"What's your wife like?" Natalie asked.
"Sarah—dark hair, brown though, not like yours. Gray-green eyes, about five-seven. She's smarter than I am. She's more—what would I say—she's more of a diversified person, wider interests—she's—"
"Do you love her that much?"
"We talked about that already, didn't we?"
"Give me an honest answer to one question," the girl said.
"All right, if I can," Rourke told her, watching the tip of his cigar, not wanting to look at Natalie.
"If you'd never met Sarah, didn't have Michael and Ann—would you have—ahh—never mind, John," and she started to stand up.
Rourke put his left hand on her forearm, his hand moving down to her hand.
"Maybe I'm crazy," he said, forcing a smile.
"No," she said quietly. She looked at the door, then hitched up the skirt over her right leg and Rourke saw the COP pistol, the little stainless steel .357
Magnum, strapped to her right thigh with a length of white surgical elastic. She undid the elastic, stuffing it under the pillow on the cot, and weighed the gun in her hand, then pointed it at him.
"John—your weapons, Rubenstein's weapons, they're in my husband's office. He's learned of an attack on the base—here, late tonight. We have a spy in Chamber's organization in east Texas. Vladmir is calling down a neutron strike at the time the attack starts, then you and Chambers will be flown to Chicago. You'd never find your wife and children. Rubenstein would be made to talk, when they found out he didn't know anything, they'd kill him then. You wouldn't leave here without Chambers, would you?"
"Honest?" Rourke asked, looking into her eyes.
"I know you wouldn't. If I help you—to get Paul out and Chambers too, would you promise me one thing—that you wouldn't kill anyone you didn't have to?"
"Yeah—I'd promise that," Rourke answered.
"And that includes Vladmir—that you wouldn't kill him—only if you had to, to defend yourself?"
"Do you love him?" Rourke asked her.
"I don't know," she said flatly. "Get ready—I'll get the guard in here."
She stood up and walked to the door, smoothed her hair back from her face and tapped on the door, saying in Russian, "Corporal—come in here. This prisoner had a weapon—I've disarmed him. Come inside immediately and assist me."
The door opened, the young corporal said, "I will assist you, comrade captain,"
then stepped through the doorway. As he passed her, the COP pistol clamped in her right fist, she straight-armed him in the right side of the neck. Rourke stepped forward and caught the young soldier before he hit the floor, then eased him onto the bed. As Rourke stripped the man's weapon away, then used the military trouser belt to tie the man, the girl stood by the door, watching.
Rourke, over his shoulder, said to her, "How are you going to get out of this?"
"Don't worry about me. We can get Chambers freed, then get Paul out. I have already arranged for your motorcycles and equipment to be brought to one of the elevators they use for getting the planes up onto the field. There's a prop plane down there—it's fueled and flight checked. You can fly it?"
"Unless the gauges are in Arabic, I'll do okay. Why are you doing this?"
She looked at him, saying, "I gave my word—I keep my word, just like you do."
He didn't say anything to her as he checked the young unconscious guard's AK-47, but he could see her smiling.
Chapter Forty-Two
The girl behind him, Rourke edged along the wall toward the base of the stairs.
The hall there was in shadow, light streaming from the head of the stairs above on the main level of the underground complex. Chambers was being held just beyond the head of the stairs, with two security guards outside his door and a third inside with him as a suicide watch. On this same floor, one level below the ground-level runways and the few ground-level hangars, was the hospital wing and Karamatsov's office. Rourke had explained to Natalie that he had to confront her husband, had to stop Karamatsov from calling in the neutron strike against the attacking forces. Once he was airborne with Chambers, he'd try every frequency he could to contact the U.S. forces on the ground and alert them that the attack could be called off because Chambers was free—that would be Rourke's end of the bargain with Natalie for his freedom.
He glanced up the stairwell, saw the booted feet of a guard and pulled his head back, using hand signals to warn the girl beside him. She moved up to the base of the stairs, smoothed her blouse and palmed the COP pistol in her right hand, behind her skirt, then started up the stairs. Rourke held back at the edge of the stairwell, not daring to look up lest he give the girl away. He heard bits and pieces of a brief conversation in Russian, then a shuffling of boots and a heavy thudding sound. He raced around the corner of the stairwell and halfway up the stairs intercepted the body of the Russian guard, rolling down toward him.
He dragged the man down the stairwell, took the AK-47 and as he started to tie the man, stopped, realizing the guard's neck was broken and he was dead.
Rourke started up the stairs. Natalie was standing three stairs down, looking along the corridor. Rourke stopped a stair below her, saying, "He's dead—you do it?"
Her face was expressionless, then the corners of her mouth turned down and she said, "I had to—he realized something was wrong."
"At least he was right about that," Rourke said, glancing back down the stairs.
"Where are they holding Chambers—along there?"
"Around the corner," Natalie whispered. "Come on." Rourke had no plan, other than to overpower the guards outside the door if Natalie couldn't connive her way inside. It was the guard on the inside that he was worried about—he judged that the man on the suicide watch was also on a death watch, ordered to kill Chambers if it appeared he was being rescued.
Rourke flattened himself below the top stairs, watching from the floor level as Natalie walked down the hallway and turned the corner. Rourke saw no one, heard nothing, pushed himself up and started across the hall, along the near wall, waiting at the corner, listening to the sounds of Natalie's shoes down the corridor. There was—again—a conversation in Russian. He could make out enough to realize she was having some difficulty convincing the guards she should be allowed access. Finally, he heard her say, "Would you care for me to leave, then come back with Comrade Major Karamatsov? Must he inform you personally that I am to see the prisoner to secure an important item of information— immediately?
Well—what is it?" and Rourke could hear the sound of her footsteps coming back along the hall toward him, then the heavier sound of one of the soldier's boots against the floor, the man's gruff-sounding voice, the grammar so bad even Rourke could recognize it as bad, saying, "Wait, Comrade Captain Tiemerovna—you may of course see the prisoner, Chambers. We were only trying to do—"
"I know—and you should be commended for it— but there is no time. Hurry," and he could hear footsteps going away from him, "Hurry, there is no time—open the door!" Rourke heard the door open, then turned into the hallway and started for the two soldiers in a dead run, hoping to get the drop on the two men. Halfway down the length of the hall, he knew it was no good. One of the guards was already turning toward him. Rourke's finger edged inside the trigger guard of the AK-47 and squeezed, his first three-shot burst cutting into the nearer guard. He heard an isolated shot then, heavy-sounding, like a big bore pistol.
He dismissed it from his mind, firing another three-round burst into the second guard as the man reached for the alarm buzzer on the door frame. The guard collapsed against the wall, his hand grasping toward the button. Rourke ran up beside him, knocking the hand aside with the butt of the AK, then kicking open the door into Chambers' room.