cars—”
“That is a patrol—this area is patrolled regularly—we have waited too long,” the GRU man who had spoken ear-lier declared. “We are trapped here. There will be three men. There always are—usually they are only two man patrols but by the lakeside they use three. They will exit the car and come down here to look—one of them always urinates over the side of the rocks.”
“Wonderful,” Rourke barely whispered.
“We cannot run the outboard motors— they would hear us—”
“Then we kill ‘em,” Rourke shrugged. “Before they can use their radio and get any of the troops by the airfield over here.”
“But there is no time,” the GRU man said. “Soon, the planes from the field will be taking off. If we are not well away from here, we will be spotted by one of the cargo pi-lots. And we cannot hug the shoreline—the coastal watch-ers.”
“Sounds like a marvelous plan you guys had,” Rourke commented drily. “Then we take those guys out quick — get everyone away in two of the boats and leave the last boat for those of us who take out the three KGB patrolmen.” He looked at Natalia. “I’d like to say we’ll do this together, but one of the two of us has to get away— otherwise there’s no chance for Sarah and the children, for Paul—”
“I will stay,” Natalia announced. “I will stay.”
“I knew you’d say that,” Rourke nodded, his right hand flashing up, the knuckles catching the tip of her chin, his left arm scooping out, catching her as she sagged back limply, her eyelids fluttering, then closed.
“You struck the major!” the GRU man snapped.
It was Captain Vladov who interceded. “He struck the major in order to save her life.”
“Doesn’t matter how tough a woman is,” Rourke com-mented, sweeping Natalia up into his arms and starting to-ward the nearest of the three Avon inflatables, carrying her. “Almost always count on ‘em to have glass jaws —”
“A jaw of glass?” the GRU man asked, puzzled sounding.
“Old American expression,” Rourke told him. Then he looked at Lieutenant Daszrozinski.
“Lieutenant, get some of your men down into this boat so I can hand the major down to you. If it’s all right with Captain Vladov, he and I can stay behind with one other man and take out those KGB patrolmen.” And Rourke looked at the only one of the three GRU men who had yet spoken. “One of your guys stays be-hind to keep the boat ready—and as soon as we do what we have to do, signal the other two boats to start their engines and make time.”
“Make the time?”
“Go fast,” Rourke explained.
“I will stay,” the GRU man said.
“Good,” Rourke nodded. Daszrozinski and two other men had already climbed down from the rocks into the nearest of the Avon rubber boats—and Rourke began handing Natalia into Daszrozinski’s and a second man’s arms. “When the major wakes up, well, tell her not to be mad at me, huh?”
Daszrozinski’s very Slavik, red-cheeked face showed a grin. “I will try my best, Dr. Rourke.”
Rourke nodded, “Right.”
He turned to Vladov—already Vladov had one of the men beside him—a corporal. “Corporal Ravitski will assist us, Dr. Rourke.”
Rourke nodded
“May I suggest a plan, Dr. Rourke?”
“Certainly, Captain,” Rourke agreed. Already, the first of the rubber boats was pushing off, the second loading. Rourke looked once more after Natalia.
Chapter Twelve
She knew what he had done as soon as she opened her eyes, the light hurting for an instant as she squeezed them closed against it. He had done it so expertly that aside from a little tenderness as she moved her jaw, there was no pain. Her teeth felt fine.
The spray pelted at her as she sat up, Lieutenant Daszrozinski smiling at her, “Comrade Major, the doctor and Cap-tain Vladov and one other man are seeing to the KGB patrol—one of the GRU men waits with them with the third boat. He will signal when we can start our engines.”
She didn’t say anything, but sat up, feeling slightly ridicu-lous that Rourke had—she remembered the expression, the Americanism—”cold-cocked” her so easily.
“What is their plan, Lieutenant Daszrozinski?” she fi-nally asked him.
“I do not know, Comrade Major, but the comrade gen-eral has told Captain Vladov that Dr. Rourke is extremely competent in these matters, and, of course, Captain Vladov himself is a veteran of many such missions and—”
“Yes—enough, Lieutenant,” and she dismissed listening to him. She could make out the police car, the red star em-blazoned over the lakeside door, the door open. But detail beyond that from where she sat in the boat was impossible. If the plan were going well, or going badly, she could not tell.
She could only sit in the rubber boat and wait while the enlisted Special Forces personnel paddled the boat against the lake swells. At any moment, the occupants of the police car would look out onto the lake and see her craft and the companion vessel, she knew. They would start shooting. Better than two hundred meters offshore, she realized their marksmanship would have little effect. Maximum effective range of the AKM—what the KGB patrols were armed with—was three hundred meters on full auto, four hundred meters semi-automatic mode. But it took an exceptional marksman to be effective at such a range. Had the men been exceptional marksmen, they would have been assigned other duties. Hence, logically, she was in no danger.
But Rourke—the man she loved, all she had left in the world now after making her final good-byes to her uncle— Rourke was much closer than four hundred meters, or three hundred meters. He could very easily be killed by even an indifferent marksman. She realized she was wringing her hands. She turned to one of the enlisted men near her, tell-ing him in Russian,
“Move aside, I wish to help to propel the rubber boat,” and she took the paddle from him before the man could protest.
It was something to do, at least.
Chapter Thirteen
He had raced along the rocks of the sea wall built against the lake waves which could run to heights as high as sixteen feet, the air temperature cold, his breath coming in short puffs, but the air fresh, clean. He had positioned himself on the far side of the planetarium, behind the police car. And Rourke waited now, watching as the three KGB patrolmen exited the police car, one from the front passenger seat, one from the driver’s side, one from the rear passenger com-partment behind the driver’s side, only two of the men car-rying assault rifles, but all three wearing pistols in military flap holsters on their belts.
If he had had Natalia’s silenced Walther, he reflected, but he did not.
The three men started walking toward the end of the spit of land jutting out into the lake, across the grass that had once been green, then along the circular parking area disap-pearing behind the planetarium. No longer able to see them, they could no longer see him, and Rourke, eyeing the roadway leading from Lake Shore Drive and the airfield as well—no one was coming—pushed himself up, taking the steps from the lower rocky walkway to the planetarium level three at a time in a long strided run, the M-16 and the CAR-15 left behind with Vladov and Corporal Ravitski, the long bladed Gerber MkII in his right fist as he followed the men.
Ravitski’s job was the most unpleasant—to take out the man who regularly urinated over the side of the sea wall. For the purpose, he had long handled wire cutters he had taken from the side of his backpack.
Vladov was to back him up.
Rourke kept running, the Gerber ahead of him in a fencer’s hold, his black combat booted feet soundless as he raced along the pavement of the walkway, finally reaching the far wall of the planetarium, hugging against it, able to see the three KGB men again. He was to await the cut from Ravitski.
