'Halt!' The guard's voice came in clumsy English.
Gunfire ripped into the wall bebide her as she hit the panic lock, the door opening outward into a corridor She slammed the steel fire door, hearing slugs impacting against it from the inside.
She reached up, clipping the wires for the alarm there into a bypass with alligator-clipped strands of wire of thinner proportion to suck off the electrical charge Then, with a wire cutter from the left hip pocket of her jump suit, she clipped the alarm wire She replaced the wire cutter after scratching the outside locking panel with it—to make it appear she had used a pick after neutralizing the alarm in order to originally gain access More gunfire—the door bulged in the center She released her weight against the door and ran up a small flight of stairs, hearing the door thrown open behind her, more gunfire, louder now, another command in English 'Half'
She turned out of the stairwell into a darkened hall— the Egyptian exhibit She remembered strolling through it with her uncle. Now she ran its length—more running feet and shouts behind her, the gunfire ceased There was a row of sarcophagi and past it an exhibit depicting the dressing of a pyramid block 'Appropriate,' she thought, making an English pun on the word 'dressing' in her mind She slipped behind the exhibit case, into a service closet, closing the door behind her.
In total darkness, she slipped the pack from her back, then began to unzip the jump suit with her right hand, her left hand working free the pistol belt She tugged the zipper down the rest of the way, then with both hands ripped away the scarves that had covered her face and
hair. She kicked off the crepe-soled shoes she had worn, reaching down for them in the dark—she thought she heard the skittering of a mouse or rat across the floor. She pulled the Bali-Song knife from the pocket of her jump suit, holding it closed in her teeth while she smoothed the white slip she had worn under the jumpsuit trousers, smoothed it down from where it had bunched around her hips.
She reached into the pack, pulling out her skirt.
She put it around her waist, buttoning it once, then again at the waistline in the front. From the pack, she extracted a pair of black high heels, stepped into them, and stuffed everything into the pack, closing it. She released the straps on the pack, hooking them together to form a single strap. She ran her left hand through her hair, then listened at the door—no sound. She opened it a crack, saw no one in the hali and stepped out of the closet. She realized she had forgotten the gloves, then quickly pulled them off, stuffing them into the backpack converted now into a large black shoulder bag.
She could hear running feet in the hall as she looked down at herself, smoothing the skirt, then reaching up to retie the bow on the collar of the white blouse she'd worn under the jump suit.
She turned, she hoped at the dramatically correct moment, and confronted the guard before he could confront her.
'What is going on, Corporal?'
'Comrade Major Tiemerovna, a man—someone from ihe Resistance apparently.
There was an attempt to break into Comrade Colonel Rozhdestvenskiy's office.'
'An attempt?'
'Yes, Comrade Major. The alarm system sounded
before anything could be disturbed—Comrade Colonel Rozhdestvenskiy has himself said this. He was just returning when the intruder was discovered.'
'Thank goodness.' She smiled. Then she let her smile fade, saying to the guard corporal, 'You have your rifle but I am unarmed. Give me your pistol and I will search with you, Comrade.'
'Thank you, Comrade Major!' The young man's face beamed.
'Sleeping,' Rourke murmured. That he could think, that he had awakened told him it was nearly time for another dose. He knew now just what that was—a muscle relaxant to keep him immobile and morphine to keep him high, drunk. The combination could kill him. If he could convince her of that .
. . His mind worked again, but he felt himself moving like a drunkard as he tried to edge over on the cot. If she stopped administering one or the other, he would have a chance to fight the freshly administered drug and the drugs in his system. She would have an antidote, a muscle-relaxer block of some kind, and probably Narcan or something like it to counteract the morphine build-up.
'Respiratory distress,' he murmured.
He felt a smile cross his lips, laughed with it. Alcohol had never made him feel so drunk. Rubenstein hadn't been this drunk that time . . . Where was it? he asked himself mentally.
Natalia had been pretty drunk ... or had she been? Sarah had never drunk to excess in her life; when she drank even a little, it simply made her sleepy.
'Sarah.' He smiled, then remembered. They had
gone—and here.' He watched as she raised a hypodermic and squirted out a good third of the contents. 'A milder dose this time and you'll just rest.'
Rourke closed his eyes—not able to help it. He knew he was drunk. He felt like singing because he was so happy she had bought his act. He twitched once in his sleep, feeling the needle go into his arm again. . . .
Lamazed for both children, Sarah having used the natural childbirth technique, which was really only erroneously called that. It was controlled childbirth— you controlled it with breathing. But you had to learn the breathing techniques well. His mind was wandering and he couldn't organize his thoughts. 'Breathing,' he murmured, squinting against the overhead basement light. He could make himself appear to be in respiratory distress by hyperventilating.
He started breathing, panting, blowing, panting— building up the oxygen level in his bloodstream. The oxygen would also serve to fight off the drugs by burning them off, out of his system as he respirated.
Floaters appeared in front of his eyes, a cold wash of nausea swept through him, and again he leaned over the side of the cot and vomited, his head barely able to move. 'John! Are you ill?'
'Breathe,' he gasped, panting now more than before despite the fact it was actually starting to make him
