by Ahern, Jerry
Whatever happened, the fire had been worth it, necessary.
She froze, her back flattening against the concrete bridge support as she heard the sound again, this lime more clearly—a voice, whispering, meaning there was a second person—at least—in the darkness of the storm.
She stayed against the bridge support, cold, both pistols in her_hands, waiting.
They were shiny for night work, but she liked them, the polished stainless steel, the permanence of it— "Permanence," she whispered to herself. What was permanent these days? She had just said good-by to a man whom she had told she loved, a man she would never see again, never forget. And soon, it would be good-by to Paul as well, her friend.
She tried to remember who her friends had been.
Tatiana from her ballet class—they had traded secrets. Tatiana had been Jewish, like Paul; and Tatiana's father had done something—Natalia had never known what— and Tatiana had never returned to ballet class again.
Natalia tried to remember her own parents, but it was impossible. She was only able to remember what her uncle who had raised her nad told her about them. Her father had been a doctor, as John was a doctor. Her mother had been a ballerina—they had died. Her Uncle Ishmael had never really fully explained how.
She wondered, silently, whether, when she died, those who cared would know at all.
She didn't think so.
She beard noise again; this time, not the noise of speech, but the bolt of a weapon—assault rifle or submachine gun, she couldn't tell which—being opened.
Perhaps it was Paul with the gun he insisted on calling a Schmeisser, his MP-.
But the sound had been from the wrong direction.
She bunched her fists around the finger-grooved Goncalo Alves wood grips of the matched Smith & Wessons, then stepped away from the bridge support.
She walked, slowly but evenly, toward the edge of the support. She looked around it—she could see the glow of the fire from beyond the far side of the ground-cloth windbreak.
And she could see four men—men or women she wasn't really sure. She had shot both in her lifetime.
They were closing in on the windbreak, in a narrowing circle, assault rifles in their hands. She imagined there were others, behind her, coming up on Paul from the rear. He would have to look out for them—his instincts were good. She would be otherwise engaged.
She stepped away from the bridge support, the glow of the fire glinting off the polished stainless-steel revolvers in her fists.
"What do you want?" $he shouted.
One of the nearer assault rifle-armed figures turned toward her.
"Ever'thin' you got, li'l gal." He laughed.
"You shouldn't laugh," she said calmly. The man wheeled the muzzle of his rifle toward her, and both pistols bucked at once in her hands. The man's body hammered backward into the snow. The assault rifle discharged, its muzzle flashes lighting up the night, as the second nearer man started to turn, to fire. She caught the sight of hair; it wasn't a man, but a woman.
Natalia fired the pistol in her left hand, then the one in her right. The body of the woman twisted and contorted as it fell, her assault rifle impacting into the snow beside her.
Gunfire was coming from the other two and Natalia dove for cover behind a pile of discarded sewer pipes to her left. Bullets whined in the frigid air as they ricocheted off the concrete. Natalia's right hand flashed up, snapping off one shot, then another.
Dumping the empties and the two unfired rounds from the right-hand revolver into her right palm as she stroked the ejector rod, she huddled behind the pipes; the gunfire coming more steadily now. In a pocket of her coat she had a half-dozen Safariland Speed Loaders. She snatched them, ramming the bullets into the charging holes, the center of the loader actuating against the ejector star, the cases freed and spilling into the charging holes. She slammed the cylinder shut, fired the gun in her left hand—four shots, a scream.
There was more gunfire.
Then from her far right, she heard the small-caliber, high-pitched belching of the Schmeisser. "Paul," she said.
She speed-loaded the revolver for her left hand, then holstered it, the gun in her right hand firing as she
pushed herself up, running from the concrete sewer pipes toward the bridge support, firing at the nearer of the two assault rifle-armed figures. The body went down, its gun still firing. "Wounded," she murmured. Whoever Paul had been shooting at was on the far side of the bridge support. And Paul's gun had stopped firing.
She reached the lean-to. Rubenstein was locked in combat with three men.
She heard Paul's subgun discharge though" she couldn't see it; one of the men fell back, stumbling into the fire, his body and clothes now aflame.
Natalia fired her revolver once into the man's head to put him out of his agony. Then having taken two steps closer to Paul, she half-turned, balancing in the snow on her right foot. Her left foot snaked out, giving a double savate kick to th# head of the nearest of the two remaining men.
The man fell back against the bridge support, and she could see Paul now, his right arm bound up in the sling for his subgun, his left hand holding back the knife of his opponent, clutched around the man's right wrist.
The subgun fell away; Paul's right fist hammered up, into the midsection of the vastly larger man.
Natalia's instincts told her something.
She wheeled, emptying the revolver in her right hand into two men charging for her. She wheeled again. No time for the revolver in her left hand, she dropped the Metalife Custom L-Frame from her right fist, snatching in the same motion for the Bali-Song knife in the right side hip pocket of her jump suit.
Her thumb flicked open the lock as her right arm hauled back. The closed knife sailed from her grip as she threw her arm forward. From beyond the windbreak, a man advanced against her with an assault rifle. The
stainless-steel Bali-Song glinted in the firelight as it rotated in the air, the handle halves splitting open.
The man with the assault rifle stopped in his tracks, both hands out at his sides, the rifle falling from his grip. The handle slabs of her knife were flat against the front of his coat, making a horizontal line. The body sagged, then fell forward, into the fire, and Natalia, as she snatched the revolver from her left holster, could smell his flesh burning on the wind.
Rubenstein! She could see him, his left hand still locked on the knife wrist of the man he fought. Suddenly his right arm hauled back, then flashed forward, his bunched-together right fist smashing into the nose of the larger man. The man's knife hand went limp; the knife fell.
As the man fell.back, Rubenstein snatched at the pistol from his belt, firing the High Power almost point-blank into the man's midsection as the body stumbled, then collapsed.
"Two outside, maybe," she snapped, the revolver sailing from her left hand into her right as she rounded the edge of the bridge support.
She ran hard, reaching the far side, making the corner. An assault rifle at the shoulder of one of the two men there started opening up, its flashes blinding against the snowy darkness. She stabbed the revolver forward in her hands and double-actioned it twice. The man's head shuddered under the impact of the slugs, his body falling, as the assault rifle fired uselessly up into the night sky.
She wheeled. Firing the L-Frame again at the last of the two, she heard the chattering of Paul's submachine gun as well. The body of the last of the attackers rolled, twisted, lurched under the impact of the slugs hammer
ing at it; then it was still. "Too bad," she said.
She heard Paul's voice. "Yeah—what a waste of human life."
"That, too," she told him. "But with all the bullet holes, none of their coats will do us much good for added warmth." She started back toward the windbreak, saying, "Check that they're all dead while I get my other gun and the knife." She felt very cold, and realized Paul probably thought her co
lder. "If any of them aren't dead—tell me," she added.
She sat down, picking up her gun, not yet ready mentally to retrieve the Bali-Song knife. The gun was undamaged. Automatically, she emptied the revolver of the spent cases, then reloaded it with one of the remaining Speedloaders. She loaded the second revolver as well, holstering both guns; then, her hands trembling, she lit a cigarette.
"Tired!" she screamed.
John Rourke looked at the Rolex; the exterior of the crystal was steamed so he smudged it away with his right Јlove, then studied the time. It was eight-thirty. A good time for a party, he thought—the shank of the evening.
He leaned against the pine trunk, staring down into the valley, the wind behind him now) the sweater pulled down from covering his head, his leather jacket unzipped and wide open. The Bushnell Armored Xs focused under his hands as he swept them across the valley floor. A town—a perfect town, nothing changed. A blue-grass band was playing in the town square, strains of the music barely audible in the distance; children played behind a crowd of spectators surrounding the band; a car moved along the far side of the town, its lights setting a pattern of zigzags in the shadows where the streetlights didn't hit.
For an instant only, Rourke questioned his own sanity, then dismissed the idea.
He was sane; it was what he saw that wasn't sane.
He took out one of his dark tobacco cigars, rolling it across his mouth between his teeth to the left corner, then letting the Bushnell binoculars dangle down from the strap around his neck. He found his lighter, and
flicking the Zippo, touched the tip of the cigar nearly into the flame.
Drawing, he felt the smoke in his lungs as he inhaled.
He and Natalia and Paul had often talked about it—a world gone mad; but beneath him now, on the valley floor, was a world that hadn't changed. Was that madness? He closed his eyes, listening to the music. . . .
Comfortable with his leather jacket open^-he would have worn it now if he had been hot because it concealed the twin stainless Detonics .s—he rode the Harley into the town, his Python and the hip holster hidden in his pack, the CAR-still wrapped in the blanket. At least it would take a reasonably knowledgeable curious person to determine that it was a gun.
He could hear the music more clearly now as he passed a small school; the facility would handle perhaps three hundred students, he decided. From the high ground inside the lip of the valley, he had seen most of the town in relief against the valley floor, but the details had been lost. Now he could see it more clearly. No evidence of looting, bombing, fire,s—nothing that showed there had ever been a war. The Night of the War hadn't touched this place.
He felt like Hilton's very British hero, entering Shangri-La and leaving the storm behind him.
"The storm," he whispered to himself. Both literally and figuratively, a storm.
He stopped his Harley-Davidson Low Rider for a stop sign; a police car was across from him at the other side of the four-way stop.
Rourke ran his fingers through his hair, then gave the cop a wave and a nod as he started. The police prowl car moved slowly, the policeman lighting his dome light,
looking but saying nothing as Rourke passed the vehicle.
Rourke chewed down on the burned out stub of his cigar now. Reaching the end of a storybook residential street, he turned left after slowing for a yield sign, a public library on his right as he started toward the lights of the square. A young girl wearing a dress sat on the steps of the library building, with a boy of the same age sitting beside her, the two talking.
The boy looked up, and Rourke gave him a nod, driving on. He passed the post office; the street angled slightly toward the town square.
He stopped the Harley beside the curb, staring at what he saw. It was just as he'd seen it from above—a band flaying, some younger people dancing, clogging or step-dancing, children running and playing, some tugging on their mothers—perhaps two hundred people in all around the square.
He turned off the key for the Harley. He couldn't help himself as he sat there, listening to the music, but hearing different music—a song he and Sarah had always called their own song, danced to so many times. In the faces of the strange children, Rourke saw the faces of his own. What he couldn't stop, what he felt—tears—a world gone.
Had Sarah seen him, he smiled, she would have thought he was almost human.
. . .
The blue-grass band had stopped, and a record player was humming through the loudspeakers; there was the scratching sound of a needle against plastic, then a country song, and through a momentary niche in the wall of humanity surrounding the center of the square he saw more children—girls in green-and-white plaid dresses with short skirts and petticoats that made the skirts stand
away from their legs, the oldest of the girls perhaps twelve, the youngest looking to be Annie's age—five or so.
Boys in green slacks and white shirts and green bow ties—only a few boys (hough—stood beside them, all in a rank. They started dancing; clogging, it was called.
Rourke srnelled something, then turned and looked to his right. A gleaming truck, the kind that would come to factories to bring coffee and doughnuts and hamburgers, was parked at the edge of the square.
He saw a sign above the open side that formed a counter—the sign read, COKE.
Rourke walked toward the truck. A little girl passed him, coming from the truck, a half-eaten hot dog in her right hand, yellow mustard around her mouth and dribbling down her chin.
Rourke automatically felt his pockets. He still carried his money clip—but was there anything in it? "Yes," he murmured. Something just hadn't made him give away or throw away money. He pulled out a ten and walked over to the truck.
"What]] ya have, mister?''''
"Ahh—two hot dogs and a Coke. Make it three hot dogs."
"You new in town, ain't ya? Related to anyone 'round here?"
"What's the occasion?" Rourke asked, something making him evade the question. He jerked his thumb toward the town square behind him.
"It's the Fourth of July, mister. Ain't you got no calendar?"
"I—I've been camping—up in the mountains. Kind of lost track of time."
"I reckon you have." The man smiled, handing Rourke the three hot dogs in a small white cardboard box. Rourke handed him the ten-dollar bill and took the Coke, then started away.
"Hey!"
Rourke turned around.
"You forgot your change!"
"Keep it," Rourke told him. "Maybe I'll wan! another hot dog later."
Rourke turned and spat his cigar butt into a trash can near him. He walked across the square a short way, finding a tree and leaning against it, listening to the music, seeing the children clog. He took a bite from the hot dog nearest him in the box, the Coke set down beside Jiim on the ground. It wasn't near the Fourth of July.
The man who had sold him the hot dogs wasn't from here, either—he had said "you" not "y'all" and that went with the territory. Rourke had made the speech pattern as midwest em.
Maybe it was the Russians—something that would be a trap. But for whom?
The town, the dancing, the Fourth of July. If he wasn't crazy, all of them were.
He wasn't crazy, he reminded himself, feeling the comfort of his guns under his jacket as he nudged his upper arms against his body. "I'm not crazy," he verbalized. The hot dog had tasted good and he started to eat the second one, dismissing any worry it was drugged. The little girl was dancing around, helping the doggers; the only thing apparently wrong with her being terminal mustard stains. . . .
Rourke sipped at his Coke—it was real Coca-Cola. He hadn't had any since—He worked along the perimeter of the crowd, watching the faces, the genuine smiles. He nudged against a man and the man turned, smiled,
and said, "Hey!"
It was the universal southern greeting that Rourke had learned long ago
as a transplanted northerner.
"Hi." Rourke smiled, as the man turned away to watch the clogging. This was a second group of doggers, dressed the same but in red and white rather than green and white. The green-and white-clad girls and boys stood at the edge of the crowd now, watching the others.
Rourke saw a face; it was the only face not smiling. It looked promising, he thought, and gravitated toward the woman belonging to it. par As he neared the woman," the clogging stopped— abruptly—and an announcer, a fat man wearing a red-and white-checkered cowboy shirt and a straw cowboy hat, said through the microphone, "Let's give these little folks a big, big hand!" Rourke held his cup in his teeth a moment and applauded, then kept moving toward the woman with the unsmiling face.
Slower country music started to play and the crowd started splitting up.
Rourke cut easily through the wave of people now, some of them gravitating toward the edge of the square, some pairing off and dancing to the music.
The woman with the unsmiling face apparently wasn't with anyone; she turned and started away. Rourke downed the rest of his Coke and tossed the cup into a trash can nearby, then called out to her. "Hey—ahh." The woman turned around.
Rourke stopped, a few feet from her, saying, "I, ahh—"
"Y'all want to dance?" she smiled.
"All right." Rourke nodded, stepping closer to her.
She slung her handbag in the crook of her left arm on its straps. Rourke took her right hand in his left, his right
arm encircling her wais*- She was about forty, pretty enough, but not a woman who seemed to try to be pretty at all.
Her face was smiling, but not her eyes.
"Who are you?" She smiled, coming into his arms.
"John—my name's John," he told her.
"You're carrying a gun, John," she whispered, her head close to his chest.
"I read a lot of detective stories. I'm the librarian. I know."
"You oughta read more," he told her softly. "I'm carrying two."
"Ohh—all right, John."
"Hasn't anyone heard about World War III here?" he asked her, smiling as they danced their way nearer the blue-grass band.
