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<£ bed and his eyes closed.Natalia watched as he closed the door. She had been formally reintroducedto Rozhdestvenskiy that afternoon, and now things were less than formal.But she did &#;wear black, a tight-fitting jump suit, a black scarf tiedacross her face like a bandanna, a second scarf binding and covering herhair, black tight-fitting leather gloves on her hands. She usually usedless tight-fitting, finger-less cloth gloves for work like that she wasabout to perform, but the fingerless gloves would have allowed her toleave behind fingerprints. That she could not do. Were she discoveredraiding the office of the head of the American branch of KGB, she would betried 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 facethrough the slats in the air-conditioning vent. She glanced at the Rolexon her left wrist, watching the minutes pass as she waited to make certainhe was indeed gone.She had crawled in through the air-conditioning system on the far end ofthe floor—through her uncle'soffice. She had traveled through the dusty duct for what seemed likemiles. Using a needle-thin powerfully magnetized angled screwdriver, shehad released the screws holding the vent in place, then waited. No one hadcome in or out; security was at the far end of the corridor. She knew thatroutine too well, and decided Rozhdestvenskiy hadn't had the time tochange things substantially. It was her dead husband's old office.She released the little hook that held up the vent, slipping the ventaside 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 thecorridor 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 shewere spotted at all ... She waited, and as the guard moved past her, shebreathed again.She continued to move the grill, then set it aside in the duct. Shelistened, hard, holding her breath. It would have been better to wait fornightfall, to wait for a later hour when the guards would be drowsy fromlack 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 cameto light on her hands and knees. She pushed herself up, then went flatagainst the wall. No sound of a guard coming. She had made no sound whenshe'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 turnedunder her hand; the door opened. She dropped the backpack from hershoulders, and reached inside one of the outside pouches. She took a smallleather pack, about twice as high as a package of cigarettes and half asthick. She opened it and pulled a pick from it. Taking the pick andscratching it against the lock surface, then breaking it against the locksurface, she left the small broken end piece on the floor, then reclosedthe pack. She deposited thestemof the pick and the lock-pick set pack inher backpack, then closed the outer compartment and stepped inside theoffice.Natalia closed the door behind her, quickly. To the best of her uncle'sknowledge and to the best of her intelligence she had not arousedsuspicion; no ultrasonic or photoelectric alarm systems had beeninstalled. There would be the pressure-sensitive plates inside his office,but there should be nothing in the outer office. She stepped across theroom, in darkness, taking the side chair, which sat next to thesecretarial desk, and carrying it back toward the door into the corridor.