Ahern, Jerry - Total War

"You just ran a-" Rubenstein started, but then fell silent, smiling to himself.

"I don't know about you," Rourke said, "but right now I'd be happy if a cop pulled me over for a ticket." He glanced at Rubenstein and the smaller man nodded.

A moment later, Rubenstein said, "Hey-this thing's got a tape deck."

"Wonderful," Rourke said. "Check the glove compartment and see if he's got any tapes."

"One," Rubenstein said a moment later, then inserted the cartridge.

As the music began, the men looked at each other. "The Beach Boys?" Rourke said.

"You gotta admit," Rubenstein said, touching the dashboard, "the music goes with the car."

Chapter Thirty-one

Sandy Benson hitched up the skirt of her stewardess uniform and climbed over the rock outcropping, then edged along the large flat rock, stopping and holding her breath to listen. She didn't hear anything. After a moment, she whispered, "Mr. Quentin, are you out there?"

"Shhh," he hissed. "Up here."

She looked to the top of the large, flat rock, then climbed back along it and over the rough outcropping again. Squinting in the darkness, she could just barely make out his silhouette. "Mr. Quentin?"

"I'm coming down," he whispered. She could hear him shuffling toward her, and, soon, he was close enough so that she could make out his features.

As the Canadian approached her, Rourke's CAR-15 slung from his right shoulder, she asked, "Any sign of them, Mr. Quentin?"

"No-not of Rourke or of the people on the motorcycles."

"I wish he'd hurry," she said.

"I don't know much about Rourke," Quentin said, leaning back against the rock, "but he struck me as somebody who'd do his best. He'll be back. But I can't say I liked the look of some of those men he took with him."

"Neither did I," the stewardess whispered, half to herself. Talking louder then, she asked, "Do you think there was any help in Albuquerque. According to what he said, he thought there had been a firestorm there-wasn't much left of the town."

"I don't know," Quentin said. "I guess all we can hold out for is that Rourke gets here with some help before that motorcycle gang comes back. I counted twenty or more, all of them with rifles or shotguns. And I know they spotted the plane."

"What could they be waiting for?" the girl said, suddenly shaking from the desert's evening chill.

"I don't know," Quentin said. "I hunt, do some target shooting. But I never fired a gun at a person in my life. So I sure can't figure what makes people like that tick. Maybe they were just getting out of Albuquerque and are out to protect themselves. Or maybe not-I don't know."

Sandy shook her head, staring into the darkness. Suddenly, she touched Quentin's arm, whispering, "I hear something."

"I'll go back up and take a look," he said. "No!" she hissed, holding his arm more tightly. "It's the sound of motorcycles-lots of them. Listen"'

Quentin turned and stared off into the darkness. "You're right. They're coming back."

"We've got to get to the plane!" Sandy Benson stood and started to run back.

Glancing over her shoulder, she saw Quentin following her. She had left Rourke's big revolver beside her purse, back at the camp.

As she rounded a great outcropping rock and headed along the periphery of a stand of pines, she could see the bonfire from the camp where the passengers were, and well beyond that, the silhouette of the abandoned airplane.

She tripped, felt herself failing, and threw her hands in front of her to break the fall. She felt a hand at her elbow and almost screamed, then looked up and saw Quentin beside her. As she started back to her feet, she heard a loud series of bangs.

She turned and stared at Quentin. "My God-those are shots!" Then she broke into a dead run toward the camp, Quentin at her heels.

***

"You know," Rourke said, "you've played that tape all the way through-twice now."

Rubenstein laughed. It was the first time Rourke had heard him laugh out loud. The smaller man pulled the tape from the deck, then said, "I know this sounds horrible, with all that's happened-I mean, World War Three began two days ago. But here I am, wearing a cowboy hat, riding in a fireengine red '57 Chevy, out to rescue some people trapped in the desert. Two days ago, I was a junior editor with a trade magazine publisher and dying of boredom. Maybe I'm crazy-and I'm sure not happy about the War and all-but I'm almost having fun."

Rourke nodded. "I can understand."

"Like two days ago, I needed help. Today-now I'm helping. I've done more in the last two days than I ever did in the twenty-eight years I been alive."

"You twenty-eight?"

"Yeah-last month. I look older, right? Everybody tells me that."

Rourke laughed. "I wasn't going to tell you that. You look twenty-eight to me."

"Well," Rubenstein started to say, but Rourke held up his hand and ground the Chevy to a halt.

"What is it?"

"Listen," Rourke said. "Gunfire. Just down the road and off to the right there. Sounds like it's from the plane."

He accelerated through the gears, speeding the Chevy down the dirt road they'd been driving along for the last ten miles. Abruptly, he started to slow down, at the same time punching the lights off As they neared the crash site, he killed the engine. The sound of the gunfire grew louder. He eased the car to the side of the road.

"Paul," he said to Rubenstein. "You want one of my pistols or the rifle?"

"Let me try the rifle."

"Fine." Rourke reached into the back seat, removed the scope cover and showed Rubenstein where the safety lever was. He worked the bolt and introduced a round into the chamber. Fishing in his pockets, he found the two spare five-round magazines for the SteyrMannlicher 550 that he had brought along and handed them to Rubenstein. "Just look through the scope. When you see the image clearly-with your glasses on-it should pretty much fill the scope. Get the crosshairs over your target and squeeze the front trigger. You'll be a terror with it. Come on."

Rourke threw open the driver's door and started for the rocks, Rubenstein behind him. The sound of the gunfire was dying now, and above it, they could hear muted voices calling back and forth to each other. By the time both men had climbed up into the rocks and looked down onto the flatland below, the gunfire had totally ceased.

Rubenstein, beside Rourke, rasped, "Oh my God-we were too late!"

"Yeah," Rourke said, reaching under his coat and stripping a Detonics from under his left shoulder with his right hand. He had two more full magazines with him. "They're starting to move out," he said, peering toward the campsite. As best as he could tell, all the passengers had been killed. The bikers-nearly two dozen of them-were going through the baggage, which they had spread on the ground. He watched as they came to the body of a woman-from the distance, Rourke couldn't be sure, but the blue skirt and the blonde hair made him think it was the stewardess, Sandy Benson. He saw one of the bikers bend over her and take his own glinting Metalifed six-inch Colt Python from the ground beside the woman.

"Give me the rifle," Rourke whispered to Rubenstein.

Taking the SSG, spreading his feet along the ground, and snugging the butt of the stock into his shoulder, Rourke squinted through the telescopic sight, settled the crosshairs on the biker standing by the stewardess, and pulled the first of the twin, double-set triggers. The man stood and whirled around toward the exploding dust behind him. Settling the crosshairs on the biker's forehead, Rourke pulled the rear trigger. He touched the first trigger, the SSG rocked against his shoulder, and the .308's 165-grain boat-tail bullet split the biker's forehead like it was a ripe melon. The man's body fell back in a heap on the ground.