Trying to ignore the pain stabbing through his own body, John leaped after Peters. He thrust his hands under the man’s arms and pressed outward while he kicked Peters’ ankles. He hammered at the back of Peters’ skull with his forehead, then tried to sink his teeth into Peters’ neck. John struggled desperately, horrified at the thought that at any moment he might hear the explosion signaling his wife’s destruction.
It wasn’t going to work, John thought, tasting panic. Peters had the all-important advantage of leverage; it was easier for the other man to bring his arms together than it was for John to hold them apart.
Peters was winning the battle, inexorably bringing his free hand closer and closer to the hand that held the radio.
John abruptly pulled his hands free, then grabbed Peters’ left arm with both hands and yanked with all his remaining strength.
Peters was spun around. The radio popped free from his grasp, sailed over the stone retaining wall and fell into the darkness.
John released his grip on Peters, turned and staggered back to the inner railing of the balcony. Further struggle was meaningless; the plastique would explode when the radio hit the water.
Strong hands gripped his arms as he collapsed over the edge of the railing. He glanced toward the far end of the arena and moaned aloud.
Oh God, no! No, Alexandra! You can’t make it! Throw it away and save yourself!
Alexandra had run into a knot of people near the top of the aisle. She was holding the barrette over her head, waving it back and forth as she struggled to squeeze through the panicked onlookers.
An eerie silence had descended over the castle, and John could hear Alexandra’s voice clearly.
“Explosives!” Alexandra shouted. “Get out of my way! It’s going to blow up!”
A narrow space gradually cleared in the aisle before her as people wrestled and clawed in a desperate effort to move back out of her way.
Alexandra reached the top of the aisle, turned left on the balcony.
She was not even going to try and make it to the seaward wall, John thought, despair reaching deep into him and squeezing his heart. It was just too far away. Instead, it appeared that she was trying to make it to the narrow, closed-off stairwell where he and Peters had fought.
It’s too late, Alexandra! I love you! I don’t want you to die! Save yourself! Throw it away!
“THROW IT AWAY, ALEXANDRA!”
Alexandra tripped or fell or leaped as she approached the stairwell. The mane of black hair plunged from sight.
An instant later there was a flash of bright light, followed almost instantaneously by a dull, thudding explosion that sent a shock wave through the stone of the castle; John could feel the blast in his feet, a repulsive, shuddering ripple of death. Then the walls around the mouth of the stairwell crashed down on the balcony in a malignant, sere fog of dust and smoke.
At first the only sound in the castle was the rumbling echo of the collapsing stone. Then people began to scream. John heard the sounds, but they seemed to be coming from a great distance; they were meaningless vibrations from another world that no longer had anything to do with him. Everything, all thought and sensation, was peripheral to the central, devastating fact that Alexandra was dead.
John wanted to cry, to howl, to scream with the others, but he could not. All feeling and protest was clogged inside him, and he could only stand and tremble under the crushing weight of an invisible cloak of horror and emptiness that clenched him in its folds like some great snake.
He twisted his head around and looked behind him. Peters had vanished.
He knew where Peters had gone. The icy cloak surrounding John suddenly twitched and contracted, squeezing him even harder in a vise of mindless sorrow and rage, causing him at last to cry out. He clenched his fists, threw back his head and howled like an animal impaled on stakes of pain, despair, and terrible, all-consuming hatred.
Adrenalin surged through his body, and he twisted free from the hands holding him. He was across the width of the balcony in three great strides. He jumped up on the retaining wall and leaped far out into the darkness.
Suddenly it was as though all sound had been cut off except for the high-pitched whistle of wind in John’s ears. It seemed to him that he fell for a long time, but he was not afraid. Now he could think only of killing Rick Peters.
He tensed his muscles and stretched out as the shimmering, moonlit surface rushed up at him, and he knifed cleanly into the water. He relaxed immediately, spreading his arms and legs to slow his descent. He felt a piercing pain in his ears, and he swallowed to equalize the pressure. Finally he slowed to a halt. He kicked off his shoes and began to pull for the surface.
He looked up to see the water above him begin to glow; a few seconds later he surfaced into a pool of brilliant, blinding light cast by searchlights mounted on the castle walls.
An automatic rifle coughed once. A bullet whined past his right ear and splutted into the water.
John ignored the danger from the guns as he turned slowly in the water, squinting and searching in the white glare for Peters. He refused to be distracted from his sole purpose; like everything else not related to the task of killing Rick Peters, the riflemen on the walls were not important to him. He felt strangely invulnerable.
A voice shouted something in Spanish, and there were no more shots. John heard the stuttering, hollow roar of a large boat starting up somewhere on the other side of the distant spit of land separating the harbor from the open sea.
“Finway.”
The tortured voice was faint, but close by. Behind him. John scissor-kicked and turned in a semicircle, searching. The brilliant arc lights continued to glide in crisscross patterns over the surface of the water. A cone of light swept over Peters’ head, then darted back and held steady on the other man.
John flinched at what he saw.
Peters was floating at an odd, twisted angle; the man was apparently only barely able to keep his head above the water. Blood, shiny as red vinyl, flowed from his mouth and nostrils. Naked pain filmed the pale eyes like a cloudy membrane.
“I’ve got a rib through my lungs,” Peters gasped. “Help me, Finway. Please. I don’t want to die.”
John’s tongue and gums felt dry and gritty. He rinsed his mouth with sea water, spat it out. It was insane, he thought, but he realized that he felt pity for the other man. “I’ve died at least twice this week,” he said at last. “I want to see you try it once.”
The large boat was coming closer, its roar becoming a whine increasing in pitch and volume.
“Can’t … stay up. Please. I can’t stand the pain. Just hold me up … until the boat gets here.”
John felt a curious mixture of amazement and self-loathing when he realized that he did not have it in him to let a helpless Rick Peters drown.
He straightened out in the water and whipped his legs back in a frog kick, propelling himself toward the other man with a powerful but controlled breaststroke. He had approached within a yard of Peters’ head and was about to reverse his direction in order to grasp the man’s chin when something changed in Peters’ eyes; the pain was abruptly supplanted by hate. Peters’ features twisted and he hissed with fury as he lunged at John.
The assassin’s right hand burst from beneath the surface of the sea trailing water like tongues of argent flame. The metal of the sharpened belt buckle flashed in the brilliant light, and then the glinting metal began to descend in a whipping blur toward John’s head.
Peters had timed the attack perfectly. John knew he could not move back quickly enough to avoid the razor-sharp edge. He tried to duck under the surface, at the same time lunging to his right and sweeping his arms up under the water. The belt buckle deflected slightly when it hit the surface and sliced into John’s left shoulder, driving him even deeper under water.
Pain ripped through John’s left arm and up into his neck muscles. He rolled forward, pulled with his good arm, and kicked with all his strength. He shot forwar
d beneath the surface and collided with Peters’ lower body. John immediately drew his legs up to his chest and executed a quarter turn to his left, bringing him into position on Peters’ left side. He ducked under Peters’ flailing left arm and pressed his head against the man’s rib cage, at the same time reaching out and wrapping his right arm securely around Peters’ waist. He simultaneously pulled and kicked, driving his forehead like a battering ram hard into Peters’ broken ribs.
Peters’ entire body twitched and convulsed like some lump of laboratory muscle stimulated by electric shock. Then they were going down. John heard a strange sound he at first identified as the bray of the boat’s engine carrying under water. Then he realized that the sound was Rick Peters’ screams.
John maintained his hold around Peters’ waist and continued to press his forehead into the fractured ribs. The liquid, bubbling scream sustained itself for what seemed a very long time, measured in cruel units of crushing water pressure and cold. Peters’ body became a deadweight as the air streamed out of his lungs, and they both shot down into the increasingly frigid depths.
Then the eerie, undulating sound stopped. There was a gurgling sound like a baby’s cry, a hiccupping, bubbling cough, and another faint gurgle. Then, with the bone of his skull acting as a solid conductor and amplifier, John heard the sibilant whisper of water rushing into the man’s lungs.
Peters’ body convulsed twice, then went limp. John released his grip and pushed the corpse away from him. When he looked up, the floodlit surface of the water seemed an impossible distance away. Billowing clouds moved lazily across his field of vision, and John vaguely realized, as if in a dream, that the clouds were composed of his and Peters’ blood.
His lungs burned and his vision was blurred. His left arm had gone numb and floated uselessly at his side. He pulled weakly toward the surface, expecting to be hit by a shark at any moment and not really caring. John now viewed his survival with only passing interest, and he was surprised and vaguely amused when his head broke the surface. He gasped for air, swallowed water that tasted of blood. Hands grabbed for him, and then he passed out.
Wednesday, February 20; 3:15 P.M.
Constantina
Constantina paused at the entrance to the embassy garden and studied the figure of the man sitting on a marble bench inside. She wondered what he thought about besides his wife—if, indeed, he ever thought of anything else.
She had been present at a number of his interrogations, and he’d always told the identical story in the same low, patient, dispassionate voice. Constantina had confirmed those details of his story that she had witnessed.
She hated some of the things her people were doing to this man, did not see the need for the drugs or the terrible lie, but she knew that it was not her place to question. She did what she was told, and John Finway seemed totally unconcerned with what was done to him. As far as she knew, no pain had been inflicted.
At least, Constantina thought, they had apparently accepted his story, as indicated by the fact that they had moved him from a prison cell to the unused former American Embassy. However, in the week and a half that he had been here, he had given no indication that he cared any more about his surroundings than he had the drugs or the interminable interrogation sessions. Whatever his thoughts about being the sole inhabitant of a huge mansion guarded around the clock by teams of security men, he kept them to himself.
He was, she thought, three-quarters dead, like a man who had been lobotomized by loss.
Constantina had come to like John Finway very much. She thought he bore his immeasurable sorrow and captivity with a quiet dignity, leavened by what Constantina could only describe as a general disinterest in everything but his correspondence with his children. He ate, exercised, kept himself clean and well groomed, but gave no glimpses into himself.
She cleared her throat, then walked into the garden. She stopped in front of him and, when he looked up, smiled warmly.
“Hello, John.”
“Hello.”
“You were hard to find this afternoon. It’s a big house.”
“Yes, it is,” he replied flatly. “I can’t imagine a roomier prison. But it’s still a prison, isn’t it?”
Constantina was vaguely surprised; it was the first time she had heard the man express anything approaching a complaint. She decided it was a good sign, and she was pleased. “How’s your shoulder?”
“It’s coming along.”
“I’m glad,” Constantina said quietly.
He glanced up at her, and Constantina saw an uncharacteristic flash of curiosity glint momentarily in his sad, charcoal-gray eyes.
“You’re Catholic?”
Constantina touched the gray smudge on her forehead. “Yes. It’s Ash Wednesday. Are you Catholic?”
“No.” He dropped his gaze. “I was just curious. I didn’t know you were allowed to practice openly.”
“Here’s your mail,” she said, holding out three envelopes.
He took the envelopes, placed them beside him on the stone bench. “Thank you.”
“Is your son better?” When he glanced up and arched his eyebrows, Constantina added quickly, “You know we have to read your mail. I read the letter Kristen wrote telling you that Michael had the flu. I’d just like to know if he’s better.”
For a few moments she did not think he would answer, but finally he nodded and said, “Yes. Michael’s all right.” He smiled thinly, touched the envelopes beside him. “You want to read these?”
Constantina shook her head, surprised that the man had the power to hurt her deeply. “No. They’ve already been censored by someone else. It was my job, John. I didn’t mean to pry.”
“Then you won’t mind if I read these in private.”
“I know you’re anxious to read them, John, but I have to ask you to go back to your room.”
“Why? Is the local Committee for the Defense of the Revolution accusing you of coddling criminals?”
“I’m not supposed … I don’t have permission …” Constantina swallowed as tears of joy suddenly welled in her eyes and flowed freely down her cheeks. She choked back a sob, then bent over and wrapped her arms around the surprised man. “Go to your room, John,” she whispered in his ear. “Your wife is waiting for you there. God bless you both.”
John
John was trembling violently as he opened the door to the vast, first-floor library that served as his living quarters. When he saw the figure sitting across the room on the edge of the bed, he let out a choked cry of joy and then began to weep.
Dressed in ill-fitting Russian-made slacks and a loose woolen peasant blouse, Alexandra sat for long moments staring back at him. Then she rose unsteadily, supporting herself with a three-legged aluminum cane that she gripped with her right hand. Her hair had been cut short and ragged, and there were scabby patches of bare scalp where hair was just beginning to grow back in. The left side of her face was swathed in bandages held in place by wide bands of adhesive tape wound around her head. John could see the movement of her upper left arm under the sleeve of the blouse, but the cuff of the sleeve hung limply in the space where her hand had been.
John’s body continued to shake as he released his grip on the door handle. Alexandra tentatively set the cane aside and hobbled toward him. John rushed forward and caught her in his arms as she fell. They held each other gently, wept cheek to cheek, then, without relaxing their grips on one another, tilted their heads back and looked into each other’s eyes.
Alexandra hiccupped and smiled crookedly, then kissed John’s tear-stained face. “I guess I’m still trying to get my sea legs,” she managed to say through jaws that had been wired shut. “I don’t suppose you brought a hook with you? Any hook will do for now, but I have my heart set on eventually picking up some chic designer’s number.”
John slowly shook his head in dazed wonder. “They told me you were … I thought you were dead.”
“And I was told you died killing Rick. I only found ou
t you were alive a half hour ago, just before they brought me here. I suppose they figured they could get more information out of us if we each thought the other was dead.”
“Out of you, maybe,” John said, rage burning in him anew like poison in an infected wound that would not heal. “I started telling them everything I knew from minute one. When I think what our people—” His voice broke, and his anger was temporarily washed away by the joy of holding his wife in his arms. “I can’t believe you’re here. You didn’t throw the barrette away. The explosion—”
“I didn’t want anyone else killed because of my stupidity. I made it to the empty stairwell where I wanted to throw it. I dove the last few feet and managed to get my hand down there; I just couldn’t get it back out in time. The walls were at least four feet thick, so all the explosion itself did was tear off my arm at the elbow. Actually, losing my arm saved my life. Dear Rick didn’t miss a trick. The barrette was like a fragmentation grenade filled with liquid nerve gas; they found traces of it in the missing pieces of me.”
John shook his head and tried to speak, but he couldn’t.
“Most of the blast’s force was channeled up and down the stairwell,” Alexandra continued. “I really got busted up when those damn stones fell on me.” She laughed, winced, and touched her wired jaw. “If you think I talk funny and look bad on the outside, you should hear my insides rattle. I feel like something that came off a Detroit assembly line on a Friday afternoon.”
“Alexandra, you’ve never looked more beautiful to me,” John finally managed to say in a hoarse whisper. “Your eye?”
Alexandra shrugged. “The jury’s still out. Incidentally, if I look like I’m suffering from jet lag in addition to everything else, it’s because I’ve been to Moscow and back this week. They have a good eye institute there. Everybody’s been giving me tender, loving care, and I’ve been talking my head off. When I thought you were dead, I … I just told them everything I knew, or could guess.”
Turn Loose the Dragons Page 37
