Union itself—was nearly as crippled as was what had been the United States. The invading Soviet Army, headquartered in neutron-bombed Chicago, had set up outposts in surviving major American cities and industrial and agricultural regions, outposts that not only contended with the growing wave of American resistance, but with the Brigand problem. Rourke felt a smile cross his lips as he exhaled the gray smoke of his cigar. Some
thing in common with the self-styled conquerors—the Brigand warfare, the pillaging, the slaughters.
For it was after the war that both the best and worst of humanity had risen to the fore. The best—Paul, certainly. The young Jewish New Yorker had never ridden anything more challenging than a desk, never fought anything tougher than an editorial deadline. Now, in the few short weeks since the world had forever changed, Rubenstein had forever changed as well. Tough, good with a gun, as at home on a motorcycle as he had been in a desk chair. Even in the short period of time that had elapsed, Rourke had noted the definition of his musculature, and the different set to the eyes he continuously shielded behind wire-rimmed glasses. The wonder, the excitement, were all there as they had been from the first with each new challenge; but there was something else— a pride, a determination derived just from having survived, from having fought, from having surmounted obstacles. In those few short weeks, Rubenstein had grown to be the best friend Rourke felt he had ever had— like a brother, Rourke thought, feeling himself smile again. An only child, he had never been blessed with a natural brother. But now at least he had one.
And Natalia—the magic of her eyes, the beauty that he would have felt hopelessly inadequate to describe had the need arisen to do so. Rourke had first met her before the war—a brief, chance meeting in Latin America when she had worked with her now-dead husband, Vladmir Karamat sov. Rourke had been a CIA covert operations officer; Karamatsov had been the same thing—but for KGB, the Soviet Committee for State Security. And Natalia had been Karamatsov's agent. Then, after the war, there was the staggering coincidence of finding her,
dying, wandering the west Texas desert, herself the victim of Brigand attack. The feelings that had grown between him and the Russian woman, despite her loyalty to her country, despite her job in the KGB, despite her uncle—General Varakov, who was the supreme Soviet commander for the North American Army of Occupation. 'Insane,' he murmured to himself.
And then another chance meeting. Rourke had been pursuing the trail of his wife, Sarah, and the children, lost to him on the Night of the War. Rourke let out a deep breath, feeling the tendons in his neck tightening with the thoughts. 'Sarah,' he heard himself whisper. The meeting—the meeting with the girl named Sissy; the seismological research data she had carried regarding the development of an artificial fault line during the bombing, something that would reduplicate the horror of the megaquakes that had destroyed the West Coast, but would instead now sever the Florida peninsula from the mainland.
For all the destruction and the death, it had proven again that there still remained some humanity, some commonality of species. For with President Chambers of U.S. II and General Varakov, a Soviet-U.S. II truce had been struck to effect the evacuation of peninsular Florida in the hope of saving human lives.
The job finished, the truce had ended and a state of war existed once again.
Rourke shook his head. War. Sarah had always labeled his study of survivalism, his knowledge of weapons—all of it—as a preoccupation with gloom and doom, a fascination with the unthinkable. It had torn at their marriage, separated them, and now, despite the fact that they had promised each other to try again for the sake of
Michael and Annie, for the sake of the love he and Sarah had always felt for each other, it was war that had finally separated them.
Rourke remembered it; he hadn't wanted to leave, to give the lecture to be delivered in Canada. Hypothermia—the effects of cold. The world situation had been already tense; but Sarah had insisted, so she could get herself together, to try again with him. It had been there, in Canada, that Rourke had at last learned of the gravity of the situation rapidly developing between the United States and the Soviet Union. He had been aboard an aircraft nearly ready to land in Atlanta, near his farm in northeastern Georgia, when he had heard over the pilot's PA system that the first missiles had been launched. Then that night—the night that had lasted, it seemed, forever, and nothing ever the same afterward.
He shivered from the memories: the crash after the plane had been diverted westward, the struggle to survive afterward with the injured passengers, the useless-ness of his skills as a doctor to the burn victims in Albuquerque—then the slaughter of the passengers by the Brigands.
'Brigands,' he murmured. He glanced at his watch; the black-faced Rolex Submariner showed that he had been lost in his reverie for at least ten minutes, perhaps longer. He checked the instruments, then the ground below him—now a nuclear desert, a no man's land where once millions had lived, worked, tilled the soil—nothing now. Not a living tree, or a blade of grass that wasn't brown or black.
His cigar was gone from his teeth and he checked the ashtray, realizing he'd extinguished it. Rourke shook his head, silent—tired. . . .
Reed started to stub out his cigarette, but didn't. Cigarettes were getting harder to find. He kept smoking it, then looked up across the littered table from his cup of coffee. 'What, Corporal?'
'Captain, your pal, Dr. Rourke—he's gonna have trouble, sir.'
'He had trouble—remember? Hell of a lot of good we were to stop it.' He looked back at the cigarette and noticed that the skin of his first and second fingers was stained dark orange. Reed wondered what the stuff in the cigarettes did to his lungs. He shrugged and took another drag; then through a mouthful of smoke, he said, 'What kind of trouble? He's got a radio. We can contact him.'
'A storm system—it just moved in, like it was out of nowhere, sir.'
'He's a fine pilot. He'll fly over it,' Reed answered, dismissing the problem.
'But, Captain?'
Reed looked up at the red-haired young woman again. 'What, Corporal?'
'You don't understand, sir,' she insisted. 'See. It's a massive winter storm system—it was just there. You
know the weather's been crazy—'
'Winter storm system? Have you weather people ever figured out you can learn a hell of a lot by just looking out the damn window?' Reed checked his wrist watch, thinking of Rourke for an instant and envying Rourke the Rolex he habitually wore. 'An hour ago it was in the sixties—snowstorm?'
'Sir . . . please,' the red-haired woman said.
