Rourke began to examine the wound—he himself was on borrowed time with Cole, he knew that; but Natalia's borrowed time was coming due. Had he not been a physician, never seen a gunshot wound—had he never seen death, he knew, he would have recognized it in her face.
'You're goin' with me—for those six missiles. Eighty megatons apiece, Rourke—eighty megatons apiece. The woman's good as dead. You want your Jew friend dead too?'
Rourke looked up for an instant, his eyes flickering across the field toward Cole, Cole's left arm bloodied and limp at his side, but in the right hand the Government Model . held steady, the muzzle pointed at Rubenstein's head, Rubenstein moving slowly on the ground, trying to get up.
'Where's your base camp, Cole? How do you contact headquarters?' Rourke began examining Natalia's wound in greater detail, spreading her fingers, but slowly.
Sometimes the body is its best defense—were the hands holding in her intestines?
Gently, he broke the tight weave of her red and sticky fingers. 'Where is it?'
'A submarine—two hours away—maybe three. Nuclear submarine—one of the last ones we could contact. Full complement crew—full medical facilities.'
The Retreat, Rourke judged, even if he could get Natalia aboard a bike and ride her there without her bleeding to death, was seven hours away by the fastest route, likely spotted with brigand activity, possibly Soviet Army as well. But the likelihood of meeting with Soviet troops for once did not alarm him. They would have access to blood and the facilities for typing, medivac choppers available on call as well. Without massive transfusions, Natalia would likely die. Even with them—Rourke shuddered. Mechanically, he had counted the number of shots in the burst she had taken. Seven rounds.
He heard a moan behind him—the trooper who had shot her, then kicked her—the one Rourke had smashed in the face with the rifle butt, the nose broken and twisted to the side of the face, the lips puffed and gushing blood.
'We keep our guns—we get Natalia the best medical attention available,' Rourke called out over his shoulder, his voice low.
'Agreed,' Cole snapped. 'Then you're coming to Filmore Air Force Base—'
'I didn't say that. I'm taking her to the submarine. And we'd better make it fast. That bullet in your arm should come out before the wound infects seriously. And your trooper here—he could bleed to death too.'
He'd need to perform a laparotomy to inspect her abdominal organs. Regardless of where the bullets had actually impacted, there would be the trauma of blast effect to deal with. As he started applying a pressure bandage with materials from his musette bag, he realized the peritoneal cavity and the organs there could be cut to pieces. He recalled reading an adventure novel once where the .mm slug had been referred to as a 'tumbler'— and it was that. There had been cases in the warfare in Southeast Asia where limbs had been severed by the buzz sawing effect of the ..
What he saw of her exposed intestines seemed a very pale tan, almost grey in color—like pieces of underdone sausage in appearance. As he tightened the pressure bandage, he prayed that he could keep her alive until they reached the facilities he'd need to operate. That she wouldn't die.
'Paul—' Rourke called the name but never looked. 'Get on your feet—and keep that thing you call a Schmeisser handy. Anything happens to Natalia . . .' Rourke let the sentence hang.
The voice that came back sounded strained—tired, perhaps in pain. 'Killing would be too good.'
Chapter 7
Her own children—Michael and Annie—played with Millie, the daughter of the ill-fated Jenkins couple. She smiled at the word—what did 'Ill-fated?' mean? Was she ill-fated? The children played with the Mulliner dog, they laughed and ran.
Ill-fated.
John—
She squeezed her thighs tight together, feeling self-conscious suddenly sitting there on the porch steps, smoothing the borrowed blue skirt over her knees and then hugging her knees up against her chest, almost but not quite resting her chin on them.
She studied her hands—the nails were short, shorter than she'd ever kept them.
But cycling the slide of a .—she seemed to remember cycling was the correct word—was hard on the nails. Hers had all but broken and she had filed them down.
But at least underneath the nails she was clean—it had been a long time before she'd been able to keep them clean.
She heard the humming of a song, realizing almost absently that she herself was humming it—a song she had danced to with John. At their wedding. The photo was waterstained, bent, almost unrecognizable. But it was smoothed now inside a Bible in Mary Mulliner's house, in the bedroom Sarah used. And Sarah opened the Bible
frequently—not for the words there which Mary Mulliner had told her would comfort her, but for the picture being pressed there. John in his tuxedo, herself in her wedding dress. She smiled—trying to remember how many yards of material had been in the skirt.
She hugged her knees again. It was still early enough in the day—perhaps Mary's son would return with news of successfully contacting U.S. II and finding her husband. How many days had she told herself that? '
