The Talbot Odyssey (65 page)

“Hello, Joan.”

She felt her mouth go dry and almost lost control of her bladder. She swung her head to the right and stared into the corner. Her eyes widened.

“Thank God it’s you,” said Peter Thorpe.

She tried to speak, but couldn’t. Her eyes focused on him, sitting naked with his arms wrapped around his bent knees. His face, she saw, was bruised and one eye was swollen shut. Joan felt her hand tighten around her pistol.

Thorpe stood slowly, revealing his full nakedness, and she saw his body had taken some punishment as well.

Thorpe said, “Nice outfit, Joan. Does you justice. They’ve attacked, haven’t they? I knew they would.”

Joan nodded. Nothing surprised her anymore, and she found her voice. “How did you get here?”

Thorpe ignored the question and asked, “Who’s winning the war upstairs?”

Joan was wary. She answered, “We are.”

Thorpe looked at her closely, then said, “Are the others close by?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Well, let’s go.” He came closer.

“Stop there.” She raised her pistol and remained standing in the open door.

Thorpe stopped, then said sharply, “Come in here and close the door before someone comes by.” He added, “We’ll talk.”

Joan hesitated, then stepped fully into the room, and the door swung closed on its spring.

Thorpe said, “Tell me why you’re pointing that at me. Certainly naked men don’t make
you
nervous.”

Joan snapped, “You’re a Russian agent. That’s what they told me when I was briefed.”

Thorpe smiled and shook his head. “Would I be here in this room if I was working for them?”

She didn’t reply.

“Van Dorn and his clowns think they have all the answers, but those harebrained amateurs don’t know anything. I’m a triple agent, a loyal CIA operative.”

Joan winced at the string of intelligence terms. “Oh, fuck this double, triple shit, Peter. You all give me a headache. They told me if I ran into you, to shoot you on the spot, and I just might do that.”

Thorpe laughed, then said pleasantly, “Joan . . . I haven’t forgotten that time we went out on my boat—”

“Go to hell.”

Thorpe looked downcast. He said, “What are you going to do to me? I’d rather you shot me than leave me here to be tortured by the Russians again.”

She looked at his body. They had not hurt him too badly, from what she could see. She tried to draw some conclusions. Either he was working for the CIA, or he was working for the Russians. Van Dorn could be wrong. After all, if he was working for the Russians, why did they beat him? And if he was a CIA agent, she couldn’t leave him here. . . . She thought a moment, then said, “Look, Peter, I’m a little new at this, but I think even an old pro wouldn’t know what the fuck to make of you.”

Thorpe let out a long breath, then said, “Okay, but you can’t in good conscience leave me here to be killed by them.”

She didn’t reply.

He went on imploringly, “Just let me out of here. You have the gun. I’m naked and defenseless. For God’s sake, Joan, just leave the door unbolted for me.” He hung his head and added, “I wouldn’t
be
in this room unless I was their enemy.”

Joan made a decision. She said, “I’m leaving, Peter, and I’m locking the door. But I’ll be right back with a few of Pembroke’s men.”

She watched him carefully and thought she detected a glimmer of fear in his eyes.

He said, “They’ll
kill
me.”

“Why?”

“They don’t know I’m a CIA triple.”

“Tell them.”

“They won’t
believe
me.”

“They won’t kill you either. They’ll check with your superiors in the CIA.”

“No . . . don’t call them. Just leave.”

Joan backed toward the door, her pistol aimed at Thorpe about ten feet away. “Good-bye, Peter. I’ll be back shortly.” She reached behind with her free hand and grabbed the door handle, pulling it inward against its springs and working herself into the opening. She glanced quickly over her shoulder into the darkness outside—as Thorpe knew she would.

Thorpe sprang forward. Joan’s reflexes were good, but playing tennis and shooting a charging man were quite different, and she froze for a fraction of a second. Thorpe’s hands lunged out, one hand going for the pistol, the other for her throat. Joan fired and the bullet smashed into a far wall. The gun was suddenly on the floor, and she saw in a split second that the bullet had passed through Thorpe’s palm. She felt his other hand closing around her throat, then he yanked her into the room by her neck, as though she were no heavier than a child, and threw her across the floor.

Thorpe took two long steps toward her and delivered a kick, heel first, to her groin. Joan cried out and brought her knees to her chest. Thorpe turned and bent over to retrieve the pistol.

Joan stood immediately, thinking vaguely that Thorpe had made two mistakes: kicking her in the groin as though she were a man, and turning his back on her because she was a woman. She drew her long, thin knife from an elastic pouch on her thigh and plunged it deep into Thorpe’s back as he straightened up.

Thorpe took two quick steps forward, the knife still in his back, and swung around, the pistol held in his hand, pointing at her.

Joan screamed, turned, and ran to the far corner, diving behind the gurney as a bullet cracked into the tile above her head.

Thorpe stepped toward her. His punctured lung was filling with blood, and white frothy specks formed on his lips with every labored breath. He stopped, then turned in a zombielike movement and walked toward the door.

Joan watched him, and the only thing her panic-stricken mind could think of was that the black knife handle sticking out of his back looked like a movie prop.

Thorpe pulled open the door and slid through it into the corridor. The door snapped shut behind him and Joan heard him fumbling with the bolt. She got to her feet and ran to the door.

Tom Grenville felt the high antenna brush his foot as he drifted over the roof.

Stewart shouted, “Release!” and pulled his quick-release hook, freeing himself from the chute. He dropped straight down, nearly twenty feet, and crashed to the roof. Johnson and Hallis quickly did the same and the three chutes blew away in the wind.

Grenville hesitated a fraction of a second, then decided he’d rather break his neck on the roof than be shot on the ground. He pulled his release hook and found himself falling, feet first, onto the flat roof. He hit hard, bent his knees, and shoulder-rolled, nearly toppling off the edge of the roof where it sloped down to the south terrace below. He carefully edged back and stood unsteadily. He looked around and spotted Stewart lying near a satellite dish, and moved stiffly toward him.

Stewart sat up and glanced at Grenville. “Broke my fucking leg.”

“Well, that’s a hazard of jumping on a cluttered roof at night,” Grenville observed.

Stewart stared at him.

Grenville added, “I’m fine.”

“Fuck off, Tom.” Stewart saw Johnson approaching quickly.

Johnson knelt beside him and said, “Hallis went off the south edge onto the terrace. I think he’s dead.”

Stewart gritted his teeth. “Shit.” He looked at the old general and said, “Well, whoever that other bastard was, he’s blowing the whistle on us. May as well carry on, though.” As he spoke, the roof lights went off and the floodlights on the north lawn lit up again.

Grenville and Johnson carried Stewart to the north edge of the roof, then took their positions.

Grenville knelt at the low coping stone of the south edge, staring down at the terrace, pool, and teahouse below. Hallis’ body was sprawled on the flagstones and Grenville could see he was dead. He could also see four Russian guards running across the lawn toward the terrace. He glanced back at Johnson, who knelt at the west end of the roof overlooking the porch. Then he looked back at Stewart covering the north. He thought,
A cripple, a seventy-year-old man
,
and a lame-brained attorney. An estimated twenty armed guards
around the estate, an unknown number of armed civilians, plus a
KGB contingent of unknown strength.
And nobody but him thought this was crazy. Ergo,
he
was crazy.

Grenville looked back at the four Russians, who were on the path beside the pool now. He moved the selector switch on his M-16 to full automatic and waited until the guards converged on Hallis’ body. Two of the guards looked up and pointed their rifles at the roof.

Grenville fired a full magazine of twenty rounds, the M-16 jerking silently in his hands. He reloaded quickly, but saw there was no reason to fire again. He had killed all four men. He waited for the shock to hit him, but he felt nothing.

Stewart called to him softly, “What the hell is going on there, Grenville?”

Grenville looked over his shoulder, “I just nailed four.”

“Who authorized you to fire, man? Well, never mind.”

Well, fuck you.
Grenville thought suddenly of Joan and looked toward the YMCA tennis building. He saw that it was partly lit. She should be back there by now, he thought. He turned and looked to the north and saw Van Dorn’s house brightly lit in the far distance. The pyrotechnicians had resumed but were firing aerial torpedos now, and loud-bursting explosions rocked the night air. Grenville knew that whatever sounds of mayhem and murder emanated from these lonely acres, no one in the village or on Dosoris Lane would think anything of it. Just crazy George giving it to the Russkies again.

Claudia Lepescu opened the door of Viktor Androv’s study and stepped inside, closing the door behind her. She held the pistol behind her back.

Androv looked up from the telephone, his face white in the glare of the lamp. He said into the phone, “I’ll call you back.” He hung up and looked at her. “Well, what an unexpected surprise. Is Kalin through with you?”

She said nothing. The room was dark except for the area around his desk, but the stained-glass window behind him glowed from the lights outside.

Androv said, “I have no time for you now.”

She replied in Russian, “This won’t take long.”

He pursed his lips, then said, “Did you give Roth the poison?”

“No, I gave him vegetable oil.”

He stared at her, then nodded. “I see.”

She said, “Do you think I’m a mass murderer like you and your filthy Nazis?”

Androv said, “You’re overwrought. Did Kalin abuse you?”

“Kalin is dead.”

Again, Androv nodded as if to say, “I understand, I’ve always understood about you.” He said aloud, “What’s that behind your back. A pistol?”

She brought the pistol up and pointed it at him. “Stand up.”

Androv stood slowly.

“I wish I had time to humiliate you the way you’ve humiliated me. I wish I had a whip, I wish I could have you in a torture cell—”

“Claudia.”

She froze. The voice came from the dark corner of the room to her left. The voice said in English, “Claudia, put down the gun.”

She kept the gun pointed at Androv, but her hands were shaking.
No,
she thought,
it can’t be him. It can’t be—

She saw a flash of light out of the corner of her left eye and felt a searing pain in her side, then another. Then she felt nothing.

The man in the corner remained in the darkness.

Androv looked toward him, then said, “I certainly never thought I’d be rescued by an OSS paratrooper.” He chuckled, then added, “What a game we play.”

Joan Grenville rushed for the door of the torture chamber, reaching for the handle. She did not want to be locked in this room, but neither did she want to face Thorpe. She heard him fumbling with the bolt and yanked back on the handle. The door opened a few inches and she slammed it again, then repeated the motion until Thorpe understood that he was not going to be able to throw the bolt. Thorpe pushed in on the door, but she pushed it back, marveling at how much difference a pint or so of blood made even in a man that powerful. She heard the silencer wheeze and saw the door splinter, but the round, a .25-caliber, did not penetrate the oak. She kept shaking the door as she yelled, “Get out! Go!”

She heard him cough, a liquid sort of sound, then heard the sound of his bare feet slapping on the floor.

Joan waited a full minute, then peeked out the crack around the jamb. There was a trail of blood on the concrete floor of the passage leading away from the door. She was tempted to follow the trail in the hope that she could retrieve her pistol if he collapsed, but she decided she had displayed enough stupidity for one night. She slipped through the door and headed down a narrow passage that ran off to the right of the torture chamber. She intended to get out of this madhouse, fast.

The passage proved a bad choice. It ended at a door, and she had by now resolved not to open another door in this basement. She turned and began heading back, then someone spoke in a language that wasn’t English.
Fuck.

She turned and quietly went back to the door. She took a deep breath, opened the door, and slid through, standing with her back against it in total darkness, listening. Nothing. Her hands searched the wall to her right and she located an old push button–type electrical switch. She pressed it and the light went on.

Joan Grenville stared into the huge room, only slowly realizing that she was in a kitchen. But it was an incredibly ancient kitchen, the original downstairs kitchen, she realized. There were exposed pipes and antique stoves, and the walls were gray plaster. There was nothing in there that postdated the 1940s, and by the looks of the dust and cobwebs, it hadn’t been cleaned since then.
The
kitchen that time forgot.
She almost laughed.

Joan knew the basic attack plan well enough, and she knew that if everything had gone right, then Abrams, Katherine, and two of Marc Pembroke’s people were in the house. Marc himself might be up there; yet she heard nothing above to indicate a battle. She decided to wait it out in this time capsule.

Joan looked around at the slate-topped counters, the tub sinks, the wooden cupboards. She looked for something to sit on, then noticed a dumbwaiter in the wall. She approached it curiously and saw that the cage was still there and that the cables were steel, not rope. She walked back to the light switch, shut it, then found her way in the dark to the dumbwaiter. She hesitated, then squeezed herself into the dusty dumbwaiter. “Last place they’d look.” She pulled tentatively on the cable and the cage rose a few inches.