There was no answer from the stairwell, and the sirens were definitely coming closer.
"Kurshin!" McGarvey shouted.
"What is it?" Maria asked, frightened.
"It's your friend Esformes, I think. Maybe the army as well."
"After us?"
"I think so," McGarvey said through a red haze. Girding himself, he rushed the stairwell, extending his arm around the corner and firing two shots, then rolling into the open, firing a third shot.
But there was no one there. Kurshin was gone.
"Arkady!" McGarvey shouted. "You bastard! Come back!"
kurshin could barely control his rage enough to think straight. He wanted to turn back and rush up the stairs firing as he went, until McGarvey lay in a bloody heap at his feet.
But once again the American had been saved by luck. Kurshin did not want to commit suicide, after all. In the end his own life was more precious to him. There were other things in the world he wanted to see, and do. If nothing else, he wanted to be alive to savor McGarvey's death.
For just a moment he was torn with indecision. Go or stay. McGarvey above and the approaching police below. He did not want to be caught in a cross fire.
But the woman had been concerned about a notebook. It was apparently very important to her. A key of some kind?
Before he'd killed the desk clerk he'd gotten McGarvey's and the woman's room numbers. There was time, he told himself.
He rushed down the corridor and burst into Maria's room. Her overnight bag lay open on a chair in front of the window. Her purse was on the dresser.
Glancing over his shoulder to make sure that no one was behind him, Kurshin quickly went through her things. The leather-bound notebook was in her purse. A gold swastika was stamped on its cover beneath the letters R.S.H.A., for the German Reichssicherheitshauptamt, the Nazi secret service.
He pocketed the notebook and slipped back out into the corridor, his mind racing ahead to a dozen different possibilities. Less than thirty seconds had elapsed since McGarvey had fired his last shots, but already the sirens were nearly out front.
A door across the corridor opened and a portly bald man looked out at him.
For an instant Kurshin froze, but then he heard someone on the stairs. McGarvey! The bile was bitter in his throat. The bastard!
But there would be another time and place. There would have to be.
Before the confused hotel guest could react, Kurshin leaped across the corridor and burst into his room, shoving him off balance as he shut the door. The man had stumbled backward against the bed. Kurshin shot him in the head with his last bullet, then turned to face the door.
Nothing moved in the second-floor corridor. McGarvey crouched in a shooter's stance, his pistol in both hands, his heart hammering, the muscles of his legs twitching.
"Is he there?" Maria asked softly behind him.
"No. I don't think so."
The sirens were on top of them now. Someone downstairs in the lobby was shouting something, and elsewhere, perhaps outside, a woman was screaming.
"Kirk, I must have my passport. I can't get out of the country without it. And we need the notebook."
If it was Esformes outside and he caught up with them, it would be a long time before they went anywhere. But it was hard for McGarvey to keep his thoughts in order.
Kurshin had survived. He had tracked them all the way here
for revenge ... and what else? Paris meant something. It had to mean something, but to McGarvey it made no sense.
"Come," he said, straightening up and pounding down the corridor to her room.
She came right behind him, and slipped inside while he waited. Now all the doors were closed. No one wanted to risk trying to see what was going on.
Maria collected her purse and bag. "What about your things?" she asked, but the sirens were out front now, and there was a huge commotion in the lobby.
It would take the police, or whoever they were, a minute or two to get organized and seal off the entire hotel, front and back. It would take them even longer to seal off the small town. Precious minutes that they would have to use to their best advantage.
McGarvey grabbed her arm and propelled her down the corridor to the stairwell. Downstairs a man was shouting orders in Spanish.
"It's him," Maria whispered. "Esformes. I know the voice. He knows we're here."
Someone started up from the lobby.
McGarvey shoved Maria up the stairs, and they barely made it around the corner before the police were on the second floor.
At the head of the stairs Maria pulled McGarvey forcibly into the third-floor corridor. "There," she said, pointing to the window at the opposite end. The glass was painted red. "Escalera de incendios" she said. "The fire escape."
"Go!" he said.
They raced to the end of the hall, where Maria yanked open the window. This side of the building was in the lee of the storm, so the wind and rain weren't as bad, and the sounds of the still arriving sirens were suddenly very loud.
Slinging her bags over her shoulder, Maria climbed out onto the metal-runged ladder and immediately started down. McGarvey followed her, closing the window behind him.
The ladder led down into the dark alley behind the hotel. The ground-floor windows and doors of all the buildings were tightly shuttered against the night and the storm.
At the bottom Maria crouched in the darkness as the lights of an army Jeep flashed past on the street at the end of the alley. McGarvey joined her a second later.
It would take Esformes another minute or so to realize that they had gotten out of the hotel, but then he would be expanding the search.
"We're not going to make it very far on foot," Maria said. "We'll have to steal a car to get to the plane."
"That's where Esformes and his men just came from," Mc-Garvey said, starting down the alley. He had holstered his gun. No matter what happened, he didn't want to get into a shootout with the Argentinian authorities. Yet if Kurshin had gotten out of the hotel and was waiting in the darkness for them, they would be caught in a no-win situation: a cross fire between the Argentinians and the Russian.
"What are you talking about?" Maria demanded, catching up with him.
McGarvey pulled up short of the corner and flattened himself against the building. There was a lot of activity on the street in front of the hotel. More sirens were approaching from the south. The navy had probably been asked to lend a hand.
"What are you talking about?" Maria repeated. "We have to get to the plane. It's our only way out."
"Esformes knows about your airplane. That's the only way he could have tracked us to Viedma. From there he probably talked to someone at the marina."
"What are we going to do?"
McGarvey looked around the corner. To the left was the front entrance to the hotel, a dozen police cars and army Jeeps parked in the street. To the right, at the end of a dark block, Kurshin's dark blue Chevrolet was parked. A police car, its lights flashing, raced past. Kurshin had not gotten out of the hotel after all. He'd hidden, knowing that Esformes was not looking for him. He was safe inside.
The wind blew the rain in long sheets down the street toward the hotel. It was to their advantage. Anyone standing outside in the storm would have his back to the wind.
McGarvey turned back. "Will your Argentinian passport give us a problem getting across the border into Chile?" His passport was in his jacket pocket.
Her nostrils flared. "No," she said. "But we'll need a car."
"The American car at the end of the block. We're going to walk directly to it and get in. Don't look around, and no matter what happens, don't run."
"What about the keys?"
"They'll be in the car."
"How do you—?"
"Trust me," McGarvey said, and before she could argue, he stepped around the corner and started down the block.
It was possible that Kurshin had made it as far as the lobby and ducked into the restaurant moments befo
re Esformes showed up. His escape would be blocked until the Argentinian authorities moved out. That could take several hours.
Two more police cars raced past on the street, their sirens blaring, their lights flashing. McGarvey caught just a glimpse of one of the cops looking his way, but then the patrol car was pulling up at the hotel.
"He saw us," Maria said urgently.
"Don't run," McGarvey repeated.
At the corner Maria went around the front of the Chevrolet and got in on the passenger side, tossing her bag in the back. Without looking around, McGarvey opened the door and slipped in behind the wheel. The keys dangled from the ignition, as he knew they would. Moments spent fumbling a key into the ignition could sometimes mean the difference between life and death.
As he started the car, he looked in the rearview mirror. A knot of men had formed on the sidewalk in front of the hotel. Some of them were soldiers, with Uzi submachine guns slung over their shoulders.
For a moment McGarvey toyed with the idea of turning himself in. He could explain to Esformes what Kurshin was, and together they could stop the man. But he didn't think the Argentinians were in a mood to talk. They had a long-standing reputation of shooting first and asking no questions later.
Kurshin would escape from Argentina. And whatever he'd been up to in Paris was not over. Langley would have to be warned. And so would Carley. She had seen Kurshin. She had talked with him. Sooner or later he would be coming after her.
McGarvey put the car in gear and pulled away from the curb, not switching on his lights until he was around the corner.
He kept watching in the rearview mirror, expecting at any moment to see the lights of a pursuing police car. But they made it out of town without seeing another moving vehicle, and they
headed west into the black night toward the Andes and the Chilean border some four hundred miles away.
"Oh, my God," Maria cried minutes after they'd cleared the town. She'd been rummaging in her purse.
McGarvey looked at her. She was shaking. Her eyes were wide, her mouth open.
"Roebling's notebook. It was in my purse. It's gone. Someone took it."
"Are you sure?"
'Tes," she said softly. "It was him. The Russian. He knew about
the gold. He must have gone to my room ... just before us
We have to go back!"
McGarvey shook his head as he tried to think it out. What possible interest could Kurshin have in gold? Unless it was to finance some sort of operation. And what did this have to do with Paris?
"We must go back!" Maria screeched.
"And do what?" McGarvey asked sharply. "Get arrested by Esformes? Or get shot by his men? Or by Kurshin?"
"We must ..." she protested weakly.
"Do you remember any of Roebling's contacts in Lisbon?"
"There were more than a dozen."
"Do you remember any of them?"
"A couple. Maybe three."
"Then it's a start," McGarvey said, his own plan forming. "I'll help you."
"In Lisbon?"
"Yes," McGarvey said. "But first Paris."
"Why?"
McGarvey looked over at her. She was still deeply shaken. "If you want my help, it'll be on my terms. No questions asked. This time we'll do things my way."
After a silent few seconds she finally nodded. "As you wish," she said. "But we have to find it. We have to!"
BOOK THREE
MOSCOW
general didenko was reminded of an old Russian proverb he'd heard his grandmother use: In Moscow they ring the bells often, but not for dinner. It was a Stalinist-era catchall acknowledging the two salient facts of the time, a lot of people were getting killed, while for everyone else there was never enough to eat.
Well, he thought, facing the twelve old men who comprised the Politburo of the Communist party, the Moscow bells were ringing again. This time they were tolling the end of socialism. In fact, they seemed to be signaling the end of the Union.
"The party no longer enjoys the power it once had, Comrade
General," Yurii Pavlichenko said from the end of the massive, ornately carved table.
"Nor do we have such influence, Vasili Semonovich, that we can interfere with KGB funding," Missile Defense Forces General Feodor Obolentsev said. "The government has taken even that away from us and placed it in the hands of the Council of Ministers, and of course the Presidium."
"Our budget has been slashed nearly in half, and the cut in hard Western currencies effectively hamstrings our foreign operations," Didenko replied, careful not to raise his voice. But he knew that this had been a wasted afternoon.
"Do not overstep your bounds," Obolentsev warned. He was a huge man, with massive fists that he had a habit of clenching when he was under stress. They were clenched in front of him now. "Take heed. You are only a department chief. There are many rungs remaining on your ladder. Down, as well as up."
"The winds of change are even sweeping through these old halls," Pavlichenko said. His pale, wrinkled skin was parchment thin. The other men nodded sagely.
"Good advice, comrades, and I thank you for it," Didenko said.
"And we thank you for coming here so frankly with your concerns," another of the Politburo members said. "We will not forget."
No, Didenko thought, this would not be soon forgotten. He smiled and nodded, inwardly seething. He had come for help, but had received nothing but platitudes and worthless advice.
He left the conference room, gathered his coat and hat in the anteroom, and hurried downstairs to his waiting car and driver. The soldiers at the door snapped to attention as he passed.
"Take me home," he said, climbing into the back seat.
He opened the compartment in the back of the front seat, poured himself a stiff measure of French cognac, drank it, and then poured himself another. He sat back as they headed out of the Kremlin, a light snow falling, muffling all the sounds and perhaps the sins of the city.
He had pinned too many of his hopes on one man—Arkady Kurshin. But there was no one else he could trust now. Baranov had used him to great success. But as the assassin had put it, Didenko was no Baranov. Nor was the Union the same. Nor was the world. Everything was different now.
For the very first time Didenko could see the end of Russia as a major world power. The rodina had lost her European buffer zone, and now she was losing her republics one at a time.
The weapons were still in place, but the will was gone from the party as well as the government.
Where were the men of vision and of action? he asked himself. The question had been plaguing him for months. A question to which he had no answer.
With gold, which could be converted into Western currencies, the Komitet's foreign operations could be adequately funded and the changes could be reversed.
Could have been, he thought bitterly. But Kurshin was gone. Disappeared off the map. And there was no one he could trust. No one left who could carry out his plan to save what was left of the KGB. The day of the Komitet assassin was gone.
Short of turning his field officers into ordinary bank robbers, there seemed to be no solution. One thing was sure, however. Kurshin should die. He could not be allowed to continue as he was, out of control. Besides, he knew too much. But who was there to do the job? Who under Didenko's command was good enough?
He shook his head. Killing Kurshin would be impossible unless he showed up here in Moscow. And maybe it would be impossible even then.
The limousine turned onto Kutuzovsky Prospekt, and five minutes later Didenko rode up in the elevator to his eighteenth-floor apartment. His building was not too far from Gorbachev's. It had always been a point of pride with him. Until this afternoon, that is. Now he felt that he had lost. Once and for all, he had lost.
Everything had been in place for his salvation. Everything, that is, except for one element: Kurshin in Tehran. One man. How could he have been so stupid as to pin all of his hopes on one man?
His house
keeper was gone for the evening, and he had dismissed his secretary before he'd left the office. His apartment seemed very large and very empty.
Tossing his overcoat and uniform tunic over the back of the couch, he went into his study, closing and locking the door. He loosened his tie, undoing the top button of his shirt, and poured himself another stiff measure of cognac from a sideboard. Behind
his desk he took a key out of his pocket, unlocked the top drawer, and looked at the loaded German Luger. It was a spoil of war. His brother's son had taken it from the body of a Nazi general in Berlin.
His brother was dead. The boy was dead. Everyone was dead.
Paris would be blamed on him.
As Didenko reached for the pistol the telephone on his desk rang. For a moment he debated not answering it, but on the second ring he picked it up.
'Tes," he said.
"It's me, you cunt," Kurshin said. "I'm in Rome and I need your help. I'll do anything you want to get it."
Didenko closed his eyes and sat back, a great sigh escaping his lips. There was hope after all.
"Are you there, you bastard?" Kurshin shouted.
"I'm here, Arkasha. Believe me, we are going to help each other."
pan am flight 214 touched down at Charles de Gaulle Airport a few minutes after seven-thirty in the evening, nearly on time, and taxied to the terminal building.
It took the passengers less than fifteen minutes to clear passport control, retrieve their bags, and get through customs.
Carley Webb was waiting just within the main doors, her cheeks flushed and her hair glistening from the thickly falling snow, when Phil Carrara came across to her.
"You're a pleasant surprise," he said.
"Mike is tied up with the SDECE. He asked me to come fetch you," Carley said. She looked exhausted, as if she hadn't slept in days.
"Besides, you wanted to spend a few minutes alone with me on the way into town," Carrara said, not unkindly. He thought
he knew how she felt. He was glad for both of them that Ryan wasn't here.
Crossfire (Kirk McGarvey 3) Page 20
