Ahern, Jerry – Survivalist 05 - The Web Prologue John Rourke stood in the rain. He'd landed the Beech-craft because the plane had been almost out of fuel. As best he'd been able to judge from the maps, the plane was about twenty-five miles from Chambers and U.S. II headquarters. Paul was sitting in the plane, talking to his parents; the pilot had gone to find some kind of transportation. The radio wasn't working well, too much static. Beside Rourke stood Maj. Natalia Tiemerovna. "The truce will be over soon, John; it is over now, I think." "At least it showed we're still human beings, didn't it?" Rourke said quietly, his left hand cupped over his dark tobacco cigar, his right arm around Natalia. "You will go on looking?" she asked. "Yes." "Where do you plan to go?" "The Carolinas, maybe Georgia by Savannah. She was likely headed that way." "I hope you find her—and the children." Rourke looked at the Russian woman. Rain water streamed down her face—and his. ''Thank you, Natalia." The woman smiled, then lowered her eyes. She stood beside Rourke in the pouring rain. Chapter one "I just damned well can't order my men to fire on Americans to save a Russian agent, Rourke—no matter how much she's helped us!" Rourke glanced at Reed, then snatched aMossberg ATPP riot pump from one of Reed's men. "Nobody has to order me," he whispered, squinting hard against the sunshine as he tromboned the shotgun and shouldered it. "Rourke!" "Leave it!" Rourke ordered, not looking at Reed as the Army Intelligence captain spoke. The crowd of men and women-—civilians, mostly— was advancing, rifles, shotguns, clubs, and knives of every description in their hands. A woman screamed from the crowd, "Give us that Commie bitch—now!" Rourke snapped the muzzle of the riot shotgun down fast, firing, pumping, then firing again, skipping the pellets of double- buck across the tarred surface of the runway-access road, the pellets at most ricocheting upward against the shins of the lead ranks of the mob. The mob fell back a few yards. Rourke worked the tang-mounted safety after tromboning another round into the chamber, then handed the shotgun to Reed. "That's called riot control—ever hear of it?" Rourke didn't wait for an answer, extending his hand; Reed took it. "You didn't get weather from the tower." "That's all right—couldn't be hotter up there than it is here." Rourke nodded toward the mob. They were advancing again. Reed shouldered the pump and worked the safety, then fired into the runway surface, the roughly thirty-caliber pellets skipping toward the rioters. "See—works just great. About two more times, and the braver ones are gonna figure you're trying too hard not to kill 'em—then they're going to rush you. Let 'em past; we'll be airborne." "Rourke?" "Yeah—I know. Good luck." Rourke nodded fast, then took off in a dead run behind the dozen or so armed U.S. II troopers and toward the pickup truck. "He's gonna make a break for it with the Russian girl!" an angry voice shouted from the crowd behind him. Rourke hoped the anonymous voice was right. He reached the truck, jumping aboard, the door not closed as he worked the key. The ignition fired; his right fist locked on the floor-mounted gearshift. His left foot popped the clutch; the dark tobacco cigar moved across the clenched tight teeth and settled in the left corner of his mouth as the truck lurched ahead. The truck door slammed itself, the mirror vibrating as Rourke studied it. The mob had closed with Reed's men, closed with them sooner than Rourke had expected, and had passed them. There was sporadic gunfire, and behind the truck now, Rourke could see the first ragged ranks of the mob— running after him toward the airfield. Far ahead, through the cracked glass of the Ford's windshield, he could see the light cargo plane, the twin props still not whirring. Rourke hammered his left fist down hard on the vintage truck's horn button, again and again. He could see a figure—Rubenstein?—running from the starboard wing around the nose of the aircraft. Natalia would be at the controls. "Shit!" Rourke stomped the clutch down hard, working the gas pedal as well, double-clutching as he upshifted, the truck's gears grinding. The vehicle bumped, then lurched ahead. He glanced to his left—something, a sixth sense, making him do it. Hearing anything aver the roar of his truck's engine, the gunfire, and the shouts of the mob from behind was impossible. From his left were coming two pickup trucks, armed men in the hacks of each vehicle—rifles, shotguns, handguns, axes—and blood in their collective eye. He shook his head, almost in disbelief. Three days earlier, Natalia had been rescuing their wives and babies, putting them aboard the planes of the evacuation fleet in Florida. But now—none of that mattered. She was Russian, and the Russians had started World War III, destroyed much of the United States, invaded American shores. Natalia was Russian. It didn't matter who she was, just what. Rourke felt the corners of his mouth downturning. "Ignorant bastards!" Rourke snarled as he glanced again at the two pickup trucks. They were closing fast, gunfire now being leveled at him from the beds of the trucks. The West Coast mirror on the right-hand side of the vintage Ford pickup he drove shattered under the impact of a slug. Rourke reached under his left armpit, snatching at one of the twin Detonics stainless .s he carried in the double Alessi shoulder rig. He aimed the pistol as his thumb cocked the hammer, then turned his face away from the passenger-side window, firing, as the shattering outward of the passenger-side glass and the roar of the -grain JHP in the confined space all came together to make his ears ring. He looked toward the passenger side; the nearest of the two trucks swung away. He fired the Detonics again; this time, the glass of his borrowed truck not partially deflecting the bullet, his bullet hammered into the front windshield of the nearest of the pursuers. Rourke glanced to his left, seeing behind him through the driverVside window the pursuing mob. The mob split, a wing of it running diagonally from the access road toward the field, to cut him off or to reach the airplane ahead of him—he couldn't be sure which. Rourke glanced to his right. A wooden fence was all that separated him from the grassy area leading toward the field. He cut the wheel hard right, the cocked and locked Detonics secured under his right thigh as he aimed the pickup truck toward the fence. One of the pursuing trucks, the one with the shot-out windshield, was coming for him broadside. Rourke grabbed up the Detonics again, firing. The pursuing truck swerved hard right through the wooden fence, almost in perfect simul taneity with the truck Rourke drove. Behind him now, Rourke could see the second truck, coming up fast as it punched through the fence. Some of the fence slats, caught up in its front bumper, broke away as the truck, a Chevy, bounced and jarred across the uneven ground. Rourke upped the safety on his Detonics again, hammering down the gas pedal and shifting down into third, releasing the pedal and stomping the accelera tor as he made the change. The Ford slowed, but took the bumps better. There were perhaps a thousand yards to go toward the airfield tarmac itself. The pickup with the shot-out windshield was com ing—fast, too fast for control. The riflemen and shot-gunners, bouncing visibly in the bed as the truck slowed, fired. Rifle bullets and shotgun slugs pinged uselessly off the body of Rourke's truck. Rourke fired the Detonics . again, really at nothing, since aimed fire was useless with the truck he drove bouncing and jarring as it did. But this time the pickup truck, a Dodge, didn't fall back. "Hell," Rourke rasped, stomping the clutch, running the gas pedal hard down as he upshifted, easing the gas pressure, then increasing it again. The Ford lurched ahead. In the rear-view mirror, Rourke could see the Chevy— almost even with the rear end of his truck now, a man leaning out of its passenger-side door, jumping. Rourke tried swerving away in time, but was boxed in. The man, a pistol in his right hand now, was unsteadily standing in the bed of Rourke's pickup. Rourke tried cutting the wheel hard right, to throw the man off, but the Dodge with the shattered windshield was flanking him, fenders touching, boxing him in again. Rourke cut the wheel hard left, but the second pickup, the Chevy, had blocked him there as welL The man standing shakily behind him was raising his pistol, to fire through the rear window. "Try this," Rourke snapped, stomping hard on the brakes. The pickup truck lurched to a ragged halt; the man's pistol discharged, the man himself sailing forward, disappearing from Rourke's view over the cab of the pickup and reappearing crashing onto the hood. Rourke threw the stick into reverse, the truck's gearbox grinding. Rourke's right foot hammered down on the gas pedal. The Chevy was already twenty yards ahead of him; the Dodge, customized and massive, locked beside him. There was a tearing sound, metal against metal. The right side of Rourke's truck locked into the left rear wheel well of the Dodge with the shot-out windshield. Rourke stomped the clutch again, throwing into first, then hammering down the gas pedal. There were more tearing sounds; then his truck lurched ahead. The Ford's bumper twisted upward suddenly, protruding aver the hood as Rourke stomped the clutch again, into second with the gearbox, his foot barely leaving the gas pedal. The Chevy was wheeling a sharp right, trying to cut Rourke off. The man from the bed of Rourke's pickup, who had been thrown to the ground an instant earlier, got unsteadily to his feet. Rourke cut his wheel sharp to the left, barely missing him, then hard to the right. The Chevy still trying to cut him off. The first truck, its windshield all but gone now, was right behind him. Rourke stomped his brake pedal, wrenching the stick back into reverse. There was a massive hitchbali on the rear end of the Ford and Rourke aimed it blindly now toward the grillwork of the Dodge behind him. There was a crashing, crunching sound, and Rourke braced himself against the wheel as the Ford impacted. Rourke stomped the clutch, then worked the stick into first and gave the Ford the gas. There was a groaning sound. His truck stalled a little, then ripped free. Behind him, in the rear-view, as he upshifted to second, he could see the front bumper and part of the Dodge's grill—twisted and wrecked. The Chevy was alongside him again. Rourke cut his wheel sharp right, impacting the right fender against the left fender of the other truck, then cutting back away, keeping the wheel in a sharp left, circling back over the ground they had just traversed, the Chevy still coming. Gunfire—an assault rifle, the burst long, too long. The rear windshield of the truck Rourke drove shattered, the rear-view mirror was shot out, too, as bullets passed through the opening in the glass behind him and ham mered against the front windshield from the inside. Rourke ducked his head down. Under the impact of more slugs, the gas gauge shattered, the steering wheel chipped—too near his fingers. "Hell," he rasped, cutting the wheel into a hard left, then a hard right, then a hard left again, zigzagging as the Chevy kept coming and the assault-rifle fire as well. He cut the wheel sharp right and worked the emergency-brake, locking the rear wheels. The truck skidded into a flick turn, almost overending. He was aimed the right way now, his left hand snatch ing for the second Detonics pistol as he released the emergency brake. He rammed the transmission into first, into second, then into third, his feet working as if they rode a balance beam, his right hand stirring the transmis sion. The Chevy was coming at him—dead-on. "Play chicken with me!" he snarled. Ramming the Detonics pistol out the driver's-side window, his thumb jerked the hammer back, his first finger started the squeeze. One round, then a second—the enemy truck's wind shield gone with two hits. Two more shots—one headlight and maybe a puncture to the radiator. The truck was still coming. One round—the driver's-side West Coast mirror. The truck wasn't swerving, coming at Rourke like a rival knight in a tournament. The gap between them was less than twenty yards. Rourke fired the last round from the pistol. The driver of the Chevy threw his hands up to his face; the pickup swerved left and right. Rourke stomped down on the Ford's clutch, wrenching the stick into second as he double-clutched, working the emergency brake again, cutting the wheel in a sharp left, then releasing the brake and stomping the gas. The Ford fish-tailed under him, bounced up, and drove over a hummock of ground, airborne for a split second. He could feel the suspension of gravity in the instant that it happened, feel it in the pit of his stomach. The truck hit hard, Rourke fighting the wheel to control it. He stomped the clutch, wrenching the stick into third, revving his way out of the fishtail, accelerating, the engine moaning in front of him, the cab vibrating, shards of glass tinkling to the floor of the cab as the air of the truck's slipstream pressured his bullet-shattered windshield. The twin-engine light cargo plane was just ahead of him again, this time barely a hundred yards away. Rourke upshifted into fourth as he hit the runway tarmac. The truck skidded—the treads of the tires would be packed with clay and dirt, he knew. The Ford fish-tailed again, then straightened out as Rourke started downshifting, braking at the same time. The toes of his right foot worked the gas pedal, his heel worked the brake, his ieft foot worked the clutch. The truck was skidding, and Rourke cut the wheel hard right, riding into the skid as he braked. The truck lurched once, then stopped. Rourke wrenched open the driver's-side door; shards of windshield glass showered down on him from the dash board. Natalia's face—her brilliantly blue eyes framed in the bell of her almost black, past-shoulder-length hair—was visible through the pilot's-side storm window. Ruben-stein, framed in the open cargo bay, pushed his glasses back off the bridge of his nose as he shouted, "John— what the hell—" Rourke cut the younger man off "Paul—get every thing nailed down fast, if it isn'f already " Without another word, Rourke ran toward the wing stem and jumped for it, the pilot's-side door opening under his right hand Natalia was seated behind the controls. "Move over," Rourke ordered her. Her blue eyes were wide—not terror, but recognition, he thought; recognition, perhaps, of the insanity of what wab happening "They want me—don't they, John? To kilt me " "They'd try killing the Virgin Mother right now if she were a Russian. Move over I said." She slipped out of the pilot's seat as Rourke slid down behind the controls. He checked the parking brake "You through pre-fhghting" "Yes," she answered, sounding lifeless "Every thing's fine—ready " He didn't say anything Through the pilot's-side storm window, he could see at least three dozen armed men running across the field; and one of the trucks—the Chevy—was rolling again "Damn it," he rasped to him self, then he shouted, "Paul' Get that cargo hold buttoned up Then get up here with a gun!" "You can't ask him to shoot those people—for me," Natalia almost whispered Not looking at her as he spoke, Rourke ran a visual check of the avionics. "You listen to me—and good Rus- sian or whatever—I don't even have the words for it. Maybe Paul would. But the three of us—we've come this far together. And that means something." Rourke checked the oxygen. The cowl flap switches were open. He set the fuel selector valves to "main," the induction air system to "filtered." Visually, he surveyed the circuit breakers and switches; there wasn't time for a full check. He flipped the battery switch to "on." Glancing at the main and auxiliary fuel indicators, he started throttling open, the prop controls at low pitch. He adjusted the mixture controls—full rich. He checked the auxiliary fuel pump; it was registering high. He switched it off. Glancing out the cockpit storm window again, he hit the magneto/start switch. "Paul—up here with a gun!" Already, Rourke was exercising the props, watching the rpms build. He throttled out, checked the magneto variances, throttled again. "Little late to ask—the wheel chocks gone?" "Yes." She smiled, laughing for an instant. Rourke nodded, feathering the props, the mob less than a hundred yards away now, the Chevy pickup clos ing fast. There was no glass in its windshield, and men, packed in its truck bed, were firing rifles and shotguns. "Paul!" "Right here." Rourke glanced behind him; the younger man held Rourke's CAR- in his right hand; his left was pushing the wire-rimmed glasses back from the bridge of his nose. "Put a few shots out the storm window," Rourke ordered. Then, concentrating on getting airborne, he ignored the mob. Trim tabs, flaps—he set them for take off. He released the parking brake. "Let's get the hell out of here," Rourke almost whispered. "Brace )ourself Paul—and keep shooting." For the last ten seconds, pieces of hot brass had pelted his neck and shoulders—Rubenstein firing the Colt assault rifle toward the mob. The younger man stood almost directly behind him. Rourke glanced at the oil temperature, then rasped half to himself, "Full throttle—God help us." He checked the fuel altitude setting as he released the brake. The aircraft was already accelerating. "Buckle up, Paul," Rourke ordered. More of the hot brass pelted him, then suddenly stopped. Above the roaring of the engines there were sounds now of gunfire from the field, of pro jectiles pinging against the aircraft fuselage. "What if they hit something?" Rubenstein called out. "Then we maybe die," Rourke answered emotion-lessly. He checked his speed; through the cockpit wind shield the runway was blurring under him now. The Chevy still came, gunfire pouring from it, the mob suddenly far behind. The pickup was closing fast. Rourke checked his speed—not quite airspeed yet. The far chain-link fence at the end of the airfield was coming up—too fast. More gunfire; the pilot's side window spiderwebbed beside Rourke's head as a bullet impacted against the glass. And Rubenstein was firing again as well, having ignored Rourke's admonition to strap in. The Chevy swerved; one of the men in the truck bed fell out onto the runway surface. The gunfire was heavier now, sparks flying as Rubenstein's . slugs hammered against the pickup truck's body. "Hang on!" Rourke worked the throttles to maximum, starting to pull up on the controls—a hundred yards, fifty yards, twenty-five yards, the nose starting up. Rourke punched the landing-gear-retraction switch, and as they cleared the fence top, the pelting of hot brass against his neck subsided, Rubenstein's gunfire having ceased. "Thank God." Rubenstein sighed. "Hmmm." Rourke worked the controls, opening his cow] flaps, trying to climb, gunfire still echoing from below and behind them. He checked his airspeed—not good enough—then began playing the cowl flaps and the fuel flow. The air speed was rising. As Rourke banked the aircraft hard to port, Natalia leaned half out of her seat, across his right shoulder, Rubenstein to his left. The Chevy, now far below them, had stopped. The men with rifles and shot guns in the pickup's bed were now minuscule specks, more a curiosity than a threat. "Can I breathe now?" Paul Rubenstein asked. Smiling, Rourke checked the oxygen system on the control panel, then nodded. "Yeah." Rourke decided to breathe, too. . . . The controls vibrated under Rourke s hands as he sat a)one in the cockpit. Natalia had gone ah with Paul, to help him resecure some of the gear that had jarred loose during the overly rapid takeoff. The airfield tower had given him the weather—generally good, moderate winds, perhaps a few thunderheads, but at low elevations and unlikely to be encountered. Rourke looked below the craft now, its shadow stark and black against the empti- ness that he saw. That expanse of wasteland had once been the Mississippi Delta region. Now, like the rest of the Mississippi valley from where New Orleans had been to its farthest extent north, the ground was a radioactive desert. The Night of the War . . . Rourke could not forget it, and at last lighting the small dark tobacco cigar that he'd had clenched in his teeth for nearly an hour, he thought more about it. The anger of the men and women in the mob back at the airfield, even the reluctance of Reed to risk an American life to save a Russian life, no matter how valuable, how good—it had all started then, on the Night of the War. The global fencing—the saber rattling—had ended long before anyone had realized and the nuclear weapons had been unsheathed and ready. The death ... all of the death in that one night, millions of lives lost. The pound ing of nuclear weapons, which here, below him, had produced an irradiated vastness that would be unin habitable for perhaps as long as a quarter-million years, had struck along the San Andreas fault line and brought about the feared megaquakes—but far worse than any one, save the most wild speculator, had ever imagined. Much of California and the West Coast had fallen into the sea—more millions of deaths. The Soviet Army—the Soviet Union itself—was nearly as crippled as was what had been the United States. The invading Soviet Army, headquartered in neutron-bombed Chicago, had set up outposts in surviving major American cities and indus trial and agricultural regions, outposts that not only con tended with the growing wave of American resistance, but with the Brigand problem. Rourke felt a smile cross his lips as he exhaled the gray smoke of his cigar. Some- thing in common with the self-styled conquerors—the Brigand warfare, the pillaging, the slaughters. For it was after the war that both the best and worst of humanity had risen to the fore. The best—Paul, cer tainly. The young Jewish New Yorker had never ridden anything more challenging than a desk, never fought anything tougher than an editorial deadline. Now, in the few short weeks since the world had forever changed, Rubenstein had forever changed as well. Tough, good with a gun, as at home on a motorcycle as he had been in a desk chair. Even in the short period of time that had elapsed, Rourke had noted the definition of his muscula ture, and the different set to the eyes he continuously shielded behind wire-rimmed glasses. The wonder, the excitement, were all there as they had been from the first with each new challenge; but there was something else— a pride, a determination derived just from having sur vived, from having fought, from having surmounted obstacles. In those few short weeks, Rubenstein had grown to be the best friend Rourke felt he had ever had— like a brother, Rourke thought, feeling himself smile again. An only child, he had never been blessed with a natural brother. But now at least he had one. And Natalia—the magic of her eyes, the beauty that he would have felt hopelessly inadequate to describe had the need arisen to do so. Rourke had first met her before the war—a brief, chance meeting in Latin America when she had worked with her now-dead husband, Vladmir Kara-mat sov. Rourke had been a CIA covert operations officer; Karamatsov had been the same thing—but for KGB, the Soviet Committee for State Security. And Natalia had been Karamatsov's agent. Then, after the war, there was the staggering coincidence of finding her, dying, wandering the west Texas desert, herself the victim of Brigand attack. The feelings that had grown between him and the Russian woman, despite her loyalty to her country, despite her job in the KGB, despite her uncle—General Varakov, who was the supreme Soviet commander for the North American Army of Occupa tion. "Insane," he murmured to himself. And then another chance meeting. Rourke had been pursuing the trail of his wife, Sarah, and the children, lost to him on the Night of the War. Rourke let out a deep breath, feeling the tendons in his neck tightening with the thoughts. "Sarah," he heard himself whisper. The meeting—the meeting with the girl named Sissy; the seismological research data she had carried regarding the development of an artificial fault line during the bombing, something that would reduplicate the horror of the megaquakes that had destroyed the West Coast, but would instead now sever the Florida peninsula from the mainland. For all the destruction and the death, it had proven again that there still remained some humanity, some commonality of species. For with President Chambers of U.S. II and General Varakov, a Soviet-U.S. II truce had been struck to effect the evacuation of peninsular Florida in the hope of saving human lives. The job finished, the truce had ended and a state of war existed once again. Rourke shook his head. War. Sarah had always labeled his study of survivalism, his knowledge of weapons—all of it—as a preoccupation with gloom and doom, a fasci nation with the unthinkable. It had torn at their marriage, separated them, and now, despite the fact that they had promised each other to try again for the sake of Michael and Annie, for the sake of the love he and Sarah had always felt for each other, it was war that had finally separated them. Rourke remembered it; he hadn't wanted to leave, to give the lecture to be delivered in Canada. Hypo thermia—the effects of cold. The world situation had been already tense; but Sarah had insisted, so she could get herself together, to try again with him. It had been there, in Canada, that Rourke had at last learned of the gravity of the situation rapidly developing between the United States and the Soviet Union. He had been aboard an aircraft nearly ready to land in Atlanta, near his farm in northeastern Georgia, when he had heard over the pilot's PA system that the first missiles had been launched. Then that night—the night that had lasted, it seemed, forever, and nothing ever the same afterward. He shivered from the memories: the crash after the plane had been diverted westward, the struggle to sur vive afterward with the injured passengers, the useless-ness of his skills as a doctor to the burn victims in Albuquerque—then the slaughter of the passengers by the Brigands. "Brigands," he murmured. He glanced at his watch; the black-faced Rolex Submariner showed that he had been lost in his reverie for at least ten minutes, perhaps longer. He checked the instruments, then the ground below him—now a nuclear desert, a no man's land where once millions had lived, worked, tilled the soil—nothing now. Not a living tree, or a blade of grass that wasn't brown or black. His cigar was gone from his teeth and he checked the ashtray, realizing he'd extinguished it. Rourke shook his head, silent—tired. . . . Reed started to stub out his cigarette, but didn't. Cigar ettes were getting harder to find. He kept smoking it, then looked up across the littered table from his cup of coffee. "What, Corporal?" "Captain, your pal, Dr. Rourke—he's gonna have trouble, sir." "He had trouble—remember? Hell of a lot of good we were to stop it." He looked back at the cigarette and noticed that the skin of his first and second fingers was stained dark orange. Reed wondered what the stuff in the cigarettes did to his lungs. He shrugged and took another drag; then through a mouthful of smoke, he said, "What kind of trouble? He's got a radio. We can contact him." "A storm system—it just moved in, like it was out of nowhere, sir." "He's a fine pilot. He'll fly over it," Reed answered, dismissing the problem. "But, Captain?" Reed looked up at the red-haired young woman again. "What, Corporal?" "You don't understand, sir," she insisted. "See. It's a massive winter storm system—it was just there. You know the weather's been crazy—" "Winter storm system? Have you weather people ever figured out you can learn a hell of a lot by just looking out the damn window?" Reed checked his wrist watch, thinking of Rourke for an instant and envying Rourke the Rolex he habitually wore. "An hour ago it was in the sixties—snowstorm?" "Sir . . . please," the red-haired woman said. "Yeah." He nodded, tired from going more than a day without sleep. Standing slowly, he stubbed out the cig arette and looked around the place—some officer's club, he thought. One lousy window. He walked across the room, lurching a little because of sitting so long in one chair, tired. He staggered against the back of a chair. A Marine lieutenant started to his feet, saw Reed, then looked noncommittal. Reed shrugged it off, reaching the window. "I need a good couple hours sleep, Corporal." "Yes, sir." The red-haired woman nodded. Reed pulled back the heavy curtain. Staring outside, he whispered, "Holy shit!" He judged the depth, at least four inches of snow; a heavy wind was blowing what had fallen back into the air. Drifts were mounting against the tires of a jeep outside by the walkway. "Yes, sir. That's it, sir," the red-haired woman echoed. Reed looked at her. "It's impossible! It was like spring a few—" He looked back out the window. It was no longer like spring. The sleet was coming in torrents now. Sarah huddled beside the children under the overhang of rocks, a pine bracken to her right, as she stared down into the valley. The pines made a natural windbreak for herself, Michael, Annie, and the horses. Across her lap, resting on her blue-jeaned thighs instead of the children's heads, was the AR-—the one modified to fire fully automatically when she put the selector at the right setting, the one almost used to kill her the morning after the Night of the War, the one she'd taken from the dead Brigand and used to shoot out the glass window in the basement of her house in order to set off the confined natural gas there after the gas lines had begun filling the house following the bombing—to blow up her own home and the men inside it who had tried to rob, to kill, to rape. Priorities were odd, she thought, as she raised her left hand from Annie's chest where it had rested and tugged the blue-and-white bandanna from her own hair. Before the Night of the War—rape, it would have been a top priority. But now losing things had somehow become unconsciously more important as she considered life. Rape would be a horror—but it could be overcome. Death—it might well be more than expected. But to be robbed, deprived of food or horses or weapons with which to fight—this was worse than death, and rape of the spirit more foul than any rape of the body. She looked to her right. Michael was sleeping, his body swathed—like Annie's—in blankets against the bizarre and sudden cold. Michael would be turning eight soon, and already he had murdered a man—a Brigand who had tried to rape her. \ She studied his face. It was John's face, but younger, though appearing no less troubled. She could see the faint tracing of lines which in adulthood would duplicate the lines in the face of his father. She could see the set of his chin. She thought of his father's face, the quiet, the resoluteness, the firmness. She found herself missing that—the steadiness with which John Rourke's infre quent life at home had provided her. She watched the valley, the impromptu-appearing Brigand encampment there, pickup trucks sheltered with tarps, and motorcycles, these, too, covered—covered better than her children. The sleet had begun to stream down from thegray-blue skies more than two hours earlier. Sarah had quickly led the horses—the children mounted on her husband's horse, Sam—up and away from the low valley now below her. For she had seen the Brigands already, heard their vehicles, their laughter and shouts, felt the fear they always made her feel. She had tethered Sam and Tildie, then wrapped the children in their blankets and in hersas well. Now she sat, huddled in an incongruously feminine woolen jacket, on two saddle blankets spread over the bare rock. She was freezing with the cold. She looked away from the Brigand camp below. There were perhaps a dozen of them, a small force by compari son to some she had seen, almost encountered. She looked instead at the faces of Michael and Annie, trying to remember the last time she had seen either child really play. Not on the offshore island where they had hidden from the Soviet troops in Savannah. But at the Mulliner farm. The children had played there. Mary Mulliner had ...