'No,' and Rourke turned toward Natalia. 'You keep him pinned down— the sniper— keep him down while Paul and I make the run, then give Paul some fire support while I climb. We'll be okay— that scope won't help him at the distance.'
'All right,' she nodded, her blue eyes wide. 'Be careful.'
Rourke felt his face seam with a smile. 'I always am,' he whispered. The Detonics stainless .45s in his fists, he glanced to Rubenstein. 'You ready?'
'Aww, sure,' Rubenstein smiled. 'Nothin' like a good running gun battle to start the day off right.'
Natalia laughed. Rourke didn't. 'Let's go,' he rasped through his teeth.
He started to run.
He hit the gate a half-step ahead of Rubenstein, shoving against it, the gate swinging wide, Rubenstein shouting, 'Race ya— I'm younger!'
Rourke laughed then, yelling, 'Bullshit!' He bent into a run, his arms at his sides, his fists balled on the black checkered rubber Pachmayr grips, his feet hammering against the concrete road surface, the concussion of each step rattling through his frame, feeling the warm moisture of blood again by the upper portion of his left ear.
Rubenstein wasn't outdistancing him, but was keeping even as Rourke glanced left, the New Yorker with the high forehead pushing his glasses up on his nose again as he ran, his right hand holding the subgun tensioned on its sling away from his body. He was nearing a Jeep.
'Go for it, Paul— watch if he hits the gas tank!'
'Gotchya!'
Rourke kept running, his heart pounding in his chest— he felt himself smile. Rubenstein was younger— Rourke threw himself against the timbers supporting the water tower, hearing the boom of the rifle overhead, hearing the pinging sound as a shot ricocheted off the Jeep behind which Paul had taken cover. There was the rattle of subgun fire, Rourke catching his breath, working his way around to the rear of the water tower. Assault rifle fire hammered into the timbers— from the low blockhouse.
'Cole!' Rourke shouted, not knowing if the U.S. captain could hear him. But did Cole think he really still needed him? They had reached the base— if the missiles were here— but there was still Armand Teal, Rourke's old friend, the base commander— he was still to deal with.
Assault rifle fire from the deuce and a half— the fire aimed toward him by the timbers ebbed.
Rourke upped the safety catches on both Detonics pistols, holstering them in the double Alessi rig, securing the trigger guard breaks. He started up, hand over hand, diagonally, following the pattern of the cross timbers. He laughed at himself. In high school years ago, some of his friends had dared him to climb a water tower, to spray paint the name of the local football team there before the homecoming game. He'd declined it— vandalism. But now he was doing it— instead of with a can of spray paint, with two automatic pistols, a .357 Magnum revolver and a knife.
Irony, he thought. 'Irony.'
He kept going, more assault rifle fire hammering into the timbers around him, then answering fire from Cole and his men. There was fire from Natalia's position— he relied on her accuracy with his life, climbing under her line of fire to reach the parapet around the water tower where the sniper lay.
He kept going, judging the distance remaining as perhaps thirty feet. The rattle, the chatter of Rubenstein's submachine gun. The boom of the sniper rifle.
Twenty feet to go. Reaching out to a timber above him, the timber gave way, Rourke losing his balance, reaching out with his hands, finding the diagonal reaching support, his feet swinging in midair, then finding a purchase. He started up again.
Fifteen feet to go.
Rourke kept moving, more assault rifle fire coming at him, more answering fire, then the original fire ebbing.
Once the sniper was removed— one way or the other— he thought, they could close with the men in the blockhouse. Ten feet. Five feet.
Rourke swung under the parapet, the boom of the sniper rifle was what he was waiting for.
He heard it, could hear the bolt being speed-cocked, pushed himself up, rolling onto the parapet, squinting against the rising sun as he snatched the Python from the flap holster on his right hip, the six inch, Metalifed and Mag-Na-Ported Colt snaking forward as the sniper turned, the muzzle of his rifle a gaping, black hole.
'John— John? Here?'
The voice. The face— worn, exhausted, oddly smiling.
Rourke lowered the muzzle of the Python. 'Armand Teal,' he almost whispered. Without another word, Teal shouted at the top of his lungs, 'Hold your fire! These are friends! Hold your fire!'
The fire from the blockhouse stopped. The sun was fully up on the horizon now. It was quiet except for the shuffling of feet on the road surface below as the blockhouse began to empty.
Chapter Two
Sarah Rourke had dug the grave, her hands aching from the rough stick she had used to claw at the ground, Michael beside her scooping handfuls of dirt away still. It was shallow, but Millie Jenkins had only been a little girl, and the earth here would be deep enough to hold her, to cover her— forever.
Sarah stared at the yawning grave— her spine tingled with what her husband John had once told her was a type of involuntary paroxysm. She called it terror.
'That's deep enough,' she whispered, reaching out and touching her son's shoulder.
He looked up at her, his face and hands dirty from the dirt of the grave. More dirt as he smudged away sweat from his forehead.
'It's deep enough,' she repeated slowly.
'I'm gonna kill every one of them.'
She turned around when she heard the voice— it was Bill Mulliner. 'No, you're not,' she whispered. 'You have your mother to take care of— us to help take care of.'
She took her son's hand in hers, still looking at Bill Mulliner for an instant longer, then looking at Michael's hand. The bleeding had stopped as she removed the bandana handkerchief she'd used as a bandage. 'You wash your hands, Michael— it'll hurt. Use soap with the canteen water.'
'You, too,' he told her, smiling, his eyes not smiling, though. His right hand and her left had been wounded simultaneously as she'd held his hand, the edge of her hand, the fleshy part of his behind the thumb.
'I will,' she told him. 'After we bury Millie.'
'I will, too, then— after we bury Millie.'
She only nodded...
Mary Mulliner stood alone, even though Bill was beside her. He didn't reach out to his mother. He clenched his own hands together in prayer. Annie stood beside the grave, staring down into it, at the blanket-wrapped body of the slightly older little girl— a girl Annie had played with on and off since the morning after the Night of The War. Annie looked up at her then, Sarah hearing the words the little girl— her daughter— spoke. 'Will the worms eat her— will they eat Millie up?
On television once they talked about this man being buried and the worms ate his—'
Sarah dropped to her knees, loosing Michael's hand, hugging the little girl to her. 'Annie—
don't—'
Annie cried, like she used to cry when you told her she had done something wrong, Sarah thought. 'Millie isn't here now,' Sarah began. 'She's gone to—'
Sarah looked up. Bill Mulliner was singing.
'Amazing grace, how sweet the sound—'
His voice was poor, hoarse, choked sounding. Mary Mulliner began to sing as well.
'That saved a wretch like me—'
Sarah made herself join them, her own children silent, crying. 'I once was lost—' she murmured...
The grave was covered with rocks Annie and Michael had gathered, rocks of all sizes and colors, quartz types Sarah recognized— she had tried jewelry making once as a hobby— and others she couldn't. Bill Mulliner, an M-16 in his right hand, another slung cross-body across his back, stared away from them, at the grave, Sarah thought.
'Don't know if David Balfry got hisself away,' Bill's voice came, still choked sounding. 'With Pete Critchfield away and all, though— there should still be a Resistance left, leastways— we'll find him. Find a safe place for you,
