Countdown km-2

by David Hagberg

  Again the Russian carefully scanned the clearing and the house, left to right. He caught a movement in the woods across the driveway, lost it, then picked it up again, a dark figure moving silently. It was Lakomsky getting into position. From the helicopter they had spotted a man on the east side of the house. Lakomsky would be in position to see him at any moment now. The walkie-talkie he had taken from Sills’s body crackled to life. “Hank”

  Deryugin pulled it from his pocket and put it to his ear. “Hank, for Christ’s sake, was that you making all that goddamned noise over there”

  Apparently he had heard the body crashing into the brush, but had not heard the silenced shot. “Tom, you copy”

  “What the hell is going on out there” another voice radioed. “Is that Bert”

  “Yeah, I’m in the front hallway. Now what the hell is going on out there”

  “I heard a noise in the woods, and now I can’t raise Hank or.” The agent’s voice was abruptly cut off in midsentence by a distinctive short, sharp sound and the radio was silent. Deryugin knew what he had heard. Lakomsky had shot him. The sound was that of a high-powered rifle bullet hitting a human skull. “Mays, you were cut off” the agent from inside the house answered. Deryugin keyed the walkie-talkie. “Christ, I think Mays and Hank are both down. We’ve got troubles out here”

  ” Who is this”

  “Tom” Deryugin replied, muffling his voice a little. “Goddamnit, Sills, where the hell are you”

  “I’m coming up the road from the truck. Should be to you in a couple of minutes, maybe less”

  “Are we under attack”

  “I think so Deryugin radioed, cutting himself off before finishing the sentence. He dropped the walkie-talkie to the ground and raised his rifle, aiming at the front door of the farmhouse.

  “Sills” the agent in the house radioed urgently. “Sills, goddamit”

  At this point, his first objective accomplished, Lakomsky would have moved farther south so that he could cover the rear exits from the house. Sixty seconds. Deryugin was going to give the agent inside the house that long. No more. Less than ten seconds later the front door of the house opened. Deryugin could see the figure of a man just inside. He waited patiently. The FBI agent came out of the house a moment later in a dead run, momentarily catching Deryugin off guard. But the Russian was a professional and extremely well trained. He led the man off the porch, and twenty feet from the house, he squeezed off a shot, hitting the man high on his torso, literally lifting him off his feet. Bert Langerford’s M 16 fired a quick burst as he went down, but he was dead before he hit the ground.

  Deryugin lowered his rifle. Now there was only the woman and Trotter, left inside. Moving fast, he stepped around from behind the tree and zigzagged across the clearing toward the house.

  Langerford was down and a darksuited figure was racing across the clearing from the woods. Trotter, standing a few feet inside the stairhall, led the man with his pistol and fired off three shots in rapid succession. The figure went down, rolled twice, and fired two shots, the bullets smacking into the wall behind Trotter. A silenced rifle, Trotter had time to note, as he dove left. His heart was hammering in his chest. Somehow they had managed to take out all four agents. There was no telling how many of them were out there. But Sills had said he had called for reinforcements. If they could only hold out here for a little longer. Lorraine Abbott was at the head of the stairs.

  Langerford had told her to hide herself somewhere upstairs, but she had turned back when she’d heard the M16 firing. Deryugin fired a third shot, the bullet shattering a section of banister a few feet below where she stood. “Get back” Trotter shouted up at her. He started for the stairs when the back door burst open, and Lakomsky’s big frame suddenly filled the doorway. Trotter snapped off two shots, both of them hitting the Russian in the chest, driving him backward.

  Ignoring it, Trotter took the stairs up two at a time. Lorraine had shrunk back against the corridor wall, her eyes wide with fright.

  Grabbing her arm, he roughly hauled her the rest Of the way down the hall to the attic door, which he yanked open. The narrow stairs led up into the darkness. “They’ve come here to kill me, haven’t they”

  Lorraine whispered. She was very frightened” Yes, but I’ve managed to kill one of them, and I may have wounded the one out front”

  “There’s probably more than two of them”

  “Possibly” Trotter admitted.

  “But the FBI is sending someone else out here. They should be arriving very soon. “Can we hold out that long”

  “We’re going to try, Doctor, believe me” Trotter said. His weapon was a six-shot .38 caliber revolver. He’d already fired five times. “For now I want you to go up to the attic, find the darkest spot, and hide yourself. No noise, no sounds, nothing. And I don’t want you coming out of there until you hear my voice or McGarvey’s”

  “He’s coming here”

  “I left the message for him. Now get up there. No noise” She looked at him for a long moment, then turned and headed up the stairs on the balls of her feet. As soon as she had disappeared into the darkness, Trotter closed the door and headed back down the corridor to the stairs, stopping just at the end of the corridor. Nothing moved below in the stairhall. The front door was still open. Turning, he hurried silently back down the corridor and went into one of the front bedrooms, where he cautiously approached the window and, parting the curtain slightly, looked down into the clearing. Langerford’s body still lay in the gravel driveway, but the Russian was gone. Where was he, and how many others were out there? There was no telling when Sills’s reinforcements would — god Until then it would be up to him to hold out here. His first task would be to find more ammunition for his weapon, or take the rifle from the dead Russian in the back hall. “Put your gun down, Mr. Trotter”

  someone said from behind him. Trotter stiffened and started to turn. “I will kill you unless you do exactly as I say” Trotter weighed his chances, which at the moment were practically nil. The man behind him was almost certainly a Russian Department Viktor type. Highly trained, highly motivated. “We don’t do things like this on each other’s territory” he said. “Your gun. Drop it”

  “If you know my name, then you know who and what I am. If you kill me, the political repercussions could even bring a man such as Baranov down”

  “I have no time to argue with you. Either drop your gun this instant or I will kill you” Trotter had absolutely no doubt the man meant what he was saying. Time, it was all he needed. Slowly he bent over and laid the .38 on the floor, and straightening up he stepped away from it and turned around. The Russian was tall and very well built. His weapon was equipped with the latest night spotting scope, and silencer, which explained their effectiveness. “Where is Dr. Abbott”

  “The FBI is sending reinforcements out here. They will be here momentarily”

  “Yes, I know this” Deryugin replied calmly. “So you will either take me to Dr. Abbott or I will kill you and search the house myself” Trotter shook his head. “You will either kill me now or then, so it doesn’t matter”

  “No. I don’t mean to kill either of you. My orders were to come here, kidnap Dr. Abbott, and take her to Freder City. If you cooperate, I will bring you as well. You would be quite a prize in Moscow” Was the man telling the truth? Probably not, Trotter decided. An assassination was infinitely easier than kidnapping. There would be no need for them to take the latter risk. Again it came down to a question of time. “She’s in the basement” Deryugin’s eyes narrowed. “I think she is up here somewhere”

  “As soon as the shooting began, I sent her downstairs. I came up here to see what was happening outside. High ground” Deryugin was weighing the possibilities, Trotter could see it in the man’s eyes. “We will go to the basement. If you are lying I will kill you. Trotter nodded. “I think we’ve already established that”

  They had followed Interstate 95 out of Washington, skirting Falmouth along the R
appahannock River which brought them in from the rear of the ninety-acre property on which the farmhouse was perched. At first they nearly overflew the place. There were absolutely no lights showing from the house. They came around in a tight circle, and McGarvey finally spotted Trotter’s car parked behind the FBI’s blue van. “There” McGarvey shouted, leaning forward. “Set us down in the clearing at the front of the house” Kurshin nodded. “Yes, sir” McGarvey sat back and studied the pilot’s neck and shoulders. The voice. There was something vaguely familiar about the man. He hadn’t gotten a very good look at him because of the helmet he wore, and the rush they were in. But all the way down something kept nagging at the back of his mind. “Kirk” Potok suddenly shouted. McGarvey turned to him. They were barely a hundred feet off the ground now. Potok was pointing down. There was a stenciled in yellow letters on the back of his dark blue windbreaker. “Get us down now”

  McGarvey shouted. “And then call for backup”

  “Yes, sir” Kurshin replied. McGarvey pulled out his Walther, checked the action, and switched the safety off. The instant the helicopter’s skids touched the gravel driveway, he popped the hatch and he and Potok scrambled out, separated and raced up toward the house. Behind them the helicopter rose up a few feet and sideslipped all the way across the clearing, where it set down just at the edge of the woods. It was a good move, McGarvey thought, getting the machine out of the line of fire. But he didn’t have time for that now. Potok reached Langerford’s body first and turned it over. “He’s dead” he called out. McGarvey nodded and pointed up toward the house. The front door was open. Together they raced the rest of the way up the driveway, mounted the three steps onto the porch, and stopped on either side of the door, their guns up and at the ready. They exchanged a look, and McGarvey rolled left, leaping into the stairhall, sweeping left to right as he ran. He pulled up at the bottom of the stairs. In the dim light filtering in from outside he could see another figure lying in a heap in the back corridor. This one was dressed in black. Potok came in a moment later, flattening against the opposite wall. For a moment they remained in position, listening.

  But the house was absolutely still. “Trotter” McGarvey shouted. There was no answer. They were too late. While Kurshin had been running them around in circles at the hospital, he had sent his people out here to kill Lorraine. “We’ll start upstairs” he said.

  “The body out front was oozing blood. He cannot have been dead for more than a few minutes”

  “I hope you’re right” McGarvey replied. His gut was tight, and a rage threatened to engulf him. Control, he told himself. It always came down to that. The upstairs corridor was in nearly complete darkness. McGarvey started up the stairs, slowly, softly, his every sense straining to detect a noise, a movement, anything that would indicate someone was waiting above. At the top he stepped into the deeper shadows along the wall and cocked his ear. Had he heard something? Perhaps above, in the attic, a floorboard creaking. “Hold up” he whispered softly to Potok who was a few steps down. The Israeli stopped. “John” McGarvey called out.

  “Lorraine” There was a definite movement above in the attic, and then someone was coming down the stairs at the end of the corridor.

  McGarvey dropped back and brought his gun up, aiming into the darkness.

  A door banged open. “Kirk” Lorraine Abbott cried. “Oh, God, is it you”

  “Here” McGarvey called to her. She came the rest of the way down the corridor in a rush, and suddenly she was in his arms, crying and laughing. For just a second or two, McGarvey kept his gun up, but then he allowed himself to relax, and he led her to the head of the stairs.

  “There was shooting, and I think they killed all the FBI agents. I can’t believe you’re here. It’s over”

  “Are you all right”

  “Frightened, but I’m okay” She spotted Potok and stiffened. “What about John? Where is he” Her eyes suddenly went very wide. “Oh, my God, Kirk.

  You haven’t found him”

  “What is it”

  ie s ie stammere(Isere.

  “Heard who”

  “One of the Russians. He wanted to know where I was hiding. John told him I was down in the basement. They’re still there”

  Potok spun around and dropped low so that he could see down into the stairhall. He shook his head. “Stay here” McGarvey whispered urgently to Lorraine. “It was a police helicopter that brought us in. The pilot has called for backup”

  “Kirk, it was the Russians in a helicopter this afternoon. That’s how they found us”

  “It’s all right. No matter what happens stay here” McGarvey said. He hadn’t really listened to her. She nodded, her eyes wide. Potok started down the stairs, McGarvey a few feet behind him. Suddenly there was a shuffling below. “Kirk” Trotter cried out. A burst of automatic weapons fire raked the stairwell. The Israeli took at least three hits in his legs, and he pitched forward, tumbling down the stairs. “Now” Trotter shouted again. McGarvey was down the stairs in time to see Trotter desperately struggling with a black-suited figure who was trying to bring his bulky rifle around again. He snapped off three shots as he scrambled past Potok, the first going wide, the second hitting the Russian in the neck and the third smacking into the side of his head, spinning him around against the wall, where he collapsed. “Are you all right” he shouted back at Potok who was struggling to sit up. “I’ll live” the Israeli said, gritting his teeth in pain. “John … “

  McGarvey started to ask when another burst of automatic weapons fire raked the stairhall, this time from the rear corridor.

  Trotter took at least one hit in his hip, the force of the bullet slamming him backward off his feet.

  McGarvey took one in the side, shoving him to the left, as he fired two shots at a darksuited figure in the back doorway.

  He hit the floor and rolled over and over toward the wall as the firing went on and on. It came to him in a split instant then; their pilot in the khaki jacket, his familiar voice, there on the roof of the hospital waiting for them. It was Kurshin. It had to be! He fired three more shots in desperation, but the doorway was empty. “Kurshinhe shouted at the top of his lungs. “Kurshin! He tried to struggle up, but it was hard to move, and it seemed as if the stairhall was becoming even darker than before. Kurshinhe shouted again. In the distance he thought he could hear sirens, a lot of them, but that was impossible, he thought, sinking back on the floor. Again he had failed. The sirens were much closer now, but then they were drowned out by the sounds of the helicopter lifting off. He had failed, but so had the Russian. There would be a next time, he thought as the darkness settled in over him.

  There definitely would be a next time.

  BOOK THREE

  ROME

  Arkady Kurshin walked along the tree-lined pleasant Via San Domenico, hate riding on his shoulders like a powerful dark cloud.

  He limped slightly from his wound, but it had been nearly six weeks since Falmouth and he was almost completely recovered. It was early evening. Traffic downtown had been snarled up, as usual, making it difficult for him to meet his rendezvous schedule and still take his usual precautions. His face was different now, though, as was his hair, his clothing, and his manner of speaking. Here he was a Frenchman visiting Italy. At the corner across from the Hotel Aventimo, he stopped to light a cigarette. There wasn’t much traffic, but down the block music came from the open doors of a small cafe, and a young couple strolled arm in arm beneath the street lamp, disappearing around the corner. A large, swarthy man, dressed only in slacks and an opencollar shirt, stepped out of a dark doorway up from the hotel and looked pointedly across the street at Kurshin. If he looked right or left, it would mean that the rendezvous wasn’t safe. He did neither, and Kurshin went across the street. “You were not followed” the lookout asked. His voice was soft; nevertheless he spoke in Italian in case someone was listening. “Of course not” Kurshin replied. “My people are here? All of them”

  “Yes, and it has becom
e a real bitch keeping them out of trouble. You know how the navy is”

  “We’ll be gone soon”

  “Not soon enough”

  Kurshin gave the lookout a hard stare. He could have broken the man in two with his bare hands, the impertinent bastard. But then respect was such an ephemeral quality. Baranov had let the word float down subtly that one of his handpicked few had erred. It would be up to him to rebuild his reputation, but if he failed this time Baranov would completely wash his hands of him. The lookout caught something of that from Kurshin’s eyes and he backed down. “They are waiting for you upstairs. Will you leave tonight”

  “Thank you for your help” Kurshin said, ignoring the man’s question.

  “Yes” the man said. “Will you or the others be needing anything else”

  “Our transportation has been taken care of”

  “There is a camper van in the garage. It won’t attract any attention, the roads are filled with them these days”

  “And the boat”

  “Waiting for you in Naples. The provisions are already on board, as is the paperwork”

  “And the other items”

  “On board as well” The lookout was actually the number-two man behind the KGB’s Rome rezident. A good and competent man was how Baranov had described him. He had made the arrangements for the hotel, their transportation, and the boat in Naples without knowing any of the other details of the operation. He had not been told that the men upstairs were naval officers, but then it would have been easy enough for him to deduce that fact simply by the way they talked and behaved themselves.

  “There will be no track here in Rome” he assured Kurshin. “Good hunting”

  “Thank you, Yuri Semenovich. Your contribution will not go unnoticed”

  Kurshin turned, walked the rest of the way down the block, and entered the hotel, which looked almost like a small villa. Small and very private. The desk man was not on duty and the tiny lobby was in semidarkness. He took the narrow elevator up to the third floor and as he softly slid the iron gate back he heard a low burst of laughter from the room at the end of the corridor. Carefully he moved closer. He could hear them talking inside, though at first he couldn’t make out the words. Someone said something, and again there was laughter. “You’re goddamned right” another of them said clearly. Competent and dedicated men, and all of them English speakers. A rare combination for a Soviet naval officer. Kurshin knocked once at the door and all sounds from within ceased. A moment later he knocked twice, and the door was opened a crack. The room was in darkness, a club room odor of cigarette smoke, vodka, and male bodies wafting out. He pushed the door the rest of the way open and stepped inside. Someone to his left closed the door and the lights came on, leaving Kurshin blinking at the six officers each pointing a silenced Makarov automatic at him, and he managed a slight smile.