Whirlwind

by Joseph R. Garber

  “I already have, Charlie. This is what you call ‘deep shit,’ no? They put the bridge on my phone last night. Soon as I hear your voice, I hit the switch. Sorry, Charlie, I am very sorry. But you know how it is.” Mikhail was going to crack open a vodka bottle as soon as Charlie hung up. He knew the man, and knew that one bottle wouldn’t be enough.

  “No problem. We’re still friends. Someday we’ll have a drink and laugh about this.”

  “Maybe instead I toast your memory. Unless you get under cover pretty soon, this becomes highly probable, my friend.”

  “I’m outta here. But one last question, Mikhail. Has she contacted you? Has Irina Kolodenkova contacted anyone at the Rezidentura?”

  “No, Charlie. On this you have my solemn word. Now hang up. Hang up and run. People are coming for you.”

  All of a sudden, Charlie felt good. Indeed, he felt downright great! Bruises and aches notwithstanding, he broke into the broadest of smiles, pride and laughter and, yeah, all that cocksure vainglory in his voice, “Wrong, Mikhail. They aren’t coming for me. I’m coming for them!”

  At first, the words didn’t register. Sam heard them but did not grasp their implication. The military policeman standing in the open hatch of his plane said, “Are you sure he’s expecting you, sir?” Sam, lounging exhausted in his seat, a badly needed single-malt scotch in his hand, didn’t react. Why should he? Schmidt had finally decided that he was more of a liability than an asset, and left him behind. Sam stormed into the general aviation terminal, phoned Travis AFB, and waited impatiently until an early-model Gulfstream V (with fresh clothes, by God, he’d insisted on that) trundled up to the boarding area. No one except the president and a couple of jet jockeys knew he was in San Francisco. So, to repeat, why should he have been concerned that persons unknown were standing at his jet’s hatch, telling the guard they had a meeting with the national security advisor?

  It wasn’t until he heard the answer to the guard’s polite question that he belatedly understood what was happening. “If he isn’t expecting me, he’s dumber than I thought.”

  He sprang to his feet. He didn’t have time to shout for help. Besides, Charlie had a gun.

  Two guns, actually. Only one of them was aimed at Sam. The other was burrowed behind the left ear of a badly frightened MP.

  Sam wasn’t quite sure what happened next. It was over too quickly, and besides, he was, let’s face it, scared shitless. The only thing he could remember was sitting frozen in his seat, thinking, For a damned old dinosaur, that fucker moves a lot faster than you’d expect.

  Somewhere along the way, the MP wound up chained to a seat with his own handcuffs. Sam’s second bodyguard, who’d been in the bathroom, seemed to be out cold on the floor. And there was someone else in the cabin, a younger someone, and who the hell was he?

  Whoever he was, he closed the plane’s hatch when the ground crew gave the signal. Or maybe he’d closed it when the pilot’s voice came over the squawk box with some bullshit about civilian safety procedures being mandatory on government flights.

  Whatever.

  The sequence of events really didn’t matter. All that mattered was the plane was taxiing on the runway, and Charlie was inches away from his face, eating an apple. He had a big knife, Charlie did, and he whisked thick wet, wedges out of the fruit with every flick of his wrist.

  Juice splashed on Sam’s fresh shirt. He didn’t complain. Odds were it would be the wrong thing to do.

  Meanwhile Charlie’s partner had opened the plane’s first-aid kit and was putting a dressing on an unconscious bodyguard’s forehead. Shit! A doctor! He’s Charlie’s son! Little bastard even looks like his old man. Now I’ve got two of them in my face.

  Charlie was saying something. Sam hadn’t been listening. He shook his head and mumbled, “I didn’t quite catch that, Charlie.”

  Charlie held that big goddamned knife in front of his eyes, flicking it back and forth so that Sam could see how sharp it was. Johan Schmidt sharp, psychopath sharp, fuck me, I put both those headcases on the payroll. “What I said, Sam, is that time’s short, and so’s my patience. Either you answer my questions, or I will start cutting pieces off of you. And Sam…” He paused. Sam didn’t like the glint in his eye.

  “What?” He doubted that he’d like the answer either.

  “I can cut ’em off faster than my son can sew ’em back on.”

  No shit, Sam believed him. Little more than twenty-four hours earlier, the prick had heard Sam order Schmidt to kill him. Now — unless he was very, very careful — it was payback time. “There’s no need for threats, Charlie. I’ll tell you whatever you want.”

  “Where’s Irina?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “Wrong answer.”

  Charlie’s hand suddenly was over Sam’s mouth, and that cold, cold blade was lightly sawing at his left ear. Jesus fuck! Sam tried to scream. Charlie’s hand muffled the cry. Sam twisted and pulled away. Charlie held him fast. And all the while, the cocksucker was smiling, because he really and truly was enjoying this. “One more time, Sam. One last time. Where. Is. Irina?”

  Sam could barely breathe. Everything around him was speckled yellow and red. He was going to die, goddamnit, die in an Air Force VIP jet, and there was nothing —

  “Speak to me, Sam. I am beaten and bruised and full of pain. My mood is poor, and even the saints in heaven would not blame me for hurting you more than you can believe.”

  “Honest to God, I don’t know! If I did, I’d tell you! You know that!”

  “You get one sentence to make me believe you.”

  “She didn’t come. We staked out the Russians, Schmidt staked out the Russians, and she didn’t come. Then Schmidt got a phone call. Someone reported that Kolodenkova called your home, left a message on your answering machine. Jesus! Don’t hurt me! Please, I’m telling the truth!”

  “Five sentences. Put a premium on conciseness, Sam, or there will be consequences.”

  Consequences? There will be consequences? He said that earlier. When? Was it only four days ago?

  “Next question, Sam. What was the message?”

  “Something about you being her saint. Saint Charlie, she said you were Saint Charlie.”

  The dangerous old fuck’s eyes flashed. Was there some hidden meaning in what that bitch had said? If so, Sam didn’t get it. And neither had Johan, that was for goddamned sure.

  “Where’s Schmidt and his trained gorillas?”

  “Can you take that knife away from my ear? It hurts.”

  “No.”

  Fuck you, man, just fuck you! Four days of non-stop needling, acid sarcasm, withering insults, and insufferable arrogance — and that, babycakes, was all she wrote. Sam had had enough, more than enough, and fuck you, fuck you, fuck you. All at once he was over the edge, off the deep end, blood in the water, rage that murder wouldn’t begin to appease, the border of the nation called Berserk far behind, and he was in a place where he couldn’t care, didn’t care, and he’d kill you, kill you, kill you and drink your fucking blood!

  “Schmidt, Sam? Answer my question or what I do to you will be one hell of a lot nastier than what he did to me. And, Sam,” Charlie dropped his voice low and intimate, “what he did was pretty damned nasty.”

  Meat, McKenzie, you are raw meat on the butcher’s counter. I will cut you up and eat your fucking liver. You’re dead now, do you know that? Dead! I’m getting through this alive and in one piece, but you, you cocksucker, are going to be bite-sized goblets on my dinner plate!

  Damn it felt good. It would feel even better if he said it, no, roared it as loud as he could. It was hard to resist, almost impossible. The only thing that stopped him was Charlie’s knife — that and the look in his eye. “He left some watchers,” Sam said. It was difficult to voice those words; the other words were screaming to be heard. “I mean at the Russian residence. Then he headed south. Schmidt and his people. He dropped me off at the airport on the way. That’s the whole story, that’s all
there is.”

  “There had better be more. Look, meathead, my son Scott…” He nodded at the young doctor, so, yes, Sam had been right, he was Charlie’s son, cut from the same cloth, and the little shit was going down like his dad. I’ll have the rotten fuck’s kid killed first. Schmidt’ll unwind his entrails. And you’ll get to watch, Charlie, oh, yes, you’ll get to watch it all. “…tried to tail Irina. I never taught him any tradecraft. She shook him off in five minutes. So he drove straight here. He knows my style; he guessed I’d show up in a chartered plane. He was watching for me when you arrived. Together with a convoy of monster trucks, he said. Plug-uglies driving each and every one….”

  The pilot’s voice came over the loudspeaker: “Gentlemen, we are number one for takeoff. Please make sure your seatbelts are tightly fastened around your waist, your tray tables are up, and any loose items are stowed safely beneath the seat in front of you.”

  The pilot. He’s got a gun. Air Force officer. Bound to have a gun. Come back here, you dumb bastard, come back here and kneecap this cocksucker. Then leave the rest to me.

  Charlie raised his voice. “…From what Irina told him the night before, Scott figured those guys were the source of all her woes — hers and mine both. They booted your fat ass out on to the tarmac, and he’s been watching you ever since. When he saw you climb aboard this fine aircraft, he came and found me. Bad luck for you, Sam. I was getting ready to hightail it out of Dodge. If Scott hadn’t spotted you, if he hadn’t had an eye out for me, you’d be able to spend what’s left of your life with two ears, all your fingers —”

  Out of the plane. Say ten thousand feet. You can breathe at that altitude, Charlie, and you’ll scream all the way down. Where is that fucking pilot? “Be careful with that damned knife! We’re taking off! What if we hit turbulence?”

  “Like you say, shit happens. Now tell me where Schmidt is.”

  He bellowed. No more soft-spoken voice. That was beyond his power. It was hard enough saying what he was supposed to say rather than what he wanted to say. “Headed for the coast, you fuck! Said he’s deploying his men all up and down the Pacific to watch the marinas! Thinks she’s going to try to steal a sailboat! Cocksucker, Jesus! Put away that knife!”

  The plane jolted off the ground, Sam felt a trickle of blood run down his neck, and he wanted to howl like a wounded animal. Instead he tried to tell it all, and tell it true. “On the plane out here, he read her father’s file. The same file I sent you. Ow, you motherfucker, be careful! He kept looking at those pictures. The ones you saw. He said he thought she had a thing for boats — had an issue with boats. Said she was going to grab one and sail solo down to Baja. Goddamn you, McKenzie, stop it!”

  Charlie pursed his lips. Sam felt the knife lift from his ear. He tried to sigh, couldn’t manage it, his lungs were puffing like a locomotive. Hyperventilation. Blood pressure sky high. Old hormones flooding his bloodstream. He could take him on, he could take him on and beat him to a bloody pulp. If only the old sonofabitch didn’t have that knife….

  “Sam, you’d better not be lying.”

  “Truth, Charlie. Every fucking word.” And it was. He shouldn’t have let it out, he should have used the truth as a bargaining chip, but, you know, he really didn’t give a shit.

  “Dad…?” It was the kid. He even sounded like his fucking old man.

  “Put a bandage on this worm, Scott.”

  “Is this Schmidt guy right, dad? Is Irina going to try to take a boat to Mexico?”

  “I doubt it. However Johan has drawn a very unfortunate inference. Irina is headed for the sea. She will be near sailboats. And yeah, she does have a…well, ‘issue’ is probably the right word…with sailboats. Also with older guys — hell, with men in general.”

  Sam didn’t understand a word of it. Calling Dr. Freud, calling Dr. Freud.

  “You’re wrong, dad. We talked last night, talked a lot. She told me all about what her father did, and she told me she’s gotten over it. I believe her. I think she’s…well, she’s the most together woman I’ve ever met.”

  The kid’s got a thing for that Russian cunt. Same as his bastard old man. Good. Once Schmidt gets her, we’ll dissect her in front of your eyes, you cock-suckers, conduct an amateur autopsy, vivisection while you watch, and I’ll wash your ugly faces in her blood!

  “Dad, how can we find her? The California coast has to be nine hundred miles long.”

  Wetting his lips, Charlie answered hesitantly. “I can make a guess. Let’s hope it’s the right one.”

  You prick, you know it will be right. You’re reading her mind, or doing whatever voodoo you always do, and I’m going to sit here very quietly, and if I’m lucky you won’t read my mind because if you did…

  “Will Schmidt guess the same?”

  “Maybe.” Charlie blew between his teeth. “He’s smart enough. Best we can do is get to her before he does.”

  Two knives, a matched set, Charlie sonofabitch McKenzie held one in each hand. Fingers clinched, knuckles white, Sam gripped his armrests.

  Resignation in his voice, Charlie said, “Which means another major felony. Damnit, Scott, I never wanted you involved in this.”

  “There’s no place I’d rather be.” Same fucking smile, the both of them smile like goddamned werewolves.

  “Sam, I’ve got some good news for you and some bad news.” Now what? “The good news is that I can’t handcuff you to your seat because I need all four sets of manacles those MPs were carrying.” What’s the motherfucker mean? “The bad news is that I can’t let you out of that chair.”

  Sam almost saw it coming. He almost began to move out of the way. He almost — but not quite — was fast enough.

  Charlie’s two knifes stabbed down, pinioning Sam’s hands to the armrests.

  The shock was so great that Sam couldn’t scream. At least not for a while.

  10

  Saint Charles

  Friday, July 24.

  1530 Hours Pacific Time

  HOLLY STREET EXIT — SAN CARLOS

  An hour and half before Sam began to scream, Schmidt — a few miles south of the San Francisco airport — spotted the sign. But of course, he thought. San Carlos. Saint Charles. How obvious.

  If memory served, Saint Charles was a reformer, and therefore a pest. Schmidt had seen monuments to him in Milan. Ah, Milan! A wretched city, but a fine opera house.

  Swinging his Mercedes M-Class SUV onto the exit ramp, he murmured an order at his scout. “Keep your eyes open. Kolodenkova may be closer than I imagined.” Milksnake, a Yemenite Sunni, and not the brightest star in the mercenary sky, cocked a Beeman air pistol modified to fire tranquilizer darts.

  Schmidt wondered if he’d misjudged Kolodenkova’s plans. Perhaps she did not intend to make her escape by sea; perhaps her sad little message to “Saint Charlie” conveyed a secret meaning: meet me in San Carlos.

  But no, a quick tour persuaded him otherwise. It was just another American suburban purgatory: a strip mall here and there, shabby taco shops, too many gas stations, motels that likely did more daytime than nighttime business — there was no focus to the place, no obvious location for a runaway spy to hide. Kolodenkova was elsewhere. She was, as he originally hypothesized, fleeing for the water.

  But then again…

  A fresh thought. He snapped his fingers. “Milksnake, do you know how to use my laptop computer’s GPS?” The idiot was attempting to clear the Beeman. “Just fire the dart into the floor mat. Never attempt to decock an air gun.”

  “Yes, suh.” The Yemenite’s accent was thick, and his command of English was barely adequate. Schmidt would not entirely miss the man if he shot himself in the foot.

  The pistol, quite powerful for its kind, recoiled as Milksnake discharged it. “I well-trained on de Global Bositionin’ System.” Like many Arabs, Milksnake couldn’t pronounce the letter P. It came out as B instead.

  “Let us hope so. Search the database for towns named Saint Charles.” Better safe than sorry,
Schmidt spelled it for him.

  Milksnake opened Schmidt’s sleek Sony featherweight computer like it was a jewel box. Schmidt swung back toward the freeway as the man maladroitly pecked on the keyboard. Some long moments passed before he had an answer. “Five Yankee Sain’ Charles.”

  “Any in California?”

  “No. Louisiana an’ —”

  Impatiently, Schmidt snapped, “Try San Carlos.”

  Milksnake moved his lips as he typed, whispering each letter. Schmidt felt himself becoming immoderately annoyed. “Got me two here. Dis town we leavin’. Other one’s called San Carlos do Cabo.” He pronounced it “Dew-Cabew.”

  Schmidt didn’t bother to correct him. Do Cabo. Of the cape. On the cape. In other words, on the water. “Pull up the map, Milksnake. Tell me where this interestingly named metropolis might be found.”

  “Uh, lemme…no dat’s not right…uh, you gotta do dis. Uh, yeah. Got it. It’s…how you say…long ways away, south on da California coast, north of dis blace called San Lewis Obiss —”

  “San Luis Obispo. Milksnake, you really must work on your pronunciation. Is there an airport nearby?”

  “Lemme try this key…San Louie O-Biz-Bo be da nearest. Sixty mile. San Carlos, she’s a little blace. Bobulation is tree fifteen hundred, I mean tree hundred and fifteen. Combuter says no motels or nutin’.”

  “Fishing village,” Schmidt mused. “What driving time does the computer predict?”

  “More ’an tree hours.”

  Schmidt weighed his odds. Kolodenkova had called McKenzie’s daughter just around two in the afternoon. No surprise, the Federal Bureau of Ineptitude’s phone tappers had not had time to pinpoint her location. The most they’d been able to ascertain was that she was in the 650 area code — somewhere between San Francisco and San Jose, a distance of roughly fifty miles.

  It had taken him thirty minutes to assemble a convoy, another thirty to reach the airport, and an irksome ten-minute detour to deposit Samuel at the airport. Assuming she was at 650’s southern boundary when she called, under the worst of circumstances, she had a ninety-mile lead.