Ahern, Jerry - The Quest

Varakov nodded to his old friend. Such a thing for the man to say was worth more than an official commendation; he valued the man’s mind.

“Thank you, old friend,” Varakov said. “The first of these forts will be established in northeastern Georgia.” There were smiles because of the similarities in Soviet Georgia and American Georgia—but in the name only. “It will be charged with patrolling northeastern Georgia and the Carolinas and extending to the Atlantic Coast.” And then Varakov laughed. “We have given Florida with its sinkholes, forest fires, diminished water table and rising coastline, etc., to the Cubanos. And as our loyal allies we wish them well!” There was a broad round of laughter, even Varakov’s usually reserved secretary smiling, almost blushing as she sat on the small chair by the side of his desk taking notes on the meeting. As the laughter subsided, Varakov cleared his throat, then began again. “This fort will be located in what I understand is one of the oldest universities in the United States. I would encourage that this structure remain as unaltered as possible. If we appear to show respect for what the American people themselves respect, perhaps we too can gain some of this respect, if not affection.” Then Varakov looked at his secretary, saying, “Call in Colonel Korcinski. We need him now.” The young woman got up, smoothing down what Varakov thought was an overly long uniform skirt, then walked across the open-walled office and out to the main hall. She returned in a moment, following discreetly behind Col. Vassily Korcinski. The Colonel was middle-aged, white-haired, handsome to the point of effeminacy, Varakov thought. He leafed through Korcinski’s service record file—airborne qualified, wounded twice in combat, married with two teenage sons in Moscow. They were still alive and had survived the American attack, the file noted. Varakov wanted no man in a position of authority with a personal vendetta.

Korcinski stood at attention before the desk, and Varakov nodded to him, saying to the assembled staff officers, “Gentlemen, the Commander of our first outpost!”

Chapter 7

Natalia reeled under her husband’s blow to her left cheek. His knuckles were bloodied. She stared up at him. She started to her feet, saw his hand coming for her again, and tried to raise her hand against the blow, but he knocked her right arm away with his left hand and his right fist crashed down against the side of her face. She sprawled back across the couch, somehow feeling indecent that her robe and nightgown had bunched up past her hips. She looked at Vladmir’s eyes, watched him watching her, felt the tears welling up in her eyes, then shrank back as she saw him undo his uniform belt and draw the heavy leather from the trouser loops. He picked up the vodka bottle.

“I have decided, Natalia,” he said, his voice low, edged with tension and trembling. “I will have you and that way I will know if someone else has had you.” He tilted the square bottle upward and she watched the colorless liquid pour from the narrow glass neck into his mouth and his Adam’s apple move as he swallowed. She edged back along the couch, pulling down at the hem of her gown.

Karamatsov laughed, throwing the half-empty bottle across the room, then reached toward her. She tried to push away, edging back. Then his right hand clenching the belt, swung back past his left shoulder and slashed downward, and she screamed as the leather stung against her legs. She cringed, burrowing into the couch, feeling the sting of the leather on her bare behind, then feeling her husband’s hands pulling her up. She was on her feet but looked away from his eyes. He had been like a father, yet a lover, her leader as she grew into her womanhood, the only man to have her. Now she could not look into his eyes. She felt the belt swish lazily against her flesh and his hands at the neckline of her gown, the robe open now. There was a tearing sound, and her neck and shoulders ached. She realized her eyes were closed. She opened them as he stripped away the tatters of her nightclothes. Automatically, her right arm crossed the nipples of her breasts and her left hand cupped over the triangle of hair at her crotch.

“Vladmir, please,” she begged.

“No,” he answered so softly she could barely hear him.

She watched the belt starting up again and tried to move aside, but his left fist crashed into her stomach and she doubled over, dropping to her knees on the carpet. Then she felt the belt across her back, felt his hand in her hair as though it were being ripped out by the roots, her head drawn back and her neck bent back to where she could barely breathe.

She looked finally into Vladmir’s eyes. He said, “You won’t fight.” The belt, looped double in his right hand, lashed across her left cheek and the bridge of her nose and, as her left hand went to her face, it came away bloodied. She couldn’t open her left eye.

His left hand was still knotted in her hair and he hauled her to her feet, then shoved her back onto the couch. He stood over her, his hands dropping the belt to open his uniform trousers, pushing them down as he fell on top of her.

“No,” she whimpered. Then she turned her eyes away. She felt his hands on her, pulling at her breasts, his fingers knotting in the hair at her crotch, then his hands coming inside her.

“No,” she murmured, then felt the hardness stabbing into her. “No!” she screamed. She stared up at the ceiling until he finally sank against her. Tears streamed down her face, but she felt she wasn’t crying.

After a long while, she heard him mutter, “Bitch—unfeeling bitch.” His right hand cuffed her face, then his left, then his right. Her mouth was bleeding, and she tried to raise her head because she was choking on the blood.

He was standing, reeling, the vodka bottle was back in his hand, some of the clear liquid somehow still inside, then he tilted the bottle. A smile—something like she had never seen—crossed his lips as he picked up the belt, looked at the bottle in his other hand, then lashed out with the belt, the heavy leather almost instantly raising a dark red welt across her breasts. He knocked her back to the couch, the bottle still in his hand.

The neck of the bottle was pointed toward her, held low, and she stared at it with her good right eye through the tears.

Vladmir Karamatsov whispered, “If I do not please you, then perhaps this will.” And he laughed as he started toward her.

Natalia screamed, gagging on the salty taste of the blood in her mouth, her puffed and cracked lips drawn back in horror.

Chapter 8

“I don’t know,” Rourke said, not looking at Rubenstein, but staring up at the stars. They were less than a mile from the principal entrance to the retreat. “Sometimes you get the feeling there’s something happening, you don’t know where or what, but that you’re involved with it anyway, and that someday you’ll learn what it was and when—sort of like the feeling you get when a shiver runs up your spine and people say that somebody’s just walked across your grave. Maybe they have.” “What do you mean?” Paul Rubenstein asked, his voice sounding tired.

“I don’t know,” Rourke almost laughed. “Come on. Not much farther now.” Rourke looked at the balding younger man in the starlight. Rubenstein was exhausted, his wounds still depleting his strength. The road to the entrance of the retreat was twisted and difficult. “Come on.” They rode the bikes, the engines barely above stalling, up the narrow pathway. Rourke eyed the familiar landmarks; he knew each tree and each rock. He had found the site of the retreat six years before, purchased it, then over the last three years was able to afford to convert it. It was a natural cave, carved over millions of years by the forty-foot-high waterfall from an underground spring, filtering from the natural pool at its base down into the rocks, coursing below in a narrowing cavern to God-knew-where—its origins, he guessed, perhaps as far away as the Canadian border, the water icy cold, crystal clear, perhaps only coming to light as it passed through the rear of the cave. He could mark the places where the waterfall had been over the millions of years since it had begun, how it had gradually carved out the cave. Giant stalactites were suspended from the cave ceiling and gradually bled their substance to form the stalagmites below them.