“You want to make a strike, sir?” Reed stuffed tobacco into his pipe and looked at Darlington.
“What do you think captain—your boys on the ground, some of my people in the air in some more of those Harriers—could we do it? Get in and get Chambers out, maybe free our boys—hurt the Russians a little and let ’em know we’re still alive and kicking? Soames’ men could back you up—he’s got the numbers on his side there.”
“We could land about seventy-five miles from there, then push in.”
“Closer than that—I can get you within twenty miles of the base. You want to try it—they’re your men. Reed?”
Reed looked at the air force colonel and nodded, striking a match to his pipe. Soames was still muttering about the “gawd-damned commies.”
Chapter Forty-One
Rourke heard a knock on the door of the small two-bunk room he was locked in, then the door opened and Natalie was standing there. She was wearing a long-sleeved white blouse, a black pleated skirt and low-heeled shoes, her hair styled, make-up—it was hard for Rourke to remember the way she had looked back on the plateau—the mud stained jeans, the wet hair plastered to her face. And she hadn’t looked vastly different, just drier, in Karamatsov’s office— Rourke checked his watch—three hours earlier. “May I come in, John?” she asked.
“You run the place, I don’t—come ahead, “Rourke told her, standing up as she entered the room.
“I thought I’d let you know—they got Paul out of surgery and they’re holding him in what you’d call intensive care—but he’s fine. No major damage to the intestines or whatever—I don’t know a lot about anatomy. They’ve got a tube in his stomach for drainage, but he’s going to be all right.”
“That’s good,” Rourke said, then, “Thanks— look, I know you tried. I’m not angry at you, really— you did what you could.”
She didn’t say anything for a moment, then, “I saw Chambers—he’s well. They haven’t sedated him or anything. There’s a plane coming from Chicago to pick you up—they’ll want to take Chambers, too. General Varakov wants to see you both. Actually, you’re lucky—Varakov is a good man. He’ll be easier than Vladmir would have been.”
“Yeah, real lucky,” Rourke said, not trying to disguise the bitterness in his voice.
“I brought you a cigar,” she said, her face brightening. She handed it to him, then reached into the right-hand pocket of her skirt and pulled out her cigarettes and a lighter. She lit the cigar for Rourke, then her own cigarette. She sat down beside him on the bed. “John?”
“What?”
“You aren’t in the CIA anymore, are you?”
“I told you I wasn’t—all I’m interested in for now is finding my wife and children.”
“Tell me about them, John—all of them.”
“Why?”
“Just tell me about them, please,” she said, her voice a whisper. Rourke stared at her, watched the deep blue eyes, the exquisite profile.
He dragged on the cigar, saying, “Well, my son Michael is six—smart, independent little guy, but what do you say—he’s a neat little man. There’s Annie—my daughter, she’s just four—kind of funny, cracks you up sometimes, pretty like her mother. And sometimes she drives you crazy.”
“What’s your wife like?” Natalie asked.
“Sarah—dark hair, brown though, not like yours. Gray-green eyes, about five-seven. She’s smarter than I am. She’s more—what would I say—she’s more of a diversified person, wider interests—she’s—”
“Do you love her that much?”
“We talked about that already, didn’t we?”
“Give me an honest answer to one question,” the girl said.
“All right, if I can,” Rourke told her, watching the tip of his cigar, not wanting to look at Natalie.
“If you’d never met Sarah, didn’t have Michael and Ann—would you have—ahh—never mind, John,” and she started to stand up.
Rourke put his left hand on her forearm, his hand moving down to her hand. “Maybe I’m crazy,” he said, forcing a smile.
“No,” she said quietly. She looked at the door, then hitched up the skirt over her right leg and Rourke saw the COP pistol, the little stainless steel .357 Magnum, strapped to her right thigh with a length of white surgical elastic. She undid the elastic, stuffing it under the pillow on the cot, and weighed the gun in her hand, then pointed it at him.
“John—your weapons, Rubenstein’s weapons, they’re in my husband’s office. He’s learned of an attack on the base—here, late tonight. We have a spy in Chamber’s organization in east Texas. Vladmir is calling down a neutron strike at the time the attack starts, then you and Chambers will be flown to Chicago. You’d never find your wife and children. Rubenstein would be made to talk, when they found out he didn’t know anything, they’d kill him then. You wouldn’t leave here without Chambers, would you?”
“Honest?” Rourke asked, looking into her eyes.
“I know you wouldn’t. If I help you—to get Paul out and Chambers too, would you promise me one thing—that you wouldn’t kill anyone you didn’t have to?”
“Yeah—I’d promise that,” Rourke answered.
“And that includes Vladmir—that you wouldn’t kill him—only if you had to, to defend yourself?”
“Do you love him?” Rourke asked her.
“I don’t know,” she said flatly. “Get ready—I’ll get the guard in here.”
She stood up and walked to the door, smoothed her hair back from her face and tapped on the door, saying in Russian, “Corporal—come in here. This prisoner had a weapon—I’ve disarmed him. Come inside immediately and assist me.”
The door opened, the young corporal said, “I will assist you, comrade captain,” then stepped through the doorway. As he passed her, the COP pistol clamped in her right fist, she straight-armed him in the right side of the neck. Rourke stepped forward and caught the young soldier before he hit the floor, then eased him onto the bed. As Rourke stripped the man’s weapon away, then used the military trouser belt to tie the man, the girl stood by the door, watching. Rourke, over his shoulder, said to her, “How are you going to get out of this?”
“Don’t worry about me. We can get Chambers freed, then get Paul out. I have already arranged for your motorcycles and equipment to be brought to one of the elevators they use for getting the planes up onto the field. There’s a prop plane down there—it’s fueled and flight checked. You can fly it?”
“Unless the gauges are in Arabic, I’ll do okay. Why are you doing this?”
She looked at him, saying, “I gave my word—I keep my word, just like you do.”
He didn’t say anything to her as he checked the young unconscious guard’s AK-47, but he could see her smiling.
Chapter Forty-Two
The girl behind him, Rourke edged along the wall toward the base of the stairs. The hall there was in shadow, light streaming from the head of the stairs above on the main level of the underground complex. Chambers was being held just beyond the head of the stairs, with two security guards outside his door and a third inside with him as a suicide watch. On this same floor, one level below the ground-level runways and the few ground-level hangars, was the hospital wing and Karamatsov’s office. Rourke had explained to Natalie that he had to confront her husband, had to stop Karamatsov from calling in the neutron strike against the attacking forces. Once he was airborne with Chambers, he’d try every frequency he could to contact the U.S. forces on the ground and alert them that the attack could be called off because Chambers was free—that would be Rourke’s end of the bargain with Natalie for his freedom.
He glanced up the stairwell, saw the booted feet of a guard and pulled his head back, using hand signals to warn the girl beside him. She moved up to the base of the stairs, smoothed her blouse and palmed the COP pistol in her right hand, behind her skirt, then started up the stairs. Rourke held back at the edge of the stairwell, not daring to look up lest he give the girl away. He heard bits and pieces of a brief conversation in Russian, then a shuffling of boots and a heavy thudding sound. He raced around the corner of the stairwell and halfway up the stairs intercepted the body of the Russian guard, rolling down toward him. He dragged the man down the stairwell, took the AK-47 and as he started to tie the man, stopped, realizing the guard’s neck was broken and he was dead.
Rourke started up the stairs. Natalie was standing three stairs down, looking along the corridor. Rourke stopped a stair below her, saying, “He’s dead—you do it?”
Her face was expressionless, then the corners of her mouth turned down and she said, “I had to—he realized something was wrong.”
“At least he was right about that,” Rourke said, glancing back down the stairs. “Where are they holding Chambers—along there?”