by David Wind
Chapin looked up and down the street. He was uneasy. There were a lot of brown-uniformed soldiers out today. He saw three men exit the building. He tensed when they paused to look at him. But a moment later they started off again.
“It would be safer if he does. When they find Abby, they’ll connect me to her. He’s part of the news team I head.”
Then Larry Pine came out. He had no bags, only his camera. He walked over to the car, and bent to the window. “Leslie, I’m not going.”
“You’re making a mistake,” Brannigan said. “Ed Kline has authorized this.”
He stared at her with disbelief. “Maybe it’s you who is making the mistake.”
Chapin turned. “Pine, in about three or four hours, the GRU and the KGB are going to be looking for us. We’ll be halfway to Alaska by then. So, you can stay and talk with the Soviets, or you can go with us. If you stay, you may never leave.”
Pine looked from Chapin to Brannigan, who nodded once without saying a word. “All right,” he said reluctantly. “I’ll be right back.”
“Go with him,” Chapin said to Brannigan.
Chapin’s tension became acute. He looked at his watch, and saw Blacky doing the same.
“You will make it,” Blacky said, favoring Chapin with an optimistic smile.
Suddenly, Chapin realized his single most important omission— Blacky. “I’ll be back,” he told him, thinking that if he could pull it off for one person, there was just as good a chance for two.
Inside, he found Brannigan and Pine arguing in a corner. The photographer’s bags were at his feet. He went over to them. “Stop acting like a child. There are four people whose lives are at stake, including Brannigan’s. Every minute you argue can mean their deaths. Now, get back to the car and wait for me. Both of you. Pine, what room are you in?”
Pine’s reaction was swift. He started to argue. Brannigan kicked him in the ankle to cut him off. He glared at her, and then at Chapin. “Four dash two.”
Without looking back, Chapin went up to the second floor and into room four. He found two men sound asleep, snoring loudly. He looked at them both, and chose the one with the darkest hair. He went to the foot of the bed, and the man’s clothing. He found the man’s passport. It was just as Abby had said when they’d arrived. Pine’s roommates were American State Department employees.
Chapin left as quietly as he had entered, and was back in the car in less than three minutes. “Drive,” he told Blacky. “And here,” he added, handing him the passport. “We’ll do our best to keep them from looking too closely at it.”
Blacky didn’t speak; his expression was thanks enough for Chapin.
It took almost an hour to get to the airport because they had been stopped three times at road blocks. Apparently, there was looting going on, and the Soviets would not tolerate that.
Blacky’s KGB credentials, along with the press passes given the others when they’d arrived, eased their time at the roadblocks.
They reached the airport at nine-thirty, with barely a half hour to make the plane. Braving it out, Blacky stopped the car by a soldier and, showing his official I. D. as a KGB press guide, told the soldier the group in the car was due to fly out on the Red Cross plane and wanted permission to go directly to the plane.
The guard, having no instructions to the contrary, passed them through after telling them how to get to where the plane was. Chapin’s relief was intense, but he didn’t give into it. There were still other hurdles.
He looked back, and saw the soldier talking on a walkie-talkie. “Get ready,” Chapin warned, after telling them what he’d just seen.
Blacky turned toward the runway, and the parking area the soldier had instructed him to go to. Ahead of them was the Red Cross plane, a 727 with a rolling staircase attached to the door and a trickle of people going inside.
All they had to do was cross the fifty yards of tarmac to where the stairs waited to take them to freedom, Chapin told himself.
They left the car, and started toward the plane. Chapin told Blacky to take two suitcases and to stay quiet if anyone stopped them. “No one,” he said, looking at Titania and at Blacky, “is to stop if they speak anything but English.”
Ten feet before the portable staircase, a jeep with three brown-uniformed men pulled alongside them.
“Halt,” called the officer in the passenger seat. He spoke in Russian.
The five people kept on walking. Chapin looked at the man and shrugged his shoulders. “Sorry, I don’t speak Russian.”
“American?” the officer in the front seat asked.
“Yes,” Chapin said, smiling. “John Morgan, Washington Courier. This is my photographer and my researcher,” he said, pointing to Pine and then Leslie. “And Miss Sloan is with the State Department,” he said, nodding to Titania . “Mr. Abrams,” he went on, looking at Blacky, “is also with the State Department.”
The officer looked at Chapin, and then at the others. He moistened his lips. “I will need to see your papers.”
As Chapin reached into his pocket, a man stepped out of the plane. “Morgan?” he called.
Chapin looked over his shoulder and waved. “That’s me.”
“Get a move on. We’ve just been ordered to take off. Captain Chamisok,” the man said, “can they please come aboard?”
The captain studied Chapin’s passport. He looked at the others, and saw that all were holding their passports, waiting to hand them to the officer.
The Soviet captain exhaled, nodded, and waved toward the plane. “Go ahead.”
Chapin stayed where he was until the other four were on the steps. Then he nodded to the captain, turned, and ascended the stairs. Once he was inside the plane, the man who had come out after them sealed the hatch. The engines started as Chapin sat. Six and a half minutes later, the Red Cross plane was airborne and heading to Alaska.
Chapin leaned his head back on the seat, and looked at Titania, seated across from him. She was looking out the window, smiling despite her tears.
He glanced at Blacky. The man’s face was stoic. But as the plane banked, Blacky looked away from the window, leaned his head back on the seat, and smiled.
“Chapin,” Brannigan said in a whisper meant only for him.
He looked at her, and waited.
“What happens now?”
He inhaled slowly. “As soon as we land in Anchorage, and just as soon as I get a flight out, I stop Sokova.”
“For real?”
“For real, Leslie.”
Chapter Thirty
“Ladies and gentlemen, please make sure your seat belts are fastened. We are now in a holding pattern and are awaiting our turn to land.”
Chapin looked over his shoulder and winked at Titania and Blacky. They smiled nervously. Pine was behind the two Russians; Brannigan was next to Chapin. Their flight was almost over. Their escape assured hours earlier when they had landed in Anchorage.
Again, Chapin had chalked it up to the hour and to the whims of fortune that the entire crew—Brannigan, Titania, Pine, Blacky and himself—had made it through Alaskan customs without so much as a second glance.
After guiding the group to the side, Chapin had made reservations on the next plane out to L.A.
That had been several hours before. Now they were about to land in Los Angeles. And, Chapin realized, he would be leaving them on their own.
Chapin looked out the window, and down at the hazy yellow dome of Los Angeles pollution. Throughout the long hours of the flights, Chapin had done everything in his power not to think about or mourn Abby. He should hate her, despise her and what she had represented. But a part of him could only love her.
Right or wrong, he would never forget his feelings for her, before she had revealed who and what she was.
“What comes next?” Brannigan asked, pulling him from his reverie.
He shifted toward her. “You go to work and write about the quake. Titania and Blacky will go to Washington for their debriefing. I go a
fter Sokova.”
“Alone?”
He nodded.
“Where?”
“I’ll start with Mathews in Wyoming. Then I’ll talk to Hirshorne. If everything works out, I’ll stop Sokova before it’s too late.”
“Kevin, you can’t do it alone, you—”
Chapin put a finger to her mouth. “I don’t have a choice. I need you as a backup. If I don’t make it, if something happens to me, you’ll have to take over. You’ll have to talk with Ann Tanaka, and the two of you will have to make the people in charge understand what’s going on.”
“How? How will I know if Sokova substitutes the brother?”
“I don’t know,” he said in a low voice. “I wish I did.” He unbuckled his seat belt and slipped past Brannigan. He went to the forward bulkhead, took down one of the two cellular phones, and slipped the Washington Courier American Express card into the proper slot before returning to his seat.
He dialed, estimating they would land within the half hour, and it was safe enough to make the call. When the call went through, he asked for Ann Tanaka.
Only a few seconds passed before he heard Tanaka’s voice, and said, “Listen carefully. Titania Basilova and Blacky will be landing in LAX shortly. Have they found Abby Sloan’s body yet?”
“Yes,” Tanaka said. “What happened?”
“They’ll tell you,” he said, unwilling to expose himself to any more pain.
“The fingerprints on the pen are Robert Mathews’ and yours.”
“Good,” Chapin said. “Am I still persona non grata?”
“To the extreme.”
“Okay. Alert the people through channels that Titania and Blacky are inbound. They’re using American papers. Make sure only the general is told and gets them new identities and no immigration. If they do, and if Sokova finds out, they will die. Goodbye, Ann, thank you.”
After hanging up on Tanaka, he dialed Ed Kline’s private number. When Kline answered, he told the editor they were about to land in Los Angeles, and he needed Mathews’ phone number in Wyoming. Kline gave it to him and started asking questions. Chapin told him Brannigan would fill him in, soon.
Chapin dialed Wyoming, hoping the routing on the cellular phone would permit the call. It did. When the call was answered, Chapin asked for Tom Sanders.
When the Secret Service agent came on the line, Chapin said, “It’s Chapin. I need to speak to him, in person.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow.”
“All right.”
“No bullshit, Tom. No one tries to take me out.”
“Not this time. He explained it to me in Chicago. You have my word, Kevin. Safe passage. The man wants it that way. No one on my team will stop you.”
“Tomorrow,” Chapin said, believing Sanders. He signaled the flight attendant, who took the phone and returned the American Express card. “All set,” he said to Brannigan after she left.
She looked upset. He took her hand and squeezed it gently. “I do need you to do something for me, when you get back to Washington.”
She looked at him silently, waiting.
“Check on twins for me. I need to know if their fingerprints are the same if they are identical twins. I need to know what is the same and what isn’t the same, on identical twins.”
She nodded; her eyes were moist. “What?” he asked.
She shook her head and turned from him. “I’m worried about you. I…” She shook her head without saying anything else.
Chapin squeezed her hand once more. Before he could speak, the captain made the landing announcement. When the captain’s voice ended, Brannigan slipped her hand from his.
They made the landing in silence. Before they deplaned, he said his goodbyes to Titania and Blacky, after telling them where to wait for The Company people when they got off the plane.
He turned to Brannigan. Her eyes were dry now, her expression almost stoic. “I could never have gotten this far without your help, and your belief.”
She smiled. “Somehow, you would have found a way.”
He shook his head. “When it’s over, I’ll be in touch with you.”
“You make sure you do,” she said, her voice going hoarse and low. “I…damn it, Chapin, you be careful.”
He nodded. “Get them off the plane. Watch out for them.”
Brannigan motioned to Titania and Blacky and followed them into the flow of traffic exiting the plane. Larry Pine slowed when he came abreast of Chapin and gave him a dirty look.
Chapin met the look with a smile, waiting until the press of the other passengers forced Pine down the aisle.
When the last passenger went by him, he left his seat and moved toward the rear of the plane. When no one was looking, he opened the inner door and slipped into the cargo hold.
The bay doors were already open, the baggage was being taken out. He slipped by the belts, went to the door, and jumped down, startling three of the baggage handlers.
He hit the tarmac and walked away. The baggage handlers and maintenance people did not go after him, as he had guessed they wouldn’t.
He skirted the plane, going to the lower-level doors of the terminal, and entered the building. He followed the corridor until he reached the baggage retrieval area.
Slipping through one of the service doors, Chapin blended into the crowd, exited the airport, and caught a hotel shuttle bus.
Reaching the entrance of the hotel, he heard a loud commotion behind him. He looked over his shoulder and saw a dozen police cars racing to the terminal he’d just left.
Ann Tanaka’s timing was flawless. She’d left him just enough time to get away, without being obvious.
<><><>
Sokova stared at the far wall, his eyes narrowed and angry. He shifted his vision to the speaker phone on the desk. “He has done it again. This cannot be permitted to continue. It must stop, now!”
“How?” asked the man on the other end.
“When he gets to Wyoming, kill him Whether covertly or openly it is no longer of consequence. All that matters is his elimination. I don’t know if he has been to the installation, but I must expect the worst and assume he knows what we are doing. When he is dead, we go after the others he brought back. If he learned about the installation, the possibility exists he told them as well.”
Sokova paused to wipe his mouth with a linen handkerchief. “The traitor’s wife must die as well, as must that other scum who turned his back on us,” Sokova stated angrily.
“I can arrange for it myself. It will be easy.”
“No,” Sokova stated. “You must not. No one must suspect you. I will make the arrangements. Don’t even think about it anymore. You are not the same person. You must always remember that.”
“If you say so.”
“I do. Within the next twenty-four hours, Chapin, Basilova, and Kublakshev—the one they call Blacky—will be dead.”
<><><><>
Chapin pulled the blue four-door sedan off the road, got out, and looked down into the valley. It was late afternoon. The November air was crisp. The Wyoming wind held a chill that bespoke a cold winter ahead.
Chapin hugged himself momentarily, before returning to the car. Just before he got in, he took a furtive glance down the incline and saw the car that had been following him, was pulled over.
He‘d spotted the tail as soon as he’d pulled out of the Lander airport. At first, he had thought the tail was a Secret Service agent sent by Sanders. Somehow, his instinct said no. Something inside him told him the tail was Sokova’s.
A few minutes after Chapin pulled the large sedan back onto the road, he crested the mountain. Heading down the two-lane highway, he noticed a cut-off ahead. He looked back and saw that his tail had not made the crest yet.
He turned the wheel hard, pulling onto the side road. He spun the car in a one-eighty, and waited. It took less than a minute for the other car to reach him.
When the green Chrysler passed him, Chapin hit the gas. He roared ou
t onto the road. The driver of the Chrysler spotted him and accelerated.
Chapin followed, inching closer and closer as the cars raced down the side of the mountain. At the base of the incline, Chapin started to pass. He looked at the man, but the tinted glass interfered with any possible recognition.
All Chapin could tell, before edging the car to the side of the road, was that the driver seemed to have short hair.
Then the Chrysler fought back, clipping his front fender.
Chapin pulled his foot from the gas and fought the wheel until he had control.
Then he went after the man again.
When he came next to the green car, the driver hit his brakes hard. Chapin flew past him.
Chapin jammed on his brakes and turned in a squealing cloud of tire smoke, but the other car was already a quarter of a mile away and heading back toward Lander.
Chapin slammed his palm against the steering wheel as his frustration mounted. He looked at his hands. They were shaking.
He let the tremors pass and, as he stared at the retreating car, realized what had happened. Sokova had changed the rules. Sokova was no longer concerned with playing a hiding game with Chapin. He wanted Chapin dead, period, which meant Sokova knew Abby was dead, and Chapin had been to the installation. There would be no more punches pulled by Sokova, no more finesse, just bloodletting.
Exhaling slowly, he turned the car and headed toward Mathews’ ranch. He would have to be even more careful from now on.
When he reached the ranch, seven minutes later, he found one of the Secret Service men he’d seen at the hotel room, standing at the main gate. The agent waved him to a stop. Chapin’s guts churned, his breathing shortened, and his heart rate doubled.
The agent waved him through. “Park in front of the house.” The man pointed to the ranch house.
Chapin parked the car. He stared at the front of the house for a moment before getting out. What would he find in the house? He exhaled, clearing away his thoughts and taking strength from the fact that one way or another, it would all be over soon.
He went to the front door, but before he could ring the bell, the door opened to reveal Tom Sanders. “‘Lo, Kevin,” Sanders said, stepping outside.
