Another tire impression—he stopped running, dropping to his knees to examine it. “Natalia, bring up my bike. Paul, cut an arc of about one hundred eighty degrees about a hundred yards ahead of me—ninety degrees on each side of where I’m at now.”
“Tracks—right.”
Rourke stood to his full height, taking the Zippo in his right hand, flipping it in his hand, not opening it, not really intending to light the cigar as yet. He glanced skyward, then confirmed the time with his watch. Three hours of daylight remained. If he could second guess Michael’s route as he had earlier, they might be able to cut through the mountains again in such a way as to intercept Michael’s next campsite before total darkness. He was trying to cut the gap of time between them. Rourke felt a smile cross his lips—he realized, chronologically less than a decade older than his son, that he’d already done that.
“Ready.”
He looked at Natalia, then looked away as he mounted the machine.
Chapter Thirty-One
He had lost count of the hours, and realized he had lost count of the days. The cattle prods they had used—his body ached as he moved. He had been away from the Retreat—how many days?
He shook his head to clear it, dismissing the question until a later time.
Cautiously, before assessing his surroundings, he felt under his shirt beside his left hipbone. The revolver—it was still there. As he sat upright, his back screaming at him with the pain, he felt inside his left sock—the A.G. Russell knife was still there.
Michael Rourke looked up, unable to keep the smile that he felt coming from etching across his face. He was alive. He was armed. He assessed his surroundings as, with difficulty, he stood. An ordinary-seeming room, but there were no windows. A door—it seemed made of metal. He approached it, about to touch it to confirm—but he stepped back. With their pen-chant for electricity, he was uncertain. He looked upward—there seemed to be no observation cameras in evidence, no microphones. Perhaps the room—almost a khaki color for walls, ceiling and the linoleum-covered floor—was just that, a room. Nothing more.
Perhaps too they expected him to walk out of it. He licked his lips, reaching down to his sock, removing the Sting IA. Gently, he tossed the all-steel knife against the door. It clattered to the floor. There was no evidence of electricity. He picked up the knife, stepping back from the door again.
He threw the knife—gently, again—this time the knife bouncing against the doorknob, sparks of electricity sputtering into the air. Michael Rourke stepped back.
After a long moment, he picked up his knife. Quickly, he resheathed it, concealing it, then dropped to the floor. He began to unlace his right combat boot. His father had told him the story of the last seconds before fire had engulfed the planet, of the climb to the top of the mountain which held the Retreat, of using the double magazine pouch like a heavy leather glove to insulate his hand. The boot off now, Michael placed his right hand inside it, flexing the leather so he could grip with it.
He thought suddenly of Madison. If they had killed her, he would kill them—it was very simple, very logical. He remembered, as they had lain together after discovering each other, she had asked him what the white flakes which fell from the sky had been and he had explained the crys-talline structures which when examined were never at all like any other. He had explained that some had theorized that perhaps as they fell, the flakes may indeed have fallen into certain patterns and that the infinite variety came about from the constant melting and refreezing they underwent as they passed through different temperature layers, or fell upon the warm ground to partially melt and then refreeze. She had stopped him, laughing, telling him that she thought they made his hair and his eyebrows look pretty. What did one call them, she had asked. Snow, he had told her. And she had repeated the word several times.
He approached the doorknob—he’d free her somehow, he told himself.
But as he reached for the doorknob, the knob sparked, then turned.
Michael Rourke drew back, ready to go for his gun. One of the men in a three-piece business suit stepped into the doorway from the corridor which Michael could partially see beyond him.
“You are to come with us. The Ministers wish to see you. We can use the electric sticks again if you resist.”
Smiling, he dropped to the floor. “Just let me get my boot on, guys.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
They had traveled for most of the night, gotten six hours of rest and then moved on before daylight. More of the shortcuts through the mountains and John Rourke estimated they had saved perhaps as much as two days of travel time compared to Michael’s route. He was exploring. They were searching, a more single-minded pursuit, Rourke had told Paul Rubenstein.
Natalia beside him now, Paul on foot moving through the woods beyond the clearing, looking for signs, John Rourke stood, staring at the remains of a fire. It was not one of Michael’s fires. Littered around the clearing, most prominently near, the fire, were human bones.
Natalia, her voice low, whisperlike, said, “Can-nibals.” “Michael parked his bike and moved through the clearing on foot—he went right to them.”
“Human beings, John—he was looking for more of his own kind. That’s why he left the Retreat. But there was no sign of him returning to the bike.” “He headed after them/’ Rourke added som-berly.
He looked at her, Natalia’s eyes looking into his. “What would you have done?” He laughed a little. “Gone after them—just like Michael—under the circumstances.”
“You told me you taught him to be very good with a gun. And Annie—she said he practiced regularly.”
“Yeah, but all he took with him was one assault rifle and those two single-actions he liked. And two knives. That means, in a firefight, just one viable weapon. Those handguns are super for what they were built for—hunting, backup in the game fields, silhouette shooting. Not for combat. And anyway, he’s on his own.”
“They’ve been on their own for fifteen years. Annie told us Michael would leave the Retreat sometimes to go off exploring.”
“Never this long. And anyway—he’s not just some guy. He’s my son. I’m worried. Cannibals,” and he dropped into a crouch beside an almost neatly stacked pile of human ribs, the bones spotless.
“John—oh, shit—John!”
Rourke was up, running, Natalia ahead of him, both of the Metalife Custom L-Frames which bore the American Eagle symbols on the barrel flats coming into her hands, Rourke snatching the Python from the full flap holster at his hip. He slowed his run, Natalia stopped already beside Paul Rubenstein, Paul’s hands shaking, the sling for the MP-40 subgun rattling. Rourke walked over to stand between them. In the bushes was a human head, the smell of the rotting tissue strong. The eyebrows were reddish tinged; the scalp and the skin above the middle of the forehead had been peeled away. “Cannibals?”
Rourke looked at Rubenstein. “Yeah,” he almost whispered.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Michael Rourke glanced at his Rolex—the date had changed, ever closer to Christmas and the time set for the Awakening. He had been imconscious from the electrical shocks overnight. They—the three men in the business suits—had let him stop in a bathroom. He had urinated and defecated, and washed his face and hands, noticing the stubble on his cheeks as he studied his face momentarily in the mirror. He looked identical to the sleeping visage of his father in the cryogenic chamber.
His three business-suited guards with their high-powered cattle prods walked with him as he moved down the corridor now, a large, double-doored room at one end. Was it the armory Madison had spoken of? he wondered. He made a mental note to investigate it.