by Jerry Ahern
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Sarah Rourke climbed stiffly into the saddle, her stomach still cramping when she moved too quickly or bent, but the cramps lessening in intensity. The previous night's dinner had stayed with her although she hadn't eaten much, and at breakfast that morning there had been none of the accustomed nausea. After she had awakened that first morning, with Michael's help they had found a better, more permanent campsite as close as possible to the site they had used the night of her collapse. She had barely been able to mount up then, but with Michael leading her horse, they somehow had managed.
As she straightened in the saddle now, she thought of Michael and the last few days since she had drunk the contaminated water and been rendered virtually helpless. The boy was a constant source of amazement to her. Lying virtually helpless on her back at that time, the stomach cramps, the nausea—Michael had been her hands, her feet, keeping the girls and himself fed, feeding and watering the horses. Once, there had been noises, voices from far along on the other side of the forested area from where they were, and the boy had brought her the .45 automatic pistol, then gathered the girls next to him and waited silently beside her until the voices had died away, the noise ceased. She turned now in the saddle, still awkwardly because of her stiffness, and looked at the boy.
"You're the finest son anyone could want, Michael," she said to him, her voice still not sounding quite right to her.
"Why did you say that, Mom?" the boy said, smiling at her, his brown hair falling across his forehead.
"I just wanted to," she said. She moved her knees too fast and the cramps started to return, but she straightened up in the saddle as Tildie started forward along the trail into Tennessee.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Rourke brought the Harley to a fast stop, skidding his feet into the dirt and squinting against the morning sunlight despite the dark aviator-style sunglasses he wore. His face and his body under his clothes were bathed in sweat. He shifted the CAR-15's web sling off his shoulder, the outline of the sling visible in dark wet stains on his shirt. He had cut across country, backtracking for a while until he had come across the lead elements of the paramilitary force. With his liberated field glasses he had spotted the familiar face of the officer he and Rubenstein had encountered days earlier by the abandoned truck trailer when they had been resupplying with ammunition. The force consisted of what Rourke estimated as close to three hundred and fifty men, traveling in trucks and jeeps in a ragged wedge formation along the road, outriders on dirt bikes paralleling their movements and working back and forth, up and down the convoy line like herders moving cattle or sheep. He timed them and judged they were making approximately fifty miles per hour, and with their numbers there was no reason to suppose they wouldn't press on for fourteen or more hours per day—as long as daylight lasted.
Rourke had cut ahead then, the convoy several hours behind where he had left Paul Rubenstein and the girl who called herself Natalie. And now, as he watched the road below him, the tight bend the highway followed, he could see the brigands. There were more than two dozen long-haul eighteen-wheeler trucks at their center, traveling four abreast, consuming the entire highway space, squads of motorcycle riders in front and in back and on the shoulders, all heavily armed. Though he had no way of telling what or who might be inside the trucks, he judged the strength of the brigand force at better than four hundred men and women. For some reason he couldn't fathom, they were heading back in the direction of Van Horn, speed approximately fifty miles per hour. A smile crossed Rourke's lips, but then vanished quickly. As he watched the brigand column began turning off the road, moving into a long, single column and heading into the desert.
"Shit!" he muttered, dropping the field glasses and staring down into his hands. The change of direction into the desert would keep the brigands ahead of him, and the paramilitary force was still behind him. Rourke reslung the CAR-15 on his right shoulder and revved up his bike. The brigands' turning had forced his hand, he realized, and any way he decided to go, the odds for staying alive were dropping.
Chapter Thirty
Rourke had left early in the morning, awakening the slightly hung-over Rubenstein to let him know his intentions, letting the girl continue to sleep. As Rourke slowed the Harley and drove it up the grade into the sheltered campsite where the truck was parked, he spotted Rubenstein sitting by the Coleman stove, a cup of coffee in both hands, his glasses off. Natalie was standing by the front of the truck and all Rourke could see of her as he eased the bike to a halt was her back.
"I didn't recognize you without your glasses," Rourke said to Rubenstein, smiling.
"Shut off the motor, huh? My head is—"
Rourke laughed, killing the Harley's engine and dismounting, then walking over toward Rubenstein. Rourke set the CAR-15 against the bumper of the truck and dropped to a crouch beside the younger man, snatching a cup and pouring himself some coffee. "What's with her?"
"What? Oh—I don't know—she's been that way ever since she woke up and found you were gone," Rubenstein answered, his voice shaky.
"So what did you find out, Rourke?"
Rourke looked up. It was the girl, hands on her hips, feet a little apart, tiny chin jutted forward, her eyes fixed and staring at him. "You look cheerful this morning," Rourke told her, then, "What I found out was that the paramilitary is a few hours behind us with a large force. The brigands are a few hours ahead of us with a large force. Even larger than the paramils. If we bump into the paramils, we've had it. Paul and I had a run-in with one of their patrols before we bumped into you. The officer who commanded the patrol is with the paramil force I saw. He'll spot us, we'll get shot—and probably you too since you're with us. They're southwest of us now, heading northeast along the road. The brigands were heading southwest, and for a while I thought they'd run into the paramils, but then they turned off into the desert. Probably going to be staying in this area for a while."
"So what do we do?" the girl asked him.
"Can't go southwest and run into the paramils. Just have to take our chances on butting up against the brigands."
Rubenstein, rubbing his eyes with his hands, said, "But if we do run into the brigands, what then?"
"Well," Rourke said slowly, staring into his coffee, "we sort of promised that woman with the refugees that we'd look for that blonde guy who killed her baby. I guess we can do that, then move on."
"How many brigands are there?" Natalie asked, her voice tense.
"Better than four hundred, I make it. But we can't just stay here—the paramils will find us. I make it that within the next few days both units should lock horns—looks unavoidable with their sizes—couldn't miss one another. Then maybe we can get clear of the area."
"But what do we do until that happens?" Rubenstein asked.
"Stay just shy of the brigands and try to pass around them—if we can. If we can't, though, we only have one additional option. We join 'em."
"What!" Rubenstein exclaimed.
Rourke lit a cigar and leaned back against the truck. "They've never seen us, must have picked up a lot of their force from bikers driftin' in two or three at a time. If we have to, we'll fake it."
"And what if they don't buy that?" the girl asked, her voice emotionless.
"Then we'll buy it," Rourke answered slowly, then sipped at his coffee.
Chapter Thirty-One
Samuel Chambers, necktie at half-mast, suitcoat gone, two empty packs of Pall Malls crumpled on the small table beside his chair, the standing glass ashtray overflowing with cigarette butts, squinted against the yellow lamplight from the desk. He glanced at his watch. The conference had gone on longer than he had expected without breaking. The thought came to him that if this was what being the president of the United States was really like, he could see why the job had aged all the men who had gone before him. "Heavy lies the head," he muttered to himself, lighting another cigarette and wishing he hadn't from the bad taste in his mouth.
&n
bsp; He looked at the notes he'd taken on the yellow legal pad on his lap, pondering silently if it would work, if the country could be sewn back together even temporarily. Parts of Louisiana and all of Texas had been consolidated into one martial law district, the paramilitary commander, Soames—Chambers didn't like the man and trusted him less—taking charge of internal matters because of the sheer numbers of his force and the capability to recruit more. The air force colonel, Darlington, would use his troops and the navy forces to handle border defense, using the stores of National Guard supplies to help with this. The National Guard unit—small—would function as a traditional army unit, but outside the borders of this "kernel" of a nation. They would execute clandestine military operations against the Soviet invaders as required, but, more important, try to establish communications links with civil and military authorities in other parts of the country.
Chambers smiled bitterly—he was too much of a realist to assume there were not other men now calling themselves president of the United States, or at the least taking on the concurrent authority the title implied. He tried telling himself, convincing himself, that it would work. "I don't believe it," he muttered, then lit another cigarette.
When dawn came, he would be taking a military flight into Galveston to personally assess rumors of a Soviet presence there, as well as to wrap up his personal affairs. All his advisors had warned against the flight. Perhaps, he reflected, that was the first time he had actually felt like a president. He had listened carefully, asked questions, explained his reasoning and then—in the face of the irrefutable logic of his "advisors"—flatly stated he didn't "give a damn." He wanted to see Galveston one more time.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Rourke hadn't caught the name of the town as he, Natalie and Rubenstein had passed it. There was smoke trailing in a wide black line across the sky from where the town should have been, and Rourke thought silently that likely the town was no longer there. There was gunfire discernible in the distance and faint, almost ghostly sounds, Rourke mentally labeled them, that could either have been the wind or human screams. The brigands had turned back out of the desert early that morning, placing Rourke, Rubenstein and the girl sandwiched between the brigands and the paramils, now perhaps a day's march or less apart. Rourke braked the light blue pickup truck on the top of a rise, out of years of driving habit pulling onto the shoulder and out of the main northeastern-bound lanes, despite the fact that there was no traffic.
Rourke cut the engine and stepped out, stretching after the long ride, watching the dark clouds moving in from the northwest. Already the breeze, which had been hot that morning, was turning cool, and he shivered slightly as he walked to the edge of the road shoulder and stared over the guard rail toward the remains of the town. Below the level of the smoke, there were large dust clouds from vehicles—many of them, Rourke reflected.
"Are they down there?"
Rourke turned around, bracing his right hand against the butt of the Python on his right hip, looking at Natalie. "Yeah—they're down there, all right. And I make it the paramils aren't far behind us—I think it's now or never."
"How about never?" Rubenstein said through the open passenger side window, forcing a smile.
"He's right—Rourke is," Natalie volunteered. "We're better off with the brigands than caught between them and the paramils."
"Let's go down then and introduce ourselves," Rourke said softly, starting back around the front of the pickup and climbing into the driver's seat. He gunned the engine to life, out of years of habit looked over his left shoulder to see if there was traffic—there wouldn't be, he realized rationally—and edged out onto the highway.
Rourke reached down to his waist and tried unbuckling the gunbelt, then turned and looked at the girl, feeling her right hand crossing his abdomen and seeing her turn awkwardly in the seat between himself and Rubenstein. She undid the buckle and he leaned forward in the seat and she slipped the belt from around his waist. "You want me armed again?" she asked.
"Yeah—might be advisable," Rourke answered. "You seemed to do pretty well with that Python the last time—no sense messing with success."
The girl rebuckled the Ranger Leather Belt and slung it diagonally across her body, the holster with the six-inch Metalifed .357 Magnum revolver hanging on her left side by her hip bone, the dump pouches with the spare ammo crossing her chest between her breasts. Rourke looked back to the road, hearing the sounds of Rubenstein checking the German MP-40, the gun the younger man still called a "Schmeisser."
Rourke shifted his shoulders under the weight of the twin Detonics stainless .45s in the double Alessi shoulder rig, then reached into his breast pocket and snatched a cigar. He fished the lighter from his Levis and as he did, the girl took it from his hand and worked it for him, holding the blue yellow-flamed Zippo just right, below the tip of the cigar so the flame could be drawn up into it. "Where'd you learn to light a cigar?" he asked, nodding his thanks.
"My father smoked them," the girl said, then closed the lighter and handed it back to him.
"What else did your father do?" Rourke asked, clamping the cigar in the left side of his mouth between his teeth and turning the steering wheel into an easy right onto an oif Tamp from the highway.
"He was a doctor—a medical doctor," the girl answered, "like you are. When I was a little girl," she said, "I was always going to grow up and be his nurse. But he died when I was eighteen," she added, her voice sounding strange and without the easy confidence he had become accustomed to hearing in it.
"I'm sorry," Rourke said quietly.
"I guess time makes everyone an orphan, doesn't it," Rubenstein said, sounding as though he were speaking more to himself than to Rourke or the girl. Rourke turned and looked at Rubenstein, saying nothing.
"Over there!" the girl said suddenly.
Rourke glanced back down the road and to his left. In the distance—in what must have been an athletic field—he could see a crude circle of semitrailer trucks and several dozen motorcycles, all moving slowly, dust filling the air around them. There were gunshots now, over the noise of the truck and bike engines, and again Rourke thought he heard what could have been screams, coming from inside the circle of trucks.
"What the hell are they doing?" Rubenstein asked.
"I think I know," the girl answered.
"They've apparently gotten their mass executions into some kind of ritual, working themselves up into a frenzy before they do them, terrifying the victims too." As Rourke spoke, the trucks began slowing down, the dust thinning. "And it looks like they're ready for their number," he added.
"I didn't think there were so many crazy people in the world," Rubenstein remarked, his eyes wide and staring at the trucks and the gradually diminishing dust cloud.
"Some people, maybe most people," Natalie began, "can't handle violence emotionally—they sort of revert to savages and along with that goes all the rest of it—"
Rourke finished for her, turning their truck off the road and crossing onto the far edge of the football field. "It's the reptilian portion of the brain coming to the fore. A lot of work was done on it just before the war. The reptile portion of the brain is the part obsessed with ritual and violence, and sometimes there's little to differentiate between the two. You look at just normal things—fraternity initiations, street gangs, all sorts of things like that. The violence and the ritual eventually so intermingle that you can't have one without the other; one causes the other."
"Like rape, Paul," Natalie said. "Or sex-related murders. Is intercourse or death the purpose of the act, or just something that happens as a result, the act itself being the purpose?"
"I think Behavioral Psych 101 just let out, gang," Rourke said softly, starting to slow the pickup truck as he wove it between two of the nearest semis and into the circle.
The girl beside him unsnapped the thumbreak opening flap on the holster with the big Python. Rubenstein pulled back the bolt on the "Schmeisser."
; "Be cool," Rourke cautioned, stopping the pickup truck in the approximate center of the circle. In front of the hood were perhaps fifty people, mostly women and children, a few older men, some of them still in pajamas or nightgowns, their clothes torn, their faces dirty and their eyes filled with terror. Rourke whispered, "This must be the place," and shut off the key on the pickup truck and swung open the driver's side door and stepped out, the CAR-15 slung under his right shoulder now, his fist wrapped around the pistol grip.
The knot of townspeople stared at him, almost as though they collectively made one frightened organism. He looked away from them, rolling the cigar in the corner of his mouth, his chin jutting forward, his legs slightly apart. He turned and looked behind the pickup truck. Already perhaps a dozen or more of the motorcyclists from the brigand gang were walking toward him, some of the drivers of the eighteen-wheelers were climbing down from their cabs and walking toward him as well. Rourke squinted against the sun and shot a glance skyward—the entire northwestern quadrant was so gray it almost seemed black by contrast to the deep blue of the sky above him. The wind was picking up, making tiny dust devils around his feet.
"Who the fuck are you?" The voice came from a tall man, Rourke's height or better, but an easy fifty pounds heavier, wearing a dark blue denim shirt with the sleeves cut off, leaving frayed edges across his rippling shoulder muscles. He wore a military-style shoulder holster, a stag-gripped .45 automatic riding in it on the left side of his chest. In his right hand was a riot shotgun, with extension magazine and a sling, web materialed, blowing now slightly in the wind like the man's dark, greasy-looking hair.
