"I always carry my . with the magazine completely full and a round in the chamber," Cole noted.
"A lot of people do," Rourke almost whispered, inhaling on the cigar in the left corner of his mouth. "But
a lot of professional gunmen advocate—or advocated I guess these days—stripping the round for the chamber off the top of the magazine."
"To relieve spring pressure?"
"It helps—but not for that," and Rourke thumbed out the magazine with the release button. "Here," and he pointed to the top round in the magazine. "Notice how it's edged forward just a little—makes for more positive feeding than starting with a magazine where the top round has the case head all the way back against the spine of the magazine. Anyway—always works for me," and Rourke replaced the magazine in the pistol and began securing the Detonics under his left armpit in the holster there. "Why were you looking for me, anyway? What'd Reed want?"
Cole, squatting on the ground beside Rourke and slightly at an angle to him, looked around, then behind him. Natalia and Paul were talking, Paul reloading his Schmeisser's magazines. "I'd rather, ahh—talk a bit more privately, Dr.
Rourke," Cole said hoarsely.
"There's nothing I wouldn't trust to Paul or Natalia—"
"She's a Russian, sir?"
"Good for her," Rourke smiled.
"I must insist, sir," Cole said again.
Rourke nodded, then shouted across the rocky area where they were, "Natalia—Paul! The captain's going to tell me something in private—I'll tell you all about it as soon as he's through."
Rourke stood up, Cole's green eyes icy.
"Satisfy you?" Rourke smiled.
"I can impress you into service, Dr. Rourke—and then you'll have to do as I say."
"Draft me?" Rourke laughed, spontaneously. Picking up his CAR-, the magazines for the weapon reloaded from ammo scrounged from the dead brigands, Rourke stared at Cole. "You can't draft me," and he gestured with the CAR-. "I'm a conscientious objector."
Rourke started walking off toward the tree line, Cole beside him . . .
Rourke had checked all the bodies, each of the brigands—all men—dead. Natalia had walked beside him for part of the search, saying nothing, their eyes meeting, then finally, the last of the dead looked to, she had said, "It hasn't changed, John. I can't live without you."
Rourke had touched his hands to her face—feeling the warmth of the skin, her cheeks slightly flushed. Her eyes—the incredible blueness of them, "When I look up at the stars at night, I—I find myself—seeing you, thinking about you."
"What will we do?"
She had said the words quietly, then cast her eyes down, his hands still framing her face, his fingers letting her windblown hair brush against them.
"I don't know. It seems—it seems I say that more and more when we talk about you and me. I don't—" He folded the woman into his arms, aware then that Rubenstein was eyeing the U.S. military personnel as they closed in, hearing Rubenstein ramming a fresh magazine into the Schmeisser—just in case.
"My uncle," she said after a moment, her voice barely a whisper, her head against his chest. "There is a note for you—he sent me with it. It is urgent—he sent me with it and he sent my things as well. As if—as if he never expected me to return to—to the KGB. To—to my life. And—and I don't know if I expect to—either. I don't know anything any more. Just that I love you, that you're married—that I want more than anything—even more than us, for you to find them—to find Sarah."
She had stepped away, not looking at him, her words barely audible. "How stupid I am." She'd looked at him again and forced a smile, her eyes wet with tears . .
.
Cole had not inspired instant respect, or even liking
when he had first introduced himself in that next moment—and in the twenty minutes or so in which they had talked, Rourke's feelings toward the young U.S.
II Army captain hadn't changed. As they walked now up the hill and toward the tree line, Rourke found himself analyzing the way Regis Cole spoke more than the words he said.
". . . that nobody else could do the job. Your country needs you, Dr. Rourke."
Rourke stopped walking. "What job is it—that no one else can do?" Rourke spit out the stump of burned, chewed cigar butt, then looked Cole in the eye.
"During a debriefing session—you mentioned to Colonel Reed that you had known Colonel Armand Teal before the war—"
"We shared an igloo together for three nights on a survival exercise. I know him."
"He's the commanding officer of Filmore Air Force Base in Northern California—"
"Hope he can swim," Rourke said soberly.
"We've determined that Filmore survived. It was well above the fault line and the mountain chain there would have protected it from the tidal wave effects when the San Andreas went. And there were only neutron hits there as far as we can ascertain as well—overflights. There even seemed to be some activity, a U.S.
flag flying."
"Could be the Russians," Rourke told him.
"Sure—but we've tried contacting the base-interference, static—we can't get through and no one answered when the reconnaissance overflight tried radio contact. If it had been the Commies, they would have answered."
"What's so important about Filmore Air Force Base and Armand Teal—you want me to tell you about him?"
"We want you to talk with him," Cole smiled.
"Go to California? Bullshit!" and Rourke turned and
started walking back down the hillside. He heard the sound of a gun coming out of the leather behind him, wheeled, both Detonics pistols coming into his fists as he dropped into a crouch. He heard the clicking of M-bolts, the different sounding rattle of steel as the bolt of Rubenstein's Schmeisser opened.
Cole had a Government Model A half out of the leather, letting it roll out of his hand on the trigger guard.
"You put your gun away—or I'll kill you," Rourke hissed at him.
X
"At least let me explain."
"You wanna explain, I'll be down there—with my friends. You tell me, you tell them. And tell your own people to put their rifles down—or you'll be the first."
Cole said nothing for a moment, then only nodded. Bolstering his pistol, he shouted loudly, "As you were!"
Rourke pointed the pistols in his balled-tight fists toward the ground, then lowered the hammers with his thumbs. Every human being had a right to weapons—handguns, rifles, edged weapons—for his own self-defense, the defense of loved ones. Regardless of the unrealistic, immoral laws there had been, regardless of the do-gooders who had tried to make America weaponless and Americans helpless.
But no man had the right to impose his will—with a gun or anything else—by force. It was a lesson Cole hadn't yet learned—as Rourke turned his back to the Army captain and started down the hillside again, he felt that somehow Cole would learn the lesson still. The hardest way there was.
Chapter 6