The Web

the ceiling. He looked behind him, awkwardly. An end of the clothesline snaked across the floor and was tied to a support post for the basement ceiling. When he moved his head, the rope moved a little; it was the rope that had him tethered by the neck.

Muscle relaxant, he thought. If she didn't know how to administer it, he would stop breathing, just die. She was only giving him enough so that it would wear off every few hours.

The swimming feeling in his head—the nausea, the cold . . . The muscle relaxant wouldn't make him, like she had said, "drunk." He closed his eyes a minute against the feelings. . . .

"Mor—" he shouted, the needle jabbing into his arm again. "Morphine!"

"You've had morphine before, then, John, and you recognize the effects.

Well, then you know it would take an awful lot to addict you, wouldn't it?

And anyway, well—all our problems will be over."

Hours had passed, he realized. What time was it? Was it Christmas? He felt the second needle going in. "I have to go now, John. Please try to stay on the bed this time."

He felt her kiss him again, and then heard the click of her heels on the concrete floor. "Insane!" he shouted, but he realized then that he'd already heard the door opening and closing, the lock being turned.

"Mor—morphine," he said with a thick tongue. Thirty seconds, he thought—something about thirty seconds. He would be himself again in thirty seconds. The muscle relaxant had to wear off well before she gave him the morphine. The muscle relaxant would be something . . . "Morphine,"

he said again. "Narcan."

Rourke realized suddenly that if she kept it up, she'd kill him. He could barely breathe—which meant there was a build-up and she was giving the shots too closely spaced.

"Die," he rasped. Morphine—he couid fight that, with his body. But the relaxant ... He vomited over the side of th< Ј bed and his eyes closed.

Natalia watched as he closed the door. She had been formally reintroduced to Rozhdestvenskiy that afternoon, and now things were less than formal.

But she did &#;wear black, a tight-fitting jump suit, a black scarf tied across her face like a bandanna, a second scarf binding and covering her hair, black tight-fitting leather gloves on her hands. She usually used less tight-fitting, fingerless cloth gloves for work like that she was about to perform, but the fingerless gloves would have allowed her to leave behind fingerprints. That she could not do. Were she discovered raiding the office of the head of the American branch of KGB, she would be tried and executed—and so would her uncle. Likely, her uncle's secretary, Catherine, too, and perhaps, others of her uncle's staff.

Rozhdestvenskiy walked directly under her, and she watched his face through the slats in the air-conditioning vent. She glanced at the Rolex on her left wrist, watching the minutes pass as she waited to make certain he was indeed gone.

She had crawled in through the air-conditioning system on the far end of the floor—through her uncle's

office. She had traveled through the dusty duct for what seemed like miles. Using a needle-thin powerfully magnetized angled screwdriver, she had released the screws holding the vent in place, then waited. No one had come in or out; security was at the far end of the corridor. She knew that routine too well, and decided Rozhdestvenskiy hadn't had the time to change things substantially. It was her dead husband's old office.

She released the little hook that held up the vent, slipping the vent aside and drawing it up into the duct with her. It banged once, slightly, against the duct and she froze as she heard boot heels clicking down the corridor under her. A guard passed, not looking up. She held her breath, waiting.

He walked back, directly under her again, and stopped. She waited, coiled, ready to jump for him. If she were spotted coming out of the vent, if she were spotted at all ... She waited, and as the guard moved past her, she breathed again.

She continued to move the grill, then set it aside in the duct. She listened, hard, holding her breath. It would have been better to wait for nightfall, to wait for a later hour when the guards would be drowsy from lack of sleep.

She perched on the edge of the duct, then tucked her shoulders tight, Jetting her feet down and raising her arms as she dropped.

She hit the floor eight feet below, rolled forward into the fall, and came to light on her hands and knees. She pushed herself up, then went flat against the wall. No sound of a guard coming. She had made no sound when she'd left the duct.

She turned, glancing toward Rozhdestvenskiy's office.

then glanced back up the hall. The guards were still where they should be, by the mouth of the corridor.

She started toward Rozhdestvenskiy's door.

She took (he key from inside her glove, tried it, and the knob turned under her hand; the door opened. She dropped the backpack from her shoulders, and reached inside one of the outside pouches. She took a small leather pack, about twice as high as a package of cigarettes and half as thick. She opened it and pulled a pick from it. Taking the pick and scratching it against the lock surface, then breaking it against the lock surface, she left the small broken end piece on the floor, then reclosed the pack. She deposited thestemof the pick and the lock-pick set pack in her backpack, then closed the outer compartment and stepped inside the office.

Natalia closed the door behind her, quickly. To the best of her uncle's knowledge and to the best of her intelligence she had not aroused suspicion; no ultrasonic or photoelectric alarm systems had been installed. There would be the pressure-sensitive plates inside his office, but there should be nothing in the outer office. She stepped across the room, in darkness, taking the side chair, which sat next to the secretarial desk, and carrying it back toward the door into the corridor.

She opened the door halfway, listening at first; there was no sound. She opened it fully. A quick glance revealed no one in the corridor except the guards at the far end. They were not turning around. Moving rapidly, the chair in both hands, she started into the hallway, positioning the chair under the open duct vent. Pulling a third black scarf, like the two covering her face and hair, from her side pocket, she unfolded it into a square to cover the seat; then stood on it atop the chair seat. The magnetic screwdriver was in

her left side pocket and she got it out; then reaching up into the duct, she pulled the cover slightly closer and inserted it over the opening. She started tightening the screws.

Natalia froze at the voice of one of the guards—a remark about hearing something.

She shifted the screwdriver to her left hand to hold in place the screw on which she was working; her right hand reached for the Bali-Song knife in the hip pocket of her jump suit. The knife, unopened, in her right fist, she held her breath, listening.

To kill an innocent Soviet guard was anathema to her—but she would if she had to.

Natalia kept waiting.

There were no footsteps.

Dropping the knife back into her hip pocket, she resumed lightening the screws in the vent cover.

Quietly, she stepped down from the chair, snatching the black silk scarf and stuffing it into her pocket, the screwdriver having already been returned to her other pocket. Then she picked up the chair, which she set down to reopen Rozhdestvenskiy's outer office door. Having brought the chair inside, she replaced it exactly as it had been, that was crucial, she realized.

Natalia crossed the room to Rozhdestvenskiy's inner office door, her pack in her left hand, swinging by the straps. It would not be locked-She opened the door, snatching the Kel-Lite flashlight from her pack, scanning the floor, the walls—if additional alarms had been installed, they were not readily visible.

She closed her eyes, remembering the pattern of the pressure-sensitive plates, the way in which Karamatsov had walked when leaving his office for the night with her.

But it had to be the reverse. He was coining from the desk and the small safe behind it; she was going toward it.

She took a long-strided step to her left, shifted her weight and brought her right foot up, beside it. She waited. It was a silent alarm—but it would bring the guards almost instantly. She took the next step, again to her left, trying mentally to measure and match her dead husband's stride.

She brought her right foot over, waiting again.

She was a third of the way across the room.

She took a broad step to the right, losing her balance momentarily, her left foot almost touching the carpet in the wrong spot. She sucked in her breath hard, regaining her balance, waiting, settling her left foot beside the right.

Natalia took another step, then another and another.

She remembered how foolish Vladimir had looked, sitting on his desk, swinging his feet around to avoid the plates flanking his desk on both sides.

Now, she shifted her weight forward, onto her fingertips, then (hrew her pack onto the desk top. The Kel-Lite was in the black belt around her waist on which she carried a borrowed pistol. Had she lost one of her own guns, the ones given her by President Chambers, it would have meant instant recognition and arrest.

With the flashlight beam zigzagging at a bizarre angle with the rising and falling of her chest, she leaned toward the desk, throwing her weight forward and pushing herself up, jumping, tucking her knees up.

Natalia was on the desk top.

The safe was behind the desk and a little to the right of it. As she turned, she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror—all made up for the American Halloween,

she thought.

She had to move like a spider now, her pack once more on her back, jumping to avoid the pressure-sensitive plates.

She stood on the desk, judging the distance, inhaled deeply, then jumped.

Her feet landed on the top of the small safe, and for a moment, her balance faltered and she started to fall back. But she caught herself, lurching her body forward, then rising to her full height.

Natalia breathed again.

Dropping to her knees, the flashlight in her right hand, she bent over the safe door, upside down, shining the light on the combination lock.

Shifting the light into her left hand, she tried the combination.

The combination, as she had suspected, had been changed, "Damn it," she muttered in English.

She reached into her pack, extracting the specially sensitive stethoscope there.

Untwisting the tubing, she touched the flat diaphragm chest piece to the safe's escutcheon plate, beside the dial.

The door was slightly recessed into the body wall of the safe. She leaned over slightly more, working the combination to the dial's right, then left, then right again, listening. She heard a minuscule clicking in the locking bolt linkage, then stopped. Her gloved fingers worked the dial left, stopping when through the stethoscope's binaural ear tips she could hear another click.

Now right—listening for the click might be more faint. She heard it, but had passed it.

"Damn," she muttered again. She cleared the dial, then reworked the combination she had already memor

ized, this time without the earpieces to aid her; she had the numbers now.

She worked the handle, heard the bolt-activating gear rings click; the safe opened under her hand.

Natalia reached inside the safe, to the lower shelf.

The six crates of documents were in the cryptoanalysis room, but Rozhdestvenskiy would have the abstract or a copy of it.

Natalia found more than she had anticipated.

Squatting like an Indian on the top of the opened safe, she fished info her pack for the camera. Shining the Kel-Lite on the documents' faces, working the shutter, she caught bits and pieces of words.

"Eden Project ... in the event of massive nuclear exchanges between our country and the Soviet Union . . . the ultimate statement of the Western democracies . . . this utilization of the Space Shuttle Fleet . . .

manufacturing processes . . ." She flipped the page for the next shot.

tfIn the face of the near total destruction of life on the planet . . ."

She felt her heart skip a beat, then realized that it hadn't; she was being emotional. ". . . Bevington, Kentucky, and an as yet undesignated site . . . precursed by bizarre atmospheric changes . . ." The third page of the abstract was merely a list of names—she assumed those who had compiled (he reports.

She photographed the next document, a simple-road map, (he kind once sold in American gasoline stations, of the state of Kentucky, with a small town in the mountains, Bevington, circled in red with an arrow pointed toward it coming from the southeast.

Natalia began photographing the last set of documents; it was Rozhdestvenskiy's report. ". . . findings of

Soviet scientists have been verified and coincided with those of Western scientists . . . raid on Bevington, Kentucky, in the south-central United States . . ." Natalia would have called it more southeastern.

She glanced at her Rolex; she had to hurry. Rozhdestvenskiy might be back at any moment. She photographed the second page without taking note of anything written there, then the third and last page. He was admirably concise in his writing she noted subconsciously. ". . . the construction at the site called the Womb, and the bringing together of strategic materials (here, is ihe only hope for the survival of the Soviet."

She shuddered. Survival of the Soviet?

Was survival of the Soviet equivalent with the survival of mankind? she asked herself, closing her eyes from the glare of the flashlight. A doomsday device?

She prayed not; then felt the corners of her mouth raise in a smile—to whom did a good Communist pray?

Carefully, Natalia Anastasia Tiemerovna replaced the documents exactly as they had been in the safe, then she closed the combination, resetting the dial to the number it had been set to before she had touched it.

Natalia stood up, on the top of the safe, shouldering the pack, her gear secured inside it.

In the darkness, her eyes accustomed enough toil with the flashlight packed away, she jumped to the floor, intentionally landing on one of the pressure-sensitive plates. She ran toward the inner office door, knowing the silent alarm was sounding.

She threw open the door, then ran across the outer office, throwing open the door, turning into the corridor and running toward the panic-locked emergency door.

"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 hyperventilate.

"John—my God. I was afraid of this. You aren't supposed to— Here." She began massaging his chest, then started to give him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. He felt her lips against his, felt the rush of air making him choke. He coughed and felt her rolling his head to the side. He vomited again, but nothing came out.

"I'm going to give you this." She reached into a small black leather case and extracted a hypodermic. "This will block the effect of the muscle relaxant I gave you. It'll take effect almost immediately."

He felt the needle, closing his eyes against it and the pain in his already sore arm. "I'll wait with you beforel give you more morphine—once the muscle relaxant is

Sarah Rourke shivered, despite the warmth from the truck's heater, despite the fact the children, wrapped in their blankets, were warm now.

She had found an M-under the seat; it said M-on the side. It looked identical to the rifle she had lost so she now adopted it as her own.

She shivered because of what she was doing. She drove the main roads, passing into Tennessee now, and the main roads could mean Soviet troops or Brigands. She knew.that Chattanooga had been neutron-bombed; by now it would be safe to drive near or through.

The ground dropped sharply as she saw Chattanooga for the first time—no smoke from its chimneys, no cars. The road angled sharply left and she cut her speed slightly as she made the curve; the pickup's steering was not the world's best, she had decided.

As she started out of the curve, she glanced across at Michael and Annie.

They slept in each other's arms.

She looked back at the road. She sucked in her breaib, almost screaming.

A hundred yards ahead, perhaps—judging distance accurately had never been her strong point, she knew—

and the road was flanked on the right by the end of a long-reaching column of trucks and other vehicles, motorcycles parked near them. The men standing near the trucks and motorcycles were Soviet troops.

She glanced at the children. They were asleep and she'd let them stay that way.

She slipped the M-under the seat, then pulled her . and cocked the hammer, locking up the thumb safety catch, then sliding it under her right thigh. She kept driving, not speeding her pace, not slowing. She noticed the quizzical expressions on the faces of some of the Soviet soldiers who turned toward her as she passed.

One young man waved and she waved back, suddenly glancing in the mirror at her hair. It was greasy-looking from being wet so long. She ran her right hand through it. She kept driving.

She made a mental count of the vehicles—in case she reached the Mulliner farm. She could tell Mary's son and he could pass the information Jo U.S.

Intelligence through the Resistance group he worked with.

"Eighty-one, eight-two, eight-three—" She stomped on the brake pedal, almost forgetting the clutch, not knowing what else to do when six soldiers with rifles stepped in front of her truck. The one who seemed the oldest raised his right hand in a gesture for her to stop.

Her blood froze.

Glancing into the rear-view, she saw, through the bullet-holed window, men closing ranks behind her.

The older man approached her truck on the driver's side.

She rolled down the window.

His English was heavily accented but perfectly understandable to her.

Your papers—travel permits."

"They are lovely children there. I must see your papers, madam."

She glanced at Michael and Annie, still sleeping. "Thank you—rny son and daughter."

"Your papers, madam." He smiled, his right hand outstretched.

She could shoot him, she thought—but then, Michael and Annie would be killed when all the others with their rifles and handguns would shoot back.

"I—I don't—"

"What is the problem, Sergeant?"

She looked away from the sergeant's face, in the same direction the sergeant, the older man with the smile, turned and looked.

A tall officer, perhaps in his late thirties. Good-looking. She knew the face.

"Major—" she gasped, feeling like a fool—and feeling trapped.

"Comrade Major Borozeni, I stopped this truck to request papers of this woman. She apparently has no travel permit."

"I, ah—" She started to lie, but saw the look of recognition in the major's eyes—and the eyes, the face, they were all familiar. She had last seen him, hatless, wei, swearing after her in the rain outside of Savannah, after she had held him at gunpoint and forced him to help her effect the release of the Resistance fighters.

"I will handle this, Krasny," the major said. "Take your men aside."

The major approached the truck cab. Standing just a yard or so from (he side of the door, his height was such

that she knew he could watch her every move—if she went for her gun.

"Sarah, wasn't it?"

"Yes, Major—Sarah," she nodded, feeling somehow more tired than she had ever felt. "You caught me," she said, looking at his face.

"I think about you—a great deal. They are lovely children. They are yours?"

"Yes. They are. They had nothing to do with—"

"Have you a husband, Sarah? I was curious."

"Yes. I'm trying to reach a friend's farm and maybe he'll find me there."

"Does he love you—to let you go around the countryside like this?"

"He was away the Night of the War. He must have tried to get back. I know he's searching for us. I've met a man who told me—that John was still alive—was looking for us."

"John—a sturdy name." He smiled. "It is my name— in Russian, of course.

Ivan. This John—you love him?"

"Yes," she answered.

"Then there is nothing I can do." He smiled.

"Major, I didn't—"

"You have a gun under your right thigh. You would shoot me?"

"If I had to," she said, surprised at the firmness of her voice.

"Then you are stronger than I am. I could bring you no harm. What is the Americanism—weare even, now?" He turned and called out something Russian.

Almost immediately, the ranks of men in front of her blocking the truck, blocking her escape, began to fan apart.

"You're letting me—"

"Yes. Am I not stupid, though?" He smiled.

"I don't even know your na—"

"Maj. Ivan Borozeni, madam . . . Sarah. Literally, at your service." He stepped farther back from the truck and saluted her. "One fighter to another, then. And what is the expression? Godspeed—you and the children."

Sarah looked at him a moment, then whispered, so that only he could hear it, "I'll pray for you."

Borozeni nodded, then smiled. "And I, you, madam."

Sarah popped the clutch and started the truck ahead; she was crying.

Ishmael Varakov stepped from the back of hi; limousine to walk across the airport runway surface. The V-STOL aircraft's engines were maddeningly loud, his feet ached and his belly felt constrained with his uniform blouse buttoned.

&#;He walked toward a dark blue Cadillac, stopping for an instant to glance once again at the V-STOL aircraft. He watched as the remainder of the cargo was put aboard— Natalia's things.

He started walking again, stopping beside the rear door of the Cadillac, the driver—an Army corporal—saluting, Varakov returning it. The driver opened the rear door on the driver's side and as Varakov stepped inside, he looked at the man. "Go talk with my driver—about women or something."

Varakov slammed the door shut behind him.

In the far corner of the back seat, looking frightened for the first time since he had seen her last as a little girl, sat Natalia Tiemerovna. Next to her—between himself and her—sat a young man, about Natalia's own age, but already with dark thinning hair above a high forehead. He wore glasses, wire-rimmed, and as Varakov settled his

bulk in the seat beside him, the young man pushed the glasses off the bridge o( his nose.

"What the hell do you want with me?"

"Impertinent young man, aren't you?" Varakov smiled. "Here—if you promise not to shoot me with it yet.' Varakov reached into his briefcase and took out the worn Browning High Power that belonged toRubenstein. He rammed the magazine up the magazine well, then snapped back the slide of the pistol.

He lowered the hammer over the loaded chamber and handed the pistol into Rubenstein's hands, which were opening and closing, balling in and out of fists.

"I told you," Natalia murmured. "My uncle is a man to trust . . . not to—"

Rubenstein looked at her and she fell silent. Then he turned to Varakov.

"What do you want—General?" The younger man almost spat the word.

"You don't like Russians—let me guess. But you like Natalia, my niece.

Doesn't that strike you as odd, young man?"

"I know her and—"

"You would be a terrible debater. It would then follow that once you got to know me, you would like me, wouldn't it? Logically, I mean?" Varakov felt himself smile.

Natalia laughed, a little laugh. Varakov liked her voice. It reminded him at times of that of her mother. "Well, will you listen to me, young man?

For I need your help. Natalia needs your help; she doesn't know it yet.

She is leaving here—for an extended stay."

"Uncle?"

"I had Catherine pack your things; they are aboard

that aircraft out there." Varakov gestured behind him. "Everything."

Varakov looked at Rubenstein, then past him at Natalia. "You are both so young. It is the young who always risk for the errors of the old—like me.

I have learned something of paramount importance—to your friend John Rourke, something which I must discuss with John Rourke in person. It is of importance to him and—"

"Tm not bringing John into a trap," Rubenstein snapped, his right fist tightening on the butt of the pistol he held.

"Two questions. Would Natalia knowingly do Rourke harm?"

"Of course not," Rubenstein told him.

"And would I, if I were planning to deceive both my niece and Rourke, entrust Natalia to him, through you? Obviously not. That is why she goes with you—for that reason and for her own safety."

"My safety . . ." Natalia began. "But—"

"You asked no questions when I sent you to explore Rozhdestvenskiy's office."

"Roz—what?" Rubenstein asked.

"Rozhdestvenskiy, a singularly good-looking fellow, yet singularly unpleasant, I am afraid." Varakov looked outside the window, watching his driver and the driver who had brought Natalia and Rubenstein, talking; he wondered about what. "I need you, Mr. Rubenstein, to take Natalia, my niece, to wherever it is John Rourke lives—"

"The Re—"

"The Retreat? Yes. I believe that's the place. Then,"— and Varakov fished inside his case—"you will give him

this message. I am also giving you papers of safe conduct, for yourself and for Rourke, but I cannot guarantee how long my orders in such matters will be strictly enforced."

"Uncle," Natalia began.

"Silence, child." He looked at Rubensfein. "Can I entrust to you, sir, the one thing in my own life I hold most dear—her life?" Varakov extended his hand.

Rubenstein hesitated a moment, glanced at Natalia, then took Varakov's hand. "What the hell is going on here?"

"See? I told you you would like me, young man; I told you."

He started out of the back seat, opening the door, hearing Natalia's voice behind him as he exited the car.

"Uncle!"

She ran around the back of the car, then came into his arms. " would not have let you go without saying good-by, child. I will see you again. Do not fear."

"What is happening, Uncle Ishmael? What is ... that report of Rozhdestvenskiy, the Eden Project abstract?"

"Be thankful you read no more of it. You will learn the details when you come back here with John Rourke. There is no other way."

"Come back here with—"

"You must, child—and when Rourke reads the letter I have sent him, he will want to come. If he is the man I think he is—that you think he is ... he is the only one." Varakov stepped back, holding his niece at arms' length.

"You look lovely—a beautiful dress; that coat—real fur?"

"Yes." She looked down.

"I fear where you are going you'll have to change

aboard the aircraft. I know little about survival retreats, but I don't imagine one reaches them in high heels and silk stockings."

'They are nylon—silk stockings are—"

"Yes. Nylon. Be careful." He folded his arms around her. There was a possibility, he knew, that he would never see her again.

The noise of the rotor blades was uncomfortable, despite the protective muffs on his ears, and there was always the distraction of the radio chatter coming from other ships in the squadron. But he didn't wish lo lurn it off.

Rozhdestvenskiy looked at the ground beneath him, the shadows there. Could Bevington, Kentucky, be far away? Could glory be much farther?

He reviewed the plan. Land the small armada in Bevington, Kentucky.

Ground troops from . . . The name of the officer? Major Borozeni. Ground troops from Borozeni close into the valley. Locate Morris Industries.

Empty the factory and load the equipment aboard the cargo helicopters coming from the west.

"Pilot, how long until we reach the staging area for the rendezvous with ground forces?"

"Twenty-three minutes, Comrade Major Rozhdestvenskiy."

"Twenly-three minutes," Rozhdestvenskiy repeated. The staging area, then Bevington, then glory—and then life, all but eternal.

He leaned slightly back in his seat. He was perfect for the role, he thought; he had always looked the part of a hero of the Soviet Union.

Rourke opened his eyes, his breathing easier, his muscles aching, his body tired.

When he tried to move his arms, he could feel the aches in his forearm muscles. "Muscle relaxant," he whispered.

' He tried to move his head; it raised, and he felt the dizziness, the light-headedness. "Morphine," he rasped, coughing. He remembered. Martha Bogen had given him the muscle-relaxant block, and reduced the shot of morphine. Death—because he couldn't have breathed.

He assumed he had awakened earlier than the other times—had he? He doubted his own ability to gauge time. He started to move his feet, his bound ankles, to flex his knees up. There was pain in his muscles, stiffness; he needed the pain and he moved his legs more, twisting his aching head from side to side, his neck hurting as he did. He breathed deeply—but not too deeply. He couldn't afford to pass out again, not with this his only chance.

It was as though, he realized, he were watching himself from a distance.

His mind was clear enough—though holding a long train of thought was difficult. But his body was what seemed drunk, uncoordinated. He had stepped '

outside of himself, he felt. He started moving his arms up from his abdomen and chest and into the airspace above his head.

He heard the door, the key being turned, the woman coming.

"No—too soon," he rasped, thick-tongued, his voice sounding odd to him.

He could see her, coming toward him, the little black leather case in her hands.

"John, looking much better. I think I'll have to give you the full shot of the morphine this time or else you'll get out of hand. We wouldn't want that." She smiled as she bent over him, the needle in her right hand.

She squirted a little into the air, then lowered the needle toward him.

He slammed up his knees toward her stomach, both his fists bunched together and hammering against the right side of her head.

There was a short gasp like a scream and she disappeared below the level of the cot. He rolled over, half-falling on top of her. He raised his hands to break her exposed neck; but sank forward instead, across her body, the rope tightening around his neck.

He closed his eyes. . . .

He had to urinate. He opened his eyes. She would have been evacuating him, he realized. She? He looked under him; Martha Bogen was stirring but still unconscious.

Now able to remove the clothesline wrapped tightly around his neck, Rourke rolled away, pushing himself up on his hands to his knees. He rocked on his haunches for a long moment. He shook his head. "Morphine," he rasped.

He tried pushing against the floor to get his feet

under him, but fell flat onto the concrete.

He couldn't stand.

He looked up. There was a paper cutter in the far end of (he library basement. Using his hands to pull himself, and his knees to push, he crawled toward it.

It seemed too far; he wanted to close his eyes. "Narcan,' he murmured again. The morphine was taking hold.

She would have the Narcan to counteract it. "Antagonist," he murmured.

Narcan was the antagonist for morphine.

"Paper cutter." He looked up. It was on thesmall table above him. He rolled the full weight of his body against it; the table turned over, the paper cutter clanging to the floor, the blade partially opened. He dragged himself toward it. Rourke reached out his wrists toward the blade and began to saw at the ropes. . . .

Naked, he sat on the floor; his body smelled of soap. She had apparently bathed him, he realized. He tried standing, getting to his feet, falling forward but catching himself on the end of the cot. Martha Bogen was murmuring something now, starting to come around. The basement door was unlocked; he remembered that it should be.

Where was the key? He could lock her inside.

He dropped to his knees, picking up the small leather case in his thick-feeling fingers. "Narcan," he murmured seeing the hypodermic needle.

He hoped it was Narcan— not something else.

He took the syringe; he wanted a vein for the fastest action possible. He plunged the needle into his flesh. He started counting the seconds. It should take—how

many? He tried to remember. Thirty—thirty seconds or so before he felt it.

Rourke dropped the needle and slumped back on the cot, nausea and cold flooding over him as he closed his eyes. . . .

Rourke opened his eyes to see Martha Bogen, her hair mussed, her face bruised, standing over him, a needle in her right hand held like a dagger.

"No!" Rourke punched his right fist upward into her jaw. He sat up, his back aching, but his hands reaching out to catch the unconscious woman before she hit the concrete floor.

He swept her up into his arms, staggering for a moment under the added weight.

He walked the step toward the cot and, heavily, set her down.

"Martha," he murmured. He still had to urinate. He looked around the basement. There was a small door and he walked toward it, opened it—a bathroom. He stepped inside and relieved himself.

He felt the cold and the nausea coming. "Narcan— more Narcan," he murmured, already staggering. He reached the cot, found the package of syringes, opened the small leather case and took a fresh syringe.

He squatted on the floor, controlling his breathing so the Narcan wouldn't make him pass out. It shouldn't have been that way, he realized. It wasn^t theNarcan, hut the build-up of morphine in his system. He carefully found a spot and gave himself the injection, watching as the liquid dropped along the scale markings beneath the finger flange. Removing the needle, he sat quietly fora moment, feeling the dizziness start to subside.

He waited what he judged to be a full five minutes,

then tried getting to his feet.

Unsteady—but he could stand. He walked over to the small kit. There was one more syringe of Narcan. He closed the kit and took it with him as he started— shakily—toward the basement door. The thought occurred to him—break the blade off the paper cutter, in case more crazies were outside, waiting.

He didn't.

Rourke opened the door, then stepped through. The stairs were dimly lit, a stronger light glowing from the top. He leaned heavily against the wall of the stairwell as he started up, tired still, his muscles aching.

"B complex," he murmured. If he could reach his bike, he could give himself an injection. Another injection. "Shit," he murmured.

He reached the top of the stairs, the library empty through the open door, a light under a green shade glowing from the glass-partitioned office.

He lurched toward it, knocking over a large dictionary stand. He glanced back at it, then stood up straight, catching his breath. He reached the glass partition, then turned the knob of her office door. There was a small closet at the back, behind her desk.

As he opened the door, he started to feel his strength returning. Inside, neatly folded on the top shelf, were his clothes. He looked below. On the floor were his boots. No guns.

He turned to the desk, opening the large side drawer on the left-hand pedestal bottom.

The double Alessi shoulder rig, the twin Detonics stainless ,s. His A.G.

Russell Sting IA knife.

He took up the shoulder rig, snapping one of the pistols out of the holster, then checked it—the chamber was still

loaded, five rounds still in the magazine. He looked up; Martha Bogen was coming toward him.

He pointed the gun at her face. She stopped, then dropped to her knees on the floor and began to cry. "I didn't want to die alone."

"Nobody'll have to die; I won't let it happen."

"You can't stop. it. You'll die, loo. But we'll both die alone."

Rourke heard a tiny explosion, then a whistling sound. He glanced at his Rolex, still running in the drawer; then he pulled open the curtain over the window to the street. Against the darkness, he could see a skyrocket bursting. It was exquisite.

" told you." He heard Martha Bogen s voice shout hysterically. "I told you so, John!"

The fireworks. Rourke remembered her saying they would come just before the explosions, just before the end.

The pickup truck had thrown a part from the engine— she wasn't sure what—and the radiator had burst and the pickup had stopped dead.

For the last three miles, as she judged it, she and the children had walked hugging the side of the farm road— &he had been too tired to cross country. With her, she carried the stolen M-rifle, her husband's .—the gun now covered with a light layer of brown that she considered to be rust—and among her few personal effects the photographs she had taken from the farmhouse on the Night of the War. Her wedding picture with John was among them.

She sat staring at it now, folded, creased, cracked. He wore a tuxedo and she a floor-length white gown and a veil. The children were resting. It was not far to theMul-liner farm now, but they had needed to rest. She felt as though she were entering a new stage of her life, and somehow staring at the wedding photo had seemed necessary before going to the farm.

She put it away, seeing the picture more clearly in her mind than in the photograph. She remembered their wedding night, John's body next to hers—

"Mamma?"

She turned and looked at Michael in the predawn gray-ness. "Yes, son?"

"Will Daddy find us here—at Mary's?"

"I think so—if anyone can find anyone, Daddy will find us. Come here, Annie." Annie came beside her and Sarah hugged both children to her body.

She heard the barking of a dog, released the children, and grabbed for the rifle. But the dog stopped on the rise of ground, a golden retriever—the one her children had run with, played with. The dog ran up to them.

Michael, and then Annie—always a little more afraid of dogs-hugged the animal, and were in turn licked in the face, Sarah stood up, slinging the rifle across her back—shf could rest now, at least until John found them. "Until/ she repeated aloud.

Natalia placed her hands on her waist, just above the Safariland holsters carrying the twin Smith & Wesson revolvers. She looked at Paul Rubenstein, saying, "I don't see anything, Paul."

"When John brought me up here the first time, he told me that was the whole idea." Rubenstein smiled in the gray predawn. "I can't really explain it as he does—but I guess he did a lot of research. He said it was the way Egyptian tombs were sealed, and things like that. He wanted the place tamper-proof. Watch this." Rubenstein approached a large boulder on his right. He pushed against it, and the boulder rolled away.

He walked to his left, pushing a similar but not identical boulder. It was more squared off. As Rubenstein pushed, the rock on which Natalia stood beside him began to drop down. As the rock beneath them dropped, a slab of rock—she compared it to a garage door—opened inward.

"John told me it's just a system of weights and counterbalances,"

Rubenstein told her. "Maybe you understand it better—didn't you have some training as an engineer?'

"Nothing like this," she said, feeling literally amazed.

Rubenstein shined a flashlight—she remembered it as one of the angleheads he and John had said they'd taken from the geological supply house in Albuquerque just after the Night of the War. In the shaft of yellow light, she could see Paul bending over, flicking a switch. The interior beyond the moved-aside slab of rock was bathed in red light now. "All ready for Christmas." Rubenstein laughed. "Red light? That was a joke."

"Yes, Paul," Natalia murmured.

"HI get the bike. Hold this." He handed her the flashlight.

She studied the rock, murmuring, "Granite," as she heard the sounds of Rubenstein's Harley Low Rider being brought inside.

"Now watch this," Rubenstein said, suddenly beside her.

"Yes, Paul." She nodded, giving him back the flashlight. He moved over beside a light switch, then shifted a red-handled lever downward, locking it under a notch. He left the small cave for an instant and she could both hear and see him rolling the rock counterbalances back in place outside.

Rubenstein returned to the red-handled lever, loosed it from the notch that had retained it, and raised il. The granite slab—the door—started shifting back into place, blocking the entrance.

"What are those steel doors for?" Natalia asked, | gesturing beyond the pale of red light.

"The entrance inside." Rubenstein moved toward the doors, then began working a combination dial, then another, all in the shaft of yellow light from the anglehead. "John installed ultrasonic equipment to keep insects and critters out—"

"And closed-circuit television," Natalia added, looking up toward the vaulted rock above her.

"Can you find that switch for the red light back there?" Rubenstein asked her.

"Yes, Paul," she nodded, in the dim light found the switch, then worked it off. There was near total darkness now. "Paul?"

"Right here—wait." She heard the sounds of the steel doors opening.

She stepped closer to the beam of the anglehead flashlight, staring into the darkness beyond it.

"Ya ready?" she heard Paul's voice ask.

"I don't know . . . for—" She heard the sound of a light switch clicking.

She closed her eyes against the light a moment, then opened them.

"I don't believe it." She heard her voice; she couldn't remember it having ever sounded quite so astonished to her.

"That's the Great Room." She looked at Paul, watched the pride and happiness in his face.

"Great—yes," she repeated.

She started to walk, down the three low steps in front of her, a ramp to her left, her eyes riveted on the waterfall and the pool it made at the far end of the cavern; then she drifted to the couch, the tables, the chairs, the video recording equipment, the books that lined the walls, the weapons cabinet.

And on the end table beside the sofa . . . She stopped, approaching the couch, picking up the picture frame there.

"Would you like a drink, Natalia?" Rubenstein's voice came to her from across the Great Room. "I can show the

rest to you after a while,"

"What? A drink—yes," she called back.

The little boy in the photo—he was a miniature twin of John Rourke.

"Michael," Natalia murmured, feeling herself smile. So fine, so beautiful, so strong. And the little girl—the face of an imp, a smile that— Natalia felt herself smiling more broadly.

And John, his arm around a woman who looked abou! Natalia's age, perhaps older by a few years. She was pretty, with dark hair and green eyes, or so it seemed in the picture.

"Sarah Rourke," Natalia murmured.

'That's them," Rubenstein said, suddenly beside her. "I didn't ask what you wanted. Figured Seagram's Seven would be all—"

"Perfect. That's perfect, Paul."

"That's Sarah and Michael and Annie. I feel almost as though I know them."

Rubenstein laughed.

"Yes, Paul—so do I," Natalia said, putting the picture down on the end table. "So do I." She stopped talking then, because she felt she was going to cry and didn'! want to.

Rozhdestvenskiy looked at the Army major, Ivan Borozeni. "Major—it is immaterial to me if the population is unarmed essentially."

"But, Colonel, I see little need for going in firing— we—"

"Major, I will remind you of your rank—and also of one salient point you may not have considered. The Morris Industries plant was a highly secret Defense Department installation and manufacturing facility. If it still stands, it would seem obvious that the civilian government of the town is aware of its strategic importance to one degree or another. Hence, if we do not put down any thought of resistance as we enter the valley, they will likely use demolitions to destroy the plant.'

"But, Comrade Colonel—"

Rozhdestvenskiy dragged heavily on his cigarette. "Your objections shall be noted in my official report. Now—lead your men into the assault."

The Army major stiffened visibly, then saluted, Rozhdestvenskiy, still dressed in civilian clothes, nodding only.

Rozhdestvenskiy turned and started back toward his command helicopter. In the far distance, he had been seeing fireworks illuminating the dawn sky.

Peculiar, he had thought, surprised that Major Borozeni hadn't mentioned it. ...

Below him now, he could see the helicopter gunships shadows hovering like huge black wasps over the lip of the dish-shaped mountain valley, and beyond the rirn, the first of Borozeni's attack forces were moving up. It was like a gigantic board game, he thought—this thing of being a field commander. He rather liked it.

Rozhdestvenskiy spoke into the small microphone in front of his lips.

"This is Colonel Nehemiah Rozhdestvenskiy; the attack has begun!"

His jaw tightened, his neck tensed, and he nodded to his pilot, watching the man's hands as he worked the controls, feeling the emotion already in the pit of his stomach. They were starting down.

The mists on the ground rolled under the downdrafts of the helicopter rotors—he watched them swir! beneath the long shadow of his machine as they came from the sun. Surprise—there would be surprise, he thought.

Already, he could see the factory looming ahead and below them, the only large industrial building in the town, at its far edge.

"Down there," he rasped into his headset microphone. "There—get us down there." Then he switched channels, into the all-bands monitoring system so both Borozeni's ground commanders and the pilots of the other helicopter gunships could hear him. "This is Rozhdestvenskiy—we will converge on the factory due west of the town. Only KGB personnel will be allowed

inside the factory complex itself, and only those with a clearance level over CX Seven will be allowed within the factory. Crush any resistance."

He glanced through the bubble in front of him as another skyrocket soared up, exploding, as if the fools—he thought—were celebrating the attack.

Into the microphone again, he snapped, "And find the source of those fireworks; I want them stopped!"

As he judged it, the factory was less than a mile away now so again he spoke into the microphone, but on the aerial-force band only. "This is Rozhdestvenskiy. Commando squad ready! Pilots take up positions!"

His own ship was hanging back as a half-dozen helicopter gunships, their cargo doors open, formed themselves into a crude circle around the factory fence, perhaps one hundred feet in the air.

Rozhdestvenskiy saw the first of the ropes being let down; then suddenly, like dozens of spiders sliding on filaments of web, dark-clad forms started down the ropes, rappelling toward the ground. "Good man!" he rasped, unconscious that he had spoken into the microphone.

The first of the men were on the ground, establishing a perimeter, their assault rifles and light machine guns ready.

The last of the commando team was down. "Move out, commando force ships,"

he barked into the microphone. "Take up positions two hundred yards from and around the factory fences."

Rozhdestvenskiy turned to his own pilot, tapping the man on the arm, then jerking his thumb downward.

The pilot nodded, then started the machine ahead and down.

Rozhdestvenskiy's mouth was dry, his palms sweating.

He snapped up the collar of his windbreaker, checking