Chapter Fifty-One
Rourke had placed the three motorcycles aboard the fighter bomber, Natalia and Paul— his left arm slung, useless because of the spear wound until it healed— having removed as much of the camouflage as necessary.
He started forward, seating himself behind the main console in the nose section, testing his electrical system.
Destroy Filmore Air Force base, fly to as near the Retreat as possible, then get the plane camouflaged once again. Go to the Retreat, get the truck, come back for the supplies, leave Paul to recuperate and read the note Natalia insisted he read, the note from her uncle. If it had been urgent, it was not urgent now, he thought.
So much time had elapsed.
Then regardless of the note, before doing whatever it was General Varakov was so insistent about— find his wife, his children.
Sarah--Michael--Annie--Rourke exhaled a long sigh, chewing down on his cigar as he watched the gauges rise. It was stuffy— but he didn't want to start the climate control systems panel yet. There was still more to check out.
What could Varakov want? he wondered. Perhaps Natalia's position had become untenable and Varakov merely wanted her with him— safe. Rourke smiled— he hardly considered himself safe, or anyone with him.
But whatever, the note would not be the important thing. It would be secondary. He would search Tennessee, search for Resistance units— perhaps one had seen something of a woman and two children. Were they still on horseback? he wondered.
He smiled as he thought of the animals— Tildie, his wife's, and Sam, his own, the big gray with the black mane and tail and four black stockings.
It would be good to ride with them again— to ride Sam, to ride with Sarah.
He could hear the thunder as it rumbled in the sky. He would maintain radio silence to avoid accidental Soviet detection. He imagined static would be unbearable at the higher altitudes anyway. He kept checking his instruments...
Filmore Air Force base came into view as Rourke, flying low as he planned to do cross country, came over the ridge of rocks. He adjusted his altitude to match the lower level of the valley floor, beginning his attack run.
"John— if it will be easier," Natalia's voice came through his headset radio, "I can launch the missiles from my controls."
Rourke nodded in his helmet. "No— I'll do it," he told her, his face mask clouding a little as he spoke. He overflew the field, climbing slightly to bank, mentally picking his targets on the computer grids, verifying with the television optical unit mounted under the nose that the base was still untouched and the assault would be necessary. There were human figures on the ground— wildmen, from the quick look at them. There would be some left, wandering, leaderless.
Their loss would be necessary— and useful, too. He finished the bank, rolling over into a level flight path, checking his angle of attack indicator, his approach indexer, these mounted to his left front.
He reached out his gloved-left hand, his right on the control stick, adjusting the switches on his air combat maneuver panel.
Rourke overflew the field again, climbing to bank, the rollover, then leveling off, his weapons systems panel controls armed. He checked the wing sweep indicator on his lower left.
"Going in," he said into the headset microphone built into his helmet.
He poised his left hand over the controls— he fired, a Phoenix missile targeting toward the ammo dump, the ammo dump suddenly exploding as he launched the second Phoenix, the armory erupting into a fireball. He did a slight rollover, banking to port, leveling off, loosing a cluster of 24Mk82 580-pound mass iron bombs, pulling his nose up, the plane light now as the weight of the pylons was gone from the wings, the bombs impacting and exploding as he swung his visual scanning television monitor rearward, watching it as he nosed up and climbed.
The runway was gone— there would be a crater there once the smoke and debris and flame cleared— there would be no runway. He switched the TFR, the terrain-following radar helping him as he dropped his altitude, to maintain a constant elevation regardless of the ripples and rises in the terrain.
"We're going home," Rourke said quietly. Neither Paul Rubenstein nor Natalia answered him.
But he hadn't expected they would.
Chapter Fifty-Two
The Womb radar system— once the Mt. Thunder North American Air Defense Command Center Radar in the Colorado Rockies— showed a blip.
The technician punched the alert button, in the next instant his supervisor was beside him.
"Comrade Lieutenant— this is not in our approach paths for the field— flying low— a TFR
flight— hypersonic— the pattern of the blip matches that of the American F-111— perhaps a variant."
He looked up at the lieutenant, taking his eyes off the blip for an instant.
"I will contact weapons—" The lieutenant picked up the red telephone receiver from its red cradle on the console.
"Radar has a confirmed American blip— F-111 type fighter attack bomber— request use of the particle beam weapons system. Yes, comrade— I will hold."
The technician watched his blip.
"It is moving fast, comrade— at approximately eight hundred miles per hour—"
"Comrade— we are losing the blip," he heard the lieutenant say.
"It is leaving my screen, Comrade Lieutenant," the technician said, watching the green blip fading to his left.
"Very good, comrade," and the technician heard the receiver click down to its carriage— he didn't take his eyes from the radar screen to watch it.
"Use of the particle beam weapons system was denied."
"The blip is lost, Comrade Lieutenant," the technician said.
"Let him live— at least for a bit longer." And the lieutenant laughed.
The technician kept his eyes on the screen— perhaps there would be another one— or if this blip returned, to attack the field, perhaps then the particle beam weapons system would be employed. He had seen the test when it had been installed days earlier at the Womb. The pencil-thin beam of light, barely visible— the drone aircraft had been vaporized, disintegrated— it had been the most impressive thing he had ever seen. He watched his dull radar panel again— nothing but supply craft for the Womb.
Chapter Fifty-Three
Sarah Rourke walked slowly past the burned farmhouse— it was so much like her own home—
gone.
And now John was gone again— with the Russian woman— the name of the woman, the submarine commander had told her, was Major Natalia Anastasia Tiemerovna. She rolled the name, trying to taste it— she hadn't asked if the woman was beautiful. And the man he traveled with— Paul Rubenstein. She had no doubt that if the woman— this major— were the woman of either John Rourke or the man Paul Rubenstein that she was John's woman. She smiled for a moment, stopping her walk— what woman, given the option to be, would not be John Rourke's woman.
Except perhaps herself— it had crossed her mind more than once before the Night of The War. But divorce was a word she could never say to him— she loved him too much, and he loved her.
Perhaps he thought she was dead— but then why did he tell Gundersen he would be searching for her?
There were questions to ask— but they would come when he found her. She decided something. The Resistance fought an important fight— she was part of it. She would stay with Critchfield and the others— and Bill would someday be back. She would stay with them, fight— and someday John Rourke would find her.
"Someday," she said.
She felt silly— and she started to cry. She kept walking.
Chapter Fifty-Four
They had left the truck, the concentrations of Russians on the only roads through the mountains too great for them to risk the noise. Camouflaged more than a mile back, Bill Mulliner and his three men walked on. It would be risky— no code words or countersigns existed within the Resistance— it was not even an organization. Once they encountered the Resistance, he would have to rely on convincing the leader— reportedly a man named Koenigsburg— that Pete Critchfield had indeed sent him, that the messages he carried— all verbal— were indeed those of Critchfield and of President Chambers and Reed, Chambers' intelligence aide.