the vast power of the KGB. He recalled the 'mysterious' crash of a plane carrying top-level Soviet naval officers not long before the war had begun—if it had been nothing more than a crash.
Varakov stood up, looked down to his open uniform blouse and stocking feet and shrugged his shoulders. As commanding general, he had some advantages, he reflected. He left the tunic unbuttoned and walked away from his desk. There were long, low, winding stairs at the rear of the hall leading up to the mezzanine that overlooked the central hall, and he took these, slowly under his ponderous overweight, clinging to the rail as he scaled to the top. There were low benches several feet from the mezzanine rail, and he sat on the nearest of these and stared down into the hall. A massive, life-size sculpture dominated the center, of two mastodons fighting to the death. A smile lifted the corner of Varakov's sagging cheeks. One of the mastodons appeared to be winning the struggle for supremacy. But to what avail—mastodon as a species was now extinct, vanished forever from the earth.
Chapter Three
'I've been meaning to ask you,' Rubenstein began, wiping his red bandana handkerchief across his high, sweat-dripping forehead. 'Out of all those bikes back there at the crash site, why did you take that particular one?'
Rourke leaned forward on the handlebars of his motorcycle, squinting down at the road below them, the intense desert sun rising in waves, visible despite the dark-lensed aviator-framed glasses he wore. 'Couple of reasons,' Rourke answered, his voice low. 'I like Harley Davidsons, I already have a Low Rider like this,' and, almost affectionately, Rourke patted the fuel tank between his legs, 'back at the survival retreat. It's about the best combination going for off-road and road use—good enough on gas, fast, handles well, lets you ride comfortably. I like it, I guess,' he concluded.
'You've got reasons for everything, haven't you, John?'
'Yeah,' Rourke said, his tone thoughtful, 'I usually do. And I've got a very good reason why we should check out that truck trailer down there—see?' and Rourke pointed down the sloping hillside and along the road.
'Where?' Rubenstein said, leaning forward on his bike.
'That dark shape on the side of the road; I'll show you when we get there,'
Rourke said quietly, revving the Harley under him and starting off down the slope, Rubenstein settling himself on the motorcycle he rode and starting after, as Rourke glanced back over his shoulder at the smaller man.
Perspiration dripped from Rourke's face as well as he hauled the Harley up short and waited at the base of the slope for Rubenstein. Lower down, the air was even hotter. He glanced at the fuel gauge on the bike—just a little over half. As he automatically began calculating approximate mileage, Rubenstein skidded to a halt beside him. 'You've gotta watch those hills, pal,' Rourke said, the corners of his mouth raising in one of his rare smiles.
'Yeah—tell me about it. But I'm gettin' to control it better.'
'All right—you are,' Rourke said, then cranked his bike into gear and started across the narrow expanse of ground still separating them from the road. Rourke halted a moment as they reached the highway, stared down the road toward the west and started his motorcycle in the direction of his gaze. The sun was just below its zenith, and as far as Rourke was able to tell they were already into Texas and perhaps seventy-five miles or less from El Paso. The wind in his face and hair and across his body from the slipstream of the bike as it cruised along the highway was hot, but it still had some cooling effect on his skin—already he could feel his shirt, sticking to his back with sweat, starting to dry. He glanced into his rearview mirror and could see Paul Rubenstein trying to catch up.
Rourke smiled.
As he zeroed toward the ever-growing dark spot ahead of them on the highway, his mind flashed back to the beginning of the curious partnership between himself and the younger man. Though trained as a physician, Rourke had never practiced.
After several years with the CIA in Latin American Covert Operations, his interests in weapons and survival skills had qualified him as an 'expert'—he wrote and taught on the subject around the world. Rubenstein had been a junior editor with a trade magazine publisher in New York City—he was an 'expert' on pipe fittings and punctuation marks. But they had two important things in common. They had both survived the crash of the rerouted 747 which Rourke had been taking to Atlanta in order to rejoin his wife and children in northeastern Georgia. That night of the thermonuclear war with Russia had seemingly gone on forever. And now Rourke and Rubenstein shared another bond here in the west Texas desert. Both men had to reach the Atlantic southeast. For Paul Rubenstein, there was the chance that his aged parents might still be alive, that St.
Petersburg, Florida, had not been a Soviet target and that the violence after the war had not claimed them. For Rourke—in his mind he could see the three faces before him—there was the hope that his wife and two children were alive.
The farm where they had lived in northeast Georgia would have survived the bombs that had fallen on Atlanta. But there were the chances of radiation, food shortages, murderous brigands— all of these to contend with. Rourke swallowed hard as he wished again that his wife, Sarah, would have allowed him to teach her some of the skills that now might enable her to stay alive.
Rourke skidded the Harley into a tight left, realizing he was almost past the abandoned truck trailer. He took the bike in a tight circle around it as Rubenstein approached. As he completed the 360 degrees he stopped alongside the younger man's machine. 'Common carrier,' Rourke said softly. 'Abandoned. After we run the Geiger counter over it we can check what's inside—might be something useful. Shut off your bike. I don't think we're gonna find any gas here.'
Rourke gave the Geiger counter strapped to the back of his Harley to Rubenstein and watched as the smaller man carefully checked the truck trailer. The radiation level proved normal. Rourke walked up to the double doors at the rear of the trailer and visually inspected the lock.
'You gonna shoot it off?' Rubenstein was asking, suddenly beside him.
Rourke turned and looked at him. 'You've gotten awful violent lately, haven't you? We got a prybar?'
'Nothin' big,' the other man said.
