And I realized after our troops came in as part of the first invasion force I had never met an American. Not ever. I wondered how it could be that I could hate someone whom I had never come to know. I still wonder this.”
“You’ll turn into a pacifist if you’re not careful,” Rourke laughed softly.
“Yes, a pacifist. It would be most amusing for me to turn into a pacifist. I fought in Afghanistan. I served in a secu-rity contingent in Poland. It should be most amusing were I to become a pacifist, as you say.”
Rourke chewed down on the end of his cigar—it was clamped between his teeth in the right corner of his mouth. There was no need to be particularly watchful, Vladov’s men would do that. He closed his eyes. He said to Vladov, “I was pretty much the same way. I met Natalia, saved her life, and she saved mine—mine and my friend Paul Ruben-stein’s life—”
“This Rubenstein—it is Jewish, correct?”
“Yeah,” Rourke nodded, electing not to mention that Natalia was also half Jewish as her uncle had revealed in his letter.
“In Russia, we do not like Jews—”
“You ever think maybe all of that was just as smart as not liking Americans?”
The Soviet Special Forces captain didn’t answer for a mo-ment, then from the sudden darkness when a cloud blocked the moon, Rourke heard his voice. “You do not hate the Russians?”
“I don’t hate her, do I? And I can’t see any reason to hate you. Do you hate me?”
“No, of course not, there is—”
“Reason?”
“Yes—no reason.”
“Too bad,” Rourke smiled. “Too bad we couldn’t have all sat down like this before it all got blown up and destroyed, before this whole holocaust scenario came about—”
“Too bad, yes. This Eden Project—perhaps for them it will be different. If we can do what we have set out here to do.”
“Perhaps,” Rourke agreed. “But in a way, maybe it won’t be.”
“What do you mean?” Vladov asked, the flare of a match cupped in his hands making a rising and falling sound as the phosphorous burned, Rourke smelling the smoke of the cig-arette mingled with the phosphorous.
“It’d be nice if somehow they could know what we’re talk-ing of here tonight, and learn from our mistakes. It’d be nice if they could.”
“Yes.”
“But I don’t think they will—you got an extra cigarette? If I light a cigar, the smell’ll wake up Natalia.”
“I hope you like them,” Rourke heard Vladov laugh. “They are American cigarettes.”
“Any port in a storm.” Vladov fired the cigarette from his own already lit one, passing it to Rourke. “Camel?”
“Yes, I like them. I used to buy them on the black market and smoke them in Russia, and in Poland, too.”
“Don’t tell Natalia I bummed a cigarette,” Rourke smiled. “I’m always telling her to quit—that it’s bad for her health,” and he laughed, hearing Vladov laughing too.
“I had quit smoking cigarettes for two years, before The Night of The War. After this, I started again. It did not mat-ter.”
“Yes,” Rourke told the Soviet captain. “It didn’t matter.” In the distance, Rourke heard the drone of aircraft engines. He turned his body to see his wrist beyond Natalia’s shoul-ders, rolling back the cuff of the battered brown bomber jacket to read his watch. It was set still to Eastern time. In an hour or so, in the East, it would be sunrise. It was hard to think that in Europe, in what remained of Great Britain, perhaps the world had already ended.
John Rourke inhaled the cigarette smoke deeply into his lungs — wondering what it mattered.
But he felt Natalia’s breath against his skin as she moved in his arm. And Rourke realized that it still did matter.
Chapter Twenty-two
Vladov had aroused his men, the men going out onto the prairie and lighting the flares already set there after their arrival. For the second time in the darkness that night, Rourke watched an aircraft land. But there were no radio communications—to have agreed on a frequency would have been risking the security compromised.
The aircraft — an old civilian aircraft Rourke couldn’t im-mediately identify—slowed, turning, prepared for take-off, the fuselage door opening, men pouring from it, dropping flat in the high grass, the wind stiff now and the clouds moving briskly overhead, making the moonlight come and go with the nagging irregularity of a flickering strobe light, making the movements of Reed’s men as they assumed de-fensive postures surrounding the aircraft look jerky, like something from a silent film that had been shown once too often.
Rourke had awakened Natalia. Vladov on one side of him, now, Natalia on the other side, Rourke walked across the prairie, the grass high, something he could feel as it moved against his Levis, the grass nearly to his knees in spots. Natalia squeezed his left hand in her right. He squeezed hers back.
He kept walking, toward the aircraft, seeing Reed now in a flicker of moonlight standing beside the wing stem.
He heard Reed’s voice. “I should have figured you’d have her with you, Rourke.”
Natalia answered. “I too looked forward to seeing you again, Colonel Reed.”
“That’s not Rubenstein unless he’s grown a couple of inches—got yourself a new sidekick, have you?”
Rourke answered him. “I found Sarah and the children. Paul was injured. He’s recovering at the Retreat and look-ing after my family.”
“Good for you—spend these last few days with them— why the hell are you here?”
“A job to do,” Rourke answered, his voice low, stopping walking, standing two yards or so from Reed. He had seen the bristling of Reed’s men when they had spotted Vladov’s Soviet fatigue uniform.
“That’s a clever disguise—he looks just like a Russian Special Forces captain.”
“Colonel Reed, I am Captain Vladov, at your service, sir.” Vladov saluted, Rourke watching from the corner of his right eye. Reed didn’t move. Vladov held the salute.
“I’m not in full uniform, Captain,” Reed nodded, gestur-ing to his hatless condition.
Vladov held the salute.
Reed snapped, “Shit,” then returned the salute.
Rourke felt a smile etch across his lips. “Glad to see you haven’t mellowed, Reed.”
“You got any more Russians, or just these two?”
Natalia answered. “There are eleven other Soviet Special Forces personnel, surrounding the field.” Rourke wanted to laugh—she couldn’t pass it up. “One officer and ten enlisted personnel. In addition, one officer and one enlisted from GRU.”
“Aww, that’s fuckin’ wonderful. What we got here, a Commie convention?”
“What we’ve got,” Rourke answered for her, “is fourteen highly skilled men who value human decency over dialec-tics. You got any problems with that, climb back on your goddamn airplane and we’ll knock out The Womb all by ourselves.”
“The Womb?”
“One thousand of Rozhdestvenskiy’s Elite KGB Corps, one thousand Soviet women picked for their health and ge-netic backgrounds. Maybe a couple hundred support per-sonnel. The president tell you about the cryogenic chambers?”
“Yeah, he told me.”
“Well, that’s where they’re at. And particle beam weap-ons installations to destroy the Eden Project before they can land. The entire Soviet Politburo is either on its way to The Womb or already there. They’ll all wake up in five hun-dred years or so — well. You know the rest.”
“There are twelve of us — even. I’m the only officer. When do we get started?”
“I will order the camouflage removed from our aircraft,” Vladov answered, taking off in a dead run.
Reed turned to a white-haired master sergeant beside him. “Dressier, send one of our guys—make it two of ‘em— to give the Soviet captain a hand.”
“Yes, sir, I’ll sure do that,” and Dressier started barking orders.
