Rourke looked up, relighting his cigar—Natalia was weeping, Sarah’s left arm around her shoulders. Rourke took a good swallow of his drink.
“—to save them. Doctor Morovitch had owned a gun—I had given it to him. He resisted the KGB as I too would have done. To defend his family. Carl Morovitch was dead, shot three times in the chest, then his throat slit. Natalia was bleeding and dying—one of the KGB officers was attempting to rape her. I shot him in the head—and then general shooting began. Leon’s father was killed defending the small room Morovitch and Natalia had used as a nursery for the baby girl. I was shot in the leg—the left leg, and I still carry the bullet there. I could not trust a doctor to remove it at the time, and afterwards it became physically impossible to remove. But all the KGB were dead. The infant girl still lived. There was a woman—also once a dancer—whose services I used from time to time and whose discretion I trusted. I brought the infant to her. Through those few persons I trusted, with meticulous care, I altered my army records to indicate a brother who had lived with relatives ever since birth. This because of my family’s poverty. I was a general by then, and the task was not as difficult as might be imagined. I found in recent death records a doctor who had no known family, a doctor named Plenko. It was not uncommon in the Twenties and Thirties to change one’s name in Russia—it was sometimes necessity. To disguise criminal background or unfavorable political association. I made this man my brother. I invented of whole cloth a woman who was secretly his wife, but the name uncertain, and I invented her death. This too was simple enough. With parents for the infant girl, and myself established as her uncle, I acquired the house I still own on the Black Sea, esconcing the trusted woman there as my housekeeper—and to raise Natalia during my absence. For that is what I named her—Natalia, after her beloved, exquisite mother. The eyes gave me no choice, nor did my heart. And then Anastasia, because to me she was the lost princess—presumed dead. But my Anastasia was alive. Tiemerovna after her father’s family. Two years later, the woman who was caring for Natalia married a doctor, his name Tiemerovitch, perhaps some distant relative of Morovitch’s family. The woman and Tiemerovitch loved Natalia as their own. I once again altered my background records, eliminating the references to Dr. Plenko and instead linking Dr. Tiermerovitch to myself as a lost brother. Tiemerovitch’s medical career was greatly enhanced by the newly “discovered” relationship to a prominent Soviet general. I lied to Natalia only in that her “father” was my brother. After her father and mother—Tiemerovitch and his wife—died in an accident when Natalia was eighteen, again I took her in and saw to it that she had the best education, the best training. When she saw her patriotic duty as being linked to the KGB, I did not dare to interfere lest something somehow be suspected—and in times such as these, perhaps the greatest safety lies in being counted among those who threaten the safety of others. When she married Karamatsov, I was disheartened, but saw it as further enhancing her safety. Natalia— “my niece”—is all that I have, my obsession is that she live. Her mother died at the same age Natalia is now. I do not wish this for Natalia, whom I love.
“There is a choice for you. To save yourself, your friend, perhaps your wife and children, and since we both love her so deeply—”
Rourke licked his lips, looking at his wife, then looking at Natalia. He finished the letter, repeating the last few words—
“… and since we both love her so deeply, my niece. You must come to me in Chicago before it is too late—and bring Natalia with you, for there is no other way of it than to force her into danger again. I offer you the chance at life against certain death. Look to the skies, the electrical activity there each dawn—the End is Coming.”
A scrawled signature was at the bottom of the note—the note itself was printed by hand.
Rourke folded the pages of the note together, setting down his cigar.
Natalia, her voice like he had never heard it, stood up, her fingers splayed along her thighs. “I will change to suitable clothes—my uncle— “
Rourke smiled at her, stood, walked around the table and folded her into his arms. “He loves you—and God help me, so do I—”
“I—”
“We’ll leave as soon as you’ve changed.” Still holding Natalia, he looked at Sarah’s eyes. After all the years of marriage, the years of arguing, there was no argument there—but the understanding he had sought for so long.
He still held Natalia Anastasia Tiemerovna.
Chapter Twenty-nine
His weapons were laid out, his gear ready. They would ride double on his Low Rider to the place where they had left the prototype F-111, using that to get them to Chicago—it was the fastest way. Sarah stood behind him—he could feel her hands on his shoulders. He bent over to kiss Annie— “I love you, honey—honest,” he whispered to her. She rolled over, not awakening, but a smile crossing her lips.
They left Natalia’s room, Annie sleeping there, and moved on to Paul’s room—Michael.
Rourke sat again on the edge of the bed. He looked at his son. He spoke to his wife. “If I die, Paul will care for you and the children. And pretty soon Michael will help him. Maybe he’s too much like me—”
“He is,” Sarah’s voice murmured in the darkness.
“I tried,” Rourke whispered, sighing loudly. “Honest to God, I tried. To be a father, a husband. If General Varakov is right—hell—” and he bent his head over his son, crying.
Sarah held his head—and in the darkness, she whispered, “I’ll always love you—I hate your guts, but I’ll always love you. I’ll be with you if we all live or if we all die.”
He swallowed hard, hugging his wife to him—and he let himself cry because he might never come home again….
His sinuses ached as he strapped on the old holster rig for the Python. The belt was heavier, a spare magazine pouch with two extra-length eight-shot magazines for his .45s, the magazines made by Detonics. On the belt as well was a black-sheathed, black-handled Gerber MkII fighting knife with double-edged stainless blade with sawteeth near the double-quillon guard on each side. He had the little Metalifed Colt Lawman in a special holster made by Thad Rybka for him years before The Night of The War—it carried the gun in the small of his back at a sharp angle.
He picked up the Government Model .45—a Mk IV Series ‘70, not the newer series ‘80 gun that had come out before The Night of The War. It, like the other two Colts he carried, was Metalifed. Chamber empty, the magazine loaded with 185-grain JHPs, he rammed the Colt into his trouser band.
The twin stainless Detonics .45s were already on him in the shoulder rig from Alessi, and the little Russell black Chrome Sting IA was in his belt.
The CAR-15 lay on the kitchen countertop. Beside it an M-16, one he had taken the time to hand-pick from the stores of weapons brought from the plane. Between the two assault rifles was an olive-drab ammo box, eight hundred rounds of 5.56mm Ball.
Beside him, as Rourke lit a cigar, was Paul Rubenstein, the younger man leaning against the counter. Rourke glanced at his friend—tired, worn from loss of blood. Rourke had inspected the wound—there had been little progress, almost none—but it was healing, and with the reduced level of activity would heal completely, he felt.
“I still say—”
Rourke looked at Rubenstein again. “No. With that wound—well, you know. But even if you didn’t have the wound, I’d leave you here. Who the hell is gonna take care of Sarah and Michael and Annie for me? There’s no one else I’d trust if there were somebody else around.”
“So it’s you and Natalia against whatever the hell her uncle’s throwing you at?”
Rourke chewed down on his cigar. “Yeah—I guess that’s the way of it.”
“If you—”
“Don’t come back—I can’t tell you what to do. You’re the best friend I ever had—in some ways, I guess, maybe the only one. You do what you think is best and it’ll be the best—it sounds stupid to say it, but I have faith in you—I really do,” and Rourke looked at his friend and smiled. . . .
It had taken Natalia long to change, he realized. She appeared from the bathroom wearing what John Rourke had come, subconsciously, to consider her battle gear—a tight-fitting black jumpsuit, nearly knee-high medium-heeled boots, the double-flap holster rig on her belt with the L-