by Ahern, Jerry
He shifted the rifle to his left hand, reaching his right arm back to a side pouch of the backpack. His Kel-Lite —but rather than the Dura-Cell batteries he always used, the German duplicates of the five-centuries-old D-cell, the Kel-Lite’s bulb substituted as well, the five-centuries-more-modern one more brilliant. He flicked on the light, shining it into the cave.
Remnants of a fire, but bricklike objects rather than wood. He approached the fire pit, his eyes scanning the cave in the cone of light from his right hand.
He shut off the flashlight. The brick-light objects still glowed. He had no idea of their chemical composition, but he doubted the fire was more than a few hours old.
He cut the switch for the Kel-Lite back on, quickly examining the cave floor. He scanned the ceiling—ice, but some of the ice almost translucent, as though recently melted and refrozen.
Rourke closed the light, then removed his sunglasses, starting back toward the mouth of the cave.
He started out, down toward the lower elevation, already Paul out of sight, darkness closing rapidly. He put his sunglasses away in the case he sometimes used, the case hardened to guard against breakage.
He set the flashlight down beside him as he crouched, thinking as he removed the M-16’s thirty-round magazine, working the bolt back, popping the chambered round. He dry-snapped the trigger, tugging down the head covering from over his mouth, biting off his right glove. His hand steamed. He clutched the right glove beneath his left armpit to hold the warmth inside as he methodically replaced the top round into the magazine lips, whacking the magazine against the gloved palm of his left hand, then replacing
it up the well of the M-16.
Annie. A man with her. The man using some sort of staff for support. No sign of the survival knife Natalia theorized Annie would have taken, so perhaps Annie still had it. If she did, then the man with the staff was not an immediate, recognizable enemy —perhaps. Unless he had taken the knife.
Rourke started to his feet, but stopped. He smelled something.
He shone the flashlight to his right — against the side of the cave mouth, where snow had drifted against the opening. The snow was yellow.
Rourke stood up, mentally aiming —a man would have urinated higher along the drift, otherwise risking urinating all over his feet.
An animal.
Rourke used the flashlight, his right hand cold, bare as it was against the aircraft-aluminum tube of the flashlight —a few feet out from the cave mouth. He dropped to his knees.
It was the paw print of a dog —or a wolf.
Chapter Twelve
Paul Rubenstein dropped to his right knee —in the beam of the German flashlight, he saw another footprint, but this not Annie’s, another of the larger, heavier footprints. A man. Near to it, another of the mysterious cylindrical impressions in the snow. He pulled off his glove, sticking his finger down inches into the snow —a staff? He wondered.
“Annie! Annie!”
There was no answer.
He shone his flashlight ahead, the sky starless, overcast. But a wall of gray, lighter gray than the night, ahead. One of the innumerable geysers, he thought. But the footprints led toward it. To his feet. Paul started ahead, the M-16 in his right hand, the glove back on, the flashlight in his left. “Annie!”
The flashlight was the only means to truly see; when he turned it off nothing but deep gray shadow surrounded him.
With the light, he walked ahead, searching for more footprints now, but the direction little changed since he had begun to follow the trail.
He stopped —a dark object. He approached it, slowly.
He dropped to his knees near it, studying it in the light. Fecal material. But, here in the open, like
something a wild animal would leave, not a person. He remembered before the sky had caught fire, John showing him deer sign. It was like that. He stood, touching at it with the tip of his snowshoe — it was hard. He stepped back from it.
A footprint.The man. The woman’s inside it — “Annie,” he whispered. Beside the woman’s footprint — his gloved finger more deeply traced the outline. One of the posts his father had been assigned to —they had had a large dog. An Irish Setter —but this footprint was larger. He remembered the dog running with him into the snow.
“Wolf?” Rubenstein whispered to himself and the night. Such a creature should not exist anymore. But if it did …
He started ahead, more quickly now, toward the steam cloud that rose like a wall.
The terrain steepened, Paul leaning into the climb, the snowshoes making it tougher going, but not something he could abandon, the snow less deep here, the ice slicker —wind-polished, he imagined.
A man should not have been here in this dead land. A wolf or a large dog—such was an impossibility.
The wind was starting up, and in the sky, at the horizon line, there were flashes of light. He let his mind wander as he climbed. The terrain, the temperature, the absence of sun, the man, the dog or wolf—it was alien, unearthly.
A land of the dead, perhaps, instead of a dead land? What if somehow the dead had all come to Iceland — the dead people, the dead animals? He laughed at the thought —dead things didn’t leave footprints in the snow, nor did they need to defecate as whatever the creature was —dog or wolf—had evidently done.
He considered Annie —a pleasanter thought.
She genuinely loved him, wanted to be with him, to
be his.
In actual lived time, it had been less than a year since he had boarded the flight in Canada to get back down to the United States somehow, to somehow get back to New York — and The Night of The War had begun.
He had always been a disappointment to his father, he had known. Slight of build, not physically powerful or imposing, not interested in pursuing a military career as his father had in the Air Force. A disappointment to his mother. Twenty-eight years old, not married—but he had been engaged. He remembered Ruth’s face —and he felt very cold. No one else alive would remember Ruth’s face. He had met her again after knowing her as a child, at one of the rare social functions he had attended that was sponsored by his Temple. Afterward, he had taken her out for a drink. They had talked. He had called her the next day —they had begun to see each other.
Ruth had been very traditional. And he supposed so was he, or had been then. You didn’t have sex unless there was a marriage first. And you got to know each other well before you got serious. You met her parents. You talked’ with her father. “So —you’re a magazine editor?”
“Only an associate editor. But I’m learning a lot.” “You went to college?”
“Yes sir.” He had started to say where, but Ruth’s father hadn’t let him finish.
“And your father’s some kind of Air Force officer?”
“He’s retired, sir —but yes —ahh —” He had started to give his father’s rank, but Ruth’s father hadn’t let him finish.
“My Ruth —she likes you.”
“I like Ruth a lot, sir.”
“Let’s just suppose —you know —you and my Ruth —
you both get serious.”
“I think, ahh —we are serious, sir.” “My Ruth’s a good girl.”
“I don’t mean that way, sir —but we care a lot about—”
Her father had laughed. “Young people. Listen — this associate editor thing you do —what did you train for in your college?”
“Journalism, sir.”
“Like newspapers and magazines?” “Yes sir.”
“What if people stop buying your magazine? Then what?”
“Well —I don’t know, ahh —I suppose — “
“Yeah —I suppose —my Ruth’s working. My wife never worked — Ruth’s mother helps out in the store sure, raised Ruth and her two brothers and her sister Marlene but she never worked.”
“Well, I mean —all of that —that’s work, isn’t it, sir?”
“You getting smart?”
“No, Mr. Blume
nthal. But I mean — well — Ruth wouldn’t have to work, unless she wanted to.”
“Young girls — sometimes they don’t know what they want. They think they know what they want. She’s only twenty-two. How old are you? Thirty-five?”
Paul had smiled uncomfortably. It was the thinning hair and the glasses — always that. “No sir —I’m twenty-eight. Ahh —it’s just that my hair thins —I guess it’s from my mother’s father —he was bald at thirty. Least I’m not that bad yet, Mr. Blumenthal.”
“Twenty-eight? Humph —you don’t look twenty-eight.”
“No, Mr. Blumenthal —I know that. Ruth’s a wonderful girl. And I’d like your permission to go on seeing her.”
“And what would you do if I don’t give it to you?”
“I’d ask Ruth to keep seeing me anyway, Mr. Blumenthal — being honest. And I’d hope you’d change your mind, sir.”
“Bullshit — find yourself a real job. Go ahead —see my Ruth. But find yourself a real job.”
“It is a real job, sir—honest.”
He had walked Ruth around the block three times, then taken her up, kissed her good-night, and told her that he loved her. She had told him that she loved him.
The next day he had flown to Canada.
Paul Rubenstein reached the top of the rise, shining his flashlight down toward where the steam was more concentrated. He thought he saw —“Holy —”
Chapter Thirteen
Natalia looked at the ladies’ Rolex on her left wrist. “In an hour, we’ll go up.”
“Akiro should be here by then,” Sarah said from across the lamp.
“Yes. But it’s too dark to search. John should fire a flare at eight p.m.—then another at eight-fifteen, and another at eight-thirty if I haven’t picked them up by then.”
“You think they found Annie?” Sarah whispered.
“I don’t know. I pray they did.” And Natalia laughed at herself. “Who could I pray to?”
“What do you mean?” Sarah asked her.
“I mean —I’m part Jewish, part Christian —I have never gone to any kind of church — except on assignments—following someone, making a drop —like that.”
“What was it like? I mean —well —”
“To be a major in the KGB?”
Sarah nodded, saying nothing. Natalia watched as Sarah pulled the blue and white bandanna from her hair, shaking it loose. Natalia leaned back, almost warm inside the helicopter, her coat open, her gunbelt beside her. “What was it like? Well — did John ever have you sleep with a man to get information for him?”
“No,” Sarah answered, her voice barely audible.
“Vladmir —he had me do that. He told me, ‘Natalia — it is for the good of the people of the Soviet.’ ” “Did you believe him?” Sarah asked. “I think I did.”
“Then you didn’t do anything wrong.” “How do you know?” Natalia whispered. “What?”
“How do you know —that I didn’t do anything wrong, I mean.”
“Well, I mean —you did it for what you thought were the right reasons, and—”
“I killed people. I never tortured people —but I knew Vladmir was doing it. I never stopped him, Sarah.”
“Is that what you were doing when you met John?”
Natalia closed her eyes, still seeing the glare of the lamp despite her lids covering her eyes. “Did John never tell you?”
“He never spoke about his missions other than to say it went well or it didn’t.”
Natalia laughed, still not opening her eyes. “For your husband, it almost invariably went well. That was why Vladmir set the trap for him and tried to kill him. John was too successful.” She squeezed her eyes more tightly shut, remembering —the first time she had seen his face. Sweat-stained, muddy, his hair uncombed, a days’ growth of beard on his face, an empty .45 automatic in his fist. Wounded.
“What are you thinking?” Sarah asked her quietly.
Natalia opened her eyes. “Maybe about who I pray to,” and she smiled …
It was animal fecal matter. John Rourke shone the light away from it, toward the snowshoe prints of Paul Rubenstein. Paul was following to the left of the footprints of Annie, the dog or wolf, and the man with the staff, following up along a slope toward the gray-white steam of a geyser, Rourke assumed. He started after him.
For some reason, he thought about Captain Dodd, Commander of the Eden Fleet. There was a fundamental difference between Dodd and himself. Dodd came at everything, or so it seemed, Rourke admitted, from the negative. John Rourke had always accepted the negative as being there, and had chosen to come at things from the positive. Any rational man with an adequate understanding of the effects of hypothermia would have concluded that Annie was dead. Such a rational observation did not escape John Rourke, but he simply refused to accept it until reality gave him no choice. His father had told him something once that, unlike most advice, he had taken to heart. “John —you ever think about what makes a man or woman, or a nation —what makes them succeed when others fail?”
“Well —you mean one special quality?”
“Yeah —think about it. We’ll talk about it later.” And his father had put in his earplugs and drawn a fresh loaded .45 ACP magazine from the waistband of his trousers and loaded it up the butt of his Colt Government Model. John Rourke had put in his own earplugs, watching as his father shot. Unlike John Rourke, John Rourke’s father had been truly ambidextrous. John Rourke had taught himself ambidexterity, but his father was even-handed — in more ways than one, Rourke thought now, scaling the slope, his snowshoes off, slung over his shoulder by the bindings. His father had fired one magazine with the right hand, then, with the slide locked open, changed magazines, shifted to his left hand, worked the slide release down with his left first finger, and continued shooting.
The targets were cans of peas, empty, his mother saving cans from peas, beans, all kinds of vegetables for his father’s and later his own target practice
Another seven cans were shot off the rail and tumbled to the ground after a brief, and, at John Rourke’s age, spectacular-seeming journey skyward.
His father set the .45 down, but didn’t remove his earplugs so John Rourke had known there would be more shooting soon. John Rourke had fired revolvers from the age of five, starting with his father’s Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum, one of the few .357 Magnums relatively speaking that had been available before World War II, something the elder Rourke had kept as a target pistol before the war, then broken out to use after the war had ended when ammunition had become available for it again.
This was the first day his father had hinted at him shooting the .45. His father, shouting as he always did when he wore ear protection, said, “John —wanna try it?”
John Rourke was ten years old. “Yeah-sure, Dad.”
“Okay —now I know you know this, but I’m going to tell you again. Every time you pull the trigger and a round discharges, that slide is going to come back fast, so fast you really can’t see it. But if your thumb or the web of your hand —this part” —and he touched his son’s hand between the thumb and first finger —“gets in the way, well —it hurts. Okay.”
“Yeah —okay,” and his father had loaded a fresh magazine into the ,45, worked down the slide release and upped the safety, the hammer at full stand.
“You get a stoppage or a failure to fire, just keep it pointed downrange — I’ll be right beside you. Settle your hand comfortably and work the safety down — before you put your finger into the trigger guard. Got me?”
“Yeah.”
“Go for it,” and he had handed John Rourke the .45.
Rourke settled the pistol in his hand, the elder Rourke beside him. He worked down the thumb safety, holding the pistol tight to keep the grip safety properly depressed. He looked to see that his hand was clear of the slide. He touched the trigger. A can went sailing skyward, then fell.
The next two shots were misses, putting bullet holes in the rail. The distance was
something like ten yards. The next two shots after that were hits. Then a miss. One shot remained and Rourke made a conscious effort to control his breathing, steady his hand. He wanted to get the can with the last shot —very badly. He touched the trigger gently, the .45 discharging —the can never moved.
The slide was locked open and he kept the pistol downrange but turned to look up at his father. His father pulled out the earplugs, then took the .45, working the stop down, ramming the pistol between his shirt and his trouser band. It was a white shirt, his tie down, his vest open, the earplugs going into a little transparent canister and then into his vest pocket.
John Rourke removed his earplugs. His father put a hand to John Rourke’s shoulder and looked down at him. “So —you shot pretty well —need some more practice, though. I watched you on that last shot. You gave it everything you had, right?”
“Right. But I still missed.”
“You gonna try again?”
“Sure —soon as you let me.”
“You just answered that question —about why some people, some nations, succeed when others fail.”
John Rourke had looked into his father’s brown eyes, saying, “I don’t understand.”
“Sure you do —think about it.” His father had lit a cigarette, then smiled. “Think about that last shot you tried.”
“You mean — ahh — well — you just gotta keep trying, Dad?”
“Yeah —that’s what I mean. You never give up. If something needs doing you just keep trying to do it — either the job will get done or you’ll die in the process, but either way, you never give up. Okay?” And he had run his left hand through his son’s hair, then grabbed him about the shoulders and given him a hug. “Okay?”
“Yeah,” John Rourke had smiled. “Yeah.”
When his father had died, John Rourke stood over the gravesite, the last person to leave it, saying, “I won’t give up, Dad,” and had taken a handful of dirt and thrown it into the grave.
John Rourke reached the summit of the slope, peering down into the cloud of steam.