Authors: David Hagberg
Countdown (21 page)
Potok reached Langerford's body first and turned it over. “He's dead,” he called out.
McGarvey nodded and pointed up toward the house. The front door was open.
Together they raced the rest of the way up the driveway, mounted the three steps onto the porch, and stopped on either side of the door, their guns up and at the ready.
They exchanged a look, and McGarvey rolled left, leaping into the stairhall, sweeping left to right as he ran. He pulled up at the bottom of the stairs.
In the dim light filtering in from outside he could see another figure lying in a heap in the back corridor. This one was dressed in black.
Potok came in a moment later, flattening against the opposite wall. For a moment they remained in position, listening. But the house was absolutely still.
“Trotter,” McGarvey shouted. There was no answer.
They were too late. While Kurshin had been running them around in circles at the hospital, he had sent his people out here to kill Lorraine.
“We'll start upstairs,” he said.
“They may still be here, Kirk,” Potok said softly. “That body out front was oozing blood. He cannot have been dead for more than a few minutes.”
“I hope you're right,” McGarvey replied. His gut was tight, and a rage threatened to engulf him. Control, he told himself. It always came down to that.
The upstairs corridor was in nearly complete darkness. McGarvey started up the stairs, slowly, softly, his every sense straining to detect a noise, a movement, anything that would indicate someone was waiting above.
At the top he stepped into the deeper shadows along the wall and cocked his ear. Had he heard something? Perhaps above, in the attic, a floorboard creaking.
“Hold up,” he whispered softly to Potok who was a few steps down.
The Israeli stopped.
“John?” McGarvey called out. “Lorraine?”
There was a definite movement above in the attic, and then someone was coming down the stairs at the end of the corridor. McGarvey dropped back and brought his gun up, aiming into the darkness.
A door banged open.
“Kirk?” Lorraine Abbott cried. “Oh, God, is it you?”
“Here,” McGarvey called to her.
She came the rest of the way down the corridor in a rush, and suddenly she was in his arms, crying and laughing. For just a second or two, McGarvey kept his gun up, but then he allowed himself to relax, and he led her to the head of the stairs.
“There was shooting, and I think they killed all the FBI agents. I can't believe you're here. It's over.”
“Are you all right?”
“Frightened, but I'm okay.” She spotted Potok and stiffened.
“What about John? Where is he?”
Her eyes suddenly went very wide. “Oh, my God, Kirk. You haven't found him?”
“What is it?”
“The basement,” she stammered. “I heard them from up here.”
“Heard who?”
“One of the Russians. He wanted to know where I was hiding. John told him I was down in the basement. They're still there.”
Potok spun around and dropped low so that he could see down into the stairhall. He shook his head.
“Stay here,” McGarvey whispered urgently to Lorraine. “It was a police helicopter that brought us in. The pilot has called for backup.”
“Kirk, it was the Russians in a helicopter this afternoon. That's how they found us.”
“It's all right. No matter what happens stay here,” McGarvey said. He hadn't really listened to her.
She nodded, her eyes wide.
Potok started down the stairs, McGarvey a few feet behind him. Suddenly there was a shuffling below.
“Kirk,” Trotter cried out.
A burst of automatic weapons fire raked the stairwell. The Israeli took at least three hits in his legs, and he pitched forward, tumbling down the stairs.
“Now!” Trotter shouted again.
McGarvey was down the stairs in time to see Trotter desperately struggling with a black-suited figure who was trying to bring his bulky rifle around again.
He snapped off three shots as he scrambled past Potok, the first going wide, the second hitting the Russian in the neck and the third smacking into the side of his head, spinning him around against the wall, where he collapsed.
“Are you all right?” he shouted back at Potok who was struggling to sit up.
“I'll live,” the Israeli said, gritting his teeth in pain.
“John ⦠?” McGarvey started to ask when another burst of automatic weapons fire raked the stairhall, this time from the rear corridor.
Trotter took at least one hit in his hip, the force of the bullet slamming him backward off his feet.
A blindingly hot and heavy blow struck McGarvey in his side, shoving him to the left, as he fired two shots at a khaki-suited figure in the back doorway.
He hit the floor and rolled over and over toward the wall as the firing went on and on.
It came to him in a split instant then; their pilot in the khaki jacket, his familiar voice, there on the roof of the hospital waiting for them. It was Kurshin. It had to be!
He fired three more shots in desperation, but the doorway was empty.
“Kurshin!” he shouted at the top of his lungs. “Kurshin!” He tried to struggle up, but it was hard to move, and it seemed as if the stairhall was becoming even darker than before. “Kurshin,” he shouted again.
In the distance he thought he could hear sirens, a lot of them, but that was impossible, he thought, sinking back on the floor.
Again he had failed.
The sirens were much closer now, but then they were drowned out by the sounds of the helicopter lifting off.
He had failed, but so had the Russian.
There would be a next time, he thought as the darkness settled in over him. There definitely would be a next time.
ARKADY KURSHIN WALKED ALONG the tree-lined pleasant Via San Domenico, hate riding on his shoulders like a powerful dark cloud. He limped slightly from his wound, but it had been nearly six weeks since Falmouth and he was almost completely recovered.
It was early evening. Traffic downtown had been snarled up, as usual, making it difficult for him to meet his rendezvous schedule and still take his usual precautions. His face was different now, though, as was his hair, his clothing, and his manner of speaking. Here he was a Frenchman visiting Italy.
At the corner across from the Hotel Aventimo, he stopped to light a cigarette. There wasn't much traffic, but down the block music came from the open doors of a small café, and a young couple strolled arm in arm beneath the street lamp, disappearing around the corner.
A large, swarthy man, dressed only in slacks and an open-collar shirt, stepped out of a dark doorway up from the hotel and looked pointedly across the street at Kurshin.
If he looked right or left, it would mean that the rendezvous wasn't safe. He did neither, and Kurshin went across the street.
“You were not followed?” the lookout asked. His voice was soft; nevertheless he spoke in Italian in case someone was listening.
“Of course not,” Kurshin replied. “My people are here? All of them?”
“Yes, and it has become a real bitch keeping them out of trouble. You know how the navy is.”
“We'll be gone soon.”
“Not soon enough.”
Kurshin gave the lookout a hard stare. He could have broken the man in two with his bare hands, the impertinent bastard. But then respect was such an ephemeral quality. Baranov had let the word float down subtly that one of his handpicked few had erred. It would be up to him to rebuild his reputation, but if he failed this time Baranov would completely wash his hands of the entire affair.
The lookout caught something of that from Kurshin's eyes and he backed down. “They are waiting for you upstairs. Will you leave tonight?”
“Thank you for your help,” Kurshin said, ignoring the man's question.
“Yes,” the man said. “Will you or the others be needing anything else?”
“Our transportation has been taken care of?”
“There is a camper van in the garage. It won't attract any attention, the roads are filled with them these days.”
“And the boat?”
“Waiting for you in Naples. The provisions are already on board, as is the paperwork.”
“And the other items?”
“On board as well.”
The lookout was actually the number-two man behind the KGB's Rome
rezident.
A good and competent man was how Baranov had described him. He had made the arrangements for the hotel, their transportation, and the boat in Naples without knowing any of the other details of the operation. He had not been told that the men upstairs were naval officers, but then it would have been easy enough for him to deduce that fact simply by the way they talked and behaved themselves.
rezident.
A good and competent man was how Baranov had described him. He had made the arrangements for the hotel, their transportation, and the boat in Naples without knowing any of the other details of the operation. He had not been told that the men upstairs were naval officers, but then it would have been easy enough for him to deduce that fact simply by the way they talked and behaved themselves.
“There will be no track here in Rome,” he assured Kurshin. “Good hunting.”
“Thank you, Yuri Semenovich. Your contribution will not go unnoticed.”
Kurshin turned, walked the rest of the way down the block, and entered the hotel, which looked almost like a small villa. Small and very private. The desk man was not on duty and the tiny lobby was in semidarkness. He took the narrow elevator up to the third floor and as he softly slid the iron gate back he heard a low burst of laughter from the room at the end of the corridor. Carefully he moved closer. He could hear them talking inside, though at first he couldn't make out the words.
Someone said something, and again there was laughter.
“You're goddamned right,” another of them said clearly.
Competent and dedicated men, and all of them English speakers. A rare combination for a Soviet naval officer.
Kurshin knocked once at the door and all sounds from within ceased. A moment later he knocked twice, and the door was opened a crack. The room was in darkness, a clubroom odor of cigarette smoke, vodka, and male bodies wafting out.
He pushed the door the rest of the way open and stepped inside. Someone to his left closed the door and the lights came on, leaving Kurshin blinking at the six officers each pointing a silenced Makarov automatic at him, and he managed a slight smile.
“Good evening, gentlemen,” he said in English. “Either shoot me or offer me a drink. Frankly I'd prefer vodka.”
There was a camaraderie within the military services, especially
the navy, that was completely alien to Kurshin. He had to force his own roughshod humor. He had almost always worked alone. This time, of course, it would have been completely impossible.
the navy, that was completely alien to Kurshin. He had to force his own roughshod humor. He had almost always worked alone. This time, of course, it would have been completely impossible.
“Search him,” one of the men said. They all were dressed in ordinary street clothes.
One of the others laid his pistol down and quickly frisked Kurshin, coming up with his Graz Buyra. He stepped aside.
“Now, drop your trousers.”
Kurshin's eyes narrowed, though he understood the reason.
“Now,” the officer snapped.
Kurshin did as he was told. He had taken the bandage off the wound high on his thigh. It was puckered and an angry red color.
One of the others stepped a little closer and looked at the wound. “It's real,” he said.
The first officer lowered his gun. “Well, I don't think the Americans would shoot one of their own people just to infiltrate us.”
“Captain Makayev?” Kurshin asked, pulling up his trousers.
“At your service, Comrade Colonel,” Captain First Rank Nikolai Gerasimovich Makayev said, and they shook hands. “When do we get out of here?”
“Tonight,” Kurshin said, looking at the other five men. “I have a camper van parked a couple of blocks from here. We'll be leaving in singles and pairs, so we won't attract too much attention to ourselves.”
“Our orders?”
“Not until we're at sea.”
Captain Makayev nodded. It was a sensible rule that they all understood, though they had not been told very much about this assignment, other than that it would be extremely dangerous, but that those who returned would be well rewarded. Each man in his own way was in very great need of such rewards.
“Now introduce me to the others, Captain.”
Makayev nodded. “You've already met my executive officer, Captain Second Rank Gennadi Gavrilovich Fedorenko.”
He was the officer who had patted Kurshin down. He seemed very self-assured. They shook hands.
“And our ship's doctor, Avenir Akimovich Velikanov.”
He and Kurshin shook hands.
“That wound of yours should be covered, Colonel,” he said.
“I'll let you see to it once we're out of here,” Kurshin said. The doctor was an alcoholic, but he was competent enough for what he had to do, which after all would not involve
saving
lives.
saving
lives.
“Our nuclear engineer, Captain Second Rank Ivan Pavlovich Abalakin. Our missile man, Lieutenant Aleksei Sergeevich Chobotov, and our boy genius sonarman, Lieutenant Aleksandr Ivanovich Raina.”
Kurshin shook hands with them as well.
“You all have experience on Alpha-class boats?”
“Yes, sir,” Captain Makayev said, his eyes shining. “And we're anxious to get to work.”
“There'll be plenty of it for you to do, Captain, believe me. And very soon.”
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