The Balkan Assignment
Page 26
I watched the long line of black clouds at the horizon moving inexorably .northward while Klaus rested. The storm was covering in hours the distance that had taken us three days. A tiny, silver flash twinkled against the cloud bank. I stared hard at the spot and saw it again. An aircraft! An aircraft moving along the face of the storm in an unmistakable search pattern. I watched coldly, hating its appearance and the person or persons directing it because I knew that they were searching for us. As the minutes dragged on, the aircraft came closer and I could see that it was not an airplane but a helicopter.
The sky above remained cloudless, a startling, almost unbelievable blue. After a while, Klaus picked up his pack and disappeared into the trees on the near side of the meadow.
He was less than an hour away now; plenty of time before the storm would strike I judged.
The ridge at the head of the canyon rose steeply some,- eight hundred feet; a few clumps of trees and scattered boulders clung precariously, but no other cover of any kind.
Directly below the edge of the ridge was a shelf of exposed granite, wind-polished to gleaming smoothness; a natural place to rest before beginning the final, difficult climb to the crest. It was at that point that I intended to kill Klaus.
Time stretched out through the long afternoon like a thread of elastic, tension mounting .
. . and then the abrupt snap. Mikhail stood on the far edge of the same clearing in which I had watched Klaus rest not more than twenty minutes before. He stood unmoving, just barely out of the trees examining every inch of the meadow and the canyon wall that he could see. This was his forte .. . mountain games of hide and seek, search and kill. He knew exactly what he was doing whereas Klaus was merely running for his life. Mikhail knelt down and examined the grass, moved off a few paces and repeated the process until finally he came to his feet and stared at the trees on the far side of the meadow, calculating, planning. Then instead of following Klaus's trail, he struck out across the meadow on a diagonal that would lead him to the east wall. And I knew what he was going to do. The floor of the canyon twisted and turned, not a great deal, but enough to slow a traveler. Mikhail was aiming to climb the east wall, travel along the rim and be in a position at the head of the canyon to shoot Klaus when he emerged from the trees.
But Mikhail, as I had done time after time, had also misjudged Klaus Maher. Klaus did not emerge from the trees at the foot of the north wall at the time I had estimated. I glanced at my watch and waited. Ten minutes more passed and still he was hidden from view within the trees. Mikhail was now climbing above the tree line on the eastern wall just below the rim, moving crabwise along the steep slope.
Damn Mikhail! I wanted to shout, I wanted to scream at Klaus somewhere in the trees below to warn him that Mikhail was waiting for him. Damn Mikhail, damn Mikhail and his stupid honor! He had no business here .. . but I was more than a mile away and even if I could have made myself heard and understood, Klaus would know that I was still ahead of him. There was absolutely nothing I could do except to watch the scene below play itself out.
A quick glance behind showed no movement of any kind in the valley. A tiny trickle of smoke rising from the stone hut made me realize with a start that I was ravenously hungry. As if waiting for that realization, a stomach cramp attacked and left me lightheaded. In just that swift moment of time, the situation in the canyon changed.
Somehow, Klaus had known or guessed that he was being followed. He had also guessed, and correctly, that the open space between the tree line and the ridge crest was a perfect spot for an ambush as there was no cover of any consequence in the entire eight-hundred-foot climb. At any rate, Klaus must have spotted Mikhail scuttling along the eastern rim and waited just inside the tree line for Mikhail to come within range. Mikhail, concentrating on negotiating the steep slope was caught by surprise. He was above Klaus on the slope, still well above the tree line and sharply outlined by the bold sunlight.
Klaus's first bullet knocked him from his feet and sent him rolling down the slope twenty feet to a stand of stunted scrub pine.
The sudden crack of the rifle broke the midday silence, startling myriads of unseen birds and animals into a mismatched chorus of warnings. There was no movement to be seen either from the trees or from the slope:
Twenty minutes went by, twenty minutes during which I forgot about twisting hunger pains and stared painfully about the valley. All I could see of Mikhail was one booted foot. The rest of his body was hidden by the tree. Then Klaus appeared, climbing from a stand of trees several hundred feet behind Mikhail. He was coming up to make sure that Mikhail was dead, leaving no loose ends whenever and wherever possible. To say that I was torn between horror and a fierce joy is an understatement. I was about to witness a cold-blooded murder again, and yet I knew if it happened, I would have my chance at Klaus. If ever the relative value of a human life was in the scales .. .
I saw Mikhail suddenly struggle into a sitting position and fire twice at Klaus. The first bullet spurted dirt behind as Klaus threw himself against the slope and slid uncontrollably down toward the trees. Somehow, Klaus managed to stop himself, somehow he had managed to retain his rifle and as Mikhail came down the slope firing, Klaus coolly ignored the rain of bullets and shot him once through the chest.
Mikhail slithered to a stop and the carbine dropped from his hands. His left hand wavered feebly for balance and he pitched forward onto his face to roll down the slope and disappear into the trees. Klaus got shakily to his feet and reloaded the rifle, retrieved his pack and scrambled back down the slope into the trees once more. So I was to have my chance after all .. .
I watched from above as Klaus climbed the steep north wall. At the far end of the canyon I could see a dark curtain of rain descending from the black cloud mass. Still, above the ridge, the sky was absolutely clear and intensely blue.
As he climbed closer and closer, I could plainly see his red face, bright with exertion. He glanced impatiently back at the curtain of rain bearing down from the far end of the canyon. We both saw it at the same time—a helicopter emerging from the rain. A tiny silver dot at first against the blue-black of the heavy cloud, it hesitated over the end of the canyon and then began a slow search pattern back and forth along its length. The rain was approaching fast but so was the helicopter, and it was unclear yet which would reach us first. Klaus climbed on quickly now, the rifle slung across his shoulder, muzzle downward to free both hands for climbing, but still ready for instant use. He rarely missed a trick, did Klaus.
He was less than twenty feet from the crest when I got slowly to my feet to stand in full view of both Klaus and the helicopter. Silhouetted against the bright blue sky, it was impossible for either not to see me . . . but they didn't. Klaus continued to scramble forward up the slope, desperate to gain the top and its sheltering trees before the crew of the helicopter spotted him. Then a swirling curtain of rain wrapped around the aircraft and hid it from view. Klaus sagged wearily against the rocks to rest a moment and looked up.
An instant's panic showed on his face.
"Chris," he gasped, "how did . . . you get up there?"
I stared down at him for a long moment before I answered. "I walked a little bit faster."
Klaus took a deep breath and straightened until he could look up at me without having to crane his neck. He saw the pistol in my hand and swallowed hard. The rain danced about us for a brief instant, huge drops that soaked us in seconds. The deep beat of the helicopter could be heard somewhere over the valley.
Klaus put his hand to his forehead to shelter his eyes. "They are looking for us," he said in a flat voice. "I have nearly a quarter of a million dollars in German marks in this knapsack, Chris. That's a lot of money. And I know where the rest of it is . . ."
"Quite a comedown from one million dollars," I smiled down at him. "I saw you kill Mikhail . . . so that leaves only the two of us, doesn't it?"
Klaus spread his hands wide and began to climb the slope toward me. He was all rea
sonableness now. "It was very confused in the camp . . . I didn't know where you were. I had to get out. And then Mikhail was following me. I knew that he was going to kill me . . . I didn't know that you were following."
I kept my eyes on him, watching every move he made. He was dangerous now, a cornered animal.
The rain swirled down harder for an instant, and as I
saw Klaus's hand flick toward the carbine I threw myself flat and the air snapped as the bullet whistled past. I scuttled on my hands and knees to a gully eroded in the rock and swung down into it, ignoring the agonizing pain in my shoulder. The line of the crest was uneven; successive years of winter rains had eroded the soil and rock into a mass of gullies and drains. It was into one of these that I dropped to wait for Klaus to crawl over the top.
The rain quickly died away to a thin drizzle again. Still, Klaus hadn't moved. I slid deeper into the gully and worked my way down slope with the intention of coming up on his flank where the last bit of the climb to the summit was almost vertical. The helicopter; I had almost forgotten. It was closer now, judging by the beat of its rotors, but still invisible in the rain. It was not likely that they had heard Klaus's rifle. The last trace of blue sky winked out as the storm raced north into China, and still Klaus was nowhere in sight. Then, a moment later, I caught sight of him scurrying over the crest far to the right.
Cursing nonstop, I raced back up the gully for the ridge line. The sonofabitch had anticipated me and gained the lead again. Unless I could catch him in the next few minutes, he would be over the edge of the slope and on the long downward run to the border. If he reached the slope, I could never hope to catch him again. I was on the thin edge of consciousness now, pain throbbing in my shoulder and sending waves of reddish mist across the rain-soaked landscape. A pink froth of blood where the rain was washing the crude bandage streamed down my arm. The ground tended to rise and fall in gentle waves as I ran, and the rainy mist was thickened by the red haze.
I scrambled over the top of the crest, clawing through the mud and wet grass and lay gasping for a moment. The dark shape of the helicopter roared directly over me, rushing past as its rotor wash set the grass and stunted trees to waving like madmen. The rain pounded down and rumbles of thunder rocked the valley. I saw Klaus jump to his feet and race across the slope. He was running head down, half crouched, bending low beneath the wash of air from the helicopter.
I forced myself to my knees, the pain wringing shallow
grunts of agony from my throat. Klaus saw me and turned, his rifle swinging around to bear.
He shouted, "You were a fool, Chris . . ." and fired once.
I felt the bullet yank at my jacket but if it touched me I did not feel it. The revolver seemed to rise of its own accord until the sight on the end of the barrel lined up in the V-cut in the rear bench, directly on Klaus's chest. It was as if someone else were holding the gun, as if someone else took a deep breath and gently squeezed the trigger . . .
lovingly like they had taught me. Klaus stopped, clutched at his chest . . . the rifle slid from his hands . . . he took a step toward me . . . then another and dropped to his knees.
His face held a look of intense astonishment as if he could not believe that this had happened to him. He glanced down at his chest where the blood was beginning to flow and pitched forward.
I got to my feet and walked to him, knelt down beside him and turned him over gently, carefully in much the same way I had killed him. Klaus was still alive but the bullet had struck him in the middle of the chest, severing an artery because the blood pumped out in steady spurts. I put an arm around his head and eased his position.
He opened his eyes and tried to say something. I bent down to hear . . . "We had a . . .
bargain . . . Chris . ?" His eyes, filming quickly glared at me in anger.
Yes, Klaus, I thought, we did have a bargain, but I also had two other bargains . . . with Pete and with Mikhail. You broke both of those. I knew he could not hear me and contented myself with nodding agreement.
Klaus stared at me and opened his mouth . . . and died, anger still on his face.
I laid his head down and got up. The knapsack full of German marks was beneath him and I slipped his arms out of the straps and pulled it from under his body. It was full of currency all right . . . and a lot of good it would ever do either of us. There was some food as well, a package of cheese, almost gone, and a single strip of meat. I chewed on the meat as I walked slowly to the crest of the ridge. I found that blood was dripping from a wound in my side . . . where I must have been struck when Klaus fired at me, but it no longer mattered; I could not feel the pain and distantly realized that I was in shock.
The heavy beat of the helicopter was back again
and this time I could see it through the rain. It was hovering over the ridge to land, but even that did not matter anymore. Klaus was dead and I had shot him, and the victory was pyrrhic at best, tasting of the proverbial ashes.
It was nearly eight hundred feet down the face of the slope, and in the wake of the rain there had come a stiff breeze which caught the bank notes as I emptied the pack. This money had come from the same source as the gold. Now it was going back to all those dead who had earned it with their lives. The wind caught at the dark green pieces of paper and whirled them away to the forest below. Maybe some day a wandering border patrol would find one or two rain-soaked and rotting bills .. .
The helicopter had landed and Ley was running across the hump of the ridge toward me.
I tossed the knapsack after the money and turned. Behind came a Burmese trooper with a Red Cross arm band. I went forward to meet them.
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