'Did I hurt you?'
'Only because you had no choice, because you have honor.'
'I'm sorry,' Rourke said softly.
The woman's eyes shifted a moment, down to her hands, then she took a small step closer to him, rolling over the pistols in her hands, presenting them butt first. 'The earthquake— it has already started on the Gulf Coast. There is little time.'
'I know,' he told her, his voice low.
'Hold me, John— just for a moment.... Please.'
The guns still in his hands, Rourke folded Natalia into his arms, feeling her dark hair against his stubbled face. 'I can't say everything will be all right, can I?'
'No,' he heard the girl whisper. 'Never lie to me, John. Then I would die, I think.'
She stepped back from him, and he set the pistols down on the small table beside the cell door. It wasn't something he'd intended to do, he thought, even as he did it.
His hands grasped her by her elbows, then he drew her toward him, looking down into her eyes. Then he kissed her lips, his mouth crushing down on hers, her body pressed tight against him. As he held her, he could hear and feel her breathing. 'I love you,' she whispered.
Rourke started to open his mouth, but the woman in his arms touched her fingers to his lips. 'No—' She said nothing else.
Rourke looked at her a moment, then smiled. 'All right,' he said slowly, then bent to pick up his guns.
'You checked them?'
'Yes. There are five rounds in the magazine, one in the chamber. Just like you carry them.'
Rourke left the pistols cocked and locked in his fists as he started away from the cell door, Natalia beside him in a moment with the dead guard's AK-47. 'What's the situation?' he asked her as they reached the base of the stairs.
'Miklov— he is a good man— has my pistol to Santiago's head. I forced Santiago to begin the evacuation, and to begin the truce so our planes and yours can land. The girl, Sissy, is with Miklov. She will be safe.'
Rourke turned and looked at Natalia, stopping in mid-stride. 'Back there, I..'
'I understand you better than you think,' she said, smiling a little.
'I know that,' he told her, then started up the stairs two at a time.
Rourke kicked open the door into the main part of the house, the doorway leading into the hall. Men were running in every direction, armed men, servants, none of them giving Rourke and Natalia as much as a second glance. And suddenly below his feet, Rourke could feel the floor starting to shake. He glanced toward the high ceiling extending upward above the second floor. There was a chandelier there— crystal, Rourke thought absently. And suddenly it started to shake.
Rourke turned, pushing Natalia back into the basement doorway, shielding her with his body. The floor shook hard and there was a sound like an explosion as Rourke glanced behind him and toward the high ceiling. The chandelier crashed to the floor, shattering.
There was a gunshot then, loud but muffled, followed by a woman's scream.
Natalia looked up into Rourke's eyes. 'That was Sissy— Santiago!'
The Russian girl was already running across the central hall, jumping to clear the debris of the chandelier, Rourke running behind her. She stopped in front of the double doors leading into Santiago's office, then lashed out with her left boot, the doors splintering apart. Rourke was beside her, shouldering through as she stepped into the doorway. They both stopped. Sissy Wiznewski was standing in the middle of the floor, her hands to her open mouth, her eyes wide. On the floor beside her were two men— one of them was Miklov, Rourke assumed. There was a knife sticking out, high in his chest, just below the throat. The second body belonged to Santiago. Rourke could tell from the uniform, but only that. Where the face had been there was now only a red, pulpy mass. There was a dark object in the center of the mass. Rourke had no idea what had happened to the other eye.
Chapter 43
Rourke dashed down the front steps of the house, the Detonics pistols in both hands firing into the Cuban troops in front of him. He dropped to one knee, snatching up an AK-47 from one of the dead soldiers, then bumping the selector to full auto and spraying the Soviet-built assault rifle ahead of him, hearing Natalia opening up beside him. 'The half track— there!' Rourke shouted, starting down the steps.
He could hear Natalia, behind him now, screaming to the Wiznewski girl, 'Sissy, get those guns and ammunition belts— hurry!'
Rourke reached the truck, snapping the butt of the AK-47 up into the jaw of a Communist Cuban soldier hanging onto the running board. Then he climbed up, into the cab, reloading the Detonics pistols and leaning the AK-47 beside him against the seat. He turned the key, the half-track truck's engine rumbling to life. 'Come on!' he shouted.
Natalia backed her way down the steps, firing the AK-47 in witheringly accurate three-round bursts as the Cubans started after her. Rourke swung open the cab door, snatching the AK-47 from beside him, half-stepping out onto the running board. He fired the assault rifle, nailing two Cuban soldiers running up for Natalia from her left flank. 'Come on!'
Sissy Wiznewski, her arms laden with rifles, belts with spare magazines festooned around her shoulder, was stumbling toward the truck. Rourke jumped to the driveway, feeling the ground tremble under his feet.
He grabbed an armful of the guns and pushed the girl up into the truck cab.
As Rourke turned, shouting again to Natalia, 'Now! Come on!' he looked up. The sky overhead was dark, almost green in color, and he could feel rain on his face.
He looked down, firing a burst from the AK-47, Natalia beside him now. 'Get into the cab. We have to make it
