'We'll never get out of here,' the pilot shouted. Rourke climbed forward, looking over the man's shoulder. The runway was starting to split down the middle, the rain pouring down more heavily, the wind sock over the control tower spinning maddeningly. The ground was shaking beneath the plane. At the far edge of the field, Rourke could see a wall of water rising as a huge section of runway slipped across the beach area into the ocean.
'Bullshit!'
Rourke shoved the pilot out of the way and slipped behind the controls, 'Paul, get in there as co-pilot!'
'I can't fly.'
'I'll teach you— you'll love it!' Rourke shouted, throttling up the portside engine, then the starboard. Rourke touched his fingers to his lips, then to the control wheel.
'Hang on! Here we go.'
Rourke started the plane across what was left of the runway, zigzagging despite the wind, trying to find a space clear enough of the massive, ever-widening cracks for a take-off.
'All right, now or never!' Rourke shouted. To his right beyond the tip of the starboard wing, there was a massive wall of water rising, the entire airfield starting to come apart and fall into the ocean.
Rourke throttled out and the plane lurched ahead, pumping over a crack in the runway, settling down on the runway surface again. Rourke glanced to his right. The water was rushing toward them, the runway half submerged, waves starting to slosh in front of the aircraft. 'Now!' Rourke shouted, pulling up, throttling out, the plane rising unsteadily. The runway and the water now roared across it as it dropped off below them.
The control tower loomed up ahead and Rourke fought the controls, working the ailerons, trying to bank the plane to starboard to miss the control tower with the portside wing tip. 'Pray!' Rourke shouted, feeling Natalia's hand on his thigh as he cut the controls, seeing the control tower drop off to his left, the building already starting to collapse.
As Rourke leveled off the twin Beechcraft, he looked down. Where there had seconds before been an airport runway, now there was ocean, waves surging as far as he could see.
Chapter 49
Sarah Rourke skidded the car to a halt. The brakes were bad, she thought, but at least it had gotten her to the beach. She could see the fisherman start toward her with the children from the rocks by the beach as she exited the car.
She ran across the rain-flooded highway, dropping to her knees in the water, hugging Michael and Annie to her.
She looked up at the fisherman. 'Thank you. I just couldn't have gone back with them.'
'I know, lady. That Kleinschmidt is a good fella, but comes on heavy. Hey—'
What was it, she thought. 'I don't understand.'
'Your name Sarah?'
'Yes, I thought you—' but she stopped. She'd sent the children down with Mary Beth, had never seen the fisherman from less than a distance of several hundred feet.
'I just put it together— you and them kids. Sarah and Michael and Annie,' he said.
'Who?' Sarah started up to her feet, pushing the wet hair back from her eyes.
'He's gone now. Went to Texas there by the Louisiana border to U.S. II headquarters. Some kind of mission. Name of John Rourke. Was lookin' for you.'
Sarah dropped back to her knees in the rain-flooded highway, hugging her wet children to her. 'Daddy's alive!' John, she thought. John...
She could tell the difference. Now not only was there rain water running down her cheeks, but tears.
Sarah Rourke looked up at the fisherman. 'After I get the horses, how far is it?'
'I don't follow you, lady.'
'To Texas, I mean.' She hugged Michael and Annie again, not hearing if he had answered her or not.
Chapter 50
John Rourke stood in the rain. He'd landed the Beech-craft because the plane had almost been out of fuel. As best he'd been able to judge from the maps, the plane was about twenty-five miles from Chambers and U.S. II headquarters.
Paul was sitting in the plane, talking to his parents, the pilot had gone to find some kind of transportation. The radio wasn't working well, too much static.
Beside Rourke stood Major Natalia Tiemerovna. 'The truce will be over soon, John— it is over now, I think.'
'At least it showed we're still human beings, didn't it?' Rourke said quietly, his left hand cupped over his dark tobacco cigar, his right arm around Natalia.
'You will go on looking?' she asked.
'Yes.'
'Where do you plan to go?'
'The Carolinas, maybeGeorgia bySavannah . She was likely headed that way.'
'I hope you find her— and the children.'
