Rourke smiled. 'Well, I don't know who you heard it from, but I imagine you mean 'guns'
rather than gun.' Summers's expression began to soften. 'I usually carry a matched pair of Stainless Detonics .45s—
left 'em back with the rest of my gear, just outside of town. That what you're lookin' for?' Rourke smiled again.
'Sorry,' Summers said, taking a few steps forward across the cabin and stretching out his right hand. Rourke shook it, then Summers stepped back. 'Here— I got an old butt can around here somewhere.' He disappeared into what Rourke guessed was the galley, then reappeared a moment later. There was a small, round plastic ashtray in his left hand and he reached it onto the flat railing beside Rourke.
Nodding, Rourke asked, 'Aren't you a little reckless with that gun? People could see it.'
'Gotta be,' Summers agreed. 'See, the Communists nailed most of the Resistance people— maybe a couple got away. Their wives, girl friends, sisters, whatever— all the women and the kids are on one of the offshore islands. I try smugglin' out food and some medical stuff when I can. But the Communists could find me out any time. You might wanna get out of here, yourself. I figure I'll go down shootin' rather than wind up with the KGB skinnin' me alive or somethin'— I heard about them when I was R.A. years back.'
'So, what?' Rourke asked. 'You were Regular Army, got in the reserve or something, then after the Night of the War they called you up. How?'
'I got tied in with the Resistance— that Captain Reed and some sergeant hunted me out here after I'd already sort of volunteered through the Resistance. Reed brought me a radio, in case I needed to contact him. Shouldn't have took it,' Summers said soberly.
'Why?' Rourke asked.
'Well, there's some kind of traitor— gotta be— in U.S. II. The Resistance had a big raid planned last Friday night.'
'What the hell day is it today?' Rourke asked.
'Thursday.'
'Yeah— what happened?'
'I radioed in, used a code Reed said the Reds didn't have. Then when the raid came off, the Reds was there— jumped the Resistance guys, killed some, arrested the others. Got 'em in an old textile plant, and they're usin' it as a prison. Best I can learn, they ain't exactly makin' 'em feel like it's a big hotel or nothin', but they're feedin' and lookin' after 'em— they're executin' some of them too. I guess they gotta, to be fair to 'em. Maybe we'd do the same with a Resistance movement. They do what they gotta do; we do what we gotta do, I figure. Some damned silly game gettin' people killed. Wish we could cream all them Reds and send the ones left packin' to Moscow. Someday, you think?'
'All we can do is try,' Rourke commented noncommittally. 'But I've got a more immediate problem. You don't think they cracked your code do you?'
'I was in Intelligence for ten years before I decided not to re-up, then with the Reserve until the War. They didn't crack this code— I'd guarantee it.'
'Is the radio safe then?' Rourke asked.
'That why you come to see me?'
'Well, yeah,' Rourke admitted. 'I picked up a woman yesterday morning. She's a scientist. She discovered something with a bunch of the people she worked with, and we've gotta let U.S. II know about it right away. That's why I came here. Figured a radio was the fastest way of getting the information out.'
'If you gotta. But I don't trust them people back there in U.S. II— some kind of Red-nosed rat is in with 'em if you get my drift.'
'I get your drift, but I've got no choice,' Rourke told Summers flatly. 'Where's the radio?'
'Help me cast off. Hope you can swim, too— that water's too cold for me these days.'
Rourke eyed the man, nodding. Pulling the Stetson back low over his eyes, he started up on deck. Rourke stood there, feeling the wind on his face, smelling the salt-scented air over the water. As Rourke followed Summers's lead and began casting off, he looked up the length of the pier. There was a woman— odd he thought— staring at a large fishing boat, larger by far than any of the others. Rourke squinted against the light. It looked to him as though the name were Ave Maria. He looked at the woman as he coiled in the line. The wind was blowing up the back of the blue denim skirt she wore. She had pretty legs, he thought; and for a moment she reminded him of Sarah. Shaking his head slowly as the woman walked out of sight beyond some bales at the end of the pier, he snapped the cigar butt into the water.
Whatever happened with the predicted quake along the new fault line in Florida, he wanted the thing resolved. He wondered how much time there was left to find Sarah and the children. The wind was blowing harder and Rourke tugged the brim of the Stetson down lower over his eyes.
Chapter 14
Sarah Rourke leaned against the bales at the edge of the pier, hugging her arms close about her against the cold wind that whipped at her hair and at her legs beneath the skirt. She looked at the Ave Maria.
'Too big,' she whispered to herself.
She couldn't envision Harmon Kleinschmidt being well enough to steer the boat away from the pier for at least a week or perhaps longer. Michael could help her cast off, but the only boats she had ever operated had been small outboards. Once she had driven a slightly larger boat when John had been waterskiing. She shook her head, telling herself she couldn't handle it. She would have to steal something, something smaller. She started back along the pier, noticing the Stargazer II that had attracted her attention earlier. There was a man wearing a sweater and a knit watchcap at the wheel, the boat pulling away from the pier. There was no sign of anyone else.
The boat next to the Stargazer II's berth looked about the right size, but she wondered how you stole a boat. Shrugging, she walked more quickly, hugging her arms to her chest, the cold wind lashing against her bare arms and legs.
'What would John do?' she asked herself— a question she'd been asking herself ever since the Night of the
