The End is Coming

Chapter Forty-two

The checkpoint was at what, before the war, had sometimes been called Hubbard’s Cave. Rourke eased the old LTD to the gate that blocked his lane.

A green-shouldered, bearded KGB noncom ap-proached the car, Rourke rolling down his win-dow. In poor English, the man stated, “Civilian traffic is expressly forbidden after sunset—”

Rourke smiled his warmest smile, interrupting the man, “Except for medical emergencies, right?” Rourke passed the man his papers.

The man unfolded the letter Maus had signed as director of the civilian hospital in the converted gunshop and shooting range. “Hippoder mineed—”

“Hypodermic needles,” Rourke corrected. “Can’t give shots with dirty needles—hepatitis, stuff like that.”

The man unfolded Rourke’s identity papers, looking at Rourke—apparently trying to match the physical description with the face—it should match, Rourke thought. The forger had been looking at his face while counterfeiting the iden-tity papers.

“And her?” the man said.

Rourke turned to look at Natalia—fear was written across her face so that a blind man could have almost known it, he thought. She handed him her papers from the battered brown vinyl purse that had come with the old raincoat.

Rourke passed them over to the KGB noncom. “Here you go,” he smiled. “Say look—we got a lot of sick people up there—need those needles. The hypodermics.”

There had been one other risk for Maus—that if they were discovered and traced back to the hospi-tal, there would be a raid, and the Resistance headquarters destroyed. Rourke considered that now as he watched the man, studying Natalia’s forged documents, peering into the car, a flash-light in his right hand, the beam high, trained on Natalia’s face.

Rourke made a decision.

“Major Tiemerovna!”

As the man gasped her name, Rourke wrenched the LTD’s door handle—he had prepared to do it, and he slammed the door hard outward, against the abdomen of the KGB noncom, hammering the man back. Rourke reached out of the car, stepping half out of the driver’s seat, his left hand grabbing for the military flap holster on the man’s belt, his right grabbing for the papers—he had them all. The pistol—Rourke stuffed the papers into the pocket of his borrowed overcoat, worked the slide of the pistol in case a round hadn’t been cham-bered—none had. He pointed the pistol at the KGB

noncom’s face—the mouth was open to shout for aid. Rourke emptied the pistol into the man’s mouth, then threw it down to the pavement, the door not closed as he stomped the accelerator, the door slamming as it whacked against the side of the barricade, Rourke throwing the hat out the window as he ducked, shouting to Natalia, “Down!”

Gunfire shattered the rear window, bullet holes spiderwebbing the windshield in front of him, the accelerator already flat to the floor, the speedome-ter needle passing fifty and climbing fast—he’d al-ways liked eight cylinder Fords.