Cold War Trilogy - A Three Book Boxed Set: of Historical Spy Versus Spy Action Adventure Thrillers

by William Brown

  To a man, the crowd jumped up and down and cheered, everyone, except Colonel Ali Rashid. He stood in the front row, silently watching the rocket as it soared upward carrying his even larger dreams into the sky. As for the others, the crowd of his former compatriots standing behind him, he found them disgusting. They were like children watching holiday fireworks. He was the only one who truly understood what was happening, and he could not bring himself to cheer. There would be time enough for that but not now. There were too many other issues still hanging in the balance.

  Nasser stood silently, too. He had spent a lifetime investing heavily in his own dreams; but as he watched, they were being twisted and perverted into someone else’s nightmare. He knew he should do something to stop it, but Ali Rashid’s arm was still locked around his throat and his gun barrel was still pressed into his neck. That was not what stopped him, however. It was the power of the rocket. Like it or not, Gamal Abdel Nasser was hypnotized by it just like everyone else, and he was incapable of offering even the slightest resistance. The awesome majesty of the rocket made him feel petty, impotent, and mortal. It sapped him of his strength for the first time in his life.

  Everyone was watching the rocket soar into the sky, except Hassan Saleh. He continued kneeling on the burning desert sand directly in front of the reviewing stand. He was exhausted, his body slumped forward and his chin resting to his chest, fighting with all his strength to remain conscious. He swayed back and forth, oblivious to the rising crescendo of sound and flame rising behind him. He did not hear the rocket’s roar, because Ali Rashid’s words had filled his ears and sealed them shut as if they were molten lead. They had burned into his brain with hate and revulsion, and filled him with more agony than he had ever felt in his life.

  Slowly, Saleh managed to raise his eyes and look up at the front row of the reviewing stand. Through the haze, he saw his two oldest friends locked in a deadly embrace. One held a pistol to the other man’s throat, to the throat of his President. Over the past half day, Saleh’s entire world had crashed down around him; but the one enduring, positive fixture in his life — Gamal Abdel Nasser — had remained standing. Now even that was being threatened in front of his very eyes, and something inside him snapped. He no longer knew why this was happening, and he no longer cared who was doing it. All he knew was that he must stop the man holding the gun to Gamal’s neck, and he was the only one who could do it.

  Saleh reached a trembling hand inside his jacket and closed his fingers around the butt of Sayyid’s old Webley service revolver, the one Thomson had given him, which he had jammed inside the waistband of his slacks. The hand felt so weak and limp now, and the pistol felt as if it weighed a ton; but he forced his hand to obey anyway. He managed to pull it free, but he could not raise it. The hand with the revolver dropped to his side, so he grabbed it with both hands, breaking into a sweat as he tried to raise it again. Putting both thumbs on the hammer, he pulled it back until the cylinder rotated and the hammer set with a sharp ‘Click!’ Straining with all his might, he raised his arms in front of his chest and pointed the revolver at the reviewing stand.

  “Stop!” his hoarse voice tried to shout, but all that came out was a weak croak, barely able to carry across the fifteen feet that separated them. “Stop, release him!” he shouted a second time, praying he could make Ali Rashid stop before it was too late.

  Rashid did hear the faintest of noise above the fading roar of the rocket. He frowned, almost irritated by the distraction. Turning his head to identify the irritating source of the sound, he looked down and his eyes focused on the slumped figure of Hassan Saleh kneeling in the sand. For the moment, Rashid could not believe his eyes. He even seemed faintly amused, until he saw the revolver in Saleh’s hands. Rashid’s eyes flared, and the expression on his face turned hard and angry. How dare Saleh threaten him, Rashid thought. How dare anyone try to stop him now, in the moment of his triumph?

  “Stop,” Saleh shouted again as he shook his head and moaned, still refusing to believe the transformation he was watching. Rashid’s eyes were aglow as they looked down at him, burning with a power and madness Saleh had never seen before. The face was that of his oldest friend. Forty years of friendship did not lie. It was Rashid’s face all right, but there was little else that was recognizable. Ali Rashid had changed, as if some evil, alien force now possessed him.

  “Do not be a fool, Hassan,” Rashid looked down at him and warned, as he saw the revolver wavering back and forth in Saleh’s hand. “Look!” he pointed up toward the disappearing vapor trail of the rocket. “You are too late, can you not see that?” He turned and snorted arrogantly at the crowd around him. “It is done. I am their new hero now, not Gamal, so you would not dare shoot me,” he crowed as he broke into a loud, confident laugh. “They would tear you to pieces. You see, I understand them; I understand what they want; and with the help of Allah, I am giving it to them.”

  Rashid jammed the gun barrel even deeper into Nasser’s neck. “Do you seriously think they care about this scum now? Do not be ridiculous! He is the man who failed them. He failed his people every bit as much as he failed his God, and neither will ever forgive him. Do you know why, Hassan? Because our dear Gamal forgot that a revolution never stops halfway. It may be betrayed, it may have its failures, but a revolution never stops.”

  Saleh squinted down the barrel of the revolver, blinking, watching Rashid’s face dance above the front sight. He tried to hold his arms steady, but he could not, because the pistol seemed to have a will of its own. Sweat rolled down his forehead and burned his eyes. The knuckles on his hands turned white from the strain, but the gun barrel refused to stop moving.

  “This does not involve you!” Rashid shouted his final warning. “Look! Look at the rocket — at my rocket! Think what it will mean to our people. It is power, power we can use to liberate all Islam for once and for all. That is why I spared your life last night. So do not betray me, Hassan Saleh. I need you at my side. Join with me! Come, now, join with me!” When he saw Saleh’s pistol still pointed up at him, his eyes flared angrily at the rejection. Tightening his grip on Nasser’s neck, he swung the President’s body around and put it in the line of fire from Saleh’s pistol.

  “Old friend, my old friend,” he smiled bitterly, “you have no one to blame but yourself. You chose your side and you shall die for it, just as he shall. So, go ahead and shoot. Shoot! Unless you think you might hit the wrong man?”

  Saleh blinked as he tried to distinguish between the two dancing shapes, but he could not. Rashid was right. Even if he did shoot, he could as easily hit Nasser, someone else in the crowd, or the blue sky. In his heart, though, Saleh knew that was not the only reason he hesitated. Despite everything that Rashid had done, he had been like a brother. How could Saleh now kill him? From the supremely confident expression on his face, it appeared that Rashid knew that, too; and he knew Saleh was no longer a danger to him. Colonel Ali Rashid had based his career on understanding other men, detecting their weaknesses, and knowing how to turn those weaknesses against them. Of all men, Allah had granted that special gift to him alone. That was why he was supremely confident that Hassan Saleh could never shoot him. Allah had whispered to him on the desert wind and told him he could not. Rashid was indeed the new Salah al-Din, the new Mahdi, the Servant of Allah, and the Redeemer of Islam. No one could touch him.

  This time, however, Ali Rashid was wrong. Perhaps it was the way his eyes tormented Hassan Saleh, the look of moral superiority on his face, or the cynical laugh. Saleh never knew which it was, and he never realized that he had pulled the trigger until he felt the revolver recoil in his hand. The sharp crack of the gun shot cut through even the dying roar of the rocket. The men standing behind Rashid ducked, but they were in no danger. The bullet was not even close. Hassan Saleh might have been an expert marksman with a handgun, yet he missed Rashid by at least ten feet. Why? Something deep within him had made him squeeze the trigger, but something else even more powerful made him je
rk his wrist up as he fired. The bullet soared harmlessly into the sky.

  Still, the pistol shot left Ali Rashid in shock. He flinched as he realized Saleh had actually fired at him. That meant Rashid had been wrong. He had misjudged the one man in the world whom he thought he knew best and thought he could easily manipulate as he had so many others. The expression of supreme confidence on Rashid’s face suddenly vanished. His eyes filled with cold, raw anger, and he was consumed in a fit of rage. He forgot all about his hostage. He pulled the revolver away from Nasser’s neck and twisted his body around to face Saleh. Furious, he lowered the gun and pointed it at the crippled figure who was kneeling on the sand in front of him. Unlike Saleh’s, Rashid’s gun hand did not waver; and he did not hesitate, either. He aimed purposefully at Saleh and pulled the trigger.

  Saleh did not feel the bullet hit him. All he knew was that something had slammed into his shoulder and punched him backwards onto the hard sand, sucking the breath from his lungs. His eyes remained locked on Rashid’s, looking up in disbelief at all the hatred and cruelty he saw there. Saleh had been shot before, but the pain inflicted by those eyes was worse than the pain from the bullet. The bullet might kill him, but those eyes had already done far worse.

  He lay on his back, feeling his own hatred rise inside him. His eyes never left Rashid’s. It was those eyes, he kept telling himself. They were the enemy, not the shell of a man who had once been his friend. To stop one, however, he had to stop the other. Saleh raised his gun hand again. This time it did not waver and he did not miss. The thirty-eight-caliber slug struck Ali Rashid dead center in the forehead and snapped his head back.

  Rashid staggered backward, his arms flailing the air as he tried to remain upright. It was the eyes. They looked down at his own body and refused to accept his mortality. It was dying. His legs buckled at the knees. His lips curled into a hideous groan as his own body defied him. How dare it! He would not permit that! No! He was Salah al-Din. He was the Mahdi. Allah would never permit it!

  But then Rashid felt his hand go limp. The gun slipped from his fingers and clattered on the wooden platform of the reviewing stand. Slowly, his body followed, stiff and rigid, pitching forward and crashing onto the hard planks. For those last, brief seconds, his hateful, uncomprehending eyes remained locked on Saleh’s, until his body went limp and the eyes turned to smoked glass. The fires raging inside had finally consumed all of him.

  Colonel Ali Rashid was dead.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Thomson knew he failed. He closed his eyes and slammed his fist on the hard concrete floor, but the pain could not block out the sound of the rocket engine firing. He had failed again, like every truly important thing in his life — two wives, a long career of unbroken mediocrity, Damascus, and now this. He hated himself for each one of them. Slowly, the building stopped shaking, and the muffled roar faded away. As they did, he knew in the pit of his stomach that Fengler’s warhead was on its way toward some unsuspecting Israeli city. Landau, Jani, the old man, and all the rest had died for nothing. There would be no warning, not that a warning would do much good with an atomic bomb. He did not know the size of Fengler’s warhead, but the size would not make much difference. Big, small, clean, or dirty, if any atomic bomb detonated above the crowded streets and tall buildings of a modern steel-and-glass city like Tel Aviv, the death and destruction would be massive.

  Thomson tried to sit up. He had fallen against the wall with Ilsa sprawled on top of him, holding her head in her hands and covering her ears. He wanted to roll her to the side and get to his feet, but what was the point now? He leaned back against the wall and pulled her to him, cradling her in his arms. Like an old, punched-out boxer, he felt glassy-eyed and unable to force his aching body to go another round. Each of the bumps, bruises, and countless blows it had absorbed over the past four days, compounded with the ones over the past twenty years, had taken their cruel toll. Besides, as he glanced at the control panel, he realized he was out of bullets, out of luck, and out of ideas. There was not a damned thing he could do about it now.

  Grüber leaned awkwardly against the console, sneering triumphantly at Thomson. The German’s shattered arm hung at his side, bleeding heavily. The blood flowing down his hand formed a growing pool on the floor. Grüber was finished, too, but he did not seem to care. He looked over at the American and laughed. “Zu Befehl, Thomson,” his raspy voice called out defiantly. “Do you know what that means? ‘To obey.’ Every SS officer vows those words on the day he is commissioned. It is our oath of honor — my oath of honor. You stupid American, what would you know of any of that, of a soldier’s honor?”

  “You’re right, Grüber,” Thomson answered quietly, stroking Ilsa’s hair and too tired to argue. He turned his head and looked at Kilbride. The Ambassador was still hiding in the far corner, his mouth hanging open, gaping alternately at Grüber and Thomson. “You dumb Irish bastard,” Thomson called over to him. “You wanted it all, didn’t you? Well, you got it; and you won’t be able to run for dog catcher after the State Department and the Boston Globe get through with you.” Kilbride had not moved a muscle to help. He had reduced himself to the role of a mere spectator, unable to comprehend the result of the ugly little game he had been playing. All he could do was watch it unfold, back and forth, like some damned tennis match in Quincy.

  The German technicians were watching, too, standing against the far wall and still terrified. Slowly, they lowered their hands. Like vultures, they were all too aware they no longer had anything to fear from Thomson. It was Fengler who moved first. He took a few cautious steps toward Grüber and joined him at the command console. He put his arm around Grüber’s shoulder, smiling anxiously, eyeing the dials and switches on the panel. “Permit me to help you, Herr Sturmbannführer,” his unctuous voice said, as he tried to ease Grüber gently aside; but Grüber would hear none of it. He turned and shoved Fengler away with his good hand and a look of complete contempt. “No! I need none of your help! I will finish what I started.”

  Fengler quickly backed off a half step, but he continued to hover as Grüber slumped forward against the dials and switches of the command console. The bleeding had slowed, but he appeared weak and pale. His strength was fading and Thomson could not understand what was keeping the German upright.

  “I still have some unfinished business,” Grüber answered Fengler as he turned and looked down at Thomson. Grüber tried to laugh through the pain, but he could not. He was convulsed by a wracking cough as he looked back at the controls. In that instant, Thomson remembered that there was a second rocket and realized that Grüber was searching for its firing button. The German studied the row of dials and buttons, shaking his head as he tried to focus his eyes. Finally, he smiled and raised his good hand. He stretched his fingers out, groping for the button that would send the second rocket racing into the sky after its twin. “Ah, yes,” he mumbled. “Unfinished business — do you know what that means? I, Sturmbannführer Ernst Grüber, will finish what Himmler and Heydrich and all the rest of them could not do.”

  Thomson understood exactly what he meant. He failed to stop the first rocket, but he would be damned if he would let Grüber fire the second one. That might not mean much any longer, but it meant everything to Thomson. It had come down to him or Grüber, and one of them was about to die. He shoved Ilsa aside and rolled onto his knees, trying to stand; but his shoe slipped on the slick, damp floor. He reached out to break his fall, but there was nothing to grab. He tumbled sideways, his hand striking something hard lying on the bare concrete. It skittered away and bounced off the wall. He did not think. His hand reacted as if it had a mind of its own, reaching out desperately to find something to throw at Grüber. As his fingers wrapped around the hard, irregular shape, he realized it was the barrel of Grüber’s Luger, still lying on the floor where the German had dropped it when he was shot.

  Thomson grabbed the butt in his other hand and raised the Luger, not bothering to aim. He simply pointed its barrel towa
rd Grüber and prepared to shoot, but found Ilsa now sitting directly in his line of fire. Grüber’s face seemed to float above her shoulder, glowing in triumph, as the German’s fingers found the firing button. Thomson pushed Ilsa’s head aside with his free hand and squeezed the trigger. He fired once, a second time, and then prayed.

  The nine-millimeter gunshots went off like howitzer shells inside the bare masonry walls of the blockhouse, and the bullets were every bit as deadly as they were deafening. The first shot hit Grüber in the face, snapped his head back, and obliterated that cruel smirk forever. The second shot followed close behind, striking him in the upper chest, spinning him around like a top, ripping his finger off the firing button, and knocking him backward onto the floor. Grüber lay there for a moment and reached a limp, trembling hand toward the control panel. Thomson took aim at him again, ready to pull the trigger a third time; but there was no need. The German’s arm dropped on the floor at Fengler’s feet, and he was dead.