by Jerry Ahern
Rourke looked beyond the emotionless faces of the soldiers and across the airfield. Santiago seemed to be poorly disguising a smile— but Rourke couldn’t read Natalia’s eyes. There was a command shouted by Santiago, the words something Rourke recognized. “Arrest that man. Seize that woman and the airplane and its pilot— immediately!”
Rourke cocked his head slightly toward Natalia as she took Santiago’s arm, hugging it to her it seemed. Her eyes just stared ahead. Coldly, Rourke thought.
“What’s happening?” Sissy Wiznewski asked, her voice low, trembling.
Rourke reached out— watching the soldiers watching him— and took her hand, saying to her, “I’ll let you know as soon as I find out myself. It wasn’t Natalia’s way, Rourke thought— not to go against her uncle’s wishes, not to use the Communist Cubans as an instrument for her own revenge.
He tried to read the woman’s face from the distance separating them. He’d been told there was a Colonel Miklov there with Natalia. But he saw no Russian officer, not even someone in civilian clothes.
A man Rourke judged as a squad leader stepped toward him, saying in bad English, “I will take your guns.”
Rourke again glanced toward Natalia— nothing. He decided to gamble, reaching slowly under his coat with first his left, then his right hand, taking the Detonics pistols and handing them butt first to the squad leader. Since the man hadn’t asked for his knife, Rourke didn’t volunteer it.
“You will come with me,” the man said. Rourke started to walk ahead, still holding Sissy’s hand. “The woman— she will see the general.”
Rourke eyed the soldier, then looked over the man’s shoulder toward Natalia. He thought he caught an almost imperceptible nod. But it could have been his imagination, or wishful thinking he thought. He gambled again. “Sissy, it’ll be all right, I think. Just do a good job convincing the general that the quakes are real. Don’t worry,” he added. Then Rourke let go of her hand and started ahead, the soldiers falling in ranks around him. He saw the squad leader from the corner of his eye, handing the twin Detonics pistols to Santiago. Rourke saw Natalia looking down at the guns in Santiago’s hands, saw her lips move, saying something. Then Santiago— with almost ridiculous formality, Rourke thought— bowed and offered the pistols to Natalia. She took them, smiling, and for the first time he could hear her.
Natalia was laughing.
Chapter 39
Paul Rubenstein looked across the hood of the jeep, then at the florid-faced Tolliver beside him behind the wheel. “That’s a death camp,” Rubenstein said slowly, staring now past the hood of the jeep and to the lower ground and the road and the camp beyond it.
“The commandant has a reputation for being anti-Jewish.”
“They put an anti-Semite in charge of a detention camp in an area with a large Jewish population,” Rubenstein interrupted. “Then they know what’s going on, the Communist Cuban government.”
“Some say the commandant down there, Captain Guttierez, dislikes the Jews almost as much as the anti-Castro Cubans. He’s been exterminating every one of them he can find.”
“Why have you waited to do something?” Rubenstein asked him.
“Simple— you’ll see in a minute— look.” And Tolliver pointed over his shoulder.
Rubenstein, his palms sweating, turned around and looked behind the jeep. Tolliver’s number-one man, Peddro Garcia, a free Cuban, had gone to get the rest of the Resistance force. Rubenstein’s heart sank. Two men approximately his own age, a woman of about twenty and a boy of maybe sixteen.
Tolliver, his voice lower than Rubenstein had heard it before, sighed hard. “That’s why, Rubenstein. Two men, a woman, a boy, me, and Pedro— that’s it. Now you. You still want to do this thing?”
Rubenstein turned around in the jeep’s front passenger seat, started down over the hood toward the camp. “Hell yes,” he rasped, the steadiness of his own voice surprising him. “Yes I do.”
Rubenstein felt the ground shaking, then looked at Tolliver. The man said, “Some little quakes like that have been coming the last week or so. Don’t know why. This ain’t earthquake country.”
The trembling in the ground stopped and Rubenstein simply said, “Let’s work out the details, then get started.”
“We’re gonna wait until dark, right?” Tolliver queried.
Rubenstein thought a moment. He’d learned from Rourke to trust your vibes, your own sense and what they added up to, whatever the others felt. “No... “ he began distractedly. “No— they won’t expect an assault in daylight. I just don’t think we’ve got the time to wait. We’ll go soon.”
Rubenstein was still watching the camp. He wondered how soon was soon enough.
Chapter 40
Natalia walked from her room and along the railing overlooking the first floor of the house. She stopped, staring at nothing, thinking of Rourke. Santiago had been easy to read. She smiled to herself. The Communist Cuban general had used Varakov’s warning of the impending natural disaster, the coming of Rourke and Sissy Wiznewski— all of it as an excuse to see some sort of plot. For that reason when he had sent his men to arrest Colonel Miklov and Miklov went for a gun, she had disarmed Miklov and turned him over to Santiago. This action had pleased Santiago; she had pleased Santiago. That she despised him— mentally shrank from his touch, from his stare— was nothing of which the Cuban was aware. He thought, she knew, that somehow he thrilled her. And so— she smiled at the thought— she was free, still armed and able to move. Sissy Wiznewski was in Santiago’s office trying to convince him of the reality of the massive quake. Rourke and Miklov were imprisoned in the basement that had been converted to accommodate prisoners Santiago personally wished to interrogate— and to torture.
She smoothed her hands against her thighs, then reached down to the floor beside her booted feet for the large black purse. She opened it, then looked inside. Her own COP .357 Magnum four-shot derringer pistol, the two stainless steel .45 automatics Rourke habitually carried, her lipstick, and a change of underwear— these items filled the bag.
Shrugging her shoulders, she turned from the railing and started down the stairs, smiling at the steward as he seemed to glide past Santiago’s office doors. She stopped at the doors, the bag over her left shoulder, then knocked with her right hand. “It is Natalia, Diego,” she said as sweetly as she could.
She heard an answering voice from inside, then opened the right-hand door and walked inside. Santiago stood, smiling. Sissy Wiznewski was already standing, the look on her face that of a schoolgirl who had just failed her most important final examination.
“This is all rubbish,” Santiago pronounced with an air of authority. “This business of earthquakes is nothing more than a plot to cause us to evacuate Florida so Varakov’s troops can invade here. You were wise to abandon your KGB friends and join us, my dear.”
Smiling, she walked across the room, glancing at the seismic chart on the conference table, then at the frightened eyes of Sissy Wiznewski. “Yes,” she murmured, reaching down and kissing Santiago’s cheek as he sat down again.
As she drew her mouth away, she moved her left hand upward, the COP pistol in it, pressing the muzzle against Santiago’s left temple. “But, my General, it is true— and you will now do exactly as I say or the top of your head will soon decorate the ceiling above where you sit. For a small gun, I still have one of the most powerful .357 Magnum loadings in it— the 125-grain Jacketed Hollow Point. Do you know guns? A pity if you don’t, but tests conducted for American police departments indicated this was perhaps the most effective .357 Magnum loading available. Want to see?”
Santiago turned his head slightly and she looked into his eyes, smiling. “You tricked me,” he said.
“That, darling, should be obvious to even you,” she cooed. “Now, you will call out to have Colonel Miklov sent up— immediately. The guards will wait outside the door for him. After Colonel Miklov arrives, I will free Rourke. Already, though, you will have issued orde
rs to your commanders initiating the truce. And you will issue orders for the radio signal to be given that the U.S. II and Soviet planes may land, as well as issue orders to your line commanders to begin evacuating civilians. Including the concentration camp near the airport. Everyone. And, my dear Diego, if you are very good, you too can leave after everyone else has.”
She looked at Sissy Wiznewski and asked matter-of-factly, “How soon?”
“The— the general said there had been some small earthquakes reported for the last five days around the area. I’d say it’s a matter of hours, if that.”
Natalia smiled at the girl, then turned back to General Santiago. “For your own sake, Diego, I sincerely hope there is enough time left.”
She pressed the muzzle of the COP pistol tight against his head. “Make your first call, darling.”
Chapter 41
“What the hell is going on down there?” Tolliver snapped, dropping to the ground behind a palm trunk, Rubenstein dropping down beside him, the Schmeisser in his right hand.
“It looks like they’re getting out of the camp— but why? What’s going on?” Rubenstein riveted his eyes to the camp. The guards were running from their posts; the officers were running too. Rubenstein looked overhead. Planes of every description imaginable were filling the sky from the west. “Those are American planes!”
“Commies use ones they found on the ground a lot.”
“No— they’re coming from the west, maybe Texas or Louisiana.”
“You’re dreamin’ kid,” Tolliver snapped.
“No! Look— more of them!” The droning sound in the air was as loud as anything Rubenstein could ever recall having heard. The sky was filled, the ground darkening under the shadows of the aircraft. The ground began to tremble under him, but this time more violently than before.
Rubenstein stood up, Tolliver trying to pull him down, the young man shaking away Tolliver’s hand. “It’s an earthquake. Some of those planes are landing.” He looked down toward the camp. The Cuban guards and officers were fleeing, the gates of the compound wide open. “They’re evacuating. There’s gonna be an earthquake.”
“You’re nuts, kid.”
Rubenstein looked down to Tolliver, started to say something, but then the ground shook hard and Rubenstein jumped away as a crack eighteen inches wide began splitting across the ground. Then a palm tree fell, just missing Pedro Garcia and the other Resistance people.
“A damned earthquake!”
As if to underscore Tolliver’s shout, the ground began shaking harder, so hard Paul Rubenstein fell to the dirt on his hands and knees. “Oh my God!” he said.
Chapter 42
John Rourke sat in the detention cell, his feet up on the edge of the cot, his eyes focused on the guard sitting at the far end of the cell just beyond the bars. Rourke mentally shrugged. He’d waited long enough. He palmed out the A.G. Russell black chrome Sting IA with his left hand. He had not been searched.
“Guard,” he rasped in English.
The Communist Cuban guard stood on the other side of the bars. “Si?”
“That’s perfect,” Rourke smiled. His left hand whipped forward, the Sting in his palm, point first, sailing from his hand, across the six feet or so to the wide bars, the shining black knife impacting square into the center of the guard’s chest. Rourke was on his feet, diving toward the bars, his hands out, catching the guard before he fell and snatching the key ring. Rourke let the body fall to the basement floor as he reached around, fumbling for the right key. He found it and unlocked the cage, swinging the door out as far as it could with the body there, then going through.
He reached down, grabbing his knife, wiping the blade clean on the guard’s uniform, then sheathing it. As he reached down for the Communist’s AK-47, Rourke froze, a familiar voice behind him saying, “Wait, John!”
Rourke turned, slowly rising to his full height. His eyes tightly focused on Natalia, every outline of her tall, lithe body visible under the black jumpsuit she wore. And in her hands were his twin Detonics pistols, the hammers back.
“Well what is it? You going to kill me?”
“Why did you kill Vladmir?”
Rourke saw no reason to lie— to lie wasn’t his way. “He was an animal, he would have killed you.”
“My uncle told you this?”
“Yes.” He hesitated. “But it was something I could see. Did he hurt you?”
“In many ways.”
“Did I hurt you?”
“Only because you had no choice, because you have honor.”
“I’m sorry,” Rourke said softly.
The woman’s eyes shifted a moment, down to her hands, then she took a small step closer to him, rolling over the pistols in her hands, presenting them butt first. “The earthquake— it has already started on the Gulf Coast. There is little time.”
“I know,” he told her, his voice low.
“Hold me, John— just for a moment.... Please.”
The guns still in his hands, Rourke folded Natalia into his arms, feeling her dark hair against his stubbled face. “I can’t say everything will be all right, can I?”
“No,” he heard the girl whisper. “Never lie to me, John. Then I would die, I think.”
She stepped back from him, and he set the pistols down on the small table beside the cell door. It wasn’t something he’d intended to do, he thought, even as he did it.
His hands grasped her by her elbows, then he drew her toward him, looking down into her eyes. Then he kissed her lips, his mouth crushing down on hers, her body pressed tight against him. As he held her, he could hear and feel her breathing. “I love you,” she whispered.
Rourke started to open his mouth, but the woman in his arms touched her fingers to his lips. “No—“ She said nothing else.
Rourke looked at her a moment, then smiled. “All right,” he said slowly, then bent to pick up his guns. “You checked them?”
“Yes. There are five rounds in the magazine, one in the chamber. Just like you carry them.”
Rourke left the pistols cocked and locked in his fists as he started away from the cell door, Natalia beside him in a moment with the dead guard’s AK-47. “What’s the situation?” he asked her as they reached the base of the stairs.
“Miklov— he is a good man— has my pistol to Santiago’s head. I forced Santiago to begin the evacuation, and to begin the truce so our planes and yours can land. The girl, Sissy, is with Miklov. She will be safe.”
Rourke turned and looked at Natalia, stopping in mid-stride. “Back there, I..”
“I understand you better than you think,” she said, smiling a little.
“I know that,” he told her, then started up the stairs two at a time.
Rourke kicked open the door into the main part of the house, the doorway leading into the hall. Men were running in every direction, armed men, servants, none of them giving Rourke and Natalia as much as a second glance. And suddenly below his feet, Rourke could feel the floor starting to shake. He glanced toward the high ceiling extending upward above the second floor. There was a chandelier there— crystal, Rourke thought absently. And suddenly it started to shake.
Rourke turned, pushing Natalia back into the basement doorway, shielding her with his body. The floor shook hard and there was a sound like an explosion as Rourke glanced behind him and toward the high ceiling. The chandelier crashed to the floor, shattering.
There was a gunshot then, loud but muffled, followed by a woman’s scream.
Natalia looked up into Rourke’s eyes. “That was Sissy— Santiago!”
The Russian girl was already running across the central hall, jumping to clear the debris of the chandelier, Rourke running behind her. She stopped in front of the double doors leading into Santiago’s office, then lashed out with her left boot, the doors splintering apart. Rourke was beside her, shouldering through as she stepped into the doorway. They both stopped. Sissy Wiznewski was standing in the middle of the floor, her hands t
o her open mouth, her eyes wide. On the floor beside her were two men— one of them was Miklov, Rourke assumed. There was a knife sticking out, high in his chest, just below the throat. The second body belonged to Santiago. Rourke could tell from the uniform, but only that. Where the face had been there was now only a red, pulpy mass. There was a dark object in the center of the mass. Rourke had no idea what had happened to the other eye.
Chapter 43
Rourke dashed down the front steps of the house, the Detonics pistols in both hands firing into the Cuban troops in front of him. He dropped to one knee, snatching up an AK-47 from one of the dead soldiers, then bumping the selector to full auto and spraying the Soviet-built assault rifle ahead of him, hearing Natalia opening up beside him. “The half track— there!” Rourke shouted, starting down the steps.
He could hear Natalia, behind him now, screaming to the Wiznewski girl, “Sissy, get those guns and ammunition belts— hurry!”
Rourke reached the truck, snapping the butt of the AK-47 up into the jaw of a Communist Cuban soldier hanging onto the running board. Then he climbed up, into the cab, reloading the Detonics pistols and leaning the AK-47 beside him against the seat. He turned the key, the half-track truck’s engine rumbling to life. “Come on!” he shouted.
Natalia backed her way down the steps, firing the AK-47 in witheringly accurate three-round bursts as the Cubans started after her. Rourke swung open the cab door, snatching the AK-47 from beside him, half-stepping out onto the running board. He fired the assault rifle, nailing two Cuban soldiers running up for Natalia from her left flank. “Come on!”
Sissy Wiznewski, her arms laden with rifles, belts with spare magazines festooned around her shoulder, was stumbling toward the truck. Rourke jumped to the driveway, feeling the ground tremble under his feet.
He grabbed an armful of the guns and pushed the girl up into the truck cab.
As Rourke turned, shouting again to Natalia, “Now! Come on!” he looked up. The sky overhead was dark, almost green in color, and he could feel rain on his face.