Ahern, Jerry - Total War

"Can I come with you?" Rubenstein asked.

Rourke smiled and looked over at the younger, smaller man. "Wouldn't have it any other way. Now, like I asked before," and Rourke gestured toward the motorcycles. "You know how to ride one of these things?"

"Nope," Rubenstein grunted, shaking his head.

Rourke sighed hard. "Can you ride a bicycle?"

"Yeah."

"Good. I'll show you how the gears and the brakes work. You'll catch on. Between New Mexico and the East Coast lies more than two thousand miles. You should get the hang of it. Now, give me a hand here." With Rubenstein helping, Rourke searched the guns that had been dropped by the bikers, scrounging some .38 Special ammo that would work in his .357 revolvers in a pinch and some additional .308 ammo in the process.

"Should I take a handgun?" Rubenstein wondered.

"Yeah-you won't need a rifle. Once I get my CAR-15 back, we'll have two. Here, use this for now." Rourke reached into the pile and found a vintage Browning High Power. "This is a nine-millimeter. One of the best there is. After I get through using this," and Rourke gestured to the German MP-40 submachine gun on the ground beside him, "There should still be plenty of nine-millimeter stuff available."

They siphoned off gas from the other bikes to fill the tanks of the Harley that Rourke had selected for himself and the second Harley he had chosen for Rubenstein. While Rubenstein gathered his belongings and strapped them on the bike, Rourke took the remaining loose ammo from his gun cases-which he was leaving behind-and replenished the magazines for his Detonics pistols and the SteyrMannlicher rifle, packing away the spare magazines for his CAR-15 for when he got it back.

By early morning, Rourke and Rubenstein were ready. Foodstuffs from the airplane were their only provisions. Rourke had checked it all with the Geiger counter. They were low on water, so took the two-day-old coffee as well. Then, filling every container they could find with gasoline from the remaining bikes, they prepared the crashed aircraft for the funeral pyre.

Standing well back, Rourke took a gasoline-soaked rag and started to light it. Rubenstein stopped him.

"Aren't you gonna say anything over them?"

"You do it," Rourke said quietly.

"I'm Jewish, most of them weren't."

"Well, pick something, nondenominational," Rourke responded.

Rubenstein, looking uncomfortable, coughed, then began. "The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me beside the still waters..."

Rourke, almost without realizing it, began saying it with him. "He restoreth my soul."

Rubenstein turned and looked at Rourke, and both men went on. "He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His Name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me." Rourke's thoughts were filled with images of Mrs. Richards, and Sandy Benson, whose courage had seemed unending. There was the Canadian businessman whom Rourke had started out disliking-Quentin.

"Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies; Thou anointest my head with oil. My cup runneth over."

Rourke thought of the Chicano priest back in Albuquerque and the burn victims there in the church-in his mind he could see the little girl whom he had worked over to save. Then she had died.

"Surely, goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life..."

He closed his eyes. Where was Sarah? Where was Michael and Ann at this moment? Were they even alive?

"And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever."

Rourke opened his eyes and saw Rubenstein turned to face him. "You've gotten all the rotten jobs, John. It's my turn, now. Give me the torch." Rourke said nothing, but handed the gasoline-soaked rag to Rubenstein, then the lighter. "Be careful," he said, then watched as the younger man flicked the lighter and touched the flame to the rag. In an instant the rag was a torch and Rubenstein-hesitating for a split second-threw it into the gaping hole in the fuselage.

"Come on," Rourke rasped, his voice suddenly tight and hoarse.

Rubenstein was still standing by the plane, and Rourke walked up to him and put his hand on his shoulder. "Come on, Paul. We got work to do."

Rubenstein looked at Rourke, took off his glasses for a moment, but said nothing. The sound of the flames from the plane was all there was for either of them then to hear.

Chapter Thirty-three

The ride across the desert, trailing the bikers, had been hot. Rubenstein had fallen off the big Harley once but had not been hurt. As Rourke and Rubenstein stopped on a low rise, Rourke turned to the younger man, saying, "I think you're getting the hang of it, Paul. Good thing, too. Look." He pointed down into the shallow, bowl-shaped basin before them.

"My God!" Rubenstein said, shuddering.

In the basin-once a lake bed, Rourke supposed, but now nothing but sand and some barrel cactus dotted here and there-were the bikers they had been trailing. Rourke recognized, even at the distance, two of them from the clothes they wore. One man in particular, whom Rourke had picked as the leader of the gang, wore a Nazi helmet with steer horns jutting from each side, not unlike a Viking helmet. None of the other bikers in the basin had such a helmet. There were at least forty.

"What is it-some kind of convention?"

"What? Rourke asked absently, then, realizing what Rubenstein had said, he commented, "They were probably part of a larger biker gang and they all set this spot as a rendezvous. Could be more of them coming."

"Damned bikers." Rubenstein spat in the dust.

"Hey-we're bikers, now, aren't we?" Rourke said, looking at Rubenstein. Taking off his sunglasses to clean the dust from them, he went on, "Most bikers are okay-some of them, badasses. But you can't generalize. Just 'cause somebody's got a machine under him and he doesn't much care for authority doesn't make him scum. It's just these guys-they're scum."

"But there's gotta be almost three dozen of them down there."

"I make it forty, give or take," Rourke said lazily. He checked his watch, then checked the sun. "In another two hours, it'll be dark. Looks like a good moon tonight, though. We'll get 'em all then."

"There's just two of us," Rubenstein said. "That's twenty-to-one odds."

"Yeah. At least they can't accuse us of taking unfair advantage of them."

"Twenty-to-one, John?"

"Remember what we said over the men and women they killed, back at the plane? 'Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.' Well, I never cared for fearing things-doesn't help anything much." Then, pointing to the desert behind them, he said slowly, "See all that Paul? Now, that's something we're never going to cross in fear. What's out there in that country after the war, neither of us knows. Nuclear contamination, bands of brigands that'll make these suckers down in the basin look like sissies, probably Russian troops. I don't have the idea that we won the War, really. Good knows what else. There'll be plenty of chances to be afraid later, I figure. No sense starting before we have to."

As quietly as they could, then, Rourke and Rubenstein took their Harleys behind the cover of some large rock outcroppings, ate some of the food they'd brought from the plane, and rested. Rourke told Rubenstein of his plan. When he had finished, Rubenstein said, "You're gonna get killed." Rourke shrugged.

They waited until past sunset and well into the night. The moon was up, and the sounds from the biker camp in the basin indicated to them that everyone was pretty well drunk. While they'd waited, another half a dozen bikers had come into the camp.

Rourke checked both of the stainless Detonics 45s, checking the spring pressure on the magazines, even hand-chambering the first round rather than cycling it from the magazines of the guns. This gave him six rounds plus one in each gun, plus the spare magazines. He secured the Detonics pistols in the double Alessi shoulder rig, then slipped the massive two-inch Colt Lawman inside his trouser belt, at the small of his back. Metalifed, like the Lawman snubby, the Colt six-inch Python in the Ranger leather holster on his right hip was checked as well. The Ranger belt had loaded dump pouches, but Rourke was counting on speed if he had to reload. For that reason, he checked the Safarilands cylinder-shaped speedloaders. There were four of them. Designed for use with the Python, they worked equally as well with the Lawman two-incher. Rourke put two each in the side pockets of his jacket. Taking a swig of the old coffee, he stood up and walked toward his bike.