The Arsenal

Author:Jerry Ahern
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9780821723555
Publisher: Zebra
Published: 1988-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

He had found his Python, the Metalife finish unscathed, but the cylinder impacted out of the frame, the rear sight broken off and the barrel sprung, or wrenched out of true with the frame, as he had described it. Gun and holster had become separated during the tumble from the mountaintop.

Annie poured her father a drink, he and Paul fresh from another forty-five minutes in the arctic-like temperatures searching the bodies of the climbers and searching for the lost, now recovered but irreparably damaged, revolver.

Was this whiskey more of the Seagram’s Seven or was it some of the whiskey he had gotten the Germans to duplicate for him and which — according to Michael—he had put into the original, centuries old bottles? They had duplicated his pet Federal loads for the family’s firearms, had duplicated parts and lubricants and all sorts of items.

She sipped at the glass she had poured for herself. It tasted the same as Seagram’s Seven had always tasted, but it would have, of course, or her father would not have wasted his time bringing it to the Retreat. It was a gross understatement, but John Thomas Rourke was a man of definite tastes.

Annie Rubenstein took two glasses in hand and walked back toward the sofa which dominated the center of the great room, setting two down, then going back to the kitchen counter, up the three steps, Elaine having poured the other two glasses. Annie took her own glass, sipping at it again, not rejoining them, watching them as Elaine brought her own and Akiro’s drink to the low table and set them down, then settled onto the floor at Akiro’s feet.

Annie set down her drink, burrowing her hands into the slit pockets at the sides of the ankle length black full skirt she had changed into, a shawl cocooned around her shoulders over the open collared gray blouse, her black stockinged feet in flat-soled Icelandic walking shoes.

She felt almost human again, and physically more comfortable. She had showered under steaming hot water (thank God Akiro had activated the water-heating system) and changed when it had proven useless that she might argue her way into accompanying her father and her husband back into the storm, as Akiro had.

Elaine had stood by the bathroom door, talking idly while Annie had scrubbed hair and body under the steaming spray, just letting her innermost being thaw out, unwind. “Why are they trying to kill you and Akiro, Elaine? I mean, what’s behind it, Commander Dodd?”

“I think it’s because of the computer files. They were wiped out, but Akiro had made copies before that, just in case— duplicates, you know?”

“Uh-huh— and they want the duplicates? —I mean, Dodd wants them?”

“I think that was it at first, but I think they gave up on that and decided their ends would be served just as well if Akiro and I were dead and nobody at all knew where the duplicate files were hidden.”

“Where are they hidden, Elaine?”

“Akiro buried the copies he made about halfway between Eden Base and the German installation.

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