Chapter Twenty-Five
“You must assume the presidency sir,” the green fatigue-clad air force colonel said, leaning forward in the mustard-colored overstuffed chair, his blue eyes focused tight on the lanky Samuel Chambers.
Chambers held up his left hand for silence, leaned back in the leather-covered easy chair and began to speak. “Colonel Darlington—you and everyone here urge me to essentially ‘crown’ myself as president of the United States—when I’m not even sure there still is a United States. According to Captain Reed’s contact through army channels before the army ceased to function as a unified command, Soviet landings were anticipated in Chicago and several other major U.S. cities that were neutron-bombed. We could and probably do have thousands of Soviet troops already in the country and thousands more on the way. The worse the damage our forces did to them, the more desperate they’ll be to utilize our surviving factories and natural resources to get their own country back on its feet. And what about the radiation fallout, the famine, the economic collapse we are facing now? Is there actually a country—even a world—that’s going to be able to go on, even if it wants to? Answer me that colonel!” Chambers concluded.
Captain Reed leaned forward in his chair, a Sherlockian pipe—unlit—clamped in the left corner of his thin-lipped mouth. He snatched at the pipe with his left hand, pointed with the stem and said, “I’ve been listening to this sir, and I’ve reached one conclusion, and I think it should be obvious to everyone here by now. We’re talking about a situation of mass confusion out there. The former president did what he had to do. Had he stayed alive, essentially trapped in his retreat, the Soviets could have used him for whatever they wanted to—with or without his cooperation. But you’re different, sir.” Reed leaned back, glanced briefly around the room and went on. “Your sentiments against Communism on a philosophical basis are widely known, so putting words in your mouth would be useless. They don’t have you trapped in one spot—they don’t know where you are. Now we can see that apparently there are people still alive, there are armed citizens out there willing to fight someone—but someone has to point them in the right direction, to channel what they’re doing. Maybe that’s the word. We need someone to channel the energies of the country. We need a leader and we don’t have that now. And there’s no one else but you, sir.”
Reed sat back, glancing around the room again, then looking down to the floor as if studying the toes of his combat boots.
Colonel Darlington, after a long silence, said softly, “The captain is right—he put it better than any of us,” then staring intently at Chambers, said, “Mr. President.”
Chambers looked at Darlington, then at Reed and then at the others there in the room—Randan Soames, commander of the Texas Militia, volunteer paramilitary group; Federal Judge Arthur Bennington; his own aide, George Cripp.
Chambers lit a cigarette, saying through the cloud of smoke as he stared down in front of him, “Perhaps Judge Bennington could find a Bible so that he can administer the Oath. After that, gentlemen, I’ll anticipate we’ll be proceeding with this organizational conference well into tomorrow morning.” Chambers looked up, catching the judge’s eye, saying, “Arthur—whenever you’re ready.”
Moments later, Chambers stood in the garden, swore to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, so help him God. His aide, George Cripp, was the first to address him afterward as “Mr. President.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Natalie had kept the four-barreled COP derringer-type pistol, giving the other guns Rourke had salvaged from the jeep and the brigands she had killed to the most likely-looking of the refugee group. Rourke, Rubenstein—by now understanding firearms reasonably well—and Natalie showed the new gun owners how to employ them. Sharing the water and food left Rourke and Rubenstein and the girl with enough to reach Van Horn and nothing more. Before parting company with the refugee party early the next morning, Rourke sent Rubenstein back down the road in the direction in which the refugee party would be traveling, to scout twenty miles ahead, then come back. The younger man, dark hair whipping across his high forehead, eyes squinted both against the sun and apparently to keep the perpetually slipping wire-rimmed glasses from falling off the bridge of his nose, returned almost exactly forty minutes later, reporting nothing up ahead for the refugees—and nothing close behind for Rourke.
Rourke, the girl he knew as Natalie sitting behind him on his bike, watched until the refugee group had straggled a hundred yards or so down the road, then turned to Rubenstein, straddling the Harley beside him. Rourke glanced at the smaller man, noting that the complexion which had been pallid only days earlier, and then red from the sun, was now starting to darken. Already, too, there was an added leanness about Rubenstein’s face. Rourke exhaled slowly, saying, “Well, partner—about ready?”
Rubenstein looked at him, saying nothing, and nodded, then hurriedly pushed his glasses off the bridge of his nose. “You know, Paul,” Rourke smiled, “We’ve gotta do something about getting those glasses fixed.” Not looking at the girl behind him, Rourke said, “Hold on—I want to make some time.” Rourke pushed the sleeves of his already sweat-stained light blue shirt up past his elbows, ran the long fingers of his hands back through his brown hair, then started his Low Rider, cutting a slow arc off the road shoulder and back onto the highway. A road sign a hundred yards off to his right, faded from the sunlight, read: “Van Horn—75 miles.”
They rode in silence, flanking the yellow line at the center of the road. Rourke checked his speedometer, his odometer and then the Rolex wristwatch, then bored his eyes back up the road and gunned the cycle harder. They had driven for just under an hour when Rourke signaled to Rubenstein and started cutting across the right-hand lane to pull up alongside the right shoulder. Ahead of them stretched a low, bridged highway running past smokeless high chimneys, and beyond that were the faint outlines of buildings scorching under the already intense sun. Rourke glanced at his watch—the Rolex read nearly ten A.M. now. As Rubenstein pulled beside him, Rourke said quietly, “Van Horn,” and gestured toward the lifeless-seeming factories and beyond.
“It looks dead,” Rubenstein said, squinting against the light.
“Does,” Rourke commented.
“What do we do?” It was Natalie, leaning over his shoulder.
“Well,” Rourke began slowly. “We need food and water, and Rubenstein here could use some clip-on sunglasses before the glare does permanent damage to his eyes. You could probably stand some things. And we could use some more gasoline. I promised I’d get you as far as I could toward Galveston. I don’t know yet whether Paul and I are going to have to go down that far to find a safe way of getting onto the other side of the Mississippi. From what I was able to judge from the air that night—the night of the war— it looked as though that entire area should be nothing but a nuclear desert. But there’s no way of telling that from here—unless you know something.”
He craned his neck and looked at the girl, who smiled at him, saying, “Remember, I hadn’t even heard about the war until you and Paul told me?”
“Yeah, I remember that,” Rourke said slowly. “I guess though it sort of strikes me as odd that you seem so good with a gun, seem to have seen refugees close up before, and that somewhere in the back of each of our minds we remember each other from somewhere. I just thought maybe some vibrations or something might have come to you about the Mississippi Delta region.”
“Sorry,” the girl said, as though dismissing Rourke’s remark.
“Right—sorry,” Rourke echoed. “Well, since you just seem to have this mystical skill with borrowed handguns and submachine guns, when we get down into Van Horn, until we rearm you with something more than that little pea-shooter you’ve got, why don’t you snatch my Python out of the leather here in case some shooting starts. I think if you study it for a while, you can figure out how it works. Right?”
The girl smiled again, almost whispering, “I’d imagine I can.”
“Good,” Rourke said softly, then turning to Rubenstein, “Paul, there’s one main drag down there, probably. When we hit the town, I’ll wait five minutes, you cut down along the perimeter as fast as you can, then turn into the main street and start back toward me. Those brigands who destroyed that town those refugees came from are up ahead of us somewhere. I figure they probably already attacked Van Horn, but some of them could have hung around. People like that are usually pretty loose organizationally, coming and going when they please. Keep that thing you call a Schmeisser ready, huh?”