field here— don't want those wildmen crazies getting any aircraft going. This base is a loss. When Natalia and I get back, we'll rig the ammo dump and the arsenal to blow—'
'But couldn't we use that stuff ourselves?'
'I'm taking a fighter bomber, Paul— leaving the cargo area completely open. Before I take off, Natalia and I'll load some M-16s, some .223s, maybe some grenades and explosives— some medical supplies, too. Get it all aboard the craft. Just leave room enough for our bikes if we can get 'em back off the submarine.'
'That's gotta be one hell of a big airplane,' Rubenstein began, starting to try and stand— not making it, slumping back, holding his head.
'You rest for a while longer— but yeah, it is a big one. But not so big I can't land and take off again in a field if I have to. The FB-111HX should be perfect for that.'
'I can still help you guys loading,' Rubenstein began.
'He's right,' Natalia said suddenly. 'We can help him over to the plane, get him aboard and he can shift cargo— he won't have to stand for that. Except for the ammo nothing should be cased— and the eight-hundred- round ammo boxes won't be that hard to lift from a sitting or kneeling position.'
'Agreed,' Rourke nodded. He leaned down to Paul, starting to help the man up. He glanced— as he did— at O'Neal. 'Remind me, Natalia— to check 0' Neal in about twenty minutes—'
She nodded, already starting from Paul's other side to help Rourke get the younger man to his feet...
Rourke climbed aboard the fighter bomber. Rubenstein was already back watching 0'Neal and Natalia was already preflighting the first of the two functioning army helicopters. He glanced at the Rolex— an hour had passed, Paul stronger seeming, the moderate exercise having apparently helped him.
Throwing his dead stump of cigar out the cargo door, Rourke inspected what they had liberated. Twenty eight-hundred round metal containers of .223, twenty M-16 A1s, modest quantities of conventional explosives apparently used in war games— no plastique— and first aid and medical supplies. He'd also taken fifty cartons of cigarettes— for Natalia. Most of the conventional explosives had been left behind— to destroy the arsenal and the ammo dump. He had also brought Teal's sniper rifle, personal belongings— clothing, mementos, family photos—
and done this in the hope that he might somehow be able to rescue his old friend still alive. It was a faint hope, but the added gear took little space.
Rourke closed the cargo door, securing it, then starting forward— he was very tired of it all. But life had left him no choice.
He strapped himself into the pilot's seat, starting to turn on the electrical systems.
Calmly— a forced calm— he watched for the oil pressure gauges to start to rise.
Chapter Twelve
He had lastly checked the radio— Natalia would receive him, he hoped. There was a somehow louder- sounding rush as the craft went airborne, Rourke hitting the landing gear retraction switches on the small console to his left, the lowering sun hitting him full face, Rourke squinting behind the dark-tinted visor of his flying helmet. He reached further to his left, adjusting the throttle controls, then the oxygen vent airflow controls— he closed his eyes for an instant, then opened them, reaching to his right, setting the air-conditioning controls to keep the cabin slightly cooler, the systems inside his suit cooler as well— he was tired, could not afford drowsiness. He glanced to his right and forward, satisfied with the fuel quality indicator. He checked the target designate panel to his left, the combat maneuver panel directly before him, feeling the throbbing of the aircraft-imagined because a throb would mean a problem with the airframe— as his right hand gently, easily— he was still feeling the controls of the unfamiliar aircraft— clutched the control stick.
'All right,' he whispered into his helmet, the visor fogging slightly as he spoke.
The infrared seeker confirmed what visually he was beginning to detect— crosses with bonfires burning beside them, at the edge of the valley surrounding the base as he swept over at mach point five. He rolled the plane into a steep right bank, pulling up and climbing, arming his weapons systems— Sidewinder missiles and the gun. Leveling out, he switched the seeker system from infrared to television, setting his weapons-control panel off computer and to manual— it was somehow something that would be more personal when done himself, by hand.
He kept his speed down, cutting off his climb, leveling out, then starting to dive, the television camera below him in the fuselage behind the nose on maximum resolution, picking up what appeared to be at least a thousand of the wildmen, perhaps more, massing. There were sticks in their hands— sticks, but at the distance only. They would, close up, be spears, assault rifles—
whatever other weapon the wildmen could find and use.
By feel— he had taught himself that— he released the arming safety switch— ready.
He had flown an open bi-wing once— he imagined now the feel of the rush of wind, wind at this speed that would have ripped and torn at his flesh, cold that would have killed. But the freedom of it. Soaring out of the skies, away from the troubled land. In the far distant east as he swept down toward the valley he could see a purpleness that would be twilight. The sweep of horizon suddenly, profoundly, amazed him— the curvature.
He was reaching down to the earth, penetrating it— with death. He smiled to himself— in his old age— his mid-thirties— he was becoming a poet.
'Go—' his voice was quiet, low, whispered, addressed to the wildmen as his finger poised over the Sidewinder launch button, the steam from his breath fogging his visor again, 'to—' the aircraft of which he was a part, which cocooned him, leveled— 'hell!' He worked the button.
There was a rush, a roar, a buzzing sound and a contrail of smoke, the Sidewinder from portside at the fuselage rear firing, tracking into the crowd of insane non-humans.
Rourke pulled up the nose, the explosion belching white smoke beneath him. He started the craft to climb, leveling off then and banking into a roll, hearing some of the cargo slightly shift but not move, leveling out, arming the next missile— he started down.
They were running— he could not see faces, and it was just as well, he thought. Their faces were meaningless, an abnegation of sanity, of the thousands of years of civilization that had raised man to a point where he was capable of self-destruction.
He fired the second Sidewinder, rolling the plane, three hundred sixty degrees, almost saluting them on the ground, climbing, arcing back and rolling over, his stomach feeling it, his back aching near his kidneys, the plane leveling off, his machine gun armed, his right hand squeezing against the joystick, working the machine gun's trigger as he swept the valley. The bullets seemed to explode upward from the dirt, men and women running, falling— lost to him as he skimmed the ground low.
He set the lock, disarming his weapons systems as he climbed, another rollover, then leveled off.
He exhaled hard, the helmet visor fogging again. Mentally, Rourke calculated the casualties to the wildmen on the ground— two-thirds losses, minimum. Fuel, his two remaining Sidewinder missiles— all needed to be conserved to get himself, Natalia, and Paul— to get them home. To the Retreat, to find Sarah and the children.
He could allow it for an instant. He closed his eyes, inhaling deeply. He opened them and the television monitor for the seeker unit no longer showed the wildmen— gone.
Chapter Thirteen
Nehemiah Rozhdestvenskiy walked, cold slightly in the mountain chill, alone now.
He had never faced death before. There had been danger, sometimes mortal peril. But never certain death. Times locked in combat with superior enemies, times in dangerous lands with men and women he did not trust— but never such a certainty.
He looked skyward, feeling his jaw set. 'No!' He screamed it, hearing it echo in the hills and gorges, in the mountains, on the chill air.
The volunteer— the man inside the coffin-like machine with the blue cloud of swirling gas and light. He had done worse than to die. His body lived. His mind did not.
The Americans had the answer— it was a foregone conclusion they had possessed it on the Night of The War. Otherwise, what they had done would have been not even a gesture of fatalism. Karamatsoy, his friend— he had known the Americans had the answer. He had searched for it.
Rozhdestvenskiy stopped walking, standing overlooking a valley, not seeing the mountain beside him that was to be the Womb.
One ingredient was lacking— the vital ingredient. He had taught himself to live— without the company of a
