Survivalist - 24 - Blood Assassins Read Online Free Page B

dead.”
    He’d said it.
    He stayed there, crouched over the pieces of empty brass. John said nothing.
    “I didn’t know how to tell you. Annie and Michael and Natalia don’t know yet. But, I’ll tell them. I’m sorry, John. She was a magnificent woman. I don’t know what else to say.”
    John lit a cigar, but his hands shook and, as he exhaled smoke, John coughed, sounded for an instant as if he were choking. He just dropped the cigar and lowered his face into his hands. And Paul could hear the sobbing, see his friend’s face as John’s fists hammered down into the dirt on either side of him.
    “Jesus!” John exclaimed. John stood up, walked to the edge of the drop, stood there, beating his right thigh with his right fist. “After all—all she—she went—went through, God!” And John Rourke raised his voice into a cry across the valley beyond “Sarah!”
    Paul Rubenstein opened his hands and let the empty brass fall through his fingers. His throat felt tight. He stood up, walked toward his friend, put his arms around him and John Rourke rested his arm across Paul’s shoulders and wept.

Seven
    Annie already knew that something terrible had happened, but not quite what. While Natalia kept talking with her, she dressed, telling Natalia nothing at all about her dream-initiated fears.
    “Michael’s been thinking about trying to pass himself off as Martin with Deitrich Zimmer. I don’t seem to be able to talk him out of it,” Natalia said despairingly.
    Annie was pulling her slip over her head, stopped with it still bunched up over her breasts. “He shouldn’t do that. There’s been enough tragedy, Natalia.” She finished putting on her slip, smoothing it along her thighs, then walked over to the dresser, picked up her brush and started doing her hair. She’d showered, washed her hair, dried it. She would have to look her best, today. Her mother always liked her to look her best. “Besides, Michael could never convince Deitrich Zimmer. It would be like Martin having tried to convince daddy that he was Michael, instead. It’d never work.”
    “I know that. But Michael feels he has to do something. Men are crazy.”
    “We let them be, even admire it in them, don’t we?”
    “Paul is so sensible.”
    Annie smiled. “He’s exciting. Trust me.”
    “Ohh, I didn’t mean that!” Natalia told her hastily.
    “I know you didn’t mean anything,” Annie replied.
    “It is only that Paul doesn’t seem to have to be spectacular, that he does what needs to be done without any—what’s the word?”
    “I’m amazed!” Annie said. “Fanfare?”
    “Yes, like that. ‘Fanfare’ isn’t the sort of word one uses every day, you know.”
    Annie shrugged her shoulders, straightened her straps. The sides of her hair were caught up in a bar-rette just near the crown of her head, the rest of her hair hanging down, almost to her waist. Natalia had helped her a few days before, trimming off about two inches of split ends.
    It was a cool day. She took down a long-sleeved medium blue blouse, began putting it on. “Michael is just like Daddy; he’s naturally heroic. And it’s unnatural for him to be otherwise. Paul is just naturally competent; when it’s competent to be heroic, he’s heroic, but he doesn’t go out of his way to constantly do that. Do you know what I mean? It doesn’t define him.”
    “Yes. I want Michael’s baby.” And Natalia laughed. “Can you imagine that? Me? A mother!”
    “You’ll make a wonderful mother. What’s Michael think about it?” Her blouse was buttoned except for the button at the neck. She closed the cloth-covered buttons at her cuffs.
    “I haven’t mentioned it to him, not yet, anyway.”
    Natalia lit a cigarette, stood up from where she’d been sitting on the edge of the bed, walked to the window. Natalia wore black slacks and a loose-fitting, black, long-sleeved cotton sweater with a round neck. Except for very small pierced earrings—diamonds—and her Rolex