Kate found a wide enough spot in the shoulder to pull over and did so. The river rushed past to their right. “You're saying that Lucian knows Trent? And that Trent is probably the leader of the strigoi Family? Maybe even a direct descendant of Vlad Tepes?”
O'Rourke did not blink. “I'm just telling you what Senator Harlen's office found out.”
“What does it prove?”
He shrugged. “At the very least it proves that Lucian was lying to you when he said he traveled to the States with his parents. At the worst“
“It says that Lucian is strigoi, “ said Kate. “But he showed us that blood test . . .”
O'Rourke made a face. “I thought he went to rather great pains to disprove something we hadn't even suggested. Blood tests can be faked, Kate. You of all people should know that. Did you watch carefully when he did the test?”
“Yes. But the slides or samples could have been switched when I was distracted.” A heavy truck rumbled past. Kate waited for the roar to fade. “If he's strigoi, why did he shelter us and take us to Snagov Island to see part of the Ceremony and“ She took a deep breath and let it out. “It would be an easy way for the strigoi to keep tabs on us, wouldn't it?”
O'Rourke said nothing.
Kate shook her head. “It still doesn't make sense. Why did Lucian run away when the Securitate or whoever it was were chasing us in Bucharest? And why would he allow us to be separated like we are if his role was to keep tabs on us?”
“I don't think we have any real understanding of the power struggles going on here,” said O'Rourke. “We've got the government versus the protesters versus the miners versus the intellectuals, and the strigoi seem to be pulling most of the strings on each side. Maybe they're fighting among themselves, I don't know.”
Kate angrily stepped off the bike and looked out at the river. She had liked Lucian . . . still liked him. How could her instincts have been so wrong? “It doesn't matter,” she said aloud. “Lucian doesn't know where we are and we don't know where he is. We won't see him again. If his job was to keep track of us, they probably fired him.” Or worse.
O'Rourke had uncoiled himself from the sidecar and was checking the gas tank. There was a fuel gauge on the narrow console between the handlebars, but it had no needle and the glass was broken. “We need gas,” he said. “Do you want to drive us into Brasov?”
“No,” said Kate.
They got no gas in Brasov.
Foreigners in Romania could notat least theoretically buy gas at the regular pumps using Romanian lei. Laws still required tourists to use their own hard currency to purchase petrol vouchers at hotels, the few car rental agencies, and Office of National Tourism outletseach voucher good for two litersand to exchange these for gas at special ComTourist pumps set aside at the fewandfarbetween gas stations.
That was the theory. In practice, O'Rourke explained, the ComTourist pumps usually sat idle while the gas station manager waved tourists to the front of the inevitable line at the regular pumps. This involved hateful stares from the people in the long lines while the timeconsuming voucher paperwork was done, as well as baksheesh to the person whose job it was to pump the gas (never the manager of the station and all too frequently a woman in six layers of coats and stained coveralls).
Brasov itself was a oncebeautiful medieval city which had been covered with industry, Stalinist apartment tracts, half finished Ceausescustarted construction, abandoned systematization projects, and even more industry like barnacles on a sunken ship. It may have been possible to find some streets or vistas of former beauty, but Kate and O'Rourke certainly did not during their ride down the busy Calea Bucurestilor and Calea Fagarasului boulevards in search of the Sibiu/Sighisoara highway and the gas stations the map promised.
One of the gas stations was closed and derelict, windows broken and pumps vandalized. The other, just past the turnoff from the boulevard to the Sibiu/Sighisoara highway, had a line that stretched more than a mile back into the city proper.
“Merde,” whispered O'Rourke. Then,. “We can't wait. We'll have to try the ComTourist pump.”
A fat man in stained coveralls came out to squint at them. Kate decided to hunker down in the sidecar and be invisible while O'Rourke handled things; few things were more conspicuous in Romania than a takecharge Western female.
“Da?” said the manager, wiping his hands on a grease black rag. “Pot sa to ajut?”
“Ja,” said O'Rourke, his demeanor suddenly selfassured and a bit arrogant. “Sprechen Sie Deutsch? Ah . . . vorbiti germana?”
“Nu,” said the man. Behind them a woman in several layers of jackets pumped gas into the first car in a line that stretched literally out of sight. Everyone was watching the exchange by the ComTourist pump.
“Scheiss,” said O'Rourke, obviously disgusted. He turned to Kate. “Er spricht kein Deutsch.” He turned back to the manager and raised his voice. “Ah . . . de benzind . . . ah . . . Face# plinul, va rog.”
Kate knew enough Romanian to catch the “Fill 'er up, please. “
The manager looked at her, then turned back to O'Rourke.
“Chitanta? Cupon pentru benzind?”
O'Rourke at first looked blank and then nodded and pulled an American twenty-dollar bill out of his pocket. The manager took it but did not look happy. Nor did he unlock the heavy padlock on the gas pump. He held up one greaseblack finger and said, “Please . . . you . . . to stay . . . here,” and went back into the tiny station.
“Uhoh,” said Kate.
O'Rourke said nothing. He got back on the bike, gunned the engine to life, and drove off slowly. Eyes watched from the cars in line as they headed back into town. “Dumb, dumb, dumb,” O'Rourke was saying to himself.
“Aren't we going the wrong way?” asked Kate.
“Yes.” He drove back to the main boulevard, swung right at a traffic circle, and accelerated out into the truck traffic heading southwest. A road sign said RISNOV 13 KM.
“Do we want to go to Risnov?” called Kate over the roar and rattle.
No.
“Do we have enough gas to get to Sighisoara?” No.
Kate asked no more questions. In the outskirts of Brasov another highway branched northwest and O'Rourke swung onto it. A kilometer marker said FAGARA5. O'Rourke pulled over and they studiedthe map. “If we'd kept going on the Sibiu/Sighisoara road, that fat toad could have sent the police right after us,” he said. “At least now they might look south before checking north. Damn.”
“Don't blame yourself,” said Kate. “We had to get gas.”
O'Rourke shook his head angrily. “Running out of gas is a way of life in this country. Dacias have little pumps built in under the hood so people can transfer a liter or two to someone who's broken down. Everyone carries liter jars in their trunks. I was an idiot.”
“No, you weren't,” said Kate. “You were just thinking in American terms. Run low on gas, stop at a gas station. So was 1. “
O'Rourke smoothed the map on the edge of her windscreen and pointed. “I think we can get there this way. See . . . stay on Highway One here until this village . . . here, Sercaia about fifteen klicks this side of Fagaras . . . and then take this smaller road up to Highway Thirteen, then straight to Sighisoara. “
Kate studied the thin red line between the two highways. “That road would be in poorer condition than the cow path we took over the mountains.”
“Yeah . . . and less traveled. But there aren't any high passes that way. Worth a try?”
“Do we have a choice?” said Kate.
“Not really.”
“Let's go for it,” she said, hearing an echo .of Lucian in the slang. “Maybe we'll be lucky and find another gas station. “