The door opened, revealing a woman of medium height and build. It was difficult to make out much else in the weak and flickering light from within the apartment. Durrell shone his light directly in her face. She squeezed her eyes shut and brought up her hand to shield her eyes. Durrell shifted the beam so that it wasn't shining directly in her eyes. She lowered her hand and her features seemed to relax. He saw that she was very pretty. High cheekbones, full mouth, with perhaps a little too much strength in the jaw. She was wearing jeans and a dark shirt.
'Come in. I've been expecting you.' The accent was American but not from the mid-west. She turned and walked back into the apartment, Durrell following. Leith saw the black shadow of the weapon held down at his side.
The apartment was cold and smelled of damp and filth. Several candles resting on a shelf along one wall lighted the hallway. Two rooms led off the other side. Following Durrell's example, Leith shone his flashlight in. The first had probably been a bedroom but was now empty: the second was a kitchen, seedy but relatively intact.
The woman led them into the lounge, which had one large sofa and two padded chairs. A man wearing a checked shirt, jeans and heavy work boots, was lounging on the sofa. A woman Leith recognised as De Meer sat upright on one of the chairs.
'Drop your weapon,' drawled the man on the sofa.
Durrell spun round bringing the machine pistol up to point at him. The man, still unarmed, didn't move.
'Freeze or your kidneys are history.' The woman's voice sounded suddenly hard. Glancing back, Leith saw she was tight up against Durrell, a machine pistol in her hand. Where had it come from?
Then he realised that both Durrell and the woman were looking at him expectantly.
My gun, he thought, at last.
'I can kill you both before you could reach it,' she said.
'I've still got your pal covered,' said Durrell tightly.
'He's expendable,' said the woman. 'Are you? Drop your weapon.'
Durrell did nothing and Leith held his breath. Then the big man looked back at him. 'Thanks a fucking bunch.' He tossed the gun onto the empty chair.
The man on the sofa reached casually behind him and brought out another automatic weapon. He got up and pushed Durrell against a wall and began to search him. It took a while, a small mountain of hardware building up at his feet.
It was Leith's turn next. The man's hard little hands wormed their way into all the crevices of his clothing. His gun was lifted from its holster. Then he was searched again, the man apparently puzzled by the contrast between his and Durrell's armaments.
'On the sofa, both of you.' The woman didn't look so pretty now.
Sitting on the lumpy cushions, he could tell Durrell was staring at him but he couldn't bring himself to look round. He watched instead as the man leaned against the far wall, covering them and the door to the hall. The woman walked over to de Meer and crouched down to look into her eyes.
'Well?' asked the man tensely. He was small with very dark hair and heavy lidded, widely spaced eyes.
'Nothing,' replied the woman. De Meer was staring unblinking at some point very far away. She hadn't moved since they'd entered the apartment.
'Is she dead?' The woman put one hand to the neck, feeling for the carotid pulse.
'Cold as ice. Must have been dead for hours.' She withdrew her hand, coming out of her crouch and swivelling round in one smooth movement to aim her gun at Durrell. 'Time for some answers,' she said gravely.
'Not him,' the other man flicked his gun at Leith. 'Him.'
'Why?'
'He doesn't fit. I don't think he's even seen a wet job before, never mind done one. He's shit scared and it shows. Not like Boulder Dam over there,' he indicated Durrell with a nod of his head.
She aimed the gun at Durrell's chest but looked across at Leith. 'Start talking or I blow your friend away.'
De Meer moved.
Her head tilted to one side, then her neck turned slowly, or so it seemed at first.
Then Leith saw that the whole right side of her face was peeling off and separating. The smooth skin was revealed as some kind of tightly woven fabric. He twitched in shock as her eye and cheek exploded silently out into hand-sized puffballs. The gossamer spheres boiled out as they swept across the side of her head, growing at the expense of scalp and hair, revealing a matt black space beneath. Sweeping into view from the other side came another puffball, a second planet orbiting the ravaged face.
Ice coursed through his body as he saw that each coned down into coarse threads of flesh being stripped from her unwinding face. The threads split into finer and finer filaments, which sustained the blossoming puffballs. It was like two tornados circling round and round, unravelling the woman's head.
Then de Meer's head was gone and her torso started to disappear fast, the puffballs spinning faster and faster, making the air in the room turbulent, and causing the candle flames to flicker.
Only the legs were left now and the puffballs were each a metre across. They were spinning so fast that he could no longer focus on them. Just as the shoes and feet were consumed he saw that the two threads were joined. Then the puffballs flew apart, exploding out in a lightning-fast unfolding until one huge square of material blanked out half the room. Leith just had time to see the surface alive with myriad waving cilia, then the square was gone. The room seemed suddenly empty.
Leith felt himself drop a few centimetres. He looked up in surprise as Durrell, having leapt up from the sofa, was already at the other chair and grabbing for the automatic. A sickening heaviness filled Leith's stomach. Durrell could never be fast enough. The man and woman had already recovered from their shock. Crouching they brought their guns to bear. He tried to scream a warning even as they tensed to take the recoil.
He heard two clicks then the fire from Durrell's machine pistol washed over them. Their bodies twisted, their arms flailing back against the wall, before they crashed to the ground.
Durrell had scooped their weapons up in an instant. Still covering the man and woman he risked a glance at Leith and opened his mouth to speak.
There was one more bright gun-flash from near floor level. The roar of the shot was much louder than the brutal stuttering of the machine pistol. Durrell screamed, jack-knifing over. Leith watched open-mouthed as he thudded to the floor, his hand holding his groin.
For a brief second there was only silence then the front door smashed against the wall. Leith tried to struggle upright but already another man was in the room pointing a pistol at him. He saw the heavy phallic bulk of a silencer on the end of the gun.
Keeping the gun on Leith the man knelt down by the woman. 'Boruch?' he said in frightened tones.
He remained crouched over the woman for several seconds, his eyes off Leith, giving him time for ponderous thoughts of going for his gun, placed on top of Durrell's stockpile by the TV. He'd just decided not to when the man stood upright, pointed his gun at Leith's head, and pulled the trigger.
There was a single metallic click.
Leith had no conscious thoughts now. He lurched over to the TV: then the gun was in his hand, and he was pointing it at the other man.
The man was still pulling the trigger and being rewarded with a series of clicks. Leith could see how young he was. With a single shout of rage he hurled the gun at Leith, narrowly missing his head, then he turned and ran. Leith kept the gun trained until the man was gone.
Leith heard his echoing footsteps recede down the corridor, then hunted around for his flashlight. He found it over by the wall where he’d dropped it when he was searched. Walking over to the man and the woman, he played it across them.
Durrell must have started to fire even as he brought the gun up and across. A trail of spreading patches of blood led diagonally up across the man's chest. One on his left side was pumping hard. The man's eyes flickered and his head shook with a fine tremor. Leith could find no weapon.
Durrell's burst had continued diagonally upwards, several bullets pass
ing through the woman's neck, almost severing it. Leith gagged at the sight of the ragged wounds. She, too, couldn't have fired that last shot.
Durrell was curled up in a ball like a foetus. A bloody conical shaped hole just below his coccyx steamed in the cold of the room.
Leith touched him lightly on the shoulder. 'Are you OK?'
'No.'
Leith was running. He stumped down the hallway and out of the door. Sticking his head through the broken windowpanes in the corridor, he looked wildly around the street below.
'Help!' he yelled. 'Help!'
The coffee was good, the best thing he'd ever drunk. He cupped it in his hands for warmth and shivered a little. It wasn't cold in the hospital, so this must be the beginning of shock. He struggled to suppress the horror and for the moment succeeded.
They'd carried Durrell down to the car, and Leith had sat with him as Spears drove them out of East St. Louis and to a private hospital in Ladue. Leith had watched dully as the deserted streets gave way to roads full of BMW's and Cadillacs. Such disparity, he had thought, and all so close together.
Durrell lay hunched up beside him, often moaning in pain. Carrying him down the stairs Leith had seen the blood marker of the entry wound in Durrell's groin. At one point Durrell turned his pain-creased face to Leith. 'Nobody else knew,' he said urgently. 'Nobody!' Then he'd passed out.
Leith took another sip of coffee and looked at the door to the operating theatres. Durrell was in surgery, but they thought he'd survive. The wound was bad, but the bullet had just missed the bits Durrell probably held dear. He'd still be able to father a child.
Leith wondered if Durrell was already a father. Was he even married? They'd never talked about anything but work.
He saw Spears striding towards him. The man flopped down in the seat next to him. 'How's Durrell?'
'Better than I expected considering where he was shot. What about Alpert?' Taking Durrell out of the apartment they'd passed the prone figure of the CIA lookout.
'Alive,' said Spears. 'Not a mark on him. We figure it was one of those gas guns the Swiss put on the market recently. Want to tell me what happened?'
Leith shook his head. 'What about the man who did it, the one who tried to shoot me?'
Spears shrugged. 'There was a rope tied up ready in one of the other apartments. He must have abseiled down.' Spears got out a packet of cigarettes despite the 'No Smoking' sign and offered him one. Leith shook his head.
‘What about Durrell? Why did he say. 'Nobody knew'?'
Leith shook his head again. He saw his coffee cup was shaking very badly now.
CHAPTER 15
Ladue, Missouri
The image in the mirror was unflattering. It showed a puffed face and two dazed, bloodshot eyes. His beard had turned fluffy with untrimmed hair.
His body felt heavy, but at least it was alive. He finished dressing, the sedative from last night making him a little unsteady on his feet when he tried to get into his pants. He looked in the mirror one more time, muggily checking to make sure his dick was zipped away, then opened the door of his private room and headed for the reception desk.
A nurse was working at some notes. She looked up and gave him a happy smile. 'You're looking a lot better this morning, Dr. Leith. Can I get you anything?'
'You can tell me how Mr. Durrell is?'
'He's awake. The anaesthetist says she's charging double. She says take him to a vet next time, they're used to dealing with the larger mammals.' She laughed so nicely he found it difficult to be affronted, but he doubted she'd be long in this job.
'Yes, but how does he actually feel?'
'Relieved. It could have been a lot worse!'
Leith nodded. Durrell relieved and maybe still a little high from the anaesthetic: this was definitely the best time to face him.
Durrell was flat on his back with just a single pillow under his head. His eyes swivelled as Leith entered the room.
'Well, hello there,' the tone was not jovial. 'I'm glad you dropped by. Gives me a chance to thank you for all your help. You must be hoarse from all that shouting.'
Leith sighed and sat down in the chair next to the bed. Durrell stared unblinkingly at him. Even in his pyjamas the man could radiate menace.
He sighed again. 'I'm sorry, I really am. You knew I wasn't James Bond, so what did you expect?'
'I didn't expect you to be totally fucking useless. Why didn't you draw your gun?'
'I did draw it!'
'Sure, but by then two people were dead and my balls had been shot off!'
'They weren't shot off. And the truth is I forgot I had a gun, it's not something I'm used to. I guess I stopped thinking clearly when the woman drew hers.'
Durrell grunted. 'I suppose I'd be wasting my time asking you what that thing was?' Leith nodded again. 'What about the two men and the woman?'
'So you were conscious when the second man came in.'
'Sure, I heard everything, though I was pretty busy clutching what was left of my balls to pay much attention.'
Leith grimaced. 'Spears brought in a pathologist's report this morning, which is all we've got to go on. They had no form of identification. The pathologist reckons they were of Eastern stock, Mediterranean, that sort of thing. The man was circumcised, but then most men are nowadays.'
Durrell shook his head. 'They were Israelis. MOSSAD.'
'Why?'
'Boruch,' said Durrell impatiently. 'It's a Hebrew name. Israel's been given a particularly hard time by System X. They had dark complexions. The man was circumcised. Give me a break, OK?'
He'd forgotten about the woman's name. It was time he pulled himself together.
'I was right, wasn't I? It was a trap to smoke us out. We're blown and we can't go back.'
Leith nodded. They had to be careful now. System X, with its access to 4-space, was probably eavesdropping on them right now. They couldn't afford to lead System X back to Langley. They were out of the game for good.
He swallowed. ' You realise none of their weapons was loaded.'
Durrell shrugged. 'We didn't know that at the time, and sure-as-shit they didn't know it either.'
'System X. They must have plucked the bullets out of the chambers and magazines. Lifted them right out of our 3-D world,' he looked at Durrell who'd at last looked away. 'That brings us to another point...'
'Who shot me in the balls, and why?’
'You weren't shot in the balls,' he couldn't help feeling irritated.
Durrell turned burning eyes to him. 'No, but I'm probably gonna have to shit in a little plastic bag for the rest of my life!'
'Probably not. They told me all about this earlier; they took out a few inches of burst bowel, so they had to bypass the join to avoid infection while it healed. Chances are, you'll be using your ass again in a couple of weeks.'
'Eighty percent chance, that's what they said. They have to tell you everything, to make sure you give informed consent. They have to cover their asses,' Durrell groaned in exasperation, '... they have to protect themselves from possible lawsuits.'
'I don't get this. Back in that room you went for your gun even though you knew you'd no chance of getting to it in time. Now you've got an eighty percent chance of coming out of this undamaged and you're miserable. I just don't get it. What's really bothering you, and why did you say 'Nobody knew' when we were bringing you here?'
Durrell's jawbone worked beneath his skin. After a couple of seconds of silence he seemed to come to a decision. 'I'm not proud of this, but I figure I'm duty bound to tell you about it. This whole thing makes no sense to me. Maybe you can explain it.'
Durrell looked at the ceiling and fell silent for a while, marshalling his thoughts.
'Back in 1988, I spent some time in Afghanistan. The Soviets hadn't caved in just yet but they weren't having a happy time. Our friends, the Mujahadeen kept sending in reports straight out of Disney world. Kill ratios exaggerated by a factor of 10, that kind of thing. Langley needed some kind of
quantitative grip on what was going on.' He reached across for a glass of orange juice, and had some difficulty in drinking it in his prone position.
'They sent people like me in. Strictly secret, we weren't to be taken alive under any circumstances. I was up at Panjao, which is about fifty miles west of Kabul, checking up on the Soviet garrison there and getting some feel for the situation. I was resting up in a mountain village called Oala, getting ready to head back to the border, when a Soviet gunship appears out of nowhere and takes a run at a pasture just above the village. There's a kid up there riding his horse and the Sovs are after some target practice. They got the horse but missed the kid. A band of Ranifa Lel's men, he was a local guerilla leader who happened to be resting up in the village at the time, took out the gunship with a Stinger. Blew off the tail fin, so the chopper whips round a few times and crashes into a ravine. By the time we got down there everyone's dead but for one guy. And what a guy!'
He coughed and winced with the pain. 'God, it feels like someone's shoved a red hot poker up my ass. Wanna see my bag?'
Leith shook his head. Did Durrell think a horror shared was a horror halved?
'So it turns out this is the garrison leader at Koh-i-Baba, on his way to visit Panjao. This makes the rebels' day and they're very keen to kill him slowly. They didn't give a shit about military intelligence. They were crazy that way. I guess when you don't care whether you live or die, in fact when you get an afterlife brownie point for getting blown away in combat, you aren't going to care less about troop strengths.
'It took a lot of arguing, nearly the whole two hours it took us to get him back to the village, but I convinced them to let me have him for a while. Then they could kill him. They always needed arms badly, and they thought I could get them some, so they agreed.
‘They tied him down in a barn and left me with him. I speak Russian, which was lucky as he couldn't speak Afghani, or at least claimed he couldn't. I hoped he hadn't understood what the rebels had said they were going to do to him. I fed him a line about trading him in for a few prisoners but I don't think he bought it. Human rights aren't big things in that part of the world. As a garrison commander he'd have seen what happened to his men who had got lost or who'd fallen victim to a rebel honeytrap.
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