ma'am.'
'I know,' she nodded. 'Can't expect to sound like a saint when you're a soldier,' and she hugged his shoulders with her left arm. 'Ohh, Bill— I wish—'
'I wish we had about fifty people could fight— we could knock out them Russians down there on the road— steal what we need from em.'
'But we don't,' Sarah sighed...
Chapter Six
Paul Rubenstein felt almost civilized again, he thought. Riding in a truck cab with someone else doing the driving wasn't exactly a taxi ride in Manhattan— although the bumpiness made for similar moments— but it was a definite improvement over walking out the distance to get Lieutenant O'Neal and the others from the shore party. There were two trucks— Rubenstein looking back in the sideview mirror through the dust cloud— and an ambulance following behind. The driver was Airman Standish— he was black, and Colonel Teal had told Rubenstein Standish was the man who had worked at the fireworks factory in Kentucky, the man who had taken on the grim task of setting fire to the corpses from the Night of The War.
'What's this Dr. Rourke fella like, Mr. Rubenstein?'
'Paul— my first name's Paul.'
'Right— mine is Art. So what's he like?'
'Quiet— sometimes you get the feeling there's a lot boiling over inside him, but he never lets it get out. Self- control— that's what it is, I guess. That's what he's like.'
'Some of the fellas was talkin'— you know. Sayin' this Rourke was in CIA or somethin'.'
'Before The War— lot of clandestine operations in Latin America. Then after some big fiasco down there— he talks about it every once in a while. Figures he was set up by a double agent, maybe. But he got disgusted with it. Freelanced his services in survival and weapons training—
all over the world, really. He wrote a bunch of books on survival, medical aspects of survival training, survival weapons use. Probably the top man in the field. Had everything goin' for him. I read a lot of his books— good writer. Not a half-bad sense of humor— shows up in his writing more than his talking.'
'What the hell you guys doin' out here?' And Standish worked the two-and-one-half ton truck's transmission down, the gears grinding loudly, O'Neal and the others in the box canyon less than two hundred yards ahead.
'What are we doin' here? Looking for six missiles.'
'The experimental ones?'
'Yeah—'
'They're a long way from here, fella,' and Standish laughed, gesturing up toward the high rocks beyond the boundary of the valley. Rubenstein saw what he pointed at— wildmen.
Chapter Seven
Rourke sat in the cockpit of the prototyped FB-111 HX, running the preflight check, Armand Teal on the access ladder beside him, coaching him. Rourke had never flown an F-111-type aircraft, he'd told Teal. 'That's your targeting computer— there,' Teal gestured, pointing past Rourke.
Rourke nodded. 'Where are those missiles Cole wants?'
'About seventy-five miles away from here— past the wildmen, like you call 'em.' Teal's voice echoed across the otherwise still hangar. 'You're never gonna get 'em out with those crazies out there.'
'Maybe you're right,' Rourke sighed.
'They've got enough megatonnage to totally blot out a city the size of Moscow— and then some. Maybe that's what U.S. II wants 'em for.'
'Never get through their particle beam defenses,' Rourke noted absently, studying the fuel management panel in the control console to his left.
'Reconnaissance should tell the story, John— from what I figure and what you and the Russian woman told me— well. Those crazies are all over. We're trapped here unless we get out by air—
and I can't leave this base intact. Goes against everything I was taught, everything I believe. Leave it to fall into enemy hands. Never. The President could even order something like that—
and I wouldn't. Only way to get those missile warheads out is by air. And that means helicoptering 'em here at least. Then put 'em aboard a B-52 and take 'em out.'
'The Soviets have to have radar systems going— they could pick off a B-52.'
'Fine— then that damn submarine. But you'll still need to use helicopters to get them out to the submarine. The Russian woman flies?'
'Yeah ' Rourke nodded, looking at him.
'Well, there's your answer.'
'I haven't seen a helicopter anywhere on this base.'
'Three of 'em in the last hangar on the end. Army choppers— Bell OH-58A Kiowas. Had 'em flown in here just before the Night of The War. There was a joint services exercise being planned— never got all the details.'
'That hangar locked up?' Rourke asked him.
'You're thinkin' of Cole, right? I don't trust him either. And, yeah— it's locked.' Rourke looked back to the instrument panels.
He studied the counter-measure warning lights on the upper right. 'Counter-measures,' he murmured...
Rourke looked behind him, the action awkward feeling in the borrowed pilot's helmet, Natalia sitting there, one more seat in the fighter bomber empty. He heard her voice coming through the headset built into the helmet. 'You've been wanting to ask me something.' The voice sounded odd— oddly near, yet different because of the radio link.
'I didn't know how to ask you,' he told her, working the controls for the television optical unit positioned almost directly beneath where he sat, in the base of the fuselage. 'I wasn't certain how I could ask this without somehow making you think I distrusted you— but I don't.'
'Is Cole a Russian?'
'Yes,' Rourke nodded, saying into his helmet radio. 'Yes— that was the question. I think I asked it before.'
'And you want to know if anything he might have said, might have done— might have jogged a memory or made me change my mind?'
'Yes.'
'He isn't a Russian— I suppose he could be a clever GRU agent, but he isn't KGB— and I do not think he is Russian at all. Not working for my Uncle, or for Colonel Rozhdestvenskiy either—'
'Rozhdestvenskiy,' Rourke repeated, watching the television monitor, rolling the name on his tongue. 'The man who replaced—'
'Yes,' she interrupted.
'Karamatsov.'
'Yes.'
'Then who the hell is Cole?' Rourke said, exasperated, still watching the monitor. He had the camera set to high-resolution zoom, manipulating the angle now to scan the ground thousands of feet below them. He saw movement, men— women likely, as well. Wildmen. They appeared like ants. He started to bank the fighter bomber, rolling over into a dive to drop his altitude.
'I don't know who he is— not an American officer, I think. I have met many people in your American military— and if he is an officer, he doesn't act like one.'
Rourke switched the television optical unit to off as he leveled out, skimming the ground now, consulting the fuel management panel cursorily, then glancing to his right and down, checking the compass control panel. 'The signature on those orders,' Rourke said finally. 'It was Chambers's signature— I've seen it before.'
'Yes— so have I.'
'And I could see Chambers wanting the missiles as a bargaining tool against your people.'
'Yes— so could I.'
'But there's just something—'
'He would have needed Chambers's help to get the submarine,' he heard her voice saying in his headset. 'I mean, Commander Gundersen— he is very nice. He seems just as he should seem.'
