battered military model Rubenstein carried, old enough to have the cone hammers rather than the spur type hammers similar to those on the Colt Government Model.
Rubenstein started toward the bins, Rourke still standing before the shattered case. They would return what they had taken if the situation warranted it—as much as he joked about it, liberating was still a form of stealing, even when necessary. But he knew what he would “borrow” at least. He had given his to Annie. And there were two here—Detonics Scoremaster .45s, the cone hammered, flat mainspring housing stainless steel Detonics counterpart to the Colt Gold Cup.
He took the two pistols into his hands—they were factory original except that the once sharp corners of the high profile Bo-Mar rear sights had been rounded off. As he closed his fists over the Pachmayr gripped butts, the beavertail grip safeties deactivated.
There was a good feel to the guns. He would regret having to return them, but he would.
He started toward the bins, to find spare magazines if there were any.
Chapter Fifty
John Rourke stood in the doorway between the arsenal room and the corridor, Natalia watching him. The two stainless steel Scoremasters were positioned, each butt rightward in his trouser band and under his pistol belt—she had watched as he’d tested then loaded the dozen or so spare magazines he had found, then stuffed them into his musette bag. He carried an M-16 now in addi-tion to his CAR-15.
She looked at Michael—John’s near-identical duplicate. He had found his own M-16, the one he had taken from the Retreat, a second one carried on his left side now. She had taken a second M-16 for herself as well. Michael’s liberated Smith & Wesson pistols he now carried—all three of them, in two wide cartridge looped belts, the belts crisscrossing at his hips, holsters for them to match. Safariland, like her own.
Madison carried two M-I6s, but the girl carried them only to carry them, knowing nothing of guns yet, looking incongruous in the gray maid’s uniform and small white apron with an assault rifle under each arm. She was a pretty girl—but she was seemingly bewildered by the newness of her relationship with Michael, bewildered by Mi- chael’s father, and his father’s friends, and by the terror she had seen. Natalia blamed the girl not at all for the latter, and the other sources of the girl’s bewilderment would pass with time. They had passed for her, Natalia remembered.
Paul had found a double holster rig for the two Browning High Powers and wore this now, having added an M-16. But the assault rifle slung across his back, the Schmeisser, as he called the MP-40, he grasped in his hands. Natalia started toward the doorway now, her liberated P-38
in what she recognized as a German police full flap holster added to her belt with the L-Frame Smiths.
She had taken one other thing from the arsenal—a Randall Model 12 Smithsonian Bowie. The blade was eleven inches long, two and one quarter inches deep, the stock three-eighths inches thick. She had seen them before the Night of The War and with her penchant for knives had always wanted one. At least this was hers to borrow. Made for a large man, weighing she judged a good two pounds, the leather washed handle was large enough that she could hold it with two hands comfortably and thus wield it like a short sword. This hung in its scabbard behind thebuttof theL-Frame on her left side.
She stopped at the doorway. “Now what, John?”
Rourke nodded. “Paul—you take Madison and her M-16s there and go back near the doors where we hid the bikes. Any sign of the guys from outside, open fire and we’ll be there—we should hear gunfire well enough anywhere in the com-plex. It doesn’t seem they were too concerned with deadening sound when they built this place. Natalia and Michael and I’ll go through the complex—find that book Michael talked about and look for the vault these gun cases were removed from. Between the book and the vault, we should have our answers.”
“All right—you guys be careful, huh?”
Rourke clapped his friend on the shoulder. “Aren’t we always?”
“Yeah, well, if there weren’t two ladies present I’d tell ya about that.”
Natalia watched Paul turn to look at Madison. “You ready, Madison?”
“Yes—“ but she looked past Paul at Michael. “Be careful, please.” Michael leaned past Paul and kissed her quickly on the lips. Paul took her hand and started back along the corridor with her.
“Which way do we go now?” Natalia asked, looking at Michael. “Just to the end of the corridor—double doors, like a conference room. It’s where the Ministers talked to me. Where they had the wall safe with the second holy book,” and he looked at his father. “What about this room—you always taught me never to leave any guns behind.”
Natalia smiled. “Paul and I took care of that— the M-16s don’t have any firing pins, neither do the semi- automatic pistols. The shotguns and the revolvers we didn’t have time for.”
“It’ll have to do,” John Rourke announced. “So—let’s find that second holy book.”
John Rourke started into the corridor, Natalia beside him, Michael—as she looked back—coming behind.
Chapter Fifty-One
She had picked the lock in less than a minute and John Rourke—wearing his heavy leather gloves—had opened the doors, remembering Mi-chael’s experience with the electrified door han-dles. So far, there had been no sign of anyone from the Families or from the servants. No one.
Rourke walked through the doorway into the conference room.
“There—over there’s the safe, behind that,” and Michael stared toward it.
“Wait, Michael—it may be electrified,” Natalia called after him. Rourke joined them, eyeing the doorway, still wearing his gloves, gingerly touching at the wood carving and exposing the safe. Rourke drew the Gerber knife from his left hip and touched the tip to the safe door, to the combination lock, to the handle—there was no sparking as there would be if it were electrified.
“Go to work,” Rourke told her.
“1 don’t have my stethoscope.”
“I have mine on my bike.”
“But I won’t need it for a little wall safe,” she finished. Rourke nodded, turning away from the safe to study the murals—the Night of The War, the holocaust when the sky took flame, although he imagined the latter was largely based on supposi-tion and the terrified tales of any who had been caught outside and made it inside as the sky had caught fire. The candles on the table near the largest of the two large chairs. He approached these, removing his right glove, touching at the wax at the top—it was still warm. “They didn’t leave here too long ago,” he announced. He felt the chair—the seat was still warm. “Hmm,” he murmured.
He looked at the walls again—at the massive wooden carving on the rear wall.
“Hmm.”
“I have it,” Natalia called.
Rourke turned back to look at her standing beside the wall safe. In her right hand she held the small book which Rourke assumed to be the one of which Michael had spoken.
“That’s it,” Michael confirmed, as if reading Rourke’s thoughts. Rourke smiled at the pos-sibility.
“It’s a diary. I used a cover identity for six months once as an American housewife—I used one of these as a prop. These locks can be opened with a bobby pin.”
“Do you have a bobby pin?” Rourke asked her, smiling, standing beside her now.
“I may in my purse.”
“Nevermind, “ he interrupted. He withdrew the Gerber from its sheath. “These things can be opened this way, too.”
He pried gently with the Gerber’s tip where the two portions of the lock met.
“Have you opened many diaries, John?”
He laughed. “Don’t forget—espionage was my racket too for a few years,” and the lock popped.
He handed the book to Michael. “Your dis-covery. Read it—unless you don’t want to.”
Michael took the diary, saying nothing, then opening it. Rourke walked over to the nearest of the chairs at the conference table, drawing the two stainless Detonics Scoremaster .45s from where they were nestled against his abdomen, placing them on the conference table beside him. Michael began to read. “We have committed an unspeakable crime against God and against humanity.”
Michael looked up from the diary. John Rourke thought that instant that secrets were rarely kept secrets to hide their beauty.
Chapter Fifty-Two
