they could steal to get them all to safety on one of the offshore islands. Safety, she thought. Then she looked again at the bullet, almost laughing.
Chapter 9
Rourke looked at the woman, his eyes squinted against the sunlight. 'You'll be safer here, so relax. It should take me about an hour to get into Savannah on foot. Then once I find my contact I might be able to snitch some transportation to get back faster.'
'But why aren't you taking your guns? What will you do if—'
Rourke cut her off. 'If I get spotted with a gun, I'm automatically nailed. Soviet-held cities don't even allow Americans to carry pocket knives, let alone firearms. You should like it,' Rourke added. 'It's total gun control.'
'Yes,' she began, 'but this is different.'
'Tell me about it sometime,' Rourke said, not particularly caring for her ethical two-facedness. He started walking, the cowboy boots from his pack feeling unfamiliar after all the time he'd been spending wearing combat boots. The brim of the grayish-tan Stetson Canyon was pulled low over his face against the sun, despite the dark glasses he wore. He'd unintentionally lied to the woman, he thought as he started down from the low rise where he'd left her. He wasn't completely weaponless. The heavy trophy buckle on the belt that held up his Levis made a good weapon in a pinch, there were his hands, too, he reasoned. Rourke's spine shivered slightly— without a gun he felt naked, but perhaps that was the best way.
There was always the disturbing possibility the woman would lose her nerve, steal the bike and the guns, and be gone when he returned. He could always steal a bike himself, he thought, reviewing the possibilities. He'd miss the big customized Harley, though. The other Harley, the one he'd taken from a Brigand he'd killed back in New Mexico after the marauders had slaughtered the survivors of the crashed 747— that Harley was at the Retreat now and he supposed he could work it over to come close to the Low Rider he'd left with Sissy. If he had to.
The guns would be the biggest problem, Rourke decided, leaving the high ground and paralleling a two-lane palm-lined highway leading into the city of Savannah. The twin Detonics stainless .45s would be impossible to replace, as would be the Python and the CAR-15. There was a standard AR-15 at the Retreat, his Metalifed Colt Government .45 was there too. For a revolver he could always use the Metalifed Custom .357 Magnum, the heavily modified three-inch K-Frame with his name engraved on the flatted heavy barrel. It was a superlative gun but still a K-Frame, and high-performance .357
Magnum ammo was not its best diet. He'd used the round-butted Smith & Wesson several times with superior results as a concealment gun. He supposed it would fill the bill now.
He stopped, surveying the road some distance beyond the defile through which he walked, smiling. Likely the woman would be there when he returned; and the guns and the Harley would be in good order. But the mental debate he'd had with himself had passed the miles. In the distance now, he could see the outskirts of Savannah.
Chapter 10
Sarah Rourke had ridden Tildie as close to Savannah as she had dared, leaving Michael in charge of the weak, yet conscious, Harmon Kleinschmidt— as well as Annie. Kleinschmidt had insisted that if she reached Savannah and found the boat he'd spoken of, she could take it and get them all to one of the offshore islands where he could recuperate and she could rest with the children. Sarah had agreed to try.
She'd left her rifle with Kleinschmidt, just taking the .45 automatic in Tildie's saddlebags. She judged it to be an hour's walk when she'd unsaddled Tildie and left her in a clearing, no fear the animal would bolt and run off. She had stored the saddle and the rest of the tack in a wooded area not far from the clearing, then changed clothes, thinking she'd draw less attention to herself if she didn't look as if she'd just come in off the trail. As she walked down the grassy hill now, she could feel the taller grass against her bare legs beneath the hem of the wrap-around denim skirt she wore— a gift from Mary Mulliner who'd gotten it one Christmas from her husband and never worn it. She'd taken a light blue T-shirt that didn't have holes in it yet and worn that; and she even wore a bra for the first time since leaving the Mulliner farm. She hadn't been able to wash her hair, but it was long enough to put up now and she'd done that— hoping for the best.
She reached the road and could see the city ahead. Feeling oddly nervous without her gun, she smiled.
'My gun,' she whispered, thinking that before the War she would barely touch one and since the War she carried one in the waistband of her pants and slept with it at night. Shaking her head, feeling herself smiling, she started down the road into Savannah, toward the docks where Harmon Kleinschmidt had told her the boat was secured.
Chapter 11
Rourke lit one of the small, dark tobacco cigars. He'd seen a few other men smoking and had decided it wouldn't draw undue attention to himself. But he'd left the Zippo lighter along with his guns and the motorcycle. It stood to reason, he'd decided. Cigarette lighters, which required fuel, would be in disuse generally— no one but the Russians and a few select, important Americans working with them had fuel. He used a stick match instead, cupping his hands around the flame in the slight wind as he stood at the far end of the rough wooden pier, staring down its length toward a decent-sized fishing boat moored there. The name on the boat was Stargazer II—
it was the name he recalled from the memorized list originally given Paul Rubenstein by Captain Reed. The captain of Stargazer II was supposed to be Cal Summers, the local Army Intelligence contact. Rourke hoped that hadn't changed. He tossed down the match and started walking along the dock, the cowboy hat pulled low over his eyes.
There was a man working on the deck. It was early enough that the fishermen of the area hadn't all left yet, and Rourke understood the fuel situation was such that not all boats were allowed out of port each day. Fishing in the surviving coastal towns, Rourke had been told by Reed and confirmed through casual conversation with others he had met, was a vital industry—
given another year, the average American survivor of the Night of the War would be starving to death. When the Russians had bombed the center of the country into a nuclear desert, they had also destroyed much of America's prime growing areas. The loss of California and the Imperial Valley's fruit and vegetable crops had been an added disaster. Florida had been so heavily bombed that very little could be grown there. Rourke shook his head. With famine would come even more violence.
He stopped on the pier just behind the aft section of Stargazer II. There was a man standing under the canopy, working near the controls. 'Excuse me,' Rourke shouted over to him.
'What'd you do?' the man answered without looking around.
Rourke smiled, hunching his shoulders against the gathering wind. Without his leather coat, the cowboy shirt
