by Jerry Ahern
Chapter 24
Sarah Rourke sat on the steps of the front porch, listening to the kitchen sounds Mary made, watching the reddish orb of sun in the low, thin clouds at the end of what was a peaceful universe for her—or perhaps, she thought, an island, an island of normalcy in the fear and hatred and terror of the world since the war.
She stood up, her feet in borrowed shoes, smoothed the borrowed dress against her as she walked into the house through the screen door and through the perfectly normal living room or parlor, past the long dining-room table, already set, and through the narrow hall past the pantry into the kitchen. She liked older houses, despite the sometimes awkward room arrangements.
Mary—Millie’s aunt—was standing by the kitchen sink, rinsing vegetables.
“Can I help with dinner, Mary?” Sarah asked.
“No need, Sarah, but you can if you like. I need those potatoes peeled, knife over in the top drawer, and there’s an apron on the hook other side of the door.”
“Okay,” Sarah said, finding the apron and tying it around her waist. She found the knife and sat at the small table and opened the cloth sack of potatoes. “What do I put the peelings in?”
Mary turned around from the sink, the water still running. She didn’t say anything for a minute, then, “I’d say open a newspaper. We used to open an old newspaper. But there ain’t none. We used to use a grocery sack. Old Mr. Harland ran the grocery, but he died of a heart attack when they busted into the grocery—drove their trucks and motorcycles right through the glass windows they did—killed some of the clerks who were trying to help old Mr. Harland.” Mary rubbed her hands on the front of her apron, turned around absently, and shut off the water.
Sarah watched the woman, watched as Mary stared through the window above the sink and into the garden and beyond. Sarah could see the purplish night far off in the distance. She heard a sniffing sound, saw Mary bend down and touch the apron to her face, then heard the water turn back on. Mary was talking, but not looking at Sarah.
“I don’t know, Sarah—where to put them peels from them potatoes. I don’t know.”
Chapter 25
Rourke watched in the shadows. It was a commando raid, he guessed, something against a Soviet installation in the city or somewhere near. He had left the bike for two of Reed’s men to guard as well as Reed’s other equipment.
Then with Reed and the other two surviving team members, Rourke had started walking through the woods and paralleled the road for about a mile, seeing no sign of traffic as they made their way toward the old drive-in theater. Rourke knew the man and woman who’d owned it years before, and now as he turned off the road and skirted behind it, avoiding the access drive, he wondered if somehow the couple had managed to make it through the holocaust.
He felt someone tapping on his shoulder and heard a whisper—Reed’s voice. “Why are we taking the long way around, Rourke?”
Rourke stopped, the CAR-15 slung from his right shoulder, his fist wrapped on the pistol grip, the safety lever on and his thumb near it. “I trust the motives of the Resistance people, but there could always be a ringer in with them, working for the Soviets.”
“Goddamn Russians,” Reed muttered.
Rourke looked at him, able to discern the outline of his face in the darkness, saying, his voice low, “Yeah, well, maybe goddamn Communists, but not goddamn Russians—they’re people just like we are, led by their government—doing what they’re told.”
“You were sweet on that Russian broad a little, weren’t you? Chambers said she—”
Rourke jabbed the muzzle of the CAR-15 forward, hard in the darkness, a moan and a rush of air issuing from Reed’s lips as he doubled over. Bending beside him, the muzzle of the rifle alongside the hunched-over man’s face, Rourke rasped, “You keep out of my personal affairs, Reed, hear that? And not that it’s any of your business, because it damned well isn’t, if it weren’t for that ‘Russian broad’ your President would have been locked away by the Communist occupation forces by now and you and all your people would have been croaked in a neutron blast. It doesn’t matter how I feel about her, she did us all a good turn and got her own tail in a sling probably doin’ it. And I wouldn’t be here doin’ this foolishness to begin with if I weren’t trying to find my wife and kids. You grow up a little, and maybe you’re gonna realize that any normal man meets a lot of ‘broads’ like you call ‘em, a lot 6f women he can like, maybe he could love under different circumstances. But it’s only juvenile delinquents and morons who figure fidelity’s a one-way street. I figure if my wife counts me as alive, wherever she is, she’s being faithful to me—and I don’t just owe her the same, I want to give her the same. Now—” and Rourke bent low, his lips almost touching Reed’s ear, his voice rasping and hard— “you think you got all that, Reed? Or you wanna go out back there a few hundred yards into the brush and get the shit kicked out of you?”
Even in the dark, Rourke could see the hard set around Reed’s eyes. “You give sermons, too, huh? Mr. Good Guy, Mr. Hero, what’s some dinky-assed nuclear war to you, huh?”
Rourke let out a slow, low breath, saying half through his teeth, “You and the guys like you who stayed with the system are the ones who fucked it all up. Had to play your little games, do your little dances, keep the world spinning around and figure when it stopped it was like a roulette wheel—you win, fine, you lose, there’s always another game. Well, you look at the sunsets, you feel the temperatures against your skin, you measure the rainfall, you count the dead bodies, sucker. Some Communist gave an attack order, some guy over here gave an attack order and it’s just real great to push some goddamn anonymous button. You go out and kill a couple hundred million people some night when you can smell their sweat, smell it when they die and their bowels loosen up and their sphincters relax, and you can see the eyes go glassy. You do it that way next time, and see how well you like playin’.”
Rourke turned around and started through the brush toward the main parking area of the abandoned drive-in, somehow feeling better inside and at the same time feeling worse. He’d always labeled himself either laid back or uptight—he’d never been sure which. And he wasn’t used to hearing himself let go. His jaw set, he kept walking.
Rourke edged toward the farthest end of the tall standing pine trees, their bare shadows casting long, thin lines along the ground from the reflected light of Coleman lanterns in the center of the drive-in lot. Rourke watched the assembled men—no women. He didn’t like the rendezvous; it was too open. He waited as the now-silent Reed edged up near him.
The man rasped, “After this is through, you and me.”
Rourke simply nodded. Reed, competent, tough and—Rourke thought—about as bull-headed as he, was the last thing on his mind.
Chapter 26
General Varakov sat in darkness. Other than the light from the long rectangular lamp that bathed his desk in yellow, beyond was shadow and then beyond it blackness, and far into the main hall near the skeletons of the mastodons was a ceiling light, but it shone more like a beacon than a source of illumination. The light cast shadows from the bones of the two prehistoric giants and seemed only to accentuate how they somehow did not fit in the real world of men and yet emphasized the mortality they shared with men.
Varakov wiped his hands across his eyes, and stared at the file folder. It was the KGB file on John Thomas Rourke. He scanned through it once again. Doctor of Medicine, with no particular specialty, and training toward general practice, and after the degree, internship at—Varakov didn’t recognize the name of the hospital. After there was an unaccounted-for year, and then Rourke had joined Central Intelligence as a case officer—the translation for that Varakov knew was a spy, an agent. He had moved into the Black Section—Covert Operations, and had killed several times for the agency, targets usually in Latin America. Varakov noted with interest that apparently Karamatsov and Rourke had crossed paths in Latin America once. And Rourke had bested Karamatsov.
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br /> For some reason not clear in the file, Rourke had quit Central Intelligence after an affair in Latin America, which he’d barely survived. There had been an ambush, Rourke’s people had been killed, and only Rourke’s body had not been found, and then several weeks later a man matching Rourke’s general description had been seen near the docks and after that, Rourke had apparently drifted into Miami, barely alive.
His nerve gone? Varakov doubted that, for after leaving CIA Rourke had begun to freelance, not in Intelligence, but in counter-terrorist training, survival training, weapons skills, etc. He had been spotted working with pro-American military and police units in virtually every corner of the world where the Americans needed the help most. Varakov made a mental note to see if Rourke had really left the Company, as it was called, or simply assumed a cover.
Rourke had written several books on the medical, psychological, and weapons-related aspects of survival—short and long-term. He was an expert; Varakov noted curiously that some of Rourke’s works had been pirated, translated, and were adapted as training manuals in the Soviet Union. The thought amused him; he wondered if Rourke would take such knowledge well? He doubted it. He scanned through the family background; wife works as an artist, illustrator, and writer of children’s books; two children, Michael and Ann. Varakov worked the dates—the boy would be nearing seven, the girl nearing five.
He scanned through the file to the skills section. There was a repeat of the medical background, the standard things one expected in an Intelligence agent, or former agent, dealing with radio, etc. He was qualified on helicopters, fixed-wing aircraft, military jets. Rourke’s Georgia driver’s license number appeared there—curiously, Varakov thought—the same as Rourke’s social security number. He was reportedly an expert marksman, but that was to be expected. Habitually carried .45ACP or .357 Magnum-caliber handguns.
Perfect—he’d liked the sound of the man when he’d spoken with him and realized that despite their political, ideological, and other differences, to Varakov’s thinking, they were much alike. Men of purpose, men with feeling, men who did what they must. Varakov had never liked Karamatsov who had no feeling, and when the surface was finally scratched, the insides were worse than those of a pig.
Natalia was his special child, Varakov scowled—and for hurting her, Karamatsov would simply and finally die. Varakov did not consider it revenge, and the justice of it was not something that bothered him either. It was just—but more to the point—it was something he wanted done. He sighed, not being a vindictive man, but wishing that circumstance did not preclude him pulling the trigger himself.
His desk phone rang.
“Varakov!” he snapped into the receiver. It was the radio room, his contact.
He waited, thinking about how to handle the man, waiting while the adjustments were made. This was the traitor in President Chambers’s closest group of advisors.
“Hello, yes, Varakov. So—at last. You, too, are a general of sorts I hear,” Varakov said, the thought slightly amusing him. He disliked traitors, and the more highly placed, however useful, the more intense the dislike.
“Yes, sir,” the very American, cowboyish voice answered noncommittally.
“Randan Soames, Commander of the Paramilitary forces of Texas, one of Samuel Chambers’s trusted confidants. A man who visited Russia twelve years ago, has been working for us ever since and has, before the war, handed us over numerous copies of secret files coming through your electronics components businesses. How nice to meet you,” Varakov said.
“Yes, sir.”
“I understand that you sexually molested a child—”
“Sir, please, I beg—”
“I, personally, would not have chosen blackmailing you into espionage. I would have shot you. You are worse than a savage, worse than an animal. I would have no compunction against leaking to your
American friends who you are, what you have done for us and why. That is clear?” Varakov wanted to terminate the conversation as quickly as possible, feeling somehow dirty talking with the man even across perhaps several thousand miles. He wasn’t quite certain exactly how far Texas was from Chicago.
“But, General Varakov—”
“You will do exactly as I say—I am a man of honor and you are not—therefore, you are taking advantage of me and you have nothing to lose. I need the following. I understand this American terrorist Rourke is obsessed with locating his wife and children who were living in Georgia before the war. All indications would be that he has gone there. How can he be found—immediately?”
“But, sir, I, ahh—”
“You will find him for me, tell me how he can be located precisely, and all will be as it was. If you do not, then all will be bad for you. I will hear from you in two hours. You would have more time had you contacted me sooner as requested.”
“But, sir, I had to be so careful so no one—”
“I am not interested in these concerns, however genuine. Do your job—now!” Varakov hung up the receiver and checked his watch. He shut off the desk lamp and sat in the dark better to study the shadows of the bones from the central hall. He answered the telephone, not bothering with the light, and because of the darkness somehow he found himself speaking more softly that he had the first time.
“Yes, Soames. A team lead by a Captain Reed—you will be left alone—that is my pledge.
Yes, Reed has reported his position. Near where? Ahh,” Varakov remembered the name of the town where he had set up the garrison. “A raid of some kind. That should be easy to determine. You learn, as a real—” and he emphasized the last word— “military commander that there are certain things no Resistance fighter or terrorist bothers with—you may want to keep them busy with these by making them attractive—a bank with no money, a warehouse filled with empty boxes, like this. And, conversely, there are certain targets no self-respecting Resistance fighter will pass up. That is why they die so quickly. You have done satisfactorily. You are safe.” And then, his voice low, he added, “But, if it ever comes to me that you touch another child, I will come after you and kill you myself with my bare hands.” He smashed the receiver down.
He lifted the receiver again, pushed the button, and got the staff office downstairs. “This is Varakov. Contact immediately the Commander of the Southeast Regional District and get him on my line—have my personal plane fueled and ready, and find my secretary and have her pack a bag.”
He hung up.
Chapter 27
“We got Committees of Resistance formin’ in Tennessee, Alabama, Pennsylvania, both Carolinas. We’ll alert ‘em all to keep their eyes peeled for your woman and kids, and that’s a promise,” Abner Fulsom stated emphatically. “Don’t think we can’t sympathize with y’all, cause we can. And don’t y’all think we don’t appreciate it, hear? I mean you and these other fellas helpin’ us go up against them Reds—tough stuff, huh?”
Rourke remembered having met the man once some years back. He’d run a hardware store. The “Committee of Resistance” was some twenty men strong, at least this night, and their weapons ranged from the sublime to the ridiculous, Rourke thought, and everything in between. There were lever action .30-30 Winchesters, bolt action rifles of various persuasions, Colt, FN and Heckler & Koch assault type rifles and one or two sawn-back pump shotguns. The handguns ranged from single-action Ruger Super Blackhawks in cowboy-style holsters to Walther PPK/S .380s to .45s to almost every imaginable Colt -or Smith & Wesson revolver variant. One man had a MAC-10. He’d been a submachine gun collector before the war and had loaned or given away much of his collection to the Resistance. Unfortunately, Rourke thought, the people who had most of the selective fire weapons were somewhere else at the present.
“What about Colfax?” Reed asked.
“Yeah, but somethin’ tells me, Captain, I’m gonna leave that information on where Jim Colfax is hangin’ out ‘til after tonight. You never know what might happen,” Abner Fulsom said, smiling, his bright white tee
th catching the light of the Coleman lamp.
“All right,” Rourke said, tired of the talk, tired of the entire situation. “Where’s the raid going to be, on what. What kind of resistance can we expect, how do we get there, you know, all that standard movie stuff, hmmm?”
Darren Ball, Rourke thought, had been strangely silent, sitting with an AR-15 across his lap and a Government Model .45 in a military type across the chest shoulder holster. Rourke thought Ball’s silence wouldn’t last for long.
Abner Fulsom began to speak. “There was a huge, modern shopping center not too far from the city—real popular place before the war. Russian occupation forces are usin’ it now as a supply depot and helicopter base because of the big parking lot. Some of us blew up the airport when we learned the
Russians were comin’ in, so they’ve been usin’ the shopping center. There’s a big ammo dump there, too. Figure we can steal all the AK-47s and such we can carry and ammo for them, blow up everything else. We go to the shopping center. We got a code name for it—Firehole.”
“Anything else?” Rourke asked.
“Yeah, we know a secret way into the place, too, through a big storm drain. It’s still operational, but there hasn’t been no big storm lately so the drain should be pretty dry. I figure—”
“That’s all?” Rourke asked Fulsom.
“Yeah, about it. Why?”
“Well ...” Rourke began slowly, then stopped, Darren Ball interrupting him.
“What he means is a commando type raid against a hardened military site like a supply depot isn’t somethin’ you whip up on the spur of the moment, Fulsom. Same thing I’ve been tryin’ to tell you for a long time. That’s why the last raid got you so many casualties.”
“What last raid?” Rourke asked.
“These damned fools,” Ball began. “Aww—they decided to go and dynamite the guard posts in the center of town, blew up one part of the installation, killed maybe a half dozen Russian soldiers, and lost five of their own men.”
