glanced up, flattening himself on the ground, sucking in his breath, almost touching the fence with his bare hand. The searchlight moved down the center of the open space between the fences, missing him by inches. As soon as it passed, keeping himself as low to the ground as possible, he began again to dig.
For once he was grateful he wasn't as big or as broad-shouldered as Rourke, he thought. He scooped dirt with his hands, widening the hole under the fence. The searchlight was making another pass and he flattened himself to the ground, as close to the fence as possible, this time noticing the searchlight that scanned, more frequently and more rapidly, the ground between this fence and the interior fence. That, at least, was not electrified. With the hour, all the prisoners in the compound had been herded inside the tents under which they were sheltered, and the compound grounds were empty of life. But earlier he had seen hands, faces— all touching that fence. It was possible, he thought, as he began again to dig, that the smaller fence was electrified after the compound was cleared, but he had to take the chance.
The small trench under the fence seemed wide enough now and, slipping into position, just missing another pass of the searchlight, he started through on his back. His shirt pulled out of his pants, and he felt the dirt against the skin at the small of his back.
He pushed on, then stopped— the front of his shirt was stuck on a barb in the lowest strand of wire. Perhaps there was no power in the lowest strand, he thought; perhaps the material in the shirt just hadn't made the right contact. He didn't know. He sucked his stomach in lest his skin touch the barb. Rubenstein looked from side to side, past the fence and back toward his feet, seeing the searchlight starting again. It would pass over his feet, reveal his presence.
There was a sick feeling inside him, his mind racing to find a way out. He had to gamble, he thought. He touched, gingerly with his shirt-sleeved elbow, at the wire. Nothing happened. Rubenstein reached out with both hands, freeing the shirt front from the barb, then pushed through, under the wire, the searchlight sweeping over the ground as his feet moved into the shadow. He was through!
The young man got to his feet, still in a crouch. He stared back at the wire a moment, then reached into the pockets of his leather jacket. There was nothing he could use, but he had to know. Taking the wirecutters, he reached under the fence's lowest strand, using the cutters like a slave hand in a laboratory, picking up the dead rat and sliding it under the fence toward him. He looked at the charred creature, and his mouth turned down at the corners in disgust. He hated the things. He lifted the rat with the tips of the cutters and tossed the already-dead body against the wire second from the bottom of the fence. Then he drew back, his right arm going up toward his face. The body clung to the wire a moment, smoking, electrical sparks flying. Paul's stomach churned and he felt like throwing up, but instead watched the searchlight as it swept toward him; then he darted across the few feet of ground to the low fence, hiding beside it, gambling it wasn't electrified as he touched the cutters to the lowest strand, then the one above it.
'Thank God,' he whispered, letting out a long sigh. As the light passed inches from where he crouched, he began to cut the wire, using the same pattern he had before, cutting up approximately four feet, then across approximately three feet.
Looking over his shoulder, the wire cutters in his left hand now, he folded back the fence section and started through, into the compound.
He folded the fence section back, in a crouch, the pistol grip of the Schmeisser in his right fist, the muzzle moving from side to side as he surveyed the compound. He could see a guard— one only— walking slowly around the grounds, fifty yards from where he was. Rubenstein. still holding the wirecutters, started toward the nearest tent in a low, dead run. He pushed his way inside the tent.
Paul Rubenstein stopped, the smell that assailed his nostrils nauseating him, a buzzing sound in the air as flies swarmed throughout the tent. He looked in the faces of the people under the glow of the single yellow light hanging from a drop cord in the center of the tent, the flies and moths buzzing close to it. The faces were young, old, all of them weary, some of them sleeping, flies crawling across them. There was a child, moaning beside a sleeping woman. He stepped closer to them, and he kicked away the mouse nibbling at the child's leg.
Paul Rubenstein stood there a moment, tears welling up in his eyes, his glasses steaming a little. In that instant, he was thankful for the guns he carried, for the things he'd learned that had kept him from a similar fate. He was grateful to Rourke for teaching him how to survive after the Night of the War.
The phrase, 'My fellow Americans.. .' and how he'd thought of it earlier as the roach climbed around the palm tree beyond the fences, came to his mind. Rubenstein stood there, crying, his right fist wrapped tightly on the Schmeisser.
Chapter 28
Sarah Rourke stood at the wheel of the fishing boat, glancing shoreward, trying to see if she could still locate Mr. Coin in the darkness. She couldn't. 'It was rough, wasn't it, Mrs. Rourke?' Harmon Kleinschmidt asked her.
She looked down at the young man seated at her feet as she stood before the controls.
Before she answered him, she looked back to the stern— on the tarp that covered the blood from the dead soldier she could see Michael and Annie, already dozing.
She looked down at Kleinschmidt, saying, 'My name is Sarah. You don't need to call me Mrs. Rourke— I'm not that much older than you are. Yes, it was rough, I suppose.'
'I saw them bloodstains. You had to kill somebody, didn't you?'
'I thought gentlemen didn't ask questions like that.'
'I ain't a gentleman that much— and you sure ain't either, Sarah.'
She looked away from the waters ahead of her, and down at the young man again. 'What do you mean?' she asked, still cold in her wet things despite the blanket wrapped around her now.
'I'll just come right out with it. What you told me, I don't think it's fair to you or them kids to go on doin' what you're doin'. You need a man to take care of all of you. I guess I'm sort of volunteerin'. I like you—a lot— Sarah.'
Her cheeks felt hot. She didn't know what to say to the man— the boy, she thought. He wasn't more than twenty-five, if that.
'That's sweet of you, Harmon.'
'Ain't sweet of me, Sarah. I mean what I say.'
