neatly folded on the top shelf, were his clothes. He looked below. On the
floor were his boots. No guns.
He turned to the desk, opening the large side drawer on the left-hand
pedestal bottom.
The double Alessi shoulder rig, the twin Detonics stainless ,s. His A.G.
Russell Sting IA knife.
He took up the shoulder rig, snapping one of the pistols out of the
holster, then checked it—the chamber was still
loaded, five rounds still in the magazine. He looked up; Martha Bogen was
coming toward him.
He pointed the gun at her face. She stopped, then dropped to her knees on
the floor and began to cry. “I didn’t want to die alone.”
“Nobody’ll have to die; I won’t let it happen.”
“You can’t stop. it. You’ll die, loo. But we’ll both die alone.”
Rourke heard a tiny explosion, then a whistling sound. He glanced at his
Rolex, still running in the drawer; then he pulled open the curtain over
the window to the street. Against the darkness, he could see a skyrocket
bursting. It was exquisite.
” told you.” He heard Martha Bogen s voice shout hysterically. “I told
you so, John!”
The fireworks. Rourke remembered her saying they would come just before
the explosions, just before the end.
The pickup truck had thrown a part from the engine— she wasn’t sure
what—and the radiator had burst and the pickup had stopped dead.
For the last three miles, as she judged it, she and the children had
walked hugging the side of the farm road— &he had been too tired to cross
country. With her, she carried the stolen M- rifle, her husband’s
.—the gun now covered with a light layer of brown that she considered
to be rust—and among her few personal effects the photographs she had
taken from the farmhouse on the Night of the War. Her wedding picture with
John was among them.
She sat staring at it now, folded, creased, cracked. He wore a tuxedo and
she a floor-length white gown and a veil. The children were resting. It
was not far to theMul-liner farm now, but they had needed to rest. She
felt as though she were entering a new stage of her life, and somehow
staring at the wedding photo had seemed necessary before going to the
farm.
She put it away, seeing the picture more clearly in her mind than in the
photograph. She remembered their wedding night, John’s body next to hers—
“Mamma?”
She turned and looked at Michael in the predawn gray-ness. “Yes, son?”
“Will Daddy find us here—at Mary’s?”
“I think so—if anyone can find anyone, Daddy will find us. Come here,
Annie.” Annie came beside her and Sarah hugged both children to her body.
She heard the barking of a dog, released the children, and grabbed for the
rifle. But the dog stopped on the rise of ground, a golden retriever—the
one her children had run with, played with. The dog ran up to them.
Michael, and then Annie—always a little more afraid of dogs-hugged the
animal, and were in turn licked in the face,
Sarah stood up, slinging the rifle across her back—shf could rest now, at
least until John found them. “Until/ she repeated aloud.
Natalia placed her hands on her waist, just above the Safariland holsters
carrying the twin Smith & Wesson revolvers. She looked at Paul Rubenstein,
saying, “I don’t see anything, Paul.”
“When John brought me up here the first time, he told me that was the
whole idea.” Rubenstein smiled in the gray predawn. “I can’t really
explain it as he does—but I guess he did a lot of research. He said it was
the way Egyptian tombs were sealed, and things like that. He wanted the
place tamper-proof. Watch this.” Rubenstein approached a large boulder on
his right. He pushed against it, and the boulder rolled away.
He walked to his left, pushing a similar but not identical boulder. It
was more squared off. As Rubenstein pushed, the rock on which Natalia
stood beside him began to drop down. As the rock beneath them dropped, a
slab of rock—she compared it to a garage door—opened inward.
“John told me it’s just a system of weights and counterbalances,”
Rubenstein told her. “Maybe you understand it better—didn’t you have some
training as an engineer?’
“Nothing like this,” she said, feeling literally amazed.
Rubenstein shined a flashlight—she remembered it as one of the angleheads
he and John had said they’d taken from the geological supply house in
Albuquerque just after the Night of the War. In the shaft of yellow light,
she could see Paul bending over, flicking a switch. The interior beyond
the moved-aside slab of rock was bathed in red light now. “All ready for
Christmas.” Rubenstein laughed. “Red light? That was a joke.”
“Yes, Paul,” Natalia murmured.
“HI get the bike. Hold this.” He handed her the flashlight.
She studied the rock, murmuring, “Granite,” as she heard the sounds of
Rubenstein’s Harley Low Rider being brought inside.
“Now watch this,” Rubenstein said, suddenly beside her.
“Yes, Paul.” She nodded, giving him back the flashlight. He moved over
beside a light switch, then shifted a red-handled lever downward, locking
it under a notch. He left the small cave for an instant and she could both
hear and see him rolling the rock counterbalances back in place outside.
Rubenstein returned to the red-handled lever, loosed it from the notch
that had retained it, and raised il. The granite slab—the door—started
shifting back into place, blocking the entrance.
“What are those steel doors for?” Natalia asked, | gesturing
beyond the pale of red light.
“The entrance inside.” Rubenstein moved toward the doors, then began
working a combination dial, then another, all in the shaft of yellow light
from the anglehead. “John installed ultrasonic equipment to keep insects
and critters out—”
“And closed-circuit television,” Natalia added, looking up toward the
vaulted rock above her.
“Can you find that switch for the red light back there?” Rubenstein asked
her.
“Yes, Paul,” she nodded, in the dim light found the switch, then worked it
off. There was near total darkness now. “Paul?”
“Right here—wait.” She heard the sounds of the steel doors opening.
She stepped closer to the beam of the anglehead flashlight, staring into
the darkness beyond it.
“Ya ready?” she heard Paul’s voice ask.
“I don’t know . . . for—” She heard the sound of a light switch clicking.
She closed her eyes against the light a moment, then opened them.
“I don’t believe it.” She heard her voice; she couldn’t remember it having
ever sounded quite so astonished to her.
“That’s the Great Room.” She looked at Paul, watched the pride and
happiness in his face.
“Great—yes,” she repeated.
She started to walk, down the three low steps in front of her, a ramp to
her left, her eyes riveted on the waterfall and the pool it made at the
far end of the cavern; then she drifted to the couch, the tables, the
chairs, the video recording equipment, the books that lined the walls, the
weapons cabinet.
And on the end table beside the sofa . . . She stopped, approaching the
couch, picking up the picture frame there.
“Would you like a drink, Natalia?” Rubenstein’s voice came to her from
across the Great Room. “I can show the
rest to you after a while,”
“What? A drink—yes,” she called back.
The little boy in the photo—he was a miniature twin of John Rourke.
“Michael,” Natalia murmured, feeling herself smile. So fine, so beautiful,
so strong. And the little girl—the face of an imp, a smile that— Natalia
felt herself smiling more broadly.
And John, his arm around a woman who looked abou! Natalia’s age, perhaps
older by a few years. She was pretty, with dark hair and green eyes, or so
it seemed in the picture.
“Sarah Rourke,” Natalia murmured.
‘That’s them,” Rubenstein said, suddenly beside her. “I didn’t ask what
you wanted. Figured Seagram’s Seven would be all—”
“Perfect. That’s perfect, Paul.”
“That’s Sarah and Michael and Annie. I feel almost as though I know them.”
Rubenstein laughed.
“Yes, Paul—so do I,” Natalia said, putting the picture down on the end
table. “So do I.” She stopped talking then, because she felt she was going
to cry and didn’! want to.
Rozhdestvenskiy looked at the Army major, Ivan Borozeni. “Major—it is
immaterial to me if the population is unarmed essentially.”
“But, Colonel, I see little need for going in firing— we—”
“Major, I will remind you of your rank—and also of one salient point you
may not have considered. The Morris Industries plant was a highly secret
Defense Department installation and manufacturing facility. If it still
stands, it would seem obvious that the civilian government of the town is
aware of its strategic importance to one degree or another. Hence, if we
do not put down any thought of resistance as we enter the valley, they
will likely use demolitions to destroy the plant.’