight. I just don't think we've got the time to wait. We'll go soon."

  Rubenstein was still watching the camp. He wondered how soon was soon enough.

  Chapter 40

  Natalia walked from her room and along the railing overlooking the first floor of the house. She stopped, staring at nothing, thinking of Rourke. Santiago had been easy to read. She smiled to herself. The Communist Cuban general had used Varakov's warning of the impending natural disaster, the coming of Rourke and Sissy Wiznewski— all of it as an excuse to see some sort of plot. For that reason when he had sent his men to arrest Colonel Miklov and Miklov went for a gun, she had disarmed Miklov and turned him over to Santiago. This action had pleased Santiago; she had pleased Santiago. That she despised him— mentally shrank from his touch, from his stare— was nothing of which the Cuban was aware. He thought, she knew, that somehow he thrilled her. And so— she smiled at the thought— she was free, still armed and able to move. Sissy Wiznewski was in Santiago's office trying to convince him of the reality of the massive quake. Rourke and Miklov were imprisoned in the basement that had been converted to accommodate prisoners Santiago personally wished to interrogate— and to torture.

  She smoothed her hands against her thighs, then reached down to the floor beside her booted feet for the large black purse. She opened it, then looked inside. Her own COP .357

  Magnum four-shot derringer pistol, the two stainless steel .45 automatics Rourke habitually carried, her lipstick, and a change of underwear— these items filled the bag.

  Shrugging her shoulders, she turned from the railing and started down the stairs, smiling at the steward as he seemed to glide past Santiago's office doors. She stopped at the doors, the bag over her left shoulder, then knocked with her right hand. "It is Natalia, Diego," she said as sweetly as she could.

  She heard an answering voice from inside, then opened the right-hand door and walked inside. Santiago stood, smiling. Sissy Wiznewski was already standing, the look on her face that of a schoolgirl who had just failed her most important final examination.

  "This is all rubbish," Santiago pronounced with an air of authority. "This business of earthquakes is nothing more than a plot to cause us to evacuate Florida so Varakov's troops can invade here. You were wise to abandon your KGB friends and join us, my dear."

  Smiling, she walked across the room, glancing at the seismic chart on the conference table, then at the frightened eyes of Sissy Wiznewski. "Yes," she murmured, reaching down and kissing Santiago's cheek as he sat down again.

  As she drew her mouth away, she moved her left hand upward, the COP pistol in it, pressing the muzzle against Santiago's left temple. "But, my General, it is true— and you will now do exactly as I say or the top of your head will soon decorate the ceiling above where you sit. For a small gun, I still have one of the most powerful .357 Magnum loadings in it— the 125-grain Jacketed Hollow Point. Do you know guns? A pity if you don't, but tests conducted for American police departments indicated this was perhaps the most effective .357 Magnum loading available. Want to see?"

  Santiago turned his head slightly and she looked into his eyes, smiling. "You tricked me," he said.

  "That, darling, should be obvious to even you," she cooed. "Now, you will call out to have Colonel Miklov sent up— immediately. The guards will wait outside the door for him. After Colonel Miklov arrives, I will free Rourke. Already, though, you will have issued orders to your commander
s initiating the truce. And you will issue orders for the radio signal to be given that the U.S. II and Soviet planes may land, as well as issue orders to your line commanders to begin evacuating civilians. Including the concentration camp near the airport. Everyone. And, my dear Diego, if you are very good, you too can leave after everyone else has."

  She looked at Sissy Wiznewski and asked matter-of-factly, "How soon?"

  "The— the general said there had been some small earthquakes reported for the last five days around the area. I'd say it's a matter of hours, if that."

  Natalia smiled at the girl, then turned back to General Santiago. "For your own sake, Diego, I sincerely hope there is enough time left."

  She pressed the muzzle of the COP pistol tight against his head. "Make your first call, darling."