Then she started to lick him again, slowly and deliberately, trying to absorb the salt from his wounds. She stemmed the flow of tears that came, knowing they would sting his body. With considerable difficulty, she tore a piece of cloth from her blouse and wetted it with her spittle. Slowly she worked on Adam's body. It would be a long task.
Ch. 69
The Director watched the President's Illyuishin Yakovlev Yak-4- tri-jet lift into the clear winter sky and turn westward for its flight to Berlin.
The arrangements had gone well. As Moscow's VIP airport, Vnukovo-2 was easy to police, security was not difficult here, but the Director was always nervous where his leader's safety was involved.
'I never like it when he's out of our jurisdiction,' he said, turning to Rostov.
'We've taken all the precautions we can.'
'Even so. There are too many hotheads running round these days. Too many people with old scores to settle. I never like it when any of our people go back into the old territories.'
'When I get back to the office, I'll double check all the arrangements.'
'It won't do any harm.'
They walked together down the corridor towards the exit, joining the small army of officials and apparatchiks who had come to see the President off and gain brownie points for so doing.
'Why do you think the Americans and British released the pictures of their agents to the media?'
'I don't know.'
The Director laughed. 'And you wouldn't tell me if you did.'
'I don't think they mean us any harm.'
'Who? The Americans or the two fugitives?'
'Any of them.'
'I hope you're right. These are historic times. Also nervous times. It wouldn't take much to shake everything up again.'
Rostov didn't answer. He already knew how delicate the balance of peace was, how slender the thread of hope. One bullet, one bomb in the right place, and the world could easily plunge back into its gloomy shadows of mistrust and attrition.
Ch. 70
She'd cradled him to sleep in her lap. Her mouth was dry with the salt.
He'd stirred once as she licked him, came erect within seconds. She'd looked up at him and he'd grinned. So she'd quietly squeezed the love out of him with her hands and her mouth, wanting to help him take his mind off the hurt, wanting to be close to him. After that he'd slept and she'd continued her ministrations until her mouth was too dry, her saliva spent.
She watched him as he slept, so vulnerable as he tossed and turned. It was impossible to believe that this powerless and battered body could stand so much pain. Finally she'd dozed off.
He woke her nearly two hours later, softly so as not to alarm her.
'Okay?' he asked.
She came awake quickly, trying to work out where she was. She was pleased to see him, but her expression turned to dismay when she recalled their predicament. She sat up suddenly, her mouth foul tasting and dry.
'It's okay. Take it easy,' he comforted her.
She saw he had put his trousers back on and remembered why her mouth was so dry. She pulled herself upright, her tiredness rapidly evaporating.
'I'm fine,' she said. 'What're you up to?'
He grinned. 'Getting us out of here. But you're going to be miserable.'
'Why?'
'Because I needed your bracelet.'
She looked down at her hand and realised her gold Cartier Double C bracelet was missing. She looked up and saw that Adam was holding it out to her. But it wasn't curved for her wrist any longer, but straight. The big C on the end had bent so it now formed a sharp arrowhead. She regretted its loss for a moment; it had been her favourite piece, a gift from Peter and happier days.
'That won't get us very far,' she said.
'This might.' He pulled a sliver of wood from inside his trouser leg, sharp and pointed and over eight inches long.
She was amazed; from nowhere he had produced two weapons. 'Where'd you get that from?' she asked.
He pointed at the wall next to the door, and she saw that he had prised it loose from one of the wooden slats, carved it out from the wall. 'With the help of your bracelet.'
'Mr. Cartier will be most impressed. What next?'
'Wait for them.'
'Just like that?'
'Of course. There are other ways of waiting.'
'Like what?'
'I had a funny dream last night,' he grinned as he spoke.'That you were doing more than just licking the salt off my body.'
She shook her head, then started to laugh. He was incorrigible.
'Why've they left us alone so long?' she asked.
'To soften us up. It's an old trick.'
'But they haven't got time with us. Not if they really don't know why we're here.'
'I realize that. They'll come at us harder this time.'
'I doubt if I can take it. I mean, the things they did to you. I don't know…' She lapsed into quiet.
He squeezed her reassuringly. She hadn't been trained for this; it wasn't part of her brief. He remembered the Gulf, the nightmares that the Iraqi soldiers had inflicted on the Kuwaiti women. He'd been sent in undercover before the American and coalition troops had taken Kuwait City. He remembered one woman, hiding herself in shame in her own home, raped, her nipples bitten off, branded with a red hot poker with the initial S across her thigh. She'd begged him to kill her, but he'd covered her with a blanket and stayed in the house with her while he waited for the Allied troops to take the city. Two of the soldiers had returned, no doubt for more pleasure at her expense. He'd killed them, slowly, with a knife. They lay, bleeding to death with gags in their mouths, with him and the women watching. It had taken three hours for them to die. Three painful and tortuous hours. Then, when they were dead, she'd suddenly grabbed his knife and plunged it into herself. She'd looked up at him as she lay dying. And smiled. Damn woman, after days of not speaking, she had said thank you before she passed away. The Coalition troops had taken the city the next day.
'We'll be out of here before they touch you,' he said. 'Just remember, when I say run, or jump, or whatever, you just do it. Don't question. Just do it.'
The Stermabeitalung came for them an hour later.
They were both taken this time, bundled out of the small room into a larger one that led into the corridor that Adam remembered. The corridor was bare, wooden walled with only light switches and Halon gas fire extinguisher levers. There was nothing he could use as a weapon, nothing to turn on his escort. He tried to keep between the five storm troopers and Billie, tried to protect her from the roughness, but the salt between his toes rubbed into the flesh and made walking difficult and painful. One of the Stermabeitalung, frustrated at the slow pace, stamped his heavy boot on Adam's bare feet, forcing him to cry out as he tried to hobble along faster.
The door at the end of the corridor was open. From it came the sound of a machine gun firing, followed by the single pops of a silenced revolver.
Adam and Billie were led into the room, a firing range that spread some forty metres. Kaas cradled the machine gun, another storm-trooper was firing at a target with the revolver. He stopped as the couple came in.
Kaas walked across the range and signalled the Stermabeitalung to follow him with the prisoners. They entered the room at the far end, the room with no windows and reinforced walls. Two guards stood by it, fully armed.
The room had been changed since Frick and Kragan had watched the last exercise. There were now rows of seats, banked upwards in four levels, that ran in a semicircle around the left half of the room. In the middle there were two lecterns, a long table and six chairs. The banked rows had tailor's dummies seated in them, all dressed in suits, all blankly staring forward as if waiting to be conjured alive. Other tailor's dummies stood, in police uniform, at the free standing doors that had been placed at the top of the banked sections. It was like a stage set, with actors frozen forever, waiting to burst forth and speak their lines.