Natalia Anastasia Tiemerovna sat up—so suddenly her head felt light and she closed her eyes.
To her left was Paul Rubenstein. He had not yet sat up. She could tell because the cryogenic chamber’s lid was not yet elevated. To her right was John Rourke. “John,” she whispered, her voice sounding, feelingvodd to her. The lid of his chamber too was closed, but she could see him stir inside. He was alive. Beyond John Rourke, in the farthest chamber, Sarah sat up, rubbing her eyes.
Natalia closed her eyes—the children. “The children—where— “ and she looked at the face that held the eyes that looked at her. The eyes were brown, like John Rourke’s eyes. The hair, it was a dark honey blond, very long it seemed, draped over the girl’s left shoulder and to her waist and beyond. The girl. “Who? Annie?”
“Natalia—rest. We can talk. All of us can—“
Natalia looked to her right—she had moved her head too fast. Annie was talking. “I think women wake up faster from cryogenic sleep than men do—just like they do from regular sleep, I guess.”
If Annie were an adult, Natalia thought— thinking was hard. She tried to organize her thoughts. John Rourke, there was some little gray in his hair, more than she remembered. She watched as he stirred. Natalia turned to Annie, trying to move her legs. She could not move them yet.
“How old is Michael?”
“He’ll be thirty in less than a month,” Annie’s soft alto answered in almost a whisper.
“Thirty—he’s—“ Natalia looked at John Rourke—he stirred more, seemed about to open his eyes. “John, why?” Natalia sagged back against the chamber’s pillow and closed her eyes. She wanted to weep but no tears would come to her—yet.
Chapter Seventeen
Natalia had spoken almost not at all. Sarah had hugged Annie to her, but had said nothing.
Paul had asked questions. John Rourke had answered them, Annie answering some of the questions. Rourke watched his daughter’s eyes as she spoke to Paul Rubenstein. And he watched Paul’s eyes—Paul could see without his glasses. Natalia had been sick. Sarah, too—Paul as well. Rourke, more knowing what to expect, had taken the reactivation of his plumbing in better stride. Annie had reset his watch and he stared at the luminous black face of the Rolex now—the awakening had come some time after midnight. It was nearly nine a.m. and he was trying some of Annie’s herbal tea, sipping at it slowly.
He sat on the sofa in the great room. Annie sat on the floor, her legs vanished under the nearly ankle-length blue skirt she wore as she knelt near his feet. “You don’t believe in dreams, do you? I thought I raised you to be more level-headed than that.” Rourke smiled. The herbal tea tasted nauseating, but the coffee shortage to consider, he had decided at the first sip to drink enough tea to develop at least a tolerance for it.
“I’ve had two dreams since I awoke from the sleep, Daddy. The one dream was about seeing you and Momma again—awake. The other dream was about Michael in danger. And I’m seeing you and Momma awake right now. And Michael’s been gone from the Retreat for eight days.”
“You said he’d told you he’d be back in fourteen days, Annie.”
“I felt it, Daddy—please. Go look for him.”
John Rourke sipped at the tea. “I intend to. By midday, my stomach should be stabilized and I should feel stronger. By tomorrow, I should be able to go after him.”
“Not without me—and my stomach’s killing me.” John Rourke knew the voice. He looked at Annie’s face instead as she looked up. He watched her hands as she smoothed her skirt with them, as she touched at her hair with them. “All right, Paul.” Rourke nodded, not looking at the younger man—he was five years younger still. “The ladies will be safe here at the Retreat—“ “I’m going, John. You made it so that Michael would be the right age.” Rourke turned around. Flanking Paul Rubenstein were Natalia and Sarah. “What do you mean?” Rourke said to Natalia.
“You stole my children,” Sarah hissed. “You stole them from me forever. Maybe you plan to make me pregnant again—so we can repopulate the world. But you stole these children. You stole Michael and Annie. They’re grown up.” “And you think that you solved our problem, don’t you?” Natalia said emotionlessly. “You pandered me to your son. How could you, John?” John Rourke looked at his hands—they were steady. “For all I knew, for all I know, there are six human beings alive on Earth. Maybe the Eden Project will return. Maybe some other people have survived. Maybe Michael is confronting them right now. Maybe. But six people. Six people. Definite. I love both of you,” and he looked at Sarah and then at Natalia. “I did what I did out of love, for our survival.”
John Rourke stood up. There should be quite a lot of the cigars remaining—he started, his legs still weak, across the great room, toward the kitchen and the freezer where he kept them. Behind him he heard Natalia’s voice, “I love you— not someone the age that you were, not someone who looks like you, not your son.”
Rourke stopped at the height of the three steps leading to the kitchen. He leaned against the counter. “I did the only thing I could do. Now leave it alone,” he almost whispered.
Q
Sarah’s voice—he didn’t look at her. “Which god are you, John?”
His voice welled up inside him and he shouted without looking at her, “Leave it alone!”
“Which god are you? Which god are you, John Rourke! Should I fall on my knees to you? Should I burn a goddamned sacrifice to you? If you make me pregnant again, should I sacrifice our first born to you—you already made me sacrifice two children!”
“Alone! Leave it alone!”
“No!”
“Momma!”
“Stay out of this, Annie—“
“Mrs. Rourke, Sarah—“
“No. You worship him—it’s written all over your face. He’s your big macho hero—taught you how to ride a bike, how to shoot a gun. Well, nobody goddamned taught me. He wasn’t there with me.” Rourke turned around, watching Sarah now as she turned toward Natalia. “And you love him because you’re like him—you’re both better than human beings, better than anybody at anything. You were made for each other. But he didn’t steal your children from you. You don’t have the memories of them inside you, of caring for them when the world was going to hell, of smuggling them past Russian guards when they were naked and shivering under blankets, of fighting and killing to keep them alive. I went through all of the hell—and now he took them!”
John Rourke watched his wife’s eyes. “You did an this all because you know what’s right for everybody, don’t you? You’d stay away for days building this Retreat. You’d keep at it and at it making this—this place. Well, what good did it really do? We’re alive and to keep the damned human race going you played god and made the children grow up so your son could marry your mistress and your daughter could marry your best friend. How fucking noble!” She turned away, walking into the bedroom he had built with his hands for them to share.
The door slammed.
He felt something—a presence and he looked away from the closed door. Annie stood behind him, on the lowest step. She wrapped her arms around his waist. “We started to raise tobacco, and in the encyclopedia and in the other books, I learned how to make cigars for you. I’ve been freezing them for years. You can smoke all you want. Just like the Cuban ones—rolled on the lips of—“ She licked her lips, looking over her shoulder at Paul Rubenstein. Paul stood there, his hands in his pockets, Rourke watching as the younger man stared down at his feet. He’d never seen Paul Rubenstein’s face so red before. “I love you, Daddy. I know what Momma meant. I’d hate you if you took away my children, but I’m not Momma. And I love you. Hold me,” and she rested her head against his chest as she ascended the steps.
John Rourke held his daughter close against him and closed his eyes. A long time later, he smoked one of the cigars and the taste— different than his other cigars—was somehow better.
Chapter Eighteen
He was still stiff and his muscles sore, but on the trail in pursuit of Michael there would be time to regain his strength from his long sleep. At least Paul Rubenstein told himself that as he stood in the workroom, fieldstripping the Browning High Power. The magazine out, he drew the slide back and locked the safety in the forwardmost notch. He began working the slide stop out until he could pluck it from the left side of the frame with his fingers. Slowly, he lowered the safety on the worn 9mm, letting the slide move forward and dismounting it from the rails. He removed the recoil spring and guide from the inverted slide, then jiggled out the barrel. He heard the rustle of clothing beside him. He looked to his left—it was Annie. “I guess your mother was kinda angry,” he told her, not looking at her but looking at the pistol again. He took the Break-Free CLP and began to pour some of it— the cap removed—onto a rag to degum the pistol. “You’re the only eligible man in the world. But that’s not why I fell in love with you, Paul.”