Rourke ran ahead to the next rise, barely catching sight of Soames as he finally looked behind him, then pushed his way into a stand of trees. Rourke watched, waiting, thinking that a radio might be concealed in the trees there. But as Rourke started to push himself up, to move over the rise toward the trees, Soames reappeared, pushing a small motorcycle. A smile crossed Rourke's lips, then the corners of his mouth turned down. It was a small Honda, the kind that had been made years earlier and designed for compactness— the handlebars folded down for easy storage. He remembered reading about the small cycle. Top speed was about thirty-five miles per hour he recalled.
Soames looked from side to side along the road, then mounted the cycle, starting it and continuing down the road toward the abandoned town.
Rourke realized now how Soames made his walk so quickly and made it appear he had no time to do anything if he did walk down to the town. It had to be risky keeping the cycle stowed there, Rourke thought. But being a spy was not exactly safe either, he knew.
There was nothing to do now but run. Rourke pushed himself to his feet and took off along the rise, wishing he'd somehow had the foresight to stash his own motorcycle nearby, or that he could risk a radio call-in and get transportation. But he had no idea what frequency Soames's Soviet contact might be on, and had eschewed the use of a radio. So he ran, stripping the leather jacket from his back and holding it bunched in his left fist.
He had to gamble that Soames would be headed for the town and stay on or near the road. The small bike Soames rode wouldn't handle the terrain off the road— or at least Rourke hoped it wouldn't. The road, he remembered from the map he had studied earlier, zig-zagged following the terrain, and Rourke ran cross-country now to intercept the road.
He skidded down a low embankment, rolling behind some scrub brush, low against the ground, the road below him as Soames moved along it on the small bike. As Soames passed, Rourke pushed himself up, running across the road and through the grassy field beyond, to intercept the road again just before it turned into the town. His face and neck streaming sweat, his arms back and out like a distance runner going for the tape, Rourke ran on, not daring to lose sight of Randall Soames.
Rourke stopped again, diving half into a ditch along the roadside as Soames rounded a curve.
The commander of the Texas paramilitary forces stopped the bike, looking behind him, then from side to side. Rourke, peering through the tall grass, could see a smile crossing Soames's face. The bike started up again, down the road and into the town.
Rourke pushed himself up, jumping the ditch into the road, then crossing it and running parallel to it, hoping he was in the rider's blind spot should Soames look back. Rourke reached the building at the nearest edge of the abandoned town.
The town-limits sign was down, but he estimated from the buildings and the streets, that it had been a town of three or four thousand before the Night of the War.
He peered around the corner of the abandoned fire station behind which he stood, watching as Soames turned the motorcycle down the street at the farthest edge of the town.
Rourke began again to run, his lungs aching from it. Too many cigars, he thought.
He passed the first block, running across the intersecting street; he then passed broken store windows, a mailbox knocked over apparently by a car in haste to evacuate the city, a fire hydrant with the caps off and a few drops of water still dribbling from it. He reached the next intersection, glanced down it to make certain Soames wasn't suckering him, hadn't doubled back. Then he ran down the next block.
There was a broad expanse of burnt-out lawn, a Baptist church at the far end, the church untouched. Rourke stopped a moment, catching his breath, staring at the church. "Why wasn't it vandalized?" he asked himself aloud, then shook his head and began to run again, reaching the end of the block.
There was one more block to go before the street down which Soames had turned. Rourke, his arms out at his side again, ran it dead out, half collapsing against the side of the corner building— a real estate development firm— then peering around the corner.
Rourke's heart sank a moment. Soames was nowhere in sight, but at the end of the street, approximately two blocks down, was an uncharacteristically elaborate athletic field and stadium.
Rourke stared at it. The stadium looked to have cost more than all the other buildings in the town combined.
Rourke reached up under his left armpit, snatching one of the twin Detonics pistols from the Alessi shoulder holsters. He thumbed back the hammer, pushing up the frame-mounted thumb safety. Bending into his stride, he began to run again, hugging the side of the buildings he passed, getting across the alley, then to the next street and into the next block. He slowed, the athletic field less than two hundred yards way; and beyond the cinder track, with some of the painted white lines in the field still visible, was the stadium.
Something inside Rourke told him Soames was there. The wind was blowing cold again. He pulled the waist-length brown leather jacket back on. Then, at a slow trot, started across the athletic field, snatching the second Detonics from under his right arm into his left hand, thumbing back the hammer and crooking his thumb around to push up the safety.
Rourke stopped beside the stadium entrance, examining the dust on the concrete surface, a smile crossing his lips. Faintly, he could detect a tire tread in the blown sand.
Rourke started through the entranceway, and as he reached the end of the long tunnel, he scanned the bowl of the stadium itself, squinting against the sunlight despite the dark glasses he wore. A smile crossed his lips again. Apparently the games held at the stadium had once been broadcast over local radio. There was a low-gain antenna beside the booth on the far, topside of the arena, the sort of antenna that could be used to transmit to a more powerful receiver-sender fifty miles or so away.
There was no sign of Soames or his bike.
Rourke walked up the low, broad concrete steps into the grandstand, then started along the circumference of the stadium toward the booth and the antenna.
One Detonics .45 in each hand, Rourke moved slowly ahead, looking from side to side. He no longer cared if Soames detected his presence— because there was nowhere the spy could go. Soames could smash his radio, but that was unlikely. Rather than going cold, out of contact with his Soviet masters, he'd likely try to make a fight of it. Perhaps Soames had weapons stashed somewhere in the stadium; perhaps there had been a weapon concealed on his body— a holster that carried a snubby revolver or medium frame auto in the top of his cowboy boot. It didn't matter, Rourke thought.
Rourke stopped halfway around the stadium, beside the broadcast booth. The antenna was corroded, weather-stained, but a new-looking, almost shiny coax cable ran from it, through what seemed to be a freshly drilled hole in the concrete below the grandstand.
Rourke turned around, his eyes searching for the nearest steps down into the stadium complex beneath the stands. He found them, then started walking toward them. He stopped at the head of the steps, looking at the twin pistols in his hands, holding them as if weighing them.