| was dead-for some part of love was a part of whatever they were. He had done what he had to do, just as she bad done the same. Each was right, each wrong, ultimately so terribly wrong. He closed his eyes, feeling the unwanted dampness. Why did it have to be? We are fools. Worse, we are stu- 8 RoBLmT LuDLUM pid. We do not talk; we die. So men with fluld tongues and facile minds can tell us what is right and wrong-geopolitically, you understand, which means that whatever they say is beyond our puerile understanding. What will you do, MikhailP Teach, I suppose. At a college somewhere What will you teach? History… It was all history now. Remembrances of things too painful. Let it be cold history, as the early days were history. They cannot be a part of me any longer. She cannot be a part of me, it she ever was, even in her pretense. Yet I will keep a promise, not to her but to myself. I am finished. I will disappear into another lite, a new lite. I will go somewhere, teach somewhere. Illuminate the lessons of futility. He heard the voices and opened his eyes. Below, the killers of the Baader-Meinhof had reached the condemned woman, sprawled out in death, clutching the ground that was her execution place-geopolitically preordained. Had she really been so magnificent a liar? Yes, she had been, for he had seen the truth. Even in her eyes he had |
sprays of white where isolated waves crashed into the rocks of the shoreline. The stretch of beach between the towering boulders of the Costa Brava was the execution ground. It had to be. May God damn this goddamned world-it had to bel He could see her now. And hear her through the sounds of the sea and the breaking surf. She was running wildly, screaming hysterically: “Pro boha iiv6hol ProN Co to d6WI Pfestafil ProN ProN Her blond hair was caught in the moonlight, her racing silhouette given substance by the beam of a powerful flashlight fifty yards behind her. She fell; the gap closed and a staccato burst of gunfire abruptly, insolently split the night air, bullets exploding the sand and the wild grass all around her. She would be dead in a matter of seconds. His love would be gone. They were high on the hill overlooking the Moldau, the boats on the -river plowing the waters north and south, their wakes furrows. 4RoBERT LUDLUM winds above Prague would come along and blow th. smoke away so the mountains could be seen again. His head was on Jenna’s lap, his long legs stretched out, touching the wicker basket she had packed with sandwiches and iced wine. She sat on the grass, her back against the smooth bark of a birch tree, she stroked his hair, her fingers circling his face, gently outlining his lips and cheekbones. ‘Mikhail, my darling, I was thinking. Those tweed jackets and dark trousers |
