he still had no idea of the size of the Soviet patrol, but hoped they'd bought the campfire routine. As Rourke reached the road, he looked back along the river. There was a Soviet truck, small, camouflage-painted, coming toward him. He skidded the bike into a tight turn, stopping it, drawing the Python, thumbing back the hammer. The Russian vehicle was over the ridge. Rourke fired the Python, once, then twice more in rapid succession. There was a cloud of steam from the front of the truck, the vehicle stopped dead halfway over the ridge. Rourke dropped the Python back into the holster and gunned the Harley down the road. It was tree-lined, the branches almost touching over the road as he passed under them. He reached his left hand into his shirt pocket and found one of his small cigars. Biting down on it in the left corner of his mouth as he sped along the road, Rourke decided to light it later.
Chapter 6
General Varakov stood looking out from the mezzanine onto the main hall. Over the time he had used the lakeside Museum as his headquarters, since his arrival from Moscow shortly after the Night of the War, he had studied the skeletons of the mastodons, fighting and dominating the main hall of the Museum. Varakov smiled— it was either here or down by the lakeside where he did most of his thinking these days. He tried to remember where he had done most of his thinking in Moscow, then realized that perhaps he had not done as much as he could there. Shaking his head, he walked back from the railing and sat on one of the low benches, still overlooking the great hall. He had practically memorized the reports which littered his desk. The Cubans, always the Cubans.
After the War, Florida had been ceded to them to appease the Communist leader of their island nation. He decided that had been a policy mistake on the part of the Premier and the Politburo. Reports indicated the Communist Cubans had made several incursions into southernmost Georgia— Soviet territory. There were reports of concentration camps, mass executions of Cuban Americans. It was that sort of thing, Varakov knew, that undermined anything positive he could do to relieve the pressure from American Resistance groups. His own command had prisons established to hold captured Resistance personnel and other suspected undesirables; but the camps were humanely run— he checked on them personally. There were few executions, and only those of Resistance people caught in the act of taking a Soviet life. It was, after all, war. The Cubans, he thought.... What they reportedly did was not war. There had been two dangerous confrontations between Soviet patrols and Cuban forces in southern Georgia already. Doubtlessly there would be more, he knew.
"Castro," Varakov muttered.
It was clear, he felt, that something had to be done with the Cubans— and quickly. He had no desire for
"border" conflicts over something he considered as useless as Florida. And his assessments over the years of the Communist Cuban regime had always led to what he felt was an inescapable conclusion— it was immature. With persons who behaved as irresponsible juvenile delinquents, he decided, one could never be too cautious.
After sifting through the reports, he had spent an almost equal amount of time perusing personnel files. He rubbed his hands together, standing on his sore feet and walking back toward the railing, his uniform jacket unbuttoned. Varakov wiggled his toes inside his shoes, staring down into the main hall. Col. Constantine Miklov was the perfect man— a senior officer and a prudent individual, experienced in dealing with the Cubans after three years as a military adviser there. Miklov's Spanish, Varakov understood from the file, was faultless.
A smile crossed Varakov's lips. In the one area where Miklov was slightly lacking—
intelligence background— Varakov could compensate and at the same time achieve an ancillary goal. Natalia Tiemerovna. He had recently promoted her to major. Almost fully recovered from the beating Vladmir Karamatsov— her now-dead husband thanks to the American Rourke— had administered to her, she was wanting an assignment. She spoke Spanish well, Varakov knew, and her natural frankness— the quality that so much endeared her to him— made her more important and more valuable than her relationship to him as his niece. All this would make it easier for her to discover what rationale were behind the Cuban incursions into Soviet occupied territory.
He leaned against the railing, amused at his own thinking. Was he really sending her because of his needs, or because he saw a need in her that this would fulfill?
He shrugged the problem away, thinking that perhaps of late he had become more of an uncle and less of a general in matters concerning Natalia. He should have engineered things to have Rourke killed, he knew, following the assassination of Karamatsov. But Rourke had not really assassinated the man—
afterwards it had appeared there had been a "fair" fight between them, Rourke winning. Varakov shrugged again— he liked Rourke. A good man was a good man, Varakov thought, despite his politics. He smiled, then— whether Natalia admitted it to herself or not, and despite her vow to kill Rourke after learning he had killed her husband, the incredibly beautiful Natalia loved the wild and deadly American.
Varakov began to laugh out loud, turning from the balcony railing and starting down the long, low stairs back toward the main hall and his adjoining office. It amused him that he was so concerned over a potentially volatile situation between Russia and Cuba. "I should be more concerned about that," he muttered as he reached the base of the stairs, wondering what he would do if something were to happen that brought Natalia and Rourke together— the KGB major and the ex-C.I.A. covert operations officer.
"Amusing," he said, passing his tall, young secretary, then chuckling again as it seemed evident her eyes were trying to decipher his laughter. "Nothing," he told her good-naturedly, walking toward his desk. Then under his breath he muttered, "Nothing yet."
Chapter 7
"Who is it?"
"If they're close enough to answer, it's usually too late to shoot," John Rourke said, stepping out of the shadows of the small stand of pines, less than six feet from the reddish-brown-haired woman, her hair almost black in the twilight.
"My God— do you always—"
"No, I don't usually creep up on people— just wanted to make certain you were alone," Rourke told her, taking two steps and standing beside her as she sat on the ground, her back propped against some rocks. "How are you feeling, Sissy?" he asked, bending down beside her, studying her face despite the shadows.
"Tired, nervous— better though, I think," she said. "Here— take this back." She handed Rourke the Metalifed two-inch Colt Lawman .357 he'd left with her earlier. "Guns make me nervous."
"No reason guns should do anything to you," he told her, his voice low. "A gun is just like a screwdriver, a saw, a stethoscope, a scalpel— or a seismograph," Rourke added.
"You can't kill someone with a seismograph, though," the girl said, her voice tired.
Lighting one of the small cigars with the Zippo, then clicking the lighter shut and studying it in his left hand, Rourke inhaled hard, exhaling and watching as the gray smoke trailed up into the dim sunlight above the level of the rocks. "You can misuse anything, or you can use it for good— guns aren't any different. I could take one of these—" and he opened his coat, patting the butt of the stainless Detonics under his left arm—"and go become a Brigand like those people chasing you this morning. Or, do what I did— fight the Brigands. I can use the gun for either job, can't I? It doesn't change the nature of the gun, the gun itself has no personality, does it?"