The Doomsayer

by Jerry Ahern

  Chapter 29

  Rubenstein moved from tent to tent, after having thrown up once he’d gotten outside the first tent, more careful to avoid silhouetting himself against the light. He talked to an older man who’d been awake, swatting flies away from a festering wound on his left leg. The lights were kept on in the tents to make certain no one stood up during the night and to make visual inspection of the tents easier when the guards looked in. There were no sanitary facilities, no facilities for child care, and some of the guards, the old man had confessed, enjoyed beating people. Some of the other guards had seemed like decent men, the old man had told him, but they did nothing when the other guards began their beatings.

  The old man had never heard of retired Air Force Colonel David Rubenstein or his wife.

  Paul stopped now outside a tent, the fifth so far. Shaking his head, he forced his way inside, keeping low to avoid profiling himself in the yellow light. The stench in this tent was either not so bad, or he had become accustomed to it— he wasn’t sure which. There were more children here, faces drawn, eyes sunken, bellies swollen. The old man— Rubenstein hadn’t asked his name and the man hadn’t volunteered it had said most of the older people gave the bulk of their food to the children and the recent mothers; and the food allotment for each adult per day was a cup of cereal, as much bad water as you wanted to drink, and twice a week fish or meat. The cereal had weevils in it, the fish and meat usually smelled rancid. A lot of the people around the camp had dysentery, the old man had said.

  Rubenstein passed through the tent, looking for his parents, looking for a familiar face, not sure if he’d recognize any of his parents’ friends. There was a woman at the far end of the tent, holding a child in her arms, the child’s breathing labored. She was awake and as he passed her, she whispered, “Who are you?”

  “My name is Paul Rubenstein,” he told her, glancing around the tent.

  “Why are you here?”

  “I’m looking for my parents. Do you know them? My father has a full head of white hair, his first name is David. My mother’s first name is Rebecca. Rubenstein. He was a Colonel in the Air Force before he retired.”

  “He wouldn’t be here, then,” the woman said.

  Rubenstein sucked in his breath, wondering what the woman meant, afraid to ask.

  “He just wouldn’t be here. I was supposed to be someplace else too,” she said, brushing a fly away from her child’s lips. “But I was pregnant and they didn’t want me along, so they left me. I lost the baby,” she said, her voice even. “I don’t know what they did with my baby afterward. They never told me about him— he was a boy. My husband Ralph would have been proud of the boy— handsome. Ralph, he’s in the Air Force too, that’s why they took him. Some kind of special camp near Miami for military people and their families. I hope they don’t hurt Ralph. I would have named my baby Ralph Jr., after my husband. He was a beautiful boy. I don’t know what they did with him. I would have named him Ralph, you know.”

  Rubenstein looked at her, whispered. “I’m sorry,” then left the tent. He crouched outside by the flap, crying quietly. “Goddamn them,” he muttered.

  It was starting to rain and in the distance below the dark rain clouds he could see a tiny knife edge of sunlight, reddish tinged. The camp would soon be awake and he had to get out before he got caught. He looked back toward the tent. He could hear the woman talking to herself.

  He decided something, then. He was going to go to Miami, find his parents at whatever hellhole camp they were in, if they were still alive. But first he was going to do something here. He didn’t know what yet. There was the Army Intelligence contact. Maybe he could help, Rubenstein thought.

  Paul pulled himself back against the tent. He heard something, the rumble of an engine. He looked to his right— there was a U.S. military jeep coming, three Cubans riding in it. The rain was coming down in sheets now, and the wind was picking up. Rubenstein pushed his glasses back from the bridge of his nose, brushed his thinning black hair back from his high forehead.

  He pulled back the bolt on the Schmeisser, giving it a solid pat.

  Paul Rubenstein raised himself to his feet, standing almost directly in front of the jeep, the headlights beaming just to his left. At the top of his lungs, the young man shouted. “Eat lead, you bastards!” and he squeezed the trigger of the Schmeisser.

  “Trigger control,” he shouted, reiterating Rourke’s constant warning to him, working the trigger out and in, keeping to three-round bursts from the thirty-round magazine. The driver of the jeep slumped forward across the wheel, then the man beside him, the third man in the back raising a pistol to fire. Rubenstein pumped the Schmeisser’s trigger again, emptying three rounds into the man’s chest. The man fell back, rolling down into the mud.

  Rubenstein ran beside the jeep, the vehicle going off at a crazy angle into one of the tents.

  The young man jumped for it, his left foot on the running board, his right hand loosing the Schmeisser, pushing the dead driver from behind the wheel. Sliding in, he kicked the dead man’s feet away from the pedals.

  Rubenstein ground the vehicle to a halt, noticing now for the first time that there was a gray light diffused over the camp. It was dawn. He rolled the body of the passenger, then the driver, out of the right side of the jeep, shifting the vehicle into reverse. People streamed from their tents. As he skidded the jeep around, slamming on the brakes as he fumbled the transmission into first, he could see guards running toward him from the far end of the camp.

  His jaw was set, his lips curled back from his teeth, as he stomped on the gas pedal, driving forward. The puddles sloshed up on him as he raced through the mud. Some of the prisoners of the camp threw themselves toward the advancing Cuban guards.

  “No!” Rubenstein shouted, the guards machine-gunning the women, the old people.

  Rubenstein buttoned out the magazine on the Schmeisser with his left hand, replacing it with a fresh one, the windshield of the jeep down in front of him. He rested the blue-black submachine gun along the dashboard and started firing again.

  There were dozens of guards, he thought, all of them armed with assault rifles or pistols, streaming from metal huts. They were half-dressed, shouting, firing at him. Rubenstein kept shooting. He glanced to his left— there was a Communist Cuban guard running beside the jeep, hands outstretched, reaching for him.

  Rubenstein balanced the steering wheel with his left knee, snatching the wire cutters from his belt, ramming the eighteen inches of steel behind him and out, then looked back. The Cuban soldier fell, the wirecutters imbedded in his chest.

  A smile crossed Rubenstein’s lips as he stomped the clutch and upshifted, the jeep now speeding past the tents, the huts, the angry, shouting guards and their guns.

  Rubenstein triggered another burst from the Schmeisser, getting a man who looked like an officer. The young man hoped he was the camp commandant.

  The Schmeisser was shot dry and he dropped it beside him on the front seat, snatching the worn blue Browning High Power into his right fist, thumbing back the hammer, firing the first round into the face of a Cuban soldier who’d thrown himself up on the hood of the jeep.

  The soldier fell away; there was a scream as the jeep rolled over something. Rubenstein didn’t care what it was.

  The High Power blazing in his right hand, he fought the wheel of the jeep with his left, bringing the vehicle into a sharp left turn, the jeep almost flipping over on him as he gunned it forward. Holding the pistol awkwardly, he rammed the stick into third gear, the engine noise so loud he could barely hear the shouts now.

  Two Cuban soldiers were running for him, the gate a hundred yards ahead. Rubenstein rammed the Browning straight out in his right hand, firing once, then once again, the nearer of the two men throwing his hands to his face as he fell. The second man, unhit, dove into the jeep, his hands reaching out for Rubenstein’s throat. Rubenstein tried bringing the gun up to fire, but the man was in the way, his hands tightening on Ru
benstein’s throat as the jeep swerved out of control.

  Rubenstein dropped the Browning, clawing at the Cuban’s face, getting his fingers into the man’s mouth by the left cheek, then ripping as hard as he could.

  The man’s face split on the left side, the fingers released from Rubenstein’s throat, and Rubenstein grasped the 9mm pistol. He snapped back the trigger, the muzzle flush against the Communist soldier’s chest, the scream from the torn face ringing loud in Rubenstein’s ears as the man fell back, into the mud.

  Rubenstein cut the wheel right just in time, the left fender crashing into a row of packing crates that tumbled into the mud. The High Power clenched in his right fist, Rubenstein cut the wheel harder right, with less than fifty yards to go until he reached the main gate. A dozen guards stood by the gate shooting at him.

  Paul jammed the Browning High Power into his trouser band, then fumbled on the seat for the Schmeisser. He buttoned out the empty magazine, balancing the steering wheel with his left knee again as he changed sticks in the submachine gun. He smacked back the bolt, bringing the muzzle of the weapon up over the hood, his left fist locked on the wheel again. He didn’t shoot.

  The distance to the gate was now twenty-five yards. He hoped he remembered what Rourke had told him about practical firing range. Twenty yards, the guards at the gate still firing. Fifteen yards and Rubenstein began pumping the trigger, two-round bursts this time, firing at the greatest concentration of the guards. One man went down, then another. The guards ran as the jeep rammed toward them.

  Rubenstein kept up a steady stream of two-round bursts, nailing another guard. He punched his foot all the way down on the gas pedal as the jeep homed toward the gate, shouting to himself, “Now!” The front end of the vehicle crashed against the wood and barbed wire gate, shattering it. The jeep stuttered a moment, then pushed ahead. Rubenstein brought the SMG back up, firing it out as he cut the wheel into a sharp right onto the road.

  As he sped past the concentration camp, the noise of gunfire from behind him had all but stopped. He looked to his right, toward the camp. He could see men, women, and children; he imagined he saw the old man with the festering leg wound who had told him so much, the young woman with the dead baby. Rubenstein began to cry, telling himself it was the wind of the slipstream around the vehicle doing it to his eyes.

  Every person in the camp compound was waving his arms in the air, cheering.

  Chapter 30

  Natalia stood under the water of the shower, the water hot against her body. She’d wanted to wash away more than the sand, she realized. She turned off the water after running it cold for a moment, then stepped out. She grabbed a towel and wrapped it around her hair, then another towel and wrapped it around her body. Her feet still slightly wet as she walked out of the bathroom, across the carpeted bedroom and to the double glass doors at the far end. There she stepped out onto the small balcony overlooking the sea. She was disappointed. She had missed the sunrise.

  It was cold, but she stood there a moment, then walked back inside, toweling herself dry and pulling on an ankle-length white robe. She took a cigarette from the dresser and lit it, inhaling deeply. Then, the towel still wrapped around her hair, she walked back out on the balcony, standing by the railing, staring at the beach and the ocean beyond.

  It had been a night she wanted quickly to forget. She understood why Diego Santiago was the way he was with a woman. She didn’t think it was that she had so excited him. It was a problem that only a man could have, she thought. He had apologized, then fallen silent. She had rubbed his body, kissed him, tried to soothe him afterward. And she felt now that he trusted her, feeling somehow she knew a guilty secret.

  She had washed her thighs three times, but the memory of what had happened to Santiago before he’d been able to do what he’d wanted to her still lingered. She would have felt sorry for him normally, she thought. But he was such a lie, such a fake, she thought. The “macho” general was like a young boy.

  She was glad nothing had happened with him-because she hadn’t wanted it. In the days with Karamatsov she had sometimes used her body to gain information. But she had never liked it, even though Vladmir had told her he would not blame her for whatever she did.

  When Santiago kissed her, she had thought only of Rourke, wished it were Rourke, and afterward known that with Rourke it would have been so much different. She hugged her arms about her against the chill of the wind, looking skyward, thinking it was perhaps going to rain.

  “John,” she whispered.

  Rourke had killed Karamatsov, but for her, as her uncle had explained it. Should she keep the vow she’d made and kill Rourke?

  The uncertainty inside was destroying her, Natalia thought. But more than ever now, she knew, she loved the American. She wondered, absently, if he had yet found his wife and children. Somehow it would be easier to know he was with them. Then he would have no reason to think of her and she would know for herself that he was out of reach.

  Natalia smiled, thinking of Rourke, knowing that if she were to fight something that lived only in Rourke’s heart she could never win.

  Chapter 31

  John Rourke downed half the tumbler of whiskey, looked at his watch, then walked from the table and to the curtained window. He drew back the curtain, squinting against the sunlight. There were dark clouds on the horizon, but above them the sun was bright. He threw the curtains open, and light filled the room.

  He walked across it again, snapping off the lamp which had illuminated the table through the night and early morning. He looked at Chambers, then at Sissy Wiznewski.

  “I don’t know which one of them is the Communist agent. The information in their files is too ambiguous.”

  “It’s all we have,” Chambers said, his voice sounding old.

  “I know that.” Rourke nodded. “I trust Reed. I don’t think he’s the traitor. Couldn’t be just a small fish— gotta be somebody with access to practically everything you do.”

  “Why haven’t they attacked here?” the girl asked. Chambers shrugged his shoulders. Rourke answered for him: “To mount a full scale attack here would be time-consuming, expensive, and use a lot of troops the Russians can’t spare. As long as they have President Chambers under a microscope, know his every move, it doesn’t bother them. It’s almost better than capturing him. If they captured him, somebody else would assume the leadership function and they’d be in the dark as to what U.S. II is planning or doing. This way, they know everything. Once we find the traitor, it’ll be a different story. I think this area will be too hot for you.” He turned to Chambers. “You’ll have to leave here, go into hiding somewhere else.” He turned and looked back at the girl. “This traitor, whoever he is, is the reason they’ve left this place alone. In a pinch, they could probably have used the spy they have to assassinate the President anyway. Got the best of both worlds. The KGB people aren’t fools enough to cut off their nose to spite their face.”

  “You’re sure there’s a traitor here?” Chambers groaned.

  “Has to be. There’s only one way I can see to flush him out, too. The best ruse is no ruse at all. I want you to call an emergency meeting.”

  “Why didn’t you ever run for President, Mr. Rourke? I’d have voted for you,” Chambers smiled.

  Rourke smiled back. “Better things to do,” he said.

  Chapter 32

  Sarah Rourke stood on the beach, the blanket over her shoulders, her body still cold. Harmon Kleinschmidt’s arm also was around her shoulders— to support himself as he stood, she told herself. Michael and Annie were standing a few feet in front of her. She glanced over her shoulder, at the fishing boat beached in the surf.

  She turned back to look up the beach toward the rocks beyond. She’d been following the movement there for some time and now, finally, the people who had been watching her were coming down.

  Unarmed, Sarah took a step forward, Kleinschmidt moving beside her.

  “Here they come, Sarah,” he told h
er.

  She only nodded, watching. About two dozen women were walking across the beach, some of them holding pistols, some with rifles. One woman had a baby suckling her left breast and she held a pistol in her right hand. There were children, too, about Michael and Annie’s ages. And most of the women looked young.

  Michael looked at her and Sarah nodded, saying, “It’s all right, Michael. Here are children for you and Annie to play with. You’ll see.” She saw him staring at Kleinschmidt, the dark eyes boring toward the man holding her, the jaw set like John’s was so often.

  “See, Sarah— children for your kids to play with while we wait here.”

  “Wait?”

  “I want you to come with me, Sarah. I mean that. I’ll convince you I’m right.”

  “Hey, Harmon!” A woman holding a baby in one hand and a pistol in the other shouted at him. She stopped, her bare toes moving in the sand as she stood.

  “Hey, Mary Beth— this here’s Sarah, the children are Michael and Annie— good kids, too.”

  Sarah watched Michael looking at Kleinschmidt, not liking what she saw in his eyes.

  “I’ll get somebody to take the boat out and scuttle her,” Mary Beth said.

  “No you don’t,” Sarah told her. “I’m just a taxi service. Harmon was wounded, I brought him here. I hope nobody minds if I stay for a little while, let my children rest a little. But then I’m leaving.”

  “We’re both leaving,” Harmon entered.

  Sarah looked up at him, watching his eyes. She didn’t know if she liked what she saw there.

  “Then you get it down into the shallows along the beach there.” Mary Beth pointed to the left with her pistol. “And get her moored and camouflage it. Them Russians see a boat here, they’re gonna come lookin’ for us for sure.”