by Ahern, Jerry
As he leaned back in his chair, the telephone cradled beside his left ear, against his shoulder, Nehemiah Rozhdestvenskiy studied his face in the reflection of the mirror opposite his desk. He studied the toes of his shoes; they sparkled.
"Yes," he answered into the receiver. "Yes, Comrade. ... I cannot hear you. . . . The connection is ... yes—now. Work goes ahead on the Womb construction. ... I have already begun martialing forces to restart the factories needed. . . . No, Comrade, I have not made copies of the Eden Project documents. Should they fall into the wrong hands . . ." He coughed, covering up, he hoped, the fact that he had been about to interrupt Anatol Tporich, the supreme head of the KGB. "No, Comrade. A courier even now brings to your offices a copy of the abstract and my initial report of the findings. There can be no mistake. The factories will work four six-hour shifts to keep the laborers and technicians fresh.
They will be housed in the factories and not allowed outside contact... .
. And—" He coughed again, to cover another interruption. "Yes, Comrade—only KGB personnel . . . No, Comrade—not Major Tiemerovna. I
agree that-her loyalties may lie—** Tporich was lecturing him about security and Rozhdestvenskiy disliked anyone lecturing him on a subject at which he himself was so expert. "I will be constantly vigilant, Comrade.
... am losing your voice, Comrade!" There was much static. High-attitude bombers were being used as communications relays for overseas radio transmissions with all satellites down or out of service since the Night of the War. "There ... I hear you. Yes, Comrade." Rozhdestvenskiy lit a cigarette, studying his gleaming teeth in the mirror for a moment as he did. "Yes. ... I realize, Comrade, how little time remains. The Womb will be ready. . . . This I swear as a loyal member of the party."
The line clicked off, dead.
Rozhdestvenskiy studied the abstract of the Eden Project again. It was clear, concise, but incomplete. He needed more information. But he had not told Tporich that. He would find out what he needed to know in time. He had to, in order to live.
And to live—he had always felt—was all. After life, there was nothing.
Rubenstein felt better. He was making better time. The weather was almost warm again as he moved through Kentucky, nearing the Tennessee line, the Harley eating the miles since he had made the stop near the strategic fuel reserve of which Rourke had told him.
There was slush, heavy slush at the higher elevations. And in case the temperature dropped with evening, he wanted to get as far south as possible. If he pressed, he could get near the Georgia line and be well toward Savannah by nightfall. By now, Rourke should be crisscrossing the upper portion of the state and into the Carolinas, looking for Sarah and the children. Perhaps—Rubenstein fell himself smile at the thought—perhaps Rourke had already found them. Should he, Rubenstein, start for the Retreat?
He should follow the plan, he decided. If Rourke had designed it, it was—Rubenstein looked up; a helicopter, American but with a Soviet star stenciled over it, was passing low along the highway, coming up fast behind him.
"Holy shit!" Rubenstein bent low over the machine, running out the Harley to full throttle. He had almost
forgotten about the Russians; and what .were they doing? "Joy riding," he snapped, releasing the handlebar a moment to push his wire-rimmed glasses back off his nose. "Damn it!"
The helicopter was directly above him, hovering. Rubenstein started to reach for his pistol to fire, but the machine pulled away, vanishing up ahead of him.
Rubenstein braked the Harley, glancmg to his right; there was a dirt road, little more than a track. He wondered if he could take it. Should he? The helicopter was coming back, toward him, and Rubenstein had no choice. He wrenched the bike into a hard right, sliding across the slushy highway toward the dirt road beyond, jumping the bike over a broad flat low rock.
As his hands worked the controls, the bike came down hard under him, and throttled up to take the incline with some speed as he started up the dirt track.
There was a loudspeaker sounding Behind him. "Paul Rubenstein. You are ordered to stop your machine. You are ordered to stop and lay down your arms. You will not be harmed."
Rubenstein glanced skyward, at the helicopter almost directly over him.
He bounced the bright blue Harley up over a ridge of dirt and onto a board bridge. There was a second helicopter now, joining the pursuit.
The loudspeaker again. "You will injure yourself if you pursue this course of action. We mean you no harm." The voice was heavily accented. "You are ordered to surrender!"
"Eat it!" Rubenstein shouted up to the helicopter, the downdraft of the rotor blades making his voice come back to him. Ahead of him he could see the second helicopter,
hovering low, too low over the road where it widened. He could see uniformed troopers in the massive open doors of the formerly U.S. machine.
He heard the Russian voice again on the loudspeaker. "Paul Rubenstein.
This is by order of General Varakov; you are to stop immediately and lay down your arms."
Rubenstein spotted what Rourke had told him once was a deer trail; it looked the same. He wrenched the bike into a hard left, onto the deer trail, the branches cracking against his face and body as he forced the machine through. The path was bumpier than the dirt road he had just left.
"Paul Rubenstein . . . you are ordered to—"
He looked up, cursing under his breath, then looked ahead of him. A deadfall tree lay across the path. He started to brake, and the Harley skidded from under him. Rubenstein threw himself clear, hitting the ground hard.
He pushed himself to his feet, the Harley lost somewhere in the trees. He started to run, snatching at the battered High Power under his jacket. He stopped at the tree line, snapping off two fast shots toward the nearest helicopter; the machine backed off. He had lost sight of the other one after heading onto the deer path.
Machine-gun fire was coming at him, hammering into the ground and the trees ten yards behind him as he ran, swatting away the tree branches that snapped at his face. Pine boughs still laden with snow pelted him, washing wet snow across his face. The machine-gun fire was edging closer and he dropped to his knees, wheeling, firing the High Power in rapid, two-shot semiautomatic bursts.
The helicopter backed off.
"Son of a gun." He smiled, pushing himself to his feet,
turning to run again.
Three Russian soldiers blocked the path. The other helicopter, he realized, had landed its men.
Rubenstein started to bring the pistol on line to fire, but something hammered at the back of his neck and he fell forward, the gun dropping from his grip.
Hands reached down to him; voices spoke to him in Russian. Rubenstein rolled onto his back, his left foot snapping up and out, into the crotch of one of the Russians; the man doubled over.
Rubenstein reached up, snatching hold of a fistful of uniform, hauling himself up to his knees as he dragged the soldier down, his left fist smashing upward, into the face. Then he was on his feet, running. Someone tackled him; he went down, the ground slapping hard against him.
Another man was on top of him, holding him. Rubenstein snapped his left elbow back, found something hard against it, and heard a moan and what sounded like a curse despite the language barrier.
He pushed himself up, wheeling, his left swinging out, catching the tip of a chin. A man. fell back under his blow.
Rubenstein wheeled again. He saw the two bunched-together fists swinging toward him like a baseball bat, felt the pain against the side of his neck, then there was nothing but darkness and a warm feeling.
John Rourke squinted against the light, his belly aching, a sudden stabbing pain in his left upper arm. The pain was familiar—the arm aching like a bad tooth. He moved that arm, but it wouldn't move well. And when he opened his eyes, his vision was blurred. His other limbs didn't work when he told them to. He fell, feelin
g something tight around bis neck, choking him, feeling bands on his shoulders, moving him.
A voice. "John . . . John. I told you the last time, don't try to stand up. You can't walk; don't you know that by now? Thanksgiving's almost past. I'm sorry I couldn't give you any turkey; you've been throwing up everything I give you. But tomorrow's Christmas and then it'll all be over."
Rourke shook his head, murmuring, "I like turkey— Thanksgi— Christmas?"
"I'll help you onto the cot." Above him a woman's face smiled.
"Strong," he muttered, feeling her hands under his armpits. He wanted to help her, very badly because the floor was cold under him. Naked? His hands—he squinted to look at them. Tied together. So were his
ankles. The thing around his neck choked him again.
"Vm sorry, John. That rope around your neck—it got caught on the edge of the cot. I'll fix it." The pressure around his neck subsided.
"Thanks—Martha," he murmured. Martha? Martha Bogen? "Coffee," he shouted, his own voice sounding odd to him, his tongue feeling dry and thick and hot.
"Yes. You asked the same question the last two times I gave you an injection. I drugged the coffee with chloral hydrates—I just had to give you so much of it it made you sick. And I gave myself an apomo.rphine shot after I drank the first cup. I just threw it up. So it didn't bother me. I just made myself throw up. You are very forgetful, John." The voice cooed, good-naturedly.
"Sor—" Why was he sorry? he wondered. Because he was forgetful? He couldn't remember why he was sorry.
There was another needle plunged into his arm, and the pain was there again.
Why was she giving him two shots? He tried to think— if he could think.
The nausea—from the chloral hydrate she had said. But not the shots. "Not the shots," he verbalized.
"It'll be all right, John. I'll give you the antidote and when I do in thirty seconds you'll be just fine—honestly. And then we can hold each other's hands maybe and watch when the fireworks start and the mountains start to crash down on us. We'll die together. Neither one of us will ever be alone again, John." He saw her face; it looked distorted to him, like something seen through a tube with the lighting wrong. She was smiling.
"I still have all my husband's drugs, John, so I can bring you out of this very easily when it's time. Just a day
or so, really. You'll just feel like you're very drunk and it won't bother you. It hasn't. And then when I give you the antidote you'll be your old self again."
She kissed him on the cheek; he could feel it. He tried moving his arms, but they wouldn't move.
"Now, John," she said with what sounded like a mother's severity to him.
"Even if you should get yourself untied, it won't do you any good. With what I've given you, you can't walk and you can't really think too well.
You're locked in the library basement and I've taken your clothes and those guns of yours. I'll be back in a few hours with another set of shots. Maybe we can get some good soup or something into you after it all wears off. But I think if I fed you now, well, you'd just get all sick again."
He felt her kiss his cheek again, and then she disappeared from his line of sight.
He heard a door open, shut, and the sound of a key in a lock.
There was nothing else to do, he thought, so he started to move his shoulders and his hips. He kept moving them, throwing his weight to his right; then he rolled.
The basement floor slapped hard against his body and the side of his face.
The pain—it cleared his head. He rolled with much effort, twisting his body and throwing his weight, onto his back. He tried to move his legs; they wouldn't move. He squinted against the light, looking at the ropes on his hands. Ordinary rope—clothesline, he thought. He tried tugging against the rope; his arms didn't respond.
"Muscle relaxant—curare deriv—" He felt the nausea welling up inside him and leaned back his head, staring at
the ceiling. He looked behind him, awkwardly. An end of the clothesline snaked across the floor and was tied to a support post for the basement ceiling. When he moved his head, the rope moved a little; it was the rope that had him tethered by the neck.
Muscle relaxant, he thought. If she didn't know how to administer it, he would stop breathing, just die. She was only giving him enough so that it would wear off every few hours.
The swimming feeling in his head—the nausea, the cold . . . The muscle relaxant wouldn't make him, like she had said, "drunk." He closed his eyes a minute against the feelings. . . .
"Mor—" he shouted, the needle jabbing into his arm again. "Morphine!"
"You've had morphine before, then, John, and you recognize the effects.
Well, then you know it would take an awful lot to addict you, wouldn't it?
And anyway, well—all our problems will be over."
Hours had passed, he realized. What time was it? Was it Christmas? He felt the second needle going in. "I have to go now, John. Please try to stay on the bed this time."
He felt her kiss him again, and then heard the click of her heels on the concrete floor. "Insane!" he shouted, but he realized then that he'd already heard the door opening and closing, the lock being turned.
"Mor—morphine," he said with a thick tongue. Thirty seconds, he thought—something about thirty seconds. He would be himself again in thirty seconds. The muscle relaxant had to wear off well before she gave him the morphine. The muscle relaxant would be something . . . "Morphine,"
he said again. "Narcan."
Rourke realized suddenly that if she kept it up, she'd kill him. He could barely breathe—which meant there was a build-up and she was giving the shots too closely spaced.
"Die," he rasped. Morphine—he couid fight that, with his body. But the relaxant ... He vomited over the side of th< Ј bed and his eyes closed.
Natalia watched as he closed the door. She had been formally reintroduced to Rozhdestvenskiy that afternoon, and now things were less than formal.
But she did &#;wear black, a tight-fitting jump suit, a black scarf tied across her face like a bandanna, a second scarf binding and covering her hair, black tight-fitting leather gloves on her hands. She usually used less tight-fitting, fingerless cloth gloves for work like that she was about to perform, but the fingerless gloves would have allowed her to leave behind fingerprints. That she could not do. Were she discovered raiding the office of the head of the American branch of KGB, she would be tried and executed—and so would her uncle. Likely, her uncle's secretary, Catherine, too, and perhaps, others of her uncle's staff.
Rozhdestvenskiy walked directly under her, and she watched his face through the slats in the air-conditioning vent. She glanced at the Rolex on her left wrist, watching the minutes pass as she waited to make certain he was indeed gone.
She had crawled in through the air-conditioning system on the far end of the floor—through her uncle's
office. She had traveled through the dusty duct for what seemed like miles. Using a needle-thin powerfully magnetized angled screwdriver, she had released the screws holding the vent in place, then waited. No one had come in or out; security was at the far end of the corridor. She knew that routine too well, and decided Rozhdestvenskiy hadn't had the time to change things substantially. It was her dead husband's old office.
She released the little hook that held up the vent, slipping the vent aside and drawing it up into the duct with her. It banged once, slightly, against the duct and she froze as she heard boot heels clicking down the corridor under her. A guard passed, not looking up. She held her breath, waiting.
He walked back, directly under her again, and stopped. She waited, coiled, ready to jump for him. If she were spotted coming out of the vent, if she were spotted at all ... She waited, and as the guard moved past her, she breathed again.
She continued to move the grill, then set it aside in the duct. She listened, hard, hol
ding her breath. It would have been better to wait for nightfall, to wait for a later hour when the guards would be drowsy from lack of sleep.
She perched on the edge of the duct, then tucked her shoulders tight, Jetting her feet down and raising her arms as she dropped.
She hit the floor eight feet below, rolled forward into the fall, and came to light on her hands and knees. She pushed herself up, then went flat against the wall. No sound of a guard coming. She had made no sound when she'd left the duct.
She turned, glancing toward Rozhdestvenskiy's office.
then glanced back up the hall. The guards were still where they should be, by the mouth of the corridor.
She started toward Rozhdestvenskiy's door.
She took (he key from inside her glove, tried it, and the knob turned under her hand; the door opened. She dropped the backpack from her shoulders, and reached inside one of the outside pouches. She took a small leather pack, about twice as high as a package of cigarettes and half as thick. She opened it and pulled a pick from it. Taking the pick and scratching it against the lock surface, then breaking it against the lock surface, she left the small broken end piece on the floor, then reclosed the pack. She deposited thestemof the pick and the lock-pick set pack in her backpack, then closed the outer compartment and stepped inside the office.
Natalia closed the door behind her, quickly. To the best of her uncle's knowledge and to the best of her intelligence she had not aroused suspicion; no ultrasonic or photoelectric alarm systems had been installed. There would be the pressure-sensitive plates inside his office, but there should be nothing in the outer office. She stepped across the room, in darkness, taking the side chair, which sat next to the secretarial desk, and carrying it back toward the door into the corridor.
She opened the door halfway, listening at first; there was no sound. She opened it fully. A quick glance revealed no one in the corridor except the guards at the far end. They were not turning around. Moving rapidly, the chair in both hands, she started into the hallway, positioning the chair under the open duct vent. Pulling a third black scarf, like the two covering her face and hair, from her side pocket, she unfolded it into a square to cover the seat; then stood on it atop the chair seat. The magnetic screwdriver was in