by Jerry Ahern
“Same to you,” Rourke muttered with a grin, swinging his left leg over the portside rail, then his right. He perched there on the rail a moment, then added, “And if the Russians come or something, let me know.” Without waiting for an answer, Rourke pushed himself off with his feet, diving out into the water, the wind and the water temperature chilling him so badly that he began to shake with the cold.
He glanced up at the fishing boat, Summers giving him a quick salute, then Rourke tucked down, under the water, his mouth closing as he broke the surface. His lungs already felt it as he swam downward. At least a weight belt would have been useful, Rourke thought. The water was reasonably clean and he could already see the sandy bottom. That the water was so clear indicated nothing had disturbed the bottom recently. Rourke made a mental note to check himself with the Geiger counter in case the ocean here was radioactive— but he doubted the Russians would have allowed fishing if it were. And he was almost certain they periodically checked. It was only common sense, Rourke reasoned.
His arms fanned away from his sides, and Rourke’s feet touched bottom. Immediately the sand and silt there stirred up in a cloud from his disturbing it. He could see the mound of rocks there which Cal Summers had described, then moved along the bottom the few feet remaining to reach them. Had Summers not described it, Rourke thought, he would have spotted something strange at any event. The clouds of silt increased in density as Rourke reached the rocks. Then he pried the top, flat rock away, letting it bounce to the bottom beside the pile, a large amount of the sand and silt now clouding the water.
Rourke waved his left hand in front of him, as one might do it in the air to clear away a smoke cloud.
There, inside the cup of rocks, was a waterproof container. A small fish Rourke couldn’t instantly identify swayed past it as he reached down, carefully prying at the radio lest some small sea creature had decided to use the rock nest as a home— some small sea creature that could bite or stick.
In the water, the weight of the object seemed off to him, but he assumed it was the radio. The waterproof packing seemed to have kept its integrity. Leaving the capping rock where it had dropped, the radio under his left arm, Rourke pushed himself up with his knees and feet and started clawing toward the surface. He glanced awkwardly at the Rolex— he had been down better than two minutes and the burning feeling in his lungs told him his time was running out.
He could see the light shimmering from the surface as he reached out toward it, the radio suddenly feeling heavier to him. His hand broke the water above him, then his head. Rourke opened his mouth, exhaling hard and sucking in air with his mouth and nose. Scanning from side to side, he saw the boat— he’d come up on the starboard side.
To be on the careful side, he thought, he didn’t shout to Summers. He swam instead the dozen or so feet toward the fishing boat. There was a small ladder over the side and, clinging to the bottom rung, balancing the edge of the radio against it, Rourke shifted his grip quickly, two rungs up, hauling his right foot to the bottom rung, still holding the radio. Balanced there, Rourke peered over the side, into the fishing boat. He could see Summers, standing there looking out to port. A smile crossed Rourke’s lips as he watched the man. “Captain,” he said, his voice low.
Summers wheeled, the gun coming into his right hand, his face twisted into something Rourke thought seemed half between a snarl and a look of surprise.
“God, man! You scared ten years out of me!” Summers shoved the revolver back in his trousers and started across the deck.
Rourke said, “Just being on the safe side. Now help me with this blasted radio!”
Chapter 16
Varakov sat at his desk, slipping his shoes off. He smiled, looking first at his niece Natalia, then at Constantine Miklov, then back at Natalia. “You are lovely, my dear— as usual, of course,” he told her.
The girl smiled, saying nothing.
Varakov said nothing for a moment either, assessing her. She was dressed in black, as she had been since learning of the death of Karamatsov, but she looked beautiful in black and Varakov decided he would rather see her wear a black dress every day for the rest of her life than think of her with the animal she had married.
Her dark hair flowed to her shoulders and beyond, and with the contrasting bright blue of her eyes, the whiteness of her skin seemed somehow unreal, almost too perfect. In that instant, Varakov decided he understood why Karamatsov had beaten her— though he could never forgive it in the man, despite the fact Karamatsov was dead.
Karamatsov had somehow wanted to defile the perfection, the goddess-like beauty. It could have been hard, Varakov decided, for a man like Karamatsov— a despoiler, what the British before World War II in their days of empire would have called a “rotter”— to live with flawless beauty such as Natalia possessed. He sighed, watching the girl’s eyes meet his.
He smiled at her, saying to her across his desk, “An old man sometimes finds his thoughts drifting to other things. It is part of life.”
Varakov turned to Colonel Miklov, beginning, “You were briefed on the Cuban problem, the border incursions from Florida, all of that?”
Miklov nodded. Varakov liked that in Miklov. He said little.
“Good— Natalia will be there officially in the capacity of an aide. If they realize she is KGB, then they do. They can do nothing to either of you. We would crush them and they know that.”
Then Varakov turned to Natalia. “And you, my dear. It is not such a unique intelligence assignment. I simply wish you to learn all that you can, especially that which they do not wish you to know. If they suspect you are KGB, they will feed you information on their strength, their intentions— all of that. That is why I chose you particularly for this assignment. I need all this to be seen through, so to speak. I. wish to ascertain their actual intent, their actual strength.”
“How far should I go, Comrade General?” she asked, the warmth in her eyes belying the formality of her tone.
Varakov smiled, saying, “That is entirely up to your own discretion.”
“I don’t mean that,” she almost laughed, her cheeks slightly flushed.
“I know what you mean. Do what needs to be done,” he told her. “So long as it does not immediately result in you or Colonel Miklov being imperiled. Neither the Colonel’s diplomatic negotiations nor what you learn, by whatever means, will be of any use if you should be killed in some unfortunate accident. You understand?”
“Yes, Comrade General.”
“Good,” Varakov grunted. He glanced at the notes he’d made, then turned and addressed Miklov. The meeting lasted for more than an hour, Varakov noted. Miklov and Natalia Tiemerovna were set to leave early that evening from the military airfield northwest of the city. Varakov asked if Miklov would care for a glass of vodka, but Miklov declined, Varakov dismissing him then. It was late afternoon and Varakov decided he had worked enough that day. Sitting silently with Natalia across from him, Varakov looked up from his desk, saying abruptly, “Would you walk with me along the Lake. It is cold, I know, but—“
“Yes, Uncle,” he said, her voice soft sounding to him. “Good— I want to talk. There are so few people to whom one can talk these days,” he told her.
The general slipped his feet into his shoes, then wheeled out from his desk and bent over to tie them. Suddenly he looked up at Natalia standing beside him. “Here, Uncle— let me.” And before he could tell her no, she had dropped to her knees beside his feet, her hands already at work.
“I am not a child,” he said, but his voice not harsh. She looked up at him a faint smile on her lips. “A woman can tie a man’s shoes. It means nothing like that.”
“Humph,” he grunted, but didn’t persist.
“There,” she said, rising effortlessly to her feet. Varakov looked down at his shoes, simply shaking his head, then braced his left hand on the desk top and got to his feet.
“Girl!” he shouted, never seeming, he thought, to remember the name of the tall woman who was his sec
retary. But she came whatever he called her.
“Comrade General!”
Varakov looked at the secretary, then at Natalia. Their ages were similar— late twenties. He supposed that under their clothes their shapes might be similar. He was too old, he smiled, to worry about that.
“Child,” he told the secretary, more softly. “I need my coat, please.”
“Yes, Comrade General.” And the woman did a smart about face.
He called after her, the woman stopping a moment in mid-stride. “Your skirt is still too long!” She began walking again.
Varakov looked at Natalia, her cheeks slightly flushed. “Isn’t it?” he asked his niece.
“Yes, Uncle— but you embarrass her. It is not my position to say, but I—“
“When you get back from this Florida thing, you tell her, hmmm?”
“As you wish, Uncle,” Natalia said, the color still in her cheeks.
They left the Museum then. Natalia, Varakov noticed, smiled at the secretary as she brought his coat. They walked down the steps, then toward what had been Lake Shore Drive
. There was scattered military traffic, but they crossed easily, the sun low behind them, the wind blowing cold from the water ahead of them.
“It is too cold for you, Natalia?” Varakov asked her. “No, Uncle.” And he watched as she seemed to draw herself into the mid-calf length, almost black fur coat.
He took her right elbow in his left hand, guiding her along the comparatively narrow peninsula on a sidewalk toward the lake itself. “Is that coat real fur?”
“Yes, Uncle,” she answered, her voice sounding odd to him. He guessed she was cold but too polite to say it.
“You are not uncomfortable— it is not too cold here?”
“No, I am comfortable,” she answered.
“A lot of money?”
“What, Uncle?”
“The coat, I mean.”
“Yes.”
“Is it easier now?”
“What is that?”
“The passing of your husband, I mean. I should ask. It is perhaps a source of anguish to you still. I am sure, in fact, that it is,” he said, turning to her. “You are crying?”
He studied her blue eyes. “It is the wind, Uncle,” she answered.
He could see the lake waters ahead— choppy, he thought. “I see. But is it any easier?”
He stopped walking. He gazed down to see the waves surround the rocky peninsula, hammering at it as the wind whipped them. Then he turned again to Natalia.
The tears were still in her eyes.
“No. Rourke killed him. He promised he wouldn’t, then he murdered him. No!”
“Would you— do you love Rourke, still?” Varakov asked her. “Would you kill Rourke for what he did?”
“Yes,” she said, the tears stopping in her eyes a moment. He studied her face. “I love him, but I would kill him. He had no right, no reason to—“
The wind was audible now, howling. Varakov interrupted her, saying, “No right, no reason.... He may have saved your life, this man Rourke. Karamatsov was an animal. You know this thing. I know this thing. Who knows, perhaps Rourke saw this too.”
“It was deliberate, Uncle— like the gunfight he had just before the helicopters found us in the rain, there in the desert. I told you— we joined the Brigands only to save the lives of the townspeople they were going to kill. Rourke fought the Brigand leader and two of his men. Then he fought one more man with guns— and killed the man. At the time, I felt Rourke was insane. But—“ and she turned away. With the wind Varakov could barely hear her. “I was happy when Rourke survived.”
“Natalia—“ Varakov began.
The girl turned, facing him— no longer, he thought, hiding the tears in her eyes. “He fought Vladmir like that, killed him like that Brigand.”
“You told me once that Brigand had done some horrible thing. What was it?”
“I don’t remember,” she said.
“You remember— he had killed a woman’s infant child, yes?”
“Yes,” she answered, her voice low again.
“Why do you think Rourke killed Vladmir Karamatsov?”
“I don’t know.”
“Jealousy— to get you?”
“No— not jealousy, not for me,” she almost shrieked, looking at him.
“You are right, and you are wrong,” Varakov told her. “I would never have told you this thing, but I have watched you these days since it had happened. You eat at yourself, you blame yourself, but you should not. Rourke killed your husband only because I forced him to, to save American Resistance fighters captured with him. I ordered him to assassinate Karamatsov.” Varakov watched her face, the eyes widening, the mouth open, the lips parted, the set of her jaw. Her tears had stopped again. “But he apparently would not— so he killed Vladmir in the fairest way he could— in a cowboy-style gunfight from the American western movies. Rourke killed the man because I forced him to do this thing. He pulled the trigger. I pointed the gun,” Varakov concluded.
“I cannot, cannot believe you would do this thing.”
“Your Rourke— he is smart, he is clever. He could have agreed, then decided to help his comrades escape, never have killed Vladmir. But I told Rourke why— I told him what Karamatsov had done to you, why Karamatsov had to die.”
“No!” she screamed, turning, running from him out along the peninsula.
Varakov watched her, shrugging, not attempting to run after her. He hunched his shoulders against the wind, holding the peak of his cap, walking after her. He shouted once, “Natalia!”
The girl did not stop running. He could see her, at the far end of the peninsula, stopped now because there was no further place to run.
It took him several minutes, he judged, to reach the end of the peninsula— by a museum of astronomy. He slowed his pace, his feet hurting, walking up to her. “Natalia Tiemerovna, can you still love your uncle?”
He stopped, six feet or so behind her. The girl turned, her hands coming from the pockets of her fur coat, her arms reaching out as she ran the few steps toward him. She put her arms around his neck. He could no longer see her face. He looked beyond it at the waves, feeling her body against his massive chest and stomach, hearing her sobs below the keening of the wind. “Can you still love your uncle?” he asked again, his voice low, his lips close to her right ear.
“Yes,” she murmured.
Varakov smiled. He didn’t ask the other question that hung between them. And he knew the answer concerning Rourke, and he feared it.
Chapter 17
Sarah Rourke swung down from Tildie’s saddle, her hands sliding across the animal’s neck. She started to wipe the lather down along her thighs, but remembered she was still wearing the skirt. She reached up to the blue jeans tied to the saddle thongs and wiped the sweat from her hands. Then she took her pants and reached into the saddlebag for her gun, leading Tildie toward the farmhouse.
She looked from side to side, double-checking as she had since coming in sight of the farmhouse that there were no signs of Soviet troops or Brigands. She stopped at the door, knocking. “Michael, it’s momma,” she said loudly.
The door opened and she stepped inside, tugging at the reins of the mare behind her, bending and kissing Michael. “Did anything happen?”
“No, nothing. Did you find the boat, Momma?”
She kissed the boy again. “I did, but—“
“Mrs. Rourke, you found the boat?”
She turned around. It was odd not to hear herself addressed as someone’s mother. She stared across the room. Harmon Kleinschmidt was sitting up on the cot, his back propped against the wall. “You shouldn’t be sitting up, Harmon— not with those wounds,” she told him.
“But you found it?”
She looked at Kleinschmidt a moment, turned toward Michael and handed him Tildie’s reins, saying, “Michael, rub her down and feed her. I’ll need her again soon.”
The boy moved off and Sarah Rourk
e turned again toward Kleinschmidt. Annie was asleep on some blankets on the floor, and Sarah, as she walked across the room, stooped down, kissing the girl’s forehead, tucking the blankets up around her. Sarah was still cold from the ride outside in the wind.
“I found your boat, Mr. Kleinschmidt. I saw a lot of boats.”
“Did you see the Stargazer II? I used to work on it.”
“As a matter of fact I did,” she told the younger man. “I need a boat that size. Why can’t we ask the man who owns it, if you used to work on it?”
She stepped beside the cot, automatically checking the bandages. They didn’t need changing yet, she determined.
“I can’t risk it for him. They might be watching him anyway, looking for me.”
Sarah nodded, saying nothing.
“But you saw the Ave Maria— you saw it?”
“You can’t operate the boat, Harmon,” she told him, looking at him evenly. “And even with the children helping me, I can’t operate something that big either. I need a smaller boat, like the Stargazer II. I need a place we can leave the horses, then I need a way of getting us to the boat, though. Can you help me there?”
“Yeah, but I just don’t see why you don’t want the Ave Maria. Why?”
Sarah stood up, walking behind a blanket suspended from a rope she’d run across the opposite corner of the house. She hadn’t felt like undressing with Harmon Kleinschmidt being able to wake up at any moment and watch her. Behind the blanket, she dug down into one of the duffel bags. There was a pair of pink shorts she remembered that had gotten caught up with her blue jeans when she’d packed hurriedly that first time they’d left the farmhouse in northeast Georgia, right after the bombing. She’d been tempted to throw the shorts away, but kept them in case the weather became hot. She studied the shorts a moment. “Swimsuit,” she muttered to herself. Then, starting to undress behind the screening blanket, she said to Kleinschmidt, “What was it you were saying, Harmon?”
“Why not the Ave Maria? She’s a good ship.”
“She’s too much of a ship,” Sarah said back to him, stripping off the T-shirt, then the bra, then putting them on top of her skirt and her underpants. She pulled on the shorts, then the T-shirt again. “I can’t handle it, so if the Russians were after us, I couldn’t outrun them,” she said finally.