Survivalist - 21.5 - The Legend (39 page)

Natalia was dressed in clothing that had been made in New Germany, but based on intelligence data collected, no doubt, by Hilda

and Dan and Margie. She wore an ankle length dress, plain and of rough cloth, long sleeved and high collared, of the sort worn by women and girls in some of the stricdy religious communities where freedom of thought was essentially non-existent.

Annie, on the other hand, was dressed like a woman of Eden, mini-skirted and booted.

The story when they were brought before Boris, the slaver, was that Paul, the only man among them whose face would not be in-standy recognizable, was a fugitive from Eden City. Annie was kidnapped from the city. Natalia herself was a woman he kidnapped from the community known as Heaven, along what had once been the Canadian border.

And now, Paul wanted to sell the two women for some of the designer drugs and weapons Boris traded for women.

Natalia Anastasia Tiemerovna, Annie beside her, stepped out of the passenger compartment of the all-terrain vehicle Paul drove, Michael and John climbing down out of the rear cargo area.

Tm freezing,” Annie remarked, a blanket wrapped around her over her skimpy clothes “Why couldn’t I be from the same place? This is the pits.”

Natalia almost laughed.

John and Michael joined them. John said, “Once you’re inside, just relax. Well be there somehow.”

“I was never cut out to be a drug dealer,” Paul told rum.

“Call it a career move,” Michael laughed. They were twenty miles from the bridge leading over to East St. Louis. Natalia, cold as well, hugged her tattered blanket around her. “Are you ready?” Michael said to her.

Natalia laughed as she turned her back to him. “Would you be ready, Michael?” He started to bind her hands behind her with a piece of rope. Td like to see you do this?”

“Got your knife?”

“Up the crack of my rear end under my dress.” “Remember to tie a square knot,” Paul remarked. “Right,” Michael said.

Tighter, Michael,” Natalia said. “If it’s too loose, they’ll notice it.”

“Let me know if Fm hurting you.”

“It’s bad enough I wont have bruises. A little rope burn won’t hurt for added authenticity* Natalia told him. Her hands bound tightly behind ber-bat, if her circulation didn’t go, she could still reach her knife with her fingertips - Michael turned her around. “Promise me you wort get to hike this, but kiss me.”

Michael took her tnto his arms, his mouth coming down on hers and she let herself go limp against him as he held her.

After a long moment, she was looking into his eyes and they smiled down at her. Tf you get hurt, Fll be upset.”

T wotddrt want to upset you. Finish me.”

He turned her around, men gagged her with a handkerchief between her teen, k was dry and, even though she knew it was clean, dirty-feehng against her tongue. Then be tied another handkerchief over her eyes as a hfindfokL

Nataha fck Michaels hps touch her forehead, and then he started leading her toward dr track.

Annie wootd be bound and gagged and blindfolded in the same way, she knew: » the two of them would look the part of captured women about t> be nid roto slavery.

And Nataha told herself to start making herself appear helpless, fed hdpkss. to sake their charade that much easier, more believable. She tripped on the hem of her dress as Michael helped her into the back of die track. Michael’s arms catching her before she fell. Then a biaaket was thrown over ber. She felt hands-Michael’s hands she assonrd-bmding her ankles together

Under the uruaiBUnces, feeling helpless wouldn’t be that difficult.

Ten

Paul Rubenstein stopped the track on the Missouri side of the bridge.

About two hundred yards away from him, six men with AKM-96 rifles stood behind a barricade of logs and barbed wire. Barbed wire was produced in Eden factories. The wire was shiny enough to be relatively new. Trade goods? He wondered.

“Hey!” Paul shouted to the armed guards, as disreputable looking a bunch of men as he’d seen, since the old days when he and John fought the Brigands in Texas. T wanna talk with this guy Boris. I got some shit in the back of the truck I wanna trade him!”

The six men did nothing for a moment, then two of them moved off to the right side of the bridge and began to confer. After a minute or more, one of these two shouted back, “What kinda shit you got?”

“Pussy shit, that’s what, man.” Paul Rubenstein had come from a good home, and if his father-not to mention his mother-had heard him now, especially considering one of the women in question was his wife, he would never have seen the sunrise.

“We got plenty o’ pussy, man. So take the fucks with ya’ and get out.”

“Not like this, you ain’t. You pass this up and this Boris guy finds out what he missed, your ass is grass, pal! I ain’t talkin’ tradin’ goods for him to pass off to somebody. Tm talkin’ fine stuff, he’s gonna wanna jump himself!”

Paul Rubenstein was trying to remember the dialogue from every third rate movie he’d every seen; so far, at least, he figured he was doing okay.

But he was walking a narrow line, because if he made the captive women sound too exciting, he might wind up facing the six men here at the bridge, inciting them to want to kill him to get their hands on the women for themselves or to make points with their boss.

Under his coat, he had the battered old Browning High Power, chamber loaded of course, and his right hand near it. The second High Power was in the same condition, but tucked into his waistband at the small of his back.

Three of the six men clambered over the barricade, ducking the barbed wire with practiced expertise it seemed, then started to approach the truck …

It was at once hot and cold under the blanket. The first time she’d moved, her legs starting to cramp, her skirt was up to her crotch. By now, it felt like it was up to her waist.

She could faintly hear Paul as he shouted, presumably to some of the men who worked for Boris.

And the words he said, even though she knew they weren’t his words, would have frightened her if she had anything less than total faith in her husband. She didn’t like being talked about as though the only thing she was good for was what was between her legs. Like Natalia, she had a knife, accessible to her when she needed it if her fingers, already a little stiff, didn’t get too stiff.

The gags they both wore, were a wise idea, she realized, because a real outlaw would have gagged them to shut them up and, if they hadn’t been gagged, she would probably have tried talking to Natalia. But as it was, all she was capable of were unintelligible grunts.

She heard new voices now, several of them, and it sounded as if there was an argument going on …

Michael Rourke smiled at the thought. He was, literally almost, following in his father’s footsteps.

The river bank was very narrow here and, if he didul place his

feet in essentially the same spots his father did, he’d M av.

They were nearly to where the support columns for die bridge could be reached. So far, they evidently went undetected from the bridge above. Michael Rourke had never seen Dan or Margie shoot, so he took little comfort from the fact that they were waiting on the roof on an abandoned building, about one hundred and fifty yards away with sniper rifles. Equipment, no matter how sophisticated, was no better than the man or woman who operated it.

His father reached the pylon, swinging back beneath the bridge on the gravel and dirt, Michael joining him in the next instant

They both set to opening their packs. As they worked, Michael, his voice a low whisper, said to his father, “I felt like I was doing something behind your back, you know, but I told myself I shouldn’t feel that way.”

“You did the right thing.”

“Still-“

“Is that why you and Natalia decided to take the Sleep again? So you could tell me together?”

“Yeah, but that’s not the only reason,” Michael told his lather.

“Well, fine, consider me told. It was an insoluble situation, Michael. Natalia and I loved each other, and I don’t think that will ever change. No offense.”

“None taken” Michael nodded, checking the power for the charge that was in his hands.

T was the fool to let it go as far as I did, and the longer it went on, the worse both of us felt, because it was hopeless. I loved your Mother and Natalia, and Fm married to your mother. You , actually did me a favor. I could never figure out what to do about ; the situation the three of us were in.” And Michael’s father ex- ! tended his gloved right hand. “Pardon the glove, okay?” ]

“Okay.” j

“You just remember one thing; treat Natalia the best that you j can. And not only will both of you be happy, but youll be makmg I me happy, too. But, if she ever starts calling me ‘Dad’, you and I j duke it out, right?” And he grinned “Right,” Michael nodded j

smiling.

He’d never expected anything less of his father, but now that everything was in the open, it was better, somehow.

“So? You guys going to get married?”

“Yeah, sooner or later. Neither one of us has anything against the idea, but neither one of us sees any reason why having some words said over us will make us any more married than we are.”

“I agree,” his father said “But, Fm old fashioned enough to think it’s a good idea, anyway.”

“We kind of figured, well, we’d wait until maybe Mom wasHis father put his hand on his shoulder. “She’d like that. Thank you. But you know that she might never-“

“Yeah,” Michael said, swallowing hard. “But I’m like you that way, too damn stubborn to give up.”

His father started to speak, inhaled, then nodded and looked away. And he realized his father was holding back tears.

Between them, in the packs they’d brought, there were six powerful charges of the latest German plastique. The bridge pylons were old enough that, as Michael Rourke rubbed his gloved hand over the one nearest to him, some of the concrete on the surface flaked away. They would be reinforced, of course, but the explosives would take care of the structural steel as well.

They began setting the charges, moving through the girderwork below the bridge, placing the charges on the insides of the pylons, so the pylons would blow outward into the river, and the bridge section would entirely collapse.

They hoped …

The long skirts of her dress were twisted around her legs, binding her almost as much as the rope on her ankles. And when the blanket was pulled off, aside from a sensation of light at the upper and lower edges of her blindfold, she was also instantly chilled.

“What color’s this bitch’s eyes you said?” “Blue. Prettiest damned blue you ever saw. The other one-look at those legs, hull-she’s got brown eyes.”

“Boris likes broads with blue eyes. Let’s see ‘em.” “Fine, but thafs all you see.”

“Look at that one. Her dress is all the way up. Let’s check out her-“

There was the click of pistol’s hammer being drawn back to full stand. “Keep your fuckirf hands off her panties, man; I came here with two virgins and your boss gets to see ‘em first.”

“Shit, asshole, they’s six o’ us and one o’ you!”

“You wanna die first?”

“Take her damn blindfold, off and let me see her eyes.”

Natalia felt herself being manhandled into a sitting position, her back aching with the sudden movement. Under different circumstances, she would have found being called a virgin mildly amusing. Not now.

Then the blindfold was pushed down, and she squinted against the light. She felt hands at the back of her head and as the blindfold was ripped away, she lost a few hairs in the process. Her hair was longer than she’d ever worn it since she was a litde girl, well past her shoulder’s now and unbound, more than she could say for the rest of her.

When, at last, she opened her eyes, she sucked in her breath almost in a scream. It wasn’t acting. The light hurt her eyes, but it was the sight of the men standing beside Paul, who nearly precipitated the scream. Dressed in rags and new clothes combined, but nothing fitting properly, long dirty hair, scraggly beards, each of them armed to the teeth, they looked like barbarians.

Beside her, Paul was sitting up Annie, taking the blindfold from over Annie’s eyes “Good lookin, huh. This one’s my personal favorite. Look at those legs, so long they could wrap around you twice, I bet.”

Annie’s eyes were as wide as saucers. Except for her panties, she looked naked from the waist down, her stockings shredded (intentionally).

“The truck stays here,” one of the men growled. He was taller than Michael or John, and easily one and one-half times the size of either of them. As he reached toward Natalia, the smell of his body was overpoweringly strong. TU grab this one.”

Theyll walk. And we ain’t goin past the middle of the bridge. Now back the fuck off,” Paul threatened. Paul produced a knife, put it in his teeth, grabbed at Natalia’s dress and pushed it up to her knees, then cut the ropes at her ankles “On your feet, bitch,” Paul rasped.

If she made it out of this alive, Natalia thought, she wasn’t certain whether she would congratulate Paul on his hitherto concealed acting talents, or feel like slapping him in the face.

As he pushed her out of the truck bed, her feet were too numb to support her and she dropped to her knees.

Annie was beside her in the next instant, flat on her face in the snow.

Paul dragged first Natalia to her feet, then Annie. Natalia swayed, still not certain that her feet and legs would support her.

But she was flexing her ringers. The man with the body odor twisted her around roughly and she almost fell, narrowly keeping her balance. His skin felt like leather as he grabbed at her wrists. “Tied tight enough.” And then his face was near hers, his mouth odor so bad she nearly vomited in his face. “Girlies like you don’t be real good, we take some of that barbed wire and tie ‘em up in it. Then we kick ‘em around for a while. Feels real good!”

She cast her eyes down, for two reasons: it was probably what he expected her to do and, if she looked at him much longer, she would throw up.

“Boris ain’t gonna like ccmin’ down to the bridge. He’s got shit to do.”