“You should spend some time with her before you go, John,” Sarah announced.
“Momma’s right,” Annie whispered.
“I know your mother’s right. And I’m going to see her. Paul? Come, too?”
“Of course ” the younger man nodded.
John Rourke said nothing, but embraced his son tightly for a moment, then left the room, Paul after him .
“I’m fine. Really I am. I mean, the doctors are right. I should relax a little. Maybe focus my energies on something else. I’m really just fine,” Natalia smiled, her eyes sparkling—but perhaps she had only just been crying, Paul Rubenstein thought. He stood a bit back from the two of them, watching. They were made for each other, Natalia Tiemerovna and John Rourke. He had said it often in the pages of the journal he kept with intermittent but satisfactory regularity even since the Night of The War. He was reminded of the somewhat trite sounding expression “star-crossed lovers,” but indeed they were that.
John held her hands in his. “Are you sure you’re feeling better?”
“You know Russians — depression comes and goes
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nth us. I’m fine. I’d be a liar if I said everything was perfect and I was happy, but I’m all right, John. You take care of this thing with that crazy man Dodd accus-ng Akiro and Elaine. I only wish the doctors would elease me so I could go too. But they want me here for mother few days. I’ll be out and around and Sarah and Maria and I can see everything there is to see in the First City. You know the last time I shopped? Five hundred years ago! And I’ve got all the credit I want since these people insisted on rewarding us for stopping that train with the missiles. So see? What more could a woman ask? Unlimited funds, two friends to chatter with and a whole city to explore and buy out,” she laughed, but the laughter didn’t sound quite right to him. “I want some of :hose dresses like Annie’s been wearing. And, you know, they even sell silk underwear here! and I love silk underwear. So, I’ll be fine. Now, both of you, kiss me. None of [his peck on the cheek kissing, either, Paul,” and Natalia held out her arms to him.
Paul Rubenstein was suddenly afraid for her, and as he embraced her and softly kissed her lips he felt a cold shiver deep within.
He hugged her, stepped back, John leaning over the bed, drawing her close to him, holding her for a long time. “And don’t you dare say it, John” she smiled. And then John Rourke kissed her and Paul Rubenstein looked away . . .
Six-Pak loaded with six-round Detonics magazines. He threaded the belt the rest of the way and cinched it closed.
The A.G. Russell Sting IA black chrome. He secured the knife in its spring clip sheath near the small of his back inside the waistband of his jeans.
His gunbelt with the Metalifed and Mag-na-Ported Colt Python six-inch. He secured it just below his trou-ser belt, the sheath for the Grain knife going over it.
Rourke picked up the twelve-inch bladed knife, turning it in his hand. With this knife, Natalia had ended the life of Vladmir Karamatsov. Although weapons were only instruments, he wondered if it better belonged in a museum for veneration by those who would no longer have to live in fear of the madman. But he sheathed it, because there were other evils in the world.
Rourke took up his musette bag, slinging it cross body from right shoulder to left hip, then skinned into the battered brown leather bomber jacket. He patted the pockets. His immediate supply of cigars, his sunglasses, his gloves.
Rourke caught up the M-16 and the second bag, this filled with magazines for the assault rifle.
Like the knife and his other weapons, he knew that he would have a use for it. He gave a last glance at the empty apartment — Sarah would be waiting by the tunnel leading out of the city—and started for the doorway. . .
John Rourke, a light blue snap front cowboy shirt half out of his Levis, slung the double Alessi shoulder rig across his back, the twin stainless Detonics .45 Combat Masters chamber loaded and secured. He stuffed the shirttails the rest of the way down, beginning to thread his belt, the black leather sheath for the Grain Life Support System X going on his left side, then the Sparks
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Six-Pak loaded with six-round Detonics magazines. He threaded the belt the rest of the way and cinched it closed.
The A.G. Russell Sting IA black chrome. He secured the knife in its spring clip sheath near the small of his back inside the waistband of his jeans.
His gunbelt with the Metalifed and Mag-na-Ported Colt Pythonsix-inch. He secured it just below his trouser belt, the sheath for the Crain knife going over it.
Rourke picked up the twelve-inch bladed knife, turning it in his hand. With this knife, Natalia had ended the life of Vladmir Karamatsov. Although weapons were only instruments, he wondered ifit better belonged in a museum for veneration by those who would no longer have to live in fear of the madman. But he sheathed it, because there were other evils in the world.
Rourke took up his musette bag, slinging it cross body from right shoulder to left hip, then skinned into thebattered brown leather bomber jacket. He patted the pockets. His immediate supply of cigars, his sunglasses, his gloves.
Like the knife and his other weapons, he knew that he would have a use for it. He gave a last glance at the empty apartment — Sarah would be waiting by the tunnel leading out of the city — and started for the doreway . . .
The German helicopter’s rotor blades turned more rapidly as John Rourke took Sarah Rourke into his arms.
“I’ll take care of Natalia,” she told him.
“Take care of yourself and the baby —for me,” and he kissed her hard on the mouth, holding her close.
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Over the whoosh of the rotor blades, he could hear Paul calling, “Everything’s aboard, John!”
Rourke looked at Sarah. Her gray-green eyes. Her auburn hair. Her smile. “I really love you,” he said quietly, kissed her again— quickly —then caught up his rifle and the Lowe pack and broke into a run for the chopper, keeping his head low as he crossed beneath the whirring blades.
He tossed the Lowe pack through the doorway, then handed up his M-16, Annie taking it.
As he stepped aboard, he looked back. Her left hand clutched gently at her abdomen and the life there, and her right hand waved toward him.
John Rourke blew her a kiss, then slid the door home. “All secure, pilot!”
Rourke eased back into one of the bench seats. There would be time enough to go forward and assume his duties as co-pilot.
For now, as the helicopter—Germans called them machines which screwed themselves into the air — lifted off, snow swirling cyclonically in its wake, he held his daughter’s hand and watched the rapidly vanishing figure of his wife.
Sarah still waved.
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CHAPTER TEN
Vassily Mikhailovitch Prokopiev, Major, Commanding, Elite Corps, Committee For State Security of The Soviet, stepped to the open hatchway, the wind tearing at him, the jump light flashing to green. Prokopiev tapped the senior sergeant on the shoulder, the senior sergeant signalling the first man to jump. No static lines, high altitude, low-opening. The light flickered amber, then green again, the next man jumping at the senior sergeant’s signal, the flicker of the light again, then the green, the next man out, man after man, full battle gear in place. Prokopiev took his eye off the doorway and looked across the fuselage through the transparent panel in the starboard side door, the other two high altitude capable silenced gunships disgorging their jumpers, the cargo chutes (these would open electronically when altimeter readings were proper).
Prokopiev looked back to the jumpers on his own craft. One more, then the senior sergeant, then himself, the two lieutenants under him assigned one each to the jumpers with the other two gunships. He tugged at his equipment for the last time, all secure.
The senior sergeant, Piotr Yaroslav, glanced at him once, then jumped, Prokopiev stepping into the doorway, watching below as Yaroslav’s image vanished into the darkness. Yaroslav — it was likely one of those names assumed during the violent days immediately before the
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1917 Revolution, then merely passed on.
Green light.
Prokopiev jumped, somewhere to the north in the darkness surrounding him, the Second Chinese City waiting . . .
“Herr Doctor?”
John Rourke took his eyes from the control panel he had been studying, Adolph Lintz., the young German lieutenant whose ship the J7-V was, returning to the
cockpit.
“I am able to relieve you now, Herr Doctor. Thank you. It is a long flight.” Lintz was tall, thin in the extreme, his face beneath the close cropped blond hair cheerful, however bony.