by Ahern, Jerry
"Can't make out-" Then there was static.
"Did he die?" It was Mrs. Richards, sitting now in the copilot's chair beside Rourke.
"No, Mrs. Richards-we just got into different air space and out of his frequency. No, he didn't die-yet."
"Maybe the boy was right," Mrs. Richards said. Rourke looked at the woman.
"Now, as long as we're alive," he said, "we've got a chance. Once we give up and lie down, that's it."
"My husband was in California," Mrs. Richards said.
"I have a wife and two children back in Georgia," Rourke replied.
"But they could still be alive. I know my husband is dead. Maybe that boy was just a liar," she started. "A liar-he was just lying because he didn't know-it couldn't have just fallen into-"
"I don't think he was lying, Mrs. Richards," Rourke said, quietly.
"Do you think my husband could have survived?" she asked softly.
"Honest?" Rourke queried.
"Yes," she said.
"No-I don't. Even if he was on the right side of the fault line, the tidal wave would have gotten him. I had, I guess, a friend in San Diego-told me once that if the San Andreas fault ever went, he'd be okay. His office and his house were on the continental side. I didn't have the heart to remind him about the tidal wave. See, when those mountains slipped off and all the land on the other side, the impact and the added mass, as well as the slipping motion itself-all that figured in to create a tsunami and then flood the lowland. I don't know where the new coastline will wind up."
"Why should I live?" she moaned. "There's nothing left. Nothing to live for. Why live now?" She said it like a chant.
Rourke looked at Mrs. Richards, then slowly said, "That's a question you're going to have to answer for yourself, ma'am. And I hope you can. Now, lets try to fly this plane, and get everyone down, huh?"
He kept watching her. She did not seem hysterical or beside herself, but her eyes filled with tears. Finally, she turned to him, whispering, "Maybe you just said it-we got all those people back there, haven't we?"
"Yes-we have," Rourke said slowly. "And all they've got right now is us."
"What will it be like-on the ground. If we make it, I mean?"
"Well, your guess is as good as mine. But I don't see humanity coming to a screeching halt, if that's what you mean. Maybe civilization, but humanity will find a way of going on. It always has, always will. Now," he said, turning and facing the control panel, "like the man said, let's see if this mother'll fly. You got charge of the instruction book."
Rourke put his hands on the controls, killed the auto pilot switch, and throttled back to get the feel. Suddenly, the plane shuddered.
"Mr. Rourke!" Mrs. Richards shouted.
"That wasn't me, lady. That was the explosion down there." Already, he was hauling back on the controls and throttling forward. "Hit that seatbelt sign, Mrs. Richards, and get on the PA and tell everyone to settle in. I gotta climb before that blast cooks us"'
Mrs. Richards picked up the microphone for the PA, then asked, "Was that another missile that hit?"
"No-we were over an oil refinery, is my guess. It just blew." Almost as the words left his mouth, the plane shuddered, and he locked his fists tighter on the controls. "Hit that seatbelt sign, huh!"
Chapter Twenty-four
Sarah Rourke crouched by the inside of the barn door, her right hand clutching the shotgun, her left arm around both children.
"Who is it, Mama?" Michael whispered.
"Shh," she rasped, looking into the yard between the barn and the house.
Four men and a woman were the object of her gaze. All were in their middle or late twenties, it looked. They stood around a late-model van with a smashed right front fender. They had guns in their hands. She recognized one of them-a military-type weapon, an M16, she thought. It looked similar to a gun her husband used a lot, but the rear portion of the stock was different.
"Hello in the house!" the woman in the yard shouted. Annie started to speak, "Mommy-she said hello to our house," then started to laugh. As Sarah turned and put her hand over the little girl's mouth, she realized that the five in the yard had probably already heard Annie.
When she looked back into the yard, two of the men were gone, and the other two men and the woman were staring toward the barn.
"Hey-who's in the barn?"
Sarah was paralyzed. If she shouted back, they'd realize-no matter what she told them-that there was no man. But if she said nothing?
"I said, who's in the barn?" The voice was rough and angry.
"I am," Sarah shouted back.
It was one of the men who spoke. "Just who are you?"
"I'm a woman with a gun, mister. Come any closer and you'll find out who I am." Sarah Rourke was surprised that the words had come from her mouth.
Suddenly, from behind her in the back of the barn she heard a voice "Drop the shotgun, lady-or I kill the kids."
Sarah Rourke wheeled around on her knees, releasing the children and bringing her left hand onto the shotgun. Michael was starting to get up. "Stay still, Michael," she screamed. The man who had spoken-there was another man behind him-was standing in the loft of the barn, the military rifle in his hands.
"Drop it, lady. We ain't gonna hurt ya. Unless you put up a fight."
"You leave my mother alone!" Michael shouted, his voice sounding younger and smaller to Sarah than she'd thought it could.
Behind her, Sarah heard footsteps. Then the woman's voice "We got you covered, lady-drop the shotgun and move away from it."
Bitterly, with a feeling of great failure, she dropped the shotgun.
"Okay." it was the man who'd talked before from the loft. "Move away from the kids."
"No," Sarah shouted.
"Move-or they get it."
Sarah looked up at him. "No, please don't." Suddenly, she was angry. She knew that John would not want her to beg these people. And she knew that she wouldn't. As she started to edge across the barn floor, she saw Michael out of the corner of her eye. He was starting to walk toward their bags in the corner. No one was watching him.
"All right, lady-on the ground," the man in the loft commanded.
"What you gonna do, Eddie?" It was the woman.
"I'm gonna get me a piece. Then I'll see.
"Not in front of her kids, Eddie!"
"Why, maybe they'll enjoy it." Then-Sarah watched his eyes across the distance that separated them-"Okay, lady-down." Sarah started to drop to her knees, watching the man coming down the ladder from the loft. She had lost sight of Michael, but saw a pitchfork in the opposite corner of the barn, perhaps ten feet away.
"All right, Eddie-me and Pete and Al can go check the house." Sarah watched as the woman and the other two men left. Then she turned her eyes back to the man, who had reached the foot of the ladder and was turned to face her.
"I ain't had no head for a while. Maybe we'll get started with that. Stay right there on your knees, lady, or the kids get it." The man started toward her. Her eyes were looking past him-to the pitchfork. As she turned to look up into his eyes, he shouted "Goddamnit-" and started to fall forward against her. His body fell onto her and she pushed against him.
She saw the boning knife she'd taken from the house-it was buried up to the handle in the man's right kidney. In the same instant, she saw Michael, standing where the man had been a second earlier.
"Take daddy's gun, Mommy!" he shouted. She found herself reaching for it. The dead man was still half on top of her, and her legs were pinned. The .45 was in her hands now. She looked to the loft. The second man was already halfway down the ladder. She held the gun, cocked the hammer back, and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. She held the gun more tightly, pointed it, and tried the trigger again-the gun jumped in her hand. The shot rang in her ears, and the man fell from the ladder, his rifle sailing out of his hands. Sarah worked her legs under the weight of the dead man and pulled free. She stared at Michael. She knew in the back of her mind th
at the other two men and the woman would be coming any minute.
"Michael?" She looked again at the knife in the first man's kidney.
"Daddy said that when he's gone, I'm the man of the family."
Sarah Rourke swept her six-year-old son into her arms, holding him tight against her.
"Mommy!" It was Annie screaming. Sarah, on her knees, turned, the .45 Colt automatic still in her right hand. It was the woman. She was aiming a revolver at Annie.
Sarah pulled the trigger on her .45.
The woman screamed, fell back, and the revolver dropped to the ground. Both hands clasped her chest.
"Annie!" Sarah screamed. Then, "Michael! Get your sister to the back of the barn. The other two men will be coming."
Sarah Rourke started toward the open barn doors. One of the men was already running across the yard. She fired the .45 once, then again, and the man turned and ran back toward the house.
"It's the broad and the kids!" he shouted.
Sarah fired again, kicking up dust near his heels, but missing the man. She stayed by the barn doors, waiting.
"Give up, lady. We ain't gonna hurt you. Give up or we'll burn down the barn with you and the kids in it!" a voice shouted from the house. "Mommy?"
"It's all right Michael," Sarah said, surprised that her voice was so even and calm.
She looked down at the gun in her hand, remembering what John had said about the safety catch, and raised it. She saw now why it hadn't fired the first time-John had told her about the grip safety. She hadn't been holding the gun tightly enough. She looked around on the floor of the barn, then walked over to the first man-the one Michael had killed. The thought of that was still hard for her to accept. How one night can change your life she thought. She was proud of Michael for defending her.
She reached down and tried to pick up the dead-man's military rifle. The sling for the rifle was still over his shoulder, and she had to lift his dead arm to pry the gun loose. She read the legend on the left side of the gun. "Colt AR-15." It was like her husband's gun. It was better than the shotgun. She moved what she thought was the safety but the clip started to come out. She pushed the magazine back in and searched again for the safety. She found it and pointed the gun in the direction of the floor and pulled the trigger. The dirt and boards started to fly up and she took her finger off the trigger. "A machine gun?" she muttered. She remembered, then, having read an article dealing with how some people took sporting rifles and changed them to submachine guns, illegally. She guessed that this was one of them. Her husband's gun-the stock was definitely different-fired only one shot at a time. She moved the safety lever, then touched the trigger to see if she had it right. The gun fired, but only one shot. She tried the safety lever again. She pressed the trigger and nothing happened. She moved it all the way back, and the gun fired like a submachine gun again. In the second position, it fired one round at a time. She took a deep breath and searched the dead man's clothes, finding four extra magazines. She would have to empty one and count how many rounds they held, she told herself. "But first things first."
Already, she knew what she would do about the two men in the house. There had been others who had drifted by during the night. Outlaws, brigands-just people who wanted to steal. She'd frightened one group away with the shotgun, not even firing it. And she realized these men who had almost killed the children and herself wouldn't be the last. She would have to leave the farm. The pickup truck or the station wagon would only run out of gas. She looked at the two horses, standing peacefully in their stalls-her mind flashed back to the last time she and John had gone riding. She could load the belongings and both children on the horses, and still ride herself.
She turned toward the house and began to walk toward the barn doors. She had to get rid of the men in the house before she could do anything else. Several times through the night, when the wind had shifted, she had smelled the gas from the house. The basement had only one window-a small one that somehow hadn't blown out. The basement still had to be full of gas.
She got down on her knees and put the rifle to her shoulder, setting the selector lever to single-shot. Semiautomatic. She remembered the term. John used it frequently in his weapons articles. She found the sights and lined them up, then aimed toward the house.
The bullet hit the dirt in the front of the house. She raised the barrel, aimed again, and tried to squeeze the trigger-the few times John had forced her to try shooting, he had always said, "Squeeze the trigger-don't snap it back."
She squeezed the trigger. She saw a piece of one of the house boards fly off. One of her hanging planters was still attached to the top of the front porch, and she aimed at it. When she fired, the planter moved. She fired again and the planter disintegrated.
"Dammit, lady, keep up that shootin' and we'll burn down the fuckin' barn with you and the kids in it-so help me!"
A smile lifted the corners of her mouth. She would have never thought of what she was going to do if they hadn't threatened-twice now-to burn down the barn. She was going to burn down the house-blow it up, with the men inside.
She pointed the rifle's muzzle toward the small, unbroken window of the cellar, lined up the sights, and squeezed the trigger. The window smashed. Nothing happened. She fired again, then fell back on her haunches. There was a loud roar, then fire belched, first from the small window, then from the first floor of the house. Then a fireball engulfed the house for an instant. Flames leapt skyward. She could hear screams from the house, one of the men yelling, "Gas-I'm on fire"'
One of the men-she thought it was the one the dead woman had called Pete-ran from the front door, his clothes burning. She fired, and he fell over. "I'm a killer," she whispered.
Chapter Twenty-five
"Mr. President," Thurston Potter said. "Mr. President?"
The president of the United States rolled over and opened his eyes. "Thurston?"
"Yes, sir. You fell asleep on the couch."
"Oh-yes. I guess I did. And it isn't a dream, then, is it?"
"No, sir. I wish-"
"Whan's the current situation?"
"We've just received word, Mr. President. The Russians are broadcasting on a low-frequency FM band that's getting past all the static. We must formally surrender or they'll destroy the few remaining cities. I don't know what to-"
"Well, what is it, Thurston?" The president swung his feet off the couch.
"I don't know, sir."
"If I surrender, then most of the resistance to them will stop-it won't even begin when they land here."
"Yes, Mr. President."
"If I just let them take us, then they can put any words in my mouth that they want, can't they?"
"Well, I suppose so, sir."
"The vice-president, the speaker of the house, all of my cabinet-dead. Dead?"
Thurston Potter squirmed on his heels. "Yes. Yes, sir."
"If I were dead, there would be no United States government to surrender. No one who had the power to surrender. Correct?"
"Well, sir, there were a few members of Congress who were out of Washington. A few may have survived."
"But it would take the Russians forever to find them-if they were still alive. Right?"
"Yes, Mr. President."
"Do we have a way of getting news out?" Potter thought for a moment. "We could send out some of the intelligence people to spread the word, I suppose. It would be slow, but once it got started, if the news were important enough, the people would hear it."
"That's what I thought. Get me Paul Dorian. Then, after he leaves, I want to see my wife and the children. After that, the chief of the Secret Service detail here. Hurry. You come back with Paul." The president leaned over the coffee table and took up one of his cigarettes. He was smiling as he lit it.
***
"All right, Mrs. Richards. I've decided to try to bring this thing down just south of Albuquerque. There's a lot of flatland south of there, and a drop in the desert looks like the best chance we hav
e. I'm betting the Albuquerque airport is finished."
"You can't be sure," the woman said.
"I can overfly it," Rourke said. "You're right." Looking away from the instruments a moment, Rourke said, "Mrs. Richards, take the controls. Don't move anything." He consulted the plastic-covered maps and checked them against his approximate position. "Albuquerque should be ten minutes ahead." Already, as Rourke looked through the windshield and down toward the ground, the sun was starting to rise. The ground had a gray cast to it. The mountains off to his right were still partially steeped in heavy shadow.
He'd driven into Albuquerque many times, through the mountain passes and down-the view had been breathtaking. It still was he thought, but as he followed about a mile from the closest high ridge, flying low, he could see that the view had changed.
He had no idea if Albuquerque had been hit directly, but there had been a firestorm. Perhaps from natural gas? He could see that there were few houses standing; the ground was burned black. Some emergency vehicles were moving on the ground below him. But there was no sign, no huge crater, to indicate that a direct hit had been made on the city.
He found the markers for the airport-a few were still standing. He started to follow them in. "This is Canamerican 747 Flight 601," Rourke droned into the radio. "Calling Albuquerque tower. Do you read me? Over."
He had set the radio to the right frequency for hailing the facility, but there was nothing to answer him but static. Both fists locked on the controls, Rourke whispered, "All right, Mrs. Richards, I'm going to overfly the airport, and we'll see how it looks. After that, I'll have just enough fuel left to set this thing down there or on the desert. So lets make it a good look."
Rourke throttled back on the monster-sized jet engines. The noise roared in his ears as he squinted against the brightness of the sun and scanned the ground. He hauled up on the flaps, and the airport loomed up ahead.
The field-from one end to the other-was a mass of debris. What looked like dozens of planes had been burned on the ground.
"What happened?" Mrs. Richards asked. "A missile?"
"No, I don't think so. I think some kind of accident. Probably somebody like us tried to come in and misjudged the runway. Yeah, see over there?" Rourke pointed far on the starboard side of the plane. "Looks like something rammed a fuel truck and they didn't get the fire in time. Firestorm of some kind is what it looks like all over the city. So the city shouldn't be hot with radioactivity."
