The Web

believe, Comrade General? This other matter to which I hope to attend—I confess both a personal and professional interest in the safe return of your niece. The major may be able to aid me in locating the war criminal Rourke—"

"War criminal?" Varakov repeated, without really thinking.

"Surely, the assassination of the head of the American KGB by this Rourke is a war crime, Comrade General. I understand he was a physician before going into the employ of the American Central Intelligence Agency."

Varakov picked his words—carefully—for the first time realizing what kind of man he truly dealt with. "It is my understanding that this Dr. Rourke had left the CIA sometime before the war. I do not really concern myself with him. I belive his major preoccupation is searching for his wife and children who may have survived the war; I do not know. If you capture him, I should be interested in meeting him. But that is your affair."

"Yes, Comrade General. That is my affair." Rozhdestvenskiy dropped his cigarette to the marble floor and started to grind it out beneath the heel of his boot.

"But this is my headquarters building, Colonel; pick up that cigarette."

"Bat surely, a prisoner used for janitorial service can—"

"That is not the point; pick it up."

The boyish smile was gone from Rozhdestvenskiy's face. He hesitated a moment, then stooped over and picked up the cigarette butt, holding it between two manicured fingernails. "Will there be anything else, Comrade General?"

"No—I think not." Varakov turned and started back

across the main hall toward his office without walls.

Thousands of troops were moving inland to escape the raging storm fronts assaulting the eastern coast of what had been the United States—regrouping and searching, he hoped. That Natalia would be safe as long as she was with John Rourke, Varakov took as a fact. It was after that—with this Rozhdestvenskiy-—that Varakov worried about her safety.

"Catherine!" He called out the name before he remembered he had told her to go and rest. He shrugged, deciding he would do the same thing himself.

There might not be time for it in the future.

His hands stabbed into his pockets as he walked away from his office and he stopped once, glancing back over his right shoulder. The offensive SS-Hke KGB officer was gone from view. Varakov smiled, remembering the ego satisfaction he had given himself in making Rozhdestvenskiy pick up the cigarette. He realized as he glanced once more at the mastodons that he would likely pay for it, too, and perhaps so would Natalia.

Rourke's knuckles were white, Ms fists bunched on the yoke now as the twin-engine cargo plane skimmed low over over the icy roadway, his starboard engine hopelessly iced. His mind went back to the only other time in his life he had crash-landed a plane—the in the New Mexico desert on the Night of the War. He remembered Mrs. Richards, her husband gone in the destruction of the West Coast, her compassion in caring for the dying captain, her tireless help that long night while they had fought to keep airborne—then her death when the had—Rourke wrenched back on the controls, trying to keep the nose up. The brakes held, but the plane started to skid as it hit the ice-and snow-covered road. "Get your heads down!" Rourke shouted to Paul, strapped in near the midsection, and to Natalia in the copilot's seat beside him.

"John!"

Rourke didn't look at her; he was feeling the tendons in his neck distending, his body suddenly cold, the air temperature finally getting to him. The plane was going out of control. He worked the flaps to decelerate, the brakes starting to slow him as well now. The straight

away stretched for perhaps another quarter-mile yet and if he slowed the craft too quickly the skid would become uncontrollable. The aircraft zigzagged under him, the tail of the craft whipping back and forth across the three-lane width of Kentucky highway. The straightaway was rapidly running out. Eyes squinted against the glare of the plane's lights on the snow, he could see ahead of him where the road seem to end, to curve in a sharp S-bend, running to his left. The plane coasted right across the icy road, toward the drop-off on the far end of the S-bend, a meager metal guardrail there and beyond it, from what Rourke could see, a drop.

Two hundred yards, perhaps less. Rourke controlled the plane with the flaps, the braking action worsening the skid. Rourke reached across to Natalia, punching the release button on the seat harness, grabbing her by the left shoulder, shouting back along the fuselage, "Paul— we're bailing out—get the cargo door and jump for it— jump as far out as you canl"

Rourke didn't wait to see that the younger man was complying, but grabbed Natalia, shoving her roughly ahead of him toward the fuselage door.

"John!" Rourke glanced to his left. Rubenstein was struggling with the seat belt, its buckling mechanism apparently jammed. "Save yourselves!"

Rourke glanced toward Natalia; the Russian woman was already working the handle on the cargo door with her left hand, in her right hand something metallic gleamed—a knife. She reached the butt of it out to Rourke. Rourke snatched it from her hand, wheeling, the aircraft's lurching and bumping throwing him toward Rubenstein. Collapsing against the fuselage, Rourke reached the knife blade under the webbing strap across

Paul's left shoulder, sliced it; then, as he started for the leg strap, he could feel the rush of arctic-feeling air, hear the slipstream. The fuselage door opened. Rourke's borrowed knife slashed apart the last of the restraints.

The knife still in his right hand, he snatched at his CAR-, yelling to Paul, "Jump for it, Paul—go on!"

As Rourke was moving toward the door, the younger man was already on his feet, the Schmeisser in his right hand; Natalia was starting to jump.

Rourke, at the fuselage door, wheeled, reaching toward his strapped-down Harley, cast a glance at it because it would likely be the last, and snatched his leather jacket. He turned and dove, the snow slamming up toward him as he rolled onto the road surface, his left shoulder taking it, aching as he hit, the rear stabilizers sawing through the air toward him as he flattened himself, .the tail of the fuselage passing inches over his head.

He followed it with his eyes for an instant, then pushed himself to his feet, slipping on the ice, running, lurching forward. He could see Natalia, lying in the middle of the road, Paul running toward her. Rourke heard it, the wrenching and groaning of metal. He wheeled, skidding on the heels of his black combat boots across the ice, to watch as the plane crashed through the metal roadside barricade and disappeared over the side. He waited— there was no explosion. But there wasn't much hope either, he thought. Three people, one jacket, a rifle with no spare magazines and a submachine gun with no spare magazines. A few pistols. He looked into his hand—and a Bali-Song knife. He turned, starting back toward Natalia.

But like a little girl after taking a spill on an ice rink, she sat, legs wide apart, her right hand propping her up, her left hand brushing the hair back from her face,

hair already flecked with snow. Beside her Rubenstein crouched, as if waiting.

Rourke stopped walking, a yard or so from her still. He held up the knife.

"Never told me about the Bali-Song knife."

She only smiled. Rourke glanced back where the plane had disappeared; if anything could be salvaged, it would have to wait. The leather jacket was bunched in his left hand along with the CAR-. He approached Natalia, squatted down beside her, and draped the coat across her shoulders. She was already shivering, as was Paul Rubenstein. And so was Rourke. . . .

"I had the Bali-Song for a long time. For some reason I didn't carry it when you found me in (he desert. I don't remember why-But I took it with me to Florida, just in case.

"Are you good with it?" Rourke asked her, shivering.

"Yes. If my hands weren't so cold—I could show—" She shook from the freezing air temperature; sub-freezing, perhaps close to zero, Rourke thought as he started down the side of the embankment, carefully, slowly, for the rocks that formed the purchases for his hands and feet were ice-coated. "Be careful, John."

"Once I get down there, I can snake up a rope; then you and Paul can join me and at least we'll have some shelter—unless it looks like it's going to blow or something."

"I can—" Rubenstein began.

"You stay with Natalia. If I break every bone in my body doing this, I want someone in one piece to take care of her." It was getting dark as Rourke started climbing again, the aircraft still some thirty feet below him, its portside wing broken in two, the starboard engine

snagged in a clump of rocks some fifty feet farther below it and half-obscured now by snow.

Rourke's hands were numb as his fingers played along the glistening iced-over rocks, his shoulder still ached from where he'd hit the road surface, and one desire suddenly obsessed him—to urinate. Rourke's right foot edged down, then his left. The left slipped as loose shale under him, crusted over with ice, broke away from the dirt that had held it. His fingertips dug into the rock surface against which they pressed as his right foot braced against the coated rock against which only the toes now pressed.

"John—I'm coming down," Natalia shouted.

"No—I'll be—" Rourke swung his left leg out, finding a purchase against a gnarled stump of bush growing out of the dirt embankment. "I'm all right."

Rourke edged his right hand down onto a lower ledge of rock, then his left foot, then his left hand, then his right foot. Slowly, methodically, his kidneys screaming at him to let go, he kept moving.

His hands were numbed to the point where he could barely sense the rocks under his fingertips, and his feet were becoming chilled as well. A numbness was setting into his thighs. But the plane was nearer.

He glanced up once; Natalia and Paul, peered down at him, over the edge.

The thought crossed his mind that even if one of the bikes had remained serviceable, how would they ever get it up to the road surface? And the freak storm—when would it end?

The plane was a few yards away from him now, across a wide break in the ground and below the break, a drop of seventy-five feet or more. Rourke settled himself against the rocks, checking his footing, then awkwardly because

of the narrowness of the ledge, swung his left leg around behind him, found a purchase for the left foot, then simultaneously swung his left arm out and around, twisting his body. He moved his feet slightly, firming the position he had, his back now against the rocks and dirt of the embankment. The snow, falling in larger, heavier flakes, covered his shoulders, lingered on his eyelashes-freezing him.

The jump to the opposite side of the break in the ground was only ten or eleven feet. But there was no running room. He would simply hurtle his body off the ledge and that would be it.

He sucked in his breath hard, glancing up one nfiore time; he couldn't see either Natalia or Paul cleariy because of the heaviness of the snowfall.

"Now!" he rasped, pushing himself away from the embankment wilh his hands.

His knees slightly flexed as he half-jumped, half-fell forward, his fingers reaching out. His righl hand, then his left touched the opposite side of the open space, his hands clawing at the dirt and loose rocks there. His hands slipped, his thighs slamming down hard against the surface of the ground, his body starting back down the incline, slipping.

He couldn't dig in his heels—his feet dangled in the air. As he started to slide backward, he spread-eagled his arms, his fingers clawing for a purchase on the ice-coated ground. A rock—he held it, then the rock dislodged and he was slipping again.

His left hand snaked behind him, snatching for the A.G. Russell Black Chrome Sting IA he carried in the little inside waistband holster. His fingers closed stiffly around it as he slipped toward the edge, his left arm swinging around his body in a wide arc. The point of the Sting IA bit deep into the ground, penetrating the ice. His right

hand grasped for the knife handle as well now, both fists bunched around it; his body below the breastbone dangled in midair.

He sucked in his breath, flexing his arm muscles as he tried pulling himself up. There wasn't time; the knife was already slipping from the soft dirt beneath the ice, and his cold-numbed fingers were slipping from the slick steel of the knife's handle.

"No!" Rourke heard the shout come from his lips and for the first time became conscious of it. Summoning all his strength, he drew himself up.

The knife slipped from the dirt; his body lurched forward, onto the ice and snow. He rolled, flattening himself, the knife still clutched in his left fist.

He couldn't see through the snow now to the road thirty feet above, but through the whiteness he heard a voice. "Answer me, John—John!" It was Natalia.

"I'm all right," Rourke shouted back, already starting to edge across the ice.

Two yards from the still intact fuselage, he stood up, slowly edging forward. He started into the plane, but stopped.

His stiff right thumb and first finger worked at his zipper; there was something more important than inspecting (he plane that instant. . . .

He stood inside, shivering with the cold, but at least out of the wind.

Natalia's borrowed motorcycle, a vintage BSA, had been the first of the three, farthest forward in (he fuselage; the other two bikes had hammered against it in the crash. It was twisted, as was the underside of the fuselage where apparently the craft had gouged against a large rock, or one of the supports for the steel guardrail.

But his own jet black Harley-Davidson Low Rider appeared undamaged, as was the bright blue Low Rider he had found for Paul Rubenstein after the younger man's motorcycle had been abandoned to lighten the plane during the Florida evacuation.

With effort, still shivering, he got Rubenstein's bike aside so he could get to his own. The Lowe Alpine Systems Loco Pack was still strapped in place behind the seat. Rourke got to it, opening one of the pockets. There was a red-and-silver Thermos Space Blanket, the kind larger than the original disposable models developed for the astronaut program. The silver reflective side toward him, he wrapped the blanket around his shoulders, leaning heavily against one of the fuselage ribs. Rourke rammed his hands, palms inward, down inside the frnt of his trousers, warming them against his testicles to reduce the numbness o( his fingers so he could move them well enough to work. He stood there, the blanket around him, his hands starting to get back feeling, his eyes flickering from one part of the fuselage to another— the damage.

The plane was a total loss, as he had realized it would be from the first moment he had decided to abandon it, when stopping it on the ice-slicked road surface had proven impossible. It would have been unlikely that the iced and stalled engine could have been successfully repaired in any event. It had been the single-engine landing that had caused the problem with stopping in the first place—not enough power. Aside from Natalia's motorcycle, everything that was important seemed relatively unscathed.

He could move his fingers more now, so he withdrew his hands from inside his pants, then quickly started

going through his things and the packs of Natalia and of Paul Rubenstein.

. . .

A pair of vintage, heavy leather Kombi ski gloves on his hands, a seen-better-days gray woolen crew-neck sweater on over his shirt, Rourke fed out part of the climbing rope from his pack, a rock secured to the free end. "Stand back from the edge up there—got a chunk of rock on the end of this for weight."

"Understand," Paul Rubenstein's voice called back through the snow. Rourke still could not see sufficiently well through the heavily falling snow to view the road surface above him. He started swinging the free end of the rope, the end weighted with the rock, feeding out more and more of the line. He made the toss, then heard the sound of the rock slamming against something metallic—one of the supports for the guardrail? The rope slacked and he started reeling it back in. He would have to try again. . . .

On the fourth try, the weighted end of the rope didn't move. "Paul—look for it!"

For a moment, there was no answer, then Rubenstein's voice responded, "I've got it, John."

Rourke nodded to himself, then shouted, "Secure it to something really sturdy—have Natalia help you!" He waited then. Telling Paul to get Natalia's help was the tactfu! way of handling the fact that Rourke had no idea how well or how poorly the younger man could tie knots. And Rourke very well understood the sort of training Natalia had undergone to become a KGB field agent in the first place—rappelling would have been part of it and she'd make the knot secure if Rubenstein didn't.

"Jt's set, John," Natalia's voice called down.

"Haul up on the rope—hurry up," Rourke called up. On the near end of the rope, Rourke had Natalia's and Paul's winter jackets secured. The rope started snaking upward. . . .

As Rourke huddled by the fire a few yards from the aircraft fuselage, the water nearly boiling, he considered Rubenstein; the younger man had made it down the embankment quite well. Not as professionally as Natalia had let herself down, but well nonetheless.

The water in the pot was boiling and Rourke picked it up hy the handle, his left hand still gloved and insulating his fingers; then he stood up.

He hated to, but he had to—he kicked out the fire. The darkness around him was more real now as he started toward the glowing lightthe Coleman lamp in the fuselage.

The Space Blanket was wrapped around Natalia now, her coat being rather light for the extreme cold of the night. Rourke was chilled still, despite the fact that he had added the leather bomber-style jacket over his sweater. Rubenstein looked positively frozen to the bone, Rourke thought.

"Paul—why don't you fish through the gear and find a bottle of whiskey? I think we could all use a drink." Rourke smiled, watching Rubenstein's face almost instantly brighten. The younger man was up and moving as Rourke crouched down beside Natalia near the Coleman lamp.

"Here—I'll do that," she said, her gloved hands reaching for the pot of no-longer-boiling water. "You hold the food packets."

"All right," Rourke murmured. There wasn't much of the Mountain House food left in his gear and he'd have to &#;+

resupply once he got back to the Retreat, he reminded himself.

"Hope you like beef stroganoff," Rourke said, holding the first of the opened packets up for her to add the water.

"Do you remember the camp we had that night before you scouted for the Brigands and the Paramils—in Texas?"

"Yes," Rourke told her.

"Should I get drunk again?" She smiled. "But it wouldn't do me any good, would it?"

Rourke, balancing one of the Mountain House packs, then opening another, said nothing. He turned to call to Rubenstein, still searching for the bottle. "Food's on, Taul."

"John," Natalia's alto insisted. "You remember that? I called you Mr.

Goodie-Goodie, didn't I."

"It doesn't matter," Rourke told her, his voice a whisper.

"I think I loved you then, too," she said matter-of-factly.

Rourke looked into her eyes a moment. "I think I loved you then, too."

"I won't see you after we get out of here, after this storm—will I?"

Rourke didn't answer.

Rubenstein came up, an unopened quart bottle of Seagram's Seven in his hands. "This bottle's cold—least we won't need any ice, huh?" The younger man laughed.

"Here, Paul." Natalia handed Rubenstein the first of the three packs, the one with the hottest water added. Rourke exchanged a glance with her and she smiled.

Rubenstein took the pack of beef stroganoff and settled himself beside the Coleman lamp. "Like old

times—out there on the desert in Texas," Rubenstein remarked, giving the food a final stir.

"John and I were just saying that," Natalia told him.

"This is good." Rubenstein's garbled voice came back through a mouthful of food.

Rourke broke the seal on the whiskey bottle, twisting open the cap and handing the bottle to Natalia. "I'll get a cup for you," he started.

"No—like we did that other time." She smiled, putting the bottle to her lips and tilting her head back to let the liquid flow through the bottle's neck and into her mouth. Rourke watched her, intently.

She handed him the bottle and, not wiping it, he touched the mouth of the bottle to his lips, taking a long swallow; then, as he passed the bottle to Rubenstein, he said to her—Natalia—"Like we did the other time."

He glanced at Rubenstein for a moment, but the younger man, having already set the bottle down, was smiling and saying, "Not like I did the other time. I can still remember the headache." And he continued with his food.

. . ,

Natalia lay in Rourke's arms, the Coleman lamp extinguished. Rubenstein was taking a turn at watch just inside the open cargo hatch of the fuselage. "You'll pick up the search for Sarah and the children? I'd help if I could."

"I don't suppose it matters; an intelligence operative of Reed's in Savannah, retired Army guy, reactivated for this—"

"The Resistance? I wonder if it has a prayer," she mused.

"I don't think that's the point of it anyway," Rourke whispered to her in the darkness. "It's the doing that

matters, the results are secondary. But he got word to Reed at U.S. II headquarters that he'd made a positive identification of Sarah and Michael and Annie—they were heading toward U.S. II headquarters."

"But—"

Rourke cut her off. "U.S. II headquarters was moving out so your people wouldn't make a raid and catch Chambers. And Sarah and the children couldn't make it across the Mississippi valley anyway—the radiation. So I've gotta stop them—before they get into the fallout zone."

"If somehow we learn anything in Chicago, I will or my uncle will—we'll get word to you, somehow."

"I know that," Rourke answered.

"I hope you find them, John—and that they are well, and whole, and that you can make a life for them. Somewhere."

"The Retreat," Rourke said emotionlessly. "The Retreat—only place safe.

It's safe against anything except a direct hit, enough supplies to live for years, growing lights for the plants to replenish the oxygen—and that stream gives me electrical power. I can seal the place to make it airtight. But Sarah was right in a way; it is a cave. I don't know if I can see raising two children in a cave—even a cave with all the conveniences."

"You don't have any choice—you didn't start the war," she said, her voice suddenly guilt-tinged he thought.

"Neither did you, Natalia—neither did you," he murmured. She leaned tighter against him and he held her tighter.

"If I close my eyes, I can imagine it."

"What?" he asked, feeling dumb for saying it.

'That things were different and we could he—" She didn't finish the thought.

Rourke touched his lips to her forehead as he leaned back, her head on his shoulder. As he closed his eyes, he murmured the word that she hadn't said—"lovers." He listened to the evenness of her breathing long past the time he should have fallen asleep. ...

Using the rope—all of it—Rourke and Natalia had engineered a pulley system for getting the bikes up onto the highway. And he was committed now, he knew: The storm showed no signs of abating, but the longer he delayed taking up the search, the closer Sarah and the children might get to the irradiated zone, the rnore chance there was that they would slip through his fingers. He wanted to catch up with them in the Carolinas—it was the only chance now.

It was the only chance now, because without the plane, it would be impossible to drop Natalia safely near Russian-dominated territory—northern Indiana. Rourke's original plan had been to leave Natalia where she would be safe, then to drop Paul in Tennessee. He would have flown then as close to Savannah as possible—he and Paul catching Sarah and the children between them.

The very act of starting one motorcycle toward the road was a commitment to abandon the shelter of the aircraft fuselage, for one man by himself could not control the bike and get the bike elevated—even with Natalia helping him. And now, as Rourke coiled the last of the ropes, hisownHarley and Paul's bike as well on the road surface, he glanced back down to the shelter of the fuselage. He was already chilled, despite the fact that he wore fwo pairs oi jeans, three shirts, his crew-necked

sweater, and jacket. Using spare bootlaces, he had secured Natalia's sleeping bag over her coat, to give her added warmth. She would ride behind Paul on his bike.

The plan was simple—the only one possible under the circumstances. The heart of the storm seemed to be to the south and west. With luck, Paul and Natalia would be driving out of the storm while he, Rourke, drove into it.

With its intensity, Rourke assumed it couldn't last much longer at any event.

Rourke would start from Tennessee and cut down into Georgia, perhaps as far down as the massive craters that had once been metropolitan Atlanta; he still had a Geiger counter, as did Paut. Then he would zigzag back and forth with his farthest range being the lower Carolinas. Paul, after leaving Natalia in safe territory, would travel back, retracing the route down from northern Indiana to Tennessee, then strike straight for Savannah from there. With luck one of them would intercept Sarah and Michael and Annie. In two weeks, he and Paul would rendezvous at the Retreat—hopefully one of them with Rourke s family in tow.

The Metalifed and Mag-Na-Ported six-inch Colt Python in the flap holster at his waist, Rourke began making a last minute check of his gear. The Python and his other guns had been freshly lubricated with Break-Free CLP

which would resist the sub-freezing temperatures. The Lowe Alpine Systems Loco pack was secure behind the seat of the Low Rider, the CAR-wrapped in plastic and secured to the pack, a blanket under the plastic to protect the gun in the event of a skid. He glanced along the icy road surface; a skid was highly likely.

He started his bike, letting the engine warm up as he walked back toward Natalia and Paul. Rubenstein's bike

was already loaded and started.

Rubenstein started to say something, but Rourke cut him off. He wasn't certain why, but an urgency seemed now to obsess him. "You memorized those strategic fuel supply locations so you can get gasoline?"

"Yes—yeah, I did," the younger man said, looking strange without his glasses; but with the snow falling, it would have been impossible to see through them.

"And (ake it real slow—really slow until you start getting out of this.

Just be careful all the way, even after you've gotten through the weather—a sudden temperature—"

"John—I'll do all right. Take it easy." Rubenstein extended his gloved right hand, then pulled the glove away.

Rourke hesitated a moment, then pulled off his own glove. "I know you will Paui—I know. I just—ahh . . ." Rourke simply shook his head, clamping his jaw tight and wishing he had a cigar there to chew on.

"I'll walk you back to your motorcycle," Natalia said quietly, taking Rourke's bare right hand as soon as he released Paul's grip.

"All right," Rourke answered her softly. "I'll see you Paul."

"Yeah, John. I'll be right behind you real soon."

Rourke simply nodded, then started back toward his machine, feeling the pressure of Natalia's hand inside his. Her hand was warm. He looked at her once, then looked away. One of his big bandanna handkerchiefs was tied over her head to cover her ears; his own ears were freezing. It was blue, making the blueness of her eyes even bluer. The sleeping bag bound around her made her figure virtually vanish under it and finally, as they

stopped beside his Harley, without looking at her he murmured, "If you ever need to disguise yourself as a plump Russian peasant girl that's the perfect outfit."

He felt her hand let go of his, then her hand on his face as he turned to her.

"I love you, John Rourke—I'll always love you. Forever." She kissed his mouth hard, and he thought he saw a faint trace of a smile—a strained smile—on her face. She turned and ran away, almost slipping once on the ice as he watched her. She clambered aboard the snow-splotched bright blue Harley Low Rider and didn't look back as Rubenstein gunned the machine, shot a wave over his shoulder, and started off.

John Rourke stood there for a moment—cold. He was alone. It was a lifelong habit.

Natalia Anastasia Tiemerovna hugged her arms tightly around Paul Rubenstein; she thought of him as a brother, as Rourke thought of him.

Rourke had said it to her more than once. She held Paul in order to stay aboard the slowly moving motorcycle, and for the warmth his body radiated—and to give him the warmth of her body.

It had been three hours by the face of her ladies' Rolex and the ice and snow had allowed them, she estimated, not more than a hundred miles, perhaps less. "Do you think the storm will intensify as John heads south?"

she asked.

There was no answer from Rubenstein. She repeated the question—louder. "Do you think the storm will intensify—as John goes south, Paul?"

"I think so. May be slacking up a little soon for us— looks like it up—"

"Paul!" It was the first time he'd turned his face toward her in more than an hour. His eyebrows were crusted over with ice, his face red and raw to the point of bleeding on his cheeks. She suddenly realized that while his body had shielded hers from the wind, his face had had nothing to protect it. "Stop the bike—now. You have

to," she shouted to him.

"What—" But then he shook his head slowly and she could hear the sounds of engine compressionas he geared down, making the stop slowly to avoid a skid. They had almost had one perhaps ten miles back but Rubenstein had kept the bike aright somehow, although Natalia didn't know how he had done it.

The bike slowed then, stopping, slipping a little as Paul shifted his weight, Natalia's feet going out to balance it as well. "You let me drive," she said, dismounting.

Paul looked at her, his eyes tearing from the wind, but smiling despite it. "If I let anything happen to your face—well, aside from the fact John'd never forgive me—I wouldn't forgive myself," he told her.

She threw her arms around his neck, hugging him a moment, then stepped back.

She had long ago resigned herself to Rourke's chauvinism—and liked it in her heart. And Rubenstein treated her the same way. She pulled the blue-and-white bandanna from her hair, her ears instantly feeling the cold. She started toward Rubenstein again, saying, "Then you tie this over your face and stop for five minutes every half-hour—either that or I don't go another mile, Paul."

"But—"

"No!" She decided then that if Paul insisted on treating her like a woman, then she could treat him like a little boy—and impose her will. She bound the handkerchief at the back of his neck, pulling up the sides until the handkerchief covered all his face just below his eyes. "You look very, very much like a bandit—a handsome bandit." She smiled.

Rubenstein shook his head, shrugging his shoulders,

his voice sounding slightly muffled as he said, "We go again?"

"Yes—if you think you can. But only for a half-hour—then a rest."

"Agreed," Rubenstein told her, straddling the Harley once more. She climbed on behind him. As the machine started along the road, she huddled her head down into the sleeping bag which formed a collar for her—at least as much as she could, for her ears tingled already with the cold despite her hair covering them.

She had bathed his face and now massaged it as they huddled from the slightly diminished storm under the shelter of a bridge, ground clothes anchored to the bike and to the bridge itself to form a windbreak for them. It was dark—night had come early because of the darkness that had filled the skies throughout the day. "You don't have to—"

She cut him off. "I massage your face because I love you and want you to be well."

He turned and looked at her. "You don't have to—"

"I do. I love both of you. You know that."

"But you love him differently—I know that, too. The kid isn't always asleep when you think he is." Rubenstein smiled, then winced, his face evidently hurting when he moved.

"Rest," she told Paul.

"He's a funny guy, isn't he? John, I mean," Paul Rubenstein said, as if to himself, she thought.

"Yes—he is," she answered, wishing for a cigarette but still needing to rub his face to restore the circulation. "How are your feet and hands?''

"Left foot's a little stiff—but I don't think it's—"

"Rourke isn't the only one who knows about the damage cold can do to the body," she said reprovingly. "Lean back."

"Hey, no—I can—"

"Do as I say," Natalia told him. She started undoing the laces of his left boot, getting the boot free; it felt damp to her. Then she removed the two socks that covered his foot. The sole of his foot was yellow. "This could turn to frostbite—very quickly," she snapped. She opened the front of her coat, throwing back as well the sleeping bag that covered her. Reaching under her coat, under the shirt Rourke had given her, to the front of her black jump suit, she zipped it down, then took Rubenstein's foot and placed it against the bare flesh of her abdomen. Hey—you—"Let me! Tell me when the feeling starts back. How is the other foot?"

"It's well, it's okay."

"Keep your foot here and don't move it," she ordered, reaching down to his other foot and starting to work on the boot laces—her own fingers were numb, and her ears still felt the cold from the slipstream of the bike as they'd ridden.

"That bandanna you put over my face against the wind—it smelled like you.

I guess from your hair," Rubenstein concluded, sounding lame.

"Thank you, Paul," Natalia whispered, getting the two socks off his right foot. The sole of his foot was yellow, but not as bad as the left one had been. Again, she felt the almost icy flesh against her abdomen and she shivered, "You love John—I mean really love him, don't you?" Rubenstein blurted out.

She closed her eyes a moment, felt pressure there

against her eyelids, tt

"I'm sorry—I mean for both of you. John and Sarah— I mean it's none of my business—"

"No—talk if you want," she told him.

"He—well, it's because he doesn't know if she's safe, if she's alive minute by minute—that's—"

"I heard the lines in an American movie once—fI can't fight a ghost'?

No—even a living ghost. And I don't want to fight it. I respect John for searching for Sarah. For—" She almost said never touching her. But she couldn't say that because she didn't like to think about it. !

"I mean . . . he's the last of a breed, isn't he? Silent, strong—a man of honor."

"Yes—he's a man of honor," she repeated. The chills in her body from the coldness of Rubenstein's feet were starting to subside. . . .

They had built a fire; there had been no other choice. And behind the windbreak in the glow of the fire, her feet wrapped in the sleeping bag and blankets around her, even covering her head, her ears were finally starting to become warmer.

Paul sat a foot or so away from her, the whiskey bottle beside them, between them. He had taken a long drink from it an hour earlier and then simply sat, watching the fire, silent, his feet wrapped in blankets against the cold.

"She used to do that. I always had problems with my feet freezing up,"

Paul said suddenly.

"Your—"

"My girl—I was afraid you were gonna say my mother. But it was my girl."

"Was she—was she pretty?" Natalia asked, not looking at him, but staring into the fire.

"Yeah—she was pretty. She was," he said with an air of finality.

Natalia felt suddenly awkward, reaching her hand out of the blankets which swathed her, the cold air something she could feel suddenly against her skin. She picked up the bottle—the glass of it was cold to her touch and cold against her lips as she drank from it, then set it down again. She reached her hand out still farther, found Rubenstein's arm and held it.

"Would you tell me about her?"

"Catharsis?"

"Maybe—and my curiosity. You know that. Women are always curious."

"Ruth was that way," he said quietly.

"Had you—?"

"Known each other a long time? Yeah—went to temple together whenever my dad was on leave when we were kids. Her folks and my folks knew each other."

"You were a military brat weren't you?" Natalia smiled, looking at him in the firelight.

"Yeah—brat period, maybe. But that isn't true. I was always a good kid—relatives, the other officers, always said, 'Paul is such a well-behaved little boy.' Wish I hadn't been. Ruth always said we should wait until we—" He stopped and fell silent.

Natalia didn't know if she should press it, but then decided. "Until you were married?"

He just looked at her, his glasses, long since back in place, slipping down the bridge of his nose. "You believe that ... I mean, well you know .

. . but this isn't any kind of thing on my part to try to—"

"To make a pass?" Natalia smiled.

"Yeah—that'd be pretty funny—me making a pass for

you, wouldn't it?" He laughed.

"No—and it wouldn't even be sweet. But it'd be flattering to me." She smiled.

Again he fell silent, taking a pull on the bottle, then settling his forearm under her left hand again. "Here I am—middle of nowhere and I'm a virgin. Just what you want with death around every corner, isn't it?" He laughed.

"You would make any woman a fine lover," Natalia said, feeling awkward saying it.

"Hell! I knew Ruth for six years before I worked up/the nerve to kiss her." Rubenstein Jaughed. {

But the laughter sounded hollow to her, and Natalia said, "How old were you then?"

"Nine." He laughed again, this time the laughter sounded genuine she thought.

(fI me! Vladmir when I was twenty. He was so strong and brave and—I didn't know any better. He made love to me—a lot in those days. I thought it was love anyway."

She moved her hand away, finding the black shoulder bag and starting to search it for her cigarettes. She set her knife down on the ground beside the bag.

"What'd you call that knife again?" Rubenstein asked, obviously changing the subject. "What was it?"

"A Bali-Song knife—it's a Philippine design, though it may have originated with an American sailor who brought it there. Some of the really big ones were used as cane knives and as weapons, too. It's a martial-arts fighting knife. I got into martial-arts weapons when I was just—"

She put the knife down, looking at Paul. "Why don't you ask—did I ever really love Vladmir?"

She lit a cigarette, waiting for him to ask her.

"Did you?' he finally said, his voice sounding suddenly older to her.

"Yes—until I found out what he was. And I was trying to deal with that and I saw John again there and—" She swallowed hard, forgetting about the cigarette a moment, then choking on the smoke and coughing.

"John was everything you'd thought Vladimir was— but really wasn't. I mean, the grammar or syntax or whatever—well it really sucks, but isn't that what you want to Of >

say:

Natalia swallowed again, this time without the smoke—instead the bottle in her left hand, the whiskey burning at her throat suddenly. "Yes—I wanted to say that. Men always jokingly say women are like children, call them girls—but we are. We all look for our own personal knight—you know, the kind with a rK-N-I—' We look for someone we hook our dreams on. That's what Ruth saw in you—and she wasn't wrong."

"Me—a knight?" Rubenstein laughed.

"A knight doesn't have to be tall and brave—but you are brave, you just maybe didn't know it then. It's inside. That's what it is." She reached her hand out and felt Rubenstein's hand touching hers. "That's what it is," she repeated.

Nehemiah Rozhdestvenskiy thought the idea was, in a way, amusing. He looked at his gun—a nickel-plated Colt single-action Army . with a four-and-three-quarter-inch barrel. He was the conqueror, the invader, and/his sidearm was "The Gun That Won the West'—as American as—he verbalized it, "Apple pie—ha!"

He cocked the hammer back to the loading notch, opened the loading gate, and spun the cylinder—five rounds, originally round-nosed lead solids, but the bullets drilled out three sixty-fourths of an inch with a one-sixteenth-inch drill bit, then tipped into candle wax after first having had an infinitesimal amount of powdered glass shavings inserted into their cavities. His own special load.

After rotating the cylinder, closing the gate, and lowering the hammer over the empty chamber, he holstered the gun inside his waistband, in a small holster he'd had custom-made of alligator skin, the gun with -ivory butt forward and slightly behind his left hip bone. He reached to the dresser top, picking up the set of military brushes and working his hair with them. Thirty-four years old and not a speck of gray, he thought.

He set down the brushes and walked across the room to his closet; the clothes were neatly arranged there by his valet. He took down a tweed sportcoat—woolen and finely tailored to his exact measurements. He held it for a moment against the charcoal gra> slacks he wore. The herringbone pattern had a definite charcoal gray shading and it made for a perfect combination.

He slipped the coat on. It would be cold, dangerous because of the storm—but it was vital and no choice was left other than to go.

He tried to think if there was some American song about West Virginia—his destination. He thought for a moment, then decided there doubtless was but he didn't know it. Instead he whistled "Dixie"—it was close enough for his purposes.

He stopped whistling as he reached the door of his quarters, laughing.

"Whistling 'Dixie' in a snowstorm—ha!"

He started through the doorway, into the hall. . . .

The wind at the restored Lake Front airport was bit-ingly cold, and he pulled up on the collar of his coat— wolfs fur—as he started toward the helicopter for the first leg of his journey toward West Virginia and the presidential retreat—and the duplicate set of files on the American Eden Project.

As he crossed under the rotor blades, he could feel it— his hair was ruined.

Darkness had fallen deeply—he glanced at the black luminous face of the Rolex Submariner he wore—more than an hour ago. Rourke exhaled, watching the steam $n his breath. The Harley's engine rumbled between his legs, running a little roughly with the cold.

A smile crossed his lips; he had been right. He was heading into the heart of the storm, Natalia and Paul away from it. He looked behind him once, into the white swirling darkness, then gunned the Hariey, slowly starting ahead, the snow making the road almost impassable. . . .

Rourke had stopped a little while earlier to pull up the neck of his crew-neck sweater so that it covered most of his face, and his ears and head. There had been a sudden coldness near the small of his back where his sweater no longer protected him, and his ears had been stiffening with the cold. Now as he pressed the bike along a mountain curve, the visibility was bad, worse than it had been before. The storm only seemed to intensify as he moved along, and the cold increased. He wore his dark-lensed aviator-style sunglasses, to protect his eyes from the driving ice spicules; the backs of his gloved hands were