husband’s arms by now … or perhaps not.
He felt himself smiling. The trek across the snow, the stalling vehicles,
the ice, the freezing temperatures . . . They were somewhere in South
Carolina; he didn’t remember the name of the town that would be ahead.
He lit another cigarette. He watched the flame of his lighter dancing
against the blue whiteness of the ground. “Sarah,” he murmured again. The
sort of woman he had always wanted to meet—and never would again /. .
He shook his head, smiled, and turned, starting toward the farmhouse.
“Krasny! How goes the detail?”
Natalia studied the map—another half-day if the weather were to ease and
they would be in central ,Indiana. She could convince Paul to leave her
there. She looked more intently at the map; she had heard the sound again,
beyond the ground-cloth windbreak.
Reaching up to the bootlaces that secured the sleeping bag about her like
a coat, she undid them. Finding the flap of the right holster on her belt,
she opened it slowly to reduce the noise of the snap in the stillness that
was only punctuated by the howling of the wind.
The wood grips felt cold against her bare hand. She glanced at Rubenstein,
sleeping, debating whether to awaken him. But if the sound were nothing it
would only further convince him he had to take her all the way into
northern Indiana. She wanted him back with John Rourke, helping Rourke in
the search for his wife and children, helping to keep Rourke alive—for
herself?
She shook her head; then extracted the revolver from the holster. It and
the one like it on her left hip were curious guns. On the right faces of
their slab-sided barrels were engraved American Eagles. The guns were
originally four-inch stainless steel Smith & Wesson Model s, the .
Magnum L-frame. On the left flats of the barrels were duplicate
inscriptions: METALIFE
Industries, Reno, Pa—by Ron Mahovsky. The
actions were the smoothest she had ever felt on a gun; the revolvers were
round butted, polished, tuned, perfect. Rourke, when they had been given
to her, told her he had known the maker of the guns well before the Night
of the War. They would be the best guns she would ever own.
The American Eagles. Mahovsky had made them for President Sam Chambers
before the war, and Chambers, for her part in the evacuation of Florida,
had insisted she take them. She smiled at the memory, recalling his words.
fT can’t very well give a Russian spy an American medal, can I? And
anyway, we’re fresh out of medals. Take these and use ’em to stay alive
with, miss.”
She had taken them, and the holsters Chambers had had for them; Rourke had
found her a belt that better matched her waist size.
She heard the noise again; it snapped her out of her thoughts. She
extracted the second revolver now, gloves off, edging up to her feet. She
prodded Rubenstein with her left foot; the man rolled over, looking up at
her. She raised a finger to her lips, then pointed to her ear.
Rubenstein blinked his eyes, then nodded, suppressing a yawn. He edged
back from the fire, the battered Browning High Power he carried coming
into his right hand, the hammer slowly cocking back. In the stillness
against the wind, it sounded loud—too loud.
She gestured to Paul with one of the guns—that she would cross around
behind the bridge support and look. He nodded; he was sensible, she
thought. He wore no boots, but she did, and there wasn’t time for an
alternate
plan. The sleeping bag fell from her shoulders and she held the pistol in
her left hand against her abdomen, flat, to keep her coat closed more
tightly about her.
She shook her head; the wind caught her hair as she stepped out of (he
crude lean-to into the night. Brigands were her worry—Russian soldiers she
could take care of. She had her identification, spoke Russian, could prove
who she was and lie about who Paul was.
But Brigands . . . that had been the risk they had run lighting a fire;
but otherwise, Paul’s feet might have been gone. Frostbite, left
untreated, could so quickly turn gangrenous. She didn’t want that for
Paul—death or being crippled. A friend was too hard a thing to find.
Whatever happened, the fire had been worth it, necessary.
She froze, her back flattening against the concrete bridge support as she
heard the sound again, this lime more clearly—a voice, whispering, meaning
there was a second person—at least—in the darkness of the storm.
She stayed against the bridge support, cold, both pistols in her_hands,
waiting.
They were shiny for night work, but she liked them, the polished stainless
steel, the permanence of it— “Permanence,” she whispered to herself. What
was permanent these days? She had just said good-by to a man whom she had
told she loved, a man she would never see again, never forget. And soon,
it would be good-by to Paul as well, her friend.
She tried to remember who her friends had been.
Tatiana from her ballet class—they had traded secrets. Tatiana had been
Jewish, like Paul; and Tatiana’s father had done something—Natalia had
never known what— and Tatiana had never returned to ballet class again.
Natalia tried to remember her own parents, but it was impossible. She was
only able to remember what her uncle who had raised her nad told her about
them. Her father had been a doctor, as John was a doctor. Her mother had
been a ballerina—they had died. Her Uncle Ishmael had never really fully
explained how.
She wondered, silently, whether, when she died, those who cared would know
at all.
She didn’t think so.
She beard noise again; this time, not the noise of speech, but the bolt of
a weapon—assault rifle or submachine gun, she couldn’t tell which—being
opened.
Perhaps it was Paul with the gun he insisted on calling a Schmeisser, his
MP-.
But the sound had been from the wrong direction.
She bunched her fists around the finger-grooved Goncalo Alves wood grips
of the matched Smith & Wessons, then stepped away from the bridge support.
She walked, slowly but evenly, toward the edge of the support. She looked
around it—she could see the glow of the fire from beyond the far side of
the ground-cloth windbreak.
And she could see four men—men or women she wasn’t really sure. She had
shot both in her lifetime.
They were closing in on the windbreak, in a narrowing circle, assault
rifles in their hands. She imagined there were others, behind her, coming
up on Paul from the rear. He would have to look out for them—his instincts
were good. She would be otherwise engaged.
She stepped away from the bridge support, the glow of the fire glinting
off the polished stainless-steel revolvers in her fists.
“What do you want?” $he shouted.
One of the nearer assault rifle-armed figures turned toward her.
“Ever’thin’ you got, li’l gal.” He laughed.
“You shouldn’t laugh,” she said calmly. The man wheeled the muzzle of his
rifle toward her, and both pistols bucked at once in her hands. The man’s
body hammered backward into the snow. The assault rifle discharged, its
muzzle flashes lighting up the night, as the second nearer man started to
turn, to fire. She caught the sight of hair; it wasn’t a man, but a woman.
Natalia fired the pistol in her left hand, then the one in her right. The
body of the woman twisted and contorted as it fell, her assault rifle
impacting into the snow beside her.
Gunfire was coming from the other two and Natalia dove for cover behind a
pile of discarded sewer pipes to her left. Bullets whined in the frigid
air as they ricocheted off the concrete. Natalia’s right hand flashed up,
snapping off one shot, then another.
Dumping the empties and the two unfired rounds from the right-hand
revolver into her right palm as she stroked the ejector rod, she huddled
behind the pipes; the gunfire coming more steadily now. In a pocket of
her coat she had a half-dozen Safariland Speed Loaders. She snatched them,
ramming the bullets into the charging holes, the center of the loader
actuating against the ejector star, the cases freed and spilling into the
charging holes. She slammed the cylinder shut, fired the gun in her left
hand—four shots, a scream.
There was more gunfire.
Then from her far right, she heard the small-caliber, high-pitched
belching of the Schmeisser. “Paul,” she said.
She speed-loaded the revolver for her left hand, then holstered it, the
gun in her right hand firing as she
pushed herself up, running from the concrete sewer pipes toward the bridge
support, firing at the nearer of the two assault rifle-armed figures. The
body went down, its gun still firing. “Wounded,” she murmured. Whoever
Paul had been shooting at was on the far side of the bridge support. And