And there goes my old man, out of my life again. Well, so what? I found him, I met him, and that's enough. He's a pretty nice guy. A little slow, maybe, and a little innocent, but a decent person. If he really is my father . . . I'm not unhappy about it. And if he isn't . . . again, so what? It doesn't mean anything now. Right now, for me, he's a body I have to deliver, that's all. He's Colonel Yuri Volanov, and he's got a date on that beach at exactly three o'clock.
Eddie and Ginger came in over the spur of land to the south of Scotsman's Bay, a rough and hilly piece of ground that rose up to a hogback ridge and then dropped away sharply to the water. It was a long and messy hike in the darkness, stumbling over unfamiliar terrain, through scrubby stands of second-growth timber and bramble patches, and sliding over loose-packed shale. They traveled light, a knapsack apiece, but still they were hot and breathing hard by the time they crested the ridge and worked their way down to the beach below. They got there just before midnight, a dark night of stars with the moon still down. Off to the right, on top of the cliff, the glow of the Reynolds house was the only light for miles. Below the house the zigzag staircase showed only as a faint white cross-hatch of lines against the dark face of the cliff. They trudged down the beach hugging the base of the cliff until they were close to the foot of the staircase, and then unslung their packs and sat down to rest. The quiet was as intense as the darkness, and all they could hear was the lapping of waves on the sand. After a moment they reslung their packs and started up the slope, moving silently on rubber-soled shoes, Eddie first and Ginger following, her hands in his footholds. They did not speak. They had worked out the procedure hours before, based on what Emerson had remembered about the bay, the cliff, and the house. They knew what they were looking for, but it took them a long time to find it. The cave was where it was supposed to have been, about halfway up and to the right of the staircase, but the entrance had been overgrown with brush and vines.
They found it almost accidentally, Ginger stumbling against the matted growth, feeling it give under her and catching herself before she could fall in. She hung there, clutching, and clicked her tongue twice. Ten feet away, Eddie looked up and then made his way across the face of the slope to her. She pointed. He nodded and went to work parting the vines and silently clearing away a section of the brush. He peered in and risked a quick shot with the pencil torch shielded from above by the overhang. The cave was narrow, but it went back about twenty feet, a slash of fissured limestone in the slope. He rolled up and over the edge of it and beckoned for Ginger to follow.
Once inside, he put his head close to hers and said softly, "We can talk in here if we keep it low. Let's get it set up."
He placed the torch on the ground and adjusted it to throw a low-powered glow, then he rolled over on his side and opened one of the knapsacks. He took out what looked like two large fountain pens, an assortment of wooden pegs, a coil of wire, heavy tape, and a wire cutter. Ginger looked around the cave. The ceiling was of clear stone, but the dirt floor was strewn with an assortment of rubbish and animal droppings.
"It stinks in here," she whispered.
He looked up from sorting his equipment. "Get used to it. If they don't go tonight, we stay here until they do."
"It smells like goats."
"What do you know about goats?" he asked as he worked a loop into the end of the wire.
"I had one as a pet when I was little," she said defensively.
"No kidding? When I was little, we ate goat for Easter. Here, hold this."
He handed her the looped end of wire and ran the coil around his wrist. He stuffed the rest of the equipment into his pockets and crawled to the lip of the cave. "Just hold on tight to that," he told her. "This will only take a few minutes."
Outside the cave, he pressed himself into the face of the slope and edged across it to the staircase twenty feet away, paying out wire as he went. The stairs were set on wooden piles driven into the earth, each length of riser supported by six of the piles. At the point where the stairs doubled back across the cliff, extra piles supported the landing. He chose the landing that was as close as possible to a horizontal plane with the mouth of the cave and crawled underneath it, barely clearing the latticework of slats around the piles. Working quickly, he taped one of the fountain pens high up on the piling where it joined the underside of the landing. He taped the second pen under the landing itself. He ran the end of the wire through the trigger rings of both pens, doubled it back on itself, tied it off, and snipped it. Then he worked the wooden wedges between the pens and the surface, securing them there. With the safety pins still locked, he tugged cautiously at the wire; the pens held in place. Breathing deeply and easily, he slid out each of the safety pins and dropped them in his pocket. Then he made his way back to the cave, following the wire and making sure that it lay slack along the ground.
Back inside, the lay flat on the ground at the mouth of the cave and made sure that the wire ran freely through the underbrush. He peered outside. There was no sign of the wire along the ground, no telltale glint. He grunted with satisfaction and called Ginger up beside him. He placed the loop of wire in her hand.
"Now tell me what you're going to do," he said.
"I wait until I hear them coming down the steps. I wait until I can see them. I wait until the first man is on the landing— "
"Not on the landing, just before it. Look, they'll be coming down single file, and the odds are that the first man will be one of theirs. But we can't take the chance. They may have your father out in front."
"Sorry. All right, just before he steps onto the landing. Then I blow it. I haul back hard on the wire. I don't tug at it and I don't twitch it. I lean back and haul for all I'm worth."
"Right. Remember, we're not trying to kill anybody with the explosion, not with your folks there. I want to freeze them on the staircase, immobilize them. Those pens are loaded with low-kick juice - all they'll do is snap the supports and drop the landing. That's all the edge I want. Whoever is on those stairs won't be able to go down, and they won't go up either. I'll be above them."
"Where will you be?"
"On the other side of the staircase, above the landing. I'll have them cold from that angle."
He felt her move beside him, heard her hesitant voice. "Eddie, it sounded good before, but now ... it seems awfully risky. We don't even know how many there are."
"Your father knew the risks when he set this up. It's the way he wants it. You know damn well I wouldn't be doing it all by myself if Vasily hadn't walked out on me, but that's the way it is. All right, what do you do after you pull the wire?"
"I move to the back of the cave and stay there until it's all over," she said in a small, bitter voice. "It was all right to send me into an Italian whorehouse, but you're keeping me out of this."
"I didn't send you. You went by yourself. And don't knock Italian whorehouses, they're not bad ... I hear. I hope to hell you learned something there."
"You pig."
"Look, you admit yourself that you can't handle weapons, and that's all this is. There's nothing cute about it. Either I get them out or I don't, and I don't want to worry about you while I'm doing it. You just do your job and sit tight. All right?"
"All right," she said in an even smaller voice.
He struggled into the straps of the second knapsack and twisted around to kiss her briefly. "Stay awake and eat chocolate. If nothing pops tonight I'll be back in here before dawn, and we'll sit out the day."
"Luck," she said. He nodded in reply.
He went silently across the slope, past the landing, and began to climb. Fifty feet above the landing and to the right of it he found what he wanted: a rocky projection that was shielded from the staircase by a run of spikey brambles. He eased himself onto the rock in a sitting position, unslung his pack and laid out his weapons. He picked up the HDM flash- less, frowned as he weighed it in his hand, then put it back in the pack and took the Safari Special instead. Shit, why not, he thought.
There's been enough killing already. Too much. He checked the action on the Safari and inspected the tranquilizer dart loaded into the barrel, carefully avoiding the gummy substance layered onto the tip. The dart was loaded with enough narcotic to put a hippo to sleep for an hour. Satisfied, he took a chocolate bar from the pack, bit off a chunk of it, and settled down to wait. He did not wait easily, relaxed and ready for action. There had been other times when he had been forced to wait this way and he had always been able to blank out his mind in total concentration. But not this time. There were too many things that could go wrong. He knew what they were, and they frightened him.
At least the kid is safe, he thought, if she stays put in that hole. She's got the Walther if anybody stumbles in there and she knows enough to use it if she has to. So she'll be all right. All she has to do is pull the wire and I make my move. Tick, tock, just like that. And then another tick. No more than that. Please God, no more than that. If I'm fast and if I'm good I can handle three. Fast, good and lucky. But if there are any more than three I'm fucked. Christ, for all I know they could have an army, and what do I do then? Punt, I guess, and let's take it easy, keep it in perspective. There isn't any army up there in that house. Not for a job like this. Two or three, the most. But please, not four. If that son of a bitch hadn't run out on me I wouldn't care if they had half a dozen. But not now. Not four.
He heard them coming then, heard first the murmur of voices above him, and then their footsteps on the wooden stairs. He cocked his head, trying to count numbers from the sound of the footsteps, but he could not tell. He picked up the Safari, checked the safety and, still in a sitting position, eased himself across the rock until he was directly behind the brambles. Through the gaps in the twisted branches he could see the staircase clearly. They passed in front of him in single file, only fifty feet away. Someone first, then Emerson, someone else, then Rusty, and then a heavy-set bull-necked man bringing up the rear. A total of five.
Three, he thought joyfully, only three.
The single file passed him by, approaching the landing, and then they were below. The three Russians all carried pistols, but they carried them casually at their sides, as if as a matter of form. Emerson kept his eyes on the steps as he moved, his good hand sliding along the railing. Rusty negotiated the steps awkwardly, not using the rail but clutching her purse with both hands. The lead man was three steps from the landing. Eddie raised the Safari and breathed deeply.
Pull it, he said silently. Pull it now.
Ginger pulled it just as the lead man stepped onto the landing, the sharp double crack sounding as one. The landing collapsed, tearing a gaping hole in the staircase, and the man went with it, shouting in surprise as he tumbled down the steep incline. He did not tumble far. His head hit an outcropping of rock that laid his scalp open. He flopped over once, and lay still.
As soon as the landing dropped, Eddie shot the rear man in the back of the neck with the Safari Special. The Russian went down in instant narcosis, his feet going out from under him. His body hit the back of Rusty's legs and then jammed in the stairwell.
Rusty gasped and wheeled around, Sasha turning with her. Emerson, only feet away from the gap in the stairs, pivoted on the balls of his feet. His bad left hand smashed down on Sasha's wrist, knocking the pistol free and sending shocking pain from his fingers to his shoulders. Then his good right arm. braced by the left, was around Sasha's neck and choking. Rusty, her face set in hard lines, grabbed at his arm, trying to loosen it. She struggled with him silently as he braced himself and heaved.
"Shit," Eddie muttered. He had no clear shot. The two men were too closely twined, and there was Rusty hanging on for some reason as well. Any shot could easily have hit any one of the three. He shoved the pistol into his pocket and broke out of the cover of brambles, sliding and thrashing his way down the slope toward the staircase.
Emerson strained to increase the pressure on Sasha's neck. The Russian's head came back, his face distorted, his eyes wide. They were sad eyes, and pleading, but his lips were twisted into what might have been a smile.
Rusty pulled frantically at her husband's arm with both her hands, but she could not move him. "Jim, don't do it," she said breathlessly. "You don't know what you're doing."
Sasha's back arched into a bow and his feet kicked futilely. Emerson looked down into those pleading eyes, staring into death. The spark of life was still there, and still on the lips that were trying to form words. A message? A plea? Something said once before in what seemed like a long time ago? Something about a football game? Paidyom pasmatryet fudbolni match myezhdu kamandami dinama i spartak? For the moment he was tempted to ease his grip, hear the words, but he felt the strength going out of his arms, felt the muscles going slack. From somewhere above him he heard the scrambling sounds of Eddie sliding down the hill, but the sounds were still far away and he knew that he had to do it himself. He braced himself for final effort.
"Damn it, let go," said Rusty, her voice a hiss.
Her face was inches away and her eyes were locked on his. They were hard eyes, and he had never seen them before. Her lips were drawn back over her teeth and he had never kissed those lips. The hands that once had caressed him were tearing at him now, and the body that once had been his oasis was pitted against him. He heaved once more and heard a distinct click as the hyoid bone in Sasha's neck snapped. His head rolled loosely and the spark left his eyes. Emerson released his hold and the body slid down. Rusty stared at it in horror.
"Sweet God, you did it," she breathed. "You killed him."
"He sure as shit did," said Eddie as he came crashing through the brambles, his heels dug in against the pitch of the slope. Standing on the side of the hill above the staircase he was no more than ten feet away from them.
"Three out of three," he said. "Now let's get the hell out of here."
Rusty turned at the sound of his voice. "You son of a bitch, you spoiled it all," she said tightly. "Nobody's going anyplace."
Then in one swift motion she bent over, picked up the pistol that Sasha had dropped, and before Emerson could make a move to stop her she pointed it at Eddie and fired.
Ginger, lying on her belly at the mouth of the cave, saw the landing collapse when she pulled the wire. She saw the lead man tumble down the slope and she saw the rear man fall from Eddie's shot. She saw her father struggle with Sasha, and at that point she shot out of the mouth of the cave, scrambling across the slope with the brambles whipping at her ankles as she ran to join her parents. She ran leaning into the tilt of the hill, placing one foot higher than the other, and she saw Eddie come crashing out of his cover, half sliding, half crawling downhill. She saw Sasha die, saw the body slide from her father's arms and saw the grin on Eddie's face as he slid to a stop above the staircase. Then something jolted her under the heart as she saw her mother bend over, come up with a pistol and fire it directly at Eddie. He sat down as if he had slipped, punched back by the force of the bullet and clutching his shoulder. He stared at Rusty accusingly, as if she had just pulled a tasteless practical jokes. Her hand came up for a second, final shot.
"No!"
Ginger heard herself scream, and in that flick of time knew that something was terribly wrong if her mother was shooting at Eddie, something so wrong that the world was out of whack; but there was Eddie helpless on the ground and then her own hand was moving, the Walther in it, swinging up. Even as it swung she knew that she could never pull the trigger but her hand was moving just the same, leveling and sighting it in on her mother, and she knew that it had to he done but she never could do it, never and had to, and she never did find out if she ever could have pulled that trigger. She never had to. Somebody did it for her as Vasily stood up in the long grass under the staircase, leveled a shotgun at Rusty, and pulled the trigger.
"Last I heard you were on your way to Bogota." Eddie lay on his side in the grass, propped up on one elbow, as Vasily worked on his shoulder.
"That's right, I was."
&nbs
p; "Going to work with Benny Zahn."
"Uh-huh. Stay still while I do this."
"Didn't want part of a suicide mission."
"Still don't."
"Then why the hell did you deal yourself back in? You said it was a family affair."
Vasily tied off the make-shift dressing and sat back on his heels to admire his work. The flesh wound was bandaged neatly and the bleeding had stopped.
"Maybe that's why," he said slowly. "You're a stubborn son of a bitch and you drive me crazy at times, but when you get right down to it you're the only family I've got."
Eddie grunted and sat up. He felt a rush of dizziness that steadied and passed as he looked around. The night was unchanging, still and dark. Rusty lay where she had fallen from the staircase; Emerson and Ginger knelt next to her. They had covered the lower part of her body with a coat taken from one of the Russians. She was speaking, and Emerson's head was close to her lips. Ginger looked up. and when she saw Eddie sitting she came over to kneel beside him. Her face was tearstained, but dry. Her tears had come in one flash flood, and now they were gone.
Eddie asked, "Is she still. . . ?"
"Just barely. She can't last much longer." She looked at Vasily, who turned away from her gaze. She put her hand on his arm and said, "No, it's not going to be that way. You saved his life and that's all I'm going to remember."
Vasily's somber voice was low in the night. "You understand that I had no choice?"
"I told you, I understand."
Eddie winced as he shifted position. "She was one of them, wasn't she?"
"All the time," said Ginger bitterly. "All her life, just like my father. She told him up there in the house."
"The second sleeper. An insurance policy for Moscow Center." Eddie whistled tunelessly between his teeth. "Go back to her. No matter what else she is, she's still your mother."
"No, I'll stay here."
"You should be with her."
"You don't understand - they want to be alone. It's as if I don't know either of them anymore. They're speaking Russian together."
The Sleeping Spy Page 33
