The Savage Horde

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by neetha Napew


  as we go—can't afford to leave any pieces behind."

  "I'll get someone on that," Milton murmured.

  47

  Rourke closed his eyes for an instant—he thought of the eyes beneath the closed

  lids beyond the surgical tent. "Natalia," he whispered.

  48

  Chapter 12

  Paul Rubenstein had given up on the medicinal liquor—he had no desire to get

  drunk. And the coffee—good by anyone's standard—had proved too much for him as

  well—two trips to what he'd rapidly learned was called "the head". He had given

  up smoking many years before—so he sat now, staring at the wall, wondering. And

  he knew it wasn't a wall—he remembered editing an article years ago that had

  dealt with ships and boats and a wall was a bulkhead—he thought.

  He wondered if Rourke knew—knew that the ship was underway. He realized that

  even if Rourke had not been told, he would have suspected as much. And he

  wondered even more about the welfare of Natalia.

  He found himself smiling at mention of her name—that a major in the KGB would

  have found such a warm place in his heart amazed him still. His parents, not

  directly involved in the Holocaust, had told him of relatives who had been. The

  SS, the Gestapo—and he rationally realized that the KGB was essentially the

  same. But the woman—she was different.

  If he felt such torture waiting for the outcome of the operation—six hours had

  passed since it had begun—he could not even imagine what it was Rourke himself

  felt. A slip of the knife, a misjudgment and a woman that Rourke obviously loved

  would be dead. Rubenstein shivered—not with cold.

  49

  He sat bolt upright. "The operation's over."

  He turned around—it was RourKe. "John—is—"

  She was dead, Rubenstein thought—otherwise—

  "She should make it," Rourke nodded, his face haggard-looking, leaner seeming

  than Paul had ever seen it. Under the most bizarre conditions, Rubenstein had

  secretly marveled that Rourke always found the time to stay clean shaven when

  there was sufficient water available to do so. But now, his face was stubbled,

  deep lines etched there heightened by the shadow of beard.

  "You look like hell," Paul said quietly.

  ' 'Matches the way I feel—the last bullet. Nine fragments, some of them almost

  as small as the head of a pin. Had to reconstruct it under a microscope. Made me

  realize the last time I performed major surgery was a long time ago. The hands

  are just as steady, but the reflexes I'd learned weren't there."

  "We're underway—like they call it. You know that," the younger man told him.

  "I felt it—yeah."

  "What are we going to do, John?"

  "If I got everything and did everything right, Natalia could be up and around in

  about a week. We can't do anything until then. You meet the captain?"

  "Commander Gundersen—yeah—seems okay."

  "It's Cole we've gotta worry about—those orders of his—something doesn't sound

  right about them."

  "He wants to start a nuclear war all over again? That's crazy."

  "I'm going to see if there's some way this Commander Gundersen can contact

  President Chambers or Reed. But in the meantime, we're stuck."

  "Gundersen's men took my guns—I didn't see any way of arguing it—six of them and

  no running room."

  Rourke nodded soberly. "I took off my pistols when I scrubbed—most of them

  anyway," and Rourke smiled.

  50

  ' 'But you were right—trying a shootout in a metal skin in the water—under it

  now—would have been stupid."

  "You're not gong through with this—to find the missiles. Are you?"

  "I don't have much choice. We'll be there anyway when this thing surfaces—and if

  I can contact Chambers and he confirms that Cole is acting in his behalf, then

  I'll have to. And if I can't contact Chambers—my gut still tells me there's

  something wrong. Something really wrong with Cole and his outfit. And if Cole is

  some kind of crazy—or maybe a Russian Natalia wouldn't have known about—or

  something else—we can't let him get his hands on those six missiles. He was

  talking about them—eighty megaton capacity for each missile. Nearly five hundred

  megatons combined."

  "What started it between Cole and Natalia?" Rubenstein asked.

  Rourke sat down, holding his head in his hands for a moment, then looked up. He

  picked up the bottle of medicinal liquor—"Looks like it tastes great."

  "You get used to it," and Rubenstein felt himself smile.

  "Yeah—well—after Natalia's suction has been working for a while—"

  "Her what?"

  "Got a Levin tube suctioning her until peristalsis resumes—but there's always a

  chance the suture line I made wasn't complete enough and I might have to open

  her up again—I should know in about six hours or so—gonna try and sleep."

  "I could feel for you, John—doing that—holding her life in your hands."

  "A lot of things I've been thinking about lately," and Rourke smiled. "I always

  get the impression you look to me as the problem solver—don't you?"

  Embarassed slightly, Rubenstein only nodded.

  "Well—if I'm so smart, how the hell come I'm in love

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  with my wife and I'm in love with Natalia at the same time, huh?"

  Rourke said nothing else, reaching into his shirt pocket and taking one of the

  dark tobacco cigars and lighting it, his face more lined and tired than before.

  52

  Chapter 13

  Sarah Rourke opened her eyes, her eyes, her face warm in the shafts of brilliant

  sunlight coming through the screened open window, the curtains blowing softly in

  the warm breeze. She sat up in bed, rubbing her eyes once, then stretching,

  feeling too warm in the nightgown.

  "Spring," she smiled. She had inured herself to the insanity of the seasons

  since the Night of The War. Today it would be spring—tomorrow it might be winter

  again. "Tomorrow—" She laughed as she said the word.

  She pushed down the sheet and the quilt and swung her legs over the side of the

  bed, standing up, barefoot, the nightgown's hem hiding her feet. She walked to

  the window. There was quiet—the dog not running madly with the children yet. She

  would shower later, she told herself.

  She stepped away from the window, standing near the dresser, conscious of

  herself as she pulled the nightgown over her head and put it on the bed. She

  looked at herself—her breasts weren't exactly little anymore. Nursing two

  children had seen to that. But there was, as best she could tell, barely an

  ounce of fat on her body—the constant running, fighting—all of it since the

  Night of The War had seen to that.

  She wondered absently—taking a bra from the dresser drawer and starting to put

  it on—if time in the future would be reckoned from the Night of The War—like it

  53

  had been since the birth of Christ?

  The irony was not lost on her.

  Peace versus war.

  She stepped into her panties, dismissed the idea of wearing a slip and pulled

  the yellow dress from the hook inside the wardrobe cabinet doors and took it

  from the hanger. She puHed the dress on over her head, starting to but
ton the

  back of the dress mechanically, without watching, as she stared out the window.

  It would be a beautiful day—perhaps so beautiful that Mary Mulliner's son would

  come back and bring word of contacting John—that he was well, that he was coming

  for her and for the children.

  She began to brush her hair, her hair longer than she had kept it in

  years—somehow she was unwilling to cut it. She set down the brush, opened the

  top drawer of the dresser and began to search for a pony tail holder to keep her

  hair back from her face. The old blue T-shirt she had worn—it was washed, folded

  neatly—She looked under it. The terminally rusted .45 her husband had left for

  her, that she had carried next to her abdomen since the Night of The War.

  She picked it up, her reflexes automatic now as she pushed the magazine release

  catch button, dropping the magazine on the bed clothes, then with her stronger

  right hand, the gun held in her left, drew back the Government Model's slide.

  The Colt's chamber was empty. She knew it would be—but had learned never to

  trust to that.

  She pointed the emptied gun at a safe space of exterior wall and snapped the

  trigger, the hammer falling with a loud "click", an infinitesimal amount of oil

  felt sprayed on the web of her hand as the hammer fell.

  "My God." She simply shook her head, looking at the pistol; the sunlight and the

  yellow dress she wore somehow no longer the same to her.

  54

  Chapter 14

  Rourke saw them—Michael and Annie. They were running—but running happily. There

  was a beach—they were running along it in the surf, barefooted, their pants legs

  rolled up but stilt hopelessly wet as the foaming water lapped against their

  shins, the children only half-heartedly running.

  He looked at himself—the weight distribution o*f his shoulder rig felt odd to

  him and he lifted his shoulders under it, searching the beach—Sarah had to be

  there too.

  He wanted to shout to Michael and Annie—but even more than holding them he

  wanted to watch them run—to play. Hear them laugh. Annie had grown—but somehow

  she hadn't changed at all. The wild-eyed little kid—the happy girl, the girl who

  made you laugh. He laughed at himself.

  Sarah—he still couldn't see her.

  He watched Michael—his face was more serious than it had been—tanned more deeply

  than it always seemed to be, even in the dead of winter. He was somehow taller

  and straighter than he'd been just before the Night of The War, and even

  disguised under the T-shirt Michael wore, he could see the boy's musculature—how

  it had changed, matured.

  Rourke stopped, seeing someone lying further along the beach. He brought the

  Bushnell 8x30s out and focused them. The figure was a woman, wearing a bathing

  55

  suit—she lay sunning herself, pale seeming under the bright sun on the sand.

  * 'Sarah,'' he whispered. He started to run, the binoculars bouncing against his

  chest as they swung from their strap. "Sarah!" The children would hear him he

  knew.

  The sand was hard to run in, slowing him. "Sarah!"

  He was there suddenly, beside her. She didn't turn around.

  "Sarah—I tried to make it back sooner—you'll never know how I tried. There were

  so many battles to fight—and—"

  She didn't answer. She didn't move. He dropped to his knees in the sand. The

  body was so familiar to him—the patterns of the tiny freckles on her shoulders,

  the way she pushed her hair from the nape of her neck when she lay in the sun.

  The flesh was cold as he touched it.

  "Sarah—" He drew his hand back, then touched gently against her back. Still

  cold—clammy to the touch.

  Swallowing hard, feeling his muscles bunching tight, he bent closer to her and

  felt at the neck for a pulse. There was none.

  "Oh, Jesus," he rasped.

  He took his hands away for a moment, then placed them both on the shoulders,

  turning the body.

  Michael and Annie were standing beside him.

  "Why didn't you come," Michael asked, his voice serious sounding, hurt

  sounding—like Rourke had heard it when he had been too busy to play, too busy to

  talk. "Why didn't you come, Daddy?"

  Rourke couldn't answer—he knew they wouldn't understand.

  "Your mother,11 he whispered, then looked back at the face as he finished

  rolling over the body.

  Dead.

  56

  Lids open—the eyes a brilliant blue.

  "Natalia." He heard himself whisper it.

  Annie said. "That's why Daddy didn't come, Michael."

  He turned to look at the children, to say, "No—that's not right—" But they were

  running off toward the surf again, laughing.

  But the laughter somehow sounded forced to him, hollow.

  It was Sarah's body as he drew it into his arms, but somehow Natalia's face and

  he asked himself if he were insane.

  "What—"

  "John!"

  "Michael—please understand—"

  "John!"

  "Damnit!" Rourke opened is eyes, light in a yellow shaft coming through from the

  companionway. The face over him, shaking him—Paul.

  "John—you all right—you were—"

  "What's the matter?"

  "That's why I came, John—it's Doctor Milton—he says Natalia's dying."

  Rourke sat up.

  "Michael," he murmured. Then he pushed himself from the cot and started into the

  companionway, Rubenstein beside him.

  57

  Chapter 15

  "I won't let you die." He told her that even though she couldn't hear him.

  "Doctor Rourke—"

  "I'm opening her again. Maybe I counted wrong and there was another fragment

  that didn't show up—"

  "But she's bleeding to death."

  "I'm opening her."

  "Later maybe—you could—"

  "If I don't—you want me to run down the list of what could happen and what would

  happen first—"

  "Let me—you look exhausted."

  "No—no," and Rourke felt himself shaking his head. "No." He looked at his hands,

  then touched them to her face . . .

  "We're going to have a couple members of the crew down for the count—I've had

  men volunteer to give a second pint of blood—I'm taking half pints only."

  "Give me their names when this is through," Rourke told Milton. "If she makes it

  she'll want to thank them." It wasn't the suture line—it was gastric bleeding

  and as Rourke completed re-opening her he could see nothing. "I need suction

  here—fast—there's so much fluid I can't—"

  "Coming up." It was Kelly and Rourke nodded, starting to apply the suction. At

  the rate at which she was bleeding—he didn't finish the thought . . .

  "Here—" and Rourke glanced at the clock—it had

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  been more than eighty minutes. "You—you close her," and Rourke stepped back,

  blood half way up his forearms, staining his gown, his gloved hands splotched

  with it—her blood. He stripped away the gloves.

  "Here, Doctor—" It was Kelly.

  "No—no—you stick with Doctor Milton—I'm all right." Rourke couldn't leave the

  room—he was too tired, his head aching too badly. On the white clothed tray was


  the bullet. He picked it up—there had been eight rounds, this one buried in the

  abdominal wall—a place he'd searched and missed before. Upon removing the

  bullet, he controlled the bleeding with another continuous locked chromic

  suture. "Tired," he murmured.

  He started to strip away the gown and when it was half off, dropped the bullet

  in the pocket of his pants—it would remind him of two things, always—mortality

  and fallability. And a third thing—to persevere.

  59

  Chapter 16

  Sarah, her hands stabbed into the squared pockets of her dress, walked. She felt

  the high grass against her bare legs, felt the sun warm her chest and back. She

  was changing—she knew that, had realized it from the first time she'd picked up

 

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