The Zebra Network

by Sean Flannery

  All his life he’d been driven by a sense of completeness. Never walk away from a job until it is finished. Once it begins, boyo, never turn your back. It’s not in our blood. We’re not quitters. In the end, then, it really didn’t matter what was driving him, iroshnikov’s mechanizations, or his own instincts. Now he had no choice.

  There was absolutely no traffic on the highway at this hour, when McAllister found the turnoff a couple miles past the village, and when he reached the covered bridge he shut off the Moskvich’s headlights and rolled down the window as he coasted across the narrow river. A hundred yards farther he came to a narrow, snow-covered track fading to the right, back through the woods, and he stopped the car, shut off the engine and got out, the Makarov automatic in his hand, the safety catch off. There were no noises, no sounds other than his ragged breathing, the ticking of the cooling engine, and the wind. The driveway was lost in the darkness. Nowhere could he see even the faintest glimmer of light.

  He stepped around the front of the car and walked ten yards down the driveway, stopping again to listen, to search the woods ahead fora sign that anyone was here waiting for him. Still there was nothing, and he turned and hurried back up to the car, laying the pistol beside him on the seat and starting the engine.

  The Moskvich nearly stalled out when he hit the first snowdrift twenty yards from the road, and he had to gun the engine to get through, the little car lurching forward, accelerating as the driveway cleared.

  McAllister had no idea how far General Borodin’s dacha was set back into the woods. But he’d seen no tire tracks in the snow so far, which meant no one had come this way for several hours at least.

  With the headlights off, his night vision had begun to return, and although the woods were very dark, he could make out the driveway, and the trees crowding in on both sides.

  A little more than fifty yards from the road, he was about to stop the car again and get out so that he could listen for more sounds, when a tremendous yellow flash erupted just beneath him, followed instantly by a huge thunderclap. The Moskvich was shoved violently over on its side, off the road, the explosion destroying the entire front of the car, ripping the front seats from the floorboards. McAllister was slammed into the rear corner of the cabin, his head smashing into the window post, something very hot and sharp slicing through his coat into his left side.

  The car was on fire. For a seeming eternity McAllister couldn’t make his arms and legs work. His body was tangled in a heap beneath a part of the car’s roof and large pieces of one of the seats. His ears were ringing from the effects of the blast, and bright yellow flashes danced in front of his eyes.

  Flames. His brain crystallized on that one thought. He had to get out of the wreckage before the car’s gas tank in the rear exploded.

  It took him several long seconds to scramble out from beneath the debris, and moments longer for him to orient himself, realizing all of a sudden that the front of the car was gone, and he could pull himself through the opening where the windshield had been.

  He cut his hands on the broken glass and jagged edges of twisted metal, and then he was tumbling, rolling over and over through the flames, his hair singeing, parts of his nylon jacket melting. The snow was blessedly cool and soothing to his burns and other injuries, but his legs were numb and the best he could do was crawl down the driveway.

  He managed to get thirty feet away when the Moskvich’s gas tank blew, destroying what remained of the car, spewing flames and wreckage in all directions.

  For a long time, perhaps a full minute or more, McAllister lay face down in the snow, his head spinning, yellow flashes still dancing in front of his eyes, his ears still ringing.

  General Borodin had known he was coming. The road had been booby-trapped. A dozen incidents from Vietnam raced through his head. Car bombings, rocket attacks, land mines.

  But how had the Russian known? Who had warned him? To lie there would be to die. That thought finally came to the forefront of McAllister’s mind. He lifted himself up, and with a great deal of difficulty managed to struggle to his feet where he stood weaving back and forth, blood streaming from his hands and from the jagged wound in his side.

  General Borodin was here. Waiting for him. The answers were here. All of them.

  McAllister lurched forward a few steps, but then stopped dead in his tracks.

  The road had been booby-trapped. General Borodin had planted a land mine. Were there others?

  He stepped back a pace, searching the trees along both sides of the road, trying to decide, trying to think what to do, trying to think what Borodin might have done.

  Finally he stepped off the road and plunged into the woods angling immediately toward the right so that he could still follow the track of the driveway.

  Slowly his vision and hearing began to clear, but this time he was harmed.

  He stopped again and looked back the way he had come. Already the flames from the explosion had begun to die down. A few of the rees and some of the brush at the side of the road had caught fire, but it didn’t seem as if it would spread. The wind was blowing the flames back toward the driveway. But Miroshnikov’s gun had been beside him on the front seat. There was no possibility of finding it now. None.

  He turned back. There was no more running. General Borodin wanted him, and the general was going to have him.

  McAllister started forward again and twenty feet later he lurched and stumbled, falling forward over a thin wire stretched across the snow.

  The Kalashnikov rifle strapped to the hole of a tree ten yards away, erupted on full automatic, one slug tearing into McAllister’s side as he went down, and a second smashing into the side of his head, just grazing his skull, but shoving him bodily against a fallen tree, ten billion stars bursting in his brain.

  When the land mine exploded, General Borodin had jumped up, grabbed his rifle and had run out into the night, staying within the darker shadows at the edge of the house.

  Minutes later he’d heard the Kalashnikov on the left side of the driveway fire its full load, and then the night fell silent.

  He stood now watching, waiting, his breath white in the intense cold. McAllister was lucky. Somehow he had managed to survive the first explosion and get clear of the car before its gas tank had gone. But he hadn’t been thinking straight, and he had left the road, stumbling into the second trap… one that he could not possibly have survived.

  Nothing moved in the night so far as General Borodin could tell. The flames which had been clearly visible from here, had died down and finally disappeared.

  There would be questions, of course. But with McAllister’s body as an offering, he could come up with the answers. After a full five minutes he went back into the house, pulled on his parka stuffing the pistol in his pocket, and with the heavy assault rifle under his arm, once again stepped outside and headed up the driveway.

  It was time to get out now. Time to finally step down. After the furor this incident was going to cause died off, he would accept his retirement. He had done his part, after all. He had lived thelife of lies, of deceit. The life of fear, of always wondering when a man such as McAllister would be coming after him; or, when he would finally get his nine ounces. He thought of an old Stalinist era proverb: In Moscow they ring the bells often, but not for dinner. But when he died he didn’t think the bells would ring. Not for him.

  A few hundred meters away from the house, General Borodin stepped off the road and headed directly to where he had set up the trap. He would drag McAllister’s body back down to the driveway and lay it out a few meters from the wreckage of the car where had he gotten a vehicle in the first place?). When he called the militia out here it would look as if McAllister’s car exploded, and that the general had shot him down while he was trying to escape. At least the militia wouldn’t question the word of a KGB general, no matter how it looked. And whoever had sent McAllister would know enough to keep his mouth shut. He would know that he had lost.

  At first Gene
ral Borodin thought he had gotten confused in the darkness, and had missed the spot where he’d set up the rifle.

  But then his gut tightened and a cold chill ran through his body. The strap he’d used to hold the rifle in place lay in the snow. But the Kalashnikov was gone!

  Ten yards away he found a depression in the snow, blood all over the place. McAllister had been hurt in the explosion… he must have been… and he had probably been hit by at least one bullet from the rifle, and yet somehow he had gotten back on his feet, had removed the rifle from the tree and had escaped.

  General Borodin stood stock-still, listening. But there was nothing. McAllister’s tracks led from where he had fallen, straight to the tree, and then disappeared.

  Where?

  General Borodin stepped back all of a sudden and looked up into the branches of the tree, bringing the rifle up, his heart thumping in his chest. But there was no one there.

  Where had he gone?

  Back on his own tracks, of course! General Borodin stepped forward again and he could see where McAllister’s footprints led back toward the driveway. The sonofabitch, he thought with the beginnings of fear tinged with a grudging admiration. But why take an empty rifle? For a moment or two it made no sense, but then he understood that as well. McAllister had stumbled across the first two traps and somehow managed to survive. He had finally gotten smart, realizing that another rifle would have to be set up on the opposite side of the driveway. He’d taken this gun and he was going after the clip of ammunition in the other.

  McAllister had had a head start. He was hurt, but he was armed now. Only he didn’t know these woods. He’d have no real idea how far away the dacha was located. General Borodin turned and raced back through the woods, keeping well clear of the driveway. He had to reach the house before McAllister did.

  McAllister stood wavering just within the clearing below the driveway, the Russian assault rifle impossibly heavy in his hands. This time he didn’t think he was going to make it. His head was pounding, his vision seemed to drift in and out of focus, and for one long terrible moment he had no idea where he was, or even if he was standing or sitting.

  “Come on you bastard,” he tried to shout, but the words got tangled up on his thick tongue. He had seen the glint of the television camera over the back door of the house, and he had stepped out of the woods into clear view, willing the general to see him and come out.

  Look to Washington. Look to Moscow. Zebra One, Zebra Two. He had to know for sure who they were. He had to find out now, soon, before he bled to death, or before he simply collapsed and froze.

  He took a few steps forward and sank to one knee. It seemed difficult to catch his breath. His feet were an impossibly long distance away, and there was little or no feeling in his hands and arms at times, yet he stood up again by shear force of will.

  “Borodin,” he shouted, this time managing to get the words past his lips. He stumbled a few steps farther. “I’ve come here for you goddamnit…” Was he speaking English or Russian? He didn’t know.

  “Who are you?” someone shouted from the left, in the woods above the driveway.

  McAllister turned in the direction of the voice, bringing the rifle up, but he couldn’t see anybody up there.

  “What do you want?” the voice called from the woods. General Borodin? It had to be. “You,” McAllister shouted. “Why? What are you doing here? Who sent you?”

  “Zebra One, Zebra Two. Voronin told me. I know everything.” The woods were ominously silent. McAllister took another couple of steps forward. The rifle had become too heavy to lift. It had become, like so much else in his life, an impossibly heavy burden to carry, and he felt it slipping from his hands.

  “Come on, you bastard,” he shouted with the last of his strength, and he sat down in the snow, his fingers reaching for the rifle, but not finding it.

  All of the insanities that he had endured swirled around him now as if he were a boulder lodged in the middle of a swiftly raging river. He had finally lost his grip on the bottom and he felt himself being propelled downstream.

  After a while he looked up into General Borodin’s eyes. The man was large, his face not unkind, but very puzzled. He was shaking his head.

  “Who sent you?” the general asked, his voice coming as if from down a long, dark tunnel.

  “Voronin.

  “Yes, my former secretary. A drunk, an idiot,” Borodin said impatiently. “What did he tell you?”

  “Look to Washington. Look to Moscow. Zebra One, Zebra Two.” McAllister’s own voice seemed far away.

  “Who else knows?” Borodin shouted. “No one.”

  “Miroshnikov must have heard you. He must have known. Did he end you?”

  “He’s dead. I killed him. He didn’t know…. He didn’t have anyidea….” McAllister wanted to let go, to lie back in the snow and let the darkness envelop him. Just a little longer. “Then who sent you?”

  “No one,” McAllister said with a supreme effort. “Harman’s dead. Potemkin is dead. I killed them all. There’s only my friend Highnote and you. Zebra One and Zebra Two. Traitors. Killers. No one else is left. Again Borodin was silent. McAllister managed to raise his head and look up at the man.

  “Tell me,” he croaked.

  “You incredible fool,” General Borodin said. “You’re telling me now that Robert Highnote is a Russian agent. We’d suspected that for some time. But even I didn’t know. He must have worked for Gennadi. I’m not God, I can’t know everything. Like you, we are compartmentalized. Terrible waste.” Borodin shook his head. “But it is true that my code name is Zebra Two. It has been for a long time. Too long a time.”

  “Who is Zebra One, you sonofabitch? Who is the traitor in Washington?”

  “There is no other traitor in Washington, don’t you understand, you poor bastard? I’m the traitor to my government. Zebra One is my control officer. I have been working for your government for nearly twenty years.”

  Like another starburst in McAllister’s head, he suddenly could hear Janos Sikorski’s last words. “Traitor,” he had screamed that night. Janos had known. “Sikorski,” he said.

  “Yes,” Borodin was saying. “He might have known. But no one else. It’s the reason we’ve survived all these years. We’ve managed to keep it contained. Voronin may have stumbled across the code names but he could have no idea who we were.”

  “Christ,” McAllister said. “Oh, Christ.”

  Borodin laid his rifle down, and he helped McAllister to his feet.

  “I don’t know what I’m going to do with you, but I can’t leave you out here to die. Not like this…

  A rifle shot cracked from the end of the driveway, the bullet smacking into Borodin’s right shoulder, sending him stumbling forward, he and McAllister falling down in a heap.“Traitor,” someone shouted in Russian.

  Borodin’s face was inches from McAllister’s. “Kiselev,” he said in pain. “My secretary. He’s come back.” He tried to reach in his coat pocket, but his arm was useless. “My gun,” he whispered. “In my pocket! McAllister!”

  McAllister managed to get his right arm around, his numb hand fumbling in Borodin’s coat pocket, finding the pistol, his fingers curling around the grip.

  A short, squat man suddenly appeared overhead, a rifle held loosely in his hands, his right eyebrow rising. “So,” he said. “It is a nest of spies.”

  McAllister pulled the pistol out of Borodin’s pocket, thumbed off the safety and raised it over the general’s heavy body, his vision going double again, the world starting to spin.

  Kiselev started to rear back, bringing the rifle up, when McAllister fired, the shot catching the man in the right eye, blowing off the back of his head and flinging him backward. McAllister was drifting then. He laid his head down on the soft, warm snow.

  He was vaguely conscious of Borodin’s weight being off him, and he wanted to say something, but the general was gone. Someone else was coming. Lights… headlights, perhaps. And voices. Drifti
ng, McAllister thought these new people were speaking English, but that wasn’t possible. This was Russia, the Istra river..

  Stephanie’s face loomed into view above him, and he managed to smile. There was so much he wanted to tell her, but that opportunity was gone, lost forever, like so many other opportunities. She was speaking, saying something to him. He could hear the words as they flowed around him, but he could not make out the meaning, nor could he understand when strong hands were lifting him carrying him, helping him across the clearing, because the blackness had descended over him and he was safe.

  Chapter 33

  On the morning that David McAllister awoke from his coma, sat up, and asked the startled nurse for a glass of water in a very clear voice, the sun was streaming in his fourth-floor window.

  She immediately rang for the doctor and then eased him back on his pillow. “Take it easy now, Mr. McAllister.”

  Her voice was soothing, and he found that he was drifting and he really didn’t want the water after all. But he was vaguely aware of his body. There wasn’t much pain, only a detached feeling. At one point he nearly panicked; this was the Lubyanka all over again, his detachment was from the drugs they were feeding him, and he expected to see Miroshnikov come through the door at any moment. But then the chief interrogator was dead, as were so many others. So many.

  Over the next few days, or was it weeks? — he would never be quite sure about this period of his life-the episodes of wakefulness came more and more often, and gradually the feeling of detachment began to leave him. At times, he was dully aware that there were people around him other than the doctors and nurses; talking, looking at him, but he was never able to put their faces into any semblance of recognizable order, though once or twice he thought Stephanie might have been there, but that too was unlikely unless the KGB had arrested her.