“They’ve landed?”
“Only in token numbers, Mr. President-and they’re pushing the timing on the neutron radiation a little at that. Those cities-like Chicago-are still hot.”
“Paul, what about the Eden Project. Did it get off?”
“Yes,” Dorian said, his eyes downcast. “Without a hitch, sir.”
“Then maybe there is some hope after all. Send in the chief of my Secret Service detail.”
“Mr. President, you can’t do this.”
“I have to-if there’s going to be any United States left. It’s not a country, a land-mass, Paul. I finally see that. The United States is an idea. And if I don’t do this, the idea may well die. I don’t have much of a choice, do I?”
The president took the outstretched hand of Paul Dorian, then walked back into his office and sat on the couch. In a moment, the chief of his Secret Service detail, Mike Clemmer, came through the door. “Mike, I’ve got a favor to ask.”
“Anything, Mr. President,” Clemmer said, entering the room. “Take this.” He handed Clemmer an envelope with the presidential seal in the upper left corner. “And now, give me your revolver.”
Clemmer started to reach under his windbreaker, then stopped.
“That’s an order, Mike. There are two letters in the envelope. One is to my wife, the other is to the American people. Thurston Potter knows what to do with them. This is my last order, Mike. Give me your gun.”
Clemmer wiped his palms on the sides of his trouser legs and reached under his jacket to his right hip. The president watched as he produced a short-barreled, shiny revolver. “I don’t know much about guns, Mike. Always wanted to try them, but never had the time. Does yours have a safety catch?”
“No, sir. Revolvers don’t. Mr. President, you can’t. I can’t let you.”
“You’ve got to, Mike. If I stay alive, the Russians will find me and use me. If I die, there will be no government left to capitulate, and free Americans will go on fighting until there is a government again-another elected government that will throw the Soviets out. If they get me, it’s all over for all of us.”
“But Mr. President-they’ll never get into Mt. Lincoln.”
“You know that’s not true,” the president said. “And if we’re totally cut off, they’ve got a capitulation anyway. But if the American people know I’m gone, then the Soviets-no matter what they do-can’t lie to the American people that the United States has surrendered. It’s the only way. Now, give me the gun.”
The president looked away from Mike Clemmer and extended his right hand, lighting a cigarette with his left.
He felt the heavy steel object in his hand, then heard the footsteps across the carpet. When he looked up, Mike Clemmer was gone. The president looked into the empty hallway through his open door.
The president of the United States dragged heavily on the cigarette and held the smoke in his lungs. He glanced at the picture of his wife and children on the coffee table in front of him, then looked straight into the stubby muzzle of the revolver. He touched the first finger of his right hand to the trigger…
Chapter Twenty-seven
Sarah Rourke turned on her heel and took the .45 automatic from the waistband of her blue jeans. The corners of her mouth raised into a smile and her green eyes lost their hard set. “Ron Jenkins,” she said. The man she stared at was a familiar one, the retired Army sergeant who owned the next farm. He rode a tall Appaloosa gelding. She knew the horse well. On a bay, behind him, was his wife, Carla, and riding behind her on the same horse was their ten year old girl, Millie.
“My wife and me-we was gettin’ ready to clear out on horseback here, then we heard the explosion over your place this morning and I said to Carla, ‘Betchya Sarah Rourke’s got some problems-John probably ain’t home.'”
Sarah slipped the .45 automatic back into her waistband, gestured with the same hand toward the smoldering ruins of the house and said, “I guess you’d call them brigands or something. They wanted to rob us and-well, you know,” Sarah said, turning away from the Jenkins family and looking back to the tack she was adjusting on her chestnut colored mare. The white mare with the black mane and tail and four black stockings-John’s horse-was already saddled and the gear tied on. She finished adjusting the latigo strap on her own horse and turned back to the Jenkins. “Thanks for coming to see about us,” she said quietly.
“You want we should all ride together? I’m taking my wife and daughter up into the mountains. Not far, but should be safer,” Ron Jenkins said.
“Come with us, Sarah,” Carla Jenkins said, leaning forward in her saddle.
Sarah wiped the palms of her hands on the legs of her jeans, then glanced at Michael and Annie standing beside the barn. Carla Jenkins talked too much, and Ron Jenkins didn’t talk enough-and their daughter Millie was a brat, Sarah recalled. But she looked at her children again. “I guess there’s safety in numbers,” she said. “I thank you for coming for us. I know it was out of your way. We’ll be happy to come with you. I’m sure we can all help each other. I’m almost through here. I just have one thing to do.”
“I’ll help your children get mounted up,” Ron Jenkins said. “On your husband’s horse-the white one?”
“Yes-please,” Sarah said, smiling. She walked back to the barn doorway and gave each of the children a nudge, then reached into her canvas purse and took a pen and the checkbook. She tore off a check and almost laughed as she found herself starting to write “void” across the front. They were all void now, she realized. She dropped to her knees on the ground and, using the checkbook to steady her hand, wrote:
“My Dearest John, You were right. I don’t know if you’re still alive. I’m telling myself and the children that you survived. We are fine. The chickens died overnight, but I don’t think it was radiation. No one is sick. The Jenkins family came by and we’re heading toward the mountains with them. You can find us from the retreat. I’m telling myself that you will find us. Maybe it will take a long time, but we won’t give up hope. Don’t you. The children love you. Annie has been good, Michael is more of a little man than we’d thought. Some thieves came by and Michael saved my life. We weren’t hurt. Hurry. Always, Sarah”
She slipped the note inside a plastic sandwich bag-from Michael’s lunch the last day he’d been in school. There was a nail already driven into the inside of the barn door, and she stuck the plastic bag over it, took one last look at the note, took the bag down and took out the check again. At the bottom, in larger letters, she scrawled, “I love you, John,” put the note back in the bag and hung it back on the nail.
Snatching up her black canvas purse, she turned on her heel and ran toward her horse, then climbed into the saddle.
“You ready, Sarah?” Ron Jenkins asked.
Sarah Rourke looked at the Jenkins family, then at her children, then pressed her heels gently against her horse’s flanks. She held the reins from John’s horse which carried Michael and Ann, in her left hand. As they started from the yard, she looked back. The ruins of the house were still smoking. But her attention focused on the barn door, the note to her husband nailed to the inside. Silently, she prayed that he was alive to read it.
“Come on, Tildie,” she whispered to the mare between her legs.
Chapter Twenty-eight
John Rourke leaned back against a rock and stared at the wrecked airplane two hundred yards away. He closed his eyes, and he wanted to put his hands over his ears to shut out the moaning of the injured passengers-the ones he’d worked through the long day to save.
“Mr. Rourke-coffee?”
He opened his eyes. The stewardess-the same one who had helped him at the beginning-was standing beside him, a coffee cup in her hand.
“Yeah, thanks,” he said.
“I don’t believe the way you were able to get everybody out, Mr. Rourke, then go back for the things in the cargo hold. You’re a real, live hero.”
Rourke smiled at the woman. “Well, going back into the cargo hold was pure selfishness. I needed the stuff I had there.”
“Those?”
Rourke followed her eyes to the twin stainless Detonics .45’s in the holster across his shoulders. “Yeah-and the other ones, too. I’m going to have to go into town for some medical help-if I can find it. There isn’t much more I can do for most of the people who were injured. And when I leave you people, you may need to defend yourselves. And I need to defend myself when I try making it into Albuquerque.”