John Rourke sat quietly, listening. What he listened to was the regular sound of Natalia's breathing. She was still sleeping. He had sat beside the bed for nearly an hour, ever since leaving Gundersen. Paul was being shown about the submarine—Rourke had postponed the grand tour until later. He had wanted to think, and the quiet of Natalia's room in sick bay had been the best place, he'd thought.
What would happen when he found Sarah and the children?
He had not thought of an answer—for over the weeks since the Night of The War and his meeting with Natalia he had formed new bonds, in some ways stronger bonds than he had ever had. There was Paul Rubenstein—once a man who could do nothing for himself, now a man who could do most things—and most things well.
There was Natalia herself—Rourke looked at her, her eyelids fluttering. She was awakening.
He stood up, walked to beside her bed and touched her, reaching out his left hand to her left shoulder.
Her eyes opened, the brilliance of the blue somehow deeper in the gray light of the room.
A smile tracked on her lips, her voice odd sounding. She whispered, 'I love you,' then closed her eyes.
John Rourke stood beside the bed for a time, watching her as she slept.
Chapter 20
Sarah Rourke rammed the fresh thirty-round magazine into the M-—for one of the thousands of times since she'd acquired the gun, she was grateful the previous owner (a brigand) had somehow gotten hold of the selective fire weapon. She pumped the trigger, making a professional three-round-burst—she was a professional by now, she realized. The nearest brigand biker fell back. But there were more coming.
The first attack in the early morning had waned quickly, and since then there had been sporadic gunfire from the other side of the field, but the distance too great. Then had come the second attack—a dead-on assault across the field. Her own weapon firing, Mary Mulliner firing the AR-and the hired hand—old Tim Beachwood—firing his own rifle—they had repelled the attack.
Beachwood was in the front of the house now, his rifle booming and audible over the roar of gunfire. 'Michael!' Sarah shouted. 'Go up and see if Tim needs anything—hurry but stay low.'
'Right,' the boy called out, then—as she looked back—he was gone. Annie, just six, sat under the heavy kitchen table, chairs stacked between the open wall side and herself just visible as Sarah looked for her. She was loading magazines for the Colt rifles. Her counting wasn't perfect yet, and as Sarah had fired through some of the
magazines counting her shots with the bursts, she'd found magazines with thirty rounds, twenty-seven rounds, twenty-eight and even one that somehow the child had forced an extra round into—thirty-one, Sarah pumped another burst, missing the brigand firing from the back of a fast moving pickup truck. 'Annie—keep those magazines coming,' Sarah called out.
'I'm hurrying, Mommie!'
'Good girl,' Sarah called back. She was the unofficial leader—she realized that.
Old Tim Beachwood had said it right after the shooting started. 'I never fought no war,' he'd said. 'Too old for the last one—way too old for this one. But I hunted all my life—you point me the right winder and I'll start a killin'!'
She had shown him the right 'winder' then. The gun—he had told her what it was—was something she'd already recognized. It was a lever action Winchester, the caliber .-. She had watched cowboy heroes using them in every Western film she'd ever seen.
Another brigand truck—the truck cut a sharp curve through the back yard, across Mary MuUiner's vegetable garden, a man in the truck bed waving—it wasn't a rifle, but a torch. Sarah snapped off a three-round burst, the man's body crumpling, the torch falling from his hands and to the ground, the body doubling forward and rolling off the truck bed, bouncing once as it hit the ground. Sarah tucked down, a stream of automatic weapons fire hammering through the shot out windows and into the cupboards on the far wall. 'Stay down, Annie,' Sarah screamed. She could hear the cups shattering in the cabinets, the glasses breaking.
'They mean to burn us,' Mary Mulliner gasped, sucking in her breath audibly.
'Yes—they mean to burn us,' Sarah nodded.
When this third attack had begun, Sarah had resigned
herself to the fact that there was no hope of victory. She had told Mary to shoot as little as possible. There had been three hundred and seventy-nine rounds of . ammo available when the battle had begun. There was less than half of that remaining, firepower the only means of holding the superior brigand numbers away from the house. Old Tim had had one hundred and three rounds of ammo for the .-. How much he had remaining she couldn't guess. There was an even hundred rounds of . ACP, only one pistol available to handle it—hers. She would save that until the rifle ammo was nearly gone, then use it to repel as many brigands as long as she could. She had decided —she would save at least four rounds—one for the Jenkins girl, hiding with Tim, helping him, Sarah hoped. One for Mary Mulliner. Two for her own children. She had seen what brigands could do to children—young boys, little girls. She had seen them do things to older women. She shivered—she had seen what they did to women like herself. Gang raped, left exhausted and dying by a roadside for the wild dogs to feast on.
She might save five rounds, she thought. She pumped the M-'s trigger. A three-round burst, then another and another. She shattered the windshield of the pickup truck coming dead-on for the back of the house. But the truck was still coming. A man stood up from the truck bed, a torch in his hands. He was swinging it.
Sarah pumped the M-'s trigger—the gun belched two rounds and was empty. The man fell back and the
