Survivalist - 03 The Quest by Jerry Ahern

Author:Jerry Ahern [Ahern, Jerry]
Format: epub
Publisher: Jerry Ahern

Killing. Some people never changed, Rourke thought.

Chapter 23.

Natalia sat on the couch. Her face was still tender where it was bruised. She moved her body slowly to get a more comfortable position; the welts on her back made it awkward to sit. She rearranged the long robe around her as she tucked her legs up onto the sofa, and hugged her knees to her. Karamatsov, she thought, Vladmir.

She sipped at the vodka, feeling the ice against her even white teeth. Would her uncle try to get revenge against Vladmir? The thought chilled her more than the ice. She brushed a strand of black hair away off her forehead and wrapped the blue terrycloth robe around her more tightly. She glanced at the digital clock on the table beside the sofa. Her uncle, General Ishmael Varakov, had called twenty-five minutes before to tell her he was coming to see her. Why?

There was a knock at the door, the one repaired only a few hours earlier. It was the sound of a fist, rather than the metallic click-click-click of the brass doorknocker.

She stood up, tightened the belt around the robe, and reached into the small drawer of the end table. She had put away the gun she'd taken from Vladmir and had the little four-barreled stainless steel COP pistol. She broke the pistol, verified all four barrels were loaded, and dropped the double action only derringer-like gun in the right pocket of her robe. Her hand remained there. It was likely her uncle, she thought, but chances were something only fools took. She stopped, the thought momentarily amusing her. Hadn't it been a chance to marry the most handsome and most ruthless young officer in the KGB? Some chances didn't prove out, she thought, staring at the unopened door at the end of the small hallway, hearing the knocking again.

She walked to the door, decided against peering through the peephole, and stood beside the doorframe in the narrow part by the wall. She asked through the door, in Russian, "Yes, who is at the door?"

"It is cold out here, and I'm an old man too lazy to button his coat. Hurry, girl!"

She smiled. Natalia loved her uncle like a second father, perhaps more than the father she had lost as a little girl. She verified it was him by glancing through the magnifying lens in the peephole, then released the chain and the deadbolt, and swung the door inward.

The old man stood there, his greatcoat open as he'd told her, rubbing his gloved hands together. He took a step inside, and she let him smother her in his arms as he had always done since she was a child.

"Uncle," she murmured.

"Child," he whispered, then, one arm still around her, he started into the hall. "It is cold here, like Moscow, only somehow more damp." With his free hand he swung the door shut behind them.

They stopped at the end of the hall beside the steps leading down into the living room. She

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