“Yeah,” Rourke rasped, “and to nail us last night, Varakov must have him now. There’s one sure way to know —only one.” Rourke turned to Fulsom. “Where’s Jim Colfax supposed to be?” “Up in the mountains near Helen, Georgia—got a Swiss chalet-like house up there he inherited when his brother died. One of my guys spotted him still at the house two days ago. My man had seen him on TV.” “Where exactly,” Rourke said.
“I’ll draw you out a map, and thanks, Rourke. We’ll look for your family. How do we contact you?” “You contact Army Intelligence, I’ll contact them,” Rourke told Fulsom.
“What about the traitor?” Reed asked.
“We’ll know for sure there is one at your headquarters after today. Helen’s about two hours from here. I used to take Sarah and the kids there. Beautiful place. You have your man radio in just like he normally would. Tell them you expect to be up there in three hours. The Russians won’t pass up a chance to get Colfax and us all at the same time so they’ll wait, but we’ll be there an hour earlier.” “Is that enough time?” Reed asked.
“I’m leaving now with Paul. The bikes can make better time. Have Fulsom give you another map like the one he’s making for me, then you follow in one of the Russian vehicles. Have Fulsom show you some side roads and possible alternates on your own maps. And we’ll rendezvous at Colfax’s place. Leave two of your men some distance off to warn us when the Russians begin to show.” “Rourke?”
“Yeah?”
“Forget about that fight, huh? I owe you my neck.”
“What fight?” Rourke smiled, turning away and starting back toward Rubenstein, buttonholing Reed’s corporal to keep the drop on Korcinski after Rourke and Rubenstein left.
Chapter 41
Rourke ran through the woods, Paul Rubenstein beside and slightly behind him, both men stopping where they’d left the bikes camouflaged behind brush, stripping the brush away and mounting up.
“We’re going back up into the mountains?”
“Yeah, after the astronaut, Colfax. Should have the Russians right behind us—probably use helicopters to get up there—might be a lot of shooting,” Rourke added, looking at the younger man.
“So, I should be used to it by now?” Rubenstein laughed and Rourke slapped him on the shoulder, then looked at him. “What are you looking at me like that for?” “You’re a good friend, Paul,” Rourke said quietly, turned away, and mounted his Harley.
It began to mist less than ten minutes into the two-hour ride into the mountains, and soon the mist turned into a driving, road-slicking rain. Rourke, with Rubenstein riding dead even beside him to minimize the spray of the wheels against the highway, was soaked through.
Because of the driving rain, their speed was cut just to keep control, and, as Rourke turned off the highway onto the side road Fulsom had indicated for him, he glanced at his watch. It had taken slightly over two and one- half hours and might well take Reed, unfamiliar with the area, even longer.
Rourke pulled in at the side of the single-lane, black-topped access road, turned to Paul Rubenstein as he pushed his fingers through his soaking wet hair, his eyes half closed against the downpour. “The Colfax place should be at the end of this road, then a driveway. There’s a wooded area behind the house. No suitable spot for the helicopters to land if the Soviets use Air Cavalry, but they might be able to rapel down to the ground. They’re going to want Colfax alive to get the information on the Eden Project—the same as we want. Come on.” Rubenstein nodded, wet, looking disgusted, his glasses pocketed and his deep set eyes squinted, but unlike Rourke’s not just against the rain. Rubenstein, Rourke knew, needed the glasses to see properly.
Rourke started up the single-lane road, traveling slowly, Rubenstein behind him. The blacktop was slick and the ditches along both sides of the road were running to overflowing in the heavy rain, the water there a washed-out blood red from the clay.
At the end of the road was a graveled driveway and Rourke cut left, turning onto it, exhaling hard in relief at the more stable road surface, the bike crunching over the wet, white gravel chunks, a house looking as though it had been lifted from the Bavarian Alps directly ahead.
The cuckoo-clocklike structure had a second-floor porch traveling the width of the house, shuttered windows and doorways facing onto it, below a smaller porch, ornamental, gingerbread style woodwork, brightly painted, adorning each cornice and corner.
Rourke stopped his bike ten feet from the house, kicked out the stand, and dismounted. The CAR-15—the muzzle cap in place and dust cover closed—slung muzzle down across his back, his upturned collar streaming water into his shirt. He pushed his wet hair from his forehead and walked toward the small first-floor porch, looking up at the second floor for some sign of habitation. The gravel crunched beside him and Rourke glanced to his right. Paul Rubenstein was beside him.
“Paul—go around back—I don’t want Colfax to duck out on us.”
The younger man nodded, his thinning hair plastered to his forehead by the rain, then disappeared to Rourke’s left around the side of the house. Rourke stepped onto the porch, the drumming of the rain on the porch above him intense, the sound of rushing water through the downspouts from the roofline gutters like a torrent.
He fished into his wallet, pulled the plastic coated CIA identity card from it, then replaced the wallet in his pocket. He searched the door for a bell, found none and hammered on the fake Dutch door with his left fist. “My name is Rourke,” he shouted. “I’m with American Intelligence—CIA card here in my hand,” and he turned the card toward the curtained windows in case Colfax were looking through a slit.
“Jim Colfax—I’m here to help you,” Rourke shouted.
Then there was another shout, Paul Rubenstein, the voice clear over the drumming of the rain, the words though hard to make out.
Rourke glanced from side to side, pocketed the CIA card, and flipped the porch railing, his boots splattering down into the mud beside the porch, almost losing his footing as he ran around the side of the-house.
Rubenstein was pointing into the tall, widely spaced stand of pines in the backlot. “Colfax, a white-haired guy with a crewcut?” “Yeah—I think so,” Rourke shouted back over the rain.
