by Jerry Ahern
“Yes—where the guns are kept.” She started ahead, walking beside and slightly ahead of Michael, her right hand locked inside his left, Michael’s right fist balled around the CAR-15’s pistol grip, the Colt assault rifle’s stock collapsed, the scope covers removed.
Rourke felt a hand touch gently at his—he looked into Natalia’s eyes, his left hand closing over her right hand. “He looks so much like you— but he isn’t you,” and she leaned up quickly as she walked beside him, kissing him on the cheek. “I love you,” John Rourke told her, still holding her hand, walking on.
Chapter Forty-Nine
Natalia had opened the doors to the arsenal— not bothering to pick the lock, instead half wheeling right, a double kick to where the two doors joined, the doors splitting inward.
Paul had rushed in, the subgun ready in case the Families had decided the arsenal should be their redoubt.
But the arsenal was empty of people.
“Who were these people?” Natalia whispered.
Rourke didn’t answer her.
“Arsenal—you can say that again,” Paul Ru-bens tein whispered. Rourke looked at him for an instant, then to the walls. What he estimated as a hundred M-16s were in racks locked to the wall with retention bars, the bars padlocked. Beyond these, smaller racks, three tiers high, at least fifty Government Model .45s in each of the racks, perhaps a hundred and fifty in all. Beyond these, a solitary glass-fronted rack— Rourke walked toward this and examined what lay beyond the glass. Six Steyr-Mannlicher SSGs, identical to his own rifle which was back at the Retreat.
“My guns!”
Rourke turned around, his son examining the long glass case on the opposite wall. Rourke looked back to the rifle case, his right hand feeling behind it where the case mated to the wall—there was a gap, uneven. “Hrara,” he murmured under his breath.
Then he started across the room. The center of the room—carpeted, which he considered curious—was piled high with wooden and card-board crates and metal military carry boxes. Ammunition—5.56mm for the M-16s, .45 ACP for the pistols and 7.62mm NATO for the sniper rifles. But there were other boxes as well— commercial ammunition in 9mm Parabellum, .44
Magnum and .357 Magnum, as well as boxes of shotshells, all seemingly twelve gauge, the major-ity 00 Buck, some rifled slugs as well he noted.
He continued across the room. Natalia stood beside Michael—her attention seeming to shift nervously from the long gun cabinet to the double doors leading back into the corridor.
Rourke looked at the gun cabinet—handguns, an expensive collection, some neatly arranged on fa brie-covered pegs, some just lying in the bottom of the cabinet. “Our friends had interesting tastes,” Rourke remarked to no one in particular. Smith & Wesson and Colt revolvers, Walther and Browning semi-automatics. Along the bottom of the case mixed in with the handguns, several shotguns—Remington 870s and 1100s, Mossberg 500s of various configurations, Browning Auto Fives. There was a closed leather case which Rourke assumed contained a Browning Super-posed and extra barrels.
“This room would have been worth a fortune,” Paul Rubenstein said suddenly. “No,” Rourke corrected. “Not this room—at least not originally. This room wasn’t the arsenal to begin with—it was some other room. That case holding the sniper rifles—it was removed from its original mountings. And this one,” and Rourke bent to the side, feelingalong the wall. “This is the same. With the air locks and all, they were security-conscious—you don’t leave an arsenal like this in a room a woman can kick her way into without half trying.” “Thank you, not at all.” Natalia smiled.
“Even a very special woman. No—there’s a vault around here, and if it were important enough to remove this stuff from the vault, then whatever they put in the vault must have been even more important. Stand back,” and Rourke waited as Natalia, Michael, Madison and Paul Ruben-stein stepped away from the glass. Rourke stepped back, sidestepped, selecting the spot, then wheeled half right, bending into a double Tae Kwon Do kick into the glass, snapping his foot away, wheeling as the glass shattered, shards of it falling, collapsing. “What do you do?”
Madison asked, her voice alarmed-sounding. “With those guys outside—we’ll need more equipment than we have. This js called liberat-ing.”
“John explained it to me once—a long time ago,” Paul Rubenstein told her. “Before the Night of The War, taking something just because you needed it was stealing. But since then, taking something you need to stay alive is survival. Soil’s liberating.”
“It’s still stealing,” Rourke interrupted, “but in a good cause.” Michael already was reaching through the opening broken into the glass—his Stalker, his Predator. Michael checked both guns.
“Empty.” “At least they know how to do that.” Rourke nodded. Michael slipped the Predator into the trouser band of his Levi’s.
“I wonder where the hell they put the rest of my stuff?”
“We’ll find it—liberate some ammo for your-self.” Michael reached into the case again, having handed off the Predator to Madison who seemed somehow frightened of holding a gun. Rourke already knew his son well enough—she would get over this fear quickly enough. Guns of themselves were nothing to fear—only some of the people who use them; guns could just as easily be an instrument to eradicate fear.
He watched his son—three Smith & Wesson Model 629s, eight and three-eigths, a six, and a four.
“Don’t you think you’re overdoing it a little?” “I like .44s—but you were right, I needed to add something that loads a little faster. These’ll do for now.”
Rourke only shook his head. “Look in that bin at the far end of the room. See what they have—
maybe holsters or whatever.” All three of the stainless Smiths were wearing the factory walnut and they wouldn’t reload that much faster without speedloaders. He shrugged.
Natalia was taking a Walther P-38 from the cabinet. “One extra pistol will do me nicely. I’ve used these before. But I’m going to pick the locks on those chains and get us some extra M-16s,”
and she turned to Madison. “Would you like to help me, darling?”
“All right.” Madison followed after her, Mi-chael already by the bins at the far end of the room.
“Pachmayr grips, Safariland speedloaders, boxes of spare magazines for all the mazagine-fed weapons.”
“Good—take what you think we’ll need and get Pachmayrs onto those Smith revolvers. Natalia’s got a screwdriver. And take plenty of speed-loaders.” Paul, standing beside Rourke, remarked, “These people had good taste.” “Take a couple of extra pistols for yourself, Paul—and a couple of M-16s. If we can avoid getting down to stone axes again, I’d just as soon.” “You’d just as soon,” Rubenstein laughed.
Rourke watched as the younger man took two blued commercial Browning High Powers, these like the battered military model Rubenstein carried, old enough to have the cone hammers rather than the spur type hammers similar to those on the Colt Government Model.
Rubenstein started toward the bins, Rourke still standing before the shattered case. They would return what they had taken if the situation warranted it—as much as he joked about it, liberating was still a form of stealing, even when necessary. But he knew what he would “borrow” at least. He had given his to Annie. And there were two here—Detonics Scoremaster .45s, the cone hammered, flat mainspring housing stainless steel Detonics counterpart to the Colt Gold Cup.
He took the two pistols into his hands—they were factory original except that the once sharp corners of the high profile Bo-Mar rear sights had been rounded off. As he closed his fists over the Pachmayr gripped butts, the beavertail grip safeties deactivated.
There was a good feel to the guns. He would regret having to return them, but he would.
He started toward the bins, to find spare magazines if there were any.
Chapter Fifty
John Rourke stood in the doorway between the arsenal room and the corridor, Natalia watching him. The two
stainless steel Scoremasters were positioned, each butt rightward in his trouser band and under his pistol belt—she had watched as he’d tested then loaded the dozen or so spare magazines he had found, then stuffed them into his musette bag. He carried an M-16 now in addi-tion to his CAR-15.
She looked at Michael—John’s near-identical duplicate. He had found his own M-16, the one he had taken from the Retreat, a second one carried on his left side now. She had taken a second M-16 for herself as well. Michael’s liberated Smith & Wesson pistols he now carried—all three of them, in two wide cartridge looped belts, the belts crisscrossing at his hips, holsters for them to match. Safariland, like her own.
Madison carried two M-I6s, but the girl carried them only to carry them, knowing nothing of guns yet, looking incongruous in the gray maid’s uniform and small white apron with an assault rifle under each arm. She was a pretty girl—but she was seemingly bewildered by the newness of her relationship with Michael, bewildered by Mi-chael’s father, and his father’s friends, and by the terror she had seen. Natalia blamed the girl not at all for the latter, and the other sources of the girl’s bewilderment would pass with time. They had passed for her, Natalia remembered.
Paul had found a double holster rig for the two Browning High Powers and wore this now, having added an M-16. But the assault rifle slung across his back, the Schmeisser, as he called the MP-40, he grasped in his hands. Natalia started toward the doorway now, her liberated P-38
in what she recognized as a German police full flap holster added to her belt with the L-Frame Smiths.
She had taken one other thing from the arsenal—a Randall Model 12 Smithsonian Bowie. The blade was eleven inches long, two and one quarter inches deep, the stock three-eighths inches thick. She had seen them before the Night of The War and with her penchant for knives had always wanted one. At least this was hers to borrow. Made for a large man, weighing she judged a good two pounds, the leather washed handle was large enough that she could hold it with two hands comfortably and thus wield it like a short sword. This hung in its scabbard behind thebuttof theL-Frame on her left side.
She stopped at the doorway. “Now what, John?”
Rourke nodded. “Paul—you take Madison and her M-16s there and go back near the doors where we hid the bikes. Any sign of the guys from outside, open fire and we’ll be there—we should hear gunfire well enough anywhere in the com-plex. It doesn’t seem they were too concerned with deadening sound when they built this place. Natalia and Michael and I’ll go through the complex—find that book Michael talked about and look for the vault these gun cases were removed from. Between the book and the vault, we should have our answers.”
“All right—you guys be careful, huh?”
Rourke clapped his friend on the shoulder. “Aren’t we always?”
“Yeah, well, if there weren’t two ladies present I’d tell ya about that.”
Natalia watched Paul turn to look at Madison. “You ready, Madison?”
“Yes—“ but she looked past Paul at Michael. “Be careful, please.” Michael leaned past Paul and kissed her quickly on the lips. Paul took her hand and started back along the corridor with her.
“Which way do we go now?” Natalia asked, looking at Michael. “Just to the end of the corridor—double doors, like a conference room. It’s where the Ministers talked to me. Where they had the wall safe with the second holy book,” and he looked at his father. “What about this room—you always taught me never to leave any guns behind.”
Natalia smiled. “Paul and I took care of that— the M-16s don’t have any firing pins, neither do the semi-automatic pistols. The shotguns and the revolvers we didn’t have time for.”
“It’ll have to do,” John Rourke announced. “So—let’s find that second holy book.”
John Rourke started into the corridor, Natalia beside him, Michael—as she looked back—coming behind.
Chapter Fifty-One
She had picked the lock in less than a minute and John Rourke—wearing his heavy leather gloves—had opened the doors, remembering Mi-chael’s experience with the electrified door han-dles. So far, there had been no sign of anyone from the Families or from the servants. No one.
Rourke walked through the doorway into the conference room.
“There—over there’s the safe, behind that,” and Michael stared toward it.
“Wait, Michael—it may be electrified,” Natalia called after him. Rourke joined them, eyeing the doorway, still wearing his gloves, gingerly touching at the wood carving and exposing the safe. Rourke drew the Gerber knife from his left hip and touched the tip to the safe door, to the combination lock, to the handle—there was no sparking as there would be if it were electrified.
“Go to work,” Rourke told her.
“1 don’t have my stethoscope.”
“I have mine on my bike.”
“But I won’t need it for a little wall safe,” she finished. Rourke nodded, turning away from the safe to study the murals—the Night of The War, the holocaust when the sky took flame, although he imagined the latter was largely based on supposi-tion and the terrified tales of any who had been caught outside and made it inside as the sky had caught fire. The candles on the table near the largest of the two large chairs. He approached these, removing his right glove, touching at the wax at the top—it was still warm. “They didn’t leave here too long ago,” he announced. He felt the chair—the seat was still warm. “Hmm,” he murmured.
He looked at the walls again—at the massive wooden carving on the rear wall.
“Hmm.”
“I have it,” Natalia called.
Rourke turned back to look at her standing beside the wall safe. In her right hand she held the small book which Rourke assumed to be the one of which Michael had spoken.
“That’s it,” Michael confirmed, as if reading Rourke’s thoughts. Rourke smiled at the pos-sibility.
“It’s a diary. I used a cover identity for six months once as an American housewife—I used one of these as a prop. These locks can be opened with a bobby pin.”
“Do you have a bobby pin?” Rourke asked her, smiling, standing beside her now.
“I may in my purse.”
“Nevermind, “ he interrupted. He withdrew the Gerber from its sheath. “These things can be opened this way, too.”
He pried gently with the Gerber’s tip where the two portions of the lock met.
“Have you opened many diaries, John?”
He laughed. “Don’t forget—espionage was my racket too for a few years,” and the lock popped.
He handed the book to Michael. “Your dis-covery. Read it—unless you don’t want to.”
Michael took the diary, saying nothing, then opening it. Rourke walked over to the nearest of the chairs at the conference table, drawing the two stainless Detonics Scoremaster .45s from where they were nestled against his abdomen, placing them on the conference table beside him. Michael began to read. “We have committed an unspeakable crime against God and against humanity.”
Michael looked up from the diary. John Rourke thought that instant that secrets were rarely kept secrets to hide their beauty.
Chapter Fifty-Two
Michael continued to read. “I have set forth here an account of our actions taken in order to survive after the horror of the burning in the sky. It is a brief account because I cannot bring myself to dwell on the details lest I should weep—“ “A rather quaint style, isn’t it?” John Rourke observed. “I’m skipping some more of his recriminations —here—here—“ and Michael began again to read from the diary. “When the flames seared the sky, it was evident to all of us that in order to live, the survival retreat erected by our employers—“ “Their employers,” Natalia whispered.
“Let him go on,” Rourke told her. He took a cigar from inside his battered brown bomber jacket and lit it in the flame of his Zippo—there was no ash tray but the fact didn’t bother him.
“The survival retreat erected by our empl
oyers would have to be hermetically sealed by means of the air locks for some time. Food supplies immediately began to dwindle despite the best rationing methods instituted by our employers and augmented by the kitchen staff. After several weeks, a volunteer from among the servants was sent out through the air locks to see if the atmosphere was safe. He was never heard from again. There was an attitude among us, those who served, that life had ceased having meaning. Although we were brought to our employers’
survival retreat prior to the bombings and missile strikes, our families and loved ones and friends were not. There were a few fortunates among us whose entire immediate family was in service, and therefore not excluded from the survival retreat. After several weeks, the rationing now quite severe, the air quality poor, another volunteer set forth. Likewise, he was never heard from again. It seemed clear that two choices confronted the persons living in the survival retreat, masters and servants alike—to either die a slow death or commit suicide. But it was one of the employers who struck on a third alternative, though it was never ascertained which of them, for indeed he may well have been killed in the fighting—“ “Oh, my God,” Natalia murmured.
Michael looked up a moment, then back to his diary. “The employers decided to exile their servants to whatever lay beyond the hermetically sealed doors. It was, as discussion amongst us later brought forth, only a logical extension of their view of us, their servants. For, after all, did we not exist to fulfill their needs? This then—survival— was a need like any other. “They awakened us while we slept, most of us in our pajamas or nightgowns forced from the quarters below and assembled at gunpoint on the golf course. We were then herded like animals into a pen in the swimming pool which had never been filled. We were held there, as two at a time our numbers depleted. But those taken away never returned. And suddenly, the whispered fate of these our co-workers began to spread throughout those of us who remained. Our co-workers, in some cases members of our families—they had been sent to their deaths through the air lock doors. One of our number—a brave soul—shouted this to our employers, that we, the servants, were being systematically executed. The employer—a boy of fourteen—nearest him shot him in the face with one of the rifles taken from storage in the arsenal vault. A cry went up. One of the butlers clambered up the side of the swimming pool to disarm the young murderer. One of the employers shot him, then smashed in his skull with the butt of a rifle. One of the parlor maids screamed, running toward the ladder leading from the pool. She was kicked back. More of our numbers then— it had begun. We started from the pool, many of us dying before ever reaching the level of those who would systematically murder us. There was fight-ing, shouting and much killing on both sides. I myself picked up a rifle and killed my employer with it, and then in a fit of rage shot his oldest son, shot his wife, shot his youngest daughter. His oldest daughter fell to her knees at my feet and wept. I did not shoot her. After the employers had been subdued, it was decided that indeed their decision to reduce the population of the survival retreat had been the only valid choice for survival. So the population was reduced. The bodies pushed through the air lock were some of the employers. The surviving employers were locked in their quarters and guarded. That night, I made love to my employer’s eldest daughter whose life I had spared and throughout it, I felt that she laughed inside herself at me.”