another cigarette from the pack and tried lighting a match, but her hand was shaking so badly the matches kept breaking.
Rourke took his lighter and flicked it, holding the flame for her.
She looked at him in the glow of the flame, saying, 'Well—what are you going to say?'
Rourke leaned back, closing the lighter, saying, 'He's right, you're right. You didn't drop any bombs—you were just being a patriotic Russian. And now you're here in this country and you're looking for Samuel Chambers. What? To kill him?
So he doesn't serve as a rallying point for resistance? Right?'
'I'm just doing my damned job, John. It's my job!'
'I had a job like that once. But you know what I did? I quit. That's where you remembered me from— South America, a few years ago. I was down there a lot in those days. I didn't quit because my philosophy changed or anything—I just quit because I wanted to and figured I'd done my time. You could do the same, couldn't you?'
'I've got other reasons,' she said, staring into the cigarette in her right hand. 'I believe in what I'm doing.'
'You didn't see your face when you looked at those refugees, the woman with the dead baby. You're on the wrong side.'
'Is that why you didn't try and kill me when you recognized me?' she asked, looking up at Rourke.
'No—that isn't why,' Rourke answered.
'How long have you known, John?' Rubenstein asked.
'Long enough—after the first couple of days I was sure.' Then turning to the girl, he said, 'Is Karamatsov here too? You always worked with him down south.'
The girl said nothing for a long moment, then, 'Yes.'
'Who the hell is Karamatsov?' Rubenstein said, leaning forward.
Rourke started to answer, but the girl cut him off, her voice suddenly lifeless-sounding, Rourke thought. 'He's the best agent in the KGB—at least he thinks so and everyone tells him that. He's—I guess it doesn't matter —he's in charge of the newly formed American branch of the KGB—he's the top man in your entire country. The only man who can overrule him here is General Varakov—he's the military commander for the North American Army of Occupation.'
'This is like some kind of a nightmare,' Rubenstein started, taking off his glasses and staring out into the rain. 'During World War II, my aunt was trapped over in Germany when the war broke out. They found out she was Jewish and they arrested her and we never heard from her again. I grew up hating the Nazis for what they'd done. What the hell do you think American kids are gonna grow up hating, Natalie? Huh? How many houses and apartment buildings and farms—schools, office buildings… how many places just stopped existing, how many children and women and little dogs and cats and everything else that matters in life did you people kill that night? Jees—you guys make Hitler look like some kinda bush leaguer!'
'This was a war, Paul,' the woman said. 'We had no choice. The U.S. ultimatum in Afghanistan, there was no choice, Paul—no choice. We had to strike first! And then your own president held back U.S. retaliation until the last possible minute—we didn't know!'
'Do you hear what you're both saying?' Rourke asked quietly. 'Things haven't changed at all since the war, have they?' Rourke closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the edge of the pickup's tailgate. No one spoke for a while and all he could hear was the unseasonably heavy rain.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Rubenstein had elected to sleep in the bed of the pickup truck and was snoring occasionally as Rourke and Natalie lay beside one another under the tarps, listening to the rain. An hour earlier, one of the brigands had passed by, sticking his head under the shelter flap, then seeing Rourke and the girl together, grunted, 'Sorry, man—I didn't know if— see ya,' then walked away.
Rourke had had one of the Detonics pistols under the blanket, the hammer cocked and the safety down, his finger against the trigger.
After the man had gone and Rourke had lowered the hammer on the pistol, the girl started to cry. Rourke heard the strange sound from her before he turned and saw the tears. Then he asked her why.
'He's right—what we did,' she whispered, her voice catching in her throat.
'Yes, Paul is,' Rourke said. 'But if everybody who isn't Russian winds up hating everybody who is Russian, what's that gonna do, huh?'
'What kind of man are you—he was right, he was right, you know,' the girl said to him. 'I did try everything I could to get you to come after me—I guess I still am. What? Was it because you knew who I was, thought I was Karamatsov's woman or something?'
'That didn't really have anything to do with it,' he said, then fell silent. The rain fell heavily and Rourke glanced at his Rolex—it was well after midnight.
The girl spoke again.
'Why then?'
'Why then what?' Rourke said, not turning to look at her.
'What we were saying before—you didn't care that I was a Russian agent, that I might be Karamatsov's woman—then why?'
