combination.
He slipped the coat on. It would be cold, dangerous because of the
storm—but it was vital and no choice was left other than to go.
He tried to think if there was some American song about West Virginia—his
destination. He thought for a moment, then decided there doubtless was but
he didn’t know it. Instead he whistled “Dixie”—it was close enough for his
purposes.
He stopped whistling as he reached the door of his quarters, laughing.
“Whistling ‘Dixie’ in a snowstorm—ha!”
He started through the doorway, into the hall. . . .
The wind at the restored Lake Front airport was bit-ingly cold, and he
pulled up on the collar of his coat— wolfs fur—as he started toward the
helicopter for the first leg of his journey toward West Virginia and the
presidential retreat—and the duplicate set of files on the American Eden
Project.
As he crossed under the rotor blades, he could feel it— his hair was
ruined.
Darkness had fallen deeply—he glanced at the black luminous face of the
Rolex Submariner he wore—more than an hour ago. Rourke exhaled, watching
the steam $n his breath. The Harley’s engine rumbled between his legs,
running a little roughly with the cold.
A smile crossed his lips; he had been right. He was heading into the heart
of the storm, Natalia and Paul away from it. He looked behind him once,
into the white swirling darkness, then gunned the Hariey, slowly starting
ahead, the snow making the road almost impassable. . . .
Rourke had stopped a little while earlier to pull up the neck of his
crew-neck sweater so that it covered most of his face, and his ears and
head. There had been a sudden coldness near the small of his back where
his sweater no longer protected him, and his ears had been stiffening with
the cold. Now as he pressed the bike along a mountain curve, the
visibility was bad, worse than it had been before. The storm only seemed
to intensify as he moved along, and the cold increased. He wore his
dark-lensed aviator-style sunglasses, to protect his eyes from the driving
ice spicules; the backs of his gloved hands were
i
encrusted with the ice where his fists locked over the handlebars.
Brushing the ice away from the cuff of his sweater where it extended past
his brown leather jacket’s cuff, he moved his right hand to roll back the
sweater and read the face of his watch. It was early in the evening, and
the temperature would still drop for another nine or ten hours or so until
just before dawn. As he shifted his right hand back to the handlebars, his
weight shifted— stiffness from the cold—and the bike started into a skid.
He was doing barely twenty by the speedometer, the headlight of the Harley
dancing wildly across the snow and ice as he took the curve, the Harley
almost out of control. His hands wrestled the controls, trying to steer
‘the bike out of the skid. His feet dragged to stop it, to balance it.
He let the bike skid out, jumping clear of it, the machine sliding across
the road surface as he rolled. The Harley stopped in a snowbank to the far
right of the road; Rourke landed flat on his stomach on the ice and snow.
He looked up, shaking his head to clear it.
He pushed himself up with his hands, slowly rising to his feet, pulling
off his right glove, clutching the wrist hole tight in his left fist to
retain the warmth inside. Then, with his right hand, he took off the
glasses that had protected his eyes. He realized also that he was tired,
fast approaching exhaustion; and with the cold, that could be fatal. He
moved slowly, carefully toward his bike. It was in a snowbank, the snow
having cushioned its impact. It appeared totally undamaged.
“Lucky,” he murmured. He reached down and shut off the key, putting the
glasses into an inside pocket of the jacket first. Squinting against the
ice, he looked around him; he needed shelter. To his left—to the east—the
clouds had a strange glow. Radiation? He shook his head, dismissing the
thought. He could be dying at this very instant, he realized, if the snow
that fell on him was irradiated. He would worry about that later.
But there was a subtle glow and trails of fire were visible; and as the
cloud patterns shifted in the wind, the glow remained, as if it emanated
from the ground.
If things had been normal, he would have labeled the glow as the lights
from—he verbalized it—”A town—a town. A town.” It looked to be about two
or three miles away, but he realized that with the darkness and the snow
and the cloud layers the distance judgment he made could have been
self-deceptive. ,
He gloved his right hand again, working his fingerfs which were already
stiffening.
There were two possibilities: to fabricate a shelter which would give
marginal protection from the wind and no protection from the cold, or to
go to the source of the lights. He had passed a side road turnoff a
half-mile back; it likely led toward the source of the lights. The general
direction seemed the same, although mountain roads, winding like Christmas
ribbons across the landscape and really leading nowhere, could be
deceptive as to direction. But along such a road there would be farms,
homes—he decided.
His best chance for shelter was along the side road, though the snow would
be heavier there.
He wrest/ed the Harley up, straddling it, starting it, the engine
rumbling; his gas gauge was low, very low. Rourke fought the machine back
out of the snowdrift and arced it around. If he kept the speed low enough
. . .
When more Brigands had started arriving—some sort of conclave she
wondered?—she had awakened the children; then as silently as possible,
she led them and the horses down on the far side of the rise—away from the
Brigand camp, into the mounting storm. As Sarah rode Tildie now, the
horse’s body white-coated with the snow and ice, she wondered if it had
been a wise decision—the right one? What would John have done? Would he
have—?
“Mommie?”
She shook her head, smiling as she turned around. “What is it, Annie? Are
you cold?”
“No—I’m letting her hug me—she isn’t—”
“I am cold,” Annie interrupted Michael. “I’m cold. I’m cold.”
“Slow up, Michael,” Sarah told her son, wanting him to rein in Sam.
Michael didn’t argue; she guessed he was cold, too. “Here.” She reined
Tildie around, then came up beside her children. She took the blanket
which she had wrapped around her and put it around Annie’s shoulders,
wrapping her and Michael in it, pinning the blanket with her shaking hands
across Michael’s chest.
“But now you’re gonna be cold, Mom,” Michael protested.
“No. I won’t lie and say I was too warm before, but I’ll be fine. That
should be better now,” she said, turning to Annie. She stuffed her hands
back into her gloves. She knew it wouldn’t really be better; blankets only
served to retain body warmth, not promote it, and both of the children
were rapidly losing theirs. Again she wished for John to be there. He was
a doctor, and among other things an expert on cold-weather survival.
She urged Tildie forward, telling Michael, “Stay here a minute. I’m going
up that rise to see where we are^ maybe.”
f
“We can come,” Michael insisted.
“AH right—but stay well behind me—no sense wearing out Sam more than you
have to.”
She rode toward a tall stand of pines, the modified AR- across her
saddle, cold against her thighs. If a Brigand conclave was on, then there
would be Brigands traveling through the area, toward it.
Urging Tildie up the rise with her knees, her left hand holding the reins,
she clutched the AR- pistol grip in her gloved right fist. “Come on,
Tildie—just a little while longer,” she cooed. Sarah glanced behind her
once— Michael and Annie were coming, slowly, as she wanted them to.
Michael, like his father, stubborn, arrogant, but reliable—a man she could
count on more than he knew.
She was tempted to call out to the children, telling Michael to save Sam
the haul up the rise, but she didn’t, lest there be Brigands nearby she
couldn’t see.
Her eyelashes were encrusted with ice, the sleet and snow blowing against
her face. She reached the top of the
rise, reining Tildie back. “Whoa—easy,” she cooed again.
Beyond the rise was the Savannah River and suddenly, she knew where she
was. Lake Hart well would be nearby—in the distance, she could see the
Hartwell dam. John had taken her there once with the children for a tour
of the dam structure, and several times she had gone to the lake itself
with John and the children—swimming.
The thought of plunging her body into water now chilled her. She trembled,