Malenkov was expounding on some subject to Voroshilov.
Hickok mentally counted to ten, and then eased his right hand from the shelf and lowered it by his side.
None of the Russians had noticed.
Hickok held the knife close to his leg.
“I must leave now,” General Malenkov said in English to the gunman. “I will return in an hour and escort you to the commissary.”
“The what?” Hickok asked.
“The commissary,” General Malenkov said. “You will be able to eat.”
“Thanks,” Hickok stated. “I’m so hungry I could eat a horse.”
“I will treat you to some,” Malenkov commented. “It’s a dish.”
“What’s in it?”
The general licked his lips. “It’s delicious. Borscht contains beets and sour cream.”
“I can hardly wait,” Hickok said deadpan.
General Malenkov smiled. “See you in an hour.” He walked to the door with Lieutenant Voroshilov in tow. At the door he halted and looked at the soldier with the pistol. “If he tries to escape,” the general ordered in Russian, “shoot him in the groin. I want him alive.”
The soldier nodded and saluted.
Hickok waved as the general and the lieutenant left the room. He grinned at the soldier and pointed at the White House. “They sure don’t make ’em like that anymore, do they?”
The soldier didn’t respond. He was a stocky man with dark hair and a square chin. The pistol was held steady in his right hand, aimed at the gunman.
“Don’t you savvy English?” Hickok inquired.
The soldier remained immobile.
“What’s the matter? Can’t you palaver without permission?” Hickok asked.
The soldier’s face creased in perplexity.
“So you can speak English,” Hickok said.
“Please,” the soldier remarked, “what is ‘palaver’?”
“It means to shoot the breeze,” Hickok explained. “Sling the bull. You know. Idle chitchat.”
The soldier seemed even more confused. “I know English, yes. But I do not know many of the words you use.”
Hickok took a few steps toward the soldier, acting innocent. He grinned. “That’s because I’m partial to Old West lingo I picked up in books in our library.”
“Does everyone where you are from talk like you do?” the soldier asked.
“Nope,” Hickok acknowledged. “I’m the only one.”
“Most strange,” the soldier commented.
Hickok nodded in agreement and moved several feet closer to the soldier. “That’s what my friends say too.”
“Then why do you do it?” the soldier queried.
“I reckon my momma must of dropped me on my noggin when I was six months old,” Hickok said. He took two more steps nearer to the soldier.
“You will stay where you are,” the guard warned.
Hickok shrugged. “Whatever you say, pard. But I’ve got a question for you.”
“A question?”
“Yeah. Do you mind if I ask it?” Hickok inquired.
“What is your question?” the soldier wanted to know.
“I don’t reckon there’s any chance of you letting me walk out that door, is there?” Hickok ventured to request.
The soldier laughed. “You are not serious, yes?”
“Deadly serious,” Hickok gravely informed him.
The soldier shook his head. “Nyet. I can not allow you to leave this room.”
“What would you do if I tried?” Hickok asked.
“I would shoot you,” the soldier soberly responded.
Hickok sighed. “And I don’t suppose there’s nothin’ I could say or do that would change your mind?”
“I will shoot you,” the soldier reiterated.
“Well, you can’t say I didn’t try,” Hickok said. He half turned, looking at the White House. “I can always spend my time counting the cracks in the walls.”
The soldier shifted his attention to the decaying structure. “A most fitting fate for the decadent warmongers,” he stated, quoting from a course he’d taken in Imperialist Practices and Fallacies.
“Speaking of fate,” Hickok said slowly. He suddenly whipped his lean body around, his right hand flashing up and out.
The silver knife streaked across the intervening space and sliced into the soldier’s right eye. He shrieked and clutched at the hilt, but the blood spurting from his ravaged eyeball made the handle too slippery to clasp.
His trigger finger tightened on the trigger of his pistol, but before he could pull it he started to tremble uncontrollably. Spasms racked his body. His facial muscles quivered as he arched his back and staggered into the metal table.
Hickok knew the man was in his death throes.
The soldier’s fingers involuntarily relaxed, straightening, and the pistol dropped to the floor. He gasped and sprawled onto the table, on his stomach, blood dribbling from the corners of his mouth, his nostrils, and his punctured eye. His good eye locked on the gunman, and with a whining wheeze he expired.
Hickok walked to the wooden stand and retrieved his Pythons. He stared at the gleaming pearl-handled Colts, feeling complete again. What had they done with his Henry? he wondered. He hoped they’d overlooked it in the dark and it was still in the woods near the SEAL.
The SEAL.
How the blazes was he going to return to St. Louis? He needed to come up with one humdinger of an idea.
Voices, speaking in Russian, came through the closed wooden door.
It was time to hit the road.
Hickok quickly checked the pythons, and it was well he did. Someone had unloaded them while he was unconscious. He slipped the necessary cartridges from his gunbelt and reloaded both Colts.
Now let them try and stop him!
The gunman eased to the door and cautiously opened it. He found an amply lit corridor with brown floor tiles and white walls.
None of the varmints were in sight.
Hickok took a deep breath and stepped out of the medical room. He closed the door behind him and hurried to the left, searching for a place of concealment, somewhere he could get his bearings.
A door directly ahead abruptly opened and a tall woman in a white smock emerged.
Blast!
The woman spotted the gunman, her face registering utter bewilderment. She recovered and said something in Russian.
Hickok bounded forward.
The woman was opening her mouth to scream when the gunman slammed the barrel of his right Colt across her jaw.
The woman stumbled backward, bumping into the wall.
Hickok slugged her again for good measure.
She sagged to the floor in a disjointed heap.
Hickok ran now, knowing he had to get out of the building before the alarm was given. He hated being cooped up inside. Once outdoors, the odds of eluding his captors were infinitely better. He reached a fork in the corridor and bore to the left again. He was thankful he was on the ground floor; at least he wouldn’t need to contend with finding the right stairs.
Two men, both in military uniforms, one armed with a holstered pistol, another with a machine gun— an AK-47, if Hickok remembered the gun manuals in the Family library correctly—appeared at the end of the corridor. They reacted to the gunman’s presence instantly, the one with the pistol grabbing for his holster and the other soldier sweeping his AK-47 up.
Hickok was 30 feet from them. He never broke his stride as he leveled the Colts and fired, both Pythons booming simultaneously.
The two soldiers each took a slug between the eyes. The one with the pistol simply fell forward, but the trooper with the AK-47 tottered backwards, crashed into the left-hand wall, and dropped.
Hickok slowed as he neared the soldiers. He holstered the Colts and leaned over the soldier with the AK-47. “I need this more than you,” he commented, scooping the gun into his arms and continuing to the end of the hallway.