by Jerry Ahern
"We are aware of Soviet strides in particle beam weaponry," Stromberg said. "The United States has made similar strides, in some instances along parallel lines."
"We know what you have and what you don't have," the premier said, almost bored. "Ask anyone who has the better of intelligence services. We do. The world knows this. And you must now believe me. This is why we have for so long been sincerely interested in strategic arms limitation talks—to limit nuclear weapons. We can survive with what we have, and still be victorious if need be. But I am not saying this as a threat."
"Then why are you telling me this, sir?"
"It is simple," the premier answered slowly. "We do not wish the destruction of the world. There. That is something your president can understand, something on which we are both agreed. We will not withdraw our troops from Pakistan until significant border regions of that nation are totally under Soviet control. We will then leave a residual peacekeeping force and conclude prosecution of the matter in Afghanistan. Within perhaps a few months, at most a few years, Soviet troops will be withdrawn from Pakistan. This, I pledge. But not before." He drummed his right fist down hard on the desk.
Stromberg watched the hand. His own father had been a roofer before forming his own construction business and rising in society. Stromberg remembered his father's hands—the huge knuckles. The premier had been a roofer as a young man—had Stromberg not already known that, the massive, raw-boned knuckles would have told him. "The United States certainly does not wish a war with the Soviet Union or any other power, yet we must again insist on the sovereignty of Pakistan."
"Mr. Stromberg," the premier said, "you are an ambassador—you are not paid to say what you think. I am a premier—I am paid to say what I think." He paused. Then: "I do not think the United States will risk a world war over Pakistan. You are bluffing—that is the expression, yes?"
Stromberg nodded.
"Bluffing, then. You have in the past—a great deal. You will again. We will sometimes acquiesce to your bluffing simply to avoid protracted difficulties. But this time, the Soviet Union will not back down. If the president chooses to make his ultimatum public, he will only lose face in the world community. NATO will not back you of this, I am sure. The Warsaw Pact Nations can easily defeat even the most innovative NATO strategy in Europe. You are hopelessly outnumbered, my friend. If your president is foolish enough to begin a war with us, he will not win. He will be remembered as the destroyer of the United States, not its avenging savior. Perhaps he will be remembered as the destroyer of the world—if there is anyone left to remember him."
"You would risk that, Mr. Premier?" Stromberg said, incredulous.
"I speak of the welfare of my nation. A man must be willing to risk all for a cause he feels is just. Do you think this is only the prerogative of the West, my friend Stromberg? If you do, then you understand us less than I had thought."
"What can—" Stromberg stammered.
"Go and tell these things to your president, convince him of my sincerity and my earnest wish for peace. Do not trouble yourself to return here with the formal note. Your assistants can handle that. My formal reply shall be ready for return to your president by then. Now go." Stromberg started to stand up, but then the premier said, "A bit of advice to you. I like to think that as well as possible we have become something of friends over these three years since your posting here. Stay in the Soviet Union—you will be safe. At least, if you cannot, keep your wife and daughter safe here. I will guard them as if they were my family. Moscow is impervious to attack. It will be—in that eventuality—the safest place on earth for them."
Stromberg looked into the darkness as he stood before the premier's desk. "I used to have nightmares about something like this."
The premier whispered, so softly that the American ambassador could barely make out the words: "I still do."
Chapter Five
Sarah Rourke rolled over and opened her eyes, leaned toward the bedside lamp, and squinted as she pulled the chain for the light. Looking away from the glare as much as she could, she studied the digital alarm clock beside the bed— would be late for kindergarten. She felt behind the clock. The alarm had been pushed off.
She sat bolt upright in bed, pushing her shoulder-length brown hair back from her face. She had watched the network news the previous evening, then had a hard time getting to sleep afterward. As she pulled away the covers and edged her feet out of the bed, she wondered if John had made it out of Pakistan before the Russians had entered the country. Gingerly, she tested the rug with her toes until she found her slippers, then slipped her feet into them and stood up.
Her pale blue nightgown brushed at her ankles as she reached for the robe on the chair beside the bed and slipped it on.
"Michael"' she called from her door, "get up for school. Mommy overslept. Come on. You too, Ann," she called to their four-year-old daughter.
"I'll get Ann, Mom," Michael shouted back.
"All right. I'll make breakfast. You can eat at school today. No time for me to make your lunch."
She glanced int's room first. His was across the hall from her own. And then into Ann's room before she started toward the head of the stairs.
She stopped. She'd thought she smelled cigar smoke, but supposed it was only her imagination—despite herself she'd been thinking of John all night. But as she stood there at the head of the stairs, she could smell it now quite distinctly. She rubbed her eyes and peered over the banister into the living room below. Someone was in the easy chair by the fireplace—and there was a fire going.
Over the mantel, the brass brackets for the shotgun which John had insisted she keep there were empty. "My God," she started to say, her hazel eyes staring straight at the back of the head that was half visible above the chair's headrest.
"You can relax, Sarah."
He stood and looked up at her, the shotgun and an old rag in his hands. It was John, and for an instant she wasn't sure she was glad. If it had been a prowler, she would have known how to react. But with her husband, she no longer did.
"Daddy!" It wa screaming and running past her, taking the steps down two at a time; then Ann was racing past her too, "Daddy! Daddy!"
Sarah Rourke turned and walked back down the hallway. He'd been cleaning the shotgun. His obsession, she realized, with guns and death and violence hadn't gone away. Her stomach was churning. She stumbled into the bathroom. Obsession. She looked into the mirror, studied her face a moment, touched her right hand to her hair, realizing that she was like him—obsessed.
John Rourke pulled his wife's '78 Ford wagon to a halt on the gravel driveway in front of the house. He could see Sarah waiting for him in the doorway—blue jeans with a few smears of paint on them, a T-shirt with one of his own plaid flannel shirts over it. Her hair was loose at her shoulders, a cup of coffee steamed in her hands, and her hazel eyes stared over it at him.
"Well," he began, across the driveway from her, "I got the kids to school—they weren't too late."
"Have to kill anybody along the way, John?" Without waiting for an answer, she turned and walked back inside the house.
As Rourke pulled his leather jacket shut against the cold, he felt the stainless Detonics .45 in his hip pocket. He'd left its mate and double shoulder rig in the house, and realized that she'd seen it.
"Shit," he muttered to himself, then walked across the gravel and up the three steps and onto the long riverboat front porch, then into the high-ceilinged old house. "Where are you?" he half-shouted.
"In the kitchen—making your breakfast," Sarah called back. He tossed his jacket on the coat tree and walked the length of the hallway to the end, then turned into the kitchen.
"You finished stripping the wainscoting? It looks good that way," Rourke said, sitting down in front of the steaming mug of coffee that waited for him on the trestle table.
"It was a lot of work," she said, st
ill facing away from him, standing by the electric stove. "The woodwork, I mean," she added, her voice low.
"How are the kids?" he said.
"Didn't you ask them?" She turned toward him and put a plate before him—a small steak, two eggs, hash brown potatoes and toast.
"I didn't expect this," he said.
"Didn't you ask them—the children?" she repeated.
"Yeah," he said, a forkful of egg and potato poised in front of his mouth. "I asked them—all they said was they missed me. Said you missed me too," he added.
"Well—they do. I do, but that doesn't change anything." Sipping at her coffee, she said, "I was worried you hadn't gotten out of Pakistan in time. The Russians and everything. I thought you were supposed to be in Canada for that seminar on—what is it?"
"Hyperthermia," Rourke said. "Field recognition and treatment of hyperthermia—a lot of interest in that these days."
"Why didn't you become a doctor after medical school? You're crazy."
"Dammit, Sarah," Rourke said.
"Well, why didn't you? You went to college, took Pre-Med, went to medical school, then you quit and went into the CIA. You're an idiot."
Rourke threw his fork down on the plate, then stood and walked to the window looking out onto the enclosed back porch. "What? You want the same argument we had last time?"
"No," she said quietly. "I just want different answers."
"I like what I'm doing."
"Killing people?"
Rourke turned and glared at her, realizing he still had the gun in his pocket. Weighing it in his hand a moment, he set it on top of the refrigerator and sat down again.
"Answer me. Do you really enjoy violence?"
Biting down hard on a piece of toast, he said quietly, "I'll tell you one more time. I enjoy working with police and military people. Training them how to stay alive. If staying alive entails killing someone else, then, okay—it does. I didn't make the world. Somebody has to teach people how to stay alive in it. I know all there is to know about terrorism, brushfire wars—but it's more than that. Just the day-to-day business of staying alive would kill most people if they found themselves in the wilderness, the desert...if they lost their modern technology in a flood or a quake. Most people—"
"Like me?" she said defensively.
"Yes. Yes, like you or anybody else. Do you know anything about edible plants? Ever skin down a snake then worry about whether you'd gotten all the poison out because if you didn't eat it you'd starve to death? No. But I have."
"What do you want, a medal? I don't mind that part of it—but why is it always tied to death? I bet you're hoping the Russians go straight on through Pakistan and we go to war with them. Then everybody'd have to tell you you were right." Then, deepening her voice and frowning, she shouted, "Plan now for death and destruction—read the collected works of J.T. Rourke, noted survivalist and weapons expert. That's right, ladies and gentlemen, he can tell you how to survive war, famine, death—and, if you act now, he'll even throw in pestilence at no extra charge."
"Hell, lady," Rourke said, downing his coffee. "If I really thought you believed that, I'd give up on this whole damned thing between us."
"What? Divorce instead of the separation we have now?"
Rourke stood, walked around the table and put his hand on her shoulder, felt her touch her face against his hand, then felt her lips touch his fingers.
"Why do we fight?" she whispered.
"Because we love each other. Otherwise, we'd have given up a long time ago."
"On that," she said, "I'll admit you're right."
Rourke dropped to his knees beside her chair and wrapped his arms around her, feeling her body pressing against him. They stayed that way for a long time.
When he sat down again his coffee was cold and so was the food.
"I'll make some more coffee—would you like some more coffee?" she said, standing across the room by the stove.
"Yes, I'd like some more coffee." He smiled, and she laughed. While the fresh pot brewed, he followed her into her studio across the hall. "What's the latest book?" he asked, leaning over the slanted drawing table by the window.
"I don't have a title for it yet," she said, leaning over with him to look at the drawings. "Do you like them?"
"A snow leopard?" he said, pointing to one of the loose drawings at the top of the table. It was part of a composite. She had always made drawings and backgrounds separately, then combined them. It was a slow process, but her illustrations for the children's books which she also wrote had received considerable critical acclaim over the years.
"Yes," she said, her voice soft and girlish as she looked at the picture he held. "It's about a snow leopard. They're arboreal—hardly ever come down from the trees. This one has to. He's exploring a new world that's been right under his own world all his life."
Rourke put his arms around her. "What about the coffee?" she asked, pushing her hands against his chest.
"Pull the plug."
"Okay."
Hand-in-hand, they went back to the kitchen for a moment while she unplugged the electric coffee pot. Then the two of them went back down the hall and up the stairs to the second floor, into the bedroom.
Sun was streaming through the sheer curtains on the broad-paned windows. Rourke folded Sarah into his arms. His hands pressed tight against her back and her rear end. Her arms twined around his neck. She leaned up toward him and he kissed her lips, gently, then with greater force as her hands caressed his face. His hands slowly explored the familiar curves of her body.
They undressed each other by the windows. She smiled, almost blushing, as he stripped away her bra. They stood naked for a moment, arms about each other, watching the autumn-like landscape on the other side of the glass. Their land stretched for miles into the woods, whose deciduous and coniferous trees were untouched, save for the yearly Christmas tree they always cut and a few trees felled for wood to stoke the house's several fireplaces.
"In Pakistan, up in the mountains," Rourke whispered, "It's winter."
She touched her fingers to his lips and he pushed them away, kissing her again, then walking with her the few short steps to the unmade bed.
They sat on the edge of the bed while she told him wha and Ann had been doing since the last time he had come to see them all—just before he left for Pakistan. Then, naturally and easily, they fell back onto the bed, slipped under the sheet, warming each other for a while as their hands touched each other's bodies.
Rourke felt her hands slip between his thighs. His own hands touched her breasts, her thighs, then he moved over her, slipping between her thighs. Her back arched, her stomach pressing up against him. His lips touched her neck, her ear, her cheek, and as their mouths touched, their tongues touched also, the tip of hers at once exploring and inviting his. Her hands were guiding him and he moved against her, the moisture and heat of her, the twitching of her small muscles around him making him push all the more deeply into her.
Her breaths were short and erratic as she moved under him, her eyes closed, the lids fluttering as he watched them, sunlight through the curtains splashing across the face he knew so well...
They walked in the woods, both of them having showered together after they'd left the bed. Rourke wore jeans and boots and a pale blue shirt. His leather coat was open. Sarah's arm wrapped around his waist and under her coat. She shivered a little as they stepped into a small clearing a few hundred yards from the old house.
"Why did you come back, John?" she whispered, quietly.
"To see if we could patch things up. I don't care whether you think what I'm doing is right or wrong. But I want to be with you—you and the kids."
"But what about the children?" she said. "I don't want them growing up with the idea that death and violence are just normal—like you feel. Maybe you're right—I'll give you that. Maybe I'm so wrong that I'm a fool. But if everyone
does nothing but prepare for the destruction of civilization, there won't be any civilization left to be destroyed. Do you know what I mean?"
"If the world is going to end, you'd rather not know about it?"
"Maybe. Maybe it's something like that. I don't wan and Ann growing up with guns and violence—there are other things. You, of all people, should know that. But you ignore it."
Rourke walked away from her and sat on a deadfall log in the middle of the clearing. In a moment she was standing beside him, her hands resting on his shoulders. "After all these years you still don't understand what I'm doing," he said. "You should come up to the retreat. Maybe you'd understand it better then."
"What do you mean?"
"All the money I've poured into the retreat over the last few years—you never once would go there. It's not an arsenal. It's a part of civilization, a protected piece. That's why I put it where I did—up in the mountains. That's why you can only get there by horse or motorbike—in good weather, with a four by four truck."
Sitting down beside him, she said, "All right. Tell me about the retreat."
Rourke looked at her, then said, "Okay. I'll tell you about it. You never wanted to know before." He sighed. "It was a cave to begin with. I bought the piece of the mountain first, then sealed off the cave completely—waterproofed it, everything. Using the natural configuration of the rocks, I built a second home there—for all of us. A place we could use when we wanted just to get away from things. And a place that, if everything fell apart, we could go to and still live like human beings. I turned the mouth of the cave into a long hallway. At the end of it is the great room—the ceiling must be thirty feet high and it's natural rock. It's huge. It's the library, living room, recreation room—it's just where you live. Opening off that are three smaller rooms that are bedrooms. Another room with a full kitchen. Baths, everything. The electrical power comes from an underground spring that runs the generators I installed. Heating is electric—with the rock and the high ceilings you never need cooling."
