"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 her.
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."
"Agreed," Sarah shouted back.
"Come on then," Mary Beth said, smiling for the first time. "I'll give you a hand and watch the kids. Some of the girls here can help you with Harmon, gettin' him up to the cave. Then I guess we can all give you a hand with the boat. Come on." She started toward Michael and Annie, Michael's arm going around his sister's shoulders, his feet moving back across the sand. Mary Beth looked at Michael and Annie. "Suit yourself, boy. Just follow everybody else then."
"See," Harmon Kleinschmidt whispered. "It's gonna be fine."
Sarah just looked at him. He was the only fully grown man on the island and couldn't take more than two steps without someone holding him up. She shook her head, shivering a little, not thinking it was going to be fine at all.
Chapter 33
John Rourke waited in the shadows by the corner of the building, watching. Chambers had called the emergency meeting, not announcing Rourke's arrival but did reveal the presence of Sissy Wiznewski. Chambers had announced to his advisers that disaster in Florida was imminent; he told them everything that had nothing to do with Rourke's plan to flush the traitor. Prior to the meeting, Chambers had selected eleven men, Rourke making the twelfth. The eleven had been chosen from Army Intelligence, men Chambers knew Reed personally trusted.
The meeting finally broke up. Rourke waited. On mere chance, he had selected to follow Randall Soames, commander of the Texas Volunteer Militia. Each of the other men would also follow one of the advisers. If someone left the compound, it would be almost a dead giveaway that this person were the traitor, Rourke had determined.
As he studied the compound, looking for some sign of Soames, Rourke wished it were merely as simple as finding the traitor. But once the traitor was recognized, it would be necessary to follow him to his contact, his radio, whatever means he used to notify the Soviets. And through that chain Rourke could contact Varakov. Already time was running out and there was little hope of an evacuation, however limited.
Rourke turned up the collar of his coat, the wind cold on his neck. He'd left the pistol belt with the Python and the CAR-15 with his bike. As he closed the leather jacket he checked the twin Detonics .45s in the double Alessi rig under the coat— they were secure, with spare magazines for the pistols on his trouser belt in friction retention speed pouches.
Cold still, Rourke hunkered back into the niche in the wall beside which he stood, then stopped. Randall Soames, dressed in a pair of Levis, a black Stetson and a western-style plaid shirt, was walking across the compound toward the gates. It was almost too easy, Rourke thought. As soon as Soames disappeared through the gates, Rourke took off at a dead run after him, reaching the gates, nodding to the guard there and looking down the road. Soames was walking. Rourke turned to the guard. Both the Intelligence people and the MPs were under Reed.
"Did he say where he was going, Corporal?"’
"No, sir— just for a walk, I guess. He does that a lot, but so do some of the others."
"How long is he usually gone?"
"You're Mr. Rourke, aren't you?"
"That's right, son," Rourke told him.
"Maybe half an hour. But if he were going anyplace on foot, the only place he could make in that amount of time and get back would be the town. It's abandoned now, and there wouldn't be time for him to do anything except turn around and walk right back."
"He always walks that way?" Rourke said, pointing down the road.
"Leastways every time I've seen him, sir."
"Thanks, Corporal." Rourke smiled, starting down the road after Soames, hugging the compound wall until the man disappeared over the rise. Then he started running as fast as he could, getting to the rise and dropping down beside the road.
Randall Soames wasn't walking quickly, wasn't turning around— nothing suspicious. Rourke waited. Maybe all Soames was doing was going for a walk— for a man his age he looked reasonably fit, and riding a desk all day could make any man antsy. He watched Soames pass over the next rise— there wasn't even a weapon visible. Rourke couldn't see anyone going out these days unarmed unless he were a complete fool.