maneuver panel.
Rourke overflew the field again, climbing to bank, the rollover, then leveling off, his weapons systems panel controls armed. He checked the wing sweep indicator on his lower left.
'Going in,' he said into the headset microphone built into his helmet.
He poised his left hand over the controls— he fired, a Phoenix missile targeting toward the ammo dump, the ammo dump suddenly exploding as he launched the second Phoenix, the armory erupting into a fireball. He did a slight rollover, banking to port, leveling off, loosing a cluster of 24Mk82 580-pound mass iron bombs, pulling his nose up, the plane light now as the weight of the pylons was gone from the wings, the bombs impacting and exploding as he swung his visual scanning television monitor rearward, watching it as he nosed up and climbed.
The runway was gone— there would be a crater there once the smoke and debris and flame cleared— there would be no runway. He switched the TFR, the terrain-following radar helping him as he dropped his altitude, to maintain a constant elevation regardless of the ripples and rises in the terrain.
'We're going home,' Rourke said quietly. Neither Paul Rubenstein nor Natalia answered him.
But he hadn't expected they would.
Chapter Fifty-Two
The Womb radar system— once the Mt. Thunder North American Air Defense Command Center Radar in the Colorado Rockies— showed a blip.
The technician punched the alert button, in the next instant his supervisor was beside him.
'Comrade Lieutenant— this is not in our approach paths for the field— flying low— a TFR
flight— hypersonic— the pattern of the blip matches that of the American F-111— perhaps a variant.'
He looked up at the lieutenant, taking his eyes off the blip for an instant.
'I will contact weapons—' The lieutenant picked up the red telephone receiver from its red cradle on the console.
'Radar has a confirmed American blip— F-111 type fighter attack bomber— request use of the particle beam weapons system. Yes, comrade— I will hold.'
The technician watched his blip.
'It is moving fast, comrade— at approximately eight hundred miles per hour—'
'Comrade— we are losing the blip,' he heard the lieutenant say.
'It is leaving my screen, Comrade Lieutenant,' the technician said, watching the green blip fading to his left.
'Very good, comrade,' and the technician heard the receiver click down to its carriage— he didn't take his eyes from the radar screen to watch it.
'Use of the particle beam weapons system was denied.'
'The blip is lost, Comrade Lieutenant,' the technician said.
'Let him live— at least for a bit longer.' And the lieutenant laughed.
The technician kept his eyes on the screen— perhaps there would be another one— or if this blip returned, to attack the field, perhaps then the particle beam weapons system would be employed. He had seen the test when it had been installed days earlier at the Womb. The pencil-thin beam of light, barely visible— the drone aircraft had been vaporized, disintegrated— it had been the most impressive thing he had ever seen. He watched his dull radar panel again— nothing but supply craft for the Womb.
Chapter Fifty-Three
Sarah Rourke walked slowly past the burned farmhouse— it was so much like her own home—
gone.
And now John was gone again— with the Russian woman— the name of the woman, the submarine commander had told her, was Major Natalia Anastasia Tiemerovna. She rolled the name, trying to taste it— she hadn't asked if the woman was beautiful. And the man he traveled with— Paul Rubenstein. She had no doubt that if the woman— this major— were the woman of either John Rourke or the man Paul Rubenstein that she was John's woman. She smiled for a moment, stopping her walk— what woman, given the option to be, would not be John Rourke's woman.
Except perhaps herself— it had crossed her mind more than once before the Night of The War. But divorce was a word she could never say to him— she loved him too much, and he loved her.
Perhaps he thought she was dead— but then why did he tell Gundersen he would be searching for her?
There were questions to ask— but they would come when he found her. She decided something. The Resistance fought an important fight— she was part of it. She would stay with Critchfield and the others— and Bill would someday be back. She would stay with them, fight— and someday John Rourke would find her.
'Someday,' she said.
She felt silly— and she started to cry. She kept walking.
Chapter Fifty-Four
They had left the truck, the concentrations of Russians on the only roads through the mountains too great for them to risk the noise. Camouflaged more than a mile back, Bill Mulliner and his three men walked on. It would be risky— no code words or countersigns existed within the Resistance— it was not even an organization. Once they encountered the Resistance, he would have to rely on convincing the leader— reportedly a man named Koenigsburg— that Pete Critchfield had indeed sent him, that the messages he carried— all verbal— were indeed those of Critchfield and of President Chambers and Reed, Chambers' intelligence aide.
He let out a long sigh— he wondered if, by the time he did eventually get back to the new headquarters, Mrs. Rourke would already be gone as they had thought. He hoped someday to see her again, to meet a woman like her.
He walked on, his right fist on the pistol grip of his M-16. She would remember him, he knew—
if for no other reason than his father's pistol, the Trapper .45, which he had given her. But he hoped for other reasons, too...
Rourke stepped back from the plane— it was, once again, well camouflaged. But from the air only. To land the craft he had selected the only spot available, and there was little peripheral wooded area nearby to which he could 'snuggle' the plane to obscure it at least partially on the ground. He had made the plane tamperproof— unless someone happened by with a parts replacement kit for an F-111 and a machine shop to alter parts, for this was a prototype model based on the F-111 only— it would be impossible to get it off the ground.
He turned, walking toward Natalia and Rubenstein, Rubenstein already straddling his Harley, Natalia standing beside hers, her motor not yet started either.
'Not much more than an hour to the Retreat from here,' Rourke called out.
'And then rest for Paul—'
'And for you,' Rourke told her. 'I will help you—'
'Paul will need those dressings changed at least once a day— he can't do it himself,' Rourke told Natalia. 'Besides— I have to get moving fast. You're still a little weak from the operation— you know that yourself.'
'I am not,' she insisted.
'All right— you're not,' he smiled. He straddled the Low Rider. 'Ready?' he asked both of them.
Rubenstein nodded, starting his engine, Natalia mounting her machine. 'Ready,' she said, glaring at him.
Rourke gunned the Harley ahead— there was a shortcut he thought he could use, taking him through the park that surrounded Anna Ruby Falls outside Helen, Georgia.
He aimed the Harley's fork toward it...
The body was a fresh kill, or so it seemed, Bill Mulliner thought, peering through the field glasses, down onto the bridge that crossed the rocky stream at the base of the falls.
He scanned the binoculars up toward the falls themselves, estimating the drop at well more than a hundred feet— and he had always been a poor judge of exact distances.
He scanned the area to the far side of the falls, high rocks and a muddy path leading up into woods.
He looked back to the bridge— the man was an American, not looking like a Brigand— too clean, Bill Mulliner thought.
Then he saw the movement, almost dropping his binoculars, refocusing them. On a flat rock about fifty feet further downstream beyond the bridge and the falls was another body—
American-seeming, too. And the body still had life in it.
'We've gotta go down there,' Bill Mulliner whispered hoarsely to his three men.
