The Talbot Odyssey (57 page)

Cameron turned toward Abrams, “Bugs?”

Abrams glanced at the microphone detector on the ground. “No indication.”

Cameron nodded.

Katherine, crouched beside Abrams, whispered to Cameron, “What happened?”

Cameron shrugged. “They grabbed her.”

Davis added, “I couldn’t tell how she was received.”

Abrams said, “I hope they don’t guess we’ve used the chase as a cover to get into position.”

Katherine asked, “When do we cross over?”

Cameron glanced at his watch. “Very soon.”

Davis spoke. “I saw at least five of them. If two escort her back to the house, then we’ve improved our odds a bit.”

Abrams thought that three Russians were three Russians more than he’d care to meet tonight. He regarded Cameron and Davis. Even this close they were nearly invisible, but they exuded menace into the night. Professionally, their equipment impressed him: black hoods and bulletproof vests, first-rate and lightweight survival gear, and everything silenced and blackened.

Abrams glanced at Katherine beside him, similarly clad and equipped, her long blond hair tucked under the raised, hooded mask. She leaned over and whispered in his ear, “I feel confident. These are good men. We’ll be fine.”

Abrams smiled. “I’m sure we will be.”

She kissed him on the cheek.

Cameron pulled a Very flare pistol from his belt and fired into the air. The flare exploded at a hundred feet into an incandescent burst of blue-white. Cameron said to Abrams and Katherine, “That’s the signal that Claudia has crossed over. Van Dorn’s pyro people should acknowledge and cover that flare with more of the same.” As he spoke, a salvo of Very flares burst above them.

Davis said, “Fireworks are a good cover for signal flares. The noise gives us a bit of cover as well.”

Cameron added, “Communication, command, and control are a bit dicey without wireless, but Ivan has got some damned good monitoring equipment and we don’t want to get his guard up.”

Abrams nodded, and thought,
If you think we’ve
got a
communications problem, wait until all the radios in North America go out.

Abrams looked at Cameron and Davis in the dying glow of the flares. When he’d met them in the locker room in Van Dorn’s basement, he’d recognized them from the encounter in the cemetery. He’d been told by Pembroke that they were both former Royal Commandos, both veterans of the Falklands war, recruited by Pembroke when their enlistments ran out. Cameron was a Scotsman, Davis an Englishman. Pembroke, according to Van Dorn, hired only former British soldiers: English, Scottish, Irish, and Welshmen.

Abrams looked up at the sky. The wind was blowing steadier now; a front was passing through. The gray wispy clouds scudded at high speed across the sky, moving north to south. The air was cooling and had the smell of rain. Toward the far northeast, across the Long Island Sound, toward Connecticut, the thunder rolled, and the lightning flashed at widely spaced intervals. He remembered what Van Dorn said at the final pep talk: “If the entire sky lights up in the West, you’ll know it’s happened. Your mission will no longer be a preventive strike but an avenging strike. Press on. Take as many with you as you can. There’s no longer any reason to come home.”

It was difficult for Abrams to reconcile the genteel public image of O’Brien, Van Dorn, and their friends with their propensity to engage in political murder and commando raids.

Katherine broke into his thoughts. “Tony, look.”

Abrams followed her gaze upward. A huge rocket rose slowly into the air, its fiery plume oscillating as the wind caught it. Suddenly the entire rocket erupted into a huge fireball, unlike any display rocket Abrams had ever seen. The night air was shattered with the explosion, and Abrams even felt the shock waves and saw the trees shake. Seconds later, smaller rockets began bursting with loud reverberating explosions. Van Dorn’s pole-mounted loudspeakers, about two hundred yards back, crackled, then Abrams heard the opening notes of “My Country ’tis of Thee,” or, as his companions would call it, “God Save the Queen.” Abrams thought,
Nice touch, George.

Cameron and Davis stood, followed by Abrams and Katherine. Cameron spoke above the noise. “Single file. Ten-foot intervals. Look sharp, now. We’re crossing over.”

Abrams had never heard anyone actually say that except in British war movies. He glanced at Katherine. She winked and gave him a thumbs-up, then pulled her hood over her face.

The file moved out. Objective: the communications room in the attic of the Russian mansion. The distance was about half a mile, but Abrams thought the last few yards or so up the attic stairs—if they got that far—would be, as Cameron would say, a bit dicey.

He wondered if he’d meet Androv again. He wouldn’t mind meeting Alexei Kalin. Or Peter Thorpe, for that matter. He wondered how Katherine felt about the possibility of coming face-to-face with her father.

The Fates and Furies are loose tonight, he thought, borne along on the winds of the gathering storm. And all the currents of time and history are converging on that hilltop house beyond the next tree line.

As for himself, he remembered that the Fates led the willing and dragged the unwilling.

Karl Roth drove southbound on Dosoris Lane for a quarter of a mile, then signaled to pull into the driveway of the Russian estate.

The traffic patrolman recognized Roth and his catering van and waved him in. Roth turned right and bumped across the sidewalk between rows of police barriers toward the guardhouse, which was about thirty feet up the drive. He approached the small lighted house, bringing the van to a halt abreast of the front door. His hands and legs were shaking badly.

Two Russian guards, wearing sidearms, appeared farther up the drive and stood in a blocking position. Roth shut off his headlights and rolled down his window. From the guardhouse door emerged a man in civilian clothes. The man stood on the stoop a few feet from the van. Roth cleared his throat and greeted the man in English. “How are you, Bunin?”

Bunin replied, also in English, “What are you doing here, Roth? They said later.”

Roth stuck his head out the window. “I had to come now.”

Bunin leaned forward and rested his hands on the window frame. He peered into the cab. “Where is your wife? They said she would be with you.”

“She’s still at Van Dorn’s.”

The Russian stared at Roth. “You stink of whisky, and you look terrible.”

Roth didn’t reply.

Bunin said in a whisper, “They have us on full alert. Do you know anything?”

Roth shrugged. “You think they tell me anything, Bunin?”

Bunin made a contemptuous sound, then said, “What do you have for us?”

Roth licked his lips and looked toward the guardhouse. Through the window was a young man in uniform sitting at the desk, writing. The two guards on the drive were a few feet from the van. He glanced in his sideview mirror and noticed that the gates and road weren’t visible from this angle in the drive.

“Roth!”

Karl Roth flinched. “Yes . . . yes, I have blinis, caviar, and sour cream. The rear doors.”

Bunin signaled the two guards and they moved quickly to the rear of the van.

Marc Pembroke crouched to the side of the left-hand door, which was locked. He held a pistol pointed at the back of Roth’s head. A canvas tarp in the center of the floor covered a stack of boxes, and between the boxes lay two of Pembroke’s men, Sutter and Llewelyn. In a large built-in side chest lay Ann Kimberly.

The unlocked right-hand door opened, and the two guards seized the thermal containers of food.

Pembroke glanced quickly to his right. One man’s arm was less than three feet from his foot. Pembroke looked at Roth and saw he was observing the Russian guards and Pembroke through his rearview mirror. If Roth was going to betray them, it would be now. But Roth seemed paralyzed with terror.

The rear door slammed shut, and Pembroke heard the guards’ footsteps retreating toward the guardhouse.

Bunin said to Roth, “Wait here. I must call the house and see if they want you so early.”

Roth didn’t reply.

Pembroke whispered, “Now.”

Llewelyn and Sutter threw the tarp off as Ann Kimberly emerged from the chest. Pembroke threw open both rear doors and the four black-clad people jumped to the drive, tore around the side of the van, and burst into the small front room of the guardhouse.

The two Russian guards still carrying the thermal containers glanced back over their shoulders, their mouths and eyes wide open. The young uniformed man behind the desk stood and stared. Bunin, his left hand on the wall telephone, stood beside the desk. Ann shouted in Russian, “Don’t move!”

Bunin’s right hand shot inside his jacket.

Pembroke fired a short burst from his silenced M-16. The bullets slammed into Bunin, throwing him back against the wall. He stood for a split second, took a step forward and toppled, falling against the legs of the young man who had his hands in the air. The two guards had dropped the thermal containers and they’d burst open, scattering blinis, sour cream, and caviar over the wooden planking. Bunin seemed to be staring at the mess, watching the crimson tide of his blood creeping toward the food.

Ann gave a series of sharp orders. Within minutes the three surviving Russians were lying in a rear room, bound and gagged. Sutter stood beside the van and kept an eye on Roth and the driveway. Llewelyn checked Bunin’s pulse, found there was none, and sat Bunin up behind the desk so that any official car driving by would see someone in the window.

Pembroke found the logbook in a desk drawer and took it. The four people moved quickly back to the van. Pembroke said to Roth, “That was a fine performance, Karl. I suppose the schnapps helped a bit. Headlights on. Move!”

Roth’s shaking hands turned on the headlights and put the van in gear.

Ann knelt beside Pembroke and scanned the logbook with a penlight. “There’s a commo check and sit rep every thirty or forty minutes. Bunin entered the last one ten minutes ago, so they may not be missed for a while.”

Pembroke nodded.

No one spoke as the van moved slowly up the S-curved gravel drive. Sutter watched out the rear-door windows. Llewelyn peered over the seat and watched out the windshield. Ann flipped a few pages of the log and said, “Peter Thorpe was logged in about two hours ago. Still in there.”

Pembroke nodded again.

Ann glanced at Pembroke, then said, “Orders from Androv to arrest Karl and Maggie Roth when they arrive.” She winked at Pembroke and he smiled, then turned to Roth. “Did you hear that?”

Roth nodded but said nothing.

Ann turned a page. “Oh . . . here’s something . . . the officer of the guard comes around at random intervals and signs the log. Last time he was at the gate was . . . almost an hour ago. He may come by at any—”

Roth made a sound and everyone turned. Through the windshield they saw a single headlight shining on the trees around the bend. Pembroke barked at Roth, “Keep moving until you get within ten feet, then stop.” Pembroke and the other three got down behind the front seats. The interior of the van was illuminated by the oncoming headlight.

Pembroke put his pistol to the back of Roth’s neck. “What is it?”

Roth’s voice was quavering. “It’s the guard officer. He rides in an open Lambretta . . . with a driver—”

Pembroke said, “Don’t give him room to pass.”

Roth nodded and felt the silencer rub the nape of his neck. He centered the vehicle on the narrow drive and came to a stop. The Lambretta also stopped. The driver called out in Russian.

Ann whispered to Pembroke, “He wants to know what the hell Roth thinks he’s doing.”

Pembroke said to Roth, “All right, back up slowly and let him pass on the right side.”

Roth put the van in reverse and began edging back. The Russian driver gunned the small three-wheeled vehicle and headed toward the space on the right between the van and the stone-bordered drive.

Pembroke opened the sliding door on the right of the van as the small vehicle with the surrey top came into view. The driver sat in the single front seat holding the handlebars, the guard officer sat in the back double seat. Both men heard and saw the door slide open and turned. As the Lambretta drew abreast of the open door, the two Russians stared up into the muzzles of two automatic rifles, not three feet away. The driver let out a startled cry. Both auto matic rifles spit fire and coughed. The driver was thrown out of the open vehicle, still grabbing the handlebars and taking the unbalanced Lambretta over with him. The guard officer scrambled from under the Lambretta and stood, clutching his chest. He stumbled toward the trees, staggered, and fell.

Pembroke and Llewelyn jumped down from the van, administered the coup de grace to the Russians with a single shot to their heads, then dragged them into the trees. Sutter helped them right the Lambretta and roll it through the tree line. The three men jumped back in the van. “Move out.”

Roth put the van in gear and the wheels crunched slowly through the gravel.

Ann broke the silence. “I suppose we couldn’t have let them go past.”

Pembroke regarded her for a moment. “No, they were going right for the guardhouse.”

She said, “We could have captured them.”

Pembroke replied curtly, “We’re running a bit late.”

Llewelyn added, “That was a break to run into them. There’ll be other guard posts put out of business tonight and we don’t want a mobile officer of the guard running about checking his posts.”

Ann didn’t reply.

Pembroke said to her, “This is new to you, I know. Later, if things don’t work out for us, you’ll wish we’d taken a few more with us. This is a bloody awful business. But it
is
a business.”

The van completed the final turn in the rising S-curved drive and the Russian mansion came into view, silhouetted against the turbulent sky. A few windows were lit on the first and second floors, and all the attic gables were lit. Pembroke remarked, “Ivan is working late tonight.”

Sutter turned from the rear-door windows and said, “We’ll put their lights out and lay them down to sleep.”