renewed hope that—'
'You hope for that then. I have more pressing matters than some American defense project so obscure that—'
'I know what you hope.' Rozhdestvenskiy nodded. 'As the wife of my lifelong friend Colonel Karamatsov, the life of Major Tiemerovna is my concern as well. Surely in all the troop movements from the East Coast of the continent there has been some word—'
'Nothing,' Varakov answered sincerely. 'She was last seen helping in the evacuation of Florida at an airfield, only moments before the major earthquake struck and a high-altitude observation plane photographed the beginning of the Florida peninsula's collapse into the ocean.'
'She was with the American agent, Rourke, was she not, Comrade General?'
Rozhdestvenskiy asked. Is he trying to sound innocent, Varakov asked himself, realizing that for an instant the charming, handsome, blond officer had penetrated his defenses, made him feel there was something of a genuine concern for Natalia's welfare.
'I believe so—but that is only from a—' he began defensively.
Rozhdestvenskiy cut him off. 'A reliable report, I
believe, Comrade General? This other matter to which I hope to attend—I confess both a personal and professional interest in the safe return of your niece. The major may be able to aid me in locating the war criminal Rourke—'
'War criminal?' Varakov repeated, without really thinking.
'Surely, the assassination of the head of the American KGB by this Rourke is a war crime, Comrade General. I understand he was a physician before going into the employ of the American Central Intelligence Agency.'
Varakov picked his words—carefully—for the first time realizing what kind of man he truly dealt with. 'It is my understanding that this Dr. Rourke had left the CIA sometime before the war. I do not really concern myself with him. I belive his major preoccupation is searching for his wife and children who may have survived the war; I do not know. If you capture him, I should be interested in meeting him. But that is your affair.'
'Yes, Comrade General. That is my affair.' Rozhdestvenskiy dropped his cigarette to the marble floor and started to grind it out beneath the heel of his boot.
'But this is my headquarters building, Colonel; pick up that cigarette.'
'Bat surely, a prisoner used for janitorial service can—'
'That is not the point; pick it up.'
The boyish smile was gone from Rozhdestvenskiy's face. He hesitated a moment, then stooped over and picked up the cigarette butt, holding it between two manicured fingernails. 'Will there be anything else, Comrade General?'
'No—I think not.' Varakov turned and started back
across the main hall toward his office without walls.
Thousands of troops were moving inland to escape the raging storm fronts assaulting the eastern coast of what had been the United States—regrouping and searching, he hoped. That Natalia would be safe as long as she was with John Rourke, Varakov took as a fact. It was after that—with this Rozhdestvenskiy-—that Varakov worried about her safety.
'Catherine!' He called out the name before he remembered he had told her to go and rest. He shrugged, deciding he would do the same thing himself.
There might not be time for it in the future.
His hands stabbed into his pockets as he walked away from his office and he stopped once, glancing back over his right shoulder. The offensive SS-Hke KGB officer was gone from view. Varakov smiled, remembering the ego satisfaction he had given himself in making Rozhdestvenskiy pick up the cigarette. He realized as he glanced once more at the mastodons that he would likely pay for it, too, and perhaps so would Natalia.
Rourke's knuckles were white, Ms fists bunched on the yoke now as the twin-engine cargo plane skimmed low over over the icy roadway, his starboard engine hopelessly iced. His mind went back to the only other time in his life he had crash-landed a plane—the in the New Mexico desert on the Night of the War. He remembered Mrs. Richards, her husband gone in the destruction of the West Coast, her compassion in caring for the dying captain, her tireless help that long night while they had fought to keep airborne—then her death when the had— Rourke wrenched back on the controls, trying to keep the nose up. The brakes held, but the plane started to skid as it hit the ice-and snow-covered road. 'Get your heads down!' Rourke shouted to Paul, strapped in near the midsection, and to Natalia in the copilot's seat beside him.
'John!'
Rourke didn't look at her; he was feeling the tendons in his neck distending, his body suddenly cold, the air temperature finally getting to him. The plane was going out of control. He worked the flaps to decelerate, the brakes starting to slow him as well now. The straight
away stretched for perhaps another quarter-mile yet and if he slowed the craft too quickly the skid would become uncontrollable. The aircraft zigzagged under him, the tail of the craft whipping back and forth across the three-lane width of Kentucky highway. The straightaway was rapidly running out. Eyes squinted against the glare of the plane's lights on the snow, he could see ahead of him where the road seem to end, to curve in a sharp S-bend, running to his left. The plane coasted right across the icy road, toward the drop-off on the far end of the S-bend, a meager metal guardrail there and beyond it, from what Rourke could see, a drop.
Two hundred yards, perhaps less. Rourke controlled the plane with the flaps, the braking action worsening the skid. Rourke reached across to Natalia, punching the release button on the seat harness, grabbing her by the left shoulder, shouting back along the fuselage, 'Paul— we're bailing out—get the cargo door and jump for it— jump as far out as you canl'
