by Ahern, Jerry
Rourke looked across the body, the skin flaps laid back across the chest—he suddenly felt embarrassed for the woman, her breasts in public view, yet her secret still hidden. Dodd’s face in the yellow light of the Coleman lamp and the diffused sunlight through the canvas held something in it Rourke had not seen there before. Hatred, and mingled with it the stupidity that came from the absence of logic. Rourke said to him, “Think for yourself. Natalia is the enemy of the Soviet force sent against us. She is the friend of the Eden Project—why would she kill one of its members? It is totally illogical.”
“Logic be damned, Doctor Rourke. The woman is or was a Russian agent. She owns the murder weapon.”
“No—logic won’t be damned, Captain. You think. Mona Stankiewicz had something she wanted to tell me— only me. Not you. If it were something damning to Natalia, then why tell me, Natalia’s friend? Why not tell you—you seem more than willing to assume the worst. Mona Stankiewicz wouldn’t have labeled Natalia as a Russian agent. She knew better. It’s obvious, at least in part, what Mona Stankiewicz intended to talk with me about. You’re right—there is a Russian agent, but aboard the Eden Project. And whoever it is, assuming the person didn’t smuggle his own weapon with him, must have somehow gotten access to Natalia’s pistol. Who else to
implicate?” And Rourke let himself smile. “What if the reason Mona Stankiewicz wanted to talk with me instead of you is because you’re the Russian agent?”
“Look, Rourke.” Dodd leaned over the dead girl’s body.
Rourke said nothing for a moment, then his voice low, said, “Let’s find out if Natalia’s gun is missing. For openers. Whether it is or isn’t, we can get Natalia’s help. If the real Russian agent was concerned enough to implicate Natalia by using her gun or one like it—if that is a real consideration—then the Russian agent might fear that Natalia could identify him. Evidently Mona Stankiewicz could.”
“A Russian agent aboard the Eden Project? You’re daft, Rourke.”
“Fuck you,” Rourke told him evenly. “I’m going to talk with Natalia—if you wanna come along, fine and dandy.” Rourke looked down at the dead girl. He drew the sheet up to cover her. To no one in particular, Rourke whispered, “She’s revealed all the secrets she’s going to.”
“I’ll see Major Tiemerovna on my own,” Dodd said suddenly.
Rourke looked at him as he lowered the sheet. “I gave a sedative to her—she didn’t sleep well last night. She’ll need her strength—she’ll be going to Argentina with me tomorrow. If she took the sedative, after Eden Three got down, she might still be asleep. We won’t disturb her—you won’t.”
“I’ve got Eden Four landing in about an hour. There isn’t any time to fart around, Doctor Rourke. We have a murderer to contend with.”
“Then I suggest we try to find him.” Rourke snapped off one, then the second of the rubber surgical gloves and threw them down.
He started toward the tent flap.
“Dr. Rourke—I can have you disarmed sir, if you interfere.”
Rourke didn’t look at Dodd as he answered. “Yeah— you go ahead and do that, Captain.” Rourke pushed through the tent flap into the afternoon sun, finding his dark-lensed aviator-style sunglasses in the pocket of his bomber jacket and putting them on. “Damnit,” he hissed under his breath.
Natalia Tiemerovna sat cross-legged on a blanket, the warmth of the fading sun pleasant on her bare legs. She had to be careful the way she sat, because she wore nothing but underpants and one of Rourke’s blue chambray shirts. If she moved the wrong way anyone passing by in the camp would see that. Her mind elsewhere, her hands worked with the cleaning gear for her guns. She was replacing the screw in the forward portion of the L-Frame Smith’s frame, tightening it now, the crane returned to its proper position and the cylinder closed up into its recess. She had cleaned all the guns thoroughly after the dousing they had taken in the rain, oiled her leather gear as well. She put the L-Frame down beside its twin, both pistols—gleaming stainless steel and customized with crane lock and champhered charging holes and a butter-smooth action tuning—originally a gift to the first and last president of U.S. II, Sam Chambers. And he had given them to her for her role in aiding the evacuation of penisular Florida. She had kept them with her ever since. She studied the American eagles on the right side barrel flats. She remembered her uncle, Gen. Ishmael Varakov—he had talked of the Eagle and the Bear fighting to exterminate each other. They had all but succeeded.
Natalia sniffed back a tear at the thought of her uncle. Dead—like almost everyone else.
She picked up the stainless Walther PPK/S American and thumbed the magazine release catch button, automatically then jacking back the slide and catching the cham
bered round in her palm.
She set the magazine and the loose round on the oilcloth which occupied a corner of the blanket. And something struck her as being odd.
The brass of the round she had popped from the chamber was very shiny, as though just taken from the box. But it shouldn’t have been. She had chambered the round innumerable times, touched it with her hands. She examined the top round in the magazine. It too was shiny but, like the chambered round, should have been tarnished. Like most people who used a Walther that she had known, she carried it chamber loaded and with a full magazine. Since there was no manual slide stop, the convenient way to load the chamber after checking the pistol’s condition of readiness was to work the slide and strip the top round from the magazine. Then take the round popped out of the chamber and load it into the top of the magazine. This constantly rotated the first two rounds. And they would tarnish and show scratch marks from being worked in and out of the chamber. But these rounds showed neither.
Natalia bent forward—the thought of showing flesh was secondary now. She examined the magazine. She had dropped it once during some shooting and the base plate had taken a scratch against a rock. The scratch was still there.
She grabbed up the black canvas bag that she carried most often as a huge purse but which converted to a day pack. She began fishing inside it—of the two spare magazines, one was without the finger-rest extension at the base, the other with. The finger-rest extension magazine—two of the witness holes in the magazine body showed empty, two rounds gone.
Natalia threw the magazines down on the blanket and picked up the empty Walther, sniffing at the silencer tube still threaded to the muzzle. It smelled and it should not have. The last time she had used it—she shivered at the
thought. But she had cleaned the baffles afterward and replaced some of the packing as needed. There should have been no smell.
Natalia unscrewed the silencer from the muzzle, the muzzle specially threaded to accept it. She dismounted the slide, then picked up the Walther cleaning rod—she used it with all her handguns. She inserted a patch in the slotted tip and ran it down the barrel—but she already knew from the smell of the weapon. It had been fired.
The patch came out black streaked from the rifling.
“Major Tiemerovna, please stop cleaning that weapon.”
She looked up from the stainless Walther—it was Captain Dodd and beside him, his dark-lensed sunglasses masking his eyes, stood John Rourke.
“John, what—”
“Major Tiemerovna,” Dodd began again. “That pistol—it appears to have been fired, judging from the patch.”
“Two rounds are missing from one of the spare magazines. And I believe two fresh rounds were placed in the gun.”
“That pistol is a .380, is it not?” Dodd asked. “Yes, what—”
“And that thing on the blanket near the slide—the thing that looks like a miniature automobile muffler?”
“It’s a suppressor—yes—the principle is the same. What of it?”
“As commander of the Eden Project fleet in lieu of any other civil or military authority, I’m placing you under arrest for the murder of Mona Stankiewicz.”
John Rourke’s head turned toward Dodd. “Fuck off.”
>
“Rourke—one more outburst—”
“And what? Go on, tell me what?”
“Murder—of whom?”
“Mona Stankiewicz—back-up flight officer for Eden One. She was shot with a .380-caliber pistol. A silencer was evidently used since no one heard the shots, but only her
screams. She spoke only a few words as she died—she implicated ‘the Russian agent’ as her killer.”
“And mine is the only 9mm short pistol in the camp, isn’t it?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “And mine is the only suppressor, isn’t it? And I am the only Russian agent, aren’t I? And so I have to be the killer—but I’m not.” She started to reach into her purse—but she remembered she had no cigarettes, had not again begun the habit. She looked up into Dodd’s eyes instead. “You actually believe this?”
Rourke asked the question before Dodd could respond. “How long was the PPK/S out of your sight, Natalia?”
“I didn’t give myself the sedative—but I did get a little sleep. And then I got up and went for a walk. I only carried these—” and she gestured toward the twin Metalife Custom L-Frames with the American eagles engraved on the right barrel flats. “I left the Walther here. And, well, after I came back, I took another shower and washed my hair.” She touched at her hair—it was still damp. “And I just slipped on these things and came outside to clean my guns.”
“Where was the Walther while you were out?” Rourke asked her.
“I had it in the shoulder holster and left it in my bag.” She gestured toward the massive black canvas purse. “I wore the pistol when I had the helicopter up while Eden Three was landing and I took it off afterward.”
Rourke turned to face Dodd. “All right, so somebody who knew Natalia had the only silencer in the camp got into her things while she was walking or washing her hair and killed Mona Stankiewicz and replaced the pistol, but shifted the loads around so she wouldn’t catch on right away.”
“Did anyone see you when you were walking, Major? Or when you took your shower?”
“I have a tent here at the edge of camp as you can see—
and I share it with Elaine Halverson and I haven’t seen Elaine since Eden Three came down. I left camp by the most direct route. No one saw me. And I usually shower alone.” She made herself smile up at Dodd. “And no one saw me go to the showers unless someone was watching me that I didn’t see.”
“I find this very hard to believe, Major. Doctor Rourke has weapons. So does his wife. So do his son and daughter. And so does Mr. Rubensein. Why were yours used?”
“Perhaps because of the silencer—I don’t know.”
Dodd punched his right fist into his left palm. “What I said, Major—it still stands. Please consider yourself under arrest. Rest assured, however, that I’ll leave no stone unturned in attempting to get to the bottom of this. And if you are innocent, you will certainly have my apology.” Dodd began to draw his .45 from his holster, “I’ll have to ask you to stand up and come with me.”
Both of Jdhn Rourke’s Detonics .45s seemed to spring of their own will from beneath his coat, his fists closed around the butts, both pistols inches from Dodd’s torso. “Breathe wrong and you’re dead,” Rourke whispered.
“No, John!” Natalia was to her feet, putting her left hand between the muzzles of Rourke’s pistols and Dodd’s body. “No, not this way, John. I’ve done nothing wrong. And Captain Dodd will be able to prove that. I know he will.”
“I’m—I’m supposed to leave for Argentina tomorrow. I wanted you with me.”
She searched for some image of his eyes behind the lenses of his sunglasses, but saw only her own eyes reflected in them. She reached up to his face, slowly, gently removing the glasses, holding them in her fingertips. “Nothing will happen to me. It will all be settled by the time you get back, John. And Paul will still be here, won’t he? And Michael and Annie and Madison? Take Sarah with you— she’s very good. She’ll help you as well as I could have.”
“No, no.”
“I can show you how to use my lock picks—if Captain Dodd doesn’t need them as evidence. You or Sarah can take the Walther so you have a gun with a silencer. Any other things I have—they’re yours, of course.”
“That’s—that’s not what I want,” Rourke spoke, barely above a whisper.
She reached her right hand up to his cheek—it was warm to her touch with his anger. His dark eyes were squinted against the light. She realized how much she loved him— and that she would never fully be his. “I’ll be all right, John. I can look after myself. I really can. And I’m innocent. You taught me to believe in your system—that it was the best system. Now here is a chance to prove it.” She didn’t believe that Captain Dodd would uncover evidence that would implicate someone else. Whoever had killed this woman with the Polish last name had evidently decided that the crime should be connected to her—‘her gun. No alibi. And then the damning words of the dying girl.
John Rourke spoke—she listened. The soft, quiet assurance not so much in his words, but in the way he said them. “I can’t leave you.”
“You have to leave me. We both know that.”
Rourke closed his eyes—he simultaneously lowered the hammers of both pistols, letting them hang at his sides. “Did Karamatsov—could he have had an agent aboard the Eden Project?”
“I don’t know, John.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Dr. Rourke—every man jack of us has a security clearance that’s lily white,” Dodd snapped.
Rourke looked at him. “Those are the worst kind—a perfect security clearance is always the one that’s flawed, because nobody’s perfect.”
“And what about you, Doctor?”
Rourke looked at Dodd. “If you’d moved for that .45 on your hip, you’d be dead.”
Rourke shoved the pistol from his left hand into his belt, making the right hand pistol disappear under his brown leather jacket. Then he repeated the process. It took two hands always to conveniently reholster his guns because of the trigger guard break design of the holsters.
“I’ll change, if I may,” Natalia began. “And, then, I’ll accompany you, Captain.” She didn’t wait for an answer— she handed back John Rourke’s sunglasses, leaned up on her bare toes and kissed his left cheek lightly, then started for her tent.
She didn’t delude herself. Dodd thought she was guilty, believed it. And nothing would convince him otherwise.
But if she let John Rourke commit some act of violence against Dodd, John—all of them, all the people she loved—they would be outcasts from human society forever.
She let the tent flap fall closed behind her, then sat on the edge of the cot.
Her mind was functioning on two levels. While she awaited the inevitable, she might as well be comfortable. She wouldn’t be going into battle. On impulse when she had left The Retreat she had taken a skirt and a pair of sandals. She also wondered how they would punish her for this murder—and how she could prevent John Rourke from ruining his life and the lives of his family by interfering.
Chapter Nine
Michael was awake, but not sitting up—his eyes seemed alert and clear though, as clear as they could with the medication. Paul Rubenstein had sat up, Rourke cautioning him before the younger man attempted it. Sarah sat at the small table beside the lit Coleman lamp, Annie and Madison respectively sitting beside Paul and Michael, at the edges of the cots. John Rourke stood near the tent flap, too angry to sit.
“I’m supposed to leave for Argentina tomorrow—I don’t want to. Dodd’s going to railroad Natalia—I can feel it in my guts. But if I don’t, and Mann’s faction loses and this Deiter Bern is executed, we’ll be facing Karamatsov’s forces alone and we may wind up facing the Nazis too—a no-win proposition, at least on the surface.”
“On the surface?” Sarah echoed. “Now I went through a lot since the Night of The War—and I learned you were right about a lot of things John. Don’t ever give up like that. And I know that if the Russians and these Na
zis attack us, you never will give up. None of us will. But they have weapons that are a whole lot more sophisticated than ours, and there are at least hundreds of them—more likely thousands of them. And we’ll lose. I mean, maybe all of us here and Natalia—we can stay together and keep fighting from the mountains and harassing them—but we won’t win, John. You’ve got to go.”
“Momma is right,” Annie said softly.
“She—she is, Dad,” Michael agreed.
“It isn’t my place to speak, Father Rourke… .”
“No, of course you have a voice in what we do. Go ahead, Madison.”
“We will care for Natalia. But I think we will all die— Natalia, too—if you do not help the colonel-man in his fight for freedom.”
“She’s gonna make a hell of a sister-in-law,” Paul began. “Michael and Annie and Madison and I—we can take care of things here, John. Because if you don’t go—you and Sarah and Kurinami and those volunteers he’s been rounding up and Elaine Halverson—if you don’t go, well, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. And the whole idea of Nazis—it gives me the creeps. But if this guy Mann is what he says he is—and I don’t think he’d have anything to gain by lying to us—but if he’s what he says he is, then he wants to kick the real Nazis out of power. I gotta be for that, ya know?”
Rourke only nodded, staring past the Coleman lamp at his wife’s shadow.
“And as far as Natalia is concerned,” Paul continued, “like Madison said—she’ll be safe.”
“There’s a Russian agent at work in the camp,” Rourke answered. “That’s probably how Rozhdestvensky and Karamatsov before him knew so much about the Eden Project in the first place. One of the men or women aboard fed the information to the KGB. And whoever this person is, it’s important to him or her to get Natalia out of the way. Perhaps Natalia might be able to recognize him, or recognize something about him that would betray his identity. I doubt Mona Stankiewicz was murdered just to be a victim—if I’d forced her to speak her piece when she first talked with me. Shit,” he groaned. “Anyway, Karamatsov will assume this person is still alive, and find a way of using him against us. The key to proving Natalia’s
